Warhammer Fantasy – Wood Elves Review

The new Wood Elves came out back in May with a limited release.  They desperately needed a new book as 8^thedition took what little wind they had in their sails and beat it with a heavy mallet.  The changes to skirmishers, the additional attacks coming back at them when they made it into combat, and the evaporating ward save due to magic really hurt the book to the point where they almost never saw play at local and national level tournaments.  Let’s take a quick peek at the new book and how it changed.  We’ll look at the winners and the losers in the book and some suggestions for how they will play as their play style has certainly changed from the small bands of skirmishers theme in their previous book.  This won't be one of my usual super-detailed reviews, but rather an overview.  Why?  Well by now you've probably already seen the book and made your own assertions or read any of the other 4000 reviews online about the book.

I feel the need to caveat my opinions here.  Keep in mind that my primary army is Skaven.  I’m used to taking large blocks of units and my army of choice has little to no armor worth worrying about.  The thought of taking a few casualties here and there from shooting means nothing to me and ignoring armor or receiving a -3 to armor saves also means nothing to me.  So if I rate ranged units lower or seem to gloss over abilities that ignore armor, that’s why. 

Overall the Wood Elves received a pretty good rewrite.  The book is chock full of options and allows multiple strategies and techniques.  Nearly every unit in the book became usable, although some are slightly overpriced.

They can finally take lores from the basic rulebook without being a Lord level character.  In fact, they can take any lore from the BRB, not just Life or Beasts!  In addition Spellweavers receive access to High magic and Dark magic with their own lore attributes.  For dark magic every time you cast a dark magic spell against an enemy unit put a vengeance counter on them.  If you cast another dark magic spell that does damage than the unit suffers an additional d3 hits per vengeance counter.  The best attribute is for high magic though.  For every successful casting of high magic spells put a protection counter next to the mage.  Whenever he or the unit he is in suffers a wound, remove a protection counter and discount that wound.  Amazing!  You could rack up some counters with a mage in a unit and then drop the mage out of the unit and let him run around the board on his own without fear of being arrowed or sucking  a cannonball.  Overall the flexibility gained by the wizards of the wood elves helps a lot.  Now you truly never know what you will get when you face one across the table.  Before it was obvious.  If they were a level 1/2 it was Athel Loren.  If they were a 3/4 then it was life.  Easy to predict and adjust plans accordingly.

Individual units can now take magic arrows as unit upgrades paying a cost per model.  This right here is the best addition to this book.  It allows the player to tailor the use of his unit to fit his strategies and really leads to the feeling that you are playing a unique and elite force.  There are seven types of magic arrows as explained below in order of most expensive to least expensive.  It is also important to note that a standard ranged attack from a Wood Elf Longbow is armor piercing as well.

Arcane Bodkins. -3 to armor saves

Moonfire. Armor Piercing, +1 to Wound & Flaming attacks versus Order

Starfire Arrows. Armor Piercing, +1 to Wound & Flaming attacks versus Destruction

Swiftshiver Shards. Armor Piercing and Multiple Shots (2)

Hagbane Tips. Armor Piercing and Poisoned Attacks

Trueshot Arrows.  Armor Piercing and ignore all to-hit modifiers for shooting.

Upon first glance the arcane bodkins seem a decent choice.  However, all they gain over the other arrows is an additional -2 to armor saves and they cost almost double the price of the cheaper arrows.  Really consider the Hagbane and Trueshot arrows.  Those two are the cheapest of the lot and offer the most gain for the points you spend.  Hagbane makes the S3 bows now a serious threat to higher toughness models like monsters and war machines while Trueshot allows the firing unit to remain mobile.

Glade Riders dropped significantly in points and gained all the new Wood Elf rules including armor piercing spears and bows.  They also picked up Ambush.  I know many players lamented this change however, all it does is change their role on the battlefield.  Wood Elves have plenty of Fast harassment units.  Indeed, all of their cavalry units are fast cavalry.  What this allows the Wood Elf player to do is enter the opponent’s backfield and start wreaking havoc on support units or harassing larger blocks relatively unmolested.  Consider taking Hagbane tips on a unit and letting it loose in the backfield.  They will be able to use their bows to take down war machines and put the stray wound on high toughness support units like thundertusks, bastilodons, and chaos war shrines.

Glade guard received a small price adjustment and swapped their old army rules for the new ones.  This means they are no longer S4 at short range and ignore movement penalties when shooting but they are not armor piercing, ASF, and have the forest stalker rule listed above.  They also have access to magic arrows.  Now, overall I think we’ll see many units without magic arrows but the arrows themselves make small specialized units of glade guard possible and effective.  They will still be the backbone of any wood elf army.

This unit was one of the only playable units in the previous book and they were incredibly lackluster.  With the addition of ASF and armor piercing this unit can put out decent damage considering their S3 profile.  Additionally, they will remain in the fight significantly longer since they always benefit from Stubborn.  Yup, you heard me right the Wood Elves have a Stubborn unit in Core.  Here is your anvil unit if you want it.

Wild riders were semi-effective in the prior book.  They worked best in small units and against units without magic attacks.  In the new book they really became a glass cannon.  They are capable of monstrous cavalry level damage but really can’t survive drawn out combats.  They will either break the enemy or die.  With Frenzy and Devastating Charge they will throw out 15 S5 armor piercing attacks on the charge and that doesn't include their mount! 

This is the Wood Elf version of the Dark Elf Warlocks.  They are fast cavalry with the ability to take a full command and can cast some support spells from Light and Life.  Additionally they possess a 4+ Ward save making them pretty defensible.  They will not put out much damage but they make a great mobile bunker for characters.  Put the banner that grants Magic Resistance (2) with them and suddenly wizards get a 2+ Ward against most miscasts.  Solid support unit that doesn't eat into the points available for offensive power.

Another solid combat support unit.  They reworked their dances and they lost a point of strength from the change to wardancer weapons but overall they provide more solid support and have a more defined role.  Having trouble breaking that unit of Orcs with your eternal guard?  Send in the wardancers to charge the flank and then choose the dance that lets them discard the rank bonus of the enemy unit.  That is an extra +3 combat resolution right there. 

They lost their special scout deployment and killing blow but that was replaced with Haweye that allows the unit to choose either to ignore armor or gain the Multiple Shot (2) rule.  Ignore armor can be incredibly powerful depending on the army you face.  For me, I don’t see it as a huge gain but then I play Skaven.  Waywatchers still remain the king of solo character assassinations but now they can also put the hurt on highly armored units.  They definitely gained with this edition I just think people are overestimating the ability to ignore armor and underestimating the old deployment rule.

I really have a hard time finding anything significantly bad with this book.  Most items here are slight nitpicks, omissions, or simply confusing entries.

It’s gone.  Games Workshop finally put this sick little puppy out to pasture.  As the weakest magic lore in the entire game, I feel they could have reworked it but I do appreciate the idea of co-opting High/Dark magic to reflect the nurturing/dangerous aspect of the woods.

High Elf eagles had a couple of upgrades available to them.  Those did not transfer to Wood Elves.  Somehow the nature loving Wood Elves are less proficient at training Giant Eagles?  I’m not certain I follow the logic.

These are the only real losers in the book.  They lost a point of strength and the forest spirit rule now grants a permanent 6+ ward instead of the conditional 5+ ward that didn't work against magic.  I can see some limited uses for Dryads but overall they just don’t make the cut.

Treekin are still useful they are simply less offensively capable as their previous incarnation.  They did receive a huge point drop.  Their role now is more to crush light infantry or to hold up larger infantry/cavalry.

These two have some of the most complicated rules in the game and needlessly so.  In addition they have rules that don’t mesh.  So the basic principle behind these two is that they both must die in the same turn or they pop back up to life.  Now the controversy comes into play when they are mounted on their giant eagle which is a monstrous beast.  Monstrous beast rules state that when characters are mounted on them they become monstrous cavalry.  Monstrous cavalry states that the user and mount have a single profile where you substitute the wounds and toughness characteristics of the rider with that of the mount.  So this means that the twins would die after only two wounds when they ride their eagle since they share a profile with the mount.  The dragon remains the same but is point heavy for a Hero and won’t be seen shy of 3000 points.

There are many other units in the book, new and old that I didn't cover in the good/bad.  Wildwood rangers offer some heavy hitters to the wood elves but they have no armor and thus are more of a combat support unit than a direct combat unit.  Warhawk Riders did get better this edition but remain lackluster compared to other options.  They are perfectly viable and I think cunning players can make them work but they don’t match the efficiency of Giant Eagle redirectors, Glade Rider ambushers to deal with war machines, and wild riders for pure damage potential.  You’ll also notice a distinct lack of treemen.  They changed quite a bit but remain a decent choice.  Nothing great with them and nothing bad.  The points drop means that more Wood Elves will likely take them.

That’s it for now folks.  I know it’s an abbreviated format from what I used to do but I simply don’t have time to break out the review into 3-4 posts and still post on other topics and have time for the actual hobby.  Next time I cover WFB I'll visit Dwarfs which received their new book back in January.