# Versus... Wood Elves



## squeek (Jun 8, 2008)

Hi all,

Continuing with the Fantasy Versus... series, next on the list is Wood Elves (suggested by TWormley). If you want to add your suggestions as to who Fantasy Versus should deal with next, go here for the general thread.

So, Wood Elves, how do you combat these sneaky, pointy eared tree huggers? They may not be able to take much punishment in a straight fight, but their ability to dominate the movement phase makes them a dangerous foe. Whether it is treesurfing, terror-causing, combat monsters in the TA, or clouds of arrows and powerful magic bows, or even the lightning fast skirmishers and cavalry; Wood Elves have the potential to pick and choose combat and deliver powerful attacks where you least want them.

They may not have much in the way of armour saves, but the Tree Spirit ward, ability to move through forests without penalty and lots of skirmishers means they are not easy to pin down with shooting. Their magic phase isn't overwhelming but can be surprisingly effective, particularly with their cheap options for denying your magic phase and many ways to pursue active magic defense. With fast and powerful units and characters that can single out mages and of course sniping!

How do you plan when facing Wood Elves?


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## NagashKhemmler (Apr 28, 2009)

I've found that speed and heavy armour are more useful and necessary than at any other time even against wood elves, their weapons are often lower strength/weaker. Cavalry are a godsend too. Your own skirmishers and archers are also very useful. Artillery is naturally very useful also I think.

Mostly the main difference between fighting wood elves and others, is standard core infantry are suddenly a lot less useful . Least these are my experiences...Especially lightly armoured core infantry.

I use heaps of light cavalry and archers for my TK, screaming skulls and caskets help heaps too, heavy cav get a 24" threat range, which is great against the elves and their running away.


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## Ascendant Valor (Jan 3, 2009)

The problem with cavalry, though, is that they're likely to run into the big trees, Tree Men, Treekin, even Dryads are nasty. I've found my White Lions have a hard time tackling them, which says a lot.

The archers are perhaps best worked against as though they were a gunline. You'll want to silence them in some way as soon as you can. Flying units, fast cav, skirmishers, tunnelers/flying boaters/reinforcements are all nice, if they can last through a round or two of shooting.

Now onto the forest spirits... These guys are tough and nasty at the same time. The problem I have with these guys is I have no idea how to take them on. I've always seen them supporting the archers, so it's not too easy trying to tackle them alone which is how I'd like to try things. Still, all I can imagine is a good hard-hitting unit is all that's capable of cutting the trees down.

Thankfully the Wood Elf Magic Phase is underwhelming (that should probably change with the next WEAB), so it's not too hard to use magic on their units. Just don't let those Dryads tree-surf their way to your flank...


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## Darktheos (May 9, 2008)

When facing Wood Elves, magic can be put to good use as they take away Forest Spirit's Ward Save. Lore of Life has a few spells that can help Master of Wood to hurt people treesurfing, and The Howler Wind and The Rain Lord to hamper their shooting. Lore of Fire is a given with units that are flamable. I also found that Lore of Heavens can be used to fair effect because both Forked Lightning and Uranon's Thunder Bolt are LOS and no max range.


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

For me it depends on which army I'm using.
My Ogres seem to breeze through woodelves especially the gunline version and the gut magic tends to get through a little more than against most armies.

My Chaos dwarfs strength lies in the blunderbuss units against the generally weak skirmish troops and the earthshakers can really upset the woodelf shooting and maneuvering the heavy armoured dwarfs generally plod around and do very little, its one of the few match ups where a chaos dwarf gunline army performs better than a combined armed force.

When I use my Empire its always a tough choice between lore of life and fire, fire is more effective but turning the tree surfing into a dangerous endevour is my favourite part of the game the Empire army I use has a fairly large cavalry contingent (because of models available rather than choice) but this seems to cause the woodelfs trouble especially outriders. The fact that I often field 5 longrifles means I can normaly dominate the magic phase by turn 2 or 3 but against wood elves I've managed to outclass them with a single scroll caddy and a bit of luck before.


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## The Shadow Veil (Jul 26, 2008)

When playing WE myself, ive found that armies which have lots of movement spells, especially VC, are the death of me. The WE rely on their manouvarbility to be able to avoid the foe, and pick only the fights which they want. A good VC army completely shuts the WE down as a sneaky move that would normally put your unit well beyond range/LOS is easily countered by a movement spell. This coupled with the fact that WE generally lack in magic, particularly against so overwhelming a magic phase as VC's means that your agile scouts and waywatchers get charged by bloody zombies.


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