Warhammer Wood Elf Strategy Part 2: Heroes and Lords

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Welcome to Part 2 of this series on the Wood Elf army in Warhammer Fantasy. In Part 1, we covered the troops of the Wood Elf army. In this part, we will look at the choices of Heroes and Lords for your army, examining general strategies for these characters and popular builds.

Like the Wood Elf army in general, Wood Elf characters have great potential, but are often a bit tricky to use properly. Also like the army, there are many cases where a very solid technical knowledge of obscure rules will be extremely handy (like the technicalities on when Challenges can be declared). Most importantly, just like your troops, you need a plan for what each character is going to do.

Generally speaking, Wood Elf characters fill one of the following roles:

• Wizard
• Damage Support
• Tank
• Assassin
• Unit Support

A Wood Elf army will usually have a Wizard of some kind, and an Assassin is also very common. Some sort of Unit Support such as a Battle Standard Bearers is relatively popular, with Damage Support and Tanks being used less, which makes sense based on the abilities of the characters.

Instead of going into every possible character you could possibly field, I will go over these roles, and the types of characters which cover them.

Wood Elf Wizards come in three extremely distinct varieties: the Lord Spellweaver, the Hero Spellsinger… and a Branchwraith with the level 1 Wizard upgrade. They are all very different, so I will discuss them separately.

The Spellweaver is widely considered to be the absolute best character you can field in a Wood Elf army these days. Why? Because the new Lore of Life is amazing, and the Lore of Beasts is pretty darn good too. Both provide amazing spells that can both dramatically improve Wood Elf troops, and cover up holes in the army. For example, the Lore of Life spell Flesh to Stone can buff your pansy T3 Wardancers to a formidable T7, and The Dwellers Below can decimate Hordes which could otherwise cause problems for the small units. Throne of Vines, apart from its other bonuses, grants solid protection from Miscasts, allowing you to freely throw 6 dice at important spells and not worry (although the first time I ever did that, I failed the Throne of Vines roll and got sucked into the Realm of Chaos…). The Lore of Beasts spell The Amber Spear is one of the few things Wood Elves can do against a Steam Tank; there are also several great character buffs, including Transformation of Kadon which can turn your pansy Spellweaver into a Dragon.

The smallest game you can fit a level 4 Spellweaver in is 1000 points, and I would recommend fielding one whenever you can. By far the most popular magic item is the Wand of Wych Elm, which allows you to reroll Dispel attempts: it’s one of the best items in the entire game. If you have the points, a defensive item is also popular: I favour the Glamourweave, which provides excellent protection from Shooting and Magic, but in general anything that gives you a Ward Save is a solid option. A Spellweaver with the Lore of Beasts can take a Power Scroll, for reliably (Irresistably) casting Transformation of Kadon when it’s really needed: when you charge your expensive Spellweaver into a pile of foes, you can’t afford to have your “Lets-turn-into-a-dragon” spell fail.

I would recommend keeping the Spellweaver on foot, to benefit from Look Out Sir! and generally avoid getting killed. Placing a Spellweaver into a unit of Scouts for protection is fairly common, as they are cheap, resistant to getting shot, and very manoeuvrable.

With access only to the far weaker Lore of Athel Loren, a Spellsinger will be playing second fiddle to the Spellweaver. With the ability to field a Spellweaver, and the changes to Magic in 8th Edition, Spellsingers are fielded fairly infrequently now. If you do field one, it’s normally because you’ve taken up your Lords points with other stuff, and you need the magical defence.

With that in mind, the Divination Orb is a very popular magic item, granting an extra Dispel die when the enemy casts with more than 3 Power dice. This was so-so before, but the changes to the magic system have made this a far more common occurrence. There are two other popular items: Calaingor’s Staff (which boosts Treesinging), or the Hail of Doom Arrow (BS4 is not ideal, but it’s better than eating up the Magic Items allowance on a more important character).

Placing the Spellsinger on an Elven Steed is not such a bad idea as for a Spellweaver, because they aren’t as valuable, and the Athel Loren spells’ ranges can’t be boosted. A Unicorn is a terrible idea mainly because Magic Resistance really sucks now (many spells simply don’t allow Ward Saves).

It’s a trap! The changes in the magic system have made it a terrible idea! Before, you would get an extra Dispel die and an extra Power die, plus the occasional spell off. Now, you get a 1/6 chance for channelling, and you normally use all your Power dice on more important Wizards. Generally speaking, don’t do it, it’s rarely worth the points.

A character for damage support is fairly traditional: they gear up to basically kill a lot of enemy dudes, and thus directly help your units win combat. Certain Noble and Highborn builds fall into this category. A Treeman Ancient falls into this category as well as Tank. Overall, though, straight damage support is something Wood Elves aren’t too hot on.

The quintessential, if rarely used, high-damage Highborn. Strap on the Stone of the Crystal Mere for defence (because it protects the Dragon as well as the Highborn), and other equipment to taste, and you’re set. Just about any of the Wood Elf or common Magic Weapons will work fine (just try to avoid The Spirit Sword).

There is no doubting the effectiveness of a Dragon. With the new close combat Breath Weapon rules and Thunderstomp, a Dragon is more effective than ever. The trick is to not use it as a one model army… and don’t charge the front of some über enemy unit. Use its massive Flying movement to charge the Flank or Rear of an enemy unit, at the same time as charging with Dryads or something else.

A Dragon can be used as a Tank, but honestly there are cheaper units that can do the same job. You really want to use and abuse the massive damage output of a Dragon.

The biggest problem with a Dragon is its points cost. If you go light on the Magic Items, you can squeeze one into 2000 points, but you’re also sacrificing the option for a Spellweaver. It means your army is shaped around a one trick pony that could theoretically go down the the first cannonball fired in its general direction. Overall, a Dragon Highborn really shines in much larger games where you don’t have to compromise on other choices.

The Machine Gun Highborn is a Highborn with the Bow of Loren and Arcane Bodkins, usually with Alter Kindred for the extra attack. Basically, you get 5 longbow shots at BS6 that ignore armour. The Machine Gun Highborn is designed to cover the fact that Wood Elves suck at taking out heavy cavalry. It also (kinda) works against Steam Tanks if absolutely necessary.

As a Lord, a Machine Gun Highborn isn’t so great in smaller games, because a Spellweaver is usually a better choice, unless you’re facing Bretonnians or some other opponent with lots of heavy cavalry. In larger games, he’s a great option if you’ve got the points. Note that in 8th Edition, cavalry are less effective in general, so a Machine Gun Highborn is not quite as valuable as before.

The Alter Kindred option is the most common, but, depending on the army, it may be advantageous to sacrifice that extra shot for the ability to have a Ld 10 General.

Whilst you can strap on a Magic Weapon and call anyone damage support, the other common options are a Highborn or Noble in either Eternal Guard, to help make an über Death Star unit, or Wild Riders (often on a Stag), to make a solid hard-hitting cavalry unit. Under the right circumstances these options can be very effective, but generally an Eternal Guard unit is a bad idea (Eternal Guard just aren’t good enough for their points cost), and Wild Riders tend to get shot to pieces. Your milage may vary.

A Wild Rider character will generally take one of the two Magic Spears in the Wood Elf book, depending on what you’re going for. The Helm of the Hunt is a solid option (the FAQ confirms this is permitted).

Whilst a Treeman Ancient can do a pile of damage, he is generally a Tank, so is covered in that section, below.

Nomenclature note: I tend to use the word “Tank” due to its usage in various other games, but “Anvil” is quite common due to the Hammer and Anvil tactic, which I will cover in Part 3 of this series.

A Tank’s role is to tie up an important enemy unit, either by charging it or taking the charge, and simply hold it there. Damage is optional, survivability is key. There are basically two ways of Wood Elf characters tanking: they are either a Treeman Ancient, or they abuse the Crown of Command to gain Stubbornness, and possibly grant it to a unit.

With a 3+ Save and a 5+ Forest Spirit Ward, Stubborn, and a few other special abilities, a Treeman Ancient is already pretty solid… but that’s nothing a regular Treeman doesn’t have. What distinguishes a Treeman Ancient from a regular Treeman is Ld 9, an extra Tree Singing, and the ability to take Spites. The Leadership is alright, the Tree Singing is fairly average… the Spites are, however, awesome.

The biggest threat to a Treeman besides Magic and cannonballs is enemy characters, who come in with their Magic Swords of Cheese and generally cause problems. Taking An Annoyance of Netlings and Challenging the enemy character immediately solves the problem, because now they’re hitting you on 6s instead of 3s or 4s. Basically, your Treeman Ancient becomes almost invulnerable, since the only model attacking it probably won’t hurt it. All the Spites (except A Blight of Terrors) can be variously useful on a Treeman Ancient.

The disadvantage of the Treeman Ancient is that whilst it isn’t many more points than a Treeman, it does come out of your Lords allotment, so depending on the size of the game you may be losing a Spellweaver – which also hurts because the Lore of Life Lore Attribute, Lifebloom, is great for keeping Treemen alive. For this reason, plain Treemen are far more popular than Treeman Ancients.

A character with the Crown of Command is Stubborn, and can either use that ability to Tank themselves, or bestow it upon a unit.

The most useful example of bestowing Stubborn upon a unit is a Highborn or Noble on a Stag, in a unit of Treekin. Treekin are a unit which does benefit significantly from Stubborn, and a Stag is basically the only sensible way of getting the character in there, due to base sizes (well… they’re *almost* the same) and Forest Spirit requirements. If on a Highborn, filling up the rest of the Magic Item points on survival items is a good idea. Granting Stubborn to another unit is generally pretty useless, because Eternal Guard will already be Stubborn and anything else is too fragile to warrant it. If you need to make your Wild Riders Stubborn then you’re Doing It Wrong.

For a character by themselves, an Alter Highborn is the most common, since you won’t be in a unit anyway and Alter Kindred rocks. The Crown of Command plus some combination of defensive items (such as Fimbulwinter Shard and/or Glittering Scales, or Amaranthine Brooch, or Stone of Rebirth, or whatever, to personal preference) gives a character that can basically charge into the front of most units and hold it in place until you can arrange a counter-charge.

There are three big problems that can upset the game and tip the balance in favour of Wood Elf opponents: powerful characters, particularly Wizards, as well as War Machines, and Monsters. An Assassin character focuses on taking out one ore more of these kinds of targets. (Okay, there are a few other problems that can occur, but these are the ones that our characters are good at taking out)

An Assassin needs hitting power, obviously, since they need to kill their target when they get to it, but most importantly they need manoeuvrability to get to their target. For this reason, most Assassin characters are either Alter Kindred (for M9 and +1A) or mounted on a Great Eagle (for Flying move, and the Eagle’s attacks).

Except in abnormal cases, like a Spirit Sword wielder, Assassins will be Nobles, because they don’t need to extra oomph of a Highborn and you don’t want to spend too many points on them anyway.

Based on the way the game is going, it’s often tempting to use an Assassin as Damage Support. Be careful. Assassin generally have little or no survivability, and with Step Up they will almost always get attacked back. Only charge an Assassin into an enemy unit if it’s either really small, or you are already charging the unit with a fair number of other models.

Alter Nobles come in many flavours. The tactics are the same: choose your target, and get into close combat with them as fast as possible. An Alter Noble really needs to kill their target in the first turn of combat, so a Potion of Strength or Potion of Foolhardiness is good (the latter also great if you’re worried about Terror tests), as are a Helm of the Hunt or a variety of Magic Weapons: the Ogre Blade for +2S is solid, as are Rageth’s Wildfire Blades for +1A and Flaming. I personally use the Potion of Strength and Rageth’s Wildfire Blades so the Alter Noble can do some impromptu Hydra slaying.

Defensive items, whilst feasible, are generally not taken: if you don’t kill your target in the first round of combat then you’re probably screwed anyway. However, in certain situations they can be handy, especially when going up against High Elves with their pesky Always Strikes First. (Amber Pendant can correct this but similarly priced defensive equipment will be more useful overall).

The Alter Noble can really mess with people who like to hide their Wizards in units. Just charge into combat and kill it. Now… a bit of a change that I got caught out on in a game (and got called out on in the comments) is that Challenges work a bit differently in 8th Ed to 7th. The models don’t have to be adjacent to Challenge, as long as the units are in combat. This means that a Champion can Challenge your Alter Noble and, whilst the Champion will die, the Wizard will survive, you may lose combat depending on whether your overkill beats the static Combat Resolution bonuses of the unit, and you also have burnt any Potion you may have use plus any on-charge effects like the Helm of the Hunt will be spent. This sucks. I would advise trying to simultaneously charge with, say, a Dryad unit with a Branchnymph, to tie up the enemy champion if necessary. Hopefully, things will go to plan, and the Wizard will be dead fast. It doesn’t really matter whether your Alter survives or not, because you’ve probably just gained magical superiority.

Remember that lone characters can no longer charge 360°, nor do they have –1 to Hit for shooting. This means positioning an Alter Noble for both lining up for the charge and avoiding shooting is more important than before. If you are playing in a game where you don’t have to disclose your secrets to your opponent, you can try hiding the Alter’s abilities by only moving 10” in your first turn… although this will only ever work once per opponent.

In 7th Edition, Wood Elf generals would tend to use a Great Weapon and possibly the Amber Pendant, but since you don’t strike first on the charge anymore and the Amber Pendant has been FAQ’d to death, neither of these are a good idea anymore. Just because you have that awesome Noble-with-a-Great-Weapon model doesn’t mean he needs a Great Weapon.

A Noble on an Eagle is generally used to take down War Machines, because the Flying movement makes it very easy to get to them. Since you really don’t need all that much firepower to take down War Machine crews, an Eagle Noble is generally less kitted up than an Alter. Remember that Stomp does not work against War Machine crew.

A great option for an Eagle Noble is to take a Hail of Doom Arrow. Since you’re flying, you’re basically guaranteed to be able to hit something useful, it gives you something to do in Turn 1 (I’m assuming you charge a War Machine Turn 2), and most importantly: an Eagle Noble is still effective without other equipment, making him a perfect candidate for the Hail of Doom Arrow.

If you want, you can use an Eagle Noble for Monster hunting, in which case choose equipment like that of the Alter Nobles: you’ll need some sort of Strength boost. You can even use a Highborn, but you risk getting hit by cannonballs and Magic. Just remember that the Eagle isn’t a Dragon, and doesn’t have anywhere near the survivability or damage output.

The Sniper Noble uses The Hunter’s Talon and A Pageant of Shrikes to try to snipe enemy Wizards and other critical targets. Combined with Scout Kindred to get up close (Waywatcher sucks now since it was FAQ’d), a Sniper Noble tends to be very good at annoying your opponent, if nothing else.

Unfortunately, maths is against you. Your average T3 W2 armourless Wizard will have less than a 20% chance of killing them first turn. Getting a second turn is not too likely, since you’ve just massively irritated your opponent and a hail of arrows/magic/Hellblaster shots are coming in your direction. Taking out a Lord Wizard is very unlikely, as is taking out any Wizard an armour or Ward Save or a Toughness higher than 3. Overall, a Sniper Noble sounds really cool, but simply doesn’t work very well.

For the record, you can’t snipe War Machine crew anymore. The rulebook explicitly says they are merely counters, and cannot be affected in any way separately from their War Machine.

The Spirit Sword is a funky Wood Elf item that has the potential to instantly kill a Dragon. Unfortunately, it also has a chance of instantly killing the wielder. If a target suffers a Wound, you each roll d6 and add Ld: the loser suffers the difference in auto-wounds. Basically, you use it for Monster hunting.

A Spirit Sword character basically needs the Potion of Foolhardiness, to bypass that pesky Terror Test and provide an extra attack. The rest of the Magic Item points should be spent on some sort of defensive equipment, mainly to make sure the character gets to his target, but also *maybe* survive if he fails to kill the target (Dragonbane Gem or Pidgeon Plucker Pendant are nice, and dirt cheap). The Spirit Sword character must be a Highborn, and should be Alter Kindred for the movement and extra attack.

This character is not exactly reliable at the best of times, but I would also advise against using it against High Elves due to Always Strike First spoiling your day (plus their high Ld makes it less effective anyway).

8th Edition is a bit clearer as to how Leadership from the General and the like are applied: the highest available Leadership will be used by the target, so don’t start giggling about the Leadership of a Monster when it has the General standing next to it waving his arms.

Finally, there are a few characters that don’t really have a role beyond supporting your troops. This doesn’t mean they aren’t useless: far from it, in fact.

With the new rules for BSBs (allowing rerolls of all Leadership tests), they are stapled on to many armies. Having a BSB in your Eternal Guard, or trailing behind your Treekin or Treeman, is incredibly useful. These three units most benefit from a BSB, so if you field any of them you should seriously consider taking one, and they’re handy anyway.

A BSB can take a magic banner, but this would only really help Eternal Guard and they’re usually pretty happy with just a Razor Standard, so most Wood Elf BSBs forego the magic banner option and go for other Magic Items.  The most interesting banner in the past has been The Royal Standard of Ariel, but Magic Resistance and Fear have both been nerfed, and they are exactly what it grants.

A BSB can be used to fire a Hail of Doom Arrow, which is a solid option, since they are still effective without fancy equipment. However, in becoming a BSB they lose their Longbow, which you need to fire it. This can be rectified by taking a Magic Longbow (yes, it’s allowed), specifically the very cheap Asyendi’s Bane. Note that the effects of Asyendi’s Bane are disabled for the Hail of Doom Arrow.

Apart from that, a BSB is usually kitted up with defensive items, such as the Stone of Rebirth, An Annoyance of Netlings, or the Glittering Scales + Fimbulwinter Shard combo. If in Eternal Guard, Rageth’s Wildfire Blades can be handy, as their Flaming will cause Fear in incoming cavalry, as well as potentially cancelling enemies’ Regeneration, where applicable. It’s also a cheap source of Magical attacks, for when that’s important, although if you’re desperate for Magical attacks then A Resplendence of Luminescents is handy.

Wardancer characters invariably go with a unit of Wardancers and generally make them even more deadly. The models (particularly the female one) rock, but generally they’re not too useful: it’s either overkill or you all die from shooting anyway. Strapping on Blades of Loec seems obvious, but as Magic Weapons go, they’re not that great (it’s a pity a Wardancer character can’t take an Ogre Blade or something). They’re better on a Highborn that a Noble, since you have an extra attack to play with and you can still afford other equipment.

A very popular item on a Wardancer Noble is a Moonstone of the Hidden Ways, which allows you to teleport the unit from one Forest to another. Ideally, you tweak the terrain deployment so that there is a Forest in the enemy deployment zone. You then start your Wardancers in your free Forest in your deployment zone, and instantly get behind the enemy, for either a rear charge or some War Machine killing. The only issue is that it’s completely 100% useless if there are less than 2 Forests on the table.

I’ve also heard people take the Crown of Command to make their Wardancers Stubborn, but I figure that if they don’t win combat then they’re screwed anyway and you’ve probably Done Something Wrong.

The Branchwraith is a great character, used as general support. She’s cheap, has incredible stats, and can take A Cluster of Radiants which is fantastic in 8th Edition. She also gives some extra hitting power to a unit of Dryads (which are already great), and can help protect the Dryads from pesky characters (particularly if you field her with An Annoyance of Netlings, which is very common). If you’ve got the spare points to field a Branchwraith, I would recommend it, and take those two Spites if possible.

I mentioned this in the Wizard section, but I’ll reiterate: do not upgrade a Branchwraith to a level 1 Wizard. It’s a terribly overpriced upgrade, and the points are better spent elsewhere.

The main character type I didn’t go into is Scouts and Waywatchers (beyond a brief mention as Sniper Nobles). The fact is, is a Scout or Waywatcher character is generally a waste of points, since they can’t do much and lack power. Waywatcher Kindred is basically useless since Waywatchers were nerfed, and an Alter can generally do anything a Scout can do, and better. You can try shenanigans with The Horn of the Asrai, but even that will rarely make your character worthwhile his points.

There are a lot of magical items that I didn’t refer to, both common and Wood Elf. A lot of these other options suck, or suck for Wood Elves at least. For example, most of the Magic Arrows (like Hagbane Arrows) sound cool but are actually pretty useless. However, there are other items which, in the right army, can be very useful: The Rhymer’s Harp can be solid in a big unit of Eternal Guard or Glade Guard, and there are lots of common items that can be useful, or at least fun (Fozzrik’s Folding Fortress, for example).

Do not try to duplicate powerhouse characters from other armies. You are simply not going to get a character that can win a fair fight with a properly kitted Dwarf Lord or something. This is normal. Wood Elves can’t ever win fair fights, the entire trick of playing Wood Elves is to make sure all the fights are unfair.

The Hail of Doom Arrow warrants a special comment, as I referred to it several times. In theory, it is an amazing Magic Item which almost always makes its points back, and then some. In practice, you need to make sure that you aren’t taking a character just to take the Hail of Doom Arrow, because that is a waste of points. With that in mind, it is best used on characters who can be effective regardless of their equipment, and don’t have anything more important to take. This makes Eagle Nobles, Battle Standard Bearers, and Spellsingers perfect.

This forum thread on Asrai.org (a Wood Elf forum site) has some decent ideas for Highborns and Nobles, although take them with a grain of salt: a lot of users don’t read the fine print on some rules. Also, putting the Fimbulwinter Shard with a unit of Treekin is just stupid (pun intended).

Like unit selection, you can be far more precise when choosing characters if you know who you’re fighting in advance. For example, if you’re playing against someone with no War Machines, then an Eagle Noble is less useful. However, just as with the rest of the army, for a tournament you will need to cover all the bases. You should try to cover the holes in your army, so if you aren’t fielding Great Eagles or Warhawks, then an Alter or Eagle Noble for War Machine hunting is good. If you lack Treemen, Treekin, or Eternal Guard, then a properly kitted Highborn Tank can fill the gap.

Overall, though, there’s nothing like experience. The first time you field an Alter Noble will quite possibly be a disaster (it was for me), because their use is so outside normal Warhammer tactics. A Life Spellweaver has to be played to really feel how strong they are, and it takes a few games before you really get the hang of the new spell lists. Try things out and try not to get hit by too many cannonballs.

Look out for Part 3 of the series in which we will cover tactics of the Wood Elf army, putting all these units and characters to the test.

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• Warhammer Magic Guide: Lore of Life
• Warhammer Magic Guide: Lore of Heavens
• Warhammer Magic Guide: Lore of Light
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