Going to play a Wood Elf player next week. I know they aren't top tier, however, I know nothing about them so while I could go ahead and just play, learn and adapt it would be nice to have some general tips. Next weekend I'll be playing versus a skaven friend all weekend. Same as above. So yeah.. What should I watch out for?
I don't know anything abou Skaven, but WE are a very shooty army, and have some very good archers with a very good range. So basically you're looking at low Str infantry, with a strong shooting presence, and a few monsters or monstrous infantry with high strength and regeneration saves almost across the board and high initiative as well. Have Flaming attacks! this will set aside the regeneration rolls most of his units are dependent, or co-dependent on for protection, our Infantry will beat his infantry and if you manage to set fire to the treekin you should be able to handle them as well (believe they're s4/t4). A stegadon will NOT go toe to toe with a treeman - been there lost that, but you might be able to make a flank combat on it and beat it that way around.
Against wood elves you should take at least a flaming banner and a slann who had a lore of fire spell! Maybe bastiladon with beam of chotec which is also flaming or terradons with fireleech bolas! Against skaven, well at least i know they have a irresistable force on a 13 instead of 12! Helpit abbomination is your worst nightmare! if he dies, there is a change he will restore all his wounds! I'm not sure but skaven also have some regeneration units, so i think flaming attacks are a key against these units! Don't underestimate them!
Oh, i just remembered, skaven are gonna horde as ****. so sallies are probably a good bet against them, and if you can kill their BSB, go straight for it, they're bound to have one. They have a LD bubble, and are very fragile outside of it, you need to use that to your advantage
I think a Slann in a unit of 36 templeguard will be a good choice, flaming banner and charge units of clan rats! Supported by 2x2 salamanders it will work great!
Against Wood Elves you will struggle. Lizards are one of the better match-ups for the Woodies. You will normally face 3-4 units of Glade guard, 3-4 units of Dryads, 2 eagles, 2 eagle characters, a lvl4 on Beasts and a BSB. The rest will vary depending on the player, but normally Tree-kin and Treemen will not really be used(treemen might show up now and then) since they are really bad in todays meta of metal/death/shadow/lightcovens, warmachines and lots of 1+AS cav and MC units. The things that WE will struggle against are the things that Skaven have it easy against. The monsters(with good AS) and tooled up characters. So cowboys, steggs and bastis are really good against WE but will be in trouble against all the zapping of the Skaven. And the big units of TG/Saurus that will shred the Skaven infantry will be easy pickings for the Wood Elves who's shooting will shred your infantry and dryads will be eating any skinks on the table for breakfast.
Have you agreed upon making tailored lists against each other? If not, I don't think you should - practice using your standard list against different opponents. Regarding wood elves, there are usually two or three builds being used. One is a combat list using forest spirits - dryads, treekin and treeman, the second an MSU avoidance list with dryads, flyers, scouts, nobles on eagles with great weapon, and possibly a few archer units. Some use a death star army based on eternal guard or wild riders, sometimes also a lord on a dragon. If they use a forest spirit army, just play as you normally would against combat armies. Think about ways to deal with treemen, as they will probably have 2-3 of them, and they can be really hard to kill. Against an MSU army, form a line and try not to let them get behind you. Charge with as many units/characters as you can at the same time, so you can send the majority of their army running at once. Besides the treeman and large blocks of treekin, WE units seriously lack defense. They will usually hit first and can do some damage, but can't take any. Many units are skirmishers, and can't deal with steadfast. Expect the WE player to try to outmaneuver you and avoid unfavorable match-ups. They will use terrain to their advantage, and buildings. WE have many good magic items, and there are a good number of tricks they can use against unseasoned players. I think you'll have fun!
Would an oldblood on carnousaur in a 2000pts game just be shot to shit from the archers? I'm thinking about going with one of those and a couple of priests.
Well you're looking at str 3 and i believe they do st 4 at short range. The carno is toughness 5 so it'd be wounded on a 6+ at long ranges and 5+ at short ranges with a 4+ or 5 + scacly skin save to boot - now it has 5 wounds, and your aiming to charge turn 1 or 2 so i think it should be safe - i'm definetly planning on bringing one to meet all kinds of nasty armies, but mostly out of a fondness of the model (mostly the old one). I think it should be safe, just get it into combat where he can't shoot it - consider both looping stride and bloodroar - not so much because of your opponents, but because the abilities are good on the carno.
I am both a Lizardmen player and a Wood Elf player so maybe I could help. I can guarantee you that he will bring an MSU list or a HEAVY glade guard list. The key to playing well / beating wood elves is that they can NEVER (with very few exceptions) win the fair fight. A good WE MSU list will dance circles around your big blocks, then do a mult-flank, combined charge. If your opponent brings an MSU list it will likely be largely composed of forest spirits and cavalry, magic will negate their ward save and is highly effective. GG are devastating if they combine their fire, so watch out for that. Hope this helps, I look forward to hearing the result!
havent played against wood elvess but what comes in mind is that take tettoeko with a core of skroxigor and specials on kroxigor blocks. krox seem to counter evertthing they have and tettos vanguard is always welcome. thoughts? id try this. if u try it out, let me know
A couple of posters early in the thread recommended flaming attacks against Wood Elves. I understand the thinking, but you may be overrating the effectiveness of flaming attacks because Forest Spirits do not have Regeneration. Instead, they have a unique Ward Save that is negated by magic attacks, not flaming attacks. Treekin and Treemen are Flammable which will double wounds, but you still have to get past their Toughness (5/6), Armor Save (4+/3+), and possibly Ward Save (5+) first - not easy to do by rank-and-file troops, flames or not.
A flaming banner costs 10pts. A bunkered slann unit will tear those treekins apart (ws4 vs ws 4, S5 vs T5 and with S5 their AS on 4+ will be reduced to 6+. They'll hit before our TGs, but pop a boosted Hand of Glory (or whatever it's named) and they will, no matter the D3 roll have more WS and an equal initiativ. A bunker of 28TGs, or hell even 24, will have a damn good shot at ripping most of the trees apart. Shooting against TGs will have to get through T4 and AS3+ so they're also one of our most protected units against archers. Also since we'll have a good shot at having a better magic phase against the wood nubs pop both the Hand of Glory spell along with wyssans wildform and our regular TGs are suddenly BETTER than their monstrous infantry and costs quite a lot more. And yeah I realize we that's two spells which isn't that reliable, but we'll also only have to get one off in order to heavily skew the balance in our way. With flaming banner we only need to get two wounds through in order to kill a single unit. Treemens are a-whole-nother problem. for 10pts I'd say a flaming banner is very much worth is. You can also plop it on a cold one bus (it should also affect the cold ones) which means that each single model in the front rank will be hitting with 4 flaming attacks as S4/5. Since they're also WS4 and Initiative 2 and S5 (with spear on charge) they're in the same boat in terms of magic as TGs). You can also go with Lore of Fire. I find it to be an interesting lore and you can still have a couple of beast priests.
My skaven friend actually cries when I deploy my salamanders Trust me, that's a lot of rat tears. Oh and always make sure you have fighty-ass characters with lots of attacks (wait, isn't that basic strategy?) A saurus block beefed up by a scar vet will eventually kill a block of 40. Charge in flanking stegs or CoC and BOOM, the rat is gone.
That's precisely why you don't bring Lore of Fire, but Lore of Metal. A Wandering Deliberations Slann, who has Searing Doom, Burning Gaze and Fireball, is all you need. Throw in a Bastiladon if you want to hedge your bets. I wouldn't even bother with the Flaming Banner for these reasons.
Flamming banner is dirth cheap and can be bought by your TGs. If you're running a WD Slann you can use Searing Doom on the treemen and either hex the treekins (which I assume the TGs will be up against) or buff your own units. A WD is a very good choice, I just said Lore of Fire because I find it to be a more interesting Lore than Metal. At any rate I find it somewhat silly to argue against the flaming banner. It's so cheap that even if it doesn't have any effect it'll have zero impact on your list. It's like arguing against the Ironcurse icon. It's so cheap that most will just auto-include it. With the flaming banner your TGs will only have to do 1 wound before it's effective. Are we really arguing that they cannot even do that against mere treekins?
I'm definitely not arguing against including the Banner of Eternal Flame, just pointing out that it is not an auto-win versus trees like some early post imply. Certainly a large unit of Temple Guard can handle them (especially if buffed), but its not the Banner that makes the difference - that's just the icing on the cake. But its cheap (and icing is delicious) so go ahead and include it. Like you said, 10 points won't make a significant difference to army builds and it might make the difference in a fight.