Spellweaver
Level 4
Great Eagle
Dispel Scroll
Divination Orb
Glamourweave
Total: 380
Noble
Light armour
Shield
Spear
Great Eagle
Fimbulwinter shard
A lamenation of Despairs
Total: 181
Noble
Light armour
Shield
Great weapon
Alter Kindred
Helm of the Hunt
Stone of the Crystal Mere
Total: 158
Character sub-total: 719
Glade Riders x5
Musician
Total: 129
Glade Riders x5
Musician
Horse Master
Total: 138
Dryads x8
Branch Nymph
Total: 108
Dryads x8
Branch Nymph
Total: 108
Dryads x8
Branch Nymph
Total: 108
Core sub-total: 591
Warhawk Riders x3
Warhawk Riders x3
Wardancer Troupe x8
Musician
Blade Singer
Total: 165
Wardancer Troupe x8
Musician
Blade Singer
Total: 165
Special sub-total: 570
Great Eagle
Great Eagle
Rare sub-total: 100
Army Final Total: 1970
Power Dice: 6
Dispel Dice: 4 (+1 scroll, +1 divination orb)
Points invested in command: 105
***
As you can see, this army is all about speed and outmanoeuvring, but it has a few nice little tricks up its sleeve. I've opted for the Divination orb, purely to see how it fares, I'm hoping at 2k people will be using their power stones and trying to get the big spells off, if so it will be well worth its points. That said, the actual magic defence is poor, a meagre 4 dispel dice. I'm relying on my flyers movement to get them out of sight of any nasty missile spells, and that the magic resistance of my wardancers will see them through.
Little trick number 2: A lamenation of despairs. Most mages are Ld8, so I'm hoping that this will be able to damage the enemy's magic phase somewhat. The Noble who has this is a flyer, so I'm hoping to charge into whatever other unit has a magician, challenge, kill, and run away with 3D6 movement. If the enemy declines, I'm content in the fact my enemy will be hitting on 5's, so hopefully he won't die!
Big trick number 1: The lord of doom! Yeah, I'm sure you're wondering why on Earth I have a spellweaver as my only magician. Well, fingers crossed some of my little tricks will come through, and I'll be able to influence the magic phase. The 'Big trick' lies in which Lore the spellweaver takes: beasts. I'm hoping to cast Bear's Anger on my little Alter Kindred friend. That means on the charge he has a very mean 8 attacks, at Ws 7, with s6. And T4, just so I can smile and say: I have a T4 elf! But of course, there is no guarantee of me casting Bear's Anger, or f my opponent not dispelling. Which is why he also has his other weapons. He can still charge in with 4 strength 6 attacks, that's usually another mage lying dead on the ground. He flees 3D6, and my mage can always cast "The Oxen Stands" to rally him, should he fail on his own. If he stays, then he has a 3+ armour save and a 3+ ward save, able to defend himself.
I can't see shooting being too much of a problem, most of the army is skirmished, and my lord has a nice 4+ ward save against any types of missiles. The boards at my store are quite terrain heavy anyways, and flying movement should see them safely to the flanks or rear of my enemy.
The question now is what to do with the rest of my points? I can afford to drop an eagle, I am fielding 4 of them right now, and I can afford to shuffle around my command models. I could add a mounted scroll caddy, or a Branchwarith level 1 and a cluster of radiants, either of which would provide a lot more magic defence. Or, I could try and get my hands on a Wardancer Noble. You can use teh Shadow Dances and Bear's Anger together, meaning I can attack with 6 strength 6 attacks, with killing blow. Add a Murder of Spites and you have an awful lot of attacks from a single model. What do you guys think?
I think it is a brilliant list! You will find yourself underpowered vs. magic-heavy armies but you should be alright by using the tactics you suggested and 4 dispel dice with a scroll should see off the worst of it in the first few turns until you get a chance to kill some magic-users. I like the manouverability that you have while you still have some combat punch. All your units are a bit fragile but that is the nature of wood elves and it is to be expected. You may be wishing for a few more bows in some games, and I would consider swapping one of the eagles for a small band of waywatchers.
Try it out and let us know how it works!
More shots indeed would be nice, after a quick tally I've found I only have 19 shots, 8 of which won't be being used for most of the time, because they'll be in combat.
Let's do a bit of theory hammer.
1st turn, 19 shots, 2 of which are on 2's, the rest are on 4's (Long range if i don't move, short range if I do,, so -1 modifier) that means 9/10 hits.
T3, fast cav, low armour: 4/5 wounds, 1/2 saved by armour, 2-4 wounds first turn. Panic check: 1/3 chance of running.
T3, infantry, average armour: 4/5 wounds, 2/3 saved by armour, 2-3 wounds first turn. No panic check expected.
T3, heavy infantry: 4/5 wounds, 2-3 saved by armour, 2 wounds first turn. No panic check expected.
T3 cavalry, 3+ armour: 4/5 wounds, 3/4 saved by armour, 1 wounds first turn. No panic expected.
T4 fast cav, I don't know of any, so I shant bother, same with infantry.
T4 heavy infantry, 3+ armour: 3/4 wounds, 3/4 saved by armour, 0-1 wounds first turn. No panic expected.
T4 heavy cavalry, 2+ armour: 3/4 wounds, 3/4 saved by armour. 0-1 wounds first turn. No panic expected.
T4 super-heavy cavalry, 1+ armour, 3/4 wounds, 3/4 saved by armour, 0-1 wounds first turn. No panic expected.
T5 monster, 1/2 wounds, 1 saved by armour, 1 wound 1st turn.
Anything else has a less than recognisable chance. In other words, with the shots I have I'm limited to the very squishy things, leaving all the heavy cavalry and block units free to roam. Can the flyers and skirmished mob beat them down? not on their own, I'll need to conduct multiple charges on the flanks of the enemy formation, because alone my forces can't deliver the punch they need to.
Let's do a bit more theory hammer, shall we? This will be against a unit from my vampire counts.
block of 25 grave guard, BSB and hero level vamp. banner of double unit strength, if you don't win combat you are pretty much certain to auto-break from the 54, fear causing unit strength. BSB generates an extra 2 CR, so we are looking at a unit with static CR 7. One of the hardest blocks to break in the game, let's see what I'd need to break it.
Wardancers to the front, warhawk riders in the flank, alter kindred noble challenging the BSB vampire. assume the grave guard do not have ASF. Shadow dance of +1 attack. 7 get in. 22 attacks to the front, hitting on 3's, wounding on 4's. 15 hits, 7/8 wounds. 4+ armour save, 3-4 saved, the rest go through. 3-4 wounds caused. On the flank, 6 strength 4 attacks. Hitting on 3's, wounding on 4's. 4 hits, 2 wounds. Enemy cannot use hand weapon and shield bonus in the flank, so 5+ save. 0-1 saved, 0-2 wounds go through. anywhere between 3 and 6 CR generated by those two units.
Alter Kindred noble, with Bears Anger. 8 attacks, strength 6. hitting on 3's, wounding on 2's. 5-6 hits, 5 wounds. -3 armour save modifier. 5+ armour save. 1-2 saved, 4 wounds caused. Gem of blood, 3 wound caused, alter kindred looses 1 wound. BSB dies, 1 overkill.
7-10 CR on our side, 5 on the enemy's. Their turn to attack. 4 attacks from the vampire onto the wardancers. 4's to hit, re-rolling. 3 hits, 3 wounds. 3 6+ saves, a half chance of saving 1 of them. 2-3 wounds caused. grave guard champion, 2 attacks, hitting on 4's, wounding on 3's. 1 wound caused, 1 wound goes through most likely. 3-4 CR to the front.
7-10 CR on our side, 8-9 on the enemy's. 3 grave guard against warhawks, hitting on 4's, wounding on 3's. 1-2 hits, 1 wound. 5+ armour save, 1/3 chance of the save.
7-10 CR on our side, 8-10 on theirs. Most likely, we lose, auto-breakage. Warhawks fall back, alter kindred gets away, wardancers stick around for another round because of ITP.
Granted, that block was stronger than most you'd go up against, but there are dirtier combo's. Then again, had the alter kindred attacked the unit, things might well have gone the other way. The bladesinger could have challenged the other vampire, and that might have resulted in victory. good dice rolls might have resulted in victory. But still, warhawks auto-rally, alter kindred will most liekley rally, and the whoel thing can happen again!
That's probably how this list is going to win, multi-charges and chipping away at blocks.
Ok, just skimming through and coming out of lurker for a tiny bit. Theory hammer has a little bit of errors in it.
"(Long range if i don't move, short range if I do,, so -1 modifier)" Have you forgotten you are playing a wood elven army?
And I left the rest of it to someone else because I can't be bothered reading it this morning XD. Sorry.
Lamentation of despairs is a nice little tricky thing which you pull off after the opponent uses all their dispell dice against you but you do only have 4 spells to cast. If you really want to screw around with the opponent's mages, I would suggest Dragontooth Arrows as a funny little experiment. I don't understand how you got a 3+ armour for your Alter. He should only have a 5+ in combat and a 4+ out. I think you included a +2 for Shield and Hand weapon or I might be missing something. The Stone is nice but I would much rather take the traditional Hail of Doom Arrow.
If you're worried about magic so much, take a BSB on Great Eagle with the Royal Standard. And I say take out the Horse Master...which leaves you with 39 pts....NOOOO! Soooo close to another warhawk -.-". Blah, then just add a horse master and stick a wind rider in a unit.
This is a pretty solid list though but I would have expected to see 5 Wild Riders at least. They're Wardancers on horses with steriods for god sakes. Successfully casting The Wolf Hunts on a unit of Wild Riders after a full march means a turn 1 ass wooping! Fear against unit size 10 before unleashing 6 S5 attacks before another 5 from the horses (those things are vicious!). But it's your call man. Wardancers are always cool too though.
Very nice army (probably a very annoying one too), tell us how it goes ok!
I am adding the extra 1 to his armour save for hand weapon and shield, because that's what he'll be using as soon as he no longer strikes first with his great weapon.
I'll have a little test with it, then try some of the suggestions.
He would not be able to change from great weapon to hand weapon shield mid-combat. What ever you choose at the beginning you have to keep using.
