So I'm gonna be fighting some Wood Elves...

[Ghormenghast]

I have a 1750 pt. battle against Wood Elves next week and I'm curious if anyone has any surefire tactics or advice for any 'dont leave home without em' units that I should field against them.

So far I'm planning on two 30+ units of ghouls in front of a 20+ ghoul bunker and using the "ghouls take a march move before the battle" vampire power (name escapes me) on my lv3 Lord. (He's got MotBA, Crown & Acolyte). I'm thinkin the elves will get one round of shooting on me before I'm in there.
I also plan on a whole lot of Raise Dead to put zombies in their face and some VDM from a Necro in the bunker to get units into combat faster. Plus either the Black Coach or some wraiths to handle the Waywatcher unit I know my opponent is going to take.

Any insight/criticism/counciling will be greatly appreciated.

Ghorm

 

[Duke Danse Macabre]

Wood elves are not to hard, they are mainly shooty and a bit slippery.
With the new rules for woods they are not as bad as they were.

Ghouls is a great choice due to toughness and speed, a BC will also charge fast and when it is able to fly which is at the latest normally turn 3 you can catch his flighty units.
Lore of Fire will also work a treat on his more wooden units as will fire banners and now you can take 2 as you have the VC version and the common magical banners version in the main book.
I always take a GG bunker for a major combat unit so Banner of the blood Keep will serve you well with its ward against shooting.
If your caster will be away from most troops give him wristbands of Black Gold.

Anyway Lore of light will let you double your movement for when you really need to haul A** and Book of Arkan also so as you can take full advantage of a Danse Macabre in all its bound spell glory.
Speaking of Bound spells, Rod of Flaming Death would also give you a edge on small flighty units, the losses coupled with a failed Leadership can turn a game around, I myself have used this on a Bretonian lance formation and they proceeded to fail leadership for the next 3 turns and ran from the board.

In 1750 points however you can afford wraiths but they are costly, the banshee is the only reason I would take them in all honesty.

Regardless I hope this has helped.

 

[Bravo_10]

Grave Guard are ACE!!! S6 is just insane vs. WE, as it wounds everything except the Treekin on 2+. I also take the Banner of the Barrows to help against the WE's usually high weapon skill.

Also, don't be afraid to take a block of Skeletons with the Banner of Hellfire. Flaming attacks on Skeletons won't really make all that much of a difference against the really hard hitters who are actually flammable, but the fact that it gives magical attacks is truly awesome. It negates their Forest Spirit 5+ Ward Save! This (and some above average rolling), actually allowed my HW + Sheid Skeleton block to beat a unit of 8 Dryads in combat for 3 consecutive turns. My good luck ran out on the Break Tests though, and my opponent passed every single one.

Wood Elves don't typically run very large units, so I've found the Vampire Counts to be relatively effective against them. The Varghulf is also extremely powerful because it can Thunderstomp all of their good, expensive infantry to death with ease, and their Skirmishers can't claim Steadfast against it. In my last game, a Varg took out 3 units of Dryads, a unit of Glade Guard with the Flaming Banner, and the general. Powerful stuff.

 

[datalink7]

Banner of Hellfire is good because it negates the ward save of tree spirits, and does double damage to Treeman and, I believe, Treekin.

I'd almost consider putting it on the Grave Guard instead of the Banner of the Barrows.

Expect a large unit of Glade Guard with an Armor Piercing Banner BSB and the Flame Banner as the unit banner. So I wouldn't take the Drakenhoff Banner.

I think that the Black Coach would be a pretty good bet as well (though these days I'm loving the Black Coach more and more for every match).

 

[Count Lasombra]

I wouldn't use the coach VC magic offense is better than WE.BoA on a necro would help,I think that being able to VH's effectively will negate the primary advantage of the WE list.If they can't hide from your primary charge arcs they are likely doomed.

 

[Ghormenghast]

Busy weekend, didn't get a chance to reply.

Thanks for the advice & strategies. I picked up a varghulf for the game as my rare choice, I've heard wonderful & terrible things about it.

I'll return to the post after the battle in case anyone's curious about how things panned out.

Thanks again,
Ghorm

 

[hsnyder]

My bro played woodelves... They can be a tough opponent. However, their units are horrible in close combat... You can literally raise a bunch of zombies and vanhels it at the glade guard units and they might even win. One time I had a necro on a corpse cart with the sceptre de noirot whos job it was to just MAKE zombie units... and then the vamp would just throw them into glade guard... It worked well... The zombies actually broke one of the three units of glade guard, and a second one didnt exactly lose (third one did though, but it prevented shooting for 2 turns). It worked great until a scout shot the necromancer off of the back of his cart. I was pretty surprised, but happens...

If his shooting units are locked up then the CC units arent too much of a problem. Grave guard with Greatweapons are the solution to trees, IMO.

 

[Unanswered]

i have some luck when fighting wood elves the key is to move quickly so they don't pepper you down with arrows till you only have one ghoul left. what i do is i use some worthless dire wolves and plant them right next to a varghulf, this way the varghulf technically counts as a *vampire* and that allows the dire wolves to march move their way across the field thus reaching the glade guard MUCH FASTER! (ps keep the varghulf on the other side of the wolves so it doesn't get shot down)

this way with the glade occupied with close combat with the wolves, your ghouls get through unscathed, assuming you don't run through the woods and get treesinged to death

 

[akiro27]

I've had good success with the Black Coach vs WEs. Though at 1700 make sure you're taking MOTBA. At low-point games, the BC can destroy your magic phase just as easily as it can theirs. WEs seem to have some nice dispelling abilities they can take, so you definitely want a dice advantage.

I've found WEs catch on to using fire pretty quickly - so Regen Banner (if you can afford it) and the Varghulf's regen can be a waste of points (tho the Varghulf is great for Thunderstomp). I've kicked myself on both of those before, wishing I had Blood Knights or Black Knights.

Spirit Hosts have helped quite a bit - I summon them pretty quickly to try to put the pressure on them while i'm moving up. Cairn Wraiths are very nice as most WE units won't have magic attacks. The Banshee upgrade can see play as well - the attack isn't blocked by line of sight.

Stay away from the Treemen Ancients. I've found my favorite strategy is to ignore them, tie them up with zombies and stay away. Alternately, Konrad can work wonders on them - assuming he can actually land some wounds. I've had him go 3 rounds with no wounds vs a treeman. I've also had him destroy one single-handedly. At low points, I use Konrad because he's just fun as hell and can melt faces.

The people who play WEs against me don't use very large units, so there's not that much of prolonged combat. They also tend to flee when charged - so mobility is key. Things like the Staff of Damnation haven't been as useful for me, because i'm constantly chasing them. Yet another reason why the Black Coach is pretty great all powered up.

-aki

 

[tw1386]

Wood Elves can be quite the pain for Vampires to face to be honest. They have rediculously good close combat units, and good shooting.

They are easier to kill though and in this edition of them not being able to whipe out the front hurt them pretty bad.

Treeman, and Treekin will just eat anything in close combat the vampires have (except for the boosted GW GG and CC Vamps). They are very susceptible to flaming / magical attacks as well. Only the Treeman and Treekin are flamable though.

You must have got extremely lucky to kill a Treeman 1v1 with Konrad, as the D6 auto stomps at str 6 woulda smashed him to bits.