how to vs wood elves shooting list

[asikis]

hey all i ve got a problem i never thought i would have...finding hard to win against wood elves... problem is simble
no matter what kind of list i play(shooting,cav heavy, flying circus, infantry,mixes) i cant seem to catch them...my friend uses small units that shoot all kinds of arrows(no modifiers,no armor,poisoned). my usual list is an AM lvl 4 with life or high,noble bsb lvl2 mage high,20 wl ,20 pg,10 silverhelms,2x5 ellyrians,some archers 3xrbts ,frosty...
if the topic already exists sorry but i really need some advice...thx in advance!!

[Ceridan]

Haven't played Wood Elves yet (with or against, hard to play against as well since I'm currently the only one collecting them at my gaming club).

From what I've gathered by reading their army book, elves are a really good matchup for Wood Elves. I can give you a couple of tips to try though: Phoenix guards, combined with High magic, is a tough bunker for them to break, but not impossible. However, give (for example) your White Lions the Banner of the World dragon, and watch his world fall apart. Since all his arrow uppgrades makes his shooting magical, Banner of the World Dragon gives you it's lovely 2+ ward save. Now if you really want to, make a nice cavalry death star with Banner of the World dragon + Rampagers standar, and he's minced meat (possible with Dragon Princes).

2 Mages with High Magic gives you the opportunity to have 2 Soul Quenches (3 with Ring), so his fragile small units will die fast. I would concentrate these on the units with poison arrows first, as these are your major threat for Frosty and RBT's.

Would help abit more if I knew more about your opponents list. Does he have any forest spirit units? Or combat units? All shooter? What lore? How many characters? Glader Riders? Warhawks? Wild Riders? Moonstone, Acorn?

[asikis]

Hey thx for the tips!!
He doesnt use forest spirits and the magic lores he uses are life and high (damn dwellers...) other than the all kind of archers he also uses some cav the ambushing ones the sisters and the strong cav i dont remember the name...i ve never played with woodies before the new book so i need time to learn their names ...Now about characters the lvl4 mage and some "noble" type chars with some special bows i still remember the 4d6 bow...

[Cold Phoenix]

I had a game against Wood Elves in a local tournament last week, which I won by 400 points (would have been about 700 or 800 if I'd been able to finish off his Enternal Guard and Wardancers, both of which were down to only a few models). You won't be able to catch them easily if they play full avoidence, which is what it sounds like. Instead, focus on bringing them into range of your mages and hit them with magic missiles. Wood Elves hate Soul Quench, but they also dislike other magic missiles like Fireball or Banishment, so you could always try to use some of the other lores. Spells like Iceshard or Pha's which impose to-hit penalties or Movement Spells like Timewarp, Walk Between Worlds or Hand or Glory can also help your combat units close on him. If you have the choice, kill the waywatches first, because they have higher BS, mundane arrows and are unlikely to have magic resistance.

Also, you can limit his shooting by careful deployment and movement. Make sure the board has multiple pieces of terrain on it which can block LOS or provide cover. Use Reavers and his own units to provide hard cover for your blocks so that you can get into range. Deploy RBTs out of range of Poisened arrows and in buildings so that he can't shoot them off early on.

[theviking]

Keep in mind you can always deploy your infantry really wide (10+) to keep him from getting around you. WE are one of the few match ups where ranks are pretty much useless so string out your army across the table and start marching. As long as you can keep them fenced in you should be able to catch them by turn 3 or so.

[SpellArcher]

Avoidance lists will usually have Wild Riders as well which are an issue for thin lines of infantry.

[pk-ng]

Magic missiles is your friend.
And any unit with Banner of the World Dragon

In general
1st target his waywatchers with your magic missiles
Then his Archers with your ranged units
and pew pew pew away

Also Pha's isn't that useful because alot of WE armies have trueflight arrows (which ignore's BS penalties).

[Ceridan]

Hey thx for the tips!!
He doesnt use forest spirits and the magic lores he uses are life and high (damn dwellers...) other than the all kind of archers he also uses some cav the ambushing ones the sisters and the strong cav i dont remember the name...i ve never played with woodies before the new book so i need time to learn their names ...Now about characters the lvl4 mage and some "noble" type chars with some special bows i still remember the 4d6 bow...

Life and High, so good protection (and dwellers, as if it's needed ). Glade Riders would be the ambushers, Sisters is a good support. Wild Riders would most likely be the strong cav he has. Also, there's no 4d6 bow, there's a one use 3d6 Hail of Doom arrow (but remember, it's only once per game he can use it). Just pointing this out incase that's how it's been played, then there's some re-reading to be done for your wood elf player

Wild Riders are a pain, but they're also really fragile against shooting. This really is a unit (probably the only unit) you do NOT want to let charge, as they have a whopping 3 attacks with S5 per model on charge (not counting with mounts).

As for characters, I'm just assuming he has atleast 1 Waystalker, if not more. Waystalker's have the Sniper rule, and also can either ignore armour saves or have multiple shots(2), these are the bane of your characters. But as they can have only 25pts of magical items, they cannot get the Hail of Doom arrow (just a heads up).

Idea is still pretty much the same as others have said: Magic missiles and Banner of the World Dragon are your friends. Concentrate on Waywatchers/Waystalkers and poison arrow shooters first, after that it's time to start chasing. Use terrain that block line of sight often, as Trueflight arrow users don't care about other penalties.

[asikis]

Thx a lot about your answers i got the general idea and i have some strategies in my mind i ll let you know how things went...although i m quite sure this time things would be different!!

[asikis]

one more question the trueflight arrow does receive minus from terrain or - to hit like magic or magic items such us the alith anar skill or belakor??cause until now we play it with no minus to anything not even the above!

[Domine Nox]

one more question the trueflight arrow does receive minus from terrain or - to hit like magic or magic items such us the alith anar skill or belakor??cause until now we play it with no minus to anything not even the above!

Correct, no modifiers at all. The only way to make it harder for Trueflight to hit is to change their BS.

[Lhoren]

In my opinion what you need to do to almost completely cancel wood elves is restrain their circus movement... And by being a high elves you have all the elements to do so. I mean, you build a super shooty + magic missiles list. You deploy your entire army in one half of the table and you don't ever move. (higher rank with RBT + higher armor + BoTWD... + high rank spells (light or fire) + BSB and high LD) and you just kill him turn by turn. That way he can no longer go around your troops, and he'll have to look for desperate moves and close combat since he will be lower on points (and that is exactly what you are looking for against woody elves).

That was my experience against super shooty wood elves list, due to better armor and ward saves we end up shooting a little bit better.

Hope it helps!
Cheers

[finreir]

Depends what shorty and how much.
RBT, magic missiles and flyers can dominate them, infantry generally sucks vs them our archers can be a distraction, and our cavalry is complete fail assuming they are way watcher heavy.
Generally my plan A is shoot out the wild riders first then dominate movement and if they take a sister of thorn bunker ignore it or frog scroll the wizard. If you don't kill the wild riders they will likely table a white lion block in no time banner or not

[Loriel]

like others said before me, ranked infantry is probably not the way to deal with shooty avoidance list. Well they can "preserve points", but your opponent will most likely be able to gather more victory points

Magic missiles will be one of the most devastating thing for avoiding wood elves, as they really cannot hide from them as effectively as from regular bs shooting or close combats, as you can march and shoot. And they certainly haven't invested for magic resistance for those small units (or if have that is really good thing from your perspective). Loremaster has access to fireball and shems burning gaze. both have 24 inch range and upgraded longer. Light council good missiles and banishment will certainly banish some sisters of thorns with 24 or 48 range.

Secondly investing to reavers / shadow warriors will hinder their movement. You can almost certainly deny atleast one vanguard moving unit with one unit of shadow warriors (preferred for wild riders) and invoke frenzy test with them / redirect their frenzy overruns

Allthough poison will prove really harsh for our flamespyre phoenix they have some merit against shooty avoidance due "fly by shooting" and the reborn thing will give them a second chances I don't know how well would annointed with fury ring and good armor save (shield of ptolos + dawnstone) fare here, as it would make his poison arrows 1/3 of time "saved" due annointed armor save (as those hits are randomised) and it would make the reborn ability little better. Also the "fly by shooting" combined with fury ring... I dunno. Seems interesting to try out.

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if you want to play super lame, bring minimum core with biggish unit of silver helms /or small reaver and big unit of archers. then huge unit of phoenix guard (including stubborn) with banner of the world dragon, including couple magic missile mages with power stones - forbidden rods (for compensating low magic phases). Perhaps use high magic with simple level 2 other being soul quench though little small range, but very ideal to blast incoming wild riders). Your main targets are wild riders as they can kill those mages rather easily, or if you go 5 wide, you can field bsb and some other combat character to front rank and push mages to second for better safety... (they didn't have magical attacks? I don't own the book ) after that anything that yields points (or waywatchers if you took silver helms)

If you allow special characters teclis with fireball, flock of doom (that is cheap spell that also can hurt them ) something from metal, banishment, awaking of woods (has synergy against welfs woody love), comet of casandora (really really REALLY good spell against wood elves avoidance.), miasma?, ... spirit leech?... Teclis scroll is also really powerfull especially if winds of magic is something like 2+2 and 3+3.

Just make sure you gain more points than 600 and you should win the game, or if you play with scenario rolls and end up with watchtower you can shake the hand of our opponent right after rolling (well providing that he doesn't have access to dwellers / final transmutation) and almost certainly after rolling blood and glory unless the terrain has tons of line of sight blocking buildings..