Hello!

I'm having my first game against Wood Elves on Friday on 1800 points. I have troubles of choosing between the Lore of Light and the Lore of Death to my Priest. Which one do you think would be more effective?

The current list I have in mind:

Liche High Priest lvl 3 Nehekhara
Liche High Priest lvl 3 on horse

Tomb King with some yet-undecided-goodies

2x3 Chariots (standard + champion, probably the flaming banner in one)
5 Horse Archers (Priest on a horse goes here)
24 Skeleton Warriors with Light Armor, Full Command (The King goes here)
16 Skeleton Archers (Hierophant here)

3 Necropolis Knights with Full Command
2 Tomb Scorpions
Warsphinx with flamethrower

That is my whole army, apart from three more Horse Archers, four swarms and one old metallic Necron champion... It goes a bit over 1800 already, so I'm thinking of dropping one scorpion (I'd like to keep one, because I know my opponent hates and is afraid of them. Also, she often has a Spellsinger on it's own). I'll also drop some command options from units, if needed, maybe the Light Armor from Warriors.

Her army consists of a battalion box, three Tree-kins, a Treeman, a Noble, a Highborn on a horse and a Spellsinger.

Ideas, comments and any excess luck you can give me is appreciated!

Id change your list a tad too, my reason is everything in the Wood elf army book has a longbow (except fey spirits) which means your small unit of 8 horse archers will die very quickly and that means a dead priest.

I always find that wood elves give me a challenge.
Never go in alone with a unit always have another unit to flank, work them in pairs and your do fine. ;)

However if you don't want to change your list I'd advise to use lore of death. Pick out the characters and get there Ld low.
The lore of Light is mostly augments just like Lore of Nek, unless you mainly favour augment spells?

I'm on the other side of the fence, I'd try and get light and get the protective aura going to make his shooting a little more ineffective and secondly if you manage to get a magic missile this will compliment your archers who'll ignore ranged modifiers pinging them in the trees they hide in.

Keep deployment tight though, make him trudge across the field and remember that you can out shoot him.

Best of luck and look forward to hearing about your game.

;)

+1 This. I like Light in this situation too for the same reasons. Small units of archers will fall to Shem's or Banishment, plus Shem's is flaming.

I just had a game against Wood Elves last weekend(squeeked out a win). You want Light just so you can get Shem's and maybe Banishment against his small cavalry units. You will need all the magic missile spells you can get because you don't have many archers .

Don't charge his cavalry units; they're all fast cavalry and will just flee and reform on you. In the meantime the rest of his army will charge against your units which tried to charge his and are now in charge range of the rest of his army.

You don't have any catapults. They're would have come in handy against his Treeman.

Just my two cents.

Wood Elves are my other army so I'll do my best to help.

1) Fire. Burn 'em down. Banner of Flame on a good sized chariot unit (6 or so), a catapult or two, Ruby Ring etc.
2) Lore of Light all the way. Protect yourself from the 40 or so arrows that will be hitting you.
3)Sphinxes are your friend. Treekin are quite the popular choice. People usually bring a couple units of six. They are S5, T5, I3, have a 4+ armor save and the 5+ ward that doesn't work against magical attacks. A T8 sphinx will have fun taking these guys on. He/she/it can also stand up to treemen and come out on top.
4) Know what to dispel. WE magic is the weakest in the game. They have no way to buff their phase other than Channeling Staff and Powerstone. However, still be careful of what he's doing. He'll probably go with Lore of Life so I'd try to stop his big units from healing so you can move on and attack other things (and keep him from denying you victory points at the end by having models at half strength).

Thank you for all the responses!

So, I gather Light magic is the way. Cool, I have only wielded it once and am sure eager to try it again.

I'm sure to take the flaming banner on the chariots, but should I use them as a single unit of 6 or two units of 3? Originally I was going for the two separate units. Also, should I rather save the Sphinxes Fiery Roar for the Treekins or the single Treeman?

Davados1: You made a good point about the cavalry with the priest. I am a bit worried about his well-being, but with Lore of Light I could try to hide him behind bigger units and still sprout out augmentations and maybe some magic missiles. The higher mobility has been always really nice to me.

Anubian Emissary: Great tips, thanks! I'm also quite excited since this is my first game where I wield the Sphinx. Let's see how much firewood he can gather! This is the biggest game my opponent has played with Wood Elves (she started around the same time as me) and has never before had the higher level mage (was it Spellwiever?) who can choose Lore of Life. I don't know if she takes that now, I sure hope not...

Always have Chariots in one unit of 6. The extra strength and the rank bonus really helps.

shoot the elves, burn the trees, magic the forest spirrits (they'll loose their save).

I really recomment archers with musicians. woodsie elves are the defenition of mobile, so I don't think the scorpions will do you much good, other than being the most beautifull models on the field that is. I recommend using the sphinxes flamethrower on a group of skirmishers that were wthinking they could dance past you as well. My opponents never expect that colossal thing to deftly pivot around and fry their troops right away.

With only 25% available to Lord level characters, I hope you meant a Prince, and not a King. You can't get 3 lords for 450 points!

Good comments from others on Lore options, so I won't bore you with repeating what's been said.

I was surprised to see scorpions in your list, but Wood Elves are probably the ONLY army out there where they are a good choice, mostly because you will rarely see a large amount of static combat resolution on their units (ranks/banners). Step-up and supporting attacks can hurt, so definitely don't go into the front of any heavy hitting units (treekin, dryads).

Good Luck!

Oopsie! Yes, I meant Tomb Prince, good thing you noticed that. I think I calculated that as a king too, so that frees me 70 points.

Krael, I read that part three times, and now the only thing I hear is "kill kill kill" and I can see the smoke rising from annoyingly green forests full of elven corpses. Thank you very much :lol:

Krael brings up an interesting tactic, using the sphinx's breath on skirmishers. I would prefer to use it on a brick of treekin but it's a pretty neat idea to suprise people when you use it somewhat unconventionally (most players do it in combat for extra CR).
I'd use the breath on Treekin over a treeman since they are T5 as opposed to 6.

Dropping it on Dryads is what I'd go for. S4 vs. T5 is not worth fishing for double Wounds, IMO.

Heh, yeah, reckoned my comment might be redundant, but I just had to share my agression :)