I've got to hand it to Junx and his woodies. As he smashed aside my 8 game no loss streak (7 wins, 1 draw). As I sulk in my little corner it's time to place my thoughts to the whole game. Remember, this is just my thoughts from ONE game against wood elves, so it might be shock, awe or general soreness.
As I have feared, the wood elves are truly a force that the Ogres cannot handle well. Slippery as an eel, it made me hard to focus on any one single element to tackle, thus my battle plan was to advance headlong into the waiting ambush of the wood elves. I guess it was frustrating to fight such slinky troops, for unlike the beastmen (who are close combat orientated), the woodies can hide in woods and shoot you with their lousy arrows... which leads me to...
their archery...
If you think High and Dark Elven shooting is deadly, man, you've not seen the wood elves yet. Let me demonstrate the vicious firepower of Wood Elf shooting, a Toughness 5 Gorger (with 4 wounds) approaching the rear of a unit of 10 glade guard and in one round of magnificent shooting, the gorger lies dead and bleeding on the forest floor. Granted that Junx in his typical jammy moment rolled extremely well, but it was the elven shooting that allowed even a remote chance of killing the gorger. Here's how, the glade guard turned around and fired 10 shots into the degenerate Ogre, the Wood Elves don't suffer modifiers for moving! So they shot on a "3+" to hit, junx got 7 hits, which is mathematically average. However at short range (which is still not really short at 15 inches), they have +1 Strength! That means that they also get -1 Armour Sv... scary, but doesn't apply to the gorger since he's only got a loincloth over his privates, but it means everyone else will get hurt. Here Junx got jammy and got 5 '5s and 6s' and easily killed the gorger. Now, you might think that's no big deal, it's just a gorger, but their archery is devastating as they later panicked off a unit of Ironguts from shooting casualties...
...still not impressed? The unit probably cost 120 points.
The next irritating thing is Wood Elves are really adept at choosing their fights. They can really manuever their troops. Unlike the beastmen, where the Gors can get unruly plus the fact that only the Beast Herds are the skirmishy ones, the Wood Elves (at least Junx's woodies) are generally in skirmish formation. This is generally not without disadvantages, it means they have no ranks, but sadly this is something the Ogre Kingdoms cannot take advantage of as we have no ranks too... hahaha. Anyway, by being generally slinky, they'll edge to the rear of your armies throwing your plans into confusion as you struggle to bring your troops to bear but the Elves will generally prance away... coupled with the fact that Wood Elves are really tough and can absorb quite an amount of punishment in combat to boot!
... huh?! What am I saying? Toughness 3 Elves? Come on Jason, you must be really sore to say that...
... Allow me to explain. Firstly, most elves have some form of ward saves, whilst they have not much armour, they do have plenty of ward saves. Wardancers, wild riders, dryads all generally come with a ward save. Although the ward saves don't protect you from magical sources, it does help ping away many wounding hits, and lets face it no normal footsoldier will be armed with magical weapons. Spells? The wood elves have good anti magic too. Example, a unit of 3 Leadbelchers charge into a unit of 8 Wardancers. After rolling, I score 3 wounding hits! Yay! But the Wardancers have an aspect that allows a 4+ Ward save. So Junx pings off 2 wounds, and I kill 1 Elf. 1 Elf! Arghhh... So with 7 elves left, hitting on 3+, the cockanathan actually caused 3 wounds and killed an Ogre! It was not jammy because each Wardancer has 2 attacks (14 attacks! horrors!) and they're at strength 4! So guess what, my Ogres decided to run away in the face of such brutal blades... as the wardancers twirl and twirl, ogre arms, legs and noses flying everywhere...
The next reason why they're so resilient is that the wood elves are mostly immune to psychology. Wardancers, wild riders, Dryads, tree kin, tree men are immune to psychology. This pretty much took away my fear causing advantage. As the rest of the army like Glade Guard and Eternal Guard are not immune, they're generally skulking at the back of the opponent's table half. And if you do appear near, they're general should be nearby and basic leadership of 8 to 9 is nothing to laugh at.
You might think immunity to psychology is a double edged sword... you cannot flee. But this disadvantage is very much not so prominent in Wood Elves. As they have the ability to skirmish, generally you will not find them in your charge arc, as they'll easily skirt to your flanks and rear instead. So, if you do charge, that's because the Elves want you to...
Okay, enough ranting. I have only one line to summarise everything...
"I WANT A REMATCH!"
Hur Hur Hur.
2 comments:
No lah.. if you charge wardancers, they have str 3 lah.. not that powerful... just that I happened to have 2 attacks each and a champion at 3 .. so that's.. oh about 15 attacks...3+ to hit and 5+ to wound.. about 10 hits and 3 wounds is average wat...
Oh by the way, cos the Eternal Guard at stubborn with a character in their ranks, I was able to absorb much of the initial wave of attacks pretty intact. which is probably why I did so well to come to his flanks in the first place.
Jason didn't mention anything about the magic. Wardancers and Wild riders have magic resistance 1... which makes them difficult to magic missile.
That, plus the fact that tree singing helpe to move the woods right to the front of his army, I was able to slow his troops down sufficiently to get at his flanks.
A good win overall. Cheers!
Yes a good win overall.
I guess in my post I was just explaining how Wood Elves are the natural nemesis of the Ogres. The list, in my opinion, is not broken. It's just how the different elements of the wood elves help to negate some of the natural abilities of the Ogres, and conversely how the ogres cannot take advantage of the weaknesses of the Wood Elves. Coupled with the higher strength shooting (without movement modifiers!), it really hurts the ogres.
Yup, there are certain mistakes that I made through the game, failing to challenge with my Tyrant and the fact that I decided to duff your Hero (who was the general with the Eternal Guard)only to find out he has regeneration...
Not to mention my really spiffy dice rolling... Sigh, 4 '1s' from my tyrant attack is depressing.
I felt that your Treesinging spells were irritating but not too disruptive actually. The moving trees did not really foil my battle line, what did it for me I felt was that you could sneak units into the rear of my army. And that really spelt the end for me. That's one nasty tactical lesson I learnt that day.
Hur hur, I'll try to rectify that if i can in a rematch.
Post a Comment