Lets Chat Wanderers / Wood Elves compendium

[Yeled]

Just now, Tidings said:

Like you said, it's the same number of shooting attacks, except being in combat means you are losing models, and we only have a 5+ save on them. So I can't imagine a scenario where allowing yourself to be charged and then Melting Away is better than just being hunkered down behind EG and shooting twice, since you aren't at any risk of losing models there. 

Well, yes, that's definitely true. Hunkering down out of combat is better. But sometimes they do get charged, and that extra shot means they get their bonus attacks regardless of moving.

[WABBIT]

It's a great idea though but let down by them being to weak to survive any serious threat in combat. How about  wanderers who fail a battleshock can retreat immediately and on a 4 or more do not flee and instead turn and are ready to shoot in the shooting phase. Or get an out of phase shot in the battle shock phase?  Wrong thread I know 

[Yeled]

6 minutes ago, WABBIT said:

It's a great idea though but let down by them being to weak to survive any serious threat in combat. How about  wanderers who fail a battleshock can retreat immediately and on a 4 or more do not flee and instead turn and are ready to shoot in the shooting phase. Or get an out of phase shot in the battle shock phase?  Wrong thread I know 

Unfortunately I know this all too well, having watched my sisters fall to my son's arachnarok spider in one round of combat in my last game. (*Takes solace in the fact that this was pre-GHB2017*).

[Tidings]

6 minutes ago, Yeled said:

Unfortunately I know this all too well, having watched my sisters fall to my son's arachnarok spider in one round of combat in my last game. (*Takes solace in the fact that this was pre-GHB2017*).

At least it was your son and not some random kid cackling maniacally as he smashed your puny elves

[Yeled]

11 minutes ago, Tidings said:

At least it was your son and not some random kid cackling maniacally as he smashed your puny elves

Yes, my kids really enjoy beating me. In my defense, I didn't expect my Sisters to get charged that turn. My Eternal Guard were in cover and holding the spider in place (well, three of them that had survived) and that should have prevented the charge. But my other son was playing too, using his Tzeentch allegiance army. His vortex beast used its mutation power on me and he used fate dice to manipulate the outcome (again, before the FAQ that made determining mortal wounds illegal). He used a six and then a three...and all my EG became chaos spawn. That allowed the spider to charge the SotW, who crumbled instantly.

That was the turning point in the game and I quickly fell after that. Damn little genius ******.  

[Bambo]

I think with the new teleport sisters have much more value now. Drop them at the back of enemy lines. You force the enemy to waste a unit to far from an objective.  If they don't, the sisters get closer and take down the back. Supporting your eg holding an objective (Like before teleport :p).

[tom_gore]

Looking at the points, the Wanderer units seem a bit pricey compared to their stats. Granted, being able to engage the enemy from up to 20" away is good, but don't know if the damage output is nearly good enough to make a decent dent to melee focused armies before they close in and smash face.

This is considering I will want to field my dragon, watchers and warhawks too, which means I'll have to run them in Order allegiance. The models I have now are:

Twilight Sisters on Forest Dragon (sisters not glued so I can swap rider between them and the mounted glade lord below)

Mounted Glade Lord

Waystrider

16 Glade Guard

1 Warhawk Rider

16 Dryads

1 Branchwych

1 Citadel Wood

 

I'm considering on selling off the Sylvaneth and the wood and replacing them with wanderer models, mostly because of visual preference and the goal of eventually running a full 2000 pts Wanderers army with the dragonlord and an unit of waywatchers as allies.

What would you suggest in getting next to reach this goal bit by bit? I'm currently looking at another box of glade guard to be able to field 1-3 10-30 man units, and the eternal guard/wildwood rangers box. The riders also seem interesting.

Any tips/ideas?

[Dragon10]

Couldn't start a wanderers list if I wanted to 

[WABBIT]

They aren't very good anyway so no loss

Sorry , to be serious, They are lovely models and I'm sure other stockists will have some. Have you checked your local gaming stores? Failing that eBay always has something.

[Yawn]

^^ I assume they're replacing them with the new Sister of Thorn/Wild Riders boxes that come with the oval bases,  they're in stock already Europe & North America, just not AUS/NZ  for whatever reason. If you're desperate for them there are plenty of boxes floating around online, I bought one today.

[Tidings]

@tom_gore Wanderers are definitely weak compared to their cost, but they can still be played very effectively. There are two routes you can take right now, though with the meta changing after GHB17 we'll see how things play out. You can either build a very static "gun line" list that focuses on remaining stationary and shooting the enemy as they tray to fight their way through your defensive front-line troops, or you can build a list that is extremely mobile using the new Wanderer allegiance abilities to teleport around table edges and make every fight one that favors you. 

The gunline approach is all we had before GHB17 due to the existence of one-turn-charge armies. At this point your best bet for this is to play Mixed Order as the Wanderer traits and abilities don't offer much that supports this playstyle, or at least enough to outweigh the benefit of using other army's units. Your frontline should consist of very durable units. Eternal Guard are good, but Kurnoth Hunters, Stormcast, etc are better since they can advance while remaining as durable as EG are when they remain stationary (for their buff). You can also add units like a Celestial Hurricanum to gain a much-needed source of mortal wounds and the +1 to hit bubble. Despite it going up in points, it's still extremely valuable to us and worth taking. 

The pure Wanderer mobile approach is brand new, so we still need to see how effective it actually is. I've played two games with it and it wrecked my opponents. After the games, about 6 people from the hobby store were grouped around discussing how powerful it is and how to counter it. 

The Wanderer list is arguably more straightforward to build but harder to play. For example, the Waystone Pathfinder battalion is now much better than it was before because we can teleport around. This allows us to start in a corner, get our buffs active (Lord of the Deepwood Host, Mystic Shield and Shield of Thorns), and then teleport on top of an enemy and shoot the ****** out of him. Next turn we get the free shooting from the battalion and then teleport away to hit another part of his army. This is extremely hard to play against and feels really competitive but certain armies will have no trouble beating it. 

The two playstyles are completely polar opposite of each other, so I'd suggest trying both and seeing which is more fun to you. Just find a nice opponent who will let you proxy models to test the Wanderer teleporting stuff. If you enjoy it, get models for that. If you like the gunline style, you'll need units like Treekin, Kurnoths, Stormcast, and a Hurricanum. 

[Tidings]

And just to add, Wild Riders are almost useless for their cost. About all you can do with them is fire them off into an enemy after teleporting to lock an enemy down. If you string them along back to within 6" of your Nomad Prince you can teleport them out again next turn and repeat with any you have left. 

Sisters of the Thorn have an incredibly good spell but are way too expensive. Look at Stormcast Palladors, which cost about the same, and cry yourself to sleep lol because there is no comparison between the two. 

[The Wanderer]

@Tidings What list did you play for the mobile approach and how exactly did you use it?

Where you playing pure pitched battles or scenarios? I think the mobile approach looks like a great way to wipe out opponents but I can't see how we can make it work for scenarios where you have to hold objective markers.

[Yeled]

1 hour ago, The Wanderer said:

@Tidings What list did you play for the mobile approach and how exactly did you use it?

Where you playing pure pitched battles or scenarios? I think the mobile approach looks like a great way to wipe out opponents but I can't see how we can make it work for scenarios where you have to hold objective markers.

I'm wondering if you can do enough damage in the beginning of the game that holding objectives becomes viable afterward.

[WABBIT]

Just gonna leave this here. No reason. 

[Aezeal]

40 minutes ago, Yeled said:

I'm wondering if you can do enough damage in the beginning of the game that holding objectives becomes viable afterward.

Wondering about the objectives myself. I don't play a lot and am preparing to do a 1 vs 1 vs 1 game with wanderers tomorrow. Aren't there less missions that actually count objective points during the game? Especially those missions seem ill suited for an army that basicly needs to avoid, shoot and hope to get an objective later on. The hero/behemoth mission also seems like an auto loss against most armies... killing all hero's and objectives and trying to steal a few points later might be an option though.

[Aezeal]

2 hours ago, Tidings said:

And just to add, Wild Riders are almost useless for their cost. About all you can do with them is fire them off into an enemy after teleporting to lock an enemy down. If you string them along back to within 6" of your Nomad Prince you can teleport them out again next turn and repeat with any you have left. 

Sisters of the Thorn have an incredibly good spell but are way too expensive. Look at Stormcast Palladors, which cost about the same, and cry yourself to sleep lol because there is no comparison between the two. 

Not sure if they REALLY are too expensive btw. You've got a mage that has 10 wounds and a good spell - easily 100 points. And then you've got some mediocre fast cavalry.. which doesn't come cheaper than 120 points I'd say.

[WABBIT]

Just now, Aezeal said:

Wondering about the objectives myself. I don't play a lot and am preparing to do a 1 vs 1 vs 1 game with wanderers tomorrow. Aren't there less missions that actually count objective points during the game? Especially those missions seem ill suited for an army that basicly needs to avoid, shoot and hope to get an objective later on. The hero/behemoth mission also seems like an auto loss against most armies... killing all hero's and objectives and trying to steal a few points later might be an option though.

This is exactly why wanderers don't perform well. The battle plans cater for tough, hard hitting fast armies so they can take or hold an objective. We are none of those. That's why we need to avoid too much focus on just shooting and moving. We need a punch and we need a decent anvil Eternal guard are ok, good for their points but they take time to dig in. Wanderers need a buffed wild riders or new dragon/monster support.

[Aezeal]

3 minutes ago, WABBIT said:

This is exactly why wanderers don't perform well. The battle plans cater for tough, hard hitting fast armies so they can take or hold an objective. We are none of those. That's why we need to avoid too much focus on just shooting and moving. We need a punch and we need a decent anvil Eternal guard are ok, good for their points but they take time to dig in. Wanderers need a buffed wild riders or new dragon/monster support.

That would be a completely different army than we currently have. I do not think wanderers will get new stuff at all. I think there will be a new Aelf army and if we are lucky we can ally with them.. but I don't think wanderers will get anything new. They are a mobile shooty army, not a hard hitting one (which is good btw.. they'd not be my wood elves if they where)... if that isn't good enough for these scenario's then it just means they are not good enough for the current game.

[Tidings]

14 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

@Tidings What list did you play for the mobile approach and how exactly did you use it?

Where you playing pure pitched battles or scenarios? I think the mobile approach looks like a great way to wipe out opponents but I can't see how we can make it work for scenarios where you have to hold objective markers.

• Nomad Prince - Stalker of the Hidden Paths, Viridescent Shawl
• Spellweaver
• 3x Waywatchers - one of them with a Forget-me-knot
• 20x EG
• 30x GG
• 20x GG
• 10x WWR
• 5x Sisters of the Thorn
• 5x Wild Riders
• Waystone Pathfinders battalion

This is a one-drop army, so you can choose turn most of the time. My strategy is to deploy safely in a corner and give the opponent first turn. The reason for this is a double turn basically wins the game for us, and if they get a double turn we mostly die that turn. Your opponent shouldn't be able to do anything to you on their first turn if you deployed correctly anyways, other than perhaps Murderhost.

On your turn, get buffs up and teleport 9" away from the best available target. A good opponent will string his forces out to deny you as many places to tele as possible. Regardless, you should be able to get at something important anyways. When you land, keep your EG bubblewrapping everything and run your Wild Riders at a target, but keep them strung back to be within 6" of your Nomad Prince and the table edge. The goal is to keep your enemy's unit in combat on his turn, and if your Wild Riders survive, to be able to teleport them with the rest of your army. 

Fire at the best target, you should be able to kill just about anything. Charge your Wild Riders into whatever is closest and most likely to charge your force. They should be the ones buffed by spells btw. 

Your next turn should start with buffs, then shoot again using the battalion ability. Your teleport should take you away from whatever is remaining there to the next target, which you'll have to decide on based on positioning, threat, objectives, etc. Rinse and repeat. This is basically two turns of offense against the enemy for every one he has against you, and most people don't clump their whole army, so you also have basically 2000 points against something like 750 points. 

Regarding objectives, you have a few options depending on scenario and positioning. Let's say there's an objective on your side of the table, you can leave the WWRs guarding it. You don't HAVE to bring them with you! Or if it's not there, you can bring them with you when you teleport and then run them towards the nearest objective. The point is, you have 4 units that are viable for grabbing objectives in most scenarios, and you have a ton of flexibility regarding leaving them behind at objectives or teleporting them somewhere else to contest a different one. I basically offloaded one unit each turn to contest a different objective each time - it left my opponents feeling helpless because they had to spread out to deal with me actively pursuing different objectives, and the more spread out they were the more effective I was at killing them. 

I'll play it more and see how well it continues to work. I have a feeling someone will counter it hard by either having something to kill my Nomad Prince, or will just stay clumped up and retaliate with a lot more force than I can deal with. 

[Tidings]

22 minutes ago, Aezeal said:

Not sure if they REALLY are too expensive btw. You've got a mage that has 10 wounds and a good spell - easily 100 points. And then you've got some mediocre fast cavalry.. which doesn't come cheaper than 120 points I'd say.

Did you look at the warscroll for Stormcast Palladors? There's nothing even remotely comparable between the two units. They are many many times more powerful and dangerous than Sisters. Either they need to basically double in points, or Sisters need to drop a bit. I'd say a bit of both, since Sisters aren't affordable enough to take even compared to just fielding say 10x GG and a Waywatcher. 

1 hour ago, Yeled said:

I'm wondering if you can do enough damage in the beginning of the game that holding objectives becomes viable afterward.

Yes, we absolutely can. We have a devastating alpha strike that can show up on any table edge, followed by tons more shooting. With my list, by the end of my 2nd turn, I had fired somewhere around 220 shots. The first turn had 52 shots at -3 rending. In both games I had killed about 25% of his army before he could do anything to me, and whatever was left near me was in no state to damage me. It was either tied up by my Wild Riders or hitting my EG. 

2 hours ago, The Wanderer said:

@Tidings What list did you play for the mobile approach and how exactly did you use it?

Where you playing pure pitched battles or scenarios? I think the mobile approach looks like a great way to wipe out opponents but I can't see how we can make it work for scenarios where you have to hold objective markers.

List and strategy above, but just to add, you don't HAVE to teleport every turn. I did 2 or 3 turns of hit and run using the teleport (while sending units towards different objectives) and then just advanced on what was left of his army. 

 

I'll keep testing it though, like I said I've only played a couple games so far. I think Stormcast, other shooting armies like Skyfires, Sylvaneth and some other lists like Murderhost will be really tough to beat. 

[Aezeal]

25 minutes ago, Tidings said:

Did you look at the warscroll for Stormcast Palladors? There's nothing even remotely comparable between the two units. They are many many times more powerful and dangerous than Sisters. Either they need to basically double in points, or Sisters need to drop a bit. I'd say a bit of both, since Sisters aren't affordable enough to take even compared to just fielding say 10x GG and a Waywatcher. 

Yes, we absolutely can. We have a devastating alpha strike that can show up on any table edge, followed by tons more shooting. With my list, by the end of my 2nd turn, I had fired somewhere around 220 shots. The first turn had 52 shots at -3 rending. In both games I had killed about 25% of his army before he could do anything to me, and whatever was left near me was in no state to damage me. It was either tied up by my Wild Riders or hitting my EG. 

List and strategy above, but just to add, you don't HAVE to teleport every turn. I did 2 or 3 turns of hit and run using the teleport (while sending units towards different objectives) and then just advanced on what was left of his army. 

 

I'll keep testing it though, like I said I've only played a couple games so far. I think Stormcast, other shooting armies like Skyfires, Sylvaneth and some other lists like Murderhost will be really tough to beat. 

Shouldn't we be able to start out of range of those armies and then teleport into range and shoot all their shooters dead? Sylvaneth isn't a real shooty army... anyone going mass bow hunters might beat us.. but would get killed by nearly everything else. Not to mention our rend 3 would mean we could kill quite a lot of them too in a round of shooting.

[Tidings]

41 minutes ago, Aezeal said:

Shouldn't we be able to start out of range of those armies and then teleport into range and shoot all their shooters dead? Sylvaneth isn't a real shooty army... anyone going mass bow hunters might beat us.. but would get killed by nearly everything else. Not to mention our rend 3 would mean we could kill quite a lot of them too in a round of shooting.

I'm not a top tier player, but I like playing competitively and understanding the meta. Here's my thought process on some matchups.

Stormcast - Depends a lot on the list and the battalions they are using. More than any other army, Stormcast has a lot of options and can be played very different ways. They main problem I foresee us (continuing) to have against them is their high armor and access to one-drop lists. If they choose to go second and remain off the table, we literally waste a turn, putting us at a significant disadvantage. Stormcast also has ways to destroy armies that are clumped, which we are when running Waystone Pathfinders. Finally, if they have shooting units, it outranges us. Overall, I think we will struggle to kill enough of them and win objectives, and they have many ways to threaten us on their terms. A list like the one I've been using is designed to fight on my terms, and if I can't dictate that, I'll lose. 

Skyfires - They are just flat out better shooters and have huge mobility. I haven't played against them though, so I can't speak from experience. I suspect we won't be able to contest objectives against them though. Whatever we send towards an objective will die to their shooting, and the Nomad Prince will probably die the turn we teleport in range, so a lot of this matchup comes down to our alpha strike and if we can do enough damage. As soon as the Nomad Prince is killed, that's essentially 320 point loss, since we can't teleport to all table edges, can't shoot twice with Waystone Pathfinders, and lose Lord of the Deepwood Host. 

Sylvaneth -  They are very very tough to kill in their forests. Lots of high, rerollable saves. The main thing we will struggle with here is getting them off objectives, since they can throw a forest on it and teleport to it. Once they are bunkered down on an objective in the middle of the table, there's not a lot we can do. Since they can do that on their first turn.. you get the idea. Shooting isn't the issue with them, it's their durability and mobility with tree teleporting. 

Murderhost - They can cross the entire table and charge us even if we are deployed as far back as possible. They can do a lot of damage in that turn too. If they don't kill the Nomad Prince though, it might work out in our favor. The main thing I'm worried about here is that giving them 1st turn is still quite dangerous to us, but taking 1st turn and giving them a double at 9" away from us is an auto loss. Possibly less dangerous than I imagine though, will play against it soon!

[Origin]

Had a pretty tight game last night verses a Nagash led death list. Was playing scorched earth mission in the realm of Aqshy. I was running the following teleport shenanigans 

My List
Prince - Stalker, Shawl
2 Spellweavers
2 Waywatchers
Waystrider - Forget-me-knot
30 EG
2x20 GG
10 WWR
5 SoT
5 WR
Waystone Battalion

His List
Nagash
Necro
Wight King with Banner - Horror and Book
2 Morgast Archai
3x10 Skeles
500 odd points in the pool

I dropped in two, spread to hold all three of my objectives. Gave old mate Nagash first turn. He promptly summoned a massive unit of 40 skeles right in the midfield and a unit of 2 Morghast Habringers with 9". Few spells here and there, Van ****** the skeles. I clenched... The 40 odd skeles failed the 9" charge into my EG, thankfully but the Harbingers rolled up a 16" charge and managed to move around the EG bubble and hit a unit of GG. All but wiped the unit, a lucky 1 (using the re-roll) on the battleshock saved them from total oblivion. A mistake on my part i left a hole but really i was not expecting a unit to move that quickly.

I held tight turn 1, redressed the ranks and shot a bunch of stuff, killed a stack of skeles and most of the Morghasts leaving one from each unit on 1 and 2 wounds each. I really needed to get the double turn...

I didn't. It hurt. The EG had shield plus Thorns so absorbed most of the skeles attacks while dealing 17 mortal wounds back to him but they were all but wiped out as he had +2 to hit (Damned terrain and Hero bonus) with some 90 odd attacks. Nagash flew over my lines and landed within 3" of the WWR (I cheered!). The rangers piled in and scorced 9 wounding hits on the ****** but with shield on himself plus the re-roll ones they did zero damage. And were promptly removed from the board by the big man and his big stick.

My turn, hero phase saw the waywatchers and remaining archers put all their shoots into the depleted summoned skeles all but wiped them (1-2 left) and then the wanderers melted away onto his board edge to burn his objectives, which were only held by 3 units of 10 skeles. 

The game ended super close with 14 vps each and not a single objective on the board left to burn. He had me on count back for a minor win.

The stalker trait plus the battalion is lots of fun to play but bloody hell it is super fragile. I'm so turn between inspiring presence on the EG turn one or Lord of the Host. The re-rolls help a lot but i kind of feel that if i'm letting my opponent have first turn the IP is better value if I fail to get the double turn. There was nothing i could do about Nagash with a 2+ re-rollable save i just had to ignore him. He shut down all my spells, had to melt to outside of 18" just to get ****** done. The auto-dispel from the spell weavers stopped critical van ******, the spell weavers really are good value.

Waystrider is puss. Will drop the second spellweaver to bump him up to another waywatcher and use the remaining points to try running some SoW in place of the WWR. Just to maximize the battalion bonus shooting.

The army is so fragile that getting the first turn double shoot right is beyond critical. If that fails you're pushing ****** up hill. But with the melt away you're never really out of the game. Bounce and shoot, bounce and shoot. We only carry swords to look cool...

Wanderers are a lot of fun, they are an under powered finesse army that will really on player skill and experience more than anything else. Looking forward to the journey. 

[WABBIT]

Does anyone actually like the name "Wanderers"?

I'm not trolling, I genuinely don't like the name. All i can think of when I hear "Wanderers" is Bolton football supporters singing status Quo songs. Surely they could think of a better name.

I love the models and the theme etc but we don't really know that much about Wanderers in the AoS story or do we? I must admit I don't follow the story much it's all Storm Cast and Chaos all the time. The Sylvaneth story nearly drew me in. I hope they change the name. Something like Forest Aelves maybe? or WOOD AELVES!......nah.

I'll leave you with this:

"Well I'm the type of guy who will never settle down
Where pretty girls are well you know that I'm around
I kiss 'em and I love 'em 'cause to me their all the same
I hug 'em and I squeeze them, they don't even know my name
They call me the Wanderer, yeah the Wanderer
I roam around and round and round and round and round"!

A classic. I'm willing to bet more than one of you has hummed this during a game of AoS while commanding Wanderers. If not you will now!