Lets Chat Wanderers / Wood Elves compendium

[Frozenbeast]

I think it looked ginormous even when it was supposed to be on square base, is just too tall.  Built as the Luminarch was already big and the astrolabium is even taller!!!

What you cold try also is to use branches, the ones from the wyldwood for example, I mean I know it will mean you buying a wyldwood but seen the branches already present for Alarielle to stand on, it might fit well....OR.....just add branches to where Alarielle is supposed to stand on and make them so they join there where the astrolabium starts. It would look like a "natural" extension of the branches....kinda. Was it understandable? I am picturing it but I don t know how to explain the idea so it looks like I am seeing it.

[WABBIT]

Well i'm in the middle of another project to make a large tree of life terrain piece using the old GW hill and a wire tree. You can make them very easily with wire and pliers and some practice. Then add tissue and PVA covering, add texture in various ways from green stuff to sand etc. I wanted a signature terrain piece for my wood elves and sylvaneth to fight over. You could make one to hold the Astrolabium, a tree growing out of the back of the beetle. Or just use a citadel tree. If the branches don't work out then try it with just the trunk. A bit of sawing and greenstuff could see it attached seamlessly to the beetle and paint hides a hundred sins. 

Check these images below for ideas. If you don't want to make the wire tree yourself do what I did - Order one from Etsy.com. Search for them there you'll find lots of readymade framework trees. They aren't made for modelling but they are ideal in my view. Plus the roots are long making them easier to attach to the beetle than the citadel plastic tree, plus the roots look cool grabbing the beetle.

There are lots of UTube videos on how to make wire trees and various ways to decorate them/add skin/Bark/moss/blossom etc. If you find a seller on Etsy they are usually the artist who made them so ask for a custom job to size it right. 

  If I had the time I would make you one but I don't so I ordered two like  the 3rd pic below which is from Etsy for my Terrain projects. I just need more time Grrr

[WABBIT]

36 minutes ago, Frozenbeast said:

I think it looked ginormous even when it was supposed to be on square base, is just too tall.  Built as the Luminarch was already big and the astrolabium is even taller!!!

What you cold try also is to use branches, the ones from the wyldwood for example, I mean I know it will mean you buying a wyldwood but seen the branches already present for Alarielle to stand on, it might fit well....OR.....just add branches to where Alarielle is supposed to stand on and make them so they join there where the astrolabium starts. It would look like a "natural" extension of the branches....kinda. Was it understandable? I am picturing it but I don t know how to explain the idea so it looks like I am seeing it.

haha great minds Mr Beast  Just saw your post after mine.

 

Oh and @Frozenbeast Your conversions are great mate nice ideas there  GW should allow us to create our own warscrolls to fit the conversion we create. It's the only good thing that's come out of waiting 3 years for any kind of AoS Aelf release. 

[WABBIT]

10 hours ago, Aezeal said:

Hmm if I use vines I'd make them lines keeping the floating astrolabium  in, then I'd remove the curves and just use rather straight metal and disguise it. Now I've gone for the feel of metal the same as the handle on its neck. I think I'm keeping the wych though.. A  sylvaneth one there appeals to me. I'm going to have a look at those treeman bits you mention.. but I don't think it can be used as you say... Not strong enough to  support the astrolabium. I think most bit that look nice won't have the strenght to support it which is why I used the metal. Nice orion pic in your post btw.

Yeah he's great isn't he (He's not mine BTW I found it on Pinterest many moons ago. I can't take credit sorry if anyone thought it was mine!).

The GW Creeping vines set are very flexible and could be wrapped around the wire frame very easily? Just chuckin ideas at you now lol. Good luck with it

Here is a pic and no I don't work for GW

[Aezeal]

55 minutes ago, Frozenbeast said:

I think it looked ginormous even when it was supposed to be on square base, is just too tall.  Built as the Luminarch was already big and the astrolabium is even taller!!!

What you cold try also is to use branches, the ones from the wyldwood for example, I mean I know it will mean you buying a wyldwood but seen the branches already present for Alarielle to stand on, it might fit well....OR.....just add branches to where Alarielle is supposed to stand on and make them so they join there where the astrolabium starts. It would look like a "natural" extension of the branches....kinda. Was it understandable? I am picturing it but I don t know how to explain the idea so it looks like I am seeing it.

I could just put it on the  existing  branches but to me it doesn't feel right, extending them probably won't help a lot in this regard . Gonna think a bit about the magic swirls tomorrow

 

14 minutes ago, WABBIT said:

Yeah he's great isn't he (He's not mine BTW I found it on Pinterest many moons ago. I can't take credit sorry if anyone thought it was mine!).

The GW Creeping vines set are very flexible and could be wrapped around the wire frame very easily? Just chuckin ideas at you now lol. Good luck with it

Here is a pic and no I don't work for GW

My wallet overruled that idea, but thanks for the suggestions anyway.

[Frozenbeast]

1 hour ago, WABBIT said:

haha great minds Mr Beast  Just saw your post after mine.

 

Oh and @Frozenbeast Your conversions are great mate nice ideas there  GW should allow us to create our own warscrolls to fit the conversion we create. It's the only good thing that's come out of waiting 3 years for any kind of AoS Aelf release. 

yeah man, just THE thing out of two different minds . 

didn t think of the creepy vines..... maybe for the same reason why @Aezeal doesn t want to purchase them...$$$$$$$$$ so my brain just deleted them from when I saw them on release  

[WABBIT]

Yeah there are alternatives out there. Even some string or rolled up green stuff will do the job and stick on some leaf litter for leaves - job done.  

[Aezeal]

Yeah.. it probably makes for a better option.. but I'm just not that much of a converter... for me to do it.. I'd have to get a prime and just use his swirls bottom up.. this model is already using quite a bit of bits (expensive ones) so I'm just going to stay with my idea

[Frozenbeast]

So I had the occasion last week (and hopefully I will do the same this week again)to try out my new 2k list of Mixed order-wanderers themed army and it looked more or less like this:

Nomad Prince general Master of defence

Avatar of the Hunt Phoenix stone

Dragonlord shield & Dragonlance

Battlemage on Celestial Hurricanum

Loremaster

 

Glade Guard x20 

Glade Guard x10

Highborn Spearmen x10

Waywatchers x5

Waywatchers x5

Warhawk raiders x3

 

The whole point of the army is harass hardly with the behemoths with some magic on (hand of glory/mystic shield) and having those as my front line while from the back/flanks the archers keep shooting empowered by the Hurricanum and the Nomad Prince (which alongside the Spearmen should keep all the back line kinda safe). Warhawk raiders are for big mobility like taking over an obj with few models on or just contesting them).

All in all the list I noticed plays all 4 phases of the turn 'cause I can move pretty fast around the table, I have got good amount of mortal wounds (dice permitting), good amount of shooting (10 waywatchers empowered by the Hurricanum are some real threat dashing out wounds regardless seen the amount of arrows they can shoot) including the Avatar of the Hunt who can take part very well to this phase and as per CC a dragon that re-rolls everything (including default re-roll saves) ant the Avatar too has good profile to deal some serious dmg.

My opponent was playing a full Dispossessed list and despite the mistake on positioning his cannon too close to my shooting and my mistake of charging the Avatar into 40 warriors I was pretty happy about the whole result of the game considering probably Dispossessed are not a good trial to test a list. Dragon survived all match and that was a big surprise and Waywatchers prove themselves fantastic tableing 2x10 unit in 2 turns and dealing some other substantial dmg around the table.

Looking forward for a bigger test next week maybe against somebody more viable then Dispossessed.

 

OrderWand2k.pdf

[Aezeal]

Have you considered dropping the avatar for a waywatcher hero and a few more regular waywatchers? And why a dragon and not a phoenix, I've seen it's been popular in similar lists?

I can see how the warhawks fit what you want them to do.. but they are pretty expensive for what they are? Do you play them as 1x3 or 3x1? I can see them being more valuable as 3x1 so they can be thrown in the way of whatever.

[Frozenbeast]

Avatar because I have made an entire model from scratch and wanted to play it I know it is overpriced but this is what I wanna play now. Besides he dashes out a considerable amount of attacks and damage. With the re-rolling from the Loremaster he becomes pretty dangerous and if he goes down to shooting something else will stand and fight full strength. (e.g. Glade guards with 2+(re-roll 1) 4+ -3 rend and WW with one million attacks). I understand it is not the most competitive list ever but out of what I have got I am pretty happy for what it can do.

The Phoenix seems to be pretty poplar I know and OP too and to be honest I am a bit ******  so just because it is veeeeery popular I am not gonna play it! Plus I have not got the phoenix model and I do have a dragon so....I ll play a dragon XD.

The Warhawk raiders have only played them in 1 unit of 3 but I wanted to try 3 separate to use as chaff. My opponent would need to either fire them down or have them in the way of whatever i will want to delay. I don t really see them as overpriced 12 wound for 120 p.ts that can fly 22" seem pretty solid. Not OP, but solid nontheless.

[WABBIT]

The warhawk riders synergise well with the Spell weaver for healing but I've never managed to use it well. Unlucky with dice I guess.. Warhawks were always a bit meh for me so I switched to 3 lords on eagles instead and they do much better but obviously you do pay for it and you're less likely to want to throw away a glade lord on great eagle as Chaff. Still their combined shooting is great for picking off Skaven weapon teams without having to divert your whole unit of Glade Guard or Sisters of the watch to shoot them.

I've used the forest dragon a few times now and it's performed really well (Not the high elf dragon lord which I think is better for the pts). I know the phoenix is tougher but like Frozenbeast sometimes I just like to use the models I love the most. I custom made my dragon lord for my wood elves so even if it's not the best option I use it most games as it my centerpiece unit (Well when i say custom I mean it's a Forge world Carmine Dragon plus wood elf hero stuck on top with the HE Sea Wardens trident ).

Its great to discuss how to optimise armies but it also really nice to hear about armies that use models because players just like the look of them better or because players have customised them; like the Dryad Centaurs for Wild riders or LOTR eagle and two glade guard for the sisters on Gwindor etc. I love optimising my armies but I also love fluff/theme building and I'm always surprised how well my unoptimised lists do. It makes you think outside the box, develop new strategies and actually helps you improve your "Serious game" if you ever play super competitive that is    If you haven't already - try it. You'll probably lose but you'll learn a lot.

I played a game once (I think it was my 2nd ever game of AoS so we used Wounds not points - pre GHB) using all my painted High elf spearmen I had at the time - 130 of em! They were 1x40 and 3x30 plus 10 Silver helms, 3 lion chariots (awful) and 2 x 20 High Elf archers, a banner hero and an elf lord general and 1 arch mage vs a skaven filth list. It looked glorious, just 20 elites (Sword masters) and tons of cheap line infantry and to our surprise I won. I was expecting to get thrashed! lol.  It was close by the end though. one more turn and I would be toast. The Skaven had to deploy in a semi circle in the middle of their own board edge and break out into the town. I can't recall the battle plan name now. Anyway I managed to bottle up his units so he couldn't get his monsters into combat with me (Abomination and a Vermin lord I think) until turn 4 after I'd beaten up his front line units. A simple deployment mistake by my opponent placing his big hitters behind his less potent plague monks and Storm vermin (Mega tough they are) and my humble spearmen  won the day  . I deployed right in his face in a long arching line to stop him deploying his army to full effect. I also used the battalion where one spearman unit could attack in support of another once per combat round which made a massive difference. I did tons of damage early on but eventually battle shock started to weaken my units to less than 20 and they became really weak. We played the whole game on two 2x2 quadrants of an 8x4 table and barely moved. 

Anyone have any tales of non optimised games? 

Apologies for the non Wanderer army pic. Im tempted to repaint them green and use em as Wood elf Eternal Guard  

3yrs later and I still haven't finished painting those high elf archers they're just base coated.  

[Aezeal]

Frozen: proxy the avatar as a dragon , or as that phoenix. 120 points for 12 wounds is not that great, it's average on that save but their damage isn't great. They indeed look like good chaff with great movement. 3 of them slightly apart will ruin someones day if they need to clear an objective. I might take 1 in my mixed order army... doubting whether a gryphhound won't be better (since that mixed order will be mainly wood elves with a hurricanum)

Wabbit: Lord on eagle uses hero choices.. my waywatchers (hero) will not like that . I've got a carmine waiting to be painted too but I'll use him as whatever I need... I like playing with effective stuff and using the nice models.. so I proxy the hell out of what I want  if needed :D.

The wood elf character points are a bit off: compare the 3 (non dragon lords) with each other. And then compare nearly 4 eagle lords with the avatar  

[Aezeal]

It's actually a good discussion for in here:

In a mixed order woodelf army what would be some of the most optimal hero choices? I consider 1 hurricanum a given: so 5 positions left.

Nomad prince? Waywatchers? Eagle lords? Loremaster + big stuff (phoenix or dragon... or both).

[Frozenbeast]

The Nomad Prince only if then you list some wanderers and he is your general so you can use his ability. Waywatchers heroes all day every day foreva and eva!!!!!!!!!! Although you could argue (like I did to myself) will I then have enough CC with my units to protect them or delay any strategy my opponent throws at me? Because why listing 1 WW when you can list 3 and shred everything you see?? And at that point you have less room for other heroes and those (in a wood elves mixed order army) are the ones dealing damages. Unless you wanna take the Hurricanum without the Battlemage then you could think of a combo of everything, like: 3(or 4 why not!?!?!) WW, Loremaster, Phoenix/dragonlord (depend on preferences), (Battlemage with Wyssan Wildofrm).......mmmh....might actually try that myself

[Aezeal]

15 minutes ago, Frozenbeast said:

The Nomad Prince only if then you list some wanderers and he is your general so you can use his ability. Waywatchers heroes all day every day foreva and eva!!!!!!!!!! Although you could argue (like I did to myself) will I then have enough CC with my units to protect them or delay any strategy my opponent throws at me? Because why listing 1 WW when you can list 3 and shred everything you see?? And at that point you have less room for other heroes and those (in a wood elves mixed order army) are the ones dealing damages. Unless you wanna take the Hurricanum without the Battlemage then you could think of a combo of everything, like: 3(or 4 why not!?!?!) WW, Loremaster, Phoenix/dragonlord (depend on preferences), (Battlemage with Wyssan Wildofrm).......mmmh....might actually try that myself

don't use only hero's to delay.. use single hunting hounds I'd say  or single warhawks.

[Frozenbeast]

I said units but I meant non-leader troops. ofc not heroes

[Requizen]

Hey, been looking at these guys after listening to a recent Honest Wargamer. A really fast shooting army with lots of tricks seems cool, but it seems that a lot of people are making it more of a mixed order thing than pure Wanderers. Is anyone playing Wanderer's allegiance to make use of the teleporting, or do you think it's not viable at the moment?

[WABBIT]

@RequizenThere is lots of discussion  on the viability of Wanderer allegiance rules further back in this thread. They are  ok but not very viable because it contradicts the strength of wanderer warscrolls which reward hunkering down in cover and not moving. While the allegiance abilities are interesting and very  in theme for a wood elf army they don't synergise well with the warscrolls. In my opinion it's half baked really and limits the play style too much which can also easily be countered once you know it. Losing half the Wood Elf warscrolls from wanderers list didn't help either so mixed Order is still the best choice.

[Frozenbeast]

1 hour ago, WABBIT said:

@RequizenThere is lots of discussion  on the viability of Wanderer allegiance rules further back in this thread. They are  ok but not very viable because it contradicts the strength of wanderer warscrolls which reward hunkering down in cover and not moving. While the allegiance abilities are interesting and very  in theme for a wood elf army they don't synergise well with the warscrolls. In my opinion it's half baked really and limits the play style too much which can also easily be countered once you know it. Losing half the Wood Elf warscrolls from wanderers list didn't help either so mixed Order is still the best choice.

Plus in an objectives based game just being able to avoid encounters is not a reliable strategy. The whole concept of objectives is claim them and staying that far away from them make wanderers a sub/optimal faction to play. Another thing will be if you say "****** the objectives, we wanna play at killing each others", then possibly wanderers have a chance in being the correct way of the force!

Also even when playing Wanderers allegiance you get at some point after which you are easily counterable by many armies and that completely shuts you from doing anything at all ass your entire plan is to survive by avoiding an not buy run you enemy down. this is all IMHO.

[WABBIT]

Yeah it's a good point around battle plans. They dictate the way you build your army far too much. Because battle plans are all objective based missions they massively favour certain armies and styles of play. My Orc and goblin opponents love it. It's a covert way of making everyone charge into the middle for a scrap. Speed, toughness and hitting power are king so it's overtly biased toward Destruction and Chaos armies. Finesses armies can't complete now, you cannot play the long game of decoy, ambush, hit and run, choose your ground etc you have to get in hard and fast and then stay there.

Removing Sylvaneth forces from our roster hurt us as they had the tough heavy hitters like treekin and treemen. Add in a Nerf to Wild riders, overprice the remaining good units, and give wanderers conflicting warscrolls rules that don't synergise with each other, their heroes or allegiance abilities plus remove half the wood elf roster and you have a small weak force with limited options which revolve around shooting, hiding in terrain and running away. It's not very impressive but at least we got something in GHB 2017 and it was very much in the right direction fluff wise. The best way to play wood elves/wanderers is open play with a points limit but no battle plan or one that isn't biased to the same old objective grabbing. If GW gave Wanderers some decent heavy hitters then you wouldnt see so many shooting armies but lets face it Wood Elves shoot.

It's not all bad, objective based games are quicker, more violent and combat focused (which to be honest is way more fun than shooting off or getting shot off by your opponent). Perhaps halving the amount of terrain objective based battle plans and introducing different goals like kill 1000 pts by turn 6 or get a kill ratio of 2:1 by turn 5 or 6 etc.  Or what about give each side their own objective - one picks take and hold the other takes get a 2 to  1 Kill/death? 

 Luckily I didn't choose wood elves because of their rules and I would never had chosen them if they were called "Wanderers" when i started pah!  Please make them change it!

 

[mumperpa]

I got the sisters of  the Thorn/ Wild Riders box and am not sure what to build. I would be running them as allies and eventually in a mixed order list. I like the ascetic of both, but the only way I can justify building a couple of each is for skirmish, and in skirmish I don't really have good options for a general. I like the idea of building the wild riders and building the sisters of the thorn leader as a spellweaver, ( would require extra legs, right?) which makes them 220 points of wanderers, to much to ally at 1000. If I build the sisters of the thorn they are 220 as well, but good w/ stormcast because shield of thorns is great. The other option would be build the sisters of thorn leader, 4 wild riders, and a nomad prince out of the wild rider leader for skirmish. I mostly just want to paint them, but it would be nice to put them on the table. Side note, sisters of the thorn are dumb in skirmish each one is a wizard for 9 renown. So what should I build, are they worth allying to stormcast, or should i just make them for skirmish?

[nightsrage]

Question: Does the Glade Lord on a Great Eagle have both the bow and spirit blade? The wording is confusing, and if the Glade Lord only has their bow, there is no other melee weapon listed. 

 

Thank you in advance. 

[Frozenbeast]

15 hours ago, nightsrage said:

Question: Does the Glade Lord on a Great Eagle have both the bow and spirit blade? The wording is confusing, and if the Glade Lord only has their bow, there is no other melee weapon listed. 

 

Thank you in advance. 

 I think is pretty much as you understood it. Is either one or the other and if you pick the bow only the eagle will attack in CC. The thing is that with 16" you can really go anywhere and I think he is pretty resilient to survive a turn of CC. The idea behind it (as I personally see it) is you build him for CC and you send him killing single small characters and even if somebody counter charge him he has 4+ and 7 wounds and on your next turn you just fly him away 16"+D6". And even if he does not survive it is just another body...he is 120 pts (which for what he does is not bad at all) and as they are focusing him they might not be focusing a more important part of your army that maybe is damaging hard your opponent.

I mean let's face it, we are not Stormcasts, our characters cannot have 10 W, 2+ save, 3 MW per turn in shooting, 14" M, hitting like a truck when in CC and still costing 160pts. You have to pick either one or the other or the other. pogChamp

[WABBIT]

The glade lord on eagle has both spirit sword and a bow as per the model. It doesn’t say choose one or the other on the warscroll and no one would spend 120pts on just 4 combat attacks or 3 shooting attacks. I’ve always used it with both and no one I’ve played against has suggested it should be any different before. It’s one of the few points efficient models in the woodelves army so let’s not ruin it???