… with a bit of all the other Warhammer editions thrown in!

Breakpoint Conclusions

I went to Ireland’s first Old World tournament, Breakpoint, at the weekend, bringing 1,000 points of Wood Elves. We were playing at Underworld Gaming, Dublin, who graciously sponsored prizes for the event.

I ended up playing all three games against Bretonnian players, which won’t make for an exciting tournament report. However, there are a bunch of takeaways I had from the event which I thought were worth sharing. Some are about Wood Elves, and some about the game in general.

First off: A Treeman Ancient is the toughest thing in Wood Elves to kill. Survived all 3 games, despite being repeatedly charged by Bretonnian knights of every shape and size. However, being only a Level 2 wizard kinda sucks – in larger games, I would definitely take L4. I couldn’t dispel some remains-in-play spells that ruined my day in Game 2. Assailment spells in close combat are great – I stopped taking Tree Singing and went for Hammerhand Game 3. Tree Singing used to be a great tactic in previous editions, because you summoned trees in front of your opponent’s cavalry, which made it much harder for them to see and/or charge. Now, it’s kinda useless because it’s just a Remains in Play spell on a 7+ so your opponent will dispel the Forest on their turn before they have to make any moves or declare any charges.

Terror and Fear didn’t come into the games much, mostly because I didn’t have better Unit Strength than the units I was fighting. I think a Fear test was failed once over three games. I think for Dryads (who cause Fear) to work effectively they would need to be in larger units than 5 … see possible later tactic.

Not having a BSB was rough. Archers definitely want to have a BSB in order to be able to flee when charged. I rolled 11s multiple times when trying to rally fleeing archer units, which worked against me in the game I lost.

I think there might be a tactic involving Fire & Flee / Trueflight on one wide rank of GG. Have them flee through a unit of Dryads and then rally behind and be able to draw line of sight through the Skirmishers. The charge might fail and then the Dryads could potentially move back to make it happen again. Might be a bit cheesy, and I’m not sure how exactly I’d need to line up my troops. Some testing needed!

Battlelines drawn! Taking on Keith’s Bretonnian Errantry Crusade in Game 1!

Wild Riders are where it’s at. Frankly, in a Wood Elf army, I’d say take as many as you can. They were hands down the best performers on the battlefield, although they still want to be supported with multi-charges where possible – they can blend but you want to keep them frenzied, so they have to win every combat. Luckily, I never lost a combat with them, but sadly they did get wiped out once by a unit of Grail Knights and my lack of ability to dispel (they had 5+ regen in addition to 5+ ward and 5+ armour (after AP) (see his discussion of the game here).

Vanguard move is just a normal move now, which means only 5″ for our infantry. I think I’m more likely to take more Scouts in the future, as part of the Core allowance.

Trueflight arrows are great. Walk around, shoot on 3+s, plink off a couple of models, cause a panic test. Little units of archers did what they do best. My opponents were more afraid of Arcane Bodkins, they told me afterwards, because … (and this is my major conclusion from the event)

AP -3 is a big deal. It’s as important to this edition as S6 was to 8th ed. It makes a huge difference to the combat math, turning those 3+ saves into 6+. Versus AP -2 (which is pretty common – GW, Lances, etc.), which turns a 3+ save into a 5+. That extra -1 will half the number of saves your opponent makes.


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