Wood Elves – Eternal Vanguard

I’ve been asked a lot about Eternal Guard, and my feedback has been fairly negative up until now. I’ve had a bit more time to think and test, and I feel like I may have found their role in an Alpha Strike army list that I’ve been calling Eternal Vanguard in my head. It’s reminiscent of the old Sethayla lists from the 6th Edition. I’m going to use a 2,000 point list as an example, but it can be done at 1,500 points by dropping the Glade Lord and Glade Riders.

The List

First off, if you want to play with the list in Old World Builder, here is the data file you need to import it. Strong caveat: this is a theory list that hasn’t been tested in battle yet, but I’m putting my thoughts down here first and then will report back the level of success. There are many options for building the list, I’m just using a concrete example as a good starting point.

Units highlighted in cherry are damage dealers, and are your Attack Wing. Some units are highlighted in leaf green, those are your Drilled Vans (in this case van as in vanguard) and finally, units highlighted in birch are chaff, used to help prevent enemy units from prematurely charging, to help set up favourable charges and so forth. The Spellweaver is magical support and is dealt with in detail in her own section.

Characters

Glade Captain

• Great weapon
• Light armour
• Shield
• Hagbane Tips
• Asrai Longbow
• Battle Standard Bearer [War Banner]
• Great Stag
• Helm Of The Hunt
• Befuddlement of Mischiefs

Spellweaver

• Level 4 Wizard
• Warhawk
• Lore Familiar
• Talisman of Protection
• Battle Magic

Glade Lord (drop at 1,500pts)

• Great weapon
• Shield
• Hagbane Tips
• Asrai Longbow
• General
• Great Stag
• Armour of Destiny
• Annoyance of Netlings (put this on BSB at 1,500pts)

Core Units

5 Glade Guard

• Trueflight Arrows

21 Eternal Guard

• Full Command
• Shields
• Drilled

10 Glade Riders (drop at 1,500pts)

• Full Command
• Hagbane Tips
• Drilled

Special Units

6 Wild Riders (x2)

• Full Command
• Shields

Rare Units

Great Eagle (x 3)

Deployment

Any game of Warhammer can easily be lost in the deployment phase, depending on the army you bring. This list is designed to make use of a kind of Feigned Flank strategy as part of deployment.

Generally in the Deployment phase, if you put most of your units on one flank, your opponent will deploy to match, and you’ll end up having an unfavourable battle because most other armies are better in tight quarters than Wood Elves, who really want to be able to use all the space on the board. The ideal would be if your opponent would agree to deploying everything in a nice even spread across their battle lines, while letting you deploy everything on one side, so that you can take on half their army with all your army for a turn or two.

The goal of this strategy is to get your opponent to do exactly that, but without them being aware that you are doing it. The deployment of your units is going to appear as if you’re spread out across the board, just like your opponent, but the reality is that you will use your extreme mobility to create a lopsided battle. It’s called a Feigned Flank because part of the technique is feigning that you will actually deploy more of your force on one flank, and then actually preparing to redeploy in turn one to the other flank (the Attack Flank).

It’s typical for Wood Elves to have fewer models on the battlefield than our opponents, due to the higher points cost per model that the Asrai face. When you’re successful with this strategy, you get to use 100% of your models against 40-60% of theirs, but usually only for one turn. That means it has to be an amazing turn in terms of damage output, hence the Alpha Strike. Two things primarily affect the success of this strategy: how deep your force strikes into the Attack Flank, and how quickly your opponent can redeploy to face the attack.

As you can see in all these images you’re trying to bring the attack from the side, forcing your opponent to waste time wheeling, turning or otherwise redeploying to come face you. The aim is to face those units in waves rather than all at once, and to consistently be on the charge to maximize damage output and minimize losses.

The more of their combat units that are committed to the Feigned Flank, the easier it is for you to manoeuvre on the Attack Flank. This is why it’s important to use your units and deployments to really try to get your opponent to think that you are intending your main attack force to be on the Feigned Flank.

You may be thinking to yourself that this strategy is going to be rough against a gunline, and you’re right … a potentially better strategy against a gunline is to bring all the shooting and just outrange our opponents for as long as possible. However, the positive note here is that you only have to weather one round of shooting, because you’ll be in combat from turn 2 onwards, and sometimes as early as turn 1, depending on how things are deployed and who goes first. As a play style, it’s definitely more my vibe than outgunning the gunline. I’ll actually use a gunline as an example through the article, written by my co-host Ben, who plays a heavy shooting Empire list.

Units and Roles

The reason the Eternal Guard have Drilled is so that they can really help sell your commitment to a nice even spread of deployed units, and still be able to migrate very quickly to the other side of the board. They can also help provide good static combat res as part of a combo charge. They appear to be a combat block of spearmen facing the Feigned Flank and preparing to march forward to be an anvil on that flank. However, being able to move as a Marching Column means that they can easily redeploy to the Attack Flank

I’ve experimented with giving them the Vanguard banner, so that they perform a Turn manoeuvre (using up 1/4 of their move and putting them into Marching Column), then move toward the Attack Flank with the other 3/4. On turn 1, they can then march 15″ up the Attack Flank and be potentially ready to charge turn 2 (by using Drilled to Redress the Ranks). They also Fight in an Extra Rank when flank charged which means that, in a Marching Column, they will get more attacks back at the enemy! They lose their static combat res though–can’t have everything.

Their job is to absorb whatever the enemy throws at you on your flank, and help get your damage dealers (Wild Riders + Characters) perfectly positioned for charges or countercharges. They can even accept a charge in the side, fight back relatively well because they get supporting attacks on the flank due to Martial Prowess, and then Fall Back In Good Order due to Stubborn. Remember your opponent has to decide whether they will pursue or not before you Fall Back, so if they do choose to pursue you can use your free reform after fleeing to position the Eternal Guard at an angle to offer a tasty to flank to your Attack Wing, especially your Stag characters who have a 360° charge arc. In the example below, the Knights have won combat, the Eternal Guard Fall Back and reform at an angle giving the BSB an easy rear charge (this would still be a flank against a Lance formation).

One neat trick I picked up on the Asrai forum (thanks Cerve!) is where you can cast Arcane Urgency on one of the Drilled units to have them move again. They Redress the Ranks and get into attack formation (i.e. by giving themselves combat ranks!) and march again to get into the most favourable position for the next turn. I’ll deal with Glade Rider tactics in the next section, but for Eternal Guard you can use this to march 25″ … First redress into Marching Column, march 15″, then cast Arcane Urgency, redress into Combat Order and march a further 10″, getting 1″ away from your opponent’s big fighty scary unit. Thus when charged, the enemy is getting only +1 Initiative, whereas the Eternal Guard get +2 – 1 for Elven Reflexes and one for the Asrai Spear. You’ll get 15 attacks at WS 5, Initiative 6, AP -1. Against most units you’ll be going first and killing a couple of models and having +4 static combat res (Close Order, 2 ranks and a banner) – you’re not really aiming to win, but to minimize damage taken, and then you’ll use Stubborn as above, and you’ll have your countercharge set up for a tasty flank on your opponents big combat block.

Glade Riders also take Drilled and deploy in a Marching Column. Any character who joins the unit also gets Drilled (as per the TOW rulebook, p. 167). This means they can march 24″ (when joined by a Great Stag character, 27″ otherwise) to get into place on turn 1, and then charge turn 2. Their job is also to sell the Feigned Flank, and to bring a fighty character on a Stag into combat with an extra 8″ of movement due to the Marching Column. I like to put the Glade Lord in here, so I’ll call them the Lord’s Riders to refer to the combined unit.

You can also cast Arcane Urgency on the Lord’s Riders to get a massive 40″ move on turn 1 and still be pointing exactly where you want for a charge next turn. What’s more, the Glade Lord can leave the unit and prepare for his own charge–the much higher mobility of the Skirmishing Stag will mean that he can march 16″ and put himself behind your enemy in their deployment zone. If they shoot at him, he’s Evasive and has T4, and a 2+/4++, so he’s likely to survive before then charging things in their rear arc. This kind of thing really messes with your opponent’s battle line, and again tries to push them into being a long line of the individual units so that you can tackle each unit with combo charges.

The Glade Guard are a tax, and should be used as chaff – if we didn’t have the tax, they would be replaced by a Great Eagle. I’d actually deploy them in a marching column to enable them to redeploy or move to be a speed bump more effectively. The Great Eagles (+ Glade Guard) give you 4 drops of deferring which flank is the Feigned one, and which for Attack. Then you have 4 more drops of rank and file troops, followed by the 3 characters. The chaff are most helpful to again help sell sell the commitment to an even spread, and then slow down any fast movers that the enemy sends from the Feigned Flank to try to reinforce the Attack Flank. I’m sure the Glade Guard will … do something … anything!

The Wild Riders are, of course, the primary damage output for the list, and typically will need to be deployed on the Attack Flank, or in the centre, as they really want to just march forward (in Combat Formation) 18″ and then pivot (using their Quick Turn from Fast Cavalry) to face the enemy for charges on turn 2. Remember you can also use that up to 90° pivot after an overrun, something that virtually every other Frenzied unit cannot do, and so is often unexpected by your opponent. You can use it to pivot away from a charge you don’t want to make if necessary, but in general you just want to set yourself up to charge the next thing anyways.

I’ve written about the builds for the characters on Great Stags in this article (even if the intent in that article was all wrong), but at least one of the characters should be deployed in the Marching Column of the Glade Riders. I’m using the Glade Lord here, because then the rest of the army is more or less identical to the 2,000 point list if I just remove that unit. The other can go in with the Eternal Guard if you don’t need to use the EG for blocking, but is probably better just hanging solo (I like the BSB for this one). You can even have them join a unit of Wild Riders, but I’d do that only if you were sure the WR don’t need to use their Countercharge. When the unit charges it will gain the benefits of a First Charge because of the Great Stag, but I think you can accomplish this by just combo charging, so my recommendation is keep the second character out as a solo. There are lots of ways to build out the Stag characters, so enjoy yourself 🙂

And finally the Spellweaver. She’s on a Warhawk for ultimate maneuverability, and a 360° line of sight, and for survivability. She gets an extra point of toughness, and avoids being shot or charged with Evasive and Feigned Flight. She can’t be targeted as long as she’s within 3″ of any other Cavalry unit, which often helps in turn 1. She also can participate in the Alpha Strike, although it is risky and I wouldn’t recommend it. However, this whole strategy is very much high risk, high reward!

I’m not 100% sure on Lore yet, again this needs testing, but I’m assuming Battle Magic because of Arcane Urgency – no other lore we have gives as much mobility. The other spells I’d take would be Fireball to kill chaff, and Pillar of Fire and Curse of Cowardly Flight to help with board control–being able to move a chaff unit out of the way with a Panic test is actually possible with the Curse, although not reliable. Possibly Hammerhand if you want to throw your Wizard into combo charges later in the game. Elementalism‘s got Plague of Rust to help with killing and Earthen Ramparts to make your opponents charges Disordered, and maybe Wind Blast … not sure what else though. In High Magic, there’s Fury of Khaine which really works well with Wild Riders and the characters on Stags, because the mounts also get an extra attack and their attacks are actually meaningful. Tempest, Corporeal Unmaking and Drain Magic are all usable in this list also, but really only Tempest directly helps by slowing down enemy units on the Feigned Flank. Illusion is the other main contender, where I’d choose Column of Crystal and Miasmic Mirage (to delay enemy units on the Feigned Flank), but likely you’d want to put the Spellweaver on a Unicorn and in a unit with the Glade or Wild Riders to take advantage of Glittering Robe and Spectral Doppelganger. There’s need to be some minor adjustments to the list to make that work, but it’s definitely doable – like I’ve said a few times, testing needed. This is an area to experiment and find what kind of build works for you!

Example

Here’s a sample deployment between myself and Ben. It’s a bit of a contrived example because I deployed all my stuff first and then asked Ben to deploy all of his. I chose to put the Woodland Ambush forest on the Attack Flank to try to provide some cover for the Attack Wing from all that shooting. In real life, this is a tough match up – a gunline with fewer drops than we have, so likely to get the first turn. I think the strategy is broadly still the same though, and I’m going to assume we have the first turn for the purposes of this example. Placement is also imperfect, but should help illustrate the overall strategy.

When attacking, you want to be able to try to maximize how much you get done on your turn, before they have a chance to get any magic buffs (for instance). So, when you set up your charges, you’re looking for ways to be able to hit multiple waves of units if you can. You’re also trying to split their forces, holding up one side while you try to kill the other. Finally, you want to make use of your Spellweaver outside of the 24″ Dispel bubble of the enemy Wizard, before you then move her forward.

Note in this example I chose to deploy the Lord beside the Glade Riders not in them, becase as you can see, they are being sacrified to Hellblaster Volley Gun, blocking it’s field of view to my Wild Riders. In this position, I’ve avoided combat on the left flank, and pushed the Eagle past the Outriders to threaten the cannon. The Glade Guard will … do something … anything! The Eternal Guard are waiting to have Arcane Urgency cast on them – it’s only a 15″ range so make sure you keep your Wizard in range (something I didn’t quite do in this example, but you can see I could easily have placed the Wizard correctly a few inches to the left).

Eagle #2 (in the middle) is preventing the Knights from charging anything else, in case the Arcane Urgency does not go off. The Glade Lord is hanging out behind his Riders, ready to charge where he is most needed. Eagle #3 on the right will actually force the Knights to pivot to face the soon to be dead Lord’s Riders, hopefully opening up a flank charge for the Wild Riders.

Here’s the final look after turn 1 movement is done. The Eternal Guard have Redressed into Combat Order and are now 1″ away from the Knights. The Archers on the right may have been panicked off by Curse of Cowardly Flight, in which case the Wild Riders would have charged, causing them to flee again (likely through the Outriders) so the Wild Riders would have a failed charge. Even if they didn’t, I’d move them to this position – at long range for Outriders, so only being hit on 6s (behind the cover of the BSB). If the Outriders shoot the BSB, he is Evasive and will Fall Back through the (Immune to Pyschology) Wild Riders and be unable to be shot. I’m more concerned about the Steam Tank cannoning off the BSB (it can’t see anything on the other side of the forest), but a lot of things would have to go right for Ben in order to one-shot the BSB – I’d probably lose another Wild Rider though. If the Archers aren’t fleeing, the Spellweaver will attempt to Fireball them. I’d also try to cast Pillar of Fire in front of the Steam Tank, although I suspect it wouldn’t last long given his two Wizards.

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy, but I think this will be a decent start. Depending on what survives the shooting, I should have plenty of combo charge targets for my Attack Wing to hit. Ideally, I’ll be able to charge and overrun into a combat not-yet-fought, so that I can maximize damage output, but a lot will depend on how Ben moves.

Here’s how it might look at the bottom of Turn 1. I’ve lost some Wild Riders and Glade Guard to shooting, and most of the Glade Riders died to the HBVG. The Knights took 4 Eternal Guard to the grave, in return for 2 of their own number, and so they Stubbornly Fall Back and reform to for the Knights to open up their flank. The Eagle beside the Eternal Guard might also be dead from Cannonfire – about 60% chance it will survive, once all the rolls are taken into consideration (shot, bounce, to wound and number of wounds), so I’ve kept it on the battlefield. It’ll charge the Hellblaster, and the one beside the outriders on the Feigned Glank will charge the cannon. The Glade Guard … do something … anything!

Depending on whether the Knights who charge the Eagle can restrain or not will dictate what I do next. The Eagle is most likely dead, but it has a chance of living on 1 wound – I’ve treated it as dead. The Knights might reform and present a front arc for Wild Riders and Lord to charge into, and given how close the units are, the Knights won’t be able to Counter Charge. Otherwise, they’ll overrun into the Glade Riders and the Lord and Wild Riders will likely get flank and rear charges. Either way, that Knight unit is toast – the Wild Riders will delete that unit on their own. I suspect I would instead charge the Lord into the Knights on the left, providing some much needed punch to my Eternal Guard, but it’s also OK to leave them to duke it out for another turn or two. Given that the Wizards are all in combat, my Spellweaver should be able to put a Pillar of Fire in front of the Steam Tank. Likely the Outriders will fire and flee from the Wild Rider + BSB charge, but not much I can do about that. Perhaps the Wizard will be able to get them in range of a fireball. With luck I can avoid the Steam Tank, and maybe use Arcane Urgency to move the Wilders back toward the fight. Remember Swiftstride is optional, so you can add it to the roll of a Failed Charge or not, as suits you.

So here we are at the top of turn 2. I’m avoiding the Steam Tank, everything is engaged in 2-on-1 combats, except the Eternal Guard who are doing their job of holding up a combat unit. All the war machines are in combat, and Outriders are fleeing possibly for good (they’ll take another BSB charge if they do rally), while the other Outriders have no targets. Most likely I will spend a turn bringing all my units around to chase down everything on the Feigned Flank, but really the teeth have been removed from this army at this point. The Alpha Strike has happened, even though not everything made it into combat. The Attack Flank has been more or less won already, which allows your units to sweep to the left and finish off the feigned flank. The game isn’t won yet, but it’s looking good for the Asrai.

Summary

I really like this style of play. While there are no Forest Spirits in this list, it is a combat heavy Wood Elf list which really makes me happy to play. It’s not shy about combat, it just has to be smart about it.

1. Sell the idea that you are deploying on the feigned flank
2. Stop reinforcements with the Eternal Vanguard
3. Deliver your Attack Wing safely up the Attack Flank using Glade Riders and the Woodland Ambush Forest as cover.
4. Push as much to the flank and the back of the board as you can.
5. Eagles and Spellweaver can really help provide board control.
6. 360° charge arcs on your two combat characters are very good, use ’em!
7. Glade Guard will … do something … anything!

Many thanks to Ben for helping out with prepping this article, and to Cerve for the excellent tip with Drilled and Arcane Urgency. Keen to hear what you think of this idea, if you have any other combos in your pocket that would work well with it, or experience running similar lists!