Wood Elves – Great Eagles

Great Eagles are the third and final choice in the Rare section of the Wood Elf army roster. I’m going to cover their usage just as a standalone Monstrous Creature, not as a mount because their role is very different in each circumstance (so I’ll take a look at that in a later article).

This is really an article about chaff. (Back in the 8th ed. Dimensional Cascade podcast days, we did a segment about chaff (starts around 1h: 30m, in case you’re interested – most of the info is still relevant to Old World). I’ll try to summarize the relevant bits here). But it’s also an article about the Great Eagle, who has some jobs that it can do better than other potential chaff units in the Wood Elf list. First off though, let’s look at the stats and special rules.

Profile of a Great Eagle

The key stats for the Great Eagle are having a high WS of 5, which means it hits most things it’s fighting on 3s. It has S4 and T4, the former really helping it to wound in combat, and the latter occasionally keeping it alive a bit longer (sadly, no armour save on a great big bird). It has I4, 3 Wounds and 3 Attacks (plus a Stomp), so it’s a bit more dangerous than it might first appear. This is a a high enough amount of damage output to have a good chance of winning a combat where the enemy has no static combat res (i.e. other chaff, war machines, and so forth).

It’s attacks are subdivided into one attack with the Serrated Maw and 2 Claw attacks (plus the Stomp obviously). The Maw is Armour Bane (2), Multiple Wounds (2), vs the Claws which are straight up AP -2. I wish you could opt to have three claw attacks but it’s not an option, so just bring a different colour dice for the beak attack.

In terms of special rules, it’s a Monstrous Creature, with Close Order (but sadly not enough Unit Strength to get the +1 to combat res) and it causes Fear (which is more useful as a way to avoid having to take Fear tests than it is in terms of actually ever making anyone else afraid). But the two primary special rules that make it such a useful unit are the Fly (10) and Swiftstride rules, making it very mobile.

So, now we know the basics of it, all the stuff you could get from reading the army book entry. But what is it about that these Eagles that really does make them Great?

Chaff – Great Eagle job #1

Chaff is:

1. Under 100 points
2. Ideally under 50 points
3. Very mobile
4. Expected to die

The Great Eagle punches in at 60 points, which is a bit shy of our ideal under #2, but it checks all the other boxes. It is in fact our cheapest unit, aside from having 5 Glade Guard (who are meh at being chaff, in case you’re curious, becuase they aren’t very mobile).

Here is a list of uses for chaff in Warhammer: The Old World in general, not just for the Great Eagle, but I’ll use the Great Eagle as the example in each case.

1. Control opponent’s frenzied troops
2. Delay or redirect other troops
3. Another drop during deployment
4. Meat shield

Controlling frenzied troops

For those of you who haven’t seen #1 in play before, here’s what it looks like. Make sure you’ve read all the rules about arcs and charging before you try to do this (p. 127 TOW). The reason that this works with a Great Eagle is because it is not a skirmisher (it is Close Order). E.g. this tactic would not work the same way with a unit of 5 Dryads. If you play other armies, choose your chaff for this role wisely. Apologies that the screen grabs from the Herald Battle Reporter aren’t all the same size (hmm, maybe I should add that as a feature ….) Anyhoo, where was I? Oh yes, the tactic!

The Great Eagle has flown up 1″ in front of this Minotaur unit (Minotaurs hit really hard, but are Frenzied). It’s flank is facing the unit and the Eagle is turned to look along the front of the enemy. The Eagle is in the front arc by beign placed off-center. As you can see here, 2 of 3 models in the front rank of the Minotaurs are in the front arc of the Eagle (it’s a good idea to tell your opponent what you are trying to do as you do it, so you can agree on positioning to ensure you get the effect you want). So now the Minotaurs must charge the Eagle and that charge will be in the Eagle’s front arc. The Eagle takes the charge, and the Minotaurs are forced to pivot 90° (away from the squishy and expensive Elves!) and, due to Frenzy, they can’t make a restraint test and are forced to overrun 2d6″ in the wrong direction!

Delaying and Redirecting

This is really the generalized case of the frenzy tactic above. Sometimes your enemy has a unit you just don’t want to engage with – with Wood Elves, that’s something with high toughness and wounds (you know, the stuff we want to shoot with Blackbriar Javelins and Habgane Tips) – but that’s too mobile to get a lot of time shooting at it. Or perhaps you’ve realized you’ve deployed wrongly and you need a turn to reposition key units before being able to properly countercharge with your Wild Riders. Sometimes it’s turn 5 and you just need to stop a charge on turn 6 and you need a speed bump. Whatever it is, you need a bit of time, and so you throw your chaff at the problem.

Part of the reason that the Great Eagle excels at this is due to having the Fly (10) rule and a 50mm base. Fly (10) means it can march up to 20″ and remember, you can still wheel while you march. A 90° wheel for 50mm wide unit uses up 3.1″ of movement, so any pivots you make while you’re flying will use up 3.1″ per right angle. Unless you’re really badly placed, that means you should be able to fly 15″ in the right direction and still be able to pivot to present a front flank. Even if you need to fly behind you, a 180 pivot about the corner only costs you 6.2″ so you can still fly 13.8″ – call it 13.5″ which is a pretty useful distance.

Deployment Drops

The only hidden information in most games of Warhammer is how your opponent is going to deploy. One list building strategy is to take plenty of chaff, like half a dozen units or more. By placing your chaff units first, you can force your opponent to start committing to where their forces are going to be deployed before you have to do the same. One reason I think the game is aimed at 2,500 points is to start to allow these kinds of strategies in the meta. Playing at 2,500 points allows up to 6 Great Eagles (my gut says 4 or maybe 5 is the right number), but that’s 4 (or maybe 5) drops where I’ve given pretty much no tactical information away to my opponent. Remember that all war machines drop at the same time, as do all characters. You won’t be able to outchaff every army (our nemeses the Beastmen have very good and much cheaper chaff options for instance).

One of the key advantages for Wood Elves is our mobility. Think of extra chaff units as being our ‘mobility’ in the deployment phase. In fact, one tactic I’ve occasionally used is the Feigned Flank, where the first 4-6 units I deploy are all on one side of the board (let’s use the left side in this example), but all those units are chaff (I include small units of infantry in this category of chaff). I wait to see if my opponent will place something tactically significant to engage on that flank, and they often do. I’ll try to keep them deploying on the left flank by placing the Wild Riders or some other Fast Cavalry unit out on the same flank (but maybe just left of centre). Then I place all the rest of my army on the right flank. All the chaff and fast movers can ‘redeploy’ in turn 1 by using their mobility and the space available to pull back over to the right flank, or they can move forward and act as speed bumps as normal.

Meat Shield

This is not a role that the Great Eagle is good at, but I’m including it for completeness sake. Sometimes your chaff unit exists to prevent your, uh, wheat? unit from being shot at. You literally put the tougher/cheaper/throw-away unit in front of the squishier/more expensive/can-actually-kill-things unit, so that the chaff unit is taking the enemy fire. The Great Eagle isn’t too good at this because it’s one model on a 50mm square base, but Dryads are good at this for shielding infantry, and Glade Riders for cavalry.

#2: War Machine Hunting

Another major role for Great Eagles is to hunt down enemy war machines. Typically, these are high toughness to shoot at, but only T3 in combat (T4 for Dwarfs). With the Great Eagle getting 3 WS5 attacks and a Stomp all at S4, they’ve got excellent chances at being able to take out a war machine in one round of combat. A 20″ march (minus whatever you need to make a the final pivot to put the war machine in charge range) plus a 19″ declarable charge range means you’re usually able to charge a war machine at the start of T2, and potentially survive to then hit the next war machine or perform some other chaff role.

#3: Bunkered Wizard Hunting

This one is a little unusual, but it’s a reasonable third option for your Eagles. Lots of players put their Wizard into a bunker of infantry or cavalry in order to make them harder to target (i.e. not get shot). However, an Eagle can charge the unit and because the Wizard (usually) has to be in the front rank, they can charge into base contact. The point here is that the Eagle will likely die, but you’re hoping to take 1-2 wounds off the Wizard who normally has no Armour Save and a WS of 4 or less, as you’re normally hitting on 3s and wounding on 3s or 4s. If you’re really lucky, the Eagle will survive for a round and prevent the Wizard from casting the following turn, and at the very least you prevent them from dispelling on this turn. Depending on how the enemy unit is configured, you may just want to use the chaff block like in Controlled Frenzied Troops in #1 above and force them to charge you.

Lots of folks like to put the Wizard in the corner of the unit, to minimize contact when charged in the front by another unit, but this can work to our advantage. In this example, there’s a Bray Shaman in the corner of the unit of Bestigor. By parking right in front of the Shaman, you are blocking line of sight for spells. “Ah, but the Bestigor unit can just shuffle sideways rather than charge,” I hear you say. They can, at which point you are most likely able to flank charge the Wizard and accomplish the same thing likely without dying (although the Eagle will need to be more at an angle like in the second picture to pull that off). And you’ve stopped that unit from moving for a turn.

Summary

So, now that I’ve gone through all three Rare options (Treemen, Waywatchers and now Great Eagles), I think it’s possible to justify each of these in the army, but in reality the role played by Waywatchers can also be played by other units, whereas nothing else can really be the Great Eagle or the Treeman. And with such tight points constraints on Rare, it’ll depend a lot on how many points the game is as to whether you bring a Treeman or not. Not all army styles will want a Treeman along as they are slow (compared with cavalry, scouts, etc.)

I think at 2,000 points (with 500 Rare points to play with), I’d want to bring a minimum of 3 Great Eagles, because I feel like I need to protect my squishy elves from uncomfortable charges. That only leaves enough to bring one Treeman. You can squeeze two Treemen in at 2,500 points and still have 3 Great Eagles, but I suspect I might want 4 at that many points. Will have to playtest some more and see.

If you’re gung ho for your Waywatchers, then leave your Treeman at home because the Great Eagle is perhaps one of the best units for supporting the Wood Elf play style–avoiding your enemy until the odds favour you the best, while peppering with plenty of arrows (and javelins!).