Musings of a monkey...

[Monkey King]

And so it is that after reading my own battle reports, I was slightly inspired to write up a topic (though that statement made me chortle) about my forays at the cityguard, and so we have:

Act 1. Scene 1. Fondly named: learn the rules dumbass.

So, I've returned back to Auckland amidst a fanfare and dozens of fireworks overhead I have mentioned I play DnD and various other role playing games yes? I live in my own little world a lot, my doctor says I'm fine, I have a certificate that says I'm not crazy! I walked across the threshold of cityguard, setup and waited for my first prey.

Phil and I had already organized a game, and so it was I sadly dusted off the Dwarfs okay, I said I wasn't going to play them again, but one last foray wasn't going to be too bad right? and decided for something completely off the wall and weird. This is the general warning now, if you play dwarfs in any respect, avert your eyes. I took Bugman, 2 Runesmiths, 2 units of miners, 2 units of rangers and 2 gyrocopters.

Much fun and mirth was had when my deployment consisted of the 2 gyrocopters and that was it. The plan was to run a refused flank on Phil, run in the miners where needed and all up, just enjoy the game. Now, I've said it before, and at some point I'm going to lose the chance to say this, but I haven't had many games at all of 8th edition, so, I setup the scouts to the side of a forest.....7th edition they had to be out of line of sight?!

That was pretty much the end of he game.

*sigh* fine, the scouts were way too far out of position and I for got to move them the first turn. The 2nd turn only 1 unit of miners turned up and so it was that Phil took apart my army piecemeal..... but it was fun to be able to play again. Oh, the 2nd unit of miners failed 2 seperate charges needing only to roll more than 3.....failing. ...twice....I doubt I'll be taking them down off the shelf anytime soon....

So, I'll be running woodies, I've been offered ogres and gobbos, which makes me suspicious of Placator's motives, so I'll be taking wood elves and losing with them instead.....we ll, until I have the models I want for tomb kings....

All up, the last throw in of the dwarfs was fun, and playing something so off the wall like I did was great....

This is MK signing off....

[nik_]

So, I'll be running woodies,....so I'll be taking wood elves and losing with them instead.....we ll, until I have the models I want for tomb kings....

That's the spirit Always happy to see another Wood Elf player

[wouster7]

Thanks Monkey King for showing me the ways of Doofs and Special characters. I've never played against 'Bugman', and I was really looking forward to it. I thought he'd be the shizz and then found out that he let you only have 2 Gyrocopters for deployment and the rest of the army scouted or ambushed, lols. You were unlucky with only one unit of miners coming on in the 2nd turn. The game was onto turn 3 like in 20 minutes.

Cool moments for me in the game was hey look you've only got 2 kopters oh whta da rest of your army ambushes ohoh. Plus what Bugman only has 2 wounds... he needs to drink more beer!

Keen as to get more games against ya.

[Monkey King]

So, I've now set my sights on the lofty heights of the Woodies, I wanted a change from the Dwarfs and I suppose with the treehuggers the only way I cold have gotten further was Warmachine?! so, I wanted to throw a list at you all to get a reading, i'll most probably be bringing it in on Sunday if anyone wants to smash me?

Spellweaver
Level 3 beasts
Stone of the Crystal Mere
Deepwood Sphere
Replendence of Luminiscents
Annoyance of Nettlings
(accompanies Wardancers?)

Spellweaver
Level 4 Life
Dispel Scroll

Glade Guard x 12
Stnd, Mus
Flaming banner
Glade Guard x 10
Glade Guard x 10
Glade Guard x 10
Glade Guard x 10
Glade Guard x 10
dryads x 8
Dryads x 8

Wildriders x 5
Chmp, Mus
Wildriders x 5
Chmp, Mus
Wardancers x 10
Chmp

Waywatchers x 5
Waywatchers x 5
Great Eagle
Great Eagle

Tournament wise around here it's completely illegal because of the amount of shots I've got going on, but.....it's wood elves? What more did you expect?

Any comments are more than welcome....

[nik_]

I've been considering a double spell weaver list myself, though I'd go double lore of beasts with lvl3's. Aside from the Dwellers Below I don't really see what the Life wizard adds to this kind of list.

The lvl3 has some fun kit, though I'd question the need for the resplendence of luminescents - one of the advantages of the wood elf list is that many of our troops have magical attacks built in (dryads and wildriders in your list) and they should normally be enough to take out the few ethereal things around.
The Deepwood Sphere will ruin someone's day every now and again, but I think it synergises better with a mounted mage. In 7th edition I had a list designed to cope with dragons - a glamourweave kindred lvl4 beast mage with the netlings and a ward save, in a unit of wild riders with the warbanner. Dragons really didn't appreciate taking break tests at -3 or so turn after turn. Maybe that's still a possibility in 8th?

The rest of the list is quite solid. I would suggest considering musicians on at least some of the Glade Guard units though, as a swift reform can be a very valuable tool. You'll also appreciate the +1 to rally, seeing as you haven't got a BSB for the re-rolls. Although it's contrary to the style of this list, I also swear by a units of 12 with full command - they're usually quite happy to stand up to and often beat off small units, where a 10 man unit will die.

[Monkey King]

The healing one and wood attack one come in pretty handy as well for woodies. I'm looking at running the beasts wizard with the Wardancers, so the resplendence gives them magic attacks as well good against say daemons and what not purple sun!

I'm just going through lists and stuff before I start finalizing a list and I'll tell you how I go with them. I may need to make the wild riders into one unit to get it to really hit, but I don't know just yet...

[Monkey King]

and so we have the opening scene set for

Act 1, Scene 2: enter the pointy eared.

So, I played the list above and the guy I played was Aaron, a lovely guy, one of those guys who is nice, laid back, easy to get along with, just a guy you wouldn't be ashamed to take home and show to your parents (mine live in Colorado, so if Aaron is shouting, by all means I'll show him to them)

Now, what makes Aaron just a great bloke, and something I'm hoping to get from everyone I play for the next few months or so, but it was patience No, not the card game, butI think with the way he deals with the dark gods he could probably whip my ass at that as well! asit was, I warned him before hand I didn't have a firm grasp of the fantasy rules, although better than my grasp of the 40K ones, and Aaron took it all in stride by rubbing his hands gleefully together and preparing the butcher knives on my poor defenceless army (Ijest by the way)

So, I think the first thing I can point out is I have lots and lots of units and the deployment for me was difficult. Just the sheer number of units I couldn't really work out aside from the divertagles what I could deploy as just throw aways to see where Aaron was going. Okay, fine, right towards me was the right answer in which direction he was going..... Aaron took what he advised was his run of the mill list. A large unit of Bloodletters, a large unit of Plaguebearers, 2 beasts of Nurgle, a Fiend of Slaanesh, a small unit of horrors, a small unit of flamers and a bloodthirster. I've only ever faced one other Bloodthirster before, and in that one he didn't do much at all Purple Sun!So I really wanted to see how hard one would be to take down.

Some points from the battle. Flamers are pretty nasty. I tried to take them down with shooting which in the end was the wrong option. I should have held back the wildhunters and charged in with them, dryads and maybe the waywatchers. I think with that amount of chargers I might of actually taken them out? Although on a good note, I'm going to drop a unit of waywatchers and increase one of the units of wildriders to 10, so that was one good thing.

A Bloodthirster although a nasty nasty combat machine, isn't actually all that tough. I sadly won't be as afraid of them in the future as I was before its a sad day,but one which in the future shall be commemorated as "No longer as scared of Bloodthirsters as I was before Day"......Yeah, I'm not so great on the whole naming business.

One thing that really busted my gameplan was a wood. Yeah, sounds strange, but I actually entered a wood and rolled a Blood one where any spell caston a unit partially or fully in the forest, or any spell cast from it, caused d6 s4 hits. This sucked my gameplan out as I walked in with my beast wizard,and so from there, I couldn't pump him up for combat and so forth, shame really. Also the Deepwood Sphere seems very situational, but I think if I make my own forest and actually use to my advantage I can set it up quite nicely to work in my favour.

I think I might look at dropping a unit of the gladeguard as well and grab another unit of wardancers. These guys were pretty good. All up, I really enjoyed the game, it's kind of got me fired up again to play Fantasy, which is a shame, because Dan (Placator) has been losing his interest in it lately.

Aaron. You sirare a king among.....errr daemons? I throughly enjoyed the game, would love to play you again another day.

For now, this is MK signing off.

[Monkey King]

So, I've made some changes to the list after being soundly thumped by Aaron the other week:

Spellweaver
Level 3 beasts
Stone of the Crystal Mere
Deepwood Sphere
Annoyance of Nettlings
(accompanies Wardancers)

Spellweaver
Level 4 Life
Dispel Scroll

Glade Guard x 12
Stnd, Mus
Flaming banner
Glade Guard x 12
Stnd
Glade Guard x 12
Glade Guard x 12
dryads x 8
Dryads x 7

Wildriders x 10
Chmp, Mus
Wildriders x 5
Chmp, Mus
Wardancers x 10
Chmp
Wardancers x 10
Champ

Waywatchers x 5
Great Eagle
Great Eagle

And Aaron was awesome enough to point out that the previous list was fine within the tournament restrictions, so now I'm going to keep on trying to make better lists, get some functioning through without using treekin or a treeman....I just don't want to be dependent on them for now....

Any comments are more than welcome....

[Monkey King]

Anybody would think I were going to start taking Vampire Counts with the way I raised this topic from the dead?!

Anyways, it's been a while, I think I was actually pretty discouraged by the fact that I wasn't up on the play with 8th edition and how random terrain woods screw me over a lot as wood elves.....anyw ays, I've gotten over that and have re-jigged my list yet again, I kind of needed to as now I am looking to go to NiCon.....yes, the monkey is going to another tournament, strangely enough, it's been a year since my last one where I did ok, especially with 7 years off from the game and one whole edition rule change.

So, NiCon is coming and not only do I have a crap load of models to paint, I also have a list to hash out....as such, I'm going to try....

Spellweaver
Lvl 4 (Life)
Scroll
Glamourweave

Spellweaver
Lvl 4 (Beasts)
Annoyance of Nettlings
Stone of Crystal Mere
Deepwood Sphere
Merciws Locus
(Accompanies Wardancers)

Noble
Wild Rider Aspect
Elven Steed
Twilight SPear
Helm of the Hunt
(Accompanies Wild Riders)

20 Glade Guard
FC
Flaming banner

12 Glade guard
FC

12 Glade Guard
C & S

8 Wardancers

6 Treekin

9 wildriders
FC
Dwindling banner

2 eagles


So, any thoughts on the layout? I've a got a soft hammer and anvil going on, but more like a delayer and flanker action setup?

[Chaoswolf]

Nicon? Splendiferous!
Something in the woods these days, I have a friend trying to ressurect his wood-elf dream as well!

Double L4's means tough times for the remaining troops if the winds of magic blow foul, I would not do it unless you can augment your magic phase to a semblence of reliability. Delicious warpstone, Caskets'n'heirophants, that sort of thing.

But, i never understood woodeleves, and look forward to whatever flavour you bring.

[Gas_Monkey]

Hey mate, you watched me push my woodies on Sunday vs. Warriors the only thing I would say is without any boosts not enough power dice for double level 4 I would got 1 or thother, my current preference beasts dropping one will give you another 20 odd shots

[Monkey King]

I don't know if I'll be relying on the magic that much. My game plans don't really revolve or are centered on getting any particular spell off. Having left an army that had no real magic (unless your name is Big D and you rock the anvil to great effect) I just wanted to mix it up a little was all. If they happen to get certain spells off, then all the better, if not, oh well, plan A in action....(plan B is to moan about my dice/ cheesiness of my opponent/ tiredness/ heat/ malnourishment/ Joseph Kony/ the fact I haven't gotten around to Tomb Kings yet/ my opponents stunning army putting me off/ the fact I'm from South Auckland...... in that order.)

I like the look of beasts, though life is so tasty with woodies. I'll give this a run during the week sometime, or Sunday and see if it's viable or as you suggest, drop one, then pick up some more shots or another "heavy hitter" unit, maybe even try a scroll caddy and more shots?

[Gas_Monkey]

Yeah if your not relying on it your carrying heaps of points in wizards and easy to kill. Either go live and heaps of trees or maybe more characters and beasts. You need to figure out what role your units forfill as wood elves are not forgiving

[Monkey King]

Yeah, never thought of that. The excitement of taking a new race that can not only move BUT cast spells as well....Hrm, I'm suddenly looking at the list and thinking I'm in need of a bsb to stand in line with the guard.

Rehash in progress. Cheers guys for the clarity I needed

[Gas_Monkey]

Bsb and Mage lord are all I run you need your archers to move + shoot reform is key so Bsb for reroll key stick him in with the big unit hail of doom asendi's bane FTW

[Monkey King]

Ok, so I need a hand with the rehash.

So far I've got

Spellweaver level 4 (beasts)
Glamourweave
Loren bow
Arcane bodkins

Noble bsb
Asyendis bane
Star fire arrows

Noble wildrider
Steed
Twilight spear
Helm of the hunt

20 glade guard
Fc
Flaming banner

10 glade guard
Champ

10 glade guard
Champ

10 glade guard
Champ

10 wardancers
Champ

9 Wildriders
Full command
Dwindling banner

6 treekin

2 great eagles

I have 107 points left over. I'm not too sure if I want to take 8 more glade guard, 5 scouts and another banner somewhere to try and counter blood and glory a little, drop the mages bow stuff and pick up an 8 man unit of dryads with champ and throw in some standards?

I feel 50 shots is fine to work with. 40 doesn't seem enough and 60 seems excessive?

I had thought of taking a lvl 1 tree singer just to zoom forward, tag the closest forest to something particularly nasty and zoom back, but then thought I'm offering easy points to my opponent for a maybe tactic.

[Gas_Monkey]

Better list, bow of Loren wasted on the Mage because she only has 1 attack so only 1 shot. Better on a lord 4 shots no armor save if your going to run it. Never leave home without at least two X 8 units of dryads for chaf

[Monkey King]

yeah.....I hadn't even noticed that....

I have a list in mind which I shall have to test this weekend.....ha ve a go and see how it runs.