Author Archive

Cutting Trees

by Ted Royston - July 29th, 2009

In my last article, I wrote in detail on the various options available to a Wood Elf player and how to use them to make an ass kicking army. I’ve probably inspired a few amongst you to pick up Wood Elves since then, after all, it was a really good article. What’s worse is that I might have inspired one of your friends or a member of your European Style Gaming Club (more on that later) to start a Wood Elf army. If that’s the case, you’re probably yelling, “how the fuck do I stop these half naked, pointy eared pedos and their naked wooden girlfriends from kicking my balls in?”

fry-stress

If you’re yelling that or something similar, this is the article for you. If you’re playing your own Wood Elf army, you should still read this but deny its existence to any of your friends (or club members). Unlike my last article which gave you a unit by unit rundown, this one is much more general in its scope. There’s two reasons for that. One, I don’t know every trick up every sleeve in the Old World. There’s definitely going to be some guaranteed Wood Elf-killing combo I overlook. Two, GW’s release schedule means that the power balance between different armies is always changing. What I say about Skaven may change in six months. What I say about Tomb Kings may change in a year.

Instead, I’m going to give you a look at the Wood Elves’ weaknesses and let you devise specific schemes to take advantage of them. I’ll mention specific units here and there for example’s sake, but that’s not necessarily a suggestion. Basically what I’m saying is if your Grail Knights end up being slaughtered by some Dryads, don’t call me a faggot. You’re the one who blew the rolls.

So now that I’ve hemmed and hawed and made my little disclaimer, let’s get down to the business of talking about how to fuck up Wood Elves. Let’s start with an overview of how armies interact on the table.

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Tree Hugging

by Ted Royston - July 24th, 2009

Wardancer

The first Fantasy Battles mini I ever bought was a Wood Elf Wardancer. That was back in ‘91, and I’ve been playing them ever since. I’ve had my dalliances with other armies: Orcs & Goblins, Dwarfs, Bretonnians, and I’ll admit I’ve always wanted to put together a nasty Clan Pestilens horde. But I always go back to my Woodies, and Games Workshop helps me along by making them one of the best armies in the game.

It’s appropriate that The Patriot is playing as I sit down to type this. Not because of any joke conflating the Crown’s taxation offenses with GW’s ever climbing prices, but because the film’s battle scenes focus skirmishing irregulars making a joke of rigidly organized battle lines.

Like the “Indian” fighting revolutionaries depicted in that movie, the Wood Elves don’t play by the rules. They don’t maneuver around in large static blocks. They don’t win a fight by piling ranks on banners for combat resolution. There’s not a warmachine or suit of heavy armor to be found in their list. Their basic melee infantry are skirmishers. Their shock cavalry are fast cavalry. Their missile troops work better when you move them. Beyond a statblock shared with the other Elf armies, the Wood Elves have nothing in common with any other army.

Wood Elves win battles by exploiting the tremendous difference between their playstyle and that of more staid Warhammer armies. That line of battle you work out with your Empire or High Elf army means nothing to a Wood Elf general, except as something to pull apart and destroy in pieces.

Whereas most armies work best when you run them like one giant machine, the Wood Elves function best when you think of them as flexible strike forces focused on destroying key parts of that machine. A Wood Elf army is flexible and mobile in ways that Empire and Greenskin players can only dream of. Dwarf and Undead players will gasp at how fast your army can move about the board. Even their cousins, the High and Dark Elves will have a tough time keeping up with a Wood Elf army.

When you look at the Wood Elf army list, you’ll see entry after entry that can move fast and strike hard. You’ll also notice an almost complete lack of armor saves, but that’s mitigated by the fact that you’ll be the one deciding when and where the fight happens.

But enough blathering; let’s take a look at the list, and see what it can do.

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Back to the Hive

by Ted Royston - July 21st, 2009

I’ve been gaming with the same batch of guys for almost ten years now, and the one game that has been a constant for that entire time is Games Workshop’s oft-ignored game of gang warfare in the underbelly of the far future, Necromunda. We’re roleplayers at heart, and Necromunda’s focus on leveling a small group of guys appeals to our wizard- and elf-making hearts.

But that’s not the only reason we’re still playing a fifteen year old game with some pretty dusty rules. I mean, let’s face it– Necromunda is based on the wonky second edition of Warhammer 40,000. The ridiculous prospect of shooting a ganger with a Lascannon attests to that. The game’s only real balance is that just about everybody has the same random access to the same random crazy shit.

And that’s why we still play Necromunda. It’s “balanced” by its randomness. And as long as you take that into account, you can add houseruled nonsense to your heart’s content. We’ve added train robberies, bank heists, and bar brawls. We’ve added Orks, Eldar, Kroot, and Genestealers. We’ve added ultra-rare equipment, upgradable territories, and vehicles. We’ve added all this by following one simple rule. Just make sure that everybody has to roll on the same table, and make sure that a “1″ results in comically awful consequences.

You can expand your Necromunda game to include the whole of the 40K universe, or you can keep it faithful to its hive-gang roots, which by themselves are an excellently generic gang fighting game. The basic game, human gangs using small arms and melee weapons to fight over territories, can be transplanted to many a different setting, be it post-apocalypse, dystopian future, space western, or the back streets of 1930s Chicago. Just muck with the equipment lists a bit and use some different terrain and Necromunda gives you rules for any setting where you want two gangs of guys (or mohawked gals) to shoot the crap out of each other.

The best part about all this is the rules are free. They’re right there for you to download on GW’s site. You can use the miniatures and terrain you already have. It’s a game that will cost you nothing.

And that’s the third reason why we’re still playing Necromunda. It doesn’t cost us a dime. We spent maybe thirty to forty bucks a piece almost ten years ago, and that’s the whole of our Necromunda investment. There are few miniatures games out there that you can get into so cheap, and if you’re already a miniatures gamer, you probably have all the stuff you need.

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