Reader Question

It's been a while since I had checked the blog's e-mail and was surprised to see a couple of new questions. As I haven't had an opportunity to answer many questions lately, I thought I would post the question and answer it here. Note, I did answer the e-mail directly, but thought that the topic would be a good post.

This is the gist of what I received:

"I'm pulling out my Wood Elves and looking for list ideas/help, particularly with computing Swedish composition. I am having trouble understanding how composition is calculated on all the arrows/archers. Here is what I am thinking of for a coming tournament, and I think it is going to get comped really hard.

Lords:Spellweaver - Lv4, Dispel Scroll, Talisman of Preservation, Longbow, Shadow magic ( seems like a hard comp hit ) 

Heroes:Glade Captain - Hail of Doom Arrow, Enchanted Shield, Opal Amulet, ALongbow, ASpear, BSB, ESteed 

Core:17x Glade Guard - Trueflight,  Gleaming Pen, Musician
10x Glade Guard - Trueflight , Musician
10x Glade Guard - Trueflight , Musician 

Special:9x Wild Riders - Shields, Flame banner
7x Wild Riders - Shields
7x Wild Riders - Shields
3x Warhawk Riders
5x Deepwood Scouts - Starfire 

Rare:Great Eagle
10x Waywatchers
10x Waywatchers 

Any thoughts/ideas to help make it a little bit more comp friendly while maintaining its power? 

Also, I'd like to throw the Mask of Eeee in the list as a Terror bomb item. What do you think? What do you think of the "frog scroll?" What do you think of the Lore of Undeath, both in general and for certain various armies out there?"

It was an interesting question. I don't generally get people asking me about army lists, but it seems with my near constant focus on Swedish Composition and the general trend towards more tournaments using the system, that my limited knowledge is being requested. Here is what I told the reader:

Thank you for all your comments and feedback about the blog. It is a big commitment and it is always worthwhile to know that someone is reading and enjoying it. I like your Wood Elf list, and in an uncomped environment, I believe that it would perform very well. Unfortunately, as this point it really gets nailed in the Swedish system. Take a look at how this army currently comps:

Shadowweaver (-47), BSB (-17), 17 man GG unit (-8), 10 man GG unit (-8), 10 man GG unit (-8), 9 man Wild Rider unit (-19), 7 man Wild Rider unit (-17), 7 man Wild Rider unit (-23), warhawks (-6), deepwood scouts (-3), great eagle (-5), 10 man Waywatcher unit (-17), 10 man Waywatcher unit (-29), fast cavalry penalty (-7), shooting penalty (-43), scout penalty (-5) for a total composition score of 3.6. This score is lower than the 6 point minimum for most Swedish composition tournaments.

Here are a few recommendations for scaling the list back and giving it a better composition score without loosing too much power. First, take the Wild Riders to units of 6. In units of 6, they aren't comped nearly as hard (see -9 versus -14 or more) for the loss of only a single model in some of your units. At six you also aren't losing that much hitting power because very few units will have frontage large enough for all seven Wild Riders to attack and you don't want to waste models on the charge. The unit of 9 I believe is unnecessary in your list because you are not taking combat characters to back the unit up as a main combat bus. Especially as the unit itself does not have a ward save and will put a big target on the toughness 3, 4+ save unit from enemy archers and magic missiles. Part of the strength in the Wild Riders is that they are cheap enough to have multiple units that hit hard, but that don't draw your opponents focus. A unit of 9 would definitely become a priority target. Just taking these units down to three units of 6 each with shields saves you over 25 comp points and brings the list over a 6. (First unit costs -9, second unit -12, third unit -18 and a reduction in the fast cavalry penalty).

Second, the archers should either be one large unit of Trueflight (like around 20 to 23) or two units of Trueflight (one at 13 and one at 12). This allows you to maximize the Trueflight arrows without taking the additional penalty for over 25 models with either Trueflight or Hagbane. I would then take another unit of archers at probably 12 (keeping with your original number of 37 archers) and give them either Swiftshiver of Starfire arrows depending on your meta. If you think there will be lots of elves, Tomb kings, or low toughness armies I would go with Swiftwhiver. If you think there will be a lot of Daemons or Warriors of Chaos, I would take Starfire to help kill monsters. Neither of these archer types takes an additional composition penalty, and is actually cheaper, comp wise, than a unit of Trueflight arrows which will save you a few points. Keeping your total number of Trueflight archers to twenty-five will also save you in the archer penalty. From your original list to the example above you would save roughly 28 comp points (you save a lot in the archer penalty because each model with Trueflight over 25 counts as two archers). Making this change with the Wild Rider change above, and your list is already in the 8 range which is much higher than the original list and without too many tweaks or really reducing the army's power too much.

These are just two ideas that would really swing this list into playable territory at Swedish Comp tournaments.

As you your question about the Mask of Eee. I don't think it would be useful in this list. You aren't running a bunker, and there aren't many armies out there that can't get around a terror bomb. You basically need to add another cheap character to use this effectively without losing too many points, and I just feel that there will be too many times where a unit makes its check and you are now stuck charging a unit that will easily kill a Wood Elf character. Now if this was like 7th Edition when you could terror bomb units within 6" I would say go for it. But in 8th edition, with the list style you have going, I think it is a waste of 25 points plus the character cost.

Oh, the Hex Scroll. I love the hex scroll. I try and find a way to put this into most of my lists if I am at least running two mages. This is one of the funniest items in the game, and though it does cost a whopping 50 points in an Arcane item slot (where most of the best items in the game hang out), this item can be absolutely game changing. A warlock bus with characters is getting to close to your lines? Well turn a warlock into a frog and now the unit can only move 1". Daemon prince too close? Frog it and watch it die to mass shooting. Because the hex scroll drops all the models stats to 1 and they lose magic items, etc. it really is game changing, even if they don't become a frog. This item stops wizards from trying low level spells that are not as game changing because your opponent is worried that you will just let it through and turn them into a frog ruining the rest of their phase. I really love any item that forces your opponent to change his battle strategy and I think that this is one of the best items to do so.

Finally, as to the Lore of Undeath. I think that it is a really great and interesting lore. It definitely has its place in the tournament scene and certain armies can really make use of it more than others. The best army, of course, is Tomb Kings which can make sure it is generating enough dice to really put a couple of units on the board each turn. I have also seen it used with particular effectiveness with armies like Bretonnians which need to guarantee certain combats. Throwing up some ethereal creatures around the board to block flanking avenues is a great trick for that army. But, I find that for most armies, it becomes secondary to the regular caster. Most other armies have some weakness that a particular magical lore can help fix, but the Lore of Undeath is not a fixing lore. It doesn't help your own troops becomes better or hurt your opponents troops. Instead, it creates units on the board to bottle neck your opponent or bog them down. This can be useful, but because the spells are cost intensive, unless you have a way to maximize spell dice each phase, you are probably only going to get one spell off each turn (if lucky). I thought about the Lore of Undeath in Wood Elves to help offset certain match-ups, but I just couldn't find the dice to throw at the spells. I always wanted to some spell from another lore because it would benefit me immediately rather than in a turn or two.

I hope this answers your questions.


As usual, if you have any questions about Warhammer, or army lists, or the like, you can always e-mail me at westcoastwarhammer[at]gmail[dot]com. I always answer my e-mails, even if a little late. And if the question or topic is good, you may see your question up on the blog.