Strength and Weaknesses

When trying to decide whether to play an army or how to play one’s chosen army, we often look at the army’s strengths and weaknesses. When your opponent is unknown, the most you can do is try to design your army and strategies to minimize your weaknesses and maximize your strengths. So, let’s look at both of these topics.

Wood Elf Weaknesses

Every army has characteristics that are weaker than other Warhammer armies. The trick is to know your weaknesses so you can keep your opponent from exploiting them. Minimizing your exposure to threats that might prey on your weak points is a huge step in devising a winning strategy.

1. Expensive Troops. Wood Elf armies field a small number of elite troops that are quite costly. No cannon fodder here; the cheapest soldier in a Wood Elf army costs 12 points. Having costly troops means that your force will be smaller than the average army you face, and you will often be outnumbered either in unit size or number of units on the battlefield.
2. Frail. All Elves, right up to the mightiest Highborn, have a Toughness of 3. At the Core troop level, this Toughness is on par with humans and many other troops in the Warhammer world. At the Character level, this Toughness is on the delicate side.
3. Unarmored. Wood Elf armor is all but non-existent. A significant portion of the army has no armor at all, and even the best-protected units have nothing to brag about.
4. Lack Ranks. In the entire Wood Elf list, only three units have the ability to get a rank bonus for combat resolution: Glade Guard, Tree Kin, and Eternal Guard. Glade Guard are archers with no armor and mere hand weapons. To form blocks of these models and send them into combat would spell certain death for them. Tree Kin are expensive, and a second rank would cost another 210 points. Therefore, the only unit that can be reasonably organized to fight in ranks is the Eternal Guard.
5. Negating Rank Bonus. With so many units that are Skirmishers and Flyers, few of the Wood Elf units have the ability to negate the enemy’s rank bonus. Only six of the 12 units in the Wood Elf army book can negate the enemy’s rank bonus when they engage in the flank or rear of an enemy unit with a regiment that has Unit Strength of 5 or more.