If you controlled Wood Elves and Brettonians.

[Thornblood]

To Further Wildeybeasts very interesting points in a different thread I would like to know how you would fix Wood Elves and Brettonnians.

As pointed out skirmishers, elite units, an cavalry are pretty weak in 8th.

Whilst big units (lots of infantry, monstrous infantry and monsters) are very strong.


My few ideas would be more of 'buffing' armies for the two factions. Heroes that make units stronger so they can hold their own against the tough stuff.

E.g. an evil brettonian baron practised at peasant slaughtering and picking on the little guys. Maybe as a Knights of the realm upgrade and makes the unit good at killing massed infantry?

Quests for heroes? So beast-slayer quests buff the unit? Character slayer quests (killing blow even against monstrous infantry types)?

Lance formation can be made more deadly.

Maybe some good incentive to take loads of men-at-arms, grail pilgrims, and bowmen?

As for wood-elves a good incentive for tonnes of archers and maybe some new monstrous infantry. Maybe something more imaginative than just dead wood re-animated? Looking at forest floor creatures the obvious predators are some kind of large cats but maybe world of warcraft did that to death? Packs of oversized Jaguars as monstrous cavalry? Pigs are fond of the forest floor so maybe a breed of oversized boar/warthogs that the orc pigs are descended from. Maybe black-tusk the one Sigmar killed was the father of these brutal beasts? In fact maybe the same goes for the cats and sabre-tusks are long removed descendants of much larger original pureblood cat species prowling the forests of Athel Loren? Bears feel a little overused and not fresh enough to me. On the other hand maybe there are more original monsters to be created. Maybe the big forest monsters can wear bone-armour?

These are my kick-off thoughts anyway. What do people think?

[CrimsonTurkey]

Historically speaking, knights in a lance formation were often used to break infantry formations. Because of the greater penetration into the enemy regiment panic would also set in more quickly. I think that lance formations should remove some rank bonuses on the charge.

[HaleysRedComet]

Big fan of the lance negating the rank bonus. Though I think that the steadfast rule hurts Brets more I think. I have noticed that it has become much harder to make the enemy run on the first charge. I always have to get them with a second charge before they run in eigth ed.

[Thornblood]

Good mechanic.

Maybe just that Lance negates the Horde rule?

[Kaiserdean]

To fix Wood Elves, you could go a couple of different ways...

The rules for big blocks of hoard troops are one of the elements that many WE players find it difficult to compete against. The WE one has archers that can feasibly take advantage of that rule and it's not really to their benefit. I haven't crunched the numbers, but HE seem to do this better.


To address this, WEs can have more (core) units that can adopt a hoard formation, armed with spears, sword and shied, two hand weapons, or great weapons. I think glade guard should have a couple of options other than just bow and arrow. Even HE have mixed bow and spear units and I think WE could have this as well.

Another option is to have a new rule that negates hoard or rank bonuses. Perhaps WE don't need extra ranks to negate an opponent's rank bonus when attacking on the flank or rear. Another idea is that WEs can create flank units out of their parent units, like every army could do in previous editions after winning a round of close combat.

WEs are over priced. Lower the cost of just about everything in the book, especially cav.

WE magic is fairly limited. In addition to making a more competitive WE only magic list, I'd give them access to Beast, Life, Light and Shadow.

I don't mind the dryads right now, but I would get rid of the vulnerability to magic (same for the treekin) and give them the option to rank up instead of being skirmishers.

Since Dark and High elves have pretty powerful rules in Always Strike First and Hatred, I think the WE need something too. Perhaps the army could gain a feigned flight rule (even models on foot) or the entire army can rally, even if below 25%. Another idea is that the army gets a "first round frenzy" rule where they get a bonus attack in the first round of combat but are not subject to the penalties of regular frenzy.

I'd give Wardancers the "Shadows Coil" dance back to end combat as a stall maneuver. I know that's powerful but giants still have yell and bawl.

The current list doesn't have any "warmachines" or even chariots. Some sort of ambushing style warmachines like spiked logs swinging out of the the woods would make since thematically, but might be difficult to draft rules for. Personally, I don't think chariots or bolt throwers are too far out of character for the WEs, but catapults, cannons, and mortars don't fit in at all.

A lot of players like big monsters and every list seems to have one or two in their army. Tomb Kings have a decent list of models on chariot bases, like the Necropolis Knights / Sepulchral Stalkers, that fit into the special selection and have multiple attacks/special rule. A new mid-level monster rider wouldn't break the theme of the army or be totally out of line. Imagine a WE riding a wyrm or bear into combat.

Just my two cents.

[Wildeybeast]

The question should be, 'how to fix them without losing their unique character?' Having looked at the meta game, I'm honestly not sure they can and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't get updated until the next edition of the rules. I don;t know much about how Brets play, but as WE player I have a few opinions. Firstly, I don't want big blocks of troops. WE are about, small hard hitting but fragile units and that's how they should stay. But that is cack in the meta game as you can't break big units quickly enough and you get swamped, so they need rules help. So here are my thoughts.

Archers: Always fire on unmodified BS, same as TK, and glade guard longbows for eveyone (especially my BSB - why can't he have a bow?:confused:)

Something a bit like beastmen ambush rules (as we are supposed to be the stealth ninjas of the world)

Some funky new forest spirits

Proper magic lore, ideally something that affects terrain and shooting a bit more.

Since we can't beak big units in comabt, we need extra protection in the form of more ward saves or the abiltiy to get out of combat - give more units the hit and run rule from the warhawk riders

MEGA TREEMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and finecasting all that crappy metal stuff would be nice.

Though I'm not sure even all that would fix them. I think I'd rather be left to languish and done properly next ed than have a complete image transplant.

[NonComPoop]

I'd give bretonians, and really all heavy cavalry, impact hits on the turn they charge as well I'd make it so no unit may claim stubborn on the turn the bretonians charge.
they also need to make the man at arms regiments more usefull, perhaps making them unbreakable if a knight regiment is within 6" of them or something.

For Wood elves the issue seems to me to be that nobody had an army structured to work within the current eddition. They can field large infantry blocks supported by archers and nasty skirmishers, it's just that everybody created the mobile, weedy, shooty army that you could never get to grips with, and when you did you hit a wall of very fragile/ very killy skirmishers. That is an army structure that absolutely has to kill the fighting rank of anything they come to blows with...which 8th ed. more or less did away with. Points cost does need to come down on thier core regiments to make larger regiments more fesible.
They should also give tree-kin and treemen the ability to hurl stones as well to fill the artillery gap.

just my 2 cents Canadian...that's about 1 and 3/4 cents American :)

[Derkus]

Wow! I am glad you guys aren't in charge!

Just messin with you. Some pretty good ideas in there, I think the best fixes for both armies would be pretty simple. Both are out of date enough that some cost modifications would be in order.

For Brets, I think making men at arms hordes more of a mainstay easily counters the opposing infantry blocks and adding some foot knights for a hammer would be good also, otherwise tweaks here and there to bring magic and abilities in line with 8th should do the trick.

Wood elves should get some Core block troops (glade guard with spears for instance) so they have viable block options, and then something as simple as allowing their skirmishers to have a rank bonus (or similar) to allow skirmishers to compete, and of course, update magic and items and so forth to be in line with 8th.

Anyway, to me by keeping the changes fairly simple you stand a far better chance of keeping the army flavor. I'd hate to see either loose their character.

[Derkus]

I'd give bretonians, and really all heavy cavalry, impact hits on the turn they charge as well I'd make it so no unit may claim stubborn on the turn the bretonians charge.
I like this but I would make it Stomp on the turn they charge so they can hit, then trample stuff. would go a long way towards combat res against infantry, but not other unit types (so it is effective where it is needed, and where it makes sense).

[Wildeybeast]

Wood elves should get some Core block troops (glade guard with spears for instance) so they have viable block options, and then something as simple as allowing their skirmishers to have a rank bonus (or similar) to allow skirmishers to compete, and of course, update magic and items and so forth to be in line with 8th.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but this really wouldn't work. You already have eternal gaurd who fill this role, but they are over costed and have no armour save, so any opponent worthy of the name will kil them first. And you still have the issue that, with the exception of dryads, treekin and archers, everything else is useless. What do you with wardancers for example? The obvious answer is make them big blocks of infantry, not skirmishers, but then they lose their charcter fluff wise. You keep coming back to the problem that the way to fix WE is to have big blocks of troops, supported by archers with a few small elite units. Just like every other army. Acoording to eldargal, the rumours are that the guys in the studio are hitting the same stumbling block, which is why no one has picked up Brets or WE. I honestly don't think they considered the impact 8th ed would have on these armies, nor indeed did they fully forsee quite how the meta game would work out.

[mirbeau]

For WE's. - Drop point costs across the board. In some cases - hugely.
- Change Wardancer's dances - change unit size cap
-Give lvl1-2s access to more lores
-Make more kindreds useful
-Let the bsb take a shield
-Increase point cost on Wand of wych elm



Besides all that, I'm quite happy with them as they are...

[Ceramic Teapot]

For brets:
- give knights devastating charge...as soon as I saw this rule I picutred it going perfectly with my knights
- make men at arms ws3
- make grail knights t4
- give the knights a initiative boost when they charge...not just for Bret knights, I feel that using a lance on the charge should give a boost to initiative on the charge, as well as a strength bonus.
- keep the super cheap HKB...^_^

[HaleysRedComet]

Every game I play with Grail Knights my opponent assumes they are T4. It is siltly that they are not.
On another note - once played a Bret player who relorted that he experimented with giving he knights devestating charge. He said it made almost no difference. Interesting... been meaning to check it out for myself (using mathhammer).

[Thornblood]

Wood Elves;
Army wide; Maybe hatred to models with a 3+ or better armour save?

Glade Guard- drop a point. Also Scarloc as an upgradeable character with hail of doom arrows- he can shoot one every turn?

Glade Riders- drop three points to be equal to ellyrian reavers.

Eternal guard- drop three points so same as HE spearmen (they basically are that stat wise anyway).

Dryads- New rule- can enter play from reserve via a piece of terrain not in opponents deployment zone. Add small trees/plants to the piece of terrain if it is not a forest to show the effects of the dryads presence. If it is a forest you don't have to tell your opponent (hidden like assassins or fanatics). This allows WE another opportunity to get flank/rear charges and negate enemy horde bonus attacks, rank bonus, and spear bonus.

Wardancers- Add that dance that means drawn combat but no attacks made. Bring back Wychwethel as a wardancer hero. Maybe a special rule (revised drum of orcskin?) that he wins drawn combats (like a musician), but unlike normal musicians he still counts in conjunction with no attacks dance. This is to help against low leadership horde armies.

Wild Riders- how do we feel about them getting an optional upgrade of riding stags? So they can go toe-to-toe and charge wildly at the other monstrous cavalry out there?

New units- Medium monsters, ogre height with branches having grown over them, and into them and through them so they are possessed by forest spirits. Big wolves seem a bit over-done at the moment. Dire-bears? Something big, hunched, with powerful mauling forelimbs and of the mammal variety seems in order....

New Units- Sacred Treeman- a HUUUUGE treeman who normally stand sentry around one of the sacred glades. Magic ability (lore of death from weeping glade, life from the kings glade, beasts from equos etc etc...)
same kit makes one of the Northern Sentinels- not the big lumps of rock but actually tree-men with armour and weapons made of specially sung stone (with vines growing over them) and sculpted from rock faces to make them look more like wood elves...
New/old unit- Equos chariots- can we make the chariot body itself a treekin?

[Dyrnwyn]

1) Army Wide Rule - Camouflage. LOS cannot be drawn to Wood Elf units through forests.
2) Army Specific Rule - Guerrillas - Wood Elf Skirmishers are much less regimented than other skirmishers. They are not required to maintain skirmish formation, and may draw LOS from their side arcs.
3) Lore of Athel Loren - more shooting bonuses, Treesinging as the Lore Attribute, drop the direct damage spell since Treesinging can already do damage.
4) Cav - not sure how to fix WE cav, but something should be done.
5) Hit and Run - more of it, on more units. Wardancers should get it. Maybe our Cav get it and that's how we fix them.
6) Points costs - all need adjusting, mostly to lower costs.
7) Forest Spirits - either give them a true ward or make that 5+ a Regeneration save.
8) Wizards - in addition to Athel Loren, L1-2 Mages have Access to Beasts & Life, L3-4 have access to Beasts, Life, Light, & Shadow.
8) Since this is a new release, a giant kit needs to be in there - Sacred Oak - big treeman, immobile, counts as a forest so he can only be moved with Treesinging. Big umbrella of positive effects for WE units, slightly different effects on Forest Spirits.

I expect absolutely none of this to actually happen.

[gcsmith]

Brettonians,
make Men at arms trained soldiers, ws 3 at least, drop points with only HW&S as standard, they should have the Parry save.
Obv give them the option to buy spears/polearms.

Give the brett knights thundering charge, It gives them devastating charge and the ability to break the Stubbornness of horde units. Afterall purebreed horse is a crappy rule with new charge rules. 1" extra charge.....

Oh and give brets a new monster central unit.
Maybe a monstrous Ghost horse.

[HaleysRedComet]

I recenty read the old, old Bret book and something stood out to me. They could take up to 75% of their force as charaacters. I know this would not work in the current rules, but with enough special ruled to nullify resolution it could be fun.
Also, I don't think anything about the M@A needs fixing. The peasants are doing just fine as of now from what I have experienced.

[Obergrot]

Well, for Woodelves there ist one point (especially for tree spirits of all kinds):
Make them unaffected by forests ...

I mean, well, they are Woodelves ...

On the other hand, maybe some options to negate the hordes bonus and/or the stubborn rule