So I am trying to get some magic defence in my army without investing alot of points. One thing to keep in mind is that I do NOT want to take a lv 1 with 2 scrolls. This is mainly because I do not like items that takes the randomness out of completely out of the game. I have always thought 1 scroll is ok, but more than that is less than fun to play with/against.

But, having lost my favourite item, the Wand of Jet, I need some form of magic defense. I was looking into a lv1 Branchwraith with the cluster of radiance. 140 points, 4 dispel dice. Seems like a decent enough deal to me, considereing I have 2 units with magic resistance in the army(wardancers and wild riders).

Having only played one game with the new wood elf book(it feels really good to be back on the horse) I am uncertain if this will be enough.

Have you guys had much success with about 4 dispel dice?

I have always done pretty well with two dispel dice however I usually took one scroll. Or does that mean I have three dd? See how little I pay attention to it I normally use active magic defense and try and kill the wizards pretty quick. I will use the dispel dice and the scroll to stop key units getting hurt and get into combat with the mages as soon as I can. Warhawk riders, Alter nobles, fast hitty things can go straight for the mages and allocate against them. Or you can just try and panic/break the unit that he is in. This method is pretty popular and you are spending points that are not simply anti-magic with no other use. If you are fighting a low/non magic army the points you have are still useful.

Active magic defense is great, the problem is, it will take at least two turns to set up the charges you need to take those mages out. More often than not, good players will protect their mages long enough to force their spells on you. If you're taking damage, your fragile combat units will suffer. If you're facing VC or Tomb Kings, armies with movement magic, those first 2 turns will be critical for not getting out maneuvered.

The point is to get through those first two turns. By turn 3 you should be hitting him where it hurts and magic should be neutralized as most targets should be safe in combat. For that reason, I wouldn't think that just the 4 DD would be enough.

How about a unicorn mage with the Staff of Sorcery. MR2 to inject into you Wild Riders, or Treekin if you have them, and +1 to dispell will help and you won't miss out on randomness that you talked about. Then take the BW w/ Cluster.

Also, you could take the Treeman Ancient w/ cluster and that would free up spite allowance to boost your BW for combat. I always thought it was a good idea to give a BW the Annoyance of Nets. If you have the Ancient, most opponents will expect him to have it. Threatening that Dragon lord or Bloodthirster with that BW might just seem like easy points, tricking them in to charging you and getting locked down.

With one Ancient w/ Cluster, combat branchwraiths with spell level and unicorn mage with Staff you'd have 5 DD +1 to dispell, and MR to go around. That could be enough to get you through those first two turns unscathed. But remember, it will be important to pick your battles when dispelling in order to make those DD count. You might have to learn to let the right spell get through.

http://battleglade.freeforums.org/portal.php?page=geofreakarticle1

The above article might be of use. Doesn't get into strategies or tactics, but give a good look at the pros an cons of different magic builds. Plus, I trust the author implicitly!

Sure, he seems like a decent guy, atleast form your point of view!
No seriously the article is great.

As for magic defence with low point cost I would take the 2 scrolls, but clearly that is something you do not want to do. A branchwraith with lvl 1, radiants and netlings will be a good start, but if you want to save 1-2 units you should take more protection. The unicorn rider sounds like a good idea.

With DE I only have 1 caddie and the ring. It very well, because people wont dear to throw their spells with more than 3 dice, and then the chance of failing to cast the spell are much better and since IRF is not an option I can always dispel wtih scrolls. With wood elves cheap magic defense is not easy since you need to acctually kill the enemy mages in order to survive, and that is usually very hard to do.

thanks for the input guys! I think I will try a few games this weekend with the branchwraith and see how it goes. I really do not want to lose the wardancer highborn or the bsb for the eternal guard. I could be talked out of the alter kindred in favour of a second caster. I is fun knowing that i am not taking what will likely be enough defense for me. Keeps things exciting.

I do have 3 warhawks and the previously mentioined alter in the army to hopefully suicidebomb some mages. I will get back to you in a few days with results on how badly my army gets fried by magic.

Its actually interesting to see what happens when you dont take any or just a little magic defence. I also play ogres and did a 4000pt game with no butchers at all against the new lizards with a horrendous amount of power dice. It was suprising how little impact his magic had over the game as a whole. Sure it killed a bunch of stuff but with more points in troops and fighting characters I had bodies to spare.
I would like to see the list you are using and hear about the games, so let us know how they went.

The list is as follows:

Highborn(145) Wardancer(50) Blades of Loec(35) Amber Pendant(35) -265

Noble(75) BSB(25) Annoyance of nettlings(25) Elynett's Broach(20) -145

Noble(75) Alter(25) Great Weapon(4) Helm of the Hunt(20) Hail of doom Arrow(25) -149

Branchwraith(65) Lv 1(50) Cluster of Radiants(25) -140

12 glade guard(144) musician(6) -150

12 Glade Guard(144) musician(6) -150

17 Eternal Guard(204) Full command(30) banner of midwinter(50)

8 Dryads(96)

8 Wardancers(144)

3 Warhawk Riders(120)

6 Wild Riders(156) Standard(18) Warbanner(25) -199

5 waywatchers(120)

Treeman(285)


My first game back was against an all warrior priest empire army which resulted in a draw.

Things of note during that game:

Never ever ever give your friend dice that roll poorly for you. they are not bad dice, they just hate you. His hellblaster was rolling over 50% when it needed 5's to hit.

Cannonballs are noone's friend.

As much as I will miss glade guard being our spear armed grunts, stubborn eternal guard witha bsb are amazing, especially with a treeman running sidekick.

The no move and shoot penalty is pretty awesome. I will miss my 36" longbows and my no long range penalty/armour peircing bows but I am happy with the current "glade guard".

Wardancer highborns are pretty sick with reroll to wound on KB.

I forgot how amazing it was to be playing an army without animosity.(I have been playing orcs for the last few years)

I forgot how much fun a shooting phase was(I had been playing nurgle mortals before that).

My club meets on Sundays, so I should have a game or two to report. May be against the new lizards.

Well the empire warrior priest army had probably little offensive power, but wait for the lizzardmen. That's when you get to test low defence. Congrats for the draw, IMO draws are the most exciting games to play, unless the other player is aiming for a draw.

A draw can really feel like both players had a fun a rewarding game, but mostly its cause you spent the whole game beating the snot out of each other.

Personally, I think the Wardancer Highborn is the best use of big money in the whole list. A fully kitted lord Dancer can cost as much as a Treeman, and never fails to influence the game just as much.

One suggestion I'd make is to give your Dancer Lord the Annoyance, adding that to his kit will make him a true character killer. Mine has killed every US 2 or less character he's ever faced, including Vampire Counts and Star Dragon Princes. The best thing about killing a Prince on Dragon is that the Dragon still needs 6s to hit, so if he can't hit you, you win combat against _his_ Ld.

Then, if you can find the points, give your BSB the SotCM and the Sword of Might. That's the best kit, I think, by far for a BSB if you aren't using him for a HoDA delivery.

And for the points, I'd rather see a unit of 7 Wardnacers with full command. Your Highborn can bring as much as 6 attacks to the fighting rank, but the first thing he does is take away 2 or 3, depending on the dance, by replacing a rank and file tooper. At +1 st or KB, I think that one extra attack is always worth it. And you don't want ot throw all those attacks only to tie combat with no musician, THAT is frustrating.

Are you noticing a difference with the 4 extra Glade Guard? How about the 5 Waywatchers. Neither of those units seem like they are the optimal size, how did they perform?

To be honest, I am not sold on the waywatchers, but I only have the 5 models(and I am only using the old models, as the new ones do not appeal to me too much.. which results in ebay or nothing...)

As far as the units of 12 go, I have not played with 10 yet(this was my first game with the new book) I am willing to give it a try. So I can drop potentially 4 glade guard for 48 points, switch out a wardancer and get full command, move the annoyance to the highborn and kit out the bsb with the SotCM. I am going to be hard pressed to take the broach off of this character though as it makes the eternal guard that much more reliable.

should have about 25 points or so to fudge with. could be interesting.

I did land another old treeman model off of ebay so I should be able to try out a unit of 3 treekin as soon as he comes in the mail. (normal treeman for treekin and durthu for actual treeman)

So we have an update.

For the sake of learning I left my list as I had it. I was able to sneak in 3 games today against 3 fairly different armies.

My first game was a massacre against a throgg's troll army from the Warriors of Chaos book. He had throgg, 3 units of trolls, a giant, a unit of dragon ogres, 2 units of ogres, 2 Spawns and 2 units of hounds.

The basic idea here was that I was able to have the archers set up on one side, and all of my combat goodness on the other. treeman/eternal guard towards the middle, and everything else farther toward the flank.

I was able to run around most of his units but I made 1 mistake that i got lucky on. I had my Wild riders out on the flank about 10 inches across from his spawn(forgetting that they do not need LOS to charge, just the distance on 2d6). Even though he rolled an 11, the Wild riders ended up being able to win combat and eventually kill it, even with some hounds charging in next turn as well.

Play of the game goes to the alter kindred noble who took the challenge from Throgg so that the wardancer highborn could sent his attacks elsewhere, as he killed the troll with his 5 attacks. 5 hits, 4 wounds and 4 failed regen rolls!

Game 2 was against a night golbin army. About 200 gobbos, skarsnik, 2 lv 2's, a few warmachines and 9 fanatics. Waywatchers and Warhawks did their job well in this game pulling out most of the fanatics. Massacre 2 of the day for the elves a difference of 2650, off of the victory chart!

Similar gameplan/setup, and by the time all of the combat units were arranged it was just mop up with gobbos. I lost the wild riders and the waywatchers in this game. the gobbos were tabled. Between terror/panic and sheer killing goodness combats were swift and merciless. Alter noble again shone by charging the last big unit of gobbos in the front and sniping the bsb that had the stubborn banner, allowing the eternal guard/wardancers/dryads kills to result in insane courage or nothing for Skarsnik and his unit. finishing off the last of the gobbos and pulling in the game.

Play of the game: hard to call for this one, but the BSB with annoyance took on skarsnik and Gobbla for 2 turns and was only wounded once. This leads me to not want to change the combo on the BSB, as this guy does his job amazingly. Really hard to take out in a challenge and gives rerolls for psychology tests to his unit. Damn fine.


Game 3 against rats: 2 big units of clanrats, 1 stormvermin, 1 plague monk unit, 1 unit of censor bearers, 10 jezzails, 1 warpfire cannon, 3 ratling guns, a grey seer on the bell, a warlock, a bsb and another combat character in the plague monks. Massacre 3 for the day.(admittedly we were playing on a jungle table, so lots of terrain that was good for me and not so good for him.

same setup/gameplan. this game was alot harder for me as his magic was tough to deal with. Turn 1 the eternal guard with bsb disappeared, But i was able to panic his jezzails of off the board with my own shooting. The game resulted with me taking out everythign he had on the flanks leaving 2 units of clanrats and the plague monks in the middle with the grey seer obnoxiously still alive.

Play of the game goes to the Treeman for holding up in combat against the plague monks with a character and a big unit of clanrats with the bell in the flank. held for two combats, eventually ripping the grey seer off of the screaming bell once the wardancers/dryads came into the fight and gave the combat res to run the rest of the rats down.


Overall I am very happy with how the "new" wood elves work. Very manouverable, Solid bowfire with some devastating combat capacity.

In regards to the original question of this thread(which may have been slightly lost in my last few posts) I feel that 4 dispel dice is enough if you have the capacity to pull mages out of the game early.

With 2 units with Magic resistance, the 4 dispel dice means that you can "reliably" prevent one big spell or two smaller spells from going off in a turn. Especially as some of the best targets are those units with MR1. Keeping in mind this was only 3 games, but I am feeling pretty comfortable to be back behind the wheel of an army that can be counted on to do its job when asked. ( not having to roll for animosity is the greatest thing in warhammer)

Cheers all. Any thoughts?

I've not much experience of 'normal magic' armies - I usually play vs High Elves, where 4 scrolls are not enough. As a result, I shall be moving over to active magic defence, using a sniper noble with lots of waywatchers and archers. Shame I don't have points for WHR, too.