Dave's Wood Elf Warriors

The cold grasp of winter is finally loosening over the land. High in the dour Grey Mountains, the old season's ice begins to thaw and give way. Slowly at first, and then with great urgency, freshly melted snow turns into cool streams of bubbling water. Deep in the forests below, new saplings push their way up through the soil and the cycle of rebirth begins anew...

A new year, a new OWAC, and a new beginning! What better army to celebrate the coming spring than with the...

Wood Elves were my very first army and introduction to Games Workshop. I spied a picture of the GW Wood Elf studio army in a flyer after stumbling into a Games Workshop store quite by accident on a family vacation to Ireland. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the vacation with my eyes glued to the crumpled pages of that pamphlet rather than soaking in the scenic vistas of the family trip. My attention was particularly drawn to the large regiments of Wood Elf spearmen, which I would later discover were called Glade Guard. I would also learn that they are a bit of a rubbish unit in an otherwise extremely effective Warhammer army, but that didn't dissuade me... I always had to field them in my basement battles with friends. There was just something about the rows and rows of spears that epitomized Wood Elves to me...

Of course, I was young then, and never played with a single painted model. Well that's not quite right... I made a valiant effort to paint the monopose plastic archers. And I even finished one of them! Yes, as you can imagine, it is far too embarrassing to show. Thankfully I have long since lost the poor old figure, so I cannot be cajoled into shaming myself further with it.

This OWAC is the chance for me to finally make things right with my beloved Wood Elves and give them the proper lick of paint that they've always deserved. My army is shown in the picture below. It should be no surprise that the Glade Guard remain the core of my army, providing a healthy block of Elves to stick the enemy's charge. Supporting the brave spearmen is a small group of Dryads, doughty models which punch well above their weight in battle. And then there are the hammers of the army: a fully-loaded Wood Elf chariot and a mighty Treeman. The Wood Elf chariot is a bit of a rarity... it was offered for only a vanishingly brief time in the late 90's as a Mail Order exclusive. It is made from bitz from a variety of sets that were available at that time: you simply had to call the Trollz and they would ship you the pieces. Finally, leading the army is the brave Wood Elf General on Elven Steed. I am using the Glade Rider Champion model for the General as I plan to give him a swanky shield (the normal General model has a weapon in each hand and thus cannot really be modeled with a shield).

GALADRIN'S GUARDIANS OF THE GROVE (997 pts)

Wood Elf General (Lance, Longbow, Light Armour, Shield on Barded Steed) ~ 175 pts

15 Glade Guard with Command (Light Armour, Spear, Shield) ~ 204 pts

Chariot (Light Armour, Shields, Longbows, Spears, Extra Steeds, Barding, Scythed Wheels) ~ 128 pts

6 Dryads ~ 210 pts

Treeman ~ 280 pts

And would you look at that, a Wood Elf army with no archers! The list may be subject to a little tweaking before the challenge is done, but the basis is a solid close-combat oriented army with decent mobility. Back in the early days of the internet, there were hundreds of homemade websites that hosted endless articles of tactica for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. This particular army is designed around the old "hammer and anvil" strategy, as described on Machiara's Battle Glade, an excellent website of old for Wood Elf players that some of the longbeards may remember. Now, the strategy is in place... we will see you all on the battlefield!