[Archive] Chaos Dwarfs (LoA) vs Wood Elves

Nicodemus:

Post your tactics and advice here.

TheHoodedMan:

I played some battles vs. woodelves since the new army book was published. They proved to be a very competitive and mobile army.

In my games I met various combinations of light cavalry and archers with low points on heroes.
The shooting potential of the army is great: They have high BS scores and a good range and mounted archers are very mobile to position themselves very good. WE have troops which can scout (infantry) or come from behind/sides at later turns (light cavalry).
In addition they can use magic arrows: The choice is poison and armour breaking/ always hit without modifiers (which usually means on 3)/ armor ignoring.

The wild riders are a swift and hard hitting close combat unit.

Treemen look great but if your opponent fields one in a competitive environment you are lucky :-).
Most of the time some sorcerer(s) or heroes complement the army. Magic is mostly used to enhance/heal troops (life magic) or to cast some stuff and get protection counters through lore attributes (White Magic?).

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Usual wood elf tactics:
The most dangerous army I played against had nearly all models mounted, every archer with poison/armour breaking (glade riders/ normal archers) and 2 units of wild riders.
The nearly 40 archers moved about and fired poisoned arrows at the single models (war machines/ destroyer). After some rounds of shooting they will move in with the hard hitting wild riders into combats they choose. Normally this could result in a clear win for the wood elf.
Normally he will not charge or concentrate fire on infernal guard, as the outcome is not sure. But he will shoot everything else if you let him.

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What to bring against:
From my point of view big template war machines are good against this opponent.
The hellcannon is the best choice of all because it is rather tough with armor save, handlers and ward save.
Death shriekers and Magma are good as well, think about making them hellbound, that additional wound can help.

Infernal guard Hand weapon/shield is the best equipment option. Magic banner is not really needed (Flame? No Swiftness? rarely Razor? perhaps).
Hobgoblins should have bows. They are normally out of range (24" to 30" mobile wood elf riders), but you can use them to block the way of wild riders or keep glade riders a little far from the war machines for longer survival.

Khans on wolf are a good thing. They will die very early, but you have the light cavalry advance move and can block certain areas against the advance moves of the wood elves before battle. Keep in mind that he will reposition his troops before battle with this moves.

Sorcerer-Prophet on foot in the IG, because everything else will be shot down or hidden behind a hill the whole game.

What Lore? Lore of metal will enhance your armor saves which is great. Searing doom has 4+ to wound against wild riders, which is ok. So metal is not bad at all.
Flames of azgorh and Ashstorm are the usual goodies from lore of Hashut.
I would go for one of them and a DS Lvl. 1 with fire.

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Strategies:
Not to many. Try to hit archers with magic and war machines at the beginning. Every arrow counts later on.
Wild riders have frenzy. Perhaps you can lure them in a counter charge.
The destroyer is great because of his movement, keep facing in mind. Try to get him in a combat as soon as possible, best from side that he gets not ALL the arrows (magical/ poison).
Keep hobgoblins with bows at the flanks that your warmachines can not so easy be targeted.

MadHatter:

Ashstorm and Burning Wrath are the spells to beat woodelves. Fire is great against the flammable treemen.

Magmacannons slaughters woodelves.

When at a local tournament I crashed my iron daemon into a unit of woodelves and circled the treeman lvl 4 life with my carpet sorcerer and killed it off with burning wrath, good times.

TheHoodedMan:

In my last games I used two lvl 1 and one lvl 4 all with Lore of Fire. It was very effective because the needed dice rolls are reasonable and one can do lots of damage with 3 fireballs at effectively 36". Especially if your prophet is not mounted the long ranges are important (range spell > range arrows).