‘Warhammer: The Old World’ The Wood Elf Arcane Journal Adds A LOT Of Good Stuff
Take a look at how the new Warhammer: The Old World Arcane Journal boots the Wood Elf army.
After a not super long wait we’ve got out next Arcane Journal: Wood Elf Realms. It looks like for whatever reason they’ve leapfrogged Beastmen to not be the last book to come out in an edition. Good for them! Now I’ve been a bit harsh on the last couple of AJ’s we’ve gotten. I didn’t think either the Empire or High Elves had strong entries, thought they could be thematic.
Well I’m happy to say that I think things have turned around with Wood Elves. This is a good book, and one I think adds a lot to the army.
Now as we will see, it’s not perfect, there are things I don’t think really hit in it. However overall I think it’s thematic, and adds both narrative options and competitive oomph to the faction. Maybe most importantly its the first AJ we’ve gotten that really feels like it was written for the version of The Old World that we play, rather than some idealized pre-release version.
I don’t know how true it actually is, but it feels that way, and it feels like there are things that are reacting to the game, and even guiding it forward. So lets dig into the highlights of this Arcane Journal.
The New Wood Elf Armies of Infamy
OK, first up something that sadly is a little bit of a miss, the new Armies of Infamy. The book gets two, Orion’s Wild Hunt and the Host of Talsyn. Of the two the Wild Hunt is the clear winner.
The Wild Hunt list is a very restrictive list, dropping most magic (no lvl 3s or 4s), shooting and tree spirts for a cavalry focused list that runs a lot of Wild Riders, Glade Riders and other fast things. It hits hard and you can take a pretty much all Wild Rider list with it. It’s special rules are kind of meh, you can give nobles Talismanic Tattoos, buff Glade/Warhawk Rider or Beast Packs with Furious Charge and Impetuous and get a buff vs one enemy. But you do lose a lot. Still I think there are a number of people who play a very similar list already and might like this.
The Host Of Talsyn on the other had is a bigger list that focuses on combat infantry and tree spirts. However it once again makes the mistake of focusing on combat infantry in a game where those suck. So… yeah, not a great list. It’s buffs are also very situational, with the big ones giving you Hatred (Beastmen) and bonuses when you control a special feature, both of which are things that will do nothing in like 95% of games.
Not a Ton Of Shooting Buffs
You’ll notice that neither of those lists really focuses on, or buffs shooting. And that’s a theme in this book, you won’t find a whole ton to improve your shooting. This book is more focused on the combat aspects of Wood Elves rather than the shooting. And I think that is great.
Wood Elves are already amazing at shooting. That’s maybe their best playstyle and they don’t really need buffs. This is something that the Empire AJ really dropped the ball on for me, with having a warmachine focused AoI. By not focusing on shooting, the book opens up new play styles and gives you options, rather than just making one thing the best.
Likewise you’ll find as we go on, that there is a lot in here to reward you for not taking a dragon. You get a lot of buffs you can’t use on dragons and nice improvements for other types of Lords, and again this is great. The design team seems to have noticed that dragons are an issue and too dominant, and giving you reasons to take other things is a good sign for the game.
Orion
Alright lets move on to the new characters, of which we again have two. The first is Orion, the King in the Woods, and there is a lot going on here. Orion comes in a unit with his two hounds and they are always in Open Order, no matter if the hounds die. The Hounds themselves don’t do a whole whole ton, giving you a couple of s4 attacks. But the big thing is that they can only be hurt by magical attacks. This lets Orion pawn off a lot of hits on them, with potentially no ill effects. You can really limit the attacks he takes with this.
He himself has a lot going on. Stats wise he’s got M9 (as do the hounds, but no swiftstride) WS 8, BS 6 I8, LD 10 and 5s in S,T,W and Attacks. MR 2, Frenzy, Strikes First, Terror, ItP and Unbreakable and a very nice d3+2 stomp attacks, see him with a whole host of rules.
He lacks armor, but does have a 5+ ward and can heal wounds, and in combat he’s hitting with s6 ap -2 and d3 wounds- the good stuff. He can also throw that attack like a bolt thrower. He’s rounded off with a slightly weaker longer ranged attack for offence. Oh yeah, and once a game he can give all friendly units within command range Frenzy. Crazy.
Orion Vs A Dragon
At 445 he’s not cheap, and you can probably build a better dragon lord. But he is viable. He does do some cool things, and GW really does seem to have given him the right tools. Unlike a lot of other characters he’s got decent movement, does multiple wounds and has a ward save. He’s got tricks and isn’t a large target, though frenzy is something to work around.
I mean they basically gave him the classic Ogre Blade/Taliman of Protection combo that’s a good two for a lot of lords. I think GW has done a good job here of giving you something that isn’t as obviously OP as the Green Knight, but is still viable and could be an alternative to a Dragon Lord.
The Other Guy
The second named character here is Araloth, Lord of Talsyn. Uhh, and he’s not very good. All those things that I said they avoided with Orion, well most of them come into play here He’s a foot character. He does at least get a 5+ ward, but his weapon is like just a normal Wood Elf spear but with magical attacks. It’s garbage. He’s mostly just a cheap Glade Lord.
He does have a rule that can let him put a nice debuff on an enemy character, but it has to go off on a 3+ and then get a wound on the enemy with only a single S4 AP -1 hit. This guy is a real miss.
Wood Elves also get three new units in the book, which might be the least we’ve seen seen in any Arcane Journal and does feel like a bit of a let down. Two of them are locked to The Host Of Talsyn, which means I doubt you’ll see them much. This is a bit of a miss. Still lets take a look at them.
The New Wood Elf Units
The Wardens of Talsyn are a new character. They are basically an infantry focused Glade Lord with 75 pts of magic items. Not a ton going on here, but if they join the other new unit, the Guardians of Talsyn they do pass on their ItP to that unit, with is kind of nice.
The Guardians of Talsyn are clearly meant to pair with the Warden. This is a pretty elite spear armed infantry unit. They are 18 pts, but they get Veteran, Stubborn and drilled. They are also rocking 2 attacks and their spears have ap-1. On top of that both they and the Wardens get Parry. This is bringing back an old rule, that gives an infentry unit +1 save if they are using a hand weapon (and in this case Asrai spear) and shield. A lot of people have posited this as a fix for infantry and it’s interesting to see GW play around with testing the rule.
All that makes the Guardians a really great light infantry unit. It’s just too bad that entire class sucks. In a game where they faced Orc Boys and Empire Spearmen and basic Gors, they’d go to town. In actual ToW I doubt you will see them. But at least GW is trying something new here.
Lastly you’ve got the beast packs, which can go in the Wild Hunt or Grand Army. You get 4 options for beasts, Cats, Dogs, Boars and Bears and all are a little different. Sadly you can’t mix and match them in the same unit, which really sucks. None of them do anything crazy, but it does give you the option to throw in some cheap, and fast, skirmishing units to be annoying or screen, so they do have a role.
The Kindreds
The AJ also brings back the idea of Kindreds for Wood Elves and this is a straight win. These are the equivalent of High Elf Honors, or Chaos mutations. Extra buffs you can give your characters that don’t eat into their magic item allotment. There are eight of them and pretty much all of them are good.
Now they only work on Nobles and Mages, which is fine, and four of them, the Altered Kindred, make it so a unit you join can’t use your LD (why, cus reasons). But you still have a lot of flexibility in handing these out. Going along with what I said before, a lot of these are limited to infantry or infantry and cavalry only, with dragon riders being locked out of the best. Overall I think this is great as it helps make other options more viable. Overall this book does a lot to make the already pretty good Great Stag build very appealing.
Take the Aspect of the Bear. For 15 pts you can give an infantry or cavalry character +1 S and T. That’s just really solidly good and kind of a default to me if you don’t plan on giving them something else. At 20 pts the Wild Rider Kindred gives a Noble mounted on a Elven Steed or Great Stag Counter Charge, Frenzy, Furious Charge and Talismanic Tattoos. That’s some real bang for you buck a great upgrade.
You can give a wizard a 5+ ward and two of them let the character and a unit they’ve join re-roll 1s to hit in combat. All of them have a use case, and you will see them in pretty much every army going forward.
The Lore Of The Wilds
This book also comes with a brand new full 7 spell lore, the Lore of the Wilds. This can normally be taken by wizards in the Host Of Talsyn, which might have been a reason to take them. However there is also a 15 pt super common item that allows any wizard to take it. It does of course have that 15 pt surcharge, but can be worth it. Because this lore is good. Like really good.
I think this lore is good enough that I’m going to go into in more detail in another article. But for now lets just say it slaps, and six of the seven spells are great. It’s also another sign that the designers are looking at the meta. This list has some counters to meta tactics such as big poison blocks and linehammer. Good stuff – bravo GW!
New Magic Items
Last up we have the section of new magic items all the Journals get. And this section… is here. It’s not a bad section, and maybe better than the High Elf items, but its fairly unimpressive and there aren’t any real game changers here. You do get some magic armor with a 5+ regen, if you want to tank up a dragon with a triple save (ugh). And a new bow, and cool option to do impact hits.
Nothing that redefines the army or anything, but some viable options here. And that’s inline with the book, lots of options and many of them are viable. Overall just a great book and addition to the game and army.
Let us know what you think of the book, down in the comments!
