Wood Elves for Dummies?

[Karsk]

I love the look and lore of the Asrai, but I have never been able to play them. It seems like they die upon contact with the enemy and for having supposedly good archers they can't skirmish with other ranged units very well............

I'm not the best at micro, but since I play campaign I can pause a lot so I imagine that'll help with the insane micro I've heard Wood Elves require.

Is there any explanation about how to get started with the Wood Elves for someone who's at best average at Total War?

How do I play the Wood Elves? Any help at all would be very appreciated, the more in-depth the better.

Btw if it ends up being a wall of text that's totally fine with me, i'm willing to put in the work to figure out this army.


I'd look at some guides for Warhammer 1 but they are out of date and I imagine a lot of it doesn't apply to Mortal Empires. Not to mention all the changes to magic, and the balancing that's been done up until this point.

Thanks for any help!

[Elitewrecker PT]

You can still look at the guides, the basics will always apply.

[Jarges]

Originally posted by Dedmosh:

I love the look and lore of the Asrai, but I have never been able to play them. It seems like they die upon contact with the enemy and for having supposedly good archers they can't skirmish with other ranged units very well............

I'm not the best at micro, but since I play campaign I can pause a lot so I imagine that'll help with the insane micro I've heard Wood Elves require.

Is there any explanation about how to get started with the Wood Elves for someone who's at best average at Total War?

How do I play the Wood Elves? Any help at all would be very appreciated, the more in-depth the better.

Btw if it ends up being a wall of text that's totally fine with me, i'm willing to put in the work to figure out this army.


I'd look at some guides for Warhammer 1 but they are out of date and I imagine a lot of it doesn't apply to Mortal Empires. Not to mention all the changes to magic, and the balancing that's been done up until this point.

Thanks for any help!

Dont worry about micro, youonly need it if you are playing multiplayer. In campaign, I whoud recommend playing as Orion for starters, cuz its and easier version of WE, with not beign bothered to pay amber for bladedancers and high tier archers.

Your bread and butter as WE, is archers, so having 10 of those in your army is normal. At the start you can spam the first archers avaliable(forgot the name), for while beign the lowest tier, they can tear through anything on battlefield with focuesd fire(especially 10 stacks). Later you can swap few units for advanced variants(fire & poison). And in the late game, you shoud swap them for high tier archers with stalk(you could keep few poison variants tho, for debuff).

For melee choice: gladeguard(?), first guys with spears, are decent to hold the line against pretty much anything at early game, but you first choice shoud be to build upgrade to melee building and buy yourself some bladedancers, cuz those dudes kill any infantry(especially in a late game, when you got some upgrades, and bladedancers got 70 melee attack). You should get an event about 10-20 turns in, that gives +4 ranks to bladedancers recruit, thats ideally when you should recruit them. But once again, dont bother to build heavy frontline like with the other races, when I play Orion I usually get 5 melee and 10 ranged units. And if you planning on fighting bretonia, you shoud get yourself couple anti-large. Once again first dudes with spears will do, in late game, change them to the (forgot the name) last tier melee infantry that is anti-large.

Heroes. You get waywatcher(?) at the start. That guy is amazing. Keep him near archers for aura, and aim either at un-shielded lords or untits that are most threat(cav or anti-inf). And, since we are tolking about WH2, you will need a mage, cuz magic is finally usefull. On this front cant say much cuz I wasnt playing wood elves in WH2 yet, and I dont know what lores avaliable to WE.

Enemies/allies. It depends on you, you can either fight bretonia, which is pretty much easy pickings in early game czu they have nothing in terms of units, onle LL's armys have some threat with high tier units that they start with(but once agaim 10 archers > all those units). Or dont bother(as you get +40 diplomacy with Brets from research) with them and go south for Orcs(broken nose?) and tillea/estallia + new rats.

Oh and first building that you build, should be one that gives you gold(its like +600 or something).

And I think thats all Ive got. Dragons/Treant/Cavallery is pretty much situational, tho Sisters of Thorns and Wilrd Riders(cav with frenzy?) are amazing.

[Gseckz]

If you want the easiest Legendary run or just stomp thru everything play as Durthu. Sell your waywatcher at the start, upgrade to lv 2 settlement try and rush treekins. You'll probably do nothing for the next 20+ turns just getting a stack full of tree Kins.

Once you do all auto resolve is in your favor, raze for money. Once you start getting 90k per raze get Treemans and just rinse and repeat and get a hero to settle for ambers. Autoresolve everything

If you want to play Wood elves legit, you have to learn to micro and just abuse the pause feature. Kite and get your lord or eternal gaurds to hold the enemy from chasing your archers.

IMo Wood elves Durthu is the most powerful faction in the game. Played multiplayer campaigns on legendarys and I just give my allies so much gold and they are dumbstuck at how OP he is.

[Hannibal Barca]

Whats this Archer B.S. , DURTHU SMASH...
get basic spearmen with durthu they get +10 melee, use the melee tree skills to buff them further, I dont know if you noticed they are ARMOR PIERICING making them the best (ya i said it) best early game unit. You can send Durthu straight at enemy Leaders and kill them with in a minute while all the enemy units suround BIG D you jab them in the back with ap spearmen.

[Karsk]

Originally posted by Hannibal Barca:

Whats this Archer B.S. , DURTHU SMASH...
get basic spearmen with durthu they get +10 melee, use the melee tree skills to buff them further, I dont know if you noticed they are ARMOR PIERICING making them the best (ya i said it) best early game unit. You can send Durthu straight at enemy Leaders and kill them with in a minute while all the enemy units suround BIG D you jab them in the back with ap spearmen.

Not only is this hilarious but I'd never have thought if doing it lmao

[ChemicalBacon]

Originally posted by Dedmosh:

Originally posted by Hannibal Barca:

Whats this Archer B.S. , DURTHU SMASH...
get basic spearmen with durthu they get +10 melee, use the melee tree skills to buff them further, I dont know if you noticed they are ARMOR PIERICING making them the best (ya i said it) best early game unit. You can send Durthu straight at enemy Leaders and kill them with in a minute while all the enemy units suround BIG D you jab them in the back with ap spearmen.

Not only is this hilarious but I'd never have thought if doing it lmao

Durthu focuses on melee while Orion is more ranged, but durthu is a monster, very few lords can take him 1v1

[Hannibal Barca]

If I can bring another to see the Glory of the MIghty Durthu I have done my job...

[Karsk]

Originally posted by Hannibal Barca:

If I can bring another to see the Glory of the MIghty Durthu I have done my job...:Pappas:

I'll definitely give Durthu a chance. Do you have any advice for his campaign?

I'd prefer to play in a more legitimate manner, not cheese the ♥♥♥♥ out of auto-resolve or something like that.

[Wyvern]

Objectively speaking, Durthu is far and above better than Orion for a new player. Ever since dryads got buffed in WH2 you basically build an early army of durfu+branchwraith+treekin+wild riders, throw in 12 units of dryads and 4 glade guard. Boom. Done. March out against Parravon and monkey stomp them, then all of Brettonia. The mix of fear, tankiness, powerful spell support, specialization vs squishy units and durthus sheer badassery(basically a one man army) makes this very hard to ♥♥♥♥ up. Later in the game you'll want to transition into more wild riders, dragons, hawk riders treemen and treekin, but in early game this sort of cheap core is more than functional. Another thing worth keeping in mind is that all redline skills apply to lords for the wood elves, so you can boost durthus to obscene heights by building up both his melee red line and personal skills. The key problem for durthu is limited playstyles. He's basically a one trick pony that revolves around monster spam.

If you want more playstyles the wood elves are better, with more classic holding builds(Eternal guard, wild riders, glade guard), rush builds(wild riders, wardancers, maybe wildwood rangers, some scouts/waywatchers) all cav builds(wild riders, glade riders, sisters of thorn, maybe some amber flyers in late game) and kiting builds(scouts, way watchers, wild riders etc) Orion is also no pushover, and you can always confederate durthu later.

Some general tips for the wood elves are that in early game you should strive to power through some crucial techs, and level up your tree to tier 3 so you can get confederations. Don't squander amber on units that consume this resource. Get the following techs asap.

Isha - Growth is huge
Loec - WE control, especially on high difficulties, is trash, this will help.
Mathlann - Your key source of income will be harbors, abuse the hell out of it.

Getting tech that improves your income from loot(forget the name, is really good too but unfortunately on the bottom line)

Make sure to build fortifications, they make life really easy since WE fortifications can beat just about any 20 stack in the game. Although not as good, even your tree can stop attacks solo with proper micro.

Spec your lords for regen and loot money as early as possible. Wood elves are basically a pseudo horde.

My suggestions on what to build in outposts are as follows.
1)Waystones - Only for your frontline outposts, to help replenish your troops and support in combat, destroy and replace as you expand.
2)Sacrifical grounds - +1% to damage might not seem like much, until you have 20, 30 or maybe even more. It can make your armies terrifying.
3)The economic structure that i forget - This is also good, similar concept to Sacrifical grounds, but on top of Athel Lorens relatively good "for region size" profits, +2% can be a huge boon.

By late game the horde factor will be even greater, since youre recruiting most troops in one turn globally and can make new armies almost anywhere and almost instantly(basically 2 turns to create a max 20 stack in any settlement you control) Dont worry about being a little in the red. You're a hyper aggressive expansionist faction and should be razing constantly for big cash.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

My personal stratagy when playing wood elves is:

The isolationist:
I am staying in my forest no mather what.
The advantage of this strategy is that anything that entire your forest wont come back out alive.
As athel loren damamge's all none wood elves and wood elves are master of the hit and run.
It is a very easy if somewhat boring strategy.
The goal of this strategy is to make a few allies and let them deal with getting you the ember needing to grow.

The alliance:
Similier to the isolationist.
The alliance active helps his allies expand.
The advantage is this strategy is that your allies are able to hold the lands they conquer better then you can while you still get that sweet ember.
Eventual you will unlock the ability to trade with them.
Meaning massive income for you while not having to spend it on defendsive armies in conquer territory.

The wild hunt:
You attack cities and armies with the goal of gaining money.
You will make chaos looks like a minnor anoyance compaire to the destruction you bring.
Your goal is to play like the warriors of chaos.
You survive of looting.
You will be in the red.
Advantage is that all that money allows you to have multiple armies rather quickly.
The downside is that you need to be constantly attacking.

General armies:

Orion/glade lord.
Waywatcher.
8 eternal gaurd.
10 glade gaurd.

This is your main army early on.
Focusing heavly on increase arrow damage.
The eternal gaurd will allow you to hold the line while the glade gaurd murders everything.

Glade lord
19 horse archers.
Remember how genghis khan conquer so much land?
By vast armies of horse archers.
These armies can take shots at your enemy all day while avoiding there melee troops.
The only real counter to this armies are massive amount of range troops.

Glade lord on dragon.
19 dragons.
Like all armies in warhammer total war 2.
Once you have enough money to build an amy out of the most powerfull units in your faction you have already won.
Dragons have massive hitpoints, cause fear and do alot of damage.
Autoresolve your way to victory or just use posion breath to turn armies into mush.

[Karsk]

So how do you deal with other skirmishers as WE?

Let's say with Glade Guard. They can't fight it out with other archers (wtf that's crazy) bc of such insanely low armor. So won't they get shredded by almost any other factions archers?

Waywatchers I get, that 360 shoot while moving is a good way around that, but Waywatchers in early campaign aren't available in large quantities.

[Nichtswisser]

Originally posted by Dedmosh:

So how do you deal with other skirmishers as WE?

Let's say with Glade Guard. They can't fight it out with other archers (wtf that's crazy) bc of such insanely low armor. So won't they get shredded by almost any other factions archers?

Your heroes and lords have different talents when you recruit them. One of them gives a bonus to the range of ranged units and those stack. With those (and you should really focus on getting those) you can easily have +200 range even on the basic archers which means you can destroy enemy ranged units before they even get into range to hit you back.

And you really need to have ranged superiority. Your melee units are actually not bad at all fighting in melee. Their weakness is the low armor which means they are weak against ranged attacks so the key to winning melee engagements is to keep them safe from enemy ranged attacks.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by Dedmosh:

So how do you deal with other skirmishers as WE?

Let's say with Glade Guard. They can't fight it out with other archers (wtf that's crazy) bc of such insanely low armor. So won't they get shredded by almost any other factions archers?

Waywatchers I get, that 360 shoot while moving is a good way around that, but Waywatchers in early campaign aren't available in large quantities.

Wood elves have the best archers in the game.
Any faction trying to outshoot the wood elves might aswhile try to freeze the sun.
You are more likely to succesed as freezing the sun then beating wood elves in a range fight.
Keep in mind wood elves dont suffer from firing in forest as other factions.
Just park them in a forest edge and watch how everything dies.

It seems you try to outskirmish the ai.
Dont.
Skirmism means they run away when the shoudnt.
Instead make two goups.
1 Sheild wall.
1 Archer.
Have sheild wall stand infront the archers and have the archers stand behind the sheild wall in lines of 4.
So:
++++
+----+
+----+
----
0--0
+ eternal gaurd.
- glade gaurd
0 lord/heroes

The role of the eternal gaurd is to block melee and cavalry.
The role of the glade gaurd is to fire as many arrows into the enemy before they get into melee.
And the role of lord/heroes is to buff there troops with eye of kronus
Remember to turn your archers on the edges of the deathbox to focus fire on any cavalry trying to flank you.
The weaker the enemy is before they get into melee the better.

A common newbie mistake is taking only archers.
This doesnt work.
You need a few units to defend the glass cannons.

Remember:
To beat the wood elves you need to kill them before they kill you.
They are glass cannons.
They hurt as hell but cant take damage.
Artilery, anti arrow units, magic sheild of arkhan the black etc.
When fighting wood elves you need to bring anti range.
Or a ton of artillery.

Wood elves are a kill them before the kill us faction.
Play them like that and you be fine.

[Wyvern]

Originally posted by Dedmosh:

So how do you deal with other skirmishers as WE?

Let's say with Glade Guard. They can't fight it out with other archers (wtf that's crazy) bc of such insanely low armor. So won't they get shredded by almost any other factions archers?

Waywatchers I get, that 360 shoot while moving is a good way around that, but Waywatchers in early campaign aren't available in large quantities.

In QM it's a bit more finnicky, since dwarves nad high elves especially have really good range to counter your own shooting, but in campaign WE can get obscene range buffs and ridiculous damage buffs to the point that they obliterate just about everything before it can hurt them. Even dwarves cant hold up to starfire shafts if overbuffed like that. It's also important to focus fire. Even a unit with shields will still take heavy damage and you can often take it out of the fight in 1-2 volleys.

[Hannibal Barca]

Originally posted by Dedmosh:

So how do you deal with other skirmishers as WE?

Let's say with Glade Guard. They can't fight it out with other archers (wtf that's crazy) bc of such insanely low armor. So won't they get shredded by almost any other factions archers?

Waywatchers I get, that 360 shoot while moving is a good way around that, but Waywatchers in early campaign aren't available in large quantities.

I play WE as a rush faction , you get lord traits that increase speed to insane amounts. 2 passive speed buffs with elf lord. You can run down archer with inf.
Illl give you my secret formula (that everyone knows) that made WE campaign easy.
1. Choose Orion , sit in the your forest for along time level Orion with elf rebelions. Send Agents to attack other elf factions enemies.
2. Upgrade city to max level giving you good money. By this time other elf faction will love you. Start trade and Alliances with them.
3. Do the Orion weapon quest get 12 amber for completing them. Upgrade center Tree to level 3 (unlocks Confederation) Offer confed to other elfs (for 3000 to 5000 gold they will pay it) starting with Durthu.
4. After you get all the elves Create STARLIGHT Forge. It open a postion in the Starlight craftmen council postion put DURTHU in that slot. HE will give Eternal Guard units in the Lord's army gain 20% armour. In Durthus red trait tree go down the SHIELD OF THE FOREST +12 armor. This will give Eternal Guards with Shields "92!" armor !!!!. WIth Branchwraith Speed buff you can chase down skimirshers with almost any unit.
5. Durthu becomes my main army with Durthu as my Tank unit. The enemy will always swarm him, use a Jade wizard for healing and buffing Durthu and Shadow Branchwraith to do this....

xxxxxxxxx | <-------- Heres a diagram how to use Shadow Branchwraith Durthu mobbed
xxxxDxxxx \ <-------- Drop a Penumbral Pedunlum from the side, I had one BW get 300
xxxxxxxxx \_/ <-------- kills with this tactic.

my army comp other than those 3 doesnt really matter. But I like Sister of thorn with there buff and Swiftshiver Deep wood scouts because they fire 2 arrow at once and can decimate other range or for flanking.
Ffffwwwwhew