Even the newly suggested list looks broken to me.
* Why are the standard elven Archers ported over with the same stats and no woodland penalty then given a a 10 point saving per unit?
* Why limit the normal Infantry to 3 per thousand and then throw in Unlimited Uber Spearmen... er "tree-Spirit/Dryads" for 75 points with immunity to terror, no command penalty in woods and a +1 attack! OK they do have a -1 command penalty from most heroes but it's a 10 command General so it's hardly an issue?
* Waywatchers are based on Empire Skirmishers... Good plan but why they seem cheap for the power of the shooting attack? Also, should the save not be 0/5+ to match their parent units?
* Wardancers... Glad to see their 'tank' killer ability gone but I'm still not keen on armoured flagellants in an Elven Army.
* An Unlimited number Hero mounts seems a little unnecessary.
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#1 Wood Elf Archers have no armour save. High Elf archers have a 6+ save. A 6+ save is valued at around 10 pts in other armies so this is fair.
#2 Good point. I think the purpose of Elf unit maximums is to emphasise the fact that Elves are few in number in the lore. I agree that the Forest Spirits are cheap at 75 pts, but they are comparable to lesser deamons which are priced the same. The cheap cost is to emphasise their use over the Elves. This is to promote more aggressive game play and prevent "Forest camping" with units hidden in woods all game.
#3 Yes, Waywatchers are cheap at 30 pts for 2 armour piercing shooting attacks. And yes they should be -/5+ armour save. They are also insanely good value for increasing the scouting factor of the army (see below). But they only have 2 combat attacks. So maybe they should be 35 pts, but no more than that.
#4 Yes, I played several games with Wardancers and never once remembered that they have a save! I think bringing them in to line with other fanatic units by dropping the save and reducing cost to 70 pts is the way forward.
#5 Yes, unlimited mounts is bad. I'm sure this will be rectified to 1 per 1000 pts.
I played some more games with the new list and I still like it a lot. However one thing that came up was the scouting value for wood elf armies. It is insanely high, literally double what other armies can field. This is due to the fact that almost all the wood elf units provide a scouting value. And Waywatchers provide 3 per unit! That is +3 scouting value for one stand of troops worth 30 pts. I think the Scouting system needs to be re evaluated for Wood Elves to correctly balance the value of units like Dryads and Waywatchers.
In game terms, this means that the Wood Elves will almost always win the Scouting roll and pick their table edge, so they can always pick a table edge with fewer woods than the minimum to get their free wood and increase the overall number of woods on the field.
The most recent game I Played was 2000 pts Empire vs Wood Elves (using proxy Romans as Wood Elves hee hee).
I took 1 General, 1 Treeman Ancient character, 1 Wizard. 4 Archers, 2 Eternal Guard, 2 Waywatchers, 4 Dryads, 2 Wardancers, 2 Wild Riders, 2 Glade Riders, 2 Hawk Riders, 1 Treeman monster.
Things I found to work well included;
The Treeman character was really useful for tipping combats with his Terror and +3 attacks, and for keeping the Forest Spirits moving.
I actually made use of Tree singing to move units in woods out of initiative range of the enemy.
Wardancers are still very strong on the charge and were able to shred a Steam Tank on dice alone even without their previous armour piercing rule.
Things I found worked less well included;
Wild Riders hit like a truck ( I removed 2 units of Knights for no losses in one charge) but then get overwhelmed by supporting troops that they invariably have to advance into. This is quite realistic but a bit of a liability in game terms. I guess you just have to make sure they kill their points before they die!
A canny opponent will always save their dispel scroll for the predicted Call of the Hunt spell to prevent losing their artillery.
Even Forest Spirits in forests are shredded by cannon! It is hard to protect your combat troops form artillery fire if the opponent knows how to set up guided shots (using troops to focus line of sight at juicy targets).
Archers often need to leave the cover of their woods to be able to bring targets in range, especially when the enemy has artillery. The Waywatchers and Glade Guard failed to have an impact on the game.
In the end the Empire won by breaking the Elves on Turn 5.
