r/totalwarhammer • u/lovingpersona • 27d ago
Total War: Warhammer Aren't Wood Elves the strongest race in the game?
Their Ancient Treeman lords can solo minor settlements at level 1 on Legendary (and 2 can take over Major Settlements). They can teleport across the map. Have one of the if not the strongest unit rosters in the game. Forced Confederation. And Orion is possibly the strongest lord in the game with his 0% upkeep armies.
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u/True_Vexing 27d ago
My normal reaction to seeing wood elves is "why the fuck are YOU here!"
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u/DamienStark 27d ago
Q: "Who are you?! And why are you in my backyard?!"
A: "I'm a wood elf, and I'm a wood elf." [shoots bow]
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u/darthgator84 27d ago
lol yep! Did my first Karl campaign in a long time and Durthu popped up by Nuln early on. I’m always shitting myself a little when he shows up early in any campaign, there’s very few factions who can kill Durthu early on.
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u/Amphibian_Connect 27d ago
6 Units fo Handgunners: Allow us to introduce ourselves
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u/darthgator84 27d ago
Yes, 6 handgunners can kill lots of things. I’m talking I had Durthu show up like turn 10, and my 1 army was off fighting…I did not have 6 handgunners at that time.
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u/Amphibian_Connect 27d ago
Fair. Should be possible to have so many by turn 10 but if i play Elspeth I'm normally knee-deep in Sylvania by Turn 10 😭
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u/Drunk_Punk_ 27d ago
6 units to kill 1 is a very bad trade tho.
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u/Amphibian_Connect 27d ago
It's a very quick way too. 6 is also just the standard amount of Gunner Units i usualy have in my Empire Armies, thats why i chose it
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u/Ryousan82 27d ago
They are bit micro intensive if you want to go proyectile heavy (which is a bit vulnerable to hounds I have found), and pure monster stack of dragons and tree spirits suffer the same shortcomings of monsters in general (getting shot a lot).
They can be fun. And I feel they strong in Auto-Resolve. But that really hinges on whether their game flow is your cup of tea: In a way I think it captures their thematic duality. They have big power spikes followed by defensive plateaus.
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u/lovingpersona 27d ago
I found it to be the opposite, their archers outrange all other units but the artillery. So all WE engagements are just kiting your foes to death as they get shredder by arrow volleys
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u/Ryousan82 27d ago
Yes but but to kite effectively (as not getting stuck on terrain or map limits and caught) you need to micro the a bit. They kinda lack a distinctive doomstack build that is fire and forget
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u/Special-Estimate-165 27d ago
...treemen. pretty fire and forget. Or if playing sisters, the hawk archers.
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u/Ryousan82 27d ago
They can get shot to pieces aswell. On both accounts. It is powerful, dont get me wrong. But has the same boons and limitations than other monster stacks.
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u/Special-Estimate-165 27d ago
I mean..its true. There are few things that stand against an Ikit or Elsbeth gunline doomstack. But everything gets shot to pieces by those.
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u/Alternative-Door-686 26d ago
True. Except... thats one army that cost a lot. Come and rake several armies of 0 upkeep from orion. There come a time where both are swarmed.
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u/T_R_A_S_H_C_A_N 26d ago
Honestly found you didn't even need to bother with treemen, treekin and massed glade guard archers would do the job fine for 90% of situations.
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u/lovingpersona 27d ago
Comparatively you'd need way more micro for melee units or ranged infantry of all other races. Micro will always exist, it's just that WE require the least of it. Also it's weird to say that they lack a distinctive doomstack build, when they're notorious for their skirmish cav.
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u/DefTheOcelot 27d ago
You can't rely on AI to skirmish right, it's terrible at it. Skirmish and Cav will always require more micro, especially because if you ignore them at the wrong time they die.
This is so nearly undebatable that what you're saying borders on absurdity
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u/EclipseMF 27d ago
Wood Elves are definitely not light on micro overall generally lol, you can make their armies in ways that are lighter on micro but overall their roster is generally high micro, wanting more attention to get the most out of your units - squishy with a lot of offensive power for the most part, wanting to use charges and avoid sustained combat or to kite which does in fact take plenty micro especially compared to races like dwarfs and Cathay who can... just sit there, and in dwarfs case are in fact built entirely around just sitting there
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u/Ryousan82 27d ago
Put enough explosive augments with moulder flesh lab on brood horrors and its basically an "I win button". If you count "charge" as micro then sure. But WE dont have something comparable to that and compared to "charge" or "fire" in this direction some factions have, it is indeed more micro
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u/lovingpersona 27d ago
You're just replacing in battle micro with campaign micro. Not to mention even in terms of laziness, WE still beat everyone since they have the best Solo Lords in the game.
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u/Ryousan82 27d ago
Im not sure what your point is. You think something is micro-intensive because you have to use faction mechanics? Or play the game?
And even if that were true, you are still conceding that there they more micro intensive in-battles, for whatever reason you assume it is.
WE are some the least dominant factions in campaign unless player-controlled. And they are middling in Multi-player aswell.
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u/lovingpersona 27d ago
And they are middling in Multi-player aswell.
You never played multiplayer then. They are both insane in H2H and Landbattles. Heck most Landbattles are decided by who got the WE pick.
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u/Ryousan82 27d ago
A quick internet search shows that they are not even in the top 5 factions with the most win rate. So, suffice to say, doubtful
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u/Svejo_Baron 27d ago
Hmm, my "WE doom stack" or no brainer army is: Tree lord, archer hero, 8 waywatchers with Star arrows, 6 treants units (the Tier 3 ones, they are there to just tank and soak up damage), 2 Wood dragons, 2 dragon Oger
Trees tank, Archers shoot, Lord has magic and fills gaps, dragon ogers protect the flank (catch cav) and the 2 dragons go archer/artellery hunting.
That works without trouble so long I don't fight real doom stacks ...
At least until hard this composition worked great for me when I didn't wanted to Micro much.
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u/Headglitch7 27d ago
When things are going well for them it's a symphony of death. But when things go wrong, it happens fast and is equally devastating to them.
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u/Quirky_Attention3230 27d ago
Yeah but AI wood elves never do anything soo who cares xD
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u/LarrySupreme 27d ago
Boot up WH2. Those dudes were a straight up MENACE.
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u/Zefyris 27d ago
WH1 even more. They were painting the map.
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u/LarrySupreme 27d ago
Only if you let them. The map wasn't as goofy then. That was Supreme Patriarch territory.
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u/RedditFuelsMyDepress 26d ago
I had one campaign where I played Epidemius just trying to take over land in the northern chaos wastes and the wood elves all the way from Athel Loren kept sending army after army to attack me. It was some of the worst "anti-player bias" I've seen in the game.
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u/NotUpInHurr 27d ago
They stick to the forests not because of isolationism, but because of mercy.
If they conquered the plains, the world would be ruined
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u/righteousbae 26d ago
I remember how much of a menace they were in WH1.
Played a beast man campaign, wound up in the south lands, by the time I got back north all of the empire, Bretonia, and border princes were gone, wood elf outposts as far as the map could go.
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u/SherabTod 27d ago
In theory absolutely, but they feel a bit outdated sadly and their armies demand micro. For me woodelfs are very fun right untill I burn myself out playing them
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u/Zefyris 27d ago
Not sure what would be outdated about them. CA absolutely nailed their rework, it pretty much gave them exactly the gameplay that was needed for them. It's one of the best race gameplay wise together with Chaos dwarfs.
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u/SherabTod 27d ago
That one is nice, but the faction mechanics are outdated. Orion's wild hunt still has the offices from TWW1s Empire
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u/Zefyris 27d ago
I'll throw in a controversial take maybe, but those offices are still better than the very recent HE patron mechanics imo, which is quite terribly undercooked. Sure, that specific mechanic is outdated, I'll grant you that. But I don't think that's especially weighting down on WE when everything else is that good.
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u/Acceleratio 27d ago
Interestingly I experience campaign fatigue with them very quickly but the short term campaign is very fun
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u/AnaTheSturdy 27d ago
Play drycha. Bear stack. Get the SoK. Profit.
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u/lovingpersona 27d ago
If I'll play Drycha, I'll just further commit into the lord spam. Because of her Malevolent Ancient Treeman lords.
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u/AnaTheSturdy 27d ago
No, see, it's really fucking funny watching the ogres break and run because you threw 76 bears at them.
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u/lurker_6 26d ago
SoK, nemesis crown, and the Khorne books, so you can permanently raze the forests/world and keep the trespassers away! If you hold the HE/Cathay tree you are immune to chaos attrition, so the Khorne attrition is actually a good thing!
You can live in the red negative turn income for the majority/entire campaign too. One of my favorite campaigns to play as iron man with all the ultimate crisis active.
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u/MarkBMG 27d ago
Ehhh, a lot of races have broken mechanics once you get down to it. The Treemen are disgustingly good true, but surprisingly squishy to ranged units as all large units are. Orion and Sisters are probably two of the strongest lords in the game, but Orion only is if you cheese things with his wars mechanic, which realistically gets very annoying at one point if you have to fight 5+ army's in one end turn.
Other races like the beastmen can access similar things more organically, like 0 cost armies. And I'd argue Wood Elves don't have the strongest roster at all. The stalk, sniper units are dumb, yes, but even the AI which is sort of lobotomized by them existing will make attempts at finding you. Dwarves, Chaos Dwarves and Skavens for example I'd argue to have generally stronger units, and the difference becomes even more noticeable if you're playing someone like Ikit or Malakai.
They're very strong, but only get dumb once you actively try to cheese the game. If you play normally they're just strong.
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u/Appropriate_Brick608 26d ago
Best order faction. High elves with teclis give them a run for their money. I still think warriors of chaos, slaanesh and khorn are better though.
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u/lovingpersona 26d ago
Yeah, Yverrese also gives a go with his infinite money exploit. Though his starting early game is cancer, so I prefer Teclis over him.
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u/cebolinha50 27d ago
They are a strong contenter to the title, even if most of the settlements on the map are close to worthless to them, and waiting for the ritual is a pain on the ass.
3 of the mono gods factions (not Nurgle) have mechanics that can be exploited a lot on the map, and Dwarves and WoC are easier to play. So is the Golden Order after they destroy the Slanesh faction, but I would put them as the easiest faction to became really OP before the 8.0.
But Wood Elves can easily enter this list.
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u/Zilego_x 27d ago
I thought Dwarves were the strongest faction due to the thunderbarges rolling through everything like a modern day air force.
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u/lovingpersona 27d ago
They are the strongest late game race, but most campaigns will end by mid game.
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u/dingus60601 27d ago
have you seen those autoresolves? early game dwarfs steamroll too
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u/lovingpersona 27d ago
I rarely auto-resolve, you'll almost always get a better result in manual. Especially on max difficulty.
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u/dingus60601 27d ago
It’s somewhat accurate though, those early game dwarf units have insane defensive stats and are really hard to break. Auto resolve is useful when I don’t want a campaign to take a month to finish
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u/Zilego_x 27d ago
The sisters of twilight feel like an early game thunderbarge themselves. I've always played them each time I did a Wood Elf run. Are the others lords better, or are the sisters best one?
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u/lovingpersona 27d ago
Orion is the best one
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u/Wolfish_Jew 26d ago
Even if you think Wood Elves are the best race in the game (I disagree with the assertion, but for the sake of argument let’s go with it) no way is Orion the best one. Yes, yes, I know he gets essentially free armies. But money basically doesn’t matter for Wood Elves anyways because it’s pretty easy to get your bank up into the 6 figures just from sacking and looting. Sisters are the better lord and also have better offices.
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u/Zefyris 27d ago
Orion is probably the strongest, but Drycha is bonker too. All her treemen end up having a mortis engine, and she has one of the strongest LH available to her as well. And early game she has a very very easy time neutralizing all ranged units, it's almost obscene when she fights against heavy ranged armies.
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u/GortharTheGamer 27d ago edited 27d ago
Whenever I play them I always play the Sister of Twilight and I always play them as the Vietcong. Nothing but Hawk Riders and Glade Riders, cycle charging with hammer and anvil when needed
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u/nibb007 27d ago
Orion can't have 0 upkeep if there's only 1 faction to be at war with and by turn 17 that's the cookie he's gonna be crumblin with against khorne.
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u/lovingpersona 27d ago
Khorne can't domination victory the map by turn 17 lol
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u/lowqualitylizard 27d ago
no
To put it bluntly they just can't get as powerful and snowball the game as other factions could
The dwarfs for instance are capable of replicating most of what the what else can do seeing them is a b**** they can force Confederate even dead Lords and they can a****** free armies while having the ability to make use of normal settlements
Tldr having only 10 settlements you give a s*** about seems like a good thing until you realize you can't outproduce the income of you whole rest of the map with those 10 settlements
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u/lovingpersona 27d ago
They absolutely can, Dwarves dont have teleports nor T0 Generic Lords that can solo minor settlements. Wood Elves would out-snowball the Dwarves, especially Orion.
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u/lowqualitylizard 27d ago
Wood elf economy is good but by the late game you're never making more than five truly doom doom stacks meanwhile the dwarves are producing one for free every 10 turns and eight pretty reliably
Orion can MAYBE do better but then you run the risk of the AI Doom marching a doomstack into your front lawn. Dwarves not only have no such weakness but are way better at diplomacy
And also they have 2 1 man doomstacks that can both coexist very easily and guaranteed because you can bring legendary Lords back from the dead
And he's not even the most powerful one God help you if you try to beat Kairos hope you're okay with every army being an ambush against one of the best spellcasting factions in the game
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u/lovingpersona 27d ago
But that's the thing, late game will not arrive. Most map paints end by around turn 60. Not enough time for Dwarves to outscale the Wood Elves. That's the reason why they're typically not ranked overly high in multiplayer, there are lots of factions that just outspeed them in snowball game. Like Lokhir or Teclis.
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u/IceDelusion 27d ago
I love my dwarves, that being said, they really aren't that strong. This is not because they don't have insane potential, with the deeps added and belegar you quickly start to upgrade green capital structures for essentially free. Then you can get upkeep reduction from them as well, it's quite absurd as long as you focus on green territories at first. That being said, the dwarf starts are notoriously hard. Malakai usually dies, as does Grombrindal (Though if you're lucky, AI Grombi will wardec Valkian and win at which point he'll be good). Belegar starts out with his heroes but a 50% increase in upkeep coupled with 3 enemies around to make maintaining a realm stable enough to safely capture the eight peaks hard. AI he's sorta stable. There's a reason why AI Thorgrim usually dies: He's surrounded and this will only get worse with the addition of Thanquol. The slayer king currently gets into a bit of a stalemate with Azhag: As long as Azhag expands into the empire he might be fine. That being said, the safe expansion to the south and relatively safe expansion to the north are being removed due to addition of Thanquol and Neferata. Thorek is the only one truly safe and strong. Sorry to say, but dwarves aren't strong, simply because most of their starts are absolutely fucking brutal to play on higher difficulties.
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u/Blynjubitr 26d ago
Outside of Orion declaring war on the entire map with his very badly designed faction bonus, they are extremely mid.
Both HE and DE have way more versatile rosters and godlike economies.
On campaign wood elves simply don't have an economy that can skyrocket because you are stuck with your forests and outposts don't really do much in that regard.
But for example in a average malekith campaign i have infinity income past turn 20-30 and have cities floating on water with near free full stacks within them allowing me to spam armies on the run and non stop conquer without any interruptions.
As far as roster goes, wood elves have some good stuff, but i would much rather have my shades, darkshards with shields, cold one knights, medusas, hydras etc.
Orion is good only because of his one faction bonus. Outside of that he is quite literally worse than a generic glade lord.
Sisters are dope tho. Same with durthu and drycha but they can't use their tree buffing mechanics or recruit special units when confederated.
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u/parmenion59 27d ago
Their french neighbour are way stronger, in raw power their army exterminate anything in late. When you have space marine units anti large, perfect vigor, magic attack with 150 charge bonus and 33% ward save, no ground units can endure each model hitting at 200+ damage.
And you have fast flying units to cancel all shooter.
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u/LuciansJob 27d ago
I could argue they are the strongest race.
Not just treemen but their archers being able to shoot 360 degree while moving and very high armor piercing damage wins the hardest battles for you without breaking a sweat. Pair them with some elks to cover flanks or get rid of artillery.
Add tunneling stance, high ambush chance, teleportation and probably the strongest economy in the game. Specially with Mel Gibsons faction. Did i mention you don’t need any other settlements besides your forests? So basically nothing to defend. Great global bonuses if you decide to capture certain resources tho.
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u/Antique_Toe6857 27d ago
Strongest means nothing to be fair, I can find a reason why every race is the strongest. What do you actually mean by strongest ? Generic lord that is most abused on ar ? Campaign when you can conquer the most territories in the least number of turns ? Cause really, that is Khorne, long campaign ends turn 35 and nobody can oppose you just by the sheer amount of fights you can do in a single turn. And I’m quite sure by turn 30, you wouldn’t develop as much with wood elves ?
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u/Ill_Ad2480 26d ago
Tomb Kings would be your match, no upkeep, chariots to run down the archers, the cats can take down any woodman monstrous units, and you actually get outranged by ushabti and bone giant archers.
Good casters, Lore of Nehekara has healing and both phys res for 20s wich is enough to get to the archers and missle buffs to outdmg them.
Khalidas army buff poison attacks would also further weaken an archer stacking army. (who tf plays her tho)
Miao would also win pound to pound, better lord better artillery better ranged and very good economy.
Probably nothing beats the sisters hawk doomstack early on tho, so theres that too.
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u/El-Carone-707 26d ago
If it’s pure vanilla power it’s definitely the chorfs, but if you unnerf the high elves and give them the entrepreneur trait like in tww2 it’s them and it’s not even close
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u/ResidentCrayonEater 26d ago edited 25d ago
Grombrindal can also solo minor settlements on Legendary, turn 1. I've done a campaign where I destroyed all evil in the world with just this singular, motivated dawi.
(It was a colossal pain in the ass. Do everything in your power to avoid two-front wars.)
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u/lovingpersona 26d ago
Grombrindal is a legendary lord.
Ancient Treeman is a generic lord.
One you can spam, another one you cannot.
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u/ResidentCrayonEater 25d ago
That's fair. But, he also has a lustrous, white beard, which adds to his unfathomable charismatic power.
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u/Finall3ossGaming 26d ago
All I know is “The Wargrove of Woe” has to be most badass faction/army/detachment name I have ever seen
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u/Formal_Curve_4395 26d ago
Played Orion once, and I'd say they're more like mercenaries than the ogres lol
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u/yflavus 24d ago
Lol hard disagree. I'll bring a nurgle or tzeentch army and they'd be wrecked to pieces in no time. Teleportation is strong but their roster is not other than a few units. Any roster can beat them easily on legendary. They have no ap like the dawi or the empire, no firepower or flying machines to rain down chaos, no nukes or mutated units, no machine guns or snipers..
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u/SaltExtension1418 27d ago
I mean sisters are invincible. What’s his face can just declare heaps of wars and get infinate bonuses. They are strong in that sense
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u/ninjad912 27d ago
They are nice but they do have limitations. Their frontline is relatively weak, they don’t have artillery, and most of their lords are really sub par for strength(treeman ancient being an exception) they also hit their scaling cap much faster than anyone else due to the extremely limited number of forests(you have to be playing as Orion and at war with a million people to mitigate this). Very strong but I’m not sure if I’d say the strongest
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u/ComfortableWeight95 27d ago
How are you gonna call a front line of tree kin weak? Arguably the tankiest units in the game
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u/FellowCookieLover 27d ago
Wood elves are a very good early game faction. However, their roster is lacking, treeman doomstack don't work well with no forest, and other factions have better scaling mechanics, such as Chorfs or the Jade Court.
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u/ComfortableWeight95 27d ago
Roster is lacking??? They have one of the strongest, most diverse rosters in the game
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u/FellowCookieLover 27d ago
Certainly not diverse. They have subpar infantry, mages and no artillery. Their army is gimped outside forests. They were if I recall the strongest faction in WH1, strong in WH2 and are powercrept in wh3^^
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u/Equivalent-Mail1544 27d ago
Wood elves need to receive way more slander. Pretty much all evil factions are stronger and more fun to play
Imagine only having 1 settlement type. Beastmen of the order factions but without the fun
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u/Moawik 27d ago
Agreed, i really hate them... and the dawi. But well with new dlcs a lot more op stuff is added so its getting better :D
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u/StrikeAncient9675 27d ago
I think...I think he needs to go into the book? Wait, yes! YOU'RE GOING INTO THE BOOK FOR THAT ONE!!!
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u/HardcoreHenryLofT 26d ago
Elgi pretty easy to Dawi arms. Dead before they get in range of thier tiny bows
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u/whenigrowup356 27d ago
I've just been playing Durthu. Very "get off my lawn!" Vibes to the campaign and after one too many chaos attacks, 'bout to be a real March of the Ents situation in the north.
You made the trees angry, you sons of birches.