This post is to help me focus my plans on my army selection and battle tactics. I hope you find it interesting and possibly useful info too.
So, these are the steps I am going to go through. In business this is called a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats).
1) What did I learn from our last encounter ?
2) What are my strengths ?
3) What enemy weaknesses am I going to try and exploit ?
4) What opportunities can I make the most of ?
5) What threats must I counter ?
1) What I have learnt from my last battle against Wood Elves.
Our last encounter was a disaster for my new High Elf army (I was using the new 2007 edition 7 Army book too !)
I made one really critical error - I didn't take any cavalry. I was also hampered by the placement of Wooded scenery which was smack bang in the center of the battlefield.
As a result the Wood Elf waywatchers and gladeguard were able to fire volley after volley into my ranks and I had no way of preventing this. My only fast moving unit was a Lion Chariot that could not enter the woods in any case.
I have to assume my enemy will once again bring plenty of missile troops (it's his biggest advantage) so I need to take this more into consideration this time around.
2) My strengths
My two main strengths are:-
Masterful control of the winds of magic and
My martial hand to hand prowess with always strike first and access to great weapon units.
I made maximum use of the latter great weapon units. Two units of 20 swordmasters (one of which almost dispatched a Treeman by themselves)
I chose to igmore spellcasting and took no mages into the last battle.
3) My Weaknesses
My elite swordmasters suffered badly at the arrow tips od the enemy sharp shooters (almost half of them had fallen before they got to strike a single blow !)
I am not quite as fast moving as the enemy who can use more flyers and cavalry and move without penalty through woods.
4) The opportunites there for the taking
My enemy is very reliant on wooded terrain. His magic spells are often more powerful near woods and his troops can easily dart in and out of them to fire and avoid combat.
I am going to negate this strength by taking more white lions. They are woodsmen and can move at the same speed as the wood elves through the trees.
I also have access to a magic banner that will allow a unit of cavalry to do the same (the Banner of Ellyrion which costs a mere 15 pts).
My mages are so good (the best in the Warhammer Fantasy world) that they can virtually switch off magic or cast with irresistable force (Teclics or an arch mage with the Book of Hoeth). I will be making use of these abilities in the next battle.
5) Threats
By taking fewer hand to hand rank and file troops (to free up points for magic and fast cavalry) I can not rely as much on my swordmasters to deal with the enemy's Treeman or Dragon which he might bring instead.
I will need to therefore be in a position to use magic offensively as well as defensively. This means being able to select the spells I need (either Teclis who knows all spells or the Seerstaff of Saphery (30 pts)
I do not believe that magic alone will be enough to cope with any large 'monsters' the Wood Elf General brings. I therefore will either look at building a large creature myself with an assassinator character or I will take one or more repeating bolt throwers to do the job for me.
Well, I found that a handy little exercise. It's clarified my thinking. Next up will be my actual army selection.
