A brief synopsis on Wood Elf Kindreds

This was taken from Asraii.org, and I found it pretty useful. Check it out.

Wood Elf Kindreds

Along with the ability for Lords & Heroes to take Magic Items Wood Elven Generals may also choose to be from a kindred or accompanied by a Spite. This article focuses on making your Lords & Heroes from each of the seven wood elven kindreds available at your disposal.

Wardancer Kindreds
Both a Highborn and a Noble can take the wardancer kindred as well as most other ones available for wood elf players. The Wardancer Kindred is basically self-explanatory, the Highborn/Noble that has it literally becomes a wardancer. Gaining all the bonuses that a wardancer would with only losing the ability to take a longbow and other non-wardancer magical weapons is a good deal. A Highborn/Noble with this kindred should be accompanied by at least 8 wardancers to give one awesome close combat unit. The ability for a noble to add 5 attacks to your wardancer unit definitely makes up the amount of points it costs (assuming you use the Shadow Dance “Storm of Blades”).

With the above comments in mind, you need to figure out what to equip your Wardancer Kindred with. Highborns are much easier, as they have a larger magic item allowance but Nobles are just as easy to make an effective character out of. For spites, An annoyance of netlings might work well as it will help you with challenges and his survivability. The Spite I recommend though would be a murder of spites. For only half of a noble’s magic items allowance you can get +d6 attacks in which are magical and count as poisoned. Though they are weak attacks the sheer number of them if you roll a 6 will surely kill something.

A murder of spites is the best spite for the Wardancer Kindred, so now its time to decide on what protection you’re going to give him. You can’t give him armor, so talismans are the way to go. Amranthine Brooch seems like the best choice but with how expensive it is only a Highborn can take it along with a murder of spites. Amber Pendant oculd also give you some protection, allowing you to strike first and hopefully stops the enemy from striking back. Now you have a decision to make, whether or not to take a spite for your noble or a talisman of some sort. I would suggest a talisman, as it gives you the protection for such a costly character while the sheer amount of attacks that a wardancer can strike with should make up for not taking a murder of spites. For your highborn though, you have a much larger magic item allowance which can be used to take a spite, some protection and even a weapon. I would suggest taking Amaranthine brooch because it gives you a good ward save along with a murder of spites and blades of loec if you have the points. Now this character can really pack a pucnch when put in a unit of 8 or 9 wardancers.


Eternal Kindreds
Being the cheapest of all the kindreds, the Eternal Kindred wont cost you much. Also what you would regularly get for 8 pts (light armor, shield, and extra hand weapon) you now can take for 5 pts. Better yet you can fight with an additional rank making this bargain even more tantalizing.

I would recommend, in most cases, to take a noble as your eternal kindred. Unless you want a unit that can really pack a punch, then I would suggest a highborn. But the addition of a noble would be best as the unit of Eternal Guard it joins is stubborn when you accompany it a noble. For items it would probably be best to make your noble the cheapest you can get it. You already have armor and you cant take any magical weapons or armor without losing the bonuses of the Eternal Kindred, so taking a spite would be best. Just like a wardancer kindred should, an Eternal Kindred should take either annoyance of netlings or a murder of spites. A murder of spites might seem to be the best choice here, but when your opponent finds out that your noble is the one making your unit stubborn than he will make him first on his target priority when engaging this unit. Now the best choice would be annoyance of netlings, because if you issue a challenge with, the enemy character or champion that accepted hits only on 6’s. Even better, if your opponent refuses then you have effectively taken away 2-3 potential attacks while allowing you character to attack the enemy unit itself.

On the other hand, if you take a highborn with the eternal kindred then some more choices come into play. Taking rymer’s harp will allow your whole unit to have the same ward save as a dryad and the ability to move over any difficult terrain you have trouble moving over (and if you have a unit of 19 Eternal Guard then it’s definitely worth the points). An annoyance of Netlings should be a staple on the highborn too because if you equipped Rymer’s harp then that will just entice the opponent to get rid of him even more than he did before.

Furthur more you can take Merciw's Locus, an extremely good item when combined with annoyance of netlings and a great weapon.

Alter Kindreds
My personal favorite, the alter kindred, is probably the most effective or versatile kindred that the wood elves have at their disposal. Mainly used as a mage hunter and a warmachine hunter, this bad boy has many different jobs in which he can take up. Also with the ability to move as fast as an elven steed (that means out running any of those bretonnian and imperial cavalry) he can be at any plce he wants to within a couple of turns. What job he will perform, though, will reflect on how you equipped him.

The first job an Alter Kindred can take up would be a warmachine hunter. Equipped much like a mage hunter, this variant is cheap yet effective. All you need is some armor and you’ve got an effective Alter Kindred. Usually players like to add more to them to give them more versatility. But a cheap Alter Kindred kitted out for war machine and mage huning would probably have either an enchanted shield, light armor, a great weapon, and the helm of the hunt or a shield, light armor, a murder of spites, a great weapon and helm of the hunt. These two combinations are suitable for the job for just under 150 pts.

Another job for the Alter Kindred is a knight hunting alter kindred. This can be taken in two ways. One with a murder of spites, the helm of the hunt, and light armor, shield, and a great weapon (same as the one for warmachine hunting, redundancy is a good thing in warhammer). The other would be a shooty Alter Kindred with arcane bodkins, light armor, a shield, and helm of the hunt. This will allow you shoot and then engage in combat and so some reasonable damage. Though this comb would be better with a highborn, taking bow of loren with arcane bodkins to have 4 shots. This isn’t as popular though because these items would be better spent on a scout kindred.

Also, to expand the versatility you can take a different Alter Kindred. This one would be a noble, kitted out with hail of doom arrow and the helm of the hunt along with light armor, a shield, and a great weapon. Or you can try a highborn equipped like this along with a blight of terrors and get some interesting results.


Wild Rider Kindreds
The Wild Rider Kindred, a fast and hard hitting kindred, is usually taken in summer themed lists. Otherwise it would be taken to add some more punch to your hard hitting wild riders. Whichever reason you take him for, the most important thing to do first, like with the rest of the kindreds, is to figure out what to equip him with.

Most likely you’ll place your wild rider kindred in a unit of wild riders (preferably composed of 5-6 models). With this in mind, you can decide what to take for him. He already has a couple of ward saves and a mediocre armor save. For better survivability a highborn should take Oaken Armor, allowing him to regenerate his wounds. So a suitable Wild Rider Kindred Highborn would have Oaken Armor, Dawnspear, and an elven steed. The Dwanspear has the potential to reduce the damage caused by enemy units, and of course the elven steed is required unless you mount him on a Great Stag.

You have the choice of being mounted on a Great Stag, which is basically a great eagle with more strength and less movement. Taking a great stag would give you a close combat beast and more survivability since all shots against the stag and highborn are randomized. If you have the points and you want the Great Stag then take it, otherwise leave it.

Equipping a Wild Rider Kindred Noble is a bit trickier. You only have 50 points for magic items which doesn’t give you much space for items. Equipping the noble with a murder of spites or annoyance would be good but that leaves you with 25 pts left which leaves practically nothing else to equipped onto him. I would suggest If your taking a wild rider kindred that it would be a highborn and if not it isn’t worth it. Also taking either one of the spears one a wild rider kindred would be good, as they both do well on him.

An interesting tactic would be putting a Wild Rider Kindred in a unit with a treeman. This of course would provide you with better survivability but with less mobility. Who needs mobility though when you have the moonstone of hidden ways?

Scout Kindred
The ability to give a character the scouting ability is a good one indeed, allowing your character to accompany your units of scouts. A noble/highborn with the scouting kindred can act as one of two things. One being a sniper, excelling at taking out lone wizards and other things like ratling guns. The other one being a supportive character, accompanying your unit of scouts.
When equipping a scout kindred it is useful to get an idea of what his role is. Will he be a sniper or will he be a supportive scout? Both of these options should be considered when choosing how to equip your scout kindred.

A Sniper should be equipped with a pageant of shrikes giving him an extra ranged attack along with hunter’s talon. For a noble this fits the maximum magic item allowance which means you can have a cheap sniper for your army. Otherwise, a highborn could be equipped with the bow of loren, arcane bodkins and a pageant of shrikes. Also you could switch arcane bodkins with hagbane arrows. Other than that a noble would be better suited for this job for its points unless you were to take a waywatcher kindred (see below).

The other option, a supportive character, I would recommend rather than the sniper as a waywatcher kindred could perform the same job with more finesse. When equipping supportive scout kindred you have to think about the unit he will be in. If it is a unit of 7 scouts with the banner of Zenith then it would be wise to invest some points to protect the unit. Otherwise a weaker unit should be accompanied by the same noble/highborn to make it a more capable unit. For a highborn, the bow of loren and hail of doom arrow seem like two weapons that wood do good on this scout kindred. Well I’m here to tell you they are. Hail of doom arrow will reduce ranks while bow of loren will give you more shots per a turn. Also taking a scout kindred in a unit of scouts would make the unit more than capable to take out some warmachines. For a cheaper alternative you can take a noble with either one of the items listed above.

After these two options comes another, a close combat scout, which will be described below in the waywatcher kindreds.


Waywatcher Kindreds
Another way to make your character a scout, possibly the best scout in the game, is to take a Waywatcher Kindred. Although the Waywatcher kindred has no armor and cannot take a great weapon or anything like that, you can still make a waywatcher kindred that adds that extra punch to your unit of Waywatchers. Also, as described above a waywatcher kindred can be a sniper. The waywatcher kindred is the better choice when taking a sniper even though it’s a bit more costly.

First, the waywatcher kindred has the Lethal Shot rule. If you take a magical bow and/or magical arrows then the Lethal Shot rule is nullified when using them. For a sniper waywatcher kindred I would suggest taking a pageant of shrikes, and hail of doom arrow for a relatively cheap highborn. This may not be the best choice, as your highborn is usually your only lord choice. A noble would most likely be seen with one of the above. To give these two choices better survivbability amaranthine brooch should suffice.

A second choice for waywatcher kindreds would be to take a close combat waywatcher kindred. This waywatcher kindred would be used to take out such units like warmachines and other scouting units. Also if distance permits you might be lucky enough to charge a fast cavalry unit. A close combat waywatcher kindred should have a murder of spites to give him the extra attacks. For more attacks you should take the sword of battle giving you a total of 5+D6 attacks with a noble and 6+D6 attacks with a highborn (Note that the +D6 attacks are not at the same strength and initiative as the user).

Glamourweave Kindred
Finally, the last kindred and a special one indeed. Only Spellsingers and Spellweavers can take this though. This will give your spellcasters better survivability but at a cost. The Kindred requires them to be mounted on an elven steed, but it gives them the “forest spirit” special rule.

Most players don’t take this as it’s a waste of points just for the few bonuses you get but in all forest spirits lists you can now take dispel scrolls. Also if you take the special character Drycha then you must have an army composed of nothing but forest spirits. That’s when glamourweave spellsingers come into play. Also the glamourweave kindred has more maneuverability allowing them to dodge any danger that might present themselves as a threat to the unprotected spellsinger.

Don't forget that glamourweave spellsingers/weavers also have the choice of being mounted on a unicorn which could bring in a new range of tactics in which I will not get into right now.