Empire vs Wood Elves, mid game tactic?

[Dalaran1991]

The new wood elves faction is really strong, I played both as them and against them. Now in a mid-game empire campaign Im having quite the trouble.

Their units are both very strong melee and range. Wildwood rangers beat Greatsword straight up, and wardancers massacre empire infantry.
Their superior range allows them to focus fire my crossbowmen pretty quickly. If I use shielded infantry in front to soak up the damage then it weakens my frontline.

Their wild riders are deadly and they always field like 4-6 of these! So damn fast so spearman/halberdier barely get to brace against them cause they always run around, and their charge is really good. In contrast my poor slow reikguard have trouble catching them.

The only thing that seems to work is hellstorm rocket battery. I managed to get the RoR one and it wrecks their line. Bright wizard helps against the treeman, but thats about it.

Whats more, most battles against them are conducted in forest.

Without steam tanks or demigryph its way too difficult for mid game Empire basic units can stand up to them.

Tips anyone?

[Love Mountain]

Beat them at their own game. Get Crossbows for their lightly armored units, halberds for their monsters and cavalry, and just sit back with mortars, cannons, and hellfires (depending on your style). Late game you can opt for Demigryphs for halberds as a quick response unit against tough large monsters. Artillery will destroy concentrated wood elf formations. Mass crossbow fire fill annihilate those annoying units trying to take potshots at you. Stay away from large masses of heavy infantry. Wood elves are primarily light armored and missile based. Unless you enjoy watching your armies get slaughtered by mass volley fire you'll want to stay away from the typical heavy-infantry armies you'd want to bring. Get mortars and enjoy watching Elven scum burn.

The only thing you have to watch out for are light cavalry trying to flank you. Simply rotate your halberds to face them. That takes micro which is annoying but it has to be done. Otherwise keep heavy cavalry in reserve and disrupt the enemy charge when they try to flank your crossbowmen. Don't chase. Just ward them off. Your crossbows can kill lightly-armored cavalrymen as they run away. If the AI seperates their missile troops and tries to attack you from multiple directions, mass your crossbow and take out enemy archers one at a time. Additionally use your artillery to target blobs of Elves one at a time as well. Eventually either they will commit or they will keep bleeding troops.

Wildwood rangers and dancers are lightly armored, if you're afraid your infantry line will not withstand a melee charge, focus fire these units first with artillery, and then with crossbows as they come into range.

[Dalaran1991]

^^ I did a battle using such strategy and won but with heavy casualty. The thing is that, with their waywatcher they get off 2 volleys before your ranged units get to them, and by that time they have decimated your crosbows. they also love suicide charge their hawk riders and dragons into your gun + arty line, and halberdiers take very long to kill dragon. Greatsword struggles against their melee. I had demigryphs knight to kill their wild riders but they got shot to pieces while engaged in melee.

You are left with so many difficult choices: demigryphs to chase wild riders or to defend against dragon? Either way you get flanked or your line plunged to chaos. Shoot their range or their melee? And mind you their range can fight melee as well.

I've never had to fight this hard against AI before. At the same time fighting as WE is so freaking easy, you outrange, outmaneuver, outshoot (hagbane + swiftsilver), and outfight all armies. I never lost a battle fighting as wood elves vs orks, empires, chaos or dwarfs.

Wood Elves have a super strong and balanced roster. Thats how every race should be.

[Love Mountain]

If you're at a point where they are bringing utlra late game units like dragons, bring a Luminark. I always keep a Luminark on my army. It saves SOOOO much hasssle with huge units.

I also have to ask what difficulty you're on, because if you're on a difficulty beyond Hard then your tactics need to be completely different imo.

[Dalaran1991]

Oh yeah, they have like at least 3 dragons in their stacks, and they always have like 5 stacks!! I cant even get steam tanks yet, but can recruit the RoR Luminark. Didnt have good experience with it since the damn thing miss all the time. Will retry.

Also Im playing on Very Hard, but I change the battle difficulty to Normal. Still doesnt change the fact that they are steamrolling in with waywatchers and swiftsilver shafts and dragons and wildwood rangers and . Even the Orcs or Dwarfs AI dont cheat this badly.

What change in tactics would you recommend?

[♔atthias♔]

Oh yeah, they have like at least 3 dragons in their stacks, and they always have like 5 stacks!! I cant even get steam tanks yet, but can recruit the RoR Luminark. Didnt have good experience with it since the damn thing miss all the time. Will retry.

Also Im playing on Very Hard, but I change the battle difficulty to Normal. Still doesnt change the fact that they are steamrolling in with waywatchers and swiftsilver shafts and dragons and wildwood rangers and . Even the Orcs or Dwarfs AI dont cheat this badly.

What change in tactics would you recommend?

battle diffyculty slider is broken it still gives the AI stat buffs only the morale bonus is removed AFAIK
I.E you are fichting againgst a VH battle AI whitout morale bufs AFAIK

[Dalaran1991]

battle diffyculty slider is broken it still gives the AI stat buffs only the morale bonus is removed AFAIK
I.E you are fichting againgst a VH battle AI whitout morale bufs AFAIK

Damn it so this is why Karl Franz lose clearly to an Empire general!!!

Seriously CA why you not fix this? Now it makes perfect sense. I wont even bother a shoot off with those elves anymore. On VH they get 12% damage, accuracy and reload rate. Dont bother.

I'll just restart my campaign then. Thanks guys.

[Love Mountain]

Yeah that does make sense. I always play on normal battle difficulty because anything else makes the battles annoying. Let me know how your normal campaign goes. I love squashing tree huggers

[econ21]

battle diffyculty slider is broken it still gives the AI stat buffs only the morale bonus is removed AFAIK

According to the official forums, the opposite is true: the slider removes the hidden stat buffs, but leaves the AI with a morale bonus.

That chimes with my experience. I usually play VH/N and the starter battles do seem more imbalanced against me if I forget to lower the difficulty slider. I hadn't realised the persistent morale buff, but it is true the AI in my campaign battles does seem very brave - even goblins etc.

[♔atthias♔]

According to the official forums, the opposite is true: the slider removes the hidden stat buffs, but leaves the AI with a morale bonus.

That chimes with my experience. I usually play VH/N and the starter battles do seem more imbalanced against me if I forget to lower the difficulty slider. I hadn't realised the persistent morale buff, but it is true the AI in my campaign battles does seem very brave - even goblins etc.

what do you mean with that cimes in with my experience?
I dont understand the word cimes to be specefic

[econ21]

what do you mean with that cimes in with my experience?
I dont understand the word cimes to be specefic

Sorry, "chimes" is primarily a musical term (a bell chimes at midnight) but can also be used in English to indicate agreement. So "chimes with my experience", means is consistent with what I've observed. (I take more casualties in simple fights VH/VH than VH/N.)

[Chewie]

Empire can't outshoot elves. Forget about your regular infantry too, their armor is too low to take their ranged fire. Go cav heavy and you must win against the flank fights against the wildriders (focus their cav with your arty on their approach, then switch to their ranged when they pop out of stealth). If you can kill off their fast movers you will win, if you don't you're dead.

flagellants make for good blockers with unbreakable trait. Don't expect them to survive the fight though.

As far as dealing with them on the map, you're just going to have to be proactive. Try to send a cheap stack to help the Bretonnian factions early on. Don't wait for them to stomp out the whole Bretonnia (which they inevitably will do) and have 5+ stacks of elites bearing down on you before you do anything about it. Play the diplomacy game right and you can contain them.

[LestaT]

Avoid offensive battles with WE except when you raze their settlements. In my last VH Empire campaign, I was trying to fight them on my lands. Having fought endless battles against them until I decided to send 2 stacks to raze Athel Loren.

After that, you can just mop up their armies since they no.longer can recruit units.

You may loose the battles, but you'll win the war in the end.

[♔atthias♔]

Sorry, "chimes" is primarily a musical term (a bell chimes at midnight) but can also be used in English to indicate agreement. So "chimes with my experience", means is consistent with what I've observed. (I take more casualties in simple fights VH/VH than VH/N.)

no need to say sorry but in regards to the slider strange that for I have experienced it as I described

[Påsan]

Avoid offensive battles with WE except when you raze their settlements. In my last VH Empire campaign, I was trying to fight them on my lands. Having fought endless battles against them until I decided to send 2 stacks to raze Athel Loren.

After that, you can just mop up their armies since they no.longer can recruit units.

You may loose the battles, but you'll win the war in the end.

Did you autoresolve those? I threw four mid-tier armies in there and the ones who werent destroyed came limping out half-dead. That said they done seem very keen on rebuilding razed settlements.

Fighting elves is hard. Use both RoR artillery, 3 handgunners for treekin and treemen and bring some demis. Both variants work.the RoR luminark is also excellent with the free net and monster/lord sniping.

For frontline you're gonna loose most of them anyway. Use swordsmen and fanatics. You need to win the ranged and cav game. Air superiority dosent hurt too ofc.

[Mirohell]

Hi ! Elves are total insane. I playing very hard, so AI head some bonuses in general. But elves had OP income and units. I play bretonia. When i charge with knight into archers and archers totaly beats my knights ? Peasant achers are not totally worthless but bretonia infrary is joke and cannot stop elves infrary. Catapults are good byt not goot enought vs elves mases. I did not managnage win any battle i tryed many times many strategies. 3 stack vs one I still lost. So a use auto resolve. No fun

Option is ignore them in start byt they will start expand in lete game and no way to stop they 3 stack armies. ( i cannot beat one stack neither).

(i tryed fight elves with beastmen, it was totaly offtopic.)

[Ichon]

The ranged bonuses on VH and Legendary are more noticeable for Elves but they are still beatable though it is much harder to do 1 vs 2 as you can most other armies unless you have mostly elite units. Mixed stack battles Bretonnians don't match up well vs Elves but if you use your knights and a damsel and the Elves don't have too many Wild Riders it is doable.

Most of the time if seems to come down to how many Wild Riders they bring, 4+ per army and your knights have to spend far too long chasing them rest of the army dies. As Bretonnia best option is to fight early or late campaign. Middle campaign its really tough on the higher difficulties though only on offense- if you fight out of forest and have more numbers you should win easily. It is trying to conquer Athel Loren and end any wars that is hard. Basically you need to lure WE out of Athel Loren then have a full army ready to attack inside/finish off fleeing stacks right away. Usually I save up some money then go into negative finance just to win that war.

For some reason I responded for Bretonnia- for Empire it is actually a bit easier if you have the right mage and/or some artillery backed by Crossbows. Focused fire of crossbows can take down Wild Riders a bit better than the peasant bowmen of Bretonnia while Reiksguard and/or pistoliers screen. Frontline of Swordsmen with shields also last a bit longer so you have more time to deal with the Wild Riders compared to Bretonnia.

If you can get a Light wizard as Empire the Net of Amyntok holds the Wild Riders just long enough.

[drillmaster]

As bretonnia i just hold the castles on the edge of the forest. Sometimes elves attack but i just defend with the garisson and 2 armies. Even then its a bloodbath. The point is to wait out until 1000 chivalry and you win. By that point its a piece of cake. Now if you want to continue the campaign and go after the elves and chaos.....dont.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[Chewie]

Before it was easier to kill WE because they would expand aggressively out of Athel Loren where you can kill them easily, but now with isolationist trait they turtle in the woods with all their stacks that you can't sneak in and raze a settlement while they're away from home.