We have the Lord of the Rings to thank – or to blame – for the wood elves: proud guardians of the forest and peerless archers who strike without warning against any who trespass into their sacred groves. That motif has carried across into miniature wargames, and the Sÿennan wood elves of Warcrow are no exception: they’re hit-and-run assassins who launch a lethal first strike and fade away before the enemy can counterattack. But if you would prefer the enemy never regains its footing for the counterattack, then the huge new character Eachann the Centaurelf is the living siege weapon for the job.
Eachann is simple and violent. He’s got solid defenses and a decent amount of health, a powerful melee attack, and an impressive charge range of thirteen strides. Aside from clobbering things really hard, his melee attack also has a good chance of knocking its target back, clearing them off an objective and allowing him to pile in the distance up to them. His ranged ability The Waybreaker has a similar effect, shoving everything within three strides of the target away from them.
Once you’ve cleared out a zone with Eachann, or gotten him stuck into the enemy lines, you can spend a command point to Stomp the Ground. This turns the battlefield around him into Rugged terrain, hampering movement and completely preventing charges for enemy units. So the play with Eachann is obvious – he’s a beat stick that can mess up your opponent’s coordination, clear them off objectives, and hamper their movement.
But the faction that he’s part of really inflects how you’re going to use him – there is nothing else like him in the Sÿennan. He’s not the spearhead for a wall of meat – he’s a shock and awe missile strike designed to keep the battle on your terms, pin the enemy in place, and give the rest of the Sÿennan room to work.
The Sÿennan’s classic wood elf tricks start with the basic ‘Protectors of the Forest’ archers. They’re great long-range fighters who can pin the enemy in place or break their morale, and as long as they’re close to a forest or a ‘Nemorous’ ally, they can reposition at the end of their activation to stay out of harm’s way. Simple and effective – but that’s just where the hit and run tactics start.
The Grove Curtailers can Scout ahead of the main force, and if they ever lose combat, they can choose to be pushed back as far as their charge distance, zooming across the board and away from whoever was bullying them. Many units are ambushers, able to appear almost anywhere on the battlefield in the middle of the game and stick a knife into the enemy’s ribs.
The winged elf Ynyr Dara Lainn can charge an absurd 20 strides, and then perform a superman lift off to escape from combat, blasting his opponents back and redeploying during the same turn. Or there’s the Walker of the Leaf Storm, which can can pull an ally into a portal, and have both of them reappear on a later turn.
This is also a force that hits extremely hard. The Shadows of the Yew shut down all your opponent’s “switches” (abilities that are triggered by specific die results in combat), turning off whole banks of defensive and counter-attack tech – and if you want to give this ability to another unit, you can attach the character Neakail Oen Fhiahra to them for the same effect. The officer Durach Brutamonte is pretty much a D&D ranger, able to place a ‘Hunter’s Mark’ on a target for extra damage. Even the basic Protectors of the Forest have a savage ranged attack.
Eachann isn’t the only area denial unit in the list. The Druid spellcaster can summon a seven inch wide forest onto the battlefield, perfect as a point for your teleporting units to hop to and to make your stealthier units immune to enemy shooting attacks. The bloodthirsty Sprigs – who have living tree branches growing from their body – can entangle their foes, forcing them to remain in combat until one or the other is slain.
The Shadow of the Rowan can respond to an enemy making a charge attack by firing a booby trap in their face, shuts down enemies by saturating them with stress, and generally makes a nuisance of itself while being very hard to kill. And then there’s the Shadow of the Hawthorn, a lone elf with frankly disgusting defensive stats. He disarms enemies as he attacks them, saps their ability to claim objectives, and pins any enemies he engages in combat with firmly in place.
All of these distractions, tarpits, and hit-and-run tactics are necessities for the Sÿennan, of course, because the bulk of the force is composed of spindly, twig-limbed elves. They’re low on health points, and – for the most part – once the enemy engages them, they’ll fold like a paper cup. Eachann may be as solid as an anvil, but it’s better to think of him as a fulcrum: a fixed point that you can pivot your forces around, and get the leverage you need to turn the enemy onto its back, ready for your elven blade.
If you already collect the Sÿennan, Eachann is available to pre-order from the Corvus Belli webstore. If the faction has caught your attention, the action pack is the place to start, as it has a full army in one box.
Source: Wargamer
