Some Total War: Warhammer fans consider wood elves a benchmark faction – with unique mechanics and full lore accuracy

Making a faction strong is easy. Making it convincing is much harder, especially when an army of archers is nearly untouchable in its home woods and noticeably weaker in the open. That's not a bug, it's a feature.

The Wood Elves of Athel Loren arrived in Total War: Warhammer in 2016 with the Realm of the Wood Elves DLC. Drycha and the Sisters of Twilight followed in 2019, while Total War: Warhammer 3 has not gotten a single DLC dedicated to them. Even so, one Reddit user called them Creative Assembly's perfect faction: it plays exactly as the lore describes, supports several playstyles, and has truly unique mechanics.

The flexibility of the army stands out right away. Players can build a wall of archers, an infantry fist, or squads of shock cavalry, and the lack of catapults and cannons doesn't bother the faction. One player put it bluntly:

Who needs artillery when a giant tree can just walk up to the walls and punch through it?

The role of cannons is covered by Orion spear, the "Volley of Kurnous" spell, and the archers themselves. All elven archers can fire on the move, while Deepwood Scouts and Waywatchers cover a full 360 degrees. These armor-piercing and poisoned shooters were noticeably toned down in the move from the second game to the third, since in multiplayer they mowed down enemies while barely entering melee.

The forest doesn't forgive mistakes, though. Trees block elven arrows: archers standing at the treeline can fire freely and take cover from enemy shots, but a volley won't make it through the whole thicket. Unhappy players can grab the Wood Elf Arrows Ignore Trees mod, and veterans of tabletop Warhammer Fantasy recall a rule the game still lacks. There, elves could grow a forest right on the battlefield during deployment.

Complaints pile up too. The Oak of Ages siege map doesn't change with upgrades and gets downright tiresome by the tenth defense, and the AI plays Wood Elves the same way it plays every other faction. Some find the campaign boring once the forest is secured, although the latest update with its crisis scenario lets players teleport through forests to help allies. The cherry on top is the Drycha campaign, which can be played without any elves at all.

Wood Elves have gone almost ten years without a rework, and nobody is rushing to demand one.