Are Wood Elf Sentinels worth the cost? They are 5 goblins with shields in points. You can almost get 3 Wood Elves for the same points.

They have the extra attack, a bow and the three spells, of which the 'command' spell is obviously the best. Are they worth the extra points and at an 1000 point game how many would you have?

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Go The Glorf!
My W.I.P - viewtopic.php?f=50&t=28062

I normally run 2 in a 1000 points list and try to include 1 at 700 points or below.

The command spell can be incredibly useful against some of the things which cause Wood Elfs problems such as Monsters or Shades. If you can get them to fail a courage test which isn't too unlikely given their low to average courage and move them away for even a turn it can help swing things your way. It's also handy to move away enemy banners especially if you have Legolas in your army who can then auto hit them or move a model out from behind cover so you can shoot it. Anything fast is a good candidate for this like a Spider Queen. Running any more than 3 is probably a waste since they are expensive and in the Hobbit rules a model only has to take one courage test per turn from the same source so you can't keep targeting the same model. The other problem is that with the amount of Fury around in Evil armies they can sometimes be a bit useless if there's no non-Fury'ed target. As long as there is a target for this spell try and do it every turn even if it just drains a bit of Will from a enemy model it is worth it as that gives them less Will to resist your other magic or use to pass courage.

The other spells are situational but can also come in handy. The one that makes a model automatically pass courage can be useful especially if your general is out of will/might although you would need to take the Sentinels courage test first but if you pass you can make sure your character Stands Fast. It is also useful to avoid Terror tests when charging to make sure you get at least one model into a terrifying enemy. It's important to remember that it can be used on enemy models too. I've once had a case where my opponent was hoping to fail courage to end the game but my Sentinel was able to make sure his model had to stay on the table to keep the game alive.

The third spell to cause Terror is probably the worst but it does have it's uses if your Sentinel is about to be charged.

The bow is handy and so is the elven cloak so try and make sure the Sentinels are kept out of sight. The extra attack can be useful but I'd avoid putting the Sentinels into combat unless it's one you are confident/certain of winning. An extra two attacks to trap a model can make it worth it if you think you'll win the fight.

Another good thing about them is that the models are fantastic. Some of my favourites in the range.

Thanks! A top quality in-depth answer about everything and anything sentinel.
And I definitely agree that they are some of the best models around and thats why I was thinking of taking more than the odd one or two.

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Go The Glorf!
My W.I.P - viewtopic.php?f=50&t=28062

They are very cool models.

My approach to writing wood elf lists is to first pick say 3 or 4 heroes that you want to lead warbands and then give them the basic troops that you want. Once you've done that you'll see how many points you have spare. If you've not got enough for another warband then that's when you start to spend points on upgrades like banners, sentinels, throwing daggers, mirkwood guard upgrades etc.

Quite often you'll find you've got about 70 points left and you can't buy another warband with it, if that's the case then Sentinels are a good way to use the spare points.

I'm not sure on the rules but maybe you could compare them to the newer Mirkwood Captains? Depending on who benefits your army the most you might want to rethink your army list.

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Wise Old Elf