MAGIC MOMENTS

Mat comments further on the new Lore of Magic, the Lore of Athel Loren.

"Part of the way many players use Wizards is as another offensive arm of their army, zapping enemy units with fireballs and actively doing damage to the foe. What we wanted to achieve with Wood Elf mages was a slightly different way of having magic interact with the army. While there are those spells that can damage enemy units, the majority work to enhance the qualities of units within the Wood Elf army itself. So you can use magic to make some of your units Regenerate, cause Fear (or Terror if they already cause Fear), or become Ethereal."

Wood Elf Spellsinger

Many of the ideas for the Wood Elf magic system were inspired by the old magic cards from earlier editions of Warhammer.

"Jade and Amber magic provided a lot of the thematic ideas for the Lore of Athel Loren, but what the spells did in those incarnations were too powerful for the magical landscape of Warhammer today – so we used the ideas there and made them more appropriate and balanced."

This philosophy carried over to the creation of magic items, which again reflected the idea of balance.

"Some magic items are designed to kill the enemy, but there are others designed to heal and renew your characters or units. Part of the challenge with magic items is to make a set of items that are all equally attractive to players so you don't just see the same ones turning up time after time. The choice of magic items should be just that – a choice, not a 'gimme'."

Veteran players will notice some old favourites from the early incarnations of the Wood Elves, such as the Hail of Doom and the Arcane Bodkin arrows.

"Magic arrows are a little different from normal magic weapons. They count as Enchanted Items and can be combined with magic bows. It keeps the character of the Wood Elves in their magic items and weapons but stays within the basic rules."

DESIGNING THE BOOK

Alun Davies

Alun Davies, Nuala Kinrade, and Steph Kopinski were the graphic artists that gave the Wood Elf book its distinctive look and feel. Alun was only too happy to chat about how they achieved it.

"We saw the book very much as the third book in a trilogy, with the High Elf and Dark Elf books going before it – so we wanted to continue some of the themes explored in those."

This type of approach can be seen in the new book, which maintains the style of imagery that has gone before and builds on the strong natural elements of the Wood Elves.

"The Wood Elves have a graceful, natural feel to them. They've spent a lot of time with their environment and have it pretty much just the way they want it. In some ways, the borders of the book resemble those of the Beasts of Chaos Army book, but we didn't want to take it as far as we did there. It's sinister and dark without being evil. Many of the textures for the book came from a piece of art that had a woven texture of branches with lots of Spites peering out. These were blown up and faded to provide a background texture for many of the pages. It gives the feeling that you're being watched, the feeling of paranoia without being out-and-out evil."

Many of the colours chosen for the book were very naturalistic ones; greens and browns for the most part.

"We wanted the book to have a very natural tone, so that there was nothing in it that looked artificial and nothing that made the models hard to see."

"The key to the book was not going overboard on the graphics," says Alun. "We wanted the character of the Wood Elves to come through in the graphics but didn't want to overwhelm the content."

FOREST SPIRITS

Swelling the ranks of the Wood Elf army are the spirits of Athel Loren – Dryads, Spites, Treemen, and Tree Kin – the physical embodiment of the spirit creatures dwelling in Athel Loren. Tree Kin bear some resemblance to Treemen, though they are smaller and there are some other important differences too.

Mat explains, "The Tree Kin and Treemen are essentially the group consciousness of the forest. The Tree Kin are spirits that inhabit dead branches and can enter and leave them at will."

Treemen, however, are spirits that possess living trees and then become bound to them forever. Like you'd expect, Tree Kin are tough in a fight.

"They're a combat unit. Their Ward Save and bark armour make them very durable. They're one of those types of units that can take damage and hit back."

Spites are something different altogether, being much smaller and limited to spirit forms. However, their small size doesn't make them harmless by any means.

"Spites are chosen from a character's magic item allowance and allow him to do all manner of unpleasant things to his enemies. Tiny imps stab out the foes' eyes, and there are spirits that drain the magic power from enemy Wizards. It's all part of bringing that capricious, malicious side of Athel Loren to the fore."

Next: Character Building
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