Total War: Warhammer II — Wood Elves rework guide

We’ve already talked about the campaign basics for the Sisters of Twilight as well as how you can awaken the demi-goddess Ariel. Now, it’s time to discuss the bulk of the Wood Elves rework with its many tweaks and overhauls.

Note: This guide is based on a Vortex campaign playthrough on VH/VH difficulty. For more information, check out our Total War: Warhammer II – The Twisted & The Twilight guides and features hub.

Total War: Warhammer II – Wood Elves rework guide

Healing magical forests in the Vortex and Mortal Empires campaigns

First things first, let’s talk about the magical forests. Now, I know this mechanic was already mentioned while you’re trying to recruit Ariel, but there’s some additional information to discuss as part of the Wood Elves rework.

The gist is that Total War: Warhammer II‘s Vortex campaign has four magical forests (The Witchwood, The Sacred Pools, Oreon’s Camp, and Gaean Vale). The Witchwood happens to act as the “main” magical forest in the Vortex campaign (meaning it has more boons but also more HP that you need to restore).

Assuming you start healing these forests and reach new thresholds (i.e., 60-119 health for the Witchwood and 20-39 health for the other forests), you’ll unlock faction-wide buffs:

Furthermore, higher thresholds help heal the main magical forest in the campaign. Once the minor magical forests are maxed out, they’ll even increase your global recruitment capacity. For instance, you can see an example below for Oreon’s Vale which I fully healed towards the end of my Sisters of Twilight playthrough. Notice the faction-wide buffs it provides?

That’s for Total War: Warhammer II‘s Vortex campaign. If you play Mortal Empires, you’ll see eight magical forest regions, each with its own heathlands and buffs from healing as well.

For the Mortal Empires campaign, the Oak of Ages/Athel Loren becomes the “main” forest region (even for the Sisters of Twilight). That means all other forests help boost its health if you slowly reach new thresholds with them. Plus, they’ll all increase your global recruitment capacity, too.

Note: Whether you’re playing the Vortex or Mortal Empires campaign, the main forest will have its HP decay over time at higher thresholds. As such, you do need to heal the other forests so that they can offset the main forest’s penalty.

The Ritual of Rebirth

The Ritual of Rebirth is a process that’s similar to the rituals done by vanilla factions in Total War: Warhammer II‘s Vortex campaign. This is a key objective as part of the Wood Elves rework if you play as any legendary lord from this faction.

To unlock the Ritual of Rebirth for a particular magical forest, you need to max out its health. Once you’re ready, click on the small purple icon (which looks like a sapling) next to the forest’s meter. This will begin the Ritual of Rebirth which lasts for eight turns.

By starting one, you’ll notice three or more Forest Encounter icons on the campaign map (they usually appear in the forest’s region). These don’t present you with dilemmas at all. Instead, these are just battles you’ll want to tackle immediately.

If you can bring an army to those locations quickly, you can eliminate the mustering armies with ease. Heck, if you have a lot of movement points left, you could wallop a couple of them on the same turn.

Note 1: If you weren’t able to take out these armies in time, they’ll have full stacks raiding the regions that you own. As far as I know, they don’t actually raze your settlements (at least I haven’t seen them do that). So, for the most part, you could waylay them when you have the upper hand.

Note 2: If you’re playing the Mortal Empires campaign as any Wood Elf faction besides Drycha’s, you unlock Ariel as a legendary hero after finishing your first Ritual of Rebirth. Drycha’s legendary hero in her campaign is Coeddil and she has a quest chain/quest battle to recruit him.

Note 3: If you’re playing as the Sisters of Twilight in Total War: Warhammer II‘s Vortex campaign, you need to complete two Rituals of Rebirth to unlock the final battle. I would suggest focusing on The Witchwood (since it’s the main forest) and Oreon’s Camp (a dilemma there allows you to confederate with the minor Wood Elf faction if you have 5,000 gold). You can then expand aggressively or try to befriend folks like Kroq-gar, Tiktaq’to, and Imrik since they control the nearby heathlands.

Deeproots teleportation

As you may have noticed, the Wood Elves rework presents the faction with a new mode of traveling in Total War: Warhammer II. It’s called “Deeproots teleportation.”

Once you reach turn 10 in your campaign, you’ll spot a small icon of a green tree next to the magical forest’s meter. If you have an army selected that’s in the magical forest’s region, you can instantly teleport to another region with a magical forest. This action is completely free as well, but there’s a short cooldown after using it. However, the cooldown can be reduced by completing certain quests or healing the main magical forest in the campaign.

Combined with the existing Worldroots stance, the Wood Elves can swiftly traverse Total War: Warhammer II‘s continents with ease. You can quickly bolster armies that need help, defend heathlands from attackers to heal several magical forests, or meet new factions that might become allies.

Wood Elves buildings

Remember how capturing heathlands lets you choose whether to occupy or raze them to restore the nearby magical forest? Well, there are other things to take note of while you’re managing your lands.

The gist is that any non-magical forest settlement only acts as an outpost. You do get one extra building slot with several options to choose from:

• There are four Wood Elf buildings and, among these, I found the Worldroot Pathway to be the most useful. The reduction of recruitment costs and recruitment turns, even if they only affect local armies, certainly helps you churn out more units.
• If you don’t want these Wood Elf structures, there might be an option that’s related to that region’s resource.
• Alternatively, if you captured a coastal settlement, you can build a port.

Changes to Amber and technology

Yet another important change as part of Total War: Warhammer II‘s Wood Elves rework concerns Amber. Previously, you covered the world in green while gathering Amber to restore the Oak of Ages or recruit units of a different species (i.e., Orion recruiting Treemen or Durthu recruiting high-tier elven troops).

Now, Amber is only obtained by healing magical forests. You don’t even need it to recruit different/high-tier units. By acquiring Amber, you unlock powerful technologies that are seen at the center of the tech screen.

Note: These special techs known as “Wisdoms” require one unit of Amber and, upon selection, they’ll get researched in one turn. Likewise, they don’t have any pre-requisite tech.

Masterful ambush stance

Another tweak I’m sure you’d love thanks to a recent patch is the masterful ambush stance. This one lowers the chance that your army gets detected while in ambush stance.

Likewise, you only need 10% of your movement points remaining to switch to this one. Imagine edging as close as possible to a target and, as long as there’s a sliver of movement points remaining, you can switch and hopefully waylay them once their turn’s up.

Aspects: Scraps 2.0 for the Wood Elves rework

Remember the scrap mechanic for the Greenskins? Well, a couple of Wood Elf legendary lords have something that’s slightly similar. This is the “Aspects” mechanic that’s only available to Durthu and Drycha.

Aspects cost gold to apply to a “tree-type” unit (i.e., Dryads, Tree Kin, and Treemen). You could even change to another aspect if you have the gold.

Note: Aspect costs and effects vary depending on the unit’s tier. For instance, it’s cheaper to apply an aspect to a Dryad, but the effects are slightly weaker.

Anyway, we’re done with Total War: Warhammer II‘s Wood Elves rework. It’s time to talk about a unique mechanic for the Sisters of Twilight, the Forge of Daith.

Total War: Warhammer II – The Twisted & The Twilight is available via Steam. However, if you want to play as the other Wood Elf leaders in Mortal Empires, you need the Realm of the Wood Elves DLC. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.