Because you must hide them so they can not be seen.

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I am a ranger of the north.

Cloaks are very expensive, costing 1/2 an equipped model each. You can get 50% more models on the board if you don't take them. And unless you have tons of terrain on the board, you can still be shot by enemy bow fire, because they only prevent shots if the shooter would have had to make an in the way roll. They're useful for heroes sometimes, and maybe in some scenarios, but not as a general option.

Agree. I rarely get Cloaks. If you play a couple games with Sentinels and/or Legolas in an Elf Cloak you will get a good idea of how often they matter. Some...but not a lot.

The only time they really paid off for me in numbers was during a set of events at our local store where we played a series of individual games over a few weeks and totaled up points for final victor. Each game had a different scenario and you could tailor your army but they were all 500 point lists. We were playing Contest of Champions where each side's leader is trying to score more kills than the other. So the duel objectives of making kills while robbing your opponent of his. I was facing Isengard with Lurtz leading a big group of Uruks (including some crossbows). My army for the tournament was Wood Elves and you can find yourself packing a LOT of good targets for Lurtz into a 500 point list normally. So instead I took Legolas and Radagast, a couple Sentinels and all my WEs got Elf Cloaks. Major point sink so I had very few models on the table, but also completely crippled Isengards plans to shoot (he instead just charged everyone forward).

Legolas easily scored several kills with his bow fire and as Isengard got close I used the Sentinels to keep other Uruks in the way of Lurtz while Legolas continued to rack up kills and I slowly fed my Wood Elves one at a time against multiple Uruks to ensure they were killed off before Lurtz could get to them. In the end Lurtz had zero kills, Legolas several (including Lurtz) and I had a Major Victory. A little Cheesy yes, but there was a bit of bragging going on in advance, my opponent was a great player and the friend that got me into the game, and the surprise on his face when he realized what was unfolding was priceless.

This was just a specific example, but in most SBG games, I may only give a couple WEs the Cloaks if I need a "covert strike team". I'd say 9/10 times the extra models are far more effective.

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

I wasn't suggesting to definatley use cloaks, simply suggesting that there is the possibilty to use plastic wood elves as expensive models if you wish, my friend use to play as a white council themed list, the throwing weapons for almost all of his models proved to be very annoying. If you are going to go for a galadrhim army i suggest buying rumil, he works well against pretty much everything in combat provided he has some support, a very durable hero who has annoyed me to no end.

So it's beter not to give all elf's a elven cloak.
And i never give Rumil a chance to think about getting him in a army.
Now that i think of it, he would be a very good hero for a elven army.

yeah he seems to be pretty useful when outnumbered (which is likely when playing elves)

Oke thanks.