Wow, that was a long read. But a good one.
I would agree with the basic precepts of the article. Staying disciplined and keeping your formations together and guarded is the way to go. The Wood Elf player will strive to isolate your units, in an attempt to get them into near-unwinnable combats with 2 or more of their very capable combat troops. Keeping your flanks clear is job #1, and the hardest times I've had with my Wood Elves have been against opponents who have kept to their guns and avoided the temptation to isolate their units. I can still sometimes force the issue if I'm good enough, but it still makes for the toughest games.
I also appreciate your comments at the end about Beastmen and Skinks. Wood Elves are not the only army out there that fight with a lots of mobile, small units (try fighting a flamer-heavy Tzeentch army sometime - my friend Chris is undefeated against Empire with this monstrosity!), yet it surprises me how few players plan for this sort of eventuality. Every army list I've seen has some sort of plans for certain things (I took X in case I fight Chaos, I took Y in case I fight Undead, I took Z to go hunt war machines, etc. etc.), yet a lot of people stubbornly refuse to take anything to hunt down more than one unit of skirmishers or fast movers. These folks usually are the ones complaining about how "broken" Wood Elves are.
A couple more comments:
- Canny Wood Elf players will like special scenarios as much as the next player, because of the mobility and flexibility of their army. The "Capture" scenario in particular . . . you mention that you have to avoid taking "bait", but if you're not careful the objective itself can be all that the Wood Elf player needs to break up your army and get you going in a predictable fashion for setting up traps. I'm not saying that you can't win a scenario like this, but I'm saying that I've seen very good players lose games like this to me because their own plans were disrupted by the "non pitched battle" strategies, and/or they got careless thinking they "had me" because of their larger armies and the fixed objective.
- Glade Guard cannot take magic banners
- Going magic-heavy yourself is a decent strategy against Wood Elves. It cuts down on the magic-heavy WE armies ability to deal damage, and Wood Elves themselves are one of the most susceptible armies to magic damage in the whole game. Fire, Heavens, and even Life Lore (oh, the irony) are all good choices, and all available to Empire players who want to go the magic heavy route themselves. I realize that most Empire players don't want to take the LD risk associated with this sort of strategy, but it bears mention for an article like this.
- For some reason, a min-maxed Wood Elf army is seen as more "acceptable" by the Wood Elf community than most other types of armies. Even Chaos players look askance at the guy who takes an army of 10 Tzeentch chariots, but Wood Elf players hardly ever blink an eye at their fellows who take nothing but 10 levels of magic, a pair of Treemen, and a bunch of 5-man archer units. I'm not sure how this got to be the case, but I'm trying to fight it. . . basically, I try to take at least 3 core units of 10+ models in 2000 point games to make a real "army" around which the combat skirmishers and 5-man archer units operate. My tourney sports scores (and oddly, my battle scores in all but a few instances) have gone up this year as a result. Don't be afraid to call out Wood Elf players who play min-max, and dont' feel guilty about running Steam Tanks out against the ones to love to do this.