Mod: Warhammer Highelves: Speculation and hype

[elmokki]

We'll see if I ever get this done. I'm not perfectly happy with these sprites, but they are good enough.

High Elves are a nation with powerful battle magic and relatively small armies of skilled but expensive units. As a problem they'll have somewhat limited magic diversity. They will definately have high astral and somewhat high fire, high magic and phoenix kings just force those. I might add a third low path if I figure out a suitable one.

High Elf army book has tons of units from different areas of Ulthuan. I'd definately include them all as recruitables from special sites in different provinces in a game with a specific multi province Ulthuan map, but in this case I'm going to skip some.

Basically the skeleton of the recruitables will be more or less:
- Decent archers and spearmen with a basic commander
- Stealthy shadow warriors, possibly scout being a shadow warrior commander
- Silverhelms, regular cavalry
- Dragon Princes, elite cavalry along with a commander
- Swordmasters of Hoeth, elite infantry along with a commander
- Phoenix Guard, capital only badass elite infantry
- White Lion, possible another capital only badass elite infantry
- Mage and Arch Mage
- A prince commander to command the most badass capital only infantry
- Repeater Bolt Thrower? Doubt it.

Lothern Sea Guard will be scrapped. They'd basically be an archer and a spearman in one. As cool as they would be, they are a 0-1 unit choice and should be rarer than they would be if they were recruitable.

Ellyrian Reavers might be in, possibly without any removals or instead of Silverhelms. They would still fit in since then we'd have basic cavalry, fast (mapmove 3) cavalry and expensive-as-hell elite cavalry.

Well, yeah, that's pretty much it. Here's the quick sprite I spoke about. Ulthuan spear is supposed to be a slightly improved spear. I'd imagine stats for the spearmen to be regular human stats apart from:

att - 11
def - 11 (they're extremely skilled fighters, but this is the most basic unit that not a professional army but a levy)
ap - 12 (they're fast)
mr - 11 (magical race, so I reckon giving +1 mr suits them)
mor - 12
prec - 11
gcost - 15. They really need to be expensive



I won't promise I'll be in any haste to finish this.

[Trumanator]

Have you looked at Zepath's sylvania mod? This sounds very similar in some respects.

[Lurker_at_Threshold]

I would give them a chance to access low level earth as their third path. It synergies extremely well with both fire and astral and gives thematic access to gifts of heaven, a good stand in for one of the most infamous spells in the warhammer lexicon.

[Ruefiesty]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

Have you looked at Zepath's sylvania mod? This sounds very similar in some respects.

Yes Zepath's Sylvania is based off of WH Highelves. Its one I was taking under consideration of making myself.

[Burnsaber]

For the stats, I think they could be higher. 12 at least in def & att. At least in 6th edition the lore suggested that the elves have highly organized military, and even the levies are subject to regular training. When you train regularly for over 300 years, it shows. Also, ap 12 is what the basic human troops have, so it's not that fast. 14 perhaps? or even 16? Mr 12 would be a bit more thematic, they are magical race which nets the +1 advantage but are also descriped as mentally stout and 'willpowerish' race (+1 from that)

About magic. High Elves in the Warhammer lore are the magic users of the millenia, with only perhaps Slann and High Daemons being more powerful. High fire and astral are a no-brainer, but I'd think that they could get access to all elemental paths. Perhaps something like this?

Base F1S3 and 200% F/W/E/A random.

You could also have a loremaster-type unit with diverse randoms on A/E/F/W/S and a "phoenix" high mage who has the concentrated power in astral and fire.

I think that high magic could be represented by a few SXH3 or SXFX spells that are only castable by your best mages. (sure, you can communion and power of the spheres up with indy S1H1 mages, but it'd be more trouble than worth).

About Lothern Sea Guard. Couldn't they be cap only? They could also have higher resource cost to represent the difficulty in mustering them.

As for the two different types of badass cap only h.infantry, it seems pretty... hard to balance so that all of them see use. Especially since both of them would have the "two-handed weapon hard hitter" niche. Perhaps one of them could be a summon?

As for the summons in general, perhaps a dragon* riding lord for a 'tough' (for an elf) thug chassis.

*in order to make to fit to Dom3-verse, you can substitute the word "dragon" for "drake" or "dragoling" or something.

[Sombre]

I'd definitely say a statline somewhere around:
12 att
13 def
8 str
8 hp
15 ap

That's how I'd do them, anyway. Even a basic elf has WS4 and iniative,.. 5 these days I think. That's better (skillwise) than most elites in other armies. Not only that, I'd load custom weapons and armour on them which would be a little better than the usual. High rcost would also make sense - it is the most effective way to limit numbers and take losses harder, which is definitely a HE thing (along with dwarfs).

As with most warhammer nations I have HEs mostly planned out. If you'd like I could send you the text files, though obviously you will have your own interpretation. I'd planned on doing them someday, but I seem to have slowed to a crawl on warhammer stuff.

[elmokki]

Originally Posted by Sombre

I'd definitely say a statline somewhere around:
12 att
13 def
8 str
8 hp
15 ap

That's how I'd do them, anyway. Even a basic elf has WS4 and iniative,.. 5 these days I think. That's better (skillwise) than most elites in other armies. Not only that, I'd load custom weapons and armour on them which would be a little better than the usual. High rcost would also make sense - it is the most effective way to limit numbers and take losses harder, which is definitely a HE thing (along with dwarfs).

As with most warhammer nations I have HEs mostly planned out. If you'd like I could send you the text files, though obviously you will have your own interpretation. I'd planned on doing them someday, but I seem to have slowed to a crawl on warhammer stuff.

9 hp and 9 str might do.

8 str is too low as I really don't find elves to be that pathetically weak, especially as that'd make them as strong as hoburgs and weaker than vaettir.

8 hp is too low as I really don't find them being able to take only as much beating as vaettir and hoburgs. 9 hp of the asian infantry units sounds decent though - the more elite units will have more though.

But yeah, please do tell what you've thought about.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and regarding Sylvania, the spearman is ruthlesly based on sylvanian sea guard.

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

About magic. High Elves in the Warhammer lore are the magic users of the millenia, with only perhaps Slann and High Daemons being more powerful. High fire and astral are a no-brainer, but I'd think that they could get access to all elemental paths...

They could live with access to all paths period... save blood. The high elves are able to use all the lores, so I would include nature and death. They should specializein astral though, and have several national astral x spells.

As for the two different types of badass cap only h.infantry, it seems pretty... hard to balance so that all of them see use. Especially since both of them would have the "two-handed weapon hard hitter" niche. Perhaps one of them could be a summon?

I would make the white lions a summon. They could be stealthy, and maybe have animal awe.

[elmokki]

Moar sprites. Not exactly happy with Swordmaster's attack sprite, but I did quite a bit of tinkering without reaching a better outcome.

EDIT: Oh yeah, forgot to recolor the swordmasters' feather, it was supposed to be light blue like the shield emblems.

[Sombre]

I thought about magic for HEs and concluded that magic somewhat similar to the Slann (high astral with all other paths but death and blood) but without the extra focus on nature and with more in fire. While High Elves /can/ take a death based lore (amethyst) and a slightly deathy air one (grey) they were always in direct opposition with both necromancy and 'dark' magic.

They are definitely second to slann in terms of overall magic.

Regarding White Lions, Swordmasters Phoenix Guard, I think they can be suitably differentiated - as they are in warhammer. Phoenix Guard are justifiably sacred, have the best morale and wear the heaviest armour. White Lions have a 'shield' vs missiles in the form of their cloak, have the best str and highest damage weapons plus mapmove 2 and forest survival. Swordmasters have unparalleled combat stats but no shield, better mr and only medium heavy armour.

Again that's just how I'd thought about it though, there are many ways HEs could be done well.