Elves in Mordheim

I have the Island of Blood set, and there's tons of fun looking elf models, and I was going to do an elf warband just so that I had another warband lying around, and I was looking at the rules, and it seems like Elves are really, really broken. Does anyone have some halfway balanced High Elf rules?

Plagiarising myself from N's thread:

"Here is the link to a thread where I posted a nerfed Shadow Elf warband, which has some discussions from the Tomnosenti:

https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/t5657-shadows-elves-again

Actually, while I found the GW shadow elves and various wood elf fan-made bands over-powered, I have not found the same with the Dark Elves. In part it is because the only missile weapon they have access to is danged expensive, which means they are slower to develop into a full-bore pincushion-anything-that-moves warband, and also (like the dwarves) the fact that two of their starting heroes don't benefit from many of the DE strongpoints (the fell blades being unable to take missile weapons). Also, I suspect, it is because the DE warbands I have started have all been seriously unlucky. I don't think any of them have ever not had at least one hero killed in the first couple of games.

In regard to the Skaven: in my experience, the skaven are fine. They have weak points (horrible leadership, no access to long-range shooting), so the sixth hero helps balance that out. "

OOOps, Didn't need to copy the bit about the skaven. Sorry.

I have seen other attempts to balance various elf warbands. They usually focus on nerfing the stats. I am not a fan of that approach, since then they aren't really elves anymore. But (with the possible exception of the Dark Elves) the elf bands that first came out were pretty clearly over-powered compared to the standard warbands.

Some super simple Nerfs:

-Increase price of everyone by +5gc (except for Novices, which stay at a low low price of 25gc [if the dwarves can can cheap young dwarves for 25, it's only fair to balance it out])
-Limit the starting heroes to 4 instead of 5
-Remove the Banner of Naggaroth from all existance (WAY too strong.)
~Restrict them to bows only, no other missiles (that way you don't have an elf with a hochland rifle)
~ Infiltrators and Hunched warriors can only be on surfaces that can be conceivably climbed by a human without skills (ex. cannot be on a 12" tower with no ledges halfway up and no ladders... they are effectively untouchable!)

Our group didn't find them all them broken, aside from the banner. Proof that it all depends on who you ask.

"Restrict them to bows only, no other missiles (that way you don't have an elf with a hochland rifle)"

I am pretty sure the version GW released said the SEs would never, ever, use stinky, crude human black powder weapons.

Get rid of Sniper? It makes those with it just obscene.

I've always thought that the best way to nerf the Elves is simply to reduce the initiative by 1 on all the units. That alows them to still hit first agains almost all apponents, but they have at least some chance of falling from buildings and such, and thier normal units hit at the same time as most other warbands leaders. Still pretty good.

Also only let them have 4 heroes to start, just like the Dwarves, and Yeah the Standard of Nagaroth is a little over the top.

Also when you double the initiatibe you only get 8 inches for the normal troops as apposed to 12... big difference.

That is pretty much the only nerf I think you need to make, but thats just me.

As I side note I think the price of armor should be cut in half and the penalty for heavy armor and a shiield should affect initiative, not movement. I just dont see a guy in heavy armore jumping from rooftop to rooftop as easily as on with no armor.

and the price reduction is because armor is to expensive, and to easily countered for how much it costs. I also hate the toughened leathers item... why would you not be able to combine it with a shield? makes no sense...

Anyway thats what I would change to balance the game.

hmmm got a little off subject... ah well

In my circle we pretty much only got rid of the skill that let you get Str skills, Sniper, and made elves racial T maximum 3. That worked for us.

Elves have the same chance of failing an I test as a moderately fast human. Remember that everyone fails a stat test on a 6, so I5 is the highest that really means anything.

With a racial maximum T of 3 the standard becomes something of a double-edged sword if it gets triggered. Sometimes they *need* to flee to avoid getting slaughtered.

We cut the price of body armour a lot also, and gave shields and bucklers +1 AV in melee also. It helped a bit.

The reason for not letting shields stack with toughened leathers is for balance rather than logic. If it could be combined with shields then it is just as good as light armour. In my group we made it count as a type of light armour rather than equipment so henchmen could equip it and left the rest as is. 5 gold is not too bad for a 6+ save that also gives you a 5+ save vs dagger hits – helps discourage people from fighting with a weapon and a dagger and either buy another weapon and do it properly or use a shield instead.

Well, with all that said, I think there is quite a bit missing here. Sort of. I think I might give a go at creating a High Elf warband. I understand that it isn't exactly fluffy, but heck, if you can have TK in there, why not HE?

Have a crack all you want... I still insist that the safest basis is the Dwarf Treasure hunters (for sake of cost and numbers.)

Here is my favorite High Elf warband:

20 models
All stats other than move and Ld are 1. M and Ld are 5. They all Fear anything. They all use bows. They are S3 against non greenskins. They wound goblins on a 2+, just because it is funny to see runts get shot up, and Orcs and trolls are immune to the puny weapons.

They also taste good.

from a more fluff based angle could you keep them as rare but elite race by keeping most of the rules the same but making the maximum warband size very small? (perhaps around 8 models) this way even if every model had a bow they still would not have more archers than less elite warbands.

If you do a super small warband, I would recommend adding in an item or skill that allows rerolls on the serious injury chart. With only heroes and 1-2 henchmen things will get bad fast.

I got the stink eye when I came out with a Shadow Warriors group because of the elvish reputation for being OP. I think the combination of high WS, BS, Init, and Move makes them very intimidating. Sure, if you get close to them, they aren't that strong.

Going with the Treasure Hunter model (4 heroes, 12 max models, etc) would go a long way to balancing them out. Possibly lowering their WS a little might help, as well.

My take on them, linked above, goes with the four-hero starting max, and has a mechanic to slow down their growth in terms of numbers (which seemed consistent with the idea that they are rare around Mordheim). I left their stat-line alone.

I think the four-hero idea is the most fundamental change you need to make - you may want a few minor tweaks after that. The dwarves have great stat-lines but are in my (fairly extensive experience with the little tanks) nicely balanced. Their four-hero beginning helps a lot in terms of balance.

Mont: I've seen them one of two ways:
You pay 40gc for a WS4, BS4 model, or you pay 35gc for an elf with WS4 OR WS3. Either way, 35gc for two 4s seems too strong for me.

I usually land on the side of "when in doubt, make it more expensive", so this might just be that talking, but I think 40gc for either WS 4 or BS 4 instead of both isn't outlandish. I wouldn't be against a Shadow Warrior starting at 45gc. Either one of those is pretty cheap for how good their stat line is.

One of many changes I'd make to the Shadow Warriors list if i were to ever revise it would be to remove the shadow weaver. I'd do this because A) it would drop the list down to 4 starting heroes, B) a list as strong as the SW doesn't need the added benefit of a magic user to succeed, and C) something about him being in the list at all always sat strangely with me anyways. I'll be honest, I'm not terribly well versed in High Elf fluff, but it always seemed like they threw the Weaver in just because they thought a High Elf list should have magic.

I would hate to see the Shadow Weaver go. I think it is better to drop one of the three champs (Shadow Masters? About to be late to work and don't have time to look it up!).

Yeah, I would drop one of the champs. The weaver's magic is actually pretty cool and has positional requirements that make things interesting. A third "troll slayer" isn't needed.

I've been thinking about this for awhile, and I think that I have a basic idea forming. I like the idea of HE having a wizard. This is what I've been thinking so far;

Heroes:
Lesser Noble (Since the actual HE armies are lead by Princes)
Apprentice Wizard- Better stat line, but uses the hedge magic table.
2 Sword Masters of Hoeth Body Gaurds- Still trying to work my way around these.

Henchmen:
Archers: 0-5
HE Commoners (a bit like beardlings)
HE Gaurds

I haven't worked out the points or anything like that. I will, no doubt. Just not right now. I might start a WIP for it. Granted WIP isn't quite the right idea, since it typically covers actual models, but ya know, I can't think of anything else to call it. WID? Warband in Devolpment?

I like these ideas, since I've got a couple of guys that are Elf players, and there are a couple others that think they are OP. What I did was limit their Toughness to a max of 3, and since their stats are so good, limit their advances (ie they had to advance twice before rolling on the advancement charts) this also went for their henchmen too. After all, Elves are supposed to be nigh-immortal, and I don't think they'd learn much from killing off a couple of goblins!

In my group we too went with the T3 max nerf and a few other things. We have been using this warband here. I have never used it myself, but I have gone up against a few warbands from it and it was generally fun without being over-powered or too weak.

I don't remember where I got it from, but the above pdf is the tweaked version that we, well, tweaked. I have prettied it up a bit for general consumption and printing.

It looks good, though I would increase the cost of henchmen by 5 gc each and also limit the heroes to 4 at the beginning, (Loremaster, 2 Rangers, and 1 Sword Warden) if I were to use it. Btw, do you have any lists like this for Dark elves?

We just use this one. Haven't really had any problems with it. The repeater crossbows with poison is powerful, but all that means is that it encourages people to buy the potions and rings of poison immunity, so in the end they are a 24" S3 ranged weapon that can't use black-powder *or* hunting arrows. Longbows, crossbows, and (rarely) hunting rifles sort them out.

The henchmen were originally more expensive, but we found with the racial cap of T3 the warband was replacing their heroes more often than everyone else so the gold drain was spread out across the campaign and didn't have to be quite so front-loaded. The fact that the Seaguard starts with xp also nerfs them without needing to up their cost or slow their xp gain.

Mostly they lose their money through their tanks. An elven tank is T3 with Ithilmar at best (and you had *better* get them itilmar if you want them to live) so they are pretty much forced to throw a somewhat fragile, quite expensive unit into melee again and again. Over the course of a campain the odds *do* catch up with them. Of course, they could get lucky and not die, but you can say that about *all* warbands .

Good point about attrition for elves. May have to re-think a couple of my initial reactions to elf lists.