Elf warbands

So, I'm aware that the Shadow Warriors were so stupidly over-powered that GW had them "de-official-ized", and that the Dark Elf warband from Lustria is considered by many to be a bit on the over-powered side as well.

I also know that many people will have made their own elf warbands of various flavours as a result. So which groups of fan-made pointy-eared people are, at least in the opinions of each of you individual forumites, the most well-balanced?

(and yes, I know some people think that Mordheim should be an elf-free zone. I'm just curious).

We've played with Shadow Elves, Dark Elves and a version of the un-released High Elves (for Lustria). We didn't have problems with any of those warbands (although I found Quick Shot and Repeater Crossbows is nasty and we didn't have anybody abusing the ability of Shadow Elves to hide everywhere and all of the time which I think is one of the biggest reasons why they are a bit broken).

We haven't played any of the other fan made elves (e.g. Lothloren (sp?) Sea Guard from Sartosa nor the Wood Elves (I don't think although one person in my gaming group was going to play Wood Elves so maybe we have).

I think that it largely comes down to whether you have players in your gaming group who will attempt to win at any cost even if that means min/maxing their warband and sometimes playing against the fluff of the warband and/or scenario. If you don't have those players in your group then most common elf warbands are probably OK. If you do have those players in your group then they'll probably find ways to 'break' other warbands also.

I agree with Lemming: one group finds them broke as heck, another finds them fine and dandy. The difference? How beardy some of the players are, and how whiny some of the losers are

I've played against both, and I'd say the Dark Elves are the more balanced of the two- I'd say they're about the same level as the Possessed or Skaven.

However, while neither warband is perfect, I don't think either of them are so broken that they can't be fixed with a few "line by line" vetoes. Go over the bands with your group and discuss what seems fair and what doesn't (to me, the Banner of Nagaryth or whatever it's called is the cheesiest thing written... but that's just my opinion.)

You can find the Lothern Sea Patrol warband (a very unofficial band by Master and myself) at my site:
https://sites.google.com/site/styroheim/sartosa

And it depends on your enemies.

I play with Shadowelves mostly against posessed. With T4 or T5 and increased usage of Sprint, Climb and Jump from the posessed player they are extremely fast and strong, so my elves struggle against them.
Against human warbands it is easier. Until now i havent experienced the elves as overpowerd, but i seldomly equip more than 50% of my warband with range weapon and never use the sniper-skill.
They are strong, but they have there drawbacks:
- only T3 (T4 for lucky heros)
- small choice of weapons
- no poison
- restrictet access to strength skills
- small number

In my experience, Dark Elves are maybe slightly overpowered compared to the standard Mordheim warbands, but that is true of all of the Lustria bands (lizardmen, etc.) except the Shadow Elves. I have played, and seen played the SEs a lot, and they are in my opinion an overly-powerful (if fragile) warband (to me a "fragile" warband is one that, if it takes lots of casualties in the first game or two, has a hard time recovering).

Not surprisingly, my favorite variation of SEs is the one I posted here a month or so back... although I have not play-tested them yet. They should have their first outing next month.

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

I don't think the Shadow Warriors are bad because they are overpowered.
They are very highly powered to say the least, all their stuff is good and they are awesome hiders, and you can't hide from them.

I find it a terribly written warband because it makes you only want to play one playing style, shooty warband. Even if you try to meelee it up, like I usually do, and just give my heroes a bow and lightning reflexes, it plays very shooty when you just move from cover to cover and pound your enemies with arrows.
The dark elves, although equally overpowered is much better written; instead of being focused on shooting, they can do some shooting, but are mainly close combat specialists. This makes for much more interesting games, as the weak stats they have will much more often get into play.
Oh but I do play with the "Elf Fix" That lower elven max stats by -1T and -2I. I don't think it matters much though.

I do off course like the Sartosan elves, as I made pretty much half of it. But my overall preferred elf warband was a Wardancers Retinue by Brahm Tazoul (I think) that somebody posted back in the days, it focused on grace and speed to play a wood elf warband that was very awesome.

It all comes down to what you think of an "elf warband" if you think of pointy eared guys hiding in a bunker firing arrows at anything they see, Shadow Warriors is a great warband. If you think of nimble warriors that employ hit and run tactics to make up for their numbers, the Sea Guard and Dark elves is what you are looking for.

The 3 big issues I have with Elves are:

1. Shooting is better than melee, this is make 100 times worse if you do not have enough terain. If you can outshoot your oppointent then you can take free shots at them without fear of getting hit back. Elves are master marksmen so they can exploit the shooting advantage.

2. Elves are under priced. You average elf is not that much more expensive than a human, but they are a lot better model. You might start-off with 1 less guy, but the ones you do get are better. They shoot better, they move faster and they are more agile. The movement advantage is huge, because it never can really be over come, there is no +1 movement advancement.

3. The 12 models instead of 15 limit is not big enough of a flaw. Early on it's not really a flaw, no one can start with their maximum, so it's not really going to make a difference early on. By the time it becomes an issue you can use the extra money you are not spending to buy more guys on better gear, and hired swords. Sure that means that you have 20% more guys, but when 20% is only 3 guys that are not as fast, not as good of shots, and aren't as agile.

Rudeboy wrote:

The 3 big issues I have with Elves are:

1. Shooting is better than melee, this is make 100 times worse if you do not have enough terain. If you can outshoot your oppointent then you can take free shots at them without fear of getting hit back. Elves are master marksmen so they can exploit the shooting advantage.

2. Elves are under priced. You average elf is not that much more expensive than a human, but they are a lot better model. You might start-off with 1 less guy, but the ones you do get are better. They shoot better, they move faster and they are more agile. The movement advantage is huge, because it never can really be over come, there is no +1 movement advancement.

3. The 12 models instead of 15 limit is not big enough of a flaw. Early on it's not really a flaw, no one can start with their maximum, so it's not really going to make a difference early on. By the time it becomes an issue you can use the extra money you are not spending to buy more guys on better gear, and hired swords. Sure that means that you have 20% more guys, but when 20% is only 3 guys that are not as fast, not as good of shots, and aren't as agile.

Just chiming in to say I disagree totally.

Lower max size, is one of the worst flaws a warband can have, right up there with no access to a skill list, and a soddy equipment list.
Elves are usually pretty fairly priced, 45gc for 5-5-4-3-3-1-6-1-8 isn't all that, humans can have 4-4-3-4-3-1-3-1-7 + better equipment which IMO are just as good stats for 35 (since I6 is meaningless and worth no more than I5, and WS5 while it looks cool just really make you a youngblood killer).
And shooting isn't really better than close combat if the warband hadn't been able to spot anyone hiding from 20" away and themselves being able to hide all the time.

All in all, elves can be balanced IMO, making a warband that's about shooting enemies and making them unable to hide is not the way though.
Removing the Sniper skill and the excellent sight rules and cutting down on the ridicolous I6 goes a long way to balance them.

Actually a very fun warband I once played were a shadow elf warband that used no missile weapon but a bow for everyone, and then just swords, spears and daggers to combine with the standrad of nagarythe. The standard made me impossible to rout, until it was OOAed when all my warriors would go frenzy and totally rip the enemy warband apart. (Having one or two models frenzied for 75gc is gold, having an entire warband is ridiculous).

I think many players make the misassumption of comparing Shadow Warriors to Mercenaries that don't get any special rules, in which case they would be better. But as soon as the Mercenaries add either +1S to their big heroes or +1BS to their 25gc Crossbow-Toting (or even Duelling pistol-Toting) Henchmen, things really start to change.

I think what would do the best to balance Shadow Elves with out a total rule over haul is to lower the Inititive (I6 is a big deal with all the other rules aside from strike order), and make it so a few of there guys just are a poor shoot or can't shoot at all. I'm thinking maybe a henchmen unit and/or hero that would be like WE Blade Dancers. You would then have a manditory group for a scrap that would restrict the shooting phase of the Shadow Elves.
Also I think higher starting Exp for the Shadow Elves would help too; but not a higher cost to them.

It is my understanding if you check out the revision of Dark Elf warband over at Druchii.net, its much more balanced. I don't personally know as I've yet to play a game yet (still putting my warband together), but knowing the community, I know they wrote very fair rules in the spirit of the race. In WHFB 6th edition, they re-did rules for Dark Elves and GW actually published their updates in White Dwarf as official changes. I don't think GW has ever done that outside of this specific case.

like the druchii list. It's certainly the most well tested fan made list out there. I've played against it in a couple campaigns, and never had any complaints