I don't see the appeal on dark elves...

[Gseckz]

I mean skaven/chaos/norse/orcs are all badasses and the vampires are amazing but dark elves are just a$$holes Does anyone actually liked them?

[Vacca]

They are kinda interesting, but then you remember all they do is bìtch and whìne all day and torture people just because, and you realize going full chaotic evil has never been an interesting thing ever, since it makes zero sense and just makes you a giant dìck.

[Viktor]

Originally posted by William_Dracul:

Well, Dark Elf society is based since it's inception in brutality. Then it evolves into being a theocratic tyranny, with the god of murder Khaine and the eternal tyrant Malekith.
Soon the lifestyle of the Druchii consist in raiding other nations for plunder and slaves. Then for that, and pleasure.

Then, they just decide that they really, really like make other people suffer. The became adepts at torture, they celebrate festival in which thousands are brutally murdered, slaves are worked into death very fast (and the dead serve as food for the slaves, their skin made into clothing).

THEN, it evolves into utter madness. Assassination and torture, and other unsavory things, of your fellow countrymen and women is not only accepted but encouraged as a way of obtaining higher social status; or even THE only way of doing so. Brothers conspire to mutilate and kill their siblings, parents their children and sons their fathers, all of it done in an spectacular way, as other find it amusing.

If you read things like the background stories in the Warhammer Fantasy Armybooks, or novels like the Malus Darkblade saga, you -start- to see that every kind of atrocity and depravity is commonplace, that even the nobles and aristocrats have to be humilliated and tormented by their superiors (and they, in turn, would do even worse to their inferiors), or even how Malekith orchestates all of this in order to keep the Druchii population in a constant state of warfare against itself (so nobody can muster enough strenght to depose his tyranny).

Oh, and they have things quite similar to the Purge movies, a day in which the Witch Elves wander the streets capturing anyone to slowly and painfully sacrifice, and those that are just babies are however drop into a boiling cauldron of blood. If they survive, they are trained as Assassins. Which happens sometimes.

So, yes, no faction, country of civilization in Warhammer, not the orcs, not Chaos (really, not even CHAOS), and certainly no the Vampires are comparable to the Druchii.

The Skavens tho. Those are as bad or even worse.

Thank you for that information! Dark Elves were my favorite race on the tabletop game but I knew little about their lore and reading all of that was a pleasure. By the way, that makes me like them even more!

[Gseckz]

Originally posted by Vacca:

They are kinda interesting, but then you remember all they do is bìtch and whìne all day and torture people just because, and you realize going full chaotic evil has never been an interesting thing ever, since it makes zero sense and just makes you a giant dìck.

This is it for me. Most factions have motive. Blood for the blood god and skulls for the skulls thrones speaks for itself but to go full evil just for the sake of it... disgust me.

[Lord_William]

Originally posted by Viktor:

Thank you for that information! Dark Elves were my favorite race on the tabletop game but I knew little about their lore and reading all of that was a pleasure. By the way, that makes me like them even more!

You are welcome. I am a High Elf and Vampire Counts player myself, but when I made an army just for fun and showing off (I tried Bretonnia, but Jesus Christ that was awful) it was a Dark Elf one; simply because the minis are cool and they have very interesting variety (back then not every army, or in fact most armies, had massive monsters or things like that; Chaos for example didn't have neither missile units nor siege machines!, and Bretonnia was three or four flavours of Knight and then awful, awful infantry).

And my main criticism against the High Elf lore is that, precisely, they are too weak and stupid. If such an entity like Naggaroth really existed, all other considerations would be secondary until it was destroyed and the last one of those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ killed. They are basically Hell on Earth. And when you have an actually competent Phoenix King like Tethlis, who wants to free this fantasy setting for the Druchii plague... his own troops kill him because "ey, maybe you are going to far, bro, so stabby time!".

[Geeky German]

Hey the dark elves are just humongous ♥♥♥♥♥ and in general a real evil race that is basically only fueled by hatred. I'm not gonna dispute that. But hey it's Warhammer, EVERYTHING is over the top. The High Elves act more high and mighty and aloaf like any cliché British lord could ever be. The Bretonnian code of chivalry is just riddled with hypocrisy. The Greenskins are warlike up to a point where their thirst for battle is ridiculous. And do I even have to detail the Skaven?

I don’t think you're meant to like any race in Warhammer because of their morals or society. If you do that's fine but I think it's fair to guess that that's not the intention of the lore creators. If like a race it's likely because of their army roster or their general design appeals to you, not because you want to live in their realm.

I certainly wouldn't want to live in Naggaroth or Lustria, but still think the Lizardmen and the Dark Elves are the coolest races in the games so far and I looking forward to play the Dark Elves in my second campaign :)

[Voxrox]

They are the first "evil" race I can relate too ^^ At least they are elegant with all their fashionable spikes, they wear black, they have disciplined troops + half-naked warrior-babes...

I mean, what's NOT to love here...except if you prefer moronic greenskinned hooligans, or moronic furry rattys that eff up every plan because stupid, or manly manly manly Vikings worshipping a bunch of idiotic beings they think are gods, or their advanced version tha do the same thing, but fuse armour to their body and eff up every time until plot armour saves them from defeat? ^^

Nah, on the evil side of things, the Dark Elves rule supreme ^^

[Avenger93]

Originally posted by Vacca:

They are kinda interesting, but then you remember all they do is bìtch and whìne all day and torture people just because, and you realize going full chaotic evil has never been an interesting thing ever, since it makes zero sense and just makes you a giant dìck.

if dark elves are chaotic evil no motivation ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, what the hell does that make the worshipers of chaos?

Or do people miss the part where all the chaos marauders like and want to do is sacrifice you to their gods in order to open another chaos rift in the old world and let the chaos gods and demons into the material plane so they can murder and feed on the souls of everything?

No, chaos is chaotic evil, evil and destruction for the sake of only more evil and destruction.

The dark elves by contrast have a goal behind everything they do. They want domination. They want revenge on the asur, and malekith want the phoenix throne. As for the witch elves, they want to serve khaine, the god of murder and war among other things. The violence and brutality of dark elf society is a consequence of two things: their worship of khaine and their obsession with revenge against the high elves. The constant backstabbing is simple malekith taking the simplest path to ensure an actual meritocracy exists in his society, an over-corection of what he sees as the fatal flaw of the high elf society, it's constant political plays and the innaction and idiocy that can lead to. By contrast, one could say the dark elf society actualy is the honest one, where the high elf one is made up fake smiles, lies and constant envy and gossip and pretend civility.

Mind you, neither society is the corect one here, but to say dark elf society is just evil for the sake of evil is missing everything about their motivations. And the primary one, as opposed to chaos which just wants destruction of everything, is domination. Dark elves are lawfull evil, chaos is chaotic evil in this analogy.

As for the high elves, guys like teclis and finubar qualify for good, but even tyrion along with the rest of asur nobility fall in neutral at best. Yeah they do help against chaos but not exactly out of any desire to help the lesser races or something, but because it's an issue of pride for the elves to stand agaisnt chaos. CA actualy did a magnificent job with the intro to tyrion's campaign and some of the flavour text of the quests to show the true nature of asur society. They are narcisistic ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who view everyone else as inferior to them and are ready at the drop of a hat to backstab and lie and gossipr about each other in order to get a better position in society and more prestige. Fighting chaos is something teclis allarielle and finubar have to goad the rest of the asur to do as long as chaos is not on the shores of ullthuan. Even trade with the lesser races by the standards of high elf society is a recent thing, started by their current phoenix king finubar.

Actualy speaking of the defender of ulthuan, tyrion: he only fights because allarielle tells him to. As long as you are not invading ulthuan, pissing off teclis or are on the queen's (s)hit list, you are fine, he won't come for you. And even on the rare ocassions tyrion is sent out in the world ... well let me just say this: in the end times he get surround by undead and his poncy sparkly elf ass is toast. Thorgrim Grudgebearer comes with a giant dwarf army and saves his pathetic ass, and tyrion's first words out of his mouth to thorgrim are to insult him. yeah ... definetly high elves are good guys and heroes.

In fact, i'll say this: on the most fundamental level the only difference between high elves and dark elves is that a dark elf will hire an assassin to backstab you, a high elf will spread lies about you to ruin your life in order to replace you. They are 2 sides of the same arrogant coin of a$$holiness. The asur just pretend they are civilized cultured and noble. The druchii are honest about their true nature.

[Geeky German]

Originally posted by Avenger93:

Originally posted by Vacca:

They are kinda interesting, but then you remember all they do is bìtch and whìne all day and torture people just because, and you realize going full chaotic evil has never been an interesting thing ever, since it makes zero sense and just makes you a giant dìck.

if dark elves are chaotic evil no motivation ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, what the hell does that make the worshipers of chaos?

Or do people miss the part where all the chaos marauders like and want to do is sacrifice you to their gods in order to open another chaos rift in the old world and let the chaos gods and demons into the material plane so they can murder and feed on the souls of everything?

No, chaos is chaotic evil, evil and destruction for the sake of only more evil and destruction.

The dark elves by contrast have a goal behind everything they do. They want domination. They want revenge on the asur, and malekith want the phoenix throne. As for the witch elves, they want to serve khaine, the god of murder and war among other things. The violence and brutality of dark elf society is a consequence of two things: their worship of khaine and their obsession with revenge against the high elves. The constant backstabbing is simple malekith taking the simplest path to ensure an actual meritocracy exists in his society, an over-corection of what he sees as the fatal flaw of the high elf society, it's constant political plays and the innaction and idiocy that can lead to. By contrast, one could say the dark elf society actualy is the honest one, where the high elf one is made up fake smiles, lies and constant envy and gossip and pretend civility.

Mind you, neither society is the corect one here, but to say dark elf society is just evil for the sake of evil is missing everything about their motivations. And the primary one, as opposed to chaos which just wants destruction of everything, is domination. Dark elves are lawfull evil, chaos is chaotic evil in this analogy.

As for the high elves, guys like teclis and finubar qualify for good, but even tyrion along with the rest of asur nobility fall in neutral at best. Yeah they do help against chaos but not exactly out of any desire to help the lesser races or something, but because it's an issue of pride for the elves to stand agaisnt chaos. CA actualy did a magnificent job with the intro to tyrion's campaign and some of the flavour text of the quests to show the true nature of asur society. They are narcisistic ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who view everyone else as inferior to them and are ready at the drop of a hat to backstab and lie and gossipr about each other in order to get a better position in society and more prestige. Fighting chaos is something teclis allarielle and finubar have to goad the rest of the asur to do as long as chaos is not on the shores of ullthuan. Even trade with the lesser races by the standards of high elf society is a recent thing, started by their current phoenix king finubar.

In fact, i'll say this: on the most fundamental level the only difference between high elves and dark elves is that a dark elf will hire an assassin to backstab you, a high elf will spread lies about you to ruin your life in order to replace you. They are 2 sides of the same arrogant coin of a$$holiness. The asur just pretend they are civilized cultured and noble. The druchii are honest about their true nature.

I second every single word. And I also prefer the dark side of this coin, because like he said, at least there I know that everybody wants to get me and atl least they have the decency to be honest about it while on the other side I have false smiles all day long. In both cases you're screwed, but at least in the one case nobody will give you any false impressions.

[Snorri Nosebiter]

Originally posted by Gseckz:

This is it for me. Most factions have motive. Blood for the blood god and skulls for the skulls thrones speaks for itself but to go full evil just for the sake of it... disgust me.

They have motives. They kill for Khaine (who is actually an aspect of Khorne), they mistreat their slaves because it discourages rebellion and makes them work harder, and they're cruel and violent to each other because it ensures that the strong rise to the top and the weak die.

Malekith's built the entire society to be like this over thousands of years with the express purpose of eventually conquering Ulthuan and taking what he sees as his rightful place as the Phoenix King. His motives are long-term.

[Vacca]

Originally posted by Geeky German:

Originally posted by Avenger93:

if dark elves are chaotic evil no motivation ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, what the hell does that make the worshipers of chaos?

Or do people miss the part where all the chaos marauders like and want to do is sacrifice you to their gods in order to open another chaos rift in the old world and let the chaos gods and demons into the material plane so they can murder and feed on the souls of everything?

No, chaos is chaotic evil, evil and destruction for the sake of only more evil and destruction.

The dark elves by contrast have a goal behind everything they do. They want domination. They want revenge on the asur, and malekith want the phoenix throne. As for the witch elves, they want to serve khaine, the god of murder and war among other things. The violence and brutality of dark elf society is a consequence of two things: their worship of khaine and their obsession with revenge against the high elves. The constant backstabbing is simple malekith taking the simplest path to ensure an actual meritocracy exists in his society, an over-corection of what he sees as the fatal flaw of the high elf society, it's constant political plays and the innaction and idiocy that can lead to. By contrast, one could say the dark elf society actualy is the honest one, where the high elf one is made up fake smiles, lies and constant envy and gossip and pretend civility.

Mind you, neither society is the corect one here, but to say dark elf society is just evil for the sake of evil is missing everything about their motivations. And the primary one, as opposed to chaos which just wants destruction of everything, is domination. Dark elves are lawfull evil, chaos is chaotic evil in this analogy.

As for the high elves, guys like teclis and finubar qualify for good, but even tyrion along with the rest of asur nobility fall in neutral at best. Yeah they do help against chaos but not exactly out of any desire to help the lesser races or something, but because it's an issue of pride for the elves to stand agaisnt chaos. CA actualy did a magnificent job with the intro to tyrion's campaign and some of the flavour text of the quests to show the true nature of asur society. They are narcisistic ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who view everyone else as inferior to them and are ready at the drop of a hat to backstab and lie and gossipr about each other in order to get a better position in society and more prestige. Fighting chaos is something teclis allarielle and finubar have to goad the rest of the asur to do as long as chaos is not on the shores of ullthuan. Even trade with the lesser races by the standards of high elf society is a recent thing, started by their current phoenix king finubar.

In fact, i'll say this: on the most fundamental level the only difference between high elves and dark elves is that a dark elf will hire an assassin to backstab you, a high elf will spread lies about you to ruin your life in order to replace you. They are 2 sides of the same arrogant coin of a$$holiness. The asur just pretend they are civilized cultured and noble. The druchii are honest about their true nature.

I second every single word. And I also prefer the dark side of this coin, because like he said, at least there I know that everybody wants to get me and atl least they have the decency to be honest about it while on the other side I have false smiles all day long. In both cases you're screwed, but at least in the one case nobody will give you any false impressions.

Yeah, no. One thing is being the honest, gritty enemy, another is being someone who's ok with enslaving people and torturing them because it's fun.

They literally feel pleasure by hurting others. It's fùcked up. Domination is just icing on the cake, but the standard dark elf douchebag every morning cuts a slave's throat because he likes watching the poor bastard bleed out in agonizing pain. Yeah no.

[Dimebag]

Originally posted by Gseckz:

I mean skaven/chaos/norse/orcs are all badasses and the vampires are amazing but dark elves are just a$$holes Does anyone actually liked them?

I enslave my enemies, what's not to like?

[Snorri Nosebiter]

Originally posted by Vacca:

Yeah, no. One thing is being the honest, gritty enemy, another is being someone who's ok with enslaving people and torturing them because it's fun.

They literally feel pleasure by hurting others. It's fùcked up. Domination is just icing on the cake, but the standard dark elf douchebag every morning cuts a slave's throat because he likes watching the poor bastard bleed out in agonizing pain. Yeah no.

They don't enslave people because it's fun. They enslave them because they need the labour. Every elf who left Ulthuan with Malekith was a warrior- no masons, no farmers, nothing like that. Every aspect of Dark Elf industry and infrastructure and agriculture is operated by slaves under a few Dark Elf masters. Buildings are built and repaired by Dwarf slaves and their trainees, weapons and armour are forged by High Elf smiths, and humans and other less hardy races do menial labour.

The 'average' Dark Elf doesn't cut a slave's throat every morning because they don't all have slaves- this is because slaves are expensive, and slaves from races like Dwarfs and Elves are even more expensive.

Just a couple of hundred human slaves can make a Dark Elf raider fabulously wealthy, and that's when they're sold at wholesale prices. Only the wealthy can afford to buy them to use at home, and they don't always kill them for fun- they kill them as sacrifices to Khaine, because they've lost value or, sometimes, because they're angry and can't murder the nearest Elf. Killing a slave for entertainment would be like trashing your own sports car for stress relief.

You also need to be aware that human slaves are to Dark Elves like animals are to meat-eating humans. They look on us as weak and stupid, and we live for about five minutes before we die of old age. The fact that we can even talk is a hilarious novelty to them, as in their equivalent of last week we were just grunting and living in caves.

[Lord_William]

If only they had 5.500 years to develop a sustainable economy...

Oh, wait.

I find the pro-IamsoedgythatIsomehowjustifytheDruchii trolling in this post both hilarious and disturbing.

[Snorri Nosebiter]

Originally posted by William_Dracul:

If only they had 5.500 years to develop a sustainable economy...

Oh, wait.

I find the pro-IamsoedgythatIsomehowjustifytheDruchii trolling in this post both hilarious and disturbing.

I'm not trying to justify anything- just explain why they do it the way they do. Malekith has no interest in using Druchii as farmers, weavers, chefs or toilet cleaners. He wants to reconquer Ulthuan, and he wants to train every elf to be a warrior. Using them for menial jobs is a waste of their immortality to him, and they'd likely refuse to do it.

Their society is a brutally trained warrior class supported by a brutally repressed slave underclass which does every job that doesn't involve fighting, magic or priesthood- in this way, they're no different to Sparta.

Bretonnia, on the other hand, has hundreds of thousands of slaves which it works to death on a regular basis and keeps them in line by feeding them lies about how good they have it, and carrying out mass executions when they rebel. Nobody complains about them because they wear fancy bright colours and claim to be chivalrous!

[Genki]

Lets just say: Malekith is the rightful king, and thats fact.