Elf Physiology

[Keego Extremo]

I recently had a discussion about Skaven origins and I thought it was great. Now I'd like to talk about how warhammer elves are. If anyone saw the recent videos from Shadiversity on youtube he talks about Tolkien and D&D elves, Tolkien elves being essentially superhuman and better than humans in every way whereas D&D elves are faster more agile, but generally physically weaker and more fragile.
How would you say Warhammer elves compare to humans? Dwarfs are obviously far stronger far far tougher and live longer, but lack mobility and a connection to magic.
Elves on the other hand, speaking primarily of High elves since they're the most vanilla, they seem to be as strong as a human but also much faster and live for an extremely long time almost to the point of immortailty it seems. They are also more agile and far more in tune with the winds of magic. Their only real disadvantage is of a slower reproductive rate (it seems).
So what are Evles' weeaknesses if any, according to warhammer. To me it would make the most sense that they are somewhat weaker than a human and more fragile to force trauma meaning they couldn't get up from a blow that a human could.
Thoughts?

[Wh♂♂par]

Being arrogant.

[Throgg]

If I'm not mistaken the basic stat line for both elves and humans are nearly all 3's making them pretty much comparable in the warhammer world. Although iirc maybe elves initiative was higher allowing them to be slightly quicker or more reactive in melee, can't remember how humans were boosted to balance though.

[Keego Extremo]

Arrogance isn't much of a weakness I'm a fraid. True you might underestimate your enemy, but when you're faster, smarter, and can call down lighting and fire at a whim, I don't think you'd ever really get into a scanario where being more cautious would have made much of a difference to the overall outcome.

[Wh♂♂par]

Their arrogance is not only shown to other races. They're arrogant to other High Elves, too. Not everyone. Not all the time. But they are. And as much as I remember, the War of the Beard was a disaster for the High Elves - all because their king was too arrogant.

[Chameon]

Originally posted by Keego Extremo:

Arrogance isn't much of a weakness I'm a fraid. True you might underestimate your enemy, but when you're faster, smarter, and can call down lighting and fire at a whim, I don't think you'd ever really get into a scanario where being more cautious would have made much of a difference to the overall outcome.

When you're arrogant enough you think you can -solo- their whole army, and you act on those beliefs...yes, arrogance is a bit of a crippling weakness. And yes, most Elves are that bad. Especially considerring that most elves think they know better than their superiors and will act on these beliefs.

As for other weaknesses. Elves are unilaterally faster then most every other species, but they're not actually all that smarter. They play it off as they do, and the humans believe they are, but the fact is, they're not outthinking a dwarf, Chaos Cultists occasionally do outthink them, and in areas where they aren't experienced, even rudimentally trained humans will have that much of an advantage over them. As for magic....not every elf is a mage, and amongst the elves that are mages, they tend to be very unfocused, which leaves them with the jack of all trades, master of none, problems.

Furthermore, they have no sense of urgency, and will often, at least amongst the ones not acting as main characters in stories, spend months, years, or decades performing 'subtle debating' which is actually more easily deciphered as decadent partying.

Additionally, they have a prejudice towards things that they themselves have invented. They don't use rifles, they use bows and arrows. They don't use cannons, they perform boarding actions. If a new style of metal-working is invented by the dwarfs, they aren't stealing it. The fact is, this has ended with them making very 'nice' arrows overall, but they're still dependent on arrows compared to other peoples rifles, and against bigger targets, you'd much rather a cannon then a magical halberd. I don't care how stupid you are, the dragon dying before it's within range to swat you, is MUCH better then you having the ability to 'shank' it.

Finally, and this is one of the more important weaknesses, they actually have a very low rate of birth. You might not think this is all that much of a weakness, but the fact is, they reproduce at extraordinarily low rates. It's irrelevant to the books, and irrelevant to most of the settings lore, as, as many have pointed out "There are exactly as many elves as are convenient for the story" but, in point of fact, the reason why they're as few as they are isn't exactly a 'selected' thing, it's because it takes quite a while to get an elf pregnant, the pregnancy itself takes a long time, and the born individual in question takes two hundred years before it's back up to speed and slightly past a human.

[Keego Extremo]

Originally posted by Chameon:

Originally posted by Keego Extremo:

Arrogance isn't much of a weakness I'm a fraid. True you might underestimate your enemy, but when you're faster, smarter, and can call down lighting and fire at a whim, I don't think you'd ever really get into a scanario where being more cautious would have made much of a difference to the overall outcome.

When you're arrogant enough you think you can -solo- their whole army,

Where has anything like that ever been shown? No one has ever stated or implied they are THAT level of arrogant. I'm speaking about Elf physiology mostly, most of what you said that wasn't totally inaccurate dealt with their physiology.
My point is that I would think Elves are not as strong as humans at least when it comes to heavy labour. This would explain why elves favour light blades and war spears over maces, axes and blackpowder weapons that would surely be difficult for them to lug around. The one exception to this is the white lions of Chrace. Frankly I feel like these elves prove that Elves can actually be fairly hardy and physically powerful, they just are not naturally designed to be so.
This would be interesting to think that although Elves generally are a fey and weaker race physically, with enough training they could actually become deformed in a way, to the point of being as bulky as a human but with some of the natural elf speed and agility. Just a thought.

[Chameon]

Originally posted by Keego Extremo:

Originally posted by Chameon:

When you're arrogant enough you think you can -solo- their whole army,

Where has anything like that ever been shown? No one has ever stated or implied they are THAT level of arrogant. I'm speaking about Elf physiology mostly, most of what you said that wasn't totally inaccurate dealt with their physiology.
My point is that I would think Elves are not as strong as humans at least when it comes to heavy labour. This would explain why elves favour light blades and war spears over maces, axes and blackpowder weapons that would surely be difficult for them to lug around. The one exception to this is the white lions of Chrace. Frankly I feel like these elves prove that Elves can actually be fairly hardy and physically powerful, they just are not naturally designed to be so.
This would be interesting to think that although Elves generally are a fey and weaker race physically, with enough training they could actually become deformed in a way, to the point of being as bulky as a human but with some of the natural elf speed and agility. Just a thought.

Wood Elves regularly believe they can do that with skirmishing tactics, to the point it notes they don't actually make 'reports', when they begin their skirmishing and harming ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with intruders very often. Dark Elves have occasionally attacked forces far larger then them for ♥♥♥♥♥ and giggles, we're talking single raiding boats vs fleets, when the single raiding boat is outnumbered. High Elves have multiple stories of them, successfully, literally soloing armies, starting with the first Phoenix King and going on all the way to Tyrion. Do I need to go on, or have I explained that the level of hubris that I'm indicating is actually a 'thing' that is a problem? That's not to say they won't -allow- other elves to fight alongside them, they view it as politic to deal with it, but in some instances, they won't allow other elven states to help them when they're a tiny ass fishing village on the edge of Ulthuan that's being attacked by, say, a huge Dark Elven fleet.

Elves actually are legitimately as strong as humans, they don't exercise quite as much for heavy lifting though, you are correct there, as using 'brute force' as a solution is 'embarassing' for them, which is another area where their hubris hurts them.

[A.Pot]

In the books as well as the pen and paper RPGs Elves as well as 40k Eldar are taller than humans. They are usually more slender in form and are faster. Warhammer Fantasy Elves can, just like humans grow beards and become buffed up with physical exercise.

Warhammer Fantasy elves are also capable of breeding with humans so half-elves like in D&D can be a thing, it just does not happen often.

[Keego Extremo]

I'm pretty sure there's some quasi-canon out there that says there's some half human half eldar. Honestly even if there isn't I don't think anyone would find it too hard to accept there could be.

[TaurusBully]

From the little I’ve read they are in Warhammer better than humans in all physical aspects.

They are arrogant, which yes it’s a flaw, it’s different than being confident. And they of course reproduce at a slower rate than humans.

They are as arrogant as Britain was when facing the independents in USA and not expecting guerrila wars.

[A_COOC]

Originally posted by Keego Extremo:

I'm pretty sure there's some quasi-canon out there that says there's some half human half eldar. Honestly even if there isn't I don't think anyone would find it too hard to accept there could be.

To accept there could be half-human half-eldar? Yes, could possibly happen. Would it happen? One in a trillion. Said hybrid also being the Chief Astropath AND Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines? No. Unlike other things of dubious canon since the stance on 40K is ' It's a setting not a story, so everything is canon, but not everything is true. But it's up to the reader to decide that.' At least for the most part because they are trying to make it a bit into a more cohesive story line now. So the Human and Eldar hybrids likely isn't canon anymore since that's from Rogue Trader. AKA Proto-40K. Which did have those hybrids are as thing and some were indeed parts of the Imperium. 1d4 Chan isn't the best source for just flat out complete lore, but it's the only place you'll still see stuff like this. https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Illiyan_Nastase

[Old Dirty Bingo Caller]

Originally posted by RedundantDummy:

If I'm not mistaken the basic stat line for both elves and humans are nearly all 3's making them pretty much comparable in the warhammer world. Although iirc maybe elves initiative was higher allowing them to be slightly quicker or more reactive in melee, can't remember how humans were boosted to balance though.

The only stat humans and elves have in common is toughness and strenght. Humans are balanced out with numbers, their units (infantry mostly) are cheap. Exceptions being cavalry. A tt player that knows what he is doing can get way more out of an elven army, they are elite.

[Wyvern]

Elves dont have physical weaknesses compared to humans in warhammer. They also don't really have much of an advantage either, except for being a bit faster and obviously simply aging incredibly slowly. Most of their disadvantages come down to arrogance, low numbers and a miserable relationship with technology. Alongside beastmen and Brettonians, elves are one of the only races that is actually stuck in an archaic state of tech by what appears to be choice.

[Old Dirty Bingo Caller]

Originally posted by Wyvern:

Elves dont have physical weaknesses compared to humans in warhammer. They also don't really have much of an advantage either, except for being a bit faster and obviously simply aging incredibly slowly. Most of their disadvantages come down to arrogance, low numbers and a miserable relationship with technology. Alongside beastmen and Brettonians, elves are one of the only races that is actually stuck in an archaic state of tech by what appears to be choice.

In TT all elves are stuck on 3 toughness though and humans are not. That must represent some kind of frailty.

[Lenny]

I notice that in total war, high elf characters seems to vary greatly in skill and competence, compared to other races.

I you pay lots of influence you can conscript a truely powerful character, able to forge their army into an effective and deadly machine.

But if you have no influence to spend then you're stuck with what seems to be almost Jar-jar-Binks-like characters, elf lords and ladies who are so inept and fumbling that they actually make the entier army perform worse than if they had simply stayed at home.

So it seems that the elves has a greater potential to become both gods and clods, compared to other factions.