‘Warhammer: The Old World’ – Dark Elves Have Really Gotten The Short End Of The Stick
Let’s talk about the lamentable plight of the poor, poor Dark Elves in Warhammer.
The armies of the Old World have gone through somewhat of a strange odyssey. The majority of them started off as old Warhammer Fantasy Armies. When that game ended most, but not, of them made the jump to Age of Sigmar. There, some remained in a somewhat recognizable fashion. Others got chopped up and mutated into various sub-factions over time. Then when the Old World came back a bunch of those armies jumped back over from AoS or were reborn in Old World.
Another section of armies got put into a strange limbo that is Legends/Legacy. They aren’t really in Old World, but do have some kind of rules. For most of these it’s sad, but you can at least play these armies elsewhere. However a couple armies have just… kind of fallen by the wayside, and the worst of these is Dark Elves. So lets take a look at why the denizens of icy Naggaroth are in such a bad place.
No Country For Old Elves
Dark Elves are an army that has long been core to the Warhammer setting. How Long? They got their first army list in WFB 2nd Edition’s Ravening Hordes in 1987! They got their last army book in WFB 8th Edition’s WH Armies: Dark Elves in 2013. Dark Elves were in the game and fully supported for 26 years! They are an important part of the lore and in particular are the foil to the High Elves. They are a super cool and popular army. And yet right now… they kind of don’t exist in either setting. In The Old World they exist as a Legends faction. Their rules are unsupported and only updated by fans. They are technically not tournament legal, though most events will allow them. Even among the Legends factions they are considered one of the least playable and don’t really have a place in the game right now.
Meanwhile in AoS they also technically exist (possibly why they can’t fully be in ToW). However its mostly in a vestigial sense, the bulk of the Dark Elf army got rolled into the Cities of Sigmar when the game was created. And there they languish. In a faction that’s been taken over by the Freeguild they remain a poorly represented short of sub-faction, allied to Men and Dwarves and fighting for Sigmar. I dunno, its not really Dark Elves at that point is it? So while you can technically play them, there is little incentive and they haven’t gotten any new models or love in at least a decade. With one exception.
Daughters of Slaughter
Now it is true that there is sort of full Dark Elf faction in Age of Sigmar, the Daughters of Khaine are a thing for sure. And they are sort of Dark Elves. But they represent only a very tenuous link to the old Dark Elf faction. They are a pretty small faction, and only represent a couple of old Dark Elf units that were greatly glammed up. If you were a Dark Elf player that was really really into Witches, they might do the trick, but for any other player, DoK are not really a Dark Elf Army. And again it represents something like less than 20% of the Dark Elf army.
Compared To the Other Legends Armies
When we compare them to the other Legends armies it seems pretty clear that Dark Elves really have gotten the short end of the stick here. Skaven, Lizardmen, Ogres and Chaos Dwarfs all have pretty one-to-one comparisons in AoS. Indeed Skaven and Ogres might be (along with Chaos) the least changed factions between the games. Meanwhile Vampire Counts while split into three separate factions are pretty playable and recognizable in AoS. Indeed they have some of the best representation in that game.
Daemons come the closest to Dark Elves. While for a long time they had their own army this has more or less gone away. Instead they’ve been rolled into the various Chaos factions. Still you can play a demonic force in AoS. Also unlike Dark Elves deamons have gotten updates and love over the past decade, while the bulk of Dark Elves have not.
Just Make Them A Core Faction Already
For all these reason I have to say that I think Dark Elves are the number one faction that GW should move to a fully core Warhammer: The Old World faction. Right now they don’t really exist as an independent fully supported and legal army in any game. If the worry is that you can’t have them in AoS and ToW at the same time, they simply remove the non-Daughters of Khaine parts for AoS, I don’t think many will even notice. While I’d love to see the other Legends army become fully legal you can at least play those armies *somewhere*.
Moreover Dark Elves are a very important part of the Old World’s lore, and unlike some of the other factions, aren’t lore-wise in a “hibernation” period – they are out there doing cool important stuff in the current time period. I mean, it makes sense that Deamons aren’t a real faction right now, Chaos is weak and we are still in the lead up to the Great War, that is all coming. And yeah sure, Dark Elves are geographically separated from the landmass of the Old World. But so are High Elves! And more importantly, so is Cathay! If they can work Cathay into the narrative you best believe they can add Dark Elves. Here’s hoping.
Let us know if you think Dark Elves should come back, down in the comments!
