“Warhammer: The Old World”- Are Dark Elves Coming To The Game?
Let’s take a closer look to see if Dark Elves might be making a comeback to the Old World.
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 like say Orks. Others got chopped up and mutated into various sub-factions over time like the Dwarves. 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. We’ve been long hoping that these armies would be brought back into the fold of fully supported armies. Lately there are some reasons to hope that a few might be. So lets take a look at why the denizens of icy Naggaroth might be posed to make a dramatic return.
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! You read that right, 39 years ago! 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 have technically existed up until now (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 languished. In a faction that’s been taken over by the Freeguild they remained 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 could technically play them, there was 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.
(Re)Movement At Last
We’ve finally got a bit of a change on the Dark Elf front. The new updated Cities of Sigmar have really made the move to push out the last vestiges of the Dark Elves. As part of this purge the majority of old Dark Elf models have been removed from sale in the online store. As of this writing there are only 3 only Dark Elf kits still for sale, Witch Elves, The Cauldron of Blood and the old Sorceress model. The entire rest of the old DE line is now gone. For all real intents and purposes Dark Elves are no longer in Age of Sigmar.
Could This Mean A Return To The Old World?
Now of course this could all mean nothing. Models, even armies, come and go. But. It could also mean something! If the main reason Dark Elves were kept out of the Old World is because they can’t have cross over between AoS and ToW lines, that worry is now pretty much gone. Dark Elves aren’t in AoS except for a few models. There are a few other armies (Orcs & Goblins, Warriors of Chaos, etc.) that have some light model overlap with AoS still. More than Dark Elves would have. So this hurdle should be cleared. There is no great overlap, and it is possible that removing then from AoS was the first step in bringing them back to ToW.
Just Make Them A Core Faction Already
And look, GW really should bring Dark Elves back to The Old World. Right now they don’t really exist as an independent fully supported and legal army in any game. They aren’t in ToW and as of now they aren’t in AoS. 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 setting’s 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, and their Black Ark corsair fleets. So while we still might not have a ton of evidence, we do have hope.
Let us know if you think Dark Elves are coming back, down in the comments!
