Warhammer Fantasy Battle/Headscratchers

• The official name of the empire is The Reikland why is it never called that?
  • Reikland is a province in the Empire, not the Empire itself.
• If the High Elves are dying out due to low population, and they presumably don't want to, why don't they make a law that says every elf has to have, say, three to four children? This would cause a massive surge in the birthrate and the population in the long term.
  • There are many nobles that would oppose such a suggestion and the Phoenix King can't decide over all the kingdoms in that way.
  • More importantly, the elf Hat is "slow decline." In just about any 'verse, particularly LOTR, Elves (and Dwarves) actually have a hard time even conceiving. Chances are they couldn't have a population boom if they wanted to.
    • Yeah but the in Warhammer the High Elves hat isn't "slow decline" its more Imperial Japan Expies than anything else
      • Unlike most of the other races (Holy Roman Empire - The Empire, Mayincatec - Lizardmen Egyptian - Tomb Kings Vikings - Chaos Marauders Russia - Kislev etc. etc.) the elves in Warhammer don't really have counterpart cultures. High elves don't have any lamellar armour, horned helmets, curved swords, cruelty and aren't ruled by a puppet-government propped up by a military junta. Their writing is functionally similar to chinese but looks more like typical mystical squiggles than any actual East Asian language. They do have naval power on Byzantine-style galleys, are led by a rather unusual dual-monarchy/oligarchy system, live predominantly in Greek-style city-states, have spear-armed citizen militias backed by nobles on horseback, zen warrior-monks in the Swordmasters, Varangian guard in the White Lions, old, lost colonies kinda like the remnants of a roman empire... So there's bits of everything in there. "Slowly dying empire" is more of their hat than any particular culture, as every bit of fluff about them makes some reference to how their glories are not as great as they were, their cities are mostly empty and so forth.
• Why doesn't the Empire try setting fire to the massive forests that the Beastmen dwell in? They currently act as a massive safe haven for a large unknown number of enemies. They are a consistent site of ambushes of Imperial troops and supplies. Also, Beastmen raid Imperial settlements and retreat back into there. Wouldn't a forest fire or twelve be a very good idea?
  • Wood Elves live in those forests too.
  • A forest fire would more likely unite the beastmen against the empire then defeat them and without enough men to farm and use the lands the forests would quickly regrow. In addition to this wood is an important resource as they trade it with the dwarfs.
  • Not to mention the massive environmental damage involved in burning several million square miles of woodland.
    • Its more like several thousand, its also worth noting that one of the grand provinces Hochland is almost entirely covered with forests.
  • The forest takes up a fairly major chunk of the Empire, and has plenty of Imperial citizens living within and immediately surrounding it. It's pretty unlikely that the Empire would set about 33% of its own territory on fire.
  • Not all the forests in the Empire are full of monsters. The ones in Reikland and in the entire south-west are pretty safe. And considering this is where it's leadership and the bulk of it's population live, it's possible that - as usual - the Imperial administration simply doesn't know/care enough about the problems up north to organize something on this scale.

Why has there been almost nothing written or any army lists of Estalia so far?

• • • Valden the co-emperor comes from a village devastated by beastmen you'd think he would care enough to do something like this.
      • Valten is dead.
• Because they haven't come up with a suitable distinct theme. They don't just make up army lists for places -- they make up army lists for concepts. What would an Estalian army list be like? A synthesis of Bretonnia and the Empire, probably. So why bother?
  • If Spanish history is anything to go by, there is a lot of stuff to use. Conquistadors, Roloderos and Swashbucklers. Plus later on Spain was known for guerrilla fighters, so an Estalia army could be about guerrilla skirmishers supporting a highly mobile mounted conquistador army. Hey, if Kislev got an army list Estalia should.
  • For a classic spanish feel it would probably be a bit too similar to the Empire, but it could certainly be done, based on the pike-and-shot formula...
• There is one. It's called "Dogs of War", and while technically a mercenary force it represents generic humans from Estalia, Tilea, Border Princes...It's a couple of editions old, though.
  • A couple of units couldn't hurt though, maybe a special character and/or a Regiment of Renown. A Spanish Inquisition-style witch hunter squad perhaps. No-one would expect it...
    • Nah, the Empire has witchhunting down pat. They're even pretty sure what their main weapons are - instilling fear and burning people.
      • NOBODY expects the Empire Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Emperor..... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise... I'll come in again.
• How does chaos create those huge armies of big burly bodybuilder men from the arctic, are they from the warp?
  • They're members of the native tribes, empowered by Chaos. Remember that the Chaos Wastes cover a pretty big area, so you can have large population spread thinly. It's All There in the Manual.
    • This, also despite what Warhammer Online says, every single man and woman up there is a warrior of Chaos and settlements can range from small towns to massive cities with millions of residents.
      • Not exactly true. Most of them are Chaos Marauders, not Warriors. If they'd all become Chaos Warriors then the Empire might as well give up.
      • Most chaos warbands consist of marauders from Norsca or a few other barbarian peoples (there was a hun equivalent), with a chaos warrior at the top if they're lucky. Whole armies led by Exalted Champions are rare. Remember that the armies played in the table are usually highly atypical - most Imperial army lists have a steam tank, but there are less than ten of them in existence in the world.
      • The Chaos Wastes cover a vast area of land, most of it sub-arctic (the arctic areas are the Realm of Chaos). The Marauders represent a number of distinct peoples including the Norse, Kurgans, and Hung, who have sizeable populations - remember that the term "Chaos Wastes" is applied by the people of the Empire who have never been there. The Warriors of Chaos book goes into more detail.
• Why the sudden trend towards great heroes as special characters... at Hero level? Korhil is "One of the mightiest living elves", and would get his arse handed to him by your standard High Elf army general. Likewise Kurt Helborg- the Emperor's Champion, yet weaker than the Grand Master of any of the Knightly Orders. I don't mind having hero-level SCs, but couldn't they have someone relatively inexperienced but unique? Admittedly, they've done this right in the Chaos Warriors book with Festus and Wulfrik, but there's all these legends relegated to "Get-owned-by-all-Orc-Warbosses" status.
  • Then again, special characters are supposed to be special. Don't all special characters have something particular about them, anyway? It's less about the stats as they are, and more about the special abilities and the novelty of fielding "The Emperor's Champion", something that's important for story reasons if nothing else.
  • I've seen Orc Warbosses and Wood Elf Lords killed in single rounds by normal unit champions. I'd say that a simple points comparison isn't really that meaningful for judging relative power.
  • Have you seen the 7th ed. Skaven book? Tretch Craventail is the epitome of "special, not-stupidly-overpowered-in-either-gameplay-or-in-stories, character" that you are looking for. Then again, we are talking about the Skaven...
• Obscurus. It's as if his very name is some sort of cruel joke. I can't find fluff on him anywhere, not even on the Lexicanum! Is there anybody here who knows anything about him? From what's listed on the characters page, he's certainly as worthy of my attention as Malal/Malice is.
  • Salvaged info can be seen here
• How has Bretonia existed for so long despite the fact that the peasants always seem to be two missed meals away from bloody revolution?
  • The Wood Elves make sure they only ever miss one meal at a time.
  • Much like real-world middle ages, the peasants are too oppressed (help, help!) to revolt. They're too downtrodden, too disorganised, and also earnestly believe that their lords have a god-given right to rule over them. Then when they do revolt (as happens reasonably frequently in the fluff) it ends up going the way you think it would when starving, mud-born, uneducated people with knowledge of farming and no available military equipment take on Brettonian knights.
• The Daemon Prince currently seems a lot weaker than it should be. I get that Chaos worshipers want daemonhood for the immortality, but this is supposed to be the peak of the power the Chaos gods give them, and yet a Chaos Lord is more powerful, and even has an overall better stateline if he gets two or more roles on the eye of the gods table.