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paddyfool
2020-01-16, 05:27 PM
So I was watching shadiversity's youtube video on medieval weapons for elves (https://youtu.be/6PZIInkJHrg), and I had a few thoughts.

Standard tolkeinesque elf physical characteristics:
- Similar physical strength to humans
- Significantly physically light than humans (meaning that they somehow have a greater power to weight ratio)
- More graceful, better at balancing than humans
- Better at spotting things than humans
- Longer lived than humans, so more time to hone skills in a particular way or hone a physique towards a particular purpose (without that body ever getting old).
- Typically outnumbered by most opponents, courtesy of having fewe children.

Let's start by ignoring battle of 5 armies silliness, eg leaping out over your own shield wall. In fact, let's try to avoid clashing shieldwalls altogether, since if you're significantly physically lighter than your opponent, your shiekd wall will inevitably get pushed back and overrun if this happens. Even with equal strength, if theirs charges into yours they will have a lot more momentum.

So that straightaway makes traditional medieval spear and shield warfare a disadvantageous option for you. There were other models in the medieval period that generally surpassed this, luckily... chief among them being mongol style cavalry. Extra bonus: being elves, you'll weigh your horse down less than a human rider, allowing your horse more speed and stamina. You can attack and retreat where you choose, allowing less risk to your few and valuable soldiers.

Such infantry as the elves might have would probably be specialised in either defending fortified positions (mainly by firing bows out of them), or in special ops (making use of the enhanced senses and ability to move silently).

But what if we could make the shield wall work? Say, by having elves in heavy armour with heavy shields that they can brace against the ground in the front rank, with a second rank braced against them, perhaps even making a roman legion style tortoise with their shields. You'd have lots of time to practice manoevres if you lived forever.
Then behind that... with elves being as light as they are, the fourth rank could potentially leap up onto the shoulders or overlapping shields of the third rank, and strike downwards with long spears. All the while making a second, higher wall of their own shields, to protect both themselves and detachments of archers firing vollies over their heads. It's silly, but not quite Jackson silly.

More likely, though, it seems to me that if elves really wanted to field melee infantry, they'd probably be very tempted to hire mercenaries of another race. Or, in high fantasy, use summoned critters, tamed beasts, walking trees, golems, or some other resource they view as more expendable than themselves.

Dienekes
2020-01-16, 06:08 PM
Honestly, I don’t see elves the way you describe them as engaging in direct battle unless they absolutely have no other option. They’re graceful, quiet, and can see in the dark, are equivalently strong but are very light. Meaning if they actually do get in a melee they’re probably going to be pushed around a bit.

I’m seeing night raids and guerrilla warfare. Entering into the woods of elves would be a very poor decision for any army that doesn’t take the time to burn away everything in their path.

If they did ever get caught and forced into a pitched battle, I almost completely see them trying to recreate Agincourt at every chance they can get. A huge mass of archers or whatever ranged equipment they are using. With a select group of elves of hardier than average stock whose job is mostly just to keep the enemy off the archers as long as they possibly can. With that though, if they get caught on terrain where they can’t pull this tactic off they’re probably going to lose.

Though I would point out, this isn’t Tolkien elves. Tolkien elves are basically better humans. They’re stronger, smarter, faster, taller and everything. Tolkien elves could pull off a phalanx or shield wall much easier.

redwizard007
2020-01-16, 06:16 PM
Though I would point out, this isn’t Tolkien elves. Tolkien elves are basically better humans. They’re stronger, smarter, faster, taller and everything. Tolkien elves could pull off a phalanx or shield wall much easier.

Bingo.

Tolkien's elves would beat humans in any fighting condition, while fighting in any style.

paddyfool
2020-01-16, 06:29 PM
Thinking about Agincourt, weather conditions there very much favoured the English (it was wet and muddy and the heavily armoured French got stuck in the mud while also being peppered with arrows and later finished off with mauls). Weather magic would absolutely be in character for elves, and could easily be another way to support their archers etc... especially if elven vision translated to a better ability to see what was going on through rain or mist.

Max_Killjoy
2020-01-16, 08:44 PM
With all these assumptions in place, the average elf just has a lot more to lose than the average human, AND their culture is going to be far less willing to throw bodies at a problem.

So I can see them avoiding pitched battle at almost any cost, using the terrain and their abilities to cause maximum attrition to manpower, material, and morale through nighttime attacks, ambushes, sniping, etc.

NigelWalmsley
2020-01-16, 08:56 PM
Asking about Elven warfare is kind of the wrong question. You've got to first figure out what warfare as a whole is like in the setting, then what elvish society is like, then how they fight wars. Elves in a gritty low-magic setting with renaissance technology who live in dense forests are going to fight radically differently from elves in an epic fantasy high-magic setting with early medieval tech who live in arcane citadels.

Droid Tony
2020-01-17, 12:28 AM
I don't think elves would EVER do a sheild wall....or really use sheilds all that much. Elves go for more light armor and moving to dodge a blow....not the human(and dwarf) way of ''taking the hit". A human puts on heavy armor and gets a big sheild and then hopes that will adsorb the killing parts of the blows they will take in a battle. Elves just dodge.

Elven infantry is more light skirmisher types. They run into battle in small groups, keep moving around, and use small thrown weapons.

They would never ''stand and fight".

Native American or African warfare might be a better place to look for Elven warfare.

Kaptin Keen
2020-01-17, 01:34 AM
I think the biggest advantages available to elves is being able to forage, and being effectively invisible in natural terrain until they chose not to be.

Clearly I'm making this up, but since it's all made up, I see no problem there.

So here goes:

Elves don't need supplies. The end. They can grab a bow above the mantle piece, and they're off to war, fully geared and supplied. That makes them faster than any other force on fantasy Earth (except the undead, who have the same advantage plus never needing to rest).

And elves basically always get to shoot a bajillion arrows at their enemy, then run away before any response can be mounted.

In essence, elves are nigh-invincible when they choose the terrain. They can only be beaten when they're forced to fight.

Raunchel
2020-01-17, 03:22 AM
Given their low population, it seems very unlikely that they would engage in attritional fighting in a head-to-head clash with opposing troops. And as was mentioned before, they should never engage in an infantry slogmatch. Casualties that would make any human army happy by being so low would still be a disaster for them.

They however have a few advantages, the foremost of them being their better senses. They can see well in darkness whereas humans are much worse. That makes them very suitable for launching night attacks as well. Other than that I think that they would make for excellent light cavalry and archers. This means that they don't have to go to melee fighting (where they will lose due to a lack of weight) and can reduce their casualties further. They will probably also do their utmost to keep their lines of retreat open, an army that loses half its number in a bad rout would end their strength for generations after all.

Synesthesy
2020-01-17, 03:44 AM
Asking about Elven warfare is kind of the wrong question. You've got to first figure out what warfare as a whole is like in the setting, then what elvish society is like, then how they fight wars. Elves in a gritty low-magic setting with renaissance technology who live in dense forests are going to fight radically differently from elves in an epic fantasy high-magic setting with early medieval tech who live in arcane citadels.

This.

However, there is something that we can figure out even without knowing anything, only by one assumption:

1) if magic isn't that important, the main point is that elves are lightier and less strong then humans. This would mean that they would create some light infantry/chavalry unit, that they would try to fight a guerrilla warfare everytime they can. There are some historical example to use, like mongols, arabs, more or less any people that fight against middle-age european powers.

2) if magic IS important, elves are the one stronger then humans in most setting. Magic buff would make elves more powerfull in a wall-of-shield, and actually a fireball would make the humans' wall of shield almost useless. Warfare would be more 'modern' as you make magic more common, because wizard in battle would be more similar to a line infantry then a middle-age army. Or even more similar to a modern group of marines, SAS or whatever. You can even see some parallel between a fantasy party and a special force from a 1900/2000 army.

Anonymouswizard
2020-01-17, 07:17 AM
I’m seeing night raids and guerrilla warfare.

I misread that, and got a mental image of elven druids summoning great apes to overrun the enemy camp :smallbiggrin:

In all honesty, I suspect that elven armies would have trouble grabbing and controlling territory, but that the elven forests themselves are impossible to hold due to guerilla warfare waged with cneturies of experience. Any army that tries has to deal with the elves in the treetops peperring you with arrows while a statistically improbable number of wild animals are trying to bite your leg off. Survive that and you'll discover that the specifically trained squirrels have run off with your supplies and the soles of your shoes.

If you decide to get smart and burn down the forest, you'll discover three things. Thing number one is arrows. Thing number two is that live trees do not burn as easily as dead wood does.. Thing number three is that the elves ensure a harmonious cycle of forest fires for maximum efficiency, so they're good at mitigating the damage yours is going to cause even if they don't summon a rainstorm to soak your kindling.

Then, when you're confused, soaked through, and hungry they unleash the gorilla warfare.

King of Nowhere
2020-01-17, 08:42 AM
In my campaign world it's canon that elven cities are on trees for that specific reason. elves would be disadvantaged in a pitched melee battle, and even if they weren't, their slow breeding would disadvantage them in an attrition war anyway.
and if they had to wage war, they used guarrilla tactics. that's why they mostly stick to the forests.

that was in the past, though, as now wars are fought with magic, golems and high level people. regular armies are pointless

Slipperychicken
2020-01-17, 10:34 AM
There are a few things you're neglecting here

All elves are trained in combat, per their standard race features (even their magic-users have fighting skills)
Elves' lifespan and martial culture make them much, much better than short-lived races at every sort of fighting (basically as if they were all much higher level)
Elven equipment is far superior to that of their human opponents, due to craftsmanship, magic, and access to superior materials (i.e. mythril, ironwood, adamantium)
Elven magic and connection to nature yield many advantages in war, giving them an enchanted forest with illusions as well as being able to use animals and possibly even plants for scouting and other purposes
Intelligence advantages would be huge given the ability to use nonhumans as scouts


I'd expect them to know exactly where every piece of the human army is at all times, use large-scale illusions to trick them into walking in circles (especially in the elves' home turf), decapitate human leadership (i.e. a bird can tell an elf where the leaders are, then the elf can shoot him or sneak in), fire on human soldiers from concealed positions at will, and wrap up with shock-troops to break human formations once they've been softened enough

Also their intelligence advantage would tell them where all the humans' supplies are (i.e. "hey there sparrow/bear/ent, I'll give you a sack of seed each week if you patrol that road for wagons and caravans"), so elf saboteurs would be able to mercilessly exploit that as well as raiding human camps

EDIT: As for holding territory, elves would not see any value in the life of lesser races and simply exterminate populations that might prove troublesome in a few decades. They'd probably just treat it like pest control: kill off nearby regions of humans, set up a "no humans allowed" zone, and do patrols to sack any settlements that might crop up

redwizard007
2020-01-17, 11:10 AM
I disagree strongly with onee of the basic premises that are becoming more common in this thread. Elves are NOT weaker than humans. In D&D they are the same strength (but have lower constitutions.) In Tolkien's works elves are significantly stronger and tougher then men.

In LOTR we se an elf and an elf-blooded human slaughter orcs (in melee) like they are fighting a classroom of preschoolers. This shows that they can more than hold their own in a stand up fight. We also see flashbacks of ranks of massed elven infantry kicking butt. So "elves can't/won't fight in formation" is garbage too. In d&d we have ancient elven empires. They didn't gain and hold power by guerilla warfare. They took the field and destroyed all opposition.

So why are elves pictured as hit and run archers in most modern fantasy? Population density. Contemporary elven society is fragmented. Pockets of elves gather round individuals, but kingdoms are rare and sparsely populated. This, more than any physical attributes, is why elves use guerilla tactics. "Guerilla" is probably the wrong term. More accurately, the elves use fading defensive tactics with frequent nocturnal raids acting as spoiler attacks.

Lord Torath
2020-01-17, 11:44 AM
I think the "elves are weaker than humans" bit came from the assertion that elves are lighter than humans. Which Legolas demonstrates by walking on the surface of the snow while the rest of the Fellowship trudges through waist-high drifts. Does that really mean elves are lighter, or just that they have the ability to walk on semi-solid surfaces without sinking?

Being lighter than humans then leads to lower momentum for similar speed, and thus not having the physical mass to repel a charging force with a shield wall. Which then leads to the assertion of elves being weaker than humans, which is NOT one of the attributes of Tolkien elves.

It really comes down to are elves just less dense than humans? Or do they just have the ability to walk across semi-solid surfaces?

Dienekes
2020-01-17, 01:13 PM
There are a few things you're neglecting here
[LIST]
All elves are trained in combat, per their standard race features (even their magic-users have fighting skills)
Elves' lifespan and martial culture make them much, much better than short-lived races at every sort of fighting (basically as if they were all much higher level)
Elven equipment is far superior to that of their human opponents, due to craftsmanship, magic, and access to superior materials (i.e. mythril, ironwood, adamantium)
Elven magic and connection to nature yield many advantages in war, giving them an enchanted forest with illusions as well as being able to use animals and possibly even plants for scouting and other purposes
Intelligence advantages would be huge given the ability to use nonhumans as scouts

I don't think we're using D&D elves so much as the outline of elves that paddyfool gave. He does not specify that all elves are martially trained so it is ignored.

However, even if we are using D&D elves where they are all proficient with an odd arrangement of weapons, they are not better at them than your standard trained soldier, apparently.

Also their arrangement of weapons they have apparently a racial knack for learning are not actually good weapons in a pitched battlefield. Except of course the bows, which is part of why I say they'd likely spend an inordinate amount of time trying to set up positions where they can bring their full archery potential to bare. There's a thing with armies, we actually know a bit about how medieval armies were trained and even more about how Roman armies were trained. And swordsmanship and martial skill is useful but doesn't seem to have been nearly as important as organization, discipline, and endurance. Things that the notably chaotic good D&D elves with their con penalty don't seem to have in abundance. In a pitched fight you really can't rely on parrying everything that could potentially come your way. No matter how good you are. You either get the best armor available or a big shield or both.

Also mithril and adamantine are dwarven materials I believe.

But the rest of it with the illusions and the increased intelligence I agree with. That's why I don't think elves would ever try to set up a pitched battle. They'd be much better off avoiding one at all costs. Which isn't to say that is impossible for an army to force a confrontation, but it would be so very hard.

King of Nowhere
2020-01-17, 03:26 PM
There are a few things you're neglecting here

All elves are trained in combat, per their standard race features (even their magic-users have fighting skills)
Elves' lifespan and martial culture make them much, much better than short-lived races at every sort of fighting (basically as if they were all much higher level)
Elven equipment is far superior to that of their human opponents, due to craftsmanship, magic, and access to superior materials (i.e. mythril, ironwood, adamantium)
Elven magic and connection to nature yield many advantages in war, giving them an enchanted forest with illusions as well as being able to use animals and possibly even plants for scouting and other purposes
Intelligence advantages would be huge given the ability to use nonhumans as scouts



hold on a bit. elves are not the only ones with magic. they may have more magic than others, but in any setting i'm aware of, magic is available to anyone, and it would be unreasonable to expect any army to be fooled by simple illusions, or to lack supernatural scouting of their own.
to go into detail, we would have to talk about magical warfare, which is an entirely different argument, and depends entirely on which magic and how much magic is available.

LibraryOgre
2020-01-17, 04:46 PM
So I was watching shadiversity's youtube video on medieval weapons for elves (https://youtu.be/6PZIInkJHrg), and I had a few thoughts.

Standard tolkeinesque elf physical characteristics:
- Similar physical strength to humans
- Significantly physically light than humans (meaning that they somehow have a greater power to weight ratio)
- More graceful, better at balancing than humans
- Better at spotting things than humans
- Longer lived than humans, so more time to hone skills in a particular way or hone a physique towards a particular purpose (without that body ever getting old).
- Typically outnumbered by most opponents, courtesy of having fewe children.


All of this, to my mind, argues for a very mobile force... avoid direct contact, use your strength and senses to shoot at foes from a distance then run away.

Slipperychicken
2020-01-17, 05:21 PM
I don't think we're using D&D elves so much as the outline of elves that paddyfool gave. He does not specify that all elves are martially trained so it is ignored.

However, even if we are using D&D elves where they are all proficient with an odd arrangement of weapons, they are not better at them than your standard trained soldier, apparently.

Also their arrangement of weapons they have apparently a racial knack for learning are not actually good weapons in a pitched battlefield. Except of course the bows, which is part of why I say they'd likely spend an inordinate amount of time trying to set up positions where they can bring their full archery potential to bare. There's a thing with armies, we actually know a bit about how medieval armies were trained and even more about how Roman armies were trained. And swordsmanship and martial skill is useful but doesn't seem to have been nearly as important as organization, discipline, and endurance. Things that the notably chaotic good D&D elves with their con penalty don't seem to have in abundance. In a pitched fight you really can't rely on parrying everything that could potentially come your way. No matter how good you are. You either get the best armor available or a big shield or both.

Also mithril and adamantine are dwarven materials I believe.

But the rest of it with the illusions and the increased intelligence I agree with. That's why I don't think elves would ever try to set up a pitched battle. They'd be much better off avoiding one at all costs. Which isn't to say that is impossible for an army to force a confrontation, but it would be so very hard.

OP said "Standard tolkeinesque elf" which is shorthand for D&D, LotR, and derivative works.

Elves might not be much better with those weapons at level 1, but elves and especially elven warriors would improve a lot over their long lives, and become much more skilled than their human counterparts. One of the reasons that LotR characters like aragorn (age 87), legolas (2,931 according to an official film book), and gimli (262) all do really well in fights is that they're much older than normal people and have preposterous amounts of fighting experience.

I agree that elves wouldn't want to hurl themselves into a pitched battle against a numerically-superior human force. They would have patience to pick the best times and places, likely after wearing the human forces down for a while.

Magical back-and-forth does indeed depend on a lot, but the typical stereotype is that elves have greater supernatural powers than humans. Elves are generally also better at using animals and natural features to their advantage, to contrast with humans who are portrayed as better aligned to their own creations.

Khedrac
2020-01-17, 05:36 PM
OP said "Standard tolkeinesque elf" which is shorthand for D&D, LotR, and derivative works.
Except that D&D elves are actually on the other side of the elf spectrum to Tolkein's.

Tolkein's elves are literally immortal - if killed they get reborn (except for Feanor).
They are taller, stonger, faster, and more intelligent than humans.
They have extremely high levels of stealth (they make hobbits look clumsy).
Their magic tends to be more powerful than that of any other race (the Istari don't count as a race).
Those that saw the light of the two trees dwell in two worlds at once (and have great power in both).
Etc.

If you think D&D elves are like Tolkein's, you need to re-read your Tolkein.
Now some version of elves are much further from human, but aside from not living in a parallel dimension (a common trope) Tolkein's are pretty extreme. I would think Gary Gygax took a different tradition as a nod to some form of game balance - take a look a RoleMaster or MERP elves compared to humans for a closer take on Tolkein's elves.
I think in D&D 3.5 tems elves would be a +2 to +4 LA race depending on which branch they come from.

NigelWalmsley
2020-01-17, 07:15 PM
Tactics are determined by comparative advantage, not absolute ones. If elves are stronger, faster, and tougher than humans, they'll still use different tactics if they are more faster than they are stronger. That said, Tolkien-style elves are honestly kinda dumb. "More special than you" is not an especially interesting shtick. Better to have actual tradeoffs.


Elves don't need supplies. The end. They can grab a bow above the mantle piece, and they're off to war, fully geared and supplied.

Not really. Even if you don't need food, archers still need arrows. As I understand it, that was often the largest constraint on the military effectiveness of massed archery.


if magic IS important, elves are the one stronger then humans in most setting.

Again, not really. It depends on what magic does. If large numbers of weaker magic users beat a single powerful one, or magical power can be accumulated rapidly, human numbers will likely triumph over elven skill. Conversely, if wars come down to who has the strongest archmage and magical skill is the work of slow years of accumulated power, elves are likely to rule the world. Ultimately, you have to do the worldbuilding, and to a fairly precise level of detail, before you can begin to answer the question.

redwizard007
2020-01-17, 07:27 PM
Elves might not be much better with those weapons at level 1, but elves and especially elven warriors would improve a lot over their long lives, and become much more skilled than their human counterparts. One of the reasons that LotR characters like aragorn (age 87), legolas (2,931 according to an official film book), and gimli (262) all do really well in fights is that they're much older than normal people and have preposterous amounts of fighting experience.

And Boromir?

KineticDiplomat
2020-01-17, 08:15 PM
Not to confuse this with the real world thread, but fantasy types always need to be careful about "but hah! Guerrillas! Sneakiness! Winning! No one can fight guerrillas!". In reality, guerrillas suffer from a few major problems.

1) Despite the common image of a successful ambush and unexpecting regulars being mowed down by our heroes of choice, real guerrillas tend to have poor exchange rates. It comes from the fairly obvious problem of fighting large bodies of people when you have small groups of people. What guerrilla warfare is really useful for is limiting the overall casualties to a rate you can tolerate, rather than engaging in wholesale slaughter your society can't/won't support and you can't win. In the preponderance of cases, the guerrillas lose far more people overall.

2) At some point, the non-guerrillas can still march into the town/village/great cultural site/magic springs/whatever without many losses. Because if you wanted to inflict enough losses to stop the army, you'd have to mass a lot of your own people. So many, in fact, that you would no longer be guerrillas and end up in a battle. {Scrubbed} And, incidentally, how well the war went for them after their populations were displaced, placed in special camps, or just killed. Unless the other side is restrained for reasons you can't control, this can end badly.

3) In a large part because of 2), actually sustaining a guerrilla force is hard. It is extremely hard in a pre-industrial world. The movies where our heroes always have enough arrows, freshly repaired armor, good horses, are disease free and plenty to eat...is well, not consistent with the experience of the rural guerrilla.

Dienekes
2020-01-17, 08:31 PM
OP said "Standard tolkeinesque elf" which is shorthand for D&D, LotR, and derivative works.

Elves might not be much better with those weapons at level 1, but elves and especially elven warriors would improve a lot over their long lives, and become much more skilled than their human counterparts. One of the reasons that LotR characters like aragorn (age 87), legolas (2,931 according to an official film book), and gimli (262) all do really well in fights is that they're much older than normal people and have preposterous amounts of fighting experience.

I agree that elves wouldn't want to hurl themselves into a pitched battle against a numerically-superior human force. They would have patience to pick the best times and places, likely after wearing the human forces down for a while.

Magical back-and-forth does indeed depend on a lot, but the typical stereotype is that elves have greater supernatural powers than humans. Elves are generally also better at using animals and natural features to their advantage, to contrast with humans who are portrayed as better aligned to their own creations.

The problem is he says "standard Tolkienesque elf" and then does not describe a Tokienesque elf. Furthermore it can't really be shorthand for D&D and LotR because the elves of D&D are not like the elves in LotR.

The elves of D&D are all trained in the longsword, rapier, bows, and all are physically frail, and may have some natural ability to cast a few spells.

None of that is true for LotR elves. There is no evidence that elves have some warrior culture nor that all elves can cast some spells. Despite what the movies show, Galadriel and Arwen never use weapons ever. Legolas never casts a spell. The magic of elves is simply this: they are greater than man (though Tolkien is purposely vague what that means), don't age, environment does not effect them the same way it effects humans, they have keener senses, and can see the "straight way" as the world was originally. That's pretty much it.

Now there are members of the elven race that can do absolutely outstanding things. Galadriel and Elrond appear to be among the greatest spellcaster in the book, but that's just Galadriel and Elrond. Not every elf. But in the Silmarils there are several mage kings among humans. And apparently Denethor could cast a few spells? Honestly it's a little vague if Denethor was also a mage or if that note was shorthand for just using the palantir. Anyway, my point is there wasn't this universal list of cultural traits all elves had. Which makes sense. Tolkien wasn't a hack worldbuilder, his races were never a monoculture.

So that gets to their long years of practice. And you have a point. In theory, elves could train one thing and become the best at it of all time. And there's a few who do. Feanor was the greatest craftsman. Luthien was the greatest singer. But that seems to be it. Among the more martial pursuits, Ecthelion fought Gothmog King of the Balrogs and died in the process. And that's probably the best showing we see from an elf. Though I'm not sure how that compares to the human Hurin who stood alone against an orc-troll-balrog horde and apparently slew 70 trolls before he got buried beneath the corpses and captured alive. Which isn't to say that that elves don't have some good warriors. But it seems the elves prefer to become great at a bunch of different things rather than simply being the greatest at one thing. Take Elrond for instance. Elrond the Half-Elven was a great soldier, king, commander, and mage. But he was also a great singer, philosopher, astronomer, map maker, city planner, architect, blacksmith, gardener, poet, writer, ship builder, herald, diplomat, soothsayer, and probably a bunch of other things I've forgotten.

Anyway, let's get into the LotR. Despite what PJ may have people believe with his somewhat ridiculous love of Legolas in the movies, by Tolkien's own admission Legolas accomplishes the least in the books. If you go up until the point of his death, Boromir actually has the highest kill count among the heroes. People always forget how much of a badass he was. Afterwards he's pretty quickly overtaken by Gimli. But the numbers also get a bit wonky after this point as Tolkien pays less attention to describing the battles as he did the skirmishes. We get to read the fighting in the Mines and the various skirmishes throughout the first book. But after Helm's Deep battles involving the heroes get a lot less detailed. The heroes arrival at Pelennor fields is concluded in like a page with some vague statements about heavy fighting.

This compares to the D&D elves which regardless of all the advantages they have, the statblock for the hundred years old warrior is not noticeably better than a humans. I presume for much the same reason as Elrond's major list of accomplishments. That elven soldier probably has 30 years of poetry, 20 of basic oration, that 30 year period he went a little crazy and joined the elven equivalent of a frat house, and maybe 2 or 3 years learning how to shoot a bow or swing a sword.

redwizard007
2020-01-17, 08:33 PM
...{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}...

{Scrubbed}

Anonymouswizard
2020-01-18, 03:40 AM
And Boromir?

That weakling who died after only twenty or thirty arrows? :smalltongue:

Khedrac
2020-01-18, 03:44 AM
Off topic but...

Among the more martial pursuits, Ecthelion fought Gothmog King of the Balrogs and died in the process. And that's probably the best showing we see from an elf.

I would go with Fingolfin going for a one-on-one duel with Morgoth and delivering seven wounds before going down.

As for the best non-elf combatent, I would probably go for Huan the dog - who beat Sauron when Sauron was at the height of his powers... (which just confirms your point).

Synesthesy
2020-01-18, 04:19 AM
Off topic but...


I would go with Fingolfin going for a one-on-one duel with Morgoth and delivering seven wounds before going down.

As for the best non-elf combatent, I would probably go for Huan the dog - who beat Sauron when Sauron was at the height of his powers... (which just confirms your point).



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rry4Pqpo3Og

Ok someone needed to post this here.


Back on topic, it is true that Tolkien and dnd have different views about how elves are. There is a huge difference between someone like Elrond and someone like Vaarsuvius. Again, as NigelWalmsley continues to say, there are too many questions the worldbuilder needs to answer before we can talk about this.

Dienekes
2020-01-18, 06:47 AM
Off topic but...


I would go with Fingolfin going for a one-on-one duel with Morgoth and delivering seven wounds before going down.

As for the best non-elf combatent, I would probably go for Huan the dog - who beat Sauron when Sauron was at the height of his powers... (which just confirms your point).

Yeah, I thought of putting Fingolfin, but decided to go with Ecthelion instead because 1) Ecthelion actually kills his opponent. 2) I don’t think Morgoth wins many fights, he mostly gets jobbed and rescued by his minions. And 3) up until this point Gothmog was something of a hero killer. Every time his name gets brought up he’s killing someone, capturing others, or conquering cities.

But regardless, yeah Fingolfin was awesome.

Anonymouswizard
2020-01-18, 10:47 AM
Back on topic, it is true that Tolkien and dnd have different views about how elves are. There is a huge difference between someone like Elrond and someone like Vaarsuvius. Again, as NigelWalmsley continues to say, there are too many questions the worldbuilder needs to answer before we can talk about this.

And honestly, the modern conception of elves is generally more along the lines of D&D elves than Tolkien's elves. Tolkien's elves were just all around better physically and mentally compared to humans, to the point where humans used the same term for the greater pieces of elven Art as they did for Sorcery, but had some pretty severe metaphysical handicaps including being barred from the true afterlife. Then again Tolkien's dwarves also aren't D&D dwarves, they have a much greater love of music and significantly more greed.

But really, the most important question is: are elven ears sharp enough to count as natural weapons?

Zombimode
2020-01-18, 11:32 AM
2) if magic IS important, elves are the one stronger then humans in most setting.

What settings are we talking about? Because for the Big Three of the the D&D setting this isn't true.

Let's go over them!

Forgotten Realms:
In the FR the elves are really adept at magic, with their mythal, High Elven Magic, good densitiy of spellcasters and number of high level spellcasters. Humans learned magic from the elves - and proceeded to equal them in short notice. Even surpassed them one could argue, since the likes of Netheril, Narfell and Halruua employed ridiculous ammonts of over-the-top magic.
In modern day FR, there are nummerous nations that could qualify as magiocracies or are otherwise highly saturated with magical power. And the highest level spellcasters of the setting are humans.
So, in the Forgotten Realms the elves at least have to share the titel of Master of Magic with the humans.

Greyhawk (Flanaesse, really):
Elves are certainly described as a magic using race, but nothing indicates that they are better at it or that it is more common than with humans on average. Depending on the nation and time human's aptitude at magic ranges between having no tradition of magic at all to showing astounding feats of magical power. The most powerful magical effects in the known history are are human-based (the Twin Cataclysm, and more recently, the Flight of Fiends).
Of course the true masters of magic of the setting are the Spellweavers, but their time is long gone.

Eberron:
Elves have a couple of Dragonmarks, and their necromantic arrangement at Aerenal is admittedly impressive. But their warrior-caste (the Valenar) are rather unmagical.
Humans on the other hand have the highest saturation of Dragonmarks of all races, magic in many forms is a regular feature in warfare (including whole units of magic-wielding soldies, called wands), and elemental binding seems to be an exclusive thing of humans and gnomes.

So, again, what settings are you talking about?

King of Nowhere
2020-01-18, 12:02 PM
Not to confuse this with the real world thread, but fantasy types always need to be careful about "but hah! Guerrillas! Sneakiness! Winning! No one can fight guerrillas!". In reality, guerrillas suffer from a few major problems.

1) Despite the common image of a successful ambush and unexpecting regulars being mowed down by our heroes of choice, real guerrillas tend to have poor exchange rates. It comes from the fairly obvious problem of fighting large bodies of people when you have small groups of people. What guerrilla warfare is really useful for is limiting the overall casualties to a rate you can tolerate, rather than engaging in wholesale slaughter your society can't/won't support and you can't win. In the preponderance of cases, the guerrillas lose far more people overall.

2) At some point, the non-guerrillas can still march into the town/village/great cultural site/magic springs/whatever without many losses. Because if you wanted to inflict enough losses to stop the army, you'd have to mass a lot of your own people. So many, in fact, that you would no longer be guerrillas and end up in a battle. Otherwise, ask the Native Americans, Boers, and so forth what happened to their people and population centers. And, incidentally, how well the war went for them after their populations were displaced, placed in special camps, or just killed. Unless the other side is restrained for reasons you can't control, this can end badly.

3) In a large part because of 2), actually sustaining a guerrilla force is hard. It is extremely hard in a pre-industrial world. The movies where our heroes always have enough arrows, freshly repaired armor, good horses, are disease free and plenty to eat...is well, not consistent with the experience of the rural guerrilla.

yes and no. guerrilla does not mean ambushing the greater army with arrows from the trees. that has the downsides you mention.
guerrilla means attacking supply lines and unprotected targets of opportunity, most of all. after all, the bigger the army, the more it needs to eat.
it also means staying away from the main army. the enemy invades, you don't try to stop him. instead, you turn around and go pillage his homeland, that is left unguarded. only if the enemy split up, you regroup and attack one of the smaller detachments, with numerical advantage.
guerrilla also goes together with scorched earth tactics: you don't ambush the advancing enemy, you burn everything that he could use and try to smother them with logistic problems.

incidentally, guerrilla does not mean a bunch of desperades and irregulars fighting a real army. that cannot end well - the best the militia can hope for here is being annoying.{Scrubbed}
no, a proper guerrilla means having your own army. it just means you cannot face the enemy in a pitched battle.

{Scrubbed}

so, elves using guerrilla does not mean that there's two dozen elven archers trying to whittle down an army one arrow at a time. it means the elves could field almost as many troops as the invaders, and they would defend strategically important (and defensible) locations, and they would try to hit on the enemy supply lines, and avoid attacking the bulk of the army.

Now, of course guerrilla does not guarantee victory. otherwise everyone would use it. it's just a military strategy like many others; it is the appropriate strategy in some circumstances, not in others.
but the elves don't seem too reliant on heavily anthropized terrain; they can afford to burn their cities and fields for a while. they also have excellent mobility and scouting, and their night vision makes them great at fighting in darkness (i surmise that if the elves were forced to fight, they would retreat at first, and only engage after dusk, when they can still see well but humans cannot).
all things considered, the elves have several advantages to fighting guerrilla-style, and at least one major disadvantage (slower population growth making it harder to recoup losses) to fighting normally.

Dienekes
2020-01-18, 12:41 PM
King of Nowhere got there before me. But if we decide guerrilla may not be the best term because of modern connotations, Fabian may be the better term.

Elves
2020-01-18, 12:55 PM
What settings are we talking about?

It's not hard to categorize. There are 3 pretty clear archetropes of elves: superhuman elves, magic-using elves, and dextrous/agile (often nature oriented) elves.

Then there are 2 different height categories: shorter than human stature or equal-to-or-greater-than-human stature.

Mix and match. Superhuman elves for obvious reasons aren't used much in RPGs. And there's a mythological category of more spirit-like elves that's not used much today either.

Your magic elves are going to fight with magic. Your dextrous elves are going to be your skirmish/ambush fighters. The superhuman Tolkien-style elves are going to be the ones forming shieldwalls. In RPGs the idea of warrior elves tends to get shafted because it's seen as too much for one race to be good at being a caster, an agile fighter and a straight-up melee fighter. 4e did it ok, with Elven Accuracy and Dex/Wis/Int feat requirements making those stats more valuable for Str meleers.

KineticDiplomat
2020-01-18, 02:03 PM
Fabian then. Still, a Fabian strategy has many similar issues for elves, if less extreme. The most famous muscle powered Fabian strategies have some similar threads. And particularly for a low population density people like elves. Let’s use the initial portion of the Peloponnesian war, Fabius himself, Alfred the Great, the French in the Hundred Years’ War since most people know them.

1) The invader has no real way to strike the Fabian side’s center of gravity. {Scrubbed}

Elves are not classically known for their fortified towns or castles, and most fantasy armies have some sort of siege capability equivalent to the late medieval/early renaissance.

2) While they look quite clever in hindsight, they are politically unpopular, what with all the devastation of the homeland. Especially in cultures with a premium on martial values. Which often leads to battles. {Scrubbed}

For legendarily haughty and proud elves, many with a religious devotion to sacred lands of some sort, you’ll probably run in to the same problem when armies come marching.

3) The Fabians almost always have a large population and often economic advantage. They can afford to sit still and let some pillaging happen, and they can count on replacing their losses. You can get legions slaughtered, allies occupied, towns taken, farms burnt, the cream of French nobility mowed down and still be able to keep up the fight. And when you bleed out a few dozen men over a foraging scrap, you’ve got more.

Classic elves of any kind rarely have the population for it, at least after their mythical past. A dead elven farmer hurts; {Scrubbed}. On top of which, compared to elves, everyone breeds like rabbits. A hundred squalid fights hurts a population that has low birth rates and needs decades to mature far more than one that is happily pumping out children who you’re putting into service in their teens.

4) The successful fabians have a large support structure outside the ability of the invader to really affect. {Scrubbed}

Classic elves usually have one or two big enclaves, maybe a nation.

Dusk Raven
2020-01-18, 03:48 PM
The other thing about guerilla warfare is that, by itself, it doesn't win wars. Winning wars requires taking and holding territory, and guerilla warfare just makes it very expensive for the enemy to do so. Now, preventing the enemy from winning has its own value, but ultimately the guerilla force will have to transition to conventional warfare in order to truly win.{Scrubbed}

Now, on a tactical level guerilla warfare might serve elves well, trying to cut off an army's logistics and frustrate their efforts to actually eliminate the elves, but if we work under the assumptions that elves are tied to nature and have lower populations, than they'd best be able to do this in places that are fundamentally hostile to conventional armies, like mountain ranges or deserts, and/or remote areas where it's harder to get supplies to. If it's just a big forest that other races are trying to conquer, than they could theoretically chip away at the forest until the elves don't have room to maneuver. But, in places like rough mountains or desert, there's not much humans can do about that, while elves might be so adapted to their locales that terrain is not even a factor for them. As an example, one factor (so I'm told) in the{Scrubbed} were so adapted to the desert that they could move armies through places you weren't supposed to be able to move armies through, and could even retreat into the desert where other armies would have a hard time following them.

I kinda like the worldbuilding implications of that. Elves, in the above model, are not found in any old forest, but at the metaphorical ends of the earth, in the most hostile terrain imaginable - from scorching deserts to the arctic, where few humans can survive, much less encounter them. They become steeped in mystery, with a reputation for hardiness and unconquerability. A bit closer to their mythical roots, perhaps, than D&D elves which are often seen in civilization.

The way I personally imagine elves, though... is that their "baseline" is much higher than humans. In D&D terms, a human hero of 10th level is no weaker or stronger than an elf hero of the same level... but given the long lifespans of elves, they're pretty much all veterans, and many are heroes by human standards. Your standard human soldier is a first-level warrior. Your standard elven soldier is maybe 4th-6th level, and quite a few have PC classes. Their commanders are even more powerful, and some of whom might be able to take on small groups of soldiers single-handedly and win. Their power compared to humans isn't actually based on racial traits, except for their age which translates to experience (and experience points!). There's nothing a elf can accomplish that a human can't, but elves are far more likely make those accomplishments than a human. On a battlefield level, that means that elves are more likely to use small unit tactics, especially in the aforementioned places where armies become logistical nightmares. But then again, humans would probably turn to using small-unit tactics against them, gathering experienced veterans and adventurers to deal with the elves.

(Of course, how much that experience actually matters depends on the system being used, and can be considered part of a "depends on the worldbuilding" issue with this thread)

To say more would probably mean talking about my own interpretations of elves that may differ significantly from this thread's premise. For example, I don't imagine elves as having a low birthrate because of low fertility (at least, not significantly worse than humans), I think of them as having to consciously limit their population growth. If they take casualties from war, therefore, their restrictions are gone, and their population would rebound faster than one would think. Now, replenishing experienced elves is another matter, and one in which humans have an advantage. When human armies fight, they get valuable battlefield experience. When elven armies fight, they lose veterans, unless elves are willing to commit younger troops to battle.

Slipperychicken
2020-01-18, 03:56 PM
Fabian then. Still, a Fabian strategy has many similar issues for elves, if less extreme. The most famous muscle powered Fabian strategies have some similar threads. And particularly for a low population density people like elves. {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

1) The invader has no real way to strike the Fabian side’s center of gravity.{Scrubbed}

Elves are not classically known for their fortified towns or castles, and most fantasy armies have some sort of siege capability equivalent to the late medieval/early renaissance.

2) While they look quite clever in hindsight, they are politically unpopular, what with all the devastation of the homeland. Especially in cultures with a premium on martial values. Which often leads to battles. {Scrubbed}

For legendarily haughty and proud elves, many with a religious devotion to sacred lands of some sort, you’ll probably run in to the same problem when armies come marching.

3) The Fabians almost always have a large population and often economic advantage. They can afford to sit still and let some pillaging happen, and they can count on replacing their losses. You can get legions slaughtered, allies occupied, towns taken, farms burnt, the cream of French nobility mowed down and still be able to keep up the fight. And when you bleed out a few dozen men over a foraging scrap, you’ve got more.

Classic elves of any kind rarely have the population for it, at least after their mythical past. A dead elven farmer hurts; {Scrubbed} doesn’t. On top of which, compared to elves, everyone breeds like rabbits. A hundred squalid fights hurts a population that has low birth rates and needs decades to mature far more than one that is happily pumping out children who you’re putting into service in their teens.

4) The successful fabians have a large support structure outside the ability of the invader to really affect. {Scrubbed}

Classic elves usually have one or two big enclaves, maybe a nation.

1. Elves generally live in villages designed to be hidden and unknown to outsiders, inside of thickly-vegetated environments that reduce visibility, which further are enchanted to misdirect outsiders and lead them into traps, while elven warriors watch totally unseen and ready to ambush the whole time. They do not have any fields to protect, and even reaching their settlements means penetrating powerful and ancient illusion. The natural environment is the elves' castle.

2. Living in the same place for hundreds or even thousands of years has a way of making people want to not give it up, especially to a people who are wholly alien, have no comprehension of the local culture, and may commit genocide. Numerous indigenous peoples IRL have fought similar conflicts to preserve their ways of life

3. The 5e dnd book says that when invaders enter elven forests, they often can retreat somewhat and literally wait the invaders out. It's clear that while they wouldn't tolerate huge losses of life, there's little urgency in repulsing enemies who will often leave on their own when they waste resources on a campaign only to find abandoned villages and quiet woods.

4. Invaders can rarely disrupt the natural processes or magics which allow elves to live as they do. Elves hunt and forage, eliminating any need for fields and most of the need for traditional supply.


If it's just a big forest that other races are trying to conquer, than they could theoretically chip away at the forest until the elves don't have room to maneuver.

Even with modern technology this is not feasible. Deforesting a region is a hard enough job when there's no opposition and you have things like chainsaws and incendiary weapons. When you have to go at it on foot, one tree at a time with an axe, with the best archers in the world shooting at you the whole time, it's just not going to happen. The invaders would run out of loggers and money long before the elves run out of trees.

Beleriphon
2020-01-18, 04:03 PM
I think the "elves are weaker than humans" bit came from the assertion that elves are lighter than humans. Which Legolas demonstrates by walking on the surface of the snow while the rest of the Fellowship trudges through waist-high drifts. Does that really mean elves are lighter, or just that they have the ability to walk on semi-solid surfaces without sinking?

Legolas is so fleet of foot that he can move across snow cover without leaving a trace. There's no suggestion that he has the physical density of a typical whiffle ball. It is a function of elves being better,


Being lighter than humans then leads to lower momentum for similar speed, and thus not having the physical mass to repel a charging force with a shield wall. Which then leads to the assertion of elves being weaker than humans, which is NOT one of the attributes of Tolkien elves.

It really comes down to are elves just less dense than humans? Or do they just have the ability to walk across semi-solid surfaces?

No, Tolkien Elves are inherently magical to the point that they are just better at everything than Men. Except dying, Men are better at dying. In a philosophical sort of way not any literal sense (although they are something better at that too).

KineticDiplomat
2020-01-18, 05:39 PM
So, yes, there is the classic “Wood Elves” interpretation. Essentially a mythical, post-historical narrative, version of the northeastern American Indian tribes on steroids. Friends to the land, impossibly at home in nature, untrackably destroying armies with bows and silence while the Bad Guy blunders about.

And if you need your protagonists to win by virtue of being cool-dude-awesome, sure. It works. But anyone can win with cool-dude-awesome. It is in the power of authors to make it so; once you accept plot armor, all tactics are brilliant.

Presumably the point of the thread is to think beyond Plot-Needed victory, so what happens when we take Mary Sue away?

The “wood elf” interpretation gets ground down under the weight of population and numbers. They ambush a column, and if it goes right they lose a few. If it goes wrong they lose a lot. They can’t really afford either. They REALLY can’t lose many at all, because if they’re subsisting on hunting and foraging they will be literally orders of magnitude smaller than even basic agricultural societies: let alone ones in the typical Fantasy Early Renaissance.

And, without Plot Armor shielding their villages, their villages go away. {Scrubbed}

Missing
2020-01-18, 06:50 PM
Not to confuse this with the real world thread, but fantasy types always need to be careful about "but hah! Guerrillas! Sneakiness! Winning! No one can fight guerrillas!". In reality, guerrillas suffer from a few major problems.

2) At some point, the non-guerrillas can still march into the town/village/great cultural site/magic springs/whatever without many losses. Because if you wanted to inflict enough losses to stop the army, you'd have to mass a lot of your own people. So many, in fact, that you would no longer be guerrillas and end up in a battle. {Scrubbed} Unless the other side is restrained for reasons you can't control, this can end badly.

{Scrubbed}

I'm not saying that the elves have an auto-win button but I am saying that they would be effective at defending their lands and the guerrilla tactics are likely thier best option.

Dienekes
2020-01-18, 08:16 PM
Fabian then. Still, a Fabian strategy has many similar issues for elves, if less extreme. The most famous muscle powered Fabian strategies have some similar threads. And particularly for a low population density people like elves. Let’s use the initial portion of the Peloponnesian war, Fabius himself, Alfred the Great, the French in the Hundred Years’ War since most people know them.

1) The invader has no real way to strike the Fabian side’s center of gravity. {Scrubbed}

Elves are not classically known for their fortified towns or castles, and most fantasy armies have some sort of siege capability equivalent to the late medieval/early renaissance.

2) While they look quite clever in hindsight, they are politically unpopular, what with all the devastation of the homeland. Especially in cultures with a premium on martial values. Which often leads to battles. {Scrubbed}

For legendarily haughty and proud elves, many with a religious devotion to sacred lands of some sort, you’ll probably run in to the same problem when armies come marching.

3) The Fabians almost always have a large population and often economic advantage. They can afford to sit still and let some pillaging happen, and they can count on replacing their losses. You can get legions slaughtered, allies occupied, towns taken, farms burnt, the cream of French nobility mowed down and still be able to keep up the fight. And when you bleed out a few dozen men over a foraging scrap, you’ve got more.

Classic elves of any kind rarely have the population for it, at least after their mythical past. A dead elven farmer hurts; {Scrubbed} doesn’t. On top of which, compared to elves, everyone breeds like rabbits. A hundred squalid fights hurts a population that has low birth rates and needs decades to mature far more than one that is happily pumping out children who you’re putting into service in their teens.

4) The successful fabians have a large support structure outside the ability of the invader to really affect.{Scrubbed}

Classic elves usually have one or two big enclaves, maybe a nation.

You're right that Fabian strategies is not an automatic win button. But it is regardless still the best strategy available given the constraints of the OP.

However, I do think you are missing a few key points.

1) This is a defensive strategy used to survive an invasion. While elven kingdoms are usually just one or two heavily populated (often secret or hidden) centers it is within a rather sprawling forest. Often a forest as large a kingdom. Ancient and medieval armies do not move particularly quickly. {Scrubbed} was able to get something like 60 to 70 miles per day on roads by having his army march through the night. This also exhausted his army so badly they couldn't fight for over a week afterwards. But regardless, far more common was for the army to march somewhere between 15-30 miles per day usually on roads. Going through a dense wood where they cannot keep columns? I'd be impressed if they can keep their army together enough to move 5 miles a day. This means that the damage the enemy army is capable of implementing is much more limited than in a normal human war. Yes, losing every elven "farmer" is bad, but there will be much more warning, especially with the whole keener senses thing the elves have.

2) This also means one of the key means of sustaining an army in enemy territory: raiding and foraging will not be as effective for anyone invading elvish territory. Sure there is a lot of sustenance to be found in the woods, but getting it requires more work than the usual raiding of peasants and farmland neatly lined up for the taking. This should mean that the invading army has a much longer supply train, and a longer supply train means either a big exploitable weakness for our elves, or a weakening of the vanguard force and even slower movement of the army as a whole. Both of which are good for the elves overall strategy.

3) The political backlash is a problem, but mostly when the culture has a reputation for honor based martial combat, mostly among the leadership. {Scrubbed} The government was essentially an extension of the military, with various ranks only able to be achieved with some military honors. And while over time these restrictions relaxed they were still very much present during the {Scrubbed}. {Scrubbed} I don't often see elves having this command structure in fiction. They tend to be led by mages and philosophers first (though it does depend on the source, Tolkien actually has the elves led by mages and artisans first, soldiers second, I'm sure D&D worlds have their own weird command structures). Furthermore, the whole "we can notice the genius of the strategy in hindsight" is a lesson the elves would have probably lived through. They're ancient. They would have seen the strategy's effectiveness first hand. Maybe the first time or two that it was used would have ended in a Cannae. But after a while it would likely become common knowledge and basic practice. Partially because the elves cannot put forward a conquering army so these defensive actions will be just about all of their military doctrine.

Now again, I'm not trying to make this strategy sound unbeatable. It's not. If an army large enough, strong enough, with the right logistics, and support structure that will remain loyal and eager to keep sending in men and coin for probably decades of fighting. They can do it. But that is a tall order.

King of Nowhere
2020-01-18, 09:08 PM
and this time it's diekenes beating me. on the plus side, he's saving me from having to write that all.

I just want to add that you correctly point out the limitations of a fabian strategy. and that the actual capacity of the elves to defend themselves would really change by the setting. are they just one enclave of a few thousand people in a huge world? is their average soldier level 6? or perhaps closer to level 3 or 2?
and sure, with some of those assumptions the elves won't make it.

but regardless, a fabian strategy is still their best chance. if they don't have large numbers nor high levels, don't have the capacity to breed fast, don't have a large support structure... well, then they are doomed, but it still makes more sense for them to try a fabian warfare than to just engage in a pitched battle. the latter will simply see them dead by the end of the day; with the former, they can always hope that the enemy will decide conquering isn't worth the effort.

NigelWalmsley
2020-01-18, 10:36 PM
Even under those circumstances, you wouldn't have to rely on Fabian tactics, because there is an alternative: alliance. If you can't survive on your own, hitch your wagon to a larger and stronger power. Elven warfare might be primarily small groups of elves serving as auxiliaries to large forces of humans (or dwarves, or halflings, or whatever species they happened to ally with). Not to mention that it's quite possible that the particular way magic works might make Fabian tactics a non-starter (notably, D&D magic is enormously effective against small forces that rely on mobility, far more so than it is against armies).

Tvtyrant
2020-01-19, 01:04 AM
Even under those circumstances, you wouldn't have to rely on Fabian tactics, because there is an alternative: alliance. If you can't survive on your own, hitch your wagon to a larger and stronger power. Elven warfare might be primarily small groups of elves serving as auxiliaries to large forces of humans (or dwarves, or halflings, or whatever species they happened to ally with). Not to mention that it's quite possible that the particular way magic works might make Fabian tactics a non-starter (notably, D&D magic is enormously effective against small forces that rely on mobility, far more so than it is against armies).

I came to say this. Elves are in most settings fantastic artisans and craftsfolk, why would they sacrifice their 300 year old veteran special forces when they can pay off enemies or hire mercenaries? I imagine most elven armies consist of mostly Orcs, Goblins and/or Humans stiffened by a small army of the finest troops on the planet.

If losing a soldier lost 100 years of investment minimum, paying Ogres tribes to invade their lands to get them to withdraw is great sense. Standing mix-species auxiliaries as line infantry while the Elves are horse and casters, paid for by trade and superior craftsmanship. Buy Hyperion! Wait...

KineticDiplomat
2020-01-19, 01:05 AM
{Scrubbed}
And, if we’re being honest here, when the US decides to re-settle villages in strategic hamlets, no one could really stop it.

So - if we mean to say the elves are capable of sustaining a fight where they usually lose far more than they kill, have a center that cannot actually be struck, don’t mind fighting for decades, realize that there will be extensive parts of their own land and people that are completely at the mercy of the other guy for those decades, can afford to launch and fail at maj or battles reasonably often, are being supplied by another power and have an intense willingness to bleed, while to the other side it’s just a war of distant foreign policy...

{Scrubbed}

But unless the typical Elven strategy is to enter long people’s wars against foes who have no material interest in actually settling on their lands, while being willing to die by the dozens to kill a few humans/orcs/whoever...probably not the basis of their tactics. Elves have trees and are good guerrillas is a recipe for the Elven race to cease to exist{Scrubbed}
———

@Dienekes

1) The giant forest point is one of those where you generally have to ask how much Plot Armor is in effect. Besides the fact it means the elves never wage offensive wars outside their forest, one wonders what the goal of the encroaching army would be?

Presumably settlement and territorial expansion. Which basically means plopping settlers on the edge and clear cutting new plots. The elves now face the same logistical problems (come to think of it, how is the forest feeding all these elves once we take away Plot Armor? Lembas is made of...something?) to come to the edge. If they march an army out - they may be more familiar, but they’re marching through dense woods that they cannot forage enough to support many. Even if in their infinite superior physiology they only require half the calories, bands of more than a couple hundred will quickly find they cannot possibly feed themselves through hunting and gathering while remaining together.

If they just send war bands, we play the colonial experience over again. Yes, they burn a homestead and ambush a patrol. And they bleed out over a thousand sultry fights while the humans annex their land one farmstead at a time.
.

a_flemish_guy
2020-01-19, 01:25 AM
jacksons LOTR shows elves as this ultra-disciplined force which while looking really cool isn't how tolkien wrote them
each elf is a great warior and knows it and their leaders know it
IMO elves don't have regiments or commanders, each elf that wants to fight just turns up on the battle and charges when it's time to charge
imagine if you will an entire army of beowulfs, you don't tell beowulf what to do, let alone when he ought to do it, if you tried to do that he'll fashion your arms and stomach into a wardrum (elves will just ignore you)
so yeah, despite how much I despise that scene elves jumping over a dwarven shieldwall makes perfect sense

elven warfare looks like gallic/celtic warfare, huge emphasis on personal combat, resistance to centralised or even localised command, quickly shifting allegiances and wariors that can take on everyone else in personal combat but get brought down with discipline and teamwork

Peelee
2020-01-19, 01:36 AM
The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Friendly reminder that real-world politics are not a valid topic of discussion.

redwizard007
2020-01-19, 10:32 AM
{Scrubbed}

Dusk Raven
2020-01-19, 11:50 AM
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I plan to stay here - this place is helpful for mechanics discussions - though worldbuilding becomes difficult if I'm not allowed to make historical references to anything that might conceivably be connected to the modern day...

redwizard007
2020-01-19, 12:02 PM
I plan to stay here - this place is helpful for mechanics discussions - though worldbuilding becomes difficult if I'm not allowed to make historical references to anything that might conceivably be connected to the modern day...

{scrubbed}

Bohandas
2020-01-19, 12:43 PM
3) In a large part because of 2), actually sustaining a guerrilla force is hard. It is extremely hard in a pre-industrial world. The movies where our heroes always have enough arrows, freshly repaired armor, good horses, are disease free and plenty to eat...is well, not consistent with the experience of the rural guerrilla.

A level 1 adept could mitigate many of the more likely issues via mending, cure light wounds, create water, purify food and drink, etc.

purify food and drink also eliminates the need for a cooking fire which might be spotted

Keltest
2020-01-19, 12:55 PM
A level 1 adept could mitigate many of the more likely issues via mending, cure light wounds, create water, purify food and drink, etc.

purify food and drink also eliminates the need for a cooking fire which might be spotted

Even without specific D&D rules, your "classic" wood elves generally have a pseudo-magical rapport with the forest such that they get more and better quality resources than any invading army would. An elven fletcher doesn't need to cut down a tree branch for arrow shafts, they wake up one morning and find the tree has grown a new branch for them that happens to split perfectly into a dozen quiverfulls of arrow shafts on its own.

Bohandas
2020-01-19, 01:02 PM
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I've had extreme difficulty with both of these issues as well.

I recommend EN World/Morrus RPG News (https://www.enworld.org/forums/dungeons-dragons.506/). They seem to have a decently active forum. And it loads well (depending on browser).

Plus the threads there don't have a tendency to end up looking like a document from the game Paranoia or like one of the SCP articles the way they do here, because EN World's forum doesn't have a ban on discussing mythology, or medieval history, or any other topic that's required reading for fantasy RPGs.

Dienekes
2020-01-19, 02:04 PM
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Sapphire Guard
2020-01-19, 02:29 PM
Legolas is capable of killing 42 orcs at Helm's deep before he ran out of arrows. He's probably an above average fighter, but he's not Elrond or Feanor.

In sniping terms their accuracy is good enough that arrows through eyeslits and such are viable strategies. Dislodging them from woods is going to be very expensive at that exchange rate, and if you succeed, all you've got is a worthless patch of forest.

I expect they'd stay hidden and bleed the enemy forces.The normal weaknesses of these tactics don't really apply, as they could just move their villages to avoid attempts to occupy them and arrows are not going to be in short supply when everyone has been making the things for centuries.

Bohandas
2020-01-19, 02:49 PM
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Again. Try EN World. They have a decent userbase and they're allowed to talk about history and myths.

That said, I too would like to be informed if anyone knows of any additional good rpg/fantasy forums to try

Max_Killjoy
2020-01-19, 03:40 PM
I've had extreme difficulty with both of these issues as well.

I recommend EN World/Morrus RPG News (https://www.enworld.org/forums/dungeons-dragons.506/). They seem to have a decently active forum. And it loads well (depending on browser).

Plus the threads there don't have a tendency to end up looking like a document from the game Paranoia or like one of the SCP articles the way they do here, because EN World's forum doesn't have a ban on discussing mythology, or medieval history, or any other topic that's required reading for fantasy RPGs.
{Scrubbed}

Bohandas
2020-01-19, 05:06 PM
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Where specifically?

Max_Killjoy
2020-01-19, 05:38 PM
Where specifically?

For now, to the worldbuilding subreddit. Reddit is not an ideal platform for in-depth discussion, but the rules are about belligerence or disrespect, rather than about subject matter, and it's far harder to accidentally cross a wavering line.

KineticDiplomat
2020-01-19, 06:10 PM
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Bohandas
2020-01-19, 08:25 PM
I can also understand that one of the scrubbed wars, while being discussed in a factual manner, is still a major life experience for a living generation and possibly subject to drama. I disagree with the decision to scrub it, but at least understand the reasoning.

This is an excellent point on which to segue back into the main topic of the thread.

Absent D&D's level up system and its abstraction of the differences between weapons i fear that the elves' longevity could actually be a detriment in warfare. Not due to slow breeding (which isn't a necessary corollary to long lifespan) but due to a high chance, if wars are less than constant, of going into war with obsolete weapons and tactics. Even in the real middle ages with no steampunk and no divination magic helping things along a lot of things could change in a hundred years. For example, construction of polearms could change such that a soldier could accurately aim and strike an killing blow from a foot or two farther than would have been possible with last century's model, that could be an unpleasant surprise if you just got back to the front (although in D&D this would be abstracted out if it was by less than five feet). Conversely, if war were frequent you'd start accumulating people who had seen too much violence and were starting to crack.

FabulousFizban
2020-01-19, 11:16 PM
Long lived with low birth rates - elves are guerrilla fighters for sure

KineticDiplomat
2020-01-20, 01:01 AM
I feel like we just had a conversation about guerillas. Alas, disproving the popular stereotype and demonstrating that guerrillas tend to be on the bad side of the exchange rate, and that guerrilla war is more about controlling the pace and tempo of the conflict and loss rate overall than it is the popular image of Mel Gibson mowing down heartless oppressors, requires history. And as you can see, history is verboten.

So you’ll just have to take my word for it or do a bit of loss rate research on Google. Being a guerrilla is a painful, bloody, way to fight a war. The popular narrative loves it because it always gives our underdog protagonists a chance - but the real business of it is that individuals are ground up like hamburger, and the individual fighters have far worse chances than they would in a conventional conflict. The cause may live; the fighters probably do not.

Slipperychicken
2020-01-20, 01:12 AM
I feel like we just had a conversation about guerillas. Alas, disproving the popular stereotype and demonstrating that guerrillas tend to be on the bad side of the exchange rate, and that guerrilla war is more about controlling the pace and tempo of the conflict and loss rate overall than it is the popular image of Mel Gibson mowing down heartless oppressors, requires history. And as you can see, history is verboten.

So you’ll just have to take my word for it or do a bit of loss rate research on Google. Being a guerrilla is a painful, bloody, way to fight a war. The popular narrative loves it because it always gives our underdog protagonists a chance - but the real business of it is that individuals are ground up like hamburger, and the individual fighters have far worse chances than they would in a conventional conflict. The cause may live; the fighters probably do not.

RL guerillas tend to be under-equipped, poorly trained, irregular fighters drawn up at the last moment from civilian populations. The hypothetical elven force would be the opposite: very highly trained and skilled, with superior equipment, who likely have spent literally hundreds of years preparing for such a conflict.

The better comparison might be with elite special forces, saboteurs, or the most terrifying warrior-nomads of history rather than the modern disposable insurgents with which we are familiar.

Bohandas
2020-01-20, 01:26 AM
RL guerillas tend to be under-equipped, poorly trained, irregular fighters drawn up at the last moment from civilian populations. The hypothetical elven force would be the opposite: very highly trained and skilled, with superior equipment, who likely have spent literally hundreds of years preparing for such a conflict.

The better comparison might be with elite special forces, saboteurs, or the most terrifying warrior-nomads of history rather than the modern disposable insurgents with which we are familiar.

I think the proper term here may be be "commando"

Roland St. Jude
2020-01-20, 01:52 AM
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