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It seems that the High Elves have the technology to move beyond scalemail. If they just use it for it's appearance, why not use lamallar armor instead. Being lighter it would match their tactics more, and it would fit their somewhat "Eastern" theme more. (It's real good against arrows too, which fits them)

 Osyr wrote:
It seems that the High Elves have the technology to move beyond scalemail. If they just use it for it's appearance, why not use lamallar armor instead. Being lighter it would match their tactics more, and it would fit their somewhat "Eastern" theme more. (It's real good against arrows too, which fits them)

Probably because they think the scale armor looks more artistic.

It is the artsy side of it. And GW are lazy. They came up with the idea for light looking armour and stuck with scalemail as it is the most shiny. My gripe with elf armour in general is how they don't have combat practicality down. "Oh, lets go to war in a foot high helmet and armour that is covered in spikes. What could possibly go wrong."

Yah, it's just arty. It's the same reason they wear 100 foot pointy hats, which have no tactical advantage and probably a lot of disadvantages when you're dashing all over the place--like your hat goes flying. UNLESS, their hats are also ASF. Always Sits Firm.

DukeRustfield wrote:
Yah, it's just arty. It's the same reason they wear 100 foot pointy hats, which have no tactical advantage and probably a lot of disadvantages when you're dashing all over the place--like your hat goes flying. UNLESS, their hats are also ASF. Always Sits Firm.

Thanks I just spewed tea all over my desk loling.

Who says that their armor is steel?

It could be ithilmar, or some other metal perhaps that is also very light weight.

That said, I would like a nice plate armored infantry unit for HE. Too many skirts as it stands.

As for the tall helmets, they need the extra room for their egos. Clearly. But I do like Duke's acronym. I could see a billboard in Ulthuan for ASF Helmets, when fashion while fighting matters.

It's because it can be painted to look all shiny and cool.



The problem with criticising the real world limitations of High Elf armour is that those real world limitations are based on that stuff being used by an ape that learned to stand upright like you or me. High Elves are supernaturally graceful, so who knows if stuff that we find impractical would be a problem for them at all.

Minor point on armor and pointed helmets.

A tall, pointed helmet has a distinct advantage against an overhand strike. The weapon comes in and strikes an oblique angle, which tends to deflect the energy of the strike away from the head.

True, but at some point the disadvantage of a helms height outweighs that benefit. A helm doesn't need to be 2' tall to get such a benefit.



That helmet gets the entire benefit within a comparatively smaller profile. The higher that profile, the more weight, as well as a shift in the balance of that weight. A High Elf helm made of steel would weigh a significant amount. If you tilted your head vertically at all, that weight would push your head down, putting strain on your neck. Now if it's strapped on, and someone were to strike the top of the helm horizontally, the torque might very well snap your neck given sufficient force behind the strike. And with the taller profile, you provide a larger target for such a strike. Then pile on the already frail physiology of an elf, and it's a recipe for quick and easy kills.

Elven armor as represented in WFB is quite counterproductive. But damned if it doesn't look cool.

See, the problem here is that you're trying to apply real-world logic to a game that contains magic, lizard-people, dragons and warmongering fungi.

High Elves use so much scalemail cuz it looks pretty. Thats about it.

It's also likely they don't like weighting themselves down with too much armour, they do pride themselves on speed.

DukeRustfield wrote:Yah, it's just arty. It's the same reason they wear 100 foot pointy hats, which have no tactical advantage and probably a lot of disadvantages when you're dashing all over the place--like your hat goes flying. UNLESS, their hats are also ASF. Always Sits Firm.

You'll notice that this will soon appear in my sig...

It's an interesting question this.

I mean, you say Chainmail looks arty, but I imagine a solid-plate type armour similar to Eldar armour would be more appropriate. It'd be sleek, stylish and effective. Why not?

Although, that might just be it, GW don't want to sculpt them with armour like that because it'd be yet another similarity between HE and the Eldar.

Look at it this way:

If you were designing a game with 15 armies/races, you'd want as much variation in the models as possible. So basically each army would get their own type of armor more or less to themselves. For the Empire it's full plate, Bretonnians are chainmail/plate, DE are chainmail, HE are scale mail, dwarves are full plate/heavy, WoC are mixed, Ogres have gut plates and iron fists, Lizardmen have scales, and so on.

So one army had to have scale mail, and HE drew that straw. But to make them stand out from historic armor, they got pencil helmets.