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The best way to deal with Dark Elves is simple, if you live in coastal areas, arm everyone and their dog. Make sure that there are at least enough spears, crossbows and halberds lying around for everyone older than five to have one. Teaching them in the basics of formation fighting also is important here.

The objective of Dark Elf incursions into the Europe Analogue is not to seize control of territory, but rather to capture civilians for slaves while being excessively brutal to them even by the low standards of Slavocrats. If the entire civilian population is armed, this becomes far more difficult for them. Since the civilians are now capable of resisting with lethal force, capturing slaves alive becomes far more difficult. Since defeat among the civilians a horribly brutal life, they will be well prepared to fight to the death. People who flee.

You may say "But a rag tag bunch of armed civilians is no match for a force of heavily armed and armored Dark Elf warriors", that is correct. The objective is to make the capture of live civilians more difficult. If the population is armed as such, more dark elves will be killed in the process and people that they would have otherwise captured for transportation westward for employment in the slave trade. For the Dark Elves, the Risk and Cost factors go up and the payoff factors go down. Since the Dark Elf economy is fundamentally based on slavery, this will eventually undermine their civilization as a whole. Eventually forcing them to amend their economic structure into something with a lower worker attrition rate.

For similar reasons, investment in coastal defenses and fortifications and the establishment of garrisons nearby the coastline are also important.

Draven has Spoken.

That would require far to much resources the Empire can't spend, and arming a small town/village and training them will mean no resources for the rest of the empire (farm etc), so it would cost the Empire on other, more important fronts

Imo

Von Chogg

I dont think equipping them but teaching them martial techniques so they fight back a fishing village would have fishing spears nets large knives used for gutting large fish teach them basic combat and men would feel much more comfortable fighting with their limited resources

Most of the coastal human towns the Dark Elves raid are Bretonnian.

And the Lady knows that no Lord worth his/her(?) salt is going to invest money in training the peasant militia, which is already poorly trained and often under-equipped.

Additionally, many small towns and fiefs already have deals with corsairs, in which they'll offer criminals and troublemakers, and anyone else on a lean year, to the corsairs to avoid being raided. It's no guarantee, of course, but it exists.

 Cryonicleech wrote:
Most of the coastal human towns the Dark Elves raid are Bretonnian.

And the Lady knows that no Lord worth his/her(?) salt is going to invest money in training the peasant militia, which is already poorly trained and often under-equipped.

Additionally, many small towns and fiefs already have deals with corsairs, in which they'll offer criminals and troublemakers, and anyone else on a lean year, to the corsairs to avoid being raided. It's no guarantee, of course, but it exists.

This sums it up very well. And this being Bretonnina a few missing pesants/fishermen wont be cause for must outrage given their already somewhat less than pleasnet place in the world.

I voted no because if you look at it in general a few poorly trained and geared humans would be no match for the average Dark Elf Corsair. Would be much better to just let the small towns get destroyed then spend what little resources you have on them.

 Florintine Mallorean wrote:
I voted no because if you look at it in general a few poorly trained and geared humans would be no match for the average Dark Elf Corsair. Would be much better to just let the small towns get destroyed then spend what little resources you have on them.

Well the main idea is to make it unprofitable for them. Arming them means a higher casualty rate among the dark elves themselves for less prisoners captured live. More risk for less reward. One does not need a masters degree in economics to understand that this will have long term ramifications for the slave trade.

Draven has Spoken

Don't think it will work:

A slight increase in resistance will just mean more amusement for the Dark Elf raiders - might even get more recruits if they thinks it is worth their time. The Dark Elf warriors will usually be good enough to subdue rather than kill badly trained militia - plus they may well need some wounded ones for the Daughters of Khaine.

The Dark Elves, as well as supletative warriors have magic and monsters on their side and love to cause fear - which will usually rout ill trained troops and provoke them to flee rather than fight. Some may stand but likely not in the numbers to make it count. The Dark Elves often come at night (mostly) when their tactics are most effective.

Usually the townsfolk are needed for other tasks .

The question for Bretonian and Empire rulers - does the loss of the villagers and townsfolk cost more than the cost of having an effective costal defence.

What might work is to embrace the benevolance of such powers as the Queen of Silver Pinacle and her sisterhood who can provide plenty of troops that have no fear and do not sleep, who can be replenished by the battles themselves

I voted no, I'm afraid. It's one of those "in an ideal world" scenarios, that in reality (can we use that concept in WHFB?) just isn't very viable.

High elf civilian levies.

The answer to EVERYTHING.

No, I am not for this plan.

It will make capturing live civilians more difficult, more of my people and the people I hope to capture will be killed. This means my profit on the raids is lowered and I may have to restructure my economy into something with a lower worker atrittion rate to keep from undemining my civilization as a whole.

Fortunately, if you spend too much on this plan, the Orcs, Chaos, and Beastmen along your landward borders will overwhelm you, which makes my raids all the more profitable in the overrun areas.

-Malekth