History Headscratchers / Warhammer

** * 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, and wouldn't be happy about it.
** 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.
*** It's 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.
*** Valten 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.
** Add to the above threat of uniting the Beastmen, under most circumstances, they don't pose a huge threat anyways. If they got forced out of the place they usually lived in, they would likely fight to death against the Empire without no likelyhood of retreating, becoming much of a threat than they ever were in the past and the Empire has to be careful picking what wars it's going to start given that a threat keeps putting up every five minutes.

*** [[HumansAreWhite Games Workshop]] has repeatedly demonstrated an aversion to including non-white humans in their playable factions.

* How does chaos create those huge armies of big burly bodybuilder men from the arctic, are they from the warp?

*** 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.

** 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.
** Bretonia is the middle ages flanderized, its a mixture between two older editions of bretonnia one where it was a corrupted nightmare state much worse then it is now and one where it was straight up Arthurian Magnificence. Its not a true reflection on the real life middle ages were peasents, while poor and sometimes oppressed, actually had more holidays a year and paid less tax in percentage as well as in absolute terms then a modern salaryman does and as a result, had alot more individual freedom within their villages. How the knights can retain their chivalric ideals (which are flanderized themselves) and how the peasents tolerate this situation is pretty much the Wood Elves' fault. Elves are jerks.

** I wonder why no one posits that the reason why Chaos keeps failing is not because the Chaos gods will it and much more likely the NUMEROUS gods the other mortals worship take it upon themselves to put aside their own petty differences for the sake of screwing over Tzeentch and his brothers. Yes yes from 40k's perspective the Chaos gods pretty much determine everything but in Fantasy their power and influence is SEVERELY reduced by comparison. It is not inconceivable that the Trickster god of the Empire on his own could trick Tzzentch once or twice, he actually seems to be the only god tailor made for fouling up another's plans. Just as planned. Or not as the case may be. And the only real word we have that Chaos will carry the day at the end of it all is... the word of Chaos worshipers themselves.

** ... Chaos was weak in its first incursion? It took the combined might of ALL the Elder Races to force them back and an Elven King selling his soul to his people's god of carnage to gain the power to stand against them; and even then it was just barely that they were defeated. You also forget that the Gods focus a mere fraction of their attention on the Warhammer world and the majority is placed on the Great Game within the realm of Chaos. The God's desire to conquer the Warhammer World is ''part'' of the great game. The idea of the Everchosen having an equal opposite is by no means the point of Warhammer or a central theme of it. Especially considering that the 7th edition Chaos codex retcons the death of Asavar Kul from falling to Magnus to instead being murdered by one of his lieutenants. And lets not forget Valten being crushed by Archaon. Also remember that Chaos has almost annihilated the world on several occasions; one of which being detailed in ''Empire'' by Graham McNeill; the Norse nearly eradicated the Empire and would have if their Chaos Sorcerer hadn't misinterpreted his vision; a thing which likely the gods intended, because in the next book Morkar begins to rise up from the Norse. Seriously, the background minces no words when it says Chaos is just playing with the world.

*** [[HumansAreWhite Games Workshop]] has repeatedly [[UnfortunateImplications demonstrated an aversion to including non-white humans in their playable factions]].

*** [[HumansAreWhite Games Workshop]] has repeatedly [[UnfortunateImplications demonstrated an aversion to including non-white humans in their playable factions]]

** The Doylist explanation is that [[WordOfGod Games Workshop has said that the elf Hat is "slow decline." and that otherwise there are as many elves as the writers want for the plot, so one minute the lost of a hundred is a tragedy but the next the death of thousands is brushed off]], despite the poor writing and inconsistencies it causes.

** 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.
** Actually in one of the novels there is a hint as to why there is a slow decline in birthrates, in an elven embassy in an Imperial Port City one of the elves remarks disdainfully on the humans' tendency to have 'unguarded rutting' indicating that the High elves practice contraception, presumably on a large level which, given that the High Elves have a fertility and healing Goddess who is both very much real and very good at protecting them from venereal diseases (presumably) the Elves likely practice contraception for no better reason then convenience. Which, given the state of their species at this moment, is an incredibly idiotic practice. All the Phoenix King needs to do to rectify this is to impose a contraceptive ban for say, 60 years (nothing to an Elf) and watch the streets of Elven cities fill up with young Elven children.
** It may not be contraception. Maybe they're just prudes. Anyway, yeah, other gods ''exist'', but they're not available on a hotline, so they can't be relied on all the time. So if they ''do'' use contraception, there's a logical reason for it.
* 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?

**** 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.

** I wonder why no one posits that the reason why Chaos keeps failing is not because the Chaos gods will it and much more likely the NUMEROUS gods the other mortals worship take it upon themselves to put aside their own petty differences for the sake of screwing over Tzeentch and his brothers. Yes yes from 40k's perspective the Chaos gods pretty much determine everything but in Fantasy their power and influence is SEVERELY reduced by comparison. It is not inconceivable that the Trickster god of the Empire on his own could trick Tzzentch once or twice, he actually seems to be the only god tailor made for fouling up another's plans. Just as planned. Or not as the case may be.

** Wood Elves live in those forests too.

*** Its more like several thousand, its also worth noting that one of the grand provinces Hochland is almost entirely covered with forests.

*** Valden the co-emperor comes from a village devastated by beastmen you'd think he would care enough to do something like this.

* 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.

** No, but from what I've read the daemon prince used to be a lot stronger, now the current rules look like the developers just feel like turning the thing into an overpriced punching bag. In some ways it makes sense as to why daemon princes cost a lot more here than in 40k, the chaos worshipers actually want it more there.

** No, the End Times will only come when the Dark Gods will it and the Everchosen (Archaon, for now) gets the Northmen's shit together. Getting the crown helps speed it along, since the guys who did wear the Crown are implied to be pretty badassed.

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

* 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?

** No. You're just misinterpreting the people who want to get it. Chaos Warriors are already insane, so it would have no adverse effect on them. And the Orcs just want the crown because it would pretty much be bait for everyone to come over and fight them.