Warhammer Armies: Drow

[Wargamer]

The Drow are my favourite D&D race, bar none. As such, I simply must write Warhammer rules for them, with a few alterations to make them unique, and not just underground Dark Elves. Enjoy...

The Drow are subterranean offshoot of Elves, well-suited to living in the underground. They can see in total darkness, though only in black and white, and their hands and feet have developed hard skin pads and claw-like nails. This gives them a powerful grip, and enables them to climb effortlessly over seemingly impassible terrain.

Drow can see in light, as well as dark. However, whilst they can make out colours in light, if the source is too strong, it leaves them blinded. For this reason, Drow only emerge from their tunnels at night. Some enemies have learnt of their weakness to sunlight, and try to set up "flash-traps", blinding the Drow for long enough to leave them defenceless from an attack, or give their quarry time to flee.

Drow skin is black, and their hair and eyes are white. Exact colourations can vary from dark blue skin to dark purple, and hair can range from ashen to pearl in tone.

Drow tend to keep to themselves, but will attack fiercely if their territory is threatened. Some are more viscious than others; enslaving other races, whilst some allow a small amount of trade and contact.

In most cases, however, Drow prefer to remain secret. They will coat their weapons in Drow Poison; a powerful poison that can render even a Dwarf unconcious. The helpless figures will either then be enslaved, killed, or dragged away from the Drow home and left until they recover.

Exact locations of the Drow homes are unknown, as their skill at stealth and secrecy ensures they are difficult to find. Some believe they are nomadic, but not enough is known of them to confirm this.

[Wargamer]

Army Special Rules:

Darkvision: In a mission that occurs at night, underground, or in similar conditions, Drow can see perfectly without the need for torches or similar.
Dewclaws: Drow can move over Difficult Terrain such as rubble, rocks, steep cliffs and so on without penalty. They treat Impassable terrain such as sheer cliffs, walls and so on as Difficult Terrain.
Light Crossbow: Drow make frequent use of the Light Crossbow, a smaller, but more manageable version of the Crossbow. It has the same stats as the Longbow.
Mithril Armour: Very lightweight and strong, Mithril can be used to make armour that is much stronger than the equivalent steel armour. It counts as Heavy Armour.
Adamantine Armour: Adamantine is an extremely rare metal, found only in the deepest places of the world. Even the Dwarves have very little of it. However, the Drow know where such materials can be found, and use it to make their finest armours.
Adamantine Armour gives a 4+ Armour Save.
Bauxite Armour: Whilst heavy, Bauxite is a natural conductor of magic, and does not interfere with spells. Bauxite Armour gives a 6+ Armour Save. A Mage or High Mage may wear Bauxite armour and still cast spells.

LORDS:

Drow Shadowprince pts/model: 110
M Ws Bs S T W I A Ld
Shadowprince 5 7 6 4 3 3 8 4 10
Equipment: Hand weapon.
Options: May be armed with any of the following: Additional Hand Weapon at +6pts; Halberd at +6pts or Great weapon at +6pts.
May be armed with a Light Crossbow at +15pts, or Throwing Knives at +12pts. Either of these weapons may be Poisoned at +3pts.
May be equipped with Light Armour at +3pts, or Mithril Armour at +6pts, or Adamantine Armour at +12pts.

Drow High Mage pts/model: 200
M Ws Bs S T W I A Ld
High Mage 5 4 4 3 3 3 5 1 9
Equipment: Hand Weapon.
Options: May be given Bauxite Armour at +3pts.
Magic: A High Mage is a Level 3 Wizard. He may be upgraded to a Level 4 Wizard at +35pts. A High Mage may use any of the Common Lores.

HEROES:

Drow Spectre-Captain pts/model: 65
M Ws Bs S T W I A Ld
Captain 5 6 6 4 3 2 7 3 9
Equipment: Hand weapon.
Options: May be armed with any of the following: Additional Hand Weapon at +4pts; Halberd at +4pts or Great weapon at +4pts.
May be armed with a Light Crossbow at +10pts, or Throwing Knives at +8pts. Either of these weapons may be Poisoned at +2pts.
May be equipped with Light Armour at +2pts, or Mithril Armour at +4pts, or Adamantine Armour at +8pts.

Drow Mage pts/model: 75
M Ws Bs S T W I A Ld
Mage 5 4 4 3 3 2 5 1 8
Equipment: Hand Weapon.
Options: May be given Bauxite Armour at +2pts.
Magic: A Mage is a Level 1 Wizard. He may be upgraded to a Level 2 Wizard at +35pts. A Mage may use any of the Common Lores.

CORE:

Underdark Warriors pts/model: 6
M Ws Bs S T W I A Ld
Warrior 5 4 4 3 3 1 5 1 8
Lieutenant 5 4 4 3 3 1 5 2 8
Unit Size: 10+
Equipment: Hand weapon.
Options: May be armed with any of the following: Additional Hand Weapon at +2pts; Halberd at +2pts or Great weapon at +2pts.
May be equipped with Light Armour at +1pt, or Mithril Armour at +2pts, or Adamantine Armour at +4pts.
Promote one Warrior to a Lieutenant at +12pts.
Promote one Warrior to a Musician at +6pts.
Promote one Warrior to a Standard Bearer at +12pts.

Shade-snipers pts/model: 7
M Ws Bs S T W I A Ld
Sniper 5 4 4 3 3 1 5 1 8
Darkshot 5 4 5 3 3 1 5 1 8
Unit Size: 10+
Equipment: Hand weapon.
Options: May be armed with a Light Crossbow at +5pts, or Throwing Knives at +4pts. Either of these weapons may be Poisoned at +1pt.
May be equipped with Light Armour at +1pt or Mithril Armour at +2pts.
Promote one Sniper to a Darkshot at +6pts.
SPECIAL RULES:
Skirmish

[Wargamer]

... Umm... not sure what to include for Special or Rare yet... I'll put them in when I get some ideas.

[Arguleon Veq]

There are those big huge purple beetle type things (sorry i cant remember the name of them).

Also how about giant spiders (quite common in the game).

Don't they have some form of monks?.

They also have a kind of lizard mount aswell don't they?.

Anyway just some ideas.

[Wargamer]

Hmm... giant spiders sound a bit corny... and "lizard" mounts sound to Dark Elf to me.

...mabe something like the Purple Worm: A massive beast that can swallow victims whole...

[Tronn]

Wargamer, I'm a massive fan of DnD particularily the drow.

Remember that the Drow are a matriach so the females are the spell casts and these are mainly priestesess, the males aare the warriors

For specials and stuff you should have things like specialised beasts and denizens of the underdark

Try These

!!!!DRIDERS!!!!

!!!!BEHOLDERS!!!!

Ilithid Mind Flayers

Bombadier beetles

Hooked Horrors

I'll dig up my DnD books and find more stuff

Don't forget their ability faerie fire?!!?

[Wargamer]

Remember that the Drow are a matriach so the females are the spell casts and these are mainly priestesess, the males aare the warriors

Actually, according to the "Favoured Class", the males are more likely to be Wizards, and the Females Clerics. Out of the two, Clerics are more combat-based. Overall, I think it easier to say that Wizards are male, Leaders are female (the title "Prince" is sexless for the Drow), and Warriors and so on are an equal mix of both, with females more likely to get into full-on combat.

[monkeyking]

why not a beastmaster sort of thing that is a hero chouice and rides the purple worm? also look at displacer beasts?

otherwise yeah looks good

[Tronn]

Have you read the underdark series and all the books about drizzt, what about menzoberranzan, heaps of stuff in there.

The purple worm is mainly an artic (i said mainly not only, as i did with the priestesses) but drow are renkowned for their relations with ilithid (possible homiculus conversion) and beholders (possible chaos spawn conversion?).

Drow take slaves of the underdark too but i recommend DRIDERS again, they could work kinda like the gorger. I've got a couple of reaper drider-style models and they are 2 cool 2 miss

[Wargamer]

I'm not a fan of putting either Ilithids or Beholders into this list, mainly because both are seriously powerful spellcasters, suggesting they are Heroes or Lords rather than Special or Rare.

Also, they aren't Drow. I want this to be a Drow list, not "generic evil D&D monsters stuffed into WFB".

Ilithids and Beholders are out.

Driders... yes, they could work I suppose... with a bit of fluff-tweaking natually.

[monkeyking]

why not like a drider as one of the hero choices and as such the little drider unit becomes core choice??

but yeah the driders sound good.

what about slaves and stuff as a core choice but only one per army like a sort of swarm?

[Wargamer]

Slaves wouldn't work as a Swarm. Besides, Drow don't enslave on another, and slaves of other races probably won't fight for them properly, and leg it at the first chance.

Drider will be added as monsters, and definately not Heroes.