On the tabletop, the High Elves are a flexible and disciplined army. “ really fun to play if you want to get that flavour of being a master manipulator,” says Hall. You can then spend this influence in the diplomacy menus to manipulate relations between other factions: “You could make two rival High Elf and Dark Elf factions go to war, to weaken them both,” suggests Hall, but you’re not limited to toying with third parties if you want to trade with someone but your relations aren’t quite good enough, you can spend some influence to improve them. High Elf spies enable them to see whatever their trading partners see, and they can earn ‘influence’ by using their agents or resolving events called Intrigue at Court dilemmas. Thousands of years later, this has given their descendents a certain sense of entitlement they look out only for themselves, and yet, because they also consider themselves the rightful rulers of the world, they stick their noses into everyone else’s business anyway. Long ago, the Elves were the favourite (but not the first) creations of the Old Ones, the original gods of the Warhammer World, who also built them an idyllic island called Ulthuan. “The High Elves are quite an insular race,” says game director Ian Roxburgh.
