Can you even imagine how terrifying elves would be in a setting with firearms?

tolkienesque elves who are superior to man in very way? sure that would be scary

you need line infantry to support Jagers or they are just gonna get bayonet charged or ran down with calvary.
They aren't really superior or a gamechanger or anything like that.

>sure that would be scary
Yeah, if it was still the Third Age.

>DEX suddenly doesn't govern ranged weapon anymore
>because elves aren't allowed to have that
Good thread.

>Also, firearms combat through history has pretty much never been about accuracy
As I said, "never" is a really strong word.

Did you just want to put an elf in the catalog again, but this time one that wouldn't get so easily deleted?

>Otherwise, why didn't militia through history train everyone to be marksmen?
because it's expensive and time consuming to equip an entire army as marksmen, not because it's necessarily a bad idea. Not everyone in the army is trained to be a heavy machine gunner either, and they are the small firearm with the greatest volume of fire.

>muh firearms
LMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAO

I imagine it's more the case that those dedicated to the art of war fighting will be vastly more terrifying individuals.

I mean, the way the Eldar do their military is about what I imagine would be bog standard across most (if not all) forms of elves. And given the various stereotypical assumptions made when using "elves" it's more than likely they will try to focus on taking out HVT and infrastructure so make sure your generals and officers have breddy good protection or they all receive bullets to the noggin.

Pretty much. It would make those woven forests hard ro conquer even moving into the modern age, though would also restrict elves to more defensive guerilla tactics that favor their forested terrain.

Magic can help dull things like artillery, bombs, and fire that would blast chunks out of the forest.

> Otherwise, why didn't militia through history train everyone to be marksmen?
They did though, from WW1 onwards.
Before that, only light infantry bothered to aim individually and use cover.
After it, everyone became light infantry.

What is artillery?

youtube.com/watch?v=NovHKofip6s

I avoid any race being straight up superior to others because that is stupid and boring.

Something the Russians called in on Simo and it still didn't work

youtube.com/watch?v=yOTsMHTwshg

[muffled Fortunate Son in the distance]

This is what I liked about the Fall from Heaven 2 mod and the various submods for Civ4: Both elf factions are great for building pretty big realms filled with forests and even better ancient forests, both can field sizable armies. Their preferred units aren't that great for attacking enemy territory and lose a lot of bonusses there. But they are hard to take out in their own territory, fast moving through the woods, with a lot of extra attacks, can summon treants.

>having some + DEX means they are superior
user, I really hope you also shit on dwarves, orcs... humans.

But in 90% of the systems every race is better than other races at something.

Gonna stop you right there.

Elves are accurate. That's one of their things. They have better hand eye coordination than humans, better senses, etc. They are just naturally good at hitting targets.

Private Pyle elves are not really possible because the concept of elves includes being naturally accurate and swift. Take this away and you're not really talking about elves anymore.

>muh DnD

Funny really.

>firearms combat through history has pretty much never been about accuracy

Tell that to Brits fighting Afghans with jazzails.

This. Elves would have great snipers, sure. But Dwarves would be experts with trenches, tanks, and other things that take advantage of their small but sturdy nature and knack for engineering. Similarly, Orcs would be lugging around Heavy machine guns as their standard infantry rifle.

This user here, , I've got shit perception, but my dexterity is decent. I'd be a much better shot if I could see properly, but in my opinion, dexterity is much more important than perception for mid-ranged weaponry.

Good thing elves have both then.

You're a fucking retard honestly. Sure elf snipers would be tough special forces but they are only good at fighting infantry and only in fights of attrition or mobility. Snipers can't really hold ground, take ground, or lead assaults. At best they can harass lone patrols at great risk. Poke at enemy positions at great risk. Tanks, artillery, and air power are pretty much invincible to snipers and exceptionally dangerous. Elf snipers would not be able to degrade enemy positions without a conventional ground force in close support or else planes or tanks would simply push them out.

Simo's legendary accomplishments where exceptionally rare, likely very exaggerated, and regardless he was almost killed by artillery as expected.

Imagine an elf fighting force composed of 1/10th the number of their enemies going largely unsupported and comprised mostly of sharp shooters. There isn't any meat, it's just an army of spec ops. Elves would be more valuable as jet fighter pilots, at least in comparison to men.

Dwarves and Elves wouldn't grasp the concept of mass production or would look down on it, though. Dwarves have that obsessive drive to continually perfect their craft, and Elves make everything into an art form. Elves would probably make beautiful, effective but unique firearms (think Jezails or Tanegashima muskets) and Dwarves excellent heavy guns, but they probably wouldn't move past that into mass production. That seems like something Humans and Orcs/Hobgoblins would appreciate more.

Yeah, that's nice and all. But it's implied that we are talking about how DnD handles DEX, which also includes perception. You can have good reasons for disliking this system, but this isn't exatcly what this thread is about. It's pretty much consens that across multiple settings elves are great shots. This is what OPs idea of a thread is build upon. Make another thread where you bitch about a system.

We had this in another thread we some anons came to the conclusion that in this kind of warfare elves and dwarves both would probably not want to partake in all these conflicts that take heavy tolls and are better suited for faster breeding races. Both would probably do best at arming their citizens, be reclusive in some good to defend environment, stay neutral and make it in general a bad idea to invade these places, to the point that it isn't worth it. So, Switzerland.

Fantasy races with modern weapons is one of those topics that will endlessly be discussed and rediscussed on Veeky Forums forever.

Yeah, which fits well with what theyre suited for. Dwarves would have great forts and great weapons like they always do, and Elves would be obnoxiously impossible to root out from their forest as you lose a ton of soldiers and support staff to snipers every day

that sounds about right. An elven nation would have to rely on more subtle forms of power like spy craft and diplomacy. They'd get curb stomped by blitzkrieg style invasions, assuming they have centralized cities or military complexes (which would seem necessary in modernizing society). They simply wouldn't have the manpower to prevent armored advances supported by arty and air power. They could run an effective guerilla campaign if their country was occupied, but without a fast growing populace the dynamic might not be sustainable.

Well theres stats, and then there is how they are treated in the fluff. Damn near every fantasy setting I know of has Elves as pound for pound superior to Humans and only undone by their lack of numbers.

>Can you even imagine how terrifying elves would be in a setting with firearms?

What is the difference between elves and humans other than pointy ears?

They have lighter internal organs?

Napalm would be seriously hard to deal with for forest based elven resistance.

One wonders if simply burning the forest indiscriminately might force Elves into a disasterous offensive.

That's probably what leads to a wild hunt.

DOW chemical don't give a shit about your forest.

Well, most typically, they have improved eyesight, much like a bird of prey. They also usually have keener senses of hearing, though less drastic of a difference there. In terms of physique, I would say they have denser muscles, which gives them a similar level of strength to a human while being more wiry, while also likely having hollow bones.

I only know about it in TES, what is the DnD version of the wild hunt like?

Depends on if magic can counteract it. I'd imagine some Elven druids would be able to help mitigate a lot of attempts at total war that would threaten the forest itself

Napalm is obviously devastating to anybody actually in the forest at the time, but don't overestimate its impact. In Vietnam, after sustained bombing by the US, only about 1% of Vietnam's forests were obliterated by Napalm and munitions combined, though 40% was damaged in some way, and this was the United States, one of the two superpowers in the world.

Assuming whatever nation fighting the elves gains air superiority, actually just burning down the forest is going to be an incredibly slow and costly process. Certainly not something that the US public could eventually stomach.

Honestly don't know, was thinking about the warhammer fantasy wild hunt of Orion.

>implying in a setting with firearms elves would be more terrifying than dwarves
Yes, every elf would be a natural marksman, but the logistics, production, and birthrate to maintain recruitment and even more importantly supply of their armies. Elves are notorious for being vulnerable to attrition between their lithe or "flimsy" figures and constant flights of fancy.

I imagine if magic exists in the setting, and is powerful enough to counter blanket deforestation it would likely have its own counters as well. Magic seeking air to surface missiles homing in on Druidic rituals for example.

No but living for hundreds of years at peak physical prime does. But way to miss the point of the OP post fucknuts.

>Not having a young elf clan having ridiculously fancy rifles with magic spells and all as their weapon of choice.

Dwarves aren't particularly fast breeding either.

>Elves are notorious for being vulnerable to attrition between their lithe or "flimsy" figures and constant flights of fancy
Give me one canon instance of that.

>Pretty much never
>Pretty much

>Not everyone in the army is trained to be a heavy machine gunner either, and they are the small firearm with the greatest volume of fire.
>Heavy machine guns
>Small arms
>Guns that require two people to carry and shoot the biggest round
>Guns that need to be in a mounted stationary position
>Small arms

Not having psycho deaf elven tribes stalking the party with their rifles.

You can replace heavy machine gunner with light machine gunner and the point still stands.

Depends on what the exact counter is. Either way, fighting elder Druids on their own turf is not going to go well.

Also, if you could have magical air to surface missiles, the elves could also have surface tp air sniper rounds that home in on the skulls of enemy pilots and pierce through glass.

At that point though it's just a game of who can make up the most BS magic, so I'll stick with the idea that Druids would be able to sufficiently protect a forest against total annihilation, since thats literally the 1 job they have

That's just a gun.

>seismic surveys from orbit
>tallboy/bunker busters caving in whole dwarven installations
Let's be honest, modernity would be as shitty for dwarves as it would be for elves.

Any man portable weapon is considered a "small arm". General purpose machine guns like the mg42 are therefor "small arms", despite being crew operated at the squad level and found mounted to vehicles. Weapons like this have generally always been considered since their introduction to be the most decisive small arms on the battlefield. Far more than say sniper rifles.

>Can you even imagine how terrifying elves would be in a setting with firearms?

You can just convert them to phoenix command and test.
PS: Phoenix command is a military rpg made by a guy that works for nasa.

Actually you can convert it to sword path glory (fantasy game even more detailed made by same guy) and use a mix of sword path glory and phoenix command rules.
With height at adulthood and weight at this age, you find his str and size state.
With max speed at this age, str and size stat, you find his speed stat.
With amount of time needed to reach max speed you find his dextery stat.
With height, weight and amount of time he can stay standing up without needing to rest/sleep, you can find his endurance stat and health stat.

What is left is charisma, willpower, motivation, telepathic sensitivity, intelligence, leadership, teaching ability.

>+2 dexterity does not a sniper make
It kind of does.
It is a +1 to attack.
So assuming some kind of dnd, 1 level elf:
In 3pf have attack bonus of 1 level fighter and weapon proficiency rifle(as bows were dropped), 1 level fighter is a good as 1st level human fighter with weapon focus in rifles.
1st level fighters are considered trained professionals, so fighter with weapon focus in rifle would be squad marksman.
Common elf fighter would reach the same level of skill as human marksman and could easily surpass him.

Arguably that's the result of trends in warfare towards urban warfare, which does favor portability and rate of fire. In Afghanistan and Iraq, both the Soviet Union (in the former) and the United States (in both) began adding designated marksmen to squads due to the less urban nature of insurgency and longer engagement ranges.

Pyle's only talent was that fact that he ended up good with his rifle, wtf is your analogy? Unless you mean the actual Gomer Pyle from Andy Griffith, but I don't think he was a private, so.

I love how OP's suggestion implies WW 2 level tech, and the, everyone giving reasons why it wouldn't work are assuming more modern things like jets, missiles, napalm, and bunker busters.

Yeah, no shit all that stuff would take out WW2 era elves and dwarves easily

It already exists, its called Switzerland

The tallboy/grand slam is a world war II invention. As is napalm/firebombs.

Notably no one abandoned the gpmg. A squad without a gpmg is literally considered to be out of action. Designated marksmen are useful in countersniping but do not add much to the fighting ability of a squad outside of this niche use.

It's really hard to fight conventional squads without a gpmg if they have one (or two) because of the oppressive nature of accurate suppressive fire and how that easily limits mobility. One of the primary tools in defeating snipers is the gpmg and it's ability to suppress a position and allow it to be advanced upon without much threat of reprisal.

>Weapons like this have generally always been considered since their introduction to be the most decisive small arms on the battlefield.
But that's not completely true. The Maxim Gun was far less decisive than the Lee-Enfield against the Boers; the Dreyse and Chassepot made a far bigger difference in the Franco-Prussian War than the Mitrailleuse. Where the engagement favors range the automatic weapon becomes less important.

In World War I trench lines were sometimes as close together as 30 yards and at most a few hundred yards; in World War II battles were fought house to house. That's where automatic weapons are decisive.

Tanks, planes and artillery all effectively are hard counters to harassing snipers.

>As a fun little side effect, hearing protection and noise reduction for firearm use is greatly advanced both for and by elves

from the mg42 onwards the primacy of the gpmg is undeniable.

Haven't watched Full Metal Jacket in years but wasn't Private Pyle (eventually) actually a really good shot and great at weapons dissembling/reassembling and drilling? It's just he was actual dogshit in every other way but his newfound competence in the metrics the drill sargent cared about managed to mask it until he snapped.

>Notably no one abandoned the gpmg.
Because disposing of the gpmg would be making the same mistake the United States made in excluding the designated marksman in the first place, in that versatility would be reduced. The automatic weapon is still dominant in an urban setting where both US and Soviet troops were regularly engaged, but it plays second fiddle in the countryside.

Except it has been denied in the last decade, where an average of 250,000 bullets (doubtlessly dispensed by infantry with gpmgs and assault rifles) to kill a single insurgent. Even in its own war, the heavy mg42 was outdone by squad SMGs such as the PPSh-41 with lower rates of fire but greater ease of handling.

>Tanks, planes and artillery all effectively are hard counters to harassing snipers
On the other hand, archetypal elven forest is nightmare for modern army and ideal place for asymmetric warfare

>Any man portable weapon is considered a "small arm".
Oh sure, if I get like twenty guys to carry my 25mm autocannon it's considered small arms.
>General purpose machine guns like the mg42 are therefor "small arms", despite being crew operated at the squad level and found mounted to vehicles.
It only takes one guy to carry the MG42.

Jets too.

The mg42 was defeated by ppsh-1's in urban warfare, generally because those weapons were smaller, more ammunition could be carried, and entire platoons were equipped with those weapons. The disadvantages that rendered them suboptimal in situations other than urban warfare like range and accuracy didn't really matter in those situations.

Can you even imagine how terrifying slavs would be?

General operating procedure defined the mg42 as a crew operated weapon, which had an operator, a loader, and a spotter (who usually was the CO).

I think every military since then has had at least an operator paired with a loader.

It's been just BARELY 500 years since firearms have been invented so you might have the occasional elf using a smoothbore matchlock or something like that. Maybe

>The disadvantages that rendered them suboptimal in situations other than urban warfare like range and accuracy didn't really matter in those situations.
Exactly. Just as more compact but less accurate automatics outperform gpmg in close quarters, more accurate and longer-ranged DMRs and rifles outperform gpmg in long range. The gpmg is a great generalist weapon, but its supposed primacy stems more from the circumstances in which the wars following its introduction were fought than from some innate superiority to other weapons.

You don't need all three to haul a fucking MG42.

And yet you cannot take or hold ground using a fighting force of elven snipers. Which has been the general argument as to why elven snipers while exceptional in their niche role would not make them very influential over the course of a war.

Gpmgs are far more important for their general utility in capturing and defending locations of strategic importance. Snipers simply can't fulfill a similar role.

No of course not. This was never implied. I merely was pointing out that gpmgs are considered small arms.

I don't think anyone gas argued for taking ground with them, and holding ground is just a matter of them making their forest even more annoying to pass through.

Nobody wants to occupy a forest full of elf snipers or try and send a convoy through it

Who actually says that every elf needs to be a sniper? Not that guy

An M2 is not a GPMG.

Agent Orange is an artificial plant hormones that basically fucks with the plant's ability to function properly. It is entirely harmless to humans. The by-products used to MAKE it, is what is harmful to humans.

So if magic can fuck with hormones in this setting, I'd imagine it could fuck with Agent Orange? Not arguing either way, just sharing neat knowledge.

Bro-Tip: Because other herbicides are slowly losing efficiency, people are genuinely in talks with US Govt about permitting the use of Agent Orange again (under stricter quality control.)

Bro-Tip 2: AO was HEAVILY used in New England.

Is there a way to make it without the production of insane levels of dioxins?

You need 3 to haul the ammo for it.

Why bring up the M2? The M2 is an HMG, sure. It's a light weapon, not a small arm.

Yes but that adds on so much overhead it practically isn't worth it.

Unless no other options exist.

We are slowly getting there. Most herbicides are failing to work anymore, thanks to people's over-use of shit like Round Up.

>You need 3 to haul the ammo for it.
You need one for the gun.

>Why bring up the M2? The M2 is an HMG, sure. It's a light weapon, not a small arm.
Because that it's not a small arms is the point I was trying to make from the beginning

Yes, you are correct. Light machine guns are small arms. Medium/GPMGs are light weapons.

I'd imagine an anti-poison spell would have that general effect, since that's basically what it is.

Only other thing that jumps out would be using a bunch of air elemental to suck it up and blow it somewhere else, or just fuck up the planes carrying it.

Either is hard to do on a large scale, but then again, so is dispersing it

If we're talking World War II tanks I could still see Elves making it out with anti-tank rifles and PIATs, especially through the roof.

Then again the obvious solution would be just to add more armor to the fucking roof.