Unofficial SFO More Loreful Elven Unit Overhaul

Unofficial SFO More Loreful Elven Unit Overhaul

A loreful rebalancing of the High and Dark elven roster for Steel Faith Overhaul II.

Updated for SFO 1.35+ (Glory Of The Dark Gods)

This mod aims to bring the High and Dark elves in SFO closer to lore without sacrificing gameplay balance. I’ve tried to maintain the original SFO balance and touch as few things as possible in the mod to achieve these changes for maximum compatibility with future updates.

Gameplay, Lore, Table Top is my list of priorities in order of importance.

SEE CHANGELOG FOR ALL CHANGES due to text limits.

In general low tier High and Dark Elf units have been slightly buffed and had their costs also slightly increased to bring them into line with how SFO handled the Wood Elves and their lore. I’ve used the SFO Wood elves as a base line. All Elves are now nearly as elite as the lore says they are. Making them actually as good as lore states would break game balance so i’ve toned them down a bit but not as much as SFO High and Dark elves.

This mod is intended to be used with Steel Faith Overhaul II in campaign and will completely break vanilla balance if used without.

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General Changes to SFO:

-Standardization of Elven Shooting stats across all three sub-factions along with the cost increases that brings to HE/ DE, along with buffs to basic ranged units to make their melee stats superior to empire crossbows and compete with dwarf quarrellers

-Elven Spear +Bleak Swords equalization between the three sub-factions as outlined below
(SFO has honestly gotten very close so it’s more my personal preference/ interpretation of the lore over the TT stats SFO has decided to give the priority to)

-Note SFO has now actually given spears a stronger buff then I had originally, I now feel confident that these new stat tweaks won’t break anything and are more representative of the lore (not to mention they didn’t increase costs as much as I did originally)

-Sea Guard changed to fit new minor spear rework and cost increases
(Standard HE spears will be much more cost effective and better at being a wall, while dedicated HE archers are superior shooters)

-Gate Guard changed back to be slightly less op best of both HE spears and archers
(still no shield so spearmen have better melee defense, missile block, hp and charge defense against all but gate guard can out dps dedicated archers now)

-Charge defence against all across all elven spears with shields

-Buffs and cost increases to Ellyrion Reavers and Dark Riders to bring them more closely in line with Glade Riders

-Phoenix Guard’s Ward Save increased while HP decreased cosmetic change
(slightly improved to be even more cosmetic and should no longer affect their durability/ it now buffs their durability ever so slightly)

-Standardization of the three elven and dwarf ballistas

-Minor buff to all HE archers shooting stats
(changes are no longer back end and show up more on the ingame dps meter now)

-almost all remaining changes are now minor instead of major

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For reference this is how i’ve balanced the three elven spear units when compared to each other.

*Note that no formations or unit mass were changed, the following was all achieved via stats*
I don’t want to break SFO balance and am not comfortable changing such a fundamental aspect.

High Elves:
-best training at being soldiers and working together
-best defensively
-not "professionals" (by elven standards 20 years min of either training or combat experience is not enough) so they are the weakest (compared to other elves) when it comes to individual martial ability
(they depend on their martial prowess skill to be better defensively than their peers which represents the state of their formation)
-best coordinated/ tightest phalanx
(best defence when they can keep their formation up)
-slowest

Dark Elves:
-most bloodthirsty/ offensive
-still use a very tight elven phalanx
-professionals good at individual combat who don’t lose effectiveness when half their unit is dead since they can fight 1v1 just as well as in a formation

Wood Elves:
-best individual warriors
-loosest formation/ guerilla fighters out of necessity
(WE simply don’t have the manpower er elfpower of the other two factions to be able to field large formations, that and they fight in forests all the time which makes phalanxes impossible. This also means they don’t benefit from the advantages both offensively and defensively spearmen get when fighting in formation but make up for it with individual combat skill and flexibility)
-professionals good at individual combat who don’t lose effectiveness when half their unit is dead since they can fight 1v1 just as well as in a formation
-most experienced at individual combat
(this is the unit that sees the most actual combat in lore)
-fastest

SEE CHANGELOG FOR ALL CHANGES

No promises that i’ll keep this updated forever. Keeping a detailed changelog for myself so I can keep track of everything alone is a nightmare. This was originally intended for my private use but I’ve put so much effort into it that I might as well release it. Everytime I update it for my own use i’ll update the public version.

If you want to know why I made a specific change or have recommendations leave a comment. Every change was documented. Explaining my reasoning for every single change would create an even bigger wall of text.

If you like this and want an update once I stop playing warhammer 2 regularly just leave a comment.

All credit to the SFO mod team. Everything here is based off their work.