The Warhammer World points value

Shaun

Member
Ive been pondering the points value of the full sum and networth of all beings of the Warhamer Fantasy world ... could you also put your minds to it?

Through my own (albeit limited) research on the subject i figure that the world is inhabited by some million or so dwarfs - as an example ... figuring in average percent of dwarf types and those that carry rune items or use war machines i figure the average dwarf to be found would be worth some 30 points ... so therefore there are (in my own figurations) 30,000,000 points worth of dwarfs in the Warhammer World ... do these figures match your minds?

There are a score or so of different factions to be found so perhaps there are 500,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 points worth of creatures (orc warriors, dwarf rune smiths, dragons, etc - not every critter like a cat or a fish but the Hounds of the Empire, Giant Bats, Frog Swarms etc) ... but if the dawi possess about 30 million points ... surely there arent all equal ... perhaps Chaos has a billion points alone upon the Wastes ...

What are your thoughts?
 

Shaun

Member
Note - my estimate of about one million dwarfs is based upon the fact that a force of some forty thousand dwarfs was led from Karaz A Karak to Karak Eight Peaks to continue the dwarfs holding actions there ... this force of 40,000 dwarfs would be ... what? maybe a tenth or so of total population of the dwarfs capital ... so with this i supposed that on the entirety of the planet there would be perhaps one million (non Chaos) dwarfs
 

Zhu Bajie

Member
You'd have to work out the global population of the world, and there isn't any data to do that.

You could take something like Ravening Hordes guideline of a max 3000pt army and imagine that that is the largest army that the entire faction could raise, and then work backwards from there using a medieval economics model to work out how many peasants it costs to support 1 full-time soldier, 1 cavalry, then determine the base-level points value of the race (assuming peasants racial base with improvised weapons).

But what are you going to do with the data? Points are there to abstractly describe the tabletop effectiveness of troops. An entire world mobilised for war might be a bit big for the average wargames table! Not to mention painting it all :shock:
 

Shaun

Member
Nah i refuse o believe 3,000 points is the most musterable ... i like the old ways with larger armies and troop selections done by percentages of total force - not limitations...

I think it is a fascinating thought ... cheers for the feedback.
 
This reminds me a little of Archimedes estimating the number of grains of sand on the beach.

It must be an astronomical number, if you include everything like the enormous dragon ogres sleeping under the mountains, swarms, wolves. Even boars have a points value don´t they?

Edit. Archimedes estimated the number of grains of sand that would fit into the known universe, not the beach. My memory playing up again.
 

Shaun

Member
Harry- im surprised this thought hasnt crossed your own mind at least once when going over your army list/s ...

Ramshackle Curtis - i tried to explain that including the dwarfs that cost alot of points the average will be higher than the points value of just your average dwarf. Dwarf plus dwarf plus dwarf plus dwarf plus dwarf plus dwarf hero with rune weapon plus dwarf plus dwarf plus dwarf plus dwarf cannon and three dwarfs divided by ten equals ...

You get me?

Some dwarfs are more expensive points wise so the average goes up even though they are the minority...

Weismonsters - yes i tried to include all the battleworthy creatures like Boars and Hounds and Swarms in my ponderings ... but without accurate numbers it is all ponderific guesswork ...

It is an interesting thought i figured you guys might appreciate :grin:
 

Zhu Bajie

Member
Shaun":7bitkpyw said:
Nah i refuse o believe 3,000 points is the most musterable

You're right, it's a silly cap. Most musterable! I like that.

OK. So how about we take Warhammers 'fantasy earth' approach and use the historical population data as the historical real world?

This is based on the lands described in WFB2e, and random googling of unreliable sources.

  • Lustria (Pre colombian S. America) 37 Million / Slánn / Pygmies / Amazons
  • Old World & Norsca (Medieval Europe) 75 million / Human / Dwarf / Halflings / Gnomes / Elves / Ogres
  • Cathay (Ming Dynasty) 65 million / Human / Hobgoblin / Orcs / Goblins
  • Elf Kingdoms (Atlantis) 20 million / Elves (incl. 10,000 chariots)
  • New World (Pre colombian N. America) 7 million / Dark / Sea Elves
  • Northern Steppes (Mongol Empire) 760 thousand / Hobgoblins / Men / Orcs / Goblins (incl. 95,000 Cav)
  • Dark Lands (???) 11 Million / Dwarf / Goblin / Hobgoblin / Lizardmen / Ogre
  • Araby (Ottoman Empire) 50 Million / Human / Goblin / Ogre
  • Southlands (South africa) ??? / Human / Goblin

Pre-colonial population figures for South Africa escaped my research.

Of course, that's just the humanoids, we'd need to find data on the population of Boars in the medieval world, the pre-colombian frog-swarm population of South America, migration patterns of the Dragon population, factor in the number of undead, skeletal mammoths, rogue Elementals, required acreage of broad leafed deciduous woodland required to support an average sized Treeman, plus calculate whatever is going on in the Chaos Wastes at any given time.
 

Shaun

Member
Aye :grin: but the numbers dont seem quite right ... too many elves for a start, i can imagine thered be that many ... my mind fingers more like this below ... as a start...

Dwarf - 1-1.5 million worldwide.
High and Wood Elves - .5 million worldwide.
Empire, Tilea, Estalia, The Vaults (Humans), Kislev - 12-15 million worldwide.
Araby - 4-5 million worldwide.
Nippon - 5 million worldwide.
Cathay - 8 million worldwide.
Halflings - 1 million worldwide.
Orcs and Goblins - 40 million worldwide.
Skaven - 25 million worldwide.
Chaos Dwarfs - 300,000 worldwide.
Dark Elves - 150,000 worldwide.
Vampires, Necromancers - less than 50,000 worldwide.
Lizardmen - 3.5 million worldwide
Ogres - 1 million worldwide.
Trolls - 3 million worldwide.
Giants - less than 30,000 giants worldwide.
Harpies - 1-2 million worldwide.
Dragons - several thousand worldwide.
Chaos Warriors, Marauders, Beastman - 50 million worldwide.
Daemons and Ghosts unknown...
 
Sounds reasonable, except I am not sure that there would be twice as many harpies as elves. I was under the impression that harpies were quite rare...
 

Zhu Bajie

Member
Shaun":2ym8pss4 said:
Aye :grin: but the numbers dont seem quite right ... too many elves for a start.

Blame Plato, Atlantis was seriously over-populated. Another source for data elves would be Melinbone, 10's of thousands at the most, or if you really want to know about Elven population in Tolkien, http://www.stephenwigmore.com/2012/03/p ... t-age.html

All your figures look way, way too low,

'worldwide' suggests an even distribution, which clearly isn't the case. We can assume that population is shaped by fecundity (orcs high, dwarves low), the natural resources available (temperate regions high, extremes low) and the ability to harness (store) them through technology (talking agriculture here), divorcing species populations from their environment isn't going to give us a good simulation.

If you want to model a pseudo-medeival euro-centric ideological fantasy where beleaguered humans are on the verge of being wiped-out by hordes of 'greenkskins' and monstrous Others, then a tiny number of humans vs. an infinite number of enemies. But that ideology is not born out by historical evidence, and wasn't what original Warhammer was about, although no doubt it became a strong part of it's narrative across both 40k and Fantasy later.

Europe in the High Middle Ages had an estimated population of 50-100 million people - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_ ... _of_Europe :) Why wouldn't the Old World have supported the same numbers at the same level of technology? Even if we take just a simple analogy of Empire = Holy Roman Empire, circa 1500, that's estimated at 16 million alone. Without including the lands Estella, Brettonia, Tilea, Albion or Norsca.

I knew that A'level geography would come in useful one day.
 

Shaun

Member
Aye ... but i hadnt thought the Warhammer world so very densely populated with humans ... as they share their habitats with many other critters ... from Skaven to Chaos Spawn and all the rest ... there is no way to be sure but yeah my numbers are just guestimates - so youd believe they were each several times larger in number hey?

I apologise, i didnt know Harpies were rare - my Harpy lore isnt much :grin:

Ah well this is all very interesting ... and these are just population numbers ... to calculate the total points cost is mind boggling ...
 
Maybe we can use Plato as a starting point, but then factor in that elves are less likely to be at it like rabbits than humans. I propose 5 million as a reasonable number, not in any way plucked randomly out of the air ;)
 

Zhu Bajie

Member
Shaun":3vzehd8e said:
Aye ... but i hadnt thought the Warhammer world so very densely populated with humans ... as they share their habitats with many other critters ... from Skaven to Chaos Spawn and all the rest ... there is no way to be sure but yeah my numbers are just guestimates - so youd believe they were each several times larger in number hey? .

Yeah, you've got to start with what the land can support, then split it up over the dominant/less dominant species. So 100 million humanoids in 'fantasy europe', but thats going to be split between Human, Elves, Dwarves and Halflings. on a what? 75%, 5% 5% 5% split? Dunno about Skaven, do they do farming, or just live off warpstone and poo in the sewers, or is there a load of Dairy farming skaven producing tonnes of cheese somewhere that we never get to hear about?

weismonsters":3vzehd8e said:
Maybe we can use Plato as a starting point, but then factor in that elves are less likely to be at it like rabbits than humans. I propose 5 million as a reasonable number, not in any way plucked randomly out of the air ;)

Elves have a long life span, so there's loads of really old Elves knocking about as well, maybe 7 million on the Elven Isles? Plus Dark Elves, although they're too busy doing kinky stuff to bother with procreation much. :?
 
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