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For those unaware, to (I'm guessing) commemorate the release of the Black Library version of the digital Codex: Eldar, they released three short stories in tandem. These are Nightspear by Joe Parrino, Sky Hunter by Graeme Lyon and Spirit War by Rob Sanders. The first two are new to BL, I believe, while the latter has written a handful of novels. They can be found here as a bundle with the Codex: http://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-40000/the-eldar-collection

You can also buy them independently, as I did. Being a big fan of both Dark Eldar and Eldar, I've read all the stories by Gav Thorpe and Andy Chambers on the subject, so when seeing these I was eager to look into them. It quickly became clear each book focuses on one of the new models from Codex: Eldar. The first being Illic, the second Crimson Hunters/Hemlock Wraithfighters and the third being the Wraithknight. This won't surprise you if you just look at the covers. The concept seems like a bit of a money grab to me, but I can't honestly say I was hesitant to buy them despite having suspicions about their quality. Eldar fluff is Eldar fluff and I bought them immediately.

The Carnac Campaign, as a whole, is an interesting read. I believe it has been alluded too in the Necron codex and Codex: Eldar, both in the sections mentioning Illic Nightspear, who is now a Ranger/Pathfinder HQ. I won't get into spoilers here, but the campaign focuses on the battles between Craftworld Alaitoc and a Necron faction. These are not stories are connected, mostly by supporting characters and building a chronology to cover most of the Carnac campaign, but each story features its own plot and unique main characters. I am happy to say that the stories don't seem to focus on their selected model to extreme, and includes most of the Aspect Warriors you'd expect in a proper Craftworld campaign.

Nightspear: 7/10

The first book, Nightspear, follows the eponymous ranger through the initial part of the campaign, primarily featuring a contingent of rangers. The main plot in this story is the strongest of the three and seems to pull the main characters into a central position more than the others. This aspect makes it stronger than the other books in some ways, however Parrino (a new writer to Black Library, I believe) writes it in a rather ponderous prose that doesn't follow the norms you'd expect in a narration. He uses long run-on sentences and plenty, plenty of commas. In a way, the style builds up a sense of a mythical oral tale. This would work quite well if a little more restraint was shown, I think, but this coupled with the excessive inclusion of wordnouns (throwing two words together and calling it a new name) is taking and ran with. It can sometimes be distracting. The battles are good here, stronger than the second book but not as good as the fourth. I think this writer also feels the least comfortable with the setting, but his largely non-chronological telling of the story works pretty well at its base structure.

Sky Hunter: 7.5/10

Sky Hunter focuses on the new dual-kit aircraft the Eldar have received. I was at first expecting just to see the Crimson Hunter but was pleasantly surprised when it gave the Hemlock a spot pretty early on in the story. The battles in this are the weakest, though not bad. The dog fighting is quite comparable to the battles in the other two books, but the air to ground fighting is, unsurprisingly, less engaging. The narration here is quite standard and not terribly strong but nor does it have any obvious flaws. The secondary plots outstrip the main one, however, and one particular character story captivated me more than any other single plot-thread in the trilogy. My main complaint, and this is somewhat nitpicky, are the names. They are just horrible. Almost Kruellagh the Vile horrible - the main character is Keladry Ragefyre, and virtually all the characters Lyon introduces to the saga are named similarly. I will give him bonus points, however, for tying in a character from the Path of the Eldar series by Gav Thorpe.

Spirit War: 8/10

Rob Sanders is the only experienced writer of the three, I believe, and it shows. He's far more comfortable with both the setting and his own story telling abilities than the others, providing much more effective imagery and battle scenes. I was already more attracted to this books than the others as it has a Wraithknight on the cover and I've been running a Wraith army. Unfortunately, the Wraithknight plays a relatively minor role, the majority of the pages going to Wraithlords, 'guards and 'blades. This isn't a bad thing, though, as he handles their stories as well as that of their Spiritseer guide excellently.

The length of this one, half again as long as either of the previous (39 pages to the 26, each page roughly equivalent to a paperback novel page), allows for more elaborate and detailed battles without interfering with the main characters stories. Really get the best of both worlds here. The only thing that stood out to me as odd was a fluff inconsistency. As most familiar with the Eldar know, an Exarch is locked forever in his path and cannot ever become anything else. An off-handed comment in the first page mentions an Exarch who becomes Autarch, which seems strange to me. This may be because the character referring to him is from an undetermined time but some things suggest to me it was shortly after the fall. Perhaps things were different then? Anyone have anything to add to that?

Also, the Wraithknight in the story has a Suncannon AND a Wraithcannon, which isn't even an option in the Codex - this isn't a criticism of the writting as it's fine fluff wise, but that just makes me jealous. This is also the first appearance of Forge Worlds Wraithseer in a BL novel to my knowledge. Again, making me jealous. Why couldn't we see these things in the Iyanden Codex? I don't want to spend 150 dollars to get the rules and model for one unit :(

Anyway, that's all I have to say. Does anyone have anything to add? Any opinions of your own? I'm interested to see how others feel about this little series as well as the practice of releasing short stories to tie into the newest Codices. I'm personally a big fan of it, and as long as they continue to maintain this quality I'd love to see more.

I've not read these stories and GW releasing these short stories in drips and drabs doesn't help induce me to get them. I am puzzled by their choice of a campaign in which the Eldar lose in which to set a series about Eldar so soon after the Eldar release. Seems counterintuitive if the goal is to hype more sales in some fashion or just Eldar in general.

Now granted one could argue such a story could deal with how they deal with defeat, but then one could say the same for Space Marines and I don't know whether there are any showing Space Marines wrestling with defeat either psychologically or in a more concrete sense. Comeback stories don't count for obvious reasons since they end in ultimate victory.

Assuming this is the same Carnac Campaign mentioned in the Necron Codex?

Things didn't end well for the Eldar there.

Did the Crimson Hunter Exarch base his warmask name on his character from 1998 roleplaying chatrooms?

 Daba wrote:
Did the Crimson Hunter Exarch base his warmask name on his character from 1998 roleplaying chatrooms?

Hey! That's actually where my name is from

But on a more serious note, it really sounds like it. Not sure what he was thinking with that name.

I'm reading the last novel now and so far I'm not very thrilled by them. Sure It's always nice to read eldar fluff, but it feels like a downward spiral of defeat after defeat and there never seem to be any reason to fight at all. First it's just revenge from a ranger and a farseer... And to me it feels very wrong that a personal affair takes precedence over the interests of a craftworld. Later we get to understand they want to protect the world spirit shrine... but there never seem to be any focus on that part at all. Just a vague background story of a whiny farseer. Also, there's the idea that the Eldar is a dying race. That the Eldar are doomed... but that does NOT mean that the have to lose every battle!
How many eldar are lost to the necrons for no reason other than to tell us that the craft world can't afford losses, or that they can't retrieve fallen eldars spirit stones? or just to describe how many interesting ways a necron can kill you?
The crimson hunter exarch never strikes me as very interesting and the authors (so far, remember, I've still to read Spirit war) just throws away every other eldar. There's lot's of interesting side characters in the books, but the only purpose for them is to show how good the necrons are and how screwed eldar is. If it ain't the main character, then just kill them all.
I can accept this... in a necron book, not one centered on Eldar. Probably just fanboy whining, but there you have me then
Ah, I almost forgot, we still have Illic. the new cool ranger leader. the guy who spends an entire book dedicated to himself on the run. or screaming. or just shooting. I mean, the other rangers are better described than he is when they try to lay ambushes or when they describe how they take their time to carefully aim and hit vulnerable parts. Illic just fires at stuff as if he had a warp-boltgun. For being the new cool special character he sure does feel like a new failbaddon.

I don't like the way the represents the eldar, especially after releasing new models and codex. This is what I'd expect after a major necron release.

Just my two teeth...

The Necron Codex bit on the campaign says that the Eldar and Necrons were evenly matched for most of the campaign, and it was only the awakening of the slumbering Necrons on that world that finally swung things in favor of the Necrons.

However the Necron Codex does have that stupid Alaitoc Farseer Eldorath Starbane which seems to simply exist to show the Eldar as deceitful and incompetent. Aside from losing twice in the Codex and having his hand cut off after the 1st defeat by Necrons, Eldorath also appeared in a WD battle report (Ultramarines and Eldar vs. Necrons). However despite the Necrons losing the battle report, the fluff bit shows the Eldar turning on the Space Marines (in order to retrieve the Stars of Khaine, a set of Eldar artifacts), but then the Necrons somehow capturing Eldorath and turning him over to the Ultramarines for punishment. In other words, even when the Eldar win, they write them as losing, and the Ultramarines get off with being righteously and honorably angry, and the Necrons get shown to be honorable in defeat.

Ok.
Finished reading the last book now (takes some time when you have a 4 month son) and I agree that it's the best of the trilogy. Actually it was a really good read, which I certainly didn't expect after the initial two.
Though I had a hard time getting a grasp of the scale when they marched for quite some time to get to the elephant graveyard where they decided to face of... and then they run back in a matter of minutes (felt like that anyway)
And yes, I agree that the wraith knight never got the love it deserved. The story was about wraithlords. Ninja wraithlords!
and a few wraith guards/blades here and there.

Why do they write fiction like this when new toys are released? If you think about it none of the stories really did anything to encourage people to buy the new stuff.
Illic was a raging emo for his entire story and never got to shine at all.
The Crimson hunters never felt as an aspect, they could just as well be guardians and their exarch was a nut case. Not a Lost-on-his-path-of-chosing-nut-case. just a nut case.
Then we have 300 in space Spirit war where the Wraith knight takes the back seat and plays with necron aircraft... that's seriously all he do!

If anything the stories sure did glorify necron detahmarks. Taking down rangers, exodites and even wraithlords without any problems. maybe that should be the real name of the stories? The Carnac campaign: Death mark, Menacing monolith and Doom scythe!

An odd series, but still quite cool now and then ^^

I do agree the first story made the Deathmarks seem far cooler than anything on the Eldar side. I thought the Crimson Hunters were handled competently if not particularly well. Their Exarch felt a little too focused to me, but his backstory was perhaps the most interesting bit of fiction in the trilogy.

The third story was just awesome... sure, I was a bit miffed we didn't see more Knight action, but it far more than made up for that.

So did the Eldar accomplish anything in the 3rd book or did they fail in their objectives yet again?

Well as they just fought to delay the necrons I guess they succeded, though it was at the cost of a lot of eldar heroes and their very souls. Some were brought back, but far from all.