Not on DakkaDakka but Reddit, Fanfiction websites, and gaming forums. Whenever I suggest the Asuryani to not fight the Imperium only to be completely butchered - since they are supposed to be wise and careful and they can see the ass-kicking from a mile away - people keep deriding me and telling me to get lost.

It's really absurd. And I feel like the whole community hates this faction so much that they don't want to hear anything positive about them.

People are dumb, after all the Ultramarines have a Half-Eldar Librarian...

If anything I'd say that honor goes to Tau. I'm guessing Space Elves might be the third most popular faction in the game after SM and CSM so I don't think the "whole Community" hates them.
Eldar have overall been pretty lucky with their rules through the editions which makes some people not like them (see Karol on dakka as an example). But I haven't heard people not liking their background.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
If anything I'd say that honor goes to Tau. I'm guessing Space Elves might be the third most popular faction in the game after SM and CSM so I don't think the "whole Community" hates them.
Eldar have overall been pretty lucky with their rules through the editions which makes some people not like them (see Karol on dakka as an example). But I haven't heard people not liking their background.

I don’t think any faction is really hated. Some are much more favored than others and some people take their favoritism into the extreme but that’s to be expected.

For the record I love Tau, they are basically if you took MS gundam and turned it into an army. That and they are (subjectively at least) the closest thing to good in the 40K universe since they are one of the only factions open to diplomacy. Yes they will probably kill you if you refuse but anything imperium would kill first and I don’t think tyranids could possibly contemplate diplomacy since they need to devour biomatter

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
If anything I'd say that honor goes to Tau. I'm guessing Space Elves might be the third most popular faction in the game after SM and CSM so I don't think the "whole Community" hates them.
Eldar have overall been pretty lucky with their rules through the editions which makes some people not like them (see Karol on dakka as an example). But I haven't heard people not liking their background.

I don’t think any faction is really hated. Some are much more favored than others and some people take their favoritism into the extreme but that’s to be expected.

For the record I love Tau, they are basically if you took MS gundam and turned it into an army. That and they are (subjectively at least) the closest thing to good in the 40K universe since they are one of the only factions open to diplomacy. Yes they will probably kill you if you refuse but anything imperium would kill first and I don’t think tyranids could possibly contemplate diplomacy since they need to devour biomatter

I like Tau, too, more so than Eldar . For me they're the "generic intelligent Aliens" in 40K, so they certainly have their place next to "generic hive Aliens" and "generic robots" . It’s just that I've seen more people on dakka disliking Tau than other factions. Tau also get the most stupid memes that don't have anything to do with the faction, as Tau are neither fish nor communists...

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
If anything I'd say that honor goes to Tau. I'm guessing Space Elves might be the third most popular faction in the game after SM and CSM so I don't think the "whole Community" hates them.
Eldar have overall been pretty lucky with their rules through the editions which makes some people not like them (see Karol on dakka as an example). But I haven't heard people not liking their background.

I don’t think any faction is really hated. Some are much more favored than others and some people take their favoritism into the extreme but that’s to be expected.

For the record I love Tau, they are basically if you took MS gundam and turned it into an army. That and they are (subjectively at least) the closest thing to good in the 40K universe since they are one of the only factions open to diplomacy. Yes they will probably kill you if you refuse but anything imperium would kill first and I don’t think tyranids could possibly contemplate diplomacy since they need to devour biomatter

I like Tau, too, more so than Eldar . For me they're the "generic intelligent Aliens" in 40K, so they certainly have their place next to "generic hive Aliens" and "generic robots" . It’s just that I've seen more people on dakka disliking Tau than other factions. Tau also get the most stupid memes that don't have anything to do with the faction, as Tau are neither fish nor communists...

I only ever see the “Hot Fuzz” memes

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
If anything I'd say that honor goes to Tau. I'm guessing Space Elves might be the third most popular faction in the game after SM and CSM so I don't think the "whole Community" hates them.
Eldar have overall been pretty lucky with their rules through the editions which makes some people not like them (see Karol on dakka as an example). But I haven't heard people not liking their background.

I don’t think any faction is really hated. Some are much more favored than others and some people take their favoritism into the extreme but that’s to be expected.

For the record I love Tau, they are basically if you took MS gundam and turned it into an army. That and they are (subjectively at least) the closest thing to good in the 40K universe since they are one of the only factions open to diplomacy. Yes they will probably kill you if you refuse but anything imperium would kill first and I don’t think tyranids could possibly contemplate diplomacy since they need to devour biomatter

I am not saying that any faction is good or not But it's very clear to me that the Imperium will fight Tau more than Asuryani because the Tau actively expands to the Imperium and there are a lot of territorial conflicts. Many of the conflicts between the Asuryani and Imperium could easily be avoided.

Eldar have gotten very favored treatment in terms of overpowered rules of some sort in each codex. The 7th edition codex in particular was a great example as even their most mediocre units were better than good units from other codices.

Then you'll have Eldar players that give their plight of "well we don't have model support!!!1!"
They do, just not from GW. You can find a plethora of 3rd party that does Space Elves and not break your bank.

There are plenty of players openly hostile to CWE in the community, to the point that it's put off new players.

bibotot wrote:
And I feel like the whole community hates this faction so much that they don't want to hear anything positive about them.

There's a lot of resentment from years (and really, years and years) of having blatantly broken Codices that all culminated with the Taudar days of 7th. But, really, it's just not fair to blame the Eldar for this, because I think we know who's at fault here.

That's right: The Tau!

Stinkin' blueberries!

its the internet... everybody hates everything.

Anti-elf racism is the only tolerable racism these days. Being racist against elves is a personality trait for many gamers. Basically, when you have a collection of, uh, not mainstream people (geeks and freaks) interacting, their elevated insecurities will demand an outlet. Elves are the perfect receptacle for angst arising from racism, homophobia and body shame.

The issue with the online world is there's a loss of communication, intent and/or understanding where things come from.

In-universe smack talk between factions is the single greatest joy I get from this hobby. Obviously I don't dislike anyone or actually hate a faction. And you make your intent clear and be mindful of the temperament of who your talking to. But pfft if that ever translates well online.

For example I went to a con several years ago and brought my mother because we were visiting NY together. I met a craftworld player while in line to see a movie star. I quickly called him a long series of not so nice things. My mother was appalled lol.

The eldar player actually said to my mom, "oh no no. She's right to name call. I deserve it." and we laughed and explained the horrible days when Eldar were on top. Great day for everyone.

But people online? They don't get the joke. They take it seriously. They see others joking and think the hate is real so they hate for real too. That or take a joke as hate by mistake or simply dont find the joke funny, which is okay too. I could never play some online version of 40k because of it, if it ever existed.

Part of it is the fact that for a large chunk of time, Eldar got rules with access to some very overpowered options in both the table top and in Dawn of War. People tend to hate on stuff that’s good when it isn’t from their supported side. The Eldar have just been consistently good across multiple editions and media sources.

Part of the problem is the outdate and stale lore of 40K. Unlike most fantasy, in 40K everyone is super racial fascist. In Fantasy, elves, dwarves and men often ally with each other, and while they might have disagreements, they're far less hostile.

The funny thing is, a lot of those anti elf bros online spank it every day to elf porn. I know this to be true because I know some of those anti eldar types IRL and I've seen their "collections" shared on various social sites. So at this point they're just self hating.

Lammia wrote:There are plenty of players openly hostile to CWE in the community, to the point that it's put off new players.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

bibotot wrote:
And I feel like the whole community hates this faction so much that they don't want to hear anything positive about them.

There's a lot of resentment from years (and really, years and years) of having blatantly broken Codices that all culminated with the Taudar days of 7th.

Bloviator wrote:Anti-elf racism is the only tolerable racism these days. Being racist against elves is a personality trait for many gamers. Basically, when you have a collection of, uh, not mainstream people (geeks and freaks) interacting, their elevated insecurities will demand an outlet. Elves are the perfect receptacle for angst arising from racism, homophobia and body shame.

And there it is folks, the root of the issue. A lot of people hate on the space elves because they have traditionally had one or two broken combos in their codex since..... basically forever, right up until 8th finally blew it away. Now we move onto the healing part where people stop yelling at the space elf players...eventually. Maybe. The number of outright nazis that play 40K is a bit counter to that cause healing needs to have a healthy dose of letting go of hate and - >several more minutes of rambling omitted for brevity<

usernamesareannoying wrote:its the internet... everybody hates everything.

.................Ok yeah that too tbh

I blame Vect...

But please don't tell him I said that.

No, no.

Vect isn't toxic; He's always shown as very polite. He's just literally poisoned you.

Close, but crucial difference.

 Bloviator wrote:
Anti-elf racism is the only tolerable racism these days. Being racist against elves is a personality trait for many gamers. Basically, when you have a collection of, uh, not mainstream people (geeks and freaks) interacting, their elevated insecurities will demand an outlet. Elves are the perfect receptacle for angst arising from racism, homophobia and body shame.

This post is weird... Perhaps homophobia can be disguised by elf racism... But racism and body shaming??

When elf (as usually represented) are the paradigmatic Aryan able bodies.


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 Togusa wrote:
Part of the problem is the outdate and stale lore of 40K. Unlike most fantasy, in 40K everyone is super racial fascist. In Fantasy, elves, dwarves and men often ally with each other, and while they might have disagreements, they're far less hostile.

The funny thing is, a lot of those anti elf bros online spank it every day to elf porn. I know this to be true because I know some of those anti eldar types IRL and I've seen their "collections" shared on various social sites. So at this point they're just self hating.

In Tolkiens work elves and men are mostly allies (I know its more complicated) against the orcquish threat... Its sort of an analogy of Northern and Soutern Europeans working together against "the East" (Mordor is the Balkans or Middle East).

 Bloviator wrote:
Anti-elf racism is the only tolerable racism these days. Being racist against elves is a personality trait for many gamers. Basically, when you have a collection of, uh, not mainstream people (geeks and freaks) interacting, their elevated insecurities will demand an outlet. Elves are the perfect receptacle for angst arising from racism, homophobia and body shame.

The hell... ? Elves aren't real.

 Togusa wrote:
... in 40K everyone is super racial fascist.

A hopelessly off-base reduction.

 CynosureEldar wrote:
The number of outright nazis that play 40K...

You mean a shockingly tiny group that virtually no one ever sees or encounters?

Methinks you've been spending too much time at Sigmarxism...

PenitentJake wrote:I blame Vect...

But please don't tell him I said that.

Oh he already knows. His spies are everywhere.

EviscerationPlague wrote:Eldar have gotten very favored treatment in terms of overpowered rules of some sort in each codex. The 7th edition codex in particular was a great example as even their most mediocre units were better than good units from other codices.

Then you'll have Eldar players that give their plight of "well we don't have model support!!!1!"
They do, just not from GW. You can find a plethora of 3rd party that does Space Elves and not break your bank.

I haven't heard anyone making the model support argument since the new codex came out. Our line is actually looking pretty good at this point. Still plenty of stuff I'd like to see updated, but I'm not actively annoyed about the state of our model range any more.

Speaking as someone who started 40k as an eldar player in the one edition that they were kind of meh (5th), there's definitely some anti-eldar hostility out there. Not like, serious hostility, but I think we end up having to listen to more than our fair share of whining and ribbing. We were the faction that had a million special rules before it was cool, so when things went well for us, people seemed to feel offended that our priced-like-marines-but-with-worse-stats army could perform well thanks to bespoke rules. Plus, when we've been OP, it tends to be in very frustrating ways (unkillable seer councils, scatbikes that delete a unit and then move out of line of sight, 8th edition Alaitoc flyer lists where most of the army was at -2 to being hit more often than not, etc.) So you take those frustrating outliers and combine them with many non-eldar players, frankly, not knowing enough about the faction to realize how much of the codex was actually pretty reasonable, and you end up with non-eldar players whinging about how OP eldar are even when they aren't. Or when you, personally, aren't fielding any of the OP options.

In 8th edition, I had a guy complain about how overpowered howling banshees were. For those not in the know, this betrays a lot about his grasp of eldar and 40k in general.

And tau are in a similar boat. When Tau are OP, they tend to be really OP and really unfun to play against. So combine that with people who don't enjoy tau fluff, and you get a bunch of whining and ribbing.

bibotot wrote:Not on DakkaDakka but Reddit, Fanfiction websites, and gaming forums. Whenever I suggest the Asuryani to not fight the Imperium only to be completely butchered - since they are supposed to be wise and careful and they can see the ass-kicking from a mile away - people keep deriding me and telling me to get lost.

It's really absurd. And I feel like the whole community hates this faction so much that they don't want to hear anything positive about them.

Regarding reactions to that fluff, I could see people interpreting what you're saying as "my army should always beat your army" style fanboying. So I can see where, with the wrong internet voice, people might take offense. It's kind of like when certain marine players claim that their chapter should win every fight because marines are just that tough and cool and their chapter is super double extra awesome.

To get into the fluff a bit deeper, the eldar are possessed of incredible divination skills, and they do frequently avoid butt kickings by virtue of those skills. The thing is, they might avoid 1,000 bad matchups, but the galaxy is so hostile that they'll still be forced into a risky situation and have to take fight 1,001. Maybe the predictions looked pretty good for your craftworld if they swooped in to save a maiden world from imperial colonization, but then something unexpected happened (possibly thanks to chaos influence) causing what should have been an easy win to turn into a terrible loss. Maybe the imperium has decided your craftworld is actively hostile enough to its interests that it warrants hunting down, and you end up with a fleet of ships gunning for your craftworld, spreading a wide search net so that you can't escape. (This kind of happens in the Path of the Warrior series.) Maybe the farseers were able to narrowly escape 199 years worth of threats only to find (as the skein becomes clearer) that they've left themselves in a bad position for year 200. Maybe those gosh darn humans dug up another Slaaneshi artefact, and now your only hope for preventing a Keeper of Secrets from being unleashed and destroying your craftworld is to engage in a direct assault on the governor's palace despite the large cost and small chance of success.

Basically, farseers are good, but they're not omniscient, and the galaxy is hostile enough to give craftworlds lots of opportunities to be threatened.

CWE had a lot of older models (and still do) they for sure need some finecast to plastic support.

I know this is about hate towards CWE, but DE gets hate as well, and they dont have new unit support at all... 1 of only 2 armies (GKs have only gotten 1 new unit). I wish DE would get a new unit....no new unit since 2010 and counting....

 Wyldhunt wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:I blame Vect...

But please don't tell him I said that.

Oh he already knows. His spies are everywhere.

EviscerationPlague wrote:Eldar have gotten very favored treatment in terms of overpowered rules of some sort in each codex. The 7th edition codex in particular was a great example as even their most mediocre units were better than good units from other codices.

Then you'll have Eldar players that give their plight of "well we don't have model support!!!1!"
They do, just not from GW. You can find a plethora of 3rd party that does Space Elves and not break your bank.

I haven't heard anyone making the model support argument since the new codex came out. Our line is actually looking pretty good at this point. Still plenty of stuff I'd like to see updated, but I'm not actively annoyed about the state of our model range any more.

Speaking as someone who started 40k as an eldar player in the one edition that they were kind of meh (5th)

Pure revisionism, as in 5th they were upper midtier at worst LOL

Amishprn86 wrote:
I know this is about hate towards CWE, but DE gets hate as well...

Do they? I never really got any DE hate until the 9th edition book dropped, and the hate seems to have died down now that the gap between drukhari and other factions has shrunk. In 5th through 8th, fielding drukhari usually made people go, "Wtf is a dark eldar?" or "Oh jeez. That's brave of you." Barring some coven gimmicks here and there.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Pure revisionism, as in 5th they were upper midtier at worst LOL

Admittedly, I wasn't exactly a tournament scene player back in 5th, but I'm pretty sure they were upper midtier IF you stuck with one of a handful of viable builds. So if you were building your army around one or two seer councils and DAVU tanks, you could win games, but a vanilla list had a lot working against it. Namely having squishy troops that weren't great against tanks in an edition where tanks were the meta and only troops could hold objectives. Plus, our good anti-tank tended to be some combination of short ranged and expensive, and our ranged anti-tank was almost universally BS 4+ with expensive S8 weapons (we didn't really have long-range S9 or higher) only penetrating a rhino/razorback's AV 50% of the time.

All of which is, I suppose, kind of beside the point. Eldar could've been the hands down best army in 5th edition, and it wouldn't change my stance that people tend to whine about them a lot even when it isn't warranted.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Amishprn86 wrote:
I know this is about hate towards CWE, but DE gets hate as well...

Do they? I never really got any DE hate until the 9th edition book dropped, and the hate seems to have died down now that the gap between drukhari and other factions has shrunk. In 5th through 8th, fielding drukhari usually made people go, "Wtf is a dark eldar?" or "Oh jeez. That's brave of you." Barring some coven gimmicks here and there.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Pure revisionism, as in 5th they were upper midtier at worst LOL

Admittedly, I wasn't exactly a tournament scene player back in 5th, but I'm pretty sure they were upper midtier IF you stuck with one of a handful of viable builds. So if you were building your army around one or two seer councils and DAVU tanks, you could win games, but a vanilla list had a lot working against it. Namely having squishy troops that weren't great against tanks in an edition where tanks were the meta and only troops could hold objectives. Plus, our good anti-tank tended to be some combination of short ranged and expensive, and our ranged anti-tank was almost universally BS 4+ with expensive S8 weapons (we didn't really have long-range S9 or higher) only penetrating a rhino/razorback's AV 50% of the time.

All of which is, I suppose, kind of beside the point. Eldar could've been the hands down best army in 5th edition, and it wouldn't change my stance that people tend to whine about them a lot even when it isn't warranted.

Yep, it comes and goes, as soon as DE starts to win they should be nerfed instantly, 3rd? nerf, early ish 5th? nerf, 7th with 1 playable build? nerf. 9th with 1 stupid unit and 2 under costed units? nerf. WIth a smaller populations most dont notice it, but us players do.

PS 5th had some nasty combos

Switching from the fluffy beauty of the 5th edition dark eldar codex to the painfully spartan 7th edition codex was rough... I still miss pain tokens. (Even though they were a mess.)

rejecting the suggestion that the eldar and the IoM be best buddies and never fight isn't toxic,

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Switching from the fluffy beauty of the 5th edition dark eldar codex to the painfully spartan 7th edition codex was rough... I still miss pain tokens. (Even though they were a mess.)

Yeah, 7th killed it for me until CTC/DA formations came out, then it was fun again, sadly you could easily with with CTC and players hated it, getting 2-3 Killed units from Talos instantly getting you VPs lol. But I had Corsairs, so much more fun (and honestly very balanced if you didn't spam Warp Hunters or the formation)

"Asuryani"

Who?

Where did this new made up word come from?

 Bloviator wrote:
Anti-elf racism is the only tolerable racism these days. Being racist against elves is a personality trait for many gamers. Basically, when you have a collection of, uh, not mainstream people (geeks and freaks) interacting, their elevated insecurities will demand an outlet. Elves are the perfect receptacle for angst arising from racism, homophobia and body shame.

Oh OK the Eldar, yeah, them.

Elves, from Tolkein on down, are basically the 'better than you' faction. Smarter, wiser, magical, faster, more agile, more empathic, better looking with better hair.

Yeah Marines are super soldiers and their stat line is literally Humans+1. But they were made by human and they're a linear progression. Plus their big, ugly and bald.

Elves are are just Mary Sues with extra Mary Sue on top. So yeah, there's a lot to dislike about their core concept that Commie Fishmen and Space Mummies from Before Time don't really have.

Everyone hates elves, tau, and custodes. Just one of the downsides of playing one of the superior factions. Don't worry about it. You'll get used to the hate. You may even grow to love it

bibotot wrote:
Not on DakkaDakka but Reddit, Fanfiction websites, and gaming forums. Whenever I suggest the Asuryani to not fight the Imperium only to be completely butchered - since they are supposed to be wise and careful and they can see the ass-kicking from a mile away - people keep deriding me and telling me to get lost.

It's really absurd. And I feel like the whole community hates this faction so much that they don't want to hear anything positive about them.

Sorry, so you suggest that Eldar shouldn't fight the Imperium and then get told to be quiet for that? I think we're missing something here because that doesn't make a lot of sense to me and isn't necessarily Eldar hate, it might just be "missing the point" that none of the races in 40k can stop fighting one another.

That said, yeah I think there is hate for the Eldar for the reasons stated above by many others.

 Bloviator wrote:
Anti-elf racism is the only tolerable racism these days. Being racist against elves is a personality trait for many gamers. Basically, when you have a collection of, uh, not mainstream people (geeks and freaks) interacting, their elevated insecurities will demand an outlet. Elves are the perfect receptacle for angst arising from racism, homophobia and body shame.

I know my personal anti-elf/eldar distaste comes from them being basically Humans +1. It's not helped by the Eldar races being portrayed as hoity-toity and above all the other races (sure, the Imperium does too but they usually back it up with action by actually eradicating their enemies instead of being like "ugh, can you believe that mon keigh dared to taint our sacred grounds with their filthy boots?")

BrianDavion wrote:rejecting the suggestion that the eldar and the IoM be best buddies and never fight isn't toxic,

Andilus Greatsword wrote:

bibotot wrote:
Not on DakkaDakka but Reddit, Fanfiction websites, and gaming forums. Whenever I suggest the Asuryani to not fight the Imperium only to be completely butchered - since they are supposed to be wise and careful and they can see the ass-kicking from a mile away - people keep deriding me and telling me to get lost.

It's really absurd. And I feel like the whole community hates this faction so much that they don't want to hear anything positive about them.

Sorry, so you suggest that Eldar shouldn't fight the Imperium and then get told to be quiet for that? I think we're missing something here because that doesn't make a lot of sense to me and isn't necessarily Eldar hate, it might just be "missing the point" that none of the races in 40k can stop fighting one another.

I think you two may have misinterpreted what the OP is saying. I thought they were arguing for eldar/imperial best buddies too until I re-read. My understanding is that what they're specifically arguing against is eldar throwing themselves into a fight against the imperium and then suffering a massive defeat as a result. As in, if the fight were going to go that badly, you'd think the army lead by future seers would realize it in advance and have the tools to avoid such a massive loss.

I spelled out some reasons why such major losses can happen despite the efforts of farseers on the previous page.


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 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 Bloviator wrote:
Anti-elf racism is the only tolerable racism these days. Being racist against elves is a personality trait for many gamers. Basically, when you have a collection of, uh, not mainstream people (geeks and freaks) interacting, their elevated insecurities will demand an outlet. Elves are the perfect receptacle for angst arising from racism, homophobia and body shame.

I know my personal anti-elf/eldar distaste comes from them being basically Humans +1. It's not helped by the Eldar races being portrayed as hoity-toity and above all the other races (sure, the Imperium does too but they usually back it up with action by actually eradicating their enemies instead of being like "ugh, can you believe that mon keigh dared to taint our sacred grounds with their filthy boots?")

I mean, eldar succeed in their objectives pretty frequently in the fluff including removing human presences from maiden worlds entirely. Isn't that about as much success as the imperium ever has at "eradicating their enemies"? And I can think of a few sisters and ecclesiarchs who are happy to complain about enemies with dirty boots profaning their sacred grounds. And both humans and eldar tend to ramble on about how superior their decaying societies are compared to others'.

So I guess I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Unless you're just pointing out that eldar are more likely to fail at their goals because they don't have imperial plot armor.

In regards to the elf racism thing, it's just a meme to hate elves. It's funny, because they think they're better than you. That's probably why people like writing when they lose. You're beating down on a snob that insults and berates you, calling you a monkey, and thus berating your intelligence. It's not hard to see why people might write Eldar in losing situations, as we are human.

Eldar hating become something of a trope, as the players were portrayed as never being satisfied with anything offered.

As with many tropes, there is a grain of truth to it, but it has become exaggerated over time.

For instance? Yes they’ve near always been able to field a list widely seen as unfair. But, a deeper look usually shows the rest of their codex options to be somewhat lacking. Hence at organised events, you typically only saw The Good List, leading to the perception all Eldar players are therefore power gamers. Kind of a vicious circle of poorly informed folks.

Background wise some of it is folks misunderstanding the limits of Seers. They don’t see a future. They see many. And whilst they can nudge and guide and interfere, it’s an imprecise science, and more than once the interference has lead to disaster for the Eldar.

And much of the interference isn’t so much ending a threat, just ensuring it ends up bothering someone else, because the Eldar are every bit as arrogant and xenophobic as the Imperium. If not more so, as any time they seek an alliance? They’re more likely to walk away with the upper hand.

I have a distaste for elves of all flavour. That comes from years of min/maxers destroying AD&D campaigns with jank High elf or Dark elf builds (esp. the Dark elves..."I use the inate Darkness 30', then use the tumbling skill to get behind the target, and my character's Blindfighting skill negates the penalties from being blinded, and since the character is using bucklers and daggers, plus his 19 Dex, means he's 0 AC and has three attacks, with the first one being a Backstab.) it ruined the idea of them.

I have stayed far away and have tried Orcs, Orgres, kobolds, and Gnomes because elves and dwarves are the most common races, even above human. Rarely they are picked for the roleplaying experience, but for the bonuses that come from being that race. ...+1 to hit with longswords and bows before profiencenies or stat bonuses.


I would get some eldar.models, so I could do last.stands, or any other situation where they get wiped out to the last man. Maybe the last Craftworld's last stand? I love them that much. Forever being killed by Orcs or humans or robots or whatevers. You know, just typing it gets me thinking of how great.that is. hmmm...maybe I should do Slannash Demon army...huh, what was I saying? Ah yes, Elves, don't like 'em.

TheBestBucketHead wrote:In regards to the elf racism thing, it's just a meme to hate elves. It's funny, because they think they're better than you. That's probably why people like writing when they lose. You're beating down on a snob that insults and berates you, calling you a monkey, and thus berating your intelligence. It's not hard to see why people might write Eldar in losing situations, as we are human.

See, that's the good kind of space elf hate. One of the things I love about my drukhari is that they're moustache twirlers you love to hate. When my opponent throttles them, I can enjoy their defeat on some level too.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Eldar hating become something of a trope, as the players were portrayed as never being satisfied with anything offered.

As with many tropes, there is a grain of truth to it, but it has become exaggerated over time.

For instance? Yes they’ve near always been able to field a list widely seen as unfair. But, a deeper look usually shows the rest of their codex options to be somewhat lacking. Hence at organised events, you typically only saw The Good List, leading to the perception all Eldar players are therefore power gamers. Kind of a vicious circle of poorly informed folks.

Background wise some of it is folks misunderstanding the limits of Seers. They don’t see a future. They see many. And whilst they can nudge and guide and interfere, it’s an imprecise science, and more than once the interference has lead to disaster for the Eldar.

Yep. This is very much a thing. And then when we suggested it would be nice if the underpowered things were more viable so that we could play a wider variety of not-OP armies, people sometimes chose to interpret it as us wanting even more power to go with our OP monobuild. Like, no dude. I too dislike that the flavor of the month is discouraging list diversity. If it were up to me, I too would nerf the OP thing and then give some love to the UP things. (Unrelated: the current codex actually has pretty good internal balance overall. Hail of Doom was a thing, but I don't feel like there are any bad datasheets any more.)

steelhead177th wrote:I have a distaste for elves of all flavour. That comes from years of min/maxers destroying AD&D campaigns with jank High elf or Dark elf builds (esp. the Dark elves..."I use the inate Darkness 30', then use the tumbling skill to get behind the target, and my character's Blindfighting skill negates the penalties from being blinded, and since the character is using bucklers and daggers, plus his 19 Dex, means he's 0 AC and has three attacks, with the first one being a Backstab.) it ruined the idea of them.

To be fair, if you're naturally graceful/athletic and can turn off the lights on command, it's pretty intuitive to get good at fighting in the dark and to take equipment that makes you even harder to hit.

Rarely they are picked for the roleplaying experience, but for the bonuses that come from being that race...

Speaking from experience with DND 3rd-5th and Pathfinder, I found that people who played elves usually did so for the aesthetics.

I would get some eldar.models, so I could do last.stands, or any other situation where they get wiped out to the last man. Maybe the last Craftworld's last stand? I love them that much. Forever being killed by Orcs or humans or robots or whatevers. You know, just typing it gets me thinking of how great.that is. hmmm...maybe I should do Slannash Demon army...huh, what was I saying? Ah yes, Elves, don't like 'em.

I know you're kidding, but may I suggest a Rhana Dandra themed army with a bunch of phoenix lords? Or maybe a dire avenger spam army (might have to ignore the rule of 3) representing that story about 300 avengers holding off a Slaaneshi horde while their friends escape? Or even a Ynnari army so that you can actively get your own guys killed for fun and profit?

On the AD&D thing, I suspect that’s more a failure of the DM more than anything.

TTRPG can be hard to get right, as you kind of need your group to all be on roughly the same wavelength.

Whilst there’s nothing inherently wrong with pouring over every book you can to find obscure combos, if everyone else is playing a more casual affair? You’re the odd duck and May wish to consider whether it’s the right group for you.

A DM/GM will always need to bend like a reed in the wind before their player’s preference. But even that can only go so far before folk just need to accept it’s not meant to be and abandon.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On the AD&D thing, I suspect that’s more a failure of the DM more than anything.

TTRPG can be hard to get right, as you kind of need your group to all be on roughly the same wavelength.

Whilst there’s nothing inherently wrong with pouring over every book you can to find obscure combos, if everyone else is playing a more casual affair? You’re the odd duck and May wish to consider whether it’s the right group for you.

A DM/GM will always need to bend like a reed in the wind before their player’s preference. But even that can only go so far before folk just need to accept it’s not meant to be and abandon.

We're getting well and truly off-topic, but I'd add that min maxers and less optimization-focused players can coexist in the same D&D party as long as one form of fun doesn't prevent another. Maybe one guy has a hyper-optimized character that can solo combat encounters the rest of the party combined would struggle with. Fair enough. Maybe try to arrange combat encounters where there's a notably stronger miniboss among the enemy that the optimizer can deal with while the rest of the party handles its minions. I recall one PF game where our soul knife casually fell into a build that could one-shot most of the bosses, but he wasn't terribly good at anything other than doing damage. So the DM started creating encounters where the bosses could fly or or started in hard-to-reach places. Consequently, it ended up being easier for those with ranged and movement abilities to handle the bosses while the soulknife became our go-to for keeping the minions at bay.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
In regards to the elf racism thing, it's just a meme to hate elves. It's funny, because they think they're better than you. That's probably why people like writing when they lose. You're beating down on a snob that insults and berates you, calling you a monkey, and thus berating your intelligence. It's not hard to see why people might write Eldar in losing situations, as we are human.

I wouldn't say meme, as its older than that. The AD&D 2nd edition Complete Book of Elves started the book by outright stating elves are innately superior to every other race (and it went way downhill from there. Way, way down hill by the time you reach the Grey Elves and their happily accepted 'indentured servitude' of other, lesser 'sub-races' of elves who eagerly accept their roles). Its known now as the 'Master Race Handbook'

When the Torment Numenera kickstarter happened (for the computer game) and it was revealed that the author of the former was on the writing team, one of the kickstarter goals was that he'd apologize for writing the book. (he did not). Elf hate gets more than justified.

I remember reading dragon magazine back in the 80s, and the advertising tagline for Talislanta setting was simply 'No elves.' (their current tagline is 'Still no elves')

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

bibotot wrote:
Not on DakkaDakka but Reddit, Fanfiction websites, and gaming forums. Whenever I suggest the Asuryani to not fight the Imperium only to be completely butchered - since they are supposed to be wise and careful and they can see the ass-kicking from a mile away - people keep deriding me and telling me to get lost.

It's really absurd. And I feel like the whole community hates this faction so much that they don't want to hear anything positive about them.

Sorry, so you suggest that Eldar shouldn't fight the Imperium and then get told to be quiet for that? I think we're missing something here because that doesn't make a lot of sense to me and isn't necessarily Eldar hate, it might just be "missing the point" that none of the races in 40k can stop fighting one another.

I have a very strong distaste for people arguing one race shouldn't be fighting each other because of their nature. Like how Tyranids shouldn't fight Necrons because they couldn't eat them, ignoring the fact the Necrons' planets have soil for biomass harvest.

This is not what I mean. The Asuryani are pragmatic and shouldn't be picking fights that would:

+ Lose horribly.

+ Invite retaliation somewhere down the future.

They could inadvertently cause another bad thing to happen instead because fate is fickle. But the direct outcome of the engagement should not be something the Asuryani be regretful about.

For example, in the Garden of Ghosts animation, I cannot comprehend how both the Asuyrani and the Space Marines have been reduced to stupid pathetic horde-lovers. No tactics, no reason for anything, just running into each other's weapons and getting killed in droves.

Its 40k both in lore and in the tabletop actual "tactics" are an abomination... After all its a power fantasy, its like asking for emotions in online porn, you are completelly missing the point!!!

bibotot wrote:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

bibotot wrote:
Not on DakkaDakka but Reddit, Fanfiction websites, and gaming forums. Whenever I suggest the Asuryani to not fight the Imperium only to be completely butchered - since they are supposed to be wise and careful and they can see the ass-kicking from a mile away - people keep deriding me and telling me to get lost.

It's really absurd. And I feel like the whole community hates this faction so much that they don't want to hear anything positive about them.

Sorry, so you suggest that Eldar shouldn't fight the Imperium and then get told to be quiet for that? I think we're missing something here because that doesn't make a lot of sense to me and isn't necessarily Eldar hate, it might just be "missing the point" that none of the races in 40k can stop fighting one another.

I have a very strong distaste for people arguing one race shouldn't be fighting each other because of their nature. Like how Tyranids shouldn't fight Necrons because they couldn't eat them, ignoring the fact the Necrons' planets have soil for biomass harvest.

This is not what I mean. The Asuryani are pragmatic and shouldn't be picking fights that would:

+ Lose horribly.

+ Invite retaliation somewhere down the future.

They could inadvertently cause another bad thing to happen instead because fate is fickle. But the direct outcome of the engagement should not be something the Asuryani be regretful about.

For example, in the Garden of Ghosts animation, I cannot comprehend how both the Asuyrani and the Space Marines have been reduced to stupid pathetic horde-lovers. No tactics, no reason for anything, just running into each other's weapons and getting killed in droves.

It's almost like 40k is some kind of bombastic over the top setting where the power and scale levels are cranked up to 11 and futuristic elf people people run towards World war 1 style tanks and artillary lines with swords despite having far more advanced ranged weapons and not a hard scifi setting where people are logical and rational and do things that make sense.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bloviator wrote:
Anti-elf racism is the only tolerable racism these days. Being racist against elves is a personality trait for many gamers. Basically, when you have a collection of, uh, not mainstream people (geeks and freaks) interacting, their elevated insecurities will demand an outlet. Elves are the perfect receptacle for angst arising from racism, homophobia and body shame.

The hell... ? Elves aren't real.

 Togusa wrote:
... in 40K everyone is super racial fascist.

A hopelessly off-base reduction.

 CynosureEldar wrote:
The number of outright nazis that play 40K...

You mean a shockingly tiny group that virtually no one ever sees or encounters?

Methinks you've been spending too much time at Sigmarxism...

Just to be clear I'm talking about the in game lore, not the players. Maybe it's getting better? But for a while it was getting worse. Remember the T'au Castration Camps?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sim-Life wrote:

bibotot wrote:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

bibotot wrote:
Not on DakkaDakka but Reddit, Fanfiction websites, and gaming forums. Whenever I suggest the Asuryani to not fight the Imperium only to be completely butchered - since they are supposed to be wise and careful and they can see the ass-kicking from a mile away - people keep deriding me and telling me to get lost.

It's really absurd. And I feel like the whole community hates this faction so much that they don't want to hear anything positive about them.

Sorry, so you suggest that Eldar shouldn't fight the Imperium and then get told to be quiet for that? I think we're missing something here because that doesn't make a lot of sense to me and isn't necessarily Eldar hate, it might just be "missing the point" that none of the races in 40k can stop fighting one another.

I have a very strong distaste for people arguing one race shouldn't be fighting each other because of their nature. Like how Tyranids shouldn't fight Necrons because they couldn't eat them, ignoring the fact the Necrons' planets have soil for biomass harvest.

This is not what I mean. The Asuryani are pragmatic and shouldn't be picking fights that would:

+ Lose horribly.

+ Invite retaliation somewhere down the future.

They could inadvertently cause another bad thing to happen instead because fate is fickle. But the direct outcome of the engagement should not be something the Asuryani be regretful about.

For example, in the Garden of Ghosts animation, I cannot comprehend how both the Asuyrani and the Space Marines have been reduced to stupid pathetic horde-lovers. No tactics, no reason for anything, just running into each other's weapons and getting killed in droves.

It's almost like 40k is some kind of bombastic over the top setting where the power and scale levels are cranked up to 11 and futuristic elf people people run towards World war 1 style tanks and artillary lines with swords despite having far more advanced ranged weapons and not a hard scifi setting where people are logical and rational and do things that make sense.

Honestly, 40K is just British Anime, complete with the over the top swordsmanship and crazy powers.

I do think some portion of the hate comes from the fact that a good, well played Eldar force has the capacity to butcher Marines, and that the Eldar themselves can seem a little . . . fey.

That's probably a minority, but I'm sure I've encountered that.

I wasn't joking about getting space elf models to play out last stands. But my distaste for elves doesn't extend to the players of elves. I would pitty the person that can't seperate themselves from the models or game.

steelhead177th wrote:
I wasn't joking about getting space elf models to play out last stands. But my distaste for elves doesn't extend to the players of elves. I would pitty the person that can't seperate themselves from the models or game.

How lucky are your opponents that your hatred for their chosen army dosent extent to their own personae.

In "gangland" Poland and "ganland" USA people arent that lucky... Every die roll means their lives are on the line, it must be thrilling.

It is not a question of every day, but if games after game after game, for multiple editions you get farmed by eldar, I could imagine some people could be unhappy about it. I played only 2 editions. 8th and 9th. And both tought me , among other things, that each new eldar codex means less fun for people, specialy those who play marines.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

"Asuryani"

Who?

Where did this new made up word come from?

 Bloviator wrote:
Anti-elf racism is the only tolerable racism these days. Being racist against elves is a personality trait for many gamers. Basically, when you have a collection of, uh, not mainstream people (geeks and freaks) interacting, their elevated insecurities will demand an outlet. Elves are the perfect receptacle for angst arising from racism, homophobia and body shame.

Oh OK the Eldar, yeah, them.

Elves, from Tolkein on down, are basically the 'better than you' faction. Smarter, wiser, magical, faster, more agile, more empathic, better looking with better hair.

Yeah Marines are super soldiers and their stat line is literally Humans+1. But they were made by human and they're a linear progression. Plus their big, ugly and bald.

Elves are are just Mary Sues with extra Mary Sue on top. So yeah, there's a lot to dislike about their core concept that Commie Fishmen and Space Mummies from Before Time don't really have.

Don't forget they need to be a dying or isolated race, because elves have to be better at failing too.

A dying race whose sorrow is 10,000 times that meager feeling you humans mistake for sadness!

Yet whose inevitable decline has absolutely no effect on the game except that sometimes they have work a little to defeat you mere mortals.

They're not just Better Than You (tm), they're also complete drama queens about it.

Well in my own experience my dislike for all things pointy eared started back as far as D&D and other fantasy settings (80's timeframe) where the smugness filled the air.

I remember a big uptick in elf hate, in most of my circles and online, when the Jackson lotr movies popped out.

Only 2 specific elves I like, which shows good taste as both Ashram and Parn share in sharing exquisite judgment of character.

All was thought hopeless until...

Suddenly the skies burned and the earth crashed.

Somehow Hellraiser and Pirates of Dark Water had a baby...IIIIINNNN SPAAAAACE!

So they're an exception.

But Eldar are still terrible. Except Striking Scorpions.

On a slightly more serious note I'd say the general dislike for elves does generally come from the Legolas syndrome (not the first to portray the archetype smug and beautiful elf but one that really broke mainstream).

Typically they tend to be better for the sake of being better in a lot of material and that usually garners a lot of dislike.

Kind of like Superman.

Except he isn't an elf.

Or...is he? hmmm...

The other more global reason would be Eldar (as well as their fantasy brethren) have always held up really well in their respective settings on the tabletop where other armies have had struggles. I can say ASF and botwd left a terrible taste for most.

So ya balance of a faction where they are highly skilled and equipped with deadly weapons was always rough recipe.

But never had a problem with say the elves in Wizard but it really does seem that most types of elf across most spectrums are the highly skilled, beautiful, perfect and smug gets used in a multitude of media.

"Typically they tend to be better for the sake of being better in a lot of material. . ."

That also describes Space Marines.

cavebear56 wrote:
Typically they tend to be better for the sake of being better in a lot of material and that usually garners a lot of dislike.

Kind of like Superman.

I think the fact that people like Space Marines shows that there's more to it than just resenting 'everything you can do I can do better' factions.

Maybe it's because Marines are written to be self-inserts while Eldar/elves are distinctly 'other'. Superhuman protagonists tend to be written as a vessel for a relatable fantasy (eg Marines are pretty much power fantasy through and through), but Eldar/elves are often written as just weird and inhuman enough to be hard to relate to.

I also suspect some of it is gamers identifying more positively with hypermasculine than androgynous character coding. Maybe less so now than it used to be, but I remember a lot of homophobic comments about LotR's elves in the early-00s.

My understanding about Eldar Farseers was always that they more saw possible futures, and attempted to steer the outcomes into the best possible one, more so than just "seeing the future". And sometimes they get it wrong, and it backfires, big time. The obvious example being in the novel Void Stalker, where their actions actually bring about the events that they were trying to prevent.


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 Insectum7 wrote:
"Typically they tend to be better for the sake of being better in a lot of material. . ."

That also describes Space Marines.

And there's plenty of dislike for space marines, possibly for similar reasons.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
My understanding about Eldar Farseers was always that they more saw possible futures, and attempted to steer the outcomes into the best possible one, more so than just "seeing the future". And sometimes they get it wrong, and it backfires, big time. The obvious example being in the novel Void Stalker, where their actions actually bring about the events that they were trying to prevent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
"Typically they tend to be better for the sake of being better in a lot of material. . ."

That also describes Space Marines.

And there's plenty of dislike for space marines, possibly for similar reasons.

I dislike Space Marines only bc they get literally armies of new releases all the time and DE has not had a new unit in 12yrs and had units taken away. But we got 5 units converted from finecast to plastic 2 of wych are worst than the finecast sculpts, so I guess thats good enough according to GW.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
My understanding about Eldar Farseers was always that they more saw possible futures, and attempted to steer the outcomes into the best possible one, more so than just "seeing the future". And sometimes they get it wrong, and it backfires, big time. The obvious example being in the novel Void Stalker, where their actions actually bring about the events that they were trying to prevent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
"Typically they tend to be better for the sake of being better in a lot of material. . ."

That also describes Space Marines.

And there's plenty of dislike for space marines, possibly for similar reasons.

I dislike Space Marines only bc they get literally armies of new releases all the time and DE has not had a new unit in 12yrs and had units taken away. But we got 5 units converted from finecast to plastic 2 of wych are worst than the finecast sculpts, so I guess thats good enough according to GW.

That's a pretty good reason, IMO.

Man, people disliking Elves because they are Mary Sues from "Tolkien on down" really miss the whole point...

...Which is that physical beauty, magical prowess, inhuman reflexes, preterhuman strength, and great hair do nothing to prevent the inevitable decline of their race, while frumpy men with bad breath and greasy hair will succeed, because their soul is noble.

The hroar and feär of an elf are tied inextricably to the world, and thusly they appear perfect within it. But the souls of men are free, even from the world itself. Whence comes death, then - as Illuvatar's gift, an unshackling from the pains and sufferings of the world, a freedom the Elves, for all their worldly perfection, will never enjoy.

(Except for those who fall in love with men or choose to be men, in the case of half-elves lol)

 catbarf wrote:

cavebear56 wrote:
Typically they tend to be better for the sake of being better in a lot of material and that usually garners a lot of dislike.

Kind of like Superman.

I think the fact that people like Space Marines shows that there's more to it than just resenting 'everything you can do I can do better' factions.

Maybe it's because Marines are written to be self-inserts while Eldar/elves are distinctly 'other'. Superhuman protagonists tend to be written as a vessel for a relatable fantasy (eg Marines are pretty much power fantasy through and through), but Eldar/elves are often written as just weird and inhuman enough to be hard to relate to.

I also suspect some of it is gamers identifying more positively with hypermasculine than androgynous character coding. Maybe less so now than it used to be, but I remember a lot of homophobic comments about LotR's elves in the early-00s.

Elves can be just as much inserts and power fantasy, just of a different sort. They aren't the chunky beefcake hypermasculine stereotype but there is more to "relatable fantasy" than just that one niche stereotype. Protagonists don't have to be the biggest buffest one around, and Eldar/elves are more like the kinds of characters seen in wuxia fantasy where agility, grace, and skill are valued and prevail over brute strength. Eldar are space ninjas and there are games where the protagonist is far more like that than Superman. Players don't seem to have any problem identifying with them.

Iracundus wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

cavebear56 wrote:
Typically they tend to be better for the sake of being better in a lot of material and that usually garners a lot of dislike.

Kind of like Superman.

I think the fact that people like Space Marines shows that there's more to it than just resenting 'everything you can do I can do better' factions.

Maybe it's because Marines are written to be self-inserts while Eldar/elves are distinctly 'other'. Superhuman protagonists tend to be written as a vessel for a relatable fantasy (eg Marines are pretty much power fantasy through and through), but Eldar/elves are often written as just weird and inhuman enough to be hard to relate to.

I also suspect some of it is gamers identifying more positively with hypermasculine than androgynous character coding. Maybe less so now than it used to be, but I remember a lot of homophobic comments about LotR's elves in the early-00s.

Elves can be just as much inserts and power fantasy, just of a different sort. They aren't the chunky beefcake hypermasculine stereotype but there is more to "relatable fantasy" than just that one niche stereotype. Protagonists don't have to be the biggest buffest one around, and Eldar/elves are more like the kinds of characters seen in wuxia fantasy where agility, grace, and skill are valued and prevail over brute strength. Eldar are space ninjas and there are games where the protagonist is far more like that than Superman. Players don't seem to have any problem identifying with them.

100%. Ain't there some terrible fiction series with an author self insert as an elf dual wielding katanas?

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

cavebear56 wrote:
Typically they tend to be better for the sake of being better in a lot of material and that usually garners a lot of dislike.

Kind of like Superman.

I think the fact that people like Space Marines shows that there's more to it than just resenting 'everything you can do I can do better' factions.

Maybe it's because Marines are written to be self-inserts while Eldar/elves are distinctly 'other'. Superhuman protagonists tend to be written as a vessel for a relatable fantasy (eg Marines are pretty much power fantasy through and through), but Eldar/elves are often written as just weird and inhuman enough to be hard to relate to.

I also suspect some of it is gamers identifying more positively with hypermasculine than androgynous character coding. Maybe less so now than it used to be, but I remember a lot of homophobic comments about LotR's elves in the early-00s.

Elves can be just as much inserts and power fantasy, just of a different sort. They aren't the chunky beefcake hypermasculine stereotype but there is more to "relatable fantasy" than just that one niche stereotype. Protagonists don't have to be the biggest buffest one around, and Eldar/elves are more like the kinds of characters seen in wuxia fantasy where agility, grace, and skill are valued and prevail over brute strength. Eldar are space ninjas and there are games where the protagonist is far more like that than Superman. Players don't seem to have any problem identifying with them.

100%. Ain't there some terrible fiction series with an author self insert as an elf dual wielding katanas?

Ah yes, Jarlaxle. Every Fighter for a solid ten years afterwards was a dual-wielding dark elf with a fancy hat for a companion. Truly dark times.

On the 'elf' lore, Privateer press's elves - their retribution of scyrah faction (bring replaced y Dusk house kalyss which is an interesting lore directory tion but o/t) was in my opinion one of the best realisations of the 'elf' concept in a long long time.

Fascinating lore. Privateer Press at their peak (start of mk2) The best part? Humans came first. The elven gods saw the human god getting stronger because of 'worship' and they wanted in. They tried to make a +1 race which admittedly lives a century or two longer but in a lot of ways is still quite flawed. And it went downhill from there (too closely linked to their gods). There are so many other clever takes on the concept.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Man, people disliking Elves because they are Mary Sues from "Tolkien on down" really miss the whole point...

...Which is that physical beauty, magical prowess, inhuman reflexes, preterhuman strength, and great hair do nothing to prevent the inevitable decline of their race, while frumpy men with bad breath and greasy hair will succeed, because their soul is noble.

The hroar and feär of an elf are tied inextricably to the world, and thusly they appear perfect within it. But the souls of men are free, even from the world itself. Whence comes death, then - as Illuvatar's gift, an unshackling from the pains and sufferings of the world, a freedom the Elves, for all their worldly perfection, will never enjoy.

(Except for those who fall in love with men or choose to be men, in the case of half-elves lol)

This is a great answer and I just need to clarify something. I didn't hate the elves in LotR because they were supporting players there to nudge the Humans and Hobbits along the way.

If they'd defeated every foe, and the books ended with Legolas becoming High King of Gondor and Rohan and destroying the One Ring, then it would be a different story.

If anything my only complaint is how useless they were. You say you have 2 or 3 kingdoms full of super magical warriors and you're sending one dude to help out?

But once D&D and its legions of imitators made elves a playable faction things got upended. An Elf character was vastly better than any other choice in the game, with abilities that ranged from the super useful (bonuses with swords and bows), to the niche (a dozen or more languages to start with, live for 1000 years, no need to sleep), to the petty (bonus comeliness score!). In a novel where the author controls the horizontal and vertical they can work well, but in a game that needs balance among choices they're just trouble.

If someone wants to make a wargame where an Elf/Space Elf army consists of a dozen sword saints and where losing even one makes for a pyrrhic victory, then that's an way to do it. Otherwise...

 Togusa wrote:
Just to be clear I'm talking about the in game lore, not the players. Maybe it's getting better? But for a while it was getting worse. Remember the T'au Castration Camps?

Oh I knew what you were saying, and I stand by what I said: That's a massive reduction of what 40k is. Simply labelling everything "fascist" misses any level of nuance or even variation within the different societies (and atrocities) of the 40k universe.

My gut feeling is that there are a number of factors. I'm speaking as someone that loves Elves and Eldar in whatever game I play.

Firstly, CWE have had some obnoxiously powerful codexes that really seem to have stuck in folks' minds. The question is why it made such an impression. I remember BA rhino rush being a thing but I don't recall that drawing quite so much venom from the 'community'. It was seen as more a fault of the game system - it was just the BA were really good at that gimmick.

Powerful CWE impacted a lot of players because a majority of folks play Marines who did seem to be adversely affected by Starcannon Spam, scat bikes, etc

There are too many damn elves. As I said, I love elves but even in D&D back in 2nd edition there were just so many different types of the fellas. World of Warcraft currently has one sixth of it's playable races being elves of some variety.

In AoS we have fish aelves, murder aelves, high aelves...and folks clamouring for at least another couple of types of aelf.

Even as an elfophile I get kinda sick of there being just so damned many of them.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
My understanding about Eldar Farseers was always that they more saw possible futures, and attempted to steer the outcomes into the best possible one, more so than just "seeing the future". And sometimes they get it wrong, and it backfires, big time. The obvious example being in the novel Void Stalker, where their actions actually bring about the events that they were trying to prevent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
"Typically they tend to be better for the sake of being better in a lot of material. . ."

That also describes Space Marines.

And there's plenty of dislike for space marines, possibly for similar reasons.

I dislike Space Marines only bc they get literally armies of new releases all the time and DE has not had a new unit in 12yrs and had units taken away. But we got 5 units converted from finecast to plastic 2 of wych are worst than the finecast sculpts, so I guess thats good enough according to GW.

That's a pretty good reason, IMO.

LOL I just notice I said "Wych" instead of "which" shows how often I type that out lawl.

 Souleater wrote:
My gut feeling is that there are a number of factors. I'm speaking as someone that loves Elves and Eldar in whatever game I play.

Firstly, CWE have had some obnoxiously powerful codexes that really seem to have stuck in folks' minds. The question is why it made such an impression. I remember BA rhino rush being a thing but I don't recall that drawing quite so much venom from the 'community'. It was seen as more a fault of the game system - it was just the BA were really good at that gimmick.

Was there ever a time, when a new eldar codex wasn't "obnoxiously powerful". I have only the expiriance of 8th, where eldar till Castellans were one of the factors that was making whole armies unplayable, and 9th ed which results we see right now. The rest I only know from stories, but even if they are half true eg. it is not one falcons taking shoting from entire army without a scratch, but two falcons, it still sounds crazy.

A lot of armies get their time to shine when they get a new book, not all though as I do remember GK being worse out of the codex or the non impact GSC had on the game in 9th ed, but eldar are always special. The game breaking win rates other factions reach, are often 10 or even 15% less, then what eldar armies usualy get with their new books. And the state often persists for large chunks of an edition. A new marine player got his book at the start of edition, got destroyed by harlequins, then the same place was taken by DE, then replaced by Harlis and CWE. And if the marine didn't pick a "good" chapter he has been sitting at under 40% win rates for 2 years now.

The model argument is an odd one too. Faction wise most marines got 1 character per chapter, sometimes not even that. The rest is stuff no one uses. Primaris in 8th weren't used till 2.0 came out. I have yet to see people use the primaris predators, bunkers, gun emplacments etc Even the supposed OP stuff, had classic marine replacments that were just better. And it is better within the marine codex, the sole fact of having attack bikes or van vets doesn't
make marines great. Even the AoC, a rule lauded as edition killer for non power armour factions had very little to no impact on how the game is played.

But I do agree with one thing non marine players say. It would be better for the game, if instead of inventing primaris and the whole Cawl lore, just made them marine update to new size. Stretching the marine model update for 3 editions is only good for GW.

As mentioned earlier, I’ll dispute CWE ever really having a horrendously powerful Codex.

Yes, each of their iterations has had horrendously powerful lists within. But the rest of it was often a big ol’ steaming pile. That does not in itself make a Codex Good.

Indeed, I argue it’s the sign of a poor Codex, where if someone is into the competitive side they’re more or less forced down one or two list routes if they fancy a chance at winning.

A good Codex should have units where they’re all much of a muchness, to the point where I could write a pretty random list of Just Stuff I Liked The Look Of, and have a reasonable chance in any gaming environment, and do much better once I’d figured out whatever synergies might exist within that list.

I think that’s a fair point.

 waefre_1 wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

cavebear56 wrote:
Typically they tend to be better for the sake of being better in a lot of material and that usually garners a lot of dislike.

Kind of like Superman.

I think the fact that people like Space Marines shows that there's more to it than just resenting 'everything you can do I can do better' factions.

Maybe it's because Marines are written to be self-inserts while Eldar/elves are distinctly 'other'. Superhuman protagonists tend to be written as a vessel for a relatable fantasy (eg Marines are pretty much power fantasy through and through), but Eldar/elves are often written as just weird and inhuman enough to be hard to relate to.

I also suspect some of it is gamers identifying more positively with hypermasculine than androgynous character coding. Maybe less so now than it used to be, but I remember a lot of homophobic comments about LotR's elves in the early-00s.

Elves can be just as much inserts and power fantasy, just of a different sort. They aren't the chunky beefcake hypermasculine stereotype but there is more to "relatable fantasy" than just that one niche stereotype. Protagonists don't have to be the biggest buffest one around, and Eldar/elves are more like the kinds of characters seen in wuxia fantasy where agility, grace, and skill are valued and prevail over brute strength. Eldar are space ninjas and there are games where the protagonist is far more like that than Superman. Players don't seem to have any problem identifying with them.

100%. Ain't there some terrible fiction series with an author self insert as an elf dual wielding katanas?

Ah yes, Jarlaxle. Every Fighter for a solid ten years afterwards was a dual-wielding dark elf with a fancy hat for a companion. Truly dark times.

Yeah that's the name, or Drizzt. Both awful regardless.

ah! So I am not the only one that has a murder boner for elves due to 2nd Ed nonsense. You don't know how good it is to hear that. I always felt the odd man out.

For my group it started with Epic Space Marine where we had the 'cheesy Eldar weapons phase'.

One problem with the army that wins by skill and superior tech is can't just be humans +1, it has to be something tricky.

So Wave Serpents got lower armor (because graceful!) but a force field that turned weapons over S8 to S8. No skill required!

Across editions Eldar got strange special rules that were supposed to show their superior tech but really just weighed the game down and didn't require skill to use.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
For my group it started with Epic Space Marine where we had the 'cheesy Eldar weapons phase'.

One problem with the army that wins by skill and superior tech is can't just be humans +1, it has to be something tricky.

So Wave Serpents got lower armor (because graceful!) but a force field that turned weapons over S8 to S8. No skill required!

Across editions Eldar got strange special rules that were supposed to show their superior tech but really just weighed the game down and didn't require skill to use.

It has been a mixed bag. Something like 4th edition bladestorm on dire avengers was interesting because it actually reduced your overall offense over the course of the game, but using it on the right enemy at the right time could be worth it. Having jetbikes that could move-shoot-move back when that was a rare thing meant you had to play the angles to survive by being hidden rather than just shoving rhinos and power armor forward. Plus, it used to be that killing a transport and the models inside required you to plan out your turn and position an anti-tank unit, an anti-infantry unit, and a support psyker at the start of your turn where something like a tactical squad could just run forward, kill the tank with their meltas, and then finish off the passengers with their strength 4 attacks, power sword sergeant, and decent durability that meant they'd probably "win the fight" thus allowing them to either hide in melee during the enemy shooting phase or else sweep the enemy and finish them off entirely.

All that said, player skill and in-universe unit skill aren't necessarily the same thing. Fire dragons get bonuses to killing tanks because of their specialized training and skill, but the player is just putting a meltagun squad in range and getting some extra rerolls.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
For my group it started with Epic Space Marine where we had the 'cheesy Eldar weapons phase'.

One problem with the army that wins by skill and superior tech is can't just be humans +1, it has to be something tricky.

So Wave Serpents got lower armor (because graceful!) but a force field that turned weapons over S8 to S8. No skill required!

Across editions Eldar got strange special rules that were supposed to show their superior tech but really just weighed the game down and didn't require skill to use.

It has been a mixed bag. Something like 4th edition bladestorm on dire avengers was interesting because it actually reduced your overall offense over the course of the game, but using it on the right enemy at the right time could be worth it. Having jetbikes that could move-shoot-move back when that was a rare thing meant you had to play the angles to survive by being hidden rather than just shoving rhinos and power armor forward. Plus, it used to be that killing a transport and the models inside required you to plan out your turn and position an anti-tank unit, an anti-infantry unit, and a support psyker at the start of your turn where something like a tactical squad could just run forward, kill the tank with their meltas, and then finish off the passengers with their strength 4 attacks, power sword sergeant, and decent durability that meant they'd probably "win the fight" thus allowing them to either hide in melee during the enemy shooting phase or else sweep the enemy and finish them off entirely.

All that said, player skill and in-universe unit skill aren't necessarily the same thing. Fire dragons get bonuses to killing tanks because of their specialized training and skill, but the player is just putting a meltagun squad in range and getting some extra rerolls.

Sure having skill and timing things to get results better than what others can is good. However often times GW made it so you had to do all this effort just to get a result that was equivalent, and that actually means something is underpowered if you have to put extra work into getting the same result.

Case in point is the Howling Banshee. In 2nd edition, they were an absolute terror if they got the charge in, with their S5 power swords. Then in 3rd edition, they became S3 and their damage output became seriously nerfed for a melee elite, requiring a babysitting Farseer to Doom their targets in order to get good damage output. That is an example of the kind of babysitting that GW seemed to think synergy equated to.

Synergy is 2+2 = 5. You get rewarded for having everything coordinated and fall into place. GW made it 2+2 = 3. Even if it were 2+2 = 4 it would be evidence of weakness if you do all that babysitting just to get the same damage output that another faction could for less effort.

GW has had a problem in how to make Eldar seem advanced and/or eldritch in their technology. The problem is when they go the special rules route they create potential possibly unintended interactions that can seem overpowered. The Doomweaver in 2nd edition Epic was a case in point where its web templates lasted a turn and were impassable. If anything were forced into them, they were instantly destroyed regardless of anything else. Rules as written, this extended even to things like Titans and superheavies, allowing for a potentially very cost effective way of destroying them. Whether this was intended was never clear as GW never FAQ'ed them AFAIK.

What if...

...the community is not toxic towards Eldar fans...

BUT

...Eldar fans are toxic to a community.

I think a part of the “being miffed at Eldar” is because they’re an army which typically requires a bit of skill to get the most out of. And once that skill is learned, they can quickly become frustrating foes.

In 2nd Ed Space Marine for instance, if you arranged your army right, you could wait to apply your orders until your opponent had revealed theirs. Which in a game where each order defined not only what your unit could or couldn’t do that turn, but when, that’s a pretty powerful ability. The units themselves weren’t particularly powerful, but add in “I can totally get to react to you” with stuff like wide scale pop-up attacks, where most of time you could strike with little fear of reprisals, and they were a very different challenge to other armies.

I used to hate fighting Wraithlord heavy armies, because Wraithlords were so bloody tough. T8, W3 with a 3+ save meant small arms could do nothing, and ultimately you really wanted to be hitting them with Lascannons etc. And even then, they didn’t degrade at all, being fully operational until that last wound was gone. Get them stuck into HTH, and few units had what it took to wound them, let alone knack them.

And pretty much every iteration has had such Problem Units, from which Problem Lists were derived.

But as noted? The rest of each Codex tended to be crap. And to expand on my previous thoughts? Not only did that mean long term Eldar players would have to field the Good Stuff in a competitive/organised setting if they didn’t fancy being ROFLstomped, but it of course attracted People Arguably More Interested In Just Winning And Didn’t Care If A Given Battle Was A Mutually Enjoyable Experience.

This was often further magnified by those lists having really pretty specific counters. But those counters being so remarkably specific? Would mean a take-all-comers list would suffer. And a list designed to wreck The Current Eldar Hotness would struggle elsewhere.

And that’s the impression that stays in the group consciousness. And is largely the result of poor Codex writing. Had each iteration had better balance, you’d have seen greater list variety, with each list having (theoretically) less notoriety.

This alledged toxicity arround Eldar faction in 40K mounts to nothing compared to "real toxic" issues like FSM and playing (or not) with unpainted armies.

I would argue that TAU get mote flakk due to the "not enough" GD aesthetic and having a mostly boring gamestyle (at least in the past).

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I think a part of the “being miffed at Eldar” is because they’re an army which typically requires a bit of skill to get the most out of.

Sorry, but not once has this been true about the army.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As mentioned earlier, I’ll dispute CWE ever really having a horrendously powerful Codex.

Yes, each of their iterations has had horrendously powerful lists within. But the rest of it was often a big ol’ steaming pile. That does not in itself make a Codex Good.

Indeed, I argue it’s the sign of a poor Codex, where if someone is into the competitive side they’re more or less forced down one or two list routes if they fancy a chance at winning.

A good Codex should have units where they’re all much of a muchness, to the point where I could write a pretty random list of Just Stuff I Liked The Look Of, and have a reasonable chance in any gaming environment, and do much better once I’d figured out whatever synergies might exist within that list.

Most codices for most armies since forever have had 1 or 2 builds that are just objectively better than any other build you might make from that codex, but I'd argue that through the editions Eldar has been an army that typically has a few exceptional lists and a bunch of good but not exceptional options, where most other armies have 1 or 2 good lists and a bunch of crap options.

So basically a less-than-ideal Eldar army would still have a leg up over a less-than-deal army from most other codices.

At least that's my thought, I don't think Eldar have really ever been more mono-build than is typical of other armies of the same era.

You can assign this to "OP" codexes all you want (despite other factions having plenty of other broken books throughout multiple editions) but all it really comes down to is the general aesthetic and presentation of Eldar is something that clashes with the hyper-machismo dumb ape vibe of the main poster boys of the setting. Not every 40k player is a toxic-masculine frat boy donkey-cave but they certainly exist within the hobby space and even for people who don't present that kind of image they might still harbour similar opinions towards things.

Much of the Eldar and their presentation and design deliberately leans away from the traditional masculine aesthetic and it's something which, in the west in particular, really makes a lot of insecure people very very angry. If you go and show these same people the designs of like, I dunno, a lot of anime or JRPG protagonists you'll hear the exact same "criticisms" and a lot of the exact same slurs. Because that's something the 40K community really doesn't want to talk about when it comes to certain faction-hate; a lot of true Eldar hate I have seen over the years is just straight up homophobic slurs being thrown around, in a similar vein to transphobic gak being said about anything Slaanesh. And for years this stuff would just be standard discourse within 40k communities, no challenging it and if you did challenge it you'd get attacked in return.

Of course the community has had a whole load of new blood in it over the past few years and has seen its playerbase diversify just ever so slightly, even though it's still unfortunately not particularly good in that respect compared to other TT games, so these toxic views do see a lot more genuine push back than they used to. But y'know, you still saw frantic amounts of Eldar hate even in past editions where nothing they did was especially or uniquely egregious; the above BA/WE Rhino Rush is a perfect example of something in 3rd that was just far more brutal and unpleasant to play against than any jank like starcannon spam or ranger disruption tables the Eldar could do. And yet those factions have never really gotten any hate or lingering stink because, well, if you've read the above post you should know why that is.

Also, somewhat related but a general thing, 40k players have a lot of blind spots and a lack of awareness when it comes to their own factions bs on the tabletop. Marine players can be especially bad for this, but that might just be because they're the majority so you notice it more. Nothing will beat an Ultramarines player in late 8th complaining about Extermination Protocols on my Necron Destroyers meanwhile he's got his chapter master surrounded by 18 Aggressors. Kind of like now Marine players love to moan about the blender Banshee exarch with 10 D2 attacks, despite the existence of BA vet captains that can be throwing out 5 D3 attacks, or an entire unit of WS VVets all with D2 lightning claws.

Have Been playing 40K since 2ED and the "queerness" of Eldar factions like harlequins was never a real issue.

True most people dont really care or support LGTB community... But that dosent mean they are homophobic in a casual situation like a 40K game.

Not to mention the homoerotic implications of many, many Astartes depictions.

 Bosskelot wrote:
<snip>

Ahh, so "toxic masculinity" is the problem, of course!

To me the problem is more than Eldar have pretty much always had really powerful options. Other armies have waxed and waned, good in one edition, crap in another, hated in one edition, no one cares in another. Eldar just seem to be an army that consistently have been strong to overpowered going all the way back to the 90's in 2nd edition.

 Bosskelot wrote:
<also snip>

If you tilt those windmills any harder they'll be underground.

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:


For the record I love Tau, they are basically if you took MS gundam and turned it into an army. That and they are (subjectively at least) the closest thing to good in the 40K universe since they are one of the only factions open to diplomacy. Yes they will probably kill you if you refuse but anything imperium would kill first and I don’t think tyranids could possibly contemplate diplomacy since they need to devour biomatter

Orks are open to diplomacy too. You can hire ork freebootas regardless of your race as long as you provide enough booty and fighting.

Means orks are also good?

As for the eldar, they're literally fantasy elves in space. That come with all the regular elf stuff of being a dying technologically and physically superior race that's also extremely arrogant and hypocrittic. It's perfectly fine as in 40k, like in real life, there are no good races. Seems that most problems start when someone actually tries to claim being better.

And from a gameplay perspective, elves have always tended to get a somewhat more annoying set of rules. Like being the first to get titan-class weapons that ignores everything on a 30-pt infantry model, biker troops with as many cheap and extremely good heavy weapons as you like, unkillable,shooty transpoets that are cheap and spammable enough to be much better than battle tanks of other factions, cheap and good psykers with strong magic, etc. A faction with long history of being overbuffed to the point of gamebreaking. However, I think they're much more reasonable now than they used to be. But as the times of elf dominance are not too far in the past, their heritage still lingers.

Gav Thorpe admitted that when he wrote the 3rd edition Eldar Codex he knew that some unit choices were mediocre at best compared to others that were strong. Then for some reason he thought that players would construct a mixed list mixing the strong and the weak units to reach "average" power. Of course we know what happened with mass spamming of star cannons. The idea that people would avoid the weak and only take the strong units seemed to have taken him by surprise.

Eldar have also many times whether in BFG or Epic "not played by the same rules" that everyone else uses. They often have special rules or rely on different mechanics that those factions with more conventional rules may find frustrating. Eldar in BFG had holofields that made it very hard to hit them with any precision weapons though massed weapon batteries still worked well. They also relied on hit and run, or staying behind a slow turning Imperial/Chaos ship that could not turn sharply enough to bring its broadsides to bear. The thing they don't do is stand there and take the blow, toughing it out, and that playstyle can be frustrating to some players just as it is frustrating in universe to the Eldar's foes.

On the “play by different rules” I think a good dose of the associated opponent salt stemmed from those primarily unwilling, secondarily unable, to adapt their targets.

In BFG, Eldar ships tended to fold like a cheap suit when caught out of position. 4+ armour, and suffering increased rate of critical damage (I think 4+ as opposed to 6+?) meant they were super soft targets. And so they had to rely on being fast and slippery. If an opponent engaged them with their standard tactics, it rarely went well.

I mean, for those people it was the tactical equivalent of an Englishman in Spain simply speaking English louder and slower at a Spaniard, expecting a different result.

I mean, was never very good at BFG, but even I knew I had to use my torpedoes and other ordnance to dissuade the Eldar from going to certain areas of the board, and to adopt a more dispersed deployment, giving my opponent fewer safe areas to sit in.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On the “play by different rules” I think a good dose of the associated opponent salt stemmed from those primarily unwilling, secondarily unable, to adapt their targets.

In BFG, Eldar ships tended to fold like a cheap suit when caught out of position. 4+ armour, and suffering increased rate of critical damage (I think 4+ as opposed to 6+?) meant they were super soft targets. And so they had to rely on being fast and slippery. If an opponent engaged them with their standard tactics, it rarely went well.

I mean, for those people it was the tactical equivalent of an Englishman in Spain simply speaking English louder and slower at a Spaniard, expecting a different result.

I mean, was never very good at BFG, but even I knew I had to use my torpedoes and other ordnance to dissuade the Eldar from going to certain areas of the board, and to adopt a more dispersed deployment, giving my opponent fewer safe areas to sit in.

Whilst true in BFG, I'm not sure that's quite true in 40k.
How exactly were you supposed to adapt to 5th(or was it 6th?) ed wave serpents? Or 4th ed Harlequins with their"lol, can't shoot me" fields and their penchant for sweeping across your army?
Eldar in 40k have a reputation for being cheesy buggers that break the game. That's why you get players with a grudge. No one likes having to deal with a single unit that can solo their army or getting sniped across the field by something that was more durable than it had any right to be.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I think a part of the “being miffed at Eldar” is because they’re an army which typically requires a bit of skill to get the most out of.

Sorry, but not once has this been true about the army.

Eh. "Skill." As Iracundus points out, the design philosophy behind them for a while was "2+2 = 3" or maybe "2+2=4.1" on a good day. So if I wanted to kill a transport full of dudes, I had to (in the movement phase) position one or more anti-tank units and the support needed to bust the tank, a melee unit with psychic support to charge the passengers and win combat so I could either hide or finish them off with a sweeping advance, and ideally some sort of anti-infantry shooting support to whittle the passengers down after the transport had been popped.

In comparison, it felt like marine players pretty much just had to shove a squad forward, and they'd be able to get similar results on their own. You had the meltaguns to pop the transport on the same squad that could win in melee, and you were semi-immune to morale and also durable meaning you didn't have to worry as much about whittling the target down before charging them. Not that marine players lack intelligence or don't get rewarded for good tactics, but a certain amount of planning was required to kill that transport full of dudes with eldar. Whereas the marines could stumble forward, have a bad shooting phase, and then still punch/krak the tank to death in the assault phase and end up having a pretty decent turn.

That said, my dark eldar always felt like they required way more skill to win with than my eldar. Like, you had to utilize sections of the rulebook your opponent had never even looked at to have a chance at winning. There were discussions on the exact number of wyches you should put in a unit so that you could avoid winning combat on your turn while also maintaining enough living bodies to win on your opponent's turn so t hat the wyches didn't get wiped out by bolter fire. There were articles on how how cover with intervening models worked so that you could use one raider to provide cover saves for your other raiders without interfering with your own offense. You had to figur eout when it was worth it to sacrifice your raider by ramming it straight into an enemy transport so that your incubi could get at the juicy passengers inside. I'm glad that drukhari are more accessible now, but back in the day you knew you'd earned every victory with dark eldar.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Whilst true in BFG, I'm not sure that's quite true in 40k.
How exactly were you supposed to adapt to 5th(or was it 6th?) ed wave serpents? Or 4th ed Harlequins with their"lol, can't shoot me" fields and their penchant for sweeping across your army?
Eldar in 40k have a reputation for being cheesy buggers that break the game. That's why you get players with a grudge. No one likes having to deal with a single unit that can solo their army or getting sniped across the field by something that was more durable than it had any right to be.

Oh man, 6th edition serpent shields were sooo frustrating. Not only becasue they were OP, but because the lore really made it seem like that 60" range was meant to be 6" and GW was too embarrassed or lazy to fix the typo.

5th edition's main annoying thing was the falcons (not serpents) because they could take holofields which made it really likely that your damage results would be downgraded to shaken. So combine that with an edition where only troops could score and all the eldar troops were squishy as heck, and you end up with the "DAVU falcon" (a falcon with dire avengers inside) that would spend all game flying in circles and not dying so that you could land it on an objective at the end of the game. That, and unkillable seer councils with rerollable 4+ invulnerable saves and wound allocation shenanigans.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Oh man, 6th edition serpent shields were sooo frustrating. Not only becasue they were OP, but because the lore really made it seem like that 60" range was meant to be 6" and GW was too embarrassed or lazy to fix the typo.

Nah, the old background for the Wave Serpent in 2nd edition Epic (the one that looked like a big boat), had the wave being able to be fired a long distance (d6 x 10 cm). The hit was relatively weak though could kill infantry. The main benefit was removing IIRC removing the orders of the unit hit, effectively stunning them.

Iracundus wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Oh man, 6th edition serpent shields were sooo frustrating. Not only becasue they were OP, but because the lore really made it seem like that 60" range was meant to be 6" and GW was too embarrassed or lazy to fix the typo.

Nah, the old background for the Wave Serpent in 2nd edition Epic (the one that looked like a big boat), had the wave being able to be fired a long distance (d6 x 10 cm). The hit was relatively weak though could kill infantry. The main benefit was removing IIRC removing the orders of the unit hit, effectively stunning them.

That takes me back, I picked up a fair few of them in one of the store sales GW used to have in the 90s, had to travel all the way across the Shire as I think GW Torquay was the only one at the time, and the wave had add triangle(ish) template (2" or so wide) so it usually bumped 2 or 3 bases, and if you have enough to cover a big chuck of the table turn 1 usually sucked for the other player

And that's just sort of bad beats stories most players have from confronting Eldar hi-jink hence the bias

And still of the mind that 40k Eldar are more Melnibonéan than WFB efs in SPAAACE !

I do have a laugh at the Eldar players who look at some negative responses and conclude that it’s just that they’re too skilled. That attitude right there probably does more to drive the distaste than anything. It didn’t take skill to fill the board with wraith knights, take an extra turn with ynari, turboboost hidden bikes onto objectives at turn 5, or summon 100’s of points worth of demons with practically no drawback. The Eldar codex always produced at least one broken build. It’s laughable that anyone could elect to take an action even a brain dead person would choose and think that they’re being carried on skill. There were plenty of fun options in the Eldar book, but you never saw them when you instead of d weapon spam or warlock blobs tanking insane amounts of wounds.

I don't think it's specifically Eldar hate. I think it's largely hate from Imperial, specifically Marine, fans who get a little 'too' into character and directly it unhealthily towards whatever Xenos faction happens to be the most powerful/overpowered at that moment in time. I see Tau get a lot more flak than the Eldar, even though there's plenty of that as well. It's a perfect combination of Marines being overwhelmingly popular, a deeply entrenched and unoriginal meme culture within the community and and many players taking certain attitudes too far.

It's interesting that Chaos Marines/Daemons don't really suffer from the same issue despite the propensity for 'heresy' memes, but that probably has a lot to do with there only really being two Chaos codexs until very recently and none of them have been brokenly overpowered for a long time the way Eldar and Tau regularly have been. Compare and contrast that to "dirty blue communist anime fish should be deleted from the game."

Personally, I think that most of the Eldar hate comes from the fact that their specialist units were not very good at their specializations so would focus on the units that would get them there for that one turn in which they were good... it's probably the main reason, most older players have at least one unit from everything in the Eldar line. Everything has been good, for an edition, for all the other editions, they've been terrible, or a necessary include. A la DAVU falcons.

But it is interesting to see that a lot of angst comes from the fact that, in previous editions, eldar were hard to kill... I have a feeling that stuck in peoples minds more than anything, especially given that there were other factions at the time that were Much more powerful and prevalent.

Take 3th ed for example... CWE Eldar had some powerful tricks, but they paled in comparison to 3.5 Chaos or Dark Eldar. There were some others there but it's been to long that I don't remember.

5th ed is another example... true Eldar were hard to kill but they had the same Number of guns as the other armies out there but were hitting on 4's where everyone else was hitting on three's, and while it was difficult to kill an Eldar tank, it was very easy to stun lock them with mid str weapons. I think people forget the terror that was Grey Knight Rifleman Dreds, or Orc Nob biker deathstars, or Space Marine Drop pod lists, or BA Thunderhawk rushes, Leaf Blower, Las Plas pill boxes... and so on.

As for 6th, Eldar were obnoxious not because they were eldar, but because they could Ally Tau... Taudar was a thing that really allowed the short comings of both armies to be shorn up.

7th you had the wraithknight detachment, (never played 7th) but then you had other detachments that were just as obnoxious, if not more so. Decurion anyone?

8th Eldar were winning because of stacked buffs on Fliers... not because of anything else in the codex....

There were other interactions that were annoying to people like JSJ but that was also the age of the Thunderfire Cannon and Basilisks

I never had anyone get hostile to me for playing Eldar. Most seemed intrigued because the environment we played in was not full of Eldar players. I can remember two complaints about the army in general from tournaments. Both times the complaints focused on the same thing. They were complaints about the old Runes of Warding that made psychic tests harder for my opponents. Both times the complaints were from Tyranid players.

If Tau get hate just for existing, it's probably due to their less than grimdark presentation and they fact that they were bolted onto the game well after the core fluff was developed. Eldar have been around since the beginning, are foundational to the setting and therefore deserve to be in 40k, even if many people don't particularly care for them.

Of anyone genuinely hates eldar or elves they should probably seek help

Dai wrote:
Of anyone genuinely hates eldar or elves they should probably seek help

Help.... exterminating them?

The main issue with Eldar is that they have a whole bunch of units that are different from the norm of the game. That means that there are many more units that have an opportunity to be broken. Many usually are broken in a way that makes them utterly useless, but it only takes a few too strong ones to warp a game.

We somewhat jokingly refer to the Eldar as "Codex: Don't follow the rules" because the entire point of half their codex is that they ignore game mechanics or give so many re-rolls as to basically guarantee hits for their specific weapons or rolls they need.

As far as Eldar being held up by skill and skill alone for the last few editions....um, no. In 7th Eldar borderline became extinct because it was such an easy mode army that nobody wanted to play against them. Just like nobody wanted to play against Triptide and SM Demi-Company lists. The difference being that Eldar didn't require their super formation to be broken, their entire codex was broken. Bring some D-Cannons, sprinkle in Warp spiders, Scatbikes, Warlocks etc to flavor and poof you win most games unless your opponent is bringing some heavy cheese. And besides a few standout units which were mediocre like Banshees and scorpions, the entire codex was usually better than everyone else's on a Data sheet vs Data sheet basis. Heck, Firedragons got AP0 which meant at the time, they received +2 to blow up vehicles, nobody else had that. I mean, in 7th you could throw a handful of darts at a board listing Eldar units and you could usually come out with a better than most list

SemperMortis wrote:
We somewhat jokingly refer to the Eldar as "Codex: Don't follow the rules" because the entire point of half their codex is that they ignore game mechanics or give so many re-rolls as to basically guarantee hits for their specific weapons or rolls they need.

I find this sentiment kind of weird considering that in recent memory, it wasn't Eldar that got T1-deepstrike when nobody else did, easy access to re-rolls on everything, army-wide FNPs/damage reduction/ignore cover, flat -1 to all incoming AP, relaxed restrictions on Rapid Fire, or completely ignoring Combat Attrition.

Unless you're talking primarily pre-8th; I'm not familiar with how they played in 6th/7th.

 catbarf wrote:


I find this sentiment kind of weird considering that in recent memory, it wasn't Eldar that got T1-deepstrike when nobody else did, easy access to re-rolls on everything, army-wide FNPs/damage reduction/ignore cover, flat -1 to all incoming AP, relaxed restrictions on Rapid Fire, or completely ignoring Combat Attrition.

Unless you're talking primarily pre-8th; I'm not familiar with how they played in 6th/7th.

Key word there is recent memory. 8th-9th makes up only a small portion of the games history and even in 8th the Eldar got some truly head scratching rules options. The flying circus in 8th helped force several major rule changes. 7th was almost bad to play eldar because it was hard to find games. The army was so good that even unoptimized lists would roll over people.

But I think everyone agrees the full on extra codex for space marine RYGBIV has not been good for the game either. It just only really reared it’s head with those I boldly books at the end of 8th.

 catbarf wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
We somewhat jokingly refer to the Eldar as "Codex: Don't follow the rules" because the entire point of half their codex is that they ignore game mechanics or give so many re-rolls as to basically guarantee hits for their specific weapons or rolls they need.

I find this sentiment kind of weird considering that in recent memory, it wasn't Eldar that got T1-deepstrike when nobody else did, easy access to re-rolls on everything, army-wide FNPs/damage reduction/ignore cover, flat -1 to all incoming AP, relaxed restrictions on Rapid Fire, or completely ignoring Combat Attrition.

Unless you're talking primarily pre-8th; I'm not familiar with how they played in 6th/7th.

5th, 6th, 7th. But even in 8th they had some ridiculous levels of shenanigans that didn't follow game mechanics or circumvented them. Hell, The jetbike turn 1 charge across the board was a great example of an alpha strike unit that could functionally ignore everything since they were jetbike units.

bibotot wrote:
Not on DakkaDakka but Reddit, Fanfiction websites, and gaming forums. Whenever I suggest the Asuryani to not fight the Imperium only to be completely butchered - since they are supposed to be wise and careful and they can see the ass-kicking from a mile away - people keep deriding me and telling me to get lost.

It's really absurd. And I feel like the whole community hates this faction so much that they don't want to hear anything positive about them.

Get lost

/s

SemperMortis wrote:


5th, 6th, 7th. But even in 8th they had some ridiculous levels of shenanigans that didn't follow game mechanics or circumvented them. Hell, The jetbike turn 1 charge across the board was a great example of an alpha strike unit that could functionally ignore everything since they were jetbike units.

Eldar were a non-factor in 5th, which was defined by marines, dark eldar, IG, greyknights and necrons. CSM and orks had some early success, but they were quickly overshadowed by the others. Eldar were rarely seen because their 4th edition codex didn't mesh well with the 5th edition rules. For example. Howling Banshees couldn't effectively charge into/through cover. Their banshee mask rule was written for 4th edition when cover gave an initiative bonus to the charged squad. Banshees were supposed to go into melee at initiative 10 and strike first. In 5th they would strike last. A few notable players (Reccius, Blackmoor) had some tournament success with the counterintuitive Footdar concept, but Eldar were not dominating anything.

6th edition brought the Wraithknight, three new flavors of Wraithguard (the two kinds of wraithblades and wraithguard with d-scythes), and the fighters. The standout unit was the Wave Serpent. It would carry a turret with twin-linked scatterlasers (36" S6 AP6 Heavy4) with the laser lock rule. That was required to fire first. If it scored any hits, the other weapons fired from the serpent would also count as twin-linked (re-roll misses). The follow up attack would be from the serpent shield 60" S7 AP- Assault D6+1, pinning, ignores cover. The other part of 6th was the allies table. Combining Tau and Eldar as Taudar was a popular strategy.

I didn't play in 7th, but it is my understanding that eldar jetbike spam was a menace. It might also have been sometime in 7th when Warp Spiders had a moment where they caused lots of problems, but I only know about that from reading about it here.

 Arschbombe wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:


5th, 6th, 7th. But even in 8th they had some ridiculous levels of shenanigans that didn't follow game mechanics or circumvented them. Hell, The jetbike turn 1 charge across the board was a great example of an alpha strike unit that could functionally ignore everything since they were jetbike units.

Eldar were a non-factor in 5th, which was defined by marines, dark eldar, IG, greyknights and necrons. CSM and orks had some early success, but they were quickly overshadowed by the others. Eldar were rarely seen because their 4th edition codex didn't mesh well with the 5th edition rules. For example. Howling Banshees couldn't effectively charge into/through cover. Their banshee mask rule was written for 4th edition when cover gave an initiative bonus to the charged squad. Banshees were supposed to go into melee at initiative 10 and strike first. In 5th they would strike last. A few notable players (Reccius, Blackmoor) had some tournament success with the counterintuitive Footdar concept, but Eldar were not dominating anything.

6th edition brought the Wraithknight, three new flavors of Wraithguard (the two kinds of wraithblades and wraithguard with d-scythes), and the fighters. The standout unit was the Wave Serpent. It would carry a turret with twin-linked scatterlasers (36" S6 AP6 Heavy4) with the laser lock rule. That was required to fire first. If it scored any hits, the other weapons fired from the serpent would also count as twin-linked (re-roll misses). The follow up attack would be from the serpent shield 60" S7 AP- Assault D6+1, pinning, ignores cover. The other part of 6th was the allies table. Combining Tau and Eldar as Taudar was a popular strategy.

Spot on from what I recall.

I didn't play in 7th, but it is my understanding that eldar jetbike spam was a menace. It might also have been sometime in 7th when Warp Spiders had a moment where they caused lots of problems, but I only know about that from reading about it here.

Yeah. Jetbikes were a big part of it. Late 7th edition was so hyper lethal that you generally removed entire units at a time (unless they were an invisible death star). Conventional defenses weren't super reliable against that level of offense. Jetbikes with their move-shoot-move could potentially hide behind terrain and become untargetable, which was often a better defense than having a good armor save or whatever.

The other major things in 7th were wraith knights, d-weapons in general, and warp spiders. Wraith knights were just fast/tough/scary enough to overpower most threats. Being an MC instead of a vehicle meant that you couldn't one-shot them as reliably as you could something like an imperial knight. D-weapons (wraithguard, wraith knights, etc.) were really powerful because they could basically insta-gib anything, including imperial knights (more or less). And this was in an edition where imperial knights were a pretty common sight in the meta. And then warp spiders were kind of a variation on the jetbike thing: lots of strength 6 shooting on a platform that could move out of line of sight. Specifically, warp spiders could move 2d6(?) inches every time you targeted them in the shooting phase, so they were usually able to get out of line of sight provided there was some terrain nearby. They could also be taken as part of a formation that made them hit on 2+. Also also, they were Fast Attack and jetbikes were still Troops, so you could fill your army with plenty of both. The bikes would sit back and shoot you from across the table, and the spiders would deepstrike behind you and take potshots at your rear armor if you tried to move up the board.

Oh. And we were pretty good at making invisible deathstars, so there's that.

EDIT: For perspective, a competitive late 7th edition matchup might basically be 2400 points of space marines flinging themselves onto objectives while 2000 points of eldar removed entire units of marines at a time. It was basically a rolloff to see if the 400 extra points could survive long enough to win on points.

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but as someone who's been around for awhile.

I guarantee you Tau/Tau fans are given it worse. Between the mecha/anime connotation and at a glance the Tau system could be interpreted as communism.

Compare this with the average Imperium fanboy,and need I say more? Eldar may be a bit effeminate but Tau and often the sort of personality drawn to them clashes with the average 40k player.

edit: eh nevermind

That said quite happy to play eldar or any other faction.

Hate against Ekdar/Tau, or whatever is either a tongue in cheek or you are pkaying against a ****.

And Tau are not "communist" in abstract, there cast system clossely resembles the flag of the ChPR... Anyhow that just one of their many inspirations. Like CSM can be at the same time abrahamic fallen angels and death metal musicians.

Why would anybody fill real rejection against an enligthetened progressive system such as the one of the TAU (which in the setting is compared to early human DAOT), is beyond my comprehension (unless they are reactionaries in RL and believe late 16th century Europe was the peak of human endevour).

Tau aren't really enlightened progressives though. Unless you think subjugating "primitive races" and subsuming and eventually eradicating their culture into your collective is progressive.

If a political entity starts ranting about the "greater good" and you should sacrifice everything for it, you should run.
And that's the point about the Tau; they aren't the good guys, they just seem that way because they aren't as overtly bleak and dystopian as the Imperium. It's Brave New World as opposed to 1984.
In any other setting they would be be the antagonists.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Tau aren't really enlightened progressives though. Unless you think subjugating "primitive races" and subsuming and eventually eradicating their culture into your collective is progressive.

If a political entity starts ranting about the "greater good" and you should sacrifice everything for it, you should run.
And that's the point about the Tau; they aren't the good guys, they just seem that way because they aren't as overtly bleak and dystopian as the Imperium. It's Brave New World as opposed to 1984.
In any other setting they would be be the antagonists.

And remember, it tends to be “Join Us, Or Die”, which is not Good Guy Behaviour. Sure, they don’t seem terribly genocidal in the 40K grand scheme of things. But if they want your planet? They’re going to take it by hook or by crook. Negotiation may be preferred, but The Old Ultra V always remains on the table of options.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Tau aren't really enlightened progressives though. Unless you think subjugating "primitive races" and subsuming and eventually eradicating their culture into your collective is progressive.

If a political entity starts ranting about the "greater good" and you should sacrifice everything for it, you should run.
And that's the point about the Tau; they aren't the good guys, they just seem that way because they aren't as overtly bleak and dystopian as the Imperium. It's Brave New World as opposed to 1984.
In any other setting they would be be the antagonists.

And remember, it tends to be “Join Us, Or Die”, which is not Good Guy Behaviour. Sure, they don’t seem terribly genocidal in the 40K grand scheme of things. But if they want your planet? They’re going to take it by hook or by crook. Negotiation may be preferred, but The Old Ultra V always remains on the table of options.

Yep, they're basically your stereotypical empire, right down to that old Roman / 19th colonial jingoist policy of bringing civilization to the savages

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Tau aren't really enlightened progressives though. Unless you think subjugating "primitive races" and subsuming and eventually eradicating their culture into your collective is progressive.

If a political entity starts ranting about the "greater good" and you should sacrifice everything for it, you should run.
And that's the point about the Tau; they aren't the good guys, they just seem that way because they aren't as overtly bleak and dystopian as the Imperium. It's Brave New World as opposed to 1984.
In any other setting they would be be the antagonists.

Politics is not a matter of absolutes but rather of relative values... To be the "good guys" you dont have to follow Kants ethics (or any other form of high morale standard) you simply have to be better than your antagonists.

And by the way thats the real meaning of progressiveness in RL... "Goodness" cannot be established in absolute terms (unless you have a fundamentalist POV) but surely a society can live better than the previous generation (even doe every progress in one direction means a lost in another one, thats an almost universal law of biological evolution).




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Tau aren't really enlightened progressives though. Unless you think subjugating "primitive races" and subsuming and eventually eradicating their culture into your collective is progressive.

If a political entity starts ranting about the "greater good" and you should sacrifice everything for it, you should run.
And that's the point about the Tau; they aren't the good guys, they just seem that way because they aren't as overtly bleak and dystopian as the Imperium. It's Brave New World as opposed to 1984.
In any other setting they would be be the antagonists.

From my POV a Brave New World is a worst distopian setting than 1984 (both are not desirable at all, mind you... I have read both).

Different people have different values.

Values are socially, historically and culturally determined... You cannot make an objective measure out of them, just like out of "utility".

It's hard to argue that the Tau are not better than the Imperium, though still not "white hat good guys", because many of those conquered by the Tau enjoy an objectively better material standard of life.

We know the Tau have successfully incorporated human auxiliaries, the gue'vesa, into their society and that this has been happening since the end of the Damocles Crusade. We know from stories set in more recent times like Broken Sword by Guy Haley in the Damocles anthology, but which is set in the conquest of Agrellan, that about the life of these as that story is told from the perspective of one such gue'vesa who even rises to gue'vesa'vre and ends up having vocal cord surgery to better pronounce the Tau language. Basically, a number of them are resettled in a settlement with fresh food, water, clean air, good housing, and education for their children. This extends even to widow benefits as the character describes how the widow of a slain gue'vesa comrade is well treated and her son wishes to join the gue'vesa auxiliaries too when he grows up. The character describes how those brought from the hive world of Agrellan felt like they had entered paradise. The Water Caste member this character sort of befriends admits that the main focus is not so much the first generation of humans (i.e. those that are captured or defect) but the 2nd generation and beyond of humans that grow up with the Greater Good.

So yes, the Tau may indoctrinate you and your next generation about the Greater Good, but while doing so you will enjoy clean air, food, water, housing, widow benefits etc... The Imperium will indoctrinate you into the Ecclesiarchy's faith, and you get none of the above.

As a form of oppression or brain washing, it is at least a more comfortable one.

Just about every faction in 40K is xenophobic, but some factions at least treat their own fairly well, such as the Craftworlders and the Tau (we'll have to see about the LoV), at least physically. The Imperium is worse because it actively oppresses its own.

Yes, you are required to follow the Imperial Faith in the Imperium, but aren't worlds permitted a degree of cultural autonomy? Tallarn isn't like Cadia or Mordia, is it? The Imperial Faith differs too depending on local customs, doesn't it?

Do they allow the same in the Tau Empire? Isn't the end goal to condition everyone to follow the Greater Good and eventually sacrifice everything they once were in a few generations?
Does a human ever have a chance of being an Ethereal or part of the ruling class, or will non-Tau stay subservient to Tau?

That's why I made the Brave New World comparison; everyone is "happy" in Brave New World, but at the cost of having to sacrifice history, culture, and following a strict caste system that is determined by genetic engineering.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vatsetis wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Tau aren't really enlightened progressives though. Unless you think subjugating "primitive races" and subsuming and eventually eradicating their culture into your collective is progressive.

If a political entity starts ranting about the "greater good" and you should sacrifice everything for it, you should run.
And that's the point about the Tau; they aren't the good guys, they just seem that way because they aren't as overtly bleak and dystopian as the Imperium. It's Brave New World as opposed to 1984.
In any other setting they would be be the antagonists.

Politics is not a matter of absolutes but rather of relative values... To be the "good guys" you dont have to follow Kants ethics (or any other form of high morale standard) you simply have to be better than your antagonists.

That seems to be a very low bar to reach.
By that logic, you can commit as many atrocities as your enemy, but as long as you don't, I dunno, eat babies, that makes you good?
That doesn't seem right to me.

Vatsetis wrote:


And by the way thats the real meaning of progressiveness in RL... "Goodness" cannot be established in absolute terms (unless you have a fundamentalist POV) but surely a society can live better than the previous generation

Sure, if by that you mean under the yoke of a Imperialist alien power that might exterminate your entire species if they think it benefits the whole.

If you eat less babies (or only eat already dead babies as opposed to living ones) than your opposition then you are indeed amongst "the good guys".

If you want a fictional example take TWD... The good guys (Ricks group) do absolutly horrific things but since they are better somehow than the antagonists you root for them.

In RL even Gandhi followers did very cuestionable things from a "pure ethics" POV, oprresion corrupts both the oppressed and the oppressors

I have no doubt that if transported into the 40k setting anyone here will surely try to reach an isolated human world and pray so that nothing menacing happens (Demons, Black Templars, Tiranids...) or try to reach the security of the Tau Empire (which morally and technically is much closer to XXI century developed world than the IOM, which is actually ruled partly by transhumans - biological and mechanical-so detached from present day humanity that they might be enterily aliens).

Apart from some DNA I have nothing in common with an Astartes, a Custodes, a Tecnoadept, or an imperial agent than have lived more than a 1000 years.

So Taus are biologically more alien but ideologically much closer to my views.

Perhaps LOV would be another viable alternative, but I dont know if they accept "base humans" into their society.

A lot of people have their ego inextricably linked to this game and how well they do at it.

When one faction gets a disproportionate share of bent rules across it's history that's going to lead to resentment and in the less well adjusted folk social miscues and offensive behavior.

I have very much enjoyed the revisionist history on display in this thread though. I thought we'd finally shed that sect of the elven population during the excessively egregious 6th/7th era but here we are.