Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Okay, so i recently read the entire new rulebook (a mighty feat for sure) and i noticed one conflict between the codex astartes and the new rulebook regarding Eldar vs IoM.

So the rulebook states: (p. 196)
"The only attack that the Imperium managed to push home onto a Craftworld ended with the disaster of blood Nebula and the loss of an entire sector fleet."

While the Codex Astartes states clearly: (p. 49)
"857.M41:The Invaders Chapter launch a direct assault on the Craftworld Idharae. Though the Space marines suffer horrific casualties, they leave the Craftworld a ruined and desolate hulk."

First thing: "entire sector fleet" - wtf? so now the IoM cant harm a craftworld with the might of an entire sector fleet but a Space marine battle Barge was actually down shields of a Necron in a short time.
Second: so eldar can do whatever they want to IoM but they can really fight back (besides maybe destroying a few ships or so) since the new Craftworlds are invincible.

IMO some of the 40k stuff seems to be really frakked up, and it seems to me that some of the people behind it must be sniffing warp dust. Matt Ward most likely.

Also Squats are mentioned in the new rulebook.

Well, in Path of the Warrior and Path of the Seer, Craftworld Alaitoc gets attacked by the Imperium. Both attacker and defender get pretty badly fethed up.

You recall a craftworld is a world in itself? And has the entire eldar fleet on its beck and call. You speak as if eldar are weak... They're really not...

I personally find it ridiculous that a single chapter could destroy a craftworld.

Eldar would have died long ago if all it took was a single chapter to attack and destroy them. Think of Iyanden surviving a tyranid invasion they were relatively unprepared for.

TL;DR - Eldar kick a**


Von Chogg

"You recall a craftworld is a world in itself? And has the entire eldar fleet on its beck and call."
Well first of all, Craftworlds are not of the same size, etc and a sector fleet would be a fairly large force supported by Adeptus Astartes and other forces of the imperium.

"You speak as if eldar are weak... They're really not..."
Im not saying they are weak, i just dont think they are as 'untouchable' as the new fluff states

"I personally find it ridiculous that a single chapter could destroy a craftworld."
Its not just a chapter. is 1000 of the Emperors finest, the angels of death, the Gods of War, the Adeptus Astartes and they know no fear.
Idharae could have been weakened for whatever reason, and is probably not the size of of the bigger and more known Craftworlds.

"Eldar would have died long ago if all it took was a single chapter to attack and destroy them. Think of Iyanden surviving a tyranid invasion they were relatively unprepared for. "
But a SM battle barge can take out a necron capital ship, necrons have no FTL travel and squats in 6th edition. Warp Dust i say.

Surely not all craftworlds are of the same size, population and military preparedness?

English Assassin wrote:Surely not all craftworlds are of the same size, population and military preparedness?

Thats what i said 2 posts before...

Daemonhammer wrote:"You recall a craftworld is a world in itself? And has the entire eldar fleet on its beck and call."
Well first of all, Craftworlds are not of the same size, etc and a sector fleet would be a fairly large force supported by Adeptus Astartes and other forces of the imperium.

"You speak as if eldar are weak... They're really not..."
Im not saying they are weak, i just dont think they are as 'untouchable' as the new fluff states

"I personally find it ridiculous that a single chapter could destroy a craftworld."
Its not just a chapter. is 1000 of the Emperors finest, the angels of death, the Gods of War, the Adeptus Astartes and they know no fear.
Idharae could have been weakened for whatever reason, and is probably not the size of of the bigger and more known Craftworlds.

"Eldar would have died long ago if all it took was a single chapter to attack and destroy them. Think of Iyanden surviving a tyranid invasion they were relatively unprepared for. "
But a SM battle barge can take out a necron capital ship, necrons have no FTL travel and squats in 6th edition. Warp Dust i say.

Sorry, my fanboy rage took over

now, to rationality!

GW may have created the fluff, because largely otherwise Eldar just get their a** handed to them all the time, Like avatar's, the gods of war, are just used as demonstrations of 'this character is awesome!'

But a sector fleet isn't surprising, especially if the attack had been in the works for a while. Eldar can tell the future, so their attacks and strategies could have been forseen and countered in advance. And 1000 of the emperor's finest or not, your talking a fully powered avatar defending his home, thousands of aspect warriors fuelled by his rage and all their technology. But, realistically, it could be the craftworld was weakened by some other engagement and the marines struck when their target was most vulnerable, as a marine commander would do to minimise loses.

Oh, and the Iyanden story is ancient, it was around before more recent foolishness Because at least Iyanden was crippled beyond repair in that fluff battle... Stupid new fluff...

But I want eldar to become a more dominant force, maybe not to the extent that they go around killing worlds and hive fleets (we have Maugan Ra for that ), but like the new fluff states, they can hold their own against attack. Eldar rarely commit to a fight or allow themselves to be attack unless they are pretty confident of victory. otherwise they open the webway and appear at the other side of the galaxy lol.

Von Chogg

I think a picture from the 5th ed full rule book might just put the scale of a craft world in perspective for those who doubt the Eldar.
On page 158 there is a picture of craft world Lugganath. To the right you see a tower, on top of that tower is an entire city of towers, and inside it's base hollow base is another city. You look around and there is a city of these tower-cities that stretch out of sight.
On the top left there are some spiky shape shadows, those are capital scale starships. And the "Y" shaped shadows they are flying around, they are supports. Because this entire image is just one floor out of the many that make up the craftworld.

I second Von Chogg: eldar do kick ass when their fickle minds want to.

WE ARE SPACE MARINES! WE ARE THE ANGELS OF DEATH! WE ARE DEATH INCARNATE!
YOU ARE NO MATCH FOR US XENOS FILTH!


You speak of foresight, but you didnt see slaanesh coming did you?
oh wait, the new fluff removed that aswell... what the !

Daemonhammer wrote:WE ARE SPACE MARINES! WE ARE THE ANGELS OF DEATH! WE ARE DEATH INCARNATE!
YOU ARE NO MATCH FOR US XENOS FILTH!


You speak of foresight, but you didnt see slaanesh coming did you? oh wait, the new fluff removed that aswell... what the

What? Tell us of this new fluff...


Von Chogg

The new fluff fails to mention slaanesh in the 'eldar' section.

Also eldar are not mentioned in the 'slaanesh' section.

Von Chogg wrote:

Sorry, my fanboy rage took over

now, to rationality!

Von Chogg

You apologized... dont break the internet.

A IRL perspective is different writers have different perspectives on the power of craftworlds vs the power of the Imperium

Fluff perspective is craftworlds are of different strength. In Path of the Warrior Alaitoc (one of the strongest Craftworlds) gets invaded and banged up rather badly. Though given Eldar arrogance in that book, I had to say I was rooting for the Imperials....

So as an Eldar fan..... what?

Evidently the Imperium is supposed to be the only race where in the fluff they are bad-ass, kill anything that they go up against Gods that walk among men, even if they aren't Astartes?

With all the over-the top stories about the Imperium, a single crushing Eldar victory and one battle where 1,000 Marines suffered horrendous casualties but still crippled an entire craftworld makes the Eldar fluff overpowered?

Just like in the Eldar novels, if a craftworld wasn't capable of defending itself, they wouldn't exist anymore the way the Milky Way is in M41. When a force boards a craftworld after surviving in troop transports through the outside space battle, I sure hope they took something to balance the aircraft and Titans the Eldar have waiting for them when they try to storm across those domes, on top of thousands of Eldar and Aspect warriors ....and that's before they use the webway to being reinforcements from somewhere else right into the craftworld.

Sometimes non-marines get to win too. Even in the fluff. At least Eldar can't carve initials onto Daemon primarchs organs.........

Daemonhammer wrote:
You speak of foresight, but you didnt see slaanesh coming did you?

But the Craftworld Eldar did see Slaanesh coming, that's why they're Craftworld Eldar.

Welcome to the power of Retcon.

If the rulebook invalidates earlier fluff, your earlier fluff has now been retconned out of existence.

Normally this happens to Xeno fluff, but this time it was SM's

See the following for the evidence base regarding the comparative strengths of Craftworld vs. Imperial sector fleets.

Craftworld, though spacecraft, are vast beyond comprehension. They are not merely huge capital ships ploughing through space with a surrounding escort of smaller vessels. They are not even akin to vast cities, as some of the largest star forts of the Imperium might be considered, but rather they are immense spacefaring worlds accompanied by vast armadas, the likes of which might otherwise be set aside to defend an entire system or even sub-sector. Whole battlefleets cluster around key points and stations all across the thousands of miles of the craftworld's exterior as smaller, nimbler craft rush and surge across its surface in a constant shimmering patrol.

The sheer size of a craftworld means that each individual vessel possesses several full battlefleets, stationed at convenient points along the craftworld as it journeys through space. Each fleet might typically number from ten to twenty warships and is commanded by an Eldar Admiral...

"Doom of the Eldar" the BFG article, Fanatic magazine Issue 3, article available online

Each battlefleet normally consists of between 50 and 75 warships of varying size, although in some sectors this will be more or less, according to the importance of the sector and the number of enemies it must contend with.
p. 86 BFG main rulebook

In 5th edition fluff, there were two Craftworld invasions by humans: the battle of Idharae (Invaders destroy Idharae) and the battle of Alaitoc (Eldar victory). I think the battle referenced in the rulebook was Alaitoc, so maybe the battle of Idharae got retconned out.

The Idharae incident hasn't been retconned so much as not mentioned recently. Not trying to excuse GW's Imperial bias but the latest Tyranid Codex says it was the combined Malan'tai and Idharae fleets that first fought Hive Fleet Naga, which apparently resulted in the crippling of the Malan'tai fleet. Later it was the Idharae fleet alone that finished off the last remnants of Hive Fleet Naga. We don't know the extent of Idharae's fleet losses from these conflicts as it is never said, however if Naga could cripple Malan'tai's fleet it is conceivable it may have been enough to inflict significant casualties on Idharae.

This mention in the Tyranid Codex may have been an attempt to reconcile and make believable how a Chapter could destroy a Craftworld. If said Craftworld was a minor craftworld and was already weakened from a hard fought victory over Tyranids, then it is somewhat more believable than if it were an unscathed craftworld.

I've always read Imperial fluff as propaganda.

Like, "The Emperor's Finest destroy Eldar Craftworld," headline comes from the actual, "Space Marines attack Craftworld, comes out to a draw."

Like every Ciaphas Cain novel cover, it's full-on propaganda with a teeny, tiny bit of truth.

AegisGrimm wrote:So as an Eldar fan..... what?

Evidently the Imperium is supposed to be the only race where in the fluff they are bad-ass, kill anything that they go up against Gods that walk among men, even if they aren't Astartes?

With all the over-the top stories about the Imperium, a single crushing Eldar victory and one battle where 1,000 Marines suffered horrendous casualties but still crippled an entire craftworld makes the Eldar fluff overpowered?

Read the OP before posting stuff first please

SaintTom wrote:

Daemonhammer wrote:
You speak of foresight, but you didnt see slaanesh coming did you?

But the Craftworld Eldar did see Slaanesh coming, that's why they're Craftworld Eldar.

But they couldnt stop it, could they now?

Iracundus wrote:The Idharae incident hasn't been retconned so much as not mentioned recently. Not trying to excuse GW's Imperial bias but the latest Tyranid Codex says it was the combined Malan'tai and Idharae fleets that first fought Hive Fleet Naga, which apparently resulted in the crippling of the Malan'tai fleet. Later it was the Idharae fleet alone that finished off the last remnants of Hive Fleet Naga. We don't know the extent of Idharae's fleet losses from these conflicts as it is never said, however if Naga could cripple Malan'tai's fleet it is conceivable it may have been enough to inflict significant casualties on Idharae.

This mention in the Tyranid Codex may have been an attempt to reconcile and make believable how a Chapter could destroy a Craftworld. If said Craftworld was a minor craftworld and was already weakened from a hard fought victory over Tyranids, then it is somewhat more believable than if it were an unscathed craftworld.

Exacly, so like i speculated, not only is it a smaller craftworld but it was weakened after purging the hive fleet. Thats is how the space marines managed to destroy it.

Also according to the new fluff Eldar are allies to IoM more often than they are hostile.

However what follows afterwards is less explainable and shows GW's SM bias/double standard. Alaitoc took revenge and attacked the Space Marine monastery world, destroying it and killing 700 Marines, but the remainder flee aboard their ships.

In other words, a major Craftworld attacking a minor Space Marine Chapter, and the best it can do is destroy 700 Marines? The Chapter still doesn't seem to have been written off or assigned a "destroyed" status either, so it seems that GW is unwilling to let even a minor SM Chapter be destroyed by the Eldar. The fact there is still some remaining to the Chapter after 700 Marines are lost, means also that the Space Marines didn't lose that many to Idharae (or they rapidly replaced).

Iracundus wrote:However what follows afterwards is less explainable and shows GW's SM bias/double standard. Alaitoc took revenge and attacked the Space Marine monastery world, destroying it and killing 700 Marines, but the remainder flee aboard their ships.

In other words, a major Craftworld attacking a minor Space Marine Chapter, and the best it can do is destroy 700 Marines? The Chapter still doesn't seem to have been written off or assigned a "destroyed" status either, so it seems that GW is unwilling to let even a minor SM Chapter be destroyed by the Eldar. The fact there is still some remaining to the Chapter after 700 Marines are lost, means also that the Space Marines didn't lose that many to Idharae (or they rapidly replaced).

Consider the fact that it was a chapter planet, so its not just space marines but PDF, Orbital defence batteries and maybe even IG.
Also the eldar most likely would have emerged in one spot while space marine ships would be all over the system.
Its surprising the 3 companies even fled, most of the other chapters would hold their ground 'till the end.

Daemonhammer wrote:

But the Craftworld Eldar did see Slaanesh coming, that's why they're Craftworld Eldar.
But they couldnt stop it, could they now?

No, a relatively small portion of the eldar race cared enough to leave. Another, larger portion was already hidden in the webway.

You are suggesting that .01 percent of the eldar race should have killed the other 99.99 percent (assuming they would have sat there and let it happen) in order to stop slaneesh? Read the eldar dex, the smart eldar did spend millennia preaching against the wanton depravity (this cultural depravity is what created slaneesh) and what it was leading to, it simply fell on deaf ears. Then the smart dar, said stuff it and ran XD

thakabalpuphorsefishguy wrote:

Daemonhammer wrote:

But the Craftworld Eldar did see Slaanesh coming, that's why they're Craftworld Eldar.
But they couldnt stop it, could they now?

No, a relatively small portion of the eldar race cared enough to leave. Another, larger portion was already hidden in the webway.

You are suggesting that .01 percent of the eldar race should have killed the other 99.99 percent (assuming they would have sat there and let it happen) in order to stop slaneesh? Read the eldar dex, the smart eldar did spend millennia preaching against the wanton depravity (this cultural depravity is what created slaneesh) and what it was leading to, it simply fell on deaf ears. Then the smart dar, said stuff it and ran XD

Well sorry the only eldar codex i have is the one from 3rd edition

And try to imagine what things would have been without the eye of terror.

Von Chogg wrote:You recall a craftworld is a world in itself? And has the entire eldar fleet on its beck and call. You speak as if eldar are weak... They're really not...

I personally find it ridiculous that a single chapter could destroy a craftworld.

Eldar would have died long ago if all it took was a single chapter to attack and destroy them. Think of Iyanden surviving a tyranid invasion they were relatively unprepared for.

TL;DR - Eldar kick a**


Von Chogg

I would like to point out that the craftworlds' best defense is probably that nobody can find them.

Also, before the Tyranid invasion, Iyanden was a huge craftworld, so it would've had no shortage of Aspect Warriors and Guardians.

Daemonhammer wrote: Also, according to the new fluff, Eldar are allies to the IoM more often than they are hostile.

I think they may have just meant that the two often have common goals. They don't necessarily work together to meet those goals,

DOOMBEARD wrote:

Daemonhammer wrote: Also, according to the new fluff, Eldar are allies to the IoM more often than they are hostile.

I think they may have just meant that the two often have common goals. They don't necessarily work together to meet those goals,

Quotehammer:

[...]bulk of the eldar are more often allies to humanity than enemies.

- page 205

Daemonhammer wrote:

DOOMBREAD wrote:

Daemonhammer wrote: Also, according to the new fluff, Eldar are allies to the IoM more often than they are hostile.

I think they may have just meant that the two often have common goals. They don't necessarily work together to meet those goals,

Quotehammer:

[...]bulk of the eldar are more often allies to humanity than enemies.

- page 205

Taken out of context, it would seem to mean that the Eldar and Humanity worked together more than they fought. But here's more of the quote:

6th ed. Rulebook wrote: [...] the more learned amongst the Imperium realize that the bulk of the Eldar are more often allies to humanity than enemies.

I think this means that some realize that the Eldar help the Imperium more than they harm it, but most humans are still more eager to kill the Eldar than to ally with them.

So the rulebook states: (p. 196)
"The only attack that the Imperium managed to push home onto a Craftworld ended with the disaster of blood Nebula and the loss of an entire sector fleet."

Well, to be fair, most Marine players probably tend to think that a Fortress Monastery could hold off just as much of an Eldar force, if not more, despite in most likelihood being smaller than said Craftworld. So I find the statement hardly unfair to the IoM.

So Mat Ward writes Codices with background contradicting established fluff just to let his favorites shine more than Chuck Norris? That's not exactly news