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I know for sure that I am.

The Eldar never seems to win anything. In the Path Series they lose, atleast militarily. In these new short stories they get slaughtered. Even in their own codex they seem to lose most of the battles they enter. This seems to be done to show how much the Eldar are doomed, how they are all going to die because they suck. As an Eldar player, this is a great turn-off. What's the joy in playing a faction that is supposed to be superior, but still manages to lose every single campaign, battle or game of Monopoly they fight.

Fluff =/= Tabletop.

My Eldar always win. I'm not concerned with GW's inability to write a good story.

Yeah, if you go by the Path series it makes no sense. Hell, the craftworld of the books has 3 Striking Scorpion exarchs/shrines and by the end of the book


**** Spoiler, not sure how to do tags ****











all the damn exarchs are dead.

 Marzillius wrote:
I know for sure that I am.

The Eldar never seems to win anything. In the Path Series they lose, atleast militarily. In these new short stories they get slaughtered. Even in their own codex they seem to lose most of the battles they enter. This seems to be done to show how much the Eldar are doomed, how they are all going to die because they suck. As an Eldar player, this is a great turn-off. What's the joy in playing a faction that is supposed to be superior, but still manages to lose every single campaign, battle or game of Monopoly they fight.

Why do you always lose? Because you're out teched by the Necrons (and outnumbered) and you aren't advanced enough to let you curbstomp other more numerous races like the Necrons are.

Essentially the Necrontyr have rendered you obsolete in the entire "absusive precursor" niche and your advantage over other species isn't great enough to pull out great victories.

 Marzillius wrote:
Even in their own codex they seem to lose most of the battles they enter.

Really?
Someone has changed their fluff in translation then, mine doesn't show them as losing....

Maybe a few examples?

Isn't the FW book they're in, Doom of Mymeara or something similar, basically a story of Eldar winning small battles but mostly losing the war against the IG?

deathmagiks wrote:
Isn't the FW book they're in, Doom of Mymeara or something similar, basically a story of Eldar winning small battles but mostly losing the war against the IG?

Another problem with the Eldar, they have no staying power. Virtually every other faction has it in ample supply.

But staying power is what you need when you're fighting for territory or for a stronghold. Eldar fight for objectives: Get in, steal chaos artifact, get out. Get in, murder Space Marine Captain, get out. It's their whole philosophy. Staying power shouldn't matter when the ground you're fighting for doesn't matter. Tenacity only becomes an issue when you're measuring hammer vrs hammer. This is Hammer vrs. Rapier.

DaffDred: wrong forum for comments like that, mate.

The real problem with the Eldar wars is the fluff writers' inability to make use of the Eldar faction's way of warfare. It's like the fluff writer's have created a race whose modum operandi they themselves do not understand.

It's not about staying power, it's fine to portray the faction like that, but the problem lies in that they use Eldar as some sort of PDF and lets them get trapped in these nonsensical all out wars.
Eldar goes into battle, claims their objectives and then leave. Or then shift sides. Or whatever. They don't stick around long enough to get crushed.
For a race lead by excessively intelligent people who use psychic powers to aid them in their decisions they make enough bad decisions that you start questioning whether they aren't the Bond villains of 40k.

I mean Eldar psychers do often keep cats as pets...

deathmagiks wrote:
But staying power is what you need when you're fighting for territory or for a stronghold. Eldar fight for objectives: Get in, steal chaos artifact, get out. Get in, murder Space Marine Captain, get out. It's their whole philosophy. Staying power shouldn't matter when the ground you're fighting for doesn't matter. Tenacity only becomes an issue when you're measuring hammer vrs hammer. This is Hammer vrs. Rapier.

And more often Hammer factions like the Necrons, Orks, Imperium, and Tyranids just take the rapier to the gut, let it snap in their bodies and then smash the Eldar's skull with a hammer.

Well that means you're assuming the Eldar are aiming for the gut

deathmagiks wrote:
Well that means you're assuming the Eldar are aiming for the gut

Well given that the threats to the galaxy's continued existence as a place suitable for reasonable factions like the Imperium, Tau, and Eldar are growing while those that can stop them are becoming ever weaker, I think the Eldar are definitively failing in their task.

Not only are they incapable of containing their mess (Chaos) or their former comrades in arms (The Orks), but their oldest foes are awakening once again (the Necrons) and a threat they completely failed to predict hasn't even been meaningfully slowed by their efforts (the Tyranids).

 Mahtamori wrote:
DaffDred: wrong forum for comments like that, mate.

The real problem with the Eldar wars is the fluff writers' inability to make use of the Eldar faction's way of warfare. It's like the fluff writer's have created a race whose modum operandi they themselves do not understand.

It's not about staying power, it's fine to portray the faction like that, but the problem lies in that they use Eldar as some sort of PDF and lets them get trapped in these nonsensical all out wars.
Eldar goes into battle, claims their objectives and then leave. Or then shift sides. Or whatever. They don't stick around long enough to get crushed.
For a race lead by excessively intelligent people who use psychic powers to aid them in their decisions they make enough bad decisions that you start questioning whether they aren't the Bond villains of 40k.

I mean Eldar psychers do often keep cats as pets...

This hits the nail on the head, frankly.

The problem with Eldar fluff is that Eldar are supposed to be the undisputed masters of asymmetric warfare- never assaulting hard targets, avoiding fights where heavy losses are possible, using misdirection and deceit to scatter an enemies' forces, etc. Yet they're written in the fluff to fight in the same exact way as everyone else: masses of gun-lining infantry and tanks pushing forward to an objective in waves, smashing against enemy lines in brutal melee brawls, etc, and that's just not the Eldar way. Matt Ward's UltramarineXEldar fight in the SM codex is a perfect example of how Eldar are misused in fights. Why are the Eldar throwing themselves at the Ultramarines with such reckless abandon? It doesn't make any sense for them to fight like bad guy Vietcong in some cheesy Vietnam film. They even threw their avatar at them, for Christ's sake.

The Dark Eldar codex has the truest representation of how Eldar fight. Some of the fluff stories in that book, like the story about Malys and her forces raiding that Mechanicum world and fighting off the Imperials and orks to get the STC. Beautiful.

I'm a long time space marine fan and even I'm sick of reading about the Eldar constantly being trashed... Surely BL should give them small victories as I always think of them as superlative at most this but just few and far between

Magnus The Mauve wrote:
I'm a long time space marine fan and even I'm sick of reading about the Eldar constantly being trashed... Surely BL should give them small victories as I always think of them as superlative at most this but just few and far between

And the Avatars of Khaine get punked, every, single, time. So much for being the shards of the god of war.

Am I tired of the Eldar losing, hmm....nope, can't say I am. It's not my fault they had the whole galaxy in their hands and fethed it up.

They're supposed to be in decline given the fluff.

It really would not make much sense if the civilization in decline suddenly ran around kicking everyone's butt.

deathmagiks wrote:
Yeah, if you go by the Path series it makes no sense. Hell, the craftworld of the books has 3 Striking Scorpion exarchs/shrines and by the end of the book


**** Spoiler, not sure how to do tags ****











all the damn exarchs are dead.

Hospy wrote:
They're supposed to be in decline given the fluff.

It really would not make much sense if the civilization in decline suddenly ran around kicking everyone's butt.

Why does that not make any sense.

It seems the writers can't handle all the 30 Xanatos pileups and "just as planned" moments that are the hallmarks of the Eldar at war.

Forgeworld gets it right on occasion where the Eldar drop in the ocean, speed around the hive cities and lure the PDF into the open, cut off and kill them, and leave the cities to the predations of the dark kin, but really most GW writers don't know how any type of warfare works.

I mean, that Ultramarine movie, gah.

Isn't one of the themes of the Eldar is that they are slowly dying out, and for all of their precognitive abilities they can't do anything about it?

Granted, they should still be able to tear anyone they run into apart.

Hospy wrote:
They're supposed to be in decline given the fluff.

It really would not make much sense if the civilization in decline suddenly ran around kicking everyone's butt.

I think you're missing the point here. Just because the eldar are doomed in the long run doesn't mean that they aren't a force to be reconed with. They still have awesome psychic powers that are supposed to be used to make sure that they only enter battles where they are (farirly) sure to win. Their technology and weaponry are among the deadliest and most advanced in the galaxy and the elite units they have are often the very best in their particular role among all the armies.
They should win alot more often, but the fluff writers simply do not know of how they should represent them. They are mostly pictured as aliens who will break alliances just to show how deceitful they are, even when it doesn't serve any purpose. They are blinded by their own arrogance and feelings. They fight battles as if they were an imperial guard army with endless reserves... And after the battle they whine about how many precious lives they lost.

It makes no sense!
Even when they get a new codex they get fluff that pictures them as morons, and that'w quite frustrating.

Hospy wrote:
They're supposed to be in decline given the fluff.

It really would not make much sense if the civilization in decline suddenly ran around kicking everyone's butt.

Hannibal won nearly every battle he fought but still lost the war because he couldn't make enough of a dent in his enemy's numbers. The Eldar *should* be like that.

 Kain wrote:

Hospy wrote:
They're supposed to be in decline given the fluff.

It really would not make much sense if the civilization in decline suddenly ran around kicking everyone's butt.

Hannibal won nearly every battle he fought but still lost the war because he couldn't make enough of a dent in his enemy's numbers. The Eldar *should* be like that.

Yep. As I said, slowly dying out with no way to stop it.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Kain wrote:

Hospy wrote:
They're supposed to be in decline given the fluff.

It really would not make much sense if the civilization in decline suddenly ran around kicking everyone's butt.

Hannibal won nearly every battle he fought but still lost the war because he couldn't make enough of a dent in his enemy's numbers. The Eldar *should* be like that.

Yep. As I said, slowly dying out with no way to stop it.

That is still no reason to constantly show them as the losing side in almost every conflict

 Enigma wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Kain wrote:

Hospy wrote:
They're supposed to be in decline given the fluff.

It really would not make much sense if the civilization in decline suddenly ran around kicking everyone's butt.

Hannibal won nearly every battle he fought but still lost the war because he couldn't make enough of a dent in his enemy's numbers. The Eldar *should* be like that.

Yep. As I said, slowly dying out with no way to stop it.

That is still no reason to constantly show them as the losing side in almost every conflict

Here, the battles are the various wars they fight in, the war is the survival of their species which I expect to be snuffed out either by the Tyranids or Necrons if the metaplot advances.

This seems to be more of a Black Library thing than anything. Yes, both in the Path of the Eldar books and in the Carnac short stories, we see them losing the major battle. But mind you, in the Path of the Eldar stories they lay some serious beat down on several other factions. It's not until a massive combined fleet sent to them in a vulnerable position makes a serious dent in their power. Even then, they win the combat by manipulation, though not outright firepower. Seems legit to me.

And Carnac was doomed from the beginning, we knew that going in. Still, the way they brutalize the Necrons in the third story makes it worth it.

In most of the Codex stories, especially in Iyanden (other than the iconic battle), they beat unimaginable odds. I do agree they seem to handle Dark Eldar better in most cases. It seems as if they don't find the shadowy manipulation as befitting the 'good guys' as they do the bad guys, but I think that's just a limitation of the writers.

 tanuvein wrote:
This seems to be more of a Black Library thing than anything. Yes, both in the Path of the Eldar books and in the Carnac short stories, we see them losing the major battle. But mind you, in the Path of the Eldar stories they lay some serious beat down on several other factions. It's not until a massive combined fleet sent to them in a vulnerable position makes a serious dent in their power. Even then, they win the combat by manipulation, though not outright firepower. Seems legit to me.

And Carnac was doomed from the beginning, we knew that going in. Still, the way they brutalize the Necrons in the third story makes it worth it.

In most of the Codex stories, especially in Iyanden (other than the iconic battle), they beat unimaginable odds. I do agree they seem to handle Dark Eldar better in most cases. It seems as if they don't find the shadowy manipulation as befitting the 'good guys' as they do the bad guys, but I think that's just a limitation of the writers.

I see you missed nearly every 5e codex ever, where not a book would go by without a new giant pile of dead space elves.

Frankly, the Eldar win every battle or war you never hear about - because they didn't actually have to fight them.

Look at it this way. For every disaster the Eldar suffer, there must be at least half a dozen more where one good shot by a Ranger meant the fight ended before it even started.

 Super Ready wrote:
Frankly, the Eldar win every battle or war you never hear about - because they didn't actually have to fight them.

Look at it this way. For every disaster the Eldar suffer, there must be at least half a dozen more where one good shot by a Ranger meant the fight ended before it even started.

I'm sure that will avail them much against the Necrons or Tyranids who don't care about decapitation strikes, Necrons because the Leaders get back up and are now pissed off, Tyranids because you kill one and then a million more take it's place.