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I see the eldar as not relying much on large scale organization the way the IG or Marines do. Since each craft world only has so many forces to pull from and since their leaders can see the future (to a degree), I would assume that their forces are mostly pulled up ad-hoc. A farseer thinks he'll need 200 guardians, 50 banshees, 20 scorpions, 20 wave serpents and 10 falcons, so he gets them. I don't see it as a matter of calling up the crystal battalion and calling in the 2nd and 3rd guardian companies with a detachment from the hawk air cav and special commando units from the aspect shrines or anything like that.

I do envision there being military instillations dedicated to guardian training and vehicle care. They may be off shoots of the aspect shrines (or part of the same complexes). This is of course assuming that guardians are not simply reserves of eldar that were once on the path of the warrior and have since left. In which case, further training probably isn't necessary.

I seem to remember Eldar armies being referred to as Warhosts.  For the craftworld I created, Warhost refers to the army that can be mustered as a whole.  In my craftworld's fluff, it translates into Crimson Rain, much as a Biel Tan warhost is known as the Sword Wind. 

I've extended the fluff so that the subdivisions of the warhost (i.e. my tabletop 40k army) is called a Tempest, as opposed to company, cadre, etc.  Like Phoenix describes above, there is no set organization.  The Tempest is the force a commander, be it Autarch or Farseer, takes into action.  

Eldar leave a lot of room for creative organization.

 

The best resource for this sort of organization would be epic. The older version of the game had a much more rigid explanation of how Eldar armies were organized in the fluff.

However, the new version of the game can still provide some insight. This link:

www.specialist-games.com/assets/swordwindgaming.pdf

gets you to the Biel-Tan army list for a tiny bit of information on that craftworld's army structure.

The experimental rules page:

www.specialist-games.com/epic/Vault.asp

also has army lsits for Ulthwe Saim-Hann and Alaitoc for download.

 

 

 

I would suggest buying on Ebay the 2nd Edition epic (when the game was called "Space Marine") supplement 'Renegades'. It contained information and rules for Chaos and Eldar.

The set contains little detachment cards that determine how you selected Eldar armies. You'd choose stuff like a 'windhost' (IIRC) and you'd get a bunch of Swooping Hawks along with Jetbikes.

Obviously these rules don't contain some of the newer Eldar units, but for the most part the Eldar have remained relatively the same since this set was put out. It really would give you a good idea of the way the Eldar are organized on a larger scale (at least according to the odler fluff).

The sets appear to be going pretty darn cheap on Ebay too (less than 10 pounds).

Thanks Yakface; I'll have a look.

I tried looking for Renegades yesterday and couldn't find it anywhere.

BYE

This auction is going on right now on Ebay for 'Renegades' and ends on the 24th.

Thanks Yakface :-)

The Saim Hain army is composed somewhat like a feudal army, with each windrider host being the armed wing of a "house" and members of the same clan (3rd Ed Craftworld Codex). The Autarch or Farseer would put out a call to arms, and whatever houses chose too would come with their personal troops.

Biel Tan has a standing council of Exarchs that would bridge the gap from the Farseer/Autarch to the troop level. The old epic rule book gave the chain of command as Farseer>Warlock>Exarch>Aspect Warriors>Guardians. This was prior to Autarchs. It also stated that Guardian forces are trained and led by Guardians that were former aspect warriors. Also in the 2nd or 3rd ED eldar codex there is a story about some Warp Spiders attacking guardsmen. In that story the eldar forces are all in mental contact with one another, so the Spider Exarch could "Feel" the position of the Shining Spears.

Uthwithe has a standing army of guardians controled by the Farseers, called the Black Guardians.