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No the eldar only let civilians who were former aspect warriors fight as guardians. Though it is different from craftworld to craftworld.

I know you ment just stat wise about the guardians=guardsman thing, I was just geeking out . lol

I think that there are bilions of Eldar left.

I like to think there are only two eldar left.

Eldrad, who is a goddamned ghost, and the poor farseer he possesses. Because that's the only consistant eldar figure I see on the table at all times.

But in the grand scale of the galaxy, billions is a small number, but not too small.

Iur_tae_mont wrote:[

syanticraven wrote:Who the hell reads Eldar and think Imperial Guard?

DarknessEternal wrote:Eleventy bazillion. How else can you explain that their forces are made up of hair dressers and phone repair men given a flak jacket, sling shot that can't reach the enemy, and no training whatsoever.

Sounds like he was describing Guard to me.

No, that would be Guardians.

Imperial Guardsmen are trained fighting men with guns that can reach the enemy. Guardians are Joe Eldar rushed into battle.

Only Storm Guardians are former Aspect Warriors (and only in the newest Codex since it contradicts previous fluff, not to mention the fluff within that same codex).

Mr Nobody wrote:But in the grand scale of the galaxy, billions is a small number, but not too small.

Imperium easily has quadrtrillions(30k+ of Hive Worlds with population ranging 100-500 bilion).

Enough for my daemons to have a couple more snacks

GW can say dying race all they want, but they don't provide the numbers to prove it-- or even believable circumstances.

Melissia wrote:GW can say dying race all they want, but they don't provide the numbers to prove it-- or even believable circumstances.

GW doesn't have idea of scale sometimes.

Laughing God wrote:No the eldar only let civilians who were former aspect warriors fight as guardians. Though it is different from craftworld to craftworld.

I know you ment just stat wise about the guardians=guardsman thing, I was just geeking out . lol

Huh, I think they would take regular civilians too if they needed to as well, wouldn't they? As I know it, the BRB says that Guardians are 'civilians called upon to defend the Craftworld'.
But yes, no need to feel ashamed about geeking out. I've called my friends heretics before, and I've shouted 'For the Emperor!' in public before, so no problems there.

ChrisWWII wrote:

Laughing God wrote:No the eldar only let civilians who were former aspect warriors fight as guardians. Though it is different from craftworld to craftworld.

I know you ment just stat wise about the guardians=guardsman thing, I was just geeking out . lol

Huh, I think they would take regular civilians too if they needed to as well, wouldn't they? As I know it, the BRB says that Guardians are 'civilians called upon to defend the Craftworld'.
But yes, no need to feel ashamed about geeking out. I've called my friends heretics before, and I've shouted 'For the Emperor!' in public before, so no problems there.

From my view Guardians are militia as you say while Aspect Warriors are the proffesional soldiers.

ChrisWWII wrote:

Laughing God wrote:No the eldar only let civilians who were former aspect warriors fight as guardians. Though it is different from craftworld to craftworld.

I know you ment just stat wise about the guardians=guardsman thing, I was just geeking out . lol

Huh, I think they would take regular civilians too if they needed to as well, wouldn't they? As I know it, the BRB says that Guardians are 'civilians called upon to defend the Craftworld'.
But yes, no need to feel ashamed about geeking out. I've called my friends heretics before, and I've shouted 'For the Emperor!' in public before, so no problems there.

They are civilians when they are called to be guardians but this doesnt mean that at one point they weren't aspect warriors. I dont believe a race as intelegent as the eldar would give one of there number a gun whos never touched a weapon and say "There you go bud, now go bright down that 2000 pound mound of muscle power armored death". I could be wrong though.

Melissia wrote:GW can say dying race all they want, but they don't provide the numbers to prove it-- or even believable circumstances.

Lol you refuse to believe that they are a dying race on the brink of extinction compared to their former galaxy spanning glory because GW wont provide you exact numbers? Though they have stated the latter in almost every piece of eldar fluff written? Just clarifying...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

IvanTih wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:

Laughing God wrote:No the eldar only let civilians who were former aspect warriors fight as guardians. Though it is different from craftworld to craftworld.

I know you ment just stat wise about the guardians=guardsman thing, I was just geeking out . lol

Huh, I think they would take regular civilians too if they needed to as well, wouldn't they? As I know it, the BRB says that Guardians are 'civilians called upon to defend the Craftworld'.
But yes, no need to feel ashamed about geeking out. I've called my friends heretics before, and I've shouted 'For the Emperor!' in public before, so no problems there.

From my view Guardians are militia as you say while Aspect Warriors are the proffesional soldiers.

QFT

Laughing God wrote:
They are civilians when they are called to be guardians but this doesnt mean that at one point they weren't aspect warriors. I dont believe a race as intelegent as the eldar would give one of there number a gun whos never touched a weapon and say "There you go bud, now go bright down that 2000 pound mound of muscle power armored death". I could be wrong though.

Well, that's precisely what they do. Once any Eldar isn't wearing his war mask, he forgets everything he knows about fighting he learned while wearing it.

An Eldar who was a hairdresser for a hundred years, then becomes a Dire Avenger for another hundred, then goes on to telephone repair and is called into battle as a Guardian fights as well as any telephone repairman who's never touched a gun. That's how Paths work.

It's also the reason Eldar can't be a dying race. If they were, their armies would consist only of super heavy tanks, and Exarch's driving War Walkers with better force fields and power weapons. If putting delivery boys and shoe-salesmen out on the field with no training and worse equipment is your race's idea of a good way to defend itself, you clearly can stand to lose a few.

DarknessEternal wrote:Well, that's precisely what they do. Once any Eldar isn't wearing his war mask, he forgets everything he knows about fighting he learned while wearing it.

An Eldar who was a hairdresser for a hundred years, then becomes a Dire Avenger for another hundred, then goes on to telephone repair and is called into battle as a Guardian fights as well as any telephone repairman who's never touched a gun. That's how Paths work.

Now this is an opinion based on point of view. I look at the war masks as locking away emotion not skill. A eldar who takes off his war mask doesnt unlearn all his training and abilities he just has no desire to use them because he is not wearing his war mask. This is why guardians who walked the path of khaine still retain there abilities to fight. Read the dire avenger entry in the codex. Even dire avengers who take off their war mask still carry around shurikens.

DarknessEternal wrote:It's also the reason Eldar can't be a dying race. If they were, their armies would consist only of super heavy tanks, and Exarch's driving War Walkers with better force fields and power weapons. If putting delivery boys and shoe-salesmen out on the field with no training and worse equipment is your race's idea of a good way to defend itself, you clearly can stand to lose a few.

The codex and rule book actually says the opposite. The reason that they are forced to utilize guardians is the fact that there numbers are so low they have to call on basic eldar civilans to take arms agains foes for their very survival.

rabidaskal wrote:Actually I think if the Eldar were willing to compromise, to set their sights lower and 'settle' so to speak, they'd have an excellent chance of surviving and thriving. Like, ally with the Tau and resettle within the Tau Empire. Exchange tech for mutual defense and protection. Or give up trying to recreate the past Eldar empire and make a new one in some isolated corner of the galaxy. Not as munificent to be sure but a hell of a lot more sensible / sustainable.

A long-term deal with the Tau wouldn't work. The Tau are too naive regarding Chaos, and are cultural imperialists. They would insist that the Eldar give up their religious "superstitions" regarding their souls being devoured and accept the Greater Good. For rather obvious reasons, the Craftworld Eldar would never accept that.


My general comparison for the three primary groups of Eldar are

Exodites - Amish; abandoning the luxuries of high technology in order to live their lives
Craftworld - (non-political) Conservative '50s US Nuclear Family; trying to remain at that one point in time when everything was good right before it all fell apart (which strangely enough allows us to compare the birth of Slaanesh to the '60s Sex Revolution )
Dark Eldar - Mad Maxish Post-Apocalyptic Biker Gang; do you REALLY need to speculate on this one?

The comparisons shouldn't be taken too literally, but I think do a decent job of trying to capture mind-sets of each of the three groups.

Ailaros wrote:Plus, eldar reproduction is strange

It is? How so?

Dark Eldar - Mad Maxish Post-Apocalyptic Biker Gang; do you REALLY need to speculate on this one?

I like to think of them as the "subversive" Betty Page bondage and spanking crowd of the 50's and 60's that slowly corrupt the moral value of the populace to this day. Taken to the logical extreme, of course.

Solorg wrote:

Ailaros wrote:Plus, eldar reproduction is strange

It is? How so?

Lexicanum states that dissections of Eldar suggest they reproduce in stages with the male introducing new genetic material to the developing embryo over time instead of all at once as in humans. Xenology also suggests that-BLAM!

Pay no mind to the heretic. You do not need to know anything more about the xenos then that they must be purged! For the Emperor!

Solorg wrote:

Ailaros wrote:Plus, eldar reproduction is strange

It is? How so?

It's the primary reason it's a dying race, both members who wish to breed have to conduct an intricate and complex dance in utter blackness before finding the other one and mating. This dance must be done without error on both parts and consists of cartwheels, flips, chandelier jumping and pole dancing. All in pitch blackness without knowing where the other one is.

Eldrad created this practice as his last joke on the eldar race.

My guess,(Really rough estimate) about 10,000-1 billion a craftworld.but when the imperium outnumbers you 100,000 to 1 and the nids are 10x that,you`re running out of time.
But,they`ve been a "dying race" for 40,000 years now.I think,In about 3-9 milennia,the eldar will finally die off(you know,after going horse $H1t and kill 1/2 of humanity and about 3/4 of the tau),But not go extinct,more like just not bother to do anything anymore.

Gavin Thorne wrote:

Dark Eldar - Mad Maxish Post-Apocalyptic Biker Gang; do you REALLY need to speculate on this one?

I like to think of them as the "subversive" Betty Page bondage and spanking crowd of the 50's and 60's that slowly corrupt the moral value of the populace to this day. Taken to the logical extreme, of course.

Erm...

Only if "taken to the logical extreme" includes putting your eyes out beforehand so you can listen to your daughter being raped while having your mind fill in the details that you can't see.

>.>

I've been into eldar fluff since forever, my 2 cents:

1)Guardians are a militia composed of former aspect warriors, remember that Eldar live for a very very long time so many of them will be aspect warriors at some point. Also, only exarchs are meant to be "stuck" as warriors, the other 90% of a squad are meant to go back to being civvies in a few decades/centuries/whatever.

2) I really hate the fact that guardians exist, growing more stuff out of wraithbone and tanking the living daylights out of anything that moves seems to be the obvious choice but never mind... As laughing god said, the GW line is that guardians are a side effect of low numbers of eldar meaning that militia is necessary to fight wars.

3) GW has shifted in the last decade from the craftworld eldar as awaiting rebirth of a mighty eldar empire, today is the nadir of their power and they [think that they] shall rise again etc... to a "dying race, they are soooooo f*cked" whose highest hope is to go extinct taking slaanesh with them as the last eldar falls. Us old guard ain't always onboard with the new changes .

4) Interesting material : http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/introspections-pt-iii/


On topic I can forsee Max of 1million eldar per craftworld over a few thousand craftworlds as GW's current upper limit (ie. a few billion overall) which I think is a shame *shrug*.

Some times people don't see it in perspective. There are probably hundreds of billions of Eldar alive in the universe. It seems a lot? Them remember a Hive World or two can easily get to that number.

The Eldar are few? Yes. But declining doesn't mean just size. They lost their worlds, their empires and maybe even their hope. They are destined to be consumed by a Chaos God and, legends like Ynnead aside, they can't possibly win the battle.

Yes, they are declining. Yes, every eldar count. But it's not like a craftworld would have just a couple of people. It's simply that compared to their past selves and to the other races there are simply too few. So barring their elusive nature, technology and even smarts they are easy targets, ripe for the taking by any galactical power.

IvanTih wrote:

Melissia wrote:GW can say dying race all they want, but they don't provide the numbers to prove it-- or even believable circumstances.

GW doesn't have idea of scale sometimes.

You mean there might be more than a million astartes for the entire galaxy?

No, because if there were 1,000,001 Astartes in the Galaxy, the Emperor would wake up due to the ambient levels of awesome, and GW couldn't sell any more minis.

....I jest.

Tabris_ wrote:Some times people don't see it in perspective. There are probably hundreds of billions of Eldar alive in the universe. It seems a lot? Them remember a Hive World or two can easily get to that number.

The Eldar are few? Yes. But declining doesn't mean just size. They lost their worlds, their empires and maybe even their hope. They are destined to be consumed by a Chaos God and, legends like Ynnead aside, they can't possibly win the battle.

Yes, they are declining. Yes, every eldar count. But it's not like a craftworld would have just a couple of people. It's simply that compared to their past selves and to the other races there are simply too few. So barring their elusive nature, technology and even smarts they are easy targets, ripe for the taking by any galactical power.

I would agree most with this view. They are few compared to what they used to number. But due to their knowledge and technology can still hold their own and make a smaller in number army count when needed to fight. But at the same time are a drop in the galactic ocean compared to the numbers of enemies out there.

Also new news on the topic. If you watch the interview about DE on the GW website they go onto say how the dark eldar breed and reproduce in bulk, THEN even if some of them die they are brought back or "regrown" by a haemonculous. So the dark eldar vastly outnumber craftworld or exodites and are not exactly going quietly into the night. So if anything factions of the eldar race are fourishing in current fluff.

Interesting... 1) because it implies that the DE can keep hold of their souls when they die if they're managing to shove old consciousnesses into new bodies - What's Slannesh doing? Suppose it fits with the manipulation of souls for consumption though.

2) I guess most races are raided by dark eldar more often than the Craftworld lot are seen... Bit of a PR problem potentially :-/, not that the random strikes of the craftworlds are that helpful I suppose.

About 100+ million and some craftworlds. If they count.

Lokirfellheart wrote:About 100+ million and some craftworlds. If they count.

I'd say billions.