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SideSwipe wrote:


How could a falling population[which I'm extrapolating from your increased losses] hold ground? Why would they conquer worlds when it's already established that the Craftworlds are closer to ghost towns than full? They have no need for territory.

The Eldar do get involved, and are burning themselves out in a last gasp of glory, and the few military campaigns they engage in they view as putting the lowly races of the galaxy back in their place[reminding them how mighty the Eldar are].

It's unlikely Harlequins were rolled back into the main book because of background reasons, I'd imagine the main reason was sales not justifying expanding the faction.

Exodites are established as being primitive and relying on the craftworlds for defence. With no established mode of interstellar transport, there'd need to be significant retcons to include them in the game, nevermind as a standalone faction.

It sounds more like you'd be better suited to Tau tbh, you seem to want a dynamic, expansionist faction, which fits Tau better. They even have the race to expand before getting crushed hook you've mentioned.

A falling population can hold ground so long as the front line remains strong enough to push back the opposing forces and so long as their technology allows them to project increased power per-person over their foes. This might be as something as simple as using way more of their Wraith technology; or perhaps they resurrect their cybernetic technology and start using machines again. If they don't fear Slaanesh as much then there's no reason to fear the potential of excess that the use of machines allowed. Plus it might just be a solid move toward preservation of their species by using more machines.

Another angle is that its a long game one - that they do push back and settle new worlds, they just end up ghost-worlds like Craftworlds. All the space and no rapid population expansion.


As for Exodites Eldar don't need spaceships to travel through space, they also have the Webway. Plus nothing stops the Exodites using allied Eldar forces to transport them to other worlds. If they went on the offensive and brought their warriors to war, surely other Eldar would be happy to have additional forces to fight with them. Getting them off-planet is trivial, in fact it happens all the time when they lose a world and have to be evacuated.



Tau are expansionist but they aren't space elves. They lack dinosaurs with lasers on their heads; they lack the psy powers of the Eldar race or the mystic of their strange ways.
Tau are right now the mechanised mech race and honestly I've long argued that they should get an Auxillaries Codex which features the Kroot as the core army and then splices in loads of other races into specific roles and niches. To thus be a creative display of the studio's skill and also a chance for them to go wild making other creature designs.

Though a part of me is wondering if these continual "Zoat Codex" hints that we get every Christmas might be what GW does for the Zoats. Then again they've been dropping hints and references on Exodites for decades as well and hither too have never made a single model

 Overread wrote:

As for Exodites Eldar don't need spaceships to travel through space, they also have the Webway. Plus nothing stops the Exodites using allied Eldar forces to transport them to other worlds. If they went on the offensive and brought their warriors to war, surely other Eldar would be happy to have additional forces to fight with them.

In fact, this was the background of the Eldar Knights when they were first introduced in Epic. They were Exodites who were assisting whichever Craftworld army they were fighting alongside.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

SideSwipe wrote:

How could a falling population[which I'm extrapolating from your increased losses] hold ground? Why would they conquer worlds when it's already established that the Craftworlds are closer to ghost towns than full? They have no need for territory.

In Biel-Tan's case, their modus operandi seemed to be to wipe out specific threats to/colonists of maiden worlds. Then, thanks to their seers, they could go do other stuff until the seers detect an upcoming threat to the territory they'd previously saved/reclaimed. That said, the impression I get from craftworlds that care about smaller craftworlds and maiden worlds is that they're constantly have to let some threats slip so that they can address others.

Biel-Tan's modus operandi of eliminating squatters on Maiden worlds was IMO meant to show how they don't have a realistic plan of restoring the Eldar empire. They might wipe out the squatters but then the Maiden world lies there unsettled and unused. Biel-Tan was just using the rationale of "This was made by my ancestors therefore nobody else can touch it, even though I cannot do so either." I always thought Biel-Tan was engaged in a bit of self-deception in that regard.

Now I agree though with the idea that the Eldar should have some "metagoal" that gives a glimmer of hope since it seems all the other factions have been given something to fight for as well. This glimmer may be true hope or it may result in the Eldar expending themselves in a last brilliant flash of glory, but of course we know GW won't ever get to that stage. Ynnead to some extent fulfils that role but GW have written themselves into a corner because Ynnead can not fully awaken and truly defeat Slaanesh and restore the Eldar to rule the galaxy for setting balance purposes, so GW should give other lesser achievable goals for the Eldar to strive for. The Harlequins have the ambiguous final jest of Cergorach that they work towards. The Craftworlds, Exodites, and Dark Eldar though are kind of directionless in terms of any such metagoal (even though we know GW won't let any faction actually reach theirs).

In the bits about the Ynnari, there is mention of how young Exodites seem more sympathetic to the Ynnari cause, viewing the isolationist ways of the Exodites as a mistake. I saw that as maybe GW teasing or sounding out the idea of Exodites and Ynnari together or as allies.

The potential ideological split and ferment between the different branches of the Eldar is something I wish GW would explore more.

Iracundus wrote:
[The Craftworlds, Exodites, and Dark Eldar though are kind of directionless in terms of any such metagoal (even though we know GW won't let any faction actually reach theirs).

The Exodites will likely remain without a goal because they're mostly inward-looking, and disinterested in the outside galaxy except as it directly affects them. The Drukhari are primarily absorbed in their power games within their city. But it's possible that an Archon or group of Archons might come up with a plan that involves the rest of the galaxy.

Craftworlders would make the most sense for something like this. They have a means to predict possible futures, and are described as often doing so. But GW wants to stick with the "fallen fading empire" theme, which means that the Eldar can't have hope. And thus can't have a goal that they could theoretically achieve, and thus work toward.

Eumerin wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
[The Craftworlds, Exodites, and Dark Eldar though are kind of directionless in terms of any such metagoal (even though we know GW won't let any faction actually reach theirs).

The Exodites will likely remain without a goal because they're mostly inward-looking, and disinterested in the outside galaxy except as it directly affects them. The Drukhari are primarily absorbed in their power games within their city. But it's possible that an Archon or group of Archons might come up with a plan that involves the rest of the galaxy.

Craftworlders would make the most sense for something like this. They have a means to predict possible futures, and are described as often doing so. But GW wants to stick with the "fallen fading empire" theme, which means that the Eldar can't have hope. And thus can't have a goal that they could theoretically achieve, and thus work toward.

Actually GW could make something that involves all 3. The discontented within all 3 factions could decide to do something to reclaim the galaxy for the Eldar. As already mentioned, GW made hints that younger Exodites are dissatisfied with the isolationist ways of the Exodites. Biel-Tan similarly has always paid lip service at least to rebuilding the Eldar empire. Perhaps some Archons or Kabals may decide to strike out for a realm in realspace, out from under Vect's thumb.

All 3 could try to carve out a domain for themselves or perhaps a blended domain with the aid of the Eldar Corsairs and Harlequins. In Gav Thorpe's Path of the Outcast novel, he gives a description of an unaligned city in the Webway where Eldar of all branches mingle. Something similar could be created in realspace: An eldritch domain of the Eldar that leaves other races in both awe and dread. A mixture of light and dark where the elegance and refinement of the Craftworlders is alongside the naked brutality of the Dark Eldar and Corsairs hauling in slaves and riches from all over the galaxy. A sort of echo of the Eldar empire as it was pre-Fall, but with the question left open as to whether this is a revival of the Eldar's fortunes or a last flash in the pan before extinction.

That was basically the Yinnari plan as I can work out.

Thing was GW wanted to do that with Zero investment. So Yinnari got 1 boxed model set of 3 characters and the rest of the army was a half and half Dark and Craftworld Eldar. This was also before GW had updated Craftworld so on one side you had super cool looking fairly modern Dark Eldar models and on the other you had guardians, old tanks, all the old Aspect warriors and so forth.

And I think people also saw through the marketing tactic too. Plus as there was so little investment in it and as Harlies had only just been rolled back into the Craftworld Codex from being their own army (and the same for Inquisition in the Imperial side); I'd be willing to bet many figured that Yinnari would get rolled into one or both of the established Eldar armies in time and that Yinnari as a whole separate force would just vanish.


What Yinnari really needed was its own army and GW could certainly have used something like Exodites or Corsairs as the backbone/core of the force and then created unique sculpts for the army and made it into its own thing.