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Ok, so im relatively new to Warhammer, i have played about 5 times, won every game... cept one.... i play as eldar against my 3 friends, who are Space marines, Imperial Guard, and Tyranid, I know that the space marines have different chapters, and that each chapter like Black Templar, or Ultra marines, changes the stats, or abilities that they have/use, i was wondering why there is nothing like this for Eldar, i was taking to my friends and they said there should be but that they havent seen anything...

Anyone have any insight?

Craftworlds.

Ok yeah, but what about bonuses applied by choosing different craftworlds?

Craftworld Eldar codex from way back when. Invalid now. Eldar don't really need a bunch of codecies to represent them, the aspects of Khaine are fairly standardized amoung call craftworlds, the main differences simply being abundance. The codex even outlines what the major craftworlds specialize in.

In addition, Space Marines sell enough to warrant a lot of chapters. Eldar... not so much.

As mentioned there was codex craftworld eldar, but basically

Ulthwe - guardians and psykers
Saim Hain - Jetbikes
Beil Tan - Aspect Warriors
Iyanden - wraith constructs
Alaitoc - Rangers

The real question you should ask your friend is 'is there enough differece to warrent all these different marine books?'

There are others like Yme-Loc (titan heavy IIRC) and Altansar (dark reaper phoenix lord home) plus many more. Homebrewed isn't out of the question.

Exodite armies are modelled too, and I hope you know what an exodite is.

Lugganath have greater ties to Harlequins.

Sadly there are no rules to represent the different Craftworlds any more, and so you have to restrict yourself in your unit choices based off the fluff.

It is a sad but true phenomenon that the SM's get pretty much everything they could ever want, rules, special rules, characters, models, promotion by GW, etc, while many other armies just... don't.

Edit: Double post!

Lugganath have greater ties to Harlequins.

Sadly there are no rules to represent the different Craftworlds any more, and so you have to restrict yourself in your unit choices based off the fluff.

It is a sad but true phenomenon that the SM's get pretty much everything they could ever want, rules, special rules, characters, models, promotion by GW, etc, while many other armies just... don't.

I think the current Eldar codex drew the release-date-short-straw.

The codex came out just when GW had decided that the codexi were to become simple and a more straightforward approach would be used in all the new codexi. Very few special rules, simple special characters.

Then GW had their yearly change of heart and decided each army should have many special rules and army-wide modification by special characters. Starting mildly with Orks and more severely with Imperial Guard. (I might have missed a codex or such).

If the Eldar codex would be redone right now, I'm guessing we would have had Craftworld specific rules.

I doubt it. They'd have rules based on special characters, which I guess are pretty much the same thing, but you'd have to take said arbitrary special character.

The Eldar Codex is actually really well done. If it suffered from Jervisification, it was the one of its era to suffer the least.

No i do not know what an exodite is, im new to 40k, haven't read any books yet either. I have read up on some of the fluff but that is about it. I suppose the Aspects are really separate armies, but i wish they had special rules for having a certain mix of certain armies, kind of like formations but a cooler name lol.

The Exodites were the first eldar to leave the Empire (they had an empire at one stage) - before "the FALL".

They colonised the outer maiden worlds of the old empire. They are seen as "rustic colonials" by some, and less advanced, but they are still eldar, even by eldar standards.

Think of them as the "farmboys" to the Craftworlders' "cityfolks".

The aspects are not seperate armies, all aspects on one craftworld will fight together at the same time, depending on the mission.

The current codex still allows craftworld builds, more or less. By moving some of the choices to different sections, like jetbikes to troops, or options like wraithguard potentially as troops, you can pretty much build an army that is close to the old builds. My Eldar were Biel Tan. I had zero Dire Avengers and Guardians. Boy, did I have to make some adjustments!

Fafnir wrote:I doubt it. They'd have rules based on special characters, which I guess are pretty much the same thing, but you'd have to take said arbitrary special character.

That's what I meant actually, pretty much exactly how SM special characters work now.

I certainly agree that the current codex is well done book, but I just can't shake the feeling that the lack of special rules make it somehow a bit 'bland'. But as with each codex, it is pretty simple to make a themed army (whether it by a Craftworld specific, Exodite, PDF, AdMech themed, or whatever). Just think of what restrictions the theme implies and what aspects of the armylist should be 'overly' represented. Sure, it won't be a WAAC list, but i've never been one for those.


Oh, and I don't think you should view the Exodites as less advanced. They still trade with Craftworlds and thus still use high-tech weapons/vehicles like Vypers.

You might want to visit Lexicanum and do some searching to learn more about the various eldar factions. I've been playing since 2nd edition and still find new stuff poking around there.

As far as the craftworld armies go, there's no bonuses for taking a specific craftworld the way there were in 3rd edition, but you can still mimic various craftworlds by taking certain army builds, as Enginseer describes. My own exodite eldar use a style very similar to Saim-Hann, with loads of jetbikes and hard-hitting tanks.

If you like the idea of an Aspect-driven army, Biel-Tan would probably be the way to go, but there's always room for homemade craftwords or 'specialist armies'. For instance, taking an autarch with hawk's wings, Baharroth, triple-max hawk squads as a core force. You could then take guardians (modelling vestigial hawk wings in place of sensor vanes) for your troops and falcons for heavies - making sure to paint them in swoopng hawk colors.

Or if you're up for a challenge, model hawks wings for a wraithlord. They won't get any bonus for them, but they'll look cool.

So, what about formations, ive heard some people mention things about that.