Why don't Eldar use other races as fodder?

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**Totalwar1402**

SirWeeble wrote:
I've always wondered this about the Eldar - the Dark Eldar use beasts and homunculi, while the Craftworlders don't even use so much as a drone. In the lore, the Eldar seem to value their life (or at least fear death) more so than other races since death means risking their soul being devoured. Even if they die in relative safety with a soul gem, that's certainly less pleasant of a result than just throwing some Xenos in front of you.

I always thought this was doubly true for Guardians. Guardians seem like they should come out only in desperate times. If any civilized country rounded up the poets and artists and gave them a pewny gun, you know they're in trouble. However, in the game, they're just basic troop grunts.

Is there some lore reason they don't have some 2ndary grunt race or drones to act as fodder? The dark eldar at least use beasts - but there aren't any beats/homunculi that fill the troop role. Dark Eldar seem to have even a greater reason to fear death and don't seem like they would have morality issues with forcing some other xeno race to act as fodder.

They do this indirectly. Its called the Imperium of Man.

I mean the whole book 2 of the Gathering Storm they even talk about how they need one of the races to be their shield and tank the forces of chaos. "Orcs, too unpredictable. Tau, too young. Tyranids, unthinkable. Humans it is!" So they decide to bring back Gulliman to be their new leader and revitalize the Imperium since humans fight if they have something to believe in.

Basically when you are a psychic race that can see the future and change fate, you don't need a slave caste. You can manipulate events and the lesser species to keep your own lives out of danger.

Also a large slave army has associated problems as a drain on resources, possible uprisings and a vector for chaos incursions. Far safer to do this in a hands off approach.

**Orlanth**

Pilum wrote:
I think that also, the games we play are when whatever is being fought for has to happen. At this point, you can’t rely on a subtly-manipulated catspaw any longer; you use what you can trust, and that means Your Guys.

Underrated answer. This encapsulates 40K. A 1500pt Space Marine army will over time annihilate a practically unlimited points value in greenskins through ambush, force projection, outmaneuver, and strike against vulneralbe targets and logistical resources etc, and take few or no casualties in doing so. The 1500pt a side battle of orks vs marines is a critical engagement somewhere in the campaign when they could not operate as usual and had to pay in blood to get things done.