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Okay, so this weekend I inherited a 1ed Eldar army - not Craftworld - actual true 1st ed as all these miniatures are Pre-WD-127.

My question is what the hell can I use them for? Corsairs? If not can I proxie them? if so will I have to convert a load of them? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

In terms of what's there;
Infantry
- 5-8 of each of the original 12 eldar miniatures (chainmail mesh armour!)
- 2-5 of each of the command group miniatures
- 10 Harlequins
- 4 Zoats including commander and Heavy Weapon
- Around 15 assorted characters and singles
Vehicles;
- 6 Jetbikes (2 with shuriken cannons)
- 4 Dreadnoughts
- 1 Spirit Warrior
- 6 Ghost Warriors
- 4 War Walkers
- 2 D-Cannons

Images of some of them ...

War walkers should still be usable as-is. Might need to check the base size (that goes for everything)

Dreads are called wraithlords these days, but should still be viable. Might take a little work to get the right guns on them, and they are overshadowed by other units in the codex.

Ghost warriors should be wraithguard IIRC.

Jetbikes are still valid, and can be fielded in squads of 3, so you are good there. They are smaller then modern ones, but that can be said for most of the RT stuff.

I field that d-cannon as a brightlance weapon platform for guardians.

Harlequins have their own codex. Depending on which ones you have, you might be able to get a usable squad from them.

Zoats are long gone. And IIRC were part of the tyranid army anyway.

Most of the old foot troopers are going to be counts-as for either guardian defenders or storm guardians. They do have an eclectic mix of guns. Some could fit into aspect warrior squads, but I’d not want to field a whole squad of the same guy. I personally have the guy with the melta on my paintbench to fight alongside the Fire dragons. The ML could make a nice fit for some dark reapers. Some could be done up as foot autachs with assorted gear.

All of these are still usable, if WYSIWYG:
- 5-8 of each of the original 12 eldar miniatures (chainmail mesh armour!) - Guardians are still useful, in squads of 10. Check for storm guardians, as a separate unit.
- 6 Jetbikes (2 with shuriken cannons) Old codexes had 1-in-3 could have SCs, but everyone can now take then, or Scatter Lasers. The core formation needs 9 + 2 psykers on bikes.
- 4 Dreadnoughts - Still valid as Wraithlords, but check weapon options.
- 4 War Walkers - As Dreads
- 2 D-Cannons - Still valid
- 1 Spirit Warrior - Look for the Wraithseer from Forgeworld, as a counts-as
- Around 15 assorted characters and singles
Vehicles - Look at the Farseer, Spiritseer/ Warlocks for psykers, and Autarchs and Phoenix Lords for the rest.

- 10 Harlequins - Check weapons, but are in a separate codex now

These you'll have trouble with:
- 2-5 of each of the command group miniatures - Check for WYSIWYG, as Guardians
- 4 Zoats including commander and Heavy Weapon
- 6 Ghost Warriors

Everything the previous posters said, I have most of my minis from the RT era and their suggestions are what I've been doing with mine. I haven't seen the new Corsair list from the updated Mymeara FW book, but I've slowly been switching the RT eldar over to Corsairs, especially since the RT Eldar lists were supposed to be pirate & merc bands anyway. The new Harlie dex actually made it a bit easier to use RT era minis, but you're still not getting full WYSIWIG without surgery. Zoats you're got going to get much milage out of in current 40K (they were later folded into Tyranids along with Genestealers, then erased entirely) maybe as Chaos bikes or spawn? Not sure what the footprint is on those.

I've used my Ghost Warrior as a Autarch & Corsair Prince (no rules changes, just with the idea their soulstones were implanted into a custom wraithbone body), though if you have a full squad the closest thing fluff-wise is Wraithblades, but they're substantially shorter so you'd need to make some allowances there.

If you dont want the Zoats... I'll have them... I only play Rogue Trader!

 Nevelon wrote:

Zoats are long gone. And IIRC were part of the tyranid army anyway.

Actually, Zoats in the RT days could be fielded as mercs in the Yriels Eldritch raiders army - they weren't JUST tyranid units.

The rest can still be used (some may need new bases - from memory, Walkers, dreads used to be on SQUARE BASES - and this may upset some more CDO gamers these days. The walkers can be used pretty much as-is. Scatter lasers, bright lances (lascannon in the RT days), plasma cannons (star cannons now) and missile launchers all still exist.

Lasguns are just "different looking" shuriken catapults (Eldar ceased to have access to lasguns with the advent of 3rd ed).
That D-cannon is a bit smaller than the usual model fielded these days, but is fine for any of the guardian support weapon platform ones - brightlance is fine.
The pistol/ccw could be "storm guardians" these days. Melta pistol-y things (some of them were actually melta-guns, not pistols, though) could be fusion guns and used in a storm squad.

Harlequins are harlequins - apart from getting some newer metal (then finecast) and now plastic models, they pretty much still use most of the same gear.

The heavy weapon troopers (they WERE lascannons at the time) - are about the only thing that has no direct comparison these days.

There was no such thing as a melta pistol, until Dante got a special one-off one in 2nd edition, so those models are all waving meltaguns around single-handedly. They could be a Fire Dragon squad?

As for the heavy weapon troopers, if you've got enough, use them as Dark Reapers.

You may also want to look at the Corsairs list in Imperial Armour: The Doom Of Mymaera. That's a bit of a throwback to the old 1st edition pre-craftworld army, and has man-portable heavy weapons.

As for the Zoats, they could be used as Ogryn allies in an Unbound army.

The metal Wraithlords make wonderful fodder for Talos/Cronos conversions.