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What's the most massive conflict between Mankind and the Craftworld/Dark Eldar?

Seems like most of the conflicts are pretty small scale.

Well the Eldar are a really small force compared to any other faction, numerically. In terms of bodies per, they probably aren't that much bigger than the Tau across the whole galaxy, especially given that they don't reproduce (as far as I am told).

The largest one I can think of is the Battle of the Sepulchre. Its the first major conflict for the Ultramarines after regaining their full, post-Behemoth strength, and they deploy the entire chapter against an entire craftworld.

 Deadshot wrote:
Well the Eldar are a really small force compared to any other faction, numerically. In terms of bodies per, they probably aren't that much bigger than the Tau across the whole galaxy, especially given that they don't reproduce (as far as I am told).

There are relatively few Craftworld Eldar as there are relatively few craftworlds and they do indeed reproduce slowly. There are more Eldar of other types though.
Of the other types of Eldar, the most numerous are Exodities and Dark Eldar. Humans though are not aware of the differences, and in truth the lines are blurred between Dark Eldar, Coursair Eldar, Harlequins, Exodites, and Craftworld Eldar.

There are a lot of exodities, but they are spread across a thousand worlds. They shun most technology. Wars between humans and Exodities would be small, as the war would be unlikely to involve more than a couple exoditie planets.

Dark Eldar are mostly concentrated in one massive city. But it's a city that is orders of magnitude larger than even the most populace human hive world. The most famous quoted comparison was that a hive world was like an ant hill while Commorragh was a towering mountain. That might be exaggeration, but Commorragh does contain stars, not just one like a dysons sphere but at least 4 individual stars. Ringworld is 3 million times the size of earth. A dysons sphere is 550 times larger than earth. Commorragh is extradimensional, so may be yet bigger. Dark Eldar also reproduce by accelerated test tube and by cloning, there are a lot of Dark Eldar. All we know is there are more orks and more humans than Dark Eldar, and there are more Dark Eldar than Craftworld Eldar.

Dark eldar though keep to themselves. The IoM barely knows they exist. When they do venture out, they do so in overwhelming force in search of slaves or pain. A war between Dark Eldar and Humans would be small as it would be unlikely to involve more than a single human planet. The Dark Eldar have been known to conquer human planets, even hive worlds, and take every soul off into the webway as prisoner.

The thing about the Craftworld Eldar is that they're really, really sneaky b*stards. Their methods for fighting a war are completely unlike any other race in the galaxy (much like most factions' methods are unlike each other I might add).

If the Imperium wants to destroy something, they'll muster regiment after regiment of guardsmen, sprinkle in a few SM and then gloriously crush their target under millions upon millions of armoured boots.

If the Craftworlders want to destroy something, their seers will scry into the future to find their desired effect, and attempt to decipher what steps need to be made in the present to bring that about while minimising loss of Eldar life. They will attack seemingly random targets in a pattern that makes no sense whatsoever to someone who can't see the ripples each event makes through the future, guiding someone else to do their dirty work for them.

Really, the biggest human-eldar war was the 2nd War of Armageddon. Humanity just didn't realise that it was the Eldar they were at war with.

Probably the battle of Rasilena, where Biel-Tan's forces won out against ten Space Marine chapters at once.

 Exergy wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
Well the Eldar are a really small force compared to any other faction, numerically. In terms of bodies per, they probably aren't that much bigger than the Tau across the whole galaxy, especially given that they don't reproduce (as far as I am told).

There are relatively few Craftworld Eldar as there are relatively few craftworlds and they do indeed reproduce slowly. There are more Eldar of other types though.
Of the other types of Eldar, the most numerous are Exodities and Dark Eldar. Humans though are not aware of the differences, and in truth the lines are blurred between Dark Eldar, Coursair Eldar, Harlequins, Exodites, and Craftworld Eldar.

There are a lot of exodities, but they are spread across a thousand worlds. They shun most technology. Wars between humans and Exodities would be small, as the war would be unlikely to involve more than a couple exoditie planets.

Dark Eldar are mostly concentrated in one massive city. But it's a city that is orders of magnitude larger than even the most populace human hive world. The most famous quoted comparison was that a hive world was like an ant hill while Commorragh was a towering mountain. That might be exaggeration, but Commorragh does contain stars, not just one like a dysons sphere but at least 4 individual stars. Ringworld is 3 million times the size of earth. A dysons sphere is 550 times larger than earth. Commorragh is extradimensional, so may be yet bigger. Dark Eldar also reproduce by accelerated test tube and by cloning, there are a lot of Dark Eldar. All we know is there are more orks and more humans than Dark Eldar, and there are more Dark Eldar than Craftworld Eldar.

Dark eldar though keep to themselves. The IoM barely knows they exist. When they do venture out, they do so in overwhelming force in search of slaves or pain. A war between Dark Eldar and Humans would be small as it would be unlikely to involve more than a single human planet. The Dark Eldar have been known to conquer human planets, even hive worlds, and take every soul off into the webway as prisoner.

Apologies, but when I say Eldar I mean craftworld Eldar, as until recently, there was only Eldar and Dark Eldar.

The Scourging of Lammas. An Eldar vs. Imperium campaign mentioned in the background as raging non-stop for 15 years and with no signs of ending. Details beyond that are sparse however.

The imperium can lose millions and barely effect in kong run.
Humans breeed fast.

The eldar. Every single loss is of note. A s
Dozen losses in battle noted. Imprium loses 120,000 ... We have reserves. We have more guard.

Even space marines can be repaced easier.

At end of day. Eldar are not brutal endurance wars, but precise, planned and carefully executed scalpels.

I know the Imperium lost an entire sector fleet to a Craftworld in the blood nebula. After that the Imperium stepped back and decided that directly assaulting Craftworlds was probably a bad idea. I don't know much about the event, mainly because I don't think GW elaborates beyond that the event happened. Its just in the Codex.

Sepulchre is the biggest ground battle between the two that I can think of. It's where we get the infamous 'Calgar punching out an avatar' from.

Redseer wrote:
I know the Imperium lost an entire sector fleet to a Craftworld in the blood nebula. After that the Imperium stepped back and decided that directly assaulting Craftworlds was probably a bad idea. I don't know much about the event, mainly because I don't think GW elaborates beyond that the event happened. Its just in the Codex.

do you know the name of the battle?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Robin5t wrote:
Probably the battle of Rasilena, where Biel-Tan's forces won out against ten Space Marine chapters at once.

Typical GW, waxing and waning the strength of Space Marines as they see fit

I don't know about most massive, but the Siege of Alaitoc is the one that appeals to me the most.

It was a full scale invasion of Alaitoc craftworld by imperial guard, space marines and even titan legions which progressed into a protracted campaign.

The story is told by the 'Path of...' books and you could easily set an extended campaign within this conflict if you had the right models and scenery and the will to paint them!

Cheers
Kroem

Considering how inconsistent scale is in 40K lore I find this question hard to answer.

Also when eldar especially craftworlds need to fight a major engagement they'll usually get a proxy (IoM or orks mostly) to be the unknowing meatshield.

Kroem wrote:
I don't know about most massive, but the Siege of Alaitoc is the one that appeals to me the most.

It was a full scale invasion of Alaitoc craftworld by imperial guard, space marines and even titan legions which progressed into a protracted campaign.

oh god biggest misunderstanding ever!

oh god biggest misunderstanding ever!

Haha yea you could say that, it is a bit inconsistent between sources whether IoM realises that there are distinct types of Eldar or not.
Attacking a craftworld may have seemed like a perfectly reasonable response to Dark Eldar raids at the time!

In truth Alaitoc is probably more sympathetic to Corsairs than most as many of its people follow the path of the outcast, so you can appreciate where the Imperium were coming from.

Kroem wrote:

oh god biggest misunderstanding ever!

Haha yea you could say that, it is a bit inconsistent between sources whether IoM realises that there are distinct types of Eldar or not.
Attacking a craftworld may have seemed like a perfectly reasonable response to Dark Eldar raids at the time!

should be obvious, it's the spiky Eldar and the non-spiky Eldar!

In the Great Crusade tidbits in the early HH novels and black booms, there are one or two examples of legions destroying Craftworlds, which were presumably big conflicts.

Fabius fights one in his novel which counts for a limited definition of 'Mankind'.


In the golden age of exploration(cooincident with the moral decline of the eldar) there were probably some big wars, but never documented.