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They aren't even depicted as winning battles from their opponents' views often, either. Nor are they shown to be very good at manipulating, despite the fact that they're stated to be good at it.

Eldar are a major case of "Implied Character Attribute". They're stated to be really good at manipulation, etc, but... we never actually see any cases of it in stories. Yes, they did do things like cause the 2nd war for Armegeddon to save their hive cities, which was a major "victory" in a sense, but those cases are few and far between.

Part of this is because most stories are from the IoM's perspective. However, even regarding stories from the Eldar's perspective, their victories, including the manipulation ones, seem few and far between. Really, for example, the latest set of Eldar short stories was the Carnac campaign for crying out loud. Perhaps, canon-wise, on a grand scale of things, the Eldar are winning (including things like Armegeddon where they win by never going to battle in the first place), but if so, it'd be nice to see more stories that reflect that.

I guess this makes Eldar the Abaddon of the factions? Canon-wise, Abaddon had to go through a lot to put each Black Crusade together and is actually very good at what he does (he has to be, or else he would have been transformed into a spawn long ago). But when it comes to actual stories, we only ever hear about him losing (or, what we think is losing). Though at least 6th Edition disclaimed that each Black Crusade was just a step in his greater overall scheme.

A major difference here though is as far as we can tell, Abaddon's happy with the way things are going, which helps drive home that all his "losses" weren't really losses at all. Eldar meanwhile are shown that all these losses hurt like hell and things just keep getting worse.

Or tl;dr: GW tells one thing and shows another.

All the freaking time.

To be fair, if an Eldar plan goes off without a hitch you'll probably never know they were there. And as such this doesn't make for a good story.

That depends on how the story is told.

That would make a good story from the Eldar's perspective, hearing about how they set events in motion to play out in the way they want, what precautions they took against failure, etc. Not every good story about a victory has to be about a battle.

It'd actually be a pretty neat story if handled right. There are many stories that are about pulling off the plan in movies, manga, and books that are very popular. Death Note, Ocean's Eleven, etc. These stories focus primarily on you, the viewer/reader, watching the various characters' line of thoughts and plans and how everything pulls out in the end.

However, these stories are difficult to write and probably a bit to the left of WH40k's demographic. Which is too bad cause WH40k is filled with factions and characters who allegedly pull this sort of stuff all the time (Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tzeentch followers, Alpha Legion followers, etc) but we'll rarely see any stories about it. That said, of those listed factions. the Eldar either get the most stories where they lose, or they don't have an excuse. When Tzeentch followers lose, the writers can (and often do) say "Oh, that was all part of Tzeentch's plan anyways". Dark Eldar meanwhile don't lose that often in the first place in most stories I think. Alpha Legion never has any stories or anything these days so they never win or lose. It's just the Eldar that are always lose lose lose win lose lose lose.

 Marzillius wrote:
Anyone else tired of the Eldar always losing?

Since the Fall, their creation of a new Chaos God thousands of years ago, and their general decline towards extinction as a race?



No.

Ask SoB players what they think of always losing.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Ask SoB players what they think of always losing.

As a sister of battle player I understand the Eldar pain. Now don't give me that BS about humans not being able to understand eldar pain.

To be fair, though, Eldar have always been on the receiving stick. Their creators were brutally murdered by badass robots and actual Gods.

Just look at Byzantine history. Like the Eldar, the Byzantines were always trying to manipulate the situation to their advantage. if they got into an actual fight, something had already gone wrong. When the Bulgars attacked their western provinces, they got the Cumans to attack the Bulgars and draw them off. They sent the Visagoths to attack the Goths in Italy and then rolled in afterwards and mopped up. Most of their successes don't really make the history books because they're behind the scenes and if it worked, no one but the Byzantines knew.
So, like the Eldar, when they did end up in a war, they were generally unprepared and not on ground of their choosing.

One of the main problems I see is that the IoM is a reactionary force in the 40k universe. Something bites, we punch it in the face. Something bites on the other side? Punch it in the face. There's very little actual "planning" I see the IoM doing outside of constant Defcon 4 level survival-instinct reactions on the galactic scale.

Eldar, on the other hand, should be a race *built* on the opposite principles: Planning each move down to the last movement of a singular soldier. Not only does their victory depend on it, their very survival as a race does. And here is where I think the problems with the Eldar stories comes from: The fast paced, reactionary against-all-odds kind of execution of warfare is so opposite from the slow, painstaking, far reaching plans of the Eldar that many of the authors, even if they wanted to follow this aesthetic, might actually get shot down by higher ups because it doesn't match up with the drop pod-crashing-down-just-in-the-nick-of-time tapestry woven thus far.

To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
-Sun Tzu, the Art of War

CloudRider wrote:
Fluff wise,
The Eldar are pretty much the most cowardly bunch, tied with Guardsmen (haha)

Dude, I know I'm digressing a bit here. But Guard? Cowardly? They face threats that give SPACE MARINES pause on a daily basis, armed with nothing but a high-powered flash-light with a bit of pointy metal stuck on the end!

IG? BALLS OF FETHING STEEL!!!!

*sigh* I'm probably just feeding a troll here.

Anyway, back to the very cool and fascinating discussion on the Eldar fluff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:
Or tl;dr: GW tells one thing and shows another.

All the freaking time.

Because the fluff-writers simply don't understand the old writer's adage about showing, not telling?

I'd say it has more to do with them being completely unable (rather than unwilling) to show, not tell, certain concepts.

Basically, it comes down to the BL writers (even the best ones, like Dan Abnett) completly lacking any grasp of sound military or political science, whether at the tactical, operational, strategic or theatre levels. Hence, they don't actually realise that they are telling us one thing and showing us another. In Battle for the Abyss for example we are repeatedly told about the how the Ultramarine Captain character is famous for tactical acumen - so much so that the World Eater, Thousand Son and Wolf characters all know how skilled he is.

Yet he repeatedly divides his forces in the face of a superior enemy, concocts suicidal plans, creates divisions within his own forces at a whim, fails significant leadershiip challenges, undermines the authority of his ranking astartes and fleet subordinates and generally stuffs up a military operation in every way it is possible to do so (including taking more than 60% casualties in a single engagement). Yet despite this, the other characters continue to regard him as a military genius and a truly talented leadership figure.

It's the same deal with the Eldar. They tell us they are manipulative masters of deception, the precision strike and the concept of "let's you and him fight". But the fluff writers have no actual concept of just what that actually entails and even less idea of how to portray it. Which is why they can only tell us the Eldar are good at this method of warfare, rather than being able to show us that they are good at it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MWHistorian wrote:
Just look at Byzantine history. Like the Eldar, the Byzantines were always trying to manipulate the situation to their advantage. if they got into an actual fight, something had already gone wrong. When the Bulgars attacked their western provinces, they got the Cumans to attack the Bulgars and draw them off. They sent the Visagoths to attack the Goths in Italy and then rolled in afterwards and mopped up. Most of their successes don't really make the history books because they're behind the scenes and if it worked, no one but the Byzantines knew.
So, like the Eldar, when they did end up in a war, they were generally unprepared and not on ground of their choosing.

That's an excellent historical analogy. But I still think my earlier statement has more to do with the way Eldar are portrayed in the setting. I'm not convinced that any of the GW staffers are politically sophisticated enough to demonstrate this concept in their writing, even though I don't doubt for a second that at least some of them will know about the Byzantine foreign policy model.

Kain strikes me as kind of a large, greenish, warty creature. There's just no reasoning with someone whose answer to every legitimate application of logic is,"No, you're wrong."

 MandalorynOranj wrote:
That would make a good story from the Eldar's perspective, hearing about how they set events in motion to play out in the way they want, what precautions they took against failure, etc. Not every good story about a victory has to be about a battle.

The main reason why they haven't been able to write a good eldar story.. One based on a military loss that hides a great long-term victory that from the view of others seem pyric..
GW just doesn't have that sort of author on staff.. They're writers are either focused on battle after battle (most of the older ones, but still see the odd pop up here/ there) The 'human element' behind the war (eisen) comedy (like cain series) or just plain 'dun dun duuuun' (most heresy books tbh).. For someone who has read a wide range of fantasy and sci-fi, GW books are equivalent to an old Steven Segal b-grade flick, alright to watch... Once.. Hardly mind-blowing

Anyway my point is 'enigmatic' races require a much more three dimensional view to get right, something that all the authors in GW just don't have the mindset right.. I mean the path series migt as well have been about a New York teenager goin through puberty... For all its depth..