Topic: why are eldar so numerous in battle?

[First Tiger Hobbes]

it says in a bunch of places that the eldar are a 'dying race' and that their number 'dwindles daily'

then why the heck can an eldar army field so many freakin' guardians? you'd think that eldar would be powerhouse fighters and be worth so many points that you would not have so many-but no. instead, that's what it is for the space marines, who are more numerous than the eldar.

WHEN WILL IT ALL END?!!!!!?!!!!!!!!???

[gripen40k]

i don't know, only time will tell, or when ever andy gets his head out of his a$$ and starts updating eldar.

[Blue_Mag]

The eldar are so numerous because all eldar are trained in combat at some time or another.  Everyone needs to serve their time in one of the aspects and afterwards they become a gaurdian, or the equivalent of a militia.  Ulthwe is the only craftworld to have a standing army of gaurdians (gaurdians who have chosen the path of the warrior outside of an aspect, I believe) and aspect warriors.  All eldar are trained because everyone is needed to pick up arms if needed to protect the dying race.
**Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm a semi-fluff newbie**

[Kage2020]

You could also posit that the Craftworld Eldar, while dying, may still number in the millions per Craftworld.  It's up to individual interpretation.

Furthermore, the Eldar engaging in battle is something that I would not consider to be a regular event...

40k is primarily a skirmish-level game...

Well, there are some possibilities...

[Iron Monkey]

First, there are not more Space Marines than Eldar. It says that the larger Craftworlds are teh size of moons. Thats bigger than 1000 chapters of Space Marines x 1000 per chapter = 1000000 Space Marines. A single moon could hold more than a million.

Everyone needs to serve their time in one of the aspects and afterwards they become a gaurdian, or the equivalent of a militia.

Not exactally. They can choose to follow the path of the warrior, or anyother path they wish. There is no law which states you have to follow the path of the warrior ever. Guardians are simply eldar who once followed the path of the warrior and no longer do.

[Kage2020]

Yep... all Eldar are trained to serve as Guardians.  Those that have served in the Warrior Shrines often take up the positions of squad officers...

[Biel-Tan]

On the topic of space marines, All the space marines and their chapters should be dead by now, for every game played with them and what not. Then again so would we.

-Biel-Tan

[Kage2020]

Well, that is one of the reasons for the problems with the 'fluff'... it really isn't necessary to play the wargame!

[Zhou Yu]

::nods::

I do get the feeling I've killed at least a Chapter's worth of SM in my lifetime.

That would be including various SM models that fell victim to BB guns, darts and my Haemonculi Craft Knife...

[Kage2020]

Yup, I can remember in the 2nd ed. rules (before the introduction of the new vehicles rules) taking out something like half a company of Space Marines using a single distortion cannon...

But then they changed the rules and it became impossible to do that... <sigh>

[Anno]

Eldar are so numerous on the battlefeild because of one key difference between them and the armies of other humanoid races: they ALL go to war.  If an Imperial world goes to war, they will send out the Imp Guard, or maybee call upon some space marines, but the civilians stay at home and hope they dont get fusion-bombed.  The same goes for tau, only the fire caste is going to fight.  On the other hand, when an Eldar craftworld goes to war, those on the path of the warrior don their aspect armor, the avatar is awakened, the wraith troops are loaded with spirit stones, those who used to be on the path of the warior form Storm Guardian units, some seers join the warhost, and (here's the real reason)  ALL the civilians are assigned to Guardian Defender squads.  Sure, they don't all go to war at once, but the fact is that in a desperate situation, they could.  Eldar feild huge numbers because they are feilding huge numbers of mediocre-ly trained civilians.

Ok, i'm done.  Peace!

[Zhou Yu]

Good point, but also there is the fact even a dying race is going to have at least several million individuals in it. In little skirmish games, with all those militia, they probably could get a bit of a crowd. But they still come nowhere near Imperial Guard for numbers, which is fluffy enough.

And, to be blunt, Eldar are not numerous anyway. Only fielding Guardian squads with almost nothing else will give such an impression; in general Eldar armies are less model-to-point than all but Necron or SM armies.

[Africa_Shocks]

i'm bringing this point back up again because i think this post is extremely valid and occurred to me just the other day!
The eldar a re the only race 'in decline'. For the eldar every person lost is much more valuable than the equivalent in the SM's.

If the fluff was anyway near representative of the wargame then the eldar would not be in decline merely set-back. Or conversley if the game conformed to the fluff then the eldar would field battle suites like the Tau or terminator armour. To suggest that the race most in need of it's populous is the same one that utilizes the most flimsy of armour is riddiculous.

Anyway we all know that GW fluff is written for it's aesthetic appeal rather than coherency or any desire to embody the game. This is why I see the decline as coming about more due to the affirmative action to reassert a foothold. I'm a firm believer of beil'tan's theory of re-birth. If the losses to war result in the securing of a small empire of maiden worlds where craftworld eldar could be safe and procreate then we'd have a much better chance of bringing about Y'nnead or whatever it's called.

Simple equation... More eldar born now = More eldar to die in the near future = Y'nnead coming sooner to save us!

Am I right? or am I Right!

[Anatolian Guy]

Yeah that equation is perfect if you forget a tiny detail,-->SLANEESH<--. That and the fact that there may be any number of reasons why eldar can't reproduce like bunnies (or humans in this case), cause if you think a bit, if they can reproduce like that why haven't they started doing it?

[Rasmus]

You should have made a new topic for this.

Digging up old, since long dead, topics and posting on them, especially without adding some remarkable new input into the discussion, is really poor netiquette, and the thread has now been locked. We like to keep current topics on page one of the forum, so dragging up older material is not something desirable. Please don't do that in the future. Thank you.
Have a nice day.

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