Here we go, once again I'm writing stuff about the races in WH40k. I'm almost done, next episode (the one about Necrons) should be the last.
But today's episode is about the Eldar! The snobbish elves from outer space whose entire species is on the brink of death!
DISCLAIMER: Warhammer 40k has some good amount of blood and violence, if you don't like these things I recommend you stop reading from here, this one also has some foul language so you've been warned.
The Eldar are one of the most prominent races in the 40k universe, and if you pay enough attention, you’ll realize that they’re also a carbon copy of the regular Elves in other settings (but put in space).
The Eldar, just like their original elven counterparts, have pointy ears, are incredibly selfish and spawned a god of debauchery and drugs with their unrestrained amounts of kinky sex wait what.
The Eldar are one of the oldest factions in the lore, and they represent one which is in the brink of death (thanks to their less than stellar decisions). One of the major points made by Games Workshop is that they try to steer other factions away from their own inevitable fate, something they completely fail at thanks to their attitude and their history of backstabbing (to the point most races would just shoot them at first instead of letting them speak or anything).
An interesting thing to note with these guys is that they (alongside Imperium and Tau) represent a society's cycle: Eldar are death, the Imperium represents decay (and the lack of self-awareness of this, which is also part of the reason the Eldar are where they are right now) and the Tau represent the rising power, the golden days if you will, which will (probably) go down the same road the Imperium did.
There’s not much else I can say about these guys. They do have an entirely complicated story like the Imperium of man but unlike those guys you can understand what they are about without having to read a book the size of three bibles combined.
What do them space elves do?
I bet you don't even know what is going on in this picture, because I don't.
The Eldar are part of the “Triumvirate of Overpowered-ness” in Dark Crusade, next to the Necrons and the Tau. This is something you don’t see until you play the game long enough to understand that the Eldar have some advantages that other races simply don’t have.
It sounds like I’m complaining but I’m not, I’m just explaining how it is. It’s pretty known to people that Eldar are one of (if not the) the most broken races in the game, because the developers love those guys or something.
If you don’t believe me just look at this:
This is a bonesinger, the builder unit. It can teleport “a short distance”
That’s the biggest lie ever, its teleporting range is just as big (or bigger) than any other unit that can teleport (or jump). Keep in mind this is the builder unit. For reference, the Necron Lord (the hero unit of the Necrons, can't teleport as far as this guy can).
Basic units of them Eldar boys are the guardian squad, which work pretty much like your average space marine tactical squad (with less health but with a lot more firepower). These will probably be the only thing you throw at the enemy for exactly 0.1 seconds, as you will get better units after building some stuff.
The next unit is the Ranger, who acts as a stealth sniper and like the name implies can be a bother to your opponent (unless your opponent is the computer, because it cheats). They can also infiltrate (again, not very useful if your opponent Is the computer since it knows where every invisible unit is).
Then we have the “Hero Unit” or commander unit, Farseer Taldeer of Craftworld Ulthwé, who first appeared during Winter Assault (the first expansion of Dawn of War), of whom there’s a lot of fanfiction about- NO, don’t look it up, please just don’t, trust me on this one.
The big selling point of the Farseer is that she gets access to a trillion different abilities they can use to completely destroy the opposition they’re currently facing. Here’s a screenshot of her strongest ability “Eldritch Blast” which will (usually) destroy everything.
A lot of people died that day...
Next thing on the list is the Banshees, screaming angry Eldar women that hate you deeply and will cut you down with their swords, they are the dedicated melee unit of the Eldar.
Then you have the Warp Spyder, this one is cool, it can fire a trillion laser bolts at the speed of sound AND teleport short distances, which makes it perfect to cut off any enemy units that may want to retreat to recover strength (this is a common thing in normal play, beware the spyders!)
Other units include the Dragon squad, a recolor of the Guardians except they like blowing stuff up instead of shooting it, and the Council person, who can become a giant daemon, the avatar of a heretical god Khaine, which is like Khorne (the chaos god of blood) but for space elves and without the blood. Khaine is also the unit that usually gets stomped whenever Games Workshop has to give the Eldar a threat to fight against.
Khaine is the relic unit of the Eldar, he’s a "major" part of the last section of the Eldar stronghold as well (he acts like a final boss of sorts)
Finally, you have the vehicles, most of which are skimmers and also capable of wrecking stuff up. While not necessary for success, placing one of these in the right place during the right moment can turn the tide.
And then, the backbone of the army, this thing:
The Warp Portal/Webway Gate/This thing, which does not only increase the unit cap but also allows you to:
A- Teleport your units quickly between portals (you’ll have a lot of these)
B- Heal any units nearby (works wonders when one is near the frontlines)
C- Make any other buildings close to it “invisible” (again, not much use against a machine but shines against other players)
D- Capable of teleporting buildings (Which lets you move your base)
It is also the only building capable of this in the entire game. Again, the eldar are overpowered.
The Eldar Stronghold:
I'll talk about this one out by simply remembering stuff from the last time I played it.
The eldar stronghold is interesting, it conveys their usual shtick of doing complicated plans to defeat their enemy, using other people to their advantage and having those complicated plans blow up in your face.
Interestingly, this stronghold has other races in it, the Chaos boys and the Orks are here as well, and they both have little headquarters with “side missions” you can do, or will probably end up doing so that your base isn’t assaulted by three different people at the same time.
One of the best parts of the map is when you release two squiggoths (giant dinosaurs with guns) and make them run recklessly through the Ork camp.
Here’s a picture of them, I named the one on the left Peter and the other one Mike.
Unfortunately, given that the Orks there have such incredulous amounts of dakka, Mike and Peter did not last long. It was the saddest part of the entire map.
This entire thing where you fight both orks and chaos is all a “strategy” done by Taldeer, who decides to let other people do her dirty work, and then uses one of my favorite tactics ever “just put a lot of turrets in our front door, to make it safe”
Most of the stronghold simply revolves around dealing with those two races before you can start shooting some eldar. The eldar are by no means weak however, this map uses their stealth ability extensively and also uses a lot of turrets, for good measure.
The map has a lot of these red webway gates, which will spawn some turrets after a short amount of time, so it's a good idea to try and blow them up real quick.
The last part of the map (and the most interesting one in my opinion) is a “King of The Hill” section; you’re supposed to hold three different strategy points for several minutes in order to win the map, all while being assaulted by an endless stream of Eldar and the Avatar of Khaine.
Don’t even think on going near their base however, you’ll be greeted by this:
This screenshot was brought to you by the Necron Monolith. RIP Necron Monolith 2020-2020.
And that’s just the entrance, the one on the left to be specific.
During the last 3 minutes or so, the Eldar start throwing everything at you, including the before mentioned avatar and several million banshees and vehicles.
My favorite part of the map however, has to be the ending cutscene when playing as Necrons. Just look at this:
Picture this: the entire world is consumed by genocidal machines. Nothing can stand against them. It's on this very moment, that the entirety of the planet (by this point filled with genocidal robots) kills the last "organic" being in the planet.
And that’s pretty much everything about the Eldar. Since there's nothing else to say about these guys I guess the post ends here, like always, thank you for reading my post, I hope you have a great day!
Usually, when writing these, I put several pictures of the final assault to end the post but since the Eldar stronghold ends with a “King of the Hill” thing, I’ll just put some pictures of the final battle instead.
Some Banshees fighting Necrons. A pile of corpses next to them.
Necrons standing right in front of the Eldar's base, stemming the tide of Eldar.
The Necrons get an upper hand and start walking inside the Eldar base. Everything becomes chaotic after this.
The after action report, Necrons finally managed to kill everything on Kronus.