Eldar
The Eldar (a.k.a. Space Elves, Fairies) are one of the "playable" armies in Warhammer 40,000. They are essentially elves ported directly from Tolkien into space, pointy ears and all, and as a result are often called Elfdar by fa/tg/uys. Which is retarded, because the term "Eldar" itself is already pulled straight out of Tolkien, being one of the many many names the Tolkien Elves use to refer to themselves with. They have very advanced technology, but ages of warfare and strife have reduced their population from great empires in the past to the few surviving Craftworlds or Maiden Worlds still present in the 41st Millennium.
In the 40k game, the Eldar army is comprised of specialized units that excel at a particular task, as opposed to more general all-rounders like the Space Marine tactical squads. Their vehicles are almost all hovercraft, excepting War Walkers, which are (unsurprisingly) walker vehicles. The Eldar also have a few special tricks up their elfy sleeve. This comes in the form of the wraithlord (a giant ghost warrior in a giant wraithbone structure. It's like a space marine dreadnought in purpose: They both have a dead guy thingy in them) and the avatar.(It's like a giant monster made of lava. This is completely unrelated to the movie.)
In spite of their fall from being a colossal empire that ruled when Mankind was still poking things with sticks and roasting dead animals over the fire in caves to their current state (a dying race slowly being whittled down by combat losses and Slaanesh), the hubris of the Eldar, and their legendary disdain for every single bit of non-Eldarin life remains completely unchanged, and the race as a whole has a superiority complex that would put Failbaddon to shame. They often act indirectly, subtly manipulating other races (most commonly the Imperials) into doing what they want in a proud emulation of one of the galaxy's biggest dicks. These traits, paired with their being used as the defenders of the status quo (see below) and the blatant favoritism they generally receive from any work featuring them (this for example) have caused them to be the single most-hated race by /tg/, putting even the fucking Weeaboo Space Communists and Space Zombies to shame.
Recently the Eldar seemed to have become the whipping boys of GW. You know they hate you when you can't even win in your own codices. Also, almost every victory they get nowadays is a Pyrrhic one, which is considered on /tg/ to be proof that things are progressing in a better direction given the Eldar tendency to be a status quo fiat for fluffwriters. Matt Ward especially enjoys his crusade against the Eldar, with Avatars dying hilariously in almost every codex the guy's written, and if not that then expect similarly one-sided defeats for the Eldar.
Gav Thorpe will fight to the death to write about anything starring the Eldar. Because he just loves the elves (not enough to stop them from not being able to win in their own codex, so, he's a much better kind of fan than Matt Ward) and it's more or less agreed that he's really the only one who can portray them totally accurately since he is the Eldar expert. However, a sizable number of the older 40K playerbase hate Thorpe for turning Exarchs into watered-down Space Marine sergeants and other travesties of fluff.
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[edit] History
The Eldar were one of many races created by the Old Ones to fight against the Necrons. They were made to be powerful psykers to take advantage of the C'tan's weakness to the powers of the Warp. At the height of their civilization, approximately the same time humans were starting to evolve, they used their advanced technology to perform pretty much all work required and devoted themselves to pursuing lives of hedonistic decadence. Some Eldar decided to forsake the ways of their kin and left to settle other planets at the fringes of the galaxy; this turned out to be a pretty smart move, since the planet-wide orgies going on back home created the Eye of Terror and caused the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh, coincidentally resulting in the deaths of most of the Eldar still on their homeworlds. Thus securing the Eldar's status as the worst fappers in the galaxy.
The Eldar present in the 41st millennium are the descendants of those who left to settle other planets or are the mercantile group that travelled around in their enormous ships called Craftworlds. They are dedicated to their fight against the forces of Chaos spawned by the folly of their ancestors. They are extremely long-lived; the average Eldar has a natural lifespan of at least a thousand years, and the most powerful of their psykers can survive to be tens of thousands of years old. As a result, most Eldar die in battle while still in their prime, and their population continues to dwindle. So grimdark.
Notable Eldar Gods are Khaine and Isha. The former is in a million pieces at the moment and the latter is held captive by Nurgle. There is also Cegorath, the laughing god, who usually plays paradox poker with Tzeentch, the Deceiver and the Emperor once every week. It's not exactly known how one dimension managed to contain that much dickery in a single location without imploding.
[edit] The Eldar Paths
After the fall of the Eldar apart from the potential to have your soul eaten by a crazed she-man masturbating furiously in the warp the Eldar discovered most of their population had been cursed with ADHD. This new curse was adapted in the way Eldar take up jobs. The Eldar will spend hundreds of years dedicated to mastering their fry cook job in Space Wendy's then move on to the next occupation that takes their fancy. As you would expect from a universe where an entire race can be wiped out by the birth of a single hermaphrodite the two most relevant paths are the Paths of the Warrior, and the Path of the Seer. This can be simplified as The path of the Dick and The path of Everyone else. The path of the warrior includes such job opportunities as being a Warp Spider, a Howling Banshee, a Fire Dragon and many other jobs for the brave Eldar Warrior. The path of the Seer includes jobs for potential Warlocks or if you are blessed without ADHD you could even become a Farseer. Of course the paths of the Eldar are not limited to the Seer and the Warrior. There has to be someone to fill in the
revered position of Path of the Toilet Cleaner. Lets not forget the Path of the Angry Gamer, and The path of the Craftworld Drunk.
[edit] Play Style
As a general rule, the Eldar are an army of specialists. Each unit is engineered for a particular style of fighting but is nigh useless outside of that assigned role. For example, dark reaper squads are known to cripple, if not wipe out completely, entire squads of space marines in a single volley. Conversely, they are incapable of moving and shooting and are comparable to guardsmen in close combat.
Eldar vehicles are known for two things. The first is the fact that they are damn hard to kill. Three out of four damaging hits will, on average, only result in disabling weapons for a turn. The other thing Eldar vehicles are known for is being atrociously expensive for something with so little firepower. Tanks can cost more than 200 pts and are often outgunned by their counterparts at half the price. Unfortunately, since 5th edition is all about the mech, their vehicles are just expensive wrecks.
In summary, an Eldar army functioning as it should is difficult to stop. For this reason, opponents hate them. On the other hand, the army falls apart if given a mean look. For this reason, the owners hate them. They are devastating if they set up, and terrifying if allowed to stick around, but the presence of one Manticore Rocket Launcher or Defiler can collapse an entire Eldar battle line should the space elves not fight with care and foresight.
[edit] Eldar as Defenders of the Status Quo
Games Workshop is well-known (read: notorious for) using the Eldar as a gigantic fiat that everything remains exactly as it is (which is to say, in a state of imminent but not quite here yet disaster). In a substantial number of works that have Eldar in it (such as Books and the Dawn of War series), the Eldar usually provide the "crisis is averted, absolutely nothing else changes" push of the series, causing many players to label them as one of the core reasons Games Workshop has not advanced the 41st millennium's plot in over a decade and a half. This can be seen extensively in Dawn of War, where the Eldar, Canonically, won both Winter Assault and Soulstorm (Pretty sure that Relic stated that it was the Imperial Guard that won the war in Soulstorm, not Eldar). (Well i wonder exactly what would happen if Vance "Tactically incompetent enough to lose 100 Baneblades met Caerys and her BROKEN army
It must be noted, however, that they aren't the sole custodian of this - just the most blatantly obvious and irksome one. Necrons pre-update used to be pretty bad for doing this, and the Tyranids in general seem to exist to eat GW's mistakes, but both of those can be written off as the fault of the armies themselves, since the Tyranids exist to consume biomass, and the Necrons just wanted to kill everything. Contrastingly, the Eldar are infamous in official works for their upholding the current state of affairs, mostly through being racist shits armed with the power of plot convenience. In short, when a something needs to be eaten, destroyed, or turned into armor paint, or do the interplanetary equivalent of poking an electrical outlet with a fork GW uses one of the other armies - but when a situation calls for things to remain exactly as they are, the Eldar, traditionally, get the call.
Thankfully, there have been rumblings of great fluff changes in the future from employees who work in GW's fluff department (as in so big that Abaddon himself stands a very good chance of being dethroned and replaced as the leader of the Black Legion for one thing), so it seems that the Eldar are failing at their jobs. Indeed, there might already be something in the works: If Dawn of War II is to be considered canon, then the entire Biel-Tan Seer Council was slaughtered in the events of Retribution. And nothing of value was lost.
[edit] Notable Eldar
[edit] Notes
Eldar recently were de-throned as the punching bag of Games Workshop. Until the most recent codex (Newcrons), the Eldar suffered repeated and humiliating defeats. Every single defeat involved overwhelming odds in favor of the Eldar, with gigantic wraith constructs and burning shards of war gods, being overwhelmed by "insert faction here"'s broken pinky finger.
The new punching bag has been changed to the Tau, who for reasons uncertain, don't seem to mind the change of pace- Uh, don't you mean Sisters of Battle? The ones who, you know, not only die in droves, but usually at the hands of their own alleged allies? Eldar still lost most times they were mentioned in the codex, though.
[edit] See Also
[edit] Gallery
Eldar Harlequin are ancient keepers of knowledge long blah blah blah.
Also, butts.
Farseers are known to be able to render you useless in combat without using weapons..
Elfdar vs. weeaboo: whoever loses, we win.
One of their homes, Biel-tan Craftworld]
A Reasonable Marine demonstrating a reasonable method of dealing with Eldar
Where da elf women at?
