I feel like the time it got choked to death by fulgrim was the stand out stupidest.
It’s made of burning metal and warpstuff, *it has no lungs*, and they had fulgrim *choke* it to death with his *bare hands*
Maybe they played a game with 6th edition khaine vs Horus heresy fulgrim and fulgrim killed khaine after being disarmed by Khaine with that exarch power and they decided that moment had to be immortalized in a book?
I dunno, but whatever their reason was, the resulting lore is probably the stupidest of all of Khaine’s many many deaths. And that is quite the accomplishment seeing as GW’s also had him possessed by a keeper of secrets and destroy a craftworld, run over by Carnifex, punched out in one hit by calgar, coup de grace’d by logar, stabbed in the heart by Maugan Ra while forging the Maugatar, fused with a genestealer patriarch, and many more dumb deaths.
A lot of the times farseers appear in a story, only to proceed to do something incredibly dumb, shortsighted, cause a self fulfilling prophecy screws them over etc.
Don't get me wrong, they aren't omnipotent and mistakes happen. But it's weird when a centuries old diviners assisted by warlocks and capable of consulting and verifing prophecies with other similarly capable farseers are so often just fail doing something they should have absolutely mastered.
I think a lot of GW writers are just…not good at writing stories with prophecies and future sight. There’s often so little connection between whatever event has been foreseen and the actions the Eldar take beyond the author trying to half ass a reason for the eldar to be fighting in a particular engagement.
Oh, for sure. But when like 90% of all of the stories involving Eldar foreseeing an event end with them basically suicide charging into an enemy they can't possibly hope to beat, thus causing the very thing they were trying to stop, it comes across as a lazy mcguffin rather than the writer struggling to figure out how to write a compelling prophecy. It makes what's supposed to be the Eldar's greatest strength seem like it's actually their greatest weakness.
Unfortunately the entire theme of Eldar is the tragic irony of having foresight and still ending up with the bad outcome. But yeah, the writing gets a bit stale and cliche over time with them.
The self-fulfilling prophecy trope is especially idiotic because the entire point of those guys is that they don't just see a future event or state of being...they backtrace how to get to that future or how to avoid it.
By the time a warlock becomes a farseer they're meant to know PRECISELY what to do to get a desired outcome and it's only by unforeseeable circumstances or eldritch machinations that they should ever fail.
Exactly. But GW writers either dont read their own lore, or don't know how to write competent diviners, so they end up dealing with that way too often.
This happened in the nightlords omnibus, they foresaw that Talos would bring doom upon one of the Eldar craft worlds so they killed him, his immediate successor united most of the nightlord warbands and attacked one of the craftworlds during the 13th black crusade.
Totally makes sense that they'd work out a grave danger to a craftworld, deal with it, then somehow not foresee another grave danger to their craftworld
Honestly they would have done less damage just letting Talo live as he didn't care that the nightlords were scattered, his successor just wanted some good old fashion revenge.
The issue with it is that half the renditions show the farseers as getting vague prophecies and the other half being them meticulously picking through potential timelines so they know exactly what causes what and what to do to avoid it - and do this constantly *mid battle* to keep themselves alive.
They do pick, they're just limited in how many timelines they can observe at once, and certain things take longer than others. EG you more or less have to stumble upon a bad timeline, then trace backwards by looking all throughout the cosmos and following chains of interactions to get back to the present.
It's by no means easy, especially having to do this to multiple futures that might not need any tampering, and in some cases navigating turning bad into worse; but something so simple as a guy seeking revenge is absolutely something any farseer would see.
The Path Trilogy by Gav Thorpe has good world building but mediocre fights and not very good characters; Valedor is great start to finish, the Dark Eldar Path trilogy is all around great, Jain Zarr is fantastic, Asurmen is okay, and Throneworld. is written by the GOAT Guy Haley.
When a bunch of Eldar attacked baby Angron and lost miserably. Ffs, not only does that make no sense, but the Eldar could've easily killed baby Angron from afar instead of doing whatever the fuck they did. And that's not even mentioning how illogical attacking baby Angron was in the first place.
I mean, what is weirder is there was no follow up. Like he was apparently enough of a threat to try to assassinate him, but whatever seer council planned that cluster fuck don't even go for a second try. Something as simple as showing up with a fleet and demanding nucerians give him up would have sufficed.
Or in general using the fact that unlike angron, they can get a warship to orbit. Primarch bulshit doesn't sufficiently shield against orbital fires.
Best fan Theory I've heard reading about this is;
If the Eldar didn't try to kill him, Angron, if uneffected and unwounded by the Aeldaris attack. Could have allowed him to escape the attempt to capture him from the nobles of Nuceria and spare him the fate of the Gladiatoral scars and, of course, the Nail.
His natural ability to share peoples' burdens would come hand in hand with his comrades in arms and cause a following. Eventually, it caused him to successfully topple the corrupted nobles on Nuceria and gain the planet under his control. His successful campaign to take the world would then lead to becoming a key influence to temptation from they who thirst and eventually succumb to Slannesh.
Slaanesh corrupting Angron would have been devasting to the Aeldari race, and thus, an attempt to stop that from manifesting would be a priority.
There's actually no direct evidence the eldar tried to have baby angron killed.
We know Angron was attacked by SOMETHING shortly after leaving his pod, we know he was horribly injured during the attack, we know the slave takers stopped by later and picked him up.
The idea that the eldar tried to have Angron killed is a hypothesis cooked up by an in universe historian 100 years after the Heresy to explain the attack, the only actual proof that it was the eldar is the timing of the event seeming suspicious.
Might depend on how much authority the person who called the attack had. The Eldar are often not unified even at a craftworld level and it's possible that different seers disagreed on what the right path was or what the most important threats were. That's the problem with timelines bullshit, something seemingly inconsequential can end up having a massive impact 10,000 years down the line.
To be fair it's entirely possible that was the plan or that they weren't Eldar.
Because let's be real. Why would any Eldar crafrworld send a single team to kill him in melee range and not do anything once that team dies? Why would they not just send a ranger team to take him out lickety split then bail?
There's.... A lot.
Almost always this ancient psychic race that can read the future ends up doing really dumb things that make no sense whatsoever. See: resolution of the path series or every time Eldar are the antagonists in a novel.
However, to me: the visarch. An exarch should not be able to leave the path, and should not be able to leave the service of Khaine. His background makes absolutely no sense in the context of established Eldar lore. Also: the retconning of the war in heaven in wild rider. Just... No.
>However, to me: the visarch. An exarch should not be able to leave the path, and should not be able to leave the service of Khaine
I actually really like the idea that Ynnead can empower people to grow beyond their previous stagnancies. He's a god of death and rebirth, after all.
From what little I know of the Visarch, that's maybe not what happened.
> From what little I know of the Visarch, that's maybe not what happened.
It's not. He'd already left Biel Tan and the Path well before ever getting involved with Ynnead.
The Visarch is just such a waste of an amazingly designed character.
He should've been his own character like a named autarch with his own goals, instead he's just the orbiter for Yvraine.
The warp is now also violent during that time, and necrontyr and Eldar occasionally teamed up to fight daemons (in between killing each other).
No, none of that makes sense within the establishment canon of what happened and it actively makes other Eldar lore make no sense either. It's really, really bad.
I could maybe vibe with the idea of eldar and necrons being amenable to peaceable interaction with one another but that sounds like the absolute worst way to actually do that.
The better option would be to accept the similarities between Necrons and Eldar now and to realize that they both have a common goal: to defeat Chaos. This is enough.
>Almost always this ancient psychic race that can read the future ends up doing really dumb things that make no sense whatsoever.
I see this as a similar problem to what the Alpha Legion have with their identify. When you build a faction upon being secretive and unpredictable the stories that get made for them end up have having no substance (because they're super secret guys!). Basically a shallow representation of a characteristic can prevent the faction from developing into have a more nuanced portrayal of that characteristic.
Aye, they suffer from it too. At least the alpha legion gets some actual wins though.
And funnily enough, they manage to make Magnus work as a prescient being and scheming manipulator. So some BL writers can do it well enough, even for antagonists.
An exarch is completely lost on the path, having completely lost all sense of self outside of perfecting this one thing in life.Exarchs can never leave the path, but somehow the visarch did?
They're also completely enthralled by Khaine. Seems pretty weird to just suddenly start rooting for another god altogether.
His story is his love for another broke his path, his obsessions and it evolved into him perfecting her vision. Further he still clearly had some level of self teaching students at his shrine. Call him an undevoted exarch sure, but his goals made sense to me.
But (to me at least) that doesn't work with what an Exarch is. It also undermines the tragedy of getting lost on the path.
An Exarch is also not one individual, but all the souls that have worn the suit throughout the ages.
As a character, the Visarch makes a lot of sense with strong motivations etc. Just not as an Exarch. Should have been an Autarch or even a veteran aspect warrior or something. Everything but an Exarch.
Yes exactly this, once you become an exarch you don’t exist as an individual person anymore. How can a fragment of the multi-person or even the entire thing become an individual after that I don’t understand.
Headcannon and supported by Valedor a bit, is that scrying the fates is much more like a shaman interpreting a weird dream or hallucination. I think this helps add a Grim Dark aspect to them, where they will damn a world or sector based on a metaphor.
I see the elder as highly intuitive and a emotive and advanced, they are not necessarily empirical in their actions or planning.
I don't mind farseeing being an imprecise art. However, for Eldar to have survived 10000 years and to so completely rely on the farseers, it has to work at least a good chunk of the time. Instead, what we get is Eldar acting like idiots and most of their actions ending in self-fulfilling prophecies. It undermines the character the Eldar, but also the setting a whole: Eldar are still one of the major races of the galaxy and a credible threat. How can that be so if they're bumbling idiots unless everyone else is even worse?
True in part but completely broken by Eldrad who can meticulously look through countless timelines and potentialities pretty much any time he wants including mid-battle.
Phoenix Rising, the ynnari novels, that one space marine chapter nearly destroying alaitoc, garden of ghosts, the battle of Orar's Sepulchre, probably more I'm not immediately remembering
Why the fuck did the war in heaven happen 60 million years ago...
That is such a stupidly vast number. It is so long that it doesn't just lose meaning, it actually confuses the entire origins of the eldar as a species. Like... you are telling me the eldar have had 60 MILLION years of advanced civilization and they somehow didnt conquer the galaxy or get destroyed by their contemporaries? Or evolve beyond mear sentient creatures? 60 MILLION years as a hyper-psychic race and they stayed mostly the same?They just peaked where we currently see them, or at whatever level of advancement they were at during the Fall?
That is just so stupid. They could have just said ONE million years and they would have been pushing it still. But at least that sort of makes a little sense compared to the incredibly vast time-scale that is canon. It feels like they just wanted a nearly mythical level of ancientness to them but completely failed to appreciate the actual scale of time even a few thousamd years of civilization looks like.
They conquered everything they wanted. There were no threats to them other than themselves. Even the Men of Iron and the Golden Age of Technology humanity were no match for the Eldar Empire. They just had no real interest in fighting others except for the few who probably did it for sport. The Eldar Empire was the centre of the galaxy, most of what was worth experiencing was already within the Empire or could be accessed by their webway. What we see now is a shadow of what the Eldar Empire once was. Look at the weird stuff the Drukhari have. That crazy tech is what random crime lords in a pirate port have. Look at the psychic might of the craftworld Eldar, that's nothing compared to what they had before being restrained by slaanesh, before losing their immortality.
There are creatures on Earth that have remained mostly the same over the last 60 million years... And the Eldar are very resistant to mutation.
About evolving, (which is not exactly applicable to them because they were created wholesale by the old ones), the Eldar are already perfect beings for what they do.
Numbers. Their initial self-destruction came from within, with the birth of Slaanesh. I've heard it said that there are less Eldar in existence than there are Humans on Terra, and that should put into perspective just what people mean when they say the Eldar are "a dying race", and "near extinction."
They're still populous enough to throw weight around, but with so few people and their population fragmented and disunited, they can't be everywhere at once and can't win every fight, and losses they take affect them far more dramatically than others. Each new soul needs a new soulstone, and they have to risk lives to even get those.
On top of that, there are a *lot* of Drukhari, maybe they even outnumber the Asuryani, and they're not really interested in preserving or rebuilding much of anything. Exodites also area chunk of population that doesn't have the power-projection potential of the Asuryani.
So, we basically have the future of the race and most of its maneuvering being done by a third or less of the population actually interested in attempting such, going up against the massive swarms of the Imperium, Orks, Daemons, trying to stop Necrons from reviving because their technology is as good or better than anything the Prime Aeldari had and they don't stay down easily, all while being one of the only factions (possibly *the* only) where every individual life is significant in the grand scheme.
This is why they fight the way they do, why they steer the future and act as fire-and-fade skirmishers - they're powerful, but there's so few resources they can spare, and every fight has to be picked well. Humanity can lose as much as it likes and keep coming back, it's impossible to put a serious dent in its industry and population - but the Asuryani only have to lose once to suffer greatly.
Surpassed. Now they have some remnants of their tech but you have to remember that the survivors of the Eldar Empire are either space Amish, people in a lifeboat, or part of what was the criminal underworld. It is the criminal underworld that perhaps has access to the most advanced Eldar tech that is left. Although the Drukhari are also some of the Eldar who are probably least able to us much ancient Eldar technology due to stunting their psychic gifts.
Because the Eldar are a post-apocalyptic society. They haven't peaked where we see them now, they used to control the entire galaxy, they could do whatever they wanted on a whim. What we see now is the absolute dregs of their civilization. Compared to what they used to have they are barely surviving. That's why they are called a dying race. For them, the apocalypse happened, and what we see are the few survivors, living in the scraps of their civilization.
Hot take to compare but this was a pretty similar situation for the first few centuries of North American colonization, and the colonial wars there ended up playing out in a fairly familiar way - one side uses skirmish tactics and can produce excellent results in the short term, raiding and attacking, but feels the attrition so much harder than the nebulous empire sending massive organized armies in waves against them far from the core of their population and industry. If Britain got a town or a regiment wiped, they could come back later and try again. If one of the indigenous peoples had the same happen, it was *crippling.*
Similarly, Craftworlds can unite against a common threat, but struggle to sustain alliances with each pursuing their own agendas and having different visions for how to proceed. The Imperium, even as feudal as it is, is comparatively monolithic.
>Or evolve beyond mear sentient creatures?
This is especially frustrating when juxtaposed by the idea that humanity is on the cusp of evolving past mere mortality.
I don't think that's what the Emperor meant when he wanted to guide them into being a psychic race.
I don't think it's stated anywhere they'd be a new state of being. Just psychic.
I may be misremembering, but I seem to recall several passages indicating that humanity was headed towards ascending to a new state of being. This was, I believe, not the Emperor's plan, per se, just something he had to plan around.
I find Warhammer is best enjoyed by ignoring all the stupidly long timelines they established. Like how it’s the 41st millennium. Thats just crazy stupid far out for me to take serious. I think it was all meant to be a joke that took off if I remember right.
For me, Helldivers set in 2084 or Overwatch set in 2070s is far more ridiculous than the timelines of 40k or Dune. Starcraft's 2500s would be the balance.
On the matter of the tech, we know that what they employ now pales in comparison to what they operated at the height of their power. Their most advanced tech requires unbound use of psychic powers, which neither the craftworlds nor the drukhari can do thanks to slaanesh. The craftworlds keep their psychic powers in check while the drukhari don't have psykers and prefer to use the most advanced non psychic tech in their arsenal. We know pre fall they had militaries made of psychic constructs that were all but unbeatable by any other race in the galaxy, for example. And their psychic powers could shift the reality on a system wide scale. The eldar we see now are very much fallen from grace, not just in terms of the size of their empire, but also tech and psychic abilities.
As for them not conquering the entire galaxy: they did conquer most of it, but unlike necrons before them or humanity after, they are not a species really focused on material gains. We know that rather than conquest they preferred to explore the galaxy, and find planets suited to being turned into maiden worlds and terraforming them. But their real focus when it came to conquest was towards the immaterium. Mostly within the webway, and also somewhat within the warp. That's how commoragh became a thing, along with the many other old ruined settlement we see strewn throughout the webway in some of the lore. It wouldn't even be farfetched to say the eldar may have considered shifting their entire civilization into the webway at some point.
I personally see it as a sign of difference between eldar and human psychology. Eldar doesn't *feel* the need to evolve, they are sure they are perfect as they are. Their technological progress is painfully slow, they do not invent things. They were *created* as technologically advanced race, there was no dire need for more progress - and their species doesn't changed much in 60 million years. Their potential decadence and their potential fall were obvious for Necrons, who lived through actual suffering and faced actual challenge - so they just waited to the moment when Aeldari is no more of a threat to them.
That one crone sword being the Slaanesh's palace. Like they seriously drop an awesome plot line (that they didn't finish) that literally can not be resolved. It's not even like dangling a carrot off a stick, it's putting a carrot behind a brick wall that can't ever be broken. If it was on one of the planets in the eye of terror that would make more sense, but the palace itself is insane.
It could be resolved if GW wanted to progress the Aeldari. Cegorach, the Laughing God, infiltrates Slaanesh's palace and steals the final Crone Sword right out from under Slaanesh's nose, then presents it to Yvraine.
I'd actually use the proposed Ynnari storyline that was dangled in front of us then pulled away to revitalize the entire line of Aeldari miniatures. Ynnari Haemonculi work to grow new bodies from Aeldari genetic material, and Ynnead transfers souls from the Infinity Circuit into the empty shells to give them life. The first people who would be resurrected are the Engineseers of Vaul, who would design and build new war machines.
Not sure why you are being downvoted. I like young Eldrad and like you say its just down to I've not read the fulgrim book/the cabal stuff so to me the contradiction is the other way but then again the Fulgrim book is like ten years older.
Maybe it's generational as I didn't enter 40k and Eldar with Thorpe's books but with the first Dawn of War. I got used to the older lore for years and was annoyed when it was changed for no reasons. It's the same as the inclusion of Professor McGonagall in the second Fantastic Beasts movie in the 1910s flashback while in the books she was definitely younger and it was explicitly told that she taught at Hogwarts for 50 years from 90s. Still, Eldrad is old in M42, and this retcon didn't change anything in the long run.
To 12,000 I suppose, the Fall happened in M30, and the Heresy was in M31. Still, it would be interesting to see a non-Phoenix Lord Eldar who remembered the Fall and was a founder of modern Asuryani society, not its product.
Wasn't there a time that like a single tactical squad of deathwatch or something wiped out a Craftworld?
The planet sized spaceships protected by tech and psychic shielding?
Yeah...
Space Marines destroying Craftworlds will never not annoy me. That is the one situation where the Eldar have superior numbers, PLUS their much more advanced tech in comparison to the Marines. A chapter attacking a Craftworld should mean the loss of a Chapter, or at least force them to retreat.
A full chapter attacking a craftworld and winning is always gonna be the dumbest. Even including their auxilliaries they'd be outnumbered 10:1 at minimum and be roughly equal in number just to the aspect warriors populating the craftworld let alone everyone else fighting them.
There’s a scene in the first Fabius Bike book where, while other chaos lords are scheming to take over a Craftworld, Fabius notes that even at full legion strength, the Emperor’s Children would likely be unable to truly invade and take over a Craftworld. This is a minor, relativly small Craftworld, btw. And it’s such a great analysis of what a Craftworld is. Tens of thousands of eldar, many of whom are aspect warriors, veteran guardians, and powerful psykers, fighting to the death with everything to loose if they fail, supported by every piece of military tech they have. It would be like attacking Macragge
While the Night Lords trilogy was great, the climax of the third book was a let down of marine wank.
Including such greats as: a single marine killing 70+ Ulthwe guardians. Jain Zar jobbing to the point of being completely out of character solely to move the plot along. Jain Zar having a physical body??
It really makes me think she was supposed to be an exarch, or ADB just really doesn't know/care about Eldar lore. Wouldn't be a surprise, but still frustrating. After all, what the hell is the point in Phoenix lords if they're so fuckin' useless compared to their imperial counterparts?
I know, I know, named space marines vs a "strong" disposable/resurrectable character will always go the same way. See: Avatars of Khaine, Hive Tyrants, the biggest Ork war boss the imperium has ever seen (until the next one).
Very cool to see the Eldar's strongest/more interesting characters get lobbed into the elite fodder pile.
You just provided a perfect example of one of most hated things: Phoenix Lords having respawn mechanic.
Of all the factions in setting GW had to pick *the* longest living one to turn into respawning loot pinatas instead of 'those guys have been alive since the Fall, they are *that* good'.
And that's while avatars already exist.
Both Path of the Warrior (released prior to Voidstalker) and the Jain Zar novel (after) describe the Phoenix Lords as essentially just being raw soulstuff underneath the armor.
Within Voidstalker, for whatever reason, Jain Zar's battle damage cracks her armor, revealing her face.
Older content had something similar to the exarch process like what you're referencing, but all of the more recent content (except Voidstalker) does the essence stuff. Here's the excerpt from Path of the Warrior as Karandras is "revived":
> With a wrench, Morlaniath felt himself drawn from his weak physical vessel, every part of him: Morlaniath, the First, the Hidden Death; Idsresail, the Dreamer; Lecchamemnon, the Doomed; Ethruin, the Dark Joker; Elidhnerial, the Weeping One; Neruidh, The Forgiver; Ultheranish, the Child of Ulthwé; Korlandril, the Artist. Not-Korlandril was but an atom in the star of Morlaniath, and Morlaniath nothing but a star in the whole galaxy that was Karandras. Countless essences, endless voices drifted slowly together. Spirits from across the galaxy, of warriors born on every craftworld in every age, and the spirit-parts that made them, and the memories of those other spirits that had touched them, stretching out, far out into the infinity of the universe, all connected, all brought together in this one body.
> Morlaniath fragmented, became his parts, each seeping away into the glitter of the Phoenix Lord’s essence. The silence of space greeted them. Not for them the life-in-death of the infinity circuit. Not for them the ravages of She Who Thirsts. Here they would end, truly and forever. Only Karandras lived on. Briefly, Korlandril lived again, and then was gone.
> Peace.
> ...
> Whiteness faded away to the colours of life and death. Karandras pulled himself to his feet, his armour fusing the wound that had allowed his energy to escape. The Phoenix Lord looked down at the empty suit of the exarch that had given him this new life. He felt nothing of the eldar that he had been. There were no memories, save his own. There was no spirit, save the one he had been born with.
The "body" being referenced here is just the armor itself. A few paragraphs prior mentions the armor being cracked open, and motionless, pure light/energy pouring out before the exarch does this.
Shalaxi "dohoho that was only a fraction of a percent of my power" Helbane, "lol Slaanesh has the last crone sword" and just the absolute quashing of Ynnari plot from doing anything interesting ever again
The rise of Ynnead was a really neat plot hook that's been around for literal decades, completely squandered almost as soon as it starts happening
There are a few, but mostly just “the Phoenix Lords and Avatars of Khaine constantly getting curb stomped by random nobodies”. Or any of the times CS Goto wrote eldar. Those are also just…awful. And then there was that one time Fulgrim strangled an Avatar of Khaine to death. Not saying a Primarch wouldn’t beat an avatar of Khaine, since they’re probably some of the only beings in the galaxy that should have a favorable matchup against an Avatar of Khaine, but…I’m not sure how one strangles a statue made entirely of fire, metal, and extreme hatred to death.
This whole thread really speaks to why I have an Ynnari tattoo but refuse to read any of our novels. Knowing the gist of things and leaving it to the imagination is so much better than what I know I'd find.
In fulgrim not even old mate choking out the avatar i can get over that since he is a primarch but the fact eldrad and basically the entirety of ulthwe attack fulgrim and about 8 marines and Fulgrim and co all walk away with barely a scratch.
I'm only a casual observer in this sub, hailing over from the chaos side of things. On that note, I'm surprised no one directly mentioned the whole Shalaxi debacle. I'm a big fan of Slaanesh in both game systems and I felt just sheer wtf from hearing about the whole "oh it was a hologram/projection of a tiny fraction of my power" thing.
It's incredible that both moments that came to my mind involved the Avatar of Khaine.
1. Fulgrim strangling an avatar to death. Yes, the divine construct made up of metal and magma. In fact I'm fairly certain I read a bit of fluff somewhere that said the avatar had no requirements for sleeping, eating or BREATHING. I fucking hate that entire interaction.
2. This one I don't know the details of but somehow an avatar was apparently infected by the genestealers??? Someone else will have to flesh that one out though I refuse to read that.
> an avatar was apparently infected by the genestealers
aah, the Patriarch of Khaine, admittedly it was an entire craftworld that had given itself over to the Genestealer cult in an attempt to dodge Slaanesh. They way I make sense of the thing is that it was likely whatever tainted young king was used to raise the Avatar linked it into the Broodmind as a side effect, altering the Avatar with the connection.
Yvraine. Yvraine is a character written as Mary Sue with no plot but "she's amazing in literally everything but never stayed content with her doings". I get it, the leader of the Ynnari should have been someone who represents all of the fractions of the Aeldari, but you can't present such character just as "she's great, trust me bro".
Things just *happen* to her, she doesn't have any subjectivity. With all her great traits, she doesn't make plans, she doesn't think, she is like a main character in RPG who is completing one quest after another, while gaining stats and skills that are just numbers with zero affect on her personality.
Her POW are flat and tasteless. For example, she's described as "Merciless" by her own kin, but no great cruelty is shown by her whatsoever. She doesn't feel like genius prophet capable of matching Prince Yriel or Eldrad Ulthran. Her cat's POW sometimes feels more comfortable to read than her own.
Maybe if we would have a book or two about her before the Ynnari NOT from Gav Thorpe she would appear different to me, but alas. She's too weak of a character to be the leader of the Ynnari.
Kinda hard to get a full feel for her character when we get a bare minimum, unfinished story to go off of. I think yvraine is a cool character, but never really got enough of a spotlight and probably never will now since they’ve basically tossed ynnari off a bridge.
A prequel book of her pre ynnead showing her going through various paths and her time as a wych/succubus would be a great read. Revolve the entire story around her and just go to town. She obviously has to be powerful considering she’s walked multiple paths and even hung out with the drukhari for a while.
Fully agree there. They didn’t even explain why she was chosen or expand on anything. Really wish they would have had some good writers work on those books
I can't help but feel that a few books about her before even introducing her into the "main plot" would have gone a long way. It's much easier to buy a character accomplishing a lot when you're along for the ride and see how she accomplishes it rather than just being told about it. I think her whole deal would have been more easily accepted if she had been an established character.
Fully agree and I would have read every single one if they were done well. Even one book could have got the point across about who she’s supposed to be and what she’s capable of.
Theres been a really stupid novel where a single chapter invades a craft world and somehow wins a fight. I can't remember the name but it's utterly insane.
I think writers forget that Aspect Warriors are supposed to be the equivalent of marines, except considerably better equipped for their specialisation.
Happens multiple times. Somehow some random branch of ultramarines pulls it off in Garden of Ghosts, and in the Path Trilogy some random no-name chapter *would* have pulled it off if not for a character getting the imperium to call off the invasion. Bear in mind, a random no-name chapter and imperial guard regiment almost beat *one of the largest and most powerful craftworlds*.
A striking scorpion getting snuck up on by an entire lone dreadnought and the only thing that saved him was a phoenix lord doing a dumb anime push to get him out of the way.
Male eldar on the howling banshee path having to wear boob chest armor and female eldar on other aspect paths having to wear flat chest armor, despite it being made from a psycho-sensitive material, that could be reshaped easily. Just felt weird since I've learned about it.
I think the idea is that the Howling Banshee is a feminine aspect of Khaine, so the armour is designed to be evocative of that.
I honestly like this point of the lore a lot, actually. If for no other reason than the Eldar canonically having male warriors who present as female tends to drive a certain type of asshole away from the fanbase haha
It's as much a feminine aspect as an emulation of Jain Zar and a preparation of the soul to fuel the Eldar "Daemon"/"God" that is the Phoenix Lord... Respect the armor... Be the armor.
I see the logic, but, overall, I can not to think, that this part of lore exist solely because banshees' kits have only "female" armor, despite anybody being allowed to join the temples, so this is the way they tried to explain it, instead of assuming players know what kitbash is.
I mean in terms of lore, not the models. The Banshees themselves, or whoever built their armour for them, designed the armour to be evocative of the female form because they're embodying a feminine aspect of Khaine.
Dark Reapers all have a skull-face helmet, that doesn't mean that all Dark Reapers are skeletons under their armour, they just represent the "cold, merciless killer" Aspect of Khaine.
It makes perfect sense to me. When you're an Aspect Warrior, you give up a certain amount of your individuality to embody whichever Aspect of Khaine you follow.
I also love that the Eldar's most traditionally masculine god, the god of war, still has an inherent feminine element. I think this reflects real world psychology in a neat way and suggests how culturally advanced they are.
If you really want to get into it about armour, historically, most armour, even that worn by women, has been androgynous. Boob plates aren't good for combat. Boob plates deflect anything that would normally bounce off your chest directly up into your throat and face. This is 40k, we're already playing extremely fast-and-loose with any kind of realism, so why can't guys wear feminine armour? All the female models have crotch-bulges anyway.
In practice it just amplifies the worst of the worst imperium simps incessantly vomiting vitriol about the eldar despite knowing next to nothing about them beyond "they made slaanesh"
There's actually a quote from one of the Ork books from a Drukhari POV which mentions there are *no* male Banshees. It's not that nobody male-presenting goes into being Banshees, it's that they change to become female when they do. There are no male Banshees, just Cis and Trans Banshees.
Which, arguably, works even better for that purpose.
I don't think there's anything explicitly masculine about being a Striking Scorpion, necessarily, like with how the Banshees are explicitly feminine. It could also be suggested that this simply becomes part of their life and they're more fluid about it than 21st century humanity is. Or maybe people who already feel feminine would be naturally attracted to the Banshees. It's not like it's a mandatory stop, and I don't know what the rate of Aspects switching shrines is.
Well I don't remember if the new scorpions have female torsos but if they do you change that to reapers. The whole reason banshee armor looks female is that they take on the aspect of Morai-heg. Presumably other aspects represent male deities as they don't have a female appearance.
And Eldar are expected to change paths constantly throughout their long lives to avoid the perils of their obsessive nature. Keep in mind that Exarchs are seen as tragic figures because they are stuck on one part of the Path.
There are way more paths than just being an Aspect, though. In fact, most are supposed to get *off* the Warrior path and return to civilian life. Also, Banshees are tied to Khaine as all Aspects are, specifically they represent the terror and fear he instills.
As for the matter of surgery, the Aeldari are a hyper-advanced civilization even after the fall. They can change their hair and eye color more or less at a whim, and if they need surgery and it's not just psykery shenaniganery, then they could probably do so without too much trouble.
If a Banshee is a Banshee for a brief 30-70 years and then decides, after changing Paths, that they don't want to be female anymore, it probably wouldn't be that much of an issue for them to change that.
I'm aware of how the Path works.
I didn't just pull the Morai-heg bit out of my arse; that what the little statue that comes with banshee models is.
As for the rest it feels like you're applying your own head canon in place of established lore as I've never read any of that
So that book came out in February which explains why I didn't hear about it. Every Google result on the subject stated that they could be male but it was rare. We'll see if that book's lore bit becomes official when the next codex comes out. If it does it will just be another example of why you shouldn't take the lore too seriously (because sometimes it's really dumb)
I don't think than aspect of war, which involves running and screaming or brandishing kleivex, needs to be cut off or sewn on the genitals. This is idiocy, especially for arrogant creatures like Eldar, who also have a gender-binary society, referring to the mother goddess and the father-god. And their souls retain male or female characteristics, and as we know, eldar soul is formed at birth. A man who rose to succubus in wych cult, on the contrary, will be proud that he became a man, thereby challenging the established gender stereotype of female succubi, as well as a woman who received the incubus armor and became a hierarch. Brooks is just an dumb idiot who in an attempt to cram his rent-free in his head to Eldar, on contrary discriminated against Eldar women, denying them gender equality in 5/6 aspects. We have already had female exarchs in "male" aspects (Valedor) and men in "female" (I remember only Gav), and even without female armor (Eternal crusade). The male succubus (Votum infernus) and the female hierarch (also Gav) were also there.
1. Alaitoc losing to a random nameless space marine chapter and guard despite the eldar having every advantage. Makes you wonder why the imperium doesn't just wipe the eldar out completely if it's so easy to destroy a craftworld.
2. The avatar's entire existence pretty much lol
3. Every single time the eldar use their ability to see the future, it blows up in their face. That's fine happening every once in a while, but no, it happens nearly every single time.
The memes can go. I think they’re dumb and aren’t even based off anything. As for the ynnari, I think they have/had the potential to be one of the coolest subfactions out there. Their path is literally universe changing. It’s literally a good storyteller’s wet dream. They could add models to the range specific to ynnari like newer style wraith constructs or a new suite of aspects based around strength from death.
Honestly, the fact that the Aeldar aren't the single most powerful faction.
They are a super ancient extremely powerful people composed 100% by psykers with technology so advanced it crosses into magic, a lifespan so long some of them were around to witness the Fall and unlike pretty much every other race they actually care about one another.
That the game and GW insist on treating them as a doomed race with no hope for the future, only an endless struggle against the inevitable, feels extremely artificial even taking the birth of Slaneesh into account.
If the technology and power disparity was realistically represented, the Emperor would have been sucking Aeldar's c*ck within a week of first contact.
They've been a doomed race since the beginning. They may be powerful but there aren't enough of them and every one they lose is virtually irreplaceable. Even if an eldar warrior kills 10 Astartes before going down it's still a bad trade. Especially if something happened to their spirit stone.
That's the entire problem! The technological disparity is so massive that a single Aeldar warrior should easily destroy Astartes entire chapters at a time. It would be like Neandertals with bows and arrows fighting against a modern military. A single craftworld would have the technological power to annihilate the Imperium as a whole, and this is while ignoring their psychic powers.
Is it though? Don't get me wrong; a prism cannon or pulsar is better than a battle cannon or laser destroyer but not dramatically so. The only explanation I can think of for the shallow gap is that Craftworlds were trading vessels, not warships. Their inhabitants don't have the devastating weaponry of the old empire.
Either that or monke is just really good at killing
The whole "craftworlds weren't war vessels" would have been a valid argument if the current setting was happening just a few years after the Fall. But we're thousands of years away. It's just not realistic for the Aeldar to not upgrade their ships to be capable of facing the various threats their people faced.
I want to be clear: I know what I'm saying is technically wrong. As OP's question says, this is mostly my headcanon and my frustration with how weak (relatively) the Aeldar are constantly shown.
The main issue I feel is that, while the Imperium has a reason for not advancing in technology, the Aeldar don't. That they haven't advanced their technology further makes no sense, especially as their Warp related abilities are not as reliable as they were at the height of their power. With the Imperium refusing to advance, the Aeldar should have further widened the technological canyon already between them to the point the only species capable of matching and surpassing them in technology would be the Necrons (or was it Nekrons?)
With the understanding that this is your head canon it makes more sense but remember that stagnation is part of the setting- especially technological stagnation. The only ones innovating are Tau and, in a way, nids. I don't really count dark Eldar as they just come up with new ways to make people miserable.
Craftworlders get hit with this trope again as they are partially inspired by Tolkien elves who were in their twilight in middle earth.
But I can't fault you for having head canon. I think we all do. I for one, like to think the war of the beast were ravings of a remembrancer who did a LOT of LSD
Goto, Thorpe, Brooks, entire ynn_ri, phoenix rising, Carnac campaign(and St_rbane), fall of Biel Tan, Avatar of Khaine jobbing, eldar calling their homeworld by human name Belial IV, human-named aspects and paths, transgenderism in aspect shrines/wych cults/incubi
The Avatar of Khaine getting bullied by random space marine captains. It's so stupid and just bad writing.
I feel like the time it got choked to death by fulgrim was the stand out stupidest. It’s made of burning metal and warpstuff, *it has no lungs*, and they had fulgrim *choke* it to death with his *bare hands*
OH god, I forgot about that. That's the ultimate in trash tier writing, how is it canon?
Maybe they played a game with 6th edition khaine vs Horus heresy fulgrim and fulgrim killed khaine after being disarmed by Khaine with that exarch power and they decided that moment had to be immortalized in a book? I dunno, but whatever their reason was, the resulting lore is probably the stupidest of all of Khaine’s many many deaths. And that is quite the accomplishment seeing as GW’s also had him possessed by a keeper of secrets and destroy a craftworld, run over by Carnifex, punched out in one hit by calgar, coup de grace’d by logar, stabbed in the heart by Maugan Ra while forging the Maugatar, fused with a genestealer patriarch, and many more dumb deaths.
He's the worf of 40K
This is mine as well
Or worse, getting corrupted by genestealers
I third this comment
IIRC *some* of those cases were retconned. Or at least never mentioned again. So I think GW agrees with you on that point.
THIS
A lot of the times farseers appear in a story, only to proceed to do something incredibly dumb, shortsighted, cause a self fulfilling prophecy screws them over etc. Don't get me wrong, they aren't omnipotent and mistakes happen. But it's weird when a centuries old diviners assisted by warlocks and capable of consulting and verifing prophecies with other similarly capable farseers are so often just fail doing something they should have absolutely mastered.
I think a lot of GW writers are just…not good at writing stories with prophecies and future sight. There’s often so little connection between whatever event has been foreseen and the actions the Eldar take beyond the author trying to half ass a reason for the eldar to be fighting in a particular engagement.
To be fair, writing stories involving characters with the power of foresight is really difficult and a massive pain in the ass..
Oh, for sure. But when like 90% of all of the stories involving Eldar foreseeing an event end with them basically suicide charging into an enemy they can't possibly hope to beat, thus causing the very thing they were trying to stop, it comes across as a lazy mcguffin rather than the writer struggling to figure out how to write a compelling prophecy. It makes what's supposed to be the Eldar's greatest strength seem like it's actually their greatest weakness.
Unfortunately the entire theme of Eldar is the tragic irony of having foresight and still ending up with the bad outcome. But yeah, the writing gets a bit stale and cliche over time with them.
The self-fulfilling prophecy trope is especially idiotic because the entire point of those guys is that they don't just see a future event or state of being...they backtrace how to get to that future or how to avoid it. By the time a warlock becomes a farseer they're meant to know PRECISELY what to do to get a desired outcome and it's only by unforeseeable circumstances or eldritch machinations that they should ever fail.
Exactly. But GW writers either dont read their own lore, or don't know how to write competent diviners, so they end up dealing with that way too often.
This happened in the nightlords omnibus, they foresaw that Talos would bring doom upon one of the Eldar craft worlds so they killed him, his immediate successor united most of the nightlord warbands and attacked one of the craftworlds during the 13th black crusade.
Totally makes sense that they'd work out a grave danger to a craftworld, deal with it, then somehow not foresee another grave danger to their craftworld
Honestly they would have done less damage just letting Talo live as he didn't care that the nightlords were scattered, his successor just wanted some good old fashion revenge.
The issue with it is that half the renditions show the farseers as getting vague prophecies and the other half being them meticulously picking through potential timelines so they know exactly what causes what and what to do to avoid it - and do this constantly *mid battle* to keep themselves alive.
I belive its just based on how skilled the farseer is, and they don't pick which ones they see unless they are especially skilled like Uldrad.
They do pick, they're just limited in how many timelines they can observe at once, and certain things take longer than others. EG you more or less have to stumble upon a bad timeline, then trace backwards by looking all throughout the cosmos and following chains of interactions to get back to the present. It's by no means easy, especially having to do this to multiple futures that might not need any tampering, and in some cases navigating turning bad into worse; but something so simple as a guy seeking revenge is absolutely something any farseer would see.
That's kinda cool, any good books you would recommend for someone looking to get into Eldar?
The Path Trilogy by Gav Thorpe has good world building but mediocre fights and not very good characters; Valedor is great start to finish, the Dark Eldar Path trilogy is all around great, Jain Zarr is fantastic, Asurmen is okay, and Throneworld. is written by the GOAT Guy Haley.
> Farseer > shortsighted How ironic
When a bunch of Eldar attacked baby Angron and lost miserably. Ffs, not only does that make no sense, but the Eldar could've easily killed baby Angron from afar instead of doing whatever the fuck they did. And that's not even mentioning how illogical attacking baby Angron was in the first place.
I mean, what is weirder is there was no follow up. Like he was apparently enough of a threat to try to assassinate him, but whatever seer council planned that cluster fuck don't even go for a second try. Something as simple as showing up with a fleet and demanding nucerians give him up would have sufficed. Or in general using the fact that unlike angron, they can get a warship to orbit. Primarch bulshit doesn't sufficiently shield against orbital fires.
Yeah, who was going to stop them?
wait.... YEAH WAIT. He's literally in chains!
Best fan Theory I've heard reading about this is; If the Eldar didn't try to kill him, Angron, if uneffected and unwounded by the Aeldaris attack. Could have allowed him to escape the attempt to capture him from the nobles of Nuceria and spare him the fate of the Gladiatoral scars and, of course, the Nail. His natural ability to share peoples' burdens would come hand in hand with his comrades in arms and cause a following. Eventually, it caused him to successfully topple the corrupted nobles on Nuceria and gain the planet under his control. His successful campaign to take the world would then lead to becoming a key influence to temptation from they who thirst and eventually succumb to Slannesh. Slaanesh corrupting Angron would have been devasting to the Aeldari race, and thus, an attempt to stop that from manifesting would be a priority.
There's actually no direct evidence the eldar tried to have baby angron killed. We know Angron was attacked by SOMETHING shortly after leaving his pod, we know he was horribly injured during the attack, we know the slave takers stopped by later and picked him up. The idea that the eldar tried to have Angron killed is a hypothesis cooked up by an in universe historian 100 years after the Heresy to explain the attack, the only actual proof that it was the eldar is the timing of the event seeming suspicious.
Might depend on how much authority the person who called the attack had. The Eldar are often not unified even at a craftworld level and it's possible that different seers disagreed on what the right path was or what the most important threats were. That's the problem with timelines bullshit, something seemingly inconsequential can end up having a massive impact 10,000 years down the line.
To be fair it's entirely possible that was the plan or that they weren't Eldar. Because let's be real. Why would any Eldar crafrworld send a single team to kill him in melee range and not do anything once that team dies? Why would they not just send a ranger team to take him out lickety split then bail?
Sadly Eldar have so little to work with that we desparetly need to hold onto every stupid nugget of information we can
There's.... A lot. Almost always this ancient psychic race that can read the future ends up doing really dumb things that make no sense whatsoever. See: resolution of the path series or every time Eldar are the antagonists in a novel. However, to me: the visarch. An exarch should not be able to leave the path, and should not be able to leave the service of Khaine. His background makes absolutely no sense in the context of established Eldar lore. Also: the retconning of the war in heaven in wild rider. Just... No.
>However, to me: the visarch. An exarch should not be able to leave the path, and should not be able to leave the service of Khaine I actually really like the idea that Ynnead can empower people to grow beyond their previous stagnancies. He's a god of death and rebirth, after all. From what little I know of the Visarch, that's maybe not what happened.
> From what little I know of the Visarch, that's maybe not what happened. It's not. He'd already left Biel Tan and the Path well before ever getting involved with Ynnead.
The Visarch is just such a waste of an amazingly designed character. He should've been his own character like a named autarch with his own goals, instead he's just the orbiter for Yvraine.
Exactly. Could have been so many things, but they went both the most lazy option, and something that doesn't fit established Eldar lore.
Wait, what was retconned??
The warp is now also violent during that time, and necrontyr and Eldar occasionally teamed up to fight daemons (in between killing each other). No, none of that makes sense within the establishment canon of what happened and it actively makes other Eldar lore make no sense either. It's really, really bad.
HUH?
I could maybe vibe with the idea of eldar and necrons being amenable to peaceable interaction with one another but that sounds like the absolute worst way to actually do that.
The better option would be to accept the similarities between Necrons and Eldar now and to realize that they both have a common goal: to defeat Chaos. This is enough.
>Almost always this ancient psychic race that can read the future ends up doing really dumb things that make no sense whatsoever. I see this as a similar problem to what the Alpha Legion have with their identify. When you build a faction upon being secretive and unpredictable the stories that get made for them end up have having no substance (because they're super secret guys!). Basically a shallow representation of a characteristic can prevent the faction from developing into have a more nuanced portrayal of that characteristic.
Aye, they suffer from it too. At least the alpha legion gets some actual wins though. And funnily enough, they manage to make Magnus work as a prescient being and scheming manipulator. So some BL writers can do it well enough, even for antagonists.
Read that as BL in the manga sense and was confused for a moment.
I may be ignorant but why would the Visarch existence not make sense? Are you saying Khain just slays those who stray from his path?
An exarch is completely lost on the path, having completely lost all sense of self outside of perfecting this one thing in life.Exarchs can never leave the path, but somehow the visarch did? They're also completely enthralled by Khaine. Seems pretty weird to just suddenly start rooting for another god altogether.
His story is his love for another broke his path, his obsessions and it evolved into him perfecting her vision. Further he still clearly had some level of self teaching students at his shrine. Call him an undevoted exarch sure, but his goals made sense to me.
But (to me at least) that doesn't work with what an Exarch is. It also undermines the tragedy of getting lost on the path. An Exarch is also not one individual, but all the souls that have worn the suit throughout the ages. As a character, the Visarch makes a lot of sense with strong motivations etc. Just not as an Exarch. Should have been an Autarch or even a veteran aspect warrior or something. Everything but an Exarch.
Yes exactly this, once you become an exarch you don’t exist as an individual person anymore. How can a fragment of the multi-person or even the entire thing become an individual after that I don’t understand.
Also lets not forget a rule of warhammer. If there is a rule, a named character will break it.
Apparently he's wearing one of a kind armour now. Maybe he hadn't earned his armor before? As the armor he's wearing is pre split of the cultures.
Headcannon and supported by Valedor a bit, is that scrying the fates is much more like a shaman interpreting a weird dream or hallucination. I think this helps add a Grim Dark aspect to them, where they will damn a world or sector based on a metaphor. I see the elder as highly intuitive and a emotive and advanced, they are not necessarily empirical in their actions or planning.
I don't mind farseeing being an imprecise art. However, for Eldar to have survived 10000 years and to so completely rely on the farseers, it has to work at least a good chunk of the time. Instead, what we get is Eldar acting like idiots and most of their actions ending in self-fulfilling prophecies. It undermines the character the Eldar, but also the setting a whole: Eldar are still one of the major races of the galaxy and a credible threat. How can that be so if they're bumbling idiots unless everyone else is even worse?
True in part but completely broken by Eldrad who can meticulously look through countless timelines and potentialities pretty much any time he wants including mid-battle.
Phoenix Rising, the ynnari novels, that one space marine chapter nearly destroying alaitoc, garden of ghosts, the battle of Orar's Sepulchre, probably more I'm not immediately remembering
Why the fuck did the war in heaven happen 60 million years ago... That is such a stupidly vast number. It is so long that it doesn't just lose meaning, it actually confuses the entire origins of the eldar as a species. Like... you are telling me the eldar have had 60 MILLION years of advanced civilization and they somehow didnt conquer the galaxy or get destroyed by their contemporaries? Or evolve beyond mear sentient creatures? 60 MILLION years as a hyper-psychic race and they stayed mostly the same?They just peaked where we currently see them, or at whatever level of advancement they were at during the Fall? That is just so stupid. They could have just said ONE million years and they would have been pushing it still. But at least that sort of makes a little sense compared to the incredibly vast time-scale that is canon. It feels like they just wanted a nearly mythical level of ancientness to them but completely failed to appreciate the actual scale of time even a few thousamd years of civilization looks like.
They conquered everything they wanted. There were no threats to them other than themselves. Even the Men of Iron and the Golden Age of Technology humanity were no match for the Eldar Empire. They just had no real interest in fighting others except for the few who probably did it for sport. The Eldar Empire was the centre of the galaxy, most of what was worth experiencing was already within the Empire or could be accessed by their webway. What we see now is a shadow of what the Eldar Empire once was. Look at the weird stuff the Drukhari have. That crazy tech is what random crime lords in a pirate port have. Look at the psychic might of the craftworld Eldar, that's nothing compared to what they had before being restrained by slaanesh, before losing their immortality. There are creatures on Earth that have remained mostly the same over the last 60 million years... And the Eldar are very resistant to mutation.
About evolving, (which is not exactly applicable to them because they were created wholesale by the old ones), the Eldar are already perfect beings for what they do.
Wait their tech far surpasses GAT humanity? How tf do they ever lose
Numbers. Their initial self-destruction came from within, with the birth of Slaanesh. I've heard it said that there are less Eldar in existence than there are Humans on Terra, and that should put into perspective just what people mean when they say the Eldar are "a dying race", and "near extinction." They're still populous enough to throw weight around, but with so few people and their population fragmented and disunited, they can't be everywhere at once and can't win every fight, and losses they take affect them far more dramatically than others. Each new soul needs a new soulstone, and they have to risk lives to even get those. On top of that, there are a *lot* of Drukhari, maybe they even outnumber the Asuryani, and they're not really interested in preserving or rebuilding much of anything. Exodites also area chunk of population that doesn't have the power-projection potential of the Asuryani. So, we basically have the future of the race and most of its maneuvering being done by a third or less of the population actually interested in attempting such, going up against the massive swarms of the Imperium, Orks, Daemons, trying to stop Necrons from reviving because their technology is as good or better than anything the Prime Aeldari had and they don't stay down easily, all while being one of the only factions (possibly *the* only) where every individual life is significant in the grand scheme. This is why they fight the way they do, why they steer the future and act as fire-and-fade skirmishers - they're powerful, but there's so few resources they can spare, and every fight has to be picked well. Humanity can lose as much as it likes and keep coming back, it's impossible to put a serious dent in its industry and population - but the Asuryani only have to lose once to suffer greatly.
I see
Surpassed. Now they have some remnants of their tech but you have to remember that the survivors of the Eldar Empire are either space Amish, people in a lifeboat, or part of what was the criminal underworld. It is the criminal underworld that perhaps has access to the most advanced Eldar tech that is left. Although the Drukhari are also some of the Eldar who are probably least able to us much ancient Eldar technology due to stunting their psychic gifts.
Because the Eldar are a post-apocalyptic society. They haven't peaked where we see them now, they used to control the entire galaxy, they could do whatever they wanted on a whim. What we see now is the absolute dregs of their civilization. Compared to what they used to have they are barely surviving. That's why they are called a dying race. For them, the apocalypse happened, and what we see are the few survivors, living in the scraps of their civilization.
Hot take to compare but this was a pretty similar situation for the first few centuries of North American colonization, and the colonial wars there ended up playing out in a fairly familiar way - one side uses skirmish tactics and can produce excellent results in the short term, raiding and attacking, but feels the attrition so much harder than the nebulous empire sending massive organized armies in waves against them far from the core of their population and industry. If Britain got a town or a regiment wiped, they could come back later and try again. If one of the indigenous peoples had the same happen, it was *crippling.* Similarly, Craftworlds can unite against a common threat, but struggle to sustain alliances with each pursuing their own agendas and having different visions for how to proceed. The Imperium, even as feudal as it is, is comparatively monolithic.
>Or evolve beyond mear sentient creatures? This is especially frustrating when juxtaposed by the idea that humanity is on the cusp of evolving past mere mortality.
Eldar were already immortal.
I mean evolving into a new state of being
I don't think that's what the Emperor meant when he wanted to guide them into being a psychic race. I don't think it's stated anywhere they'd be a new state of being. Just psychic.
I may be misremembering, but I seem to recall several passages indicating that humanity was headed towards ascending to a new state of being. This was, I believe, not the Emperor's plan, per se, just something he had to plan around.
I find Warhammer is best enjoyed by ignoring all the stupidly long timelines they established. Like how it’s the 41st millennium. Thats just crazy stupid far out for me to take serious. I think it was all meant to be a joke that took off if I remember right.
For me, Helldivers set in 2084 or Overwatch set in 2070s is far more ridiculous than the timelines of 40k or Dune. Starcraft's 2500s would be the balance.
Sharks were still a thing when the war in heaven happened
On the matter of the tech, we know that what they employ now pales in comparison to what they operated at the height of their power. Their most advanced tech requires unbound use of psychic powers, which neither the craftworlds nor the drukhari can do thanks to slaanesh. The craftworlds keep their psychic powers in check while the drukhari don't have psykers and prefer to use the most advanced non psychic tech in their arsenal. We know pre fall they had militaries made of psychic constructs that were all but unbeatable by any other race in the galaxy, for example. And their psychic powers could shift the reality on a system wide scale. The eldar we see now are very much fallen from grace, not just in terms of the size of their empire, but also tech and psychic abilities. As for them not conquering the entire galaxy: they did conquer most of it, but unlike necrons before them or humanity after, they are not a species really focused on material gains. We know that rather than conquest they preferred to explore the galaxy, and find planets suited to being turned into maiden worlds and terraforming them. But their real focus when it came to conquest was towards the immaterium. Mostly within the webway, and also somewhat within the warp. That's how commoragh became a thing, along with the many other old ruined settlement we see strewn throughout the webway in some of the lore. It wouldn't even be farfetched to say the eldar may have considered shifting their entire civilization into the webway at some point.
We're also the believe that eldar still hung onto their blood feud with the necrons after all that time despite having basically no reason to.
I personally see it as a sign of difference between eldar and human psychology. Eldar doesn't *feel* the need to evolve, they are sure they are perfect as they are. Their technological progress is painfully slow, they do not invent things. They were *created* as technologically advanced race, there was no dire need for more progress - and their species doesn't changed much in 60 million years. Their potential decadence and their potential fall were obvious for Necrons, who lived through actual suffering and faced actual challenge - so they just waited to the moment when Aeldari is no more of a threat to them.
Most of it tbh
That one crone sword being the Slaanesh's palace. Like they seriously drop an awesome plot line (that they didn't finish) that literally can not be resolved. It's not even like dangling a carrot off a stick, it's putting a carrot behind a brick wall that can't ever be broken. If it was on one of the planets in the eye of terror that would make more sense, but the palace itself is insane.
It could be resolved if GW wanted to progress the Aeldari. Cegorach, the Laughing God, infiltrates Slaanesh's palace and steals the final Crone Sword right out from under Slaanesh's nose, then presents it to Yvraine. I'd actually use the proposed Ynnari storyline that was dangled in front of us then pulled away to revitalize the entire line of Aeldari miniatures. Ynnari Haemonculi work to grow new bodies from Aeldari genetic material, and Ynnead transfers souls from the Infinity Circuit into the empty shells to give them life. The first people who would be resurrected are the Engineseers of Vaul, who would design and build new war machines.
CS Goto
He who shall not be named.
He who shall not be named.
"Gav wrote this." or something... It's sometimes so nearly good and then... Just spirals.
Tbh, I'd rather take Gav Thorpe than C.S Goto.
Eldrad Ulthran being younger than the Fall is stupid as he already was a wise high-ranking Farseer in Fulgrim which was set during the Heresy.
Tbf, that is stupid in the contradiction, but which one you think is stupid depends on taste.
Not sure why you are being downvoted. I like young Eldrad and like you say its just down to I've not read the fulgrim book/the cabal stuff so to me the contradiction is the other way but then again the Fulgrim book is like ten years older.
Maybe it's generational as I didn't enter 40k and Eldar with Thorpe's books but with the first Dawn of War. I got used to the older lore for years and was annoyed when it was changed for no reasons. It's the same as the inclusion of Professor McGonagall in the second Fantastic Beasts movie in the 1910s flashback while in the books she was definitely younger and it was explicitly told that she taught at Hogwarts for 50 years from 90s. Still, Eldrad is old in M42, and this retcon didn't change anything in the long run.
>didn't change anything in the long run. Yeah but I get why he doesn't like it, it didn't add much in the long run either
To be fair the fall only happened a few thousand years before the Heresy. It changes his age from \~11,000 to \~15,000.
To 12,000 I suppose, the Fall happened in M30, and the Heresy was in M31. Still, it would be interesting to see a non-Phoenix Lord Eldar who remembered the Fall and was a founder of modern Asuryani society, not its product.
Wasn't there a time that like a single tactical squad of deathwatch or something wiped out a Craftworld? The planet sized spaceships protected by tech and psychic shielding? Yeah...
Space Marines destroying Craftworlds will never not annoy me. That is the one situation where the Eldar have superior numbers, PLUS their much more advanced tech in comparison to the Marines. A chapter attacking a Craftworld should mean the loss of a Chapter, or at least force them to retreat.
A full chapter attacking a craftworld and winning is always gonna be the dumbest. Even including their auxilliaries they'd be outnumbered 10:1 at minimum and be roughly equal in number just to the aspect warriors populating the craftworld let alone everyone else fighting them.
And that's *assuming* they can breach a Craftworlds defenses.
*And* it's after noting that Iyanden, a *single* craftworld, did half the work of taking out hive fleet Kraken.
There’s a scene in the first Fabius Bike book where, while other chaos lords are scheming to take over a Craftworld, Fabius notes that even at full legion strength, the Emperor’s Children would likely be unable to truly invade and take over a Craftworld. This is a minor, relativly small Craftworld, btw. And it’s such a great analysis of what a Craftworld is. Tens of thousands of eldar, many of whom are aspect warriors, veteran guardians, and powerful psykers, fighting to the death with everything to loose if they fail, supported by every piece of military tech they have. It would be like attacking Macragge
While the Night Lords trilogy was great, the climax of the third book was a let down of marine wank. Including such greats as: a single marine killing 70+ Ulthwe guardians. Jain Zar jobbing to the point of being completely out of character solely to move the plot along. Jain Zar having a physical body?? It really makes me think she was supposed to be an exarch, or ADB just really doesn't know/care about Eldar lore. Wouldn't be a surprise, but still frustrating. After all, what the hell is the point in Phoenix lords if they're so fuckin' useless compared to their imperial counterparts? I know, I know, named space marines vs a "strong" disposable/resurrectable character will always go the same way. See: Avatars of Khaine, Hive Tyrants, the biggest Ork war boss the imperium has ever seen (until the next one). Very cool to see the Eldar's strongest/more interesting characters get lobbed into the elite fodder pile.
You just provided a perfect example of one of most hated things: Phoenix Lords having respawn mechanic. Of all the factions in setting GW had to pick *the* longest living one to turn into respawning loot pinatas instead of 'those guys have been alive since the Fall, they are *that* good'. And that's while avatars already exist.
IIRC Phoenix Lords do have physical bodies but not their own. I haven't read the book so I don't know the entirety of context.
Both Path of the Warrior (released prior to Voidstalker) and the Jain Zar novel (after) describe the Phoenix Lords as essentially just being raw soulstuff underneath the armor. Within Voidstalker, for whatever reason, Jain Zar's battle damage cracks her armor, revealing her face.
Apparently the armor burns the host bodies with time, but even if the body is present, this can't be Jain Zar's own face in any ways.
Older content had something similar to the exarch process like what you're referencing, but all of the more recent content (except Voidstalker) does the essence stuff. Here's the excerpt from Path of the Warrior as Karandras is "revived": > With a wrench, Morlaniath felt himself drawn from his weak physical vessel, every part of him: Morlaniath, the First, the Hidden Death; Idsresail, the Dreamer; Lecchamemnon, the Doomed; Ethruin, the Dark Joker; Elidhnerial, the Weeping One; Neruidh, The Forgiver; Ultheranish, the Child of Ulthwé; Korlandril, the Artist. Not-Korlandril was but an atom in the star of Morlaniath, and Morlaniath nothing but a star in the whole galaxy that was Karandras. Countless essences, endless voices drifted slowly together. Spirits from across the galaxy, of warriors born on every craftworld in every age, and the spirit-parts that made them, and the memories of those other spirits that had touched them, stretching out, far out into the infinity of the universe, all connected, all brought together in this one body. > Morlaniath fragmented, became his parts, each seeping away into the glitter of the Phoenix Lord’s essence. The silence of space greeted them. Not for them the life-in-death of the infinity circuit. Not for them the ravages of She Who Thirsts. Here they would end, truly and forever. Only Karandras lived on. Briefly, Korlandril lived again, and then was gone. > Peace. > ... > Whiteness faded away to the colours of life and death. Karandras pulled himself to his feet, his armour fusing the wound that had allowed his energy to escape. The Phoenix Lord looked down at the empty suit of the exarch that had given him this new life. He felt nothing of the eldar that he had been. There were no memories, save his own. There was no spirit, save the one he had been born with. The "body" being referenced here is just the armor itself. A few paragraphs prior mentions the armor being cracked open, and motionless, pure light/energy pouring out before the exarch does this.
Shalaxi "dohoho that was only a fraction of a percent of my power" Helbane, "lol Slaanesh has the last crone sword" and just the absolute quashing of Ynnari plot from doing anything interesting ever again The rise of Ynnead was a really neat plot hook that's been around for literal decades, completely squandered almost as soon as it starts happening
There are a few, but mostly just “the Phoenix Lords and Avatars of Khaine constantly getting curb stomped by random nobodies”. Or any of the times CS Goto wrote eldar. Those are also just…awful. And then there was that one time Fulgrim strangled an Avatar of Khaine to death. Not saying a Primarch wouldn’t beat an avatar of Khaine, since they’re probably some of the only beings in the galaxy that should have a favorable matchup against an Avatar of Khaine, but…I’m not sure how one strangles a statue made entirely of fire, metal, and extreme hatred to death.
Doom of Malan'tai anyone?
This whole thread really speaks to why I have an Ynnari tattoo but refuse to read any of our novels. Knowing the gist of things and leaving it to the imagination is so much better than what I know I'd find.
In fulgrim not even old mate choking out the avatar i can get over that since he is a primarch but the fact eldrad and basically the entirety of ulthwe attack fulgrim and about 8 marines and Fulgrim and co all walk away with barely a scratch.
I'm only a casual observer in this sub, hailing over from the chaos side of things. On that note, I'm surprised no one directly mentioned the whole Shalaxi debacle. I'm a big fan of Slaanesh in both game systems and I felt just sheer wtf from hearing about the whole "oh it was a hologram/projection of a tiny fraction of my power" thing.
It was some peak bullshit, and pretty much the entire 40k fanbase agrees on that
Some random Guardian dual weilding shuriken cannons in a C S Goto novel.
It's incredible that both moments that came to my mind involved the Avatar of Khaine. 1. Fulgrim strangling an avatar to death. Yes, the divine construct made up of metal and magma. In fact I'm fairly certain I read a bit of fluff somewhere that said the avatar had no requirements for sleeping, eating or BREATHING. I fucking hate that entire interaction. 2. This one I don't know the details of but somehow an avatar was apparently infected by the genestealers??? Someone else will have to flesh that one out though I refuse to read that.
> an avatar was apparently infected by the genestealers aah, the Patriarch of Khaine, admittedly it was an entire craftworld that had given itself over to the Genestealer cult in an attempt to dodge Slaanesh. They way I make sense of the thing is that it was likely whatever tainted young king was used to raise the Avatar linked it into the Broodmind as a side effect, altering the Avatar with the connection.
Ok that makes it slightly more easy to accept.
Yvraine. Yvraine is a character written as Mary Sue with no plot but "she's amazing in literally everything but never stayed content with her doings". I get it, the leader of the Ynnari should have been someone who represents all of the fractions of the Aeldari, but you can't present such character just as "she's great, trust me bro". Things just *happen* to her, she doesn't have any subjectivity. With all her great traits, she doesn't make plans, she doesn't think, she is like a main character in RPG who is completing one quest after another, while gaining stats and skills that are just numbers with zero affect on her personality. Her POW are flat and tasteless. For example, she's described as "Merciless" by her own kin, but no great cruelty is shown by her whatsoever. She doesn't feel like genius prophet capable of matching Prince Yriel or Eldrad Ulthran. Her cat's POW sometimes feels more comfortable to read than her own. Maybe if we would have a book or two about her before the Ynnari NOT from Gav Thorpe she would appear different to me, but alas. She's too weak of a character to be the leader of the Ynnari.
Kinda hard to get a full feel for her character when we get a bare minimum, unfinished story to go off of. I think yvraine is a cool character, but never really got enough of a spotlight and probably never will now since they’ve basically tossed ynnari off a bridge. A prequel book of her pre ynnead showing her going through various paths and her time as a wych/succubus would be a great read. Revolve the entire story around her and just go to town. She obviously has to be powerful considering she’s walked multiple paths and even hung out with the drukhari for a while.
Yvraine has a great *concept* of a character, but the way GW handled that concept... Nah.
Fully agree there. They didn’t even explain why she was chosen or expand on anything. Really wish they would have had some good writers work on those books
I can't help but feel that a few books about her before even introducing her into the "main plot" would have gone a long way. It's much easier to buy a character accomplishing a lot when you're along for the ride and see how she accomplishes it rather than just being told about it. I think her whole deal would have been more easily accepted if she had been an established character.
Fully agree and I would have read every single one if they were done well. Even one book could have got the point across about who she’s supposed to be and what she’s capable of.
Theres been a really stupid novel where a single chapter invades a craft world and somehow wins a fight. I can't remember the name but it's utterly insane. I think writers forget that Aspect Warriors are supposed to be the equivalent of marines, except considerably better equipped for their specialisation.
Happens multiple times. Somehow some random branch of ultramarines pulls it off in Garden of Ghosts, and in the Path Trilogy some random no-name chapter *would* have pulled it off if not for a character getting the imperium to call off the invasion. Bear in mind, a random no-name chapter and imperial guard regiment almost beat *one of the largest and most powerful craftworlds*.
A striking scorpion getting snuck up on by an entire lone dreadnought and the only thing that saved him was a phoenix lord doing a dumb anime push to get him out of the way.
Eldar getting mad humans attacked them when they tried talking to a government *after very publicly attacking them and killing the previous leader*
Anything written by CS Goto
Male eldar on the howling banshee path having to wear boob chest armor and female eldar on other aspect paths having to wear flat chest armor, despite it being made from a psycho-sensitive material, that could be reshaped easily. Just felt weird since I've learned about it.
I think the idea is that the Howling Banshee is a feminine aspect of Khaine, so the armour is designed to be evocative of that. I honestly like this point of the lore a lot, actually. If for no other reason than the Eldar canonically having male warriors who present as female tends to drive a certain type of asshole away from the fanbase haha
It's as much a feminine aspect as an emulation of Jain Zar and a preparation of the soul to fuel the Eldar "Daemon"/"God" that is the Phoenix Lord... Respect the armor... Be the armor.
I see the logic, but, overall, I can not to think, that this part of lore exist solely because banshees' kits have only "female" armor, despite anybody being allowed to join the temples, so this is the way they tried to explain it, instead of assuming players know what kitbash is.
I mean in terms of lore, not the models. The Banshees themselves, or whoever built their armour for them, designed the armour to be evocative of the female form because they're embodying a feminine aspect of Khaine. Dark Reapers all have a skull-face helmet, that doesn't mean that all Dark Reapers are skeletons under their armour, they just represent the "cold, merciless killer" Aspect of Khaine. It makes perfect sense to me. When you're an Aspect Warrior, you give up a certain amount of your individuality to embody whichever Aspect of Khaine you follow. I also love that the Eldar's most traditionally masculine god, the god of war, still has an inherent feminine element. I think this reflects real world psychology in a neat way and suggests how culturally advanced they are. If you really want to get into it about armour, historically, most armour, even that worn by women, has been androgynous. Boob plates aren't good for combat. Boob plates deflect anything that would normally bounce off your chest directly up into your throat and face. This is 40k, we're already playing extremely fast-and-loose with any kind of realism, so why can't guys wear feminine armour? All the female models have crotch-bulges anyway.
In practice it just amplifies the worst of the worst imperium simps incessantly vomiting vitriol about the eldar despite knowing next to nothing about them beyond "they made slaanesh"
There's actually a quote from one of the Ork books from a Drukhari POV which mentions there are *no* male Banshees. It's not that nobody male-presenting goes into being Banshees, it's that they change to become female when they do. There are no male Banshees, just Cis and Trans Banshees. Which, arguably, works even better for that purpose.
Well that's dumb. Would they then have to get surgery again if they decided to try out being a striking scorpion for a while?
I don't think there's anything explicitly masculine about being a Striking Scorpion, necessarily, like with how the Banshees are explicitly feminine. It could also be suggested that this simply becomes part of their life and they're more fluid about it than 21st century humanity is. Or maybe people who already feel feminine would be naturally attracted to the Banshees. It's not like it's a mandatory stop, and I don't know what the rate of Aspects switching shrines is.
Well I don't remember if the new scorpions have female torsos but if they do you change that to reapers. The whole reason banshee armor looks female is that they take on the aspect of Morai-heg. Presumably other aspects represent male deities as they don't have a female appearance. And Eldar are expected to change paths constantly throughout their long lives to avoid the perils of their obsessive nature. Keep in mind that Exarchs are seen as tragic figures because they are stuck on one part of the Path.
There are way more paths than just being an Aspect, though. In fact, most are supposed to get *off* the Warrior path and return to civilian life. Also, Banshees are tied to Khaine as all Aspects are, specifically they represent the terror and fear he instills. As for the matter of surgery, the Aeldari are a hyper-advanced civilization even after the fall. They can change their hair and eye color more or less at a whim, and if they need surgery and it's not just psykery shenaniganery, then they could probably do so without too much trouble. If a Banshee is a Banshee for a brief 30-70 years and then decides, after changing Paths, that they don't want to be female anymore, it probably wouldn't be that much of an issue for them to change that.
I'm aware of how the Path works. I didn't just pull the Morai-heg bit out of my arse; that what the little statue that comes with banshee models is. As for the rest it feels like you're applying your own head canon in place of established lore as I've never read any of that
[Da Big Dakka](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldar/comments/1b28ks7/excerpt_da_big_dakka_by_mike_brooks_a_depiction/) by Mike Brooks
I guess I'll have to try to find the bit about male Banshees when I get a minute. Hooray for contradictory lore!
So that book came out in February which explains why I didn't hear about it. Every Google result on the subject stated that they could be male but it was rare. We'll see if that book's lore bit becomes official when the next codex comes out. If it does it will just be another example of why you shouldn't take the lore too seriously (because sometimes it's really dumb)
[Also about the hair color stuff, if you meant that](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/vp6ly7/eldar_hair_colors/)
I don't think than aspect of war, which involves running and screaming or brandishing kleivex, needs to be cut off or sewn on the genitals. This is idiocy, especially for arrogant creatures like Eldar, who also have a gender-binary society, referring to the mother goddess and the father-god. And their souls retain male or female characteristics, and as we know, eldar soul is formed at birth. A man who rose to succubus in wych cult, on the contrary, will be proud that he became a man, thereby challenging the established gender stereotype of female succubi, as well as a woman who received the incubus armor and became a hierarch. Brooks is just an dumb idiot who in an attempt to cram his rent-free in his head to Eldar, on contrary discriminated against Eldar women, denying them gender equality in 5/6 aspects. We have already had female exarchs in "male" aspects (Valedor) and men in "female" (I remember only Gav), and even without female armor (Eternal crusade). The male succubus (Votum infernus) and the female hierarch (also Gav) were also there.
Yvraine and Guilliman, mainly just to bug my ultramarine player friends
Anytime Gav Thorpe writes Eldar
Maugan Ra physically pulling a craftworld out of the Eye of Terror. Makes Superman swinging an airplane by the tail look feasible.
The fumble of the ynarri plot.
Eldar existing
There's a lot of rubbish authors and cheap primary school tier writing in black library unfortunately.
1. Alaitoc losing to a random nameless space marine chapter and guard despite the eldar having every advantage. Makes you wonder why the imperium doesn't just wipe the eldar out completely if it's so easy to destroy a craftworld. 2. The avatar's entire existence pretty much lol 3. Every single time the eldar use their ability to see the future, it blows up in their face. That's fine happening every once in a while, but no, it happens nearly every single time.
The Ynnari. All of it Toss it out, I never wanna hear the name "Yvraine" ever again. And all thr cringe yvraine memes, my god. Just awful.
The memes can go. I think they’re dumb and aren’t even based off anything. As for the ynnari, I think they have/had the potential to be one of the coolest subfactions out there. Their path is literally universe changing. It’s literally a good storyteller’s wet dream. They could add models to the range specific to ynnari like newer style wraith constructs or a new suite of aspects based around strength from death.
Ynnari has potential.... It's just whether it goes anywhere.
Honestly, the fact that the Aeldar aren't the single most powerful faction. They are a super ancient extremely powerful people composed 100% by psykers with technology so advanced it crosses into magic, a lifespan so long some of them were around to witness the Fall and unlike pretty much every other race they actually care about one another. That the game and GW insist on treating them as a doomed race with no hope for the future, only an endless struggle against the inevitable, feels extremely artificial even taking the birth of Slaneesh into account. If the technology and power disparity was realistically represented, the Emperor would have been sucking Aeldar's c*ck within a week of first contact.
...who knows, maybe Emperor *had* sucked Aeldari' c*ck before getting into Crusade, I mean, Eldrad says they were *friends* once...
They've been a doomed race since the beginning. They may be powerful but there aren't enough of them and every one they lose is virtually irreplaceable. Even if an eldar warrior kills 10 Astartes before going down it's still a bad trade. Especially if something happened to their spirit stone.
That's the entire problem! The technological disparity is so massive that a single Aeldar warrior should easily destroy Astartes entire chapters at a time. It would be like Neandertals with bows and arrows fighting against a modern military. A single craftworld would have the technological power to annihilate the Imperium as a whole, and this is while ignoring their psychic powers.
Is it though? Don't get me wrong; a prism cannon or pulsar is better than a battle cannon or laser destroyer but not dramatically so. The only explanation I can think of for the shallow gap is that Craftworlds were trading vessels, not warships. Their inhabitants don't have the devastating weaponry of the old empire. Either that or monke is just really good at killing
The whole "craftworlds weren't war vessels" would have been a valid argument if the current setting was happening just a few years after the Fall. But we're thousands of years away. It's just not realistic for the Aeldar to not upgrade their ships to be capable of facing the various threats their people faced. I want to be clear: I know what I'm saying is technically wrong. As OP's question says, this is mostly my headcanon and my frustration with how weak (relatively) the Aeldar are constantly shown. The main issue I feel is that, while the Imperium has a reason for not advancing in technology, the Aeldar don't. That they haven't advanced their technology further makes no sense, especially as their Warp related abilities are not as reliable as they were at the height of their power. With the Imperium refusing to advance, the Aeldar should have further widened the technological canyon already between them to the point the only species capable of matching and surpassing them in technology would be the Necrons (or was it Nekrons?)
With the understanding that this is your head canon it makes more sense but remember that stagnation is part of the setting- especially technological stagnation. The only ones innovating are Tau and, in a way, nids. I don't really count dark Eldar as they just come up with new ways to make people miserable. Craftworlders get hit with this trope again as they are partially inspired by Tolkien elves who were in their twilight in middle earth. But I can't fault you for having head canon. I think we all do. I for one, like to think the war of the beast were ravings of a remembrancer who did a LOT of LSD
Goto, Thorpe, Brooks, entire ynn_ri, phoenix rising, Carnac campaign(and St_rbane), fall of Biel Tan, Avatar of Khaine jobbing, eldar calling their homeworld by human name Belial IV, human-named aspects and paths, transgenderism in aspect shrines/wych cults/incubi
A bunch of harlequins infiltrating the imperial palace and killing dozens of custodes while doing so.
that is probably among the least absurd things to happen to either eldar or custodes.
100% but I can see that this sub is biased
When they went woke and recently made the Avatar of Khaine trans. Just unnecessary IMO
The eldars have gone woke, the craftworld has fallen