I thought we'd have a topic to discuss Eldar technology. I know a lot of it is covered in the Codex pretty thoroughly, but there are a few things I've woundered about but don't think they've ever really been discussed.

Ranger Long Rifle

Ok this weapon is seriously kick arse! Always wounds on a 4+ (as every sniper weapon does), but also surpasses armour saves on a high roll. Origionally I thought that the passing armour on the roll of a 6 was to repressent the Rangers being among the best long shots in the galaxy, and able to pin point revealed bits of flesh or weak points in armour really effectively. I still think that, but with the new models the Ranger Long rifle looks more like a mini Bright Lance, which would likely fire an energy beam over a solid bullet. Fans of the Halo 2 game would recall the Covenant sniper rifle (its name escapes me), which was a rather effective weapon. Essentially it fired a single focused bright beam of laser energy. If you got a really good shot on an Elite or something similar it would pass straight through his armour (and energy shield) and kill him outright. I believe that the Ranger Long rifle probably has a similar effect, that when it fires it shoots out a long beam of energy so focused that it punches through any armour if hit in the right spot.

Feel free to add comments, or post your ideas on other Eldar weapons, technologies, etc.

Cal

my personal fav is the warp spinners and spinnert rifle its just the gruesome way they kill truly scary i think they should cause pinning due to this (the rifle does)

second is the wraith cannon ! how awesome especially vs necron monoliths the only thing necron players are truly scared of and really should prevent WWB on 6

Ranger Long Rifle


yes the ranger long rifle is awsome. and i believe that upgrading your rangers to pathfinders to be nearly manditory.
I mean come, on an AP1 shot on the to hit roll of a 5+ and pinning.
and they are a troop choice as well, even better.

i will definately have a squad of them in my Ulthwe' list

Well you started the topic Cal so lets see if we can finish it off

Avenger Shuriken Catapult

from my understanding this weapon is now a lot better than it used to be and definately better than its Dark Elder equvilent.

a decent range and assault 2 are a good combo to let rip before the assault.


(please bear in mind i haven't played elder yet so im writing how i perceive these weapons to be from the codex with no "practical experiance' as such.)

Im sure the more experianced Elder players will have a lot more input about their weapons

In the 3rd edition Eldar codex it said something like the shuriken's were fired using a high powered magnetic field or something to spin the shuriken and push it forward.

The Avenger catapult probably as more powerful magnet do-dad, and on top of that the barrel is longer giving it that extra range...I don't know how exactly I'm not a physicist, but for some reason longer barrels give weapons longer range...:P

Cal

A tech question, before the Eye the Eldar Empire had more unit and heavy support then they have now or this is all they have there and now. Because if this is all they had in the past then i can hardly believe they could have an Empire ... i know they would probably had billions of troops and millions of ships but, i don't know... The Imperium would easily destroy them if they openly get them with their pants down. The Eldar are daying race, what do they fight for ? For what i have seen they are arrogant , and don't care about anyone except themselves , but still worn the imperium of the comming dangers , like new tomb world and stuff... What is their ptofilt from that ?

P.S - Sorry for the english but i can't practise it here very much , and it is kinda rusty ... =]

Ok, I'll try and answer those as best I can.

The Eldar definately had far more technology than they have today. Massive warships that dwarfed the Craftworlds, armies of thousands of Titans, Planet Killers and war engines capable of destroying stars, and the webway unbroken and uninvaded making it possible for them to jump to the other side of the galaxy within moments safely. The stars once lived and died at their command, and the Eldar reached such a state that they no longer needed to work laborosly because their technology did all the hard work for them. They became bent of pleasure and how they could best please themselves, and the rest as they say is History.

During the fall however the large majority of the race was killed, and the center of their empire sucked into the warp and destroyed as the Eye was formed. What remains of it now? Well it is probably all destroyed, forgotten about, or maybe the Craftworld Eldar deem it too dangerous to use lest they travel down the path to damnation once more, and the Dark Eldar no longer care about it. Some space hulks might have once been great Eldar constructs, while others were simply torn apart trying to weather the fall. Either way it's all gone now save the Craftworlds, and whatever the Dark Eldar and Harlequins posses.

As to your second question, the Eldar are very arrogant, and everything they do is for their own gain. They aren't however entirely straight forward in the way they go about things, and their ability to see far into the future grants them knowledge of how to stop or start events now, making their actions seem incredably random and fickle to other races! They might for example know of an Ork Waaaaaaaagh that will be launched in several hundred years, and so attack and destroy a close by Imperial World so the orks won't be attracted in that direction from 'lak of Umies to fight with'.

Why do they warn the Imperium of peril? Horus, and the Tomb Worlds as examples? The Eldar also have a habit of manipulating other races to their advantage. If they are not required to go to war they won't, and will have others do the fighting for them. The Eldar rely on the Imperium for protection to a degree, because they're the biggest kid's in the playground. They warn them of all the other bullies, because if the Necrons and chaos didn't have the Imperium to contend with then nothing would stop them wiping out the Eldar. The Eldar simply aren't numerous enough to fight against either threat on their own.

It's not only the Imperium that the Eldar have used either. The 2nd and 3rd Wars of Armaggedon were begun when Eldrad Ulthran directed Uruk Thraka to that world so save the Eldar that the Warlord might have slaughtered instead, or so that the Imperium were kept busy from striking at an Eldar Craftworld. There is always a reason for everything the Eldar do, and it always relates back to themselves in one way or another.

Cheers, Cal

very nicely written Cal. ^_^


edit: yay 200th post

Thanks a lot for the answer Calaith ... You know a lot facts about the Eldar an yeah now i see it clear ... Again thank you for bothering writing me back about my questions :) ...

I have one more for you ... Can the Eldar race, rebirth again , i mean can they grew in numbers so they can have new empire or they will die , and what is their true name ... i mean in the time when they firstly fight the necrons they were not called Eldar i suppose :)

No problem, I'm always happy to brag about how much I know...erm, I mean answer any questions you might have and share what I've read. ;)

To the Eldar's rebirth. I don't entirely know, and I think it's something that a lot of players like to debate about. I think I've read somewhere that love making for the Eldar is dangerous because of the threat of Slaanesh and the lure such desire would obviously have. However it is argued that under ritualised circumstances the Eldar could do it after much meditation and training to calm their minds. Much like they train for battle, they would simply wash their hands of the passion an desire once they're done, just like they do after battle.
I've also heard that it is incredibly difficult to create Spirit Stones for newborns, so while it may be possible for them to procreate it is a very slow process. And of course Eldar likely take many years to age and mature.

Under current circumstances I think it would be very difficult for the Eldar to return to their days of former glory, as more die than are born. And it would be difficult for them to hold or own territory in space outside of their Craftworld simply because of their small numbers. But the Beil-Tan like to believe that the Eldar empire will one day return to glory, so maybe it will.

As to your second question, I have never heard the Eldar refered to anything but the 'Eldar'. There might perhaps be a reference somewhere of what they call themselves in their own language, but otherwise they've always been the Eldar. Though the Orks were known as the Krork when first created by the Old Ones, their genetics mutated and changed to make them the warlike beasts they are today. The Eldar have almost never changed in what their species essentially are.

Hope that helps, Cal

Yeap you helped a lot, i'm beginning to understand the Eldar and their history ... But didin't they maked their empire after the Necrons went to stasis , cause in the time when the Necrons Harvested all life they were on the loosing side + the Enslavers killing everything ?

I think the elder empire was on the rise as the Necronty empire was on the decline.
Remember were talking about something in execess of 60 million years here.( according to the Necron codex.)

The old ones were supplanted by the C'tan. Who eventually went into stasis because there wasn't enough "food" left for them which led to the rise of the elder race.
The elder race was nearly destroyed by the fall which led to the universe as we know it now with mankind ruling most of the galaxy.
But even now it seems mankind has "peaked" in the 40k univers and will slowly declin.

Its jus a natrual progression of things, empires rise and fall, and none of them last forever

ok thats my 2 cents. :P :D

Pretty much. The Necrons and ensalvers wiped almost all life from the galaxy, and what small fragments of the living races were left were not enough to feed the hunger of the C'tan and they likely hid from the enslavers.

The Eldar, the Krork were the only two races to survive the War In Heaven, and supposedly some kind of humanity as well. But over the thousands of years the Eldar multiplied the quickest (not needing to fear She Who Thirsts) and proved to be the strongest until they had a galaxy spanning empire. Humans evolved (or re-evolved) to slowly, and as the Krork mutated into the Orks the Eldar probably went to measures to keep their numbers at a low.

Cal

i always found the histories of the krork and eldar interesting because the old ones created them as a psycic weopon against the c'tan and yet as the krork evolved into the orks they have absolutely no psycic powers. i have also read that the tau were somehow related to the oldones in a similar fasion to the orks, but they took to long to develope and were cosidered a falier until the warpstorms that suround tau space mutated them to a point were they could evolve further. and im still talking on the genetic level of an ameba.

truly intresting prospects. have you guys ever heard of the tau side of things in this kind of way befor?

The reason the Orks turned out the way they did, warlike and non-psychic, was likely because the Old Ones messed with their genetic make up. Origionally designed to be mere leborers to do all the hard work, the Old Ones re-engineered them in a hurry to become fighters. But their genetics continued to mutate and as the Old Ones died out they lost control of the Orks evolution.

I've heard before that the Tau were a creation of the Old Ones. That they were a last ditch effort to save the galaxy in this life time, and were designed to be pure of heart and uncorruptable by chaos so that they could stand against the armies of Abaddon and the C'tan.

thats more or less what i thought, the Tau were the last great experiment by the old ones a better version of the krork but were ditched because of the time costraints. however i always thought that the old ones would make their experiments psycic because of the war with the c'tan and necrontyr

They tried that, but not only did their psychic protigees completely screw up the warp with all those gruelly daemons, but they were also suseptible to the Enslavers. Tau are less likely to fall to the taint of chaos and are nearly impossible to posses. That said, such things have happened. But the Old Ones decided to try something different this time, as their old experiments didn't succeed.

ah well thats that then..... so any way, back to technology.

yes back to technology

Bright lance

what can i say about the elder tank killing weapon.
glancing, at worst, on a 4+ is great the only vehicle this weapon struggles against is the necron monilith.

great weopon, basically all my heavies mount a bright lance