So what would 30k Xenos armies be?

[Mr Mystery]

Aspects are from the "war in heaven" background as far as I am aware (unless that's changed)

That being said, it would be cool to see some more FW aspects, I still like the shadow spectres (no idea if their rules are good at the moment or not)

Yup, pretty much what I thought. Though still confused as to whether The War in Heaven was Necrons or Slaanesh or possibly both (wibbly wobbly wirpy warpy and all!).

[Arkhan Land]

Based off a combo of current cannon Imperial/Eldar and the old RT cannon heres what I can gather about pre-fall eldar and human interactions:

RT LORE:
- Eldar trading parties are present and often allowed to trade within the boundaries of an early un-unified humanity
- Hostile human interactions are predominately with Eldar Radiers/Pirates

Eldar LORE:
-Pre-M31 Buildup of societal excess etc.
-M31 the fall/ rise of craftworld eldar/separation of "Dark" Eldar from The "Eldar Empires"
-The way the history of the Path section is worded in several codices it is mentioned about how the path and its important is a constant point of debate between young and old one that this was a major issue to the Eldar who exacerbated the fall. The importance of the Path became a greater issue after the fall.

Imperial Lore
-Age of strife humanity is lost in space ended by the Great Crusade,
We can assume this is the beginning of major hostilities with humanity possibly the first time the Eldar actively "Went to War" with the humans, ie Aspects/Wraith-things, this is also mentioned in Eldar lore as the "Rise of Humankind"

What does this mean for the Eldar in 30k?

A Rarity of Aspects
Emphasis on Raiders
More and more powerful psykers (pre-fall glory)
and as people have pointed out a meshing of Eldar/Dark Eldar Tactics/Weapons/Style

that said im totally prepped for a FW retcon and if they do it right, wouldnt be too upset by some cool new things


also forgot to add:
In Doom of My. It specifically notes the creation of the shadow spectres post fall and points out that "An Eldar Corsair is more akin to the Eldar before the fall than those who now live upon the craftworlds"

[daboarder]

Yup, pretty much what I thought. Though still confused as to whether The War in Heaven was Necrons or Slaanesh or possibly both (wibbly wobbly wirpy warpy and all!).

the best details of it I've found are actually in the liber chaotica book.

Its basically like the greek myths, the war ranges from the creation of the eldar gods as weapons of war (that became sentient) to the fall itself. But that was when the fall was LONG before the great crusade....

[Vance Murphy]

Eldar aspects did not happen until after the fall. It talks about that in the codexes several times.
The War in Heaven was with the Necrons AFTER they deposed their Gods and was an Eldar race race rising into prominence and a Necron race beaten and battered having been tricked by the Deceiver into their present metal shells. Even so it was massive APOCALYPSE battles and it heralded the rise of the Eldar and probably the biggest war ever seen in this galaxy except for the Necrons destroying their own Gods.

The Harequins tell the legend of Fall and the Dance that Never Ends which is the fall of the Eldar and the birth of Slanesh, and the Dance that Never Ends is their God, Cegorach fighting Slanesh, rescuing the remains of the War God, Khaine and deftly departing into the webway to appear and reapear from the warp to bedevil Slanesh at will.

The first of the Aspects were created during the fall from Asurmen with their shrines on now long lost Craft Worlds, who "in the time of the fall led his people into exile,abandoning his world to the horrors of the warp"

Asurman was the first of the Phoenix Lords, and founded the shrine of Ashur upon the barren world they settled on and from their the first aspect warriors sprung. So Asur was an old hero of the Eldar who clearly predates the fall, but the aspects did not come along until after the fall.
Page 54 Eldar Codex 5h edition for more details.

After the fall the Eldar whos Gods died (except for Khaine, Cegorah and the Goddess of the Harvest who is supposedly kept captive by Nurgle, took solace in their ancient legend particularily THE WAR IN HEAVEN and created aspect warriors and such based on their myths and in this way embraced their past legends to save their future creating the path of the warrior (Khaine) from them.

Incidentally, the Legends of the War in Heaven does include the Eldar myths of creation and the rise of their Gods and heros, but the Necron event itself was a battle between them and the Eldar that made the Horus Hersey look like a minor border skirmish and is also a living history of the Eldar from the time they became space farers until the Necron War with the Necron War, being their greatest and proudest moment in Legend.

[Scion_of_Terra]

The Fall happened immediately before the Great Crusade began; it was the shockwave from Slaanesh's creation that ended the warp storms which had isolated Terra and its colonies from each other for millennia (of course, those storms were generated in the first place by the Eldar squicking Slaanesh into existence). Given that the Crusade lasted a good few centuries, there would be time for all factions of the Eldar to be present - remnants of the Eldar Empire, fighting as corsairs, Dark Eldar striking from within the webway, and eventually the first aspect warriors from the Craftworlds.

So basically you could field any Eldar army. That being said, I would think that there would be fewer Aspect Warriors in any given army, but a greater variety, as all of the Asuryan are just starting out and none have been killed off yet. Dark Eldar society would also probably be closer to simple corsairs; I don't see the Haemonculi or the Wych cults being major players yet, and fluff-wise the aristos and the solar cults would still dominate Commorragh, so DE armies would be primarily Kabalites. Finally, most SCs would not be around; Vect would barely be a gang-leader, Urien Rakarth would still be fairly normal-looking, and Eldrad would still be Toughness 3 as his body hasn't turned to crystal yet.

[Arkhan Land]

I guess this is a question for any one who could have gleaned this information from a BL Book (I have not read any of the eldar ones, want to at some point but just havent) but previous to the fall/aspects were there not Eldar on the greater warrior path who worshipped specific deities through specific cults? (sometimes trained directly by the deities in myth) although its pretty clearly stated that the Eldar that did not stray from the path were definetly in the minority. So could a fall/post-fall transitioning army still have for example, Khaine "Cultists"

As much as this thread is about 30k xenos its kind of made me wonder if after this 30k era forgeworld would ever consider moving onto a 10k (?) Eldar versus Necron War. Which would be AWESOME
The Gods Themselves... The "Horrific Baroque" technology of the Ancient Eldar... The transitioning Necrons... wouldt be real cool

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

I guess this is a question for any one who could have gleaned this information from a BL Book (I have not read any of the eldar ones, want to at some point but just havent) but previous to the fall/aspects were there not Eldar on the greater warrior path who worshipped specific deities through specific cults? (sometimes trained directly by the deities in myth) although its pretty clearly stated that the Eldar that did not stray from the path were definetly in the minority. So could a fall/post-fall transitioning army still have for example, Khaine "Cultists"

As much as this thread is about 30k xenos its kind of made me wonder if after this 30k era forgeworld would ever consider moving onto a 10k (?) Eldar versus Necron War. Which would be AWESOME
The Gods Themselves... The "Horrific Baroque" technology of the Ancient Eldar... The transitioning Necrons... wouldt be real cool

I always wanted a "war in heaven" Epic scale game with necrontyr, eldar, old ones and enslaver plagues. I doubt GW or FW would ever do anything that awesome sadly.

[Lord Ezekial]

I think it would be cool for them to do a Great Crusade book to show a united Imperium going out to the stars. There could be tons of Xenos that they put in the book, from the small Xenos like the spider death world, to the Huge Ork empires that they had to wipe out. Even Daemon planets and the first contact with them. Eldar could be floating around and maybe even the very first of the Nids splinter fleet.

My brother and I Did a 30k Death Guard versus Nids and it worked out well. He beat me but it was a lot of fun.

[Arkhan Land]

I always wanted a "war in heaven" Epic scale game with necrontyr, eldar, old ones and enslaver plagues. I doubt GW or FW would ever do anything that awesome sadly.

This would be INCREDIBLE, in fact any sort of Epic/BFG releases now would be incredible (im somewhat cautiously hopeful of this news about renewed copyright) given the level of production GW could do now on vessels for Epic/BFG in new plastics it could be a rather incredible affair. BFG components to the 30k stuff would be ridiculously cool

sigh

[Mr Mystery]

For me, it's a bit of a shame that Black Library stopped putting out the art books akin to Xenos Biologis and The Loathesome Ratmen.

I would kill for a Remembrancer's Journal - showing illustrations of the various now ex-species their fleet clobbered.

You know....I think that's totally worth a request to Black Library. Series of journals - could even seed them with secrets not apparent until you read them all?