Could Eldar go further with their spirit stones?

[StingrayP226]

Would it be possible for Eldar to create Wraith tanks and aircraft? IE Tanks and fighters normally manned by crew converted to be controlled by the spirits of fallen Eldar like Wraithlords and Wraithguard. I got some used tanks and a few are missing their cockpit glass or pilots (previous owners just painted over the canopy). So instead of having some tanks with painted over glass and others without, perhaps just make it look like it had no driver and was controlled by spirit stones. Thought it would be an interesting solution to my problem, and a fun hobby project.

[VarianceHammer]

That is, in some ways, what the Hemlock is already. The "pilot" is as much a Spirit Seer keeping an eye on the spirits within the fighter as he is a pilot.

It's also suggested that a number of their super-heavy tanks have extremely small crews by Imperial standards thanks to...well...ghosts. I don't think it's too big of a stretch.

[Katharon]

From the perspective of hobby and making some cool backstory for your army, hells yeah! It's totally cool.

From a fluff perspective it might be a bit iffy. Most of the soul stones are required to be networked together or guided by living souls to be effective on a battlefield. Only a very select few Eldar can manage to pilot or interact with various things without assistance (such as the great Wraith Lords, whose souls are still bright with energy). If you were to try and remove the eldar crewmen and replace them with soul stone ghosts, it would technically work, but likely not be as effective as living crew or without Spirit seer guidance.

[Mr Mystery]

I think they could, but I don't think they would.

Remember - Eldar are extremely unhappy to make use of the Spirit Stuff they have. To them it's Grave Robbing.

Ghost Warriors of every stripe are a necessary evil. A way of bolstering the small armies of the living, especially for Iyanden to whom it's barely even a choice.

Some Eldar stuff does make use of it's own Infinity Circuit - such as the Titans. The pilots are raised from birth to 'be one with the machine' and each other. In many ways, an Eldar Titan is just another form of Aspect Exarch. Once you're a Titan pilot, you're a Titan pilot.

So it's definitely possible, but given the massive cultural taboo of Wraith stuff, I don't think any Eldar would countenance developing it that far.

[Chris*ta]

I feel like if the Eldar had a vehicle that had no living pilot they wouldn't bother building a(n empty) cockpit for it ...

[StingrayP226]

@Chris*ta the plan was to green stuff/plastic card over the cockpits in a manner that makes it look cockpitless.

As long as they can... since I came up with a custom paint scheme for my Eldar I planned on them having a backstory were they are in a pretty bad state. Thus they would be desperate enough.

[mordecai]

In ADB's" Void Stalker" (book 3 of the Night Lords trilogy) there was an Eldar fleet controlled by spirit stones, so yeah.

[StingrayP226]

Awesome thank you everyone! Now to just get that far in my project que...

[Morgrim]

Maybe mark one tank as a 'leader' tank and say there is a spirit seer sitting inside it helping guide them all? You wouldn't need a cockpit if you didn't want one though.