The Eldar in the HH

[TorvaldTheMild]

Anyone else think that the Eldar should have played a larger part in the HH?  I mean Chaos getting a physical army in the materium effects the Eldar as much as the Imperium, the Imperium falling as well effects the Eldar just as much.

[Beren]

We know that the Eldar did intervene in several conflicts, at a time where many had been destroyed by the Imperium's expansion. The salvation of Stygies VII is one notable example, as is the battle of Yarant.

 

Edit:Wait Yarant might not be the right one I'm thinking off, there was one described within the Titanicus rulebook.

 

Edit 2: The Balthor Sigma intervention.

Edited December 9, 2019 by Beren

[TorvaldTheMild]

Yeah there has been a few like the Cabal in Legion and in Old earth or the Dark Eldar vs Space Wolves short story, but most were side plots or plot devices, nothing that involved.

Edited December 9, 2019 by TorvaldTheMild

[Bryan Blaire]

A lot of the Eldar were still reeling from the Fall - they had to come to grips with what had happened, etc. They required time to rebuild an entire society and deal with all the fracturing and infighting amongst the groups. Remember, the Emperor took advantage of the Fall of the Eldar Empire and creation of Slaanesh to launch the Great Crusade, and the Heresy came right on the heels of that. The Eldar societies didn’t have the ability to snap back right away to start dealing with those pesky humans.

[Qkhitai]

I think xenos in general have been a little underrepresented, to the point where it almost makes the galaxy feel a little small. I mean, the Great Crusade still hadn't finished by the time the Heresy started; even post-Ullanor, the Orks are still a massive threat to the Imperium, with the whole of the White Scars engaged against them at Chondax, the the whole of the Ultramarines ready to intercept a (supposed?) Ork threat at Viridian. Yet for 8 years, everyone else in the galaxy just waits patiently for humanity to finish its civil war? I don't think that there should be any massive rewrite of the Heresy narrative, nor that xenos races should take the limelight off the legions and the primarchs, but they would provide another interesting dimension through which to view the conflict. It would be especially interesting to see how commanders on both sides of the Heresy might have tried to recruit different xenos to their banner in order to gain an edge, and the dynamics of these machinations set against Great Crusade-era ideologies. So yes, I would like to see more of the Eldar in HH, especially drawing on some of the Shadow War, behind-the-lines setting. Eldar corsair pirates seeking to take advantage of the conflict, craftworlds using the breathing room afforded to them by the end of the Great Crusade to re-expand their influence, displaced mercenaries and outcasts throwing their lot in with the mon-keigh in order to survive. Would make the setting feel a bit more, lived-in, I guess, without intruding on the main story.

[Charlo]

The point of the Horus Heresy is that it is the humanity civil war.

 

The xenos are basically all but eradicated when it occurs.

[MegaVolt87]

The point of the Horus Heresy is that it is the humanity civil war.

 

The xenos are basically all but eradicated when it occurs.

 

Not entirely true, they were pushing back in more undefended/ decimated area's- especially the orks who should definitely have HH presence. 

[TorvaldTheMild]

A lot of the Eldar were still reeling from the Fall - they had to come to grips with what had happened, etc. They required time to rebuild an entire society and deal with all the fracturing and infighting amongst the groups. Remember, the Emperor took advantage of the Fall of the Eldar Empire and creation of Slaanesh to launch the Great Crusade, and the Heresy came right on the heels of that. The Eldar societies didn’t have the ability to snap back right away to start dealing with those pesky humans.

Not true, even Eldrad was involved in the HH.

[TorvaldTheMild]

The point of the Horus Heresy is that it is the humanity civil war.

 

The xenos are basically all but eradicated when it occurs.

Well not the Orks as its next to impossible getting rid of them but the Eldar are mobile, the legions fought them during the GC but they were elusive and no Craftworld to my knowledge was destroyed at the time.  Some exodite worlds were like in Fulgrim and the Eldar raiders in butchers nails.  Also they didn't conquer every world, only the human worlds that were cut off during the age of strife, the only xenos races that the Imperium went after were those that posed a threat or were near human habited systems.

Edited December 9, 2019 by TorvaldTheMild

[MegaVolt87]

 

A lot of the Eldar were still reeling from the Fall - they had to come to grips with what had happened, etc. They required time to rebuild an entire society and deal with all the fracturing and infighting amongst the groups. Remember, the Emperor took advantage of the Fall of the Eldar Empire and creation of Slaanesh to launch the Great Crusade, and the Heresy came right on the heels of that. The Eldar societies didn’t have the ability to snap back right away to start dealing with those pesky humans.

Not true, even Eldrad was involved in the HH.

 

 

Yeah also when the meeting with Fulgrim went bad that Eldar warhost that was warping in was no joke either. 

[Bryan Blaire]

 

 

A lot of the Eldar were still reeling from the Fall - they had to come to grips with what had happened, etc. They required time to rebuild an entire society and deal with all the fracturing and infighting amongst the groups. Remember, the Emperor took advantage of the Fall of the Eldar Empire and creation of Slaanesh to launch the Great Crusade, and the Heresy came right on the heels of that. The Eldar societies didn’t have the ability to snap back right away to start dealing with those pesky humans.

 

Not true, even Eldrad was involved in the HH.

Yeah also when the meeting with Fulgrim went bad that Eldar warhost that was warping in was no joke either.

Notice I said "a lot" and not "all" - of course there were still some active pieces of the Eldar, but on the whole, nothing what I said was false.

 

It's like the actions of a single depicted war host and one known Eldar Farseer somehow disprove that the Eldar were severely impacted by their society's fall - it didn't totally alter the trajectory of the race and fracture their entire society that existed before. That fluff has never been written by GW! The shock, the horror at the suggestion. /sarcasm

 

Let's not be stupidly hyperbolic. :facepalm:

 

---------------

 

Now, considering that the novels that we have for the Horus Heresy are only showing us a fraction of what actually happened during the Heresy, it is not far fetched to say that there may have been hundreds of battles, or more, that occurred with different Xenos factions throughout the galaxy, but we don't see much of this activity because it isn't the parts of the story the authors are focusing on.

 

As far as the Black Books are concerned, originally that same situation was my understanding of them from ForgeWorld - they were focusing on the hot and heavy Marine-on-Marine action - the Xenos factions weren't the focus. Now that the series is continuing on, there may be a decision later on to show some Xenos factions in a Heresy book, we'll have to wait and see.

[TorvaldTheMild]

 

 

 

A lot of the Eldar were still reeling from the Fall - they had to come to grips with what had happened, etc. They required time to rebuild an entire society and deal with all the fracturing and infighting amongst the groups. Remember, the Emperor took advantage of the Fall of the Eldar Empire and creation of Slaanesh to launch the Great Crusade, and the Heresy came right on the heels of that. The Eldar societies didn’t have the ability to snap back right away to start dealing with those pesky humans.

Not true, even Eldrad was involved in the HH.

Yeah also when the meeting with Fulgrim went bad that Eldar warhost that was warping in was no joke either.

Notice I said "a lot" and not "all" - of course there were still some active pieces of the Eldar, but on the whole, nothing what I said was false.

 

It's like the actions of a single depicted war host and one known Eldar Farseer somehow disprove that the Eldar were severely impacted by their society's fall - it didn't totally alter the trajectory of the race and fracture their entire society that existed before. That fluff has never been written by GW! The shock, the horror at the suggestion. /sarcasm

 

Let's not be stupidly hyperbolic.

 

---------------

 

Now, considering that the novels that we have for the Horus Heresy are only showing us a fraction of what actually happened during the Heresy, it is not far fetched to say that there may have been hundreds of battles, or more, that occurred with different Xenos factions throughout the galaxy, but we don't see much of this activity because it isn't the parts of the story the authors are focusing on.

 

As far as the Black Books are concerned, originally that same situation was my understanding of them from ForgeWorld - they were focusing on the hot and heavy Marine-on-Marine action - the Xenos factions weren't the focus. Now that the series is continuing on, there may be a decision later on to show some Xenos factions in a Heresy book, we'll have to wait and see.

 

What I mean is that the craftworlds left before the fall, only the exodite worlds really reeling from the fall but they were cloistered societies, if the Eldar were to interfere with  the HH it would most likely be the craftworlds. 

Edited December 10, 2019 by TorvaldTheMild

[Noserenda]

I mean a major theme of the Eldar is being a dying race, they were statistically in a better position in 30k than 40k technically. That said the fall is very fresh and all the Eldar races as we know them bar the Harlequins were in a vestigial state still. Id like to see how that makes them different to their 40k incarnations rather than just fielding a straight craftworld/commoran army personally, could be a good project for someone to run with? I dont expect we will see much from FW in the near future given their struggles.

[Fajita Fan]

The Eldar played a big role with that webway portal in the Emperor’s basement but yeah I get the OP’s point. It’d be cool if Horus lost the siege of Terra because one of his legions was delayed by an Eldar attack. What if the Eldar somehow kept the Lion from joining Horus and that tipped the balance? 

[Bryan Blaire]

What I mean is that the craftworlds left before the fall, only the exodite worlds really reeling from the fall but they were cloistered societies, if the Eldar were to interfere with the HH it would most likely be the craftworlds.

 

Again, not true.

DEATH OF AN EMPIRE

The epicentre of the psychic apocalypse lay within the gilded heart of the Aeldari realms. All Aeldari within thousands of light years were reduced to lifeless husks, their souls forever claimed. Even those who had foreseen the catastrophe and fled upon the craftworlds were overwhelmed, with only those furthest from the devastation surviving. The remote Exodite worlds remained largely untouched, but within the space of a single moment, the Aeldari had become a doomed people.

So the Craftworlds were overwhelmed and the Exodite worlds largely untouched.

 

The Exodites had already been changing their societies, it was the remaining Craftworlds that would have to go on and find the Way of the Paths, which is the large fundamental difference between their culture and that of the ancient Aeldari - again per the Codex. That Path system required them to alter their culture, and finding it would have taken some time - and that time would have been during the Great Crusade and the Heresy.

 

That isn't to say the Craftworlds Eldar wouldn't have been involved in battles during the Heresy, we have direct textual evidence they were. The full extent to which they actually were involved is unknown because we only have small portions of the Heresy actually written by GW for us - it could have been massive, and yet unwritten so far. We don't know - and so no one can argue with any factual accuracy that there was too little involvement by the Xenos of any stripe, or argue the opposite - that there was too much involvement. We don't actually know the full extent of the Xenos involvement beyond what we have been informed of.

[bluntblade]

Thematically, I think xenos would arguably have got in the way. Yes aliens were threats to certain areas, and McNeill made a big thing of resurgent Orks in Fulgrim which I think was really premature, but the whole thing is meant to be a great division within the Imperium and all the loss and carnage it caused. In-universe, this is the point where nothing remained that could meaningfully threaten the Imperium unless the Necrons woke up coordinated or the Tyrannids arrived early. Edited December 10, 2019 by bluntblade

[SkimaskMohawk]

The heresy was always supposed to be about humanity ruining its own destiny at the last step. It's the most defining part of the imperium and lasted all of 7? years. I'm not sure why there needs to be more eldar/other xenos appearance, seeing as the rest of the history of the imperium has them fighting off myriad xenos threats.

 

As for the eldar specifically, their culture had just suffered a cataclysm, doom of valyria style. Yea, there were a bunch of that didn't die and were kicking around and you see some of them here and there. They generally try to assassinate various primarchs at times, or influence their decisions, because they have no coordinated strength.

[MARK0SIAN]

It’s also worth remembering that even with the Heresy going on, Mankind was militarily far more powerful and coordinated than the 40k version. Any Xenos attempting to take advantage of the chaos is still likely to run into a serious response from either the Warmaster or the Imperium.

 

We also don’t know exactly what affect things like the ruinstorm etc had on the Xenos races. Any that used the warp would probably have struggled like the loyalists and even those that used the webway might’ve felt its affects, particularly as they’re all psykers. And that’s just the machinations of the Chaos gods that we know about, who knows what they may have concocted to prevent Xenos races interfering and spoiling their plans.

 

Overall it’s fairly plausible that the Eldar and other Xenos races weren’t particularly involved. It also helps keep the story focussed.

[Beren]

The 'serious response' part is half-accurate. In Conquest the Coronid Depths has to spend a year dealing with an Ork spacehulk, and successfully destroys it. On the flipside, Rtribution has an Ultramarines task force ignore a Khrave harvesting invasion of a world because they need to preserve their strength to face the traitors. Of course, neither of these affected anything larger than a sector, (and only focused on a single system) which can probably said of most xenos actions during the Heresy.

[TorvaldTheMild]

 

What I mean is that the craftworlds left before the fall, only the exodite worlds really reeling from the fall but they were cloistered societies, if the Eldar were to interfere with the HH it would most likely be the craftworlds.

Again, not true.

DEATH OF AN EMPIRE

The epicentre of the psychic apocalypse lay within the gilded heart of the Aeldari realms. All Aeldari within thousands of light years were reduced to lifeless husks, their souls forever claimed. Even those who had foreseen the catastrophe and fled upon the craftworlds were overwhelmed, with only those furthest from the devastation surviving. The remote Exodite worlds remained largely untouched, but within the space of a single moment, the Aeldari had become a doomed people.

So the Craftworlds were overwhelmed and the Exodite worlds largely untouched.

 

The Exodites had already been changing their societies, it was the remaining Craftworlds that would have to go on and find the Way of the Paths, which is the large fundamental difference between their culture and that of the ancient Aeldari - again per the Codex. That Path system required them to alter their culture, and finding it would have taken some time - and that time would have been during the Great Crusade and the Heresy.

 

That isn't to say the Craftworlds Eldar wouldn't have been involved in battles during the Heresy, we have direct textual evidence they were. The full extent to which they actually were involved is unknown because we only have small portions of the Heresy actually written by GW for us - it could have been massive, and yet unwritten so far. We don't know - and so no one can argue with any factual accuracy that there was too little involvement by the Xenos of any stripe, or argue the opposite - that there was too much involvement. We don't actually know the full extent of the Xenos involvement beyond what we have been informed of.

 

I'll concede the Exodite bit, I confused them with Crone worlds, but not the Craftworlds as they were not overwhelmed, the ones that got away that is.  The ones close to the eye of terror got overwhelmed and destroyed.  My point still stands though as the Exodites were still cloistered societies and therefore wouldn't bother interfering with humans.

 

 

Then why did you say the Eldar couldn't fight or interfere with the 'pesky humans' you are just agreeing with me now.  I don't know why you are arguing.

Edited December 11, 2019 by TorvaldTheMild

[bluntblade]

I think his point is that there isn't much reason for them to be involved in the core narrative, and their presence would arguably distract from that.

[TorvaldTheMild]

But they've been involved in the narrative.  Just because something hasn't been written about doesn't mean that shouldn't or that its not important.  There are many crucial and important parts of the Imperium that haven't been in the core narrative or some have only had as much involvement as the Eldar.  We know the Eldar are involved and highly worried about the events of the HH, it is odd that they are not given a larger part.  Also the Eldar have had a millennium to get their together after the fall and the HH is the biggest thing that effects their future.  

Edited December 11, 2019 by TorvaldTheMild

[bluntblade]

They've been mildly involved, but I don't really see why they should be given the theme of the whole narrative here.

[TorvaldTheMild]

No one is saying they should be the theme of the whole narrative.  All I'm saying is it's strange they haven't been given a larger part and I'd like to see them getting more involved.  If you don't that's completely fine, but I don't think there is that great of an argument to say they can't.

Edited December 11, 2019 by TorvaldTheMild

[bluntblade]

My point is that the theme makes then extraneous; they'd just be a distraction from the main conflict when there's limit to how much output BL can pump out. They just don't really matter that much, it's like asking why there isn't more of a focus on the Reach tribes during A Storm of Swords or the goblins in The Return of the King.

 

Also, I think the trauma of losing a civilisation that's millions of years old would take a long old time to get over, especially for a species which feels everything harder than humans do.

 

To give you the meta reason too, not that many of the readership or I suspect authors are that interested in what the various Eldar splinters are doing right now, compared to the focal points of the Heresy. We have Legions being neglected after all, and they just matter far more to the story.