Dawn of Eldar

Nickname given to Dawn of War by some users to describe "dozens upon dozens of Eldar-favoring piles of bullshit seeping out of the various versions of the game". The original claim was that "no race managed to equal or even come within striking distance of the sheer unadulterated pile of BULLSHIT that Eldar were in Dawn of War post-Winter Assault"; in truth, while Eldar are definitely a strong faction, multiple debates have arisen questioning whether or not the Eldar were outright broken.

There are often also comments along the lines of "it is possible to counter the Bonesinger building lockdown/ranged unit disruption/teleportation trolling by doing xyz". While technically true, that sort of thinking also overlooks the fact that you need advanced knowledge of how your faction and the Eldar faction work in order to not get screwed over by their freaking builder unit. Yes, you can counter Eldar units if you know exactly what you're doing and they don't, but that level of skill disparity would result in a curbstomp battle against anyone but the Eldar. There are also Eldar players who say their faction isn't overpowered because, for example, their ranged specialists do little damage in melee. This is technically true, but with the Eldar there's always some catch - in this case, their elite infantry are so durable as to be par with Terminators and almost all of their infantry and vehicles can fly away or run away at supersonic speeds and escape with little damage.

Dawn of War 1 General

• After the infamous fire-on-the-move accuracy "fix" implemented in Dark Crusade, which simultaneously guaranteed that no walker would ever grab a ranged weapon and lose out on its melee punch and ensured that rapid-fire weapons were infinitely better to slow-firing weaponry, the Eldar Fleet of Foot ability went from pretty good if you had decent micro to being incredible. The ability originally was designed to buff move speed, but cut accuracy when in use, but since units couldn't hit jack shit when moving now anyway, the Eldar were now the only army in the game that had an activated ability with no cost, no cooldown time and effectively no downsides so long as you remembered to turn it off before shooting.
  • Nearly every unit has Fleet of Foot, so this list will not mention it unless important (like saying something doesn't have it which is the case of Bonesingers, Harlequins and Warp Spiders).
• HUNT THE LAST FUCKING WEBWAY GATE. Easily the most frustrating, stupid, and infuriating of Eldar tactics due to the fact that you can build Webway Gates absolutely everywhere generating their own Control Zone, an advantage that gives them massive expansion opportunities (e.g. fortifying Critical Locations which otherwise are normally immune to Listening Posts and instantly sending reinforcements directly from the base once said Critical Location is under attack, up to and even teleporting fucking buildings). It was entirely possible that while Space Marines are stuck capturing strategic points and building listening posts just to expand (very inefficient), the Eldar already had taken over every single Relic, Critical Location or Thermoplasma Generator and using Webway Gates to construct and build elaborate fortresses all around them. On huge maps, it was entirely possible for That Guy to build one last Webway Gate in a far off location, cloak it (due to shroud), hide a Bonesinger in it, and lose your entire base but still be in the game due to the Webway Gate counting as a production structure. Because you got back full resources for deleting buildings (which happens instantly), it was possible for a Bonesinger to keep teleporting off, dropping down a new gate, and then destroying them, over and over again, in order to piss players off, turning matches that should have ended within 15 minutes into many hour fuckfests.
  • This is easily the single most complained-about aspect of the Eldar metagame, this was complained about since Winter Assault but was not fixed until Soulstorm, several years later. It's thought that it took that long to fix because of claims that Relic's QA team were mostly Eldar players, a theory helped by the fact that it was Iron Lore who changed it when they were put in charge of the expansion.
  • Incidentally even some of Eldar buildings could teleport but this normally didn't happen during the webway gate hunts since there effectively wasn't much time to build more units/bases once your main base went down if you didn't have a second base already set up.
• Healing Waystation, which quadrupled natural health regen and made it so that the Eldar always had access to easy healing (on every webway gate) giving them the fastest unit recovery time in the game and making a lot of units last longer than normal.
  • Even though the units would last far longer since they recovered more HP than every other race, they would still go down faster with focused fire by comparison thanks to having shit armour, and the ones that had good armour were not usually near the station unless they were dying anyway.

Bonesinger

• The Eldar start off this list by having the all around best builder in the entire game.
• The Bonesinger is by far the most cost-efficient out of all repairing units, repair costs are only 20% of the building/units initial cost, something they share with the Dark Eldar, whereas for all other races the repair costs are 75% of the original unit/building's cost.
  • While they share with the Dark Eldar the same price for repairing buildings, the Bonesinger is cheaper than the Tortured Slave (requiring 45 requisition to 75), is made faster (6 seconds to 10 seconds) and has actual, although highly limited, combat capabilities as well as unique abilities.
• Could teleport, which brought us the fun of "Hunt the Webway Gate" and made Eldar forces virtually impossible to keep locked down as the Bonesinger would just teleport away if they encountered any sort of trouble then start building structures elsewhere.
• Could melee, making them the only builder able to do so besides the Techpriest Enginseer (and the Gretchen) who it outperforms in cost (45 vs 75) build time (6 seconds vs 20 seconds) abilities (having wraithtomb, FoF and using far less resources to repair buildings) and overall damage output on other squads.
  • The Techpriest would still kill a Bonesinger in a 1V1 fight as the Enginseer has far better armour, which is its only advantage on the Bonesinger.
• The fact that they could melee paired with teleportation meant that they were CONSTANTLY used to annoy players, teleporting to tie up dedicated range squads such as Tau Fire Warriors or Ork Flash Gitz, buying time and generally fucking around and guaranteeing their presence in a fight would be minimal. This wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that meleeing a unit forces it to engage in CQC if it has any Close Combat ability.
  • This is simply countered by having multiple squads supporting each other, so another squad can shoot the Bonesinger the second it appears to free up the shooty squad that was engaged by the Bonesinger. On the flip-side the fact that Bonesingers could be made so quickly and cheaply meant that they were easily expendable for briefly tying up a few long-ranged squads.
• Wraithtomb allowed them to disable a building for 30 seconds. This was pretty nasty against everyone, invalidating most defense setups since it also shuts off the buildings guns and since they could teleport there was no effective way to stop them from using this ability. This ability even worse news for a Necron player, as their Monoliths are their only unit production structures.
  • In fairness using this tactic required researching Wraithtomb as well as making several Guardian Squads and researching Fleet of Foot. By then the enemy would normally have a few squads in play who would stop any sort of assault Guardian/Bonesingers could provide especially since they wouldn't have additional support for an Alpha Strike. This tactic would also typically leave the Bonesinger exposed, and if they died the effect would end prematurely (by 10 to 20 seconds).

Guardian Squad

• A relatively minor annoyance, they are not the sturdiest infantry, not the best tanks and not the best DPS dealers. Their only real draw for them is the fact that they can be upgraded to have a Warlock as squad leader, who has detection among other abilities.
• Along with this they have access to Entangle, which let them lock down squads for 5 seconds meaning that assault troops would find themselves frozen in place while all of the shooty Eldar ran away using Fleet of Foot, or repositioned/opened fire immediately while the combat troops closed in. They are the only squad in the entire game to have such an ability along with being able to detect (and thus also freeze those they detect).
  • Yes this means they can have detectors everywhere without any cap requirement and can be summoned on the spot thanks to the Webway gate. On the other hand they were still rather fragile and so were not too hard for heavy weapons to gun down.
  • When upgraded with Fleet of Foot they were the best Infantry for capturing thanks to low cost and very fast movement speed, though they were definitely not good at holding what they were trying to capture.
• Over all, Guardians were not considered worth complaining about and doing so was considered sign of excessively poor sportsmanship.

Ranger Squad

• Upgraded Rifle salvos completely butchered Morale, dealing more morale damage than every ranged weapon except most flamer-type weapons which slightly outclassed them (and even then they still dealt 2 more morale damage than the Burna). This meant that you could effectively use them as a long ranged flamer squad.
  • These also come in squads of 5-8 making them the largest sniper squad in the game, and since they were infiltrated with quite a bit of range with their upgrades (enough to safely put them out of ALL detection ranges) they were the best way you had to break enemy morale an slow assaults on your own troops making them one of the best harassers (if not the best) in the entire game.
  • Also did significant anti-infantry damage, making them excellent for butchering builders and whittling down low-squad-cap infantry squads (Space Marine Scouts, for instance).
  • Even though Scouts with Sniper Rifles and a Skull Probe are more powerful, they are also linearly less-efficient, costing more to set up and taking longer to get up to speed. In essence, requiring one build around them. As a contrast, Rangers took little to get to full effect, are cheaper, and are also viable earlier.
  • Their effectiveness is somewhat less in practice than on paper, as the Ranger squad has a habit of all targeting the same one or two enemies out of the entire enemy squad.

Howling Banshee Squad

• After the fire-on-the-move "fix" turned every race but Eldar into something slightly less-effective than grease on fire, these and Dark Reapers became the mainstay of Eldar strike groups. Which, it should be noted, the Banshee's always were anyway.
• One of the greatest DPS units when fully upgraded, they also stand as an example of how the Eldar have some very durable units, their upgrades give them better armor, damage and health in comparison to other armies, eclipsing most factions' dedicated close-combat specialists - even ones specifically designed to kick ass and take names like Khorne Berzerkers, Assault Marines, and Wyches. Thanks to a greater squad size they out-damage even dedicated assault elites like Sisters Repentia, Assault Terminators, and more when upgraded with the "Call of War" upgrade and their Exarch is factored in.
  • Banshees also cost significantly less than the squads they can later outperform (though they will take much longer on the tech upgrades to be able to beat them) and unlike those squads they have no hardcap.
  • While they are a great and durable assault unit late game they definitely don't start out that way. Initially they have less than half they can be upgraded to get, and if they aren't fully reinforced with all possible upgrades they will usually have their shit kicked in by Terminators, Grey Knights, Nobz, Repentia and even regular assault units. On the other hand, Howling Banshees have no hardcap so your single squad of CC specialists can still be drowned by Banshees.

Dark Reaper Squad

• They carried heavy weapons but had no setup time for fire with range equal to most other heavy weapons though they did less damage than dedicated heavy weapons like Heavy Bolters.
  • While this seems like a minor issue, the main problem came from the fact that like all Eldar units besides the Rangers, they had no hardcap. This could lead to several squads rushing into range during a conflict before gunning down the infantry engaged in close combat.
  • Keep in mind that the no-setup time made them great initially in fights, they'll very quickly find themselves outpaced by other heavy weapons such as Heavy Bolters.

Fire Dragon Squad

• Another of the squads most people complained about thanks to the fact that they're effectively impervious to knockdown and knockback effects made by heavy melee units and explosions and they have very high HP along with the second best infantry armour (equivalent to a Terminator).
• They have morale, so in theory could be breakable, but its morale is well over 800 per unit and regenerates very fast, making them virtually impossible to break without the likes of Berserkers' Mark of Khorne or Dark Eldar Horrorfex Bombs.
• Once again they have no hardcap.
• Morale regen is bugged so they don't break until their morale tanks outright, and they regenerate it quicker than many weapons can inflict it.
  • However the Fire Dragons are horrible in melee and the range on their guns, while not bad is still not fantastic. If sent alone they'll be dragged into a melee conflict and be rendered effectively useless. Even Fleet of Foot isn't that great if it takes you away from the tanks/buildings you should be destroying.
    • Whilst this is true, the combination of Fleet, immense HP, and immunity to knockback and knockdown effects meant that there was no stopping them from escaping enemies that otherwise would have butchered them, including melee walkers and close-combat specialists.

Warp Spider Squad

• The single most durable mobile infantry (C’mon you apes!) in the game with over 880HP a squad member when upgraded along with armour just below that of Terminators. Between their toughness, mobility, and being equipped with both anti-infantry and anti-vehicle weaponry, there is a good case for these being the single most powerful infantry squad type in the game.
• Actually have a hardcap, but unlike most other elite units (hardcapped at 1) they are hardcapped at 3, and three full squads will lay down more firepower than heavy squads of other armies given that they have up to 8 members in each squad firing their weapons.
• Can be modified to carry Haywire grenades that slags vehicles and buildings, so they can pretty much solo everything thrown at them short of Relic units.
• Unlike other jump infantry or teleport-capable infantry such as Chaos Raptors, Marine Assault Terminators, Tau Crisis and Stealth Suits, Dark Eldar Scourges, and so on, Warp Spiders have no prep time for their teleport ability - basically, they instantly bugged out to the location of their choosing with no warm-up and no possibility of being stopped and can also jump 2 times in a row.
  • Just like the Fire Dragons, the Warp Spiders can be tied up in melee (likely if they're using Haywire grenades). Even though they'll just teleport away their teleport has a decently long cooldown time and they do NOT have Fleet of Foot.
  • Another thing to keep in mind is they are really expensive. If your opponent is good at focusing their firepower on squads you'll very quickly find yourself spending a lot on these guys.

Harlequin

• Dance of Death is excruciatingly good at keeping high tier melee units down and unable to participate in the battle.
• Harlequin's Kiss instagibs Crisis Suits, Broadsides, Heavy Weapon Teams, and basically any high-HP infantry unit that is either limited in number-per-squad or independent. This wouldn't be that bad if they weren't quite low in cost for commanders or higher in the tech tree.
  • Before the patch fixed them, this could hit (and instantly kill) commanders in a squad, so seeing this ability pop a Farseer in her council, a Space Marine Commander with Grey Knights, or Warboss with some Nobs was a routine occurrence.
• Deals the single highest damage to commanders, BAR NONE (yes, higher than the Bloodthirster, Avatar of Khaine and the Nightbringer).
• Despite claims to the contrary, is not very fragile as it has over 900 HP and Commander-class armor when fully upgraded.
• Despite not being very fragile in itself thanks to taking little damage, they are still in squads of 1 so massed heavy weapons fire WILL still kill the Harlequins. In addition they're also very vulnerable to knockdown. Massed fire, thankfully, is their kryptonite. But then what doesn't massed fire work against?
  • If they cannot knock the enemy down themselves they will eventually be wrecked in melee once again thanks to their comparatively small limited HP.

Farseer

• Not that bad at all. She's got good damage and HP, but is still well under other Commanders. This is balanced by her psychic powers which are balanced by them having a very long cooldown time. She's an amazing kite thanks to Fleet and can escape other commanders with Mind War, though concentrated firepower will drop her like a rock. Overall an average commander, move along.

Seer Council

• One of the most complained about Eldar unit thanks to 600 HP Infantry with Commander Armor, squad size of up to 9, and the Conceal ability which takes away 50% of all ranged damage.
• Can cast Embolden, which doesn't make them fearless, but makes them insanely resistant to morale damage and spikes their max morale by 200 points for a time, and Conceal, which notably reduces the damage the unit takes from ranged damage.
• Boosts Farseer ability regen rate by 15%, which makes her abilities notably more spammable.
  • This squad, while really good in close combat is also quite vulnerable to being swarmed by cheap infantry and picked of from at range. Yes, even with Conceal though it'll take a bit. They are also really fucking expensive, even reinforcing is expensive (for reinforcing anyway) and takes a bit, not to mention being hardcapped at 1.
  • This squad is also really fucking AWFUL at taking down anything with Commander armour and Daemons with high armour, and given their low health can easily be taken down by a commander and their escort when cornered.
• The main issue with the Seer Council is that attaching the Farseer to them makes their effective HP almost double what is appears to be due to damage-reducing abilities, and they bolster the biggest weaknesses of the Farseer (her cooldowns) in the process.

Avatar of Khaine

• Undeniably THE most complained-about unit in the Eldar army and one of the few unarguably broken units in the game.
• 15000 HP of Daemon High armor, and highest melee damage of any unit of his class (Yes, more than the Bloodthirster of Khorne)- but this isn't why people use him.
• Only regenerates HP in combat whereas the Bloodthirster loses hit points when out of combat and regenerates health in combat (when troops are attacking him back) so slowly it's not even noticeable. This means kiting has increased effect on Bloodthirster, but decreased effect on Khaine. Now keep in mind this was deliberate... And the Bloodthirster doesn't buff his entire army just by being there.
• Gives +10 to Vehicle Pop Cap and +4 to the infantry pop cap, but uses 5.
• Doubles build-rates of all units at Webway Assembly and Aspect Portal.
• Makes all nearby units immune to morale damage, pretty much making him a lulzy support/offensive assault unit.
• Most Eldar players proceed to park him in their base and not use him in combat at all - rather keeping him back to avoid deep striking forces from basebashing and taking advantage of his passive ability.
• His abilities allow the Eldar to field more units than every other faction in the game. Yes, even the Orks and Imperial Guard. Because it makes sense for a race approaching extinction is able to outman two of the most numerous species in the entire galaxy.
  • Surprisingly the Avatar isn't that good at killing enemies with Commander level armor. He certainly hits hard but it'll take forever and in that time he'll likely be targeted by several other squads while he's made to kill the commander. The thing is, he'll usually be back at base in the first place, whilst the Eldar Player abuses his passives, which specifically enable the Eldar to field a more numerous army.
    • His extra effects aside, direct combat-wise, he is one of the weaker Relic Units in the game, consistently being beaten by other Relic Units on average. Which is why he's best suited as a support unit in players bases.

Vyper

• Quite literally effective against everything. Can stunlock and shred infantry with its missiles, which have area of effect and knockback, and rip them apart further with it's twin-linked shuriken catapults.
• Extremely fast (matches a Dark Eldar Raider) and has two jumps, like the Falcon.
• Extremely durable for what is supposed to be a light hit-and-run unit, with more HP than an IG Sentinel when upgraded. If this isn't enough, it counts as a Medium Vehicle whilst the Sentinel counts as light.
• Unlike other vehicles with similar levels of versatility and power, the Vyper has no hardcap.

Falcon Grav Tank

• The best-armed transport in the game and can be effective against everything short of epic tanks.
• It is one of the fastest transports, being nearly as balls-out fast as Dark Eldar and Ork vehicles.
• 2 jumps before it goes out, this is a very sneaky advantage to most other races, so it can pretty much give a big "fuck you" to enemy defenses and infiltrate right in your opponent's base and deploy it's cargo before jumping off. The problem is that it's not very durable, although its still enough to almost invariably survive the drop and retreat, or, if the fight's on the Eldar's side already, stick around and provide fire support. This offers much greater flexibility than any other faction offers, save for maybe the Dark Eldar Raider, which the Grav Tank is almost 25% more durable than.
  • While very effective it is relatively expensive - it's more expensive than both the Chimera and Landspeeder, costing about as much as the Dark Eldar Raider, which it is more durable than. Additionally, the Falcon's only effective against everything in the same fashion that the Chimera is - doing well against most armor types, but excelling against little. It also takes a bit to build it up to a full skill.

Fire Prism

• One of the most complained-about units in the Eldar war machine, and with at least a few decent reasons.
• One of the most durable available medium armour (aka all non-light/non-relic) vehicles in the game, even before upgrades. It has a solid 2200 more HP than a Chaos Predator, and over 1000 more than a Leman Russ Battle Tank after upgrades.
• Also the fastest tank in the game and like all Eldar vehicles, capable of jump jetting, though it only jumps once (as opposed to the twice of the Falcon or Vyper).
• Armed with a laser that has area of effect damage and always hits, causing massive explosions on impact. Whilst every other ordnance weapon in the game has variance, this one doesn't. It also can fire accurately on the move. And let's not forget the all-surpassingly annoying knock back.
• Armed with a powerful Shuriken catapult as well, capable of shredding infantry.
  • Will not typically win in tank vs tank battles against other tanks kitted out specifically to kill tanks (like Lascannon Predators) and it also struggles with buildings.
  • Luckily these are capped at 2, and they are extremely expensive, once they are gone they won't be coming back for a bit.

Wraithlord

• The Eldar Walker, comes with Flamers that always hit, optimized for assaults.
• Has a Starcannon by default and can upgrade to a Brightlance instead. Unlike the Dreadnoughts and other walker vehicles in the game, there is no drawback to doing so, because the Wraithlord does not lose any of its existing melee capability for doing so.
• Much less expensive and more spammable than other walker vehicles though with much less HP.
  • While costing less and being able to be built faster than other walkers it will still lose in a one on one fight between it and melee-specialized walkers like the Dreadnought (the Penitent Engine and Krootox do not count for this argument as they come out over a tier later).
  • Thusly, the main problem with the Wraithlord is not its raw quality, but rather its spammability, as it requires little to get up to speed and can be built effectively and aggressively as a result.
  • Additionally, if they have supporting fire from other Eldar, they can continually use their long-ass kill animation that they are invulnerable during, which makes up for low HP if they are in a swarm of infantry.

Nightwing

• Fastest air unit in game with superlative anti-air damage. Is otherwise an infantry-hunting gunship.
  • Its main guns are AOE, which means that their damage to infantry units is substantially higher than their mediocre damage output would suggest.
  • In essence, Nightwings operate very much like flying versions of the Imperial Guard Hellhound because of this, doing little damage, but in a big area. This means that grouped up in groups of 2-3 (easy, because they aren't terribly expensive by vehicle standards), they can easily mow down large groups of infantry. Low-HP infantry like Guardsmen, Dark Eldar Warriors, Tau Stealthsuits, and so on are highly vulnerable to this attack style.
• Also gets a HP regen upgrade that lets it regenerate 10 HP/second. This is upgraded to 40/sec with Healing Waystation.
  • What makes this thing overpowered is its insanely fast HP regeneration that enables it to go from almost no HP to full in under a minute. This makes Nightwings incredibly effective harass units, that, if carefully micromanaged, are ludicrously difficult to kill. They're tough enough to survive going over even a lot of anti-vehicle damage, and, provided they survive at all, can be back in the fight in under a minute.
    • The main thing keeping the Nightwing from being a much worse issue is that it's solely an anti-air unit that happens to be effective against infantry due to its specific weapons. It's still unbalanced from the options other factions have.

Shuriken Grav Platform

• Another not-broken unit, it slows down infantry but that's all it's really good for.
• A point can be made at how little it costs compared to say... A heavy weapons team, but it's FAR less effective than the ones it costs less than.

Brightlance Grav Platform

• A support vehicle that Shoots an anti-vehicle laser with moderately good damage that happens to boost all damage the target takes by 75% for 3 seconds.
• This is a more than 50% larger bonus than the next-strongest debuffing ability (Markerlight).
• This is sufficient to allow most Eldar light infantry to cut apart heavy-duty vehicle units like Battlesuits and Tanks.
• Longer range than some heavy tanks.
• The beam's damage increase effect applies to infantry and even commander units.
• Costs comparatively little (same as the Shuriken Grav Platform).
  • This unit while being good at buffing the army is also vulnerable to certain things like Infiltrators, and is also hardcapped at 3 meaning that when one goes down that damage buff goes away. If that's what the Eldar are relying on then they're now up shit creek.
  • While having decent range there are still several units that can outrange it, if it's up against any of those there's nothing it can do and even quick Anti-tank squads will make very short work of it (although vehicles such as a Predator Annihilator do comically small damage to these things even with twin-linked Lascannons & Lascannon sponsons).

Eldar Support Platform

• Starts off as a pretty basic turret with a Scatter Laser. Basic firepower is pretty average, identical in almost every respect to the Space Marine Heavy Bolter Turret and Chaos Marine Bolter Turret.
• Damage vs, infantry by the D-Cannon is almost nil, but due to how damage tabulates against squads, it does enormous morale damage.
  • To elaborate, it does about 15 morale damage to most units, not counting mitigation. However, it does this in a massive range, so the morale damage hit hits everyone in the squad. For an 8-man squad, this is about 120 morale damage, or almost 50% of a Chaos Marine Squad's max morale. In one shot.
  • This still isn't that bad though because it excels at killing vehicles, not infantry, if there's a vehicle than it's either not shooting at the squad who get to move on/blow it up, or it's not shooting at the vehicle who gets to blow it up. Except that morale is extremely important.