Dawn of Eldar

Nickname given to Dawn of War after dozens upon dozens of Eldar-favoring piles of bullshit began to accrue. No race - not the Necrons with the Resurrection Orb or Lightning Field cheese, not the Tau with "I can shoot you from offscreen" range, not the Chaos invisible army of doom bullshit - 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.

To break down how bad the cheese was, this list has been compiled explaining how broken just about every single Eldar unit was. Enjoy.

A word in advance. You're going to see that this list will openly put to death the usual arguments regarding the drawbacks of the Eldar - namely that they are fragile (they aren't), specialized (they're not), and easily countered (they aren't). In short, this list is to be considered the ultimate proof of how blatantly, insanely overpowered and ridiculous the Eldar were in Dawn of War.

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 very good if you had decent micro to being flagrantly broken. 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, it gave a general fiat for Eldar players to dominate through abuse of this ability.
• Teleporting Buildings. Wouldn't be so bad without....
• HUNT THE LAST WEBWAY GATE. Easily the most frustrating, stupid, and infuriating of Eldar tactics. On huge maps, it was entirely possible for Eldar players 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 resources for deleting buildings, 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 4+ hour fuckfests. Easily the single most complained-about aspect of the Eldar metagame, this was complained about since Winter Assault but was not fixed until fucking Soulstorm, several years later, due to the blatant favoritism Relic's QA team showed towards the Eldar.
• Healing Waystation, which made it so that the Eldar always had access to easy healing whilst other factions had to fuck around with either defunct or barely-functional heal rates and no ways to boost them.

Bonesinger

• Yes, the fucking Eldar builder was fucking overpowered.
• Repaired units and vehicles more-efficiently than any other builder, with the exception of the IG techpriest. Period. On average, it used 33% less resources to repair than other builders.
• Could teleport, which brought us the fun of "Hunt the Webway Gate" and made Eldar forces virtually impossible to keep locked down.
• Could melee and do some actual damage, which was used relentlessly until Dark Crusade's patch against Imperial Guard due to the latter's inability to inflict morale damage (due to a bug) in close-combat. If you were to simply send a Guardsman Squad against a single Bonesinger, it would take a bit, but the Bonesinger would break the Guardsman squad's morale and, if left over a few minutes, would eventually kill it.
• 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.
• Wraithtomb let them disable a building for 30 seconds. This was pretty nasty against everyone, but against Necrons this was an immediate death sentence, since all Necron units build from one building - the Monolith, and Necron Units built quite slowly compared to everyone else, meaning that Necron vs. Eldar was basically unwinnable if Eldar players decided to abuse this - since the first thing a player would usually do is get a Guardian Squad and Bonesinger to your base about 50 seconds in and fuck your shit up.

Guardian Squad

• Kind of weak for Eldar units, but were incredibly strong late-game and could hold their own against just about anything with upgrades, out-damaging and out-HPing most infantry units barring Chaos Marines and Spess Mehreens.
• Access to Embolden and Entangle, which let them lock down squads for 5 seconds and restore morale to themselves.
• Can be upgraded to have a Warlock as squad leader, who has detection abilities. Yes, they have detectors fucking everywhere without any cap requirement and can be summoned on the spot.
• Access to Plasma Grenades, which were kinda like marine frag grenades so not really that much.
• Access to Fleet of Foot.
• Basically, the best capture and early-combat infantry in the game for cost.

Ranger Squad

• Broken for patch after patch after patch after patch. Complained about from the moment they got OMGTWTF-buffed when Winter Assault hit, and even before that.
• Hardcapped at one, but was so ubiquitous that you were stupid if you didn't use one.
• Went from simply broken to DOUBLE BROKEN after Dark Crusade changed Infiltration mechanics to it being passive while attacking.
• It's been argued by some that they were outmatched in direct combat by Spess Mehreen 5-man sniper scout teams when paired with a probe, as Scouts in theory did higher damage per-salvo (enough to wipe out enemy cappers). This ignores, however, the fact that Scouts with Sniper Rifles and a probe cost much more than a kitted-out Ranger Squad (Not counting the Infiltration/Weapons researches, the Scouts, Rifles, and Probes go for 415 Requisition and 80 Power, whilst a maxed-out Ranger squad goes for 320 Requisition and 40 Power). Scouts also got rifles roughly a Tier later and requires an upgrade, and a full battery of scouts with rifles still did less damage than a maxed Ranger Squad.
• Rifle salvos basically instantly broke squad morale when they hit, and ensured filthy rape against light-armored infantry such as unmodified IG Guardsmen.
• Most capture/early combat infantry is light, including Dark Eldar Warriors, Guardsmen, Space Marine Scouts, Tau Stealthsuits, Necron Scarabs, etc.
• Did we mention they infiltrate and come in squads of 8?
• And Fleet of Foot, guaranteeing they could get away after being detected?
• Basically the ultimate harass unit, for killing cappers, builders, etc.
• Keeping one squad near a fight could ensure it could break squad after squad after squad after squad, rendering them useless in combat.
• It got toned down patch after patch but never quite stopped being broken; back during WA's launch they would routinely demolish Slugga and Shoota Boy squads and unsupported formations of Fire Warriors in early Dark Crusade.

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.
• Huge damage when upgraded and more HP than most factions' dedicated close-combat specialists - even ones specifically designed to kick ass and take names like Khorne Berserkers, Assault Marines, and Wyches. They out-damage fucking Assault Terminators when upgraded with the "Call of War" upgrade. And that's before their ridiculously powerful Exarch is factored in.
• This whilst Banshees were substantially lower on the tech tree and cost a fraction as much.
• You can infinitely spam the fuck out of them to form your mainstay army, putting to shame Khornate 'zerkers.
• Had Fleet of Foot, too, so there was no getting away from these goddamned things for shooty armies.
• Their scream ability basically instant-broke squads, too, so seeing these things rape Assault Terminators, even with the latter's stun effects, was not unheard of. In fact the only chance you had against them were sending fearless assault units with heavy ranged support.

Dark Reaper Squad

• Possibly one of three units complained about more than the Avatar of Khaine. Substantially overpowered for patch after patch.
• They carried heavy weapons but had no setup time for fire with range and punch roughly equating a Heavy Bolter. Players complained endlessly about this; they made the Tau's Pulse Rifle spamfaggotry look like someone trying to Cultist rush with laspistols.
• Significantly out-HPed most heavy infantry, including upgraded Space Marines, Chaos Marines, and Battle Sister squads.
• Fleet of Foot, too.
• In open defiance of all logic, was not good against heavy infantry whilst Warp Spiders were.
• Did we mention that their leader has more HP than a fully-upgraded Assault Terminator when fully-upgraded?

Fire Dragon Squad

• Easily the fourth-most broken infantry squad the Eldar have. Period.
• Are impervious to knockdown and knockback effects made by heavy melee units and explosions, making it impossible to stop them from attacking a vehicle or building when engaging at short range is supposed to impart some level of risk, unless you send out a melee force, since they have pitiful CQC skills, you could whittle them down... if it weren't for FUCKING fleet of foot.
• Also has fleet of foot. So walkers can't just go and punch them in the face. Even if they could, they couldn't knock the Fire Dragons back but will force them to melee, but again, FoF.
• Has nearly as much HP as a Terminator when upgraded. It shares the same armor type.
• Infantry_Heavy_High, the armor the Fire Dragon has, is the most resistant armor-type outside of Daemon_High and Commander, making their high HP that much nastier.
• Has morale, so in theory could be breakable, but its morale is well over 800 per unit and regenerates insanely fast, making them virtually impossible to break without the likes of Berserkers' Mark of Khorne or Dark Eldar Horrorfex Bombs.

Warp Spider Squad

• Most durable mobile infantry in the game with over 800HP a squad member when upgraded. Only Crisis Suits have more HP than this whilst remaining mobile, and Crisis Suits don't come in squads and don't teleport instantly.
• Rapes every last kind of infantry out there with a full 8-man squad and buttfucks entire ARMIES of infantry with 3 full squads.
• Can be modified to carry Haywire grenades that fucks over vehicles and building like Assault Marine melta bombs, so they can pretty much solo everything thrown at them short of.....nothing.
• 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 warmup and no possibility of being stopped, making it functionally what a Deciever does in tabletop 40K. They can also jump 2 times, more rage.
• The only Eldar Infantry without Fleet of Foot. But fuck that, they have insta-port.
• Hardcap of three when every other faction's elites are Hardcapped one (Ogryns, Kasrkin, Terminators, Assault Terminators, Possessed, Obliterators, etc), so not only do they possess more of their elites than everyone else, they can field one more squad on top of this.

Harlequin

• Virtually impossible to click on with Dance of Death active.
• Until Soulstorm's patch, Harlequin's Kiss would instagib Commanders attached to squads if the effect hit them.
• Dance of Death instagibs Crisis Suits, Broadsides, Heavy Weapon Teams, and basically any high-HP infantry unit that is either limited in number-per-squad or independent.
• Extremely inexpensive for a unit with painfully high Commander damage.
• Despite claims to the contrary, is not very fragile as it has over 900 HP and Commander-class armor.
• Completely rape-tastic against any faction with low HP/unit (Imperial Guard, Dark Eldar, Tau). One Kiss can completely obliterate a completely kitted-out Guardsman squad that doesn't have both HP upgrades (Dance of Death followed by Kiss).
• Hard Cap three, meaning Eldar get 6 of their elites whilst everyone else has about three (Orks, Space Marines) or two (everyone else).

Farseer

• Actually not that broken as far as Eldar in Dawn of War goes, but still busted solid.
• Has an ability which will devastate early Commanders with mediocre HP (Tau Commander, Command Squad, Big Mek, Archon).
• This may not seem so bad, but every single other ability which did similar (Strip Soul from the Psyker for example) got the shit nerfed out of it (under the argument that it made low-HP commanders like the Farseer easier to kill) when Mind War got buffed.
• Mind War also slows the subject's movement speed to a crawl.
• Psychic Storm devastates low-HP/morale infantry (again, Imperial Guard, Dark Eldar, etc), so fuck your commander's escort.
• She has fleet of foot.
• She buffs a squad's defense against ranged weapons when she gets fortune. As if anyone else needed anymore survivability.
• Seer's Council basically doubles her ability recharge rate.
• Eldritch Storm does good damage to absolutely everything, and has gigantic knockback. Think of it like a miniature Basilisk Earthshaker but costs nothing and can be chained with Entangle to be inescapable.
• Her damage and HP are lower than the Space Marine Commander and Chaos Lord, but fuck that, like they're gonna get any closer to her with at least half a bar of HP.
• With her abilities, it is extremely difficult (not quite impossible) for the Tau Commander, Dark Eldar Archon, Big Mek, and Command Squad to be able to defeat her without considerable moxie (the Tau strategy can be summed up as "pray she sets off a Snare Mine").

Seer Council

• Second most-broken unit in the Eldar army.
• 600 HP Infantry with Commander Armor, squad size 9, and takes 50% damage from all attacks with Conceal. Stacks with Fortune, which means that most ranged attacks deal about 1/3 to 1/5 of what they should to them.
• Can cast Embolden and Entangle to slow enemies, basically guaranteeing that you can then proceed to drop the Farseer's attacks right on target.
• Highest melee damage for any dedicated melee unit - period. They outperform Assault Terminators, Mega Armored Nobz, Wyches, and pretty much every major close-combat unit in the game.
• Get even stronger when upgraded, allowing them to solo and destroy Relic units. Seeing them melee to death an unsupported Baneblade or Land Raider is a common related tale, and seeing them take out a Bloodthirster on their own isn't unheard of.
• Boosts Farseer ability regen rate considerably.
• Fleet of Foot.
• Did we mention that it's also a commander unit, which means that on top of the 1/3 to 1/5 damage it's taking from the Fortune/Conceal powers, means that it was already taking phenomenally-less damage in the first place? The TL;DR is that It will take 4-5 times longer to bring down one council with a Farseer than a fully kitted out Force Commander+Assault Terminator squad and a solid 2-3 times longer than a Warboss hooked to some Nobz. Yes, we're fucking serious.

Avatar of Khaine

• Undeniably THE most broken unit in the entire Eldar army in Dawn of War. Also the most complained-about.
• 15000 HP of Daemon armor, and highest melee damage of any unit of his class - but this isn't why people use him.
• Gives +10 to Vehicle Pop Cap and +5 to Infantry Pop Cap. (less of the former because he also takes some up).
• 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.
• Did we mention he does all of this and is an amazing combat 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 all of his passives.
• His abilities allow the Eldar to field more units than every other faction in the game. Yes, even the Orks.
• His only drawback is that he only regenerates HP while in combat, but fuck that, he's either always totally in or out of combat in most tactics.

Falcon Grav Tank

• The best-armed transport in the game and effective against absolutely everything short of epic tanks.
• Heaviest armored-transport too (excluding the land raider), boasting better health than any transport (even an upgraded Wartrukk) when upgraded.
• It is also the second-fastest transport, being nearly as balls-out fast as a Dark Eldar Raider.
• 2 jumps before it goes out, so it can pretty much give a big "fuck you" to enemy defenses and infiltrate the fucker right in your opponent's base and deploy it's cargo.
• Costs more pop but fuck that, it's the best transport in the game that can double as an anti-tank unit.
• Upgrading its gun honestly is a waste because the Starcannon it can get is in all ways a downgrade. So it's brightlance pretty much owns everything.
• Its strongest anti-infantry weapon is designed to not fire on the move and has no setup time, ergo bypassing problems with the fire-on-the-move fix with a little micro-management.

Vyper

• Inexpensive as hell and quite durable for a vehicle that is quite literally effective against everything.
• Can stunlock and shred infantry with its missiles, which have an area-of-effect, and rip them apart further with it's twin-linked shuriken catapults.
• Extremely fast (matches a Raider).
• 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.

Fire Prism

• One of the most complained-about units in the Eldar war machine, and with good fucking reason.
• The most durable readily available heavy vehicle in the game, even before upgrades. Yes sir, an army focused on lightly-armored vehicles has the heaviest non-relic armor in the game. It has a solid 2000 more HP than a 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 twice. Like a Falcon or Vyper. In fact, a very common tactic was to use the two together, using the Falcons to bring your armies into position whilst your Prisms provide the heavy punch. Basically, the Eldar can jump-jet their entire army into your base, and then pull them out using their second jump if you start kicking their asses.
• 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.
• Bear in mind that complaints about ordnance by Eldar players had the Basilisk nerfed into uselessness and the Leman Russ armed with a direct-fire cannon, seemingly in the face of any and all logic.
• Armed with a very powerful Shuriken catapult as well, capable of raping infantry to death in seconds.
• Due to its sheer HP, it will usually win a battle with almost any other race's tank one-on-one, even with upgrades. The only two it won't consistently beat are the Imperial Guard Leman Russ (due to the very stupid non-ordance battle cannon backing its three bolters) and the Tau Hammerhead )(which does roughly twice the DPS but is far more fragile).
• Had no hardcap in Winter Assault, so was spammed endlessly the second that Tier 4 hit.

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. Wraithlords in this configuration can thus engage up close OR from farther away, despite being a melee walker, with no drawbacks.
• Much less expensive than other walker vehicles and roughly the same HP (3950 after upgrades, which is considerably more than a Defiler or Tomb Spyder).
• Spammable as hell because it's effective against everything while barely costing anything.
• A fucking nightmare when you see 6+ of these marching towards you with an Avatar and Warp Spiders in tow.

Nightwing

• The Eldar Aircraft. Seems bad on paper, is filthy rape in practice.
• The fastest unit in the game.
• The best dogfighting aircraft in the game, owing to its high anti-air damage.
• Kind of derp as a ground attacker, but its Shuriken Cannons make good harassment weapons against listening posts.
• Has the fastest regeneration rate in the game (10/sec) when upgraded, which increases to 40/sec over a healing waystation.
• This makes it virtually unkillable for base defenses and listening posts.
• As well as possibly the best harass unit in the game.
• Is so fast that you can fly it quickly through considerable layers of defenses, and barring the game's shitty hit detection with the environment, the Nightwing will weave through and survive.

Shuriken Grav Platform

• Basically a mobile heavy weapons team that counts as light vehicle armor, does less damage, and dramatically cuts the target's movement speed when firing on it.
• Costs a pittance compared to the Heavy Weapons team.
• Is built from the motherfucking Webway Gate. This was one of the reasons that players had to fight so hard to end Hunt the Webway Gate.
• Used to be attachable; isn't anymore.
• Positioned well, functionally guarantees that Eldar players will be able to slow the target and make it more vulnerable to their heavy weapons.
• The Shuriken and Brightlance platforms can be used on the same target at once.

Brightlance Grav Platform

• Shoots an anti-vehicle laser with moderately good damage that happens to boost all damage the target takes by 75% for 3 seconds.
• When paired with Fire Dragons or Eldar vehicles optimized for anti-tank, it guarantees filthy rape against anything in front of it, even relic units like the IG Baneblade and Ork Squiggoth can't do anything but die miserably in a few seconds.
• Artillery range.
• The beam's damage increase effect applies to infantry and even commander units.
• Costs very little (same as the Shuriken Grav Platform).
• The Shuriken and Brightlance platforms can be used on the same target at once.

Campaign Only

• The Farseer in the Soulstorm campaign (Caerys) has the Soulstone ability, which prevents her from dying if her HP is brought to 0, basically giving her a counterpart to the Living Saint revival ability. Total. Fucking. Cheese.
• Campaign Caerys' second-tier pistol upgrade gives it the ability to one-shot kill any infantry, heavy infantry, or commander unit with 20% or less HP.
• Taldeer in Dark Crusade has the Rune Aura ability, which gives her and any squad she's attached to +10/sec regeneration. Paired with Healing Waystation, this makes her virtually unkillable if managed correctly.
• These conspire with all of the above to make the Eldar campaigns in Dark Crusade and Soulstorm hilariously easy compared to those of literally every other race.
• In Dark Crusade, the Eldar stronghold could only be accessed from one territory, which was infuriatingly hard to capture due to the Eldar's mobility and tendency to start with multiple bases on it. Unless you managed to have a full honor guard and bum-rushed their territory to offline one of their bases before they could get up and running, you would be fucked harder than a hooker on her first night on the job. Pray the Eldar wore a condom.
• When you did finally reach the Eldar Stronghold in Dark Crusade, it is the single most frustrating mission in the entire game, vastly eclipsing even the legendarily-difficult Hyperion Peaks mission. Picture a mountain stronghold with very limited access, surrounded by dozens of D-Cannon Support Platforms, a base spamming the shit out of hardcap-less Fire Prisms, backed by an infinitely-stronger-than-normal Avatar of Khaine and with Bonesingers constantly teleporting about in order to keep the buildings repaired. Now bear in mind that Eldar players successfully lobbied for all artillery in the game (Basilisk, Whirlwind, etc) be nerfed. Welcome to hell.
• In Soulstorm, the Eldar Stronghold is not difficult so much as it is tedious and insanely time-consuming, due to a very lazy map layout which, as was the case for Dark Crusade, happens to perfectly-accentuate the Eldar's advantages. There's a shock.

In Conclusion

So let's go over this. In Dawn of War, neither the argument that they are fragile, nor the argument that they are specialized is true - as we just went over above. Eldar are consistently tougher and more reliable than every other race mechanically (and just about anything can become anti-vehicle/anti-building with a Brightlance plat on the prowl). Their power/cost ratios are through the roof, and their upgrades unilaterally effect most of their forces. They can also field the most numerous army in Dawn of War, have a tactic that is quite literally uncounterable if they get on a roll, and a number of advantages that basically allow them to steamroll every player forever if they fight smart. Every single unit the Eldar have is unilaterally better than dedicated specialist units in each and every army in the game.

These reasons are why the Eldar was completely broken in Dawn of War. And the biggest reason for it was favoritism by members of Relic's own QA team, who rather notoriously favored Eldar over all others (It was revealed by a man named Pet who violated his NDA in order to alert the community that in their closed tests, there were over a dozen Eldar players and about two players for each other race, giving the Eldar players disproportionate say into what happened in the upcoming patches). Complained-about problems with the Eldar went religiously unfixed.

Conversely in DoWpro they actually play as they should.