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 for half their army, 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. Note that despite all of this, maximum pop Orks with the More Sluggaz upgrade and five or more Boyz Huts cranking Sluggaz out on overwatch will still drown the Eldar in bodies no, they won't, because Free Sluggaz is a high-tier upgrade. Unless facing the comp, you'll be curb-stomped long before that upgrade hits.

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 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 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, when a company that wasn't Relic changed it when they were put in charge of the expansion.
• 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.
• Also getting the 2nd req upgrade in T2.5! Giving them a economy advantage.

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 against Imperial Guard until Dark Crusade's patch 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. This was solely due to the inability of Guardsmen to do morale damage in melee until a later patch.
• 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, which means that shooty units can become instantly useless because a teleporting builder unit poked them.
• Wraithtomb allowed them to 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. It also basically invalidated Imperial Guard defense setups, since Wraithtomb shut off the building's bunker guns.

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. Unlike the other un-hardcapped detectors (Tau pathfinders, Chaos Cultists with upgrades), Guardians are actually damned effective in combat, are disproportionately hard to kill with an attached Warlock, and ergo likely to actually survive being used to 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.
• Warlocks can cast Entangle, letting these fast bastards to run away from assault marines raptors and other jumpy faggots.

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 from "Command & Conquer" (reveal when firing and sometimes while moving) to "Starcraft" (stay invisible even while attacking)... although neither C&C nor Starcraft deserves to be in the same sentence as these ass-broken fuckers. At least all cloaked units in SC who can attack (apart from the Dark Templar) only had a limited time to cloak as it consumes energy, unlike here where you're perma-invisible until detected.
• 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 (Which is by far the largest sniper squad in the game)?
• And Fleet of Foot, guaranteeing they could get away after being detected and the fire-on-the-move penalty caused by FoF is redundant since these guys can't fire while moving anyway?
• 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 even dedicated assault elites like Sisters Repentia, Assault Terminators, Nobz (without Klaws), and more when upgraded with the "Call of War" upgrade... And that's before their ridiculously powerful Exarch is factored in.
• All of the above whilst Banshees are 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.
• While Necron Pariah Squads, Chaos Possessed, Ork Nobz, Space Marine Assault Terminators and Space Marine Grey Knight Squads will violently and forcefully rape them in one-on-one, Necrons, Chaos and Space Marines, respectively, can only have one squad of Pariahs, Possessed, Assault Terminators or GKs while the Eldar can drown their foes in Banshees. Kroot and Ork squads can drown them in numbers, but with an instant morale-break ability at high levels and maxed out skills, they are infinitely more-cost effective than other CQC infantry unit. Thankfully, things like painboys, librarian, and priests can even up the odds by providing limited invulnerability.

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?
• Fluff-defying machine guns, shooting freaky sprite bolts.

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.
• So.... Yeah. Fleet of Foot. On a short-ranged high-HP infantry unit with knockback/knockdown immunity. 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 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 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 and about as much HP as a Terminator.
• 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.
• Dance of death is excruciatingly good at keeping high tier melee units down and unable to participate in the battle.
• Until Soulstorm's patch, Harlequin's Kiss would instagib Commanders attached to squads if the effect hit them. So say goodbye to your Warboss with Nobz or Force Commander with Grey Knights.
• 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. Because it makes total sense that a low-cost commander unit can one-shot units that cost a lot more and are significantly higher in the tech tree, amirite?
• 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. For comparison, this is only 100 less than a baseline Tau Commander and double that of a baseline Imperial General.
• 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).
• A pair will destroy a fully kitted-out Nobz Squad with little trouble, with all upgrades.
• Hard Cap three, meaning Eldar get 6 of their elites whilst everyone else has about three (Orks, Space Marines) or two (everyone else).
• A detector, too, since it's fine that the Eldar have no less than 4 hyper-mobile units that can detect whilst other races have at most one or two.

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, which, paired with fucking Fleet, ensures your commander is easily isolated and destroyed by Eldar forces when not attached to a squad.
• Psychic Storm devastates low-HP/morale infantry (again, Imperial Guard, Dark Eldar, etc), so fuck your commander's escort, too.
• 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 boosts her ability recharge rate by about 66% when she's attached.
• Eldritch Storm does good damage to absolutely everything, and has gigantic knockback. Think of it like a nano-Basilisk Earthshaker but costs nothing and can be chained with Entangle to be inescapable. The damage isn't high against buildings, but it will still fuck squads up the ass and throw them all over the fucking place.
• 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.
• What, you don't believe us on that last one? 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"). Necrons are a bit better off with teleportation and/or essence of the Nightbringer and/or lightning fields. But still, Mind War + FoF and she's pretty much untouchable.

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, 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.
• 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, which makes her abilities notably more spammable.
• Fleet of Foot. Nuff' said.
• 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 (Yes, more than the Bloodthirster of Khorne)- but this isn't why people use him.
• Only regenerates HP in combat, but at least it does make it fairly survivable. On the other hand, the Bloodthirster loses hit points when out of combat and simply stops losing them when in battle wrong, he regenerates HP in battle as well, but this barely matters as the Avatar is never seen in battle or, is supported by huge amounts of fores, meaning the AoK makes the BoK look like a pile of shit).
• Gives +10 to Vehicle Pop Cap and an effective +5 to Infantry Pop Cap (he gives +10 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.
• 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 and Imperial Guard. Because it makes fucking sense that a race approaching extinction is able to outman the two most numerous non-Tyranid species in the fucking galaxy.
• 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. And the Bloodthirster, the next best Daemonic Relic unit, can't get any hit points back at all. he gets HP back when engaged in melee combat (Taking damage in melee)(works sparodically, check with http://warhammer-game.narod.ru/wiki/Bloodthirster.html)
• The only units that can take him out in a solo fight is the Necron Lord using the Essence of the Nightbringer, a Grey Knight squad, or a Greater Knarloc. The Bloodthirster can allegedly do so, but all fights between an Avatar and Bloodthirster are scripted to have a 50/50 win chance.

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 Dark Eldar and Ork vehicles.
• 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 is actually a decent anti-tank unit.
• Upgrading its gun honestly is a waste because the Starcannon it can get is in all ways a downgrade. So its gun 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 area of effect and knockback, and rip them apart further with it's twin-linked shuriken catapults.
• Extremely fast (matches a Dark Eldar 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. 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.

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. It's only about 3000 shy of a fucking Relic Unit.
• Also the fastest tank in the game and like all Eldar vehicles, capable of jump jetting. It only jumps once (as opposed to the twice of the Falcon or Vyper), but still - a heavy tank that can fucking jump-jet.
• A common tactic was (and still is) to pair the Prism up with Vypers and/or Falcons to jump-jet an entire army into an enemy base, circumventing pretty much any defense that can be set up, and cover the Falcons and Vypers as they drop troops and rape your fucking base. Whilst the Fire Prisms can't simply bug out like the Vypers and Falcons if combat turns against them, the sheer durability the fucking things have, paired with their high movement speed, huge disruption, and heavy overall damage means that if you can't break out of a base with these or sit tight for long enough for their engines to recharge, you're either fucking incompetent or hugely outmatched and outnumbered.
• 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.
• Bear in mind that complaints about ordnance by Eldar players had the Basilisk nerfed into uselessness, the Ork Tank given so much variance that it basically couldn't hit things, and the Leman Russ armed with a direct-fire cannon, seemingly in the face of any and all logic.
• Armed with a ridiculously 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 with its railgun of filthy insta-rape 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.
• Four of them strafing enemy Assault Terminators won't do much damage, but it's enough to break their morale into pieces, ergo turning them into a non-issue until their morale recharges.
• Has the fastest regeneration rate in the game (10/sec) when upgraded, which increases to 40/sec over a healing waystation, ergo ensuring that it can be restored to full HP from virtually none in under 20 seconds. For free.
• 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 and only takes up one vehicle slot.
• Is built from the motherfucking Webway Gate. This was one of the reasons why players had to fight so hard to end Hunt the Webway Gate.
• Used to be attachable to a squad; is an independent unit by the time Soulstorm came around (thank god).
• Positioned well, functionally guarantees that Eldar players will be able to slow the target and make it more vulnerable to their heavy weapons.
• Has splash damage.
• Effect stacks with the Brightlance Grav Platform effect.

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.
• This is sufficient to allow most Eldar light infantry to cut apart heavy-duty vehicle units like Battlesuits and Tanks.
• When paired with Fire Dragons or Eldar vehicles optimized for anti-tank, it guarantees filthy rape against anything in front of it. Relic units like the Imperial Guard Baneblade and Ork Squiggoth can't do anything but die miserably in a few seconds - EVEN WHEN BEING REPAIRED BY MULTIPLE BUILDERS.
• Longer range than some T4 heavy tanks. What the fuck.
• The beam's damage increase effect applies to infantry and even commander units.
• Costs very little (same as the Shuriken Grav Platform).
• Effect stacks with the Shurken Grav Platform effect.

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 (even the Necrons have early game problems and the Tau have quite a bit of trouble on the defensive (though both get notably easier as the campaign progresses).
• 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. Let's not also forget the also present Chaos and Ork bases who will also be rushing the shit out of you. So you'll be fighting three armies at once.
• 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. Not that expansion didn't put you through hell with other Strongholds.

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 affect 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 the majority of the Dawn of War Mods they actually play as they should, and have gotten nerfed where appropriate.

Dawn of War II

Of course, it wasn't quite over yet.... They went on to have a broken late game in Chaos Rising and Retribution. While the Eldar here weren't blatantly OP as they were in DoW, the Eldar in the campaign were THE most frustrating opponents ever during the first game due to crappy damage coding.

Your only hope with them was to level Cyrus' will discipline enough that he can use combat accessories while concealed and plant cluster mines and remote charges under their noses, give him a sniper rifle, and his ranged discipline to use specialized ammunition. On that note, Cyrus was probably the biggest slice of cheese you'd ever see in a DoW game. Alternatively, dropping a health-focused Tarkus with a plasma gun or power sword into the middle of the crowd, or using Jonah Orion to spam multimelta shots at them also did the trick.

Surprisingly, not a single Eldar hero from Retribution was marekdly broken, and the majority were in fact completely outclassed by cheese like Eliphas, Bern, and Castor.

Warlock

• Their fast-firing ranged attack that would insta-gib a single member of your squad and knock back the rest, including your sergeant. Given that you barely have more than 10 men on hand, a 5-man Seer council could instantly wipe your squad out in less than 5 seconds.
• In all form of retardation, they also repaired vehicles.
• They were very hard to pick out amongst Guardian squads if they were massed.
• They had a variant that came along with Singing Spears, though ironically, they were still more deadly at range than in melee.
• Was sort of fixed in CR, now they only had a great knockback and fairly high damage.
• In multiplayer mode has an armor that allows 'Providence' ability that when activated greatly reduces ability cooldowns(read that as instant cd) and renders the Warlock invulnerable. Can be upgraded with 'Heart of Darkness' ability, which restores health and energy to the Warlock after taking enough damage in addition to that. And upon all of that he has the 'Witchblade of Kurnous' that allows him to use 'Ethereal Slash' ability which deals damage and knockback in an area around the Warlock. So the most cheesy thing you can do is: Walk in with Fleet of Foot and Heart of Darkness(invincible muhahaha)->Ethereal Slash(half your infantry dead)->Providence(cd finished)->Ethereal Slash (the rest of your infantry dies now) again->Heart of Darkness(charges quickly with all the dmg he sustains meanwhile, whoop again invincible just when you thought could get him)->walks off with fleet of foot to heal like a succesfull Micheal Jackson.
• He can gain 'Warp Throw' ability which functions similar to a Jedi's 'Force Push'. Goodluck trying to get near him with any melee unit. Besides you can sneak up from a flank, and use that to scatter the enemy firing line, functions better than any snaring in melee tactic.

Farseer

• She can be upgraded with 'Gravity Blade' which gives her 'Levitation Field' ability. The ability lifts up enemy infantry in aoe around her in the air for a while then throws them in random directions. Given how hordes tend to clump up and there is no limitation on the number of units that can be lifted this proves itself fatal as the units can fatally collide among each other during throw, resulting in dmg reaching from just a scratch to total wipe of a squad.
• She can be upgraded with 'Armor of Asuryan' which gives her 'Time Field' ability, which reduces movement speed in an area and makes units unable to attack caught in the aoe.

Guardian

• In one of the patches the grenades have been changed so that they deal jackshit dmg to retreating infantry. This has been done to prevent 'nade-dropping' in retreat paths which caused hilarious auto-wipes of squads as they could not be stopped from passing over the soon-to-detonate grenade. However plasma grenades got 'overlooked' and are still fullfilling this function besides still being the best of all grenade ability in the game.

Banshee

• Definitely the best melee troop in the game.
• High dmg output coupled with highest 'rate of swing' in any melee unit. Fe. When FC landed his sword these have already slashed him 5 times.
• Are already fastest plus have Fleet of Foot.
• They gain 'Warshout' ability after upgrade which is used to suppress enemy in melee range. Again there is no limit to number of effected so if you manage to line these up the enemy line suddenly all are suppressed.
• Their exarch adds soft AV function to the squad with her weapon atop all that.

Brightlance Platform

• Best AV in game because of High fire rate.
• Coupled with instant weapon.
• And dmg isnt meh either,so.

Falcon Grav-Tank

• Haz allrounder weapon.
• Cant jump but can have shield.
• Need to mention its fast ? Ideal for kite.

Fire Prism

• Unlike Ork vehicles and Tyranid epic units, Eldar vehicles would chase you down long distances, even if you fell back to a relay that's far away from them.
• The Fire Prism's beam had a fuckheug AoE and would insta-kill anyone it hit, it was about as large as the demolition charge's blast. It killing your entire squad in a single shot isn't that surprising.
• The Eldar would sometimes buttfuck you with ambushes using 2 Fire Prisms and warlocks.
• Was fixed in CR, they aren't capable of killing your entire strike force in a single shot now.

Wraithguard

• Introduced in CR, with all the fixes Relic did, everything broken was dumped into these guys.
• Wraithcannons = Portable D-Cannons. They also fired this at a semi-automatic pace, they basically stunlocked your anyone they're hitting until they die after 3 shots.
• If it's guided by a Spiritseer warlock, you BETTER have Cyrus on hand or a melee FC.
• One of the patches in Retribution allowed them to enter transports and webway gates resulting in Prepare your anus-type baserape combined with Farseer's scanning and pop a webway gate powers. Mind you the webway gate can be used by your allies too,so an 3v3 with one side full eldar will end sooner or later this way since an army of Wraitguard can bring down an HQ within mere seconds with their insane dmg output.
• Can be upgraded with ability that shutdowns unit to allow hitpoint regeneration on spot at a slow rate.

Wraithlord

• As if his dmg output wasnt enough, now he has a giant shiny sword with aoe cleave.
• Can be upgraded with ability that shutdowns unit to allow hitpoint regeneration on spot at a slow rate. Since its mechanical can tank heavy dmg assisted with repair and Farseer's 'Fortune'. Yeah 'Fortune' can be cast on walkers too in DoW2.
• Can upgrade shouldermounted Shuriken Cannon to brightlance and ordered to remain in range, so what do we have: An better weapons platform with high hp,insane heal rate(see above) that functions as counter-melee for your ranged eldar deathball in case some melee manages to get near you at all.
• Makes a sound like an old man with rheumatism when it dies.