Eldar Navy

The Eldar Navy is the main fleet of the Eldar (duh). Seeing as the Eldar are for the most part space-borne, each Craftworld usually has a contingent of Warships to protect themselves, as well as support their ground forces in any way that might be helpful. They are incredibly active, due to many of the Craftworld ships also being used by Corsairs, appearing as a playable faction in Battlefleet Gothic.

Like their friends on the ground, Eldar ships sacrifice strength for speed, using said speed to dodge gunfire and use technology to confuse enemy sensors. Think of them like this: While the Imperium deals with taking damage by simply having bigass ships to absorb it, or the Tyranids just send massive fucking numbers of plebs to die to protect the big lads, the Eldar prefer to keep a high speed, thereby negating the enemy damage by making sure they can't be hit in the first place.

This pays off well for them, especially against the big slow factions such as the T'au and the Imperium. They combine superior speed, maneuverability, and weapons to make them just about the equivalent of their ground counterparts, save the fact that they have incredibly precise firepower that would make even T'au weep. How the hell Eldar can crew such ships as a dying race is a mystery to both us and Games Workshop can't quite figure out. Unless you are a corsair, then you have those sick fucks joining your ranks.

Eldar usually mount all of their weapons on the front of their ships for some damn reason. Why they couldn't think to make them have a speedy broadside ship? It wouldn't be that fucking hard.

Types Of Ships

The Eldar, unlike the other races, have a very narrow group of ships, each designated for a very specific purpose, with little room to operate outside of those boundaries. This means that many ships have either one, or at most two variants. For the sake of being a bit more like the T'au article, the article will be organized in much the same fashion.

Battleships

This class isn't easy to identify, but most often can be singled out by being the biggest vessels in a naval group, typically having three solar sails in a prong shape.

• Void Stalker: The only Battleship the Eldar have that Games Workshop made we know of. Of all the Eldar ships we know of, this is the one that is the most Jack-of-all trades. Equipped with Pulsars(Lance equivalent weapons that shoot longer), Starcannons, Torpedoes, and a hangar, this ship can rapidly get anywhere and strike hard. The obvious downside to this is that it can't sustain as much direct combat as most other ships of the same class, due to the relative frailty of their vessels. Also these things a FUCKHUEGE. Seroiusly, go play Battlefleet Gothic. They are the size of Emperor-class Battleships but maintain the speed of the smaller ships.

Battlecruisers

Battlecruisers have only one sail, but make up for it with an impressive array of firepower

• Pheonix Ship: The only battlecruiser the Eldar have, Pheonix Ships fill a middle support role, carrying powerful Pulsar and Lascannon batteries, while also adding hangars, making this vessel seemingly designed for both close up operations and medium distance skirmishing. From a design standpoint, it has a very similar appearance to other vessels of the cruiser class. They appear to have three prongs.

Cruisers

Cruisers is where you start to see the Eldar decide to have more than one or so type of ship, because excessive uniformity is kinda shit, and stuff like that.

• Dragonship: Dragonships are, for lack of better words, really fucking confusing. The best answer you can get for them is that it is a generic name given to larger vessels that typically form the escort killing and skirmishing roles in a fleet. They also serve well as dropships and orbital support craft. They have easily half a dozen variants not worth discussing, beyond saying that they all have slight differences in armament. Interestingly enough, ships of this variant are called by their designation. So if a Dragonship had mostly Spirit stones as the crew, they'd call it a ""Ghost Dragon" or a deep space vessel would be called a "Void Dragon". They have a single sail on the top, like some kind of ridiculous mohawk.

• Eclipse: The Eclispe class is used as a light insertion carrier. They fly their ships in, launch their fighters and bombers to do damage, fire their Pulsars, and then GTFO. They also have a number of Starcannons for getting some extra damage on any enemy ship they may encounter on the prow of their ship. The eclipse retain the Stalker class' propensity for the three sided prong shape.

• Shadow: The shadow class appears to also use the Stalker pattern solar sails, while also swapping out fighters and lances for torpedoes and Starcannons. It seems that this ship can be used for an Alpha strike with torpedoes, then provide rapid fire support against either some enemy escorts, light cruisers, or cruisers, or screen for larger ships, as well as provide a distraction when travelling with groups of frigates. However, they seem to work best as commerce raiders, which in further supported by their armament.

Light Cruisers

These ships combine the speed of escorts with their larger size to form larger, highly mobile weapon platforms that often serve well in either support or strafing roles.

• Aurora:Follows the Void Stalker pattern on sail design. It contains some torpedoes and some pulsars. It appears to fire the torpedoes, moves in close to the enemy to strafe with their pulsars, then withdraws to reload torpedoes. These ships are said to be as fast as an escort, which insane to think about, really.

• Solaris: Follows the Void Stalker pattern sail design. They are designed to be both insanely fast and carry loads of dakka, primarily in the oh so juicy form of Starcannons. They are adept at hunting escorts, and perform well in a screening role for bigger ships. Seriously, they are so insanely good, that the Imperials shit themselves upon encountering them. You do not want to mess with these guys: they are terrifying.

• Wraithship: Has two triagonal sails on the rear, as opposed to the near universal three. Wraithships are substantially different compared to other ships, in that they are constructed almost entirely out of Wraithbone. This means that crewmen can often "feel" the ship, much like their kin on the surface feel their vehicles. This allows them to make the tiniest adjustments to their ship to make them incredibly efficient. Combine this with their ability to take just about any weapon system the Eldar have available to them, and you begin to see why these things are so unique. Additionally, they are not operated by the dead, and are not to be mistaken as similar to Wraith units, such as Knights or Lords.

Escorts

Eldar escorts are fast buggers mean't to provide either auxiliary support roles in battle, or extra dakka for the fleet when engaging larger ships, depending on their weapons loadout.

• Hellebore Frigate: A vessel with only two prongs for its sails, these small vessels are all around decent ships, which is strange for a race that demands everything be hyper specialized. They carry torpedoes, pulsars, and starcannons, which means they fit well in hunting other ships, swarming larger vessels, or providing light artillery fire for other units. There have been cases ofsmall squadrons of these destroying enemy cruisers, which is...not entirely unbelievable.

• Aconite Frigate: A vessel that takes after the Hellebore, but decides to replace the torpedoes and pulsars with a bunch of dakka. These things are nasty, as they get amazing speed, and when combined into a squadron, can put out a broadside's worth of gunfire. They serve well as providing fire support for bigger vessels, as well as hunting other escorts. Not even capital ships are safe from them, they're so dangerous.

• Nightshade Destroyer: Nightshades have three sails, and are a bit of an odd ship for the Eldar. Odd in the fact that they are armed with only a pair of torpedoes. It's a mystery, but their is some belief that they may use their Elf bullshit sniping skills to hit enemy targets, then run away like the cowards they are. All in all, they are not that tough and barely even worth mentioning they are so useless and doctrinally challenged.

• Hemlcok Destroyer: Hemlocks take after the Hellebore. What they didn't adopt from the Hellebore is any degree of common sense, as they are fitted with a pulsar battery and that is it. These ships have such a tiny crew that the Eldar don't bother to even fit them life support systems, much like TIE fighters from Star Wars. Which sounds like a very human thing to do. As a result they are incredibly easy to board and are vulnerable to boarding actions.

• Shadowhunter:They have the three sail configuration. What is unique about them is that they operate more like a police/Spelf port authority ship, as they use it to both guide ships in, and for long range scouting missions. Mostly, they are used by Iyanden. They are only pulled out for combat in the direst of circumstances, such as The Battle Of Iyanden during the Second Tyrannic War, a battle which saw the Tyranids devour most of the population.

Dropships

Yes, the Eldar have dropships. No, its not as retarded as you may think. After all, Webway gates are static, and sometimes an orbital drop or deployment of fighters is the best way to get reinforcements.

• Ghostlance: Little information is given about it. What we do know is that it has enough storage space to carry three Vypers into the atmosphere for deployment. Presumably, this means that they can also carry a buttload of Swooping Hawks, Warp Spiders, or at least three of the other Eldar Jetbike variants. Think T'au Manta, but doesn't have any weapons on it.

• Dawnsail: A vessel unique to the Ynnari, it is similar to the Ghostlance, except that the sails on it fold from up right to sideways, making it look like it has wings, making it the most Elvish thing in their pansy ass elf fleet. Joking aside, these things are actually pretty interesting, as they act like void to orbit SHIELD Helicarriers, but in SPEHHSS. They can also carry up to two Wave Serpents, and presumably a similar number of similarly sized tanks/transports, or a massive number of Swooping Hawks/Warp Spiders.

Other

These are ships that don't have a specific class, and are assigned here instead.

• Eldar Transport: Generic Transport. Engages in trade and logistical support for the navy/military. Speedy, fast, blah blah. Next.

• Vampire: What some call the Manta of the Eldar. It comes in two Variants: The Hunter variant, which is an orbit deployed bomber geared towards blowing your expensive titans into tiny titan Mcnuggets, and the Raider variant, an orbit deployed dropship which mulches infantry. Oh, when we say Dropship, we MEAN dropship. This thing can carry anti tank cannons, infantry mulching guns, some grunts/wraith units, and even a Falcon tank with soldiers inside said tank, allowing you to get a massive number of troops on the battlefield.