Do you think GW might do and end times with Eldar and Dark Eldar?

Now i know i know GW has multible times said that they aren´t doing an end times with 40k.
However that doesn´t mean they won´t change things here and there.

My question is as far as i am can see from the new Eldar range there hasn´t really been that many new releases for the Eldar, a single new Farseer in the made to order part, but that´s that.

Now it might be that the Eldar just have so many models that there really isn´t anything new to add.. but this is GW we are talking about here, when haven´t they wanted to push some new models that people just HAVE to buy.


Another reason for this might be (and yes i got this from The Outer Circle Weekly Scrubdown 34, so it might be nothing but a rumor) that this edition will be the last hurrah for the Eldar and Dark Eldar, that in two or three years time GW are going to merge them into a single army the Ynnari.
Just like they did with Warhammer Fantasy´s Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts, when they launched Age of Sigmar.

So do you think there might be something here or is it merely a storm in a glass of water?

Currently, I feel like that is unlikely as Vect and the Covens are not into the new god of death. Some Craftworlds were sceptical of the Ynnari as well. I think GW would be best by letting them be there own factions with the option to Ynnari so space elf players could easily collect the other factions of spess elves.

Though, it seems like Ynnari are going to get their own book eventually and the lore could move forward at that time. So right now one knows it's all just speculation.

The thinking is good, but I'll see more GW adding a couple units to Ynead rather than merging everything.

It would be a too dangerous choice to take from GW as a lot of people would simply just quit (there lots of alternatives now, games & miniatures)), or play at home with their armies.

And mainly, why sell 1 codex when you can sell 4 ?

If I recall, it was a @#$$ storm when GW squatted a lot of factions for AOS. I don't think that this is a PR headache they're going to repeat. Really, if they're going to move away from Eldar, they'll probably do so by..well, ignoring their existence. They'll get a codex when they need to, but otherwise barely even be acknowledged..well even less than they are now!

I hardly think that's likely, though, at least for the foreseeable future

I think it's unlikely, for a very specific reason : they realized nobody bought End Times.

The "Sigmarized" WHFB to cover the recent mistake that WHFB 8th edition was. They will not want to do those mistakes again in their golden milkcow (40k).

Firstly Ynnari sucks ass so if they are going to do away with anything it should be Ynnari.

Secondly I just don't see Craftworld and DE working out aesthetically together. They are just so different in design that mixing the two current armies would look wrong on the table.

I don't think Craftworld will ever get changed...they will remain as they are.

Well we live in a time where a single tech priest more or less managed to go over to the Emperor and say hold my beer while i outdo your work and create better space marines than you with zero flaws.
So it wouldn´t surprise me if GW said right Eldar and Dark Eldar have worked out their differences and are now one.

Also since it would seem that every living Primarch both on the loyal and traitor side is returning, both Eldar and Dark Eldar will probably need something to counter it and so far we only have Ynnead.

But i do hope your right and it won´t happen.

But it does bring up a question if Ynnead gets powerful enough to block Slaanesh from eating both Eldar and Dark Eldar´s souls upon death, what´s to stop them from regressing into pre-fall Eldars once again?

If that were the case, then it would be the DE that continued as they are and the Craftworld Eldar that changed but I don't see an entire race of Eldar changing over night...if murder and slavery became legal overnight you would think ingrained morals would prevent widespread chaos

I love the DE back story, it is one of the very best IMO. The only thing is that it does seem to hold the DE back a little. There is no desire to conquer, we are simply raiding for various supplies. It means we are always firmly a supporting character in 40k.

Craftworld Eldar at least have their ongoing agenda that is always relevant to what is happening between the Imperium and Chaos.

See, I think there's plenty of room for DE to cause some major conflict.
Say if Vect conveined a grand council of the most Competent Kabals, Cults, and Covens, revealing an insidious plan of unheard of proportion. A concentrated effort against anew entire Segmentum of the Imperium, thousands of carefully coordinated raids against thousands of targets, all meticulously laid out over millenia of machination by the Overlord of Commorragh. Striking world after world of the hapless Imperium, their titanic inefficiency woefully unprepared to counter. Yet, as the brightest of the Inquisitors might note, there was a pattern to the attacks. A subtle movement of the Xenos that hinted their origin of attack. A massive Webway Portal, they'd eventually find out, capable of launching monumental raids, and returning innumerable slaves to the Dark City. Quietly, the slow war machine of the Imperium would gather its navy, rallying every spare bit of martial power to purge the ruthless Raiders, who, through a miraculous decoding of their communications, were planning a raid to rival that of the Thirteenth Crusade. The forces of the Imperium, an armada of colossal proportions would advance upon the gate, a seemingly empty stretch of space. Humanity had learned from its previous encounters with the insidious Eldar, their ability to conceal portals was far beyond the ability of the Imperium to detect. Artillery locked, Void Fighters ready to deploy, the fleet would lie in wait, alert, waiting for the characteristic green flash of the Webway, expousing its parasitic inhabitants, unprepared, right into Humanity's trap. Minutes turned into hours as they waited, the gun crews struggling to keep their absolute focus, even with the cruel encouragement of their officers. When the portal finally opened, it's dim, ethereal, light trickling into realspace, with it did not come the tide of sleek assault craft and slave barges, rather, with a singular object, an ovoid cannister, barely ten feet across. The Inquisitor was stunned, even he was unsure how to react. He never had to. Barely a moment had passed since the object had appeared before a massive detonation shook the very fibers of reality. The armada, Humanity's finest, were incinerated in a moment, unable to even elicit a last cry of agony before their very souls were ripped from the last remains of their body.

Many months later, Vect would enjoy his rarest sign of emotion yet, a small, haunty chuckle. The Mon'Keigh's arrogance was a never ending source of amusement, in the end, their clever discoveries had only been the next step into the slaughterhouse, focusing the last of their defenses towards an unknown threat, before being engulfed in the destruction that only an uncontained Void Mine could reap. A vast region of the Imperium lay hapless and defenseless, easy prey, an endless source of prosperity for the twisted denizens of the Dark Realm.

Might have gotten a little carried away there, but just because you never hold territory doesn't mean you can't play a major role in the galaxy.

Well there´s also the popular theory that Jaghatai Khan is a prisnor in the Dark City.
Since alot of the Commorragh is now overrun with demons, somebody might just "let" The Khan out and giving him his freedom in exchange for him helping clearing the demons.
And then return him to the imperium with a little "gift" inside of him, that might just throw a monkey wrench into the whole primaris project.

But still i don´t know how well the DE sells if they don´t sell enough there is a chance that GW might cancel them.
Though i would hazard a guess that if they don´t sell, it´s mostly due to their codex more or less having been crap, for these last few editions compared to the other ones out there.

Erikjust wrote:

But still i don´t know how well the DE sells if they don´t sell enough there is a chance that GW might cancel them.
Though i would hazard a guess that if they don´t sell, it´s mostly due to their codex more or less having been crap, for these last few editions compared to the other ones out there.  

I strongly suspect that is part of the problem. DE may very well not sell much and therefore don't get much attention when it comes to new rules and models. But the reason they don't sell well is that the rules have been utter rubbish. It's a vicious circle.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Erikjust wrote:

But still i don´t know how well the DE sells if they don´t sell enough there is a chance that GW might cancel them.
Though i would hazard a guess that if they don´t sell, it´s mostly due to their codex more or less having been crap, for these last few editions compared to the other ones out there.  

I strongly suspect that is part of the problem. DE may very well not sell much and therefore don't get much attention when it comes to new rules and models. But the reason they don't sell well is that the rules have been utter rubbish. It's a vicious circle.

Indeed, though if a various rumors around the internet is true, GW more or less sees themselves as a miniature company first and game second.
You buy their miniatures not because of the rules in their respective codices says that they are good, but because the miniatures are pretty.

Though i do hope that is in the past.

Though i would dare to say that if DE goes through another edition with their codex more or less being crap, and with few to no new units and as such very low in sales.
I do think that GW might actually go ahead and cancel the DE because of those low sales, without perhaps understanding that, it was because of the crap rules that few if anybody really wanted to buy them.

After all the Imperium and got Gulliman and Chaos has Mortarion and Magnus and with rumors of the rest of the still Primarchs also returning, all Xenos species INCLUDING the Dark Eldar are going to need units that can take them down on the tabletop.

I actually love how the lore has gone from hating each other to the more fleshed out and nuanced relationship the Aeldari factions have now. I think mixing it up further and going end times would be tons of fun

End times in a nutshell :

- You remember that thousand-of-years civil war we had, the dozens of princes you assassined, the fact that you murdered entire cities, and unleashed magical chaos storm on us because we thought you were not suited to be our king ?
- Yeah. What about it ?
- Well turns out it was your mother who sabotaged you all along.
- So ?
- So you ARE suited to be our king. Welcome home, buddy !
- Okay. But the first one making any joke about my Chaos worshipping mother is having it the Khaine way.

Count Adhemar wrote:

I strongly suspect that is part of the problem. DE may very well not sell much and therefore don't get much attention when it comes to new rules and models. But the reason they don't sell well is that the rules have been utter rubbish. It's a vicious circle.

Also in addendum even IF we got some new models it wouldn´t automatically mean that sales went up also.
Tomb Kings from WHFB got a lot of new models when GW FINALLY after 8 years updated the Tomb Kings armybook.
Only to have most of the new units SUCK! and the overall armybook not very good most people more or less said if you like loosing play Tomb Kings.

Such an endorsement isn´t really something, that make people flock to buy the new armybook plus models.

Same with Dark Eldar, even if the new codex brings ALOT of models with it, if the overall codex sucks, i doubt it will increase sales by much.

DE will surely not be getting new models and the only thing GW would achieve by sacking the DE off is lower sales so that's not going to happen either.

I don't see the Tomb Kings death happening to us. The army used to be known as The Undead and that had all the mummies, skeletons and Vampires in one Undead army. They simply went back to how it used to be before.

DE have always stood alone and play in a very different way to the Craftworld Eldar. I think we are quite safe.

True true however remember Dark Eldar wasn´t a thing before the Third edition and Eldar have been a thing since the beginning.
Also it took almost 12 years for GW to update the thing, and apart from briefly in the 5th edition, we haven´t exactly been the army you normally win tournaments with.

So GW might be thinking that it´s best to cut their loses and just say frak it and close it down.

Also it seems that all of our units have become GW webstore exclusive, i do wonder if that is going to bite them in the end, since there´s quite the difference in pricing.
depending on whether you buy them in the uk or the rest of the world.

Erikjust wrote:

Now i know i know GW has multible times said that they aren´t doing an end times with 40k.
However that doesn´t mean they won´t change things here and there.

My question is as far as i am can see from the new Eldar range there hasn´t really been that many new releases for the Eldar, a single new Farseer in the made to order part, but that´s that.

Now it might be that the Eldar just have so many models that there really isn´t anything new to add.. but this is GW we are talking about here, when haven´t they wanted to push some new models that people just HAVE to buy.


Another reason for this might be (and yes i got this from The Outer Circle Weekly Scrubdown 34, so it might be nothing but a rumor) that this edition will be the last hurrah for the Eldar and Dark Eldar, that in two or three years time GW are going to merge them into a single army the Ynnari.
Just like they did with Warhammer Fantasy´s Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts, when they launched Age of Sigmar.

So do you think there might be something here or is it merely a storm in a glass of water?

I think the end times rubbish people where endlessly spouting about a few months ago has already proven to be exactly that, a fat load of rubbish.

The lack of new model releases outside of Deathguard and Primaris has a lot more to do with the fact that GW has maxed out it's current production capacity rather than any conspiracy theories on the end of any factions.

Imateria wrote:

The lack of new model releases outside of Deathguard and Primaris has a lot more to do with the fact that GW has maxed out it's current production capacity rather than any conspiracy theories on the end of any factions.

I do hope your right that come next year GW will be back with a vengeance, when it comes to new models for all the codex armies.
i would hate to see the Eldar and Dark Eldar go away or be completely ignored in the fluff.

Erikjust wrote:

Also it seems that all of our units have become GW webstore exclusive, i do wonder if that is going to bite them in the end, since there´s quite the difference in pricing.
depending on whether you buy them in the uk or the rest of the world.    

Jeah the pricing difference is a real bitch, a starting box of 50 pound should be 56 euro with the current way the pound is standing, not 65. That is more then a 15% increase (if we also ad in extra shipping it would be higher, but that we pay more for shipping makes sense since it also costs them more).

And yes the webstore exclusive part is really annoying. Also because you have to pay the transport costs instead being able to order it without transport costs in a local store.
But become webstore exclusive is step one to being thrown out I fear. They will probably keep makeing the models for the next few years till their moulds break/ become worse, and then in 5-6 years during the new version we will be replaced by ynnari or deleted entirely.

I suspect GW learned a few lessons from the End Times and what we'll see for 40k is a slow transition, over the course of a few years. They already effectively did an End Times from a fluff perspective, and I think over a period of years we're going to see the rules and product lines follow suit. For example they didn't come out and instantly invalidate everybody's old-marines, but I don't think anyone harbors any illusions were going to see anything but Primaris released going forward (they even worked in a deus ex to update everyone's favorite characters and re-release them in plastic). I suspect we'll see a similar thing for Eldar of all stripes, with some hints of what's happened in AoS.

Going forward only Ynnari will get any new releases until in a few years they're a more completely fleshed out faction, with the legacy models still allowed. Come next edition anything that's not in plastic will get dropped from the rules and discontinued. The Haemonculi and Mandrakes will go the route of the Sylvaneth in AoS, getting spun off from the proper elves to become their own separate "monstrous" faction. Fracture of Biel-tan already set this up, with a combined army of Mandrakes and Coven forces holding the heart of Commoragh as a new, literal shadow realm. Vect doesn't have a model so he'll either end up toeing the Ynnari line or get killed off.

They could still keep Vect in as the most of the DE line is in plastic and can be used in a Ynnari force so there's no reason not sell another codex. If they wanted to update the coven and mandrakes into its own thing they could easily keep it the DE book so that it has unique flavor from the other eldar factions. Plus, the lore has made eldar society between factions more fluid. This isn't old fantasy were the DE were created due to a full on civil war. Vect isn't Malekith or whatever he is called now.