The problem with the eldar is that their ambition is bigger than their population. With Chaos hounding them they can't just find a safe world and start over again like a new space fairing civilization. So everytime they go kill the ork warlord and take losses, it saves them bigger losses, but the lower loss is still more than they're able to handle.

I actually used this as a plot point for a political radical in my IRC Eldar game. I think that it's an idea that might well come to mind, for someone, somewhere, yet it hasn't worked. Why not?

One reason is the ultra-out-of-game "Because Games Workshop said: "You are a dying race so there will be no population increase, (also they can never be Marines)"." In game terms though, although I agree that it seems illogical, there are some valid(ish) reasons why not.

Eldar conception requires genetic input from the father at multiple points during embryo development (source: Xenology). The pregnancy takes "years" (source: Dark Eldar Codex) though they don't say how many years. These factors alone may slow down the population, which is one reason why the Dark Eldar clone their mass troops. Ain't nobody got time for that.

The Exodites are probably living within a limit imposed by their planet's resources (and the effect they are willing to have on them), but the Craftworld Eldar are not moderated by want of supplies - their factors are probably partly cultural and partly attrition. If everyone has to be ready to fight as a Guardian (or more) then they cannot afford to have too many people out of action due to being pregnant (or as the continuing father so to speak), if we assume that such individuals, being rare, are kept out of the front line as much as possible. But I think that there's also a note of cultural senescence, of decline, of melancholy that means that perhaps a lot of Craftworlders are more dreamy and introspective than filled with a lust for life. They may be a post-decadence society, but they are also both carefully regulated by the Path and encouraged by it to focus on self-development.

Nothing would characterise a dying race quite as much as no longer really caring about breeding, at that.

I'm not convinced that this is how it is for the Eldar, but it might be a bit of a factor. The endless war and death may mean that some people just don't see the point any more. Life in a vale of tears followed by the Dark Prince eating your soul. Who could bring children into a world like that?

... well that was a massive downer. Anyone got a gyrinx they can lend me?

That and they're understandably reluctant to do anything that feels pleasurable, they're terrified of falling into slaanesh's clutches.

That's part of why solitaires get viewed with such fear by other eldar, on top of being you know super badass and all that.

Well the Eldar have waystones so it protects their souls from going She who thirsts.

Dark Eldar have ways to make themselves essentially immortal.

I guess courtship and pregnancy just take too long.

I find it amusing that such an arrogant and technologically advanced species hasn't utilized artificial insemination, it would eliminate the dangers of their desires leading them on the road to She Who Thirsts, such a thing does exist in the 40,000 millennium as Honsou gracefully demonstrated with the Daemonculaba if not in a most unorthodox way.

Well Dark Eldar does make clones but I can see how a pretentious Eldar species would be very hesitant to be artificially inseminated only wanting pure born Eldar.

I don't see the difference between the seed being "transported" via syringe instead of the "organic" method, they'd still be born naturally, unless there's an actual problem with the birthing part of the process.

It's not as if they're not pure Eldar in regards to the Dark Eldar comparison with their clones.

Well, Human in vitro fertilization often fails even despite the "syringe method" as it were so even that's not a foolproof process. I still think the biggest issue is OOC, that is GW fiat: Dying Race.

It's a shame