So realistically, how many Eldar (including Dark Eldar since they are the same race) are actually around at this point...

there are as many eldar as the plot demand
same for nids, orks, STC and everything really
except for space marines, they are instead as strong as the plot demand

there are less tyranids then orcs by many magnitudes, as far as we know there is only three hive fleets which re huge, but nothing compare to the orc empires, we can speculate all we want that there are tyranids eating whole galaxies, but its just fan speculation. even humans would easily outnumber the tyranid forces, they thing that makes them scary is they came out of no where in such huge numbers concentrated in a small area, orcs and humanity have huge empires spanning many tens of thousands of light years, there are a million human worlds with billions of humans on most of those worlds. the orcs have hundreds of thousands of worlds with trillions of orks on them as well as empires in asteroid belts and in space hulks as well as the single biggest space fleet in the universe.

as far the who out numbers who, the rankings would go:
1. orks
2. humans
3. tyranids
4. necrons
5. chaos factions/ war bands
6. craft world, dark, exodite and harlequin eldar
7. tau

The tyranid hivefleets are just the tip of the spear compared to the main bulk descending on the galaxy. I'd say they're 1/maybe 2 depending on the timescale for ork infestations to 'bloom'.

I think how it works is they can fuck normally, but the baby isn't reallly "alive" unless you have a spirit gem attached to it.

don't that have the soul crystal plot device that makes it so they just come back to life when killed?

I always thought for Orks it was "as many as the plot demands, multiplied by 10, because you can never have too many orks"

you need babby for said crystal

Tyranids have 12 galaxies worth of biomass with them.

And the death of a few hundreds is a major blow to the Eldar while the Tau can lose billions of their own and not panic.

Dark Eldar don't use spirit stones, because the purpose of said stone is to prevent Slaanesh from taking your soul when you die, and the DE instead have a Haemonculus "fix" them if their body is still warm.

The spirit stones weren't designed for reincarnation, just protection from the chaos, but once in a while the craftworlds (which hold in storage the stones) take their souls and put them in bone constructs if they believe the worlds are threatened.

enough to throw expendabled bodies when needed

not enough to overwhelm with expendable bodies

dark eldar had the tech to let babies gestate in tanks or something, but being born the normal way was high status, hence the kabalite "trueborn"

I thought they reproduce like humans but instead of just fertilizing an egg and boom the baby grows in the female to birth, theirs is slower and requires the introduction of fresh male gamete from the mate at specific points throughout the pregnancy for there to be a successful birth.

Basically the same just considerably longer with more than one stage of inception and more labor and resource intensive.

Dark Eldar don't really have the same population problems as normal Eldar, so you get a lot more of them. Commorogh is a big interwoven city, easily the size of a planet, pretty densely populated, and that doesn't count how many are scattered in other web way cities and outposts.

I'd say overall they are somewhere in the range of 10 billion.

Eldar, for comparison, are probably looking at numbers in the Millions for the typical craftworld. The limiting factor for them is Spirit Stones, since even if a couple can have a child, that means nothing if they don't have a Soul Stone available. For comparison, the galaxy wide total probably works out to a couple Billion at best.

This certainly paints them as a dying race when compared to others that number in the Trillions, though they still maintain a presence due to being so well hidden as well as having the web way in order to get where they need with ease.

I'd say a trillion or so. For a galaxy winde race that's not many. Craftworlds are enormous spaceships the size of planetoids that probably house several billion. Iyanden and others being notable exceptions. Exodite worlds probably have a few hundred million. Commoragh is an immense "city" powered by stolen suns that spans multiple dimensions and parts of the webway. I could imagine billions and billions living there.

I mean realistically the only thing stopping them from repopulating their race like crazy is that they want to wait until Slaanesh is dead.

What's the deal with them needing spirit stones to reproduce? Did they just have a fixed number before Slaanesh came around?

They dont need the stones to reproduce but they damned well wont birth a child if they dont have a stone around to keep its soul safe nowdays.

Craftworld Eldar will typically only war if they know they have an extremely high chance of success with a low death rate. Craftworlders only have children if they know they can protect their child's soul from Slaanesh with soulstones. These stones are found in the Eye of Terror so it's rare any Eldar capture new ones.

Dark Eldar don't care about this stuff as much. Most Dark Eldar are grown in labs by haemonculi to keep Dark Eldar society affloat. Since DE are constantly massacring each other, it's a pretty fast paced assembly line.

Eldar have very low numbers compared to every other faction, but they are more elitist as a faction.

Well in theory eldar probably can through together a portable null field or similar device. Imperium has such things even if they are pretty bulky.

Problem is they'll deny their children all the benefits of being a psyker and for grown up eldars it will be like constant torture. But the option is there.

>Slaanesh is dead.
Yeah because they can really pull that off.

They didn't need spirit stones before Slaanesh was birthed. Spirit stones capture the soul upon death and prevent Slaanesh from eating it (read: torturing for eternity). Spirit stones are made out of "the tears of Isha" and only exist on Crone Worlds in the Eye of Terror (read as: they're crystallized psychic energy, possibly but not confirmed to be the crystallized remains of the Eldar who died when their empire was sucked into the warp). There are lots of spirit stones on the Crone Worlds, but going in to get them requires risking your soul and fighting 10,000,000,000^10 daemons. So as a result, usually only Wraithknights enter the Eye to gather fresh spirit stones.

Gork and Mork probably could kill her, if they're even real.

>Tyranids have 12 galaxies worth of biomass with them.
What's the actual source on this?

Iyanden was considered one of the major craftworlds. It sported losses of "thousands upon thousands" and that was a death sentence. It's a vague number, but probably ballparking around 10-20 thousand max population for a major craftworld before the tragedy. I'd guess total craftworlder populations across the galaxy at a total of less than a million, probably much less than 500,000. But that's just my guess.

5th ed brb

what? where in the fluff is that said at all? what book?
the tau is by far the smallest race, there is probably a biliion tau in total, they only live to 30 and dont breed very well, they have a tiny empire consisting of 20 or so worlds, and those worlds include vaiuos xenos that are not the tau like the kroot. the tau are such a small race that they are not considered a threat by any of the majour races. the tau are so small that they didn't even have a hand in the 13th black crusade which had the fate of the entire galaxy concerned, the tyranids at least had the excuse, "we dont care we just want to eat things" also the tyranids at the moment are just three hive fleets, nothing else, until anonther hive fleet shows up, they stay where they are on the rankings