Eldar eh. What an absolute nonsense of an army. Since coming back from WTC I have been casting around for a project to focus on. I played a bit of Emperor’s Children, tested out post-nerf GSC (yikes), and I am trawling my way through the new rulesets for Votann and Drukhari specifically, which is bringing me plenty of joy, but probably not the consistent teams army I need for the various selection season events with Team England, and the next couple of ITTs with 6++.

Crucially, I also have more or less all the models for Drukhari and Votann ready to go anyway, and I am about to have my own space and some room for painting once again after a year in the parental wilderness between jobs. This means PROJECT TIME.

I picked up Aeldari in 8th edition, after my sensei, Scrivo, advised me to try something stronger and faster for my second army (I played Death Guard  / Nurgle Daemons when first getting back into the hobby, and had a blast with the models, but didn’t love the playstyle). I didn’t need much encouragement – it won’t shock you to learn that I relate hard to the arrogant, brittle, perfection seeking Aeldari and their lore…

Collecting Eldar in 8th edition was…  a mixed bag. In that time they had some of the oldest models still in the range, a few newer kits (Wraiths mainly), and a bunch of resin aspect warriors that were a war crime to spend actual human money on. Shining Spears were amazing, but their models were appalling. The playstyle hinged largely on abusing planes and tanks, but there was a lot of appealing damage to be done in the psychic phase, where Eldrad was a baller. The more your army looked like an Eldar army, the worse it was – this was the style at the time. I am very, very glad 8th is over.

I never enjoyed much success with the army in 8th, but I did have my first ever undefeated run at an event (I want to say it was a Winchester RTT), with a weird Ynnari Wraithknight build I cooked up. I have rarely played them for any extended time since then, but I enjoyed a few solid runs with them in 9th edition once the usual ‘Elf release broken’ had worn off. I will also admit to one naughty GT podium with the absurdly broken Harlequin release. Forgive me father, for I have elfed.

Fast forward to now. My goodness, now. Now look at them! The Aspect Warriors all in plastic, a book that let’s you play LITERALLY ANY style of Eldar and have it be good, a bonkers ruleset that is as powerful as it is flavourful. I decided, as any rational wargamer does, to spend my entire earnings from our first GT on Aspect Warriors. Life and WTC then got firmly in the way, and these sat neglected for months. But no longer! 

The Aeldari will be the first army I move in to my new place with me, a mixture of old and much loved stuff and the new Aspects. I think I will essentially redo the entire range- I am heavily inspired by the Ulthwe Aspect Warriors Darren Latham has been painting in recent times. Ulthwe is my craftworld of choice and always has been, and finding ways to have the Aspects look unique whilst still having a unifying theme (mostly yellow helmets as it turns out!) is something I need guidance on. Thanks Darren, you’ve paved the way! Hope you like really poor contrast based impersonations! I will keep you guys updated on my progress as I start to bring these models together…