The Aeldari are an interesting race in theWarhammer 40Kuniverse, too often overlooked as just being ‘space elves’. Which, like, they are. But you don’t complain about ‘space vampire super soldiers’, ‘space werewolf super soldiers’, or ‘what if super soldiers really liked rules and wearing blue’, so why give the space elves a bad rep?
The Aeldari are often seen as arrogant and snobbish – much like fantasy elves – but when you dive a little deeper into their lore, there is a (Wraith)host of interesting, complex characters to draw you in. In addition to the characters, there are factions, too. Not like the Space Marines, where each chapter is just the same super soldier with a palette swap; proper factions with their own motivations, identities, and aesthetics.
I’ve Given Up On Aeldari Exodites Ever Getting Official Models
Among these are the Corsairs – pirates who roam the galaxies in search of prey – and the Exodites. The Corsairs were lucky enough to get a Kill Team-style squad when the Ynnari were launched. A faction that united the Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Harlequins under one, copyrightable banner, the Ynnari didn’t go down too well, but at least we got this cool unit to help smooth things over.
As well as new names for all involved (Dark Eldar became the Drukhari, which I’ll grant is a pretty cool name), we got more lore for these factions than we’d had in years. Yvraine is now a major player in the fate of the galaxy, practically ruling from Roboute Guilliman’s side. But still we heard nothing of the Exodites.
Aeldari Exodites are planet-bound Eldar; a rarity for a species which is usually bound to Craftworlds. They become one with their planet in an almost Avatar (James Cameron, not Airbender) fashion, utilising dinosaurs as mounts. The Exodites have seemingly been sidelined forever, a relic of the past to be forgotten like theT’au psychic bear allies.
So, I decided to make my own.
Making My Own Aeldari Exodites
Instead of going with the usual dinosaur fare, I opted to make my Exodites as bug dudes. You know, they’ve befriended the forest spirits or whatever. This was mostly an excuse to buy a load of Sylvaneth models, but also because I’d recently been in a big Midsummer Night’s Dream phase.
I think I can link each of my hobby projects to the Shakespeare play I’m most into at the time. My current project, Emperor’s Children, is very Titus Andronicus-coded. Take that as you will.
With my treeman Wraiths that you’ve seen before – wait,you have seen them before, right?– my next port of call were the Swooping Hawks. The new miniatures look great, and as soon as I replaced the wings with the dragonflies off the back of the Sylvaneth Gossamid Archers, I knew I had something great going on.
However, I made the paint job particularly hard on myself. I’ve opted to do all of my aspect warriors in a marble pattern. First of all, I have to paint loads of white armour. Then I have to potentially ruin it by painting blue cracks all over. The wet wipe method doesn’t work for such small armour panels, either.
But I persevered, and this is the result. I’m very pleased with the simple conversion, which helps them to fit into my army nicely, and switching the stone ‘tactical rocks’ for sculpted tree stumps also brings them in line with my woody wraiths. Add in an Autarch Wayleaper or Baharoth himself (resplendent with wings stolen from the Arch-Revenant), and you’ve got a lovely squad of dragonfly-toting jetpack infantry ready to harass your opponent’s backlines and grab objectives whenever they wish.
I’ve got Fire Dragons and Warp Spiders up next, which pose more difficult conversions. Perhaps drake cloaks for the former and some kind of web situation for the latter? Lhykis’ dynamic pose can easily be situated as if descending from a web between the boughs of a tree in this Aeldari forest, but the regular soldiers will be more difficult to reposition.
I’ve got a long way ahead of me in the quest for a fully-converted Aeldari Exodite army, but it’s a challenge I welcome like the coming of spring.
