Saturday, April 06, 2013

E is for Eldar

They're dead mystical
Due to the nature of the challenge,  I've had to do these the other way around from what you might ordinarily expect. Normally I'd define eldar before dark eldar, but there you go. Eldar are the 40K equivalent of elves: haughty, long-lived, pointy-eared humanoids with a great sense of style.

1st Edition 40K gave you the option of playing either mercenary Eldar or pirate Eldar, either way your troops were the crazed, psychotic outcasts of Eldar society (the first incarnation of the Dark Eldar, one might say). Later on in the lifetime of that edition, the incarnation of the Eldar that was to become their dominant image made its debut: Craftworld Eldar.

Ziggy Stardust and the Elves from Space

The Craftworld Eldar were hippy Vulcans with Celtic names and Egyptian symbolism. But... it worked. When I first saw them in the early 90s, these guys were brilliant.

Crazy warrior cults with sashimono? Yes please!
Rumours are that a new wave of Eldar releases will take place earlier this year. We wants it, precious...

2 comments:

  1. Rumor has it, Tyranids are supposed to get a new one in Jan '14

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  2. I think the Space Marines were the stars of that first Rogue Trader book, but there was so much intensely interesting stuff lurking around the edges. Chaos was next with their two big hardbacks but when those pages up above showed up in white dwarf I think it became apparent that we had a really really cool universe in-the-building. I really liked the space elves back then.

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