Workshop Wednesday — Aeldari: A Small Kid And His Scorpion Space Elves

Welcome to the table,

I’m fairly certain the first Games Workshop miniatures I ever purchased were two metal Warhammer 40,000 Eldar Striking Scorpion miniatures in the very early 1990s. I was under the age of ten. I know that much. A small gaming and comic shop had opened up in a weird three-store strip mall that, for some inexplicable reason, was open for a few months and then closed down and quickly demolished to make way for a neighborhood of massive homes.

The guy who was running the store had woven this wonderful tale of space elves with mono-filament wire guns that would fill your body with razor-sharp cord the thickness of an atom, and it was so sharp it would burst out of your body and turn you into a pink mist.

I handed him my crumpled-up dollars in exchange for a blister pack with two minis in it. I would learn later these minis did not even have the cool monofilament weapons and asked the man behind the counter how to play the game. It would be at this point, like some goofy sitcom, that he explained to the very small child version of Anton that in order to play this magical game of space elves I would need books, dice, paint, and a lot more miniatures.

I was crestfallen as I had just spent what amounted to a few months of saving up on the two mins in my hand and could do little more with them than set them on my nightstand and admire how cool they were.

Fret not, dear readers. As sad as I was that I would not join the endless war in the grim dark future any time soon, I was very proud of my little metal death elves, and I managed to hold on to them until they got lost in a move some 25 years later.

My pals at Games Workshop recently sent me the newest Codex dealing with those brilliant little space elves. When I opened the brown paper box, I found one of the books emblazoned with the iconic Eldari helmet and the title Codex: Aeldari. Those childhood memories instantly came flooding back in.

So today we are going to discuss these wonderful little space elves and some of their more radical units as they relate to the world of Warhammer: 40,000.

Now you may have noticed I have called these iconic entities a few different names. Lets look into that first. The Aeldari, or as they are known in the human tongue, Eldar, is a species of spacefaring elven humanoids who once ruled over an empire. At one point in time, that empire had branches that stretched to all edges of the known galaxy.

These majestic space elves, because that is what they are for all intents and purposes, were essentially the apex of society in space. Because of this, their own downfall actually came from within, rather than from some other foe who was able to rise up and match their power.

You see, when you are an omni powerful society who can toy with existential concepts like life and death as a child plays with blocks or a bouncing ball, you start to invite existential concepts to play with you. The Aeldari fell into a state of decidance and hedinisum.

Their society started to shift away from science and exploration and into something far more self-serving and extreme, something dark and sinister. There were so many of these space elves doing this highly questionable nonsense that some of the species who were not comfortable with these various new practices departed their home worlds in vast Craftworld ships to live out a life among the stars.

The ones who left were wise. The corrupted and hedinistic acts called forth, or if you ask some, created a new demonic creature that would quickly scale to the power of the Chaos gods themselves. This was the birth of Slaanesh. As Slaanesh was born into its god form, it broke reality and created a rift that became a vast portal that allows the chaos magics of the spaces beyond to spill into the reality of the living.

Billions of the Aeldari died. The empire itself crumbled but those who had fled on the Craftworld ships would live in vast floating kingdoms and learn to fight on in the never-ending conflict that dominates the grim dark future of Warhammer 40k.

As I mentioned before, the story of the mono-filimant flinging space elves is what got me to make that purchase all those years ago. I only to find out many years later when the elder nerds bestowed upon me the knowledge of the ancient that what I have picked up was not even armed with weapon that did that.

What I had actually purchased were Striking Scorpions. Now, the newer versions of these minis are available over on the Games Workshop site under the name Kill Team: Blades of Khaine. They are even cooler than the little metal ones I had picked up as a child. While they are not armed with the mino-filemnt guns, they do have very cool little weapon called the Scorpion’s Chainswords, a perfect field weapon against oposing units who have lite armor options equipped.

What I love about the Kill Team: Blades of Khaine unit is you can field them as both a smaller force in a Kill Team game or add them to your armies in a traditional game of Warhammer 40k. That means that if little Anton had gotten ahold of those options as a kid, I could have started playing way earlier than I ended up being able to.

Not to leave you without answers, the actual units that are armed with the mono-filament weapons are known as the Warp Spiders. Warp Spiders are defense troops in the most aggressive way possible. This unit uses jump generators to attack, then in a flash dissipate into nothingness only to repair somewhere else and continue their assault.

The kit they come in has enough bits to construct five Warp Spiders to use in your Warhammer 40k games. They also have a lot of really cool options for various heads, shrines, and even multiple weapon options including those mono-filimant launching death devices that I would eventually learn were called Deathspinners.

The reason I adore the Games Workshop Codices as much as I do is because they really do provide you with a ton of lore that gives you way more insight into the various species and units you can feild in the game. They also come with a ton of photos covering units and paint styles and the stats for various units allowing you to ponder and plot out your armies as you devise how you want to field them on the gaming table.

Like the other larger factions in Warhammer 40k, you can also pick up a whole Combat Patrol: Aeldari to give yourself a larger force with multiple options to start your Aeldari battles with.

The Combat Patrol kit box comes with 24 miniatures, including Warp Spiders complete with their death spinners, some of the enigmatic Wrathguard with multiple weapon options, and even two Dire Avengers. These can be assembled with a slew of optional weapons, back banners, and helmets to really let you personalize how you want your squad leader to look. For the money this is a great way to get started with an Aeldari force and most of the time ends up being a less expensive option than trying to buy a bunch of individual units when you are first setting out to fight the eternal war in the boundless expanse between the stars.

The Aeldari Codex is a really fun read, and these special little space elves have a sprawling legacy and a library of lore than I will dive into more than a few more times, but for now I will leave you with this.

The games we play as a kid stick with us. I painted those two little Scorpion Eldar miniatures with paint I got used from a yard sale. The were ugly and splotchy. Compared to the work the Games Workship team does on their minis for photos or the artistry that the Elder Nerds did in the backroom of the shop, I may as well have dunked them in bean dip and rolled them in goldfish gravel…

And yet … I was so proud I had something that was mine, that was part of something that felt large and vast. I was connected to a fandom that I myself was not even fully aware of. All of these self-important and heartwarming feelings were a result of a guy at a shop scamming a little kid out of money. He made maybe six or seven bucks at the most because I honestly did not have very much money until I was well into adult hood.

I did not care he had taken my coin. He had given me a much bigger gift than he realized. I was let in on the lore of the game. That lore, along with all the other lore that has been shared with me through my life, has made me who I am today and given me the tools to try and survive.

Until next time, keep your head up, don’t let them dull your shine, and plant the seeds to keep the wonder alive long after you are gone.