Unlike those upstart humans whose petty concerns have set the galaxy aflame, the Aeldari had already seen the ruin that Chaos can cause before mankind had thought to hit one stone with another. This ancient race exists on the brink of extinction, but make no mistake – their elegant weaponry and finely tuned psychic ability to manipulate fate make them a lethal force to tangle with in the new edition of Warhammer 40,000.
Overview
The Aeldari are a highly mobile army full of specialised units that can boost their already devastating powers by examining the skeins of destiny, discerning exactly where to place a surgical strike. They then nimbly retreat, their battle lines dodging reprisal like the tide retreating from the shore.
Faction Rules
With forces composed of elite Aspect Warriors, and Guardian Hosts pulled from the citizenry of their Craftworlds, Aeldari commanders scry the Strands of Fate to find the most advantageous threads of the future.
This army rule generates a pool of dice that can be substituted for your natural dice rolls each battle round. You can re-roll to fish for more fortuitous results, but each attempt to glean a better outcome reduces the pool.
The Aeldari Battle Host Detachment rule takes this mastery of fate further, letting you re-roll one Hit and Wound roll each time you shoot or fight – they’ve not suffered for millennia to fail on that vital coup-de-grâce.
This potent combination allows a canny Aeldari player to treat crucial dice rolls as mere suggestions, plucking victory from the jaws of defeat.
Unit Spotlight
When Farseers stand with their troops on the field, they can bring more acute powers to bear, enveloping whole units of the enemy in coruscating Eldritch Storms.
A Farseer’s ability to parse Branching Fates allows them to make your Fate dice go even further, changing the result of a roll to a 6, so you might want to hold onto those low rolls. Fortune allows them to bless a unit, worsening incoming Wound rolls by 1. Handy when your Guardian Defenders are sitting at Toughness 3.* And unlike their psychic peers from the other, lesser races, Aeldari do not suffer damage if their powers fail.
Even these militia are skilled warriors whose experience outstrips that of lesser races. Guardian Defender units fight with deadly shuriken catapults and heavy weapon platforms equipped with a choice of specialised armaments.
These Defenders of Fate rage against the darkness of the galaxy, generating new Fate dice for each objective they hold, providing a versatile backbone for an Aeldari army otherwise made up of far more specialised units.
Weapon Spotlight
Few weapons in the Aeldari’s eclectic arsenal are as iconic or as feared as the prism cannon. A sophisticated firing array focuses a laser through a crystal prism to amplify shots into thin beams of light that lance through tanks or saturated pulses of energy that annihilate infantry. Multiple Fire Prisms can combine Linked Fire to chain beams of light from one prism to another to ensure their prey cannot escape.**
Stratagem Spotlight
Opponents of the Aeldari find them mercurial and elusive, and plans are sure to fail as these unpredictable skirmishers feign retreats and mask their presence.
The Battle Host Detachment has mastered this deceptive style of warfare, using the well-honed Fire and Fade to unleash blistering barrages of firepower before ducking out of range.
The Word from the Studio
“The Aeldari army rule is inspired very much by their scrying of their future, and their attempts to alter the course of fate itself in order to secure victory and save their race from extinction,” says Robin from the Warhammer Design Studio.
“Rolling your Fate dice at the start of the game is reminiscent of casting the runes, and using them to manipulate the most critical moments of the battle to your advantage feels very, well, Aeldari.”
“Their Battle Host Detachment is filled with tricks – no one said they ever fought fairly. The datasheets are, as you might expect, fast, hard-hitting, and highly specialised. Every unit has a particular role to fulfil, and in the hands of a skilled player these different units can work together to take apart enemy armies, but their warriors are also rather fragile. Should the foe get to grips with the Aeldari, they do not last long…”
Black Library
Gav Thorpe’s Path of the Aeldari collection is the most comprehensive look at how varied Aeldari culture is, as three friends from Craftworld Alaitoc embark on different Paths, the sacred vocations which the Aeldari undertake at various times in their centuries-spanning lives.
Sometimes their influence is required lest pointless warfare harm the future of a Craftworld. After the sundering of Biel-Tan, a newly formed faction of Aeldari saw fit to break tradition and ally with the Imperium – you can find out more about Yvraine and her death-worshipping cult in Ghost Warrior, the first book of the Rise of the Ynnari series.
You can also learn more about how the factions of Warhammer 40,000 will play in the new edition by checking out other faction focus instalments. Tomorrow we’ll be trading the swiftness of the Aeldari for the plodding inevitability of the Death Guard.
* Knocking a deadly lascannon back down to a Wound roll of 3 never gets old.
** They’ve had a long time to study trigonometry. And don’t even ask about their snooker game.