Enigmatic and deadly in equal measure, the Aeldari were at the peak of their power many millennia ago, before their arrogance and excess birthed a Chaos God through a precipitous fall from grace. New traditions and safeguards sprang up as a way to combat the all-consuming pull of Slaanesh, including the martial path of the Warrior, defined by the Aspect shrines.
The next round of Phoenix Lords and Aspect Warriors will be available for pre-order on Saturday. These classic designs updated in plastic look every bit as incredible as they deserve to be, sticking to the timeless design and aesthetic of the Aeldari. In anticipation, we caught up with the Warhammer Design Studio to find out how they tackled the tough job of recreating such iconic characters and units.
Warhammer Community: With the Aeldari being such a cornerstone of Warhammer 40,000, how did you approach the task of updating the range?
Daz: Neil, Nic, Alex and myself worked together on these Phoenix Warriors and Aspect Warriors. One key element of this project was that we worked closely with Jes – with a deep experience of all things Aeldari, he was fundamental to ensuring these miniatures matched their iconic original designs. Over the years there have been a few different releases and iterations which have gone off in different directions to those first concepts. For this release, we went back to the source, taking timeless designs that had been concepted by Jes and making them into plastic.
Neil: Most of the work was about pushing scale and detail, and adding some extra presence to the original designs which are now relatively small. When something has been around for so long, it can be a challenge to innovate, but a lot of the original miniatures were limited by the processes involved in making them. We still have some limitations, but now we have a lot more freedom to realise the spirit of those original sketches.
Daz: We had access to all of the work that Jes has done into the Aeldari over the years, which includes drawings and concept sketches right back to the 80s, and some more modern revisions. This isn’t to say that the project was easy, but that work comes from a place that understands scale, size, and detail in both 2D and 3D, which helped us tackle the project with confidence
WarCom: The Phoenix Lords are some of the most iconic characters in all of Warhammer 40,000. What went into updating Fuegan, Baharroth, and Asurmen?
Daz: Asurmen was easily my favourite Phoenix lord as a kid, and I must have painted at least three different versions of him over the years, which made him quite a joy to work on. His pose is commanding and iconic, and part of the Phoenix Lord project was taking those original poses and instantly recognisable silhouettes that had been set in stone, or rather metal, and interpreting them in a new era.
We also determined that each Phoenix Lord has what we came to call “non-negotiables”. These are things that you just have to include on the miniature to make them instantly recognisable. For Asurmen it was the helmet with face mask, the Sword of Asur, twin wrist-mounted shuriken catapults, chest buckle (now a bifurcated gem), and back banner. Some of these have been reworked, with the pose subtly changed but mirroring the original. The old painted banner didn’t really fit with the style that has now been established, and has now been reworked into something more iconographic.
Asurmen is unique amongst the Asuryani in that his helmet has a facemask. We gave this with strong, bold elements that match the design language of the Aeldari. This aligns with their cloth, which is composed of big flat, almost geometric panels that give plenty of room for runes and other printed designs, which is really apparent on Asurmen’s cape.
Neil: Those strong aesthetics come through having the same core of people being involved with the design and is key. I think over the years all of these kits have passed past myself, Daz and Jes, and it really helps keep things consistent, hammering home the look that comes to define a range.
Daz: Getting the pose for Fuegan right was tough. His loadout comprises the unique firepike Searsong and the Fire Axe, they need to be accommodated in a pose that conveys Fuegan’s character at a glance – strength and stability. The one we settled on was suitably imposing and covered those non-negotiables which include the helmet, as well as the dragon belt buckle, wargear and belt. He also has a new banner, accompanied by small redesigns to his axe and armour. We also gave him a narrative base, with a lick of flame that you can leave off if you wish. Neil worked on a lot of architectural elements that ended up being used for the Aeldari bases, back when he worked on the Avatar of Khaine.
Neil: We had previously designed little pieces of Aeldari ruins for the Harlequins and so forth, but as we did more miniatures that used ruins as basing elements, we decided to create a sculpted sketch of a whole shrine, and when we need new basing elements, we effectively snap pieces off and work them into the bases.
Daz: We‘ve done this quite a few times now. The Necron Void Dragon has lots of fragments in the lightning around him that started life as a fully built portal. Starting this way ensures the pieces all look right.
Neil: Working on Baharroth was tough in ways similar to Fuegan.– he’s armed with a specific set of weapons, and that sort of forces your hand with posing. He is posed leaping, while armed with a long rifle and a sword – so the challenge was making that work on a pose that looks tall, impressive, and elegant, whilst holding the Shining Sword and the Fury of the Tempest. Because of his wings, which are generously sized, he can’t have a banner, so we got the pennant on the Fury of the Tempest instead.
Daz: Alongside his wargear, intricate chest ornamentation, and massive wings, the beaked helmet with the oversized feathered crest is another one of those non-negotiables that signals his identity. We tried a few variants that omitted this, but in the end just had to have it – it makes him Baharroth.
WarCom: With the three returning Phoenix Lords covered, can you tell us more about the design of the new character Lhykhis, the Whispering Web?
Neil: When we started discussing making the Phoenix Lords and Aspects Warriors in plastic many moons ago, the conversation quickly turned to the idea of making one for the Warp Spiders.
Daz: Other than those initial conversations, we were starting from almost a blank slate with Lhykhis as Jes had only detailed a few elements such as the helmet in his concepts – things like the sword Vhattarkan, or Weaverender, we created from whole cloth. Getting all the arms to work together with composition was a real challenge – there are four as part of the jump generator and then her own limbs – adding up to eight in total – trying to get them all feeling natural and not having the elements either obscured by a pose or competing for attention took consideration.
We settled on a balled up pose with Lhyhkis emerging from the Warp, ready to strike. Figuring out how to sculpt her emerging from the Warp was a great creative exercise too. Because the Aeldari are linked to the Webway, and she’s the Phoenix Lord of the Warp Spiders, we designed the energy weave to look like a spider web – especially from above. Her pose is almost floating in the middle of that, and if you continued extrapolating the design of the energy weave, it would surround her in a complete sphere of energy – we’re just seeing a snapshot of that moment.
WarCom: In addition to the Phoenix Lords, you have also worked on three Aspect Warrior refreshes as part of this release. How did these happen?
Neil: One of the biggest changes to the Aspect Warriors, and where we could innovate and add excitement to the new releases, was updating the Exarch options. We added a lot of bare heads, which is a continuation of what we’d started with the Howling Banshees, to represent the idea that the Ynnari aren’t scared to show their faces to Slaanesh any more. We’ve built that into a lot of kits, so it doesn’t need to be a Ynnari thing if you don’t want it to.
Daz: The Fire Dragons are a good example, as the bulk of the work is just refining previous concepts and sculpts featuring powerful poses, heavy armour and Dragon fusion guns. All of the Exarch loadouts follow the same principle of providing a slightly better version of the weapon carried by their squad, then a choice of a weapon that either exemplifies shooting, close combat, and something that splits the difference. For the Fire Dragons Exarch, that’s the Dragon fusion gun, firepike, Dragon axe and Dragon fusion pistol, and finally the Dragon’s breath flamer. This helps you tweak the identity of the squad, so you can have the whole squad jump out of the Falcon and get stuck in, with an Exarch who can seal the deal in close combat. The icing on the cake is the banner for the kit, again based on a sketch by Jes, and the Exarch helmet options.
Neil: Jes made a lot of updates to earlier Aeldari concepts over the years, but crucially he hadn’t redone Swooping Hawks and Warp Spiders.
Daz: That can make things surprisingly tough, because so much of the concept work on Aeldari is defined by a meticulous approach to size and scale, so designing anything new has to fit that. During the early stages of the Swooping Hawks we found that the scaling on the wings and weapons was very important. The last Swooping Hawks took the design in a slightly different direction to the originals, and like with the recent Striking Scorpions, we decided to go back to the source, and the sketches of these particular Aspect Warriors are from way back in 1989.
The key was the elegant posing of these agile Aeldari, and we worked through lots of poses before settling on the final five in the kit. The Exarch now has options for a sunpistol and power sword, Hawk’s talon, and a scatter laser. There were no extra helmets designed for the Hawks over the years, so we went back to those older sketches and art pieces for ideas. The grenade packs also saw a change: they’re now on the bottom of the wings as opposed to the legs, making them feel like a proper piece of wargear. You can see the same change on Baharroth too.
Neil: There’s a real purity to the Aeldari range, so the fun in designing them is in filling out those aesthetic options that fit within each Aspect Warrior identity. With the helmetless options we had to figure out a hairstyle, and so for these three Aspects we decided to go with something that represented their discipline.
Daz: You’ve got scooped, mohawk haircuts for the Hawks, which mirror their helmets, cropped hair for the Dragons so they don’t get burned or singed in combat, and tied-up buns and knots for the Spiders. It just helps give them that little extra identity, like with the Aspect Shrine token that each kit has.
There wasn’t a second pass on the original Warp Spiders, and the miniatures are now classics, so a big part of the design work was ensuring that certain ideas were practical and accurately represented what those original miniatures had tried to convey. We focused on making sure that the helmets had a full range of motion, so those mandibles could tuck under the carapace with ease.
Neil: There’s a lot going on with them, they’re complex and intricate, which makes sense given the animal they’re related to and their niche in combat. We had the idea of making them feel very springy, light and restless, with them always on the balls of their feet so they feel light and ready to leap into action, with those base toppers providing a hint to the reality of them jumping through the warp. As with all the Aspects, the core idea is so strong, so it was just about visualising it.
For the Exarch, the original setup of two powerblades and death weavers is there, but again added to that with the Exarch’s death spinner, spinneret rifle and death weavers, and the powerblade array. There are also five head options just for the Exarch, all designed based on small boxouts that Jes had done.
Daz: I still have my copy of that second edition Codex, and the Aeldari range has always felt incredibly well-considered, so it’s been an honour to be trusted to work on the future of the range.
Thanks for the insight into this monumental task! You’ll be able to pre-order all of the updated Phoenix Lords and Aspect Warriors on Saturday, alongside the deadly new leader of the Warp Spiders.
