I just don’t get it. It’s such a fun concept and would expand the Aeldari in a very interesting and unique way. Plenty of opportunities to make big centrepiece kits. They would sell well because they’re dinosaurs.

If Space marines get 10+ codex’s with slight variations why can’t Aeldari? Exodites would be a solid expansion faction.

GW has two tiers of customer - space marines and everyone else.

The support marines get is a whole separate platinum level membership where you get endless releases across miniatures, units and fiction.

It is unfortunately not representative of other factions.

GW has taken 30 years to release every aspect unit in plastic, while the tactical squad has been released multiple times in plastic with multiple chapter specific plastic versions as well. That kind of says it all.


They may do exodites, but probably a single kill team squad or something.

 Hellebore wrote:
GW has two tiers of customer - space marines and everyone else.

And it's worth noting that the sales numbers justify that focus on Space Marines. They heavily outsell everyone else.

Eumerin wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
GW has two tiers of customer - space marines and everyone else.

And it's worth noting that the sales numbers justify that focus on Space Marines. They heavily outsell everyone else.

It doesn't justify it at all when they don't advertise or sell their games that way. If you're selling a faction vs faction game, you don't favourite one and act like they're all all equal children, It's a ridiculous way to do business.

Imagine if magic the gathering printed 10x as many reds as every other colour but never told anyone, and just acted like you had an equal selection regardless of colour...



GW is more than free to offer platinum marine membership but they should put that on the box when they sell it. It's deceptive advertising at the very least.

 Hellebore wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
GW has two tiers of customer - space marines and everyone else.

And it's worth noting that the sales numbers justify that focus on Space Marines. They heavily outsell everyone else.

It doesn't justify it at all when they don't advertise or sell their games that way. If you're selling a faction vs faction game, you don't favourite one and act like they're all all equal children, It's a ridiculous way to do business.

But apparently it works for them, so...

Eumerin wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
GW has two tiers of customer - space marines and everyone else.

And it's worth noting that the sales numbers justify that focus on Space Marines. They heavily outsell everyone else.

How much of that is inertia and Marines getting more things that everyone else?

 Mistresspaige wrote:
I just don’t get it. It’s such a fun concept and would expand the Aeldari in a very interesting and unique way. Plenty of opportunities to make big centrepiece kits. They would sell well because they’re dinosaurs.

If Space marines get 10+ codex’s with slight variations why can’t Aeldari? Exodites would be a solid expansion faction.

At this point I think it's only a question of time. World Eaters, Thousand Sons, Emperor's Children, Votann, Talons all need their second wave to turn them to more complete factions, Dark Eldar need all the things back they lost in the last 10 years, Space Marines need even more Space Marines(Grey Knights) just because GW thinks so but after that (or even in between because they won't do 3 waves of CSM legions next to each other) Exodites have a good chance to be released as a faction as they're one of the last factions that heavily feature in the background (and don't need to be build from the ground up like Hrud or Zoats). For all things we grumble about GW but they made an effort during the last 8 years to bring all factions to the same standard and get rid of Failcast. And with the new plastic eldar they've finished that.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
At this point I think it's only a question of time. World Eaters, Thousand Sons, Emperor's Children, Votann, Talons all need their second wave to turn them to more complete factions, Dark Eldar need all the things back they lost in the last 10 years, Space Marines need even more Space Marines(Grey Knights) just because GW thinks so but after that (or even in between because they won't do 3 waves of CSM legions next to each other) ...

You did see the roadmap from the LVO, right?

They might not get big waves of models (aside from the EC, though I do hope the WE get a proper wave 2), but we seem to be getting four CSM Legions in a row...

On balance?

Whilst it’s undeniably true Xenos haven’t received much love historically, 9th Ed and so far 10th Ed seem to be challenging that.

We’ve had major refreshes for Orks, Craftworlds, Necrons and Tyranids. Indeed, miracles of miracles, Craftworlds are soon to have no Aspects left in Resin/Plastic, something the community had been waiting decades for, ever since 3rd Ed heralded Mass plastification,

But, a whole new army is still quite the commitment. Not just in sculpting time, but starting from concepts, with enough to not just make an attractive array of units, but which occupies its own tactical niche.

Now, that is categorically not to say no such niche exists that Exodites might reliably fill. But it takes a fair amount of development time, as the concept needs to be more than Space Elves Riding Dinosaurs Are Cool. Which they are, of course.

For instance? If it’s an all Cavalry force? I can’t think of anything in 40K which really offers that right now. But in terms of rules, how is such an army going to punch its weight whilst still feeling that traditional Eldar fragility? And without giving them “so….why don’t other Eldar factions use these, they’re ace” weapons.

Again, this isn’t to pose the issues in bringing them to the tabletop as unresolvable. Just that it’s not a straight forward job.

 Dysartes wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
At this point I think it's only a question of time. World Eaters, Thousand Sons, Emperor's Children, Votann, Talons all need their second wave to turn them to more complete factions, Dark Eldar need all the things back they lost in the last 10 years, Space Marines need even more Space Marines(Grey Knights) just because GW thinks so but after that (or even in between because they won't do 3 waves of CSM legions next to each other) ...

You did see the roadmap from the LVO, right?

They might not get big waves of models (aside from the EC, though I do hope the WE get a proper wave 2), but we seem to be getting four CSM Legions in a row...

Yeah, but that's just Codizes, probably. I expect something for World Eaters, but TS will probably get a Char if anything. GW might as well try to tell us that we got a lot of stuff in the form of all the Daemons we swallow.

Eumerin wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
GW has two tiers of customer - space marines and everyone else.

And it's worth noting that the sales numbers justify that focus on Space Marines. They heavily outsell everyone else.

I think it's worth noting that gw has never tried treating any other faction as an equal and therefore created a feedback loop.

There are more marines. So people buy more marines. Then GW has to make more marines. Rinse and repeat.

It LOOKS like marine's are everyones favourite, but by virtue of being in EVERY starter box ever made, they create a greater sunk cost fallacy than any other faction, and perhaps THAT is why they sell.

No one will every be able to prove or disprove this theory, because GW can't afford the risk to find out.

No models no rules, and no demand they feel for the models?

Fluff-wise, I have to imagine the Exodites keep to themselves and predominantly would only have a defensive army. Not much reason for "crusading" or exploring as an Exodite.

 Lord Clinto wrote:
Fluff-wise, I have to imagine the Exodites keep to themselves and predominantly would only have a defensive army. Not much reason for "crusading" or exploring as an Exodite.

This just needs a tiny lore advance. We already have lots of "hot blood" younger eldar shunning the more hide-defend-sneak tactics of their elders and pushing for combat and conquest. That's the foundation of Yinnari. Exodites don't even have to bind to her, just have the same social revolution happening which causes them to go off world and start pushing out. Plus even if you don't have that you could easily have a crusading Marine army or a Tyranid splinter fleet strike their worlds and have a series of major defensive battles. The Votaan aren't known for expansion either and they are in the game.

I think the key is GW having the internal resources; the staff wanting to do the project and the desire to invest. With plastics making bigger models possible and practical they could certainly do it and Lizardmen are popular enough to show that dinosaur models do sell.

I get the feeling Exodites are something GW wants to do on some level which is why they keep getting mentioned; but no one has had the gumption to put money behind it. IT might even just be that Craftworld hasn't sold as well as it should to justify another Eldar expansion and part of that might well be its legacy of older models. With this next update basically resolving that entire issue we could see a change coming.

 Lord Clinto wrote:
Fluff-wise, I have to imagine the Exodites keep to themselves and predominantly would only have a defensive army. Not much reason for "crusading" or exploring as an Exodite.

Plenty of people want their worlds, so trouble comes to them.
Also, with the Eldar habit of scrying the future and heading off big problems while they are still small ones, I could see their seers sending expeditionary forces to take out targets/objectives on other planets before they come to theirs.

The way GW mines nostalgia I think it’s just a mater of time until we get some exodites. It might just be a KT or a unit to splash in other Eldar armies, not a full codex. But I expect we’ll see a little something eventually.

The problem is you can't really do a Killteam of Exodites. The big thing about them is Eldar riding Dinosaurs (or basically giant beasts). You can't really do that in a killteam which is predominantly infantry.

Yes Exodites will have unique looking infantry, but the theme of them is the bigger models. At the very least you'd need eldar on raptors or similar as cavalry which basically count as bikers. Or on a larger creature as some kind of dreadnought/warlord equivalent.

So it can be done, but the theme really calls for a bigger proper release so that you can see their monsters. Then you can have the infantry alongside that fits into the theme.


Exodites aren't like a Space Marine chapter where 90% of the difference is in the shoulderpads; paint scheme and lore which you can get away with on a killteam to slow grow them.

Exodites are a fundamentally different Eldar grouping as different as Craftworld are to Dark Eldar. They are also not a niche elite group like Harlequins or a group predominantly shown in space (Corsairs)


IF you do Exodites and do them properly then they need a full release and possibly two to get the theme of their army out into the wild.



Of course GW loves teasing - they teased Codex Zoats openly for 2 years in a row at Christmas off the back of 1 model that was a limited release.

 PenitentJake wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
GW has two tiers of customer - space marines and everyone else.

And it's worth noting that the sales numbers justify that focus on Space Marines. They heavily outsell everyone else.

I think it's worth noting that gw has never tried treating any other faction as an equal and therefore created a feedback loop.

There are more marines. So people buy more marines. Then GW has to make more marines. Rinse and repeat.

It LOOKS like marine's are everyones favourite, but by virtue of being in EVERY starter box ever made, they create a greater sunk cost fallacy than any other faction, and perhaps THAT is why they sell.

No one will every be able to prove or disprove this theory, because GW can't afford the risk to find out.

This is a nice bit of speculation, but I doubt it is true. Space Marines are the Coco-Cola of Warhammer 40,000 if not Games Workshop. It is the product customers buy, so it is the product GW makes. GW is in the business of selling the models its customers buy. They have the numbers on what sells, how fast it sells, and how often it goes out of stock due to production issues. They are making record after record profits. They know what they are doing.

No company is going to stop making their number 1 seller so that they can diversify. The Coca-Cola Corporation has many products in their soda line. Despite that, Coca-Cola (the soda) is the number 1 soda the vast majority of countries in the world. The number of countries it isn't is in the single digits. The number of countries it isn't in the Top 3 is 1. Should the Coca-Cola Corporation make less Coca-Cola to cater to other customers?

No. And neither should GW make less Space Marines. And before you accuse me of marine-bias, I own next to 0 Space Marines and have both a full-metal and full-plastic Sisters of Battle Army.

I think there's a few things that come into play

1) People associate with humans more readily than other forces. This is a given and has a quick bias in any fantasy/scifi game in that lots of people look for the human faction; identify with the human faction and want to play the human faction.

2) Because of part 1, many games make the human faction the tutorial faction. You see this in video games (RTS) through to RPG and Tabletop. The default human faction often has the least number of restrictions; the most simple basic builds and generally just "works". Space Marines are the same - they play very easily; have good saves and good damage and a wide variety of choices.
Basically they are an ideal starting point; compared to say Dark Eldar which might look cool but are a glass cannon army and thus much trickier to get started with.

3) Advertising feedback loop. Horus Heresy; BIG Space Marine statue at the factory; Space marines on ALL the marketing in the front etc... When you are bombarded by the biggest advertising; then the Space Marine is often the first thing people see with regard to Warhammer and thus is often the thing that helped draw them in in the first place. Which in turn makes them more popular by far.


There is certainly a justifiable argument that if Marines are advertised all the time it will also help drive their sales; whilst other factions might only share the limelight once during a new edition launch. Tyranids might get that once every 10 years; Marines get it every 3 - that's 3 times more major marketing signal boosting for one faction.



There most certainly is a bit of a positive feedback loop going on with Marines; however there's also other things that are more subtle because Stormcast get the same marketing but are in no way selling at the same volume. Other companies also often do similar with their human factions and, again, they are not selling out like Marines. Marines just hit some kind of magical marketing vibe that GW have built on and its become its own exception to a few of the norms.

IT does lead to Marines getting more and more attention and lets face it until around 8th edition GW often outright ignored other armies for whole editions. Dark Eldar and Sisters of Battle both skipped whole editions in the past; Sister of Battle then went on to skip so many model updates they were still running around with metal infantry and troop choices until very recently. Eldar are also another faction that got ignored for ages - the core of their army's theme (aspect warriors) being in first generation plastics and such.

GW are much more robust today at updating faster and keeping updates spread out. They've realised that going from no marketing for several years to a sudden big investment doesn't work as well as dripfeeding marketing for a faction and then doing a big release burst

Well, I don't think GW is in the business of spinning off a codex for every idea anymore thankfully. Long since the days of a Scions codex. If anything, trying to consolidate has been the norm.

I do think its high time Aeldari have a more marine style core with chapters kind of thing though. I'm rather surprised they didn't do that with Harlequins and Ynarri this time around honestly. They did all this work to limit Characters and they could have just given the ones they wanted to limit specific faction keywords. I could see that working with Exodites just fine.

We "just" got Eldar corsairs, which have been in the lore since the RT book. I would hope the exodite time is getting close, but who knows at this point.

This isn't the answer you're looking for, but you could proxy exodites as a few different armies that fit their general theme decently well. Just off the top of my head, light or dark eldar would be fine, there's plenty of large-ish entries in either codex that could be dino-ified. Similarly, Tau have plenty of big stuff that can fit, and the Kroot detachment could be filled with exodite-style models in a pinch. And Genestealer Cult could work, probably. Lots of bikes and cheapish vehicles could have dino stand-ins

It's not the same as having a proper Exodite army, but if you want one, make it. That's what this hobby is supposed to be about anyway.

 Hellebore wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
GW has two tiers of customer - space marines and everyone else.

And it's worth noting that the sales numbers justify that focus on Space Marines. They heavily outsell everyone else.

It doesn't justify it at all when they don't advertise or sell their games that way. If you're selling a faction vs faction game, you don't favourite one and act like they're all all equal children, It's a ridiculous way to do business.

Imagine if magic the gathering printed 10x as many reds as every other colour but never told anyone, and just acted like you had an equal selection regardless of colour...



GW is more than free to offer platinum marine membership but they should put that on the box when they sell it. It's deceptive advertising at the very least.

Adverising cannot influence customers to that degree.

For a solid 30 years or so, GW gave exactly 50/50 equal attention, advertising, miniature-releases, lore, army/codex books to Warhammer Fantasy and to Warhammer 40K.

If advertising / miniature production / releases by the company in question would infuence what people buy, Warhammer Fantasy would've never tanked (why would any product ever tank for any company ever, btw? Just advertise it to create demand) and Fantasy Battles and 40K would have perfectly equal market shares to this day.

Actually GW didn't give 50-50 to fantasy - that was one of the issues that many armies weren't getting updated models. It was one of the things that End Times improved dramatically on was adding new models (which was then the double shock when GW destroyed old world right after)


Of course there is more too it than that - as I noted in my earlier post there are multiple elements that help marines along not just the marketing side.

Couldn't you just put Eldar on Dinosaurs and use them as Jetbikes?

It's a proxy stopgap, I know, but it's all I can come up with, for now.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Couldn't you just put Eldar on Dinosaurs and use them as Jetbikes?

It's a proxy stopgap, I know, but it's all I can come up with, for now.

Yes - that's basically what all the proxies that do this theme do. OF course there's not a huge number who do because people like to copy GW more directly and as GW don't make eldar on dinosaurs people don't copy the concept as much. If Dawn of War or another major 3rd party creative project did them it would likely spark more demand.

I was a little sad that the Exodite animation (done by a fan) didn't really show anything that really highlighted what made the Exodites unique - if anything it was more Tau fun/focused than Eldar - though we got some freaking cool scenes of stealth suits working and eldar knights charging into battle!

 Overread wrote:
eldar knights charging into battle!

Those were Phantoms. And yes, they looked gorgeous in action.

But speaking of Eldar knights...

Earlier posts have mentioned the problem of finding a reason for the Exodites to get involved. Would it surprise you to know that we once had actual Exodite figures, published by GW? Waaaaaay back when knights were first introduced into Epic, the Eldar knights (which included the amazing Bright Stallion) were described as Exodite units that were attached to a Craftworld's military force. So the Exodites do send troops off-world, and at least sometimes that's in support of a larger Craftworld force.

I think the Bright Stallion is the only Exodites model GW have ever made (except perhaps an infantry character).

But yeah they've appeared in few of the BL books here and there too.

The thing is there's nothing stopping them getting off-world. They can access the Webway; they can request a Craftworld send ships to transport them. There's nothing stopping them leaving.


Plus lets not forget most of Tau are in a tiny corner of the Galaxy - factions in 40K don't have to be spanning the whole Galaxy to be part of the main narrative and tabletop game

1. i think exodites could work as a kill team if they do it warcry style. have the elves, and then give them a dinosaur friend or two

2 i feel like space marines are as popular as they are because they're so easy to paint. eldar have complicated armour, orks have a lot of little details, IG has too many faces everywhere, etc etc

99% of the craft worlds are hands off as well. They don't conquer or stir trouble and only come out enmass rarely for serious things.

The exodites are no more or less bellicose than the craftworlders so I don't really see an issue with them coming out.

Hell, the custodes are a tiny force and can't physically fight as many wars as the entire Eldar race could simultaneously, so if they can be ab army so can the exodites.

I don't think GW will ever make an Exodites codex. The will and demand aren't there. Exodite models have never existed for 40k, so it's not comparable to bringing back Squats.

In the entire history of 40k, there have only ever been two supplements for the Eldar. Craftworld Eldar was a supplement for Codex Eldar in 3rd and there was an Iyanden supplement in 6th. Both would be superfluous today given the detachment system and lack of FOC. Even if they weren't, Eldar just aren't popular enough to justify a major investment in a subfaction. I think GW has learned not to overinvest in the space elves. They did a great job revamping Dark Eldar in 5th, but have been half assing them ever since. Ynnari were a weak attempt to add to the Eldar. They fell kind of flat and haven't been added to since. It would also appear that Harlequins were not as successful as imagined and have since been rolled back into the base codex.

At one time Necron, Tau and Dark Eldar models also did not exist in Rogue Trader as large factions (I think there might have been 1 robot that was the foundation of necron design and perhaps some dark eldar references).


I think Harliquins hit the issue that whoever designed them didn't know how to go beyond either copying what Eldar already did or taking what is basically a super-elite force and adding ot them. It's the same issue Inquisition hits - its designed to compliment an existing army not be an arm in itself.

Yinnari were a weak offering I agree; they were born of a time when GW management was making choices that were odd because they were disconnected from their own customers/games. It's the same era that instead of updating marines with new models released an entire mirror-line alongside the regular marines.

 Hellebore wrote:


Hell, the custodes are a tiny force and can't physically fight as many wars as the entire Eldar race could simultaneously, so if they can be ab army so can the exodites.

Custodes are ten times the size of the Ultramarines. So they aren't exactly tiny.

A better argument would have the exodites deploy via web way, much like the "suprise! We're all around you GSC army."

That way you can can explain away their travels.

 Overread wrote:
I think Harliquins hit the issue that whoever designed them didn't know how to go beyond either copying what Eldar already did or taking what is basically a super-elite force and adding ot them. It's the same issue Inquisition hits - its designed to compliment an existing army not be an arm in itself.

somehow, tho, they are missing units from harlequins. there still isn't a model for a troupe master (need to use a troupe for that, a la shield captains), and there's stuff from the old days they still don't have, like mimes or their unique dreadnought. those couple more units, plus some new stuff, and i think the army could stand a little better on its own, even if it always remains a smaller force in comparison to the other elves

 Overread wrote:
I think the Bright Stallion is the only Exodites model GW have ever made (except perhaps an infantry character).

There were three different Exodite knight models. The Bright Stallion was one of the three.

But I suspect you meant that the knights were the only Exodite models that GW has ever made, and that is correct.

I think there might have been 1 robot that was the foundation of necron design and perhaps some dark eldar references

The Chaos Android, which also showed up in Space Crusade. As for Dark Eldar... sort of. There have been Chaos Eldar for as long as the lore of The Fall has existed (which is pre-2nd Edition, and they still exist), and they were likely the original intent of what would evolve into the Dark Eldar. But so far as I can recall, the first mention of non-Chaos outright viciously evil Eldar (as opposed to the Corsairs) was when the original Dark Eldar were released in 2nd Edition.

Just for fun, I'll note that we're still missing one of the RT races, though I'm fairly confident that we'll never see it (though it might be fun to see one turn up in a novel seemingly antagonizing an Inquisitor, only to reveal in the end that it was guiding the Inquisitor to shut down a critical threat to the galaxy). Rogue Trader included the marines, normal humans, Eldar, Orks, Tyrannids and... the Slann.

We're still waiting for Rick Priestley's reveal.... still waiting... any day now. Something tells me they forgot about the Slann.

 Arschbombe wrote:
I don't think GW will ever make an Exodites codex. The will and demand aren't there. Exodite models have never existed for 40k, so it's not comparable to bringing back Squats.

In the entire history of 40k, there have only ever been two supplements for the Eldar. Craftworld Eldar was a supplement for Codex Eldar in 3rd and there was an Iyanden supplement in 6th. Both would be superfluous today given the detachment system and lack of FOC. Even if they weren't, Eldar just aren't popular enough to justify a major investment in a subfaction. I think GW has learned not to overinvest in the space elves. They did a great job revamping Dark Eldar in 5th, but have been half assing them ever since. Ynnari were a weak attempt to add to the Eldar. They fell kind of flat and haven't been added to since. It would also appear that Harlequins were not as successful as imagined and have since been rolled back into the base codex.

1. Dark Eldar had an own Supplement in 7th for their haemunculi. Corsairs had their own proper rules via FW for a long time.
2. GW made Corsairs, Ynnari and Harlequins, three eldar subfactions that are probably even more fringe cases than Exodites.
3. AoS has even more exotic elves in the Form of sea elves and hair elves. So, in the smaller game GW still invested into minor elf factions.
4. The craftworld models just were renewed. Again, Gw investing into a lot of models here (with two waves) so there must be some demand. It took them a very long time I'll give you that.
5. Do you really think elves on dinosaurs would find fewer customers than, say, birdmen of Tau, Orks on Squigboars, or overpriced Steampunk Admech?

Maybe because the cost of building an army riding dinosaurs would be extortionate.

Jaxmeister wrote:
Maybe because the cost of building an army riding dinosaurs would be extortionate.

But it'll look cool.

Jaxmeister wrote:
Maybe because the cost of building an army riding dinosaurs would be extortionate.

No more than lizards riding dinosaurs or tyranids themed around the big models.
Now is the age of GW plastics and they can do dinosaurs being ridden!

Plus not everything has to be huge; you can have two legged raptor mounts - heck lizardmen, dark elves and Slaanesh exalted seeker riders are already doing that bipedal mount

 Overread wrote:

Plus not everything has to be huge; you can have two legged raptor mounts - heck lizardmen, dark elves and Slaanesh exalted seeker riders are already doing that bipedal mount

Or animal handlers with mini-raptors that work similar to real-world K9 teams.


However, even if GW were inclined to do an Exodite release, they really need to get the Votann second wave out first.

Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:


Hell, the custodes are a tiny force and can't physically fight as many wars as the entire Eldar race could simultaneously, so if they can be ab army so can the exodites.

Custodes are ten times the size of the Ultramarines. So they aren't exactly tiny.

A better argument would have the exodites deploy via web way, much like the "suprise! We're all around you GSC army."

That way you can can explain away their travels.

10 marine chapters are a blip in the size of the galaxy..there are capital ship weapons that would obliterate that many marines in a single shot.

Jaxmeister wrote:Maybe because the cost of building an army riding dinosaurs would be extortionate.

They just did a huge kroot release with exactly that and kroot aren't more popular than Eldar.

Very possibly no one at the studio is interested in enough in Exodites to make a whole army out of them. Or maybe they don't know how to actually turn them from a coupla units to a full force.

 Arschbombe wrote:
I don't think GW will ever make an Exodites codex. The will and demand aren't there. Exodite models have never existed for 40k, so it's not comparable to bringing back Squats.

In the entire history of 40k, there have only ever been two supplements for the Eldar. Craftworld Eldar was a supplement for Codex Eldar in 3rd and there was an Iyanden supplement in 6th. Both would be superfluous today given the detachment system and lack of FOC. Even if they weren't, Eldar just aren't popular enough to justify a major investment in a subfaction. I think GW has learned not to overinvest in the space elves. They did a great job revamping Dark Eldar in 5th, but have been half assing them ever since. Ynnari were a weak attempt to add to the Eldar. They fell kind of flat and haven't been added to since. It would also appear that Harlequins were not as successful as imagined and have since been rolled back into the base codex.

Might the reason that Eldar are unpopular be that it's taken 37 years to have all the Aspects in plastic?

Or that they've never been included in a starter box, with the exception of the original Dark Eldar (which were TERRIBLE models, except maybe for the bikes)?

Have Eldar honestly never been in the starter set? That's pretty surprising if true! Granted early starters are nothing like what we have now - gone are gretchen in a single pose for a whole squad! Today's starters are really amazing for what you get.

 Overread wrote:
Have Eldar honestly never been in the starter set? That's pretty surprising if true! Granted early starters are nothing like what we have now - gone are gretchen in a single pose for a whole squad! Today's starters are really amazing for what you get.

There has never been a starter set that wasn't space marines vs someone. Eldar don't look like bad guys so it's unlikely they'll ever be in one. If you want newbies to pick up on the simple marines are heroes vs monsters, you have to have antagonists that look 'evil'.

Tau votann and Eldar all look at most neutral if not good so the chance of them being the enemy in a starter box is low. The chances they will replace the marines with Eldar is even less likely

They have.

Epic Space Marine, 2nd Edition. Alongside Orks and Space Marines.

But never in 40K.

 Overread wrote:
Have Eldar honestly never been in the starter set? That's pretty surprising if true! Granted early starters are nothing like what we have now - gone are gretchen in a single pose for a whole squad! Today's starters are really amazing for what you get.

Dark Eldar vs. Black Templar. Does that count? It was the first box I spent my own money on.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
They have.

Epic Space Marine, 2nd Edition. Alongside Orks and Space Marines.

But never in 40K.

That was also the only 3 way starter they ever released and was really just a value box of faction boxes.

 PenitentJake wrote:

 Arschbombe wrote:
I don't think GW will ever make an Exodites codex. The will and demand aren't there. Exodite models have never existed for 40k, so it's not comparable to bringing back Squats.

In the entire history of 40k, there have only ever been two supplements for the Eldar. Craftworld Eldar was a supplement for Codex Eldar in 3rd and there was an Iyanden supplement in 6th. Both would be superfluous today given the detachment system and lack of FOC. Even if they weren't, Eldar just aren't popular enough to justify a major investment in a subfaction. I think GW has learned not to overinvest in the space elves. They did a great job revamping Dark Eldar in 5th, but have been half assing them ever since. Ynnari were a weak attempt to add to the Eldar. They fell kind of flat and haven't been added to since. It would also appear that Harlequins were not as successful as imagined and have since been rolled back into the base codex.

Might the reason that Eldar are unpopular be that it's taken 37 years to have all the Aspects in plastic?

Or that they've never been included in a starter box, with the exception of the original Dark Eldar (which were TERRIBLE models, except maybe for the bikes)?

Not persuaded by the logic of the first post.

They’ve never had models? Neither did Dark Eldar, Necrons, Tau, or Sisters of Battle until they did.

And are Eldar unpopular? They seem to have a decent presence at events, which rather suggests the opposite, no?

I still suspect the reason we’ve not seen Exodites to date isn’t a lack of will, so much as nobody being quite sure how to make them play on the field. It’s one thing to make cool models of Space Elves riding Dinosaurs. Arguably that’s pretty easy. But to give them their own tactical and strategic identity? That’s a bit trickier. What sort of units should they have? What are their weapons? What are their strengths, what are their weaknesses? We’ve two, arguably three if you count Harlequins, Eldar forces which operate as different varieties of Glass Hammer. And that’s direct competition in appeal, where if Exodites don’t have a distinct play style, could cause a new army to flounder.

I mean, if you want fast Eldar? You’ve got Commorite. If you want elite Eldar, you’ve Aspects. If you want surprisingly tanky Eldar, you’ve Wraiths. If you want other fast Eldar, you’ve Windriders supported by various Grav Tanks.

Genuine thought exercise to get our little grey cells ticking. You pitch me an Exodite “flavour”, and I’ll attempt to Naysmith it. Not in a nasty, smug way, but to possibly better demonstrate that finding that niche is harder than we might think.

Space marines don't have to jump through flavour hoops so I don't see why any thing else should.

But an exodite army would be a Godzilla list with horde infantry, which Eldar don't do.

But the intent of multiple Marine Flavours is a) to make more money b) so the most popular faction in the game offers greater variety to opponents beyond different primary colours.

Are the differences slight? Sure. But ultimately, so were the differences offered by Codex Craftworlds.

It’s also not an apples to apples. Dark Eldar and Craftworlds are distinct armies, just as Marines and Sisters of Battle, Imperial Guard, Imperial Knights, Grey Knights and Custodes are.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And when you say Godzilla with Horde infantry? Can you offer a greater definition.

When you say Horde, is that lots of ultimately a bit rubbish squads which overwhelm the enemy? If so, how does that fit what we know of the seemingly relatively sparsely populated Exodite worlds?

When you say Godzilla, is that Superheavy beasties, or Organic Stompy Tanks, presumably with heavy weapons mounted on howdahs or Dino-Riders style?

A cross between kroot and guard with some Eldar tech.

Aggressive short range infantry with scouts, cavalry with extra dragon attacks.

Instead of Russ tanks, dragons that want to bite you as much as their crew want to shoot you. I expect fewer super heavy weapons, and more using the dragons as multiple gun emplacements that move.

So an attack dragon with 4 shuriken cannons that wades in chomping while the gunners shoot at point blank.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Genuine thought exercise to get our little grey cells ticking. You pitch me an Exodite “flavour”, and I’ll attempt to Naysmith it. Not in a nasty, smug way, but to possibly better demonstrate that finding that niche is harder than we might think.

Here's how that works:

Step One:

A kill team release- not mounted units, but beast handling infantry. You'd have to be careful here not to duplicate the Drukhari pattern; being infantry rather than Skyboard riders is a start in differentiating them, but you also need to kick up the unit dynamics. So instead of one Beastmaster to one big monster, two little ones and three even smaller ones, one Exodite bonds with one monster. There are 3 different types of monsters, and all are sort of equal but different, rather than that hierarchy we see with DE Beasts. You may also have a few non-bonded exodites in the box to fill other specialist roles.

This kill team is ported to the dex via PDF, and White Dwarf does a scenario for KT with the monsters as NPO's that expands on their background.


Step Two:

A kit of beast riders- like they old Cold Ones (I think the made the newer ones look quadripedal; I liked the old Raptor look better). Maybe a dual build, one shooty, one fighty.

And a mounted character, again dual build- war leader/ psyker.


Step Three:

The Avatar- a World Spirit. Heavy nature vibe- it is literally the spirit of the Maiden world manifested as a construct of animated thorns, vines, trees.

A heavy beast with a howdah mounted unit.

A unit mounted on flying beasts.

A named character on a big beast, probably also a flyer.


Powers:

Terrain manipulation- like using Psychic energy to encourage plant growth. Maybe the Psyker has a shrubbery token that they can manifest- you summon it instead of shooting, and it stays with you until the ablative wounds it provides are gone, and then if you wish, you can forego shooting to summon it again. But you could also have units that cause cover to grow around objectives they control, or chip away at existing cover.

Beast Synergy- bird tokens that fly from the masters to act as spotters, null beasts that provides saves vs. psychic attacks, tracking beasts that negate stealth, martyr beasts whose death enrages their bonded Exodites.

Interference with beast units from other factions... Like they have to LD test to attack an Exodite mounted unit, or maybe a bonus to battleshocking other beasts.

High king on mega drake - big tough monster
Dragon baron - Cav eaders
World seer - seer

Dragon knights - laser lance knights
Kin guard - foot troops, either guns or scout melee - lighter armoured but sneak and infiltrate
Rangers - as per eldar

Dragon outriders - lighter dragons for scouting and flanking
Drak stalkers - large predatory beasts - hellhound equiv but bites. Fewer guns.


Dragoroth - heavy beast that line smashes with multiple heavy weapons mounted on top
Emplacements - where the heavier weapons like prism cannons or shuriken ballista are mounted. The only immobile part of the army.


Doesn't look anything like a normal Eldar army and the whole thing is very aggressive with only heavy weapon emplacements remaining stationary.

Not that I don't think Eldar Exodites deserve more love/attention/units, but part of me thinks that Craftworld Eldar, Eldar Pirates, Exodite Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Eldar Harlequins could all be rolled into one Codex.

BanjoJohn wrote:
Not that I don't think Eldar Exodites deserve more love/attention/units, but part of me thinks that Craftworld Eldar, Eldar Pirates, Exodite Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Eldar Harlequins could all be rolled into one Codex.

So could all marines, or all marines, sisters, ad mech into codex imperium...

Combining dark Eldar and Eldar is like making space marines and chaos marines the same army.

 Hellebore wrote:

BanjoJohn wrote:
Not that I don't think Eldar Exodites deserve more love/attention/units, but part of me thinks that Craftworld Eldar, Eldar Pirates, Exodite Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Eldar Harlequins could all be rolled into one Codex.

So could all marines, or all marines, sisters, ad mech into codex imperium...

Combining dark Eldar and Eldar is like making space marines and chaos marines the same army.

I actually do think all space marines should be combined into one codex, and all chaos should be combined into one codex. And I could see it being useful to combine sisters and grey knights into one "codex inquisition" along with deathwatch.

I see eldar, from the lense of D&D alignment, as composing of units/characteristics that range between good, neutral, and evil, and that a neutral eldar leading an army might not care if some of the units in that army were good or evil as long as they followed orders.

BanjoJohn wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

BanjoJohn wrote:
Not that I don't think Eldar Exodites deserve more love/attention/units, but part of me thinks that Craftworld Eldar, Eldar Pirates, Exodite Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Eldar Harlequins could all be rolled into one Codex.

So could all marines, or all marines, sisters, ad mech into codex imperium...

Combining dark Eldar and Eldar is like making space marines and chaos marines the same army.

I actually do think all space marines should be combined into one codex, and all chaos should be combined into one codex. And I could see it being useful to combine sisters and grey knights into one "codex inquisition" along with deathwatch.

I see eldar, from the lense of D&D alignment, as composing of units/characteristics that range between good, neutral, and evil, and that a neutral eldar leading an army might not care if some of the units in that army were good or evil as long as they followed orders.

The short answer is no. We would have to lose even more flavour than we've already lost, and at that point, the game might as well be checkers.

 PenitentJake wrote:

BanjoJohn wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

BanjoJohn wrote:
Not that I don't think Eldar Exodites deserve more love/attention/units, but part of me thinks that Craftworld Eldar, Eldar Pirates, Exodite Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Eldar Harlequins could all be rolled into one Codex.

So could all marines, or all marines, sisters, ad mech into codex imperium...

Combining dark Eldar and Eldar is like making space marines and chaos marines the same army.

I actually do think all space marines should be combined into one codex, and all chaos should be combined into one codex. And I could see it being useful to combine sisters and grey knights into one "codex inquisition" along with deathwatch.

I see eldar, from the lense of D&D alignment, as composing of units/characteristics that range between good, neutral, and evil, and that a neutral eldar leading an army might not care if some of the units in that army were good or evil as long as they followed orders.

The short answer is no. We would have to lose even more flavour than we've already lost, and at that point, the game might as well be checkers.

I see it being possible to be done without losing flavor, just because it might take a lot of work to make it work doesn't mean it isn't possible, but its not like I'm holding out that it will happen, I just have a bunch of ideas I think are good, and I'm willing to accept that other people disagree.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:


1. Dark Eldar had an own Supplement in 7th for their haemunculi. Corsairs had their own proper rules via FW for a long time.
2. GW made Corsairs, Ynnari and Harlequins, three eldar subfactions that are probably even more fringe cases than Exodites.

I don't have IA11 to see how robust the army list for corsairs was, but in terms of models it was fairly low effort. They made an upgrade kit for guardians and another one for war walkers to make the wasp.

Ynnari was low effort as well. Harlequins have been around since the beginning with models so it's not a huge stretch for them to have continued them in production. 7th was a weird time when GW did a lot of questionable things. If there was ever going to be an Exodite codex, that was probably the time for it.

4. The craftworld models just were renewed. Again, Gw investing into a lot of models here (with two waves) so there must be some demand. It took them a very long time I'll give you that.

GWs history with Eldar is weird. Warp Spiders and Hawks were unchanged from 1994 til now, while Fire Dragons, Banshees, and Reapers got resculpts in both 3rd and 4th. It took 13 years after the 4th edition refresh to get the first aspects in plastic (if you don't count the Dire Avengers that came out in 4th). Conventional wisdom back in the day was that plastic aspects didn't make financial sense because they are relatively low volume by design. DA as the first plastics made sense because they were spammable as troops.

5. Do you really think elves on dinosaurs would find fewer customers than, say, birdmen of Tau, Orks on Squigboars, or overpriced Steampunk Admech?

I don't know. What is the installed user base for Exodites? They haven't gotten anything but passing mentions in codices since 2nd edition. They've certainly had no rules since 2nd. The question was why no codex, not why no datasheets or models. It's possible that GW could make a dinorider unit at some point and a detachment that emphasizes it, but that a far cry from an actual subfaction codex. Maybe it's as simple as MDG suggests: they don't have a fleshed out concept to make them work as a distinct faction and that's all there is to it.

 Arschbombe wrote:
Warp Spiders and Hawks were unchanged from 1994 til now, while Fire Dragons, Banshees, and Reapers got resculpts in both 3rd and 4th.

While you're correct that this is only the second kit for Warp Spiders, we are on the third for Hawks - I can't remember whether it was 3rd or 4th, but they did get a new kit in one of those two editions.

Original Swooping Hawks

Updated Swooping Hawks - somewhere between 2001 & 2006

The really insulting things for the Spiders is that Shining Spears have had two iterations before the Spiders got their second - or that we're on Dark Reaper version #4...

+ + +

I'd also say there's a reasonable argument that we need a second flavour of Dwarves in Space! before we get to flavour #6 of Elves in Space, please and thank you.

Hellebore wrote:
They just did a huge kroot release with exactly that and kroot aren't more popular than Eldar.

Kroot and Knarlocs were part of the original release for the Tau. This Kroot release didn't really add a lot new to the mix. Carnivores have always been plastic. Krootox and hounds were metal originally, while the various Knarlocs were FW resin. I don't think it makes for a good comparison to making a new army from scratch.

Dysartes wrote:
While you're correct that this is only the second kit for Warp Spiders, we are on the third for Hawks - I can't remember whether it was 3rd or 4th, but they did get a new kit in one of those two editions.

Original Swooping Hawks

Updated Swooping Hawks - somewhere between 2001 & 2006

The really insulting things for the Spiders is that Shining Spears have had two iterations before the Spiders got their second - or that we're on Dark Reaper version #4...

Yeah, my bad. Original Hawks were from RT. Got updated in 3rd.

I'd also say there's a reasonable argument that we need a second flavour of Dwarves in Space! before we get to flavour #6 of Elves in Space, please and thank you.

But the dwarfs already are on their second iteration...

I'm not a fan of Votaan - they do nothing wrong they are just not for me - but I do agree on giving them a nice big second wave of models before another army gets added to the game.


Age of Sigmar suffers from this and the problem is the new factions also need second waves. Ossiarchs could do with a doubling of their range; yet before that you've got armies like Fyreslayers who have 2 non-hero models - both of which are troops and that's it. Every other model in their army is a hero model. Even though you can take magmadroths as beasts its still a hero sculpt at its core.

To be fair to AoS, I would argue that the only army that truly suffers from lack of choice is Fyreslayers.

Without going through all of them, at this point, most will have a solid selection of "units" (around 8 or more) and while it may look like character options are equal to or sometimes outnumber the "units" the vast majority are essentially variations of the same theme.

If we look at Lumineth, there are four Scinari options which in WHFB would likely all have come under the one profile with an option to choose which Wind of Magic to harness
The same thing applies to mounted versions of Heroes that get full profiles instead of just additional rules.

Votaan do need a wave 2 with maybe some sort of mining robot unit or something.

Lumineth are a good choice to compare as they did get a second wave of models very early on. Meanwhile armies like Daughters of Khaine and Ossiarchs are running around with single primary waves and a few heroes added after.


Fyreslayers are the worst off by far, but even so many others lack the diversity that larger armies bring. Heck there are 4 unit types in the game - heroes, troops, monsters and artillery and a good many factions have nothing in the artillery slot.

 Overread wrote:
I'm not a fan of Votaan - they do nothing wrong they are just not for me - but I do agree on giving them a nice big second wave of models before another army gets added to the game.


Age of Sigmar suffers from this and the problem is the new factions also need second waves. Ossiarchs could do with a doubling of their range; yet before that you've got armies like Fyreslayers who have 2 non-hero models - both of which are troops and that's it. Every other model in their army is a hero model. Even though you can take magmadroths as beasts its still a hero sculpt at its core.

That is not true. The Fyreslayers also have a terrain piece!

And then there's Malekith and his elves. But instead of giving us an update on him after however many years and AOS editions it's been now, the sole representative of his faction is a single character in one of the Warhammer Quest games.


Getting back to 40K...

 Arschbombe wrote:
[
GWs history with Eldar is weird. Warp Spiders and Hawks were unchanged from 1994 til now, while Fire Dragons, Banshees, and Reapers got resculpts in both 3rd and 4th. It took 13 years after the 4th edition refresh to get the first aspects in plastic (if you don't count the Dire Avengers that came out in 4th).

There's also the plastic Craftworld jetbike that was shown off... and then languished with players asking, "When's the new jetbike coming out?" for years on end until GW finally released it.

 Arschbombe wrote:

Hellebore wrote:
They just did a huge kroot release with exactly that and kroot aren't more popular than Eldar.

Kroot and Knarlocs were part of the original release for the Tau. This Kroot release didn't really add a lot new to the mix. Carnivores have always been plastic. Krootox and hounds were metal originally, while the various Knarlocs were FW resin. I don't think it makes for a good comparison to making a new army from scratch.

Kroot are more of a new army than exodites are, they have nothing in common with the tau and are effectively their own army. The exodites leverage eldar popularity with a new flavour and allow for the use of existing eldar sprues to bulk out their army list, in the same way marine chapters do.

The fact that they put lots of time and money into the kroot line of models, when they could have just done more tau battlesuits which are the more popular part of the faction, is what I am referring to. They didn't need to expand the kroot and creating whole new plastic sprues for an existing unit, or resin units, is still just as much design as doing a new unit that has no antecedent.

GW no longer uses FW to make new armies, so the only channel is through their core plastic lines. So using 'they had old FW units' as a justification effectively means no new armies ever because there are no resin armies to draw from. 'GW can't make armies without preexisting armies' leaves them going nowhere.

The kroot got 2 infantry squads, 1 cavalry squad, 1 beast squad, 3 foot characters and a monster character. Quite a lot of investment for an auxiliary force of the tau. If that is considered fine for a subsection of an existing codex, then doing even just half that of exodites for the craftworld book is entirely feasible - 1 monster character, 1 infantry squad, 1 cavalry squad, 1 foot character... although i see no reason why they couldn't do exactly the same number of releases for the exodites given the above.

Personally I would argue that Eldar Exodites are to Craftworld what Dark Eldar are to Craftworld or what Genestealer Cults are to Tyranids.

A member of hteir faction/race that's so entirely different to the "core" that they stand fully on their own. Both in gameplay/military terms and in design aesthetics and language. Yes they will share things, but ultimately they are so different that they are better served apart than together - or at least have the potential to stand apart.

Kroot I've long argued could do the same and that GW should use them to form a new faction for Tau comprised of a larger Kroot core and then loads of other Xeno races

 Overread wrote:
Personally I would argue that Eldar Exodites are to Craftworld what Dark Eldar are to Craftworld or what Genestealer Cults are to Tyranids.

A member of hteir faction/race that's so entirely different to the "core" that they stand fully on their own. Both in gameplay/military terms and in design aesthetics and language. Yes they will share things, but ultimately they are so different that they are better served apart than together - or at least have the potential to stand apart.

Kroot I've long argued could do the same and that GW should use them to form a new faction for Tau comprised of a larger Kroot core and then loads of other Xeno races

Ultimately I agree, but in terms of feasibly releasing them at all, I would expect them to lean on other things until their army is fully produced. It comes back to whether you want condensed codexes or a wide spread.


If every faction got the same consideration and support as space marines you can easily have:

Craftworlds
Ynnari
Dark Eldar
Harlequins
Corsairs
Exodites

All as separate distinct armies with their own model ranges. The ynnari should be an actual army with a new culture and look as it seeks to reunite the eldar into a pre-fall pro ynnead force.

Similarly the tau can easily have:

Tau cadres
Kroot warbands
gue vesa cohorts
Vespid flights
Tallerian packs
Vorgh Knight killers (an army of giants that can fight knights is pretty cool)


In the current 40k paradigm though, it's pretty clear you won't get that treatment so new units to use as part of an existing codex is your best bet.


EDIT

I'd also love to see genestealer cults for all the races, and not just another imperial army with funny faces.

Chaos should also have cult armies that are not just human as well - eldar cultists, tau, orks etc all fall to chaos in distinct ways that would make really interesting armies and not just more regurgitated marines.

 Hellebore wrote:


Chaos should also have cult armies that are not just human as well - eldar cultists, tau, orks etc all fall to chaos in distinct ways that would make really interesting armies and not just more regurgitated marines.

Uh... no. Not for the Eldar.

Eldar of any type who slip too far toward the worship of Chaos get soul-sucked by Slaanesh. All of the known Eldar cultures quite literally revolve around how to keep this from happening. There are a few very powerful and very dangerous Eldar who are able to resist this. But they are *very* old (since before The Fall), and live in the Eye of Terror.

I'd also love to see genestealer cults for all the races,

A GSC would likely have trouble taking root in an Eldar society, given how pretty much everyone there has psychic powers. If an Eldar returned to his or her home after being infected by a Purestrain Genestealer, the neighbors would almost certainly detect it very quickly. Also, Eldar reproduce very slowly, which doesn't work well with the "four generations to produce new purestrains" biology of the genestealers.

Orks are fungus that reproduce via spores. So they're not compatible with genestealer biology. Back when orks still reproduced in a more "normal" fashion, there was mention in WAAAAGH! The Orks! of GSC Orks. But it was noted to be a dead end for any genestealer that tried to build up a cult in an Ork community.

Eumerin wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:


Chaos should also have cult armies that are not just human as well - eldar cultists, tau, orks etc all fall to chaos in distinct ways that would make really interesting armies and not just more regurgitated marines.

Uh... no. Not for the Eldar.

Eldar of any type who slip too far toward the worship of Chaos get soul-sucked by Slaanesh. All of the known Eldar cultures quite literally revolve around how to keep this from happening. There are a few very powerful and very dangerous Eldar who are able to resist this. But they are *very* old (since before The Fall), and live in the Eye of Terror.

I'd also love to see genestealer cults for all the races,

A GSC would likely have trouble taking root in an Eldar society, given how pretty much everyone there has psychic powers. If an Eldar returned to his or her home after being infected by a Purestrain Genestealer, the neighbors would almost certainly detect it very quickly. Also, Eldar reproduce very slowly, which doesn't work well with the "four generations to produce new purestrains" biology of the genestealers.

Orks are fungus that reproduce via spores. So they're not compatible with genestealer biology. Back when orks still reproduced in a more "normal" fashion, there was mention in WAAAAGH! The Orks! of GSC Orks. But it was noted to be a dead end for any genestealer that tried to build up a cult in an Ork community.

There are eldar chaos followers and always have been. the daemon primarchs used to only hang out in the eye as well. There's nothing stopping them leaving and going a pillaging. The eldar champions are considered some of the most powerful of all chaos followers and the gods love stealing each others champions so there are undoubtedly non slanneshi chaos eldar out there. The chaos gods were sustained by the eldar for millions of years before humans came along, the idea that there are no chaos followers to pour from the eye is just unrealistic.

Genetics is not really an argument against anything - aliens shouldn't be compatible fullstop, having them work with humans is just as unrealistic. So there's no reason they can't work with orks. They insert their genome into the host to have its progeny grow, so a host ork just sheds genestealer infected spores that grow hybrids. Nothing wrong with that at all. Eldar have plenty of opportunities to become cults - the dark eldar don't have psychic abilities, the pirates don't cultivate them, the exodites are isolated. Craftworld eldar reproduction is slow, but no one else's is as slow. And a genestealer DE cult would have access to cloning technology that could create a perfect cult from scratch instantly which is pretty terrifying. They've already written about an eldar craftworld that got infected, so it happens. But we don't get models for them or rules.

I find it odd in the land of anything is possible, nothing is true, everything is canon 40k, that it's always the aliens that have people dig their heels in to prevent things like this, so conveniently everything focuses on humans. Human models, human army rules. 40k has always been a case of 'yes and!' except where we might see something non human get the limelight.

It doesn't have to be spelled out for it to be possible - orks think they're unorky, so the genestealer targets the warboss and so the biggest rightest toughest boss is the one that says what is unorky and you've bypassed the whole thing. A farseer infected dominates the minds of his fellows, taking them by surprise and leading them to infection before they realise what's happened. an entire corsair squad gets infected on a space hulk with no one to help them. An infected mekboy that runs a stompa mob where everyone is clamouring to get wired into deff dreads and morkanaughts puts a stealer ovipositor injector into the system, so everyone that gets wired in also gets infected. Soon the whole warband is infected because they all want to be the pilots. It's not hard to think of these scenarios.

If a 1000 blood angels get models and rules, then the comparatively rare example of freeboota genestealers, exodite genestealers or slanneshi speedfreaks are entirely fine and should have models and rules too. Chaos has never been a human exclusive exercise (1/4 of it is pure eldar but that is always ignored and we see no slanneshi eldar champions ever despite literally being the originators).

It's not even a case of retconning, it's just a case of actually exploring these things more than a one liner in a book with yet more human variants.

 Hellebore wrote:
There are eldar chaos followers and always have been. the daemon primarchs used to only hang out in the eye as well. There's nothing stopping them leaving and going a pillaging. The eldar champions are considered some of the most powerful of all chaos followers and the gods love stealing each others champions so there are undoubtedly non slanneshi chaos eldar out there. The chaos gods were sustained by the eldar for millions of years before humans came along, the idea that there are no chaos followers to pour from the eye is just unrealistic.

I explicitly mentioned the Chaos Eldar in my post. As I said, they're very old, and very powerful. New ones, on the other hand, get their souls slurped by Slaanesh. That's not my lore. That's literally what the Drukhari deal with to a small degree even though they don't directly follow Chaos. Evidently the old worshippers that are still alive figured out a way to resist this. Would they go pillaging? Maybe. But they are the single smallest Eldar faction, and are almost certainly "hunted down with a vengeance" (literally to a degree that nothing else in the galaxy is) by any other Eldar faction gets wind of the fact that Chaos Eldar have come out of the Eye. And they probably haven't lived as long as they have by being reckless, especially in a galaxy that's filled with psychic fortune-tellers that would love nothing more than to see them gutted alive (or worse).

Genetics is not really an argument against anything - aliens shouldn't be compatible fullstop, having them work with humans is just as unrealistic. So there's no reason they can't work with orks. They insert their genome into the host to have its progeny grow, so a host ork just sheds genestealer infected spores that grow hybrids.

Again, this was possible back before Orks were spores, but GW explicitly stated that it was a dead end for any purestrain genestealer that tried it. If you want the details, you can go find the old text from WAAAAAGH! The Orks! Or find someone who still has access to it (I lost my copy long ago).

Nothing wrong with that at all. Eldar have plenty of opportunities to become cults - the dark eldar don't have psychic abilities, the pirates don't cultivate them, the exodites are isolated.

Exodite communities might be isolated, but there is still a community. Any single member of the community who gets taken over will be identified when he's out in public. Additionally, Exodite worlds have their own seers (as well as the world spirit), which would be able to spot that a potential problem is taking root on the planet. Drukhari? They probably have known what genestealers are for a long time, conduct experiments on them, and have sophisticated systems set up to check and see what sort of genetic modifications everyone's sporting. Given how much flesh manipulation the drukhari themselves perform, there's probably easy access to scanners that look at genetic code of people in the area so that when you interact with someone you know exactly what sort of surprises they might spring on you if things go hostile.

I find it odd in the land of anything is possible, nothing is true, everything is canon 40k, that it's always the aliens that have people dig their heels in to prevent things like this, so conveniently everything focuses on humans. Human models, human army rules. 40k has always been a case of 'yes and!' except where we might see something non human get the limelight.

I don't rule out all of the aliens. I only ruled out the Orks and Eldar. I didn't note any reasons why Genestealer Cults couldn't turn up among the Tau.

To be fair, GW can change the lore at any moment.

Remember when Custodes stuck to Terra?
Or when they were shirtless dudes in loincloths?

I do think Eldar and Orks being resilient to Genestealers is apt though. The explanations make sense for why they are, not some bodged-together rationale that folds at any examination.

fwiw, GW has confirmed genestealer orks as recently as a few years ago in WD

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
fwiw, GW has confirmed genestealer orks as recently as a few years ago in WD

Oh really? Details? (Perhaps in another thread, to avoid getting too off-topic.)

Eumerin wrote:


I don't rule out all of the aliens. I only ruled out the Orks and Eldar. I didn't note any reasons why Genestealer Cults couldn't turn up among the Tau.

I have to play it out and see how the cult grows, but one of my possible futures is that the cult splits prior to the arrival of the Nids- so most remain loyal, and when the Nids arrive most are devoured but some of the vanguard organisms are reinserted (purestrains and patriar- Ahem! Broodlords). But a small faction within the Cult become self aware and decide to GTFO.

And then make a deal with the Tau, whereby they provide intelligence and support for the Tau Empire to "steer" Tyranids by controlling GSC activity in exchange for Tau support on extractions for other self aware cultists who wish to flee the Tyranids and join the cause.

It likely won't happen. There's no guarantee the cult will even survive its first brood cycle, and aside from the Magus, the other hybrid characters will only arrive starting in the second brood cycle, and only a Primus is guaranteed.

As for Tau forces in the campaign, so far its Kroot only... So it's a real stretch, but it was a fun little piece of headcannon.

It's technically possible for Aeldari to be infected with the Genestealer Curse but they have such low birth rates that it's rendered worthless.

Craftworlders also have the added layer of a very strong psychic community that would sense even a burgeoning Cult.

And Drukhari are largely not naturally conceived so unless the Cult was specifically propagated by something like an infected Haemonculus, again it would be extremely difficult to take root.

There has been at least one short story about Genestealers infection a T'au research station and Kroot becoming infected after consuming Genestealer DNA.

Humans are, at least so far as we can see, the perfect host species.

We breed pretty regularly, ensuring you get the Hybrids needed, and those specialists. We’re also a widespread species, with interplanetary shipping being a fact of everyday life.

We’ve formal militaries with little to no restrictions on recruitment, so getting that infiltrated isn’t difficult. We also have natural psychic potential I can’t imagine hurts the appeal.

Tau? The caste system is a bugger, as so far as we can tell? There’s no interbreeding. So, if you infect a Water Caste diplomat, the chances of you spreading that to the other Castes is greatly reduced.

Eldar? As said, birth rate is too low.

Orks recognise Hybrids as Not-Orky, and shun them at best.

Good old humanity. We’ll get you where you need to get to. And potentially even further than that.

"Why won’t GW make an Aeldari Exodite codex?"
Because GW cannot trademark dinosaurs.

 Skinnereal wrote:
"Why won’t GW make an Aeldari Exodite codex?"
Because GW cannot trademark dinosaurs.

Works pretty well for the Lizardmen and their dinosaurs.

Yeah, my comment was a bit flippant.
But AoS doesn't have the exposure they want 40k to get. They can get away with a lot more there.

 PenitentJake wrote:
The short answer is no. We would have to lose even more flavour than we've already lost, and at that point, the game might as well be checkers.

The fact that your army retains its own codex is no guarantee whatsoever that it will retain any of its flavour. Trust me.

 vipoid wrote:

 PenitentJake wrote:
The short answer is no. We would have to lose even more flavour than we've already lost, and at that point, the game might as well be checkers.

The fact that your army retains its own codex is no guarantee whatsoever that it will retain any of its flavour. Trust me.

Or you might just have it completely overhauled as with Necrons. Having a Codex and having good flavour and thematic armies is not correlated. Deathwatch have a single Index and it's pretty damn flavourful, IMO. I'd rather have one or two actually thematic detachments than an entire Codex that doesn't reflect that background of the army or pushes one particular strand over another.

Dark Angels are a good example of an army with a Codex but whose detachments are just not good. They try to reflect some of the army's background but fail to represent it well on the tabletop, leading to nothing but Gladius DA armies. So effectively the DA datasheets could just have been included in the SM Codex and it wouldn't have made much difference to anyone.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
"Why won’t GW make an Aeldari Exodite codex?"
Because GW cannot trademark dinosaurs.

Works pretty well for the Lizardmen and their dinosaurs.

notably, in AOS, it's not "lizardmen", but "Seraphon"; likewise, for Exodites, GW could just come up with some almost-irish sounding name that is the eldar name for "dinosaur" or whatever. there's no real barrier on this issue

 Hellebore wrote:

Kroot are more of a new army than exodites are, they have nothing in common with the tau and are effectively their own army.

But they aren't their own army. They are part of the Tau codex. The OPs question was about getting an Exodite codex, not just some datasheets in the Eldar codex.

The fact that they put lots of time and money into the kroot line of models, when they could have just done more tau battlesuits which are the more popular part of the faction, is what I am referring to. They didn't need to expand the kroot and creating whole new plastic sprues for an existing unit, or resin units, is still just as much design as doing a new unit that has no antecedent.

Kroot have had models since 2001. There have never been 40k models for Exodites. Kroot have a stable design language since 2001. Most of the release was bringing old models into plastic, not making new units from scratch. Exodites have nothing to work with or from outside of an entry in the 2nd edition codex.

The kroot got 2 infantry squads, 1 cavalry squad, 1 beast squad, 3 foot characters and a monster character. Quite a lot of investment for an auxiliary force of the tau. If that is considered fine for a subsection of an existing codex, then doing even just half that of exodites for the craftworld book is entirely feasible - 1 monster character, 1 infantry squad, 1 cavalry squad, 1 foot character... although i see no reason why they couldn't do exactly the same number of releases for the exodites given the above.

Why do you think that a subfaction with a theoretical half of the entires of the Kroot deserves its own codex, when Kroot don't have their own? Wouldn't it make more sense to spin off the Kroot into their own book and make Exodites a detachment that features a couple of unique units?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Humans are, at least so far as we can see, the perfect host species.

We breed pretty regularly, ensuring you get the Hybrids needed, and those specialists. We’re also a widespread species, with interplanetary shipping being a fact of everyday life.

We’ve formal militaries with little to no restrictions on recruitment, so getting that infiltrated isn’t difficult. We also have natural psychic potential I can’t imagine hurts the appeal.

Tau? The caste system is a bugger, as so far as we can tell? There’s no interbreeding. So, if you infect a Water Caste diplomat, the chances of you spreading that to the other Castes is greatly reduced.

Eldar? As said, birth rate is too low.

Orks recognise Hybrids as Not-Orky, and shun them at best.

Good old humanity. We’ll get you where you need to get to. And potentially even further than that.

You're all oversimplifying each faction to justify this. There are plenty of human planets where cults wouldn't form because of the nature of the society. The rooting out of heresy is a deliberate activity of humanity, no other races have an internal police literally looking for cults to squash.

The argument isn't 'a race must be 100% susceptible to cult infestation or they shouldn't exist', it's simply a race CAN be infested therefore it should have models and an army. It should show the options. You talk like every human world has a cult, when it's a TINY proportion because even humans stop that sort of thing from happening. A tiny proportion of eldar and orks can be infected and that's fine too. It's just a weird position to take in the infinite possibility of 40k. These are canon, they are just uncommon. I am saying that the cult range should offer more options than just rebellious imperials.

Rarity has never been a limiting factor in whether something is added to 40k or not.




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 Arschbombe wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

Kroot are more of a new army than exodites are, they have nothing in common with the tau and are effectively their own army.

But they aren't their own army. They are part of the Tau codex. The OPs question was about getting an Exodite codex, not just some datasheets in the Eldar codex.

Kroot have had models since 2001. There have never been 40k models for Exodites. Kroot have a stable design language since 2001. Most of the release was bringing old models into plastic, not making new units from scratch. Exodites have nothing to work with or from outside of an entry in the 2nd edition codex.

Why do you think that a subfaction with a theoretical half of the entires of the Kroot deserves its own codex, when Kroot don't have their own? Wouldn't it make more sense to spin off the Kroot into their own book and make Exodites a detachment that features a couple of unique units?

The votann, berserkers, and coming soon emperor's children got a codex with a tiny range as well.

Your argument from models is fallacious - GW has run out of existing ranges to plunder so you're saying they can't make anything new because they have nothing old? Exodites have a pedigree older than many armies in 40k, whether they had models or not. That's more 'official' using your metric than the tau or kroot who never had anything.

What the kroot deserve is not relevant to the conversation, only what GW was willing to SPEND on them despite their niche position in the game and its reflection on the practicality of them making exodites. I am all for Kroot getting their own codex - for many alien armies to get expanded with supplements and new units, but in this instance they are an example of what GW will do for the least popular part of an army and how that shows encouraging things about their capacity to make exodites.

I think its less that Kroot can't be their own faction and more that GW wants to take Tau in the direction of "The Covenant" or a similar collective of alien species. It gives them a place to expand ideas without needing to develop an entire faction.

 Hellebore wrote:


The votann, berserkers, and coming soon emperor's children got a codex with a tiny range as well.

OK. But these factions were at least based on something that previously existed. Votann are a reimagining of our dearly departed Squats. World Eaters and Emperor's Children have had models and rules going back to Rogue Trader. People have wanted legion specific codices ever since the revered 3.5 codex was replaced by the reviled 4th edition "renegades" book.

Your argument from models is fallacious - GW has run out of existing ranges to plunder so you're saying they can't make anything new because they have nothing old?

I'm not saying they can't. I'm saying they won't. Someday we may see Exodite datasheets and models added to the Eldar book. That it hasn't happened yet is for reasons. We are 8 editions removed from when Exodites got 2 pages of fluff, 1 codex entry, and 0 models. The current book contains 3 lines about Exodites and 0 datasheets. We have a new Eldar book coming in a week that contains no datasheets for Exodites because, you guessed it, there are no models. I'm curious to see how much fluff coverage the Exodites get this time around. Probably not a lot.

Exodites have a pedigree older than many armies in 40k, whether they had models or not. That's more 'official' using your metric than the tau or kroot who never had anything.

What's that pedigree? 2 pages of fluff 30 years ago? Tau has had 7 codices and 3 supplements since 2001. And you think Exodites are more deserving of GW's effort?

What the kroot deserve is not relevant to the conversation, only what GW was willing to SPEND on them despite their niche position in the game and its reflection on the practicality of them making exodites. I am all for Kroot getting their own codex - for many alien armies to get expanded with supplements and new units, but in this instance they are an example of what GW will do for the least popular part of an army and how that shows encouraging things about their capacity to make exodites.

GW may have the production capacity to make a bunch of Exodite kits. I don't think they have the will. If Exodites get a bunch of love in the 11th edition Eldar book, then maybe that will herald a separate Exodite book in 12th or later.

 LunarSol wrote:
I think its less that Kroot can't be their own faction and more that GW wants to take Tau in the direction of "The Covenant" or a similar collective of alien species. It gives them a place to expand ideas without needing to develop an entire faction.

My view is the original Tau plan was for them to be a creative outlet with loads of subfaction xenos squeezed into them alongside a core of the Tau in mech suits. What happened was the mech suits became insanely popular and GW doubledown on it to the point where there really isn't "room" tactically speaking, for many more options. Esp when Kroot already take a good chunk of the close combat and support positions.

This is why I feel a Tau Auxiliaries type army which is comprised of the various allied races in a single fighting force, would be a great way to expand the concept of the Tau drawing other races into their faction; but without the risk that the faction ends up being bloated. In exactly the same way that Genestealer Cults works better separate from Tyranids and Imperial Guard rather than being mashed into one or the other as a sub-faction.

Of course new factions cost and come with a long term commitment to support.

 Overread wrote:


This is why I feel a Tau Auxiliaries type army which is comprised of the various allied races in a single fighting force, would be a great way to expand the concept of the Tau drawing other races into their faction; but without the risk that the faction ends up being bloated.

This is a cool idea. It would take care; one or two units per Xenos Auxilia team; but the hard part is the temptation/ likelihood of overloading the basic infantry role, since it's sort of the default unit. You'd need to make sure vehicles, monsters and support units still had a presence.

I miss multi-detachment armies that facilitated alliances more easily than the current rules, but that's a product of narrative campaign focus- I understand why it probably doesn't work as well for the 2k competitive pick-up scene. That could allow integration of the Xenos Merc dex back to Tau for those who want to use it that way without trying cram all the Merc units into the Tau book and worrying about balance and even greater potential for role/ niche duplication.

 Arschbombe wrote:

What's that pedigree? 2 pages of fluff 30 years ago? Tau has had 7 codices and 3 supplements since 2001. And you think Exodites are more deserving of GW's effort?.

My comparisons had nothing to do with who deserved what, only what GW was willing to do for comparatively minor parts of other armies. You were saying that because something had models previously it gave it some justification for getting new ones. I was saying that older doesn't mean anything, but if it did, exodites have been around and had models (not 40k) for longer, so by that metric they'd been waiting for longer and at least as justifiable.

GW also invents new units for armies, genestealer cults last had models made for 1st ed, but when they redid them they added a whole bunch of stuff that had no precedent. The same is true for death guard, thousand sons, world eaters etc.

Exodites occupy similar space to a marine codex, or the above. They can have vypers, falcons, rangers, shroud runners, corsairs as part of their army and the pure exodite flavoured units are additions to that. They had unit profiles in 2nd ed, so while not a miniature it still existed as an army option which is the next best thing. They had art done for them and continue to get art done in BL and other areas, so the design is already there.

Whether GW decides to or not, you can't say they are any more burdensome than a new marine army or other faction within a faction that already exists. Or you know, the kroot as i said, which have virtually no design assets reusable from the tau and require 100% new model designs for the least popular corner of a faction.

Not got a horse in the race but I can see Exodites happening. The two Knight codices can easily be merged into the Ad-Mech and Chaos Marine codices( the new Xmas detachments might be a hint ), to make way for it...

SamusDrake wrote:
Not got a horse in the race but I can see Exodites happening. The two Knight codices can easily be merged into the Ad-Mech and Chaos Marine codices( the new Xmas detachments might be a hint ), to make way for it...

You do know that GW has revealed that Knight Codices are inbound this year, right?

ccs wrote:


You do know that GW has revealed that Knight Codices are inbound this year, right?

I made no mention of when it would happen. Why would you assume I mean't this edition?

Afterall, 11th edition is highly likely to released next summer given the usual 3-year cycle we've come to expect. This edition has already seen the introduction of the Imperial Agents and Emperors Children codices, and they've still got a lot of established codices to release before they can begin the usual "end of edition" event leading into the next edition. So that's probably it for the current edition...

Historically speaking, Eldar have been a much lower performing faction (on sales, not in game), as they have:
1. Mono-pose no-customisation metal models, Eldar players don't have much need to repeat buy these.
2. After metal, almost everything Eldar had became a finecast kit. No one liked that.

Compared to the above, every other 40k faction has been enjoying multi part plastic kits that build multiple different units out of the same box, hence encouraging the behaviour of buying the same kit multiples of times (individual things like tactical marines, ork boyz kits alone will have outsold the entire Eldar range). Eldar don't get fleshed out as they don't sell anywhere near marines/orks/chaos levels.

New Eldar is starting to change that. Almost everything is in plastic now, with at least some customisation and/or multi unit boxes on just about everything. If the new Eldar releases do well (basically guaranteed - the models look great and the rules are really strong), we will be in the best position ever to get more Eldar attention. A killteam set with Exodites on foot and a pet dino or two doesn't seem very far fetched at all, and more corsairs and/or exodites in the not too distant future would be very cool.

SamusDrake wrote:
Not got a horse in the race but I can see Exodites happening. The two Knight codices can easily be merged into the Ad-Mech and Chaos Marine codices( the new Xmas detachments might be a hint ), to make way for it...

I'd love to see Knights in Mechanicus with Household Knights moved into Agents. I feel like Chaos could get a Dark Mechanicus that looped in their Knights.

 LunarSol wrote:


I'd love to see Knights in Mechanicus with Household Knights moved into Agents. I feel like Chaos could get a Dark Mechanicus that looped in their Knights.

I would certainly welcome that.

It makes a lot of sense, gives Imperial Agents anti-tank, and gives the Knights some decent support options.

You have to ask your self how many uniek models exodites would have. wsome elder riding raptors/cold-ones. maybe a t-rex for a character and some transport. in the old days they could have fit in gw had lots of funny freaky units mbut at this time i think they dont fit annymore.

 skeleton wrote:
You have to ask your self how many uniek models exodites would have. wsome elder riding raptors/cold-ones. maybe a t-rex for a character and some transport. in the old days they could have fit in gw had lots of funny freaky units mbut at this time i think they dont fit annymore.

As many as they could

Off the top of my head you could easily have

1) Raptor Riding Eldar - equivalent of bikes/fast attack/roughriders

2) T Rex riding eldar - likely in several configurations from full close combat to medium calibre guns

3) Some kind of armoured or large leaf-eater providing heavy weapon support. Equivalent of a main battletank

4) A mega-sized creature with multiple weapons - superheavy

5) Wild dinosaurs - humanoid to horse in size designed to operate as a pack - likely with a handler eldar model

6) Winged dragon riders. Air support - you can go loads of directions here; bombers; light attack; fast attack; etc...

7) BIG winged dragon rider. Hero etc....

8) Exodites ranged infantry likely with some kind of bow-bowcaster gun

9) Leader/hero models on foot

10) Some kid of war-walker mech - similar role as a light support unit

11) Transport - could be something open-topped hovering or could be a dinosaur but I lean toward a hover transport and thus being faster in general than the bigger dinos and thus more suited to being a transport.


And that's 10 ideas off the top of my head with most having potential for duel builds and multiple weapon choices and so forth. I've not even touched on Psy units or Wraith equivalents or such. That's more than ample enough choice and variety of size to count for a whole army of its own with its own unique style and models.

How do you differentiate the style from that of the Kroot?

Which to me fills the neo-primitive meets futuristic weaponry niche in the game.

That's easy - Kroot have a very rustic and wild style.

Exodites you just lean into the same styles as Eldar - sleek, efficient etc... Even the creatures of the Kroot have a rough very alien look to them - Give the Eldar dinosaurs, dragons and so forth and you've an entirely different style.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
How do you differentiate the style from that of the Kroot?

Which to me fills the neo-primitive meets futuristic weaponry niche in the game.

If marines can be a half dozen armies that all fight almost the same with tiny differences, no other army needs to justify being even SLIGHTLY similar to another.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
How do you differentiate the style from that of the Kroot?

Which to me fills the neo-primitive meets futuristic weaponry niche in the game.

If marines can be a half dozen armies that all fight almost the same with tiny differences, no other army needs to justify being even SLIGHTLY similar to another.

I try to put myself in the GW mentality. Where I feel that they have different "looks" that they like to have available to players.

Marines I feel are a section unto themselves and then you have everyone else.

Exodites would look similar to Lizardmen probably, but these are from two other game Systems that aren't allowed to be used in 40K and were it's verboten to even use parts for conversions from, so I think Exodites are fine .

GW also never really dived deep into Squiggoths so even the overlap to 40k dinos is small.

I'm reading The Infinite and the Divine at the minute, and it gives a bit of an idea about how an Exodite army could be structured. Or some unit ideas, at the very least.

Here are screen caps of just SOME of Wargames Exclusive's Not Exodite range.

They have mirror units in this aesthetic for all of the Aspect Warriors too, but I figured I'd just do a broad sample. Clearly, the mirroring is intentional, so that this army could be fielded with counts-as rules, but there's no reason that more flavour exodite rules couldn't be written. If you want to see more, just go to their page.

I'd beef those raptors up - honestly I think for size the perfect choice would be the Exalted Seeker riders from AoS.

Big enough that you can put a rider, armour and laser guns on without any one appearing to be over-sized or like its going to unbalance the creature.

Those raptors seem to be acting as counts as jetbikes, hence the duel guns.

Originally dragon riders were just cavalry carrying laser lances, so they had very short range shooting. I wouldn't expect to see jetbike equipment duplications when they become a real unit. Being a monstrous cavalry unit seems good enough.I would expect to see guns only on foot troops, or heavies on larger dragons. Maybe you could have ranger....dragoons.... that carried guns/sniper rifles and make them a mobile fire unit, but they'd have no great melee as well.



With the rumours of Isha's survival and the primarch centerpiece requirement for every faction these days, I can also see Avatars of Isha appearing as embodiments of the world spirit of an exodite world.

Having a c'tan level unit that provides protection and healing over pure damage would also be an interesting play style not seen in any other army.

I would expect to see Harlequin High Avatars returning as khainesque avatars as well, but like pure jester shennigans involving things like swapping friendly and enemy unit locations, causing enemies to attack each other, causing units to start the game battleshock/edauto inflict battleshock on a unit through confusion etc.

 Hellebore wrote:
Those raptors seem to be acting as counts as jetbikes, hence the duel guns.

For the most part most Exodites armies right now copy the Craftworld armylist as they are just counts-as models for regular Eldar.
One Page Rules hasn't pushed their own elves-riding dinosaurs unique army so for the most part the theme is right now stuck in proxy/countas world

I'm sure if GW did their own they could come up with unique or different army roles and ideas for different units and so forth.