Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

What would people expect if we did get them? And how would we want them to play?

They are the wood elf from the old dark/high/wood Old World triad from when WHFB got guns and went into space. Although it was the DE who had cold one riders, the flavor and spirit of the sub-faction was in the woods.
They are nomadic hunter/gatherers, with dinos. They still have wratihbone, but it’s more rare and they use a lot of other materials. Less psychic than craftworlds. Get lots of visitors from those on the path of the outcast, as well as harlis.

Army wide I’d like to see a focus on movement and deployment tricks, as well as terrain interaction. Other elves should have more raw speed, but I think Exodites should interact with the table better, and do more scout/infiltrate things.

I think bare minimum if they do anything with the faction would be a one-off box of dragon knights, with either the option to build a lord out of it, or a separate character box.

Giant lumbering dino with howdah and big guns, possibly as a transport.

While I don’t think we need the level of farseers and warlocks of the craftworlds, they should have at least one seer option.

Do we need a guardian equivalent? Probably more like CC storm guardians, but I could also see a case for long-las waywatcher types.

Are we going to jump the shark and get an actual dragon? Flying lord mount or unit flyer?

They should definitely be able to ally Harlies without issue. I’d say let them take rangers as well, but not sure about shroudrunners. But Outcasts visiting exodite worlds and joining them in the fight should be a thing.

Another potential issue with exodites is, and dint get me wrong I’d love to see them, is there enough about them to flesh out a full faction, with LoV they have the bare bones but there’s scope for more stuff to come.

With exodites there’s one obvious choice for each force organisation slot but not much more without them coming up with totally new stuff really.

They have obvs done more with less before, custodes again, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.

Andykp wrote:
Another potential issue with exodites is, and dint get me wrong I’d love to see them, is there enough about them to flesh out a full faction, with LoV they have the bare bones but there’s scope for more stuff to come.

With exodites there’s one obvious choice for each force organisation slot but not much more without them coming up with totally new stuff really.

They have obvs done more with less before, custodes again, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.

Agree. While they could be made to be a full stand alone faction worth it’s own book, they would be stretching. I’d rather see them as a supplemental force similar to how they do harlis these days, but maybe not even needing that much. Both exodites and harlis have one signature unit that is the core of their identity. Harlequins got a bunch of bikes, characters, and a light transport to flesh that out. Exodites could have the same level of extras added, but I don’t see their range getting much larger then that.

A LoV scale release I think would be the cap of what I could see for them.

 Nevelon wrote:

Andykp wrote:
Another potential issue with exodites is, and dint get me wrong I’d love to see them, is there enough about them to flesh out a full faction, with LoV they have the bare bones but there’s scope for more stuff to come.

With exodites there’s one obvious choice for each force organisation slot but not much more without them coming up with totally new stuff really.

They have obvs done more with less before, custodes again, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.

Agree. While they could be made to be a full stand alone faction worth it’s own book, they would be stretching. I’d rather see them as a supplemental force similar to how they do harlis these days, but maybe not even needing that much. Both exodites and harlis have one signature unit that is the core of their identity. Harlequins got a bunch of bikes, characters, and a light transport to flesh that out. Exodites could have the same level of extras added, but I don’t see their range getting much larger then that.



A LoV scale release I think would be the cap of what I could see for them.

And with leagues there’s obvious places to go with the range so it’s worth the investment. With excodites it’s, Dino riders, character on a bigger dinosaur and a heavy dinosaur, maybe a flying one. Not much else. An add on force would be great, and if they new folk would only have a small number of them then they could go mad with character on them.

But…. Whenever there is a small element of a faction fans clamour for a whole army of it, grot armies, kroot armies, even through they should only be a part of a faction. Harlequins, custodes and grey knights all were best as a part of an army, not a faction on their own. But what do i know???

Andykp wrote:
Another potential issue with exodites is, and dint get me wrong I’d love to see them, is there enough about them to flesh out a full faction, with LoV they have the bare bones but there’s scope for more stuff to come.

With exodites there’s one obvious choice for each force organisation slot but not much more without them coming up with totally new stuff really.

They have obvs done more with less before, custodes again, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.

So GW write new stuff for them?

They do stuff to sell models. If they need to come up with new stuff to do new models they will come up with new stuff. Because getting models to sell is not just most important priority for GW but the only priority for GW.

And who says dino riders is only thing they can have anyway? GW says they have other things then they have. GW decides to give them big giant walkers then they will have those. What decides is what miniature makers will come up with.

You people are seriously underestimating the dinosaurs' biological diversity, you can definitely make an entire army entirely out of pure dino riders.

 Nevelon wrote:
What would people expect if we did get them? And how would we want them to play?

One of the many projects I've been kicking around for years and will probably never actually finish is an exodite codex. What I've got for them is:

HQ


TROOPS


ELITES


FAST ATTACK


HEAVY SUPPORT


DEDICATED TRANSPORT
* Carrier Beast: It's a gun beast, but give it a howdah instead of big guns. Slow for a transport. Open-topped. Gain extra benefits based on the species of the creature. (Ex: triceratops is more durable, ankylosaurs have a tail attack, etc.)

FORTIFICATIONS

LORDS OF WAR


In general, the army would have a lot of rules that let them modify the battlefield, placing trap/dangerous terrain tokens, making pieces of terrain hazardous, having rules to escape off the table edge, adding fog banks to the table, etc. The emphasis on fast-moving, multi-wound melee units and chonky monsters is a bit unique for space elves, and the open-topped transports that can eat you are fairly unique in general. My goal is for the army to feel fairly straightforward overall but with an emphasis on using the aforementioned battlefield manipulation to either deliver your units safely or to make the the enemy's deployment zone and objectives feel unwelcoming.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:
You people are seriously underestimating the dinosaurs' biological diversity, you can definitely make an entire army entirely out of pure dino riders.

My approach is to let you take a variety of upgrades for your "dinos" so that you can represent them as a wide variety of fauna types. Dinosaurs are the most common, but you could have a whole army of scorpion or spider riders, artillery mammoths, etc. I like the idea of exodites living in a wide variety of biomes with a wide variety of animal friends/threats.

 Nevelon wrote:
Agree. While they could be made to be a full stand alone faction worth it’s own book, they would be stretching. I’d rather see them as a supplemental force similar to how they do harlis these days, but maybe not even needing that much. Both exodites and harlis have one signature unit that is the core of their identity. Harlequins got a bunch of bikes, characters, and a light transport to flesh that out. Exodites could have the same level of extras added, but I don’t see their range getting much larger then that.

A LoV scale release I think would be the cap of what I could see for them.

Exodites have 2, dino riders and Eldar Knights. That's why I think it would be nice to have them be done like Imperial and Chaos Knights.

Point of order, Wyldhunt - Squats had Hearthguard in their list back in the RT/2nd ed days, as well as in Epic.

You stole it from the Dwarfs, not the other way around.

Hecaton wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Agree. While they could be made to be a full stand alone faction worth it’s own book, they would be stretching. I’d rather see them as a supplemental force similar to how they do harlis these days, but maybe not even needing that much. Both exodites and harlis have one signature unit that is the core of their identity. Harlequins got a bunch of bikes, characters, and a light transport to flesh that out. Exodites could have the same level of extras added, but I don’t see their range getting much larger then that.

A LoV scale release I think would be the cap of what I could see for them.

Exodites have 2, dino riders and Eldar Knights. That's why I think it would be nice to have them be done like Imperial and Chaos Knights.

Go for very light on Eldar bods. Put them in Knight type suits. For the bulk? Combat trained Dinosaurs, perhaps with automated weapons?

Dysartes wrote:Point of order, Wyldhunt - Squats had Hearthguard in their list back in the RT/2nd ed days, as well as in Epic.

You stole it from the Dwarfs, not the other way around.

Elves stealing from dwarves? Absurd!
*Cue ancestral feuding*
(But yeah. Looks like I need a new name for that unit.)

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Agree. While they could be made to be a full stand alone faction worth it’s own book, they would be stretching. I’d rather see them as a supplemental force similar to how they do harlis these days, but maybe not even needing that much. Both exodites and harlis have one signature unit that is the core of their identity. Harlequins got a bunch of bikes, characters, and a light transport to flesh that out. Exodites could have the same level of extras added, but I don’t see their range getting much larger then that.

A LoV scale release I think would be the cap of what I could see for them.

Exodites have 2, dino riders and Eldar Knights. That's why I think it would be nice to have them be done like Imperial and Chaos Knights.

Go for very light on Eldar bods. Put them in Knight type suits. For the bulk? Combat trained Dinosaurs, perhaps with automated weapons?

Hear me out: we train the dinosaurs to pilot the knight suits.

tneva82 wrote:

Andykp wrote:
Another potential issue with exodites is, and dint get me wrong I’d love to see them, is there enough about them to flesh out a full faction, with LoV they have the bare bones but there’s scope for more stuff to come.

With exodites there’s one obvious choice for each force organisation slot but not much more without them coming up with totally new stuff really.

They have obvs done more with less before, custodes again, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.

So GW write new stuff for them?

They do stuff to sell models. If they need to come up with new stuff to do new models they will come up with new stuff. Because getting models to sell is not just most important priority for GW but the only priority for GW.

And who says dino riders is only thing they can have anyway? GW says they have other things then they have. GW decides to give them big giant walkers then they will have those. What decides is what miniature makers will come up with.

And that’s my point, they’ll need a re-write or change to get rid of those issues. Wasn’t saying that it can’t or shouldn’t change, they aren’t an established fleshed out part of the setting, lots of scope. Can be done but is there enough there?? I’m not sure myself, seems to be a lot of variety on “elves in dinosaurs” and not much else but would love to see it. If they want to add extra to them it needs to bring something new to the game, fill a niche. We are getting very saturated as it is, with lots of overlap.

DISCLAIMER (again): I’m not against the idea at all, and have no objection to changes to make it work a bit better.

Andykp wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

Andykp wrote:
Another potential issue with exodites is, and dint get me wrong I’d love to see them, is there enough about them to flesh out a full faction, with LoV they have the bare bones but there’s scope for more stuff to come.

With exodites there’s one obvious choice for each force organisation slot but not much more without them coming up with totally new stuff really.

They have obvs done more with less before, custodes again, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.

Agree. While they could be made to be a full stand alone faction worth it’s own book, they would be stretching. I’d rather see them as a supplemental force similar to how they do harlis these days, but maybe not even needing that much. Both exodites and harlis have one signature unit that is the core of their identity. Harlequins got a bunch of bikes, characters, and a light transport to flesh that out. Exodites could have the same level of extras added, but I don’t see their range getting much larger then that.



A LoV scale release I think would be the cap of what I could see for them.

And with leagues there’s obvious places to go with the range so it’s worth the investment. With excodites it’s, Dino riders, character on a bigger dinosaur and a heavy dinosaur, maybe a flying one. Not much else. An add on force would be great, and if they new folk would only have a small number of them then they could go mad with character on them.

But…. Whenever there is a small element of a faction fans clamour for a whole army of it, grot armies, kroot armies, even through they should only be a part of a faction. Harlequins, custodes and grey knights all were best as a part of an army, not a faction on their own. But what do i know???

You realise that a large portion of space marine armies only appeared in the last 10-15 years? They've almost doubled in size with units that never existed. Admech, Stealer Cults and custodes all doubled, tripled or quadrupled in unit variety when GW decided to release them. Custodes only ever had one unit in RT, so if we go with your perspective, they'd only be one unit now.


There's this weird psychology amongst 40k fans where if a faction doesn't exist as a force yet, 'new' units invented for them isn't 'realistic', but once a faction exists, GW can spew out as much shallow justification possible to smash new units into whatever they want.

As far as I'm concerned, adding wolf riders, baal predators, primaris, abominants, sisters of silence, allarus units to a faction is no different to adding 'exodite squires, exodite assault glooobs, exodite mega sellers, exodite flybois' to an army that hasn't been released yet as part of its development.


Aside from which, GW DID make exodite models, but they were unreleased and for EPIC, apart from the eldar knights which were also from exodite worlds and were released.

http://collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Epic_-_Limited_Release






Automatically Appended Next Post:
As a force, it would be cool if they were ALL mounted, like a riders of Rohan in space army.

The basic troops are on cold one sized dinos, while the elites are on larger multi wound beasts in units of 3-6 like the thunderwolves and squig cavalry.

Please see the disclaimer I have in my post above, people seem to misinterpreting what I’m saying as they can’t or shouldn’t because of x y or z. I am saying they could but need to address those things.

Bigger question, do we NEED more elves??

Given what a half-assed job they did with the Ynnari and how they retracted the Harlis back into the main 'Dex, I'd say yes, we probably need a proper new Eldar race in 40k beyond Craftworlders and Dark Eldar.

https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/rur7os/book_except_the_path_forsaken_tyranids_meets/

Doesn't anyone want to see Dinosaurs vs. Tyranids?


In terms of units, I think a world spirit Avatar would be a great equivalent to the Avatar of Khaine or Greater Demons. In the Path of the Dark Eldar, this Avatar manifested as a red colored psychic dragon (although it only appeared due to the crimes of the Dark Eldar, it was a unique phenomenon), and although he never left his Sanctuary, I think it could be implemented on the table. It also eclipsed the psychic power of the Lord of Change, so these things are incredibly powerful in lore.

Hecaton wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Agree. While they could be made to be a full stand alone faction worth it’s own book, they would be stretching. I’d rather see them as a supplemental force similar to how they do harlis these days, but maybe not even needing that much. Both exodites and harlis have one signature unit that is the core of their identity. Harlequins got a bunch of bikes, characters, and a light transport to flesh that out. Exodites could have the same level of extras added, but I don’t see their range getting much larger then that.

A LoV scale release I think would be the cap of what I could see for them.

Exodites have 2, dino riders and Eldar Knights. That's why I think it would be nice to have them be done like Imperial and Chaos Knights.

They had 2. They have as many as GW model makers comes up with.

Model designer comes up with model, it is tossed to fluff and rule writers and told "do something with this" and then it gets released.

Also for why they are fighting? Enemy raiding exodite worlds. The battles 40k have are sooooooooo small that it doesn't need to have huge galaxy spanning reason. Imperium is looking for new planet. They send tiny scout patrol who finds out planet is exodites. Ork waagh spreads around. Nuff said. Tyranids ditto. Necrons waking up on the planet they been sleeping. Etc etc etc.

3k pts of Exodites vs 3k points of beast snaggas vs. 3k pts of Kroot!

Then DE Beast Masters show up to punk everyone's pets and spirit them away to arenas in Commorragh.

EPIC!

Exodites would be great.
But Squats were also unlikely and then they showed up.

If so I would guess towards the tail end of 10e rather than up front. We are just now getting Squats, and World Eaters are being spun out, as well as a significant facelift for Guard. Usually GW seems to do a couple waves of releases for new factions or significantly revamped factions before introducing another new one, so I would expect theres still more in the pipe for these guys before Exodites or another faction gets time to shine.

darkoms wrote:
There seem to be rumors about it, how reliable are they?

My personal view is:

I really never thought we'd get plastic sisters and squats and I never thought they'd redo Cities of Sigmar either. Dark Mechanicus is coming and it's likely that Dark Guard will come as well. So now, I feel Exodites and possibly even a return of the Old Ones are just as easily possible now. I would really like Old Ones. Another interesting possibility is that in the 8th ed Eldar book, there was a redacted entry referring to "Chaos Worshipping Eldar" along with a new symbol for them present among all the other groups of the Eldar.

Then there's this too:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/codex_exodites

 Togusa wrote:

darkoms wrote:
There seem to be rumors about it, how reliable are they?

My personal view is:

I really never thought we'd get plastic sisters and squats and I never thought they'd redo Cities of Sigmar either. Dark Mechanicus is coming and it's likely that Dark Guard will come as well. So now, I feel Exodites and possibly even a return of the Old Ones are just as easily possible now. I would really like Old Ones. Another interesting possibility is that in the 8th ed Eldar book, there was a redacted entry referring to "Chaos Worshipping Eldar" along with a new symbol for them present among all the other groups of the Eldar.

If I'm not mistaken, chaos eldar have been hinted at as far back as the 2nd edition codex. They're supposed to be extremely rare but "among the most powerful servants of Chaos," or something like that.

I like to imagine that they're somewhere in the ballpark of Yvraine or phoenix lords in terms of power and that each one is probably unique given the presumably highly specific circumstances required for them to come about. Imagine, if you will, an eldar that doesn't have to reign-in their psychic powers because they're protected from Slaanesh by their patron chaos god. The same psychic ability that lets exarchs perform supernatural stunts by embodying a philosophy turned towards manifesting gnarly Nurgly or Khornate mutations/powers. But falling to chaos doesn't make you popular in eldar circles, and being an eldar doesn't make you popular in human circles. So unless they're summoning daemons, they're probably not great at amassing armies of their own. As a result, I picture chaos eldar being among the especially oddball lieutenants of daemon princes and chaos lords or else forced to work with some of the abhuman/xenos chaos worshippers that don't have a strong aversion to eldar.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, chaos eldar have been hinted at as far back as the 2nd edition codex. They're supposed to be extremely rare but "among the most powerful servants of Chaos," or something like that.

I like to imagine that they're somewhere in the ballpark of Yvraine or phoenix lords in terms of power and that each one is probably unique given the presumably highly specific circumstances required for them to come about. Imagine, if you will, an eldar that doesn't have to reign-in their psychic powers because they're protected from Slaanesh by their patron chaos god. The same psychic ability that lets exarchs perform supernatural stunts by embodying a philosophy turned towards manifesting gnarly Nurgly or Khornate mutations/powers. But falling to chaos doesn't make you popular in eldar circles, and being an eldar doesn't make you popular in human circles. So unless they're summoning daemons, they're probably not great at amassing armies of their own. As a result, I picture chaos eldar being among the especially oddball lieutenants of daemon princes and chaos lords or else forced to work with some of the abhuman/xenos chaos worshippers that don't have a strong aversion to eldar.

Those are the Crone World Eldar, probably.

Wait, are there still living crone worlders? I thought that they were all eaten by Slaanesh some time between the flashbacks in the Asurmen novel and the flashbacks in the Jain Zar novel. They go into the webway and basically discuss how they can feel that something (Slaanesh) exists now. And in scenes set on croneworlds, the only eldar I've seen have been ghosts.

Did some of the croneworlders who survived the first part of the Fall (like the arena guys Jain used to serve) just keep going without getting eaten by daemonettes?

Crone World Eldar is the term I've always heard used to describe those Eldar that survived the fall by turning to the worship of chaos - but uh... depictions and descriptions of them aren't very eldar like, they are more like twisted malformed half-daemons than the humanoids we know and love.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Crone World Eldar is the term I've always heard used to describe those Eldar that survived the fall by turning to the worship of chaos - but uh... depictions and descriptions of them aren't very eldar like, they are more like twisted malformed half-daemons than the humanoids we know and love.

Sounds awesome. Where can I find such depictions/descriptions?

I wouldn't even know where to look anymore, its been like 5+ editions since I've seen anything really. The only thing I can think of is (I think) White Dwarf 300 - IIRC there was a converted army from one of the studio guys interpretations of the crone worlders.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and the novel Atlas Infernal makes an oblique mention:

The vendors, like the pickets and minders that hung off the stalls, were all gibbering, misshapen savages, a community of eldar monstrosities warped by the planet’s malign influence. The fat, antique weaponry pieces clutched by the denizens were largely reclaimed shuriken casters – single shot accelerators primed with grape storms of monomolecular frag. Slipping through the wretches and stalls were other visitors to the archeomarket. Klute could see groups of all but naked eldar, jangling with blades and decorated in revealing scraps of spiked, chitinous armour. Off-world mutants, twisted mercenaries and warp-blessed human cultists went about their business, bawling and bartering with the vendors.

This is the main background I recall from the 2nd ed codex

Neat! Thanks for sharing the codex snippet. I really like the snippet about the Crone worlds since while it serves up several possibilities it leaves it up to the readers imagination how the Eldar survive on the crone worlds.