Back to the Maiden Worlds

I always loved the Exodites. Space elves on dinosaurs? Who doesn’t think that’s cool?

Games Workshop, apparently. After falling out of the hobby in the early 2000s, I came back in 2022 and was astonished to find there were still no Exodite models.

Honestly, it’s just baffling to me. So I decided to make my own.

Thankfully, the hobby progressed massively in the 20 years I was away. It’s all plastic now! Lovely, easy-to-work-with plastic. With amazingly detailed kits. I was in heaven. So I got to work scouring the range and putting ideas together. I had a few clear criteria:

No Cold Ones. They’ve been done so many times, and the old kit just doesn’t have the sense of movement that the modern AoS kits do.
Bring back the punky aesthetic from the John Blanche sketch in the 2nd edition Eldar codex. (Thank you, new Corsair kit!)
Don’t make them look like Craftworlders on dinosaurs.

The choice of steeds was a difficult one. I’ve mentioned that Cold Ones just don’t do it for me. I was sorely tempted by the Huraken Windchargers, but they just seemed too clean for me. They just weren’t wild enough.

So I began with Seekers from the AoS range. They’re definitely a bit too chaotic, and I hope to tone them done (any advice on that front would be greatly appreciated). But they’re definitely a better fit for the wild aesthetic I want!

In this group shot of my first go, you can see a hint of what’s to come: see those feathers on the arm of that figure in the middle? I have to credit @thevoidwinds with inspiring me here; I loved their work on an Exodite Avatar as a kind of crow demi-god. It very much inspired me to take a shamanistic approach to my Exodites. After all, Exodites aim to live in harmony with their Maiden Worlds. Why wouldn’t they revere the creatures that reside upon them?

The kitbashes are pretty straightforward, to be honest.