The on-line community is very confused over what we are going to see in the next Eldar release. I can’t sit back and stay silent any longer. The ChapterMaster needs to speak!
So far there have been rumours of
- Avatar
- Farseer (Model spotted)
- Warlock
- Jet Bikes
- Falcon/Cobra
- Flyer
- A large walker
- Plastic Wraith Guard
- A new aspect
- Storm guardians
- Two new exarchs
As any Chapter Master who is worth his salt know’s his enemy and his allies. I’m going to try some prediction though patten here. If we look at the last few releases we should be able to get a feel for what GW has budget to develop and then apply that to the list above.
Tau had 2 large plastic kits with daul builds/option and two smaller plastic releases as well as re-boxed team. They also got 2 large and 3 small finecast releases.
Dark Angels had 2 plastic vehicles, two plastic squads and 2 finecast models + the contents of Dark Vengence
Chaos has 2 plastic vehicle kits, a plastic sqaud, a plastic model, a fincast squad and a 3 finecast models, plus dark vangence and a bunch of fincast conversion kits.
So it’ appears there is space for at least 8 new releases for the Eldar. With at least 2 new vehicle kits.
It’s therefore reasonable to believe there will be the
- new plastic flyer
- the new plastic falcon/cobra (we may see the new walker in the Apocalypse release)
- The plastic Farseer (already spotted)
- Either the new jetbike (similar to the one below) or the Plastic Waithgaurd
- The guardians re-boxed with the arms for storm guardians included
- A new warlock (Finecast) Character?
- Two new Exarches (Finecast) Characters?
- Leaving space for one more Finecast model. Could this be the Avatar. The current model is shocking so I hope so. I preferred the look of the MK1 avatar although it was too small. This really would be a big move for GW given the Forgeworld Avatar is their most popular Eldar line
So there you go. You know everything that’s coming up. If only it was that simple! I’m sure GW have some lovely surprises in store for us and can’t wait to see what they pull out of the bag. I hope you have enjoyed reading this article, which hasn’t really changed nothing, achieved nothing and just stolen valuable painting time from both of us. Which is why I hate rumours.
Chapter Master Jackson Over!
The Original Avatar
Plastic Farseer
Avatar Design Concept
New Plastic Jectbike
Another source in GW has confirmed there is no plastic Thunderhawk planned as the margins on it are too small. I’m actually a little surprised at this statement. I didn’t think there would be any margin on it. GW has a very good handle on what we buy and how much we will spend. They also know exactly how much it costs to produce a new plastic kit. While the material costs of plastic are very low, the cost of designing and making a mould big enough to make a Thunderhawk are not. For the same cost they can make a number of other plastic kits. It also takes GW a long time to recoup to costs of plastic kits. They have to know they will sell lots. This is one of the reasons why they sell so many duel purpose kits like the ork flyers and make no special characters in plastic. The Thunderhawk is of coarse something many people would like to own. The biggest obstacle to GW selling them is not cost. I’m sure I’m not the only person who owns more than one Storm Eagle. The biggest problem with a Thunderhawk is the amount of space it takes up. Both on and off the game broad. The Storm Eagle doesn’t fit in a standard G.W. case. It’s hard to imagine many people buy 2 or 3 of these.