Warhammer 40,000: Eldritch Omens Review

The moment has finally arrived: the forces of Chaos do battle with the soldiers of the Aeldari in what has to be one of the most hotly-anticipated releases from Games Workshop in the last few years. With a host of new figures for the followers of the Dark Gods, as well as a very long-overdue injection of new plastic into the (A)Eldari range, this is a battlebox that fans won’t want to miss.

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Warhammer 40,000: Eldritch Omens Review – Summary

Eldritch Omens breathes life into two of the, now more side-lined, Warhammer 40,000 factions. Whilst its expansive content is a relative cut-and-paste affair when compared to previous battlebox releases, the real value of this box lies in the selection of staggering, top-of-the-range miniatures that come with it.

Eldritch Omen’s collection of miniatures is second to almost none in their quality and breath-taking design.

I just wish there were more of them.

Warhammer 40,000: Eldritch Omens Review – Introduction

I must admit, I’m feeling the pressure with this one and, I think, rightly so.

This is an important release. It may not necessarily have quite the gravitas nor the fanfare of a new edition release, such as Indomitus, Dominion or Octarius, but there’s still a lot at stake here. In fact, for a lot of people this release may be more important than a new edition box as it heralds the relaunch of an entire – and much loved – range of miniatures.

The Aeldari – or Eldar or whatever the heck it is they’re supposed to be called these days (it’ll be Aeldari in this review, just FYI) – have been a much-loved and highly treasured part of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and have gathered a zealously loyal following since they made their debut, all the way back in 1987 when the first “Dark Elf Space Trooper” appeared in White Dwarf issue 87.

You can see him in the middle at the bottom. Described as “a bloke in a chainmail catsuit with a hoover” in this Warhammer Community article.

Here’s a version with paint on.

It’s safe to say that the Aeldari have come quite a long way in their design since their very first iteration – but elements of their design persist even now, 35 years later. That helmet, for example, looks a little bit familiar.

But in recent years, the Aeldari have fallen by the wayside. Not the focus of any major releases, the denizens of the Craftworlds haven’t received much in the way of new models since Fourth Edition back in 2004-2008. Over the last 15 years, the Aeldari have been the recipients of a fairly measly scattering of new figures every now and then, leaving the vast majority of their range back in the early Noughties.

Chaos Space Marines have fared better over the last few years, but not to a significant degree. Whilst they haven’t been in the limelight anywhere near as much as their hated loyalist foes, their range has been bolstered with the addition of the occasional new model – but again, the rate at which these have been received hasn’t come close to certain other factions within the Warhammer 40,000 franchise.

That all seems set to change in 2022, with the new Eldritch Omens box coming in hard as the precursor to a major range re-launch for the Aeldari. Whilst there’s no word on any future Chaos releases just yet, 2022 is shaping up to be a good year for new Warhammer, so I suppose we’ll just have to be patient and see what happens.

Warhammer 40,000: Eldritch Omens Review – Unboxing

Here’s what we’ve got today.

Cracking the box open and peeking beneath the lid, as ever we have our sprues.

There are 7 in all, of very varying size and complexity. The Aeldari sprues, for example, are laden with parts, whilst the Forgefiend looks to be made of barely any parts whatsoever.

There are 2 sprues are for the Forgefiend/Maulerfiend, 1 for the Autarch, 1 for the Warpsmith, 1 for the Chosen, 1 for the Shroud Runners and 1 for the Rangers.

Beneath, we have a divider. Designed to keep your fragile paper goods separate from the pointy bits of sprue in the top half of the box, the primary purpose of this sheet of glossy card is to keep your book from getting scratched up. However, if it survives transit – as mine has – it makes for an excellent poster.

Beneath the divider lies everything else.

So, that’s your bases, the two transfer sheets, as well as the Campaign Book and assembly guide. Which are packaged in their own plastic wallet.

Warhammer 40,000: Eldritch Omens Review – Contents

With the box now open, we can take stock of everything inside it. Here it all is, laid out in my lightbox:

So, all in all, that’s:

• 9 x Aeldari miniatures:
  • 1 x Autarch
  • 3 x Shroud Runners
  • 5 x Rangers
• 7 x Chaos Space Marine miniatures, comprising of:
  • 1 x Warpsmith
  • 5 x Chosen
  • 1 x Forgefiend/Maulerfiend
• 1 x Chaos Space Marines transfer sheet
• 1 x Craftworlds transfer sheet
• 1 x 32=-page Eldritch Omens Campaign Book

And…that’s it.

Is it?

…Really?

That’s 16 figures. One-and-six. Sixteen. Six-teen.

That’s barely anything. For comparison, Age of Sigmar: Fury of the Deep, the last Games Workshop battlebox to be released before Eldritch Omens, had a whopping 43 miniatures in it – and it cost just as much as Eldritch Omens. The battlebox before that, Warhammer 40,000: Shadow Throne, had 25 – and it was £20 cheaper.

The two 40K entries before that, Hexfire and Piety and Pain had 29 and 23 respectively – and again, both were £20 cheaper than Eldritch Omens. Even if we go right back to the first-ever battlebox I ever reviewed, Age of Sigmar’s Shadow and Pain, we find no less than 38 figures, again, at £20 less.

Whilst this little run-down serves in the first instance to highlight the huge disparity between the number of figures included in a 40K box when compared to an AoS box, it also shows that, when compared to either franchise, 16 figures is pretty poor.

Sure, just about everything in Eldritch Omens is lovely and shiny and new, but crashing in at a wince-inducing £125 (the same price as the jam-packed Kill Team: Octarius and only a fiver cheaper than Warcry: Red Harvest, a box so heavy it practically had its own gravimetric pull), a lot of would-be buyers may be put off by the steep price when they see the comparatively few figures that reside inside the box (and you can’t even say “Yeah, but one’s a Forgefiend”, because Piety and Pain had an Immolator in it (which is individually priced just the same as a Forgefiend).

The proof will be in the pudding (and by that I mean pudding-together these miniatures – got ’em), so let’s set aside talk of pricing and value for a moment and get stuck in to what awaits inside the Eldritch Omens box.

Literature

First up, as always, we’ll have a quick look at the paperwork that comes with the Eldritch Omens box. There’s only one book this time around: the Campaign Book.

Eldritch Omens Campaign Book

Every time I review a battlebox, I take a moment to go over the Campaign Book that comes with it. I’m a relatively inexperienced 40K player with only a handful of (relatively disastrous, but nonetheless fun) losses to my name, so I’m always a little hesitant to pass too much of a judgement on these little pamphlets.

They are designed to be the narrative rope that binds the box together – providing reason as to why the two factions are in the box are out for each other’s blood. They then provide a dusting of faction- and campaign-specific rules, as well as a couple of battleplans to encourage you to use the figures in the box in a game.

But they always leave me wondering: does anybody actually look at the campaign book that comes with a battlebox with the same excitement as one views the miniatures inside it? In the first instance, I’d always guess no: these boxes are primarily pitched at people looking to up the number of models in their collections after all.

I do not doubt, however, that there are a small number of people out there who really enjoy exploring the new ways they can play with their units, but this in turn just makes it all the more difficult to judge the overall worth and value of these little booklets. They likely cost GW pocket change to produce, and are probably in part intended as a marketing hook to get people interested in playing Warhammer 40,000 to go out and buy rulebooks and codices for all their factions.

So, what does this mean for the Eldritch Omens Campaign Book?

Subversion is an important tool for a writer: being able to build up someone’s expectations in a certain way just to knock them down is an important part of writing and also makes for an exciting review. But I’m struggling to find anything worth singing about in the 36 pages of this relatively formulaic and uneventful collection of narrative fluff and optional rules.

The story that’s provided is, again, a fairly generic – if chest-pounding, high-octane and explosive – Warhammer 40,000 affair. The Aeldari have happened upon a Black Legion outpost where a particularly sinister Warpsmith is using the current of the ever-raging warp storms to further his own nefarious ends. It’s what you’d expect from a box like this, but still pretty fun.

There’s plenty more background provided in the book, with the setting of the Nachmund War (also the setting for the next Kill Team release) explored fairly thoroughly, as well as a good look at both the Aeldari and the Black Legion’s history and what brought them both to this particular planet at this particular point in the far future.

The first 14 pages of the 36-page book are given over to setting and pictures of painted models. After that, there are 9 pages of special rules, 7 pages of datasheets, and 2 more pages dedicated to images and narrative work.

Sure, the new rules are interesting, but there aren’t all that many of them, and the missions detailed – there are only two of them – are uninspiring at best (set some figures up along the short end of the board and fight over the Autarch in mission 1, then along the long edge of the board and knock lumps out of each other in the name of securing objectives in mission 2).

A bit more thought has gone into the Crusade rules for each faction, which are found on pages 22-23, though these are still sparse when compared to the rules offered for other factions. These should be heavily supplemented with future codex releases, though. Of course, that’ll mean you have to spend more of your hard-earned money for the full picture, though.

Oh, and to confirm, Chaos Space Marines aren’t going up to 2 Wounds. At least, not outside of their next codex release.

Sorry, folks.

I’m not a fan of the Campaign Book, it has to be said. A great deal of effort has been spent on ensuring the setting and narrative aspects of the box are fully established and explored, and whilst it’s somewhat predictable, it is nonetheless quite good fun. The same effort doesn’t seem to have been afforded to the rules themselves, though, and what energy there is attributed to this part of the book has been spread quite thinly.

The two missions that are offered aren’t exactly inspiring, and the rest of the rules are a bit anaemic. Obviously, as I said above, these will be added to with subsequent codex releases, but for the purpose of this battlebox, they feel a bit underwhelming.

That aside, though, the datasheets in the back of the book remain an excellent, clear-to-read and easy-to-understand resource that will benefit a lot of players.

Warhammer 40,000: Eldritch Omens Review – Models

The miniatures that come in the Eldritch Omens battlebox are really matters with this release – far more so than in any previous battlebox. For a long time, the formula for the miniatures in the battlebox has been to include two units of existing figures for each warring faction, and a new hero model for each side.

Eldritch Omens turns this on its head entirely, with only a single “old” figure in the box – the Forgefiend. Everything else is entirely, completely, totally brand-new.

It’s gone down well with fans of the Dark Gods, who’ve watched from the sidelines with their underfed armies of Chaos Space Marines for years as their loyalist foes have received release after release, forced to quietly think “Damn, those new Primaris Space Marines’d look sick with a ton of weird horns and random eyeballs on their armour.”

But this release is for the Aeldari fans, who have seen neither hide nor hair of a new model in literally years, and whose entire collectable range is in desperate need of a facelift (that does seem to be slowly coming). Alongside the new hero, new jet-bikers, and new snipey-boys in Eldritch Omens, there have been other announcements for the Aeldari range, such as new Guardians, Dark Reapers, and Warlocks.

With so many new models on the horizon for Craftworlds collectors, the eyes of the hobbyverse will be fixed on Eldritch Omens to see just how good the new Aeldari models are. You only get to make a first impression once, and Eldritch Omens is to the Aeldari hobby community what a firm handshake is to the start of a job interview. Will it be a strong and firm release, or a limp, wet caress of an offering that leaves everyone in the room feeling very uncomfortable?

Let’s find out.

Aeldari

I won’t keep the fans waiting any longer. Let’s get right into this with an up-close and personal look at the latest – and long overdue – offering to the Aeldari range. Grab your wrathcannon, glue on your pointed rubber ears, and start looking down your nose at the subordinate races of the galaxy – it’s space elf time.

Aeldari Autarch

Oh man.

Talk about strong starts.

The Aeldari Autarch is, in a word, beautiful. The quality of the figure, the detail on the sculpt, everything about this model is just phenomenal.

The design of this figure is utterly faultless. It It takes the very essence of what the Aeldari have grown into as a faction over the three decades since their inception and distils it into a single, magnificent figure. Smooth and elegant, and yet simultaneously dynamic and striking, if this miniature sets the standard for all future Aeldari releases this year, then 2022 will be an excellent year for fans of the Craftworlds.

This level of detail and beauty continues across the entire sprue, which comes with multiple head options, two torsos, and a selection of accessories and wargear to ensure you can truly make the miniature your own.

He’s also a very easy model to put together with clear, obvious contact points and distinct components that require little to no clean up whatsoever. A triumph.

Aeldari Shroud Runners

The Autarch is a nigh-impossible act to follow. And yet, somehow, the Shroud Runners do it.

The movement sculpted into these models is incredible. It’s easy enough to pose a figure to make it look like it’s running or jumping, but to actually capture the feeling of momentum into a model is another thing entirely.

But the Shroud Runners are just inertia personified. It is as if they are frozen in a moment, flying across a battlefield, wind in their robes and beneath their hoods as they rush forward. Every fabric ripple, every strand of hair, is posed with dutiful care and utmost precision to ensure that sense of direction, of speed, is tantamount.

They can be a little difficult to assemble at points. The jet bikes have a lot of sticky-out fins and footrests that do seem to love slipping out of their slots when you turn your back on them for a moment, and these parts won’t survive being dropped even from a small height (as I found out to my detriment). Still, these are spectacular models, a true marvel of sculpting, and will make millions of miniature painters across the world desperate to get some paint onto them.

Aeldari Rangers

Compared to the Autarch and the Shroud Runners, the Aeldari Rangers – the final Aeldari unit in the Eldritch Omens box – is a bit of a comedown. And that’s a real shame, because these are still some really nice miniatures.

The detail on these figures is, again, fantastic. From the rune-like details on their weapon holsters to the billow of their cloaks, some serious thought has gone into just who these models are supposed to be and what it is they’re doing.

Their poses, however, are fairly standard. There’s a stillness to them one may expect of a group of camouflaged snipers or scouts – and that’s fine. The Rangers bring a different energy to the Aeldari part of the box compared to their allies: a coolness, a quiet stoicism, that of a berath held before the pull of a trigger – but this energy doesn’t quite match that of the other Aeldari in the box.

The problems is with the company they keep. They lack the grandiose and authority of the Autarch and that breath-taking fluidity of the Shroud Runners. The Rangers are some delightful models, but they lack the jaw-dropping wow factor of the other Aeldari figures in Eldritch Omens.

But these are not bad models, oh no. These are still spectacular, detailed, and beautiful figures – they simply lack some of the pow of the Autarch and Shroud Runners.

What they really have going for them is how simple they are to put together. Each model is made from only a few components, and the design of these figures is so good that all optional swaps – be it guns for knives, pistols for rifles, or other high-tech gubbins – all fit together seamlessly.

Chaos Space Marines

The sworn of the Chaos Gods have an extremely tough act to follow with their part of the box. There’s no denying that the new Aeldari models are phenomenal, so how do the Chaos figures compare?

Warpsmith

The Warpsmith is one of the slightly more complicated builds in the Eldritch Omens box, and it’s down to only one thing: his tentacles.

A lot of the tentacles will need to be glued on individually, and they are very small. One tentacle, in particular, has a (teeny-tiny) individual claw-spike that needs to be glued on before it can be attached to the rest of the figure. It’s very fiddly but damn. This figure.

What a spectacular little model. Dripping with ire and malice and with a choice of two heads (one with a helmet or one without), shoudlerpads, and either a hammer or an axe. So there are a couple of ways to really make this figure your own.

He hasn’t got quite as many customisation options as some of the other figures in the set, but this is easily forgivable given just how freakin’ cool this guy is. His pose is clearly designed to draw parallels with a Space Marine Techmarine – he’s a grim copy, a hellish replication, the doom that awaits the Imperium’s finest within the fell winds of the warp. I love this figure, and can’t wait to get him painted up.

Chosen

Bigger, badder, and more pointy than your average Chaos Space Marines, the Chosen take their average bolter-wielding kinsmen and turn them up to eleven – and then pull the dial off, smash the amplifier in, and cover everything in blood and occult symbols.

Again, these are cool. Seriously cool. The models I’ve made are five of an almost infinite number of combinations you can get. There are dozens of potential weapons combinations, from plasma pistols and bolters, to power swords, chainaxes and hammers, and even a pair of power claws. And that’s not all, as there are loads of different heads available and you can stick just about any shoulderpad on any shoulder.

The level of customisation on this sprue is really quite something, and given the quality of the components available, it’s basically impossible to go wrong. These are, once again, some absolutely fantastic figures.

Forgefiend

Finally, we arrive at the only figure in the box that isn’t completely new: the Forgefiend (or the Maulerfiend, if you chose to build one of those).

I really struggled to pick which figure to build: the imposing and indomitable Forgefiend, clad in plates of armour and piled high with guns and other armaments, or the terrifying, gnashing Maulerfiend with its lasher tendrils and giant fists. I eventually settled on the Forgefiend, though I can’t say why. And now I kinda want a Maulerfiend too. Hmm.

It’s an easy model to build – although perhaps not the most exciting thing to assemble. All the parts are chunky and, in spite of its size, there are relatively few of them. However, once it’s together, it’s another spectacular thing, a looming behemoth towering over the rest of the Chaos figures in the box.

In all, it’s a fantastic finish to what has been a truly incredible box of miniatures. There isn’t a single figure in this box that isn’t totally fantastic.

Warhammer 40,000: Eldritch Omens Review – Price and Availability

FauxHammer himself did an excellent, in-depth price breakdown for the new Eldritch Omens box where he went into a great deal of depth analysing just how much all the new units in the box may cost and comparing this release to prior boxes. You can read it in its entirety here.

For this review, however, I’m just gonna totally steal his hard work – namely those excellent tables he does so well (and, well, because all FauxHammer.com readers love a good table).

As he stated in the original article, please bear in mind that much of the pricing below is based on our inferences from previous/existing releases and drawing comparisons between current units available for both armies.

Anyway, first up: the Aeldari.

Next, the Chaos Space Marines.

Finally, if we put all those values together, we get a total price breakdown that allows us to think about the box’s overall value.

This is a difficult one to judge, as a great deal of the box’s value is based solely on prediction. Especially since Games Workshop recently announced that they will be raising the prices of certain things. Still, it’s clear there are savings to be had here, but only time will tell just how good said savings are.

Warhammer 40,000: Eldritch Omens Review – Where to Next?

If you’ve been bitten by the Aeldari bug or feel the dark pull of the Chaos Gods following this release, you’ve got a couple of options available as to where to go next with your new collections.

Both factions have Start Collecting! boxes available to them, though the Aeldari one has been listed as temporarily out of stock online for some time now. Whilst I suspect you won’t be able to grab this particular box from GW directly any time soon (if ever, given the current plans for an Aeldari re-launch), if you’re particularly keen to get your hands on this box, be sure to have a look at some of your local independent gaming stores as they may have a copy somewhere.

Beyond that, both factions have been knocking around a while, so there are plenty of figures available for both Chaos Space Marines and the Aeldari – though you may want to wait a few months and see what else is announced and released, as we certainly haven’t heard the last of the denizens of the Craftworlds at the very least. We’re also likely to see a Combat Patrol for both factions at some point in the future, especially given the hype surrounding this release.

Warhammer 40,000: Eldritch Omens Review – Final Thoughts

There we have it.

All the hype, all the teasers, all the years of waiting are finally over. New Aeldari models , and a bunch new Chaos stuff to boot. What a day!

Though it has at times been a bit of a bumpy ride. Eldritch Omen’s biggest stumbling block is that it just feels a little bit empty. Between an uninspiring campaign book and only 16 miniatures, there’s not a lot of actual physical stuff waiting for buyers within this box.

But what figures there are inside this box, are truly unforgettable.

This is a box for the modelers and the painters, there are no two ways about it. Every figure in this box – and I mean every figure – goes to evidence the argument that Games Workshop make the best models in the world. Eldritch Omens is an exercise in mini-making pedigree, and GW proves that they are indeed the masters of miniatures.

The Aeldari come blasting into the 2020s with Eldritch Omens, and they’ve never looked so good. They’ve gone from being a nigh-forgotten, unloved and underappreciated range to sporting some of the best-looking miniatures currently on the market. And it’s not just them: the beauty in the both the Aeldari and the new Chaos models leaves droves of similar products looking dated and second-rate.

Sure, there may only be 16 of them, and yeah, as yet it’s very difficult to ascertain just how much money may be saved by buying this box, but every single figure in this box is an unmitigated triumph.

And I really do mean every single figure.

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