Craftworld Alaitoc - Assembling a Warhost Pt1

In September of 1988, I'd just turned 13, and was in the 3rd year of my time at High School.

By this time, I was in the wargaming hobby, but had yet to buy myself an army, but with the release of that month's White Dwarf, that was to change, and a life long obsession with one particular race began...

White Dwarf 105 for me, is in many ways as important than the now classic White Dwarf 127 (more of that later).

From the moment I saw the cover, with the beautiful Dave Gallagher artwork, I knew I was hooked.

A hoed figure leaping over a stern faced clown with a skeletal-clad warrior hiding the foreground? All the colours, contrasting with the death-like figure, weapons blazing at an unseen enemy... this was an army I wanted to find out as much as I could!

The article on the Harlequins began to tease at the fate of the Eldar, the fight between the Laughing God and Slaanesh, the god created by the excesses of the Eldar Race in ancient times, how the Harlequins told the tales of the doomed race through a dance, which whilst beautiful was both tragic and deadly...

It also told of the Craftworlds which the Harlequins visited, the immense space ships upon which the remaining Eldar lived their lives, floating across the galaxy, desperately trying to avoid the fate which befell their ancestors.

The Army its itself was a thing of great fun  - as was the case with most armies at the time, it made for brilliant skirmish level forces, with each Troupe member having a role to play (plus extras which haven't made it into the modern day such as the Great Avatar, the Warlock and High Warlock), and was fun to use.

However, a spark was lit in me- I wanted to know more about the Craftworlds - who were these Eldar?

White Dwarf 127 gave us the answers.

Much has been written about this seminal issue, by writers greater than I - and I strongly recommend you visit Gav Thorpe's Blog for an interview with Jes Goodwin to read more on how the Eldar came to life from the main designer himself.

Needless to say, from both the artwork, the models, and the accompanying stories I was hooked - a doomed race, living life by a strict code in order to avoid repeating its past, the colourful Aspect Warriors who fought alongside the rank and file of the Guardians, the Farseers and Warlocks, and the Godlike Avatar... here was my army.

The question was, which Craftworld would I choose?

Shortly after the release of the Aspect Warriors and the army list, Games Workshop released a new set of Eldar Guardians - a hybrid metal / plastic kit, this made adding Guardians to your army quite simple.

Both the box and the accompanying White Dwarf article used a scheme which I was familiar with and liked - blue bodies, yellow helmets, which was to become the colour scheme of the Craftworld Alaitoc.

I chose this colour scheme to be my own, and now, over 20 years later, I still use this scheme - here's some of the units that I currently have in my army:

Classic Eldar Guardians, used in my current army as Storm Guardians - the arms and weapons are plastic, the bodies metal - a real pain to build, but so full of character!

A Farseer and Warlock Conclave.  The Farseer and several of the Warlocks date back to 1990 when I bought them, stripped and repainted recently.

Wraithguard - a relatively new plastic kit, one that's full of character and a joy to build and paint!

War Walkers - I've also got a squad of three of the original metal Walkers to add to the army shortly!

Vyper Attack Bikes - fast and deadly!

Wave Serpent Transport 

And a variant of the Wave Serpent - this was the original Forgeworld Kit before Citadel released the all plastic Kit - I prefer this one I have to say, and wish I had more of them!

Forgeworld Hornet light attack skimmer - very much like the Vyper, the Hornet is fast and packs a punch!

I'll be showcasing more of the units, and the stories behind them in coming posts - in the meantime, please let me know what you think of them, and your favourite Craftworld!

Rolling the Dice...

Warhammer: Age of Sigmar.
Warhammer 40,000.
Necromunda.
Blood Bowl.
Dungeons & Dragons.
Ludo.
Monopoly.
Craps.


The one thing that ties all of these games together is the use of dice - polyhedral lumps, either numbered or 'pipped' to denote a randomly generated number, between a range decided on by the number of faces the die has.

I've collected hundreds over the years, from tiny 4 sided dice to large, almost spherical 30 sided dice, all for use in my various games.

Just some of the Polyhedral sets I own - primarily produced by Chessex.

Apart from the polyhedral sets I seem to buy on a monthly basis, my main source of dice is Games Workshop.  Handily, what GW tend to do is bring out a set of faction - specific dice each time a faction is refreshed, or an edition of the game is released.  

GW Released dice - some of the nicest themed dice around!

There are a few things I look for in dice sets that I'm going to use in regular play:

• Are they of a good quality?
• Are the sides readable at a distance of 2 feet?
• Is the pack they come in durable?
• Do they roll 'true'?

You'll notice that I put rolling 'true' at the end of the list - this is because the majority of dice do roll true (i.e they're not badly weighted), or at least true enough as to not be a problem in casual gaming (we're not on about casinos here after all)- there are plenty of blogs out there cleverer than me who have opined at length about the rules of probability and the effect weighting dice has on that... so I won't get all Math Professor over that side!

So, here's a few sets from the last few years of GW, alongside their relative pros and cons (as I see them):

Harlequin Dice, 2014:

Presented in a tin, with a poly insert, these 10nr,  16mm 6 sided dice are translucent, with pips for 2-6 and a Harlequin icon in place of the Nr1.  The dice have a sheen about them in the plastic which gives a colour changing holographic effect to the interior, as if the dice are shimmering (which is in keeping with the Harlequin hold-field technology).

PROS: The tin is hardwearing and nicely presented, the shimmer effect is beautiful

CONS: There's only 10 of them - it would have been great to have a full tin, rather than half a tin full.  it would have been nicer to have the icon on the 6th face, rather than the 1st to denote a great success rather than failure, the poly insert feels a little cheap

Eldar Aspect Dice, 2017

Presented in a plastic pot with a removable lid, these 20nr 10mm 6 sided dice are bright bright green in colour, with numbers on each of the 6 faces, alongside the icon for the Eldar Striking Scorpion Aspect Shrine.  A set of dice was released for each of the Aspects, including Dire Avengers (deep blue), Dark Reapers (black), Swooping Hawks (grey blue), Fire Dragons (orange) and Howling Banshees (bone).  The pot is great for carrying the dice around, if not a little snug (the rounded sides of the pot doesn't allow for a uniform 'cube' to be fitted in the pot). 

PROS: There's 20 dice in a set - which is enough to cover their use as shooting and wounding dice for Eldar, they're colourful

CONS: Because there's an icon on each face, the number is smaller than it could be, making them a little difficult to make out at a distance

Daughters Of Khaine Dice, 2018

And so on to our last offering in this brief run down - the recently release Daughters of Khaine dice set.

The dice are presented in a hinged cardboard case, decorated with the artwork from the Daughters of Khaine Battletome, with a plastic lidded insert.

The dice, 20nr 16mm dice are split into two colours, a deep, marbled midnight blue and a pale white marble.  The dice have stylised pips (in pale blue and red), with icons on both the 1st and 6th sides.  

PROS: The dice are some of the nicest I've seen in terms of colour.

CONS: Hmm... the use of icons on both the 1st and 6th sides is a little confusing, and I think in terms of actual game use will take some getting used to in terms of which is which. The packaging is also the poorest of the lot, feeling throwaway, rather than to be used as storage of the dice. The card is quite thin, and the plastic insert flimsy. I can see me decanting these to a dice bag long term, which is a shame.

I can only assume that this change in style, between the use of the pots (which came in two sizes dependent on whether they contained 10mm or 16mm dice) to the cardboard slips is down to a refresh of design, or the use of a different manufacturer, to ensure that more dice sets can be made available (the older dice sets were notorious for being scarce, with some fetching 3 and 4 times their RRP on Ebay).  If this is the case, then it's a good trade off.

Of course, the new Daughters of Khaine dice didn't come alone.... 

But more of these in a future post!