Warhammer 40K RETRO: The Tiniest Eldar of Them All

October 6, 2021

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Today we look back over twenty years at the meanest – tiniest EPIC Craftworld Eldar to kick ass on the Horus Heresy tabletop.

EPIC scale’s 6mm range had it’s origins way way back in 1988’s Adeptus Titanicus – which was focussed solely on titan combat in the Horus Heresy. In fact it was Adeptus Titanicus that was the breeding ground for much of the original Horus Heresy lore. It started as titans only, just as the 2018 edition has started, but it didn’t stay that way. Before long the tiny 6mm range had expanded throughout the 1990s to include all of the Grimdark’s major factions – from thier mighty Titans to basic infantry.

EPIC always makes us wax nostalgic, so today we are going back to 1996 to see what the Eldar looked like back in the day – the first xenos faction to show up, and a major player in the Horus Heresy from it’s very inception.

This is the original Eldar Phantom Titan, and its feared stablemate, the Warlock Titan. The Phantoms arrived way bay in the late 1980s in Adeptus Titanicus, and Eldar range grew around them as EPIC evolved into two editions of SPACE MARINE, and a later total ill-fated EPIC 40,000 reboot.

Here is a full Eldar army from a battle report for SPACE MARINE. You can see all the mature Craftworld elements from the titans, to the Aspect Warriors, to the Avatar of Khaine, and a variety of Eldar tanks that would get radically redesigned years later when they arrived in 40K. What is interesting is that during the very early 1990s, EPIC was the real beating heart of army design for many of the Grimdark’s factions – including Squats. These armies would have a fully fleshed-out combined-arms approach in EPIC that GW would cherry-pick from to add units to 40K decades later.

This is the core pair of sprues for the Eldar army and is absolutely fantastic. The upper Tempest heavy tank was a Baneblade equivalent that would years later evolve into the Scorpion superheavy. The upper Eldar Legion sprue gave came first and was the infantry core of your Eldar Warhost – providing Guardians and Falcons to carry them. Yes, THAT is what the Falcon originally looked like! The lower Eldar War Host sprue arrived several years later and gives you everything you need to make every type of EPIC infantry stand for your Craftworlders. All the aspects are in there, along with jetbikes, Vypers, Rangers, and a variety of support teams. The detail is quite impressive for two decades back and at 6mm scale.

Teensy Eldar tanks, now reborn in 40k! In EPIC these funky designs laid down the core of the Eldar’ high speed hover armory. You get the incredibly oddball design of the Wave Serpent which yes did have its energy field that it could fire off. Then you got the Doom Weaver (now Night Spinner), Deathstalker (now Fire Prism), and the Warp Hunter (it took a while but Forge World got around to it)

Modern Warp Hunter, you can kind of see the family resemblance.

Here we see all the Eldar Knights that EPIC produced. By lore, these were the domain of the hardy Exodites, but were called to fight alongside their Craftworlder cousins in time of need. GW has not even scratched the surface with these, and has a deep back-catalog for future Eldar Knight expansion in 40K.

Finally, we have the oddball EPIC Stompers sprue which combined the “big guys” of all the EPIC factions. This is where you and your friends all chipped in to buy several sets and parted out the units you needed. Here you see the Eldar Dreadnought (now Wraithlord), and the original Ork Stompa, who does like kind of cute! Also note the “Chaos Android” to the left and right of the Stompa from SpaceQuest tiptoeing into EPIC. This is the sprue that created the Contemptor Dreadnought (middle row, right) which would return to 40K two decades later.