Never mind my beloved Space Marines and their massive shoulders – Warhammer 40k Aspect Warriors are painfully cool in ways that the Imperium’s stompy men can only dream of, and their gorgeous new 2025 model range is a landmark moment for Warhammer 40,000 fans. These specialized, brightly colored Aeldari elite fighters have been around since 40k’s earliest days – but, with gloriously revamped Warp Spiders, Fire Dragons, and Swooping Hawks around the corner, it’s worth reviewing why these space elves are so damn interesting.
I’ll lay my cards on the table up top: Craftworld Eldar aren’t one of the Warhammer 40k factions I collect and play regularly – I only have a handful of models. The utterly horrendous Black Templars Space Marines are my main army, followed by the depressingly expendable Astra Militarum and the decidedly disgusting Death Guard. So perhaps there’s an entirely self-inflicted element of ‘the grass is always greener’ here.
But there’s no denying that the Aeldari Aspect Warriors are among the most distinctive, memorable, and beloved toy soldiers in all of Games Workshop’s grimdark far future. From the comparatively vanilla riflemen of the Dire Avengers and terrifying Howling Banshees, to the completely buck-wild, teleport-hopping Warp Spiders and the lesser known Eagle Pilots (Aspect Warriors that are also kinda airplanes) the warriors of the Aeldari Aspect Shrines have a certain something that has kept them in 40k Xenos fans’ hearts all these years.
In fact, I think it’s a few different ‘somethings’ – here are a few that really resonate with me as I read the Aeldari’s brand new Warhammer 40k codex.
They have color and style
Let’s address the most obvious thing first: Aspect Warriors look fantastic. Since their very first iterations, their theme has been ‘rainbow’ – a deliberate and refreshing far cry from the more common, grimy metal aesthetics in many armies. Just as the different Aspect Shrines represent distinct, specialized strains of the Aeldari Path of the Warrior, their color schemes reflect their diversity. No surprise that the Striking Scorpions and their Phoenix Lord, Karandras, both give their names to GW Contrast Paints (vivid, venomous greens, naturally).
It’s not just that they’re colorful, either; Aspect Warriors’ sculpts have always used strange and eye catching shapes, lines, and (more recently, at least) poses to underline visually how surreally alien these people are. Even when their designs are silly (and, make no mistake, the Dark Reapers’ Halloween skull masks and Karandras’ massive scorpion tail helmet are silly) it all plays into their in-universe mystique.
It’s easy to laugh at the decorative fangs and extra eyes on a Warp Spider’s helmet, until they’re materializing behind you and spreading your guts over a 10-foot radius with a blast of monofilament wires. It all puts me in mind of soldiers in real-world history whose wargear evoked mythical monsters to instil fear in their enemies. It’s all very well to scoff at a helmet that’s been expensively modified to look like a wolf’s jaws when it’s safely behind museum glass – but on the battlefield you can bet it’d make you shit yourself.
They have flavor
I’ve written before about how the obsessive future-fascist fervor of the Space Marine chapters can be a darkly intoxicating escapist fantasy – but, to paraphrase Queen’s 1978 banger ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’: their backstory of extreme xenophobia and fatalistic bloodlust goes kinda smooth after a while.
The origins and motivations of the Aspect Warriors make a refreshing change from endless variations of ‘For the Emperor!’, not because they’re goodies per se (famously, there are no good guys in Warhammer 40k) but because their particular reasons for bloody murder have a little more subtlety and intrigue mixed in.
In short, over 11,000 years before the current 40k narrative, the then galaxy-dominating Aeldari empire suffered its infamous ‘Fall’. The Eldar’s Roman-style decline into hedonism and depravity, combined with their inherent link to the Warp as a race of psykers, triggered the birth of the Chaos god Slaanesh, destroyed the heart of their empire with a newly opened hole in reality (the Eye of Terror) and forced the displaced remnants of the Aeldari to flee in massive spaceship-cities called Craftworlds.
Ever since, every Aeldari has been psychically tied to Slaanesh – known to them as She Who Thirsts – with the god’s never ending desire to corrupt them and eat their soul living rent free in their heads. To keep Slaanesh at bay, the Craftworlders live by the Asuryani Path – a strict set of rules that shapes their entire lives, focusing their minds on one goal to keep them from straying into selfish excess and being consumed.
And that’s why the strange and deadly ascetics of the Aspect Warriors pursue such weird and specific ways of war: theirs is the Path of the Warrior, split into focused strands that represent different ‘aspects’ of the Aeldari war god, Kaela Mensha Khaine. An Aspect Warrior’s armor and weapons aren’t just issued equipment, they are their life and their personality. They don’t fight for hatred of the enemy; they fight because the alternative is to be damned for eternity by an ancient racial curse. And that’s really cool.
Their leaders are awesome
Each Aspect Shrine (with some exceptions; don’t come at me, lore hounds) has its own named character to lead it: the famed Phoenix Lords of legend. Most are many thousands of years old; many are semi-mythical, only popping up at particularly epic moments; and all are, in their own special ways, cast iron badasses.
Jain Zar, Phoenix Lord of the Howling Banshees, is a whirlwind of blades who never stops moving. Maugan Ra of the Dark Reapers is, quite literally, the Grim Reaper. And Lykhis, The Whispering Web, the brand new Phoenix Lord of the Warp Spiders, has reminded a whole new swathe of 40k fans that amazing 40k characters come in flavors other than ‘Another Space Marine general, but bigger’.
Even their Exarchs – learned, battle hardened Aspect squad leaders that are to a Space Marine sergeant as Bruce Lee is to Andrew Tate – are packed with character, far more than the average unit boss model.
They’re precision tools
Unlike the Space Marines, Aspect Warriors aren’t mass produced, all-purpose killing machines whose only differentiating factors are which mark of armor they wear and what sort of gun they’ve got. Each Aspect Shrine trains its adherents in a wholly different philosophy of combat which comes to define their very being.
And that comes across on the tabletop, especially in 2025’s new 10th Edition Aeldari codex. Howling Banshees are ultimate ‘glass daggers’ with minimal armor but the ability to slice even the toughest enemies into dog chow; now their swords’ Damage 2 stat and Anti-Infantry 3+ 40k ability make it a reality.
Striking Scorpions are stealthy ambushers who mulch entire companies of troops with surprise melee onslaughts; now, scoring critical hits on 5+ on the charge to double your money on Sustained Hits, that’s exactly what they do in-game. The jetbike-mounted Shining Spears are supposed to intercept enemy tanks at top speed and take them out with close-range blasts from their laser lances; now, with Damage 3 and Anti-Vehicle 3+, they’ll do that job admirably.
Obviously, units having highly specialized battlefield roles is neither new nor unique to Aspect Warriors – every army, including the Space Marines, has its toolbox, and functions better when you’re not using a miniature screwdriver to hammer in a nail. What’s lovely about the Aeldari Aspect Warriors is that these hyper-specialized roles are underpinned perfectly by their lore – and that, like the warriors’ lifelong struggle with Slaanesh, deploying these guys is an all or nothing affair. Use them right, and they’ll wreck face; miscalculate, and their willowy elven bodies will be crushed.
Really, Aspect Warriors are simply effortlessly cool on every level, in a way no Astartes warrior, however scarred, gruff, or decorated, can ever be. And Imperium fanboys like me will just have to suck it up.
If you’ve got this far and haven’t gone off to pre-order the new Aeldari, either you’ve an exceptionally strong mind or you’re incurably human-centric like me – if so, maybe read our complete guide to the Imperium of Man, or my recent piece on the distinctly thicc Tyberos the Red Wake.
Alternatively, we can always recommend the best Warhammer 40k games to play on PC and console, or our picks of the best Warhammer 40k books to start with.
Source: Wargamer
