Age of Sigmar: The Aelfs’ Future?
There are a lot of hints to put together from GW regarding the upcoming Age of Sigmar Aelfs. Take a look.
First, let’s take a quick step back to World That Was and recall the 3 factions of Elves from there:
High Elves
Dark Elves
Wood Elves
Now of course, that world is lost, but the Age of Sigmar provides a new range of factions for the new Aelfs to fill. The Grand Alliance Order books gives us the following:
Eldritch Council – Aelf Sorcerors on Dragons.
Phoenix Temple – Disciples of the Ur-Phoenix.
Lion Rangers – Skilled warriors covered with pelts.
Order Draconis – Dragon cavalry and aerial heroes.
Swifthawk Agents – Scouts and rangers of the land and skies.
Scourge Privateers – Pirates and seaborne raiders.
Daughters of Khaine – Disciples of Khaine.
Darkling Covens – Warrior Elite of of shadowy aelves.
Shadow Blades – Assassins and cutthroats.
Order Serpentis – Black Dragon Cavalry & aerial heroes.
Wanderers – Warriors of the Wilderness.
The Changing Way
Already we have seen some of these change. The old Wood Elves range went from the “Wanderers” to being reborn as Sylvaneth with minis like these:
The Dwarves of the Old World have been reimagined in a drastic way as seen below:
Old
New!
Which takes us back to the Aelfs.
We’ve only seen a handful of “Age of Sigmar Aelfs” from the boxed games and GW hints:
MISTWEAVER SAITH Disturbingly serene, veiled behind illusion, she is the eye at the heart of a storm of violent bloodshed. Beware her enchantments.
TENEBRAEL SHARD Mysterious and mercurial, the Shard is a powerful killer of superlative skill. To stand in his path means certain death.
Then today’s GW hint – so cute! There are a lot of similarities with the model for Shard up there – the white skin, and the general elf focus on wormlike dragons. GW is doing great work on reimagining each of the Old World’s “generic Tolkien” fantasy factions into something new and unique to the Age of Sigmar. So the big question, is to try to put this all together:
What will the design blueprint for the new Aelves look like?
- I think based on the two heroes, they will be twisting and very high energy models emphasizing the speed and agility of the race.
- The Shadowkin will proably be focussed on melee and action/melee more than the “not High Aelves” who will be better at magic.
- Dragons are clearly still a theme.
- There has been talk of some “Cthuhlu / Elder Gods” type of motif mixed in. You can argue that the Old Loquir Fellheart embodies some such elements:
- Finally there has been chatter of more flying skiffs/eagles designs in the range.
I have a feeling we won’t have long to wait.
~How would you reimagine the Aelf race for Age of Sigmar to make them their own unique faction?
