Warhammer 40K: Meet the Original 1988 Pirate Armylist – Crangor’s Buccaneers
Pirates have been in 40k for a long time and they weren’t afraid to mix things up with the first multi-faction alliances!
It’s time to go back to the early days of the game. The original pirate army list arrived in the Chapter Approved: First Book of the Astronomican from 1988.
This insane book had lists from the original Eldar Corsairs, to the Imperial Army, to White Scars, Rogue Traders and all kinds of funkiness. It also had the Catachan Barking Toad, but we’ll cover all that another time.
The initial pirate list laid down the foundation for an allied army containing, human, Eldar and…Squat (Leagues of Votann) elements all working together. For profit of course. Let’s dive in.
The List
Are these guys really pirates? The Imperium describes them in the introduction as “semi-military hooligans”, who are in space. Sounds pretty much like space pirates to me. The first page describes their tri-faction makeup and areas of operations in and around the Claw Nebula. The main commanders are human and squat, with a mean Level 4 psyker leading up the group.
Onto the minor officers. These folks are sporting flamers and plasma pistols, and a ton of close combat weapons for close-quarters action. Next note the amazing minis on the left column. It’s all 1980s all the time up there. I think the lady second from the top is wearing cowboy boots, and the guy below her is wearing brown leather wingtips in combat. SO AMAZING!
Enter the Xenos
Page three finally gets to the Eldar. We get 4 categories of support characters, three of which are psykers. We have the typical early Eldar mix of lasguns and shuriken catapults in there. The bottommost Exigators have flight packs, so there’s our first fast element to the list.
Page 4 has the main troops units for the humans and squats, umm I mean Leagues of Votann. These have typical weapons and pistols, but some interesting upgrade options. You could take the human squads and put them on bikes while the stylish Squats can take to battlefield on power boards. Zoooom!
Page 5 has the core Eldar infantry and the start of the vehicle auxiliaries. The Lightning squads can all get flight packs – almost early Swooping Hawks, while the Thunder Squads are loaded down with heavy weapons, the predecessors to Guardian Support Platforms. The Black Shadow bike starts off the motorpool, continued below.
Here is where it gets cool. You can mix up Land Speeders, Land Raiders (with no marines EGADS!), and Eldar dreads (long before Wraithlords) and grav tanks. How’s that for an allied list working together in 40K – in 1988!? Also note the plethora of banners for you to copy and stick on your minis.
Down the Memory Hole
If there’s something that Warhammer 40K’s grimdark can’t abide by, it’s interspecies cooperation. So lists like these went down the memory hole quickly but quietly after Rogue Trader. Then Squats went away entirely for a quarter century before returning as Leagues of Votann. But we did have about a decade of the old Allies Table from various editions.
Things like Kroot Mercenaries reintroduced overt soldiering-for-cash to the lore of 40K. Yes you could use the allies table to throw together some T’au, Eldar, and Humans… but it felt so forced.
Hopefully one day maybe in 10th or 11th Edition we will get a real “Dogs of War” mercenary codex and Crangor’s Buccaneers may once again walk the tabletops of the Grimdark. Keep your cowboy boots and leather wingtips ready, my fellow human mercs!
Would you play an army of Humans, Eldar and Leagues of Votann working hand in hand for hard cold cash?
