In my last end of year cap-off post, I mentioned I had one last little treat before we dive into 2026. Well, feast your eyes on this (and please forgive the square aspect ratio) :

A huge thank-you to Amanda Sproule Photography for the outdoor shoot that I got to do this year – and I wanted to make sure that I shared some of those pictures here along with my hodge-podge video editing. Eldar have been my ride-or-die Warhammer army forever, and there’s a lot of sentimental reasons behind that, and getting into the lore, Ulthwe has always been my ride-or-die canon Craftworld, and probably always will be – but I think over the last year I’ve stumbled on what is going to be my ride-or-die forever army. It’s a storied one, which I started with a few squads and a Wave Serpent bought on steep discount when a local store closed, and it’s one that has already gotten a lot of tabletop time in 2025. The coolest adventure the army has embarked on, though, by far, was an outdoor photography collaboration that I got to do earlier this year with Amanda Sproule Photography. Here, I’m going to share some of my favorite pictures from this set and talk a little bit about some of these models and the story behind them in more detail, but will also have a full gallery of the pictures below if you want to skip ahead and just check those out.

Guardian Defenders, the Aeldari citizen-soldiers, are how I started my Warhammer journey and they’ve always been a staple part of any army that I’ve tried to bring to life. Naturally, I was going to start here, but I wanted to make these guys a little more helter-skelter than the normal Guardian squad. Some of them are sporting hoods, extra bits and bobs, and you’ll notice some very curious skin tones mixed into the normal light and dark fleshy tones. This Craftworld is made up of Aeldari but also Aeldari Genestealer hybrids, some of whom have taken up arms the same way that Genestealer hybrids in the Imperium might take up arms in Cadian fashion. White was a stark departure from my usual black and bone tones and I wanted this army to really stand apart from my Ulthwe one – a “Gandalf the White” army to Ulthwe’s “Gandalf the Grey.”

Leading the citizen-soldiers of this far-flung, maligned Craftworld are a Seer Council, as with any good Craftworld. Some of these carry Genestealer iconography or relics, but these seers – including Farseer Tailtineth who leads the Craftworld, and Warlock Ry’hil who takes on a pretty steep secondary advisor role planetside – see a future where a closeness to the Tyranid hive mind means a permanent preventative solution to the problems of Chaos. Where other Craftworlds see the Kal’andralei as trading one existential threat for another, Tailtineth and Ry’hil envision a future where they succeed in forming a symbiotic, circular, and mutually beneficial with the one force in the galaxy that can neutralize the Great Enemy where the strength of Aeldari arms and technological superiority has failed.

No one is surprised to see Howling Banshees in the lineup of this Craftworld, nor should they be – these are a unit type that has been a staple for me as long as Guardian Defenders or Seers of all strokes have. These bold sword girls, several of whom are also Genestealer hybrids, are guided in their efforts by familiars Magda and Savvas (read: Shrine tokens). Magda and Savvas are both meddlesome, troublemaking youngsters but also capable little trackers and apex-predators-in-training whose presence bolsters any squad of Aspect Warriors that they are attached to. Exarch Mura formerly of Craftworld Ulthwe, longtime retainers of the warlock Ry’hil, have joined their strength to that of the Kal’andralei, filling a gap in the hosts of the Craftworld’s Dire Avenger and Striking Scorpion’s aspect warriors as expert shock troops.

Neither Exarch nor Autarch, the strongest arm of the Howling Banshee host, and Mura’s constant right hand is Ishi, who has over the years taken a role in my army as the Jain Zar stand-in since I want an excuse to keep a Phoenix Lord in my army. She’s a storied character whose dumbass energy knows no bounds, and I like to think of her as a sort of avatar of my own tendency to leap into things before I look, sometimes to my own detriment. Ishi, a squad leader who almost attained Exarch-hood, erred on a critical mission and lost her entire squad, and when attached now to a squad of Banshees is a little older, a little wiser, and very protective of her charges. I don’t think I exaggerate when I say that I think the pictures of this model, especially on the water, are some of my favorites.

Rangers! The first time I played a game of Warhammer 40K, I remember Kevin Byrne telling me he thought in addition to the Guardians, Howling Banshees, and Psykers who were my army core that I could use some Rangers. That stuck with me and they’ve formed a fourth unofficial part of my army’s holy trinity over the years. These ones were a surprise in this set – the sunlight brought the semi-gloss and iridescent cloaks out really nicely. Only some of that comes through in the photos but they were pretty dazzling on-site. Lore-wise I think it also works – the Path of the Seer, Path of the Warrior, and Path of the Outcast are the main overarching Aeldari paths, and these fill out the third. When I’ve used them in 10th Edition they’ve also put in work, so I think I might start to swap between them and the Support Weapon platforms. It might mean painting more of them in the new year (remember when this army was finished?) but that’s a later problem.

Last, there are plenty of auxiliary characters in this army who play a critical supporting role on the tabletop. Autarch Kel’tharal has pulled more than his weight so far when paired with Howling Banshees, and as I look to do some Blades of Khaine in the new year I feel like he’ll be shouldering even more. Caen’thala, my Spiritseer, is an auto-include when it comes to bringing along Wraiths – she hasn’t seen a lot of tabletop time yet but I think when the 1500 pt. league at the old FLGS starts up again in the new year she’s going to be critical. Last, we have the wild card – the mystery Solitaire who kicked off some of this army’s story, appearing without warning to deliver omens. The story of the Kal’andralei continues into 2026, alongside XenonMage’s Tyranids and with a cult of Chaos upstarts on the horizon, and only time will tell if Tailtineth’s great gamble and Ry’hil’s bargain will end in the survival and triumph of their people over Chaos, or in disaster.