Aspect Warrior Wraithlords?

[Evil Eye]

Having recently made an order for a Wraithlord to paint for fun, I was mulling over ideas for conversions, and I did wonder; whilst this one will almost certainly remain mostly as-intended, if I like it enough I'm tempted to do some more, and pondered the idea of a Wraithlord containing the soul of an Aspect Warrior? Now my understanding of Eldar fluff is not the greatest but I seem to recall that Aspect Warriors only remain so for a brief period before either moving onto another Aspect or returning to their former path, and it is not a permanent role...unless they go fully down the path of no return and become an Exarch, in which case they effectively become one with their armour. Knowing that I'm assuming that for a Wraithlord to be dedicated to an Aspect, it would have to have the soul of an Eldar who was almost an Exarch but not quite, such that they would have been permanently on the path had they not died beforehand. Obviously this would make, say, a Fire Dragon Wraithlord somewhat unlikely to exist, but perhaps not impossible?

Obviously specialized Wraithlords do exist (the Wraithseer springs to mind and if we're really reaching the Eldar Scout Walker official conversion from the pewter Wraithlord and War Walker), and there was a very cool Golden Demon entry that was a Striking Scorpion Wraithlord. But is there any official fluff that either confirms or denies that Aspect Wraithlords are possible?

[TheMawr]

I think technically they shouldnt, not so much from the warrior aspect side but rather from the wraith construct side. The spirits within arent focused or fully aware ( hence why they need be guided by spiritseers ) so they cant really have a path anymore ( the strength of a psyker being something else entirely in this case ) also a single soul isnt focused to a single body. Its more an animus (life force) than a western definition of a soul (where a soul is the concept of self.) At least, in 2nd edition it was like that. And in Gathering storm its like that again. (because thats the distinction of ynnari touched ghost warriors who do get a stronger sense of self again, wich some of them preferred but alot of them did not and rather return to their dreamlike state.)

However in more narrative lore ( BL & GW ) I noticed they give ghost warriors a much stronger identity and sense of self. ( they do for most eldar concepts in fact.) so the canon here is fluid I guess. ( as it should be, in a galactic wide setting every rule can have many many exceptions.)

A possible fully lore friendly concept could be that instead of the soul being tied to the aspect, have the constructs be. Nothing says that your Fire dragon shrines on craftworld X cant have Fire dragon themed wraith constructs standing vigilant at the shrine, and in time of need these are activated ( you could even add to that that the souls dont come from the infinity circuit, but the shrine maintains their own mini circuit for fallen comrades, or they keep the soulstones of their fallen comrades there.) nothing in the lore makes how a wraithlord looks fixed.

Over the years I have seen many aspect wraithlord conversions ( also howling banshees, though scorpions are the most popular.) in the end nobody would question it. and they lend themselves well for customization.

[MadEdric]

They would be fun to model. I see a Dire Avenger aspect Wraithlord could use Shurikan Cannons and catapults, a glaive as well. Reaper could have AMLs and a scythe for the glaive. Banshee like the Dire Avengers, but while the DA would be modeled focusing on shooting, a Banshee could be more agile, and posed striking with the glaive.

[TrawlingCleaner]

There's quite a few examples of hobbyists making Wraith Aspect warriors with some rad results, including a famous Striking Scorpion one that I think won Golden Demon one year?

Spoiler

 

 

As others have said, with a universe as big and deep as 40k, there's way to justify any lore choice you make

[Evil Eye]

I remember seeing that Scorpion Wraithlord in a WD and being blown away. Was one of the things that made me think of the idea.

...And now I want to do a Wraithlord for every Aspect. With the possible exception of the Crimson Hunter, although a slight conversion of the existing model to turn it into a ghost-controlled UAV would be very cool and also avoid having to paint the cockpit!

[TheMawr]

29 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

I remember seeing that Scorpion Wraithlord in a WD and being blown away. Was one of the things that made me think of the idea.

...And now I want to do a Wraithlord for every Aspect. With the possible exception of the Crimson Hunter, although a slight conversion of the existing model to turn it into a ghost-controlled UAV would be very cool and also avoid having to paint the cockpit!

Funny that you find the hemlock wraithfighter Crimson hunter wraithlord the dounting one.. and not the shining spears wraithlord ;) ( completely made me look if someone did the latter already)

[Tyriks]

There was a Striking Scorpion Exarch in the book Valedor (I think) that was killed and his armor destroyed but his stone was recovered. He was put into a Wraithlord's body until the Craftworld grew a new Shrine and suit of armor for him. So there is at least some precedent for a Wraithlord Exarch.

[Xenith]

Liiike this guy?

 

There's been plenty of aspect warrior-wraithlord style conversions over the years - maybe even the craftworld constructs their wraithlords to mimic the warrior aspects of Khaine?

From what I recall, they needed stronger/more warlike souls to power wraith constructs - you wouldn't see a average joe guardian/exarch of pottery being put into a wraithguard, but normal aspect warriors/who died as that - I also recall that it was the souls of former exarchs that were used to power the wraithlords, however that may be outdated. Just recall that as the soul of the exarch mingles with all the others in the armour, so too do all the souls in the infinity circuit - it is the job of the spirit seers to then draw them into spirit stones to power the wraith constructs. There's no reason that a spirit seer couldnt extract a single, or gestalt soul temporarily from a set of uninhabited exarch armour. 

[Brother Tyler]

Exarchs becoming ghost warriors (of any kind) would probably be a very rare exception based on the lore for Exarchs (quoted here). There is definitely lore for such Exarch-Wraithlords existing, however, in the Valedor novel (the Wraithlord was an Exarch of the Fire Dragon Aspect). Fan-made Exarch-Wraithlords are always fun to see.

 

Aspect-Wraithlords are another thing altogether. An Aspect Warrior that doesn't get lost upon the Path of the Warrior is a very likely candidate for having their soulstone placed within a Wraithlord when the Craftworld finds it necessary to resort to necromancy. After all, they have warrior training. I imagine that most soulstones placed within Wraithlords are Asuryani that had Aspect Warrior training at one time or another.

[CancelledApocalypse]

On 9/30/2022 at 11:21 PM, Evil Eye said:

Having recently made an order for a Wraithlord to paint for fun, I was mulling over ideas for conversions, and I did wonder; whilst this one will almost certainly remain mostly as-intended, if I like it enough I'm tempted to do some more, and pondered the idea of a Wraithlord containing the soul of an Aspect Warrior? Now my understanding of Eldar fluff is not the greatest but I seem to recall that Aspect Warriors only remain so for a brief period before either moving onto another Aspect or returning to their former path, and it is not a permanent role...unless they go fully down the path of no return and become an Exarch, in which case they effectively become one with their armour. Knowing that I'm assuming that for a Wraithlord to be dedicated to an Aspect, it would have to have the soul of an Eldar who was almost an Exarch but not quite, such that they would have been permanently on the path had they not died beforehand. Obviously this would make, say, a Fire Dragon Wraithlord somewhat unlikely to exist, but perhaps not impossible?

Obviously specialized Wraithlords do exist (the Wraithseer springs to mind and if we're really reaching the Eldar Scout Walker official conversion from the pewter Wraithlord and War Walker), and there was a very cool Golden Demon entry that was a Striking Scorpion Wraithlord. But is there any official fluff that either confirms or denies that Aspect Wraithlords are possible?

Hi, new here. Thought you might like to know, I'm currently in the middle of a project to create aspect warrior wraithlords. I've converted six into the six main aspects (the ones with phoenix lords) and I've just finished painting up the first - a fire dragon wraithlord (pic below) which I entered into a painting comp over on DakkaDakka. I'm painting them up as individual craftworlds, mixing that craftworld's scheme with the classic scheme for each aspect. This one is Arach-Qin.

With regards to the lore about aspect warrior spirit stones being used in wraith constructs, I'd actually say it was more likely that they would. If you think about it, Eldar have much longer lifespans than most species - thousands or even tens of thousands of years in some cases - so the majority of harvested spirit stones would come from those that died in battle. And of those spirit stones, the most suitable for implanting into wraith constructs would be from individuals who were at the time walking an aspect warrior path.

It would be an interesting direction for GW to take if they expand the wraith construct line, giving us the option to add aspect specific weapons or decorations to wraithlords and wraithguard, however I think it would be far more likely they'd go down the Space Marine dreadnought route and make them more specialised for certain tasks, having heavier siege variants, tank hunting variants, CC variants, etc., while keeping the vanilla wraith construct feel over all. I'd be happy with either choice, but I'd prefer the former.

[CancelledApocalypse]

By the way, if you want me to post more of my (unpainted) aspect wraithlord conversions, let me know. Or maybe I should start a new thread for them?

[Xenith]

Absolutely, it would be great to see them - good places are either the Eldar section, the Hall of Honour if they're finished pieces, or the WIP section if they're ongoing. 

[CancelledApocalypse]

Okay, cool, I'll probably do that this weekend some time :)