Dinosaur-riding space elves are about to be a real thing that you can use on the tabletop! Games Workshop confirmed yesterday in its Sunday Preview that Kill Team: Exodite will go up for pre-order on this Saturday, July 25th, giving the Aeldari Exodites their first dedicated plastic miniatures after decades as one of Warhammer 40,000's lore-only factions.
The set itself was revealed during the Big Summer Preview back in June. What we didn't have until now was a date, and we got two! Pre-orders open July 25th, and the box hits store shelves on Saturday, August 8th. That's the standard two-week gap between a Games Workshop pre-order and its street date.
For newer 40k fans, the name may not ring a bell. The Exodites have been part of Aeldari lore since the earliest days of the setting. They're the ones who saw the Fall coming. While their empire rotted from the inside, they abandoned their kin, escaped through the Webway, and settled the untamed maiden worlds on the galaxy's fringe. The Craftworlders got the colossal world-ships. The Exodites chose a harder, simpler life... one that involves taming and riding the giant saurian beasts of their new homes.
Exodite worlds store their dead in something called a world spirit, a psychic network running through the planet itself. It's the same trick the craftworlds pull off with their infinity circuits.
Wargamer teased the reveal sharing that the Exodites are arriving "after decades hiding in the jungle."
What's In The Box?
The rundown: five elite Exodite operatives, plus a full Ork mob to fight against.
- 3 Dragon Masters
- 2 Drakolithes
- 10 Beast Snagga Boyz and 5 Squighog Boyz as the Ork opposition
- The Kill Team: Exodite Dossier, packed with narrative missions
- 88 datacards, an Exodite transfer sheet, and a token sheet with markers and movement aids
Story-wise, the set pits the Exodites against a full-blown Beast Snagga Ork invasion. The Orks aren't a second player faction in the usual sense; the Beast Snaggas act as non-player opponents in the Dossier's narrative missions, so the Exodites are the stars of the show. Squig-riding Orks against dinosaur-riding elves is one heck of a matchup!
Beast Snagga Boyz and Squighog Boyz are both standard Ork units, so the opposition half doubles as the start of a real Beast Snagga collection. If you already play Orks, nothing in this box goes to waste!
The Exodites headline a stacked week. The Horus Heresy is getting a 20-man MkIV Tactical Squad and a 10-man MkIV Assault Squad with jump packs, plus a combi-weapons and shotguns upgrade set.
On the 40k side, the new Combat Patrol Battlezone bundles 15 terrain pieces with a double-sided game board, and standalone Manufactorum Ruins, Capacitor Cluster, and Galvanic Network terrain sets arrive alongside it. Kill Team also gets the Astra Militarum Spectre Squad as a separate release, complete with its own 40-card datacard pack, and six returning kill teams (Kroot Farstalkers, Navy Breachers, Exaction Squad, Fellgor Beastmen, Raptors, and Kasrkin) are coming back to shelves. Frontline Gaming has a rundown of the full wave if you want to map out the whole order.
Pricing hasn't been announced yet; Games Workshop usually keeps prices under wraps until pre-orders go live. Fair warning: launch boxes like this have a habit of selling through their pre-order allocations quickly, so if you want one at launch, don't sleep on that Saturday window.
For Aeldari players, this release is about more than five models. Games Workshop rarely spends new tooling on a faction with no existing range, and the studio's own preview bills this as the nomadic Aeldari returning to the 41st Millennium for the first time in decades. Whether Kill Team: Exodite stays a one-off or becomes the foundation of a full Exodite range is the big open question. How fast this box sells will probably answer it.
A brand-new faction in plastic beats another refresh of an existing line any day of the week, and mining lore this deep is what keeps longtime hobbyists hooked. Don't be surprised if this ends up the toughest pre-order to grab all summer!
Are you grabbing Kill Team: Exodite on the 25th? What would a full plastic Exodite army need to include to get you to start one?
Let us know in the comments below!
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