Battle Yak Sketchbook | Primal Heart Eldarch (Patreon)

Whenever I develop a monthly Battle Pack theme, I always wind up with way more designs than I could possibly produce in a single month. Generally what winds up going into a release are what you might think of as the standard troops of a particular army faction, along with an elite character that serves as a commander or champion. More exotic unit types such as spell-casters or specialized forces are designs I save for future releases.

This month's Battle Pack, the Primal Heart Eldarch, are no exception. In this post I want to share a few of the character designs I made for the Primal Heart Eldarch's other units.

Phyllarc Larva - the immature form of the Phyllarc Imago, the Primal Heart's basic troops. Emerging all pale, gross, and wiggling in huge masses from the birthing ponds of the Primal Heart's hive-lairs, these immature eldarch are soon encased in symbiotic carapaces that protect them and aid them in developing. In their immature form, Larvae cannot bond with symbiont-weapons and rely more on their carapace's natural weapons to protect and aid them in combat.

Larvae are released in great hordes against the enemies of the Primal Heart, a wave of bladed claws that serves to shield the more developed warriors. Larvae that manage to survive the rigors of war will eventually molt into their adult Imago forms, their carapace evolving into a more advanced state.

Phyllarc Hornet - eldarch equipped with specialized symbiote armor that grants them functional insectile wings, allowing them to fly over the battlefield with great speed and agility. Their already acute eldarch senses are further augmented by their carapace, enabling them to avoid incoming attacks with preternatural reflexes. Hornets swarm in great clouds over the battlefield when the Primal Heart goes to war, raining down spines and javelins upon the foe. Once the enemy forces have been softened up, Hornets armed with combat blades will swoop in to finish them off, striking with blinding speed and flitting back into the air before the foe can respond.

Anthrothax Bio-Vizier - In the hierarchy of the Primal Heart, those of the Phyllarc strain act as the primary military force. But outside the ranks of the Phyllarc, the eldarch take other, stranger forms. Among these are the Anthrothax strain, eldarch whose primary purpose is not to wage war but to conduct experiments in mutation and genetic engineering, coaxing bizarre and unnatural abominations into existence to see if they might be of use to the Primal Heart's guided evolution.

The Bio-Viziers are but one of the forms the Anthrothax take, these spidery creatures striding onto the battlefield behind the Phyllarc legions, eager to find wounded or captured test subjects for their depraved biological experiments. Bio-Viziers can twist the very living essence of a thing with their bio-sorcery - with a simple gaze they can transmute blood into digestive acid that dissolves the foe from within, or they might induce mutation with a gesture, turning a hapless enemy into a shrieking, howling mass of rapidly evolving flesh and bone and ruptured organs.

 Anthrothax Slivan - While the Anthrothax strain is typically responsible for producing minor refinements and augmentations to their Phyllarc warriors, such as breeding armor-symbionts with stronger shells or producing a deadlier breed of weapon, occasionally a particular experiment will yield more spectacular results, and an entirely new strain of eldarch will be born into the forces of the Primal Heart. One such creation is known as the Slivan.

A form of mutated Imago, Slivan are eldarch equipped with a highly specialized symbiont-carapace that grants them a serpentine lower form. This shape enables them to move with great rapidity, slithering across terrain and scaling walls and fortifications unimpeded. Slivan arm themselves with advanced symbiont-weaponry that allow them to deal death both in close combat and from afar. The genetic tinkering of the Anthrothax have granted their serpentine-carapaces the ability to bend light and mimic their surroundings, enabling them to turn virtually invisible, making them skilled at infiltration and assassination. They even kidnap live specimens for their Anthrothax masters, slithering back to the Primal Heart's hives with unlucky victims, wrapped tightly in their coils or even swallowed whole.

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The Primal Heart Eldarch will certainly be part of another release in the future, and some of the above designs will be a part of it! In fact if a few more patrons come on board and Battle Yak Miniatures reaches 50 subscribers, then Patron Voting on future Battle Pack themes will be unlocked, and folks might have a chance to choose more Primal Heart eldarch releases as an option sooner rather than later! In the meantime, the current Primal Heart Eldarch are available this June!

If you want to see some of the Primal Heart Eldarch, check out this video by Youtuber (and Battle Yak patron) Obscurities in Miniature, who posted an awesome vid showing off the Primal Heart forces he'd 3D printed!

Coming this July in the next Battle Pack are the Sentinels of Primus! More previews of them will be coming soon!