Review: Aeldari Webway Gates

In this review, we’ll have a look at an army specific scenery piece, the Aeldari Webway Gates, originally released in 2018. This is an absolutely enormous Xenos terrain set, and an option for both Eldar Craftworlds, Aeldari Harlequins, and Drukhari Dark Eldar.

The set is currently only available from gamesworkshop.com, at an RRP 40,00 Euro / £ 30. Included is a Webway Gate comprising two identic arches.

Features

The comes with a black and white assembly guide and four sprues of plastic, two unique sprues included twice. There are no alternate builds or alternate parts, the set builds exactly what is depicted on the box art. When assembled, the Webway Gate is huge, with a height of 33 cm it towers even over a Wraithknight. Thankfully, the upper arches have push-fit connectors and can be removed for easier transport.

Miniatures Design

The Webway Gates nail the Eldar / Aeldari asthetique perfectly, with the rounded organic shapes, segmented plates, ribbed understructure, and two very Aeldari shaped statues that merge with the arches. The Gates are sculpted in pristine condition, like they would have been freshly erected by a Bonesonger. Personally, I would have preferred a more ancient look with some cracks and broken parts, similar to the small rubble pieces you find on a lot of Aeldari models such as recently released Howling Banshees.

Some parts of the model are based on older concept art by Roberto Cirillo, who no longer works for Games Workshop. I was only able to find this tiny little image, but you can see that the statues are almost exact copies of this concept art on the left.

The Webway Gates are very tall models with a height of 33 cm, they will likely be the largest and most dominating terrain piece on the table. I actually feel they are a bit too large, and if they would have designed them slightly smaller, then maybe there would have been some space on the sprues to include some alternate build options like another pair of heads for the statues or a broken arch.

Fun factor

The models assemble quickly, but because of the two part design, there are lot of unsightly seams that require filling with liquid green stuff or a similar plastic filler. In some areas, like on the legs between the statues, it’s almost impossible to remove the seams, so I just kept them.

Rules-wise, the Webway Gates add another deepstriking option to Craftworld armies. However, because of the large footprint and the fact that only a single unit per turn can enter the battlefield, their use is rather limited, so you might want to save them for narrative games or use them as standard terrain.

Value

By now, the Aeldari Webway Gates are direct only and thus only available from gamesworkshop.com or select retailers that stock direct only models. When this kit was released in 2018, the RRP was a reasonable 32,50 Euro / £ 25, and the model was available with discounts at our partner shops Wayland Games and Element Games, but with the recent price increase in 2020, the model’s RRP increased to 40,00 Euro / £ 30, which is quite a lot for a tall, but not very substantial kit.