8th Ed. Are Dark Elves Cold ones the same species as Lustrian Cold Ones?

This might be the fault of my own, since I never really read much other fluff index and army books other than for the lizardmen, but the description for the Cold Ones of the dark elves, from the new Warhammer II, got me thinking: Are Cold Ones of the Dark Elves Knights, the same species as the Cold Ones of Lustria?

Here the quote that got me thinking this in the first place:

"Cold Ones are reptiles that live in the caves and tunnels beneath Hag Graef. Their chill flesh is almost immune to pain, and their bodies exude a toxic slime. Where the Cold Ones truly excel, however, is in service as war steeds for Naggaroth's knights. Though single-minded when hunting, Cold Ones are extremely stubborn and very stupid. It takes great strength and willpower to master such a steed, and those Dark Elves that do are feared, if not respected, by their fellows. "

The first thing that struck me was that they live in the northern part of the continent, where as I thought the dark elves would collect the eggs from lustria raids. Apparently that's not the case, and cold one knights are a thing for all dark elves, not just the folks who likes raiding deadly jungles.
Second oddity was the description of their intelligence, while I'm aware that they are rather difficult to train I never thought of them as stupid. Perhaps this is the Dark Elves formulation of being too difficult to train, so elven pride.
However the Lizardmen army book does also state that their are rather dim witted creatures (But I can't help but thinking that what they mean is that Cold Ones are too feral to tame as easily as other animals, which is not a sign of intelligence, one way or the other)

So could the two cold ones be different species from a genus of Cold ones? They live in seperated areas, so one could at least assume that they are different subspecies, like humans and neanderthals. This could perhaps explain why the dark elves got those cool looking cold ones and we were stuck with the rather silly looking version. Also are horned ones in this genus of Cold Ones too, or is that part of a larger family? What about Carnosaurs, the old model look rather a like them as well?

 

The reason they look different is because, the Cold Ones are based on different dinosaur's.

The Dark Elves Cold Ones are based on the velociraptor, they just made them bigger.


The Lizardmen Cold Ones are based on the Majungasaurus, they just made them smaller.

 

I reckoned they were kind of just based on a generic raptor; since they all shared those sickle claws
I haven't read the designer notes, but wouldn't the lustria just be generic carnosaurids? Cerstosaurus seems to fit as well, just like allosaurus would

I seems to recall other discussion involving cold ones, where it was stated that they aren't really stupid just feral.
However there might be more of an evolutionary pressure on high intelligence the scarce lands of Naggaroth compared to Lustria. Which indicate either the subspecies or the different species same genus hypothesis

 

That's exactly what I was thinking. We got the ancient first ones, they got the next step in the evolutionary chain.

 

They are the same species, and until recently GW used the same model for both of our armies.
There where the same in 1st-6th editions.

 

wasn't the 5th ed different from the Dark elves counterpart, I mean back when Skinks rode them?

 

Nope, the dark elves had the metal raptors as well.
although the dark elves tended to get a later release then we did.


8th, AoS

Lustria campaign, 7th, 8th, Aos.

6th


5th

4th-2nd

 

Great! Perhaps they evolved differently after the 6th ed.

Also 2nd-4th ed looks very chameleon like, for some reason...

 

It's cool to see the evolution of the kits.