Arkalid
06-02-2013, 03:50 AM
Hello all!
After reading so many threads about the new Codex: Eldar, talking about the same things and basically whining about the fact that there are no CC deathstar units in the book, I decided to write my own review. I'm not really an Eldar sage, I've collected Eldar since 3rd Edition and they were my first 40K army, but I've never been a huge fan of building repetitive tournament lists. I have played against many tournament players and I am familiar with the tournament meta. I play Biel-tan themed aspect warrior lists, with several different units and several different playstyles incorporated in one list. I'd like to think I understand the synergy of the Eldar army, and thus I can look the book with different eyes than a tournament MEQ or Necron player would look at it.
I've divided this review to three parts: Art&fluff, rules and tactics. I don't do long reviews of individual units, but instead go through them shortly, and talk about them more in the tactics section. So, let's begin!
The Book
Okay, so first a few words about the book and the art. It's again one of the now GW standard hardcover full-colour rulebooks. The book is divided in different sections, as you all know, describing the fluff, the units, the wargear, the "relics", and after the compulsory showcase photos, the actual army list and fold-out reference pages.
The lore is very well written, and it includes everything from the Eldar as a species to their pantheon, their craftworlds and their eventual Fall. There aren't (m)any stories or short fiction pieces, but instead almost every page has a nice info box about some quirk of the Eldar culture. I haven't seen such well-written fluff since the 3rd and 2nd edition codexes, but then again Phil Kelly is a solid author, when it comes to pampering the players with great lore.
The looks of the books are really nice as well. There are several artworks taken from 40K rulebook and Apocalypse, but there are a lot of really nice pieces of artwork we haven't seen before. It really shows that the visual design of the Codex has been well thought out. Not only does the book talk and depict the Eldar race, it really looks quite Eldarish itself.
All in all it's a pleasure to read the book. I won't post individual pieces of lore, but for any starting Eldar player the lore section is a must-read.
The Rules
I'll go through the army special rules first, and then move to the unit entries and list their most important rules.
So the Eldar come with two codex-specific special rules, Ancient Doom and Battle Focus. Ancient Doom gives Hatred: Daemons of Slaanesh and units with Mark of Slaanesh, as well as -1 Ld when testing Fear, if there's at least one model who's a Daemon of Slaanesh or has Mark of Slaanesh.
It's more of a fluffy rule, with quite situational use. Although the -1 Ld can sometimes bite you in the back, I think the Eldar get more out of it after all.
The second rule, Battle Focus, is the more interesting and game-changing. Basically everything not-Wraith or vehicle has this rule. It allows you to run and shoot, or shoot and run during the same shooting phase, effectively giving you the ability to poke the enemy and then run back to cover, or out of Rapid Fire range. I think the units who benefit from this the most are Dire Avengers, Fire Dragons and Warp Spiders, as well as all types of Guardians. Combo this with the Fleet rule, which almost every unit also possesses, and you have a very mobile army, even if you don't have a single transport in the list. As this rule hasn't seen much, if any, use on the battlefield I can't say too much about it's effectiveness, but it does give you a lot more tactical advantage than you'd first think.
Besides those two, Fleet is present in the book, and almost everything with Battle Focus has it, Dark Reapers being the only exception that I can come up with.
I guess that's about it for the special rules. Let's dig in and go through the units...
HQ
Eldrad: Has much of the same special rules as he had in the 4th ed. book, although the re-deployment rule has been nerfed a bit. The most notable changes are the fact that he's a Mastery 4 psyker, and generates powers like everybody else. Also a big thing about him is his staff: for every power he casts he gets a Warp Charge back if he roll a 5 or 6 after the power is cast (rolled separately). Not only that, but his staff is the only Force weapon in the entire book, which is pretty formidable, if you put him in a Warlock Council. As cool as Mastery 4 sounds, most of the Farseer-specific powers are Warp Charge 2, and the Ghosthelm, while being auto-success, requires a Warp Charge to use when activated, so unless you don't mind your soul eaten out, you should keep at least one Warp Charge in reserve. Eldrad is a tough cookie, but isn't as necessary as he used to be.
Illic Nightspear: He's basically a pathfinder with some sneaky rules and possibly insta-killing AP 2 sniper that comes with BS 9 and Split Fire Warlord Trait. However, if you want Pathfinders, he is the only way you can get them. Doubling the cost Rangers allows you to get Alaitoc Pathfinders, with Stealth, Shroud, Move Through Cover, Sniper and Infiltrate. Oh, and did I mention that you can Deep Strike your Rangers and Pathfinders within 6" of Illic, and they don't scatter.
And one more thing. Illic, and all Pathfinders ALWAYS fire precision shots. Yes, you heard me. Every shot you fire with these baddies is pretty much guaranteed to kill something important. Nemesis Force staff bothering you? Not anymore.
Yriel: Much like the Regular Autarch, hasn't changed much. He now has 4 Wounds and 4 Attacks, and comes with a 170 pts pricetag, just like Illic. His spear no longer auto-wounds him at the end of the game, but instead forces Yriel to re-roll all saving throws of 6.
Phoenix Lords: They all are pricier and more deadly and come with Warlord Traits. They are more balanced than they used to be, and Phoenix Lords such as Jain-Zar and Baharroth could be seen more often. The toughest cookie is still Asurmen, with 4+ Inv, 2+ As, Counter-attack, S5 AP 2 Dire Sword and a solid statline. The best thing about him, though, is the fact that he has to be your Warlord (if you include him), and he always rolls D3 Eldar Warlord Traits, which could be awesome. The rest are as you expect: Jain-Zar can easily slice and dice and entire Terminator Squad, and she reduces the enemy Initiative by 5 (like the regular Banshees do), but reduces the WS by 5 as well (to a minimum of 1). Karandas is the dedicated monster killer, Fuegan is the fear of every tank commander, Baharroth is useful if you plan to Deep Strike much, and Maugan Ra and his Maugetar are much unchanged, but he has Hatred: Chaos Daemons.
They are pricey, but have potential, excluding Baharroth and Maugan Ra, who don't really bring anything.
Then the regular HQ:
The Avatar of (Kaela Mensha) Khaine
The Avatar got a nice stat boost, and now stands at WS10 BS10 S6 T6 W5 I10 A5, has fleet and can choose Exarch powers, including Fast Shot and Disarming Strike, which in challenge makes him able to disarm his opponent, making him attack with a plain CCW. He is a real CCW monster, and with a statline like that he can challenge pretty much anything. If you want to duke it out with a C'tan Shard or any other Monstrous Creature, I'd go with Fast Shot and Disarming Strike, or Monster Hunter and Disarming Strike. The only downside is that his Inv save is back to 5+ (gained from the Daemon special rule), so he is a bit easier to kill in that sense. Don't worry, Warlocks can now restore wounds if they roll 1 for power, so it's fine.
Autarch
Not much has changed. Actually, nothing has changed. They can now add or subtract 1 from the Reserve rolls. He can be effective with the 120" AP 3 sniper relic, or some CCW relic, but other than that, he's no really that special, and is easily overshadowed by Archon and everything that can fight and has 2+ Sv.
Farseer
Mastery level 3 and 100 pts means he is a pretty solid Psyker with his three Wounds. He is hurt the most by the nerfing of Runes of Warding, which is one use item and adds +2 to Deny the Witch roll. I'd take one power from Runes of Fate and 2 powers from Divination, all 3 Divination if you want to be super competitive, but the Runes of Fate do have some great powers, and most powers have been boosted. However, avoid number 4. It basically turns your Farseer to a mini-Avatar, but loses the ability to cast other powers and dies at the end of game, or if the counters generated by the power run out. It's great if you happen to be in a Warlock Council and roll it there, but other than that it's pretty rubbish. A must-have unit.
Spiritseer
Basically a Warlock with 2 Wounds and allows you to take Wraithguard and Wraithblades as troops. And you don't even have to take 10 of them! He can mark enemy units for the Wraith units, which allows them to re-roll all to-hit rolls of 1 against that target until the end of turn. Is mastery lvl 2, and can pick powers from Telepathy or Runes of Battle disciplines.
Warlock Council
They now work like Wolf Guard. You can have 1-10 of them, and they are mastery lvl 1 Psykers, who roll powers from Runes of Battle. What's cool about the powers is the fact that most of them have dual uses. Destructor has Renewer as a "counter spell", which gives a lost wound to a model, and so on. Warlocks are 35 points a piece, though, but are pretty much fully kitted from the get-go.
Troops
Dire Avengers
Not much has changed with the guys. They got the Battle Focus and Counter-attack, but the Exarch lost twin shuricats (they are twin-linked now), and they no longer have Bladestorm. However, all Shuriken weapons have Bladestorm special rule (yeah, I know), which gives them the ability to auto-wound on to-wound roll of 6, and as a nice boost they also get AP 2 for those shots. The Exarch powers make the Avengers a lot more durable, which fits their role perfectly. At 13 points a piece many people will think they're bad, but nothing could be further from the truth. They have stable, 18" anti-infantry firepower, and Aspect armour and Exarch give them a bit more survivability. I'd like to point out that Shimmershield now gives 5+ Invulnerable save for the entire squad also against shooting attacks, so you can hope to survive barrage weapons and heavy flamers, especially if you have a fortune on them. They are somewhat synergy-dependent, but I'll return to that.
Guardians
So the big news is they are BS 4, WS 4 and I 5, which makes them pretty solid. The Defenders can get a a heavy weapon platform for every 10 Guardians for 15+ points. The Storm Guardians have the same options, so can have 2 fusion guns/flamer, and can buy up to two power swords. Both variants are now 9 pts/model.
Windrider Jetbikes
The same, but with a points decrease and better stats. They are still quite solid, and super accurate with twin-linked shuriken catapults. Bladestorm helps them a lot.
Rangers
So as you heard, no more Pathfinders, unless you get Illic. They are a bit worse, come with Stealth, Move Through Cover and Infiltrate, come with Guardian statline and are a lot cheaper, 12 pts/model. Definitely worth the points. Minimum squad size now 5.
Wave Serpent
I think Wave Serpent is easily the best transport in the entire game. Fast Skimmer with AV 12, and all Penetrating hits are converted to glancing hits as long as you don't fire the serpent shield, it's durable and very efficient. It lacks the Assault vehicle, but the weapon upgrades are super cheap, and it can now get Holofields. It can unleash a lot of hurt by firing it's shield so it's a super-versatile transport. Go for it!
For some reason I couldn't post the entire review, so I'll upload it in smaller parts. Stay tuned for the rest of the unit reviews and some tactical tips for the pointy-eared fellas.
After reading so many threads about the new Codex: Eldar, talking about the same things and basically whining about the fact that there are no CC deathstar units in the book, I decided to write my own review. I'm not really an Eldar sage, I've collected Eldar since 3rd Edition and they were my first 40K army, but I've never been a huge fan of building repetitive tournament lists. I have played against many tournament players and I am familiar with the tournament meta. I play Biel-tan themed aspect warrior lists, with several different units and several different playstyles incorporated in one list. I'd like to think I understand the synergy of the Eldar army, and thus I can look the book with different eyes than a tournament MEQ or Necron player would look at it.
I've divided this review to three parts: Art&fluff, rules and tactics. I don't do long reviews of individual units, but instead go through them shortly, and talk about them more in the tactics section. So, let's begin!
The Book
Okay, so first a few words about the book and the art. It's again one of the now GW standard hardcover full-colour rulebooks. The book is divided in different sections, as you all know, describing the fluff, the units, the wargear, the "relics", and after the compulsory showcase photos, the actual army list and fold-out reference pages.
The lore is very well written, and it includes everything from the Eldar as a species to their pantheon, their craftworlds and their eventual Fall. There aren't (m)any stories or short fiction pieces, but instead almost every page has a nice info box about some quirk of the Eldar culture. I haven't seen such well-written fluff since the 3rd and 2nd edition codexes, but then again Phil Kelly is a solid author, when it comes to pampering the players with great lore.
The looks of the books are really nice as well. There are several artworks taken from 40K rulebook and Apocalypse, but there are a lot of really nice pieces of artwork we haven't seen before. It really shows that the visual design of the Codex has been well thought out. Not only does the book talk and depict the Eldar race, it really looks quite Eldarish itself.
All in all it's a pleasure to read the book. I won't post individual pieces of lore, but for any starting Eldar player the lore section is a must-read.
The Rules
I'll go through the army special rules first, and then move to the unit entries and list their most important rules.
So the Eldar come with two codex-specific special rules, Ancient Doom and Battle Focus. Ancient Doom gives Hatred: Daemons of Slaanesh and units with Mark of Slaanesh, as well as -1 Ld when testing Fear, if there's at least one model who's a Daemon of Slaanesh or has Mark of Slaanesh.
It's more of a fluffy rule, with quite situational use. Although the -1 Ld can sometimes bite you in the back, I think the Eldar get more out of it after all.
The second rule, Battle Focus, is the more interesting and game-changing. Basically everything not-Wraith or vehicle has this rule. It allows you to run and shoot, or shoot and run during the same shooting phase, effectively giving you the ability to poke the enemy and then run back to cover, or out of Rapid Fire range. I think the units who benefit from this the most are Dire Avengers, Fire Dragons and Warp Spiders, as well as all types of Guardians. Combo this with the Fleet rule, which almost every unit also possesses, and you have a very mobile army, even if you don't have a single transport in the list. As this rule hasn't seen much, if any, use on the battlefield I can't say too much about it's effectiveness, but it does give you a lot more tactical advantage than you'd first think.
Besides those two, Fleet is present in the book, and almost everything with Battle Focus has it, Dark Reapers being the only exception that I can come up with.
I guess that's about it for the special rules. Let's dig in and go through the units...
HQ
Eldrad: Has much of the same special rules as he had in the 4th ed. book, although the re-deployment rule has been nerfed a bit. The most notable changes are the fact that he's a Mastery 4 psyker, and generates powers like everybody else. Also a big thing about him is his staff: for every power he casts he gets a Warp Charge back if he roll a 5 or 6 after the power is cast (rolled separately). Not only that, but his staff is the only Force weapon in the entire book, which is pretty formidable, if you put him in a Warlock Council. As cool as Mastery 4 sounds, most of the Farseer-specific powers are Warp Charge 2, and the Ghosthelm, while being auto-success, requires a Warp Charge to use when activated, so unless you don't mind your soul eaten out, you should keep at least one Warp Charge in reserve. Eldrad is a tough cookie, but isn't as necessary as he used to be.
Illic Nightspear: He's basically a pathfinder with some sneaky rules and possibly insta-killing AP 2 sniper that comes with BS 9 and Split Fire Warlord Trait. However, if you want Pathfinders, he is the only way you can get them. Doubling the cost Rangers allows you to get Alaitoc Pathfinders, with Stealth, Shroud, Move Through Cover, Sniper and Infiltrate. Oh, and did I mention that you can Deep Strike your Rangers and Pathfinders within 6" of Illic, and they don't scatter.
And one more thing. Illic, and all Pathfinders ALWAYS fire precision shots. Yes, you heard me. Every shot you fire with these baddies is pretty much guaranteed to kill something important. Nemesis Force staff bothering you? Not anymore.
Yriel: Much like the Regular Autarch, hasn't changed much. He now has 4 Wounds and 4 Attacks, and comes with a 170 pts pricetag, just like Illic. His spear no longer auto-wounds him at the end of the game, but instead forces Yriel to re-roll all saving throws of 6.
Phoenix Lords: They all are pricier and more deadly and come with Warlord Traits. They are more balanced than they used to be, and Phoenix Lords such as Jain-Zar and Baharroth could be seen more often. The toughest cookie is still Asurmen, with 4+ Inv, 2+ As, Counter-attack, S5 AP 2 Dire Sword and a solid statline. The best thing about him, though, is the fact that he has to be your Warlord (if you include him), and he always rolls D3 Eldar Warlord Traits, which could be awesome. The rest are as you expect: Jain-Zar can easily slice and dice and entire Terminator Squad, and she reduces the enemy Initiative by 5 (like the regular Banshees do), but reduces the WS by 5 as well (to a minimum of 1). Karandas is the dedicated monster killer, Fuegan is the fear of every tank commander, Baharroth is useful if you plan to Deep Strike much, and Maugan Ra and his Maugetar are much unchanged, but he has Hatred: Chaos Daemons.
They are pricey, but have potential, excluding Baharroth and Maugan Ra, who don't really bring anything.
Then the regular HQ:
The Avatar of (Kaela Mensha) Khaine
The Avatar got a nice stat boost, and now stands at WS10 BS10 S6 T6 W5 I10 A5, has fleet and can choose Exarch powers, including Fast Shot and Disarming Strike, which in challenge makes him able to disarm his opponent, making him attack with a plain CCW. He is a real CCW monster, and with a statline like that he can challenge pretty much anything. If you want to duke it out with a C'tan Shard or any other Monstrous Creature, I'd go with Fast Shot and Disarming Strike, or Monster Hunter and Disarming Strike. The only downside is that his Inv save is back to 5+ (gained from the Daemon special rule), so he is a bit easier to kill in that sense. Don't worry, Warlocks can now restore wounds if they roll 1 for power, so it's fine.
Autarch
Not much has changed. Actually, nothing has changed. They can now add or subtract 1 from the Reserve rolls. He can be effective with the 120" AP 3 sniper relic, or some CCW relic, but other than that, he's no really that special, and is easily overshadowed by Archon and everything that can fight and has 2+ Sv.
Farseer
Mastery level 3 and 100 pts means he is a pretty solid Psyker with his three Wounds. He is hurt the most by the nerfing of Runes of Warding, which is one use item and adds +2 to Deny the Witch roll. I'd take one power from Runes of Fate and 2 powers from Divination, all 3 Divination if you want to be super competitive, but the Runes of Fate do have some great powers, and most powers have been boosted. However, avoid number 4. It basically turns your Farseer to a mini-Avatar, but loses the ability to cast other powers and dies at the end of game, or if the counters generated by the power run out. It's great if you happen to be in a Warlock Council and roll it there, but other than that it's pretty rubbish. A must-have unit.
Spiritseer
Basically a Warlock with 2 Wounds and allows you to take Wraithguard and Wraithblades as troops. And you don't even have to take 10 of them! He can mark enemy units for the Wraith units, which allows them to re-roll all to-hit rolls of 1 against that target until the end of turn. Is mastery lvl 2, and can pick powers from Telepathy or Runes of Battle disciplines.
Warlock Council
They now work like Wolf Guard. You can have 1-10 of them, and they are mastery lvl 1 Psykers, who roll powers from Runes of Battle. What's cool about the powers is the fact that most of them have dual uses. Destructor has Renewer as a "counter spell", which gives a lost wound to a model, and so on. Warlocks are 35 points a piece, though, but are pretty much fully kitted from the get-go.
Troops
Dire Avengers
Not much has changed with the guys. They got the Battle Focus and Counter-attack, but the Exarch lost twin shuricats (they are twin-linked now), and they no longer have Bladestorm. However, all Shuriken weapons have Bladestorm special rule (yeah, I know), which gives them the ability to auto-wound on to-wound roll of 6, and as a nice boost they also get AP 2 for those shots. The Exarch powers make the Avengers a lot more durable, which fits their role perfectly. At 13 points a piece many people will think they're bad, but nothing could be further from the truth. They have stable, 18" anti-infantry firepower, and Aspect armour and Exarch give them a bit more survivability. I'd like to point out that Shimmershield now gives 5+ Invulnerable save for the entire squad also against shooting attacks, so you can hope to survive barrage weapons and heavy flamers, especially if you have a fortune on them. They are somewhat synergy-dependent, but I'll return to that.
Guardians
So the big news is they are BS 4, WS 4 and I 5, which makes them pretty solid. The Defenders can get a a heavy weapon platform for every 10 Guardians for 15+ points. The Storm Guardians have the same options, so can have 2 fusion guns/flamer, and can buy up to two power swords. Both variants are now 9 pts/model.
Windrider Jetbikes
The same, but with a points decrease and better stats. They are still quite solid, and super accurate with twin-linked shuriken catapults. Bladestorm helps them a lot.
Rangers
So as you heard, no more Pathfinders, unless you get Illic. They are a bit worse, come with Stealth, Move Through Cover and Infiltrate, come with Guardian statline and are a lot cheaper, 12 pts/model. Definitely worth the points. Minimum squad size now 5.
Wave Serpent
I think Wave Serpent is easily the best transport in the entire game. Fast Skimmer with AV 12, and all Penetrating hits are converted to glancing hits as long as you don't fire the serpent shield, it's durable and very efficient. It lacks the Assault vehicle, but the weapon upgrades are super cheap, and it can now get Holofields. It can unleash a lot of hurt by firing it's shield so it's a super-versatile transport. Go for it!
For some reason I couldn't post the entire review, so I'll upload it in smaller parts. Stay tuned for the rest of the unit reviews and some tactical tips for the pointy-eared fellas.