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Dionysodorus wrote:

 Cream Tea wrote:
I don't have a problem with only five craftworlds, there are too many to give each their own rules anyway, so why not stick to the fab five?

I run my own craftworld, I'm going to pick whichever one of the five suits my fluff best. If you run Mymeara, Yme-Loc, Iybraesil or whatever, you can do the same thing.

I think the objection is less that they're excluding Yme-Loc, specifically, and more that with 7 or 8 options to choose from you're more likely to be able to find one that best fits what you want to do. I mean, it's not like they seemed to have had much trouble coming up with 8 Regimental Doctrines for Guard, and those even split and do different things for infantry than for vehicles.

It will also depend on the quality of the rules for the 5 craftworlds. Even though guard and chaos and marines all had (I think) about 8 legions/doctrines, most people on here tend to agree that only one or two of them are any good, and the rest are trash.

If Eldar only get 5, but each of them are good in their own way, then they immediately have twice the options of the others (competitively speaking).

I'd be happy if all 5 craftworlds are fleshed out. If Alaitoc is just "-1 to hit outside of 12 inches" and a couple of wargear options, I'd be pretty disappointed. If they also get Pathfinder rules back, and if Ulthwe not only get better (as in usable) rules for a seer council, and access to Webway assaults, and various other changes that give each craftworld choice a distinct playstyle with multiple units, then I think it'd be pretty good.

For instance, with that Iyanden relic, if they also added something like Spiritseers can heal wraith constructs for D3 damage, but only for Iyanden...

Personally I'm alright with more craftworlds even if they are not as powerful as others. The way I see it, is that it still adds variety to the game, and as long as they are accurately represented in the fluff, I'm cool with that. I'm not saying having unbalanced craftworlds is a good thing, but if we can get more variety, what's not to like?

I have a feeling ulth'wei is going to bring guardian squads back in a big way, I imagine their craftworld trait will be "black guardians" that'll give them a decent buff and I imagine webway assaults would be a before game strategem for them, would be nice if it allowed a detachment to start in reserve even for 3CP that gives you a good reason to run large units of guardians to land in your opponents face.

 Mantle wrote:
I have a feeling ulth'wei is going to bring guardian squads back in a big way, I imagine their craftworld trait will be "black guardians" that'll give them a decent buff and I imagine webway assaults would be a before game strategem for them, would be nice if it allowed a detachment to start in reserve even for 3CP that gives you a good reason to run large units of guardians to land in your opponents face.

I really hope so. This kind of tactic was teased to us in fracture of Biel Tan at the end of seventh, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be carried over to the codex.

Honestly tempted to jump on this newest xenos filth bandwagon just on the basis of the Bonesinger coming back (if only briefly). Hell, if they made the Avatar of Khaine not awful (to justify getting the FW model, of course), I could see myself jumping on board with an entirely new army.

 Imateria wrote:
From what I've seen, things like CHapter Tactics and Doctrines are acutally rather simple and straightforward in what they offer. I'm hoping that in concentrating on just 5 Craftworlds (the obvious 5) they can actually flesh them out to offer far more character to them than just -1 to hit for enemies more than 12" away (que people whinging about Eldar getting all the good rules).

Lets be honest, if the Craftworld traits can properly represent massed Aspect Warriors (Biel-Tan), Jetbike/Skimmer spam (Saim-Hann), Ghost Warriors (Iyanden), Rangers (Alaitoc) and Guardians & Warlocks (Ulthwe) then they would have properly covered all aspects of how the army works and your unique Craftworld can be formed from using detachments of different Craftworld traits.

 Mantle wrote:
I have a feeling ulth'wei is going to bring guardian squads back in a big way, I imagine their craftworld trait will be "black guardians" that'll give them a decent buff and I imagine webway assaults would be a before game strategem for them, would be nice if it allowed a detachment to start in reserve even for 3CP that gives you a good reason to run large units of guardians to land in your opponents face.

I really hope that this is not the sort of thing they do with it. That's very destructive of any sort of creativity in list building. It's just: if you want to bring Guardians use Ulthwe, and if you want to bring Jetbikes use Saim-Hann. The stratagem, sure, and that's been how the other codices have handled this -- a subfaction's favored units or weapons tend to get a stratagem that buffs them rather than a very restrictive tactic. But I'd much prefer Craftworld Attributes that make most of the units play differently from Craftworld to Craftworld. The design challenge is to come up with Attributes that make the whole army play a bit differently and which also capture the flavor of each Craftworld, but I think this is mostly doable.

What I'm most curious about - is if they'll actually be the first codex to change battlefield roles (something unseen so far). While I hope it's not the Craftworld tactic, Iyanden really does need to be able to field an all-wraith army...meaning Wraithguard will have to be troops for Iyanden, etc.

Same thing with Saim-Hann and to a lesser extent Biel Tan. While you can easily build an army very similar to this, it would be much more fluffy to actually allow X units to count as troops, etc. I am sadly suspect that Craftworld traits may simply mirror the rather boring Chapter Tactics and we'll see very little that's new or exciting. Would love to be proved wrong.

 Elbows wrote:
What I'm most curious about - is if they'll actually be the first codex to change battlefield roles (something unseen so far). While I hope it's not the Craftworld tactic, Iyanden really does need to be able to field an all-wraith army...meaning Wraithguard will have to be troops for Iyanden, etc.

Same thing with Saim-Hann and to a lesser extent Biel Tan. While you can easily build an army very similar to this, it would be much more fluffy to actually allow X units to count as troops, etc. I am sadly suspect that Craftworld traits may simply mirror the rather boring Chapter Tactics and we'll see very little that's new or exciting. Would love to be proved wrong.

I mean, you can already bring an all-Wraith army. You're not required to bring Troops. It'd be fitting for Iyanden to be able to bring Wraithguard as Troops -- much like how Emperor's Children and World Eaters can bring Noise Marines and Berzerkers as Troops -- but this would be a pretty sad substitute for a Tactic. It amounts to: "you get a couple extra CP for your Vanguard Detachment". And Objective Secured, I guess, but still.

 Elbows wrote:
What I'm most curious about - is if they'll actually be the first codex to change battlefield roles (something unseen so far). While I hope it's not the Craftworld tactic, Iyanden really does need to be able to field an all-wraith army...meaning Wraithguard will have to be troops for Iyanden, etc.

Same thing with Saim-Hann and to a lesser extent Biel Tan. While you can easily build an army very similar to this, it would be much more fluffy to actually allow X units to count as troops, etc. I am sadly suspect that Craftworld traits may simply mirror the rather boring Chapter Tactics and we'll see very little that's new or exciting. Would love to be proved wrong.

Saim-Hann and Biel-Tan are easy enough to do. Vanguard and Outrider Detachments are 3 Elites and 3 Fast Attacks, respectively.

Guard, as an example, have it so that you Leman Russes in a Spearhead(Heavy Support) Detachment gain Objective Secured when your army is Battle-Forged. You just need a line about Jetbikes and Aspect Warriors getting whatever the Eldar equivalent of Objective Secured is when taken in those Detachments.

I fully expect Wraithguard to become Troops. It's the only way that the new Start Collecting set makes sense I feel. And it really does seem like they're trying to ensure the Start Collecting sets can field a Patrol Detachment(1 HQ 1 Troops everything else is optional) from the outset.

 Elbows wrote:
What I'm most curious about - is if they'll actually be the first codex to change battlefield roles (something unseen so far). While I hope it's not the Craftworld tactic, Iyanden really does need to be able to field an all-wraith army...meaning Wraithguard will have to be troops for Iyanden, etc.

Same thing with Saim-Hann and to a lesser extent Biel Tan. While you can easily build an army very similar to this, it would be much more fluffy to actually allow X units to count as troops, etc. I am sadly suspect that Craftworld traits may simply mirror the rather boring Chapter Tactics and we'll see very little that's new or exciting. Would love to be proved wrong.

The Chaos codex allowed you to take Berserkers as troops if you had a world water detachment. So it’s not entirely unseen.

Good point, I'd forgotten about the cult troops in the CSM book. As mentioned above, I just hope swapping certain units to troops isn't part of the Craftworld trait.

The Start Collecting boxes are normally legal 'forces', right? I'll be able to get this and start using it?

I've always liked Eldar and wanted to make my own craft world that was mostly wraith constructs, but corrupted.

In theory, yes. If you play Open War --- any models are legal and your force organization doesn't matter. I don't think any of the SC boxes allow you enough to form an actual detachment, so it's kind of irrelevant really.

The new SC is definitely a great set of models to get started with - they're all useful.

Why are people forgetting the Vanguard detachment in regards to the Iyanden Start Collecting box? All models in that box fit into that detachment, so why would we assume WG are going to be Troops?

While I would love for WG to be Iyanden Troops and Windriders to be Saim-Hann Troops, I won't be holding my breath. This was the entire point of creating the varied detachments
What I'd like to see is Autarchs giving extra CPs to compensate for having to use lesser detachments to represent certain CWs.
I know Autarchs are basically Captains, but considering how much old an Aeldari can be compared to a Marine, I don't think is it too much to add an extra CP due to sheer battlefield experience. Guilliman give 3CPs after all.

-

 Elbows wrote:
In theory, yes. If you play Open War --- any models are legal and your force organization doesn't matter. I don't think any of the SC boxes allow you enough to form an actual detachment, so it's kind of irrelevant really.

The new SC is definitely a great set of models to get started with - they're all useful.

Patrol Detachments are 1 HQ and 1 Troop.

All of the current Start Collectings except for the Eldar one let you field 1 HQ and 1 Troop with something else added in(an Elite, Heavy Support, or whatever else).

 Galef wrote:
Why are people forgetting the Vanguard detachment in regards to the Iyanden Start Collecting box? All models in that box fit into that detachment, so why would we assume WG are going to be Troops?

While I would love for WG to be Iyanden Troops and Windriders to be Saim-Hann Troops, I won't be holding my breath.

-

War walkers and Wraithlords are heavy support, while WG are elite.
To make it a legal detachment, you need to move the WG to troop or HS.

 Galef wrote:
Why are people forgetting the Vanguard detachment in regards to the Iyanden Start Collecting box? All models in that box fit into that detachment, so why would we assume WG are going to be Troops?

While I would love for WG to be Iyanden Troops and Windriders to be Saim-Hann Troops, I won't be holding my breath.

-

Vanguard Detachment requires 3 Elites in order to function.

Dionysodorus wrote:
It amounts to: "you get a couple extra CP for your Vanguard Detachment". And Objective Secured, I guess, but still.

CP is always useful even if just for the rerolls and Objective Secured is a big deal. I've won and lost games due to objective secured.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Why are people forgetting the Vanguard detachment in regards to the Iyanden Start Collecting box? All models in that box fit into that detachment, so why would we assume WG are going to be Troops?

While I would love for WG to be Iyanden Troops and Windriders to be Saim-Hann Troops, I won't be holding my breath.

-

Vanguard Detachment requires 3 Elites in order to function.

of course it does. Just pretend I wasn't here

It's not clear to me the new book will have all of the classic craftworlds. The article mentions the classic 5, but goes on to say this version will be a spiritual successor, not a carbon copy.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/10/16/craftworld-focus-iyanden-oct-16gw-homepage-post-3/

Craftworld Focus: Iyanden

Kendo wrote:
It's not clear to me the new book will have all of the classic craftworlds. The article mentions the classic 5, but goes on to say this version will be a spiritual successor, not a carbon copy.

I wanna say that I saw somewhere the book will have rules for seven Craftworlds, which will put it on par with CSM Legions on the amount of special rules for their Craftworld Keyword. I'll do my best to see where I saw this little tidbit.

EDIT: The Craftworld Focus has clarified five Craftworld Special rules, so I guess I just imagined seven in a fever dream.

Also, holy cow. Only ever losing one model to morale tests is gonna be great for Iyanden.

Iyanden Focus is up

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/10/16/craftworld-focus-iyanden-oct-16gw-homepage-post-3/

It’d hardly be an Iyanden army without some ghost warriors, would it? Wraithblades in the new codex are just as deadly as they’ve always been, with some added bonuses. Smaller Wraith units have received an additional point of Toughness in the new codex, bringing Wraithguard and Wraithblades up to Toughness 6 and Wraithlords to Toughness 8, making them markedly more resilient against incoming enemy fire What’s more, they don’t even cost any more points!

The perfect accompaniment to a Spirit Host unit is a Spiritseer. These guys are already an efficient HQ choice for a Craftworlds army, and have even seen a reduction in cost, now a steal at 45 points, only 10 more than a Warlock! Use yours to cast the new psychic power Empower on your Wraithblades, trigger the Psytronome of Iyanden and throw in the Guided Wraithsight Stratagem and you’ll be dishing out 60 Strength 7 AP -3 attacks, hitting on a 4+ with a reroll and D3 damage apiece – enough to scrap even a Baneblade in close combat./quote]

Iyanden seems pretty good. Preeeeettyyy goood.

That Attribute seems pretty disappointing to me, but then compared to other people I'm also a lot less positive about the Valhallan doctrine or whichever Guard regiment this is a slightly better version of (same for vehicles). Though this is confirmation that these will just be Chapter Tactics type things, and also it looks like they apply to more than just infantry and bikes, which is nice. The text outright says this applies to the Wraithknight, and strongly suggests it applies to tanks too.

Like, you still never want to field big Guardian squads, because morale is not the problem with Guardian squads, unless they're now priced more like Guardsmen. The problem with Guardians is that they're 8 point T3 5+ bodies; they could be fearless and you still wouldn't want a big unit of 20 of them. This doesn't seem like it does much at all for Wraithguard, since you basically never lose more than 1 of them to morale anyway.

It's really nice to see that the Spiritseer is 45 points. This is not quite as good as a Primaris Psyker but it'd be very playable with current rules. Warlocks appear to be about the same price still, so unless they got a significant buff they're still garbage (but then surely they got a buff if Spiritseers now only cost 10 points more, since Spiritseers are currently far superior).

The Wraith buffs are nice. T5 to T6 is not a huge jump, but it's very helpful against heavy bolters and assault cannons. Likewise T7 to T8 is generally not a huge deal but it'll help some against bolters and a few S7/S8 weapons.

I have to say...Iyanden is strong though.

Wraithknights which ignore wounds until 17 are inflicted? Strong.

Wraithlords at Tough 8? Strong.

Wraithguard at Tough 6? Strong.

Maybe not an amazing army list, but damn. Expect to see a lot of Wraith units in the future (especially with the new SC box). The T8 Wraithlord makes up for its sub-par performance (because it degraded when lower-dreads didn't).

I think the best use case for the Attribute is actually Aspects, which is kind of weird. But 10-man units of Aspects are generally pretty vulnerable to morale while being great targets for buff powers. Shining Spears and Shadow Spectres in particular seem like potentially strong Iyanden units, since they benefit so much from Guide, Fortune, and (if this is still possible) Word of the Phoenix.

The stratagem also seems quite solid, and is the only thing that really seems to push Iyanden towards Wraiths. 12" is a lot easier to manage than 6", and re-rolling all hits on potentially multiple units is a big payoff.

Dionysodorus wrote:
That Attribute seems pretty disappointing to me, but then compared to other people I'm also a lot less positive about the Valhallan doctrine or whichever Guard regiment this is a slightly better version of (same for vehicles). Though this is confirmation that these will just be Chapter Tactics type things, and also it looks like they apply to more than just infantry and bikes, which is nice. The text outright says this applies to the Wraithknight, and strongly suggests it applies to tanks too.

Like, you still never want to field big Guardian squads, because morale is not the problem with Guardian squads, unless they're now priced more like Guardsmen. The problem with Guardians is that they're 8 point T3 5+ bodies; they could be fearless and you still wouldn't want a big unit of 20 of them. This doesn't seem like it does much at all for Wraithguard, since you basically never lose more than 1 of them to morale anyway.

It's really nice to see that the Spiritseer is 45 points. This is not quite as good as a Primaris Psyker but it'd be very playable with current rules. Warlocks appear to be about the same price still, so unless they got a significant buff they're still garbage (but then surely they got a buff if Spiritseers now only cost 10 points more, since Spiritseers are currently far superior).

The Wraith buffs are nice. T5 to T6 is not a huge jump, but it's very helpful against heavy bolters and assault cannons. Likewise T7 to T8 is generally not a huge deal but it'll help some against bolters and a few S7/S8 weapons.

That trait will help large squads of Wraithblades and makes Wraithlords and Knights, as well as all of the Falcon chassis vehicles much better. I might even play my Lynx again. You'r right though that it does nothing for Wraithguard. You're also assuming that Guardians will stay at 8pts each, I'd hope they drop to 6 myself, which would make 20 man squads much more viable (though probably something Ulthwe will make more use of).

I'm actually curious - because they have not stated what units will benefit from the Craftworld traits. They mention the Wraithknight (and tanks), so it seems perhaps more of an Imperial Guard depth trait - vs. Space Marines (sorry...they're taking it in the pants lately).

I'd like to see what units are impacted.

PS: The Iyanden trait is going to make Wave Serpents extra-filthy if they're not properly nerfed.

 Korlandril wrote:
Made to Order one week only starting 21st October

Always wanted a bonesinger, I even get paid right before they go up for sale.