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@Darkness- I'm not denying he doesn't work at the moment. I just believe that as he is a god of war he should be better than say a Hive Tyrant which is just one of countless millions of big bugs. Wouldn't you agree?

Haha, is there anything at all in all of 40k that has BS of 10? Do they even have rules for BS10?

Yep...Nothing has it, but if your BS 10 then its 2+ to hit and if you fail you can re roll and still hit on a 2+, I wouldnt realy see the need on a model that only has an assault 1 weapon though.

Gorechild wrote:I just want a couple more opinions. On the toughness or immunity to friendly psychic powers thing. I can think of a decent way to incorporate the latter if we need. If not it could just be a matter of dropping his toughness to 7 so MEQ's can hurt him.

Cool.

To give a more detailed reasoning: Toughness 8 means that S4 can't touch him. Most of anti-infantry fire can't hurt him either. MLs hurt him, but need 4+ to do it and then he has 2+ save to save against it. Lascannons hurt him, except he still has 50% chance to shrug it off with his invulnerable. Fortuned up, the chance of a lascannon wounding him is lower than a lascannon single-shoting something useful to a monolith. Melta can't hurt the Avatar.

PFs hurt him on a 4+ and he strikes before any of them with the same effect. Heck, even as a 155 point MC he still eats the usual 5-man TH + SH Termie squads for breakfast when he's fortuned. Basically, your suggestion is a Nightbringer with a 2+ save - all but invulnerable to long-range AT, which is the only reliable way of ever doing something to T8 close combat specialist. That is something from the Apoc, not regular 40k, in my honest opinion.

T7 and 2+/4++ save is streching it. T7 and 3+/4++ save is just about right if we're buffing him to the 250-300 point mark. Or T6 and 2+/4++

And his strength should stay 6, I think. He's not so large or monstrous to warrant a S8 profile. He should only get S8 from his weapon, which is already a melta profile when shot. So basically the same thing, except he'd be S6 for any special rules, psychic powers or somesuch from other codices. Wailing Doom always striking at S8 regardless of any negative modifiers is a nice bonus, though.

Gorechild wrote:Avatar of Khaine - .....points

BS WS S T I A W Ld Sv
-5--10--6-7-8-6-4--10-2+

Unit Type- Monsterous Creature
Wargear- Wailing Doom
Special Rules- Deamon, Incarnation of a God, Inspiring,The Bloody Handed God.

Incarnation of a God-
The Avatar of Khaine is the physical manifestation of the God of war, hence he has a 4++ save. Khaine alone knows the true fate of his avatar's, to represent this an avatar is immune to the Fortune and Guide psychic powers.

Wailing Doom-
R12" S8 AP1 Assault 1, Melta. The Wailing Doom always Strikes at Strength 8 Initiative 8 in combat, regardless of any penalties inflicted by enemy rules/wargear.

Inspiring-
Whilst the Avatar is on the board all friendly units have the stuborn USR. In addition, any friendly model within 12" of the Avatar is fearless.

The Bloody Handed God-
Any enemy unit that attempts to assault the Avatar first pass a leadership test, if failed the assaulting unit may not assault the avatar or any other unit this turn. All Ld tests taken within 12" of the Avatar must do so with a -2 modifier to their leadership.

How does that look?

Gorechild wrote:@Darkness- I'm not denying he doesn't work at the moment. I just believe that as he is a god of war he should be better than say a Hive Tyrant which is just one of countless millions of big bugs.

The Avatar will beat a Hive Tyrant nearly every time, how isn't he better? He also does that while being about 50 points cheaper.

Against a Hive Tyrant, the Avatar goes first, has a higher WS, and has an invulnerable save.

I like the current Avatar because he's cheap enough to be fielded in a practical army while still being quite effective. Making him into an expensive monstrosity might make him more god-of-war-like, but it would also make him unplayable.

I can imagine a "burning corona" rule, or something similar.

The Avatar body radiates and pulses with the flames of war, searing the exposed flesh of his enemies and driving them back with his blazing fury, etc, or something similar.

The Avatar must make one attack on each model in base contact with him during combat, both friendly and enemies (freindly casualties [will/will not] count towards combat resolution for the opposing player) These attacks will be resolved at Initiative 10 and Strength [4/3]. These attacks will allow armour saves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarknessEternal wrote:

Gorechild wrote:@Darkness- I'm not denying he doesn't work at the moment. I just believe that as he is a god of war he should be better than say a Hive Tyrant which is just one of countless millions of big bugs.

The Avatar will beat a Hive Tyrant nearly every time, how isn't he better? He also does that while being about 50 points cheaper.

Against a Hive Tyrant, the Avatar goes first, has a higher WS, and has an invulnerable save.

I like the current Avatar because he's cheap enough to be fielded in a practical army while still being quite effective. Making him into an expensive monstrosity might make him more god-of-war-like, but it would also make him unplayable.

I believe two statlines would be good.
One for the codex, one for Apocolype only.

Cheap enough that for it to have a practical use you absolutely must devote your Farseer with Fortune to babysit him, because he's too slow to be a threat(will get easily shot down from range) unless he's Fortuned.

That's not cheap. Like Fire Dragons aren't really 90-points cheap, but rather 90 + 100 for the Wave Serpent.

I'd rather pay 250 points for him and have a decent standalone MC HQ that is actually a threat to anything on the board.

With that said, I like the most recent Gorechild's proposal. And I think the addition of Fleet might be reasonable.

Araenion wrote:Cheap enough that for it to have a practical use you absolutely must devote your Farseer with Fortune to babysit him, because he's too slow to be a threat(will get easily shot down from range) unless he's Fortuned.

That's not cheap.

It also isn't true. Whatever style of 40k games you are used to, it certainly isn't universal.

OK. So the proposed statline I'd ballpark at 400 pts.

Gorechild: I definitely love your tweak. It fits the fluff of what the Avatar should be absolutely perfectly. But, I don't want to be paying the points to field that model. We need to tone him way down. Keep him in line with a Greater Daemon.

He's an **Avatar**. Just that. Not the god itself.

DarknessEternal wrote:It also isn't true. Whatever style of 40k games you are used to, it certainly isn't universal.

You said practical use. Of course there's use for him without Fortune, it's just not very practical.

Anyways, 350 point for The Avatar with Gorechild's profile sounds fair. I still find T7 too much. When I made my last post I misread it and thought you'd changed it for T6. Anything with a 2+ save is already survivable by itself, there are few things S6 that has AP2. I don't know, it's fluffy for the Avatar to be like a very strong, very tough, extremely resilient warrior. Not a towering behemoth.

What I propose:

BS WS S T I A W Ld Sv
5 10--- 6 6 6 5 4 10 2+

Unit Type - Monstrous creature
Wargear - Wailing Doom
Special Rules - Fleet, Daemon, Molten Body, Inspiring, Avatar of War

Wailing Doom - R12" S8 AP1 Assault1, Melta shooting attack. In melee Wailing Doom causes such grievous wounds that the Avatar may reroll any failed To Wound rolls in an assault phase.

Daemon - Avatar is a Daemonic incarnation of a dead god, receiving a 4+ invulnerable save and Eternal Warrior USR, in addition, any and all special abilities affecting Daemons affect the Avatar.

Molten Body - A beast of lava and flame, fire-based weapons have no effect on the Avatar, absorbed into his essence. Flamers, Heavy flamers and weapons with Melta profile have no effect on the Avatar.

Inspiring - Whilst the Avatar is on the board all friendly units have the stubborn USR. In addition, any friendly model within 12" of the Avatar is Fearless.

Avatar of War - An embodiment of Khaine, the Bloody-Handed god, the Avatar is a champion of martial combat on the battlefield, his attacks unerringly finding their mark. The Avatar may reroll any failed to-hit rolls in the assault phase. In addition, as a manifestation of a godly presence in the material universe, the psychic powers of the Farseers can never affect him directly.

I, like Gorechild, believe he must have some sort of effect on the Eldar army outside his Fearless bubble. There are several ways to do that. Like giving them Furious charge if they're 12" away from him, or improving their Ld so that every morale test is done with Ld 10, army-wide, etc...Stubborn seems like a good way to go to me.

One of the Avatar's problems atm is the fact that if you don't roll well, his 4 attacks are just not enough to reliably hurt the enemy. Rerolling to-wound and to-hit helps that greatly. He's still S6 here, though, so no one-shotting Warbosses or SM HQs. And because he can't be affected by Fortune, he really needs a 2+ save. And he really needs fleet. I own him, I use him, and I really can't count the times I was 1 or 2 inches short of assaulting something. In an army that is arguably supposed to be the fastest in 40k, their incarnation of a God of War should certainly not be left behind by the common citizens.

Gorechild wrote:Avatar of Khaine - .....points

BS WS S T I A W Ld Sv
-5-10--6-6-6-5-4-10-2+

Unit Type- Monsterous Creature
Wargear- Wailing Doom
Special Rules- Fleet, Deamon, Incarnation of a God, Inspiring,The Bloody Handed God, Molten Body.

Wailing Doom- R12" S8 AP1 Assault 1, Melta. The Wailing Doom always Strikes at Initiative 6 in combat, regardless of any penalties inflicted by terrain or enemy rules/wargear, In addition the Wailing Doom allows you to re-roll all failed misses to hit and wound in combat.

Incarnation of a God- The Avatar of Khaine is the physical manifestation of the God of war, hence he has a 4++ save and the Eternal Warriror USR. As a godly presence in the material universe an Avatar is immune to the Fortune and Guide psychic powers.

Molten Body - A beast of lava and flame, fire-based weapons have no effect on the Avatar, absorbed into his essence. Flamers, Heavy flamers and weapons with Melta profile have no effect on the Avatar.

Inspiring- Whilst the Avatar is on the board all friendly units have the stuborn USR. In addition, any friendly model within 12" of the Avatar is fearless.

The Bloody Handed God- Any enemy unit that attempts to assault the Avatar must first pass a leadership test, if failed the assaulting unit may not assault anyone this turn. All Ld tests taken within 12" of the Avatar must do so with a -2 modifier to their leadership.

Another re-write, using my last version and bits from Araenion's.....opinions?

Edits for clarity

As I said - I like it. But would I pay the appropriate cost for it? You've taken all the gravy from my option and only given away 1 toughness from your original one.

Why initiative 8, btw, of all numbers? I think I6 is a pretty stable place for a CC oriented MC to be.

It's not that your improvement are badly thought out, quite on the contrary, they're nice. But the cost of this thing would be monumental. 400 points as a fair price for 1 model seems too much.

I think between 250-300 is a good point cost for the Avatar to aim for.

Well I dropped toughness and attacks by 1, incorporated parts of your Avatar of War and Wailing Doom all into one for neatness. My suggestion didnt have eternal warrior or molten body, so I added them as per your suggestion.

I've updated again to lower it to I6.

You want power? How about trade your attacks or go last - one or the other - for S10 HTH attack. He may normally be S6 but if you allow either 1 S10 attack or go I 1 instead, you get S10. That gives some flexibility and power in HTH. If you want another ability - preferred enemy no matter what. Avatar or not, it is the god of war - make it a beast in HTH.

Some comparisons to swarm lord but the one I think it pails to is the Slaanesh Greater Demon. Make it so that is a 50/50 match up Khaine Avatar vs Keeper of Secrets.

Guys, just for a reference point on points and how powerful it is, I don't mean to be a buzzkill, but it is definately WEAKER than Mareas Calgar. Anything over 200 points worth is unrealistically even fluff wise.

The Sanguinor also kills an single-handedly kills an Avatar. Of course, according to all the other codices, the Eldar are very good at wiping out scouting parties but lose every large battle. If we go by other codices fluff then Eldar HQs should have rules like the ethereals that make the entire army fall back when they die.

On a seperate note, I like most of your rules for the Avatar but I think re-rolls to both hit and wound is too much.
Wailing Doom- S8 AP1 12" melta, the Avatar counts as being equipped with assault grenades and can reroll all to-wound rolls.
God of War Incarnate- Daemon, fearless, 4++ save, EW
God of the Eldar- the Eldar cannot communicate telepathically with the Avatar as they wound with each other. the Avatar cannot be targeted with Fortune or Guide and cannot be outflanked or grouped with other reserves using the Autarch's master strategist rules.
Inspiring Presence- All Eldar with LOS to the Avatar are stubborn, Eldar in 12" are fearless and have furious charge.
Molten Body- immune to flamers, heavy flamers, flamestorm cannons, incinerators and melta weapons. In addition the Avatar can bathe the area around him in flame instead of attacking in close combat. Place a large blast template over the Avatar, all models under the template take an S4 hit (this does not benefit from the Wailing Doom's rerolls to wound).
Bloody-Handed God- All units attempting to assault the Avatar must take a morale test as -2 leadership. If they fail they cannot assault this turn.

I would cost this Avatar at 220 points since it has to run across the board, unlike other cc monsters (greater daemons deepstrike, Sanguinor and Mephiston fly, other characters can join squads and/or get in vehicles).

The fact that Marneus Calgar can kill one, doesn't at all mean he's weaker than the UM leader.

I like your idea Balthydes, but I disagree that rerolling to-hit and to-wound are too powerful. If you look at my Avatar profile that's pretty much all that he has going for him. Of course if you add in some Gorechild's ideas and some of yours, especially the S4 large blast hits(which would give him considerably more power against swarms of Gaunts or Ork Boyz) something of mine has to go.

DAaddict wrote: Avatar or not, it is the god of war - make it a beast in HTH.

Some comparisons to swarm lord but the one I think it pails to is the Slaanesh Greater Demon. Make it so that is a 50/50 match up Khaine Avatar vs Keeper of Secrets.

That would be a fair comparison I guess. Seeing as Slaanesh was able to beat but not kill Khaine then the Avatar would be comparible to a KoS.
I'll have a read through my Deamons codex this evening to see what I can come up with. I'll keep inspiring, molten body and the 2+ save and work the other rules in around to see if I can get something that feels right.

To stop us rehashing the same ideas shall we start looking into the Autarch aswell? I like the idea of them having abilities purchased like exarch powers/ farseer powers. Things like the grouped reserved and outflanking everything could be examples, then maybe include something to hinder your opponents deployment and/or deep strike deterents? They all cost X number of points and you're allowed to have 1 or 2 from the selection. It would allow you to dictate how and where you fight (as a master stratagist would).

I work in retail, I hate this time of year, so little time for anything at all...

In either case, what about a form of psychic/exarch powers light, or more reliable form of IG orders for Autarch. Not as blatant as the IG versions, but something more similar to the beneficial abilities you're able to buy for Warlocks.

For example, purchasing a power for the autarch which allows him to outflank with a large portion (or maybe all) of the army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and regarding the fluff of Eldar falling back when HQ is eliminated - what if Craftworld Eldar had a small universal benefit with the drawback that the army must take a morale test per unit whenever one of it's HQ die.

Or we could make it a rule specifically linked with the avatar as a reason to OP him.

I was thinking that next to the Eldar psychic powers page in the wargear section you could have a stratagem style section for the Autarch's abilities. Something along the lines of:

Flank March- If an Autarch in your army has this ability then any board edge not specified as belonging to the opposing player counts as belonging to the Eldar player (if fighting an opponent that also has this ability the 1 short board edge is given to each player randomly.

Massed Reinforcements- Up to 3 units in reserve may be grouped together and are able to enter play at the same time. You only need to roll 1 dice per group of units, if the roll is sucessful every unit in the group enters play together.

Logistical Espionage- The Eldar player may choose to make their opponent reroll any reserve roll, including rolles to determine what side of the board outflankers arrive from.


Add 3 or 4 more options and your sorted. It would make an Autarch a REALLY useful HQ and also reflects their fuff brilliantly. Does anybody like the sound of it?

No. Too complex, too little gained.

Autarchs were fine when they made Eldar go first and increased reserve rolls. They'd be fine if they could just do that again.

Only change I'd make to Autarchs is to have them carry special exarch weapons instead of regular aspect weapons.

How do you think its to complicated? how is basically being able to outflank everything complex or "too little gained" the other two are are even more straightforward arent they?

Gorechild wrote:I was thinking that next to the Eldar psychic powers page in the wargear section you could have a stratagem style section for the Autarch's abilities. Something along the lines of:

Flank March- If an Autarch in your army has this ability then any board edge not specified as belonging to the opposing player counts as belonging to the Eldar player (if fighting an opponent that also has this ability the 1 short board edge is given to each player randomly.

Massed Reinforcements- Up to 3 units in reserve may be grouped together and are able to enter play at the same time. You only need to roll 1 dice per group of units, if the roll is sucessful every unit in the group enters play together.

Logistical Espionage- The Eldar player may choose to make their opponent reroll any reserve roll, including rolles to determine what side of the board outflankers arrive from.


Add 3 or 4 more options and your sorted. It would make an Autarch a REALLY useful HQ and also reflects their fuff brilliantly. Does anybody like the sound of it?

More or less exactly what I was thinking of. Purchase one, keep the base price of the Autarch relatively low.

Gorechild wrote:How do you think its to complicated?

It's already an army with at least 2 special rules per unit. They don't need 3 more on one character, when the one he has is already plenty if it actually was worded to work in this edition.

DarknessEternal wrote:Only change I'd make to Autarchs is to have them carry special exarch weapons instead of regular aspect weapons.

Dayve110 wrote:I Don't think Autarchs should recieve Exarch powers.
Exarchs are lost on the path of the warrior and are pretty much bound into their certain aspect for life. An Autarch would have studied each aspect, but not have become lost upon it, therefore would not have learnt the Exarch powers or recieved the Exarch weapons.

Here's a few more:

Ambush!: Eldar units start coming in from reserves on turn 1 on a 4+, then 3+ turn 2 and so on. The Eldar player seizes the initiative on a 3+.

Vertical Assault: All Eldar grav-tanks and jetbikes can deepstrike (maybe conducted in the same way as a drop pod assault, i.e. pick half to arrive turn 1). Vehicles with vectored thrusters only scatter d6 inches and count as moving combat speed.

Strategical Brilliance: the Eldar player can choose to add or subtract 1 from their own reserve rolls, including determining which side outflankers arrive on. the autarch can also choose 1 Eldar unit to outflank.

The main difference between the autarch and IG orders should be that autarch strategems affect overall army strategy whereas IG orders are tactics.
@DarknessEternal: there can be autarch strategems that increase reserve rolls or make eldar go first, there's nothing wrong with that. Having a lot of different strategems increases the number of possible armies because an army that can arrive on any board edge will be completely different from one that deepstrikes or that arrives in groups of reserves, even if they have the same units. Different strategems will also have better synergy with different units, encouraging diverse armies.