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Taking into account how effective that lord would be with its given aspect of warriors (and the role they generally fill)

Also any possibilites of lords joining non aspect warriors (i.e troops w/o an exarch is what I assume) for example seer councils or harlies (theres not many)

Any intereting combos or uses?

The idea of this thread is to discuss the merits of the Lords so comparing them to other HQs & suggesting parings is fine but simply saying the other HQ's are better well...

It wont be that productive.

Which Lord has an invulnerable save?

Pick that one.

2+/3+ assault terminators make all the other close combat oriented lords very, very moot.

The shooty guy still seems solid, though.

Maugan Ra with Harlies and a death jester is a good one. So is Jan Sar (sp?). I always thought the one for Swooping Hawks could work with a squad of Swooping Hawks.

G

Maugan Ra ... the guy is a tank ... 36" multie shot pinning rending moster + str6 in CC ... run for you're lives
Karandras is also a nasty peice of work he gets 6 P.Fist attacks (7 on the charge) and he's base str:4 ... only down side is he's very little ranged fire power and only comes with a S.cat

Jain Zar same as Karandras but is Str 6 power weapon (+F.Chr = Str7) with 4 attacks ... but she goes first almost every single time ...she bit better range wise she got an ap:2 assault 3 thing...

Asurmen ... great HtH with a diresword ... assualt 4 (+1 with blade storm) Avg.S.Cat ... and i don't like Dire Avengers so i don't use him

Mmm the DA Asurmen has the invunerable.

I was indeed thinking of Maugan Ra w/ the harlies.. Sit at 24'' and shoot as much as you like and be virtually invunerable to fire. Not bad in close combat. Crazy good shooty w/ his abilties.

Why do you say the swooping hawks lord will be any good with a squad of his aspect?

Unless your Asurmen, Stay away from termies + all power wep CC types. Fuegan would live the longest after Asurmen, with FNP. MC attacks too, woo.

I think that the Phoenix Lords can be a really good HQ option if you have a certain objective you would like to /or need to accomplish. Personally I like Karandras. He is invaluble when infiltrating to take out those lobba's next to that warboss or something like that. Fuegan leading the Fire Dragons in a wave serpent to take out those 3 Monoliths(works well!).

First I don't want to seem like I hate Phoenix Lords. Their Stat's are amazing and there abilities are useful of their specific goal - just like their aspect warriors.

However they are so good at 1 job they really limit what your army's HQ can do.

Avatar - Fearless to all units within 12". Plus other goodies
Farseer - Guide, Doom, Warmind and other useful powers, excpecially deadly with council and can be on bikes.
Autarch - +1 to reserve rolls - very useful and has loads of wargear options

I personally find that these 3 HQ choices are more useful (imho) to any Eldar army than a single phoenix lord expecially when you can do the same job with his aspect warriors anyway.

However Takeing Ra with the Harlies and a Deathjester is a very nice and sinister move.

Casper, what you say is true, thats why you won't see Phoenix Lords all that often. Consider this, the Avatar is a MC and the shoot the big ones can single him out. The Farseer is not that great at cc and is fairly easy to kill. The Autarch is only str 3 or 4(chainsword) and T 3 which spells instant death. The Phoenix Lords are inmune to instant death. They are expensive pts wise but, like said before in the right situation they can be more useful than the other more common 3.

Really, the only eldar unit you would want in close combat with Assault Terminators are fortuned warlocks. Against anything else, a Phoenix Lord will do well. They have a high init and ws to compensate slightly for the lack of an ++ save, but they are best used for obliterating enemy squads on an objective.

They also make thier squad fearless. And a farseer & lord could be quite useful as I do count a farseer's psychic abilites are v.useful.

Still expensive :(

But so are all of the SM special IC

I have three favorites:

Maugan Ra is mean in shooting and assault if necessary.
Jain Zar joining a Banshee squad is a monster in cc.
Karandras is the best melee fighter.

Each on thier own, granted- are gribbly. Maugen ra can work well with harlies. Kan with his scorps & his points are basically all used, same with maugen ra.

Where as Jain Zar, you either use her furious charge (which does nothing for the rest o the squad) or her uber triskle. The crazy high I plus 5 attacks is nice, granted.

Still, I'm not man enough to spend so many points on a Phoenix Lord.
I prefer Eldrad or a Farseer for support and Yriel or an Autarch on jetbike.

ahaha How quickly can you take off four wounds with power weapons.

With an aspect based army.. id either go for maugen ra or Kan. Id call him Khan.

We need more man.

No, Phoenix Lords are overpriced for what they can achieve.

I disagree, for some of them. They make squads of aspects fearless...Shame they dont count thier aspect squad as a retinue. Still, they wont go away!

Karandras is my favorite. Besides being a beefy melee fighter, he actually gives some of the best boosts to his squad. Striking Scorpions get some of the greatest benefits of being Fearless since they're typically run on foot, meaning they're more likely to have to make Morale checks from shooting. Giving his entire squad Stealth boosts their survivability quite quite a bit.

Besides, he looks pretty pimp while he's at it.

Yriel is generally better than any of the Phoenix Lords in combat due to his weapon and invuln. save plus the reserves roll bonus.

That said, here are recommendations if you really, really want to take one:

Asurmen will make a squad of DAs even more tar-pitty. He's not badass enough to make them a good a countercharge element, but will hold and grind the enemy until your countercharge element arrives.

Maugan Ra is good for a shooty army, as he can contribute to the shooting if you do manage to evade/shoot-to-death the enemy (thus not wasting his investment). He's a decent countercharge as well, but again he would be a better addition to a small countercharge unit like Harlies.

Karandras is great vs. Guardsmen on his own, or vs. Orks he makes a Scorpion unit a very real threat. I'd put him plus 10 Scorps up against 30 Slugga Boyz with Klaw without wincing too much.

Never had much use for the others- either just a unit of their basic aspect warriors already does the job better for the points (Dragons, Banshees), or they really, really don't work either with their warriors or on their own (Baharroth). It's a bit sad, really- they're such great old figs.

Savnock wrote:
Karandras is great vs. Guardsmen on his own, or vs. Orks he makes a Scorpion unit a very real threat. I'd put him plus 10 Scorps up against 30 Slugga Boyz with Klaw without wincing too much.

Ya i think everyone winces when fighting orks in melee.

However I agree the modles are some of the best in my opinion - avatar wins outright over them though.

Ra with Harlies is probably the most useful of them that I have seen in combat.

I always thought it would be cool if you took the aspec warriors you could pay for a lord instead of an exarc (or would it be better vica versa? with them being a retinue?) either way that is how I would have liked to see them. Primarily because they in my experience wind up running with their aspec and no exarc.

Casper wrote:
I always thought it would be cool if you took the aspec warriors you could pay for a lord instead of an exarc (or would it be better vica versa? with them being a retinue?) either way that is how I would have liked to see them. Primarily because they in my experience wind up running with their aspec and no exarc.

Yeah, having those basic exarch powers go redundant can be lame, but for at least two of the aspects, the exarch actually compliments the Lord if fielded with just gear, no powers.

Take the PW/SS Avenger exarch with Asurmen also there. The unit's 5+ invuln is too good to pass up if you're gonna tarpit with the Fearless unit, and Asurmen forgot to bring his with him.

Jain Zar kicks more tuccas alongside a banshee exarch with an Executioner: Enough to take no strikes back at all from the enemy, which can allow the Banshees to actually survive the inevitable rapid firing they get the next round unless their enemies are hardy and Fearless.

Karandras plus an exarch means 3 S7 and 5 S9 powerfist attacks. That'll kill a whole lotta Terminators or whatever.

Maugan Ra... is better not fielded with Reapers, so that's a moot point. Same goes for Baharroth (really bad when mixed with other Hawks unless they're ablative shielding). But at least Mau Diddly (plays the Maugetar, after all) is pretty damn good with other units, like Harlies.

And Fuegan is just too much with a Fire Dragon unit, unless you're trying to kill a Titan. If you're doing that though, he's great. (He'll probably be the only thing standing when the Superheavy blows up, too). But either way, the exarch doesn't add much to Dragons containing him either.

So yeah, Asurmen, Karandras and Jain Zar really rock with their exarchs around too. The others not so much.