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The Eldar Pheonix Lords all come in at about 200pts

Only one of them has an invulnerable - but his weapon is as strong as a bloter..

IMO Maugen Ra is the only useful one...
Is there an argument otherwise?
Are there examples where they can infact be utterly potent?

It isn't that they're not powerful (they rip it up pretty well), but that they compete with Avatars, Yriel, and Eldrad for HQ slots.

Maugan Ra is the most versatile (I.E. has a use outside of CC) and so he crops up sometimes, but really, how many different ways are there to tool up a CC character?

Yep, and there's the problem. They've all got high stats, and therefore a high points cost because of it. Some are clearly meant for specific roles but their equipment and stats don't really match. Others have equipment that's just plain bad (COUGH baharroth COUGH).

Fuegan and Karandras can also be useful. These guys are for very , very specialized situations.

Karandras is a cc nut and makes his squad of 10 Scorpions fearless and very dangerous.

Fuegan can assure that that vehicle gets popped and can give the Firedragons that much needed cc support.

Other than that I find the rest nearly useless or over cost.

Fuegan with some dragoons can pop tanks or creatures like fexes etc.

Yes all true.

Yet if Fuegen's Dragons, or Karrandaras' Scorpions get charged by howling banshee equivalents (ie power weapons) or take a few plasma shots they will drop extremely quickly, and so more importantly will the lords...

Maugan Ra is the one that I use pretty frequently, but he is not adequate as a CC character except against basic, footstlogging, non-CC oriented infantry. The lack of an invulnerable save means that even a sergeant with a power weapon is a threat to Mr. Ra.

He is really good at shooting, having a weapon with decent range, assault 4, pinning and rending on top of his exarch powers means that he can engage any target with a reasonable chance to damage it: including land raiders. He really shines against units the rely on cover saves to survive though. I pretty much only use fast shot against vehicles with no cover, or against infantry with no cover that have been doomed already. Otherwise crack shot is better in nearly any situation.

I've been thinking about Fuegan, and I think he could be useful to run with some fire dragons to give them tank hunters and a bit of durability, but fire dragons are such one-hit wonders that I don't know if putting a PL with them would make a big enough difference.

One interesting tactic you can do with almost any of the PLs is to put them with a unit of harlequins. You can place hits from small-arms fire on the PL with his 2+ save and AP1-2 hits on the harlequins with their invulnerable save. It works pretty well if the unit is fortuned.

That's a good idea with the Harlequins, but you could do the dame with Yriel, and he will be just as good if not better in CC, and is cheaper

But a re-rollable 2+ save is pretty great against bolters/heavy bolters. Yriel is definitely doable, but I like how Maugan Ra's shootiness synergizes with the veil of tears.

Feugan is a monster against tanks.

Jain Zar is a beast in combat, shame about her face. The Silent death is also a powerful, if short ranged, weapon. No invuln really hurts her tho.

Nurglitch wrote:Feugan is a monster against tanks.

Within 18".

Maugan Ra is a monster against tanks at 36". Maybe not quite as much of a monster... but he absolutely terrorized the air cav list I played last night. Pretty good chance to get a 6 on one of five rolls... and any rends pen.

Nurglitch wrote:Feugan is a monster against tanks.

No invulnerable: he gets close, pops a tank, then dies -205pts gone ( unless the opponents is foolish and tries to flank you or something with a single tank)

There is always something that kills something.

PL's are really for those specific situations that are unique to their talent. Otherwise, they cost to much.

I've been thinking of sticking Maugan Ra with some pathfinders. They all get some shooty awesome anyway, and should someone dare get close, Maugan Ra walks up and takes care of them. But I'm not sure he's worth investing the money/points in just to aid a squad of pathfinders.

Maugan Ra works alright with pathfinders, but you can't think of him as a pathfinder unit upgrade, you have to think of the pathfinders as a safe place to keep Ra.

A lot of people dont like him, but I have had some good runs with Asurmen. Hes less shooty than Maugan Ra, but he can empty his mag with bladestorm , charge in, and then hang out for a turn, then in the following turn clean up whats left and then consolidate and bladestorm the next target. He excels at killing Elites choices, and defend is absolutely broken when it compliments his WS7 and 2+/4++. Ive had him wipe out an entire 250pt 10 man sterngaurd unit in one game turn, and take only one wound from the skirmish.


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It is also worth mentioning that even though hes 230 points, he comes with 30 points of exarch powers, which are more expensive and generally more useful than the other phenoix lord's powers. you don't need to buy them on the exarch if you are running him with a squad, so there's a 30 point discount.

Maugan Ra is one of my favorite phoenix lords. He has a chance against AV14 (excluding monoliths) (odds are better then those of a las-cannon roughly 20%) can kill anything including MC and comes with a built in re-rolls wounds when shooting which also negates cover saves.

Wraith Guard as troop and take a warlock with conceal. Then take Krandras and join him to the unit, every one now has +1 to their cover save (till Krandras dies any way).

I have used Fuegan and whats her face the banshee. Both are good, in fact they're better then same points worth of their aspect but they don't work as well as the other HQ.

All Pheonix Lords have Eternal Warrior but Fuegan also has FNP....something to remember.

He also as a 2+ save, which means if anyone is going to set about killing feugan seriously, the first thing they are going to do is bypass his 2+ armor... and his FNP.

I've had success with Asurmen and a wraithguard troop choice. They make a good vehicle for getting him across the board in one piece. He also raises their threat profile, increasing the amount of fire they take (which is, of course, a good thing). Once they get across the board, I usually detach him and have him go nuts on enemy elite/troop squads. He just tears them apart, and with his invuln, can go a long time while fortuned.


A lot of people poo-poo phoenix lords, and fairly rightly so, they do cost a truckload of points, but it's worth saying, they aren't bad, they just aren't as amazing as other HQs which cost 200+ points. You assault a troops choice with any one of them (maybe, barring the SH suck-tard), you'll kill the unit.

Asurmen never disappoints, because his Defend + Inv + Diresword is a pain for any unit. He works in just about every unit because of defend, and if he is with a fortuned unit, they will stick around a while.

Karandaras gets a nasty S8 fist with a buttload of attacks, and can infiltrate and fleet. He loses fleet with his scorps though, since they can't.

Jain Zar rocks against anything but Nob Bikerz, and makes her banshees fearless, but that might be a little overkill.

Fuegan has a long range melta, and hits with S5 + 2D6 against vehicles. FNP is never bad either. He just doesn't really synergize with the dragons all that well because he can't split his fire from them.

Baharoth has awesome mobility and the same stats as the others, but more lackluster weapons. He does have haywire grenades though I believe.

Maugan Ra has a monstrous gun, and then can do some decent counter assault.

Basically, most of the phoenix lords work better on their own then with their own aspect, since their gear doesn't synergize well with their aspect's gear. They work better leading an army and you don't necessarily have to give them or have them lead disciples. They are pretty pricey though, and now there are alot of good eldar HQ choices, so the Phoenix Lords get edged out.

I really like Muagan Ra.

I'm new to Eldar but I placed him a maxed out squad of guardians. It takes a lot to get through 20 guardians just to fire on Ra.

whitedragon wrote:Asurmen never disappoints, because his Defend + Inv + Diresword is a pain for any unit. He works in just about every unit because of defend, and if he is with a fortuned unit, they will stick around a while.

Aspect powers don't work on non-aspect units, so no -1 attacks. Shimmershield is nice but 5+ inv isn't amazing (mind you on 20 storm-guardians it is funny)

Tri wrote:

whitedragon wrote:Asurmen never disappoints, because his Defend + Inv + Diresword is a pain for any unit. He works in just about every unit because of defend, and if he is with a fortuned unit, they will stick around a while.

Aspect powers don't work on non-aspect units, so no -1 attacks. Shimmershield is nice but 5+ inv isn't amazing (mind you on 20 storm-guardians it is funny)

Defend does work

Defend works on the opposition, not on the unit Asurmen is with, so it does still work.

Ive used Karandas in a unit of wraithguard a couple times now and its worked out well. It is a terrible point sink, but Karandas does bring a couple nice pluses to the guard. With a conceal warlock the unit does get a nice 4+ cover save in open terrain, and Karandas is a cc monster so he helped the guard win the ccs they got into.

Wouldnt use it in any kind of tournement game, but in "friendly" games its fun, and I think it would work well in Apoc as well where points dont matter too much.

The complete tactics package does involve a bit of surprise tho. Have fielded them once when I went first, once when i went second. Going first and deploying first is where the slight of hand can make this surprise really work. We had the two base objective game rolled up, so I set the guard/ karandas up in front of my own objective, deploying them as if they were going to be the anchor of my line. Nothing much was set up across from my opponents objective. After my opponent set up his SMs, I then used eldrad to redeploy the guard/ karandas to directly opposite my opponents objective, within range where eldrad could then fortune them on the first turn as well. First turn fortune, move the guard forward, then run the guard forward. The second turn they were within movement range of a piece of cover so they ended up plowing into the lightly defended objective with ease.
Its still a LOT of points for one unit, albeit a scoring unit. It is fun tho when an opponent is worried enough to deep strike his termies in to try and help save his objective, wraith cannons just love termies. If your opponent knows what wraithguard + Karandas can do its a lot less likely to be a game winner.



Sliggoth

Hmmm... having said that, I re-read the relevant page, and it says he leads the avengers in a dance... So in my opinion it would no work after all.

Generally, Phoenix Lords are too expensive for what they can achieve for competitve play.
If you want a fun army, then go for it. Take one. You can't go wrong.

adielubbe wrote:

Tri wrote:

whitedragon wrote:Asurmen never disappoints, because his Defend + Inv + Diresword is a pain for any unit. He works in just about every unit because of defend, and if he is with a fortuned unit, they will stick around a while.

Aspect powers don't work on non-aspect units, so no -1 attacks. Shimmershield is nice but 5+ inv isn't amazing (mind you on 20 storm-guardians it is funny)

Defend does work

Fifty wrote:Defend works on the opposition, not on the unit Asurmen is with, so it does still work.

Defend: The Exarch leads his squad in a complex pattern of parries and dodges designed to avoid the enemy blows. The enemy models directing their attacks towards the exarch's squad lose one Attack in each assault phase.

It specifically mentions the squad, once in the fluff and once in how it works. If the power doesn't effect the squad they don't move in a complicated pattern and the enemy doesn't lose an attack.

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Fifty wrote:Hmmm... having said that, I re-read the relevant page, and it says he leads the avengers in a dance... So in my opinion it would no work after all.

ah never mind then, you've corrected yourself

IMO theyre all good. My faves are Feugan, his monstrous creature and S5 are very good for taking out terminatores and tanks it CC and at range, Karandras has plenty of attacks and can attack as a power fist to kill termies or a chainsword to kill numerous units his sneaky abilities are also ace. True asurmen is good with his inv, a 2+ save is usless against anoying power swords etc. but for me ith the first two that shine. Jain Zar deserves a honourable mention too.

For Asurmen, even with defend only working on himself, he works nicely in any squad as he is a beefy character and is tough to kill is what I meant to say.

The debate about his and other Phoenix Lord powers working for units depends on how you interpret the fluff and rules of each power and the restrictions that the Phoenix Lord powers only work on their disciples. Example, does Karandaras grant stealth to a unit that isn't striking scorpions? (That's a YMDC question, but anyway, does the rule that "Phoenix Lord powers only work on their aspect" and "Karandaras grants his striking scorpions stealth" override the general rule "Stealth" from the rulebook which says it transfers to the squad if a character has it.)

Anyway, the phoenix lords make a good choice for a second HQ if you already have your 1st HQ doing what you want to do.