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Hello,

I got back into the game recently and noticed that most Eldar players consider the Phoenix Lords a complete no go for their army lists. I wondered why and would like to hear some opinions, preferably with some arguments instead of just "They're crap". I mean sure, they are not the cheapest units, but they can pack a punch and also take some punishment.

Regards
Murenius

Well, Phoenix Lords are considered to be overpriced.
Nevertheless, some of them are quite useful, like Maugan Ra (good shooter and evil in cc) and Karandras (with 8 pf attacks on the charge)

When I play my mate and we are playing a friendly game I always take Maugan Ra just for fun, the guy is a beast in assault!

As much as I love the idea and fluff of the Phoenix Lords they are very expensive to put on the tabletop :(

They are expensive (in an already over pointed army), have narrow use (can only join their own aspect), and most lack an invul, so you kinda need a squad for them. Since most aspects suck (swooping hawks) or don't need an IC to boost them (fire dragons, dire avengers), then where do they fit in? Going to double the cost of that unit for marginal performance increase + beatstick character? Uh, usually the answer is no.

Phoenix lords don't have to join only their own aspect--they can also join harlequins for veil of tears protection, foot councils for fortune protection, or rangers/pathfiders for the improved cover save.

In my experience, Maugan Ra seems to synergize especially well with footdar harlequins (giving them something to do while they stand around waiting for countercharge) and pathfinders (same range & target type, plus rending). Maugan Ra is kind of a self-contained countercharge unit who can take out outflanking/assault units in the backfield all by himself.

Also I've used Asurmen occasionally to try to assassinate enemy characters. He's not always good at killing them, but he can tarpit them for a loooong time.

But that's in footdar armies, that I only play occasionally and for fun. In a mech army, phoenix lords compete with autarchs and farseers for HQ slots.

Maugan Ra's synergy with Harlies is limited as Harlies ignore difficult terrain while a Phoenix Lord does not.
If you plan to add Ra to Harlies, include a DJ for more shooting.

wuestenfux wrote: Karandras (with 8 pf attacks on the charge)

7

notabot187 wrote:They are expensive (in an already over pointed army), have narrow use (can only join their own aspect), and most lack an invul, so you kinda need a squad for them. Since most aspects suck (swooping hawks) or don't need an IC to boost them (fire dragons, dire avengers), then where do they fit in? Going to double the cost of that unit for marginal performance increase + beatstick character? Uh, usually the answer is no.

Flavius Infernus wrote:Phoenix lords don't have to join only their own aspect--they can also join harlequins for veil of tears protection, foot councils for fortune protection, or rangers/pathfiders for the improved cover save.

In my experience, Maugan Ra seems to synergize especially well with footdar harlequins (giving them something to do while they stand around waiting for countercharge) and pathfinders (same range & target type, plus rending). Maugan Ra is kind of a self-contained countercharge unit who can take out outflanking/assault units in the backfield all by himself.

Also I've used Asurmen occasionally to try to assassinate enemy characters. He's not always good at killing them, but he can tarpit them for a loooong time.

But that's in footdar armies, that I only play occasionally and for fun. In a mech army, phoenix lords compete with autarchs and farseers for HQ slots.

/thread

Allright, doesn't sound that bad. I guess I'll buy the ones I am still missing and test them in a few casual games. Probably Maugan Ra with Harlies or Asurmen, that sounds like fun.

Jain zar is a monster. 5 Strength 7 attacks on the charge, at I8.

I think they aren't awful but just not known about much.

For the most part they are the same as with most Eldar things, use them right, they're brutal, use them wrong, they're terrible. I'd say in order of most useful to most useless is:

Fuegan
Karandras
Maugan Ra
Jain Zar
Asurmen
Baharroth

Fuegan works wonders with Harlies and a Fortune Seer, the amount of wounds he can tank is absurd (mathhammer shows itll take more than 1k bolter rounds to finally kill him), once he hits CC he is WS7 s5 ap2 at i7 with 5 attacks or alternatively; S9 ap2 at i7 with 3 attacks. Long as he doesn't hit a strong invun he'll just flatten stuff. The hit and run still sticks from the harlies and his crackshot/tank hunters is useful. The real flaw with this setup is it is kinda easy to overkill stuff and just be wasting points, your talking 250 for harlies, 205 for fuegan and 100-odd for a fortune seer....

Now I like Karandras with a big Guardian blob, they're mostly just there to absorb wounds and do so much much cheaper than harlequins, while his 7 ws7 s8 pf attacks on the charge make a hell of a mess of marine squads, I've had him go through 3 different squads, one turn after another because they fail to kill him, he flattens half the squad, sweeps them (i7 is great!) and then moves onto the next one! Works pretty well with Wraithguard too, gives your opponent something to think twice about assaulting them and as with the guardians you can stack his Stealth ontop of Conceal from a warlock for a 4+ cover anywhere. He also has Assault Grenades too, while fuegan doesn't.

I've not used Maugan Ra yet.. as said he's a better shooter than a CC beatstick, 5 bs7 s6 rending attacks are kinda scary from an IC who can precision shot, also if they try to do anything about him he's still got a phoenix lord statline in CC.

The others, well they just don't have the strength in CC or in shooting to justify their points.... also they compete with an Avatar or even Yriel, both of which are cheaper and often just as good in CC and shooting, though in both cases they tend to be more durable.

The most playable for me is Fuegan leading a Seer Council incl. Fortuneseer. Such a unit on foot is definitely hard to take down via shooting or in cc. Let Fuegan take the lead. He's almost impossible to kill thanks to 2+ save, eternal warrior, fortune, and FnP.
I tried this unit vs. Tau (1500 pts) having 10 Warlocks, 10 Harlies led by Shadowseer, 3 Warwalkers w/ scatterlasers, 2 Wraithlords, 2x 5 Pathfinders, and some Dire Avengers on foot.
Harlies and Council were unstoppable no matter what Tau was throwing at them (Kroot, Stealth Suits, Fire Warriors) so that Tau surrendered.

i run eldar/tau or just eldar or just tau and i will tell you in anything smaller then apocalypse none of my phoenix lords hit the table, to expensive as each fits primarily the role of beefed up whatever you usually dont wanna spend to much into any sort of counter unit ever so its sort of like whipped cream on icing its ncie and usefull but you wouldnt add it to your sundae if it cost 5 bucks more

I don't really like them in games under 2k because I like to have the farseer support of at least two farseers. I usually play games of 2500 points and that is where the Phoenix Lords shine. Just today I played a deathstar Eldar unit in a 2500 point game. I had Eldrad with codex powers, a Farseer with Prescience and Forewarning. Then I had Karandras and Yriel all together in a unit of 8 Striking Scorpions with an Exarch and the Scorpions Claw.

That one unit got blown out of it's vehicle in my first turn, then proceeded to eat a full unit of Daemonettes of Slaanesh that had charged them. Then proceeded to eat two full units of Nurgle Chaos Space Marines, one unit of Chaos Space Marines with heavy weapons (I forgot what they were called), a unit of Beasts of Nurgle, and a minimum unit of Warp Talons all in a 7 turn game.

The Star Player was Karandras because of the ugly amount of attacks he can level at unit. Even getting charged a few times that unit ate everything that came at it. But it did lose Yriel and Karandras in the end. Still, I would not have been able to come anywhere near killing all of that had I not taken Karandras as no other Eldar is that powerful. He effectively took almost an entire armies worth of shooting and continued to eat through those units.

But, had I not been able to get that 4+ invul save or if going Telepathy, the Invisibility power, that unit would not have been able to take that much punishment and keep working. That is why I only take them in larger point games. That lack of an invul save is a real killer on them.

The other issue is that bar Karandras with the claw and fuegan with his axe, the others are AP3

AP 3 isn't really a big deal as most units aren't equipped with terminator equivalent armour. Most are 3+ or worse.

Those units that are Terminators can still be killed by the Phoenix Lords without much trouble as they do have a good number of attacks. The best one that is only AP 3 in my opinion is Asurmen because he can take on the big named characters of the other armies and force them to be removed from play if they fail a wound, no matter how many wounds they have, even if they have Eternal Warrior.

Most Phoenix Lords are more expensive than Eldrad - and in an army where we rely on good tactics and infantry, not HQ cheese, Phoenix Lords are considered fairly inefficient points wise.

That said, pile Asurmen into a WS with 10 DAs, and you have an extremely effective roaming death squad that just happens to be fearless. So, if you take a PL, I would say to also bundle them with a full squad of their aspect.

I don't use the Lords because I consider Eldrad+Farseer to be a superior HQ choice (at least for my list).

I use Eldrad to cast Fortune twice, once on him and once on a second unit. The second Farseer gets 4 powers and is kitted out to be around 185pts. I then sack all of those powers for rolls on the Divination list. Forewarning is the money maker that I am shooting for to give a single unit 4+ Invuln saves. I think Divination is really good with no true dog powers in it. I attach both HQs to a single unit (not clowns, usally 10 Wraithguard) and march them down an opponent's throat (with Fortune and Forewarning). I make sure I have the Warlock in the Guard has Conceal to make sure I have a cover save incase I don't get Forewarning. I run a second deathstar of Clowns behind (with Fortune) and two Wraithlords on each side giving fire support. Fill out rest of points as you see fit with at least one other troop selection.

For my list, taking out the second Farseer kinda gimps the list. Making Eldrad give up the base Eldar powers means I don't get Fortune twice, and that is just to damn good. Right now, I can't see a list without Eldrad to really be successful, and a second Farseer has to be up there with any other second HQ choice (Avatar, Prince Yriel, Maugan Ra, Fuegan, or Karandras). I find the Farseer hard to replace in any list, to be honest.

I guess it depends on your list.

In 6th I used Irillyth twice. One match he survived a ork boyz charge (losing the entire squad in the process), and in another he sweept several squads of footslogging SoB. As with others PL, isn't bad, but pricey...

Mathius wrote:
I think they aren't awful but just not known about much.

Well, since this post was written back in 2011 a lot has changed.

In 5th edition Phoenix Lords were horri-bad and you only saw Maugan Ra once in a while.

With all of the rule changes that 6th edition brought Phoenix Lords have gotten a lot better but are still a little overpriced.

For example: No one ever saw Fuegan before and now you see a lot of him because of what he can do when he rocks a quad gun. This is one of the few ways that Eldar have to counter flyers, but IMO he is still not worth if for his point cost.

Why I would rather have a Fire Dragon Exarch from a 5 man squad man my gun.

 BlkTom wrote:
Why I would rather have a Fire Dragon Exarch from a 5 man squad man my gun.

Because Fuegan doesn't get removed after a single Helldrake shot.