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Just wondering about the Warp Spider and Shining Spear aspect shrines; why do they not have Phoenix Lords (as far as we know)? And would it be feasible for them to have Phoenix Lords?

To be a Phoenix Lord, does one have to simply be the 1st Exarch/Asurya (except Karandras of course)? Or is it a bit more complicated?
Obviously, the typical reason is that they're 'newer' Aspects, but as time goes on (although largely stays still in the 40K universe), does this still ring true?


Just wondering about the lack of Phoenix Lords for these 2 Aspects really and whether this could be expected to change in later fluff...

Just Dave wrote:
Just wondering about the lack of Phoenix Lords for these 2 Aspects

When Phoenix Lords were invented, the other aspects already had models, so the Phoenix Lords were the new models. Shining Spears and Warp Spiders were completely new, so they didn't need a Phoenix Lord to sell those models.

I never quite got why Shining Spears were Aspect warriors. How is a spear an aspect of Khain? - the other aspects are concepts of living things (or at least animate things in case of the banshees and the reapers).

My opinion would be that Shining Spears aren't actually an Aspect. They would fit better as some elite Saim Hann wild rider family. Fluff wise, that is.

Thom wrote:I never quite got why Shining Spears were Aspect warriors. How is a spear an aspect of Khain? - the other aspects are concepts of living things (or at least animate things in case of the banshees and the reapers).

My opinion would be that Shining Spears aren't actually an Aspect. They would fit better as some elite Saim Hann wild rider family. Fluff wise, that is.

They represent the accuracy of Khaine's spear, yes all aspect warriors are an aspect of khaine. In regards to the OP I would say its just GW being lazy I mean FW came out with a new aspect warrior and gave them a phoenix lord.

FlammingGaunt wrote:GW being lazy I mean FW came out with a new aspect warrior and gave them a phoenix lord.

Two things.

1. They haven't yet.

2. Forge World is Games Workshop.

It's because the Phoenix Lords only represent the very first of the aspect shrines, there are numerous other aspects but only the most common of those are represented in the eldar codex.

In one of the BL books there is a Warp Spider Phoenix Lord... GW just havent written him into the Codex

Because the warp spiders and shining spears came about in 2nd ed - after creation of the phoenix lords (late RT, 1990).

Shining spears didn't even get basic models until 3rd ed.

TBH, the spider PL was a CS Goto creation aberration and I'm sure most eldar players are happy that GW have not made it canon.

Personally I disagree having Warp Spider and Shining Spear Phoenix Lords because they are meant to be "new"-ish shrines. There should only be Phoenix Lords for the very first of the aspect warriors (fluff-wise) and I don't think it would be a good idea introducing new Phoenix Lords just because, I feel, that it would take away from some the tradition in the fluff (then again I still refuse to accept the dreadknight exist either )

FlammingGaunt wrote: FW came out with a new aspect warrior and gave them a phoenix lord.

I didn't think they did?

Fluff wise the Lords are the first Exarchs which founded their aspects first shrine many centuries ago. As the fluff around the exarchs involve each new wearer of the armours personality merging with the originals they have centuries worth of experience. With the 6 existing Lords I assume because they are very long standing aspects and each craftworld has at least 1 shrine to them. The other two are newer introductions in both game terms and probably fluff, so their first Exarchs probably aren't famous enough yet . It's also why aspect wraithlords suggestions seem very unfluffy to me

Practicality reasons, well Eldar had Eldrad and 6 PL's then they added Yriel too thats 8 SC's...

FlammingGaunt wrote:They represent the accuracy of Khaine's spear, yes all aspect warriors are an aspect of khaine.

Which is, ofcourse, pretty much silly-sauce. Khaine''s spear is not Khaine. The accuracy of Khaine''s spear is definitely not Khaine. These are not aspects of Khaine.

First lets get the word "aspect" out of the way: it means something like a way "to look at" some thing.

So, what are the ways of looking at Khaine? First the easy ones, the ones that actually tell us something about Khaine and the stories that are told about him.

Dire Avengers - Khaine as a noble warrior

Howling Banshees - banshees were daughters of Khaine and the Crone, so here we simply see Khaine as one of his daughters. Taking the myth into account, we might see Khaine as a keeper of promise, no matter how gruesome.

Fire Dragons - Khaine as fire. Not only destruction and aggression, but simply his molten-lava-body. Fuegan is said to call forth the Lords for the final battle and that he will be the last to die. Which makes sense if Fuegan, again, represents Khaine's body. The war will only be over when the body of the god of War is no more.

Striking Scorpions - Khaine as vengeful. Once Khaine's murderous wrath (Arha - destroying Eldanesh), now Khaine's patience that serves revenge cold (Karandras).

Dark Reapers - Khaine fought and defeated the Nightbringer. Thing exploded and lodged some shards of itself into Khaine. This is supposed to be the basis of the reaper aspect. Here we see Khaine as conquering death itself and then becoming death. As we know Khaine can properly be called the death of the Eldar race. By way of the myth that gained him the name Kaela Mensha Khaine, or we might say that it is Khaine as the Eldar lust for war that will eventually become their downfall.

Swooping Hawks - Khaine as murderer. The hawk representing the vengeful spirit of Eldanesh, hovering over Khaine's head to mark his guilt.


The Warp Spiders are slightly more tricky. But I'd argue something like this:
- Either they are (another) remnant of Khaine's union with Morai-Heg. Linking the spider with the godess of fate. But really, there's no actual basis to do this I think. It is projecting our terran mythology on (even more ) Eldar mythology.
- More promising of success is arguing that warp spiders are Khaine as shattered Avatar. His thoughts absent (lost within the warp) until on the moment of dire need (and the sacrifice of the Young King) he wakes to destroy intruders. Fits nicely with the tiny aggresive creatures in the Dome of the Crystal Seers of a Craftworld that are called warp spiders. They can melt their bodies into the infinity circuit (Khaine lost in thought/within the warp) on the moment that some psychic entity invades the infinity circuit they hunt and destroy it (Khaine waking to the call of war).

Shining Spears are, by canon, representative of the spear of Khaine. Canon, however, is no reason to just accept it. GW fluff is notoriously inconsistent and full of rule-of-cool. With a question posed by OP we are to look at canon fluff with critical eyes and, sometimes, judge it not viable.

IMHO the Shining Spear as Aspect warrior is silly sauce. This "aspect" doesn't really tell us anything about Khaine - it is not a way of looking at Khaine - therefore it cannot properly be called an Aspect.


I'd like to be proven wrong though.


Also, answering OP's actual question: Isn't there a Warp Spider Apoc formation with an individual model that could be said to function like a Pheonix Lord? The "void weaver" IIRC.

[IMHO the Shining Spear as Aspect warrior is silly sauce. This "aspect" doesn't really tell us anything about Khaine - it is not a way of looking at Khaine - therefore it cannot properly be called an Aspect.
]

IMHO I think that the Shining Spears are representative of Khaine’s tactic of the swift attack. I think that instead of the aspects representing aspects of Khaine they represent his ways of waging war. I think of them as each devoted to a certain area of Khaine’s ways of fighting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
IMHO the Shining Spear as Aspect warrior is silly sauce. This "aspect" doesn't really tell us anything about Khaine - it is not a way of looking at Khaine - therefore it cannot properly be called an Aspect.

cw25 wrote:IMHO I think that the Shining Spears are representative of Khaine’s tactic of the swift attack. I think that instead of the aspects representing aspects of Khaine they represent his ways of waging war. I think of them as each devoted to a certain area of Khaine’s ways of fighting.

Yes. This would be a way of circumventing the sillyness. Still, I'd like to think that the aspects are more than just the aspects of Khaine's skills in the martial arts. If we look at the codex fluff, this is, in fact, true for most of the aspects. They tell us parts of Khaine's story - they are aspects of Khaine, not aspects of an aspect of Khaine (that is, the aspect of Khaine's fighting styles).