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Hi Dakka,
I just walked through a tournament with something near 60 players. I saw Eldrad Ulthran on four tables. On one of these four there were actually two Eldrads facing off against eachother.
I found this hilarious, as I was considering starting up with Eldrad as well. It seems he really gets around

Do you think Games Workshop is going to do something about this in the new Eldar codex? For example, writing a line like "Eldrad must be part of your main detachment", or "He may only be in armies of 'X 'points", or "If you see someone else using Eldrad, point and yell "Impostor" and attempt to throw their model out the window". Or perhaps change him so he isn't as useful to allies....

Discuss

I'm no Eldar master, but I think he get's around because he's just so damn good.

As for the new Codex, it's anyones guess. He might not even be in it, considering he's sorta dead. I'm not sure what other books have Characters that you can field that are dead in the fluff. I know Chaplain Xavier of the Salamanders if very dead, and there's no stats for him anymore. Such a cool model too.

It used to be that special characters could only be used in armies of X number of points or larger games (ie 1500 +).

Games Workshop then moved away from this - it discouraged beginner players from usingthe cooler characters, and meant you could have defiant last stands with a named character and a tiny remainder force etc. And they could sell more special characters.

So I doubt that anything would be done about it in the new codex. With the space marine codex, the named characters were said to represent archtypes, so that they could be used to represent different 'characters' in different chapters, if that's any help to you.

 Necroshea wrote:
As for the new Codex, it's anyones guess. He might not even be in it, considering he's sorta dead. I'm not sure what other books have Characters that you can field that are dead in the fluff. I know Chaplain Xavier of the Salamanders if very dead, and there's no stats for him anymore. Such a cool model too.

Tycho is dead. Pretty sure there's others - isn't one of the Imperial Guard characters dead?

GW isn't shy of putting dead characters in codices, especially if they're old and much liked characters. Eldrad won't be going anywhere. He was dead before the current codex as well.

 Necroshea wrote:
I'm no Eldar master, but I think he get's around because he's just so damn good.

As for the new Codex, it's anyones guess. He might not even be in it, considering he's sorta dead. I'm not sure what other books have Characters that you can field that are dead in the fluff. I know Chaplain Xavier of the Salamanders if very dead, and there's no stats for him anymore. Such a cool model too.

Doomrider, and his model is still on GW website. Horrible though it may be.

And Cypher.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Necroshea wrote:
As for the new Codex, it's anyones guess. He might not even be in it, considering he's sorta dead. I'm not sure what other books have Characters that you can field that are dead in the fluff. I know Chaplain Xavier of the Salamanders if very dead, and there's no stats for him anymore. Such a cool model too.

Tycho is dead. Pretty sure there's others - isn't one of the Imperial Guard characters dead?

GW isn't shy of putting dead characters in codices, especially if they're old and much liked characters. Eldrad won't be going anywhere. He was dead before the current codex as well.

I'm pretty sure all the guard characters are alive and kicking...from memory. One may be thousands of years old, but thats it.

 DakkaHammer wrote:
Do you think Games Workshop is going to do something about this in the new Eldar codex?

Yeah

Codex:Eldrad

(Really though, with recent special characters since the beggining of 5th I'd say it isn't likely)

 motyak wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

 Necroshea wrote:
As for the new Codex, it's anyones guess. He might not even be in it, considering he's sorta dead. I'm not sure what other books have Characters that you can field that are dead in the fluff. I know Chaplain Xavier of the Salamanders if very dead, and there's no stats for him anymore. Such a cool model too.

Tycho is dead. Pretty sure there's others - isn't one of the Imperial Guard characters dead?

GW isn't shy of putting dead characters in codices, especially if they're old and much liked characters. Eldrad won't be going anywhere. He was dead before the current codex as well.

I'm pretty sure all the guard characters are alive and kicking...from memory. One may be thousands of years old, but thats it.

Yep, I'm pretty sure they're all very much alive. The guard character have a knack for being thumped then coming back a bit more mechanical than before.

Also, didn't know doomrider was dead.

Also thought cypher was still alive. On his quest to terra or whatever.

Agree with the above, I doubt they will change this. Eldrad really isn't much different from other SCs in other codices except that he is one of the very few in the Eldar codex really worth his cost. This along with his ability to be useful in literally any Eldar list also does/doesn't help (however you want to look at it).

Kevlar wrote:

 Necroshea wrote:
I'm no Eldar master, but I think he get's around because he's just so damn good.

As for the new Codex, it's anyones guess. He might not even be in it, considering he's sorta dead. I'm not sure what other books have Characters that you can field that are dead in the fluff. I know Chaplain Xavier of the Salamanders if very dead, and there's no stats for him anymore. Such a cool model too.

Doomrider, and his model is still on GW website. Horrible though it may be.

And Cypher.

Doomrider and Cypher arn't dead AFAIK, they just don't have rules right now(unless the Chaos Codex brought them back)

Is this thread necromancy from 2006?

Nothing new under the sun it seems.

 Redbeard wrote:
Is this thread necromancy from 2006?

Nothing new under the sun it seems.

It's all a big circle you see

Nork Deddog is dead in the fluff is he not?

 Ratbarf wrote:
Nork Deddog is dead in the fluff is he not?

Nope. It talks about how his death would play out if it came to that, something about slumping to the ground and asking "did we win?". Think the rule was heroic sacrifice.

I've heard that Lelith Hesparix was killed in a Salamander's novel. Any truth to that?

I didn't know there was an old thread like this, but I suppose this is necromancy. As Eldrad keeps being brought back to life by the Tau, Space Marines, and everyone else.

Eldrad's been the best Eldar HQ for a long time, I don't see that changing much. He's got a silly number of massive-force-multiplier psychic powers, he's tougher than most Eldar units, and he's good at taking on basically every situation (my renamed/repainted Eldrad using (among other things) a Necron Resurrection Orb as a capstone on his staff has killed multiple Carnifexes in one game using Mind War, for one thing). The only things I could see GW doing to him in the new Eldar Codex are either making regular Farseers a little more able to compete with Eldrad in terms of versatility or hiking his points cost a lot (I'd still take him if he were 250pts...).

a 12 inch range on the Runes would make him useable, but not so crippling to mass Psyker armies, and thus not an auto-include in every army out there*

*Exaggeration not literally every army out there, but a lot of armies.

A 12 inch range on Runes of Warding would be dumb. They're Eldar..you know..most psychic race and all...they are SUPPOSED to cripple other psykers...that's their schtick. 12 inch runes would make the Eldar suck worse.

Unlike Space Marine psykers and Tyranid Psykers and Chaos Sorcerers and everyone else that has brutal close combat oriented psykers in power armour/terminator armour on top of invulnerable saves, Eldar psykers only have a 4+ invulnerable save and a toughness of 3, and do not need to be getting anywhere near the enemy forces. 12 inch runes of warding would totally make it WAY too easy for enemies to kill Eldar psykers because they would have to get way too close to use Runes of Warding.

Eldrad isn't the only farseer with Runes of Warding you know

 Redbeard wrote:
Is this thread necromancy from 2006?

Nothing new under the sun it seems.

I actually had to check the dates... I have no idea how they find such ancient threads, but they do sometimes.

The last version of the Guard codex had Lord Solar Macharius as a playable character. Even in the fluff for that codex he'd been dead for several centuries

The reason Eldrad is in nearly every Eldar list is because he is awesome. One of the only times I'm going to say that about anything in the Eldar Codex.
Hopefully a new 6th 'dex will change a few of the Characters so they are useful.
Fuegan is now semi-competitive for the same reasons as termies, and also hasn't been nerfed by them.
Karandras now is one of the few close-combat AP2 Terminator/ Meganob (ooo, that's a good idea) killers left to us.
Funnily enough, he can now kill Mephiston quite easily!

-Farseer Tahril

I don't own the Eldar Codex, but a buddy mentioned that if you tried to make a generic Eldar character do what Eldrad could do, you'd still not be nearly as powerful and you'd spend a lot more points.

Not to throw anecdotes around, but if that's true, then that would make Eldrad a no-brainer.

It is true.

First you'd need a Farseer, then both sets of Runes, then Spirit Stones, and 4 powers.

If we assume those 4 powers are Guide, Doom, Fortune and Mind War, then your generic Farseer comes in at about 200pts (doing these calculations from memory, so it could be 10-20pts either way), and that's without being able to cast a power you'd already cast, without your CC attacks using the staff ignoring armour, without the increased invul save, without T4, without Divination and without the 5th psychic power.

Pask is dead in the fluff: took out a chaos titan by shooting at its knee, then it fell on his russ, bloew up and killed everyone, including Pask. So he took out a titan and died shortly after after it fell on him.

I think I must be crazy, but I just don't like Eldrad in mechanized lists.

I mean really, he costs 210 points and I honestly most of that is for stuff that your list doesn't need. I either run a generic level 1 farseer for about 100 points, or a level 2 farseer for about 150 points or so. Either way I'm saving between 110 and 60 points! Thats a good part of the way to an entirely new unit.

Yes Eldrad does come out at a discount, if you fully kit a farseer, but you are never going to fully kit a farseer. You are also going to have target issues. if you aren't casting at least 3 powers a turn Eldrad is nothing more than 50+ points of deadweight, when you consider in a mechanized list that Wave Serpents often get spread out a bit, and move a lot faster than war walkers, you may quickly end up running out of good targets for your psychic powers.

His redeployment ability is really good in slower foot lists, but its not that relevant in a mechanized list where everything can already redeploy on a moment's notice. He can fortune two fire dragon wave serpents, then they can flat out for a 4+ re-rollable jink save- but after the first turn they'll be too far out. Is it worth paying for Eldrad when a cheap generic farseer can still fortune one of those serpents on the first turn, AND will save you enough points to get over halfway to an Autarch, which can help bring in your reserves?

Obviously Foot lists are a different story- where you need Fortune on Several Units- namely Avatar, and Wraithguard or Harlequin blocks. and the lower mobility benefits a lot more from his divination redeployment. But in a mechanized or fast list he is almost never worth it, and in an allied attachment generally a simple level 1 or 2 farseer will be a better investment. Generic Eldar Powers only effect Eldar units, and allies generally have only a few different units meaning Eldrad will quickly run out of valid targets if he doesn't trade for book powers- unless you really like Mindwar/ Eldritch Storm lol!

 Necroshea wrote:
I'm no Eldar master, but I think he get's around because he's just so damn good.

As for the new Codex, it's anyones guess. He might not even be in it, considering he's sorta dead. I'm not sure what other books have Characters that you can field that are dead in the fluff. I know Chaplain Xavier of the Salamanders if very dead, and there's no stats for him anymore. Such a cool model too.

The old 3rd edition Witch Hunters Codex had Saint Celestine being presumed dead. The bells on Terra tolled and everything to mourn her passing. They didn't find her body, but she was at ground zero of a nuclear-powered fortress when it went up.

However, in the 5th edition WD Sisters of Battle Codex, she's alive, and is described as showing up out of the blue to save some silly Imperials only to leave after the fighting's done.

^cuz everyone wants to have a sanguinor

Inquisitor Jex wrote:
Pask is dead in the fluff: took out a chaos titan by shooting at its knee, then it fell on his russ, bloew up and killed everyone, including Pask. So he took out a titan and died shortly after after it fell on him.

Source on that? It's not in the current Codex.

 akaean wrote:
I think I must be crazy, but I just don't like Eldrad in mechanized lists.

You're not. I never used him in my full-mech force and wondered why he's so praised.
Every Serpent gun is twin linked. Scatters wound on 2+. Why do I need this guy again?

But otherwise a great unit next to numerous crappy ones. It's really not rocket science why he is everywhere.