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I remember in the 2nd Ed Eldar codex there was a description of a lesser known Aspect called the Slicing Orbs of Xandros. Not much was known about them, except they were described as 'oddly terrifying'.

There was a post on dakka about them a while back, but imo the poster's rules didn't get across the terrifying angle (they were good rules though).

Fluff wise, I imagine they belonged to a Craftworld that was destroyed by Chaos Daemons with a number of them as the only survivors. Therefore they dedicated themselves to hunting down Chaos wherever they find it.

So, without further ado, here is my version of the rules for them.

Slicing Orbs of Xandros (Codex Eldar Fast Attack Choice)

Unit Pts/Model WS BS S T W I A LD SV
Slicing Orb 35 4 4 3 3 1 5 2 9 3+/5++
Exarch + 12 5 5 3 3 1 6 3 9 3+/5++

Type: Jump Infantry
Unit: 5-10 Slicing Orbs

Weapons: Shuriken pistols, plasma grenades, Spirit Blades, Orbs of Xandros

Spirit Blades: Much like the spectral Wraiths of legend, these blades when wielded by the Slicing Orbs pass through armour and even such protection as force fields as if they were no more than smoke, allowing the enemy no form of protection. To represent this, they have the following rules:

Range Strength AP Special Rules
Close Combat User + 1 3 Ignores Invulnerable Saves

Orbs of Xandros: These strange devices function like grenades, which when thrown, unleash a storm of shuriken blades followed by a burst of blinding light to disorientate the foe, making them ripe for the slaughter by the Slicing Orbs themselves or any other Eldar in the vicinity.

To represent this, in the Eldar shooting phase, place a 5" template within 12" of the Slicing Orbs unit and scatter as normal using the majority squad BS of 4 (the large template represents the entire unit using their Orbs simultaneously). Any enemy non vehicle model under the final location of the template takes a strength 4, ap 5 hit and is subject to the Blind, Concussive and Pinning rules until the next Eldar turn. Fearless units need not take a Pinning test but are otherwise affected as normal. The Slicing Orbs may not fire their Shuriken pistols in the same turn that they use their Orbs of Xandros.

Special Rules

Aspect of Dread: The Slicing Orbs emit a palpable aura of fear as they glide across the battlefield, seeking fresh foes to slay. To represent this, they cause Fear. In addition, the squad themselves are classed as being Fearless.

Spirit Wanderers: In order to fulfill their designated role of remorseless bringers of death and fear, the souls of the Eldar in a Slicing Orbs shrine have their souls placed in their Spirit Stones prior to battle and interred within their Aspect Shrine until their return. This affords them a certain resilience not available to those Eldar who must still fear for the safety of their immortal spirits. To represent this, the Slicing Orbs have a 5+ invulnerable save.

Vengeance of Xandros: Slicing Orbs are subject to Hatred against Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Daemons.

Options:

The unit may add up to 5 additional Slicing Orbs for + 35pts each.

One Slicing Orb may be upgraded to an Exarch for + 12 pts.

The Exarch may upgrade his Spirit Blade to a Wraith Blade for +20pts. This functions exactly like a Spirit Blade, but has a Strength of user + 2 and is ap2 in close combat.

The Exarch may take the following Exarch powers:

Spectral Hunters - +25pts

Directing his squad to activate ancient phase devices built into their armour, the Slicing Orbs may split their essence between the material realm and that of the Webway. While in this state, the Slicing Orbs unit may not be shot, assaulted or harmed in any way unless it is by a psychic attack (activated force weapons in close combat count as psychic attacks). However, the unit may also not shoot or assault themselves (this includes using the Orbs of Xandros) and do not count as a scoring or denial unit.

The unit may rejoin the material realm at the beginning of any Eldar turn, at which point they may act normally (and can be affected by enemy attacks in the normal way).

Flames of the Phoenix - + 30pts

Slicing Orbs are the last link to the destroyed Craftworld of Xandros. They see themselves as the last embers of the fire that burned at the heart of the Craftworld, which burns all the brighter as their vengeance against the forces of Chaos is carried out. To represent this, the close combat attacks of the Slicing Orbs gain the Instant Death and Fleshbane special rules once per battle.


Thoughts people? My first thought if they are considered too powerful would be to increase points or lower the AP of their combat weapons.

You basically propose jump infantry banshees with a 5++, a cool grenade thingy and fear/fearless for 35pts
I wouldn't call it overpowered, indeed clearly overpriced

Honour guard cost 35 pts and are not a powerful unit
Pretorian jump necron guys cost 40 pts, are more resilient, hit harder and are not considered a really good unit either
So I really wouldn't fear about having them considered overpowered (I mean, 35 pts for T3 4+ save ? They'll die almost as fast an IG grunts)

I would say that spectral hunter is much more useful / powerful than The Soul Blaze power though, as you can basically cross the entire battlefield unharmed before attacking wherever you want. Maybe make it a "once per game" ability ?

The fluff is ok I guess (not a huge fan of eldars myself) and you clearly put some time / research in there so it's fine

Thanks for the reply.

If you feel they are underpowered, how would you go about making them better?

3+ armour save for the unit, higher strength, more attacks?

To be honest Soul Blaze is only there because I was struggling to think of another Exarch power.

Maybe I would consider swapping that power for letting their attacks cause Instant Death with Daemonbane once per game?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I have decided to change Flames of the Phoenix to Instant Death and Fleshbane once per battle.

Also upped Spirit Blades to strength of user + 1 (+2 in the case of the Exarch's Wraith blade) plus given them an extra attack and 3+ basic save.

Would you say this made them balanced now?

Being a long time Eldar player I will say these rules seem kinda op to me, you basically can take a massive star of these, ferry them up through spirit hocus pocus, then unload a large blast and 40 str 4 ap3 attacks that ignore invuln, and the exarch has 5 atks at str 5 ap2 that do the same

In no way are these dudes balanced, they avoid damage too easily and unload a devastating amount in return, for 35 pts your receiving a pseudo jump terminator with better abilities and stats minus the 2+


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I would auto take 20 of these decked out in almost every list, they just get to do what they want, with no fear of reprisal, and they hit like a Mack Truck filled with bricks

I was hoping this post would attract some eldar players attention!

Ok, so as an eldar player, how would you balance this unit? Make them more expensive, reduce their attacks/strength/AP or perhaps remove the ignore invulnerable saves on their weapons?

To be honest I went with the spectral hunters rule mainly as a way of going with the terrifying angle which their limited fluff says they have.

Same with the combat weapons and spirit wanderer rules.

If you can think of another role for them which isn't covered by another Aspect then I would be interested to hear it.

The only thing I would like to keep the same if possible is their Orbs of Xandros as they are kind of their signature move (every Aspect has an item of wargear that is uniquely their own and this is theirs).

Let me know what you think!

I think that they should lose one attack (including the Exarch).

All of the Aspect Warriors have the same stat line (apart from the save), I don't see why these should be different.

I remember in the 2nd Ed Eldar codex there was a description of a lesser known Aspect called the Slicing Orbs of Xandros. Not much was known about them, except they were described as 'oddly terrifying'.

There was a post on dakka about them a while back, but imo the poster's rules didn't get across the terrifying angle (they were good rules though).

Fluff wise, I imagine they belonged to a Craftworld that was destroyed by Chaos Daemons with a number of them as the only survivors. Therefore they dedicated themselves to hunting down Chaos wherever they find it.

So, without further ado, here is my version of the rules for them.

Slicing Orbs of Xandros (Codex Eldar Fast Attack Choice)

Unit Pts/Model WS BS S T W I A LD SV
Slicing Orb 35 4 4 3 3 1 5 1 9 3+
Exarch + 12 5 5 3 3 1 6 2 9 3+

Type: Jump Infantry
Unit: 5-10 Slicing Orbs

Weapons: Shuriken pistols, plasma grenades, Spirit Blades, Orbs of Xandros

Spirit Blades: Much like the spectral Wraiths of legend, these blades when wielded by the Slicing Orbs pass through armour and even such protection as force fields as if they were no more than smoke, allowing the enemy no form of protection. To represent this, they have the following rules:

Range - Close combat Strength - User + 1 AP - 3

Orbs of Xandros: These strange devices function like grenades, which when thrown, unleash a storm of shuriken blades followed by a burst of blinding light to disorientate the foe, making them ripe for the slaughter by the Slicing Orbs themselves or any other Eldar in the vicinity.

To represent this, in the Eldar shooting phase, place a 5" template within 12" of the Slicing Orbs unit and scatter as normal using the majority squad BS of 4 (the large template represents the entire unit using their Orbs simultaneously). Any enemy non vehicle model under the final location of the template takes a strength 4, ap 5 hit and is subject to the Blind, Concussive and Pinning rules until the next Eldar turn. Fearless units need not take a Pinning test but are otherwise affected as normal. The Slicing Orbs may not fire their Shuriken pistols in the same turn that they use their Orbs of Xandros.



Special Rules

Aspect of Dread: The Slicing Orbs emit a palpable aura of fear as they glide across the battlefield, seeking fresh foes to slay. To represent this, they cause Fear. In addition, the squad themselves are classed as being Fearless.

Spirit Wanderers: In order to fulfill their designated role of remorseless bringers of death and fear, the souls of the Eldar in a Slicing Orbs shrine have their souls placed in their Spirit Stones prior to battle and interred within their Aspect Shrine until their return. This affords them a certain resilience not available to those Eldar who must still fear for the safety of their immortal spirits. To represent this, the Slicing Orbs have a 5+ invulnerable save.

Vengeance of Xandros: Slicing Orbs are subject to Hatred against Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Daemons.

Options:

The unit may add up to 5 additional Slicing Orbs for + 35pts each.

One Slicing Orb may be upgraded to an Exarch for + 12 pts.

The Exarch may upgrade his Spirit Blade to a Wraith Blade for +20pts.

Range - Close combat Strength - User + 2 AP - 2

The Exarch may take the following Exarch powers:

Spectral Hunters - +25pts

Directing his squad to activate ancient phase devices built into their armour, the Slicing Orbs may split their essence between the material realm and that of the Webway. While in this state, the Slicing Orbs units save may not be shot, assaulted or harmed in any way unless it is by a psychic attack (activated force weapons in close combat count as psychic attacks). However, the unit may also not shoot or assault themselves (this includes using the Orbs of Xandros) and do not count as a scoring or denial unit.

The unit may rejoin the material realm at the beginning of any Eldar turn, at which point they may act normally (and can be affected by enemy attacks in the normal way).

Once the unit has returned to the material realm, the Spectral Hunters ability may not be used again in the same battle.


Flames of the Phoenix - + 30pts

Slicing Orbs are the last link to the destroyed Craftworld of Xandros. They see themselves as the last embers of the fire that burned at the heart of the Craftworld, which burns all the brighter as their vengeance against the forces of Chaos is carried out. To represent this, the close combat attacks of the Slicing Orbs gain the Instant Death and Fleshbane special rules for a single Fight Phase per battle.

Declare at the start of the Eldar Fight Phase that Flames of the Phoenix is being used.


I have edited the rules to hopefully make them a bit more balanced. What do you think?