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Hurricane unfortunately your list is illegal, operatives may be taken with alpha legion warband but it does not override the fact they are auxiliaries. You must have 1 normal troop for each auxiliary fielded, so you could drop 3 operatives, move the chosen to troops, then add in some other stuff with the extra points.

Ah damn did not notice that. Well despite the contest ending, I'll make one more list and amend my previous post with it. Leaving home now so I can't update it, but I imagine that it may end up just taking away a single elite chosen unit and putting in three more chosen units instead of three operative units.

Latest teaser for my Upcoming Eldar Codex: The Phoenix Lords.

Enjoy!

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Thanks for the input Hurricane & Amanax; I went with Hurricane's choice in the end. The Phoenix Lords are seeing a greater change than the Swooping Hawks and whilst I personally don't like spam, such a list is really quite helpful for trying to determine balance.
Cheers guys!

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Heck, I've decided to include the Swooping Hawks too; enjoy enjoy!

As ever, this is all WiP and nothing is final; wording and points costs in particular are subject to change.

Maybe I'm being stupid or maybe it's covered somewhere else, but no assault grenades on Jain Zar??

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Maybe I'm being stupid or maybe it's covered somewhere else, but no assault grenades on Jain Zar??

Banshee Mask.

Hmmm. Some feedback from what I see here.

I love what I can make out for the phoenix lords. The fact you have incorporated an invulnerable save will give them a little more survivability, which is good, and the fact that they will at most only take one HQ slot means they might see a bit more use since they won't be competing quite as much with the Autarchs and Farseers.

The swooping hawks, from what I can tell, are having a complete overhall. While they will still be able to perform their pieplate drops, they will only be limited to at most, two drops per game. This will be traded out for their Mark of Guilt, and the use of their webway wargear. Depending on what exactly you do with those, it could very well be what they need to see some more use (Plus the point reduction helps too )

However! I must say, I am a bit saddened to see that the Phoenix Lords have lost their 2+ armour save, and am curious why you changed that? Also, have you considered making the Phoenix Lords not count against the FoC at all, like Techpriests from the IG codex?

It also means that people could potentially run 6 Phoenix Lords at 1500pts; that's frickin' cool! But as ever, in all likelihood wouldn't be competitive. I intend to keep them occupying a FOC slot though; that means people could still run them as the generals of their army, without having to have another model leading it.
I expected someone to comment on the loss of the 2+; the reasons are 3-fold: 1) 3+4++ is better. 2) 2+ doesn't really suit the Eldar IMHO; they don't have AV14 either and no Eldar units will have a 2+ save in my 'dex. 3) Ultimately, they can't have everything; I'm trying to give them a whole mass of improvements and if they lose 2+ in the process then so be it...

Regarding the 'hawks; they're not really having a complete overhaul IMHO; they're still supposed to fill the same roles, but hopefully that can actually manage it now! Skyleap will not 'be traded out' for Mark of Guilt or the Webway gear however; it will be an inherent, permanent ability for the Swooping Hawks.

Just Dave wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Maybe I'm being stupid or maybe it's covered somewhere else, but no assault grenades on Jain Zar??

Banshee Mask.

D'oh.

Doesn't terrain apply after any modifiers though? So it's banshee mask>I10>terrain>I1?

The Eldar codex looks good, Just Dave, but out of interest, what page do I have to randomly pick in order to have a look at Lasblasters and Hawk Grenade Pack (Considering that Hawks are a weaker form of jump pack Dire Avengers without changes there)?

AlmightyWalrus: the rules as specifically written does have Banshees end up striking last when assaulting through terrain, but I'd peg anyone down to a neck-beard rules-lawyer if they tried arguing such to be how to play.
(Although the FAQ regarding "rules that seem to have no effect" is dubious to be applied in this case, and the use of benefit versus drawback is in common speech often interchangeable - and it's the sort of language GW uses to write rules.)

Walrus: Ze rules state it also negates an initiative bonus conferred by cover or grenades, so no grenades are needed.

Mahtamori: Thanks man, appeciated! You could just ask nicely for me to tell you the profile for the Lasblaster... The grenade pack is staying largely the same however.

Just Dave wrote:It also means that people could potentially run 6 Phoenix Lords at 1500pts; that's frickin' cool! But as ever, in all likelihood wouldn't be competitive. I intend to keep them occupying a FOC slot though; that means people could still run them as the generals of their army, without having to have another model leading it.
I expected someone to comment on the loss of the 2+; the reasons are 3-fold: 1) 3+4++ is better. 2) 2+ doesn't really suit the Eldar IMHO; they don't have AV14 either and no Eldar units will have a 2+ save in my 'dex. 3) Ultimately, they can't have everything; I'm trying to give them a whole mass of improvements and if they lose 2+ in the process then so be it...

Regarding the 'hawks; they're not really having a complete overhaul IMHO; they're still supposed to fill the same roles, but hopefully that can actually manage it now! Skyleap will not 'be traded out' for Mark of Guilt or the Webway gear however; it will be an inherent, permanent ability for the Swooping Hawks.

Hmm, while I agree that 2+ isn't really an Eldar thing, and they can't have everything, the Phoenix Lords should be an exception. Exarch armour is heavier than normal Aspect armour, and the Phoenix Lord armour is supposed to be heavier than Exarch armour. Their armour is also crafted from the time before the fall (as they were the first exarchs to be trained after the fall) so these guys are the best of the best. Is it completely out of the realm of the possible for the Eldar to have their greatest champions running in Grey Knight HQ equivalent armour. while still keeping their mobility? It's your codex, so if you disagree, so be it. I just think these guys with all they have done throughout the story could easily be seen with 2+ armour and a 4++ invuln, especially if you're paying 210 points a piece for them.

What I meant by trading out skyleap for Mark of Guilt or Webway gear, is that in the sneak peak you showed, skyleap is only usable once per game, so you have removed their ability to "yo-yo" though you have made it so they hop during the assault phase, so now they can shoot before leaping away, which is cool, even if a one time use. I was commenting on the "trade" of the yo-yo strat to something else in the form of their Mark of Guilt and webway gear, not literally trading skyleap. Sorry for being unclear

Since the armour is ancient and of better quality than exarch armour, why not have it confer fell no pain, or a re-roll of the armour save?

Or... Since the armour is ancient and of better quality than exarch armour, it could confer a 4++!

3+ is still a good save and still notable for the Eldar. A Phoenix Lord would be tougher than Ragnar Blackmane or your typical Captain/Chapter Master! So it's not exactly a change that leaves a Phoenix Lord vulnerable, particularly since they would almost always be escorted by a unit of aspect warriors too.
Hell, they're even tougher if I give them a resurrection-type ability.

I get you know Amanax! I was tempted to allow Skyleap to be used more than once, but I didn't want Swooping Hawks to be impossible to catch or to spend more time off the board than on it too!

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In other news, I considered a change for Lucius' Eternal Warrior; whereby if he was killed in close combat, the model that slew him would suffer a wound each successive turn (on a 4+ or failed Ld or automatically) and if they are killed by this, then they are replaced by a 1-wound Lucius. Therefore, more accurately displaying his resurrection. This would not affect vehicles or monstrous creatures however.
HOWEVER, I've decided against this as it's not really a fun rule for the opponent who either has their model killed by Lucius, or to turn into Lucius later on, making it a lose-lose situation and therefore not something I intend to include.

I don't know Dave. Make people think about how they are going to kill lucious

If you removed his eternal warrior and replaced it with that rule, I could see it being fair. The answer would be to shoot him up instead of just running head first and smashing your face against him until he dies. Means both sides would be playing a bit of cat and mouse with that model. Could be fun, and this is coming from someone who usually plays against chaos, not for them

Lucius' transformation is meant to take weeks though (at least the original one did), so it might be more accurate to have them taking a single wound representing Lucius' spirit latching on.

The problem there is, Amanax, that IMHO shooting up a 3-wound, T4 3+ character and his inevitable escort - so another 9 wounds? - and his transport isn't the easiest thing to do. Then there's the even greater problem of the armies that don't typically shoot; such as Orks, Tyranids, Daemons, Blood Angels and even Black Templars. Then, as Durza said, it's not that fluffy IMHO.

As such, I intend to keep him as Eternal Warrior, because he has/will be fighting for eternity...

It must be the people I play, because it seems the marines around here ALL tend to die to shooting, even against the less shooty armies. To each their own though.

In relation to your Chaos Codex:

Any chance certain Iron Warriors units will be able to take servo-arms?

I've considered it, however I decided against it, mainly for three reasons:

1) They'll rarely be used because a single powerfist attack isn't really that notable.
2) They'll rarely be used because no-one really wastes a turn trying to repair a vehicle it seems; look at techmarines for example.
3) They're not really needed IMHO; they would be only available to one Legion, to a small number of units/characters and have a limited impact in game whilst also being uncommon in fluff.

As I said, I considered it, but decided against it, mainly for the above reasons. Ultimately, Daemonic Mutation, Unholy Strength or a simple Powerfist would be an appropriate counts-as IMHO...

Great fandex! Definately chaos meets 5th edition

Really nice.
Some things to consider:

1) Expand the marks so that they allow some specialization amongst the units, examples:
Units with mark of Khorne can turn close combat weapons into chain axes for 1 or 2 points. Units with mark of Slaanesh can change their bolters for sonic blasters for 3 points and autocannons for blastmaster for 5 points. That way a slaanesh force can have blastmaster havoks and khorne can have chainaxe bikers; and so on.

2) Is there some concern that simply taking the daemons from codex daemons would be overpowering? I would consider an unaligned greater and lesser daemon entry that would allow for modification - options that can be purchased. And permit marked units to have their own god’s daemons taken from codex chaos daemons.

3) Bring back chaos cultists, beastman, mutants, zombies ect. Floods of deranged chaos followers herded towards the enemy were once a huge part of the chaos MO - I think it should be brought back.

4) Here’s a radical thought, how about removing fearless from the cult units and dropping their price? I was going to suggestion that units like bikers and havoks taken in a cult army could purchase fearless. So that a EC army wouldn’t be in a situation were they have fearless troops but heavies and fast units that will break and run - even though they are from the same legion. But it seems just taking fearlessness out of the equation is a more sensible solution to me.

sorry if any of this is redundant I skimmed the 23 pages of commentary.

Thanks for the kind words guys.

As ever, all feedback, play-testing and comments are welcome. Cheers!

Grunt13 wrote:Really nice.
Some things to consider:

1) Expand the marks so that they allow some specialization amongst the units, examples:
Units with mark of Khorne can turn close combat weapons into chain axes for 1 or 2 points. Units with mark of Slaanesh can change their bolters for sonic blasters for 3 points and autocannons for blastmaster for 5 points. That way a slaanesh force can have blastmaster havoks and khorne can have chainaxe bikers; and so on.

Well, Slaanesh CAN have Blastmaster Havocs and Chosen can take Chainaxes. I didn't want to do this too much, as I fear it can become over-complicated, saturated with unnecessary options and even lessen the role of the cult units.

2) Is there some concern that simply taking the daemons from codex daemons would be overpowering? I would consider an unaligned greater and lesser daemon entry that would allow for modification - options that can be purchased. And permit marked units to have their own god’s daemons taken from codex chaos daemons.

Yes, this was a massive concern, as I detailed in the 'why' section of the Codex, which I've copied and pasted here for ease, which basically explains my reasoning behind how I constructed the daemons section:
Daemons were one of the biggest hurdles I came across doing this. Whilst it would make sense to copy the entries from the Chaos Daemons Codex, I believe this would make them far too powerful. I feel the balancing factors for the Daemons Codex is that they have to weather a turn of shooting and their arrival can be hindered via deep-strike defences such as tightly packed units; both these factors wouldn’t be present with the Chaos Space Marine method of summoning. Similarly, Greater Daemons also have to weather a turn of firepower, and can take wings, however within the current Chaos Codex, a balancing factor for greater Daemons is their lack of manoeuvrability; which would therefore be countered by wings and well as being able to assault on the turn they’re summoned. Hence they have received a Marks system, which provides character, increases options and fits with the rest of the Codex.

3) Bring back chaos cultists, beastman, mutants, zombies ect. Floods of deranged chaos followers herded towards the enemy were once a huge part of the chaos MO - I think it should be brought back.

I hope Heretics can represent a wide range of Chaos followers; being ranged like a standard guardsman or close combat like beastmen/cultists/mutants etc. too. I did originally include Zombies, but they're fairly infrequent in the fluff it seems and would occupying another FoC despite being an auxiliary, expendable unit for a single Legion, they're also quite awkward to balance.
I completely agree with what you're saying, but hopefully Heretics/Lesser Daemons/Operatives can represent these chaotic followers with fairly stream-lined ease, without diluting the Space Marine aspect of the Codex.
Personally, the only ones from the list there that I feel would be poorly represented here are the zombies and to an extent, mutants. I would hope the Heretics are quite flexible and suitable for the roles you mention...

4) Here’s a radical thought, how about removing fearless from the cult units and dropping their price? I was going to suggestion that units like bikers and havoks taken in a cult army could purchase fearless. So that a EC army wouldn’t be in a situation were they have fearless troops but heavies and fast units that will break and run - even though they are from the same legion. But it seems just taking fearlessness out of the equation is a more sensible solution to me.

sorry if any of this is redundant I skimmed the 23 pages of commentary.

It's OK, I can't say I blame you! The 'why' section may have cleared up some concerns though...

I'm not sure why Cult Units shouldn't be fearless to be honest; they're the best of the best really and fully dedicated to malevolent, chaotic and frankly evil beings, I would've thought fearless is pretty appropriate. As for using this to drop their cost; I have actually made all Cult units 23pts to increase their elite characteristic and prevent them being an auto-include instead of the 'basic' Chaos Space Marine, who should remain the typical core unit IMHO...

Does that help clear up my reasoning a bit now?

Just Dave wrote:Well, Slaanesh CAN have Blastmaster Havocs and Chosen can take Chainaxes. I didn't want to do this too much, as I fear it can become over-complicated, saturated with unnecessary options and even lessen the role of the cult units.

I am not seeing a rule in the v2.6 codex saying that there can be a unit that has multiple blastmasters. The noise marine entry says only one per squad and the havoc entry lacks a blastmaster option - If you removed the one per squad restriction it would effectively allow a noise marine unit to become a blastmaster havoc unit I mentioned. Also EC had terminators, bikers, vehicles, ID, and etc; all could upgrade to sonic weaponry at one time. It would be fairly easy using your warband rules to put a line under Icon of EC that stated “bolters and twin linked bolters may be exchanged for sonic blasters for 5 points and autocannons can be exchanged for blastmasters for 10 points (just making up values here)”. But I understand if you want to keep it simple.

One last concern on my part; I don’t think the sonic blaster should be the standard armament for noise marines. I would start them off with bolters and allow them to upgrade to the sonic blasters same way as dark eldar true born can upgrade to splinter carbines. Reason: A lot of people, like myself, have EC armies with bolter equipped noise marines. IIRC the box set even sells the unit with only one sonic blaster. It could be a harlequin kiss like situation for these armies that possessing one in the squads means they all count as having it, but because it was an upgrade optional weapon there are going to be armies with noise marines that do not possess any models with sonic blasters that will be adversely effected by their forced inclusion.

Either way I going to do out an army list for my EC under your rules - Its not like I could use my four blastmasters havoc squad under the current GWS codex anyway.

That's strange... I'd swear I had included a rule where Havocs with the Icon of the Emperors Children could replace their Autocannon for a Blastmaster for 10pts. Odd...
I'll see about adding that back in.
The idea of more wide-spread sonic blasters is nice, but is complicated in lessening the role of Noise Marines, that they're seemingly uncommon in fluff and most of all, a similar option would be needed for other warbands, which is a tricky implementation. I'll certainly think about it (for Autocannons & TL Bolters largely), but I really wouldn't hold your breath tbh, but as I said, I'll consider it man!

I'm not sure why Sonic Blasters SHOULDN'T be the standard armament for Noise Marines to be honest. It's their iconic weapon and ultimately, I cannot see why you wouldn't take them in this 'dex; they're better than a boltgun and a Noise Marine isn't really worth it without, unless you're just buying them for the 1 blastmaster... I would imagine the vast majority of people would have Sonic Blasters on their NM's, whilst they could otherwise just be used as a normal CSM if they don't. It'd be a very small loss in the grand-scheme of things, particularly if compared to something like the loss of Stormtroopers in GK's for example.
Honestly, I just don't see why it wouldn't be the standard armament, for fluff and game reasons. I don't think that many people would really be affected by the change, or unable to perform a weapon swap/move them to CSM...

Thanks though man, appreciate the feedback. Hopefully you can understand my reasoning rather than think I'm just rejecting other opinions.

Fluff wise not all the EC marines are equipped with sonic weapons. The sonic blasters are a weapon that Slaanesh marines use, but not exclusively. They didn’t throw out their bolters: in the HH book Fulgrin, the majority of the chapter keeps their bolters and only the marines that were particularly moved to that type of weaponry embraced the sonic blaster and blastmasters. Typical marine weaponry remained in the legion. Based on previous sources all EC are noise marines in the sense that they are fearless and have the mark of slaanesh and the option to equipped with sonic blasters, but many of those marines; in fact the majority of the chapter, stuck with their bolters.

My concerned is based on the absolutism presented in your codex invalidates current armies:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Category:Slaanesh_Space_Marines_Army_Profile
For my army I field five units of Noise Marines in squads of six; I only have six sonic blasters in my entire force.

Solutions to this issue that could work with your codex:
1) Allowing EC non-Noise marine units to upgrade their bolters to sonic blasters and autocannons to blastmasters and buy Doom Sirens for their champions. Which would create a situation where noise marine weaponry could exist in the unit while allowing some marines to keep their bolters. In this case the Noise Marine could remain sonic blaster exclusive, fearless units and Slaanesh EC marines could have some sonic weaponry.
2) Allow the Noise Marine entry to have a mix of bolters and sonic blasters like previous rules.
3) Say that one sonic blaster in the unit represents that all bolter armed marines have sonic blasters. - this will still cause problems with some armies.
4) Tell many players their armies are no longer valid under your codex.

I like option 1. It allows EC players to have a mix of sonic weaponry in their army while avoiding the issue of why their troops are fearless, but their terminators, bikers, and heavies are not. One of my issues is that EC with sonic blasters are fearless but EC with other equipment are not - this creates a logic inconsistency that irks me - having a gun makes you fearless, switch it with another weapon and you lose your fearlessness. Under option 1, Noise marines remain are a pure force of dedicated fearless marines while other forces in the EC have access to noise marines weaponry and enough sense to run from battle every now and then. Which seems to work with the fluff.

In second edition noise marines were able to generate anti-psych discord with their instruments. Just mentioning this if you are considering selecting option 1 but worried about removing the usefulness/uniqueness of pure noise marines.

I can see how heretics are able to be used for an array of different roles like traitor guard, cultist, beastman. Here’s a suggestion in the line of that thought. Instead of giving them the scout universal rules allow the heretic squad to pick one of three options:
1) Scouts
2) Furious Charge
3) Fearless and rage

Option one allows the heretics to represent traitor guard, spies, or chaos loyalist turning against their planet. Option two represents beastmen, mutants, other form of enhanced warrior. Option three represents the stereotypical crazed chaos cultists who are driven towards the enemy.

Excellent Work!

Only one small suggestion in that I would let Khorne Bezerkers and Kharne take flamers. There is a the story of Kharne grabbing a flamer and letting loose on his own legion (and the Emperors Children) I think that would be cool and in character. Just a small idea

Overall fantastic job!

SpaceMonk wrote:Excellent Work!

Only one small suggestion in that I would let Khorne Bezerkers and Kharne take flamers. There is a the story of Kharne grabbing a flamer and letting loose on his own legion (and the Emperors Children) I think that would be cool and in character. Just a small idea

Overall fantastic job!

Agree!

The only thing that has struck me as overpowered is the needle-weapon of fabius bile. I think AP3 is not fitting for this weapontype, while everything else (12", Assault 3, Poison 4+, ID inflicting) seems okay to me. Maybe AP5?

The rest of the codex seems to be okay to me, maybe I get my csm-pals to test this kind of dex for our internal games so they can get the fun out of their armies back again.

@Grunt13 standard CSM can represent EC without Noise wepons scince noise marines are ECs elite soldiers.

MrTau wrote:@Grunt13 standard CSM can represent EC without Noise wepons scince noise marines are ECs elite soldiers.

Not really, take a look at the link in my last post. There are four Slaanesh armies on DakkaDakka. The last entry uses is a theme army with sisters of battle as normal CSM and contains berserkers - so it really isn’t a Slaanesh army in game play, but in background. Out of the other three armies presented, all three are invalid under the codex’s rules; that’s a pretty big deal. And, like I said before the Emperor’s Children box set came with only one sonic blaster - that should be a pretty big indicator that requiring a sonic blaster exclusive unit is a bit much to impose on Slaanesh players. This wouldn’t be a problem if EC CSM could have noise marine weaponry, like I suggested.

In my experiences if you have noise marines, chances are you have a slaanesh themed force - this codex is taking a hammer to those armies. My suggestion permits JustDave’s noise marines to exist as they are; but allows EC marines to take noise marine weaponry effectivity preventing that from happening. It is just basically one more step from what the codex already grants - dreadnaught and defilers can take noise weaponry and JustDave stated that he intended to have havoc’s be able to take Blastmasters. The codex basically gives Slaanesh armies what they been requesting from GWS for years in a Chapter Approved Legions, but then takes away their armies. It’s like gifting a cowboy with a much needed saddle, but then stealing his horse. I also believe that it would be suitable to have similar change effect the Khorne armies allowing WE CSM to exchange their bolters for chainaxes which would address the flamer issue without altering the current berserkers.

In those armies berserkers would keep their special rules that remove them from the normal marines with their weaponry, but allows for theme armies to exist. Only their legion would be effected under the Warband rules which would would prevent confusion from having sonic weapons CSM standing next to Deathguard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This is basically what I am suggesting:

Under the Icon of Emperor’s Children
Any unit with the mark of slaanesh can exchange have its models exchange their boltguns for sonic blasters for 5 points, twin linked bolters for sonic blasters for 3 points, or their autocannons for blastmasters for 10 points. Aspiring champions, lords, sorcerers, and daemon prices can take doom siren for 15 points.

Under the Icon of World Eaters.
Any non vehicle unit with the mark of Khorne can exchange their bolter for a chainaxe for free.