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Hello!

This is my first post in the "40k Proposed Rules" section. This list is detachment/formation is designed to be fluffy and balanced. It trades off the uber-competitive units (such as Wraithknights, Grav-Tanks, and Jetbike Troops) for Alpha-Strike-iness. Please let me know what you think, and don't forget to vote on the poll!


Detachment: Ulthwe Strike Force

An Ulthwe Strike Force uses unit entries from Codex: Eldar Craftworlds. However, only the following units may be utilized with new force organization assignments listed:

1-2 HQ: 1+ Farseer, Autarch, Warlock Conclave, Eldrad Ulthran, Maugan Ra
3-8 Troops: Guardian Defenders, Storm Guardians
0-2 Elites: Rangers, Dire Avengers, Fire Dragons, Striking Scorpions, Howling Banshees, 0-1 Wraithguard or Wraithblades
0-3 Fast Attack: Windrider Jetbike Squadrons, Swooping Hawks, Shining Spears, Warp Spiders, Vyper Jetbike Squadron
0-3 Heavy Support: Dark Reapers, 0-1 Wraithlord, War Walker Squadron, Vaul's Wrath Support Weapon Battery
0-1 Lords of War: Avatar of Khaine

An Ulthwe Strike Force Detatchment may replace any Farseer with a Seer Council Formation, and any Avatar of Khaine with a Spear of Khaine Formation.
An Ulthwe Strike Force may not contain more than two aspect warrior units (of any shrine).
Units in an Ulthwe Strike Force may not select a dedicated transport.


Ulthwe Strike Force Special Rules:

Webway Strike:
All units from the Ulthwe Strike Force must be held in reserves.

On the Ulthwe Strike Force's first turn, before rolling for reserves, place a marker on the board to represent the wraithgate. Roll 2d6 and a Scatter Dice, and move the wraithgate accordingly. If the wraithgate scatters on top of an enemy unit or impassible terrain, move the gate the least amount of distance in the direction of the original placement to prevent the gate from touching the enemy model or impassible terrain. The wraithgate is treated as impassible, but not line of sight blocking, terrain.

For deployment and fall back purposes, the wraithgate is treated as the controlling players board edge. One Farseer or Seer Council will automatically enter play on turn one. All other units may enter play from the wraithgate, on turn one, with a reserves roll of 4+. All units that do not deploy on turn one will follow the normal rules for reserves thereafter.


Eldrad's Waystone:
If this Detachment is your Primary Detachment, a Farseer must be chosen as your Warlord. The Farseer can re-roll the result when rolling on any Warlord Traits table.

The Black Guardians:
All Guardians may re-roll failed leadership and morale checks. Furthermore, Guardians gain Preferred Enemy on the turn they enter play from the wraithgate (to include vehicles piloted by Guardians).



Formation: Spear of Khaine
1 Avatar of Khaine
1 Warlock Conclaive
Restrictions: The Warlock Conclaive must include between two and five models. No Warlock may select the Skyrunner option. The Avatar and the Warlock Conclave are treated as one unit, and may not break separate. No other models may join the Spear of Khaine unit.
Special Rules:
Warlock Bodyguard - Whenever the Avatar of Khaine is targeted, a Warlock must attempt a Look Out, Sir! roll.
Psychic Choir - While at least two Warlocks are alive, all Warlocks may re-roll their Rune armour save.



Thanks for looking!
-DB

I think your missing out on some possible flavour here. The Ulthwe strikeforce was known to utilise the webway to strike from multiple vectors. The units that don't come in the first wave should have outflank to represent multiple webway portals.

The vaunted Black Guardians of Ulthwe get no detachment bonuses? I would suggest allowing Guardians and Guardian crewed vehicles to re-roll 1's to hit and re-roll failed leadership tests. The Black Guardians stand vigil over the literal hell mouth of 40K, they should be of a much higher standard then others.

Spear of Khaine is cool, but add a rule that other characters can't join this squad. Avatar + Warlocks + Shadowseer would make a deathstar to far...

Little disappointed in the lack of Psykers. The most you can have is 2 Farseers and a Seer Council. I'd suggest at least 3 maximum HQ choices to allow for 2 Farseers and a Council.

I completely agree on the Spear of Khaine. That was the original intent, I forgot to add it. Edit inc.

I think you're reading the HQ entry wrong. You can have two HQ's: your options are Seer Councils, Farseer, Warlock Conclave, etc.
So you can have two full Seer Councils as your two HQ choices. Would 1-3 HQ's be too much?

I'm not sure on the guardian part. I need to find a way to buff them without making them too OP, or pay extra for the perks. Perhaps the Ld re-roll alone would suffice?

Thanks for the input!
-DB

You have some neat ideas here, but I feel they could be cleaned up a lot.

ULTHWE STRIKE FORCE
First of all, putting formations into force org slots (seer council as hq or spear of khaine as LoW) isn't really standard practice, but it's simpler than writing out a decurion, so whatever.

I love webway portal rules, and yours is pretty snazzy. But it can be simplified a lot. Get rid of all the convoluted stuff about picking parts of your force org and such and change it to something like this:

"During deployment, the Ulthwe player places a webway portal marker and scatters it 2d6". Reduce the scatter by the minimum distance necessary to avoid scattering within 1" of enemy models, onto impassible terrain, or off the table.

Units from this detachment treat the marker as their board edge for purposes of falling back and arriving from reserves. Units not arriving from deepstrike or outflanking may begin rolling for reserves on turn 1. "

And then if you're really worried about all those units failing to come in from reserves, add something like, "your warlord and his unit may opt to arrive automatically on turn 1 rather than rolling for reserves. "

That elminiates the pre-game bookkeeping.

Playing around with the number of various units and the role they occupy feels awkward, but I get what you're going for so whatever. Why limit the wraith lord to a 0-1 choice though? Is it purely out of fluff, or are you worried that it's too powerful? If the latter, I assure you, wraith lords coming out of a portal are not OP.

Why is Maugan Ra an HQ, but not the other Phoenix Lords? IIRC, Maugan Ra is associated with Altansar but doesn't have any particularly strong ties to Ulthwe. No more so than, say, Jain Zar or Fuegan.

The Black Guardians rule isn't bad, but it feels kind of meh next to the normal guardian formations (which grant rerolls to their pals). How about granting them Preferred Enemy on the turn they come out of the webway portal or something? I wouldn't mind granting warlocks in their squads ghost helms so you can throw more dice at powers either. It's fluffy for Ulthwe without being OP.

SPEAR OF KHAINE
The Look Out Sir! thing makes me think that the avatar is able to join the warlock unit. Is this correct? Or do they somehow look out sir onto the avatar provided he's within range even though he isn't attached to them? There needs to be a special rule explaining that they form a unit if that's the intent. How does this affect the unit's type? What about Monster Hunter? Would this mean the warlocks can buff the avatar with blessings that target their own unit?

If you take a SPEAR OF KHAINE (which is a formation) as part of the ULthwe Strike Force (which is also a formation), are you still required to take a farseer as your warlord, or can you nominate the avatar as your warlord?


I like idea of limiting the number of wraith and aspect units in an Ulthwe detachment, and I really like the webway portal thing. Giving the avatar a way to survive is nice as well. I like a lot of what you have here. I'd just like it a lot more if you found a way to clean up the force org stuff and simplify the special rules.

It reads like a copy-paste of a couple of old Apoc formations without much thought, honestly. I'd recommend making an alternate meta-formation out of the Ulthwe Strike Force instead of a single detachment and work Deep Strike/Outflank into that.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It reads like a copy-paste of a couple of old Apoc formations without much thought, honestly. I'd recommend making an alternate meta-formation out of the Ulthwe Strike Force instead of a single detachment and work Deep Strike/Outflank into that.

Personally, I'd probably have the spear be its own separate thing and get rid of the whole formation within a formation thing. Just make this a solid detachment that pairs well with other Ulthwe-friendly stuff.

I really like the webway portal thing, so I'd keep that. Just get rid of the extra book keeping.

Maybe give it extra HQ slots, but require at least be filled with a farseer or Eldrad, make stormies/defenders mandatory troops, and include rules limiting the number of aspects and wraiths you can have.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It reads like a copy-paste of a couple of old Apoc formations without much thought, honestly. I'd recommend making an alternate meta-formation out of the Ulthwe Strike Force instead of a single detachment and work Deep Strike/Outflank into that.

Personally, I'd probably have the spear be its own separate thing and get rid of the whole formation within a formation thing. Just make this a solid detachment that pairs well with other Ulthwe-friendly stuff.

I really like the webway portal thing, so I'd keep that. Just get rid of the extra book keeping.

Maybe give it extra HQ slots, but require at least be filled with a farseer or Eldrad, make stormies/defenders mandatory troops, and include rules limiting the number of aspects and wraiths you can have.

Supplement: Ulthwe. Play as per Codex: Eldar with the following modifications: Mandatory Troops slots must be filled by Guardians or Storm Guardians. All Aspects are 0-1. Mandatory HQ slots must be filled by Farseers or Eldrad. Replace the Seer Council formation (or the unit?) with one that's got the range-extender effect off the 3e/4e Seer Council. Add a Webway Portal as a deployable marker that models can move on from Reserves from in with the Relics.

(I wish the supplements had more than a paragraph of rules, but that's the age in which we live.)

(Supplement: Alaitoc is terrible until the Sniper rule gets overhauled to be less useless, Supplement: Saim-Hann is impossibly OP, Supplement: Iyanden already exists, and Supplement: Biel-Tan is annoying to try and work out what to do with which Aspects get moved to Troops without being over the top.)

Okay,

So I cleaned up the Webway Strike special rule. No more book keeping, tell me what you think.

I changed up the wording in the force selection process to clarify when a Seer Council / Spear of Khaine can be taken.

I added the preffered enemy part to the guardians for the turn they come in from the wraithgate, that should make them a little more competitive but not OP.

I added the note about the Spear of Khaine being a single unit. And no, the Avatar cannot be the warlord per the Eldrads Waystone special rule.

Why? Because Farseers are the beacon that Eldrad uses to communicate the webway strikes. Therefore, they are the "leader" of each strike force.

Also, only Maugan Ra is available because he was the one who showed up and made Eldrad assess the situation.

More info here.

Wraithguard/Wraithlord are limited because they were not traditionally in a Ulthwe Strike Force, and are rarely used by the Ulthwe (because their population is so large, they rarely call upon the dead).

And yes, AnomanderRake, it should be similar to the old Apoc formation. The intent is an update to make the ruleset current and playable. I actually didn't find the old Apoc data sheet until I was 90% of the way through my first draft. The 3rd ed Eye of Terror campaign was my primary motivation. The fact that they matched up so closely in your eyes is a good sign to me.

Thanks for all the input, let me know if you think anything else seems odd/off.
-DB



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Supplement: Ulthwe. Play as per Codex: Eldar with the following modifications: Mandatory Troops slots must be filled by Guardians or Storm Guardians. All Aspects are 0-1. Mandatory HQ slots must be filled by Farseers or Eldrad. Replace the Seer Council formation (or the unit?) with one that's got the range-extender effect off the 3e/4e Seer Council. Add a Webway Portal as a deployable marker that models can move on from Reserves from in with the Relics.

The only problem with this is you don't get a true strike force, because you don't have turn one webway strike using a regular Eldar detachment or Warhost. It's just another Eldar list then that no one will use (because you don't have Wraithknight/Grav-Tanks/Jetbike Troops).

-DB

The new version of the webway strike rule looks much better. Consider adding a line that prevents it from scattering off of the table.

The changes to spear of Khaine look good. What is the unit type considered to be if targeted by shooting with Monster Hunter or Preferred Enemy (Monsters), etc.? If the unit type is changed to infantry, does this mean the Avatar loses the benefits of an MC? Obviously that last part isn't the intention, but it would be nice to have it clarified.

I'm not sure it's fair to say that no one would use it based on its lack of wraith knights and grav tanks. I see this detachment as a fun, fluffy way to represent an eldar ambush. If I wanted to play competitively, I probably wouldn't be using this; I'd be using cheap CADs with wraith knights or maybe a pale court.

 danjbrierton wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Supplement: Ulthwe. Play as per Codex: Eldar with the following modifications: Mandatory Troops slots must be filled by Guardians or Storm Guardians. All Aspects are 0-1. Mandatory HQ slots must be filled by Farseers or Eldrad. Replace the Seer Council formation (or the unit?) with one that's got the range-extender effect off the 3e/4e Seer Council. Add a Webway Portal as a deployable marker that models can move on from Reserves from in with the Relics.

The only problem with this is you don't get a true strike force, because you don't have turn one webway strike using a regular Eldar detachment or Warhost. It's just another Eldar list then that no one will use (because you don't have Wraithknight/Grav-Tanks/Jetbike Troops).

-DB

...Why don't you have Wraithknights/grav-tanks/Jetbike troops, exactly? And as an Eldar player who doesn't spam Wraithknights and scatterbikes to the exclusion of all else I resent the implication.

Because an Ulthwe Strike Force only takes units that are small enough to fit through the wraithgate... nothing bigger then a war walker or vyper.... That's the whole point of the detatchment/formation/whatever you want to call it.

Also, there would be no need to clarify if the unit is infantry or not. The closest model in the squad would determine if you get the benefit or not. If the closest is a warlock, you dont. If it's the avatar, you get it, unless the Look Out Sir! is passed.

 danjbrierton wrote:
Because an Ulthwe Strike Force only takes units that are small enough to fit through the wraithgate... nothing bigger then a war walker or vyper.... That's the whole point of the detatchment/formation/whatever you want to call it.

Also, there would be no need to clarify if the unit is infantry or not. The closest model in the squad would determine if you get the benefit or not. If the closest is a warlock, you dont. If it's the avatar, you get it, unless the Look Out Sir! is passed.

I see what you're going for, but I'm not sure that holds up. Jetbikes are smaller than war walkers and vypers. My wraith lords are actually smaller than war walkers (although I have the old pewter models). If you're using a forgeworld avatar, that model is actually rather large. Wraith guard are certainly smaller than several allowed units. I see where you're coming from, but I think the stronger argument might be, "It's an Ulthwe formation, so units that don't jive with Ulthwe's normal theme are restricted." Mostly a nitpick, but I think you're underestimating your fellow eldar players' willingness to field fun, casual lists.

Your ruling on the Avatar thing doesn't really make sense. For instance, a unit with Preferred Enemy (Monstrous Creatures) would roll to hit and to wound (thus benefitting or not benefitting from Preferred Enemy) before a Look Out Sir! roll would be made. And how does that work with precision shots or barrage weapons? I recommend making the unit count as both an infantry and MC unit for purposes of special rules.