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If I recall correctly, the Craftworld Eldar supplemental codex that I made do with back in 5th was actually from 3rd. I have the 6th Edition Iyanden book, but it doesn't make much sense to me; I bought it for the fluff. I'm not certain what role the Spectres play — aside from nullifying Dark Reapers, perhaps — and aerial superiority is (to me) beyond the purview of an army list. At some point, Wave Serpents went from transports to death-cannons (I think reading this is what ultimately convinced me the game design folks had been blessed too much by Chaos!).

Now, all of this leads me to the conclusion that I should kitbash my own 5th Edition-style Iyanden codex. I'd like to do a proper job of it as well, and not end up with some overpowered, Frankensteinian beast.

This is a generalized FOC list; I'd like feedback and guidance from more experienced hackers before continuing.

HQ

Autarch

Farseer (with Warlocks)

Avatar of Khaine

Elites

Striking Scorpions

Fire Dragons

Howling Banshees

Harlequin Troupe

Dire Avengers

Wraithlord

Wraithseer

Troops

(0-1) Rangers

(0-2*) Guardians

(0-2*) Jetbike Guardians

Wraithguard

Fast Attack

Shining Spears

Warp Spiders

Swooping Hawks

Vyper Squadron

Hornet Squadron

Falcon

Heavy Support

Support Weapon Battery

Dark Reapers

War Walker Squadron

Nightweaver

Fire Prism

Warp Hunter

Automatically Appended Next Post:
So here it is! Please give what feedback you can. Within the spoilers are my remarks; hopefully I explain my decisions well enough..

The 4th edition eldar codex, (made with fifth edition in mind and remarked by players at the time if I remember correctly as being the first fifth edition codex) provided for fielding wraith guard as troops and thus allowing an Iyand en style army even if not specifically designated as such.

I played Iyanden lists (20-25 wraitguard plus 1-2 lords) with this option in the early days of fifth and found that it did well.

I think spiritseers were in that codex too but I'm not certain. And possibly a special character.

Not trying to undermine your ideas just pointing out that I think there were official rules that allowed Iyanden flavored armies.

Thanks for your reply!

Your memory is correct, and I am using that codex as a base for this one. I suppose I should give a better explanation as to what I'm trying to accomplish..

It's become clear to me that GW is not capable of producing a consistent and balanced ruleset, and have chosen to focus on the production of their models. As such, I've made the decision that waiting indeterminate lengths of time for new books to fix what was not broken is no longer a viable option for me. I've convinced those around me of this, and since I'm generally the judge of our group (and unemployed, with oodles of free time) I was nominated to balance/update/fix/whatever our various codices. The Eldar codex provides a minor nod to a Ghost Warrior army, a nod to Altaioc with Rangers as troops, and ignores Biel-tan, Samhain, and Ulthwe. A general Codex is an excellent start, but major craftworlds are similar to certain Chapters that have their own, unique presentation and style.


As a side note, we have Iyanden, Ulthwe, Imperial Guard (Two regiments, one Cadian, one Catachan), Black Scorpions (a Blood Angels successor), Tau, and Farsight Enclave Tau (with some neat gue'la conversion work) in our cluster. How am I going to balance all that? Makes my head hurt preëmptively.

Love what you are trying to do and totally agree with the why. I also agree the codex didn't really develop much flavor like the 3rd edition craftworlds supplement (or whatever it was called) did.

Wraithlords in elites doesn't feel right. In third they were troop choice for Iyanden. That seems more right. Lords and Guard as only troops would be my suggestion, but with restriction of max of one Lord per Guard unit so it doesn't just become spam Lords in troops. Then shift guardians and rangers to elite and bikes to fast attack. I'd be tempted to allow D-Cannon batteries (but not other support batteries) to be taken in troops also, but that is kind of an out there idea.

One last thought. While I like the idea of really emphasizing differences, I still have to say that the 4th codex did a good job of allowing an Iyanden army to be fielded while making the player make some tough choices in list building. Being forced into 10 man squads for troops (700 points unless you used other troop options) was restrictive and fielding Lords meant little choice in heavy support. Could just be nostalgia of losing 8 or so games straight while steadily tweaking, getting stronger and finally having a list that competed strongly. Loved that army and was sad to have to sell it off and step away from the game for a few years.

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:
One last thought. While I like the idea of really emphasizing differences, I still have to say that the 4th codex did a good job of allowing an Iyanden army to be fielded while making the player make some tough choices in list building. Being forced into 10 man squads for troops (700 points unless you used other troop options) was restrictive and fielding Lords meant little choice in heavy support. Could just be nostalgia of losing 8 or so games straight while steadily tweaking, getting stronger and finally having a list that competed strongly. Loved that army and was sad to have to sell it off and step away from the game for a few years.

First off.. yeah, I feel you. I remember my first battle was especially disheartening with only 25 models on my side and my father's thrice-damned Blood Angels easily had that and more. I threatened to turn him in for child abuse afterwards.

One thing you've made me realize is that I should probably approach this in a different way; I'll have to ponder it a bit.

The downside of the approach in that codex is that it really wasn't practical at small point values. A system with Guard and Lords as troop choices lets you field an Iyanden army at low points. A cheap lord and small squad of guard would be about 300 points leaving room for a HQ choice and one other support unit at 500 points. Or bulk up your guard squad and fill out the 500 with just Guard, Lord and HQ. You couldn't do that with that codex as written, so changing things around some does serve a purpose especially at lower point levels.

Iyanden really worked once you got up around 1500 points, but even there I felt required to feel fluffy to take at least one Lord and usually two. It didn't feel right otherwise, but this left me with just one Heavy Support slot. It doesn't feel right to have Wraithguard or Wraitlords competing with other units for limited slots. Having them both as troops choices gets around that problem. The codex hit wraithlords with the nerf bat pretty hard so they really aren't unbalanced as a troop choice especially if you have to take a guard squad to take one which naturally limits you to three and requires a big point investment to take them. They were durable with the hight toughness, but didn't put out much damage per turn.

I wasn't objecting to making wholesale changes to the FOC for Iyanden flavor, just pointing out that the option that was available while simple, was fairly functional. Making larger tweaks allows for more flavor though, so I'm all for that as well. There can be good either way.

The craftworld I felt got the biggest shaft was Ulthwe. Yeah Alaitoc lost their disruption table (or whatever it was called) but you could still field pathfinders. Biel Tann was forced into using Avengers as the primary troops so if you wanted to go Banshee or Scorpion heavy or something you were more limited. So they lost the ability to focus primarily on an aspect chosen by the player. But in the end they could field an all aspect army. Iyanden could field all wraith units plus their seers. Ulthwe though, no way to represent Black Guardians unless I'm forgetting something.

Don't worry, you haven't discouraged me. Far from it! I'll have a followup thread soonish.

Was there anything "wrong" with the codex in that time? Aside from my personal rant about Warp Spiders, I vaguely recall grumblings about the Falcon being a failure as a Heavy Support vehicle. There were some crazy proposals to fix that, including buying them in squadrons!