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Bharring wrote:

 Elian wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Elian wrote:
See? they are powerful not as a primarch but they are the most powerful living eldar ever.
Or am i wrong?

They are definitely way more powerful than a garden variety Exarch. It might be that they are just Exarchs who have been around SO long that they became that powerful, but it seems more likely that they unlocked certain mystic abilities (maybe the favor of Khaine himself) that allowed them to focus on a unique aspect of war and found their own shrines.

There is even an argument to be made that our phoenix lord are our old god in elf form (or what has been left of it)

Could be, but not as a simple avatar/incarnation. Wasn't Asurmen a hero whom Asuryan gave the Crystal Sons to train long before the Fall? So Asurmen might be the champion of Asuryan, but wouldn't actually be Asuryan.

No. Asurmen was basically a really lazy dude who just pottered around doing nothing because he couldn't be bothered/nothing interested him and he wasn't crazy enough to start knifing people. He didn't start doing anything useful until almost right before Slaanesh was born and killed almost everyone. Then he hid in a temple from demons and crazy people until Jain Zar broke in with said crazy people chasing her. That's when he started to do something useful.

Edit: I got Asuryan and Asurmen confused.

Wait, so Jain Zar spoke face to face with Asuryan, the head god of the Eldar pantheon? Out of curiosity, what book?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(Also, this means Jain Zar is also from before the fall; unsure how many of the Phoenix Lords are.)

Bharring wrote:
Wait, so Jain Zar spoke face to face with Asuryan, the head god of the Eldar pantheon? Out of curiosity, what book?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(Also, this means Jain Zar is also from before the fall; unsure how many of the Phoenix Lords are.)

That's completely my bad, I mixed up AsurYAN and AsurMEN.

The book is Asurmen and it's also mentioned in Jain Zar what they did prior to the Fall. Jain Zar seemed to be born pretty close to the birth of Slaanesh and she was a gladiator. It was a good way of showing how messed up the Eldar got seeing as Jain was confused by the idea of scoring points in a game and nobody being killed.

pm713 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Wait, so Jain Zar spoke face to face with Asuryan, the head god of the Eldar pantheon? Out of curiosity, what book?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(Also, this means Jain Zar is also from before the fall; unsure how many of the Phoenix Lords are.)

That's completely my bad, I mixed up AsurYAN and AsurMEN.

The book is Asurmen and it's also mentioned in Jain Zar what they did prior to the Fall. Jain Zar seemed to be born pretty close to the birth of Slaanesh and she was a gladiator. It was a good way of showing how messed up the Eldar got seeing as Jain was confused by the idea of scoring points in a game and nobody being killed.

Iliathin (who would later become Asurmen) recalled going to watch a ball game. Over time, paralleling the decline of society, the players became more and more aggressive, then medical help was banned from the game venue (to make it more risky and exciting), then lethal force was permitted. Over time it became less about the ball game and scoring points than about the violence.

Iracundus wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Wait, so Jain Zar spoke face to face with Asuryan, the head god of the Eldar pantheon? Out of curiosity, what book?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(Also, this means Jain Zar is also from before the fall; unsure how many of the Phoenix Lords are.)

That's completely my bad, I mixed up AsurYAN and AsurMEN.

The book is Asurmen and it's also mentioned in Jain Zar what they did prior to the Fall. Jain Zar seemed to be born pretty close to the birth of Slaanesh and she was a gladiator. It was a good way of showing how messed up the Eldar got seeing as Jain was confused by the idea of scoring points in a game and nobody being killed.

Iliathin (who would later become Asurmen) recalled going to watch a ball game. Over time, paralleling the decline of society, the players became more and more aggressive, then medical help was banned from the game venue (to make it more risky and exciting), then lethal force was permitted. Over time it became less about the ball game and scoring points than about the violence.

Knowing what we know that's just scary tbh

That's literally the plot of Rollerball Murder (the original short story, the one the 70s film was based on).

Alternatively, pre-Fall Eldar played Blood Bowl.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
That's literally the plot of Rollerball Murder (the original short story, the one the 70s film was based on).

Alternatively, pre-Fall Eldar played Blood Bowl.

Hey, at least you can get Apothecaries in Blood Bowl!

Pre-Fall Eldar were legitimately scary guys

If you go back to the 2nd ed codex, you find that the difference between exarchs and phoenix lords is one of degrees.

They were creates as homages to shaolin temple masters, each with their own school or speciality.

The original story of an exarch is that the suit contains the souls of all previous exarchs and their bodies are absorbed. They can physically no longer take the suit off because there is no body to take it from.

They take on the persona of the original wearer, a great hero and their psychic energy is added to all previous wearers, increasing their power.

A phoenix lord was the oldest of the exarchs as they were the founders of the temples.

But they weren't intrinsically different - they were just much older.

I am not a huge fan of the Gav Thorpe era of eldar. He has made a lot of questionable decisions around them, like relegating exarchs to squad leaders rather than the temple masters that they were. Or relegating warlocks to noobs.

Karandras was a student of Arha, he did not learn independently. He decided to focus on a different component of Arha's training and eventually unseated him from his position.

Karandras is all the proof you need that a phoenix lord is a combination of age, experience, eldar psychic might and a single minded dedication to Khaine's aspects of war.


If GW actually put a tenth as much effort into eldar as they did space marines, we would have just as rich a range of characters as they do.

There should be half a dozen different 'levels' of Exarch, from newly minted, to millennia old and second only to the Phoenix lords.

IMO, all 'newer' aspects will have 'Founder Lords' - very old exarchs who aren't as powerful as the phoenix lords because they just aren't as old or experienced.

In terms of power and ability it would go:

Phoenix Lord (the actual first aspect warriors ever - they didn't know what an exarch was until they became them, so they didn't know how to avoid becoming one)

Found Lords (newer aspect founders, not as old as the phoenix lords and not quite as powerful)

Shrine Lords (the oldest exarchs in a shrine, potentially thousands of years old)

Veteran Exarchs (hundreds of years old)

Newly minted Exarchs (the pathetic squad leaders they are currently listed as)


Also, I hate the concept of an Autarch. They make no sense and they've pushed exarchs out of the spot of best craftworld warrior for no reason.

An Autarch should be a bureaucrat that is really good at strategy but not combat.

Combat should be left to the death machines that exarchs should be.

Otherwise there's absoultely no allure or temptation to becoming one, it's just all down side and no up.

I was told by an Eldar buddy that he read phoenix lords kind of arise in a time of need with some magical stuff happening. An exarch in the right place at the right time can become a phoenix lord if the need arises. They even take on their personalities and such.

As far as I understand the Lore, the phoenix lord armour takes over whoever dons it and the the phoenix lord is reborn with the same personality.

This is from the current codex:



I like to think the missing PLs are chilling on a maiden world somewhere on a beach nursing a cold one and fishing. They be like: "Nope, these mofos are worshipping the death god and are basically trying to turn all of us into spirit stones? Yeah I'm not getting involved in that nonsense.."

I like the backstory of irilyth that there was a huge war fought just so his armour could be recovered. Would really like to see a warp spider Lord. That would be real shweet.

If there is a plan for a new spider lord we need some news sculpt to go with it.

Our spiders are from 1989 if i recall correctly

Hellebore wrote:

I am not a huge fan of the Gav Thorpe era of eldar. He has made a lot of questionable decisions around them, like relegating exarchs to squad leaders rather than the temple masters that they were. Or relegating warlocks to noobs.

Gav Thorpe's a follower of the small number school of thought for Eldar populations, even though "small" for galaxy scale should still be many billions. He has in the past said online (or on his blog, can't quite recall which offhand) the following:

"My interpretation is that the largest craftworlds would have a population in the low millions and the smaller vessels in the thousands. A craftworld the size of Alaitoc has a living space larger than a typical Earth continent, with the majority of the population concentrated in habitat domes and a scattering of others across the ‘wilderness’ zones. This would equate to a small present-day city spread across an environment the size of North America. "

A small present day city across a continent, and that is supposed to be one of the biggest Craftworlds the Eldar have. I'm not a fan of that. The Iyanden supplement takes a more realistic though vague stance of saying Iyanden had billions.

Gav also made Exarchs be like neighborhood karate dojo classes, with Exarchs only teaching a squad at a time. I always personally envisioned Exarch shrines to be more like big temple complexes like ancient Egypt or Shaolin temple, with many in training at once.

Yeah the scale of things was weird in those books..
Just like the tabletop

Iracundus wrote:

Hellebore wrote:

I am not a huge fan of the Gav Thorpe era of eldar. He has made a lot of questionable decisions around them, like relegating exarchs to squad leaders rather than the temple masters that they were. Or relegating warlocks to noobs.

Gav Thorpe's a follower of the small number school of thought for Eldar populations, even though "small" for galaxy scale should still be many billions. He has in the past said online (or on his blog, can't quite recall which offhand) the following:

"My interpretation is that the largest craftworlds would have a population in the low millions and the smaller vessels in the thousands. A craftworld the size of Alaitoc has a living space larger than a typical Earth continent, with the majority of the population concentrated in habitat domes and a scattering of others across the ‘wilderness’ zones. This would equate to a small present-day city spread across an environment the size of North America. "

A small present day city across a continent, and that is supposed to be one of the biggest Craftworlds the Eldar have. I'm not a fan of that. The Iyanden supplement takes a more realistic though vague stance of saying Iyanden had billions.

Gav also made Exarchs be like neighborhood karate dojo classes, with Exarchs only teaching a squad at a time. I always personally envisioned Exarch shrines to be more like big temple complexes like ancient Egypt or Shaolin temple, with many in training at once.

Yes I don't like the numbers for a range of reasons.

The main one being that the Eldar way of war is at odds with a tiny population - tissue paper armour and slingshots does not a long lived army make...

Shrines were explicitly described as large complexes with all the equipment and weapons required including transport vehicles.

They are even described as being different sizes

Hellebore wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

Hellebore wrote:

I am not a huge fan of the Gav Thorpe era of eldar. He has made a lot of questionable decisions around them, like relegating exarchs to squad leaders rather than the temple masters that they were. Or relegating warlocks to noobs.

Gav Thorpe's a follower of the small number school of thought for Eldar populations, even though "small" for galaxy scale should still be many billions. He has in the past said online (or on his blog, can't quite recall which offhand) the following:

"My interpretation is that the largest craftworlds would have a population in the low millions and the smaller vessels in the thousands. A craftworld the size of Alaitoc has a living space larger than a typical Earth continent, with the majority of the population concentrated in habitat domes and a scattering of others across the ‘wilderness’ zones. This would equate to a small present-day city spread across an environment the size of North America. "

A small present day city across a continent, and that is supposed to be one of the biggest Craftworlds the Eldar have. I'm not a fan of that. The Iyanden supplement takes a more realistic though vague stance of saying Iyanden had billions.

Gav also made Exarchs be like neighborhood karate dojo classes, with Exarchs only teaching a squad at a time. I always personally envisioned Exarch shrines to be more like big temple complexes like ancient Egypt or Shaolin temple, with many in training at once.

Yes I don't like the numbers for a range of reasons.

The main one being that the Eldar way of war is at odds with a tiny population - tissue paper armour and slingshots does not a long lived army make...

Shrines were explicitly described as large complexes with all the equipment and weapons required including transport vehicles.

They are even described as being different sizes

For the Imperium, Minea from that page in the 5th edition rulebook is described as a typical example of a hive world, and it has 154 billion population, well under the 500 billion maximum. Assume we give all hive worlds a population of 250 billion as a mid-range number, . 32,380 hive worlds of 250 billion population each is 8.095 * 10^15.

That is more than "500 trillion" for the hive worlds alone. Against that, even 500 billion Eldar would still be outnumbered by over 1000:1. The low number stance also conflicts with the artwork portrayed of Craftworld cityscapes that seem to have reasonable levels of activity, rather than being ghost cities.

The shrines described in the Path of the Eldar novels seem to be a structure situated in the middle of a wilderness. The structure was shown as a ziggurat for one particular Scorpion shrine and a tower for a particular Dire Avengers shrine. The Codex entries say the Shining Spears can go for days on their bikes within the dome their shrines are located in. So it is like a squad having a national park to themselves.

While that might be believable for Aspects that use vehicles, like Shining Spears or Crimson Hunters, it is less so for infantry Aspects because again it seems ridiculous to use such a vast space for a literal handful or two of trainees.

It is also unfortunate that aside from names, Gav did not really differentiate the teachings of the particular shrines from each other.

 Argive wrote:
As far as I understand the Lore, the phoenix lord armour takes over whoever dons it and the the phoenix lord is reborn with the same personality.

This is from the current codex:



I like to think the missing PLs are chilling on a maiden world somewhere on a beach nursing a cold one and fishing. They be like: "Nope, these mofos are worshipping the death god and are basically trying to turn all of us into spirit stones? Yeah I'm not getting involved in that nonsense.."

I like the backstory of irilyth that there was a huge war fought just so his armour could be recovered. Would really like to see a warp spider Lord. That would be real shweet.

Broken link.

Doom of Mymearea is centered on a Phoenix Lord, who was lost. He didn't "come back" "magically". The Craftworlders needed to get to his armor so someone could put it on - which brought him back the "normal" way. And they're very clear about him being a Phoenix Lord. That said, as shown upthread, some Phoenix Lords have shown some super-"supernatural" ability beyond even just an extrapolation of what Exarchs can do.

The fluff certainly seems to be written in a way that doesn't *disprove* either theory - that the "Phoenix Lords" are just really old/experienced Exarchs metaphysically (although not culturally), or that "Phoenix Lords" aremore than just old/experiecned Exarchs metaphysically.

I like the first explanation more (so it's my headcanon). It "feels" more internally consistent to me.

Seems to work for me...

Basicaly states the following:
"
PHOENIX LORDS
The Phoenix Lords are the most ancient of the Exarchs.
Each Phoenix Lord founded one of the warrior shrines of the
Asuryani, and is the embodiment of an aspect of the war god
Khaine. They are immortal, after a fashion, for when a Phoenix
Lord is slain another inherits their panoply of war and fully
assumes their identity. In this way, a Phoenix Lord is reborn
into a fresh cycle of existence, reincarnated in a way familiar
to all Aeldari before the Fall. Each Phoenix Lord’s armour
contains a spirit stone that contains a fragment of those that
have come before. However, no matter how many individuals
are incorporated, a Phoenix Lord’s essence is forever the same,
their mind driven by the dominant personality of the first and
greatest incarnation to ever don the Aspect.
Over the millennia, each of the Phoenix Lords has
disappeared for periods of centuries or longer before suddenly
reappearing. However, since the coming of the Great Rift, all
the Phoenix Lords have manifested, including several times
when they all arrived and fought at the same battle. This
exceptional event is known in the tongue of the Aeldari as a
Rìoghile Bhlàr, roughly meaning ‘Gathering of Fire’ or ‘Conflux
of Battle’."

Bharring wrote:
That said, as shown upthread, some Phoenix Lords have shown some super-"supernatural" ability beyond even just an extrapolation of what Exarchs can do.

It is a pity they haven't expanded or focused on these special abilities more either in the fiction or the rules. Eldar Exarchs and Phoenix Lords are space ninjas to the Space Marines' space knights. Imagine Jain Zar getting like a 6+++ against ranged weapons by doing stuff like what occurs at about 4:08 (but start at 3:59):

Only you guardian!!!

I think they have sepcial abilities and these are represented on the table to varying degrees. Each PL has their unique quirk.
Fuegan - gets angry as hes hurt and gets "fired up"
Jain zair - is a master CC that disarms people is uber fast and has a sick ninja throwing star/chakran.
Karandras - Pretty good at assassinations with his claw and ambush tactics.
Asurmen - Well hes a bit lacking in being particularly unique but his shtick is that he buffs up all aspects around him and essentially is the "leader"
Maugan Ra - Have you seen his skulls? I mean he has ALL the skulls. His skulls have skulls... Dis I mention he has skulls?
Irylith - He has a slightly better gun than everyone else?

I think for the most part they do have some pretty cool quirks and abilities which are pretty fluffy. The issue is that compared to a Farseer they are just very very very underwhelming on the table for their points. I love all of the PLs I have Asurmen, jain zair, irylith and maugan Ra joining the ranks of my Eldar soon. Im reluctand to get fuegan or karanrdas because I just cant get stomach he sculpts. I wish FW did alternative sculpts like they do for the avatar. They'd be milking my wallet for months. Anyway that's a conversation for another day.

The problem is that in a game of D6 and limited stat lines its very hard to bring much uniqueness without being completely broken. From a game perspective the PLs I think are under-represented because of their points. Like asumern is 170... Problem is if you drop him by too much he'd pretty muich be an auto take and everything would be DA's.

Hellebore wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

Hellebore wrote:

I am not a huge fan of the Gav Thorpe era of eldar. He has made a lot of questionable decisions around them, like relegating exarchs to squad leaders rather than the temple masters that they were. Or relegating warlocks to noobs.

Gav Thorpe's a follower of the small number school of thought for Eldar populations, even though "small" for galaxy scale should still be many billions. He has in the past said online (or on his blog, can't quite recall which offhand) the following:

"My interpretation is that the largest craftworlds would have a population in the low millions and the smaller vessels in the thousands. A craftworld the size of Alaitoc has a living space larger than a typical Earth continent, with the majority of the population concentrated in habitat domes and a scattering of others across the ‘wilderness’ zones. This would equate to a small present-day city spread across an environment the size of North America. "

A small present day city across a continent, and that is supposed to be one of the biggest Craftworlds the Eldar have. I'm not a fan of that. The Iyanden supplement takes a more realistic though vague stance of saying Iyanden had billions.

Gav also made Exarchs be like neighborhood karate dojo classes, with Exarchs only teaching a squad at a time. I always personally envisioned Exarch shrines to be more like big temple complexes like ancient Egypt or Shaolin temple, with many in training at once.

Yes I don't like the numbers for a range of reasons.

The main one being that the Eldar way of war is at odds with a tiny population - tissue paper armour and slingshots does not a long lived army make...

Shrines were explicitly described as large complexes with all the equipment and weapons required including transport vehicles.

They are even described as being different sizes

it's possiable that the numbers are both correct, with craftworlds having a range of population, from a few million to a few billion. I mean some craft worlds ARE going to be bigger then others. as for the eldar their weapons and armor make sense from the prespective that they fight Gurella actions. realisticly they should be launching quick and sudden ambushes before dissappering back into the webway etc.

With Mymera, we get an image of a Craftworld - even one spared a lot of the horrors that others faced, and capable of hiding itself - dwindling over the years. Now having a fraction of the population it had just after the Fall.

The limiting factor on CWE demographics would be attrition being higher than replacement rates.

The main Phoenix Lords I often regard as only Asurmen and his direct students in role, with only Arhra being replaced by Karandras for being a Judas.

To really do them justice though, Exarchs should be what the current rules Phoenix Lords are (and add one for the other aspects too), and Phoenix Lords (the six) are made into some kind of Primarch like figure like Guilliman.

 Argive wrote:

Irylith - He has a slightly better gun than everyone else?

Irylith is one of the few force multipliers left in 40k. He expands the radius of all the Shadow Spectres' aura effect in your army, which is pretty cool.