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https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/ryr2r2tf/sunday-preview-its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-rhana-dandra/

It’s happening.

Interesting re-packs (but not re-cuts) of the falcon/WS and WWs.

Well, I’ve got two and a bit weeks to get some backlog cleared so I’m in “kit credit” for this!

Stupid Eldar getting their much longed for and deserved update of awesome models including a brand new Exarch that's never been release before as a model in 40years.

Stupid darn pointy eared elves in space getting in the way of the proper release of pointy eared vampires!

Giving me a whole extra week (at least) to save up/build stuff to reduce the building pile.

This is going to be a bad year for my paint more then I buy pledge. Eldar, soulblight, and I’m sure another box of marines or two. I need to get cracking on the pile of shame to get ahead of the game.

 Overread wrote:
Stupid Eldar getting their much longed for and deserved update of awesome models including a brand new Exarch that's never been release before as a model in 40years.

Phoenix Lord, not Exarch.

I keep hearing that there will be 4 factions in the new Aeldari codex.

Ynarri, Craftworld, Harlequin, and ?

Maybe something focused around Wraiths?

Corsairs, although they'd be better off in the Drukhari codex, being pirates an'all.

Corsairs are the fourth- according to Valrak rumours, there may be a new Corsair unit coming.

And really, making Corsairs more viable can be achieved through Keywords- giving them access to transports and other vehicles won't solve the problem entirely, but it can go a long way.

 PenitentJake wrote:
Corsairs are the fourth- according to Valrak rumours, there may be a new Corsair unit coming.

And really, making Corsairs more viable can be achieved through Keywords- giving them access to transports and other vehicles won't solve the problem entirely, but it can go a long way.

Well, they can already ride in craftworlder transports. They'd be better if you could take them in drukhari transports (to make the most of their shooting), but the bigger issue is that they just don't bring a ton to the table right now aside from the Scout rule. Breaking up the voidscarred unit into characters and non-characters would make it easier to flesh out the characters a bit as part of a detachment. Maybe just un-legends some of the 7th edition corsair units (and give them a better set of special rules.)

It's weird that corsairs are so half-baked at the moment because 7th edition corsairs were absolutely glorious. Then GW shanked them in a back alley and gave their subfaction/detachment rules to everyone as part of 8th edition.

The Hatchette Combat Patrol has reached the Eldar tranche. Farseer for £10 anyone? Issue 21 is on sale from Forbidden Planet now.

Issue 26 has the Wraithlord for £10, while issue 39 gets you wraith guard.

23 and 24 together give you a box of guardians while 27 to 29 gets you wind riders.

Flavour article for the new Phoenix Lord.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/igi71hj0/lhykhis-the-whispering-web-who-is-the-warp-spider-phoenix-lord-leaping-into-the-new-codex-aeldari/

Think I might delve into my Paycheque Awakening Books and do a thread, likely in background, about which snippets are yet to come to pass, given Fulgrim was also among them.

 Wyldhunt wrote:


Well, they can already ride in craftworlder transports. They'd be better if you could take them in drukhari transports (to make the most of their shooting)

I wasn't sure, so thanks for the clarification. My Corsair headcannon involves aircraft; the Crimson Hunter and Hemlock don't really suit, but the Void Raven and Razorwing look good. I wish either the Eldar List or the Drukhari list had a plastic transport aircraft, but neither do.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

but the bigger issue is that they just don't bring a ton to the table right now aside from the Scout rule.

A good detachment and decent Crusade support would go a long way toward remedying that.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Breaking up the voidscarred unit into characters and non-characters would make it easier to flesh out the characters a bit as part of a detachment. Maybe just un-legends some of the 7th edition corsair units (and give them a better set of special rules.)

I think the Valrak rumour was for a jump unit?

I think they need a generic Leader and Psyker; I suppose I'd be okay if they broke these out of the KT, but if they gave us new models it would be even better, because then we'd get to keep both the battle line and elite versions of the KT. Psyker inclusion in a unit SHOULD be one of those things that Voidscarred bring to the table, but with psychic powers basically being an extra attack or an Invulnerable save, having an embedded psyker isn't really that big a deal.

I had wanted a Yriel/ Generic Fellarch dual kit.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

It's weird that corsairs are so half-baked at the moment because 7th edition corsairs were absolutely glorious. Then GW shanked them in a back alley and gave their subfaction/detachment rules to everyone as part of 8th edition.

Agreed. The plastic Corsair models are gorgeous, but the trade off was devastating for people who loved Corsairs.

 PenitentJake wrote:

I wasn't sure, so thanks for the clarification. My Corsair headcannon involves aircraft; the Crimson Hunter and Hemlock don't really suit, but the Void Raven and Razorwing look good. I wish either the Eldar List or the Drukhari list had a plastic transport aircraft, but neither do.

Well, the falcon is capable of void-to-surface transportation, and I imagine most other craftworld tanks are as well. The falcon was a dedicated transport for corsairs back in the day (as it sounds like you're aware), so if you're looking for landing craft, regular grav tanks can fill the role.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

but the bigger issue is that they just don't bring a ton to the table right now aside from the Scout rule.

A good detachment and decent Crusade support would go a long way toward remedying that.

Maybe. Corsair shooting looks an awful lot like guardian or kabalite shooting. A bunch of shuriken rifles hopping out of a transport with a couple special weapon shots in tow only gets you so much mileage. I imagine trying to make corsairs playable as a full army without several more unit kits would probably mean depending heavily on vehicles. Some cool "raiding from orbit" type rules would be cool, but I'm not sure how far 6 strats, 4 enhancements, and a detachment rule will get you towards that. And I'm not confident said rules would have me wanting to field a ton of anhrathe infantry inside those vehicles. The armoured warhost is presumably a look at what a fast, vehicle-heavy detachment will look like, and I'm not sure it really captures the feeling of a "corsairs" army.

I think they need a generic Leader and Psyker; I suppose I'd be okay if they broke these out of the KT, but if they gave us new models it would be even better, because then we'd get to keep both the battle line and elite versions of the KT. Psyker inclusion in a unit SHOULD be one of those things that Voidscarred bring to the table, but with psychic powers basically being an extra attack or an Invulnerable save, having an embedded psyker isn't really that big a deal.

I'm not really married to keeping the elite version as-is. Shade runners and the psyker and the stone lady are all cool, but the unit is just painfully complicated when they're all stuffed into one place like that. I'd much rather let the shade runner run around being a lone op teleporting assassin type while the seer helps one squad blast the enemy and the stone lady heals casualties in another squad. Right now, the Kill Team is what? $70? Getting a squad with some alternate weapons and 3 characters out of that is kind of a steal. Breaking those things out into character blisters means you'd be looking at something closer to $35 x 3 + $50 for the same plastic.

I had wanted a Yriel/ Generic Fellarch dual kit.

That would be great!

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Maybe. Corsair shooting looks an awful lot like guardian or kabalite shooting. A bunch of shuriken rifles hopping out of a transport with a couple special weapon shots in tow only gets you so much mileage. I imagine trying to make corsairs playable as a full army without several more unit kits would probably mean depending heavily on vehicles. Some cool "raiding from orbit" type rules would be cool, but I'm not sure how far 6 strats, 4 enhancements, and a detachment rule will get you towards that. And I'm not confident said rules would have me wanting to field a ton of anhrathe infantry inside those vehicles. The armoured warhost is presumably a look at what a fast, vehicle-heavy detachment will look like, and I'm not sure it really captures the feeling of a "corsairs" army.

Remember, I'm Jake: my favourite game size is 500 points, but I want that 500 points to feel like it is its own thing and doesn't have to borrow an HQ. I'm somewhat of an anomaly in that only one or two of the armies I collect will ever get to 2k points, but I've got a half a dozen or more little 500 point armies. I'm not advocating for a 2k Corsairs army, because you're certainly right- there aren't enough units for 6 strats and 4 enhancements to support at that size.

But with the right detachment, a 500-1k force could be really cool.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I'm not really married to keeping the elite version as-is. Shade runners and the psyker and the stone lady are all cool, but the unit is just painfully complicated when they're all stuffed into one place like that. I'd much rather let the shade runner run around being a lone op teleporting assassin type while the seer helps one squad blast the enemy and the stone lady heals casualties in another squad.

I don't know man- I think the Voidscarred are great units, and I think breaking out their specials reduces their flexibility. I don't want that unit to lose the abilities that it has as a result of those special characters. This unit is one that still has options that make it fun to build, and taking those away also takes away a narrative connection between 40k and Kill Team- which can be very important to campaigners like me who play side-mission games of Kill Team using units from my Crusade roster.

As I said before, if they HAVE TO break them out to give us characters, I suppose I'd be okay with it. But why wouldn't you rather just have an ACTUAL model for a leader, a psyker and an assassin? I mean, sure, those models are decent... But are they really character models?

If you made actual character models, there could be more than one build option.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Pretty good chance. Certainly I can’t immediately think of a 10th Ed Codex which didn’t come with a revised Combat Patrol?

But then, I can’t say I’ve exactly kept tabs on that either.

I think at least some of the Combat Patrols were already "compliant"? for lack of a better word. The Necron Combat Patrol still looks like a big chunk of their half of that starter set.

The Harlequins could do with 2 new units, a leader character and a mime troupe.

Troupe leaders can act like exarch mini characters.

That gives them pretty much all their 1st Ed army list back. Of course they could do more, but that's the minimum to get them to 'complete'. Unless they would provide ghost robots and wraithlords...


Imo corsairs need a felarch, a unique vehicle and a fast attack. The fw army list was pretty good, but it was pretty uninspired.

I'd go with something interesting like skyboard riders with heavy weapons or something to give them something a bit different to jump guardians or jetbike guardians.

PenitentJake wrote:
I don't know man- I think the Voidscarred are great units, and I think breaking out their specials reduces their flexibility.

I think that it's fair to say that, mechanically and objectively, they're not "great" in terms of performance. You don't really see them taken in competitive lists, and their confused role is part of that. Looking at the unit, you have:

* Shaderunner. Wants to do melee stuff, but the rest of the squad would kind of rather be shooting. And if you *do* build a bunch of normies for melee, they're going to essentially be lacklustre versions of other melee units players have access to. And if you still want to go that route just for the heck of it, consider how cool the Shaderunner could be if he were his own unit instead. Lone op. Teleporting all over the place. Mechanics for hitting hard when he gets the drop on the enemy. Basically, a lot of the stuff that he had in 9th, but expanded and given room to breathe.

* Seer. Wants to blast stuff. That's fine. They make sense as a character adding to the shooting of a shooty unit.

* Spirit stone lady. Currently lets you ignore one unsaved wound, but so what? Ignoring one bolter shot per turn isn't exactly impressive. Yet she's yet another rule you have to remember for this jumbled unit. Make her a character with a higher points cost, and you could afford to make her both more powerful and more complicated. Picture her reaching out and healing not only her squad but nearby squads as well. A proper psychic apothecary type, or else maybe a more flexible support character using stones for a variety of purposes.

* Sniper guy. Is kind of just an additional special gun guy, but you have to admit it's awkward having a guy with a sniper rifle following along with a bunch of sword or rapid fire gun guys. This guy could be our baby vindicaire or a corsair death jester equivalent. Which would not only give us yet another unique unit to make corsairs feel like their own thing, but would also give them a lone op guy to sit back and hold objectives with.

* The felarch, hawk guy, and special guns can all stick with the standard shooty/stabby pirates.

Of all those, the only "characters" who really feel like they might want to be together in the same unit are the seer and the spirit stone lady. I feel like you gain a ton more than you lose by splitting them out into their own datasheets.

As I said before, if they HAVE TO break them out to give us characters, I suppose I'd be okay with it. But why wouldn't you rather just have an ACTUAL model for a leader, a psyker and an assassin? I mean, sure, those models are decent... But are they really character models?

They're super cool models as-is. I don't want to pay ~$140 extra to reinvent the wheel and put those 4 of those guys in clamshell blisters. On the contrary, having 4 characters and a squad all included in a $70 box would make them the best points-per-dollar option in the game.

And I definitely don't want to pay all that extra money so that an already overcomplicated unit can gain the option to field a character that makes it even more complicated. Especially if the new character being added looks suspicioiusly similar to someone already in the squad.

Hellebore wrote:The Harlequins could do with 2 new units, a leader character and a mime troupe.

Troupe leaders can act like exarch mini characters.

That gives them pretty much all their 1st Ed army list back. Of course they could do more, but that's the minimum to get them to 'complete'. Unless they would provide ghost robots and wraithlords...


Imo corsairs need a felarch, a unique vehicle and a fast attack. The fw army list was pretty good, but it was pretty uninspired.

I'd go with something interesting like skyboard riders with heavy weapons or something to give them something a bit different to jump guardians or jetbike guardians.

Mimes and master mimes would be cool. One of the recent Ahriman novels remembered that mimes exist, so that's promising.

I wouldn't mind seeing a new transport for corsairs, but simply letting them use the existing ones in a more pirate-y way would work pretty well too. I don't think I'm sold on dakka hellions. Corsasirs with jetpacks looked cool and filled the role of mobile heavy weapon guys pretty well. Plus, that would allow long-time fans to have a use for their old models again. I'm all for making factions feel distinctive, but sometimes being different just for the sake of being different can lead to less than ideal results, you know?

Depends if they're staying with the Eldar codex or not. Currently the hawks, spiders and jetbikes all are pretty indistinguishable from the fw corsair units.

And as gw seem uninterested in pursuing those sonic weapons they had in FW, there's not even that to distinguish a new jetbike unit from the others.

I have a hard time seeing them investing in plastic corsair jetbikes or even jump packers when they're almost entirely an aesthetic rather than game play unit. They'd have to redesign their rules and equipment pretty extensively to make them a choice against the existing Eldar ones.

The new battle focus rules seem really cool. So much more character than just make dice 6s. Some of those reactive moves are going to be clutch. This will make them less point and delete and require more thought of when to use battle focus points kind of like cabal points for TS. Can’t wait to get this book and play.


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Also. That phoenix lord article makes me worried that kandaras won’t be in the codex

Not a fan of limited use racial abilities, but it does look it will be fun an interesting to use. I suspect it will help cement the feelings of frustration from across the table when playing against eldar. But to be fair, that’s on brand for the army.

Don’t see where the Phoenix Lord article would worry you about Karandrass. Yes, he’s the only one not in plastic these days, so is at risk. But I didn’t get any warning vibes from recent articles.

No plastic plus in the “other” section makes me worried. But other non plastics survived in other books like Huron so hopefully he will stay but I would feel better if he wasn’t in the also ran part of the article

 xeen wrote:
No plastic plus in the “other” section makes me worried. But other non plastics survived in other books like Huron so hopefully he will stay but I would feel better if he wasn’t in the also ran part of the article

My bad. I didn’t know there was a specific PL one, and thought you were referring to the recent one about the WS PL. Just read it.

I get why they don’t want to post pics of the old metal/finecast one in the same article as the new plastic ones. So yes, a dose of worry. We’ll know more in a week or less as the reviews/leaks hit.

 xeen wrote:
The new battle focus rules seem really cool. So much more character than just make dice 6s. Some of those reactive moves are going to be clutch. This will make them less point and delete and require more thought of when to use battle focus points kind of like cabal points for TS. Can’t wait to get this book and play.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also. That phoenix lord article makes me worried that kandaras won’t be in the codex

Definitely an improvement (in terms of fun) over Strand of Fate. I'm with Nevelon though. I don't love limited use abilities like this. One of my big complaints lately has been the way strats only let you do the fluffy thing with one unit per turn. New BF is kind of just another layer of strats with limited uses. I was hoping we'd just get the old BF back so we could shoot and scoot our whole army and use our mobility as defense. This seems like it's going to lend itself more to cookie cutter combos the same way Fire & Fade has.

Splash a second unit of bikes into my Saim-Hann list? Sorry. I'm already budgeting my once per turn Fade Back for my first squad. Or maybe for the avatar.

The Fleet rule helps with that a little, but we'll have to get in the habit of fielding 10-man bricks instead of MSU if we want to have anything alive after the initial shooting.

Kind of wish some of the random distances were just flat values too. Like, it's already costing us a finite resource and our once per turn use of the maneuver. Failing to scramble behind terrain because you rolled a 1 is going to suck.

I shouldn't be, but I'm honestly kind of down on these rules. I'm hoping my opinion turns around once I use them.

I'm not particularly excited by the commodification of rules, but GW has hitched its wagon to this style since the beginning of 10th.

They've been moving away from the simulationist end of the scale to the abstract and this is another example. that they're still using simulationist terminology like star engines ( a real piece of wargear) to describe a conditional abstraction is part of the issue.

If they reframed these to sound conditional in their name, it would cause less issue. For example, calling one 'Opportunistic reaction' qualifies its use in the name (not that it's a great name, just an example).

Making a game where the background is important but then abstracting the rules to conditionally represent that just looks weird. If you're going to abstractify gameplay to the point where it doesn't really matter what they are, removing references like these are your best option.

I’m wondering if the limited application might be part of its strength.

For instance, if I’m setting up a pair of charges, one with Banshees, one with Scorpions, against separate units, my opponent can’t be sure which is going to negate his Overwatch.

Seemingly, and outside of Aspect Detachment Wonk, it can only be one of them. If indeed I charge with both. This allowed one of them to just act the threat, breaking off their approach a turn before.

Of course, nothing is ever that straight forward in a real game. But “guess which unit is going saiyan” has potential perks over every unit can go saiyan.

Based on the changes so far... does this make the Grotmas detachment more likely to be used?

Mechanically I don’t have major issues with it. Besides the potential of layering these with other strats. But the general scarcity of those in 10th should prevent any horrible wombo-combos. Although if there isn’t at least one that’s over a little into the “this feels broken” zone I’d be shocked. Not game breaking, just enough to feel dirty in casual play.

From a fluff POV it’s a bad way to represent racial traits IMHO.

But we’ll see what it looks like when we have the full picture.


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 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Based on the changes so far... does this make the Grotmas detachment more likely to be used?

The grotmass detachment makes all vehicle guns assault and lets you re-roll advance rolls for flying vehicles.

Battle focus seems to give more movement, let you move as reactions, and in general scamper all over the place like a cat with the 3am zoomies.

Honestly? I suspect layering these on top of each other is overkill. How fast do we need to be? It’s not like Eldar were slow to start with. Do we need to move a falcon/WS 14” + 1d6+1 move + 1d6 assault move (re-rolling if desired) and then disembark troops and melt someone’s face off? I mean, it sounds like a good time, but how big are tables, and do we need all of that?

Would it be better to take something more killy/tough/tricky as a detachment instead of doubling down on speed?

We don’t have a full picture of all the options. I think the grotmass detachment could be a lot of fun, in a balls to the walls, speed of the crack infested cheetah kinda way. Just go in full throttle and leave nothing but dust trails.

But it’s not going to have a lot of options. Just speed.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Based on the changes so far... does this make the Grotmas detachment more likely to be used?

A bit, but not really. The big benefit of this for the armoured warhost is that you can use Fade Back to re-embark in a transport. So if you use armoured warhost to deliver a squad of dragons point-blank, they'll get shot by a single thing on the next turn, and then they'll scamper back into the transport.

What *really* makes armoured warhost more appealing is that dragons are, I'm told, getting baked-in rerolls in their datasheet. So without taking a penalty for not riding in a falcon, wave serpents become a lot more attractive, and *that* means that the armoured warhost becomes more attractive.

It will be interesting to see what if any new rules are added to aspects. The 5++ is pretty useless for a T3 W1 model, and the units fold like paper, so you treat them like single use weapons expecting them to be gone once they've done their one thing.

At least with strands you got the opportunity to keep a few more alive than normal.

GW have never really mastered the eldar surviving anything, making the army all seem like highly specialised kamikaze units running in to do one thing and die.