Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Greetings everybody,

Ulthwé-Fanboys and Iyanden-Supporters, I need your help. Why do you play your Craftworld?

I'm about to dive head first into an Eldar-Army but can't decide if I should choose Ulthwé or Iyanden. I like them both for their dark, melancholic background and their lack of aspect warriors.

My thoughts so far....

Pros for Ulthwé:
- Focus on fatereading is pretty cool, I love farseer and warlocks
- Black/Bone has to be one of the most sexy colour-combinations ever discovered
- I like the idea of a fast webway-bound strike force

Cons for Ulthwé:
- Painting s**tloads of guardians
- start collecting doesn't include guardians

Pros for Iyanden:
- Necromantic Eldar? Cool (or should I say hot) as hell, Spiritseer are almost as cool as warlocks, and I still can play a lot of psykers
- Rediculous good deals (Apocalypse box, start collecting etc.)
- Low-Model count

Cons for Iyanden:
- the focus on wraith units leads to less diversity than the focus on guardians
- Thematically hard to fill troopslots ("dead outnumber the living")

Concerning the Playstyle I think I might maneuver myself into a corner by picking Iyanden since it appears to be rather one-dimensional, but I am not an experienced player, so my thoughts might trick me.

Please lend a fellow undecisive player some aid and tell me your thoughts
Cheers!

I can't comment on which playstyle you might prefer more, but I would recommend picking up the cheap box of easy-to-build Guardians and trying out the colour schemes to see which you prefer painting. If you find one scheme more enjoyable (or less hellish ) to paint, that might help you decide which to go for.

 nurgle5 wrote:
I can't comment on which playstyle you might prefer more, but I would recommend picking up the cheap box of easy-to-build Guardians and trying out the colour schemes to see which you prefer painting. If you find one scheme more enjoyable (or less hellish ) to paint, that might help you decide which to go for.

That is a good idea, I totally forgot about the easy to build guardians! I will do that!

You dont have to run foot guardian heavy Ulthwe lists. They would be perfectly fine running wraithbone lists or bikes or a mix if prefer playing fluffy.

You can always do a Black&Bone Spirit Host. Uthwe has them, too. Just like Iyanden and Biel-Tan have Guardian Warhosts. Uthwe is more known for it's Guardian Warhosts, but they have wraiths/aspects/windriders/etc too.

So pick the lore you like and/or the looks you like, and build the force you like.

I play a Uthwe Aspect Host. Nobody's had a problem with it not being Biel Tan. Farseer Tahynaha has worked with Asurmen off and on for millenia. A large array of Aspect Shrines - and even Phoenix Lords themselves - support the needs of that Farseer's prophesies.

That's hardly a unique setup. Craftworlds are not Chapters. There are 100 Marines in Bob's Chapter Third Company. It's one maybe two forces at most, eve with support. But a Craftworld is engaged in countless struggles and problems at any given time. A Craftwolrd Warhost is only a fraction of the Craftworld's power. So there's no reason every Uthwe Warhost would have the same Guardian:AspectWarrior:SpiritHost distribution.

So my vote, based on what sesems like your preferences: Uthwe Spirit Host!

That said, I'd suggest starting out balanced. Some Wraiths, some Guardians, some Aspects, some support, etc. Get the boxes you want, and build what appeals to you. As long as you can fit an FOC, it works. And the more varied your force, the more "Eldar-y" it feels, the greater it looks, and the more fun it is to play against.

Personally I like the iyanden colour scheme more than ulthwe but that's personal preference. Of course there's nothing stopping you from choosing your own colour scheme too. Or you can pick one of the smaller craftworlds like Altansar or Mymeara.
I'd not worry too much about the fighting style, all the craftworlds have wraiths, guardians and aspect warriors. Pick which models you like and play with them.
I'd recommend the apocalypse box, since you're not looking for hyper competitive units and they're cheap and some of the best kits in the eldar range (and far from useless on the battlefield.)

Most of my own non-aspect Eldar are Iyanden. Have been since sometime back in 2e.

Why? Because I just liked the mostly yellow paint scheme. Still do.
Later on, when Iyanden started getting specific rules/FoC I added a few more units of WG & another WL.

As for Ulthwe? I like the faction, but honestly black/predominately black is my least favorite color to paint minis.

Ulthwe has the whole "fate manpulators" vibe with Eldrad being "one of the most powerful psychic on the galaxy". Also he is ool as a cucumber minature and could do a ni e fluffy warlock conclave around him and more farseers.

Also ulthwe pain scheme is very very simple. Knockig out buckeloads of guardians wouldint be an issue.

As mentioned, nothing stopping you using whatever unitsyou want realy.. nothing wrong with ulthwe lists.

Iyanded is also cool because wraiths.. wraiths everywhere! How are legions of necromancered alien wariors not cool!?
How good are you at yellow though? Lol.

Tbh either is cool. Personaly ulthwe speaks to be a bit more astheticaly and fluff wise.

Ive gone the route of creating my own craftworld fluff and scheme to back it up. My guys have been caught adrift huge warp storm(coz warp) and victims of some temporal time distortions. Basicaly they are late to the party and memories of pre-fall are strong in them so they are re-building an empire from the ashes! By which i mean cleansing lesser races from our maiden worlds and forging pacts with lazor raptor riding space elves.

The codex gives great fluffy background on the official craftworlds and also some less known ones in case you neef some inspiration but sounds like you already did that.

Personally I'd go Ulthwe as there's no yellow. Any yellow is too much yellow.

Well, I'd go with Iyanden because of the look of all these ghostly warriors.

Fluff-wise they're both pretty cool (with Eldar generally having some of the best written/logical/cool fluff or lore in the whole game - most of it being done back when GW had far better writers for their core books).

GW missed a huge step when they did not allow various armies (of any faction) to have alternate troop choices, so Iyanden will struggle with CP and at most you have six units of infantry (3x Wraithguard and 3x Wraithblades...a unit I don't think should exist, but that's for another discussion!). However at 200 points per five, you're unlikely to fit many more in your army anyway, so perhaps it's not a problem.

Ulthwe's paint scheme is okay, and very simple (all Eldar schemes are quite simple since their colours can all be found in various colour sprays or using a airbrush). I'd actually like to see more of the original Ulthwe scheme (black and yellow). I think Iyanden is far more striking on the tabletop. As long as you're not painting much by hand (at least base coats) the yellow is not a huge issue if you have an airbrush or a can of spray yellow that you like.

Wraithguard are stupendously easy to paint to a nice and quick standard and would allow you to paint a full army in...a week if you wanted. Guardians would require far more (20 models per 200 points vs. 5...).

Ulthwe, while having a cool back story have very little to back their original style up in the game. You can't really replicate the cool Ulthwe Strike Force(?) from the old Armageddon campaign, or it'd be a very cool army. Iyenden are tough (though they're more tough when using the Ulthwe Craftworld Trait), but they're slow, and don't have a ton of versatility. Also if you face anything that is damage 3, you lose 40 points per shot that gets through your 3+ armour save. I don't even take them when I play my buddy's Dark Angels - he has a stratagem that adds +1 damage to plasma, meaning a Hellblaster unit could single-handedly wipe out two full Wraithguard squads on a decent round of shooting...one shot per kill. (they can overcharge because when static they re-roll 1's). They have 36" range and Wraithguard have 8-12".

Wraithblades while a bit silly/stupid have an entire bonus detachment from one of the Vigilus books which is aimed solely at them, so that's a small boost if you have the CP.

On pure fluff, I'd probably lean Iyanden.

 Elbows wrote:
Wraithblades...a unit I don't think should exist, but that's for another discussion!

you've piqued my interest, why do you think this? is there some fluff-related reason that i'm not aware of ? my craftworld lore knowledge is quite lacking.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Wraithblades...a unit I don't think should exist, but that's for another discussion!

you've piqued my interest, why do you think this? is there some fluff-related reason that i'm not aware of ? my craftworld lore knowledge is quite lacking.

1) We have our Honored Dead. They're more precious than even *Eldar lives*. We would never put them in harms way. But on dire occasion, when things are really that bad, we'll risk them. Because the need is so great. We will send them to battle with our most terrible weapons - weapons that tear *reality itself* apart, forever damaging the materium with their every use. But in situations that are so dire we'd risk our Honored Dead, we'll risk it.

But only some of them get our most powerful weapons. Others get swords or axes.

2) Wraithguard are slow, ponderous dead Eldar. They are extremely durable, but very slow to act and disconnected with reality and the living. Which makes them natural quick-reflex dervishes.

3) They find Soulstones on Crone Worlds to save Eldar souls in when they die. Some Soul Stones have spirits of wrath and anger when they find them. THey use them for Wraithguard weapons, to instill hate and anger and drive them. These warp-entities are used to drive the souls of the dead. Becaue that's cool. Using these warp powers of emotion is nothing like using warp powers of emotion. We're totally not walking the Path of Damnation.

Voted Ulthwe, because they are cool.....but my heart was with Lugganath.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Wraithblades...a unit I don't think should exist, but that's for another discussion!

you've piqued my interest, why do you think this? is there some fluff-related reason that i'm not aware of ? my craftworld lore knowledge is quite lacking.

It's more or less just the opinion I have based on the original lore behind Wraithguard. In the early editions they were slow, ponderous and blind except to emotions, requiring living Eldar to guide them (Spiritseers), and even freezing and becoming stupid if some form of living Eldar wasn't present. There was nothing in the lore (at least originally I'm sure it's been retconned since then) that gave any impression they would be agile/quick/worth fighting in close combat. They're literally blind.

I dipped out of the game in 3rd edition and only returned in 8th so I'm sure many codices have retconned and changed things, but the Wraithguard will always be similar to the 2nd edition book in my mind. I actually wish they still had the limitations about needing living Eldar on the table, etc. They could have done some cool rules with that.

To make things worse, Wraithblades are arguably the better unit, with a number of rules which help them (and the detachment from Vigilus). It's all just a matter of opinion, and why I will not field Wraithblades.

For Iyanden you can use rangers as troops choices, they are often eldar wandering from other craftworlds, so they wouldn't break the "mostly dead from iyanden" thing

Thank you all for your detailed responses!

I did not expect so much participation, it appears we craftworlders stand together and support each other in dire times

Iyanden is slighlty ahead at the moment, which represents my sentiment as well.

Concerning the "you can play all types of army as every craftworld" argument: Of course you could as an example play a spirithost of Craftworld Ulthwé, but I'm a sucker for fluff and for stark archetypes, so I'd focus on Guardians and Farseer/warlocks if I played Ulthwé.

I will paint one model of each Craftworld and hopefully the paintjob will add its weight to the equation. I'll make sure to post both paintjobs here

 Elbows wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Wraithblades...a unit I don't think should exist, but that's for another discussion!

you've piqued my interest, why do you think this? is there some fluff-related reason that i'm not aware of ? my craftworld lore knowledge is quite lacking.

It's more or less just the opinion I have based on the original lore behind Wraithguard. In the early editions they were slow, ponderous and blind except to emotions, requiring living Eldar to guide them (Spiritseers), and even freezing and becoming stupid if some form of living Eldar wasn't present. There was nothing in the lore (at least originally I'm sure it's been retconned since then) that gave any impression they would be agile/quick/worth fighting in close combat. They're literally blind.

I dipped out of the game in 3rd edition and only returned in 8th so I'm sure many codices have retconned and changed things, but the Wraithguard will always be similar to the 2nd edition book in my mind. I actually wish they still had the limitations about needing living Eldar on the table, etc. They could have done some cool rules with that.

To make things worse, Wraithblades are arguably the better unit, with a number of rules which help them (and the detachment from Vigilus). It's all just a matter of opinion, and why I will not field Wraithblades.

I always knew the old fluff of the wraith units depicted them as slow moving and "disconnected" from the world of the living and always liked that as well. I agree that the Wraithblades are a huge step in a different direction and somewhat contradictory to that idea. I'll still field them, because I'd lack horribly in diversity in the elites slot otherwise. I'll equip them with axes though, since the -1 to hit fits the whole idea of striking slowly but with incredible force.

I've got an Iyanden Wraith army as it's very cool. So of course that means I use the Ulthwe trait in game as it actually does something for the Wraith units, whilst the Iyanden trait is utterly worthless.

It is worth noting that because Wraithguard appeared in numerous boxed sets lately they're very cheap...like $25-30 on eBay the last time I checked. Even cheaper occasionally. The same was true for Wave Serpents for a while. This makes the army extremely cost-efficient from a GW standpoint. $25 = 200 points is a lot of bang for your buck. And did I mention (hint: I did) how easy they are to paint?

I painted another ten a few months back. My process is simple, but tabletop worthy:

1) Assemble them minus tabards/heads.
2) Spray bodies my Alien Purple base coat, spray the heads/tabards white.
3) Apply a small highlight and some purple wash...
4) Paint the gun
5) Apply a little detail to the tabard
6) Paint the base.

Cutting/assembling takes more time. Once sprayed I can "paint" five in almost no time. They're not going to win me any painting competitions, but they're one of the easiest models to paint to a simple and easy standard.



So painting these 10 in a single sitting, and that's maybe 430 points on the table? That's kind of nuts (also got these from a combo kit on eBay for cheap).

Lookin good.

 Elbows wrote:
It is worth noting that because Wraithguard appeared in numerous boxed sets lately they're very cheap...like $25-30 on eBay the last time I checked. Even cheaper occasionally. The same was true for Wave Serpents for a while. This makes the army extremely cost-efficient from a GW standpoint. $25 = 200 points is a lot of bang for your buck. And did I mention (hint: I did) how easy they are to paint?

I painted another ten a few months back. My process is simple, but tabletop worthy:

1) Assemble them minus tabards/heads.
2) Spray bodies my Alien Purple base coat, spray the heads/tabards white.
3) Apply a small highlight and some purple wash...
4) Paint the gun
5) Apply a little detail to the tabard
6) Paint the base.

Cutting/assembling takes more time. Once sprayed I can "paint" five in almost no time. They're not going to win me any painting competitions, but they're one of the easiest models to paint to a simple and easy standard.

Spoiler:

So painting these 10 in a single sitting, and that's maybe 430 points on the table? That's kind of nuts (also got these from a combo kit on eBay for cheap).

Nice, those look really good! I think I already have my colours set for Iyanden, I tried them on a leftover Dark Eldar Lance (matching the broad Eldar aesthetics). I'll use a more toned down yellow because I dislike using this bright almost happy yellow for an army that focuses on death and raising it's ancestors

But still, your argument holds: I can paint 5 awesome-looking models without much detail (skin, cloth etc) for a huge amount of points. This should actually be on the pro list of Iyanden

Yep, and Wraithlords or essentially the same, just on a larger scale...also quite easy. It's definitely a consideration - particularly if you were up against a deadline, etc. At max you'd be painting 30-40 of the guard and so you're unlikely to really get exhausted or tired of painting them. You're not painting 60-80-120 infantry figures normally for an Iyanden list.