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.

The new lore should have been cool but the writers are so freaking bad that it's sucking all the fun out of it. So the Phoenix Lord of the Warp Spider is back, but how she is back is making me tear my hair.

It's a copy-and-paste of Irillyth, the Phoenix Lord of the Shadow Spectre. Which was already fething stupid. So the Aeldari lost their Phoenix Lord for millennia, and somehow a bunch of Guardsmen just stumble upon it, and they have to fight to get to back? How do the Astra Militarum even know that the armor belongs to a Phoenix Lord which has not been seen for thousands of years? Why not just negotiate to reclaim the relic? Why not just steal the suit while nobody is watching instead of causing a ruckus? Who wrote this crap? I don't care about profession or talent anymore, I just want people with a heart to write the freaking lore.

I am convinced there are zero Aeldari fans left in GW and they are going full elf-bashing mode at this point.

This is my prediction given the trend so far: Fulgrim will smash Yvraine and all her buddies easily make them feel irrelevant and gak, and then it is up to G-Man to save the day.

Ahh, excellent. You’re back. Having been to, let me guess, 1d4chan, and haven’t in fact actually read the source material for yourself.

It’s just one source. And barely a paragraph. Not a huge amount to read, so you’ve no excuse.

Psychic Awakening, The Greater Good (The Greater Good)

Look, I’ll even quote it for you.

Maj Z.B. Epra
Unides-era Evacuation MISSID
52:15PW - GZ North

Epsilon Company in sector omega-two-five reports successful rout of Aeldari light reconnaissance elements. Guardsman Ortug lauded for ‘miraculous’ identification of foe waiting in ambush position,

In accordance with new directive 616A*, Guardsman Ortug has been reported to Battalion Commissariat for ‘behaviour believed highly suspicious’ in light of recent and heretical events.

Chi Company’s 4th Platoon is destroyed, following discovery of ancient Aeldari relic armour. Armour apparently recovered by enemy before incineration could take place. The scant Human remains suggest attackers of the ‘Warp Spiders’ warrior caste. Chi Company commander summarily executed for lack of foresight and failure to place adequate guard

So, your description is, factually wrong. As for “tcoch, so this Phoenix Lord returned once they’d found their armour did that that’s convenient tcoch”.

Do you even know what a Phoenix Lord is? Because it doesn’t seem so.

Please, please try actually read the source material for yourself. Please. Because it’s painfully obvious when you haven’t.

No see its totally weird that the Xenophobic Imperium would destroy a relic that could potentially allow the return of an semi-immortal champion of a notable enemy race.

Come on Doc, remember the Imperium is all about making friends <3

(^Sarcasm in case that wasn't obvious)

It’s just a general “ewww, Xenos! Stick it the fire, Dave” too.

Note the recognition is limited to 1. It old (relic) 2. It’s Xenos (it’s Aeldari).

No mention of Phoenix Lord. No linking the relic armour to the Warp Spider aspect directly.

It belongs to the Eldar as a race. You don’t negotiate for that. You don’t sneak in. You British Museum it. Waltz in, shout bagsies, Destroy And Exit.

bibotot wrote:
Why not just negotiate to reclaim the relic?

It would reveal to the Imperium that they knew they had it and the Imperium could have destroyed it in response.

Why not just steal the suit while nobody is watching instead of causing a ruckus?

Because people were watching obviously.

Why wouldn't the Eldar just kill all the guards? It sounds like they could do so easily and they don't feel bad about killing humans. A surprise attack minimized their risk in this situation, so they were written smart here.

it's the phoenix armour of the Phoenix Lord of the Warp Spiders
The Warp Spiders
Whose modus operandi is not "Chat with the enemy to bring about a peaceful resolution"
It's not "Sneak in quietly and grab the objective"
It's "Rip a hole in reality, use arguably the most brutal and bloody of the Aspect weapons to shred your foes into puddles of red mush and then disappear before there can be any retaliation"

And what did they do?
Exactly that.

I don't see the issue here.
Imperials uncovered a sacred relic specifically associated with the Warp Spiders
Warp Spiders went and got it in a quintessentially Warp Spidery way

bibotot wrote:
Why not just negotiate to reclaim the relic?

The World of the Bloodied Sword gives us a pretty good reason why the Eldar might not want to negotiate with the Imperium over an Eldar relic again

Also, do we negotiate with Animals when we want something they’ve got?

Well, except pets. Because that’s how the Eldar view humanity. Base animals. Not entirely without their uses, but certainly nothing like an equal.

I think it's also worth noting that the discovery of Lhykhis' armour also is just one piece of her lore.

Here's another: Her sword belonged to the first daughter of Morai-Heg, who used it to cut the strands of fate that measure lifespans.

Here's another: She spends more time in the warp than the other Phoenix Lords combined, making braver and more resilient than most from a certain point of view.

Here's another: Rhana Dandra literally could not have happened while she was MIA, but now that she's back, it is one step closer.

All three of these facts would have been more interesting than the rediscovery of her armour, no matter how interesting that story was.

The whole shtick of Phoenix Lords also raises the tantalising possibility that, unless their armour is somehow utterly destroyed? No Aspect Temple is ever truly extinct.

Smelly Dave of the Farty Bumcheeks Aspect may not have been seen for 9,000 years, and all the Aspect’s Temples long since shuttered. But should Smelly Dave’s armour be recovered, and donned by an Eldar? Smelly Dave is reborn, and so can go about instructing others in the Path of the Farty Bumcheeks once again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I also wonder, given warfare is a sod on your delicate filigree, whether Phoenix Lord armour is like the Ship of Theseus. As in, no suit is now comprised of its original materials, having been repaired who knows how many times over who knows how long (Phoenix Lords may predate The Fall? Certainly the Craftworlds were exploring Paths prior to The Fall, which helped them survive the initial tumult as much as their relative distance from the heart of Eldar holdings).

We know Waystones and Soulstones can have souls added and removed. So even that most vital part of Phoenix and Exarch armour, the mechanism by which the current wearer simply adds to the existing, functionally immortal consciousness persists and exists, could be replaceable. We also know that the more powerful and well, “with it” the soul, the better it can exist without fading in such circumstances.

Kind of like a Computer Hard Drive upgrade, for a real world comparison. You take the existing one, transfer the data to the new one, and nothing is lost (unless you’re unlucky and/or incompetent, incompetence being a form of bad luck). And so on and so forth.

So, even if The Imperium had managed to incinerate Lylhkis’ armour, it’s almost certainly had worse and could be readily repaired (The Eldar not being one to forget their tech, at least not involuntarily). But nipping in, slaughtering everyone and nipping back out with your prize just removes some of the effort,

There is a Gav Thorpe short story about corsairs/Dark Eldar with the corsair band leader from his Path of the Outcast novel in which in the course of the story, a few scattered scraps or shreds of armor are found and the Dark Eldar that touches it is consumed to reconstitute Jain Zar, with regenerated armor and weapons. So it is near impossible to truly eliminate Phoenix Lord, and it may be truly impossible if the Eldar Rhana Dandra prophecy is to fated happen. Fate would arrange events to eventually accomplish their resurrection.

I’ve read his one that focussed on Striking Scorpions and ends with Karandras reborn, but not the others.

Still a kind of Ship of Theseus then. Also answers another question of “will any Eldar do?” when it comes to replacement Squishy Bits.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’ve read his one that focussed on Striking Scorpions and ends with Karandras reborn, but not the others.

Still a kind of Ship of Theseus then. Also answers another question of “will any Eldar do?” when it comes to replacement Squishy Bits.

All the other resurrections in the past were portrayed with Scorpions touching and resurrecting Karandras (aside from Gav Thorpe's novels, he had a very short short story in an old WD where a Scorpion touched a mortally wounded Karandras and was consumed to heal Karandras).

His short story with the corsairs suggests any Eldar will do as it was not a Banshee or even a Craftworlder that touched the armor scraps.

Guess I’ll add that to my reading pile at some point.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I also wonder, given warfare is a sod on your delicate filigree, whether Phoenix Lord armour is like the Ship of Theseus.

If Phoenix Lord armour is Trigger's Broom, who is Dave?

Asuryan?

If you wanted to expand on that it would be on the style of the CO wanting to sell it to a rich noble for his private xenos collection that thrills his guests and makes him seem doubly important.

In the 2nd ed codex it makes no mention of needing an aspect warrior to put on the armour to resurrect the lord.

Asurmens novel had a black guardian or ranger uncover the armour iirc.

There's no reason it needs to be an aspect anyway, it's just a soul sacrifice like awakening the avatar. A soul is used to rekindle the flame.

This is a bit like the back and forth on whether an aspect or exarch is used to awaken the avatar. Thorpe changed it in 3rd Ed but it switched back afterwards and never made sense anyway as an exarch. The young king is clearly a virginal motif and the veteran priest is not that, nor does sacrificing a suit of rumour with a dozen souls in it make much sense compared to the flesh and soul of a young new virginal warrior.


Fate puts Eldar on the path to wearing the armour, it's about destiny not what particular aspect of a path you were following.