Eldar Warlord traits 6

Do you remember when we were talking about rolling 1 and 2 and the powers were good?  I do unfortunately this isn't that.

Iyanden: The Undying Flame (7):  The best of the bunch.  Rerolling all saves is good, however the ability is lost as soon as the reroll is failed or you take a wound that doesn't allow a save, inlcuding perils

Personal: Immovable object (7): Warlord becomes scoring, not much bad to say here, except does nothing in Purge the alien.  However the idea of wraithknight picking up the objective is funny to me.

Strategic: Princeps of Deciet (5):  Some deployment misdirection is always fun just ask Eldrad in 5th edition.  But with 6th edition it got alot less useful as it is only useful if going first.

Eldar:  Seer of the shifting vector (2): Chaos Icon on your warlord.  Fine but Eldar don't use a lot of deep strikers.

Command: Coordinated assault (2): +1 inch with warlord charges can make a difference but not a huge one as we have the mobility that most charges should be likely to succeed regardless.


After Thanksgiving I'll do a final wrap up post, so get your comments in now.

Eldar warlord traits 5

Ahh, five, did you choose one of the Eldar tables, if so I bet you regret that choice now as all the default powers are better than either of the eldar ones.

Personal: Tenacity (8):  5+ feel no pain on the surface seems better than 6+ which also got an 8.  However it is only for the warlord and his unit so their is no bubble effect and if you are playing kill points there are no objectives to trigger this at all.

Strategic: Divide to Conquer (7): -1 to enemy reserve is excellent, if they have reserves

Command:  Target priority (6):  Need to clear of an enemy from an objective, here you go.  Unfortunately of little use if playing killing points or you are running away with the relic.  Also Eldar already have a lot of twinlinking

Iyanden: Purity of the flawless soul (4): +1 to deny witch is ok, but most people are using blessings regardless.  That said shrugging off hallucination can be a game-changer and if not on a psysker doubles your chances, combo with fortune and you are ignoring almost half the powers cast on you.  If you have a psysker it gets even better. 

Eldar: Mark of the incompable hunter (1):  How do you get worse than the Falcon's Swiftness, I didn't think you could until I rolled this power.  I'm not sure how it is intended to be used other than with a Aegis defense gun.

Eldar warlord traits 4

All I can say about rolling a 4 is thank god it wasn't a three.  And if you were lucky enough to choose the Eldar table you got yourself a winner.

Eldar: Fate's Messenger (9):  Rerolling all saving throws of 1, I'll take it.  Especially since getting a 2+ save isn't that hard, but even the worst warlord out there in terms of save (spiritseer) effectively gains another wound.  Wraithknights gain 6 wounds on average (assuming armor saves are allowed)

Strategic: Strategic Genius (7): Rerolling reserves, solid.  However Eldar already have a fair amount of reserve manipulation with autarchs and scyer's gaze.  But more is never bad.

Iyanden: Lord of Sorrowful dead (4): An extra spirit mark.  Wraith specific and short range makes it only useful in certain build.  Would rate a three but in the right build it can be significant.

Command: Master of the Vanguard (4): See Falcon Swiftness.  At least this is army wide and more than 1 inch.

Personal: Legendary fighter (2): Find me a character that I want in a challenge and I'll rate it higher.

Eldar Warlords Traits: 3

Wow, rolling a three for traits is bad.  None of the results are even ok.

Personal: Master of Manoeuvre (3):  Lets you outflanks something, ok great, not sure what I want to outflank but I will at least think about using it which sadly is better than alot of the other ones.

Command: Dust of a Dozen worlds(3): Units within 12 inches have move through cover.  Thanks.  Mobility tends not to a problem for eldar but extra is extra.  Also useful for tanks.

Iyanden: Driven by an Ancient Doom (3):  Warlord and unit have hatred.  Not bad for a mantle autarch since he has hit and run but generally won't get used more than once or twice a game at most.

Strategic: Master of Ambush (3):  Acute sense is nice when outflanks, unfortunately the eldar don't have a lot of outflanks, and ther best outflankers (hornets) already have acute sense.

Eldar: Falcon Swiftness (1): +1 inch when running for just his unit?  At least eldar do it a fair amount due to battle focus but generally not worth remembering since Eldar already have fleet.  This may be worthy of a two but given that it is default power on so many of the phoenix lords, my extra hatred for this can't give it anything higher.

 Ok that is done, now lets get to a roll that doesn't suck.

Eldar warlord traits: 2

Part 2 of my examination of Eldar warlord traits.  Like a 1, rolling a two will result in a solid warlord trait unless you took Personal.

Iyanden: Beacon of Hope (8): 6+ feel no pain within 12 inches.  I know it doesn't seem like much and you never roll that 6 when you need to but reducing the wounds taken by 16% can't be ignored.  It isn't army wide like Iron Hands chapter tactics, but for a free warlord trait can't be ignored either.

Strategic: Night Attacker (8):  This one might be rated slightly too high depending on how your local area plays.  If you need to decide before you find out if you go first or second it decreases in value but I've found turn 1 night fight to be the difference between winning and losing a number of games, especially vs. dark eldar (who ignore it) and deamons (who are most vulnerable turn 1 before they fly off)

Eldar: Eye on Distant Events (6): Compare this to Beacon of Hope, both decrease wounds by 16% but this is for 1 turn and can be ignored by ignore cover weapons although not by double toughness weapons and has no effect in close combat.  Even if was all game long, I would still usually prefer the feel no pain.

Command: Intimidating presence (6):  Hurts enemy leadership for units within 12.  As shown in the first post small increases/decreases in leadership can make a real difference in game play.  Only problem is short range so only really useful for close combat equipped HQs, of which eldar tend not to have many.

Personal: Master of Offense (3):  Furious charge in the enemy deployment zone.  Furious charge is actually nice for the eldar as S3 vs. S4 is significant, but eldar aren't going to be confused with masters of the assault phase anytime soon.  I like it better than Master of Defense as it useful when I am being aggressive but overall just bad.

Eldar Warlord traits: 1

This is the first in a series of blogs I plan to do looking at the different warlord traits available to the Eldar.  Rather than go through each set one at a time I figured I would look at the different die roll results on the five Eldar tables.  I will include Iyanden as well because I think their chart is good for non-wraith lists as well, however it does cost you conceal which may be needed in some builds. I'll be release one a day between today and Thanksgiving and giving a summary post shortly after the holiday, so if you have comments, please post them.

 I ranked each power using both cardinal and ordinal rankings.  I will present them in the order I ranked them compared to each other.  In parentheses after each power I will include the score I gave it on a scale of 1 to 10.  (1-3 is just plain bad, 4-6 is ok, usually situational or minor effect, 7-9 are good powers, 10 is a game changer (no 10's were given out).  Without further ado I present 1:

Bye-Bye Marines

Ok, maybe not completely.  I still think that marines can be beneficial allies to the Eldar, although I'm not as convinced as I use to be.  I have switched my allied detachment from 20 bikers and a captain (+stormtalon and thunderfire cannon) to 10 bikers and a chapter master (+ other stuff).   The bikes are still hard hitting and give me a tough unit but this frees up about 220 points for other goodies such as hornets (if FW allowed) or a second wraithknight (on the building table currently).  I played this list last week vs. Jeff and it worked out nicely.  As I don't see combat squading these guys much, I'll probably consider dropping them down from a 10 man unit in the future as well, but I do like the large squad.  It also worked out nicely that he made a number of mistakes but that is separate. The choice to ally largely will depend on if the cannon and talon prove themselves.  So far they are doing good but not great. 

Next up for my testing is to drop a unit of guardians for a pair of ranger units instead.  And to test them vs. a larger variety of armies (so far only eldar, dark eldar and deamons)