Warhammer 40K Tabletop XX: "Barrage is the new Precision Shot."

[thedavo]

isters as a Warband (more Scoring doesn't hurt).

Guard Allies;

Tempestus Scions - They bring more AP3. Which can be helpful. But, they can also Deep Strike with Melta or Plasma weapons, and that's good. Remember that you need at least two boxes of them to field them at all. Not just one like the 'old days'. A cynical me would say it's GW's way of selling even more kits, however, the realist in me knows that it's just an accident simply because they copy-pasted over from Militraum Tempestus.

According to my AM Codex, minimum unit size is five, and the platoon is 0-1 MT command squad and 1-3 Scions - so you'd only need one box. You can take up to five extra Scions in a squad.

[Cheesegear]

According to my AM Codex, minimum unit size is five, and the platoon is 0-1 MT command squad and 1-3 Scions - so you'd only need one box.

Here I thought MT Commands weren't optional.
Okay. Now that your minimum squad size isn't 155 Points, Stormtroopers just became a lot more usable. Scratch everything I've said about MTs before now. Good thing I don't write Guides in one day based on gut reactions (I'm looking at you, other website...).

[thedavo]

They may not be optional in Codex MT? I don't know, I don't have it.

[Requizen]

In Codex:AM, a Tempestus Platoon is 0-1 Command Squads and 1-3 Scions Squads.
In Codex:MT, Command Squads are an HQ choice (more or less mandatory because Commissars can't give Orders), and each Scion Squad is a Troops choice.

[Darthteej]

Good advice on pretty much every point Cheese, and roughly in line with what I was thinking anyway. Coteaz is actually a model I wanted anyway, considering his unbelievable value. I also just so happen to have a friend who plays Imperial Guard who I'll be allying with, which is mostly why I bought the "Avenger Strike Fighter" in the first place. I'm definitely limited by currency, and big orders like the ones I've placed recently are rare for me, it's why I didn't buy a Crowe army in the first place(all of those transports and units)! Warbanding the sisters into just acolytes with power armor and boltguns is a much better idea right now, and I imagine they'll do fine with some hot-shot toting acolytes behind them. I DO use super glue for the above mentioned purposes. As for the Apothecary, it's kind of already painted and has the Diagnostor helmet in addition to the arm, so I'm not sure how I'm going to handle that. That said, I originally conceived the Draigowing army with the dreadknight as a massive, deep striking distraction to assist my guard allies. The idea was that the terminators would be held in reserve while the dreadknight scouts and then teleports up, dropping an incinerator template/pie plate onto the enemy troops before the deathstar comes in to further wreak havoc. Regular terminators are a cheaper option, but unless there's another guaranteed way of getting Scout then I'd prefer to just use Draigo as a regular grandmaster- especially since I've already painted the model.

Also, to the idea of two hydras being better than an Avenger-why? The Avenger may be expensive, but the worst case scenario is that it comes in and dumps a bolt cannon shot, two lascannons, and possibly a missile at whatever it was aiming for before being blown away. The A-10 model has options for pretty much every missile and bomb the avenger can take, and that means that if I'm aiming at ground targets it could wreak serious havoc before being targeted, enough to at least put down a transport or two and wreck a scoring unit. I know it's only one flyer, but my meta is fairly casual and non-flyer oriented. The most competitive player has two stormtalons and was still caught off guard by my single Heldrake. Me and my guard friend have the potential to field three-a vendetta, a valkyrie attached to my Inquisition detachment, and the Avenger, but we'd only do that if we were feeling really mean

[Cheesegear]

Regular terminators are a cheaper option, but unless there's another guaranteed way of getting Scout

Not guaranteed per se. But, a Xenos Inquisitor with Liber Heresis does it nicely from an Inquisitorial Detachment. Of course, you can use any Inquisitor, but, Xenos has Grenades.

[Renegade Paladin]

The errata page is now hosted at the Black Library site.

[LordDavenport]

In a farsight enclave list, would a single crysis suit with two flamers be a silly unit?
You leave it in reserves. If the opponent is fielding a large tarpit blob you deepstrike it as close as possible and take a chunk out of the blob. If they aren't then leave it in reserves, then pop it out in the last couple turns to hold an objective. Hell, might even grab one behind enemy lines with a deepstrike and jump. At 32 points, it is really really cheap for a scoring unit... that might just kill a mob of cultists in one shooting phase. Getting cover is easy with one model, and moral checks shouldn't come up except against fear/pinning.
Downside is purge the alien were they are a free victory point, or if the opponent moves for a table.

Would a similar build with a pair of burst cannons work better, as it could deepstrike, shoot, and jump for cover be more viable? Might even kill a leman russ with a lucky back attack(8 shots each hitting on a 4, getting a penitrating hit on a 6, each shots got a 1/12 chance to get piss the tank off...)

[Cheesegear]

In a farsight enclave list, would a single crysis suit with two flamers be a silly unit?
[...]
At 32 points, it is really really cheap for a scoring unit

Your conclusion is sound. Your reasoning is wrong.
Is a 1-man Crisis Suit good for grabbing late-game objectives and free Linebreakers? Yes.
Is a 1-man Crisis Suit with double Flamers good for Deep Striking down at some random turn and Flaming the horde unit that your opponent may or may not have? No.

Besides, you're Tau. If you can't kill hordes - even in cover - you're doing it wrong.

EDIT: Give it Drones too, just to be extra annoying. Reminds me of a Lone Wolf, or a Solodin Apothecary.

[Tome]

As CG said, a dirt cheap one-man crisis team is great for late game objective grabs. The actual damage it does is minimal and more of a nice bonus.

That said, a three man team with double flamers? That can do some damage. Mathematically speaking it's going to kill as many marines as you can fit under the templates, which holds up in play, and anything less durable than marines is going to simply evaporate. Be sure to have a couple of gun drones so that the flamers can spill over to the rest of the unit.

My troops setup tends to be:

• 1x 3-man team with flamers
• 1x 3-man team with plasma
• 1x 2-man team with fusion
• 2x 2-man team with missiles
• 1x fire warrior team

[Cheesegear]

Why Farsight's Friends all so...Bad? The only good one is O'Vesa, and only because of IC shenanigans that allow Riptide stacking.

Speaking of, who wants to do a summary of the Farsight Enclaves? It shouldn't be too hard.

I also wont be doing Iyanden - ever? - because an eBook version doesn't exist and I wont buy from Apple. So, if anyone has Iyanden and feels like summarising that one for the Guides, know that I'm not doing it anytime soon, so, any time you're ready.

[Tome]

Speaking of, who wants to do a summary of the Farsight Enclaves? It shouldn't be too hard.

Sure.

Codex: Farsight Enclaves
Through Fire, Revelation.
Through Revelation, Rebellion.

Spoiler

Show

A much better subtitle than the Crimson Slaughter got.

Battlesuit Spearhead: The reason you are playing Farsight Enclaves rather than Tau Empire and something Tau players have been after for ages. Allows Crisis Teams as troops so long as you take at least one unit at maximum size - which isn't even much of a restriction because you were going to do that anyway. This is great. You get a durable, mobile scoring option that can carry some actual firepower, something Tau otherwise lack. You probably don't want to fill all your troops slots with suits though - even ignoring the costs, Kroot and Fire Warriors still have their place in an Enclaves list. You should fill every slot though, even a one man team with two flamers or missile pods is useful when it's scoring. Otherwise, kit them out like you normally would.

Ork Hunters: Absolutely useless. It only applies in assault and nothing in your army can go up against Orks in assault even with PE.

Ta'lissera Bond: The price you pay for having crisis teams as troops. Everything in your army that can take Bonding Knives must do so. Not too bad, because bonding knives are dirt cheap and hey, you might one day get some actual use out of it. My current list spends all of 35 points on this in total, to give you an idea of how much it's going to cost you.

Divergent Destiny: No Aun'Va or Shadowsun. Big whoop on the space pope, you probably won't be running enough Fire Warriors to really benefit from him. Shadowsun is actually worth her points though, but you can just Ally her back in if you really want her. Interestingly Darkstrider, Aun'Shi and Longstrike have no such restrictions. Generic Ethereals are similarly unrestricted.

Allies: Same as the standard Tau Empire list, but you can also be Battle Brothers with them. This is where the filthy cheese that allows you to field five Riptides happens - don't do that unless your meta is already composed of solid cheddar. Unbound is a thing if you want to be that beardy.

Warlord Traits:

1. It's a buff for assault commanders. Which means it's useless for Tau. If you're in assault, you've already lost. Doubly so for your warlord. Fortunately you can re-roll this if your warlord isn't in a crisis suit.
2. Like the PEN chip from the parent codex. You can't change it turn by turn but it's still very good. Monstrous Creatures and Vehicles tend to be an either/or situation.
3. Messing with your opponent's reserve rolls. Sometimes useful, you have to both be facing an opponent with reserves and roll this trait. It's also a one-use thing and only applies a penalty. Still, better than nothing.
4. Your Warlord is Fearless and everything within 6" is Stubborn. Unless you were already using an Ethereal this is very good.
5. A boost to reserves for the scoring deepstrikers that probably make up a good portion of your list? Yes please, I would like that very much.
6. One turn of your warlord and his unit having the Shred rule? That's pretty good actually.

All in all you have one useless trait (that can sometimes be re-rolled), one situational one and four good ones. Better than the BRB warlord traits for Tau and better than most other codices tables. Roughly on par with the parent codex table, so you aren't loosing anything here.

Signature Systems of the Farsight Enclaves
You loose access to the Tau Empire Signature Systems. This is bad, since a lot of what makes battlesuit Commanders great is their access to those same systems. The upside is that Riptides get access to Signature Systems, which means you take any actually useful ones on them instead. It does not state that Signature Systems take up one of your support systems either, or that you can only take one per Riptide.

For this reason, and being able to re-roll the only bad warlord trait, I'd advise going with an Ethereal or Fireblade for your Warlord. Probably a Fireblade if you're like me and are only running the one unit of Fire Warriors.

The Mirrorcodex: Turns out getting all your plays from the same book makes you kind of predictable. Expensive, it boosts rolls to seize the initiative and can randomly hand out Preferred Enemy against Space Marines (and sometimes everyone else too). It's value is proportional to the number of space marines in your meta. Which usually makes it decently useful if you have the points.

Seismic Fibrillator Node: It's got a huge range, enough to cover most battlefields completely, and forces all enemy models to move through difficult or dangerous terrain. That can be enough to earn you a whole turn of shooting versus some assault armies. It's expensive though.

Warscaper Drone: Moderately priced, it does two things. The first is giving it's unit Outflank, Acute Senses and Move Through Cover. The second is forcing any enemy unit outside it's deployment zone and within 12" to treat difficult terrain as dangerous. Unfortunately a lot of these benefits don't synergise terribly well. Anything that can take this will already have a Jetpack, which makes Move Through Cover considerably less useful (Dangerous Terrain is a joke in most cases), while the the terrain effect doesn't mix particularly well with the outflanking - chances are if you're outflanking it'll be into the opponent's DZ. Not really worth it.

Fusion Blade: No. Just... it's an assault weapon for a Tau commander. That might randomly not work, incidentally disabling their gun as well (which must be a TL Fusion Blaster, a sub-optimal choice to start with). It's also six times the cost of the Onager Gauntlet.

Earth Caste Pilot Array: Now this is good. One Riptide gets to be WS 1 (who cares?) but gets to re-roll 1's to hit in the shooting phase and re-roll nova-reactor rolls. Excellent. Makes the Long-Barrelled Burst Cannon much better and still provides a benefit to the Ion Accelerator. There should always be a Riptide with this in your list.

Talisman of Arthas Moloch: Gives a 5++ and boosts Deny The Witch. By which I mean 'renders witchfires useless against you and any unit near you'. If witchfires or maledictions are actually something that gets used in your meta this can be useful. If not then the same points will buy a Shield Generator for a 4++ instead. If there's lots of Witchfires and Maledictions in your meta this is great, particularly if you ally in some GKs or Daemons to give you lots of charges to deny with. Otherwise a shield generator is the same price for a better save.

In summary the only real stand out is the ECPA, which is amazing. The Mirrorcodex, Talisman and SFN are potentially useful, though expensive. Everything else is trash). A huge change from the parent codex list which has very good wargear options. Forget what I said about the Ta'lissera Bond, this is the real cost of using Enclaves.

Farsight's Commander Team
Farsight's super-bodyguard deathstar can now be even more super (and expensive). Instead of taking a bunch of customised Shas'Vre you can opt to take up to seven unique ICs. They're not all that great mostly terrible apart from O'Vesa. Fortunately you don't have to take the full unit, which means most of the time folks will be paying the Farsight tax so they can take just O'Vesa.

For the most part you'll be better off with a standard bodyguard built using the Tau Empire codex if you want to use the Farsight bomb, because they'll have better wargear and be much cheaper. They do have a few advantages though. They're all Commanders, including the buffed statline and IC status, so you can attach one to each unit in your army if you want and try fielding a bunch of 4-man crisis teams. That's expensive though, and you'd probably be better off just taking three generic Commanders by allying with Tau Empire if you want that effect.

O'Vesa: This is where you get your fifth Riptide from if you're doing that (don't). He has a decent load-out but a standard Riptide with the same setup is exactly the same price. So take that instead unless you really need that fifth Riptide or want to pull shenanigans with his IC status (again, don't do either of these things, your opponent will be fully within the rules to throw their rulebook at you). And no, you can't take another Riptide with an ECPA if you have him in your army - they're one per army and the generic Riptide still has to pay attention to that.

Commander Bravestorm: Not a very good loadout, but he's the only way to get the Iridium battlesuit in an Enclaves list. He's decently tanky at least - but so is a regular Tau Empire Commander with his gear, and for the same price.

Commander Brightstorm: I'm seeing a trend in these names. Run out of ideas GW? He has a terrible loadout, do not bother. Remember those Fusion Blades? That's his gimmick.

Shas’O Sha’vastos: Has a PEN chip! Yay! Except you could just ally in one on a Commander with a much better loadout from the parent codex.

Shas’O Arra’kon: A terrible loadout. He has three guns, none of which mesh and he can still only shoot two of them at once.

Broadside Shas’vre Ob’lotai 9-0: He's in a Broadside! And that's pretty much it. You could, instead, take a regular Broadside for less points. He also lacks a jetpack, so you can't really stick him in a unit with crisis suits.

Sub-commander Torchstar: He carries the MS3... but no C&CN. Also the only one to have a Target lock. Also the only one who doesn't need a Target Lock.

There are two reasons to go Enclaves. Either you want Crisis Suits as troops (yay!) or you want to pull shenanigans with O'Vesa (don't). Farsight himself is much better off building his bodyguard using the standard Tau Empire codex. Commanders got nerfed with the loss of the Signature Systems, so take a Fireblade and a single unit of Fire Warriors instead.

Pros:

• Crisis Teams as Troops!
• O'Vesa, if you're willing to pay the Farsight tax.
• The Earth Caste Pilot Array.
• The Warlord table is just as good the Tau Empire one. This is good.
• The Talisman of Arthas Moloch is actually a very good bit of Psyker Defence if your meta use a the sorts of powers it works on.

Cons:

• A much worse set of Signature Systems.
• The Eight are pretty much useless.
• You have to take bonding knives on everything that can.
• No Shadowsun. Or Aun'Va, but nobody cares about him.

EDIT Updated for 7th. By which I mean I added some comments on the Talisman and did a check to make sure there were no references to units of Riptides.

[Cheesegear]

Ork Hunters: Absolutely useless. It only applies in assault and nothing in your army can go up against Orks in assault even with PE.

Tyrannic War Veterans have the same problem. They have a special ability that will simply get them annihilated should they actually try to make use of it.

Divergent Destiny: Interestingly Darkstrider, Aun'Shi and Longstrike have no such restrictions.

Isn't Aun'Shi an Ethereal? Did Farsight get all of his Ethereals killed and that's how he was able to take over in the first place?

Fusion Blade: No. Just... it's an assault weapon for a Tau commander. That might randomly not work, incidentally disabling their guns as well (which must be a TL Fusion Blaster, a sub-optimal choice to start with).

I'm assuming this is to replace the biggest trap in the Tau Empire book (no, not Vespids), the Onager Gauntlet? How does it compare to that?

Talisman of Arthas Moloch: Gives a 5++ and boost psyker defence.

Is that the one with 4d6 to Deny rolls to make Witchfires utterly useless?

Instead of taking a bunch of customised Shas'Vre you can opt to take up to seven unique ICs.

You can 'opt' to take them? Does this mean Farsight can replace all of his best friends with no-name mooks who actually have good wargear?
EDIT: No. By 'opt' to take them, you mean 'take them or don't'.

There was, if I recall, some debate over whether they could be taken on their own as standard HQs or if you needed Farsight to unlock them.

(I'm reading this off a screenshot...So...)
"Commander Farsight does not allow you to take an XV8 Crisis Bodyguard Team as normal; He has the Commander Team instead. [...] consists of up to seven other...

So, you do need to take Farsight to have access to the Commander Team. However, since they're all ICs, you don't need to stick them together, and, you can take up to seven other Commanders. Which is fine, because you're only taking O'Vesa anyway.

Basically, running Tau Empire lets you use a Farsight Bomb.
Running the Farsight Enclaves allows you to run 4-man Crisis Teams apparently. Or it's supposed to. Or something.

Do you even want to? If I had Enclaves I'd be at least statting out one unit for every Commander to see if I could get anything out of them.
Are the Commanders even costed appropriately? I imagine that Drones are factored into their points cost, most of which you wouldn't take.

Shas’O Arra’kon: A terrible loadout. He has three guns, none of which mesh and can still only shoot two of them at once.

(Again, from a screenshot)
Then what does his swanky 'Enforcer' suit do, if not allow him to shoot three guns?

If anyone knows whether the Eight can be taken on their own let me know and I'll update it.

From what I'm reading, The Eight replace the Bodyguard entry in the Codex, and you can't take Bodyguard by themselves. Except they aren't Bodyguard. Because they're all Independent Characters for some reason which completely destroys the Fluff (and the point).


Also, while you can take five Riptides, I think points limits means capping out at four Riptides if you want to have any real Scoring units. Still a **** move though.

[LeSwordfish]

The commanders are costed appropriately at least- none of them has anything unique, so each of them is exactly the same cost in terms of points as if you'd built them yourself from a commander base.

[Requizen]

So I was still thinking a bit about what to Ally my potential MT with, and I thought I should ask the more fundamental question: What are the main "checkboxes" that every force wants to hit that you should be trying to shore up with Allies? So far I have:

1. Flyers/Anti-flyer (the most obvious)
2. Vehicle killing (high strength, maybe high AP)
3. HQ/Deathstar/MC killing (High AP, Plasma or the like)
4. Horde Killing (High volume of shots, templates/blasts)
5. Assault units
6. High-range support units

Does this seem like a comprehensive list of gaps to fill when writing an army list? Anything that I'm missing or got fundamentally wrong?

[Wraith]

Codex Iyanden
"The Light In The Darkness"

Spoiler

Show

Codex: Iyanden uses ALL of the units from Codex: Eldar, however it allows the following changes:

Heroes of Iyanden
A single Wraithlord or Wraithknight can be your Warlord, however it's specifically NOT in a HQ slot - you will still need to take that separately. Exactly what the long-time, die-hard Iyanden fans were NOT asking for.

Shadow Council
Your Spiritseers can be bought as units of 5 models per HQ choice, instead of 1. This sounds potentially quite good - you increase the chance that you roll the Psychic Power that you want and attach the right Seer to the right unit as necessary, Wolf Guard-style, since even if bought as a unit they remain Independent Characters.
This can be extremely useful as a 'battery' for your Farseer - a unit of Spiritseers doesn't become a Brotherhood of Psykers, and instead generate Charges individually. Five Spiritseers gives you 5 Charges, which is a 400% increase over buying them individually in Codex: Eldar. Neat.
In practice though, it doesn't work so well. Reveal/Conceal is still probably your favourite Runes of Battle Power, and Codex Iyanden removes it as your Primaris, which means you HAVE to roll for it. The replacement:

Psychic Power: Voice of Twilight (Runes of Battle, WC: 2)
Wraith-creatures within 12" get Battle Focus and Furious Charge.

...Seems like it might have it's uses, but I do not like that trade-off at all. At 70pts each for a sub-par fighter with sub-par Disciplines, I can imagine why you might take 2 or even 3 alongside your Farseer in a Wraith-dedicated army, but 5? Or 10!? No chance.

So.... No new units. No new special character (even though at least one, a special Farseer named Iyanna Arienal, is talked about extensively in the 80 pages of fluff before you get to the new rules section). Barely even new statlines for existing models. Just - literally - more of the same.

....At least the artwork is pretty?

WARLORD TRAITS

1. Your Warlord gets d3 rerolls to use on his To Hit, Wound, Penetrate and Saving Throws. This is the one that you want on your Wraithlord/Knight, as if you're doing any of those things with your Farseer or Spiritseer, something is going badly wrong.
2. Your Warlord and unit having FNP (6+) is better than NOT having FNP (6+). That's about the best thing I can say for it, but you'd be hoping for better on models that're likely costing 32pts each and, in all likeliness, no longer have Conceal because it's not your Primaris anymore.
3. Warlord and his unit get Hatred against everything. Better than "only useful against one army" and it can be handy on a Farseer or Wraithknight alike, although with a Farseer it works better if he's NOT in a group of Wraithguard. Which makes one wonder why that sort of thing (ie: NOT taking Wraithguard) is recommended by Codex: Iyanden....
4. Spirit Mark is a pretty weak rule already, being cumulative does not redeem it.
5. Minor Deny the Witch bonus. Maybe kind of useful if you're not taking a Farseer.... But let's be honest, you're not taking a Farseer because he has a Ghosthelm or Runes any more, are you?
6. Reroll your saves, until you fail one and lose the ability forever. Another one that you'd prefer on your Wraithknight Warlord, but is pretty bad on a Spiritseer and probably entirely useless on your Farseer. I'd be disappointed to get it on any of them.

There's nothing there that I *want* - there's maybe 3 of them that would be okay on a Wraith- Warlord, but most are wasted on any kind of infantry. This is a great shame - surely the whole point of Codex: Iyanden should be to do fun and unusual things with Wraithcreatures, and the Warlord Table just doesn't support that.

The GIFTS OF ASURYAN (Relics)
You can choose for a character to take relics from either Codex Eldar or Codex Iyanden, but not both on the same model. You are free to have one with Eldar and one with Iyanden relics, however. Note that being your Warlord does not also make your Wraithlords and Wraithknights into characters, so they still cannot take ANY relics at all.

The Celestial Lance - A "Singing Spear" that explodes when the bearer kills a Character or Monstrous Creature on the turn in which it charges, causing everyone else (friend and enemy) under a Large Blast template to take a wound on 4+ AP-. Honestly, I'm not sure that I want to risk my Farseer in challenges at all, not if the outcome is to kill the rest of my own unit and CERTAINLY not for 35 points.

Soulshrive - A melee weapon that Starts at AP2 s3 and adds +1 strength (up to 10) for each unsaved wound it causes throughout the game. I don't know why I'd be taking an Autarch as my primary HQ in an Iyanden army instead of a Farseer/Spiritseer/Seer Council, but if I did then he might like the AP2. Expensive - it should at least start at Strength 4.

The Wraithforge Stone - Regenerating one of your Wraithlord/Wraithknights on a 3+ might sound really good, but remember you have to buy a character to hold the item and then have it baby-sit the creature as the Stone only has a 6" range. Your 30pt item actually costs a minimum of 100 points and a HQ slot, and it's shackled to your biggest, juiciest target ... Still sound good?
Maybe, if you could give it to a Wraith-Warlord directly and have it look after itself.... But you can't.

Guardian Helm of Xellethon - Better - MUCH better! Taking Look Out, Sir! rolls on a T6 unit is big and clever, and having an entire unit of Wraithblades that can answer challenges for your weak, squishy little 'Seer is hilarious. At 15 points, it's a steal.

Spear of Teuthlas - s9 AP- Singing Spear with Rending. Strictly speaking it's a lot cheaper than the Shard of Anaris or the Firesabre and it's abilities aren't particularly worse overall.... But you can't give it to an Autarch, the only guy who'd get some real use out of it.

So, one - and only one - relic that is above average, and the rest are either poor, or very expensive and poor. That's really disappointing.

In summary, why are you using Codex: Iyanden and not Codex: Eldar?

It's because you like Spiritseers and want to take 3 or more in your army, and it's because you have a very pretty Wraithknight model in your collection and you want to try and justify all the time and expense you used on buying, assembling and painting it by using it as your Warlord.

The first reason isn't that bad - Wraithguard and Wraithblades are very good units and supporting them with Spiritseers is always a good idea, but having said that they're not a substitute for a Farseer and you're definitely going to want one of those too.

The second reason.... well, good luck to you, I guess, because that is the ONLY thing you're getting from Codex: Iyanden.
You'll still probably want a Farseer as your other HQ Choice, making the option to take multiple Spiritseers redundant, and you can't use any of the new Relics on your Wraith-Warlord. You just paid $20 for one line of useful text in a 100 page ebook.

Overall, very disappointing. Absolutely nothing that you couldn't already do with your existing book, except give a not-very-good Warlord Trait to a Wraithlord/Wraithknight.

[LordDavenport]

Isn't Aun'Shi an Ethereal? Did Farsight get all of his Ethereals killed and that's how he was able to take over in the first place?

Supposidly you can fluff the army as early renigades, so they still had a couple etherials. Which I guess could include the blademaster? Still, it works in codex.

I'm assuming this is to replace the biggest trap in the Tau Empire book (no, not Vespids), the Onager Gauntlet? How does it compare to that?

requires a subpar gun, -2S, +1AP, has armour bane, has blind, and on a 1 to hit the weapon and gun go offline for the rest of the battle. So very poorly.

Are the Commanders even costed appropriately? I imagine that Drones are factored into their points cost, most of which you wouldn't take.

Yes... most are packing two drones and a piece of wargear overr what is normally allowed.

Also, while you can take five Riptides, I think points limits means capping out at four Riptides if you want to have any real Scoring units. Still a **** move though.

is allying in a comander, just to have two riptides and a C&C+nocover+dronecontroller commander also a **** move? On par with the double FOC chart 9 riptides?


edit: Terrifying fire base.
Farsight Riptide
Heavy burst cannon, twinlinked fusion blaster, Earth cast pilot array, Velocity tracker.
2xshielded missile drones.
280 points
O'Vesa Riptide
Ion accelerator, twinlinked fusion blaster, Earth cast pilot array, Early warning override, stimulant injector.
2x Shielded missile drones.
305 points.
Allied Commander 85
Flamer, Drone controler, Stimulant injector, Vecctored retor thruster, Comand and control node, Multispectrum sensor sweet, Irridium battle suit.
2xshield drones
202 points
nine model unit: 787points
Seeing most any unit melt in one round of shooting: Priceless.
Main issue is the lack of target locks... But O'Vessa can just split off in the moment phase if need be. The drones lose that lovely BS5, twinlinked, and ignore cover, which is sad.

Also, does the Erath cast bonus reroll on a miss allow for rerolling scatter on blasts?

[Eldan]

Iyanden

Oh come on!
They didn't even include Iyanna Arienal? I mean, she already had stats in the old codex! Well, very old codex, now.

She was cool. The Angel of Iyanden. One of the two great leaders of the craftworld. The first Spirit Seer. The great believer in the Ynnead prophecy.

And don't even get me started on Prince Nuadhu. Grumble grumble off my lawn grumble grumble.

[Tome]

Isn't Aun'Shi an Ethereal? Did Farsight get all of his Ethereals killed and that's how he was able to take over in the first place?

He is. Nothing stops you from taking Ethereals in an Enclaves list. The sidebar where it points it out is actually titled "Forging a Narrative". Which is... what in the warp were they thinking? Was the writer taking a subtle jab at the corporate overlords there?

I'm assuming this is to replace the biggest trap in the Tau Empire book (no, not Vespids), the Onager Gauntlet? How does it compare to that?

It's worse. Six times the price, worse stats in exchange for Armourbane and shorts out along with your gun on a 1.

Is that the one with 4d6 to Deny rolls to make Witchfires utterly useless?

Yes, yes it is. I don't see many witchfires in my meta so I might be devaluing that. Let me know if I am and I'll change the description.

You can 'opt' to take them? Does this mean Farsight can replace all of his best friends with no-name mooks who actually have good wargear?
EDIT: No. By 'opt' to take them, you mean 'take them or don't'.

Actually it is optional. Or at least can be read that way.

"When choosing a Farsight Enclaves army, you have access to a special unit called
Farsight’s Commander Team. If you choose to take this unit, Commander Farsight does
not allow you to take an XV8 Crisis Bodyguard Team as normal; he has the Commander
Team instead."

It only replaces the bodyguard if you choose to take it, as I read it.

So, you do need to take Farsight to have access to the Commander Team. However, since they're all ICs, you don't need to stick them together, and, you can take up to seven other Commanders. Which is fine, because you're only taking O'Vesa anyway.

Pretty much. I'll re-write the section on the Eight to be a bit more accurate here. They're not something I've actually used in a game.

Basically, running Tau Empire lets you use a Farsight Bomb.
Running the Farsight Enclaves allows you to run 4-man Crisis Teams apparently. Or it's supposed to. Or something.

Do you even want to? If I had Enclaves I'd be at least statting out one unit for every Commander to see if I could get anything out of them.
Are the Commanders even costed appropriately? I imagine that Drones are factored into their points cost, most of which you wouldn't take.

Considering they all cost as much as a commander but have mostly terrible wargear I don't really the point in taking them even for that. You can manage three commanders anyway if you really want to and they'll actually have decent wargear.

They are indeed costed appropriately.

(Again, from a screenshot)
Then what does his swanky 'Enforcer' suit do, if not allow him to shoot three guns?

Absolutely nothing. The Enforcer suits are functionally indistinguishable from standard crisis suits as best I can tell.

[Wraith]

Oh come on!
They didn't even include Iyanna Arienal? I mean, she already had stats in the old codex! Well, very old codex, now.

She was cool. The Angel of Iyanden. One of the two great leaders of the craftworld. The first Spirit Seer. The great believer in the Ynnead prophecy.

And don't even get me started on Prince Nuadhu. Grumble grumble off my lawn grumble grumble.

She is still known as the Angel of Iyanden. She was the first person to.... see? Experience? Witness? Foretell? ....the Ynnead Prophecy. There's a picture of a red-headed Eldar in yellow Farseer robes. And she's not dead. Yet.

This is, to my quick glance, the entirety of the information given about her.

[Eldan]

Wait. She made the Ynnead prophecy now? Huh. Guess they wrote whatsname the Anchorite out, then.

[Cheesegear]

The Main Rules do not specifically state that "Hatred" is the same as "Hatred (Everything)", especially given that there are some character out there who *DO* specifically have "Hatred (Everything)". Errata plz!

Hatred is indeed the same as Hatred (Everything). Otherwise models with Zealot don't work properly.

You can choose for a character to take relics from either Codex Eldar or Codex Iyanden, but not both on the same model.

That's something new (or rather, something very old that the newer Supplements have phased out). Unfortunately, I've read the rest, and I know that the Relics are pretty bad.

Guardian Helm of Xellethon - Better - MUCH better! Taking Look Out, Sir! rolls on a T6 unit is big and clever, and having an entire unit of Wraithblades that can answer challenges for your weak, squishy little 'Seer is hilarious. At 15 points, it's a steal.

I'll point out that if the majority of your unit is T6, your Spiritseer becomes T6 by space magic of the Universe (pg 14 and 25, BBB). Just like Lysander becomes T5 in a unit of Centurions. Or a Commander becomes T6 when he joins a Riptide. Even if you use Precision Shots against the model who specifically is not the higher Toughness, they still have higher Toughness. Note, that this rule even applies in Challenges.

Does that change how you view the item?

It's because you have a very pretty Wraithknight model in your collection and you want to try and justify all the time and expense you used on buying, assembling and painting it by using it as your Warlord.

Both of the people I know who use Iyanden at all use it only for this reason. I know that they get angry that they have to cart around their iPad just so they can show people 'Wraithknights can be Warlords'. One game-usable sentence in an entire book. Yay! Doing this is helpful in (badly run) tournaments where TOs decide that making your Warlord do things is fun, and 'Forge A Narrative' means "Play HeroHammer! 2nd Ed. was fun, amirite!?" And being able to say "This T8 model is my Warlord. He does whatever he wants." is a very quick and easy way to rack up bonus tournament points.

but having said that [Spiritseers] aren't a substitute for a Farseer and you're definitely going to want one of those too.

I see Farseer and a Spirit Council.
It chews up points, sure. But it's cheaper than running the full Jet Council, and the Jet Council doesn't really work with Wraith armies anyway. IMO the Spirit Council is for when you want a Farseer (you always do), but still want to have multiple Spiritseers.

Absolutely nothing that you couldn't already do with your existing book, except give a Warlord Trait to a Wraithlord.

You mean Wraithknight?
But otherwise, I don't have the book, but I have Codex: Eldar, and that book right there lets me already take Wraithguard-as-Troops if I want them. I feel like if they hadn't included that, and put it in as part of Iyanden, then Iyanden would actually be worth something. Especially since they wrote Codex: Eldar, already knowing they would be planning for Iyanden. This is called cannibalising your own profits, when your product you own is competing with another product that you also own. But, if it wasn't in the main Codex, White Dwarf and Blackshirts couldn't say "OMG U GAIS. WRAITHGUARD ARE TROOPS NAO. BUY NAO PLZKTHX."

While hyperbole. Wraithguard as Troops was actually a selling point for the Codex.

Anyway, added.

It's worse. Six times the price, worse stats in exchange for Armourbane and shorts out along with your gun on a 1.

Six times the price? ...Way worse.

Yes, yes it is. I don't see many witchfires in my meta so I might be devaluing that.

Not really. Witchfires are generally useless because you can Deny (and have to roll To Hit, To Wound, etc.). Making it even easier to Deny makes the main problem of Witchfires that much worse.

I have an Infernus Pistol. I shoot you.
I have Life Leech from Biomancy. I shoo- NOPE!

It only replaces the bodyguard if you choose to take it, as I read it.

I seem to have left out the first sentence of the rule. 'Kay.

Also, added.

[Wraith]

Hatred is indeed the same as Hatred (Everything. Otherwise models with Zealot don't work properly.

Good to know, but I maintain my request for a proper definition in an FAQ!

Does that change how you view the item?

Honestly, not really. My favourite part of the item is letting ANY Wraithguard/blade in the unit accept a challenge on the bearer's belf. Even at T6, Farseers are terrible in challenges so you still better off tarpitting your opponent for <10 phases or until youcan bring in a heavy hitter to finish the job.

It's not enough to make me want to use Iyanden relics over the Eldar ones, but it never did to begin with so no loss there.

One game-usable sentence in an entire book. Yay!

Pretty much.

You mean Wraithknight?

You can choose either; I was being deliberately facetious by using a Wraithlord as an example because, as you pointed out, it has very limited, niche value even at the best of times.

But otherwise, I don't have the book, but I have Codex: Eldar, and that book right there lets me already take Wraithguard-as-Troops if I want them. I feel like if they hadn't included that, and put it in as part of Iyanden, then Iyanden would actually be worth something.

This is, in a nutshell, Codex Iyanden. Unless you really, REALLY like the fluff and are truly desperate to play some "historical" 40k scenarios (just incase you couldn't tell that The Battle of Iyanden featured a bunch of Tyranids and Yriel....) it doesn't give you anything. Not even "anything worth using", just.... anything at all.

I'm genuinely glad that I had a friends' copy to read; I'd have been irate to have spent my own money on it.

[LordDavenport]

Bit of flavor fail:
Description for homing beacons suggest that they are a firewarrior/cadrefireblade/most tau unit upgrade.
Only given to Etherials, recon drones, and stealth teams.
Often carried by fire cast warriors my ass.

Speaking of which, is it at all viable to field a pathfinder team to move forward and rain crysis suits with perscision?

[Cheesegear]

Speaking of which, is it at all viable to field a pathfinder team to move forward and rain crysis suits with perscision?

Yes. That's kind of the point.

However, since most people panic the second they see Pathfinders on the table, they'll die on the first two turns. However, since the Fast section of the Tau 'dex is devoid of all life and Pathfinders are the only option, you can take them if you want.

[Eldan]

Ah well. Iyanden isn't really my favourite Craftworld anyway. And their colour scheme is ugly.

Now do Alaitoc or Saim Hann, GW!

[hamishspence]

She is still known as the Angel of Iyanden. She was the first person to.... see? Experience? Witness? Foretell? ....the Ynnead Prophecy. There's a picture of a red-headed Eldar in yellow Farseer robes. And she's not dead. Yet.

This is, to my quick glance, the entirety of the information given about her.

They kept the Anchorite in - but she's the foremost promoter of it on the Craftworld.

It gives a bit of her backstory (all her family were killed when a Chaos ship attacked the Craftworld).

It's the same Chaos attack Yriel was criticized for not stopping (he'd taken too much of the defences away).

She can be taken in historical scenarios (Spiritseer, Mastery 3 instead of Mastery 2) - but there's no rules for including her in a "normal" battle.

I'd houserule "pay 25 pts to upgrade Spiritseer to Mastery 3 to represent her" since that's the usual price to go from ML2 to ML3.

[Cheesegear]

And their colour scheme is ugly.

You saying yellow is ugly? Them's fighting words.

Now do Alaitoc or Saim Hann, GW!

Unfortunately, due to Iyanden being a terrible seller (for a lot of reasons), it's hard to know if GW will revisit Eldar.

[Wraith]

I hope that they won't, for the same reason that they shouldn't have done Iyanden: what'd be the point?

Saim Hann want a list full of Jetbikes, and Alaitoc wants a list full of Pathfinders. You can already do both perfectly well with the vanilla Codex, including having the latter led by an appropriately themed Special Character.
Do you really, really want to spend $20 on an ebook that just gives you half a dozen crap artifacts and a Warlord Trait list that you will hate?

If they were to do a book for one of the lesser known Craftworlds, like Altansar, Ctho or Lugganath, and introduce some new units or truly exotic formations, that'd be much more worthwhile.

[Cheesegear]

I hope that they won't, for the same reason that they shouldn't have done Iyanden: what'd be the point?

Mostly because the casual player base is screaming out for choice. It's actually irrelevant whether or not those choices are any good. Players just want to be able to put what they want, on the table. This is why Apocalypse has gotten huge in 6th Edition. People want to do what they want, and Apocalypse - in 6th - lets them do that. The **** thing is if you want to use those Apocalypse Formations (Yes, I would like all of my Saim-Hann Jetbikes to have Scout and Shred), you have to buy the other 3 and a half thousand points to go with it before you even step up to the table.

The really insulting part is that Space Marines have Chapter Tactics built right into their Codex (since 4th Ed.). But, Eldar can't have Craftworlds? Orks can't have Klans? Imperial Guard can't have Doctrines and Chaos Legion rules are getting watered down every edition (hooray for metas that allow 30K armies, right?). These are things that the fanbase has asked time and time again for (and why 30K sells like bananas. People want bananas.). But, GW doesn't know how to write for their own game (and are on the record as not caring about that fact), and so when they actually do give us what they want, we hate it. Then, GW says in their infinite wisdom that they gave us what we want, and it's our fault that it didn't sell, because if we really wanted it, we would have bought it when they gave it to us.

The other problem is that Iyanden was the 'first'. We were pissed when we found out that it only had two game-usable pages. However, now that we know that Supplementary Codecies are actually glorified novellas for one or two main characters, we can temper our expectations. We know what to expect, now. So, even though Crimson Slaughter is only Warlord Traits and Relics, nobody even cares because we already knew it was going to be 'only' two pages, but, even better, those two pages are actually useful.

Why Iyanden sucks (IMO):
It was the 'first' book. Reviews came out and people didn't want to pay full price for two pages. Now, they will.
The core Codex already allowed what most people considered the fundamental part of Iyanden. Why buy Iyanden when I can already do what I want? I read/heard reviews on the Codex and it doesn't change anything, so why bother?
iBook only. Seriously. Big mistake. I'm willing to say that at least 50% of GW's target demo are massive nerds who can see Apple for what they are and stay right the Hell away from anything to do with them. However, it could be a 'first' mistake, since they backtracked in like, a week, when they said Farsight Enclaves would be iBook only. But, I guess Farsight was a supplement the fans actually wanted and so were much more vocal than they were about Iyanden.