Genestealer Cult vs. Ynnari: 1850pts NOVA format

Turn 1: How bad can they be?

I played a game today against a man practicing for the NOVA format. He and his buddies will be attending the GT for the first time and I figured this would be a good chance to let my Ynnari list stretch its legs while he got a practice match in with his GSC. Before now I'd only run them in an Adepticon formation, a few skirmishes with their detachment against some unwitting newer players, and a sparring match with my buddy and his Sternguard. This time the gloves came off and I was going to go all out.

We met up, settled on a mission, set the board up according to NOVA format, and went over our lists. His entire army deployed through the GSC infiltration deployment. Most of his army had rending, with a small psychic death star and a secondary psyker unit. He also brought Coteaz. He was running a very strong MSU setup that wanted to get as close as possible and tie as much up as possible. I myself was running my 1850 ITC list of CWE but with some tweaks. I swapped the sword and board Wraithknight for the double D-cannons with a single scatter laser, I removed a Jetseer, and I removed a couple units of Windriders. To replace them I put in a Shadowseer, 2 units of Reavers with caltrops. The two Aspect Hosts were still made up of spiders.

He got first turn and I deployed my WK in my backfield corner, surrounded by 2 units of Reavers, surrounded by all 6 units of spiders. I was essentially setting myself up in maximum turtle mode because I had no idea what he was going to do and I wanted to be absolutely sure when something died I could rain hell upon him. By the time he was done infiltrating his guys he had the entire board covered and all 6 objectives held. He chose turn by turn and my choice was end game. To double down on this I went for Kill Points, Linebreaker, and Moment of Bloodshed. I decided my only way out was through so I was going to go for glory and try to table him.

Turn 1 I didn't manage to kill anything and he reinforced himself on objectives and boxed me in, murdering several spiders in the process. 1 unit of spiders died and the resulting soulbursts accomplished nothing useful. My turn I came out of the gate swinging, pushing my spiders against his units hard and probing for weaknesses. Due to the flimsy nature of most of his units, I managed to get my soulbursts off across the entire deployed army, but the Spiders were not reliably able to kill him while he was stealth/shrouded, especially against the units with Initiative 6.

Turn 2: Knives and Gun Fights

Turn 2 his reserves come on, not that he had many. This is mostly a series of unfortunate events for him as he doubles down on holding objectives, now having 3/9 primary points and wanting to maintain this lead. The Genestealers pull up for another swing at my spiders but my spiders are now well screened by my WK and Reavers. Those that aren't are down to 1 or 2 men. He successfully kills one remaining spider and sets off a chain of soulbursts that end with 3 of his units dead on his own turn, the three closest ones. Safe from charges, his invisible death star moves towards the center of 3 objectives to block my forward path.

My turn 2 2 units of Scatbikes come on as does my Hemlock Wraithfighter. Psychic Shriek goes off but does nothing and I hurt myself with perils. My Scatbikes kill a few more units of dudes by coming on right next to an exposed unit of Purestrains, setting off another chain. The most memorable thing about this was my Wraithknight charging a unit, and then charging another unit at a higher initiative. We realized that because the previous initiative was resolved, there was no way his I6 models could retaliate against the I5 WK, so I stomped him out. By this point I had successfully punched my way out of my corner and was making for the other half of the board with lightning speed by rolling high for my spiders and using my Reavers as a screen against his death star.

Turn 3: Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

During the previous few turns, and this one included, my opponent had been popping his cultists in and out of reserves, playing a shell game with the objectives. I still only held one, and tentatively at that, but he was losing cultists faster than he could regenerate them due to my focus fire. His Mind Control spells were mostly used, and smartly I might add, to take control of my Warp Spiders and shoot at my Wraithknight rather than the other way around. This resulted in an attrition of wounds against the big guy that left him with 2 by the assault phase of this turn. He avoided shooting my units and was now feeling the losses from the previous two turns, so he didn't charge anything that was close to other models. His invisible death star rolled up against my WK and clobbered it, killing it but allowing me to soulburst onto the other side of the board with my remaining units in the area. He also polished off the last of my wounded Warp Spiders.

My turn 3 my psykers come on and I injure my Hemlock with perils again on the same Psychic Shriek, again doing nothing. My Farseer and Shadowseer walk on in a unit of 6 Scatbikes and get Guide off though. What follows I can only describe as a massacre as I shoot essentially half the remaining forces off the board and consolidate my army into a massive ball of death, taking out about 3 units, Coteaz, and whittling down his secondary psyker unit. This was the turning point and the moment I was sure I'd won the game.

Turn 4: Please God, Make it Stop, Make it End

This was the turn he flubbed his invisibility roll and also the moment when DftS came into play. My Hemlock pulled a u-turn and nuked his death star with it's D-Scythes. My opponent didn't accomplish much, having maxed his primary points he was now just trying to deny me objectives. I on the other hand began running roughshod over his units, starting with his psykers. Both were dead in my shooting phase and I began no longer needing soulbursts as my 3 remaining spider units catapulted onto objectives and my bikes began spreading their fire out, clearing the way for the coup-de-grace.

Turn 5: I Can't Put Enough Quotation Marks Around the Word "Turn" so I'm Not Even Going To Try

This wasn't a turn so much as it was an obligatory shoot more things and move everyone on objectives thing. We rolled for turn 6 and didn't get it. At the end of the game I held 5/6 objectives getting me the max 9 primary points, had scored Kill Points, Moment of Bloodshed, and Linebreaker, and had all 4 tertiary points. My opponent had 9 primary, 2 secondary, and 3 tertiary. My win was by 5 so my differential bonus was also 5, giving me a 24-14 win.

The Autopsy

After the game my opponent and I had opinions on the power levels of our armies. I maintained GSC had a lot of potential for murdering Ynnari straight out and that with some list tweaks he could maul me right off the board. He agreed, pointing out that combat screening seems to be the only way I could put up an early defense, which thankfully I did. In the end though we both failed to come up with meaningful specific improvements to our lists.

This game should not have been the cakewalk that it was. Granted it was definitely the most challenging game I've played with Ynnari to date and the most rewarding, but that's not saying much. I was playing against an army that should have had me dead to rights and nearly tabled it. This was frankly one of the worst match ups I could go against and it wasn't even a contest by turn 3. Ynnari takes my 4th dimensional wizard chess that I've perfected as a Dark Eldar player and gives it a major power boost to the point that unless I make a colossal blunder in the first two turns I can probably win the game. I shot myself out of a corner, nuked a death star, and put out so much damage that even regenerating GSC couldn't come back on fast enough to stem the tide of losses.

I will say though that a lot of this has to do with the fact that I DO know 4th dimensional wizard chess. Someone who relies on the usual Eldar tactic of holding back and playing defensively or running psyker heavy lists is going to lose with this army over and over. You HAVE to be in your opponents face, you HAVE to take risks. You really need a feel for you units, to know what they can reliably do, know where you are in the game, and where you need to be and when. I had this game locked down on turn 3 when it was 0 to 6 going on 0 to 9 and my opponent thought they were winning. Half my soulbursts were positioning for the next turn, the other half were strategic daisy chains that were accomplished from the previous turn's positioning. Positioning is *everything* I can't stress that enough.

So yeah, after this extremely thorough review of the army, they are going to win tournaments in the hands of Wizards and will probably be the new meta lists to contend with..

I only hope so, I tend to play aggressively, which may be why I have such difficulty with many armies, except for my Space Puppies and Blood Angels. Its nice to have an eldar army that lets you really try and unleash on your opponent and can come back from large deficits.

I think I'm gonna shelf this army until a tournament comes up. It's just straight cancer, and I've experimented enough with it now to know how it works.

Well... You're using Craftworld Eldar models. So it's no surprise.

I think I might give them a try but solely using dark Eldar models.

Anyway: congratulations!

Sadly this seems to sum up the whole situation with the Eldar both before and after the addition of the Ynnari faction. If you want to be competitive at tournaments you can - by bringing Craftworld Eldar. If you want to play Dark Eldar or use Dark Eldar units in an Ynnari list you can - but you won't be competitive at tournaments.

CptMetal wrote:

Well... You're using Craftworld Eldar models. So it's no surprise.

I think I might give them a try but solely using dark Eldar models.

Anyway: congratulations!

Unless I'm building a fluffy list, I run any given army at its maximum potential. Ynnari fluff is barely worth consideration so the only fun to be had with it is plowing people's armies into the dirt. If you have fun with half-measures and stop-gaps, have at it, Hoss.

I would like to point out that that is your opinion of the fluff, and not an actual fact. I think it is an interesting step to take in fighting the inevitable doom of your people. Personally I'd have gone for the god/dess of fertility, myself, so they could get those babies pumping out in good measure first, but hey... Death is pretty badass as well.

Either way though, I think it is a welcome advancement of their story, now that they really have a chance at fighting back against Slaanesh in a meaningful manner.

Long story short, i think it is perfectly viable to see a Ynnari Army as being fluffy just as much as any other. I'm writing a huge backstory for mine in my spare time.

@Srota seconded, provided they make it unclear as to whether having your soul consumed by Ynnead is better or worse than having it consumed by Slaanesh.

On the rankings of bad fluff it's way, way above the current low point which is Blood Angels and Newcrons being best buds...

Ynneadwraith wrote:

@Srota seconded, provided they make it unclear as to whether having your soul consumed by Ynnead is better or worse than having it consumed by Slaanesh.

On the rankings of bad fluff it's way, way above the current low point which is Blood Angels and Newcrons being best buds...

As a BA player, that made me sooooooo sad... (Yes I admit it, I play 4 different marines chapters as well... But I also play just about every faction in the game so that hopefully helps make up for it lol)

Oh the Blood Angels fluff is one of my favourite Marines fluffs, and I adore the Oldcron 'cosmic terror' Necrons.

It's specifically their teaming up against the Tyranids that is fething stupid.

If I was an undead space robot, i wouldn't give flying monkeys what happened to some squishy upstarts. Let the 'nids toll over them, and then claim the lifeless rock for the glory of the Necron Empire (or whatever it is the Newcrons are fighting for these days).

It doesn't help that 'two factions that hate each other surprising everyone (not) by teaming up against a bigger threat' is one of my most disliked tropes in all of the new 40k fluff. It happens so often that you'd be forgiven for thinking they hadn't been killing each other non-stop for 10,000 years.

Ok @TeenageAngst i'll give you that one. The Ynnari teaming up with Black Templars, and being allowed anywhere near Ultramar without being executed is pants-on-head stupid.

The premise is pretty neat though

I miss oldcrons soooooooooooo much, they were great, I even have a copy of gorkamorka when they first appeared.

I think the amount of team-ups we see these days is a part of the move from GW being a game company that sold models to a Model Company that also has a game. Much of their decisions lately do seem to be influenced by selling models that normally don't sell well at all, I think the team-up mentality is a part of that.

Yeah it's less that Newcrons are bad per se (althought they're not particulalry innovative in any way), it's more that Oldcrons are a work of utter genius. They're the Juan Diaz daemonettes of fluff. Utterly perfect unknown prehistoric horror.

Actually, it'd be interesting to hear what you ( @TeenageAngst ) hate so much about the Ynnari fluff, and whether it's the same stuff i'm slightly ropey on it about.

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I would like to point out that that is your opinion of the fluff, and not an actual fact.

I would like to point out that almost everything I say is merely "my opinion", and we all have a right to our own opinion. It is also my opinion that anyone who likes the new fluff is dead wrong but being wrong is nothing new and god and man gave us that freedom too.

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Either way though, I think it is a welcome advancement of their story, now that they really have a chance at fighting back against Slaanesh in a meaningful manner.

Long story short, i think it is perfectly viable to see a Ynnari Army as being fluffy just as much as any other. I'm writing a huge backstory for mine in my spare time.

I have not yet read the entirety of the Fracture book, I only read a synopsis and a bit of the actual book before the Wardian writing style made me bored. That being said I maintain the age old "everything is canon but not necessarily true" stance because I don't like change. Biel-Tan is still around, Cadia isn't blown up, it's all foul propaganda, stop listening to heretics.

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Ok @TeenageAngst i'll give you that one. The Ynnari teaming up with Black Templars, and being allowed anywhere near Ultramar without being executed is pants-on-head stupid.

I love it when my points make themselves.

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Actually, it'd be interesting to hear what you ( @TeenageAngst ) hate so much about the Ynnari fluff, and whether it's the same stuff i'm slightly ropey on it about.

I mean I would but that would involve literally everything in the book. Every page I turned was a new and flagrant insult to my intelligence combined with droll action scenes and god awful prose. I'll try to condense it:

1: Yvraine. She is a worse Mary Sue than Kaldor Drago in every regard. She goes everywhere and does everything all the time for everyone and everyone is just entirely content to let her do it because god forbid anyone else do a cool thing. Literally every single trait this character has annoys me at some level right down to her model design.

2: The Visarch. The Visarch is entirely pointless and I have no idea why he is in this story. If you ask me, they should have taken The Visarch and Yvraine and combined them to make a new character... called Drazar. Drazar could have been the quiet, brutally efficient murderer that finally met his match and was killed, only to discover Ynnead. He was already rumored to be a Phoenix Lord, so he could have had that become official. That would give him some clout on Biel-tan and given the Incubi a reason to follow him out of Commorragh. His prowess and name would also have preceded him so there would be an established precedent as to why he could get away with going wherever he wants, because if he isn't allowed to he literally murders his way through anyway. It would have been a chance to deepen the character using established lore as the basis for further growth rather than making up 2 characters nobody cares about that do literally everything.

3: That BS with Ahriman. HEY AHRIMAN. You know that thing you've been trying to do? Yeah, yeah that thing that you've spent the past 10,000 years and 26 real life years trying to accomplish? That well thought out piece of lore that gives the Thousand Suns their deep and meaningful purpose in the story? Well I, Yvraine, am totally going to do that neat cool thing for you! YEAH, IT'S THAT NEAT? I JUST DID THAT THING YOU'VE BEEN QUESTING FOREVER FOR. I JUST DID IT. YUP, JUST LIKE THAT. COOL HUH? AREN'T I JUST THE COOLEST CHARACTER EVER? BUY MY MODEL!

4: The Warlock who committed seppuku for Yvraine. 'nuff said.

5: Tone. This isn't the fluff necessarily but something that bothers me about these stupid Gathering Storm books. All previous 40k books by GW had a kind of Imperial propaganda motif going on throughout them, with later publications less so than the previous generation, but with it still present. These books however feel written like a combination of a history book and a poorly conceived action thriller. The tone shifts wildly from action scenes in gruesome detail to matter of fact plot points being spelled out as if it was a paragraph in an American History novel. This is a major reason I hate the fluff, as the book seems utterly convinced that it's correct and any deviation from the facts it is laying out is wrong, something no 40k book ever dared to imply.

Haha I must admit, your points are well made (and largely ignored by myself through the excellent 'propaganda' method).

Yvraine should have been Malys. Drazhar would have been neat too. We'd have got another model for him, and it would play to the kickass Dark Eldar-told side of his story where the other Phoenix Lords wanted to only protect the Craftworlders, but he knew that divided the eldar would not be able to stand against Slaanesh.

Saying that, I don't harbour quite as much bile for the book as you for a few key points that are pretty sweet.

1. I'll disagree on the Ahriman thing being pants. For me, that was one of the best bits in the book. Ahriman's spent donkeys years chasing the Eldar for the key to undo the Rubric, so it makes perfect sense that Yvraine is able to do so. Whatsmore, I think it's one of the only truly accurate (to my mind) representations of how the Eldar would act in the book. She downright tortures Ahriman with it. She shows him salvation and then just because she can, tears that absolution away from him. It's utterly cruel and arrogant, and is precisely how I'd expect an Eldar to act.

Plus, it's nice to see some actual depth to a CSM character beyond moustache-twirling villainy.

2. Yriel's bit was great. Mainly because Yriel is great, but also the whole duking it out on the plague ship. Even him dying and being brought back by getting stabbed by the spear is neat. It suggests that this 'cursed' spear might actually be some sort of pre-Fall resurrection device that 'stores' life energy rather than draining it away, and because the Eldar have been through a similar level of cultural degradation to the IoM they take that as it being 'cursed'.

It's neat.

3. The Altansar Eldar never taking their helmets off because they look like well preserved freaking corpses underneath due to Ynnead being their protection within the warp.

Awesome.

4. Biel Tan being fractured into a bajillion different craft is an opportunity for something neat to actually happen with them. Now, you've potentially got a Biel Tan diaspora. You can have your fascist militant Eldar split into warbands doing whatever the hell they like. Knocking around Commorragh getting more and more twisted. Searching through the galaxy for an intact deserted craftworld to re-forge their society. Rocking around like some Quarian-style Migrant Fleet (except made up of the most belligerant warlike space elves in the galaxy).

Embrace it. Do neat stuff with it. Fix issues of tone with liberal application of imagination.

5. The Eldar being more fractured, not less is a definite positive step given all the hand-wringing about AoS-style Grand Alliances.

6. The potential for creepy-AF Eldar Death Cults rocking around, sending loony crazed prophets to craftworlds/commorragh to try and convert their populations to pledge themselves to a God we know sod all about (and given the Eldar's previous record with warp-spawned entities is probably just as horrible for them as Slaanesh or Khaine).

Embrace it. Do neat stuff with it. Fix issues of tone with liberal application of imagination.

7. Confirmation that the events of Death Masque (which again is a Brown Standard by which I judge bad fluff) didn't utterly cripple every craftworld everywhere by having their Infinity Circuits completely drained.

8. Big things going down with the Mandrakes. Always thought they deserved a fluff expansion, so seems like we're going to get it.

9. Yvraine might be the chosen of Ynnead yada yada yada...but Lelith still kicked her ass

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So, overall while the actual main characters and action is a bit pants (name me a big story in 40k that doesn't suffer from this), the little side bits are fascinating, and there's enormous potential to do cool things working with the new fluff.

If you feel happier ignoring the whole thing then by all means It's worked wonderfully for 9th Age Fantasy players, and I happily do the same for the more egregious Mary Sue Marine fluff.

Still, significant opportunities for doing neat stuff might be missed...

Every single one of these events might have actually flown, with a few glaring exceptions, if the person wielding the pen wasn't such a miserable hack. The book is as difficult to read if not moreso than that Gav Thrope trilogy he did on the Eldar and has the same kind of terrible plot points. In fact, I think the blame may be misplaced on Ward here. I think ol' Thorpe is to blame for this, the Iyanden book Ward did was perfectly serviceable.

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1. I'll disagree on the Ahriman thing being pants.

No.

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4. Biel Tan being fractured into a bajillion different craft is an opportunity for something neat to actually happen with them. Now, you've potentially got a Biel Tan diaspora. You can have your fascist militant Eldar split into warbands doing whatever the hell they like. Knocking around Commorragh getting more and more twisted. Searching through the galaxy for an intact deserted craftworld to re-forge their society. Rocking around like some Quarian-style Migrant Fleet (except made up of the most belligerant warlike space elves in the galaxy).

If only there was some way the Eldar were already divided, maybe we wouldn't need this kidney shot they call fluff. Maybe if they split off on a bunch of big, floating ships that were separated by lightyears of distance and thousands of years. Maybe their cultures would have developed differently. Yeah, that might work. And hey, if it was like that from the beginning, they might have years of lore baked into them that gives each of these "Craftworlds" their own unique flavor and society and battle tactics. They could even have auxiliary fleets called Corsairs that go to places like Commorragh and become twisted or serve as mercenaries or go-betweens for inter-racial negotiations. IF ONLY THIS WAS ESTABLISHED LORE, BUT THANK GOD THEY BLEW UP BIEL-TAN.

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Embrace it. Do neat stuff with it. Fix issues of tone with liberal application of imagination.

A-hem...

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If you feel happier ignoring the whole thing then by all means

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5. The Eldar being more fractured, not less is a definite positive step given all the hand-wringing about AoS-style Grand Alliances.

Have you seen how many Aelven factions are in AoS? It's a cluster-****. Is that *really* what you want in 40k?

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6. The potential for creepy-AF Eldar Death Cults rocking around, sending loony crazed prophets to craftworlds/commorragh to try and convert their populations to pledge themselves to a God we know sod all about (and given the Eldar's previous record with warp-spawned entities is probably just as horrible for them as Slaanesh or Khaine).

I love the idea of Eldar forming death cults around a god we know nothing about and doing creepy stuff. I mean we already had the Haemonculi Covens but hey why not give the CWE something like that too they obviously need it even more. And I love the idea of them following a god with NO ESTABLISHED LORE WHATSOEVER. Totally works for me, I can feel myself becoming EVEN MORE attached to my scatbikes and spiders by this LOVELY addition.

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Embrace it. Do neat stuff with it. Fix issues of tone with liberal application of imagination.

"If you feel happier ignoring the whole thing then by all means"

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So, overall while the actual main characters and action is a bit pants (name me a big story in 40k that doesn't suffer from this), the little side bits are fascinating, and there's enormous potential to do cool things working with the new fluff.

The Andy Chambers books. The Andy Chambers trilogy didn't have a single thing in it that made my brain hurt. It wasn't the best literature ever written but it kept me turning pages and at no point did I feel like I was getting force-fed anything. It respected established lore while expanding on it, not tearing it apart and rearranging it. It had a diverse set of characters, it had all kinds of sub-plots going on, and not all the strings were tied together, so your mind could wander to all kinds of conclusions. It was a fun and interesting action story with unique fluffy bits that gave me neat ideas for my own army. All the Fracture of Ally McBeal makes me want to do is stop caring about the fluff, and when you don't have that you just have overpriced hunks of plastic.

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Still, significant opportunities for doing neat stuff might be missed...

I think I'll be able to sleep at night.

TeenageAngst wrote:

Every single one of these events might have actually flown, with a few glaring exceptions, if the person wielding the pen wasn't such a miserable hack. The book is as difficult to read

Shakespeare the author is not. I couldn't bring myself to finish it. The plot is OK, but the story writing is abysmal. It's drier than plain saltines in the Sahara.

mattblowers wrote:

TeenageAngst wrote:

Every single one of these events might have actually flown, with a few glaring exceptions, if the person wielding the pen wasn't such a miserable hack. The book is as difficult to read

Shakespeare the author is not. I couldn't bring myself to finish it. The plot is OK, but the story writing is abysmal. It's drier than plain saltines in the Sahara.

Yeah, I will not deny that the prose is certainly not on the good side of abysmal, but I found the plot interesting enough and the implications of this to be most interesting. What I hope is that they decide to tie this all in with the Black Legion series, as that would be a great nod to their novels, but then again, this is GW... they don't exactly like to do that.

I get the impression GW wants us to do more "forging the narrative" but still wants to sell us named characters at a high price, and make more money, but they just can't really do that anymore. Their fluff writers just don't seem to be able to make it balance between too much named character "Mary Sue/Stu" and too much vagueness (so that they players have room to make their own guys).

edit: Yeah the writing quality is pretty bad.

edit again: I maintain what I said about her feet though. Best part of the model.

So, I was actually discussing the issue of the writing in the GS trilogy, and my friend made a great point. It likely stems from the pace at which they released the books. In wanting to open up their 30th anniversary year with a big trilogy, they likely rushed the books out at a lower standard of writing. Which I can understand doing. I like the pace at which we have been getting releases, and I suppose that if the price we have to pay is getting some really poor quality fluff in our codices and supplements, I can deal. I have black library to make up for that.

I ain't dropping good money on bad books. Thank god for /tg/

Fair enough, I choose to do so when I have some extra money to do so, but, then again I'm not most people...