The Yncarne's potential

Hi All,

So the more I look at the Yncarne, the more I realise they're carrying a potentially game-changing rule - that teleportation trick.

Basically, the way I see it is that during my opponent's phase, should they manage to kill anything, I can dunk an Yncarne down and then on my turn they suffer a psychic barrage followed by a rather painful combat.

Then, on their turn, I warp the Yncarne out again when something else dies (preferably where it won't get attacked/shot at) and go after another point in my opponent's army to mess it up.

Basically I intend to continuously warp the Yncarne before my opponent can get to grips with the combat they're stuck in. Any attempts to counter charge means just enduring one combat before I warp away and possibly heal, depending on where I decide to move to.


And though it has that awesome Ynnari-buffing rule, it's still fairly competent as a standalone unit, meaning unlike the transportless Visarch and Yvraine it can function fairly happily in a regular Dark Eldar CAD (even benefiting from their deaths).


I'm looking to give this beast a good run soon. What are people's thoughts on this unit?

If playing against Grav pods, you could potentially not use the death based deployment on turn 1, wait for standard Deep Strike and deploy in a corner (hopefully not too close where you deviate off the board). If the grab pods follow the Yncairne he/she can easily rejoin the fight using the death based teleport.

It derives its potential entirely from being the only occupant of our Lord of War slot. It has literally no BiS competition. It also happens to have the worst unit type, non-flying monstrous creature. Because of its relatively low points cost, its inability to join units, its ability to heal itself while also being tremendously vulnerable to legitimate threats, and its rather large model size, it is perfectly acceptable to run the thing as a big fat distraction Carnifex.

Basically it's a cheaper Tantalus.

Hey PsychicHobo. I agree with you. That the teleport trick has a lot of potential and as TeenageAngst said can be used as a distraction carnifex.

A distraction carnifex that can teleport at will, has soulburst, is a lvl 3 psycher, has awesome buff bubbles, can heal itself easily, etc,etc,etc.

I think the novelty of the teleport is generally outweighed by the fact that the Yncarne is a model at war with itself. It has no internal synergy.

1. It's the centerpiece of an army that has a special rule that primarily benefits shooting(soulburst), yet it has no shooting weapon itself with which to benefit from soulburst.

2. It's a level 3 psyker, but only has access to 2 disciplines, 1 of which is an anti-daemon discipline that has multiple self-cast abilities that hurt the Yncarne because the Yncarne IS A DAEMON. The second of which has multiple ways to trigger soulburst, which doesn't really help the Yncarne much(see 1 above.), along with weaker versions of powers that already exist(Nova power S3 instead of S5 like cleansing flame). Even the "ultimate" ability in that chart, Gaze of Ynnead, is laughable. It sounds cool on the surface, being S10 and AP1 without allowing saves of any kind, but it's just a normal witchfire. It isn't even a focused witchfire, and it's 3 warp charge. So you're going to have to throw 6-7 dice to get it to go off, probably perils, then don't even get to pick your target in the unit and kill 1 space marine with a warp charge 3 power that you risked getting swallowed by the warp for. No thanks.

3. Finally, due to it's obvious weaknesses in shooting(no weapon), and the psychic phase, the Yncarne is obviously a melee beatstick, right? Not so much. It costs almost the same amount as a sword and board wraithknight, yet has no way of generating D hits in melee, and has 2 less toughness, making her very vulnerable to things like massed scatter laser fire.

She is too expensive and too easy to kill for what she gives you. She isn't good at anything. The teleport rule is neat, until you realize you're mostly just teleporting her to her own doom if anyone really wants to kill her, since she can't assault when she comes in, and if you try to wait till towards the end of your opponent's shooting, there is a very real possibility of no unit dying in order to trigger the teleport. It's one of those things that sounds really useful, but in practice it will actually be pretty rare to pull off a perfectly timed teleport in your opponents turn when your opponent doesn't have much shooting left.

Isn't the Yncarne's primary use of Soulburst (seeing as it doesn't have a shooting weapon) to gain an extra 6" of movement, which in conjunction with the teleportation thing negates the whole 'footslogging MC being slow' issue.

Doesn't fix the other problems (and I thought that the Revenant discipline wasn't too hot when I first read it), but Soulburst isn't useless on it.

Double Avatar list makes sense?
FNP for Avatar and bonuses for Yncarne from Rage and furious charge and expanding the fearless buble to ~12" wide 30" wide bubble. Oh, but Yncarne is Ynnari, aeldari but not Eldar faction
Double carnifex list...

I don't think the Yncarne is going to be in any big balls, WAAC tournament lists.
Why wouldn't you take the obviously undercosted wraithknight instead?    

BUT in anything less she has the potential and multiple abilities to be worth a try out.

Ynneadwraith wrote:

Doesn't fix the other problems (and I thought that the Revenant discipline wasn't too hot when I first read it), but Soulburst isn't useless on it.

It's pretty darn close. Sort of like putting a brand new horn on a broken down car. Sure, technically the horn still works, despite it being on a useless vehicle.

An extra 6 inch move isn't really that helpful. Why not spend 20 more points and get a sword and board wraithknight who can move 12", soulburst another 12", then charge on turn 1 with D weapon and stomps?

Agreed, it'll always lose out to the undercosted Wraithknight. But, so long as that's understood it's not worth disparaging an actually useful mechanic the Yncarne has. It's not the be-all and end-all, but it does mean one of its flaws (movement) is reduced.

Painjunky wrote:

I don't think the Yncarne is going to be in any big balls, WAAC tournament lists.
Why wouldn't you take the obviously undercosted wraithknight instead?    

BUT in anything less she has the potential and multiple abilities to be worth a try out.

This seems like a very fair description.

Compared to GS:I - Cawl and Celestine, Yncarne and friends are not in the same 'power level'. Yncarne could in normal 'hard play' not super competitive lists do much heavy lifting but easy to pick out of the field without support from the list.
WK with sword and board can alone bully most lists, except most grav centric lists _without_ psychic support. Yncarne cannot do alone. The sad thing is that even with his/her psychics she does not get any reliable powers that actually affect the game and allow building a game play tactic over. Getting Two nova powers reliably would make her better, but admittedly not OP and not in par with WK.
On the otherhand if you want to play hard without bring much loved WK you can go town with Yncarne.

Try it out. Like I said, once the novelty of teleporting around wears off, I don't think you'll really find it that useful against even a halfway decent opponent.

I guess this might be one of those situations where you can tell someone a pot is hot till you're blue in the face, but it won't really set in till they burn themselves.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Give 'er a go!

@WildCandy: The 2 novas thing is a good idea. You would have to make the Yncarne your warlord and hope for the trait that lets you pick your powers. Otherwise it's very unlikely to get them.

I haven't read the entire thread yet, but for me, the Yncarne is bit disappointing thus far. The self-healing and teleportation look fun, but they are controlled by the opponent for the most cases.

For example, in a recent game, my opponent killed the models around the Yncarne first, blew her head with focused fire, and then attacked other units. Both abilities of the Yncarne were perfectly neutralized in the game.

She's my favorite model in the new book so I'm gonna keep hiring her for a while though. We're DE anyway right? Awesomeness is important for us as much as, or more than, the power of models.


EDIT: Oh, and the gravs...The Yncarne was one-turn killed by a grav squad using the ultramarine doctrine

I really feel the damage output of the Yncarne is secondary to the only real reason to take it, the fnp/fearless bubble. Now I don't think that makes it a competitive choice over a WK, but it's disingenuous to not mention it.

Another suggestion. Sanctic could be a good way to run her maybe?

Sanctuary will provide the delicious 4++ to her, though she's also getting the terrain penalty .

Hammerhand will make her S8 armorbane monster.

Cleansing Flame looks better than, or at least comparable to the revenant nova power.

Vortex looks stronger (and more important, much more FUN) than the gaze of Ynnead.

How do you think?

On the other hand you've got Perils on any double, Gate is worthless to her and the Primaris is pretty situational at the best of times.

Well, I cannot rebut it at all

The Red King wrote:

I really feel the damage output of the Yncarne is secondary to the only real reason to take it, the fnp/fearless bubble.

I don't think the fearless part is particularly important for Ynnari because the detachment makes all ynnari within 7 inches of another ynnari stubborn, and causes them to not have to roll morale tests for losing 25% or more of their unit.

Also, FnP is good if you're trying to make your units live, but Ynnari thrive when their units die.

Like I said before: The Yncarne is a fantastic representation of what is wrong with GW design philosophy. They create an amazing model. They create awesome special rules for the core army. Then they have absolutely no sense of direction with the centerpiece model for the army. It doesn't have good synergy with ANYTHING else in the army except the OTHER overpriced "centerpiece" models that ALSO don't have good synergy with the rest of the army. That is the problem with all 3 new models. None of them synergize particularly well with anything, or provide useful enough army buffs, so previously existing characters and models like farseers and wraithknights work better in the new army than the shiny new models do.

lelith wrote:

Sanctuary will provide the delicious 4++ to her, though she's also getting the terrain penalty .

Since the Yncarne is an MC, she gets the "move through cover" rule, which makes her auto-pass dangerous terrain tests. I didn't think about that before, and was also thinking she'd suffer from a bunch of dangerous tests.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Also, FnP is good if you're trying to make your units live, but Ynnari thrive when their units die.

I think it's only partly true. Soulburst trigger when units die, but Ynnari would definitely benefit an increase of survivality. Why being happy when an ennemy unit shoot and kill 1 of your unit when you could make then tougher and need 2 ennemies shooting to kill them? The soulburst will still happens, but you'll have less casualties.

...or your unit could survive a round of shooting to kill an enemy unit later triggering a soulburst, meaning you're one up for the same effect.

Unless of course you're playing 4d Wizard Chess and setting up Soulbursts in the enemy turn to position for your turn.

Ynneadwraith wrote:

Unless of course you're playing 4d Wizard Chess and setting up Soulbursts in the enemy turn to position for your turn.

Of course you should be setting up soulbursts in the enemy turn to position for your turn. That's basically what this army is all about.

dumpeal wrote:

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Also, FnP is good if you're trying to make your units live, but Ynnari thrive when their units die.

I think it's only partly true. Soulburst trigger when units die, but Ynnari would definitely benefit an increase of survivality. Why being happy when an ennemy unit shoot and kill 1 of your unit when you could make then tougher and need 2 ennemies shooting to kill them? The soulburst will still happens, but you'll have less casualties.

Not necessarily. One of the strategies against Ynnari is to just weaken all their units, rather than trying to finish off whole units.

This helps them in 2 ways: First, your units firepower goes down, and they have fewer "waste bullets" where they shoot you with more than necessary to finish off the unit. Second plays to the Ynnari rules themselves. With smaller units, you have to keep the models even closer together in order to soulburst off one another. Where it might have been difficult to finish both units simultaneously when there were 6 models in 2 units, it becomes much more manageable to do when there are 2 models total between 2 units. If they can use a template or blast attack that takes them both out at the same time, neither gets to soulburst.

And make no mistake: Ynnari aren't good without soulburst. They give up obsec, battle focus, and power from pain for it. If your opponent can successfully deny it, it's like playing a nerfed, non-obsec eldar or DE formation with no benefits and a handicap.

Not all armies will be able to utilize this strategy, but it's worth knowing about.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Ynneadwraith wrote:

Unless of course you're playing 4d Wizard Chess and setting up Soulbursts in the enemy turn to position for your turn.

Of course you should be setting up soulbursts in the enemy turn to position for your turn. That's basically what this army is all about.

Ah, I thought you implied earlier that the primary use of Soulburst was to provide extra shooting, hence why the Yncarne doesn't have particularly much use for it.

Is it more that most of the army benefits more from movement, but the Yncarne doesn't somehow? Or is it rather that other units in the army can use Soulburst for both movement and shooting, and thus get more utility out of it than the Yncarne, while the Yncarne still gets utility that's not negligible?

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

And make no mistake: Ynnari aren't good without soulburst. They give up obsec, battle focus, and power from pain for it. If your opponent can successfully deny it, it's like playing a nerfed, non-obsec eldar or DE formation with no benefits and a handicap.

Not all armies will be able to utilize this strategy, but it's worth knowing about.

Thankyou! I've heard a lot about how OP Ynnari are, all the while thinking that if the chain can be broken they'll fall apart because without it they don't have the added mobility of Battle Focus, resilience of PfP or tactical flexibility of Obsec.

In your opinion, are they like GS Cults? Not necessarily completely OP, just requires a different tactical approach to dismember?

Ynnari are like Vrak's Unending Host on steroids. If a Ynnari player has no concept of what they're doing their army is going to fall apart around them and they'll have no idea why. A Vrak's player with no experience will still have something going on though. They are both dealt with the same way, whittling down but never killing things. However, much like a Vrak's list, a Ynnari list in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing can make it impossible for their opponent to win by simply positioning themselves. You can't just dismember an army run by a player who genuinely knows how to run Ynnari because any attempts to do so will be punished too severely.

As for the Yncarne, it's our only LoW, and it has uses which BTW isn't picking up on. 6 Fleshbane/Armorbane/Soulblaze AP2 attacks at WS9 and I10 is nothing to sneeze at and getting it into combat with what you want is a breeze if you know how to bait. This thing is designed to wreck Knight Titans, something we haven't had a solution to. Lemme give you an example:

You're fighting a list with a Knight Titan and you deep strike Scourges with Heat Lances next to it. They plink a couple hull points off but don't kill it. The Knight then moves and shoots the Scourges, blowing them off the table. Normally, this would be sad, there goes your anti-armor. But now you have the Yncarne come on the board where the Scourges were. The weakened Knight Titan already shot, so it can't charge the Yncarne. Next turn the Yncarne moves up, charges, the knight, and removes it with AP2 Armorbane at S6. If the knight survives it's hitting on 5s and has to pray for a 6 stomp as its only real retaliation.

This combined with its ability to get out of Dodge any time something dies means it can always set itself up for the charge and can almost always evade enemy fire. It's a distraction. You want the opponent to chase it across the board, and every time they don't you want to punish them by attacking something expensive with it.

One can make grandioso claims in a vacuum. Why wouldn't he pour all of his remaining shooting to yncarne?

Because he's an Imperial player and has probably spent all his drop pods far, far away from his Knight Titan, so anything that could hurt it is too far away to be effective or has bigger fish to fry, like Venoms or Mandrakes. Alternatively he's an Imperial player and has a brain cramp where he would fire everything else first and save the Scourges for last.

The number of Space Marines players I've met who have any semblance of tactical understanding could be counted on one hand.

Edit: I forgot what we were talking about.