So...the Avatar of Khaine and Beast Packs

I finally got around to reading through the Eldar codex and was quite surprised, I hadn't heard more about the Avatar's buffing abilities. He gives all friendly units within 12 inches Furious Charge, Rage, AND Fearless?!! With Fleet and Battle Focus also, I got to thinking that it wouldn't be too hard to keep him within 12 inches of large Khymera squads. With the Avatar's buffs, a 12 man Khymera squad puts out 60 Str 5 attacks at I6 on the charge and the Fearless makes them a good tarpit as well. Plus, they're relatively cheap at only 120 per unit. Taking three max squads seems like it would be great board control and a fairly cost effective way to distract the opposing army as with three full units, they're looking at a whole lot of Str 5 attacks coming their way on Turn 2 unless they devote a lot of resources to dealing with it on the first turn.

So, am I crazy for thinking this could be pretty awesome?

Sadly, the Avatar's aura only works on friendly units with the Eldar faction.

Huh. Really?

I thought Eldar, Dark Eldar and Harlequins were all of the Eldar faction, hence the Battle Brothers.

No, they are each separate factions that are battle brothers with each other.

Well, crap. So much for that idea. Guess its back to the old drawing board on how to make Beast Packs useful again. Thanks, Count. For crushing my dreams. : )

You could ask some Howling Banshees to go down on all fours and bark a bit?

I think that would be too cruel seeing as how they've been crawling around on the ground, the lowest of the low, for a couple of editions now and they just finally are starting to get back up and reclaim something resembling self-respect and pride (sort of).

I can't tell if this is the worst conversation ever, or the best

This is the dark city. So it is both.

Thor665 wrote:

I can't tell if this is the worst conversation ever, or the best

Coming from Thor, I choose to take this as lofty praise.

Sorry for reviving the old thread, but as I understand Khaine's buff does affect DE and Harlies.

From CWE codex,

Quote :

Khaine Awakened: The Avatar, and all friendly units with the Eldar faction within 12"~

I think Eldar faction now indicates all three Eldar-race factions. For example, the official codex says Codex: Eldar - Craftworlds, Codex: Eldar - Harliequins, and Codex: Dark Eldar. I admit DE is arguably in Codex: Eldar, as the codex came out before the change of Eldar to Craftworlds.

However, even if Eldar faction only indicates Craftworlds as Adhemar said, the three factions are battle brother anyway, and thus they are friendly units with the Eldar faction. From BRB,

Quote :

Units from the same army that are Battle Brothers treat each other as 'friendly units' for all rules purposes.

So my conclusion is, beasts following the Avatar seems worthwhile to test!

Whilst that's an..interesting way of twisting the rules the phrase "all friendly units with the Eldar faction" does not mean "all units that are friendly to the Eldar faction".

Much as I'd like this to work I'm afraid it simply doesn't.

Well, I never wanted to be a rule lawyer Thanks anyway, I'll check that again!

EDIT: Frankly, I still don't know the difference between 'all friendly units with the Eldar faction' and 'all units that are friendly to the Eldar faction'...but, I admit I'm not a native English speaker and your interpretation is more precise than mine. Thanks!

It says Avatar buffs your own Craftworlders, not your opponents.

Codex Harlies and DE state that they are Faction Harlies and DE. Haemy on the otherhand belongs to DE faction hence the definition supplement.

This may be some Necromancy but it has been pointed out to me that Eldar no longer exist as a faction. Craft world, harlequin, and dark eldar. None of those have the faction:Eldar.

The Red King wrote:

This may be some Necromancy but it has been pointed out to me that Eldar no longer exist as a faction. Craft world, harlequin, and dark eldar.  None of those have the faction:Eldar.

That is not true. In the Eldar codex under "Datasheets" headline there is the following:
1. Faction: The unit’s Faction will be shown here by a symbol. All of the units described in this book have the Eldar Faction.

Edit: Isn't Dark Eldar faction also Eldar? Black car is still a car too... :-)

Just to put this to bed once and for all:

Codex Craftworlds wrote:

1. Faction: The unit’s Faction will be shown here by a symbol. All of the units described in this book have the Eldar Faction.

Codex Dark Eldar wrote:

1. Faction: The unit’s Faction is shown here by a symbol. All units that have thissymbol, which is all the units described in this book, have the Dark Eldar Faction.

Codex Harlequins wrote:

1. Faction: The unit’s Faction will be shown here by a symbol. All of the units described in this book have the Harlequins Faction.

Dang. And maybe are they viable without the Avatar?

CptMetal wrote:

Dang. And maybe are they viable without the Avatar?

There's a thread here about 7e beastpacks.

Count Adhemar wrote:

You could ask some Howling Banshees to go down on all fours and bark a bit?

A wonderfully Dark Kin response!

Beast packs are useful chaff. As I just posted in the thread Count Adhemar linked to