Ynnari Tactics - Initial impressions

Not had a chance to look through this thread until this morning. Some very interesting debates and ideas. I'm currently leaning towards Jimsolo's idea of the Seer Council + IC's Freakstar. I'd want to include the following:

Visarch - High Initiative AP2 attacks, Eternal Warrior, enemies within 3" have to use their lowest Ld, death of any of the unit will heal him and if they're characters it increases his attacks
Shadowseer - Phantasmancy psychic powers, Pinning, hit & run, Mask of Secrets
Succubus - High Initiative AP2 attacks, Armour of Misery, WWP
Yvraine - Revenant psychic powers, additional Warp Charges, Eternal Warrior, death of any of the unit heals her and if they're characters she increases her mastery level
Farseers - Telepathy, Divination and Runes of Fate psychic powers
Autarch - fusion gun, no overwatch from enemy units

No scatter deep strike then hit anything nearby with psychic powers using your 18+ warp charges (+D3 for Yvraine). Psychic shriek at -4 from the target's lowest Leadership will deal with pretty much anything with a Toughness value. For protection you've got Veil of Tears, a shot at Invisibility, pretty much guaranteed Shrouding and several other options. Not to mention that most of the unit has a reasonable armour and/or invulnerable save.

Singing Spears and fusion gun will take out almost any vehicle with shooting attacks.

Warlocks, Succubus, Yvraine, Visarch and the Autarch should be able to deal with almost any melee threat and they have Hit & Run if they need it.

As I'm already taking 2 of the 3, I'd probably go for the Triumvirate formation (meaning I could also take a Wraithknight in the LoW slot). Try to teleport her in near the Freakstar on the enemy turn to give them FNP and make the whole army Fearless.

Taking the Seer Council for the majority of my Freakstar still means I need 3 HQ slots though so we're looking at 2 Reborn Warhosts. I might need to drop the Autarch.

Points may be an issue...

ideas to lower the cost: Could you do this with sslyth instead of a council for majority toughness 5? They will cost less than warlocks and you will still have lots of warp charge with lvl2 shadowseer, lvl2 Yvraine + gyrinx + lvl3 farseer + lvl3 Yncarne if he/she is on the field somewhere.

To cut cost even further khymaera can also be taken instead for majority T4 and lots of cheap S4 attacks.

Oh you could absolutely do this with other base units, Harlequins would also be a good choice. I like the Warlocks though because they are characters, psykers and, with Singing Spears, are able to deal with almost any sort of threat.

Lack of grenades is a potential issue for the unit but you can't have everything!

Walkers/Superheavy Walkers could be a problem but you've got a decent chance of getting one or more buffs to your Strength (Empower, Ancestor's Grace, Hammerhand) which will usually give you a decent chance.

I've realised that I don't need the Spiritseer as I already have access to Runes of Battle. I can probably do without the Autarch too so that brings the cost down a bit.

EDIT- Dammit. I've just realised that Warlocks are not characters

Yes, we also dicussed a -LD test lists with the new book, you dont even need Coven at all to do it but it will help, you can have DE/Harlequins for debuffs, with some Wracks or Grots to get another -1, then the Warlocks/Farseers just Psychic Shriek it up.

Yncarne in just the icing on the cake haha

I'm thinking if a council on foot is the word, then there would be utility in replacing one of your Farseers in the council with Eldrad.

Corsair voidstorm bands are all characters. Only all character unit we have access to.

Well as I see it best use of the new ynnead rules are alpha or beta strikes in a mixed CC and fire based army.

Using the dark eldar character and transports or eldar to deepstrike behind and I front of your opponents army.

Example:

You deepstrike 3 raiders with warriors and 3 falcons with firedragons and 2 units of harlequins.

Against space marine force.

Aiming at transports and sort targets first. You use the warriors to kill of scouts or low count units like heavy weapon units after the firedragons destroy the transportsame.
Then use the soul burst to shoot with the firedragons and warriors again.
I am not 100% sure if you can assault after deepstrike with soul burst bit. But if yes assault with the harlequins too... or shoot them last and assault the remaining space marine next turn.

Unfortunately, Corsairs hurt Ynnari, since joining their ICs to our units invalidates SfD.

Correct, but once the squad is dead and has boosted the Visarch up to 7 attacks that's sort of a moot point.

They don't have to be in the same squad, just within 7/14" at time of death right?

Correct!

Just fiddlin' around and came up with this:

Succubus (WWP, Archite Glaive, Armor of Misery)
Scatterbikes x3
Scatterbikes x3
Scatterbikes x3
Scatterbikes x3
Scatterbikes x3

Seer Council
Eldrad
Farseer (Spirit Stone, Singing Spear)
Warlock x7 (Singing Spear x7)

The Triumvirate (Yvraine, the Visarch, the Yrachne)

Comes in around 1835 points. I'm not sold on the Yrachne, but if you drop him you have to split the army across two Reborn Warhosts to accomodate both Yvrane and the Visarch in addition to the Succubus (who's carring the all important WWP). And if you do that, you lose the double Soulburst bonus for one of the Warhosts.

If that list drops some warlocks you can bring a raider allowing you to also drop the succubus.

I don't know your capacity to handle armor is limited there.

Jimsolo wrote:

Just fiddlin' around and came up with this:

Succubus (WWP, Archite Glaive, Armor of Misery)
Scatterbikes x3
Scatterbikes x3
Scatterbikes x3
Scatterbikes x3
Scatterbikes x3

Seer Council
Eldrad
Farseer (Spirit Stone, Singing Spear)
Warlock x7 (Singing Spear x7)

The Triumvirate (Yvraine, the Visarch, the Yrachne)

Comes in around 1835 points.  I'm not sold on the Yrachne, but if you drop him you have to split the army across two Reborn Warhosts to accomodate both Yvrane and the Visarch in addition to the Succubus (who's carring the all important WWP). And if you do that, you lose the double Soulburst bonus for one of the Warhosts.  

Very similar to the list I was working on:

HQ
Succubus
Archite Glaive, Armour of Misery, Webway Portal

Troops
Windriders
Scatter Lasers
Windriders
Scatter Lasers
Windriders
Scatter Lasers

Elite
Shadowseer
Mastery Level 2, Mask of Secrets

Lord of War
Wraithknight
2 x Scatter Lasers

Formation – Triumvirate of Ynnead
The Yncarne
Yvraine
The Visarch

Formation – Seer Council
Farseer
Singing Spear
Farseer
Singing Spear
Warlock Conclave
5 x Warlocks, Singing Spears

Comes to 1848 points, gets the double soulburst bonus, has 2 Lords of War (effectively), a deathstar that should be able to deal with most threats and some scatbikes for objectives and to take out light armour and infantry.

The main drawback is that your deathstar wants to start in reserve, leaving just the wraithknight and scatbikes on the table at the start of the game, which is asking for trouble. Plus there's no ObjSec.

Gotta admit I was hoping to see more than 1 model from the Dark Eldar codex in lists on here.

I'm liking Ynarri because it'll allow me play very different lists from week to week but still be within the same faction, but I can't really find reasons to choose the dark eldar elements over what the others offer.

I did make a freakshow type of list too, but I was liking the idea of getting more death jesters and shadow seers in there instead of the seer council. I'm not sure I'm seeing how a big council benefits from SfD.

lessthanjeff wrote:

Gotta admit I was hoping to see more than 1 model from the Dark Eldar codex in lists on here

I agree and I have been working on other lists that contain more DE units but when considering Freakshows, sadly the main thing DE bring is the Armour of Misery and a WWP.

What do you think of beastpacks? They bring a lot of cheap bodies, benefits from sfd (moving an extra 12" would be nice) and can be more easily than before joined by a jetbike IC (for fearless, banshees mask, or a jetseer for buffs). I'm not thinking previous edition deathstar, but a very mobile and cheap assault unit, and a aeldari souls delivery system.

If you play the yncarne, they make a disposable bank of ealdari souls that cant be ignored with fearless and T4 5++ fnp at 10pts/piece.

I think Khymerae beastpacks could well make a comeback in one way or another in this army. Cheap, fast moving and can't be ignored but also relatively easy to kill so you risk triggering soulburst actions if you attack them.

Count Adhemar wrote:

I think Khymerae beastpacks could well make a comeback in one way or another in this army. Cheap, fast moving and can't be ignored but also relatively easy to kill so you risk triggering soulburst actions if you attack them.

I was thinking along the exact same lines. Even if they are just a buffer for a farseer, getting him into position for the nova power, it is a unit that cannot be ignored due to both its potential footprint, and its potential damage output.

So.. I feel khymerae will make a comeback.

And with the advent of this army, the following armies will take a HUGE drop in popularity on the tournament scene:

Iron hands Gladius lists
Drop Pod lists (both blood angels and raven guard)

But this army will see a huge jump in popularity:
Death Stars. (any and all varieties).

Ynnari lists are also problematic for the basic Dark Eldar MSU lists, given the increased likelihood of getting Soulbursts from wiping squads.

Ynneadwraith wrote:

Ynnari lists are also problematic for the basic Dark Eldar MSU lists, given the increased likelihood of getting Soulbursts from wiping squads.

At least we will see more Reavers, you know the unit that is already played by many players, now it will be played by more!

I haven't seen the appeal to using Reavers in Ynnari yet. I want to use them, but the only benefit they seem to get is charging out of sequence. If I charge and wipe a unit with them and take advantage of charging a second unit, that just means they have to endure two rounds of overwatch and at least one round of close combat attacks (since they'd probably kill the first unit at a high initiative and then charge into the second unit when the opponent can still make his attacks back at a lower initiative). I'm not sure the unit would survive that against many targets.

I see Reavers as a way to Turbo Boost them in my opponents turn and assaulting my T1 if I go second. The out of sequence shooting is nice too because my Heat lances or Blasters do not always get to have full BS when shooting.

I do like that idea. I'm sure I could hide some reaver units just behind other threats and maybe even out of LOS to turboboost out when something else of mine dies.

Reavers can charge, kill and turboboost on an objective, or shoot something else.
Double charge is the last thing I'd do with them, even though they would probabibly have higher initiative than the second unit they charge.