Ynnari Tactics - Initial impressions

No it actually isn't. The FAQ does absolutely nothing to resolve that either. This is not the avenue for this conflict and is off topic.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

I also noticed there is an army rule with the potential to be contentious. The "Strength from death" rule specifies that it can, itself, trigger a soulburst action if a non-vehicle unit with the special rule is within 7" of another unit that dies, then goes on to tell what soulburst actions are.

The strength from death rule doesn't trigger on vehicles, however, vehicles still HAVE the strength from death rule by being a part of the army, and a DIFFERENT special rule from the reborn warhost called "warhost of ynnead" actually grants a unit with the "Strength from death" rule permission to make a soulburst action without the 7" or "Non-vehicle" limitations. Instead, it allows you to CHOOSE a unit to take a soulburst action whenever a unit dies, in ADDITION to the normal one that is triggered if within 7 inches, with the qualifier that the detachment must include at least 7 units for you to get to make said choice.

I noticed this too and I tend to agree. No range limitation and no "non-vehicle" limitation either as this rule does not even work with SfD rule. Being member of the detachment and being on board obviously seems to be the only limiter here.

EDIT: The unit does not have to be part of the detachment either obviously...

EDIT2: I would recommmend actually playing it according to the SfD rule with its limitations or we could begin to see chaos warhound titans Soulbursting the crap out of everything. :-D

EDIT3: Now this is interesting... you win initiative, turboboost your assault units in transports in the enemy face, he shoots transport, you charge him through soulburst! Priceless! T1 assault.

Guys please, we have bigger issues to discuss here. Personally the lack of Mandrakes really seems to remove most viable lists i was considering from this army. There is only so much you can do without them and frankly their absence doesn't make any sense. Perhaps it is because they are the most legit of all the Dark Eldar, or maybe they're just too daemonic for the army, whatever the reason, this might be an unreconcileable blow.

We still have Striking Scorpions though so the patient isn't dead yet, but it isn't looking good.

Just bring a support cad. I'm actually frozen due to having too few slots more than too few choices.

Jimsolo wrote:

My initial thought is a "Freakstar:" a single large unit (probably a Seer Council) with additional hangers-on such as an HQ with the Armor of Misery (probably with a WWP), an HQ with the Mask of Secrets, etc.  (I'm thinking Seer Council plus Shadowseer plus Archon/Succubus plus either the Visarch, another Farseer, or an Autarch with a Banshee Mask.) Then Scatterbikes all the way down, after that.  

I really like Jimsolo's idea of a "Freakstar" with this new army, especially since most of the freakshow options are available all in one CAD. The concept I had for it though is that instead of a seer council, it would be a d-scythe wraithguard unit with a level 3 farseer as warlord, archon with WWP and armor of misery, and 2x level 2 shadowseers (one with the mask of secrets).

The reason for the d-scythe wraithguard over the seer council is the idea that the wraithguard would be able to take advantage of the soulburst action more than a seer council could, specifically when it comes to shooting. With the new warlord traits, there is about a 30% chance that the farseer will get Warden of Forgotten Wisdom, allowing the warlock to get gate of infinity. Rolling that trait isn't something a player can rely on, but the games that you do have it would be really satisfying.

Why would you want gate of infinity? You'd still scatter...

What do folks think about a large foot Banshee squad with a Shadowseer to give Veil of Tears? The Shadowseer would lose out on 3" of movement turn one, but should be able to stay within 2" of the back of the unit. Turn 2, Banshees may assault, or the Shadowseer could hang on to a straggler. By Turn 3, it shouldn't matter.

amorrowlyday wrote:

Why would you want gate of infinity? You'd still scatter...

I may be misunderstanding the rules, but gate of infinity removes the target from board and then immediately arrives back on it via deep strike. Since the target is the group with the archon equipped with a web way portal, the group does not scatter from arriving from deep strike.

You're misunderstanding the rules. Gate of infinity places "like coming in from deep strike reserves". You didn't actually go there and the WWP expressly only works if you were actually there. They even issued an FAQ to this effect.

Isnt it better to put 3x10 banshees in raider, boost them in the face of the enemy and when the raider is shot down, just charge him in his turn through the Soulburst?

He may decide - either he will shoot the raider and get banshees in the face, or he will not shoot the raider and get banshees in the face moments later. No need for chancey psychic support.

I agree with Aurynn provided the day 1 FAQ is at all coherent and the destruction of the vehicle doesn't not trigger the unit inside.

Day 1 FAQ? Are we getting some? That particular ruling would be unfortunate and a serious blow to the whole thing...

You are correct amorrowlyday, my mistake.

With the number of publically discussed questions soulburst has triggered I wouldn't be surprised if we did, especially since the Magnus release triggered one. I didn't really see anything new in the cadia stuff either, merely reformulations.

@amorrowlyday I couldn't agree more, there's a serious lack of slots in the war host and it just further points out the limitations of the dark eldar codex. It's relativity easy to get CWE into the war host through formations, but if you want to get DE then you are limited to essentially a CAD. I've quickly come to the conclusion that if you want to get a significant amount of DE in a Ynnari force you're going to have to run two warhosts / psuedo CAD. Unfortunately that's going to entail a bit of book keeping to remember which one had which units in for the seven or more units bonus which I imagine it's going to be a pain.

I suppose you can use the other formations to get some DE in but none of them really do it for me.

Anyway my initial thoughts are that this will work best as an extreme MSU list with limited use of transports, which will be weird being a dark eldar player and not taking transports. Therefore, I'm starting to think that the three new characters probably don't synagis too well with the way I think the army will work. Which is a shame as I've just got them.  

My initial thoughts on tactics is to give your opponent a serious threat over load by being very aggressive and giving them a serious target priority problem, made worse by them second guessing themselves due to their perceived consequences of SFD. Don't get me wrong, I do not advocate sending units to their death just to trigger soul burst, but it's a bonus we'll need to use it.

The trick will be selecting the right units to be the forward spearhead and making sure that they have sufficient overlapping range with each other to be useful.

Again, don't get me wrong I'm not going to advocate attempting to set up a complicated chain of events just to get a soul burst action from one unit. This is more than likely the quickest way to lose as the last thing you want to think about is setting up an elaborate ruse while still trying to play to the objectives. My idea is to have enough cheap expendable units to push up so that your opponent has to deal with them one way or another.

So to me the units for this part of the army will have to be cheap and might as well be short ranged and or CC, mobility helps but I'd not necessary as you could be soul bursting up the table. My initial thoughts on likely candidates are:

Dire avengers
Guardians (storm are probably best)
Kablites
Beast masters all types
Hellions
Wyches (just to try and tie things up)

Things that don't quite make the list but could be useful, say in a second wave:

Warp spiders
Reavers
Scourge
Swooping hawks

So when it comes to army construction it sort of makes sense to include the CWE stuff as aspect hosts or dire avenger shrines were applicable. If I was to use Guardians then consideration could be made to a storm host but it's a bit tax heavy, I suppose a strike force could work but I would be paying for the webway assault and possibly not using it to its best effect.

Now the problem, in my shortlist there's a number of fast attack DE options and only 6 slots in a dual warhost!

For anti tank I was thinking 2 units of fire dragons (as part of aspect host) each with WWP HQ. Hopefully each can get two tanks in the turn they turn up with soul burst, but I suppose it depends on how your opponent sets up.

I've just realised that this turned into me straitening my initial thoughts on the army and is a bit longer than I would have liked, but at least I think I've got an outline plan now

Do not discount Reavers just so easily. Their ability to either shoot twice per phase if they for example blow a vehicle and charge OR kill stuff at ini 10 with their caltrops, charge something else via Soulburst and deliver the rest of their attacks gives them (and Arena Champion with Agoniser) a new purpose. Or in the enemy turn Soulburst to charge and HnR and Shoot-Shoot-Charge again in their turn.

@aurynn I wasn't discounting reavers from the list, infact I've got a roll for them in the second wave / suporting the spearhead. They didn't make the list for the Expendables, as I think they are too good for that, well unless it serves a purpose.

Ah. I should go to sleep. :-) Although I do consider Reavers both expendable and good. Cheap enough and good enough. :-)

I am liking that others are also seeing that "single suicide Khmare" isnt that great a unit with the Ynnari. Who on earth would attack it? If it gets a soulbound bump, it cant really make use of it (charging to take up OW is a terrible use of a FA slot).

Staying away from CWE, we dont really have many units that dont want to start in vehicles. Coupled with the uncertainty that they can start in allied transports (shadowseer joining my Grotesquery), we need to have both shooty and fast units that can be a threat to the enemy on the ground.

For me this means Reavers, Scourges, Beastpacks, Hellions (?) starting with a friendly shadowseer (60 pts is just too cheap not to get the psykic support and HaR). Allied DE CAD for ObSec warrior venoms. Line everything up on your deployment edge.

If you go first, move and run to get close enough so the scourge/venom fire kills something allowing you to charge.

If you go second, hope that some venoms die and you get to shoot/boost up and threaten stuff with your cheaper/tougher units.

Ynnari Harlequins have no shared Faction with covens (DE) Grotesques. So I don't see how that argument is relevant?

I also think this argument breaks the IC-transport rule chain related to Battle brother IC's.

Massaen wrote:

It's 100% raw - it's very clear in the rule book and the FAQ makes it clearer

It actually doesn't matter. The fact is, you can't start on another detachment's transport if you're only battle brothers. That is what the FAQ cleared up: The fact that we didn't have permission to start on a BB transport. This isn't due to a stated limitation, it's due to a lack of permission. On the other hand, we have been given permission for units that share a faction, but who are from different detachments to start embarked on each others transport. So them having both a shared faction and the faction of their origin doesn't matter. They can begin embarked on each other's transports due to having a shared faction.

Because it is a permissive ruleset, this makes it clear.

aurynn wrote:

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

I also noticed there is an army rule with the potential to be contentious. The "Strength from death" rule specifies that it can, itself, trigger a soulburst action if a non-vehicle unit with the special rule is within 7" of another unit that dies, then goes on to tell what soulburst actions are.

The strength from death rule doesn't trigger on vehicles, however, vehicles still HAVE the strength from death rule by being a part of the army, and a DIFFERENT special rule from the reborn warhost called "warhost of ynnead" actually grants a unit with the "Strength from death" rule permission to make a soulburst action without the 7" or "Non-vehicle" limitations. Instead, it allows you to CHOOSE a unit to take a soulburst action whenever a unit dies, in ADDITION to the normal one that is triggered if within 7 inches, with the qualifier that the detachment must include at least 7 units for you to get to make said choice.

I noticed this too and I tend to agree. No range limitation and no "non-vehicle" limitation either as this rule does not even work with SfD rule. Being member of the detachment and being on board obviously seems to be the only limiter here.

EDIT: The unit does not have to be part of the detachment either obviously...
EDIT2: I would recommmend actually playing it according to the SfD rule with its limitations or we could begin to see chaos warhound titans Soulbursting the crap out of everything. :-D

I'm pretty certain that there is precedent for this, where they've said a detachment/formation rule can only effect models from that detachment unless it explicitly says otherwise. In this case, it's not clear whether it's talking about only units in the detachment or not, which means it's, by definition, NOT explicitly saying it does. So it would only effect models inside the detachment. This is my current theory. I don't currently have the proof at hand to prove this one way or another, so if someone else does, I'd love to see it!

I think Aurynn's presumption is probably accurate for precisely the reason your suggesting it isn't though: It is a permissive ruleset. We are only given permission to do what we are explicitly given permission to do, it just so happens that one of those permissions is brokenly open ended RAW. It explicitly gives me permission to have an extra unit soul burst, it doesn't give me permission to trigger power from death a second time.

EDIT: Grammar and spell are bad, sorry english is hard for me.

After playing some games with it, (100% pure DE to see if I could get them to be playable for me) I've learned I will only be using 2-3 DE units, Bikes, Archon+WWP and maybe Incubi.

There was MANY details we had to look up and here are some Details we feel are how it would be played as RAW and RAI

1) You can not hop combat to combat if you "shot" the unit that died, so this changed some ideas on play style for us for sure.

Example Reaver Bikes either want HL or Caltrops not both. Harlequins and Incubi are really good melee units WITH a IC/Higher Int Strong Int set (A harlequin unit with a Troupe master with a better weapon AND another Character like a succubus) this way the Master and Character can whipe a unit so you can charge another unit then the Players can kill the 2nd unit, Also Harlequins with Embraces might be a good idea b.c, HoW IS AMAZING

A 9man Reaver unit with 3 Caltrops, add a Arena Champ with Agoniser, this way you kill a unit then hop to another unit to get them to 1/2 strength if not even more so.

Also a 9man Reaver unit with 3 HL are equally as good as Caltrops units, you can Shoot, kill a vehicle then turbo boost away or shoot again  

2) We are not 100% sure how Open top vehicles work when you have Flamers "Killing" or "being Killed" the unit inside the vehicle. Sense "auras" dont work would Soulburst work?

We ruled it that it would work

Also following the rules if you wreck/explode a vehicle, the unit "Rules as written" get out of the vehicle "before" you actually "destroy" the vehicle so being in a vehicle when it dies will trigger a soulburst action for that unit. Having a melee unit in open top (like Incubi in raiders) you can let your opponent kill the raider and you can charge on their turn.


Over all for sure Reaver bikes and a Archon with a WWP are AMAZING, Incubi and Harlequins both are really good too, I personally like the Harlequins b.c you easily can make a DeathStar out of them just hopping Combat to Combat (Shadowsweer's with a Troupe Master with 3-4 Embraces on players you can at times get 3 combats in 1 turn, you can add other IC too afc, a farseer as Warlord if you get the "You pick the powers'' you will pick invis and other broken power).

Over all Bikes (eldar, Harlequins and DE) are all AMAZING, Archon with WWP DS'ing D-flamers is AMAZING. Fire Dragons in Raider with NS is good too etc....

About the Formations, I personally like the Bikes Formation (Ynneads Net) and I think i'll run that every game, I also might run 1 Black Guardians for the Webway Assault, DS no scatter with Battlefocus that you can put Melta or flamer seems really good.

Over all if you like Bikes and playing Bikes it is by far better to play these new rules, it gives MANY Eldar units a better means to get around (Wraithguard, Bansheesm Fire dragons and Guardians etc..)

IMO Yvraine isnt worth it, I personally like Visarch for lower point games and 1850+ I like Tycarne, I wouldn't play all 3 unless its 2500+

What is an HoM? Last line of section 3.

amorrowlyday wrote:

What is an HoM? Last line of section 3.

I will edit that i am sorry it was meant HoW (Hammer of Wraith)