Footdar Ynnari

Has anyone tried shirking transports in a Ynnari force and just spamming cheap Troops and maxing out the special weapons options?

20 Kabalites with two Blasters and two Dark Lances are only 210 points and can use SfD every psychic phase or when a neighboring friendly mob of Kabalites or Guardians gets wiped out.  

For 1050pts we can put 100 Kabalites on the ground and still have almost 1000pts for Ravagers/Fliers, and Scourges.

Has anyone tried this?

Even as simple as a list of Yvraine, Yncarne, 4x 20 Dbl darklight Kabalites, 2x Razorwing, Hemlock, and a dissie Ravager or something?

I haven't had a chance to run Ynnari lists yet but I just find it weird that the lists I see are always very elite when it seems the SfD power lies in persuading us NOT to run an all anti-grav army in exchange for having Astra Militarum like tricks. Our Ynnari armies should be like guard chaff with pointy ears

I'm far from an expert on Ynnnari, so feel free to take my advice with a pinch of salt.

However, the 20-man Kabalite squads seem counter-intuitive in a Ynnari list.

Firstly, you can only cast Word of the Phoenix (or whatever the SfD power is called) once per turn - so one one of those 4 squads can reliably benefit from it each turn.

In addition, because these squads are so large, your opponent can inflict severe damage to them without destroying them completely - allowing him to whittle them severely before triggering SfD. And if they die from morale, then they won't trigger SfD at all.

But let's say that you do get off SfD - the issue is that you only have an optimum range of 12". And if you move (whether normally or with SfD) then your Dark Lances are going to be firing at -1BS. This also means that you'll struggle to get enemies within 7" for the purposes of killing them and triggering SfD that way.

I think Ynnari is better suited to a more MSU approach - particularly with faster units (rather than regular Infantry).

If you really want to use a lot of standard troops, then I would use smaller squads and aim for assault weapons.

e.g.:
5 Kabalite Warriors with a Blaster (50pts, 57 if you want to add an Agoniser and PGL)
10 Guardian Defenders with a Shuriken Cannon platform - 104pts
10 Storm Guardians with 2 Fusion Guns - 104pts

I would lean towards the Kabalite Warriors as I believe that MSU is preferable, but YMMV.

You would run storm guardians in groups of 8 - not that it changes anything. Just wanted to say.

There are significantly better things to use your psychic phase soulburst on. Dark Reapers or D-Scythe Wraiths are probably the best candidates.

That said, yes, Kabs are pretty solid choice in an Ynnari list, just not the way you're describing them. Use 5 Kabs w/ Blaster in a Venom for reliable area denial - 4 of those can cover a pretty big area that will last a couple turns.

The other option is throwaway in-your-face assault units that your opponent can't ignore. Kabs with a Blaster are still solid without a Venom at 50 points, and there's a decent argument for double fusion Storm Guardians. Problem is, to get in your opponent's face you have to play Yvraine pretty far up, so you risk losing your area denial setup and getting out of range of whatever you're trying to soulburst.

In general, trying to get soulburst triggers from throwaway units is tougher in practice than on paper.

I mean.. you have a reliable way of Soulbursting a unit every turn in your Psychic phase.

This unit you're Soulbursting every Psychic phase is either going to have 5 models or less or it's going to have 20 or less depending on how you built your army.

The 20 strong unit is always going to be firing as many special weapons as the 5 strong, so why is it that counterintuitive to have a stronger firing force that can maximize Soulburst better? You can have a unit fire 16-32 Splinter shots and 4 darklight twice on your turn and possibly once on theirs unless your opponent chooses to reduce their numbers but not kill them all. OR just wipe them all out and trigger ANOTHER 16-32 Splinter shots and 4 darklight from the neighboring unit.

5 Kabalites in a Venom are probably not a candidate for Soulburst until turn 2 or never, because how often do you really have Kabalites leave their Venoms? AND once they are a possible candidate their damage output is so miniscule that it doesn't make up for being in a vehicle for a turn or two.

Unless you have Bikes or you're just not running Infantry at all, it seems really inefficient to play a faction that can have two unit actions in a turn and pass up a whole turn or more without optimizing the odds of additional actions. Yes vehicles don't lose their damage output until they're destroyed but they're also not putting out enough damage to be equivalent to a unit quadruple their passengers' that's potentially firing twice this turn.

Just trying to spell my thoughts out more clearly. Hope that didn't feel confrontational or aggressive, really not my intention, just trying to make sure my reasoning is clear here.

Or feels clear anyway. I'm definitely open to being wrong and realizing this is bad in theory or in practice. I just don't feel convinced by the MSU approach.

There will always, or should always, be a better candidate for said reliable soul burst in your army than kabs. Even if they're maxed. Look at your Elites and Heavy Support options. Yeah that's a lot of splinter, but splinter isn't exactly the most high quality weapon profile you've got as Ynnari. Even if you've decided to play DE Ynnari and not being Aspect Warriors or Wraiths for some reason. In a casual environment I can see it being okay and quite fun to roll all those dice, but I wouldn't call it a competitive build.

I tend to favor CWE units as soulburst targets as they can benefit from farseer's/autarchs. Lately I have been using it on a 9 man bike squad. (with guide and fortune on them).

Large units are risky, I find it hard to see a situation outside of you shooting someone who failed their deepstrike charge, where you get full benefit from soulbursting a 20 man kabby squad. Its really just a blaster and a couple lances with 16 bodies protecting them.

I think a list like the one you are talking about would excel more in like 750-1,000 point games. Too many advantages to MSU in higher point games.

I have been playing without transports in this edition and its not that bad. You basically have to castle though to make sure you get some soulburst movements t1. I have found its really easy to trick your opponent into thinking "this guy deployed wrong, one kabby squad in front of his HQ!? This will be easy" Then they find out how good it is to take actions out of turn after wasting time and ammo into a 35 point unit. Every missed hit they roll is like striking gold.

lcfr wrote:

I mean.. you have a reliable way of Soulbursting a unit every turn in your Psychic phase.

This unit you're Soulbursting every Psychic phase is either going to have 5 models or less or it's going to have 20 or less depending on how you built your army.  

The 20 strong unit is always going to be firing as many special weapons as the 5 strong, so why is it that counterintuitive to have a stronger firing force that can maximize Soulburst better?

How do you figure?

5 Scourges will be firing 4 Dark Lances twice.

5 Dark Reapers will be Firing 5 Reaper Launchers twice.

20 Kabalites will be firing 2 Dark Lances twice.

Yes, the 20 Kabalites can have Blasters as well, but then you're relying on your target being within 18" of them.

Personally, I would rather focus on the long-range weapons.

lcfr wrote:

You can have a unit fire 16-32 Splinter shots and 4 darklight twice on your turn and possibly once on theirs unless your opponent chooses to reduce their numbers but not kill them all. OR just wipe them all out and trigger ANOTHER 16-32 Splinter shots and 4 darklight from the neighboring unit.

Bear in mind that getting 32 Splinter shots means moving up the board, thus causing their Dark Lances to hit on 4s instead of 3s, or else hoping that your opponent obligingly moves within 12" of them and yet does no significant damage to them in the process.

And in regard to killing them, it seems far more likely that your opponent would whittle most of the squad and then simply count on morale to kill the rest (thus circumventing SfD entirely).

lcfr wrote:

5 Kabalites in a Venom are probably not a candidate for Soulburst until turn 2 or never, because how often do you really have Kabalites leave their Venoms? AND once they are a possible candidate their damage output is so miniscule that it doesn't make up for being in a vehicle for a turn or two.

Unless you have Bikes or you're just not running Infantry at all, it seems really inefficient to play a faction that can have two unit actions in a turn and pass up a whole turn or more without optimizing the odds of additional actions. Yes vehicles don't lose their damage output until they're destroyed but they're also not putting out enough damage to be equivalent to a unit quadruple their passengers' that's potentially firing twice this turn.

This I agree with. I think Ynnari lists should be aiming to use as few transports as possible.

However, I think that this necessitates focusing on bikes and other fast units (rather than footslogging infantry) - since mobility is very important and you need to be able to get within 7" of your opponent to get maximum bang for buck from SfD.

lcfr wrote:

Just trying to spell my thoughts out more clearly.  Hope that didn't feel confrontational or aggressive

Not at all.


Let me just try and expand on the MSU point a bit. If you only look at basic infantry, then yes, 20-man Warrior squads are going to benefit more from Word of the Phoenix than small ones.

However, the MSU squads I suggested have 2 great advantages: mobility and lack of resilience.

Mobility is important because, as above, you really want to be advancing so that you can get within 7" of your opponent (as you'll want to take advantage of their deaths - not just your own). You'll also want to be able to reposition as necessary, so that your opponent can't kill your units without triggering SfD on one of your nearby units.

The lack of resilience is actually a point in your favour - because every dead unit is a SfD trigger. Even assuming that one of those 20-man warrior squads was killed 'properly' (not with morale), it would still only trigger SfD once. Meanwhile, killing the same number of 5-man squads would have triggered SfD 4 times. Now, granted, those triggers will be for smaller squads - but because they are mobile you should have less trouble getting them up the field to begin with, meaning they'll be in better positions to take advantage of a given squad's death.

With 20-man squads, you're really having to rely on the few triggers you do get being good ones. I mean, imagine if one of your 20-man squads was wiped out, so you trigger SfD on its neighbour . . . only to find that it's splinter weapons are out of range of your opponent.

Also, in an MSU list, I would recommend running specific Word of the Phoenix targets - like a couple of Dark Lance Scourges or Dark Reaper squads (so that you don't 'waste' a guaranteed SfD activation on a 5-man Warrior squad or such).

We're not talking about MSU units being the target for your soulburst actions, but as the fodder. I guess the point I was trying to make is that there are significantly better options for double shooting than Kabalites, therefore Kabalites should be restricted to chaff roles - objective harassment, area denial, or in this case fodder for triggering SfD via, you know, dying.

The absolute best case scenario in your 20-strong kab case is 32 poison, 2 lances, 2 blasters. At 12 inches. For 217 points.
For 216 points you get 6 Dark Reapers shooting from the safety of 48".
For an even 200 points or 225 points you get D-Cannon Wraiths or D-Scythe Wraiths.
210 points gets you 6 Scatbikes. 6 ShuriCannon bikes for 192, or 7 ShuriCannon bikes for 224.

I could go on and on but the point is you will get significantly more mileage out of the heavier hitters in the Aeldari indices than Kabalites for soulburst shooting.

Just my thoughts on transports is that they are good way to get soulburst triggers by haveing large squads with a cheep charcter. I like lqrge squads of either trueborn firedragons or dark reapers with a transport. When the transport blows up you place the models then role to see if any are killed. Kill of your character normally a. Warlock or meduser and you get a free action.

Kelster wrote:

Just my thoughts on transports is that they are good way to get soulburst triggers by haveing large squads with a cheep charcter. I like lqrge squads of either trueborn firedragons or dark reapers with a transport. When the transport blows up you place the models then role to see if any are killed. Kill of your character normally a. Warlock or meduser and you get a free action.

This, Oh this! I having not played Ynnari, I hadn't realised that with the way the rules worked this was a thing!

Damn! I guess Mech Ynnari has its place after all!

Though unless that transport dies pretty quick yer missing out on the firepower that's inside the transport. You can't place CWE in a DE Transport even if the over faction is <Ynnari> it's pretty dumb but that is RAW ... but vehicles do have their place in moving models around the board to where ya need them

Yes part of tje reson i like trueborn as an option. With units like dark reapers its not hard to get value out if one round of shooting so if they do ignore it your fine as well as if all you units are built the same then they have to kill something