Phoenix Lords and their Aspect Warriors

Well, I just read this here article and I am drooling.
No kidding. The Maugetar alone has a statline that makes you want to hide in reserve:



Now we add the phenomenal Phoenixlord statline.
WS/BS 2+, S/T4 with 2+/4++ and we add this:



Yes, we have one of the best Codices, but when I see this, I feel a little sting of envy.
Our special characters, except Drazar, are mediocre at best. And we only have three left...
Do not get me wrong. Im happy for the Craftworld-players, but seeing their special HQs
makes me think, GW owes us something, because they forgot our HQs...

Next point of interest: Aspect Warriors. Article is here...
Built in 5++, D6 movement after shooting and sweet weaponprofiles. These guys could rule the tables.
Of course it all depends on their point costs, but their rules seems pretty good.
And I havent even mentioned their other special abilities, like no overwatch and fight last for Banshees.

All in all, I think they will give us quite a run for our money. What do you guys think?

I think ceaftworls are goin to knock us off our pedestal, not just because aspect warriors and the named Phoenix lords are going to be amazing, but because they have so much more choice and aren't forced to split their choices up between 3 small sub armies (with each sub army missing out on army roles, i know blades for hire cover them [sorta ... no heavy support blade for hire], but still) but also because they will probably have an easier time shuffling in Harliquins, corsairs, and building a Ynnari list

Regarding the envy side (which I'll freely admit to feeling), I think it's that the Eldar models - regardless of strength - just seem to have more stuff to do.

We have Power from Pain and Blade Artists. The former is a table that advances at the same pace regardless of what's happening on the table. There are a few ways of improving it but even when you do, it's still just dry buffs with no actual choices to be made. Blade Artists is just a crappy version of Rending that only works on melee weapons and seems to basically fulfil a filler role to justify PfP being moved to our loyalty ability.

Eldar have Battle Focus and Strands of Fate. The former gives Eldar units some choices to make - they can Advance during their movement phase and fire assault/pistol weapons without penalty or they can instead try for a small redeployment move after shooting. Strands of Fate, meanwhile, is similar to Acts of Faith - offering a small pool of guaranteed 6s that the Eldar player can use each turn as he sees fit.

Put another way, the Eldar abilities offer some choice and require some decision-making on the part of the player, whilst the DE traits basically provide zero choice and only exist as passive buffs.

The comparison isn't helped by the fact that Aspect Warriors almost seem to get most of the PfP table as standard. e.g. DE units get a 6++ save on turn 1 and a 5++ on turn 4. Meanwhile, Eldar aspects just get a 5++ outright. Not saying they won't end up paying for it, it's just one of those things that feels a bit off, if you get what I mean.


You've also got stuff like Exarch Powers, which offer a way to tweak a unit's role, whilst also making the Exarch even stronger. Maybe the DE equivalents of the aspects will be mathematically better through sheer efficiency, but I suspect the customisation of the aspects will make them feel much better and more satisfying to play.


Time will tell, of course, but at the very least this seems like another example of GW approaching codices with two entirely different philosophies.

I agree that indeed the Craftworlds seem to be on a complete different power level than Drukhari.
I agree we did not see the point cost, but i can guess that they won't be that far off from us, so in the end Craftworld will feel underpriced (a little bit like the T'au right now) until their FAQ that will appear in two or tree months.

And after that will come the Tyrannid..........who will DESTROY the new Craftworld who were already destroying the T'au who were already destroying the meta....

I gotta agree that there is indeed a power creep with each and every codex recently, with new abilities appearing for the first time in a codex to give it some flavor and than, the next codex is also filled with this same new ability for no particular reason and on and on.....

Recently its the ignore invul that is just appearing everywhere, and soon we will see some ignore "feel no pain" all around (already T'au can do that)

If I only look at stats, Craftworld is going to wipe the floor with us. However, I have a feeling that either their point costs are going to be way higher, or the nerf-bat will visit soon after the codex is out.

Gelmir wrote:

If I only look at stats, Craftworld is going to wipe the floor with us. However, I have a feeling that either their point costs are going to be way higher, or the nerf-bat will visit soon after the codex is out.

I'm certainly really curious to see the point costs for a lot of these Eldar units.

Though, one area where I'm almost certain Eldar will dominate over us is shooting.

Our basic 10-man Kabalite squads put out 10 S1 AP0 D1 Poison 4+ shots at 24" or 20 shots at 12".

Meanwhile, 10 Guardian defenders put out 20 S4 AP-1 D1 shots at 18" that are AP-3 on 6s to wound. They can also advance and fire those weapons without penalty if they want (or else withdraw 1d6" after firing).

When you start to add in other factors - like Shuriken Cannons just being Splinter-Cannons-but-better, it seems like we're going to be completely outclassed in this area.

The thing is, unless Eldar units are insanely expensive, I don't think points will do much to change this. So many of our weapons are based around poison, which just isn't a useful profile even if we use custom traits to buff it. On the other hand, AP-1 and Shuriken is a fantastic profile (and one that gets better on other units, rather than just getting more shots).

What's more, we don't have all that many ways to actually bring heavy weapons. Raiders, sure, but GW has been making them both more expensive and less desirable since the codex dropped. Otherwise, we're limited to Ravagers, Scourges, Fliers and a single Trueborn squad. Meanwhile, Eldar can take heavy weapons almost everywhere - they've got their own transports but they've also got multiple dedicated heavy tanks, war walkers, wraithlords, heavy weapon platforms. Plus access to stuff like D-Weapons, which we just have no equivalent to.

To be clear, I'm not saying that Eldar will be overpowered or that there's no way we'll be able to compete, just that their shooting ability seems to be in a different league to ours.

So Craftworlds are the first codex of edition 9.5

Anybody remember GW saying "We balanced every codex at the same time"?

The Strange Dark One wrote:

So Craftworlds are the first codex of edition 9.5

Anybody remember GW saying "We balanced every codex at the same time"?

NOW i would start a trucker freedom convoy to free us from all this disinformation :/

The balance meetings must have looked like
"Oh I just thought up a cool rule for this army... very thematic and fun and gives this army its own identity"
"Really? OK cool so from here on every army will have a version of that rule ... and also a dozen and 1 things to counter it"
"OK? ... but why? And what about the armies before? Shouldn't they get something to counter it?"
"Does this show up anywhere before this codex?"
"No ...."
"Then those codexies don't need it do they?"

And so on ... it just feels like with each new army there are more choices, more cool weapons, more models with interesting rules ... and each codex that came out before is going to struggle hard to fight it ... like poison on our weapons could have been really cool ... but instead it's just "always wounds on a 4+" hell there could have been a rule for "Splinter" much like "Shuriken"

Like Blade Artists for Shardweapons? Well, sounds good for me...

Honestly I think "Splinter" could be something like "Splinter - weapons with this profile on an unmodified hit of 6 cause 1 (or 2) additional hits" so yeah ranged blade artists and "Poison" could be something like "Druhkari Poison - weapons with this profile ha e the following effects: 1. Unmodified wound rolls of 6 increase weapon ap by -1, 2. Any unit that suffers a wound or wounds cause by weapons with this profile suffer a -1 to hit with shooting or melee attacks" because our poison is suppored to cause debilitating pain and not actually kill the targets but eh

i love the idea of debuffing ennemy units with poison weapon, you know, so that they can actually FEEL like real poison wespons!
Some thing as mentioned above by @Archon_91, or something like -1M/adv/Charge to represent their struggle against poison.

Right now, its good to wound anything on 4+, but the 0AP that comes with our poison weapon is what get us back on earth! Everything that have T5 or more usually have good saves so.....(except maybe our own Grotesque lol)

Archon_91 wrote:

Honestly I think "Splinter" could be something like "Splinter - weapons with this profile on an unmodified hit of 6 cause 1 (or 2) additional hits" so yeah  ranged blade artists and "Poison" could be something like "Druhkari Poison - weapons with this profile ha e the following effects: 1. Unmodified wound rolls of 6 increase weapon ap by -1, 2. Any unit that suffers a wound or wounds cause by weapons with this profile suffer a -1 to hit with shooting or melee attacks" because our poison is suppored to cause debilitating pain and not actually kill the targets but eh

I definitely like that idea! It immediately makes DE feel more vicious, like they're supposed to be. Not necessarily overpowered or anything, but just mean.

Imo the most elegant solution for Splinter weapons is to give them S3 with +1 to-wound against non-infantry. It's unique, it's fluffy and mechanically fitting (with Splinter Cannons and Pods being S4).

Especially with T3 armies being much more powerful, good anti-T3 shooting would be a huge boon for Kabals (while still being good against T5 and beyond).

The time were Splinter weapons were anti-monster are long gone and those are best killed with multi-damage weapons anyway.

Splinter, just like Dark Lances, were an obscure gimmick solution which worked in the wold of 5th edition. But the game has evolved. Splinter weapons should have a well defined role and excel at it.