Phoenix Lords and the Dark Eldar

Dark Kin,

After reading a few books (Path of the Warrior, Void Stalker, the Eldar Codex   ) I'd really love to run a Phoenix Lord. Specifically Karandaras or Jain Zar.

I know units like this are rarely the most efficient use of points, but I thought I'd ask what people believe the best combinations are to maximize their impact.

My normal armies comprises 3-4 venoms, 2-3 raiders, MSU kabalites and wyches, maybe a Talos or two, Ravagers or Razorwing, smallish beastpack, Haemonculus and Wracks, and an Archon running with a grotesque squad. I also have Incubi, but its been a awhile since they came out to play. I also have a converted baron.
As far as Eldar troops go, I have a Wraithknight, Wraithblades, Waveserpent, 3 jetbikes and an Autarch. And hopefully a Jain Zar model from eBay soon.

What combinations can people suggest or think of?
Has anyone used a Phoenix Lord in their games?

So far, my only real idea is to stick the Phoenix Lord with the wraithblades, jack some poor kabalites ride and race my archon into combat. But that's not very creative.

Appreciate it
Cheers

flakmonkey wrote:

So far, my only real idea is to stick the Phoenix Lord with the wraithblades, jack some poor kabalites ride and race my archon into combat. But that's not very creative.

It's also not very legal as the Raider has a capacity of 10 and Wraithblades are Bulky with minimum unit size of 5!   

Whoops.
Like I said, not very well thought out.
That would've been awkward on the day.

So Count, any other suggestions? Other than to stick to legal size units in transports, that is  

Combo of Jain Zar, Lelith, some Banshees and a hijacked Raider?

Karandras in a beast pack?

I've never used Lelith before, between her a Zar, they'd eat most infantry squads.

Karandaras would bring his powerfist to the beastpack I guess, but slow them up a bit too.

I've no access to the rules currently and have not looked into how efficient, effective or worthwhile the following would be, but as ideas for mixing Phoenix Lords in with Dark Eldar:

Bahrroth with suitably equipped Scourges
Fuegan with Blaster equipped Trueborn or Haywire bearing Wyches
Maugen Ra with dark lance Trueborn?

I can't remember what Bahrroth is armed with, so I don't know if he'd be better with Hellions instead. Likewise I remember Maugan Ra being suitably long range, but not whether he's more of an infantry killer in which case perhaps he's more suited sitting in a Venom with Spliter Cannon Trueborn.

Personally, I've always wanted to throw in Maugen Ra for some serious fire support.

Mark of the Incomparible Hunter would go very well with a Blasterborn unit.

If your wraithblades are axe equipped then jain zar may go best ina wave serpent, leaves room for your archon (with PGL) and the majority toughness 5 with your shadowfield to tank wounds should leave them plenty alive enough to mulch any squad you point them at.

I love using phoenix lords in my dark eldar. Ive used both Irillyth and karandras pretty extensively in beast packs to good success and I am currently running fuegan in grotesques.

In my experience lords really boost DE units by bringing 2+ and eternal warrior plus serious combat potential. Karandras especially is just an animal. Not much outside of daemon ICs or eternal CMs can tangle with him and come out alive. Karandras is my default lord.  
Fuegan though can potentially hit even harder than karandras (no assault grenades though) but he needs to take wounds and hopefully FNP them to do it. I wouldn't consider this the norm but I recently had a game where I got fuegan to S10 with 9 attacks off really good FNP rolls. Pretty awesomesauce.

Honestly I wouldn't rate the other lords near as high as the above 3, but I could just be missing some obscure build where they shine. That said I could see baharroth replacing the baron as the only HQ for a beast unit due to H&R and fearless on one model. Maugan Ra is interesting with one of the coolest ranged weapons around but I feel his ap3 cc weapon keeps him from being competitive.

Overall most of the lords can at least bring a wound tank to any DE unit and a ton of special rules options. I wouldnt worry about foot lords slowing down units though. Consider their movement to be identical in every single phase except the movement phase (run, assault, pile-in, sweep, consolidate, hit and run).

I only have Maugan Ra for my Altansar-based army.

Oh, and Drazhar too. I think he is reincarnation of Arhra or something. Usualy set him alone somewhere, to use him as and assassin

Asurmen needs to be the warlord to be effective - which is fine in 7th as he can be.

Jainzar combined with Lilith = enemy unit dead

How did you get fuegan that high and still be alive???

Quick note on warlords... I just had a rude awakening mid-game when someone pointed out that whatever faction your warlord is taken from is automatically your primary faction... I was really digging the support Farseer on a jetbike with a 12" bubble of awesome.

I may try out Jainzar if they release new models. Sounds like it could be a good combo.

Massaen wrote:

Asurmen needs to be the warlord to be effective - which is fine in 7th as he can be.

Jainzar combined with Lilith = enemy unit dead

How did you get fuegan that high and still be alive???

He took a wound on my turn putting him at S6 5 atts. Then 4 unsaved wounds on his turn and I luck sacked into 4 FNP rolls putting fuegan at S10 9 attacks the following turn. The daemon was grimoired but one slipped through..

If your wondering about the FNP interaction, the rules state "when a model with this special rule suffers an unsaved wound, it can make a special Feel No Pain roll to avoid being wounded (this is not a saving throw...).

About half way through FNP it says the unsaved Wound is discounted - it is treated as having been saved. If you group goes with it, cool. Not sure it would fly here.

Hmm? I uploaded a long post here but cannot find it now: maybe network problem?

Writing in short again, I sometimes put Karandras in my beastpack which makes good results. He's a combat monster with 6 (on charging) S8 AP2 hits, +2 armour, and Eternal Warrior. He also brings Fearless for low-Ld beasts. He's lack of mobility was not so big problem for me so far.

P.S. I mentioned the idea of Avatar into the beastpack in the lost post, but thinking again, it's impossible to do as Avatar is MC. Please forget about that

P.S.2. Infiltrate given by Karandras would be very useful in some cases, although it's not possible to charge in the first turn

Myrvn wrote:

About half way through FNP it says the unsaved Wound is discounted - it is treated as having been saved.  If you group goes with it, cool. Not sure it would fly here.

Its true the interaction is open for debate since 40k doesn't have much in the way of timing rules.
So far I haven't had a problem with it but if I did it would hardly be reason not to play him. I dont bank on the FNP rolls anyway its just a bonus that makes him arguably the most durable phoenix lord, alongside asurman/baharroth depending on whats hitting them.

The two 18" melta shots and ap 1 armourbane attacks are very good, plus he reliably reaches S6-7 with 5-6 attacks by tanking wounds, +1 charging. Thats no slouch in combat.

Honestly I've been surprisingly impressed with him, in comparison to karandras that is. He might even have a place in my beasts.. idk.

On this note, I wonder; could Karandras be used with Drazhar and a unit of Incubi for shenanigans?

Not sure fuegans rule is open to debate as it requires him to take an unsaved wound - FNP treats the would as saved

There is a warlock power you can use to heal him though

I think you may be right, although does his unquenchable resolve *trigger* with an unsaved wound? Or have I played too many other games? Anyway..

So using fuegan along with this thread has really inspired me look at each phoenix lord again. Ive been thinking about Maugan Ra and how he actually fits decently with his own aspect warriors.

maugan ra 195
7 dark reapers, starshots, exarch- fs, tempest launcher 298
hijacked raider- dc, ns, tgl 75

Maugan ra and the 6 starshots target mech (11 shots with no jink) while the tempest launcher split fires 3 S4 ap3 barrage blasts at BS 5! Thats a pretty incredible combo.

This thing should drop wraith knights and wave serpents alike and should reliably evaporate an infantry unit a turn. Now if only it wasn't such a pain to get them inside the dias of destruction.

Massaen wrote:

Not sure fuegans rule is open to debate as it requires him to take an unsaved wound - FNP treats the would as saved

Except FNP only triggers on an unsaved wound. It's a bit chicken and egg...

I am really tempted to test out at least some of the phoenix lords at some point. The combination I have mostly been thinking is Jain Zar and banshees (5, or maybe as many as can fit) in a raider, but since no grenades maybe there could be a PGL-archon instead of Lelith with them? Or... maybe Lelith as a third character? Overkill however you put it.

A downside is though that only Asurmen and Baharroth have invul-saves, but otherwise I agree very much that they bring a lot of durability with them, even if eternal warrior is not as good in 7th edition.

Other than that, you can take Asurmen without having eldar as primary, right?
Do you think it would be worth that, and if so, where could he fit in a DE-list? A wych group? Incubi? 20 Kabalite Warriors with Sliscus, slogging on as a tank in the front? (with Sliscus as a secondary tank with a shadowfield)
His ability for multiple warlord traits though does make me think of actually taking eldar as primary some time.

Lastly I want to ask which Phoenix lords would do best as a single guy running around, and which are best used in groups?

Mngwa wrote:

even if eternal warrior is not as good in 7th edition.

Why is it worse?

Quote :

Other than that, you can take Asurmen without having eldar as primary, right?

You can but you lose one of his main benefits (multiple Warlord Traits).

Count Adhemar wrote:

Mngwa wrote:

Other than that, you can take Asurmen without having eldar as primary, right?

You can but you lose one of his main benefits (multiple Warlord Traits).

I agree with Count. This is also the reason that I prefer Karandras to Baharroth for my beaststar, even though Baharroth is the only Jump Infantry who can fly with beasts among Phoenix Lords.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Mngwa wrote:

even if eternal warrior is not as good in 7th edition.

Why is it worse?

Whops, nevermind. I have been reading the entry wrong ^^
"...it only reduces its wounds by 1 instead of automatically reducing its wounds to 0"
I had read that somehow as that the wounds are reduced to 1, so two insta-kills would insta-kill an eternal warrior.  

EDIT: It is the word "by"! I thought it was "to"!!!! /end excuse

Mngwa wrote:

I am really tempted to test out at least some of the phoenix lords at some point. The combination I have mostly been thinking is Jain Zar and banshees (5, or maybe as many as can fit) in a raider, but since no grenades maybe there could be a PGL-archon instead of Lelith with them? Or... maybe Lelith as a third character? Overkill however you put it.

A downside is though that only Asurmen and Baharroth have invul-saves, but otherwise I agree very much that they bring a lot of durability with them, even if eternal warrior is not as good in 7th edition.

Other than that, you can take Asurmen without having eldar as primary, right?
Do you think it would be worth that, and if so, where could he fit in a DE-list? A wych group? Incubi? 20 Kabalite Warriors with Sliscus, slogging on as a tank in the front? (with Sliscus as a secondary tank with a shadowfield)
His ability for multiple warlord traits though does make me think of actually taking eldar as primary some time.

Lastly I want to ask which Phoenix lords would do best as a single guy running around, and which are best used in groups?

Phoenix lords will evaporate without an escort. Think of them as 3 toughness 3 terminators..

The main thing I've found with the lords, especially the fighty ones, is that they usually benefit more from units that dont do the same thing they specialize in. For example jain zar doesn't bring anything warranting her pricetag to a unit of incubi. Similar for blasterborn + fuegan.
Of course there are probably exceptions but in general I've found the best value for PLs comes in using units that are durable and/or cheap per wound to deliver the lords while the lords solve inherent problems like being susceptible to ID weaponry or being tarpitted etc.