Lhykis The Whispering Web, Phoenix Lord and the new Warp Spiders

[TheMawr]

7 minutes ago, Tyriks said:

Is something changing unit size? Those should all be 5-10 plus the seer so how does it add up to 24?

 

by counting the shrine statues

5 dire avengers +1

5 Dire avengers +1

5 warp spiders + 1

5 wraithblades

1 Spiritseer

 

is 24

[Widowmaker82]

6 minutes ago, TheMawr said:

 

by counting the shrine statues

5 dire avengers +1

5 Dire avengers +1

5 warp spiders + 1

5 wraithblades

1 Spiritseer

 

is 24

Sadly I think this is correct. I was hoping there might be another unit in there (Windriders or Shining Spears).

 

But if you look at the Dark Angels battleforce or Space Marines combat patrol, they count the Watchers in the Dark or Teleport Homer as miniatures on the number on the front of the box.

 

Then again, the Aspect Warrior boxes don't include the shrines as a model. Howling Banshees box just says 5 miniatures. Maybe that's because the shrines have never had any rules? Perhaps if they do now count as a miniature they will have rules in the codex? I suppose it would have been weird in the past for Dire Avengers, Dark Reapers and Howling Banshees to have special rules for a little shrine while Fire Dragons, Warp Spiders and Swooping Hawks didn't. It would be nice for those little models to have a purpose - though I'd need to dig out all my old ones out from wherever they're hiding.

 

All wild speculation on my part of course.

[TheMawr]

9 minutes ago, Widowmaker82 said:

Sadly I think this is correct. I was hoping there might be another unit in there (Windriders or Shining Spears).

 

But if you look at the Dark Angels battleforce or Space Marines combat patrol, they count the Watchers in the Dark or Teleport Homer as miniatures on the number on the front of the box.

 

Then again, the Aspect Warrior boxes don't include the shrines as a model. Howling Banshees box just says 5 miniatures. Maybe that's because the shrines have never had any rules? Perhaps if they do now count as a miniature they will have rules in the codex? I suppose it would have been weird in the past for Dire Avengers, Dark Reapers and Howling Banshees to have special rules for a little shrine while Fire Dragons, Warp Spiders and Swooping Hawks didn't. It would be nice for those little models to have a purpose - though I'd need to dig out all my old ones out from wherever they're hiding.

 

All wild speculation on my part of course.

 

Early this edition I tried to write a homebrew faction rule around those things ( as I like mechanics, but didnt like SoF ) but I dont think they will get rules.

[DemonGSides]

1 hour ago, Mogger351 said:

Only a couple of armies have had the limited ed dex early drop treatment, most have had a battleforce on release of some kind, but these largely included old minis. Add to this the fact lots of those didn't fly off the shelves and some are still in shops, the Christmas boxes haven't flown off either and maybe they're learning to stop doing big boxes as often.

 

Every army has had at least one Battleforce box OR a limited edition early box. No one has had both.

 

Citation needed for the battleforce speculation.  The good value ones have sold out incredibly fast.

[Indy Techwisp]

36 minutes ago, TheMawr said:

 

Early this edition I tried to write a homebrew faction rule around those things ( as I like mechanics, but didnt like SoF ) but I dont think they will get rules.

 

I mean.

"Wargear: [Aspect] Icon.

Once per game, you can reroll [Thing Aspect wants to do]. Place an [Aspect] Icon token next to the unit as a reminder."

 

TL;DR just do the thing Orks do with Squig Bombs and Assistant Grots.

[Karhedron]

1 hour ago, Tyriks said:

Is something changing unit size? Those should all be 5-10 plus the seer so how does it add up to 24?

 

I think that they are counting the little statues that come with the Aspect Warrior squads. This is annoying as they are pointless. Maybe they should give Aspect Warrior squads a once per game ability. Then the statues could actually be used for something. 

[Indy Techwisp]

1 minute ago, Karhedron said:

 

I think that they are counting the little statues that come with the Aspect Warrior squads. This is annoying as they are pointless. Maybe they should give Aspect Warrior squads a once per game ability. Then the statues could actually be used for something. 

 

They do this with everything.

The "included miniatures" bit for Legions Imperialis counts each individual micro-mini as a separate mini, for example.

[Dr. Clock]

Best use of Icons to my mind would be as wound markers for Exarchs. I haven't ever bothered to base and paint those things, but it's not a terrible idea as a play aid in principle. Once-per-game 'armorium cherub' type effects could be added, but don't seem particularly needful given they are 'just statues', not living entities / constructs / hepers like your bomb squigs or whatnot.

 

Certainly a bit specious to include them in the count of models from my perspective, but not exactly surprising.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[Mogger351]

1 hour ago, DemonGSides said:

 

Every army has had at least one Battleforce box OR a limited edition early box. No one has had both.

 

Citation needed for the battleforce speculation.  The good value ones have sold out incredibly fast.

They're all the same value more or less monetarily, so that's a bit of a misnomer.

 

Outside of that I haven't got precise metrics to hand. However, sigmar and kill team launch boxes took many weeks to sell out. The chaos marine battleforces, one sold out quickly, the other I've seen discounted in shops trying to clear it (the jump lord one). Blood Angels seems to have sold the best but you can still find them now in some places. Christmas boxes were a fight with the f5 button last year, none of them were gone 3 hours in this time round.

 

There is definitely a cooling off of demand on big boxes from my anecdotal experience.

[Redcomet]

3 hours ago, Flaherty said:

 

Huge missed opportunity to not have a few of the spiders with these "warp portals" as alternate builds. It would be cool to have some poses that made the units feel more dynamic vs. four-armed, red-colored Fire Dragons. 

GW has done some amazing sculpts with negative space, e.g., Light of Eltharion and Lady Olynder from AOS. The designs are good, big upgrades, but too static, IMHO.

 

AoS minis almost always push the boundaries more. 40k is stuck having to stick to an already defined look, and often has to recreate old stuff

[Tyriks]

52 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

 

I think that they are counting the little statues that come with the Aspect Warrior squads. This is annoying as they are pointless. Maybe they should give Aspect Warrior squads a once per game ability. Then the statues could actually be used for something. 

Good point. I kind of hope they dont do something as I put all mine on larger bases to make objectives....

[DemonGSides]

1 hour ago, Mogger351 said:

They're all the same value more or less monetarily, so that's a bit of a misnomer.

 

Outside of that I haven't got precise metrics to hand. However, sigmar and kill team launch boxes took many weeks to sell out. The chaos marine battleforces, one sold out quickly, the other I've seen discounted in shops trying to clear it (the jump lord one). Blood Angels seems to have sold the best but you can still find them now in some places. Christmas boxes were a fight with the f5 button last year, none of them were gone 3 hours in this time round.

 

There is definitely a cooling off of demand on big boxes from my anecdotal experience.

 

Considering the Blood angels box wasn't a battleforce, I guess I got the answer I was looking for; there is nothing concrete about battleforces suddenly not selling well.

 

There's always been some Battleforces that have been stinkers, but the position being put forward was that lately battleforces haven't been selling. That isn't my experience via both the online webstore for GW as well as my local LGS, of which I frequent at least three enough to comfortably opine on their stock without being an employee.

 

Battleforces are some of the best way to buy into a faction due to the savings. I don't think their sales have gone down, except for the ones that are low value; they do not have all the same value, so saying that's a misnomer is just incorrect.  Many years have seen Christmas boxes have over $100 difference in value.

 

So if someone wants to trot out that suddenly GW isn't selling battleforces, I'd expect that assertion to come with some sort of backup beyond "it feels that way.", especially considering how often some people around here wish doom upon GW. At least back up the assertions with some facts.

 

The current Christmas battleforces seem to be selling quite well; two of them were preorder complete the first night, the rest are gonna make it to release date it looks like which is about standard in my memory; another thing to consider is that this is the first year with a dearth of battleforces; traditionally they've been a Christmas only thing, but they've been trotted out with every codex release except for the ones that got big refresh boxes.  

 

That these (Christmas) battleforces are also the smallest value to savings that we've had in these boxes in some time also plays into it. So I wouldn't be surprised if there was a factual slowing of purchasing of battleforces, but I think the idea that it has anything to do with "learning not to put purchases into big boxes." Is completely off base; this year has seen more big boxes than any!

[DemonGSides]

 

As an addendum, I cannot fathom anyone wanting less big boxes. I'm much happier to save up $200 to get $300 "worth" of MSRP models than spend $60 MSRP for each squad individually.

 

GW plastic is already overpriced. Wanting to pay more on top of it purely because "number smaller" is playing right into their business plan. 

[DemonGSides]

If anything, we might be seeing a lessening of scalpers. That's a good thing; product remaining available at a good price to the people who want it. That's ideal for everyone. 

[Mogger351]

1 hour ago, DemonGSides said:

 

Considering the Blood angels box wasn't a battleforce, I guess I got the answer I was looking for; there is nothing concrete about battleforces suddenly not selling well.

 

There's always been some Battleforces that have been stinkers, but the position being put forward was that lately battleforces haven't been selling. That isn't my experience via both the online webstore for GW as well as my local LGS, of which I frequent at least three enough to comfortably opine on their stock without being an employee.

 

Battleforces are some of the best way to buy into a faction due to the savings. I don't think their sales have gone down, except for the ones that are low value; they do not have all the same value, so saying that's a misnomer is just incorrect.  Many years have seen Christmas boxes have over $100 difference in value.

 

So if someone wants to trot out that suddenly GW isn't selling battleforces, I'd expect that assertion to come with some sort of backup beyond "it feels that way.", especially considering how often some people around here wish doom upon GW. At least back up the assertions with some facts.

 

The current Christmas battleforces seem to be selling quite well; two of them were preorder complete the first night, the rest are gonna make it to release date it looks like which is about standard in my memory; another thing to consider is that this is the first year with a dearth of battleforces; traditionally they've been a Christmas only thing, but they've been trotted out with every codex release except for the ones that got big refresh boxes.  

 

That these (Christmas) battleforces are also the smallest value to savings that we've had in these boxes in some time also plays into it. So I wouldn't be surprised if there was a factual slowing of purchasing of battleforces, but I think the idea that it has anything to do with "learning not to put purchases into big boxes." Is completely off base; this year has seen more big boxes than any!

I never asserted specifically battleforces, I actually didn't make a definition at all between the various large boxes, that was you.

 

Again, I don't keep a spreadsheet of dates things are available, but they most certainly have been staying in stock longer than prior boxes have. 

 

Most of the boxes for Christmas last year sold their allocations in hours, not weeks. To add to that, you've reinforced my point: there have been more large expensive fomo boxes this year than ever before. Maybe people are burned out or simply don't need to keep buying them? Again, if they are selling slower, or demand is lower, then yes maybe they need to learn it's not the instant win it used to be.

[DemonGSides]

12 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

I never asserted specifically battleforces, I actually didn't make a definition at all between the various large boxes, that was you.

 

Again, I don't keep a spreadsheet of dates things are available, but they most certainly have been staying in stock longer than prior boxes have. 

 

Most of the boxes for Christmas last year sold their allocations in hours, not weeks. To add to that, you've reinforced my point: there have been more large expensive fomo boxes this year than ever before. Maybe people are burned out or simply don't need to keep buying them? Again, if they are selling slower, or demand is lower, then yes maybe they need to learn it's not the instant win it used to be.

Yeah, then you went and confused the definitions; that's my point.  Battleforces and army boxes are VERY different things.

 

If you're only operating on anecdotes, then of course you're going to have a confirmation bias; you're only operating on your own experiences.

 

 

 

So we're simultaneously selling more battleforces (not a single battleforce from the past year was in stock an appreciable amount of time of their release, except maybe some of the Imperial Agents ones (I think my local still has one of their boxes)) but also selling slower.  Kinda crazy how that doesn't make any sense, but sure, Battleforces aren't "instant win", whatever that means.

 

Bad Battleforces aren't instant wins, but that's nothing new.  I don't expect the Necron one to sell all that well, considering it's a crap box.  But to take that and say "well all battleforces are selling badly" is some bad logical jumps.

Edited November 26 by DemonGSides

[MithrilForge]

[Mogger351]

8 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

Yeah, then you went and confused the definitions; that's my point.  Battleforces and army boxes are VERY different things.

 

If you're only operating on anecdotes, then of course you're going to have a confirmation bias; you're only operating on your own experiences.

 

 

 

So we're simultaneously selling more battleforces (not a single battleforce from the past year was in stock an appreciable amount of time of their release, except maybe some of the Imperial Agents ones (I think my local still has one of their boxes)) but also selling slower.  Kinda crazy how that doesn't make any sense, but sure, Battleforces aren't "instant win", whatever that means.

 

Bad Battleforces aren't instant wins, but that's nothing new.  I don't expect the Necron one to sell all that well, considering it's a crap box.  But to take that and say "well all battleforces are selling badly" is some bad logical jumps.

You're right on the definitions, so to loop round there is no talk of an eldar army box, there's no talk of a battle force. If there is the latter there's 0 reason to assume it will be rammed full of new sculpts as people are asking/thinking.

 

I mean there's also no data from you that they're selling at the same or better rate as previous years, there's no data from anyone for number of units sold, so I guess none of us have any evidence of anything in reality.

 

To continue being the bad guy on ither topics to discuss - given the rumours of exodite kill teams and corsairs army expansions. I am concerned at the codex becoming too full and that ynnari will continue to be a problem design wise going forwards. Any thoughts from anyone?

[Indy Techwisp]

1 hour ago, Mogger351 said:

You're right on the definitions, so to loop round there is no talk of an eldar army box, there's no talk of a battle force. If there is the latter there's 0 reason to assume it will be rammed full of new sculpts as people are asking/thinking.

 

I mean there's also no data from you that they're selling at the same or better rate as previous years, there's no data from anyone for number of units sold, so I guess none of us have any evidence of anything in reality.

 

To continue being the bad guy on ither topics to discuss - given the rumours of exodite kill teams and corsairs army expansions. I am concerned at the codex becoming too full and that ynnari will continue to be a problem design wise going forwards. Any thoughts from anyone?

 

They did say it was a veritable tome of Aeldari stuff.

The Drukhari units you can take in Ynnari are apparently being printed into the Codex, so the Cross-faction balance issues are solved.

Also, if the tome gets big enough, maybe they'll move Harlequins, Corsairs and (Exodites if they add them) into their own Codex again, which some people still want to happen.

[ThaneOfTas]

52 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

Also, if the tome gets big enough, maybe they'll move Harlequins, Corsairs and (Exodites if they add them) into their own Codex again, which some people still want to happen.

Toss in the Ynarri as well and call it Agents of the Aeldari or something

[Indy Techwisp]

3 minutes ago, ThaneOfTas said:

Toss in the Ynarri as well and call it Agents of the Aeldari or something

You can't really toss in Ynnari 'cause they're just... All of the Aeldari mixed together.

[ThaneOfTas]

10 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

You can't really toss in Ynnari 'cause they're just... All of the Aeldari mixed together.

You mean like how the Inquisition can join any other imperium army, or have a mixture of certain imperium units?

[Indy Techwisp]

13 minutes ago, ThaneOfTas said:

You mean like how the Inquisition can join any other imperium army, or have a mixture of certain imperium units?

Ynnari as a Faction have 3 actual Models.
Yvraine, The Yncarne and The Visarch.
 

The actual meat of the Ynnari is the mixing of Aeldari and Drukhari.

So unless you're making a reverse IoA Codex wherein Ynnari can Soup in literally every other Aeldari unit, that's not gonna work.

[ThePenitentOne]

40 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

Ynnari as a Faction have 3 actual Models.
Yvraine, The Yncarne and The Visarch.
 

The actual meat of the Ynnari is the mixing of Aeldari and Drukhari.

So unless you're making a reverse IoA Codex wherein Ynnari can Soup in literally every other Aeldari unit, that's not gonna work.

 

While this is currently true, given the rumours of Ynnari-aligned Drukhari units being added to the book, there might also be specific Aeldari units aligned with the Ynnari, rather than the free-for-all we've had up to this point. It could work if the units were differentiated from their unaligned Aeldari/ Drukhari counterpart in some minor yet meaningful way.

 

I think it would be interesting if this edition, they broke the prohibition against Phoenix Lord and named Drukhari, but only for Jain Zar and Lelith, as both have fought alongside Yvraine in the lore- possibly even to the point of allowing them to be a Warlord.

 

 

[TheMawr]

22 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

To continue being the bad guy on ither topics to discuss - given the rumours of exodite kill teams and corsairs army expansions. I am concerned at the codex becoming too full and that ynnari will continue to be a problem design wise going forwards. Any thoughts from anyone?

 

I personally dont believe its getting too full, though your opinion isnt that rare/controversial, in the krieg topic Ive seen it pop up too, and regularily among eldar fans.  A lot of people point to the loss of lore, but that  doesnt seem the case, in fact, the spacemarine codex has more lore pages than the custodes codex does, so datasheets do not affect lore content.

 

 

Ynnari probably will continue to be a problem design wise, this is mostly because there are different opposing views of what they are ( armybuilding wise.) foremost among GW themselves, So whatever GW does it will be a problem to someone.

 

However if you mean, as it seems, in relation to the amount of datasheets they get access to with souping  I dont think that should be the problem :

Currently, through allying rules, Ynnari have access to 58 datasheets. without allying thats less than imperial guard ( 60 ) and spacemarines ( 93 ), and equal to daemons index. however, these 3 also have similarily applyable alliance rules. when counting those ally rules for Imperium armies too, even custodes, the smallest army, have acces to more than Ynnari with 65 datasheets.. and I never heard someone saying custodes, grey knights or sob have access to too many datasheets either.

Again, like with the Lore/pagecount ratio, quantity of datasheets is usually not the reason for problems... its the implementation.

 

All of this purely from an objective number crunching pov, not wether it works good together or fits together thematically, as those things get quickly very subjective.

 

 

For me personally (behind spoilers to not overtake the post),
 

Spoiler

especially now corsairs get fleshed out ( wich I thought was what ynnari was going to be ) I feel Ynnari should be less about being a faction/subfaction/soupfaction, and more about individuals in eldar forces.

Rule and modelwise this would mean a couple of ynnari leader characters to compliment the 3 named.

An example :

Soulwing Mortarch

Abilities that gives it and the unit it leads the soul shenanigans. ( lorewise, these powers are only achievable by a select few anyway.)
Bodyguard units : Swooping hawks, Scourges, Jump pack corsairs.

recruitment side :
-- if this model is in your army, you can take one drukhari unit from list X in your army.
-- if this model is your warlord, you can take up to 3 drukhari units from list X in your army.

 

the amounts and the list varying between characters ( obviously Yvraine can convince more drukhari to follow her than a random Voidpriestess accompanying corsair ships while never having been in commoragh, while the Visarch might only have sway over his Incubi shrine... meanwhile Mandrakes, who might have no motivations to heed any of the eldar sweettalking, might be oppurtunizing the wake of death in the Yncarnes wake.)

 

It makes more sense that they are a small group that can be found in all eldar communities than that they are their own army anyway. And changing this focus at this time, wouldnt even be a retcon to established lore.