Ginger wrote:
Hmm, this provides an intruiging set of ideas - obviously onyy for 'fan' or fun games rather than tournaments.
I think it might work as a concept because I think the Eldar lists will tend to be self-limiting for the following reasons:-
- Eldar generally work best when they have an activation advantage, and the use of aspect formations tends to work against this. At 300+ per formation the actual number of character led aspect formations will be limited.
- Monotone aspects are generally less usefull, and so the impact of character led formations will be reduced
- I would suggest that the cost of the character is 50 points and must replace an Exarch (so +75 points per character). This will further reduce the number of such characters.
- I note that you have wisely refrained from providing a Warp Spider character - these are already the best aspects and have no need of an additional upgrade.
Have you actually tried using them in an Eldar list?
1) I was working on the idea that these characters would end up adding around 100pt to an aspects formation, which would make them 400+pts with no transports or 600+pts with Wave serpents. In comparison to say a revenant pair I think they would be a serious investment to make and would probably only appear once in a normal sized list (3-4k?).
2) I deliberately went for monochrome aspects both fluff wise and so that those aspects that are rarely used *cough* Banshees *cough* might actually see the table.
3) Warp Spiders do not have a Phoenix Lord atm, nor do Shining Spears.
4) Not yet, but I will be when I get back to work in October. I wanted to get some rough stats worked out prior to trying them out.
jimmyzimms wrote:
novemberrain wrote:
But doesn't this just reduce them to the level of an exarch? How fearsome can close combat stats really be before they become like chaos beserkers? At the moment most of the buffs that the phoenix lords give are pretty engagement focused so would match up well with 40k = an engagement.
Oh sorry I wan't really making myself clear there. My intention was that the benefits should be less passively for the entire formation always and more combinations of special abilities (preferentially to the the PL stand itself) and more targeted to applicability to being used in Engagements as opposed to just always ON. Judicious use of appropriate FF/CC stats should be used to balance these abilities and represent them as a powerful stand so you don't go overboard, that's all

.
Good idea that I'd like to see some more thoughts on to see about getting it fully baked.

Thanks for the feedback.
I am a bit torn on the formation effecting abilities (and I realise they are not balanced between themselves atm) but they do seem to match up to the fluff quite well, as well as their 40k rules - e.g. Karandras provides Stealth to any unit he joins etc. I feel that once a stand gets up beyond EA+2 MW in either FF or CC there really is little difference, and it can potentially become quite unbalanced if extra attacks or special rules are applied. Also given that the Phoenix Lords are restricted to units solely made up of thier own aspects, these buffs might make them more attractive compared to a pick-and-mix formation.