Eldar Rumors: Overview

It seems as though short of someone going through the codex itself and answering questions, we pretty much have all the info we can glean about the Eldar. So putting it all together, what do we have to work with? This post will be an overview of the current Eldar rumors and what we can logically extrapolate form them.

For those of you not familiar with the current rumors/pictures floating around, you can see the full set of pictures and rumors here (the White Dwarf summary from "Pizzaguardian" is pretty comprihensive on dakka) or here (3++ has a very complete set of pictures and some misc. blurbs). After reviewing those, read on!

What will be released:

With every new release, we all have hopes and dreams but sadly, sometimes those get dashed on the cruel rocks of Ward or Crudance... But fear not! Kelly is writing this codex and even though he sort of ruined CSM, he is still a competent codex writer and I look forward to seeing what the Eldar will end up with.

First off, let's go over what is being released that involves new models:

-Plastic Farseer
-Finecast Spiritseer
-Plastic Wraithguard with different variants
-Plastic Wraithknight
-2 Plastic Flyers
-Finecast New Sniper character
-New Psychic Powers card deck

Putting it all together:

So with all of that new plastic crack coming our way, who is getting ready to tell GW to shut up and take their money?

Psychic powers:

-From the various rumors out there, we know that Guide, Doom and Fortune are still available (but will probably have to be rolled for). This alleviates a lot of my anxiety about this upcoming release because these are staple Eldar powers that people typically built armies around.

-There are apparently 2 tables for Eldar powers, Battle and Fate. Also, the current rumors point out that each power has a buff and de-buff function so you can cast a power to give a buff to your units or cast the same power to de-buff opposing units. This opens up a lot of available psychic powers (total of 24) and some examples given were:

     -Conceal as a buff giving a unit Shrouding while as a de-buff taking Shrouding away from an       enemy unit.
     -The offensive version of Destructor being the same S5 AP4 template with Soulfire or having a version that restores a wound to a friendly model. Obviously the offensive/defensive aspects of the powers had different names.

Conclusion:
-As mentioned, this means that Eldar will have A LOT of psychic potential to throw around which makes me very happy. The big questions I have is who has access to what powers? What kind of powers will Farseers vs. Warlocks have and so on? The ability to spam the "healing" spell, for example, will greatly extend the longevity of Wraithlords, Wraithknights, Avatar or ICs.

Wraithguard:

We now know that there are 2 Shooting and several Close Combat options for Wraithguard as well as a rumored points drop.

Shooting options:
-The Shooting options are either the traditional D-Cannon or the new D-Scythe which is to help deal with hordes. What are the rules for D-Weapons in the new codex? Rumor has it that the D-Cannon is now S8 but this is unconfirmed and is a big thing on my mind as I hope they are still as powerful, if not more so, than they previously were.

-One thing I want to point out is that the D-Scythe looks like it shares design features of Eldar Flamers so perhaps it will be a template weapon? If that is the case then perhaps Eldar put the old Chaos Demon Flamers in their guns Ghost Buster style? Either way, definitely looking forward to the rules for these guys.

Close combat options:
-The Close Combat options involve some sort of Axe, Wraithsword and/or shield generator in any combination. I am curious what the rules are for Wraithswords (if they changed at all/are power weapons) and if the axes are actual Power Axes for some AP2 goodness. Also, what is the save provided by the shield generators?

Conclusion:
-Ultimately, this is one of the most exciting aspects of the new release as Wraith units were always my favorite and it is nice to see GW finally branching out and exploring how to develop the wraith units (as fluff and 2nd edition had a large variety of "Ghost Warriors). I will probably buy a ton of these guys as the models are just so sweet and I really hope the rules do them justice...And they probably will be super awesome because GW will want to sell the models.

Wraithknight:

Holy moly are the rumors for this thing insane! The model is probably as strong as it is tall with the potential options it can have...

-For starters, we know it can have 2 regular Eldar Heavy Weapons on the shoulders along with up to 2 Arm weapons which can throw out A LOT of shooting. Rumor is that it can start from 250 points and jump up to 350. We will need to see what the rules are for it before seeing how worth it the model is for any army, but it sure looks cool for Wraith-centric armies.

Shooting Options:
-The rumors say that one of the the main gun options is a H2 Lance weapon that has

the option of shooting a S10 AP1 Lance weapon and then not being able to shoot it the following turn. If this is true, it can potentially have 6 S8 Lance shots (2 from each arm and 2 from shoulder mounted Bright Lances) which is a ton of shooting and a great place to throw the Guide Psychic Power. This is also a good value for  even a 350 point price tag as this many Lance shots in the current codex would probably cost 270 points from a unit of War-Walkers which are ultra fragile and only BS3...

-Another rumored main gun option is a "Sun Cannon" which is a S6 Ap2 H3 Blast weapon that can fire as if twin-linked if a shoulder mounted Scatter Laser hits the target. Having 2 of these weapons and 2 Scatter Lasers (or just get 2 Star Cannons on the Shoulder and cast Guide to effectively Twin-Link everything) and you have a essentially 2 IG Executioners right there albeit at S6 (and a better BS and no overheating to worry about).

Close combat options:

-As pictured here, the Wraithknight also has options for a giant Wraithsword and some form of fancy shield generator. It might even have the option for two Wraithswords but I'm not sure what the rules would be. This may not be a bad way to go with the model as it will probably be cheaper and still have room for 2 shoulder mounted heavy weapons so you basically have a super Wraithlord on steroids. Perhaps the sword will allow the Wraithknight to re-roll everything like the Dreadknight sword?

Conclusion:
-Ultimately, I imagine the Wraithknight will be able to fire all of it's weapons and be at least BS4 with a T value so it can always fire effectively until the last wound is taken off (no worrying about Crew stunned/shaken or a destroyed result). However, since I expect it to have a T value, I also imagine it will be Sniper bait...Watch out for lage units of Kroot (or just kill the Kroot dead and hold the Wraithknight in reserves). Ultimately if there is a healing psychic power, the Wraithknight will be very glad to have it sent his way! Then of course if it has an armor value...*shudders*


Flyers:

The long over-due Eldar flyers are something that really give us a lot to work with in my opinion. For starters, the type of fire-power they are sporting gives us a good spread of potential targets to be engaged.

-The Fighter has 2 Brightlances (which can be exchanged for 2 Starcannons) and a Pulse Laser which is solid anti-tank/big-scary-thing-to-shoot-dead fire power. The Fighter also is allegedly piloted by an Aspect Warrior (so BS4) and can be upgraded to an Exarch via the Ace Pilot upgrade (so BS5) which makes it the most accurate flyer out there.

-The bomber has 2 Heavy D-Scythes which I imagine will be larger/more powerful versions of the Wraithguard D-Scythe and is piloted by a Warlock or Spiritseer of sorts (so prob at least BS4). It also has some sort of mechanic (called the Mindshock pod) that affect's a unit's LD making it more likely to run from taking casualties.

Conclusion:
Ultimately, even if they look like geese from the bottom, they still are nifty looking models and we know (hope) the firepower they will be packing is sure to put a dent in whatever they shoot. The Fighter's S8 is great at taking out other flyers as 4 shots at S8 and BS5 is bound to do something (on average 2 glance/pens at least on AV12). The bomer is still up int he air (haha get it?) but I think (hope) it will do wonders for any horde related problems your army may face.

Miscellaneous rumors:

-Shiruken Weapons: Apparently, the buff Shiruken Weapons get is that they will auto-wound on a roll of 6 like the rending rule but not sure if it becomes AP2 when the 6 is rolled.

-"Battle Driven": A new rule that allows Eldar models to run and then shoot or possibly shoot then run, not certain on how it will turn out as we need the actual rule to figure out what it does.

-Fleet: Now every unit that is not a Wraith unit gets fleet, which should make a huge difference for charge reliability. Potentially Jetbikes as well, I hope?

Conclusion:
So not everyone will agree but I think there is a lot of potential for this upcoming Eldar release. Talk is cheap so lets see what the codex holds for us before passing judgment!