Codex: Aeldari 10th Edition – The Goonhammer Review

TheChirurgeon:Well, we all knew this day would come. After dominating the field at the start of Tenth edition with an Index that completely warped the game for months, the Eldar had finally been nerfed and toned down to the middle of the pack, if not on the lower end. But we all knew that somewhere on the horizon they’d be back. I’ve been playing Warhammer 40,000 since its second edition and there hasn’t been a single edition – including the first – in which the Eldar release wasn’t at least incredibly good. So have Games Workshop done it again in Tenth edition? Are we to be consigned to the flames of Eldar hell once more, waiting on dataslates to restore order to the game’s balance?

Well, we had the Jameses – James “One_Wing” Grover and James “Boon” Kelling – sit down and write this review, listening to them cackle with glee all the while. If their excitement is any indication, the answer is “Probably.” But for a more nuanced take and the most incredibly in-depth discussion you’ll find of the new book anywhere, read on.

Wings: Thanks, Rob. We’ll take it from here. We have had plenty of time to sink our teeth into this, and have taken the lead on half the detachments each, which you can find linked in the appropriate section below.

We would like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a review copy of the Codex, plus some of the lovely Aspect Warriors and Phoenix Lords you may see scattered throughout. We’ve also received an advance copy of the book’s points and day 1 FAQ/Errata.

Army Overview

We think the following are five standout features of this book:

• Depth: There’s so much going on here, with pretty much every detachment and datasheet having something to offer.
• Diversity: Speaking of which – a really diverse set of incentives, meaning that different lists will have very different tools in them, and a sensible decision to split up some datasheets like melee/shooty Wraithknights and the various Support Weapons also increases flexibility.
• Aspect Warriors: Are pretty much all cool as hell. In addition, Autarchs can now join them, upping the diversity of options considerably.
• Battle Focus: A powerful new army rule gives Aeldari huge agility and flexibility.
• High Skill Ceiling: The new mechanics and datasheets dial back the Devastating Wounds and drop the certainty of Fate Dice but create a lot of opportunities for coordination and varied builds. Top players are going to get a lot of mileage out of this book.

In terms of what we don’t like:

• It’s Very Strong: The power level on some tools here is buck wild. Strands of Fate may be gone, but Battle Focus replaces it as a top tier army rule. Building on that, some of the Datasheets and combos are incredibly potent, allowing you to go through foes like a hot knife. Because of the sheer variety on offer, it’s also likely to take a few goes to nail the balance.
• Weaker Harlequin Integration: Harlequins don’t interact with any Stratagems or Enhancements outside their designated detachment, so they’re a bit less well integrated than in the Index for mixed forces, and despite being a key part of the Ynnari in previous editions, they no longer interact at all.
• Heavy Weapon Balance: Perhaps more than any other faction, Eldar platforms rely on a choice of the five core heavy weapons. Unfortunately, there continues to be limited reason to take most of them and the Bright Lance remains the undisputed king.
• No Karandras: All the other resin stuff leaves too, but this one hurts, especially as they’ve somehow done all other Lords in plastic.
• If Rob Has to Play Against It More Than a Few Times He Might Quit Warhammer: This would not be good for our output.

Where’s Crusade?

As usual, we’re holding the Crusade rules review for Tuesday – check back then for everything you need to know about walking the various paths of the Eldar.

The Video Version

If you’d rather watch or listen to a review of this than read it, you can find our more truncated video version here:

A Note on Points and Errata

We have been provided with the final points to use in the Army Lists you will see in the Detachment Focus articles, plus details of some day one errata that fixes a few issues with Warlocks in particular. If some of our takes or notes are different than what you’re seeing elsewhere, that may be why!

Keywords and Allies

As with 9th Edition and the 10th Edition Index, the Aeldari codex covers all of Asuryani, Harlequins and Ynnari (who each get a dedicated Detachment here), but there are a few shakeups to how this works compared to the Index, and it’s worth covering this off first. In this book:

• Your Faction Keyword will always be ASURYANI, but only the “traditional” Craftworlds units have this.
• HARLEQUINS units have this as their Faction Keyword, but can be included in ASURYANI armies even though they do not have the right Faction Keyword thanks to the Disparate Paths rule. However:
  • Pretty much all Stratagems/Enhancements except the ones in their dedicated detachment key off ASURYANI rather than AELDARI, so when taken as allies they’ll have limited Stratagem support (though Battle Focus works on them).
  • Unless you are running the Harlequin detachment, you can only take a single one each of Troupe Masters, Shadowseers and Death Jesters .
• YNNARI units can only be taken in their dedicated detachment. In this detachment, all Asuryani units gain the YNNARI keyword as well, and datasheets for the Drukhari units that are available to you in this case are now included in this book, tweaked to adapt to not having access to Pain Tokens, and giving them access to Battle Focus.

Army Rule – Battle Focus

As trailed when the Codex was announced, the Aeldari get an entirely new Army Rule in this book, replacing Strands of Fate. The new Battle Focus rule provides you with a pool of tokens (2/4/6 for Incursion, Strike Force and Onslaught respectively) each Battle Round, which can each be cashed in to activate one of six mobility tricks for a unit with the Battle Focus ability. All units except Wraithguard, Wraithblades, Wraithlords and Corsairs have this on their datasheet, and a unit can perform one per phase.

Each ability can only be used once per phase (except Swift as the Wind), and are as follows:

• Swift as the Wind: Add 2” to a unit’s Move Characteristic when it makes a Normal/Advance/Fall Back move. Extra reach is always nice as a baseline ability.
• Flitting Shadows: Activate when a unit makes a Normal/Advance/Fall Back move or gets Set Up. The unit cannot be Overwatched for the rest of the turn. This is extremely good, as it stops melee aspects getting shut out by enemy Torrent weapons. Do remember, and this is important – you have to declare this when you make the move, you can’t activate it “reactively” when the opponent tries to overwatch and you realise you’ve messed up*. This is also the only one of these where the per-unit one-per-phase restriction kicks in – you can’t do this and Swift as the Wind.
• Star Engines: When a Vehicle makes a Normal Move, add d6+1” to their Move Characteristic. Basically this is a better Swift as the Wind for the first Vehicle you want to Normal Move each turn.
• Sudden Strike: When a unit is selected to Fight, give them 6” Pile-ins/Consolidations till the end of the turn. This is probably the most niche as you’re generally not going to be running big melee units, but it’s a great tool to have in the pocket to fire an Avatar through a screen into its next target.
• Opportunity Seized: Used when an enemy unit finishes a Fall Back, and lets one of your (non-TITANIC) units that was within Engagement Range of them at the start of the phase make a Normal Move of d6+1”. This is a very powerful ability (particularly combined with some of the tools that boost the rolls), and encourages you to try and get in Fights near walls so you can use this to scarper to safety after an opponent flees.
• Fade Back: Maybe saving the best for last here – after an enemy unit has shot, one of your (non-TITANIC) units that was hit by one of those attacks can make a Normal Move of d6+1”. This is incredibly good for protecting your toys, and can make it extremely difficult for enemies to reliably focus-fire your stuff.

Movement and positioning is where games of 40K are won and lost, and this ability continues a proud Aeldari tradition of being really good at it. Effective use of Opportunity Seized and Fade Back in particular are going to make pinning down and destroying the Aeldari very challenging, and even just the baseline of extra reach on several units is very helpful. Getting the most out of this will be a fairly steep learning curve for Aeldari players, but at a baseline we think you should be stashing a token for Fade Back in any matchup where the opponent has meaningful guns, plus one for Opportunity Seized if you’re planning to make any bully charges. It’s also worth noting that both the latter two have no restrictions on Embarking at the end of the move, which can make darting back towards a transport behind a wall a very effective use of them.

*Yes even when you Set Up, even though the trigger for both this and Overwatch are the same in that case, and you might assume that sequencing lets you force the opponent to pick whether to Overwatch first. That is not the case here, as there’s an existing FAQ that if multiple effects would be triggered by the same thing, the player whose turn it is has to choose whether to activate theirs first.

Detachments

Unsurprisingly given how many angles it needs to cover, the Aeldari Codex has a mighty eight detachments to play with, putting it level with Chaos Space Marines for the largest selection. This is way too much to cram into a single article, so you can find links to a Detachment Focus for each of these next to their descriptions below:

Detachment Focus: Warhost

The Warhost is your all-rounder detachment that improves the power and reliability of Battle Focus, while supporting most kinds of units.

Detachment Focus: Windrider Host

The Saim-Hann option, this jetbike-focused detachment has buffs for MOUNTED and VYPER units.

Detachment Focus: Spirit Conclave

This Detachment is for the Iyanden fans, boosting Wraith Constructs and pushing you toward an all-Wraith army.

Detachment Focus: Guardian Battlehost

This Detachment is for players who want to deploy lots of Guardians, Dire Avengers and supporting war machines to murder enemies in a torrent of Shurikens.

Detachment Focus: Seer Council

This Detachment offers powerful Psyker support and a pool of free Stratagems via a reworked Fate Dice mechanic.

Detachment Focus: Aspect Host

This Detachment is chock full of options you can use to brutally murder people using Aspect Warriors and the Avatar.

Detachment Focus: Devoted of Ynnead

This is your Ynnari option, and lets you unleash the power of the god of death via relentless melee combat and a mix of units from Asuryani and Drukhari sources.

Detachment Focus: Ghosts of the Webway

The Harlequins option. This Detachment is all about building a Harlequins-only force and leaning on their new datasheets to take the opponent to clown town.

Detachment Focus: Armoured Warhost

Although not in the book, the Grotmas Detachment is still around and bears a second look now that the Codex is out and it’s no longer competing with the Index Detachment.

Datasheets

This book has what is probably the single biggest overhaul of Datasheets out of any so far this Edition, so this is going to be a long one. With a change to the army rule, some units were obviously going to need updating so they no longer relied on Fate Dice, but the changes go far deeper than that, providing substantial boosts to units that underwhelmed in the Index, and smoothing out some of the more vicious stuff at the upper end, in particular by massively cutting down on Devastating Wounds. Before we jump into that, however, we do have one truly new datasheet to look at – Lhykhis, the new Phoenix Lord of the Warp Spiders.

New Datasheets

Lhykhis

Lhykhis is a terrifying, mobile all-rounder who can amplify both a squad of Warp Spiders and provide a wider boost for your army in a pinch.

She has the standard Phoenix Lord defensive statline (5W, 2+/4+ Invulnerable) and the speed of a Warp Spider, and is armed with a souped up suite of Warp Spider Exarch equipment, and a fancy sword for when that’s not enough. Her guns are functionally a turbo-buffed twin-linked Heavy Flamer with extra shots, and after she hits something with it in your shooting phase, your entire army scores Critical Hits on a 5+ against the target till the end of the turn. This soups up her melee output, all of which has Lethal Hits and is split between S4 AP-2 D1 attacks from her claws and S6 AP-2 D2 sword attacks.

She can, naturally, lead a unit of Warp Spiders, and pulls them towards building for melee, as the Exarch’s new claws also have Lethal Hits, and her Leader ability lets them charge after doing a Flickerjump. While that comes at slightly higher risk than it used to, the sheer reach means that just having her on the board means that nothing which cannot tank the (fairly considerable) melee punch she and the Exarch have together is safe. She’s also great for providing a layup to Windriders, Dire Avengers or Swooping Hawks via the boost to Critical Hits.

As you may have inferred from the above, she’s extremely good, especially in either Warhost (where the boost to Battle Focus increases her chances of skulking into the shadows after murdering something) or Aspect Host (which boosts her unit’s output, and provides wider access to Sustained Hits for her to tee up).

Removed Datasheets

Along with the new and updated, several sheets were predictably removed with this book and are presumed to be heading to the big Craftworld in the sky. They are the following:

• Autarch Skyrunner
• Karandras
• Illic Nightspear
• Prince Yriel
• Warlock Skyrunner Conclave
• Webway Gate

All Forge World units other than the two Titans are also gone, presumably passing into Legends.

Updated Datasheets

Yeah we are going to be splitting this into sections.

The Avatar of Khaine

Is still a big scary melee monster, but a bit less so everywhere except the detachments that support him best. He’s durable at T11, 14W, 2+/4+ invulnerable and halving damage, but that’s lower T than in the index, and you no longer have access to Fortune or Fate Dice to throw at his save against key high-damage shots (though he’s a bit cheaper to compensate. You also lose the reliability of the auto-6 Overwatch. There is some trade for this mind, as his offence is now even scarier, jumping to S16 on the strike and S8 on the sweep, the latter a particularly important breakpoint. That leaves him as a serious consideration in either Warhost or Aspect Host, the former because you can use the Battle Focus bonuses to protect or lunge with him, the latter because the re-rolls give you the old reliability, and the ignore modifiers Stratagem makes him a complete nightmare.

Autarchs

Autarchs get one of the biggest transformations in the Codex, now being able to lead Aspect Warriors that match their movement type (so all the regular Infantry for the vanilla Autarch, Spiders and Hawks for the Wayleaper). This is a big deal, as both have the Captain-equivalent once-per-battle-round Stratagem discount, and there are some good stratagems in this book to work with. Particularly noteworthy there is a foot Autarch with Dark Reapers in Warhost, as their guns have been boosted substantially, they come in 10s again, and using free Fire and Fade is pretty much a no brainer, but there are plenty more relevant options in other detachments. The foot Autarch adds an additional angle of utility by giving a re-roll on Advances or rolls for any Battle Focus dice, boosting the chance of pulling off a diabolical escape with Banshees or Scorpions.

The Wayleaper also interacts with Battle Focus, refunding a token used on the unit on a 3+, which is OK but underwhelming compared to the foot ability – because you’ll want to be planning how you spend these very carefully, you may not be able to make that much use of one refunded at random. The Wayleaper is also no-longer a Lone Operative, and the net effect here is that you’re probably now going to see far more foot Autarchs than Wayleapers (especially as the Phoenix Lords for the two jump Aspects are particularly swanky).

Part of that is because the extra lift of output they provide matters more to the melee Aspects – a bunch of the weaponry on the Autarch has been improved in-line with changes to Aspects, and their signature Star Glaive is a lot better – it drops an attack, but improves in WS, AP and D, making it legitimately fearsome. If you attach one to Banshees or Scorpions, they also pick up the important Core Abilities of each, so Banshees with an Autarch still Fight First, and Scorpions keep their improved Infiltrate/Scout/Stealth trifecta.

Those two plus Reapers seem like the main place you’ll encounter Autarchs, as they do the most to improve the units, and provide a cheaper augment than the relevant Phoenix Lord (or in Scorpion’s case, access to one at all). There are also plausible use cases with Guardians in the Guardian Battlehost, and there are some nice interactions with Dire Avengers, but Asurmen is so good that the Autarch is always second in the queue (except in Ynnari, where you probably do want this setup).

Tragically there is one old friend missing here – for their many crimes in 8th Edition, Autarch Skyrunners have been banished to resin hell. RIP to them. You might think that this leaves Spears in the lurch as the only Aspect without a Leader option but uh…don’t worry about them. We’ll get to them. Pretty soon, in fact, as we head into…

Aspect Warriors and Phoenix Lords

Aspect Warriors get substantial reworks and upgrades across the board, making them more desirable as units in their own right, and also keeping some very strong incentives to squeeze the Phoenixes in if you can.

All Aspects except Shining Spears and Crimson Hunters also share a new ability. You know those little shrine tokens you get with them? Hunt them down, they do something now. Each unit starts with one of these per five models, and can be cashed in once-per-game to flip a hit or wound roll to a 6. This gives you a little bit of the old feel of Fate Dice back, and is obviously extremely strong. The Aspect Host detachment also gives you alternative options for using these. Find those tokens and get them based.

Onto the Aspects themselves, starting with Dire Avengers and their boy Asurmen, who bring volume shuriken firepower to the table. Dire Avengers get some tweaks to their setup, losing Lethal hits on their guns but going up to a comical four shots each, and getting Sustained Hits 1 while within half range, meaning that even an MSU can shred horde stuff. However, you’re going to want to strongly consider taking 10 with Asurmen, as he keeps strong shooting and melee profiles and provides a free 6” Normal Move after shooting, letting the unit inflict massive attrition over time. There’s also no Embark restriction on this, so you can hop in and out of a Falcon for easy Wound re-rolls. He also provides spike potential, as he has a truly wild once-per-game super shooting mode where his guns go to D3, Anti-Infantry 3+ and Devastating Wounds, allowing him to brutally murder most of an elite Infantry squad with high reliability (especially in Aspect Host), and burn Shrine Tokens to take chunks out of bigger stuff. None of the old Overwatch stuff remains on the datasheets (though one Detachment now gets it as an Enhancement), but my strong experience on the table was that this was never as good as it felt like it should be – this new setup gives them far more proactive utility. Asurmen with five is also plausible, as his post-shooting Move has no restriction on boarding a Transport, so repeatedly teeing up Wound re-rolls from a Falcon might be pretty spicy.

Next up, Baharroth and the birds, speedy utility units with a mix of high-volume firepower and Mortal Wounds. To the relief of many players, uppy-downy moves from being the Hawk datasheet ability to being Baharroths (with added ability to do 6” Deep Strike), so you have to stick him in a squad if you want consistent access to it (and he makes them a bit pricey to just throw away on scoring). Hawks gain a powerful new Datasheet ability, however, getting to do a free Grenade-like ability (d6 for each model, MW on a 4+) after ending a Movement Phase move (or setting up with Baharroth) within 8” of a visible enemy. If they do this they can’t use Grenades as well that turn (so if you’re down to the last few models it might be worth doing that instead) but free Mortals are always good.. Hawk Exarchs also get a bit more differential on gun options, being able to switch to a lower shots but higher punch hawk’s talon, take extra shots with a scatter laser, keep a boosted lasblaster, or go for a pistol/sword setup that’s maybe worth a look in a Baharroth squad just because it adds quite a few attacks. Baharroth himself also gets a cute output boost – in a turn where he sets up from Reserves, he scores Critical Hits on any Ranged hit at all, so his gun reliably drops some saves on something with Lethal Hits. It also makes him extremely good if you have any way of providing Sustained Hits on top of that, which both Warhost and Aspect Host can achieve.

Fuegan and the anti-tank/monster Fire Dragons come next, with Fuegan keeping his eye-popping damage output (even improving slightly with Melta 1 on the beam mode) and ability to stand back up once on a 2+, but no longer having the Feel No Pain that made him so potent as a pseudo-Lone Operative before. Happily, there are now far more incentives to take him with a squad – he boosts the range of all Melta weaponry in a unit he leads by 6”, and the squad now have full hit, wound and damage re-rolls against VEHICLES and MONSTERS and all weapon options are now Assault, including Fuegan himself on both profiles. This lets them skirmish into enemy heavy Infantry much more effectively, and against Monsters being able to get Melta on Fuegan and an exarch’s Firepike out of Reserves is certainly worth contemplating. Like on Hawks, the Exarch gets a few new options with the kit as well – while the Firepike is probably the winner most of the time, choosing to keep the regular fusion gun boosts it to Melta 6, and the fusion pistol/axe combo looks surprisingly plausible – the fusion pistol is now a special dragon fusion pistol that has the full fusion gun statline, just shorter range, and the axe has the comical high variance that comes from only making three S6 attacks, but hitting at AP-4 and d6 damage, so fully able to murder an unlucky Character. Realistically you should probably still just take one of the two pure gun builds, but we were expecting the pistol/axe to be obvious duds, and they’re actually pretty real (especially as Fuegan boosts the pistol’s range back out to 12”). Fire Dragons out of Strategic Reserves, popping Flitting Shadows to avoid Overwatch, are going to be a crucial part of strong lists, especially as they’re only slightly more expensive than now while being vastly more lethal.

Banshees see a fairly substantial rework to their offensive profile, dropping to only 2A each but now getting D2, WS2+ across the board, and Anti-Infantry 3+, which finally makes them reliably threatening in their intended role as being elite infantry killers, especially as the Exarch’s executioner adds some sweet D3 attacks on top of that. Jain Zar also picks up Anti and her two melee profiles get flattened into eight attacks, with free Wound re-rolls against CHARACTER units. She also provides auto-Advance 6”, which we love for her, giving the unit a cool total of 19” of guaranteed movement out of a Transport if you use Swift as the Wind. The eternal question of whether they hit quite hard enough after all that will remain in most detachments, but in Aspect Host where you can grab some re-rolls for reliability and ignore damage reduction where required she should be real.

Dark Reapers, long-ranged anti-elite/medium hull shooting, get a major glow up, with D3 restored to their big missiles (also going to S10), and the starswarm mode boosted to AP-2. In addition, you can take these in 10s again, which returns them to being a powerful tool to combo with all the Infantry-rewarding Stratagems in here. Perpetual disappointment Maugen Ra is also definitely better than he used to be (and finally a bit cheaper), adding some AoE Mortals if his unit focus fires something, handing out Battle-shocks, and getting slight improvements to his gun. Jury is out on if this is enough and it’ll probably come down to list preference  – within our team, we’re split between those of us who us think using him with five popping in and out of a Falcon (with ways to do this in the detachments) is good, others prefer just stacking up a full 10 with an Autarch and letting rip.

For Spiders we’ve already covered their (extremely good) new Lord, but the unit themselves get toned down a little, though are still valuable as speedy harassment/scoring pieces. Their spinners lose Devastating Wounds in favour of AP-1 and Ignore Cover (a fairly clear downgrade) and the dual spinners on the Exarch are now a shorter ranged Twin-Linked pistol version (though they can now take a boosted spinneret rifle with these if you want pure shooting). Flickerjump also has higher risks, as you roll a dice for every model in the unit rather than just a single d6, so you will actually lose a model some of the time. Melee from the Exarch is the only place where there’s a fairly serious boost – just the basic powerblades go to 5A, Lethal Hits, and Twin-Linked, so can do a bit of chip damage, but the new quad-blade build keeps all that and goes to 10A, which is where you start randomly picking off a stray Character. If you’re taking Lhykhis this ends up as a serious consideration, as the tag team of her and the Exarch can take a moderate chunk out of many targets.

Scorpions (anti-horde melee/infiltrating utility) are left sadly Phoenix-less, and honestly get a bit of a damage hit in general – they do get a point of AP on their chainswords, which is nice, plus Criticals on 5+ when charging, but no more Mortal Wounds. The claw also gets a bit of a downgrade, and I am definitely not mad that I just build my new plastic ones with this, no sir. Luckily, their utility function improves significantly, as they gain Stealth and acquire the Space Marine Scout trick of pairing Infiltrators with Scout 7” for ultimate early-game flexibility. Depending on the final price tag that could make an Autarch with 5 of these a fairly potent pressure piece – they can deploy very aggressively the use a combination of Scout and Battle Focus to bug out if needed, but remain an intimidating presence mid board.

Shining Spears are the last conventional aspect, and get probably the biggest glow-up across the entire range. We hope you enjoyed the 18-month window we just had where these were not a top tier Aeldari unit, we will now return to the mean of the six years before that where these jetbike knights terrorise tanks and elite infantry alike. Their mobility and damage output gets cranked to the max – they now ignore vertical distance when moving (so can jump over ruins for free), and on the offence their lances get boosted to S5 and D3, and also gain Anti-Monster and Anti-Vehicle 3+. While a unit of three still has a fairly low attack count, this firmly returns them to being able to one-shot a medium tank/monster, and also do some horrific stuff to elite Infantry. A+, up with this sort of thing.

Finally, Crimson Hunters (anti-flier planes) are pretty much unchanged from the Index, and thus mediocre. Reapers and Spears are off the 8th Edition naughty step, planes are not. You could technically try one in Aspect Host, but the re-rolls that gives you are going to be broadly similar or slightly weaker in impact to what Battle Host used to provide, so don’t bother. There are some sort of cute maybe OK stratagem combos there too, but this is fully not a Codex where you should waste your time trying to make the very small number of mediocre Datasheets overperform, just take the good stuff. The only possible exception might be as a metagame spoiler if C’tan spam rolls back around, because then running in Aspect Host with access to the ignore modifiers (including damage) stratagem suddenly gets pretty clutch.

Psykers

The Psyker units in the Aeldari roster remain unchanged from a statline and weapon perspective, but receive a bevy of adjustments to their abilities that will alter how they function within the army.

The venerable Eldrad is unchanged stat-wise, but his Fate dice ability becomes an auto CP generation when he is on the battlefield. The remaining Farseers similarly receive a bit of an adjustment to their Branching Fates ability. They largely keep the effect and expand the ability to once-per-phase rather than once-per-round, however, the auto-6 is now restricted to the Farseer’s own unit and only for hit, wound, or damage rolls, though does become a post-roll flip rather than pre-declared boost, which is a small upgrade. Cleverly, the use of this will not apply to any Support Weapons (more on this later). Fortune is gone – in place the Farseer receives an updated version of Guide where you select a unit within 18” and visible to the Farseer – the army has +1 to hit vs that unit. The Farseer Skyrunner, in turn, swaps out Guide for Misfortune – a debuff giving the targeted unit the enemy unit is -1 to wound when making attacks. Importantly both of these abilities as well as Eldrad’s Doom now automatically activate rather than on a die roll of 2+.
Wings: Incredible monkey’s paw energy from me wishing to never fail a key Fortune again here.

The Warlocks see some significant changes once the day one Errata is factored in, giving them some actual purpose. Solo foot Warlocks are the only one that’s mostly unchanged, still being CHARACTERs that can lead Guardians or Storm Guardians (and can join alongside a second Leader). Conclaves are NOT Characters (despite what the Codex may tell you), but can be embedded in a Guardian unit Cryptothrall-style, becoming additional models (and still allowing another Leader to join). Alternatively, a Farseer can lead a Conclave. Warlock Skyrunners are the same deal – they’re non-Characters who come as a one or two, and can either be embedded in a Windrider unit, or lead by a Farseer Skyrunner. .

In terms of datasheet abilities, all Warlocks now gain the Psychic Communion ability. This grants a +1A and +1S bonus to their Destructor ability for each PSYKER within 6” up to +2 for a max of d6+2 Attacks at up to Strength 7 for super-charged heavy flamers for each model. Given that a unit may bring along four of such flamers in addition to what a Storm Guardian squad may bring normally, it can really increase the lethality of what is typically considered a fairly benign utility battleline unit. There are potential use cases here for a full Farseer-lead Conclavethat are very dynamic, particularly out of a Falcon leveraging some of the detachment rules. The Conclave also has the Protect rule, which reduces the wound roll of attacks against the unit by one if a Farseer is leading the unit, which helps with durability and can theoretically assemble to a mighty Guardian doomstack with a full Conclave and seer embedded.

The individual Warlock datasheet loses the option Quicken but retains the Restrain ability, reducing enemy charges on its unit by 2”. This is not true of the Conclave which can only be joined with a Farseer, however, while the unit is joined by a Farseer the Conclave offers Protect which reduces the wound roll of attacks against the unit by 1. Skyrunners provide Ignore Cover to their unit, comtinuing to make them an excellent addition to Windriders.

Wraith Constructs

As well as getting a whole dedicated detachment, the various Aeldari ghost constructs get a variety of datasheet tweaks, and it feels like there are plenty of viable ways to use them in several flavours of list.

Wraithlords, Wraithguard and Wraithblades share the Psychic Guidance ability, which means that when they’re within 12” of a friendly AELDARI PSYKER they get +1 to their Hit rolls (for the small ones) or +1WS/BS for Wraithlords, and change their Leadership from a mediocre 8+ to a much more respectable 6+. You used to only get this by Leading them with a Spiritseer, but now any Psyker can provide the baseline babysitting, and you only need to take a Spiritseer if you want the additional boosts they provide (or to use Spirit Conclave Enhancements). This is good news for Wraithlords, as it lets a backfield Farseer/Warlock/Eldrad boost multiple Wraithlords up to a respectable statline, and with War Walkers now a lot less durable, this feels like a more appealing way to cram some Anti-tank into an army.  It’s more of a mixed blessing for the smaller Wraiths, as they want close engagements, and can no longer shield a Psyker within their unit. Both flavours of smaller Wraith also now only come in 5s, so no more 10 Wraithblade doomstacks. Finally, the small and medium Wraiths do not have Battle Focus (though can gain it in Spirit Conclave), but the Wraithknight does.

In terms of the units themselves, the classic Wraithguard get several changes, carving out more distinctive roles for each of the two gun options. Their toughness drops by a point, going down to 6, but they keep the all-important 2+ save, making them very resilient to small arms, and get a built-in ability to Fall Back/Shoot instead of their old Shoot Back option, which is probably weaker overall but removes a way of shutting them down for some lists. The anti-tank Wraithcannons get sidegraded, losing Devastating Wounds but now striking for d6+1 damage, which is a fairly reasonable swap in a book without any ways to drop an auto-6 on them. The D-scythe build gets a much bigger change in role, returning to being a Torrent weapon like it was in previous editions, but still hitting for a respectable S7 AP-3, and having d6 shots per model. This is nasty both in your turn and as an Overwatch threat and being Torrent also lets you use them without worrying about keeping them in Psyker range if you don’t want to. It feels like this is the winner option here, as it’s a uniquely nasty trick where the wraithcannons compete with new and improved Fire Dragons, though obviously price point will be a big determinant there.

Wraithblades are still elite melee threats, with a choice of either axe and shield or paired swords, both of which now hit at D2, leaving you choosing between durability or attack volume/S. They also Fight On Death on a 3+ now rather than their old 4+, meaning that even the mandated small unit size isn’t safe for some lone murder-Character to carve through.

Wraithlords also drop a point of toughness, leaving them at T10, but the combination of being able to buff multiple with a single Psyker and the new version of their Fated Hero ability makes them very attractive Dreadnought-style threats, able to both snipe at range with a couple of Bright Lances, or chop things up with a big Sword. The Psychic Guidance on Wraithlords being a +BS/WS modifier is particularly relevant with a Farseer who can provide a +1 to hit against a targe, lending itself nicely to the other datasheet ability.  Fated Hero now lets each Wraithlord pick one Keyword of INFANTRY/MOUNTED/VEHICLE/MONSTER at the start of the game, and get re-rolls of 1 to Hit and Wound against that keyword. This is really nice for ensuring they’re relevant against whatever skew lists you come up against, and two Wraithlords with a babysitter feels like a decent generic mid-heavy threat setup.

Finally for the constructs themselves, the TITANIC Wraithknights have now been split across two versions – one shooting-focused and one with a sword, both able to choose between a Scattershield or a main gun on their second arm. They keep their mighty T12 2+ Save statline, but the Scattershield now makes a big difference to their durability, providing both a 4+ Invulnerable Save and -1D, the latter of which is no longer included on baseline. That’ll be a fairly tough choice, as though it’s a big boost in durability, it represents a big drop in output, especially as the signature heavy wraithcannon loses Blast.

There are compensations though, as the shooty version gets the ability to re-roll shot counts within half range (making them more reliable at killing tanks) and also gets a huge glow-up on the suncannon, which jumps to a much more reliable d6+4 shots instead of the failure-prone 2d6, and also gets S10 instead of the old mediocre S8. For a pure shooty Wraithknight this leaves Suncannon/Wraithcannon as a much more appealing option than it used to be, particularly as “half range” for the Suncannon is a generous 24”. The shooty Wraithknight also borrows an ability that Knights received in the Balance Dataslate – they can Normal Move/Advance/Fall Back through models and terrain under 4” by default, but can also move through any terrain at a risk of getting Battle-shocked on a d6 roll of a 1. This gives them a fairly impressive threat range for getting into position, but can’t be used to protect them by zipping back through a wall, as there aren’t any abilities (given Fade Back excludes Titanic) that let them move after shooting. Probably for the best, but makes them a pretty tough sell at their book price tag and relative fragility when not given the shield.

The melee build is less complicated, just getting the ability to Normal Move/Advance/Fall Back through models and terrain features full stop, no questions asked, no risk of Battle-shock. Assuming these end up cheaper than the shooty build (which they currently are) they’re probably the most likely to see play – a potential 14” Move straight through walls followed by a 6” Consolidation is a huge wrecking ball you can hurl into the middle of the enemy’s lines, and one that will often threaten to push onwards to a home objective unless they do something about it immediately.

If you want to make your Wraiths extra effective, the last thing you can do is invest in a Spiritseer. While any Psyker can now power Psychic Guidance, Spiritseers are precision-tuned for Wraith babysitting. They get Lone Operative if they stay within 3” of one, can heal/revive models in nearby units, and get to pick one Wraith Construct unit within 6” to give Sustained Hits 1 against a single visible target. Sustained Hits is mostly a nice-to-have for these units rather than pivotal (though Wraithblades get a lot from it), but a cheap Psyker who can safely babysit a pair of Wraithlords and remove some chip damage is neat.

Finally, the option to take a Spiritseer inexplicably piloting a jet still exists, and is still pretty much garbage, because apparently the solid year where everyone insisted it was better than Crimson Hunters in 8th (it never was) still looms large enough in the collective psyche that it cannot be forgiven. It flies around, scares people, and shoots nasty S12 D2 guns at stuff, which sounds OK on paper. However, only hitting on a 4+ with its guns (and not having any equivalent of Psychic Guidance) makes it extremely unreliable, and there are vastly better ways to spend your points in this book. There could be fringe uses for it in Wraith Host (appropriate, we guess) or Seer Council, because it has the unusual combination of the PSYKER and WRAITH CONSTRUCT datasheets. In the Wraith Host it provides a massive Battle Focus bubble, synergises effectively with several key tricks (most notably being able to ignore damage modifiers on its D2 guns), and if it dies, well at least all your other Wraiths get really mad about it, while the Seer Council can get a lot of value out of it on a go turn by burning through disruptive Stratagems in the middle of the enemy’s lines. The latter is probably more likely to hit, and I (Wings) will absolutely try it the first time I take the detachment out because my poor Hemlock has been on the shelf for four solid years at this point.

Guardians, Outcasts, & Light Support Vehicles

This is a fairly broad category of datasheets, and some have received more significant changes than others, but similar to the Psykers the majority of changes are to the datasheet abilities and not the underlying unit and weapon profiles.

The core of Craftworld armies (theoretically) are its citizen-soldiers, the Guardians and their war machines. The Storm Guardians received a very slight adjustment to their datasheet ability which now checks for control of the ‘stickied’ objective based on the end of a phase, rather than the start or end of a turn, but that’s just in-line with how all of these work under the Dataslate.

On the other end of the Guardian spectrum, you have the Defender variant which received the largest change from its index version owing to its prior use of the Fate dice mechanic. The new ability, Fleet of Foot, allows the unit to activate the Fade Make Agile Maneuver for free and without limiting other uses in the phase. An already powerful ability, the result here is to allow Guardian Defenders to remain relatively safe from being targeted multiple times. Given their general role as a backfield objective holder, screener, and bodyguard the new ability excellently fits their role, and means it’s much safer to get somewhat aggressive with them when you need to. You can also go a long way down a rabbit hole of trying to build a doomstack of T3 Infantry by adding a Support Weapon and a Conclave and Leaders, and probably someone will find some fringe build where this actually sings.

As a brief aside, it’s worth discussing the Eldar Heavy Weapons here as an option on the Defenders, but also relevant to the ensuing datasheet discussions. They did receive an update but it’s unlikely that it’ll have moved the needle much. The underlying profiles remain unchanged, however, the Shuriken Cannon now carries Lethal Hits with Sustained Hits getting picked up by the Scatter Laser. The change makes sense and better fits the idea behind both weapons, though the Scatter Laser will still suffer from its 10th edition downgrade in Strength from all prior editions. Overall this won’t meaningfully shift the calculus here, the Bright Lance is likely still the optimal choice and the related datasheets will struggle to be balanced for anything but a Bright Lance. This is because there just isn’t a clear purpose for taking an Aeldari Missile Launcher (in some past editions it has carried an anti-air role), and while the Scatter Laser has a clear hoard clearing role, the general Aeldari battleline doesn’t lack for options here and S5 is very tough break point in this edition. The Starcannon, notionally a non-hazardous Plasma Cannon, has been basically shelved since it lost its third shot many editions ago. Given the scope that these weapons are applied in the Eldar battleline, this stands out as one of the glaring misses from the index in an otherwise very thoroughly thought out codex.

What isn’t a miss, however, is the breaking out of the Support Weapon datasheets. In an age where wargear is not pointed, the clear problem of, “How do you balance three vastly different weapons on points alone?” is solved by just creating individual datasheets. It still slightly saddens me that the Support Weapons remain limited to a single platform per unit selection (as I stare at my 18 Support Weapons on the shelf*) but the updates here are very intriguing.  All three datasheets now pick up a movement value of 7” and gain the INFANTRY keyword which is important because… they can now be selected to join a Guardian Defender squad providing some unique capabilities and additional heft. A couple of points here: as previously mentioned, the Farseer cannot use their Branching Fates ability on a Support Weapon (this is a good thing), second, when targeting the unit, as long as other models exist in the unit, the platform’s toughness remains 3 for attack resolution purposes. INFANTRY also means that a surprising number of Stratagems work on them that you wouldn’t otherwise expect, even if taken alone.
*Wings: Clearly you should just post half of them to me.

The weapons themselves change slightly as all three platforms lose Heavy and the Shadow Weaver loses Devastating Wounds. However, the Shadow Weaver gains a point of AP (-1), and the Vibro Cannon gains a point of Strength (9). Each platform then carries a unique ability; D-Cannons may reroll a damage roll of 1 unless targeting Titanic in which case they may reroll the damage roll. The Vibro Cannon has a version of its traditional synergistic/stacking rule where each additional Vibro Cannon that targets the same unit increases its Strength, AP, and Damage by 1 over the previous platform. The result here is that the third Vibro Cannon targeting a single unit will resolve at Strength 11, AP-3, and 4 Damage – very powerful, though I hope you don’t roll a 1 on number of shots (you will always roll a 1)! The interesting option here is the Shadow Weaver which now creates a Monofilament Snare in which a unit hit by the attacks must roll each time it makes a Normal Move, Advance Move, or Fall Back for each model in the unit and on a 1 suffers a mortal wound. Overall, the platforms are far more interesting and versatile than the previous index version where “slam a D-Cannon or three as points allow” was the order of the day. The Shadowweaver is also reasonably cheap as something to just park on a home objective and rack up a bit of utility, so you’ll probably see that a fair amount of the time.

Next up, the Windriders see a slight change to their defensive profile with a reduced armor save of 4+ but gain a 6+ invulnerable save and a slight alteration to their Swift Demise datasheet ability. The unit now rerolls hits of 1 against all targets, and gains full hit rerolls against the nearest target which makes their ability far more versatile and is a nice trade for the reduction in defensive durability. The unit is also now limited to 3-6 models which is a good change that prevents some of the “death star” potential seen in previous editions. It remains to be seen whether it is intended for both a Farseer and a Warlock(s) to be eligible to join the unit simultaneously.

Rounding out the Guardian platforms are the Vyper and War Walker. The Vyper update is straightforward, instead of granting Ignore Cover to the army for a unit it had hit, the Vyper applies a -1 to hit modifier to that enemy unit which is nice to suppress a key unit. The War Walker then steps in as the force-multiplier that the Vyper vacated.

For long-time players of this faction, the index version of the War Walker was… not at all what you’d expect for a light scouting vehicle that packs some heat. The codex version sees a return to form, updating it’s invulnerable to the traditional 5+ and removing the -1 W datasheet ability that made it so durable. Instead, it gains the ability to increase the AP value by 1 of all Aeldari units that target a unit hit by the War Walker. What you lose in durability and independence you are gaining in army-wide effectiveness into key targets and the War Walker is now much more of a finesse unit. This obviously pairs well with Ignore Cover units, but interestingly, taking multiple War Walkers with different heavy weapon loadouts may also see some play owing to the AP boost and being able to play off one another. Finally, for both the Vyper and War Walker, players owning more than three of these will rejoice as the unit cap is increased to 2 with a single unit selection (for a max of 6).

Finally, we close out the section with our Outcast units, Rangers and Corsairs. Leading off with Rangers and Shroud Runners, the Ranger datasheet remains largely the same – the nearly perfect unit. They lose one point of leadership (7) and are ultimately probably most impacted by the loss of the Illic Nightspear datasheet in terms of how they play. Shroud Runners on the other hand see a few changes that alter their playstyle. First, as with the Windrunners they lose a point on the armor save to 5+ but retain their 5+ invulnerable (against shooting). They also lose a point of leadership (7) but in return they get an increase on their ballistic skill for their long-rifle (2+) and get a boost from the addition of Sustained Hits on the Scatter Laser profile. Their datasheet ability is the most significant change, however, as instead of providing Lethal Hits to a unit within 12” they now provide army-wide Ignore Cover to a unit that they have hit with no range limitations. This is a significant change for a unit that ultimately wants to keep its distance from threats and provides a lot of synergy for the army, particularly in conjunction with a War Walker.

Rounding out the Outcasts are the Corsairs. Both versions lose a point of leadership (7) and some weapon adjustments are made that are aligned with changes elsewhere. The Wraithcannon picks up a point of damage (D6+1), the Neuro Disruptor gains two points of AP (AP-2), and the Shuriken Cannon swaps Sustained for Lethal. The prognosis for these remains pretty much unchanged – you’ll sometimes take five Voidreavers as an extra cheap Battleline, but Voidscarred retain the issue that if you take five models you get none of the specialists, but the ten-model unit is too generalist and fragile for what you pay.

Grav Tanks

Grav tanks are an iconic part of the Aeldari range, providing fast, lethal support to other elements of the army, but trading some durability for that speed compared to other factions. Unless otherwise noted, these are working with a standard defensive profile of T9, 12W, 3+ Save, which is not nothing but notably more vulnerable to mid-tier weaponry operating at S5/S6 than other tanks.

They’re much more durable than fragile Aeldari bodies, of course. Aeldari elite infantry love riding to war in speedy Transports, and for this purpose you can either take the dedicated Wave Serpent (with twelve seats and extra durability) or a Falcon, which packs heavier weaponry and offensive buffs, but only seats six.

The Wave Serpent is great if you either decide you want to transport a full squad of 10 Aspects, some d-scythe Wraithguard (who take two seats each) or stage two smaller units in a single cost-efficient package. It also bucks the trend of being fragile, and provides one of the better units in the book for sitting on an objective in the open. As well as having an extra wound and a 5+ Invulnerable Save, its Wave Serpent Shield gives attacks with higher S than its T -1 to Wound, which means you have to get all the way to S18 before you even get to wound this on a 3+. In a world without access to Fate Dice to spike a save this extra durability against big guns is especially important, and it feels like Serpents will become slightly more common as a result of this, especially as Fire Dragons now have built-in Wound re-rolls against their key targets (so are less tied to a Falcon). They do lose the Mortal Wound shield attack from the Index (it’s replaced by the above) but this is a good trade.

Despite that, Falcons are still going to be the first choice a lot of the time, as not only are they more lethal in their own right thanks to their pulse laser, they amp up the shooting or melee threat of recently disembarked passengers using Fire Support, which gives units that popped out Wound re-rolls against one of the Falcon’s targets till the end of the turn. This is super strong with any type of Aspect Warrior, particularly given there’s a plethora of ways for shooty Aspects to get back into a Transport after doing their dirty work. The Falcon also Deep Strikes, so if a particular board or matchup incentivises that, it’s there as an option. Since they’re smaller than Serpents, and thus easier to hide, you want to put these on the board if you can though – they’re a peak violence delivery option.

Rounding out the Asuryani, you’ve then got the two pure shooty tanks, the Night Spinner and Fire Prism, both absolute terrors in the Index and both toned down a bit here, which is probably for the best.

The Night Spinner is an artillery piece, shooting a powerful doomweaver that has a modestly strong profile, and inflicts pinned on its targets, giving them -2” Movement and -2” to Charges (Advance rolls are no longer affected). The key change offensively from the Index is that the gun is no longer Devastating Wounds, which used to be an absolutely horrific combo with it also being Twin-Linked. Having one of these to throw out the debuff could still be valuable despite that – I (Wings, in this paragraph) have been using one in my final Index Aeldari lists at 210pts and still finding it worthwhile, but it’ll be very points dependent without also having the threat of spiking big damage (and now that it competes with Shadow Weavers as something to sit on a home objective).

The Fire Prism is a lethal anti-armour tool, with its giant prism cannon shooting two shots at a massive S18 AP-4 D6, and getting a free Hit and Wound re-roll each time it shoots (extra relevant now Battle Host re-rolls aren’t a thing as they were in the Index). If you take more than one, you can also use the Linked Fire ability to channel the firepower of Prisms through one another, allowing you to poke one out, then unleash the fury of several. This is very potent, especially with access to Fade Back to get the lead one out of dodge unless it gets one-shot, but does now come with a cost – if you channel a Prisms firepower, the big gun only gets one shot rather than two. There is a buff elsewhere to compensate for this – if you run out of tanks to hunt, the Prism also has a (direct fire only) dispersed mode, firing 2d6 S6 AP-2 D2 shots (with Blast), which can pick up a healthy number of mid-tier infantry, and used to only be AP-1 in the Index. A nice package, points-dependent, but worth noting that there really aren’t many synergies for these across the detachments, so they may struggle to find places in lists as people explore the peak options. Surprisingly, Ynnari might get the best use out of them, as they have good synergy with the Lethal Intent Detachment rule and Soulsight stratagem for the dispersed shots.

Harlequins

Moving on to the Harlequins, the Harlequin Infantry datasheets gain the Flip Belt wargear ability which is a return of a prior version of the rule in which vertical movement distance is ignored whenever the infantry units make a Normal, Advance, Fall Back, or Charge move. It is a very powerful movement rule but also a very difficult to assess capability due to the board dependent nature of its use. Even on ruin-heavy boards like GW or UKTC, this does have one significant application – if your opponent is skulking just back from a wall to try and make it hard to charge them, and there’s a second floor above them (like on UKTC medium Ls), you can just charge onto the floor above them and use vertical engagement range to get a lot more models into combat than would otherwise be possible.  Minimally, we can say that Harlequins will sometimes pull off moves your opponent doesn’t anticipage.. Additionally, a number of universal updates are made to Harlequin weapons such as the Neuro Disruptor which gains two points of AP (-2) and all melee weapons on the Troupe Master and Troupe, which gain built-in Devastating Wounds.

In terms of the datasheets, characters comprise half of the eight Harlequin selections so we expect changes to how this subfaction plays to largely revolve around how these units change and interact with the army. Universally, they are limited to just a single selection if not in their Harlequin specific detachment (which will be subject to a separate faction focus). Of the four characters, two maintain Lone Operative keywords. These are the Solitaire and the Death Jester which both get some minor changes.

Starting with the Death Jester, the biggest Datasheet change is losing the Devastating Wounds on the Shrieker Cannon, but the real killer islosing the Fate’s Messenger Enhancement and Aeldari rerolls that were so deadly in conjunction with the ability. He does get an AP boost (-2) and then a slight upgrade to the Death Is Not Enough ability, which now triggers a leadership check on a successful hit, and does so with a -1 modifier if the Death Jester kills a model. It otherwise retains the Cruel Amusement ability unchanged and its biggest positives are going to be spikes on the hit roll or as a Lone Operative. He probably needs to come down in price a bit though.

The Solitaire picks up the Stealth keyword as well as an additional wound, making it a little less susceptible to Tank Shocks and Grenades, but it also gets a slight downgrade on its Invulnerable Save (4+). The Solitaires weapon characteristics as well as the Blitz and Blur of Movement abilities are otherwise unchanged.

The Shadowseer and Troupe Master fortunately get the biggest revamps. The Shadowseer, previously awful in most situations, is unchanged from a profile and wargear standpoint, but gains significant utility via changes to its abilities. Fog of Dreams no longer grants stealth, instead the unit cannot be targeted by an attack from greater than 18” away. Further, the previous Twilight Pathways ability is replaced with Treacherous Illusion in which melee weapons of enemy attacking models gain the Hazardous keyword when targeting the Shadowseer’s unit. This is a throwback to an 8th edition ability wherein the Shadowseer would force mortal wounds on attackers but in a much more toned down and manageable way. However, it should not be understated the impact that this can have to a melee unit, particularly once carrying Extra Attack weapons as they will be forced to take multiple hazard rolls. When paired with fight-on-death abilities, this can really create a number of unplanned casualties to an assaulting unit. Always on 18” Lone Operative makes a roving Troupe with a Shadowseer a really strong objective piece on Search and Destroy and Crucible deployments.

The Troupe Master gains the benefit of the aforementioned wargear updates, but also gets a damage bump (2) on both the Troupe Master’s Blade and Harlequin Special Weapon, as well as a boost on Strength (5) to the blade. As elsewhere, the ability updates are key here. Owing to the change on the weapon profiles, Choreographer of War no longer provides Devastating Wounds, but instead allows the unit a model-to-model basis pile-in and consolidate up to 6” which does not need to be to the nearest enemy model so long as it ends up as close as possible to the nearest enemy unit. Essentially granting you a lot of freedom in positioning your unit in and around an enemy unit(s). Additionally, Cegorach’s Favour is updated to provide hit rerolls of 1 and a +1 to the wound roll to give the Troupe Master back some of the deadly punch.

There are now some real trade-offs to consider in selecting a Troupe Master or Shadowseer to lead your Troupes who also gain the aforementioned wargear updates. Beyond these, the big update here is that the Harlequin Assault ability is exchanged for a much better Dance of Death in which each Fight Phase you may select for the unit to reroll Hits of 1, add 1 to the wound roll, or subtract one from the enemy hit roll. In general the plus 1 to the wound roll is going to be your best bet, but I note that neither the hit reroll or the plus-to-wound synergize with a Troupe Master who gets these natively as previously discussed. Situation depending, you’ll likely be choosing between plus-to-wound and minus-to-be-hit.

Skyweavers, particularly the Haywire variants, are deeply impacted by the loss of the hit/wound reroll. However, they do get a nice little boost – first they lose their Scything Swipes mortal wound ability (good riddance) and instead pick up an always-on -1 to be hit when an attack targets them. Second, their Zephyrglaives become a little more deadly, picking up a point of Strength (6) and a point of AP (-2). I was already big on glaives over bolas, so point appropriate, I think Skyweavers actually come out nicely as more of a general, all-purpose unit (though a little worse for vehicle hunting).

Finally, the vehicle units. The Starweaver is mostly unchanged with the exception of the general Shuriken Cannon change (Lethal Hits). It does pick up a point of OC (2), which I’ll be honest; I just assumed it always had 2 and I’m stunned to learn that it did not. Wings: I, on the other hand, am painfully aware of this, having had to tell opponents that they’ve flipped an objective by keeping a single Battleline guy alive on more than one occasion. The Voidweaver, however, does get a nice bump. The range on the Prismatic Cannon is adjusted down to 24” and otherwise remains unchanged, and while the Voidweaver similarly suffers big time from the loss of the hit/wound reroll, its new ability is miles ahead of the previous. Polychromatic Camouflage makes it so that your fragile Voidweaver cannot be targeted outside of 18” which gives them a lot more durability than previously. It also makes them (along with Skyweavers) a nice addition to a detachment like the Drukhari Reaper’s Wager given the hit reroll benefit that they may also gain. Like with a Shadowseer troupe, it also makes a single Voidweaver a very compelling addition to lots of Aeldari lists just to zip around scoring/holding an objective on a flank.

Ynnari

The Ynnari Datasheets section contains a big surprise – not only are the expected Epic Heroes here, but there are also now specific Datasheets for all the Drukhari units that can be used in Ynnari, largely re-skins of the ones in the Drukhari Index to account for the lack of Pain Tokens. This is a good idea and avoids players who want to use the Ynnari having to pick up a second book, and also helps with balancing (though means you don’t get to look forward to a shot in the arm if/when a Drukhari book upgrades a bunch of stuff).

Let’s start with the Epic Heroes, who all share a rule that if you include any of them in your army, you can only include Ynnari Epic Heroes, which definitely does hurt as it means none of the (extremely good) Phoenix Lords get to play with Ynnari.

You get a sort of Phoenix Lord of your own in the Visarch mind, who shares their durable defensive statline, and is a nasty melee killer, Providing Fight FIrst to his unit, and getting to pick between one of three offensive profiles. The “default” middle of the road duellist stance provides a respectable combination of Precision and Devastating Wounds, but if you need to kill a horde you can go for the high attack Sustained Hits 2 quicksilver stance, and against the elite of the elite the very funny mythic stance is available. This hits at AP-4 and D3, though only at a mediocre S3 normally, but has the very flavourful Anti-Epic Hero 2+ and Precision, so legendary foes watch out. He can also double up Leading a unit with Yvraine, and gives her a 4+ Feel No Pain while alive. He’s cool, but the biggest problem he has is definitely that he can no longer lead Troupes, which were the best combo for him in the Index. He can however now lead Incubi, and doubling him up with Yvraine there is definitely your best option for a melee brick that can attack and dethrone god.

Why is that? Well, Yvraine now has the ultra strong Herald of Ynnead buff, which means that at the start of the Fight Phase you can pick one enemy unit within Engagement range of her, and give Aeldari units full Wound re-rolls against it. This does, in fact, make her, the Visarch and ten Incubi one of the most nightmarish Fight First blenders in the entire game, with the caveat that you do have to be careful with positioning – the ability triggers at the start of the phase and is measured from Yvraine herself. You probably want to keep her long base positioned horizontally at the front of the unit to maximise the chance that an enemy unit charging her unit has to base her. If the enemy don’t get close she’s not irrelevant either – her shooting is a very strong Anti-infantry 2+ Devastating Wounds attack, and she can now ride in a Venom or Raider to blast stuff with this. Finally, she revives d3+1 Bodyguard models on a 2+ in your Command Phase, which is a neat combo with Battle Focus options that let you bug out behind a wall then come back swinging in future turns. She seems like a lock for any Ynnari list, not least because you have to have either her or the Yncarne to be Warlord, and supports use both in a big doomstack or a smaller utility unit in a Venom.

Finally, the Yncarne, where we regret to inform Aeldari players that the experiment kicked off in the Index of “what if we just took the limiters off them entirely?” is now fully concluded. Turns out that was a bad idea. The Yncarne’s signature move is Inevitable Death, which allows them to appear in the position of a destroyed Aeldari unit once in each of your opponent’s turns, perhaps pulling them to safety if your opponent shoots in the wrong order, or moving into a position for revenge after the opponent charges and kills something. On the offence, they hit pretty hard both at range (with a super-powered Torrent psychic gun), and slice stuff up in melee with both strike and sweep modes at AP-4. They’re now a bit more distinct from the Avatar defensively, not getting half damage and instead healing wounds when they kill units, which is obviously a lot weaker, but from the book points they’re also going to now be quite a lot cheaper than the Avatar. They also gain Deep Strike, which in combination with the Ynnari detachment rule and the new version of Inevitable Death pushes them firmly into a role of being a lethal deterrent. Rapid Ingress on the Yncarne followed by Lethal Intent, a teleport or both means that it’s going to be extraordinarily difficult for the opponent to act without setting up some kind of brutal blowout, and as soon as they put any wounds on the Yncarne it becomes very had to charge, as it can just trigger Lethal Reprisal for Fight First. Fundamentally – if you just look at the Yncarne’s datasheet, you’re probably going to feel a little disappointed compared to the Index, but it basically needs to be read in conjunction with the Ynnari detachment rules, which they are an absolute peerless user of and turn them into a figurative as well as literal whirlwind of death.

Finally, Drukhari stuff – now in the Codex. You get Ynnari versions of the following Datasheets:

• Archon
• Succubus
• Incubi
• Kabalites
• Wyches
• Reavers
• Raider
• Venom

There won’t be too many surprises in here for people familiar with the Drukhari book, as all of these are very similar to their current incarnations, albeit with Power From Pain replaced by Battle Focus, and tweaked versions of the abilities on the two Leaders to account for design changes and the lack of Pain Tokens.

Archons are your Autarch equivalent, leading Kabalites or Incubi, with one providing a discount Stratagem each Battle Round via Reborn Mastermind. It’s notable that this is distinct from the name of the ability on the Autarch datasheet, so if you include an Autarch and an Archon you get a discount from each one, which you can and should do. Their other ability provides Wound re-rolls of 1 for their unit, or full Wound re-rolls below Starting Strength, which is great on Incubi, and certainly not bad on Kabalites if you can shed a model somehow. Offensively, they have a blast pistol and an anti-Infantry 3+ Huskblade, and on the defence they have a signature Shadow Field which gives them a 2+ invulnerable save till they fail it, which cannot be re-rolled. Ask any Drukhari player how often they roll a 1 first time. Realistically, because of the double-dip discounts, you near-certainly want one of these in any Ynnari army.

Succubi are fairly mediocre, as they don’t hit nearly hard enough for a putative melee unit, and the same is true of the Wyches they lead. If their unit is below Starting Strength they get Fights First, but that doesn’t super matter if they can’t kill anything, and handing out Sustained Hits isn’t particularly exciting either. The only real uses for them are as the joint cheapest thing you can take in the book alongside Warlocks, so you might stick one in a list to run onto an objective then die to trigger Pall of Dread and Lethal Intent. Glorious.

Kabalites are shooty Battleline troops with the handy ability to sticky an Objective even when riding a Transport. The simplest use of these is thus to split a squad in half with a Venom, leave a five model to guard your home point, and cram all the special weapons into a Venom to go out shooting/stickying. That plan seems particularly good with Battle Focus to control their positioning.

Wyches are extremely mediocre melee fighters that aren’t going to do anything for you except maybe force some Desperate Breakout tests via their No Escape ability. In theory Ynnari having more ways to push them into a fight makes that better, but they’re so bad at killing stuff that you still don’t really bother. Seriously, if any Datasheet here was going to get a full rewrite in this book it should have been this one, a big miss leaving these so bad at their jobs.

Incubi round out the Infantry here, providing a good volume of mid-tier attacks, but badly needing Wound re-rolls to get stuff done into big targets. Happily, Ynnari have several ways to get those via Yvraine and the Archon, so there should be decent ways to get value from them. They also work well with access to Fight on Death via Parting the Veil, and their ability to randomly Battle-shock enemies in the Fight Phase can come in clutch for a melee army.

Reavers are up next, and are very fast, very cheap, and have one melta shot per three as a nice bonus. Fast, cheap and expendable is exactly what you want in Ynnari, so enjoy taking a unit or two for utility in most games.

Finally, Transports – big or small, both providing Firing Deck and space for a unit plus a Character – which can now be Yvraine or the Visarch, mercifully. Raiders get one big gun, and go extra fast when they Advance, auto-Advancing 6”, while Venoms are much smaller and easy to hide, and can mount an un-engaged unit within 6” back inside at the end of the Fight Phase. This is very good if you take Yvraine with five Incubi, and in general the hideability of Venoms is very strong with the Battle Focus reactive moves that don’t prevent you embarking – positioning these behind a wall gives you quite a bit of operational flexibility around it, and means that if you charge something and just miss the kill, so can’t re-embark with the Venom’s own ability, you can use Opportunity Seized to do it when the enemy Falls Back instead. One Raider also feels like it could have a place thanks to the strong synergy Transports have with Lethal Intent – moving a full 14” at the end of the opponent’s Shooting Phase lets you set up some backbreaking plays.

Drukhari Ynnari end up as very much their own thing here, but if you’re running the detachment you definitely will want some of them, at minimum some Incubi for Yvraine and/or the Visarch, maybe some more with an Archon, and probably at least one split Kabalite squad with a Venom for utility.

How They Will Play

Boon: A colleague of mine is known for a number of his aphorisms but one in particular that seems to apply here is, “We can do anything, we just can’t do everything.” That really seems to nail the theme of this codex. This is a book with a wide range of strong capabilities and datasheets that covers just about any situation you think you’d need, all boosted by an incredibly flexible movement-related new faction rule. However, it’s very unlikely you’ll see more than a handful of these combinations in a given game as the majority of them are sectioned off by datasheet type and enabled by the individual detachments. Gone are the days where everything keys off “Aeldari”.

Wings: I think initially it’s going to feel a little hotter than that, because while technically a lot of the stuff here is very specialised, you can get so much value out of each unit doing its thing that you can assemble a whole which is fairly overwhelming. One of the things to watch out for when reviewing books is stuff that does its own job so well that it doesn’t need any help from Detachments, and there are quite a few things like that here. The Phoenix Lords are the most notable, but I’ve also found myself putting War Walkers in almost every list, and MSUs of some Aspects like Fire Dragons and Shining Spears do masses on their own. Where I do think they’ve done well here is that it’s much easier to balance this kind of power with points than the Index was, as most of the reliability-warping mechanics are gone, but I reckon it’ll take a few goes to nail.

Boon: You’re right, of course. So we’re left with a book that is both wide in terms of its detachment offerings and deep in its individual datasheets. Let’s set aside for a moment the competitiveness of this book and focus on the feel of it. To me, I think this is the most comprehensive Eldar book to date. The individual detachments really lend themselves to the sub-elements of the Eldar stylistically and give thematic boosts that are befitting their individual themes that one might expect of an Iyanden Host, Biel-Tan Host, or a Harlequin Troupe. If there is one theme that feels slightly odd or missing, it’s the representation of Alaitoc where we might expect Rangers and Corsair units to excel. Another slightly odd breakout is the seeming split of the Ulthwe archetype into Guardian and Seer detachments. Any thoughts on how these detachments might play out or where you think the strongest service to the Eldar background lies? How will the loss of Fate and gain of Battle Focus play in?

Wings: The change to Fate Dice is big, and it’s notably compounded by this book being unusually low on re-rolls, so I think there is some chance you can counter the army by just putting down a raw stat check. Battle Focus is a really good army rule, but it’s not going to help as much as the Fate reliability would if your opponent is in your face bodying you, and the army is surprisingly vulnerable to just plain rolling bad. Detachment-wise I do agree that not having an Alaitoc-focused one is a bit weird, but I think the lack of unit depth for them is probably what killed it. I’m obviously biased in that I do think the Biel-Tan one is awesome, really letting Aspect Warriors rock out, but I think Seer Council also does a great job of feeling appropriately unique and well-suited to Ulthwe. It is also one of the hardest detachments to evaluate for power that I’ve seen in this edition. That all said, I think my favourite is the new Devoted of Ynnead option because of how completely out there the playstyle is, and I look forward to using it for however many weeks it survives before the demands for its summary execution by dataslate grow too loud. Have you, uh, read that one yet?

Boon: I have not nor will I grace them with my eyeballs until that bunch of terrorists and malcontents burn in a fire for what they did to my glorious, righteous Biel-Tan. Jokes on me, they’d probably laugh in my face while they march happily into the pyre and birth yet another new god. Sickos.

In the index, reliability and mitigation of poor luck were the big themes. In this codex, across all the detachments, the theme seems to have shifted to mobility/flexibility at the expense of reliability, as you say, but only as it relates to the thematic units of the archetype. Common abilities seem to include options for departing and re-entering the battlefield, extra out-of-phase Normal moves under various conditions, options to extend key buffs and enable units to act independent of typical auras, out-of-phase reembarkation, etc. The book is full of options that don’t necessarily increase the durability of a unit, but do make them difficult to pin down. I’m sure most non-Eldar players would prefer to face the former than the latter, but for an elf player, movement and positioning tricks are like heroin. The exception appears to be the Biel-Tan themed Aspect Host which is primarily focused on maximizing the damage output of its stellar Aspect Warrior datasheets. So where do Ynnari fall? Are they a movement trick faction, or perversely, are they mirroring Biel-Tan in their output buffs?

Wings: I mean, they have both, but the draw to them is Lethal Intent, which is probably the best movement trick in the entire game, letting one of your units make a full Normal Move at the end of the Opponent’s Shooting Phase if they destroy any units. They can also do a special Blood Surge-like variant of Fade Back, and planning around both of these being available army-wide is going to make playing against them an absolute nightmare. Note for readers – this is genuinely not a bit, Boon has consistently refused to read the Ynnari rules for the entire time we’ve been reviewing this, having not yet forgiven them for blowing up Biel-Tan, and skewing the balance of the faction for 2/3rds of 8th edition. His conviction is admirable, but leaves him unprepared for the horrors to come.

Final Thoughts

Boon: I’ve come to realize that playing Eldar is very similar to playing as a sniper character/role in a first-person shooter. It is an incredibly insufferable playstyle to have to play into. In the hands of a good player it can still be absolutely deadly even when the underlying rules aren’t strong. Eldar players will enjoy this book for its depth and breadth, for its character and its feel on the table. Everyone else will curse the arrival of yet more elf bullshit because even if the AWP’er isn’t good they’re still an AWP’er. Surprising almost no one, there are some over-tuned combinations in here that I think will get a pretty swift reevaluation, and it seems like every time I relook at the book I see a new cool trick I want to try. So I’m going to plant my flag on where I think this book lands, more to test myself, but also so that Rob can tell me how wrong I am and how obvious it was the whole time. I am an idiot who inflicts this upon myself, for your enjoyment dear reader, for your sick enjoyment.

I predict that after 3-4 weeks this book will steady out around 57-59% overall. Strong, but I don’t think the oppressive feeling of this is going to come from any individual list, but rather many different lists and not all at once. As a result I’m also going to say that this book will be stubbornly persistent in its position above or near the upper-end of the 45-55% goldilocks zone and will therefore undergo multiple iterations of balancing and adjustments. As I said earlier there is a huge diversity to the combinations and most of them are locked behind different detachments owing to the keyword design. That creates a situation where there’s no clear single list, but many, and people will find and evolve their lists as they seek a new playstyle or changes are made. Of course they don’t exist in a vacuum and how the meta changes will also impact this codex.

Some people may say this is going to overturn the meta in the same way the index did but I don’t agree – there’s just a lot of nuance to this version of Eldar that didn’t exist previously and the bandwagon players won’t find the same blind success they did the first time around because you have to do more than just point a Wraithknight at something. Good players will make this faction sing as good players do, so if you’re heading to a tournament in the next few months, make sure you understand what this faction can do because you’re going to get sniped at.

Wings: As you may be able to tell from the fact that we’ve collaboratively written a short novel about it, we’re quite excited about this book. Lots of great datasheets and combos to try, eight detachments with zero complete duds, and an exceptionally Aeldari (and very powerful) army rule come together to create an excellent book.

It is definitely a strong book too, albeit not in the overwhelming way the Index was. Taking away a lot of the reliability tools from that means you need to really be leaning into the stuff your units do best, and carefully planning out how to use all your resources. I do think the army ends up feeling a bit more brittle than it used to, and it’s certainly a lot more vulnerable to points changes (though has landed at a spot it can trivially work with). Despite that, the sheer depth of options and a few particular power spikes (especially Asurmen) mean that I think there will be at least some oppressive builds initially, though I can believe the skill required to pilot them is high enough that the win rate is suppressed a bit.

I think Ynnari may break through that barrier. I’m reasonably convinced is going to be one of the best armies out there when piloted by top players, but even without that level of skill and practice, Lethal Intent breaks the normal rules of trading, positioning and scoring so thoroughly that once an optimised list is figured out, it could be tough to beat, particularly as Ynnari tend to have a bit more stuff on the table (and are thus more forgiving) than other builds.

We shall see, and in the extremely unlikely event that it turns out we’re wildly overrating this, please direct all complaints to Rob, who has spent the last three years relentlessly mocking the two of us for underrating the 9th Edition version. Even after having a whole review period to digest this book I still feel like there’s a whole bunch to figure out, and I can’t wait to get it onto the table – this is a Codex made for me, personally.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.