For those of you that have not seen Warhammer Community’s posts going up, I wanted to take a look at the new “Faction Focus” article that just recently went up for Craftworld Eldar.
So, if you have not seen the news from Warhammer Community just yet, the writers there are releasing one article per day containing small hints and bits of information pertaining to 8th Edition. On top of that, they have recently started releasing “Faction Focus” articles. So far, they have done Imperial Guard, Chaos Space Marines, and Craftworld Eldar.
These articles all appear to have been written by people who have been play-testing 8th Edition, both of them being part of the team that runs some of the large Warhammer 40k events such as the Las Vegas Open. Still, where we appear to have very in-the-know writers, it seems GW has tied their hands on exactly what they can say because rules are very sparse in these posts. We get general descriptions and some hype for the most part, although the Craftworld Eldar post just so happened to include the profile for the Avatar of Khaine’s Wailing Doom as well as generic feelings of how key rules for Striking Scorpions and Howling Banshees will work.
Here’s what the hints we were given:
- Everything is getting an overhaul as far as points are concerned, but there is no indication as to which direction this is going.
- Battle Focus and high mobility are supposed to be sticking around in some form or another.
- Our classic psychic powers such as Doom, Guide, and Fortune are supposed to be staying.
- Multiple playstyles are going to be available, including infantry-heavy “Footdar,” Mechanised, Psycher-heavy, Ghost Hall wraith lists, and Ranger-heavy Alaitoc armies.
- I am not sure what this is going to entail, but as long as we can just ignore that the Iyanden supplement (fluff-wise) ever came out, I will be happy, even though I know a lot of people point to this flexibility being why Eldar are so powerful.
- Striking Scorpions’ Mandiblasters are going to do “mortal wounds” (wounds that ignore armor) at the beginning of the Fight phase.
- Striking Scorpions will have some rule called “Masters of Stealth.”
- Howling Banshees are supposed to be better and very fast, supposedly able to go first in melee nearly always even if they did not charge. (I love Banshees, so I hope they are getting a lot better.)
- The Avatar will be able to ignore some mortal wounds.
- Phoenix Lords get to keep their 2+ armor saves and are going to be “more well-rounded.”
- Asurmen will be able to deal mortal wounds and give nearby units an invulnerable save.
Overall, I am not sure how I feel about this, and since Craftworlders are being shown off even before standard Space Marines, I am not sure this is going to help with the Eldar-hate. Hopefully, GW can deliver on its promises of 8th edition being the “Best Edition Ever,” but I am going to reserve any judgement until the whole package comes out.
On that note, it might be a good idea for me to do a little round up of the rules that have been announced so far for 8th edition. With Warhammer Community’s strange layout (I have noticed their posts do not remain in chronological order, which just bugs me), I figure it might be helpful.