The fix is in, and Ynnari has gotten their wings ripped off by GW. Don’t miss a deeper look at the strats, rules, and more because let’s face it Eldar are still “good”.
Spotted on Imgur, somebody managed to take some up-close pictures of everything that’s coming in May’s White Dwarf for the Index Xenos. We’ll be going into their new stratagems, some of the rules changes and what that means for the faction, and a few other small things.
But make no mistake, Eldar, in general, are still strong just on their base stats and combos.
Let’s jump on in.
Strength From Death Turns Sour
If you’ve played against Ynnari before, you might remember feeling like some of the stuff they were pulling off just shouldn’t be allowed. With getting to operate out of sequence in turns (i.e moving after shooting) the army was able to just finesse its way to victory. Leaving you with a pile of dead plastic models on your side of the field. Well, now it’s just a pseudo-Slaaneshi Daemon Chapter Tactic. You get to fight first…but you can also maybe get a free +1 to hit out of it.
At face value, this is definitely not a bad trait to have army-wide. It’ll definitely favor melee-focused Ynnari lists. It’s just that going from “let me shoot in the movement phase and move in the shooting phase” makes this trait seem a little underwhelming.
Ynnari & Allying Detachments
There’s a lot of info on this page but basically here’s everything you need to know:
- Craftworlds, Harlequins, and Drukhari can have Ynnari characters in their detachment as long as they don’t include any other named characters.
- If a detachment has the names Ynnari characters, they can keep their faction keywording (Craftworlds, Harlequins, Drukhari) or be switched over to Ynnari.
- If you pick Ynnari, you get access to all of Ynnari’s stratagems, psychic powers, Warlord traits, etc. You can’t use any other book’s stratagems.
- Allies of the Reborn Let’s you include Beast, Incubi, and Scourge units in your detachment without making other units lose their Strength from Death ability.
New Stratagems Spotted
Ynnari are getting two full pages of stratagems in their White Dwarf codex. Because there’s so many, we’ll be talking about a couple and breaking them down. Be sure to read all 17 of them and see what fits your lists the best!
Souls of the Strongest 1CP: This can be incredibly useful if you’re going to be running a head-hunting build. As soon as you kill the enemy Warlord, you pop this and everyone in your army benefits from the Soulburst actions for the rest of the game. It’s definitely useful, but we don’t think you should get distracted by only trying to kill the Warlord in the first few turns of the game.
United in Death 1CP: For one CP, you can pick a unit from all three other Eldar factions (Asuryani, Harlequin, and Drukhari) and they add one to their attacks while they are benefiting from Soulburst. A blob squad of Wytches getting an extra attack isn’t half bad for 1CP!
If you’ve already popped United in Death and need to pack a bit more punch, you can always use Inevitable Fate as well. For 2CP, you can re-roll all wound rolls for any Ynnari units that target a selected unit. That’s a great way of scooping something off the board.
Ynnari Warlord Traits
The Ynnari have six whole Warlord Traits to choose from. Keeping with competitive play, they’ll probably be choosing Walker of Many Paths as you’re able to get your CP back on a 5+.
Lord of Rebirth isn’t half bad either. You get a 5+++ FNP and can heal a wound each turn.
Ynnari Psychic Powers
Just added to the Revenant Discipline are the Storm of Whispers, Unbind Souls, and Shield of Ynnead powers to bump their Psychic count up to 6!
Gaze of Ynnead is basically a low-costed smite that can give you D6 mortal wounds if you roll right.
Meanwhile, Unbind Souls isn’t too shabby for melee-focused armies. If you need to hack up a unit, just cast this power and pick up all you failed dice and try again!
Lastly, the Ancestor’s Grace has more value potential for bigger blob units. It only goes off on a 5 which is nice, and you give an entire unit within 18″ to reroll 1s for all of their attacks.
Ynnari Relic Table
Along with all the new psychic powers and stratagems, six relics are being tacked on. Depending on your list, you’ve got a few options.
The Lost Shroud isn’t a bad option for some added survivability. Meanwhile, the Hungering Blade can really keep away Elites and light armor.
Soulsnare can be a game-changer on its own. If you roll a 6+ with this thing, you dish out D6 mortal wounds and regain all the wounds you might have suffered earlier. That’s solid.
Ynnari Characters, Points, and Objectives
- Yvraine stayed the same at 132 pts.
- The Visarch dropped 21 points. From 141 now to 120 pts.
- The Yncarne stayed the same at 337 pts.
Looking at the grand scheme of things, Ynnari may be more of a challenge to play now. Popular opinion was that they were a little ridiculous before these changes. Experienced players should still be able to make good use of these guys on the tabletop, however, we think we might see more melee-focused smaller Ynnari detachments come into the picture here.
What do you think about these changes? Do the Ynnari still have what it takes to make it to some of the top competitive tables? Let us know what you think the comments of our Facebook Hobby Group.
About the Author: Wesley Floyd
Imperial fanboy, tabletop fanatic, King of sprues.
