December Detachment Review: Armoured Warhost

You ever wake up excited? That was me.

Every been disappointed?

Me too buddy.

Today’s Aeldari and uh, well you’ll see.

The name of thee game is Vehicles. The detachment rule is Skilled Crews which gives your vehicles assault and re-roll advance rolls if they fly.

On paper, this is good. I like it. Assault fire prisms pretty funny. Auto 6″ advancing a Falcon with assault plus some other treats we’ll see later makes this fun.

But it’s not Eldar re-roll so…

Enhancements

There’s some juice here, but not a lot. Spoiler alert: it’s vehicle based.

Guiding Presence is 25 points and lets a Vehicle unit within 9″ of the bearer (who has to be an Aeldari Psyker) get +1 to hit in shooting. Fire Prisms often miss on 3’s and that was with 2 hit re-rolls so. Yeah take it. B+

Harmonisation Matrix is a 30 point enhancement for any Aeldari unit which gives you a 3+ gain a CP if you’re on an objective, even if the bearer is inside a transport. Wayleapers exist, this is like 15 points too expensive. “But Josh, you can take Yvraine as your warlord instead with this and take Drukhari units, and still get the CP!” Wrong. The Yvraine thing is only in the Battle Host detachment. Yikes. C-

Spirit Stone of Relyth gives your Psyker lone op within 3″ of a vehicle and lets them heal it D3 in your command phase. For 20 points getting lone op on a Farseer is nice. I never take them with a unit, so this keeps them safe. A

Guileful Strategist is 15 points lets you redeploy 3 vehicle units, even into reserves. It’s a very good 15 points to spend if you insist on suffering playing this detachment. A+

Stratagems

There’s some very fun stuff in here, but pay attention, it’s missing something.

Layered Wards is a 5+ Feel No Pain for vehicles against mortal wounds. Nice and fine. You’ll use it when it comes up, keep those wave serpents alive a bit longer. B

Swift Deployment is really one of the best in the whole thing. You can advance a transport, and then have the guys inside still come out. They still can’t charge, but this is a real quick way to move 20″ across the board then dump 20 OC onto an objective, and then still shoot. Super cool. A+

Vectored Engines is fall back and shoot for a vehicle with fly. Brother it’s fallback and shoot in Aeldari, kind of standard. A+

Cloudstrike has returned as a stratagem this edition it seems and it’s very funny. You give a Vehicle Deep Strike and they can land within 6″. You can’t charge, but I mean, why would you. Let me blow your mind: Support Weapon from the top rope. This is really good and has a lot of fun play around it. A+

Soulsight gives a vehicle one hit, wound, and damage re-roll in shooting. It’s fine. Just play Battlehost though. Like really. B

Anti-Grav Repulsion subtracts 2″ from your opponents charge roll if they target a Vehicle with fly. Saying don’t touch me with Aeldari is like a second language to us. This will help the opponent listen. A

This is all great but I don’t see Fire and Fade here at all. Which means either GW hates us, or Battle Focus is coming back. If it’s the latter does, pick a god and pray I guess. Might be all you can do.

Lists

This week we got Mr. Jeremy Ib to bring us his expertise. In addition, we have; briefly out of retirement Arthur ZO. These two essentially taught me how to play Aeldari, so, listen to their thoughts if you actually to get something out of this.

Jeremy “5 Wave Serpents” Ib List and Thoughts

Autarch Wayleaper (115pts): Warlord, Howling Banshee Mask, Star Glaive, Dragon Fusion Gun
Farseer Skyrunner (90pts): Eldritch Storm, Shuriken Pistol, Twin Shuriken Catapult, Witchblade
Spirit Stone of Raelyth (25 pts)

5x Corsair Voidreavers (60pts)
5x Corsair Voidreavers (60pts)
5x Corsair Voidreavers (60pts)
11x Guardian Defenders (100pts)

10x Dire Avengers (140pts)
10x Dire Avengers (140pts)
5x Fire Dragons (90pts)
5x Fire Dragons (90pts)
5x Fire Dragons (90pts)
Falcon (130pts): Pulse Laser, Wraithbone hull, Bright Lance, Twin Shuriken Catapult
Falcon (130pts): Pulse Laser, Wraithbone hull, Bright Lance, Twin Shuriken Catapult
Falcon (130pts): Pulse Laser, Wraithbone hull, Bright Lance, Twin Shuriken Catapult
Wave Serpent (110pts): Wraithbone Hull, Shuriken Cannon, Twin Bright Lance
Wave Serpent (110pts): Wraithbone Hull, Shuriken Cannon, Twin Bright Lance
Wave Serpent (110pts): Wraithbone Hull, Shuriken Cannon, Twin Bright Lance
Wave Serpent (110pts): Wraithbone Hull, Shuriken Cannon, Twin Bright Lance
Wave Serpent (110pts): Wraithbone Hull, Shuriken Cannon, Twin Bright Lance

“In the current metagame Aeldari lists currently fall into two categories. There are the lists that leverage fate dice, and the lists that leverage the re-rolls from battle focus. How will this new detachment fit in? I think a third archetype will start popping up, lists that abuse cheap vehicles.

Wave serpents are currently 110 pts and didn’t have too much of the way of support in battle host. Armored Warhost gives you some tools to make the most of these cheap hulls.

Keep in mind fate dice has been confirmed to be going away in the new codex, so the relative power of this detachment may fluctuate when the codex comes out in a month or so.”

Arthur “Don’t Get Shot, Play AoS Instead” Zo’s List and Thoughts

“This has to be the most dogshit detachment Games Workshop has released for any faction yet – and it’s not close.

AND BEFORE you say ‘but Arthur – FIRE PRISMS *jazz hands* I figured I would repeat myself for the people in the back.

This is the most dogshit detachment Games Workshop has released, and they have ruined Grotmas for all of us elf girl enjoyers.

In exchange for giving up the re rolls which has caused all of the Eldar units to be unjustly expensive, fire and fade, fall back shoot and charge, lighting fast reactions and auto 6” advances, we get access to advance and shoot on our hulls, with a re-roll for things that have fly (everything but Warwalkers and wraiths?), a worse fall back shoot and charge, and (admittedly maybe good) the chance to deep strike any of our vehicles.

We can also pay a CP to mimic a fraction of the power our index detachment gives us for re rolls. Insert Invincible meme here.

Now – Joshy asked me for a list, and so I guess it’s time to step off the soapbox and start throwing a list up, so here we go. “

CHARACTERS

Asurmen (115 Points)
• 1x The Bloody Twins
• 1x The Sword of Asur

Autarch Wayleaper (115 Points)
• 1x Shuriken pistol
• 1x Star glaive

Fuegan (130 Points)
• Warlord
• 1x Searsong
• 1x The Fire Axe

BATTLELINE

Guardian Defenders (100 Points)
• 10x Guardian Defender
◦ 10x Close combat weapon
◦ 10x Shuriken catapult
• 1x Heavy Weapon Platform
◦ 1x Close combat weapon
◦ 1x Bright Lance

DEDICATED TRANSPORTS

Wave Serpent (110 Points)
• 1x Twin shuriken cannon
• 1x Twin Shuriken Cannon
• 1x Wraithbone hull

OTHER DATASHEETS

Dire Avengers (140 Points)
• 1x Dire Avenger Exarch
◦ 1x Avenger shuriken catapult
◦ 1x Close combat weapon
• 9x Dire Avenger
◦ 9x Avenger shuriken catapult
◦ 9x Close combat weapon

Falcon (130 Points)
• 1x Pulse laser
• 1x Starcannon
• 1x Twin shuriken catapult
• 1x Wraithbone hull

Falcon (130 Points)
• 1x Pulse laser
• 1x Shuriken cannon
• 1x Starcannon
• 1x Wraithbone hull

Fire Dragons (90 Points)
• 1x Fire Dragon Exarch
◦ 1x Close combat weapon
◦ 1x Dragon fusion gun
• 4x Fire Dragon
◦ 4x Close combat weapon
◦ 4x Dragon fusion gun

Fire Prism (170 Points)
• 1x Prism cannon
• 1x Twin shuriken catapult
• 1x Wraithbone hull

Hornet (100 Points)
• 2x Hornet pulse laser
• 1x Wraithbone hull

Rangers (55 Points)
• 5x Ranger
◦ 5x Close combat weapon
◦ 5x Ranger long rifle
◦ 5x Shuriken pistol

Swooping Hawks (85 Points)
• 1x Swooping Hawk Exarch
◦ 1x Close combat weapon
◦ 1x Lasblaster
• 4x Swooping Hawk
◦ 4x Close combat weapon
◦ 4x Lasblaster

Vypers (75 Points)
• 1x Starcannon
• 1x Twin shuriken catapult
• 1x Wraithbone hull

“I think this is the beginning of a list that can take advantage of the mobility offered by the new detachment, and make use of the stratagems. Admittedly, Deep Striking a fire prism lets you get angles on stuff you might not get otherwise – but I think they actually get hampered a bit more from the lack of fire and fade. I like the tricks to be able to get more range of your fire dragons (but i think access to auto advance 6 out of the old detachment might have a bit more play). There’s some cute scoring pieces in here, and if you’re wondering about the inclusion of dire avengers, i think that in the world of Mr. Steal Your Jeans running around, having dedicated anti infantry firepower that gets nasty over watch is something worth considering. I’m light on Brightlances here without access to re rolls, and leaning on more of the star cannon/pulse cannons.

In general though – this detachment is a miss. Anything you want to do here, you can probably do better in the index detachment. “

Final Thoughts

It has cute stuff in it, but it’s pretty awful compared to Battlehost. The wind has really been taken out of my sails with this one.

Guess I’m on an Aeldari break until the Codex.

I’ll try it at least once before that I think. Just for the 6″ Deep Strike Support Weapons and 20″ Falcon Dire Avenger zoomies. I say Dire Avengers but we all know it’s going to be Fire Dragons.

Anyways, that’s all from me on Aeldari.

Be safe, tomorrows Orks and might be a little late with Food for the Food God taking place.

It’s the time of year to give back.