Wraithblade (The Wraithblade Saga Book 1)

Product Information

Chaos Thwarted (899.M41) - A vast Word Bearers Traitor Legion voidship storms out of the Eye of Terror and sets a path towards Craftworld Il-Kaithe. In response, the Asuryani release their Ghost Warriors aboard the monstrous vessel. Battle rages within its cavernous corridors for several solar weeks, the Ghost Warriors enduring ferocious firepower from scores of Daemon Engines. Eventually, the tide of battle turns when, in one of the ship's rancid landing bays, three Il-Kaithe Wraithknights engage in combat with a debased Chaos Feral-class Titan. They finally blast it into the void of space and then begin the methodical slaughter of the remaining Chaos forces. Lets start with the very good news – the Yncarne is great in 9th edition, and I expect to see them out and about a lot – mine has certainly jumped a long way up my painting queue.

To this day, there remain just a small number of mortal warriors able to fight for Iyanden. Consequently, those living few are accompanied to battle by a large number of the souls of the dead, and it is not uncommon to see vast armies of Ghost Warriors striding to war at their behest. It’s a classic case of: build an army around them, you’ll be disappointed; use them to fill a niche and they’ll do wonders.Though every Asuryani craftworld will at some point be forced to call upon the souls of their fallen heroes to fight once again, one of the craftworlds particularly noted for using large numbers of Ghost Warriors and necromantic Spiritseers is Iyanden. Agreed about the Visarch being overpriced. Yvraine seems okay (can’t stand her model, though). I’d quite like to give the Yncarne a go but he seems absurdly expensive compared to stuff like Daemon Princes. Respectfully, this seems like a puff piece for the most part. It may be relevant to casual games or the lower tables at a GT/Major, but I don’t think your points hold up to critique if you assume your opponent is competent and/or playing a competitive list. About Howling Banshees, I’d have thought rerolls to wound would be far more important than a bonus to hit (given that they already hit on 3s but wound most enemies on 5s or 6s). Still, I can see the appeal. Wraithlords are lithe but mighty nobles that dwarf even their Wraithguard cousins. These statuesque robotic constructs are extremely precious to their craftworlds and, due to their wraithbone construction, have a supernatural toughness that surpasses even that of adamantium.

The theoretical strength of the Ynnari is that they can draw together elements from across the Eldar roster into a single list, finding the units that can best make use of their unique tools (so melee ones) and exploiting them. This, sadly, runs face first into the fact that a lot of Eldar stuff is highly synergy driven, and Ynnari lose a lot of that. Still, their ability to give charging units +1 to hit, frequently fight first and have melee wound re-rolls on demand via a stratagem is certainly not nothing, and Ynnari players have often had good cause to look at some of the more fringe Aeldari melee units like Aspect Warriors, Reavers and Hellions.

Background

When I talked about sacrificing army-wide abilities, I meant stuff like Flayed Skull and Alaitoc. To me at least this is important because these abilities generally affect *all* your units – not just the melee ones. The first is that it finally sorts out one of the longest standing rules bugbears of 8th. One of the nasty things you could theoretically do with the Yncarne on inital release was, when your opponent killed a unit in their turn, redeploy the Yncarne to their position and then heroic into them. With its large base, meeting the criteria of “as close as possible” to the destroyed model gives you several inches of wiggle room to play with, letting you catch opponents off guard, butcher their units in their turn, and then move to safety on yours. For the leather I wanted to introduce some red so I used VMC Hull Red and highlighted up with VMC Red Leather to VMC Pale Sand. You can get real bright specular highlights on leather, it helps sell the effect. And a couple scratches here and there do wonders. Gems

In terms of psychic powers Word of the Phoenix to heal or ressurect was massive. It kept this unit grinding away all game in almost every game I played during playtesting. Unbind Souls for re-roll 1’s in combat was great too, but I found myself using the stratagem more than the spell. Shield of Ynnead is the other huge winner for the dual sword variety. Access to a 5++ for these guys is a bit of game changer for the dual swords guys and with Yvraine casting it on a 6 its fairly reliable. To round it all off, most of the green gems on the weapons were done by painting two coats of Ork Flesh straight out of the pot. If the stone can be recovered, it is then customary for it to be taken into one of the craftworld's bio-domes, where the soul is released into the Infinity Circuit -- the Asuryani's source of eldritch psychic energy, a place of rest, and sanctuary from the Warp.

Beanith’s Happy Smooshing Method

I envision my spirit host as having two halves in balance, composed of close combat Wraithblades and ranged Wraithguard, each led by a Spiritseer and supported by a Wraithlord. The Spiritseers are themselves proteges of the famed Iyanna Arienal, seen in Gav Thorpe’s Rise of the Ynnari: Ghost Warrior. The three types of Storm Speeder – the Hailstrike , Hammerstrike , and Thunderstrike – are devastating mobile weapons platforms, with each variant representing a real boon to the arsenal of the Space Marines. What’s more, at a mere 135-160 points each, depending on your favoured brand of gunishment , they are likely to become quite the staple when it comes to fire support on the battlefield. Immortals What there absolutely isn’t, I’m afraid, is any reason to try and make a pure Ynnari list. It just isn’t worth it – especially since Harlequins got their big glow-up, there really isn’t any flavour of Eldar or style I could look you in the eye and tell you is better as pure or near-pure Ynnari. Overwhelmingly, expect to see them as either Patrols, the characters slotted into other detachments, or Auxiliary Supports of just the Yncarne. Units The Yncarne Amidst swirls of ethereal light and destructive reality-folding vortexes, the Ghost Warriors united bring about the full vengeance of the Asuryani dead. Though considerably larger than other Aeldari, the Ghost Warriors come in a number of different forms. These include those described below.