Hello all,

freshly appointed with the title of Sub AC of Craftworld Ulthwé I hope to wake the slumbering list from sleep, to tackle and hopefully settle the open issues that have arisen over the past.

I play Eldar for quite some time now starting in the SM era of Epic, over NetEpic and nowadays Net:EA. Originating in my naturally given laziness to paint and the readily availability of at least black GW spray base coat at that moneyless time I decided to go for the most easy and cheap paint scheme around when it comes to Eldar. Coat them black, dot their helmets yellow. There you go Mr. Black Guardian. Since that time I hold dear a place for the pointy ear 'oomies that come clad in black and go by the name of Ulthwé.
Also I like the idea of a baseline guardian heavy Eldar army with only limited support of thourougly specialized troops the likes as Aspect Warriors. I always viewed them as being the rare elite stuff rather then the swarming hordes of Biel-Tan.

Naturally this should be an easy thing to achieve with a specific list that focusses on these aspects. In reality however this has proven to create some problems in balancing when also the Ulthwé specifically emphazised aspects of forecasting and approach of war should be paid proper respect and furthermore to keep the list competitive.

A big point of issue was/is the high strategy rating of +5 paired up with 1+ initiative of Black Guardians and the all encompassing Eldar special rule of farsight, which summed up to a spectacular ability of alpha striking and retaining at no penalty. Also the high consolidation moves allow more than often for easy multiple support in assaults. Combined with exploited list builds it is a good example of "How to make SM players weep"

But the good thing is, whereas the overall Eldar special rules stand as they are, all the other aforementioned points are available for manipulation in order to get Ulthwé skimming again.

I have some ideas that originate in the recent Ulthwé UK list and some that are of my own design that I would like to discuss, fix, bump around and hopefully test with support from any of you guys that are willing to participate. The overall aim is to get the list in line with Biel-Tan which will handle all the generic Eldar units and their stats. Those will be mirrored here *glancing at Exarch discussion*. In the end hopefully we will be able to reach an agreement with most of the players around, keep everything friendly and constructive and move the list to the next stage.
I will also have to rely on your willing gaming groups to further match the list vs. approved lists as my group is sometimes limited in availabilty, but I will do my very best to keep this project up and running and provide my share of playtesting and batrepping.

So much for the introductional... the rest will follow


Happy gaming, hard cover and lucky dice to you all!

Graf_Spee

Here we go..

this will be the post that will feature the recent work in progress versions of the list.

My intention is to keep the flair and style of Ulthwé whilst making it competitive without to many special rules and keeping it as much as possible in line with Biel-Tan.

Being the lazy guy that I am when it comes to written explanation I will sum up the very first initial concept that I have been thinking about for discussion.

1. In order to give the list a proper starting base I would like to set the strategy rating down to +4

2. As I don't see the need for distinguishing between Black Guardians and vanilla guardians in an Ulthwé list, the vanillas will go. This means we end up with only one available choice in the warhost section that will give access to troupes. This will be the Black Guardian warhost only which will keep its original composition featuring two Farseer units.

3. Furthemore to put even more emphasis on the guardian heavy aspect of Ulthwé the warhost will only unlock up to two troupes instead of three.

4. Naturally as a result this will spam the board with 1+ initiative warhosts. Whereas this might seem abit over the top please keep in mind how fragile those Guardian hosts tend to be. Nevertheless to compensate for this low initiative spam I would like to introduce one additional rule:
Any Black Gaurdian warhost that loses 1 or all of its Farseer or Seer Council units will have their initiative rating diminished to 2+, faring the same way as any other vanilla Guardian host that has only 1 Farseer to begin with. Also this will apply to any Black Guardian warhosts that are off-table for any reason in order to reduce the Alphastrike potential. Those Farseers actually have to be present on the field to be able to feel the flow of the battle in order to enhance their formations by forcasting

5. Black Guardians will lose the jetbike additionals but will gain access to Wraithguards and Wraithlords.

6. Black Guardian warhost formation cost stays at 200pts even though they are nerfed.

7. The Excarch extra attacks mirror the ongoing Biel-Tan discussion.

8. Aspect warrior troupe strength stays at 4 units.


The recent Ulthwé UK lists features the special rule "Seers of Ulthwé" providing additional boni in strategy rating for deployment purposes and upon the arrival of the Avatar, also they keep Aspects at strength 6. Still I would not like to go this way with this first attempt without the overall consensus of other players.

The list provided here will feature those changes stated above in red colour and although this was quite some text you will see in the list it does not make for much.

I'd be more than happy and obliged to receive your feedback.

Beat me down

recent version 4.3 July 2021 :





old versions:

Looks really interesting!

_________________
Necron AC (click to see current Necron list threads)
Toronto Wargaming Group

Hi Graf_Spee,

Sorry for the slow reply...looks good..

Hoping to get a game in soon..

_________________
Regards
Greg

*************************************************

Not against change, so long as it done fairly and no one is left behind....

I'm human and not a !@#$%^# Robot..

looks like it reads quite underpowered regarding the feedback so far. good starting point then!


what do you guys think of these ulthwé aspect troupes as harassment formations?:

1.
ASPECT WARRIOR TROUPE [350]
4 Dark Reaper, Exarch, Wave Serpent, 2 Falcons

2.
ASPECT WARRIOR TROUPE [350]
3 Dark Reaper, Fire Dragon, Exarch, Wave Serpent, 2 Falcons

3.
ASPECT WARRIOR TROUPE [300]
2 Swooping Hawk, Exarch, 2 Falcons, 2 Dark Reaper

4.
ASPECT WARRIOR TROUPE [300]
2 Dark Reaper, 2 Shining Spear, Exarch, 2 Falcons

concerning potential they look quite valid to me with regard to effectiveness/cost ratio.

can't pull these with other lists or they get quite expensive.

4 units of aspects makes for a very brittle formation. I think 6 like in the Alaitoc is better.

_________________
https://epic40ksweden.wordpress.com/

"You have a right to be offended" - Steve Hughes
"Your feelings are hurting my thoughts" - Aron Flam

Totally agree there. The only (slight) positives are
1. That you can fit two of these small Aspect formations in a Vampire. But once on the deck they are brittle as anything.

2. Four aspects in Falcons provide a fair all-round shooting/assault formation but one that is very vulnerable to enemy action.

Six unit formations with transport are more viable while also being cost effective.

thanks for the input. while I tend to agree if this wasn't an eldar formation I would like to point specifically to the firing and mobility range of the unit.

with 4 dark reapers and maybe 4 falcons you get a 8 unit strong 1+ initiative formation at 45cm effective range that can play the eldar hit n run game quite nicely and pop up if there is need. vs ork armies it might be highly effective. it's fragile yes.. but so is everything eldar. with 6 base strength this would be quite costly, most likely decrease your activations by one.. not sure if this is bargain.

of course fielding just a 4 strong formation without av support will see them killed in no time. even though a 175pts swooping hawk unit teleporting in late in the game might make all the difference while not keeping too many pts and activations away from the table.

Not to desusade you from continuing on the list. It need to be looked at.

I was interested in the Ulthwe list, but some changes i dont like.

What i think is unique flavour of the Ulthwe theme:
High strategy rating
Elite guardians instead of lots of aspect warriors.
More warlocks than others.

First stategy rating 5 changed to 4. In the old days Ulthwe armies (in 40k) had a highest strategy rating, which was one of their unique (in the form of Uldred), and more warlocks. The Epic list has the unique design with one more stand of warlocks. Naturally it would be ok to test it, but keep in mind how to make the Ulthwe list is different from the other Eldar list.

I support removing the normal Guardians from the list. They where nice to have, but unecessary.

The upgrades for the Black Guardians, are they changed? Wherent the only upgrade before War Walkers?

Your suggestion with initiative goes up to +2 if on or more warlocks are lost i really dont like. Like in the older version of the chaos black legion list, it was just to complex to remember all minor rules. I like to keep it simple. And i think Black Guardians are elite no mather of they have lost some warlocks. I can see why you want to compensate for low initiative spam, but i would rather have price increase or a more restrictive upgrade options. But they already has a +50 pts base cost over the normal guardians.

Hi Krigsminister,

Thanks for dropping in...



If testing shows that the SR4 works. Than I guess Graf_Spee will go down that road..If it doesn't than, I guess Graf_Spee will consider all his options..



In Version 4.0 they had access to Jetbikes, walkers, and couple falcons(which, have all been removed in 4.2)..Sound like you maybe looking at a version before 4.0...



In all fairness, I think he's done it quite well and it's in place in a spot were you would have access to in a game, to look at quickly and its simple....I have game tomorrow and we will see how it translate to the table. Which is what I more interested in..As to points increase etc. let see what the testing shows....



Thanks for reading..

_________________
Regards
Greg

*************************************************

Not against change, so long as it done fairly and no one is left behind....

I'm human and not a !@#$%^# Robot..

hi krigsminister,

thank you for your input. believe it or not, but i really appriciate it. and for sure it won't keep me of going along with the work on the list

actually i think your post is really on spot as I think it tackles many dicussionworthy points.

firstly i would like to state that my intention with this first initial draft is to not go all overboard of upping ulthwé into a strategically uncounterable eldar list. i think it is best to start at a very basic level and see if it really works out as bad as everyone might think. increasing some stats values is more easy and satisfying than to decrease them once you're fond of them but raised a fuzz

as for your specific points:




i think that actually is the exact state of it now. care to elaborate the distinction?



admittedly strategy 4 is not the peak of the mountain but apart from space marines, well ... it actually is.
and i would like to remind of how strategy 5 paired up with initiative 1+ and the eldar special rule of double retain led to situations when it was practically given, that ulthwé would win strategy and was able to pull of automatic triple assaults with no chance of fails even without suprem commander and more than often devastating results for the opponent. no matter how good a player he was. especially if a warlock titan was included. well i struggle with the concept of strategy +4 myself but i'm not willing yet to go back to +5 or adopting the seers of ulthwe ea uk special rule. but instead i'm open for your suggestions how to deal with it or find a better way and everyones playtesting at the moment

i see your point of making the list unique from other eldar lists and agree. at this point i think it is fairly guardian and warlock/farseer heavy with only very limited access to aspects. would you care to give me some insight on what you mean exaclty?




thank you. my thoughts as well



yep, they have changed. since the vanilla guardians have been removed i opted for allowing wraithlords and wraithguards back into the formation to give them a bit of staying power and punch in assaults. also they keep farseers alive longer.
i still have in the back of my mind to maybe grant black guardians some more flexibilty (thinking of falcons) to put even more emphazisis on them. but let's see how they work atm.



yes, i understand your point. i'm not a friend of extra special rules myself but i would like to give them some advantage over normal guardians without changing their basic profiles or bump them up to ini 1+. yes black guardians are better as vanilla ones. but i ask: would it confer translate that strongly into ea in 6mm? refering to initiative alone as it has been the only approach over the previous versions i viewed it as quite neat to still highlight them in this way while they are fully coherent and functional with 2 farseers. you could picture the loss of a farseer as permanent cumulative blastmarker with respect to initiative. and i don't think it is much of a special rule. you have 2 farseers? ini 1+. you have not? ini 2+.

but still your point is very valid and will be the cause of much further discussion. i take it you would like to see them back to ini 1+ no matter the losses?

cheers and thanks again for the input. enjoy your coming weekend

thanks for dropping in!
yeah, further point increase for their only available unlocking core formation i would restrain from quite strongly atm.

thumbs up for the game! you'll be first then. i envy your continious output of batreps.
admittedly i struggle to get a real punchy build out of the list as it is.. as compared to other eldar lists. but like you said, let's see how this translates to the board.

lucky dice to you all

No problem...

Yeah this build has 14 activation's and 9 of them are ini 1+ and 6 are core formations and we are facing orks..Should be interesting.. and then I will use the same list against Tau on Friday night in a vassal game.. that's also should be interesting, since he will have 14 activation's...

_________________
Regards
Greg

*************************************************

Not against change, so long as it done fairly and no one is left behind....

I'm human and not a !@#$%^# Robot..

Hit-and-run has always been a key tactic, giving Falcons the ability to shoot enemy armour at 80cm and enemy infantry at 65cm. However, to do this the formation must start and end mounted in their Falcons - which are notoriously fragile. The classic counter is to have formations on OW . . .

Here's a thought; how about making the basic formation 4x Aspects for 175 and allowing an upgrade of 2x Aspects for 75. That would give the best of both worlds

On the other changes, I agree that 5+ strategy with other Eldar capabilities was seen as problematic. The problem here is the significant difference between 1+ initiative and 2+ initiative, especially on the key 2nd turn. Unfortunately this is an "either / or" situation, there is no halfway point that gives the Ulthwe that edge over other Eldar lists without being overpowered. The only way to mitigate this is to reduce one or both of the strategy rating and / or the Black Guardian initiative.

E-UK have also reduced the SR to the standard 4+, so presumably consider 5+ as overpowered, though it might be worth checking with Tiny-Tim.

Keeping the Black Guardians a 1+ initiative is definitely worth considering, though again E-UK have not done so. However I have to agree with Krigsminister that variable rates depending upon some in-game situation is un-desirable because these are easily overlooked in the heat of battle.