40K Deep Thought: Phil Kelly Gave Us the Ulthwe Book
I’m looking over the Eldar codex and am starting to wonder – did we just get the Ulthwe book by default?
As we wade deeper into the book some trends are sticking out.
1) Have we reached unit saturation for an army?
Now first off – I’m a giant Phil Kelly fan. I like his books, and I like his style. His lists are no-nonsense, and tend to be costed well and hold up for the long haul. My issue with the Eldar codex is it is just jam-packed to the gills with units. Worse, those units are just bursting out of the FOC limitations. With the Eldar being an army of specialists we are running into the situation where there are so many units, that many of them are functionally obsolete. What I mean by that is there is nothing wrong with the unit per se, but some other unit does a similar role more broadly and thus makes the other unit unneeded and less reliable. Take the anti-vehicle role of Fire Dragons vs Wraithguard (with Wraithcannons). Two units with broadly similar roles and effectiveness, and just a basic choice of higher numbers and better average performance (Dragons) vs durability and less average performance (Wraithguard).
The codex is full of groups of units like this with similar roles (will we ever see a Falcon or Nightspinner on the table again). But most folks will gravitate to the generic units as they will get better average performance out of them than the unreliable specialists.
2) This book emphasizes the old, not the new.
Here’s the really odd one. Aside from the Crimson Hunter (which looks really good on paper), everyone is drawing up lists of the “good units” in the codex and they are all older existing ones. The short lists for the good units are:
-Guardians (all types)
-Serpents
-Crimson Hunter
-Prisms
-Farseer/Spiritseer
-Dragons
-Walkers
Sound familiar? Know what army is already built around those?
3) If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
Ulthwe. Folks are already putting together lists that look a lot like massed Black Guardian Warhosts, with platform Guardians in the backfield, reserving Guardian bikes to grab objectives, tanks/walkers to flit around and shoot from range (the Prism’s 3-mode gun is an all-comers list’s dream), Farseers/Spiritseers to enhance the whole army. Oh, and Eldrad isn’t dead any more. It sounds like Ulthwe to me.
If you’re like most Eldar players I know, its actually a great deal. Most of us are pulling out our collections, reading through the codex and assembling strong armies right off the bat – with only minimal purchases needed. Folks always accuse Games Workshop of just forcing new models on the playerbase with each new codex. I think Mr. Kelly did just the opposite – rewarding longtime players with some fluffy beautiful new toys, without nerfing the effectiveness of our beloved existing armies. And for that I salute you sir!
So are you all seeing the same thing?
