Welcome to part 2 of my Fracture of Biel-Tan review, looking at the Visarch- Sword of Ynnead.
The Visarch
The Visarch is a combat character for the Eldar, designed to take on the elite of the enemy army and keep Yvraine safe.
The Visarch has WS7, I7 and 4 attacks base. This means he will be hitting before most other units and characters in the game and hitting them on 3's much of the time. His Relic weapon, Asu-var allows him to strike at S5 and AP2, meaning he will be able to chew through a range of standard infantry and many characters that lack a good invulnerable save. The sword also has a bonus rule, forcing an enemy unit to use the lowest leadership when within 3". This will be useful for making sure that enemy units flee from combat and giving you a chance to wipe them out in a sweeping advance (thanks to be initiative 7).
He also gains a bunch of special rules, helping him get into combat and do more damage in combat. He has Fleet, Rampage, Stubborn and Precision Strikes. Fleet is great for re-rolling charges to make it it into combat, with Rampage giving the Visarch a potential 7 attacks on the charge.
On the durability front, he has a 3+ armour save, but lacks an invulnerable save. His low toughness of 3 is poor, but expected for an Eldar character. He does get Eternal Warrior, so you will need to take all 3 of his wounds to kill him in most cases. He also gets a similar benefit to Yvraine, giving a wound on a 4+ if any Aeldari model dies within 7" of him. In addition, if the model was a character, you get +1 attack. Surrounding him with the right unit will soon make him incredibly potent in combat and should mitigate his low toughness and wounds to some extent, though he won't be that hard to kill with dedicated firepower.
Another nice bonus is that if he is in a unit with Yvraine, she gets to automatically pass look out sir rolls, but the wound must go to the Visarch. Not the best option, as you don't really want her to die either, but could come in useful if you don't want to take the risk that she will fail that 2+ look out sir roll in some instances.
Another nice bonus for the Visarch is that he always gets a Warlord Trait from the Ynnari table, even if he is not your warlord. This has some nice results, including granting him It Will Not Die, increasing the range of the Soulburst range, a Fearless bubble and gaining Instant Death on 6's to wound.
Overall, I quite like the Visarch. For only 150 points, he is not going to break the bank of most army lists and he will provide some nice close combat punch to a unit. He could easily be put in a Dark Eldar open-topped transport and benefit from the assault vehicle rule.
Will the Visarch be making an addition to any of your forces out there? If so, what role do you see him in?
Fracture of Biel-Tan Review
Of the 3, this is the one I'd most want to paint!
ReplyDeleteI think the T3 of the model is the killer here though, even going first wouldn't save him if he were ganged up on. I'd say the Visarch looks like a combat bully - great against lesser stuff but would bounce off the real combat guys, though for only 150pts that's kinda to be expected.
Yeah, some lovely sculpts on all three models.
DeleteEternal Warrior does mitigate the toughness 3 a bit, but he is still laughably easy to wound.
Wears the ancient armor of the eldar at it's prime...3+ armor save.
ReplyDeleteI love the sculpt of the model. He is just so epic. I don't see him being in many armies due to his durability. Eldar has a huge problem with delivering CC units into combat. It's why everyone is so shooty or jet bikey!
Yeah, it's a bit odd. The lack of an invulnerable save also goes against him.
DeleteNeeded to have something to set him apart from a tooled Autarch or combat Phoenix Lord. Also suffers from not having a role in any established Eldar builds.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you don't see a ton of close combat Eldar armies on the table when their shooting is so good.
DeleteI could see tacking him into the old Wraithbomb armies that floated around at Caley Revolution, having a source of AP2 in that unit makes it a bit less vulnerable to getting charge-locked
DeleteGood idea. Got my ticket for Caley in the summer, so will hopefully see you there, though not on the tables ;)
DeleteAye, I'm looking forward to it. See you there, whatever edition we're playing :D
DeleteI think the Visarch might see some competitive play as part of an "Assassin" combo like this:
ReplyDelete-Visarch
-Succubus with WWP, Haywire Grenades, Archite Glaive, and Armor of Misery
-Shadowseer with Mask of Secrets
Use the WWP to Deep Strike with no scatter 1" away from the enemy model/unit that you want to "assassinate," in this case, let's say its a Riptide with two Shielded Missile Drones. The Visarch makes the Riptide/ Drones use the lowest Ld (i.e. Ld 7, from the Drones) and then you subtract -2Ld for the Armor of Misery and -2Ld for the Mask of Secrets, making the Riptide/Drones Ld3. You then either use the "Mirror of Minds" power from the Shadowseer or, if you did not roll that up, use Psychic Shriek (which is guaranteed, as a Primaris power).
If you have and cast Mirror of Minds successfully, then the Riptide is basically guaranteed to die, since the Riptide has Ld3 and, adding a D6, the highest it can get is a "9," while the Shadowseer has Ld10 and adding a D6, the lowest it can get is an "11." This means that the Shadowseer will keep inflicting wounds on the Riptide until it dies, since there is not way to stop the "chain" by having the Riptide get a higher "sum" than Shadowseer.
If you do nor roll up Mirror of Minds, then at least you can use Psychic Shriek, which with 3D6 gets an average roll of 11. Subtract Ld3 from this and you have automatically inflicted 8 wounds on the Riptide with Ignore Armor and Cover (so only Invuls and FNP, if it has Stimulant Injectors, can protect it).
I think using Psychic Shriek like this can work well on other MCs or even on dangerous enemy units like Wulfen, Grav Centurions, Dreadknights, etc. and remove a lynchpin unit in an enemy army with high reliability. If your "assassin" unit does get charged later in the game, well you have some solid melee capacity between the Succubus and the Visarch. Finally, you can have all of them attached to some Wraithguard, both as a "meatshield" for the ICs and to provide even more damage output, if you need to kill something like a pair of Stormsurges with Shield Generators.
As someone who loves the footdar and CC this is a fantastic idea. Cheers
DeleteYeah, a really nice tactic to use. Could be very useful against Deathstars too if you can get past their psychic defences.
DeleteIt's bizarre, he clearly has a forceshield on his right arm but doesn't have it in his rules. He's squishy and weak like Autarchs, and doesn't even have the reserves manipulation to make up for it.
ReplyDelete