Objective Secured

The Triumvirate of Ynnead : Champions of Ynnari

For those living under a rock you might be forgiven for not knowing who the Ynnari are or how they came about or what they mean to the game. The Ynnari are a combined faction of Eldar (Craftworld, Dark and Harlequins – as well as unofficially Corsairs) which were introduced in Gathering Storm 2: The Fracture of Biel-Tann.

As a firm follower of all things pointy ears, this opportunity to take my 25+ years of collecting Eldar and run them in a single combined force (even more combined than allies!) had huge appeal. We saw something similar in Gathering Storm 1: Fall of Cadia – for the imperial forces but nothing really prepared us for the way the Ynnari Eldar would take that idea and amp it up to eleven!

Ynnari Army Structure

At its core, the Ynnari faction essentially gives you a very long list of things you can use in their specialised detachment – the Reborn Warhost – from all 3 of the core eldar codex. There are a couple of things missing from the list (like the coven units from the dark eldar and the Avatar of Khaine from the craftworld) but by and large, the list almost a full pick and mix of the 3 codex in question.

When you go down the road of the Ynnari, you lose the race specific rules like Battle Focus or Power from Pain and gain a new one – Strength from Death. This new ability is on the surface very strong, allowing the Ynnari player to gain extra activations in specific ways for his units when units (friend or foe) die within a certain range. You also gain access to a new psychic power discipline “Revenant”.

You get new warlord traits (again they are pretty solid all things considered), new relics which can be taken by any model who could take relics previously and regardless of which codex they were from and a group of new specialised formations which leverage these rules (though the requirements of these formations seem lacklustre for the most part). There are also 3 new characters who represent the leaders of this new faction (and the models are pretty stellar!)

Ynnari Not Review

This post is not about a review of the new rules – I want table time for that so that I can back up assumptions with experience. No, this post is about the less than stellar rules writing that proof reading that went into this set of rules. Don’t worry though, the review will come!

Ynnari Problems

For starters, the only way you can be counted as Ynnari is by either running the Reborn Warhost or using the Ynnari specific formations in the book – that is to say, no combined arms or allied detachments allowed. This is in and of itself not a huge issue but the section that explains this is easy to miss or gloss over.

When you count as a Ynnari Detachment, you gain the Ynnari Faction for every model in it in addition to the models own faction it already has. So we hit the first snag – all the models in the detachment (EXCEPT the 3 new characters) have 2 factions… and the rule book has zero information on how to handle this scenario, and it leads to some interesting issues – primarily around embarking non-dedicated transports.

I won’t get too bogged down in the technicalities (and I hope that common sense is used to resolve this) but essentially you end up in a situation where the rules contradict themselves and you are both allowed and denied embarkation to vehicles. An extra line in the rules would have easily resolved this conflict.

Ynnari Soulburst

I will start by saying, I LOVE the idea of this rule – both in the game as a mechanic and as a thematic device for the new eldar race. It’s a great mix of the battle focus and power from pain rules!

What’s not great is the many (oh so many) issues that this rule has when it comes to actual table play. Head to any of the web forums or facebook groups and you will find the issues easily enough.

Again, common sense is what I hope wins out but for those players who play competitively, answers are needed urgently! It’s even more complex when you decide to run multiple Reborn Warhosts with the 7+ units each to get the extra soulburst actions!

So what’s that all mean?

My biggest complaint is that these rules feel like the writers made assumptions and inferred answers that never made it to print. I can only assume that somewhere along the way, everyone working on the project got so used to the way it was ‘meant to play’ that they forgot the rest of us would not have the same knowledge. What we have gotten is a lot of cool ideas that now need a day 1 FAQ to resolve the confusion.

I found a great fan FAQ which I suspect I will use most, if not all, of to resolve issues until we get something official. I will repost it in all its glory in a separate post (along with a few extra questions and answers I have added).

Until then – I am just going to play more games!