With the warriors of the Asuryani having one of the oldest codex still in production, the Craftworlds are feeling a bit tired in 9th. The list of units that stand up to the current state of play is getting shorter and shorter and its fair to say the book needs a true overhaul rather than a facelift.
I have many, many thoughts on how this could be tackled and figured I would post up some of them to get peoples thoughts on how this could work on the table.
First up – Battle focus.
Battle focus, by its descriptive text, is meant to reflect the Aeldari way of war – like a fluid and deadly wave of blades that takes lives and continues on leaving you in its wake. In the recent iterations of the rule, its basically allowed you to advance and shoot assault weapons without penalty… doesnt really ring true of this…
“When the Asuryani don their war masks, they enter a battle trance
so focused that they flow across the battlefield like quicksilver, killing
their foes without breaking stride”
My Rework
Battle focus in editions gone by gave the Aeldari a manoeuvrability on the table unlike anything else. I would love to see it go back to this. Here is my version…
“A unit with this rule may make an additional move action in the shooting phase immediately prior to or immediately after making a shooting attack provided it did not advance, remain stationary or fall back in the preceding movement phase. When performing a battle focus move, roll 1d6 to determine the distance that the unit may move in inches. Units with the FLY keyword gain +2 to the dice roll. All the usual limits for making a move action apply to this move and this move may not move a unit into enemy engagement range”
This opens up a world of possibilities to units with this ability. It allows you to behave exactly as you can currently but also means you have options for a pseudo fire and fade at the expense of closing the gap. You don’t know how far you can move and have no (current) option to reroll this dice so its a crap shoot in terms of what distance you cover. Units like Dark Reapers should obviously be denied this ability but adding this to some of the vehicles like Vypers or even Falcons could seriously increase the dynamism on the table and stop the Asuryani from being to much of a gunline.
Part 1?
Yes I have a lot of ideas around how the Craftworlds can be brought up to speed and this is the tip of the iceberg. It obviously needs more moving parts to make this rule work (ranges of weapons springs to mind), but for now this rule alone would alter how many players use the craftworlds on the table. Stay tuned for part 2!