Reecius here with an 8th edition Warhammer 40,000 tournament report featuring a Wraithost themed Ynnari Eldar army, or Aeldari as they’re now called!
Check out our 40k 8th edition archive for more great 8th edition related content!
First off, the list!
| Unit | Force Org | Cost | # | Total | Weapons | Cost | # | Total | Total |
| Vanguard | Ynnari | Command Points | 1 | ||||||
| Eldrad | HQ | 180 | 1 | 180 | 0 | ||||
| Wraithguard | Elites | 23 | 5 | 115 | D-Scythe | 22 | 5 | 110 | |
| Wraithguard | Elites | 23 | 5 | 115 | D-Scythe | 22 | 5 | 110 | |
| Wraithguard | Elites | 23 | 5 | 115 | D-Scythe | 22 | 5 | 110 | |
| Spearhead | Ynnari | Command Points | 1 | ||||||
| Autarch with Wings | HQ | 85 | 1 | 85 | Reaper Launher | 31 | 1 | 31 | |
| 0 | Power Sword | 4 | 1 | 4 | |||||
| 0 | Banshee Mask | 0 | 1 | 0 | |||||
| Wraithlord | Heavy | 103 | 1 | 103 | Shuriken Cannon | 12 | 2 | 24 | |
| 0 | Flamer | 9 | 2 | 18 | |||||
| 0 | Ghost Glaive | 10 | 1 | 10 | |||||
| Wraithlord | Heavy | 103 | 1 | 103 | Shuriken Cannon | 12 | 2 | 24 | |
| 0 | Flamer | 9 | 2 | 18 | |||||
| Wraithlord | Heavy | 103 | 1 | 103 | Bright Lance | 20 | 2 | 40 | |
| 0 | Flamer | 9 | 2 | 18 | |||||
| Super Heavy Aux | Ynnari | Command Points | 0 | ||||||
| Wraithknight | LoW | 402 | 1 | 402 | Heavy Wraith Cannons | 50 | 2 | 100 | |
| 0 | Star Cannon | 30 | 2 | 60 | |||||
| Totals | 21 | 1321 | 677 | 1998 | |||||
| Command Points: | 5 | Detachments: | 3 |
The army is almost entirely Wraith units! How cool is that? In many previous editions of the game this army–apart from Eldrad and the Wraithknight–would not have been very appealing. Now though in 8th, this is a solid army that has lots to offer. It’s tough as nails, obviously, but also has a lot of firepower and surprising mobility as the Wraithlords and Knight are quick by base stats, and the Wraithguard can advance and shoot as their weapons are assault. The Autarch too, gets a special shutout here as he is fast as can be with wings but can also skyleap to come down later in the game on an objective or for linebreaker! Plus, those D-Scythes are just plain nasty. They melt things.
Beyond the awesome buffs of Eldrad (Fortune, Doom and Guide and still staple powers!) and the Autarch (the reroll 1’s is amazingly good), the benefits Ynnari gives you are immense. The ability to Soulburst (basically a free action for Infantry and Bikers with the rule when any other unit–friend or foe–within 7″ is destroyed) is devastating. When those D-Scythes get to fire multiple times in a turn? Holy smokes, it is hard to watch at times.
We played pretty much book missions at the event with the the ITC style modified Kill Points mission where each unit was worth its Power Level in Kill Points.
Mission 1
- Opponent: Drukhari
- Mission: Retrieval
I was playing Keith, a really cool guy with a brand spanking new Drukhari army with 2 Razorwings, a Voidraven, 3 Ravagers, 4 Venoms filled with Warriors, an Archon + a Farseer on Bike. My army is a tad slow and doesn’t really like fast, shooty armies. This was going to be a tough fight!
I got first turn as we were playing by the book guidelines (I got first every game due to my low unit count army) and got First Blood as I did every game, lol. The Wraithknight with Guide pretty much ensures I smoke something round one. I kept my Wraithguard hiding behind a building while the Wraithlords bum rushed forward to run interference and force my opponent to shoot them. The Autarch, Shooty Wraithlord and Wraithknight focused on taking out the Ravagers and as many fliers as possible until mid game when it was safer for the Wraithguard to rush out and start blasting things with D-Scythes.
It was a tough game for both of us as our high damage output armies started to get munched. Fortune on the Wraithknight kept him in the fight for as long as possible but Keith overwhelmed my Wriathlord on the right flank taking that objective. My Wraithguard crossed the table diagonally to take his rear objective, D-Scythe’ing everything in their path! The game came down to the two objectives on the left side and we both managed to threaten the others’ home base. End game came down to Keith taking my home objective away from Eldrad with his fliers and my two lone Wraithguard surviving a charge by an Archon to barely hang on to Keith’s home objective by a single model! As we tied on objectives, and both had line-breaker but neither had Slay the Warlord, I won a minor victory on First Blood.
Great game! Some sound tactics and admittedly cold dice on my opponent’s part when rolling on his Blasters let me sneak a win in what was a tough match-up.
Result: Aeldari victory!
Mission 2
- Opponent: Renegades and Heretics
- Mission: Kill Points
My opponent had a nasty Renegades army! He had 12 individual Spawn, 4 Earthshaker Batteries, 6 Rapiers laser Destroyers and 6 Quad Heavy Bolter Rapiers, lol. A smattering more of various infantry and support characters to taste and that was a shooty stew, baby. He knew with the auto go-first mechanic he’d never get first turn so said screw it and maxed out MSU, haha. A decision I think many players will make in that situation.
However, my army is tough and also shoots pretty well. As stated, I got first turn and First Blood as a guided Wraithknight is good at that, lol. Thankfully, we weren’t playing “real” Kill Points as at this point the game would have been over for my opponent as I could have simply hid and let the Wraithknight pick off a unit a turn for a huge win. However, with Power Level Kill Points it gave me a big advantage but my opponent was able to fight his way back into the game after he took down the Wraithknight with Earthshaker fire! Lol, not something you’d normally expect but with the changes to blast weapons being able to hit a single modle multiple times and some hot dice, my opponent was able to eat him up over the course of the game and when he died, that was 27 Kill Points to him putting him in the lead!
Even with that, I had him dead to rights as my Autarch and shooty Wraithlord were wearing him down and I lined up 3 kills, any of which should have won me the game but my opponent had a 6+ save on each, and made all three! Doh! So when the dust settled on a remarkably quick game (it was his Earthshakers and Heavy Bolters vs. my Wraithknight and Wraithlord) I was only up by 7 Kill Points and as I needed a differential of 10+ to win, we tied!
Super fun game and very glad to see the Power Level KP mission in the wild. Had we been playing book standard KPs it would have been a silly game which I would have won on the first shot of the first turn. I think this using Power Level is a positive change.
Result: Tie!
Mission 3
- Opponent: Space Marines
- Mission: The Relic
For round 3, I drew Pablo, haha! Pablo had gone through a very challenging schedule of tough players including Brandon Grant. However, Pablo also had an absolutely nasty list featuring Booby G (Roboute), 4 units of Devastators in Rhinos, a Chapter Ancient, Apothecary, Quad Heavy Bolter Rapiers some Scouts and a second detachment with Lias Issodon and 3 more units of Devastators. That is some serious firepower! The trick here being that the Ultramarines Devastators get rerolls to hit and wound thanks to Bobby G, and can shoot again as they die on a 4+ thanks to the Chapter Ancient and can get back up on a 4+ thanks to the Apothecary. As if that weren’t enough Tom-Foolery for one list, he also has Lias Issodon who “deep-strikes” in with himself and 3 other units (in the lore, they had been lying in waiting). So that is another 3 units of heavy hitters with rerolls to hit and Lias Himself shoots like a bad ass, too.
So despite all that, this game came down to first turn. Another reason why the auto go first turn mechanic is perhaps not the best for tournament play (although feel free to play as you all enjoy playing, or course). I say this because I got first turn and with an infantry model that is fast (the Autarch) i was able to fly out and jump on the Relic top of turn 1. My punchy Wraithlords and Wraithguard then advanced out in front of him (Wraithlords got a 15″ move, each!) while the Wraithknight and shooty Wraithlord took out key enemy units to rduce the firepower coming at me. As I was now screening the Autarch with Wraithlords, he could not be targeted except by snipers. Pablo had none and had to chew through the Wraithlords, one of whom was Fortuned. It took pretty much everything he had but he clawed through the screening Wraithlords but was unable to kill the Autarch as only one unit could target him at that point and simply didn’t have enough oomph.
At this point the game was effectively over as the Autarch then flew back behind 15 Wraithguard and on turn 3 was behind a building and safe. Had I remembered to soublurst, as soon as the first Wraithlord died, I could have jumped back with the Autarch and then been behind the building top of turn 2. To his credit, Pablo put up a good fight and we had a laugh as Bobby G tried to take on my army by himself but Soulbursting Wraithguard just ate the Devastators up and the Wraithknight smoked Roboute…twice!
Be endgame I only had a few models left as did Pablo but none of it mattered as the Relic is all or nothing and the Autarch was safely tucked away with it. This game came down to if Pablo could seize on me or not and he didn’t. Womp, womp.
The Relic is fun, but may need some modification (similar to Kill points) for tournament play. What do you all think? We are for sure going to add in progressive elements to the ITC Combined Arms Missions (our more advanced mission set) but what about modifying this one a bit for the basic ITC missions? Thoughts?
In all, a great tournament and tons of fun with 3 awesome opponents.
Result: Ynnari go 2-0-1
I believe I got 2nd place to James with his nasty Forgeworld heavy Chaos Khorne army who went 3-0.
My list performed well and I am now something like 10-1-1 with it. The next iteration of my list will look like this, though as I’d like some more firepower.
| Unit | Force Org | Cost | # | Total | Weapons | Cost | # | Total | Total |
| Vanguard | Ynnari | Command Points | 1 | ||||||
| Eldrad | HQ | 180 | 1 | 180 | 0 | ||||
| Wraithguard | Elites | 23 | 5 | 115 | D-Scythe | 22 | 5 | 110 | |
| Wraithguard | Elites | 23 | 5 | 115 | D-Scythe | 22 | 5 | 110 | |
| Wraithguard | Elites | 23 | 5 | 115 | D-Scythe | 22 | 5 | 110 | |
| Spearhead | Ynnari | Command Points | 1 | ||||||
| Autarch with Wings | HQ | 85 | 1 | 85 | Reaper Launher | 31 | 1 | 31 | |
| 0 | Power Sword | 4 | 1 | 4 | |||||
| 0 | Banshee Mask | 0 | 1 | 0 | |||||
| Wraithlord | Heavy | 103 | 1 | 103 | Aeldari Missile Launcher | 25 | 2 | 50 | |
| Wraithlord | Heavy | 103 | 1 | 103 | Star Cannon | 30 | 2 | 60 | |
| Wraithlord | Heavy | 103 | 1 | 103 | Bright Lance | 20 | 2 | 40 | |
| Super Heavy Aux | Ynnari | Command Points | 0 | ||||||
| Wraithknight | LoW | 402 | 1 | 402 | Heavy Wraith Cannons | 50 | 2 | 100 | |
| 0 | Star Cannon | 30 | 2 | 60 | |||||
| Totals | 21 | 1321 | 675 | 1996 | |||||
| Command Points: | 5 | Detachments: | 3 |
I think the new version of the list gives me more firepower, and more reliable damage output. I may keep one of the Wraithlords cheap as they were amazing as throwaway units. So I may go back to one with 2 Flamers and nothing else to just go bonzai! on the enemy as needs be for a low price point, but we will see.
The Autarch though is an absolute stud. With the Reaper Launcher and the reoll buff, he is soooooo good 😉 His mobility lets me strike at objectives anywhere on the table which is game winning. The Wraithknight with Heavy Wraithcannons seemed not the optimal choice on paper but as I played more I came to see I needed high strength shooting and he provides that in spades, particularly when buffed by the Autarch or with Guide.
Ultimately, Ynnari Wraithguard are just silly good. They tremendously benefit from Soulburst as they are good in melee and with shooting and tough suckers, too.
Thanks for reading!
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
At least the relic can’t be moved over 9″. Though having a fast character still really helps.
Think just about any army that has the option should have a sniper unit in it or at least a unit that can deepstrike behind an enemy army.
Yeah, it was pretty savage. Pablo and I knew as soon as he failed to smoke the Wraithlords quickly that that was a wrap.
How do you feel about soulburst from a balance aspect? Still feels a tad too strong.
It’s not as crazy as it was but it is pretty dang powerful. It only works (for my army, anyway) when I get close but when I do, if they are clumped up with lots of units near one another, the D-Scythes wipe things out.
Do you find the Wraithlords with only one heavy weapon do a lot of work for you? I always feel like I’m wasting their potential unless I kit them with two guns.
I love Autarchs now, but with most of your guns hitting automatically, it seems like he’s not doing a lot of work in your list. How often did his aura actually trigger on stuff?
There are two, buddy, it may just be hard to read the list. And yes, two works well but -1 to bit for moving is a bummer :-/
Reece,
In other comments you have mentioned that when you play Ynnari, your entire army has to be Ynnari. Why? Would you please provide page references. What I read is any Aeldari unit can be part of an Ynnari army (with some exceptions). Any unit that does so gain the Ynnari keyword. To me that means my units will gain the keyword in addition to the keywords they already have, not a replacement. Normal army building rules apply so every unit would need to share at least one keyword. Aeldari is a keyword so I should be able to take basically any unit, even the ones that could not gain the Ynnari keyword as they share Aeldari.
Key point is the Ynnari army. So you have to declare the army keyword to be Ynnari for the army to be considered a Ynnari army. So no mixing in battle focus and other such special rules.
Can you point me to the page in the rulebookthat says this?
It says it in the Ynnari section and I can also confirm that this is indeed, accurate. Your entire army must be Ynnari.
Reece would you please confirm it.
“With the exception of {HAEMONCULUS COVEN} units,Urien Rakarth, Drazhar, Mandrakes and the Avatar of Khaine,any AELDARI unit can be part of an Ynnari army. Any unit that does so gains the YNNARI keyword. These cannot use any of the following abilities, and are not considered to have them: Ancient Doom, Battle Focus, Rising Crescendo, Power from Pain. Instead, INFANTRY and BIKER units included in an Ynnari army gain the Strength from Death ability, as described below.”( pg 76 Xenos 1)
To me this does not read only Ynnari units can be in your army, if that was the case why not say so? Why just add the keyword Ynnari and not remove other keywords? Why not specify that if you include a Ynnari keyword unit all units have to have the keyword also? All it says is that they gain the keyword which mean exactly that.
Sorry hit the wrong button You would think that if the army was limited there would be an explanation of some sort, since it is the only one (supposedly, as of right now), not a single word Ynnari in the middle of a sentence. You could also read the sentence to mean an army containing a majority of Ynnari, or even an army containing 1 or more Ynnari. For example, if my friend asks me what army I am bringing and 51% of my army is eldar then I say eldar even though it might have Dark Eldar, Harles, etc in the list. They spend three or four paragraphs explaining how you replace or or but not a peep that you are only limited to the Ynnari keyword in an army containing any units with an Ynnari keyword? Until I see a FAQ or a rule that supersedes the BRB rule then I do not think this is true.
BRB Page 240, “An Army can include any number of detachments” makes it very clear (at least to me) that ‘army’ describes the group of detachments that make up your force.
It’s not clear exactly what a Ynnari army is, but what is clear from the is that 1. if you include any unit from the blacklist, you are not playing a Ynnari army and 2. units do not gain the Strength from Death ability or Ynnari keyword unless part of a Ynnari army. There is therefore no possible way to both include Coven units or the Avatar in your army list and have units (other than Yvraine, the Visarch and the Yncarne) gain Strength from Death.
Sorry again the sentence with replace or or … should read, replace “”, “” or “”. I guess by enclosing a word in brackets, it was thinking I was trying to tag the entry.
When do you measure who is in range of an enemy unit that is destroyed for soul burst? Measure all units within range of am enemy unit at the beginning of the shooting phase?
You measure when the last model in the destroyed unit is removed. So canny opponents can deny you the ability if they have enough models that are outside of 7″.
So nothing like 7th where you measure before a unit shoots to see who is in range?
It only happens once the unit has died and since wounds are resolved 1 at a time you have to measure for it on the last model of the unit.
That was the same case in 7th. They FAQ it that you measure Soulburst right before removing model or at the start of the shooting attack (forgot the correct verbiage). In my opinion, nothing really significant changed in Soulburst and Shooting phase from 7th to 8th in regards with Soulburst.
Yeah, all of the same questions about Soulburst from 7E are pretty much still present in 8E, so we kinda have to assume that the answers to them are the same in most cases. That means you can Soulburst off your own wrecked transport, you check range before attacks start, etc, etc.
Here is a question about soul burst, can the units inside a transport soul burst from its destruction? I do not think they can but it is unclear. Also what happens if there is a unit of 5 models and a Unit of 1 model and the 1 model dies upon getting out of a destroyed transport, when do I soul burst?After I remove the transport model or before?
The steps as I see them are;
1. Last wound removed from transport.
2. Roll to see if explodes, resolve explodes.
3. Legally deploy units inside.
4. Roll to see if any die, resolve results.
5. Remove the transport model.
So the unit is on the board when the model is removed but not on the board when the last wound is removed. Keep in mind pg 183 of the BRB in Transport sidebar says, “If a transport is destroyed, any units embarked within it immediately disembark (see below) before the transport model is removed, but then….” So it is destroyed before they disembark but not removed. Soul burst says. “each time a unit is completely destroyed within…”
Great report. I enjoyed reading about the Wraith army! I am glad it is doing well for you.
It is, thanks! Very fun to play as well.
Do you have the other lists?
I do not, sorry. I have summations of their lists in the article but not the actual lists. It was a very casual tournament.
I was the Drukhari player. I had:
Archon w/ Agoniser and Blaster in Venom
Warriors w/ blaster in venom x3
Trueborn w/ 2 splinter cannon in venom
Ravager w/ 3 Dark Lances x3
Scourges x2
Razorwing
Razorwing
Voidraven
And a farseer skyrunner
How was it with footslogging? I’m starting Ynnari (mixed for now) but am very attracted to the look of the Wraith units and might expand later to have most of them, but their slowness seems like an issue. Did it come up at all?
It worked out fine, even against the hyper mobile Drukhari. I mean, it isn’t perfect by any means but it certainly didn’t make me feel like I didn’t have a chance. You just had to be a bit crafty about hiding and waiting for the right time to strike.
We’ve never had the Relic in our tournaments in my region, or plain Eternal War missions. We usually do a mix of heavy Maelstrom, some EW, and bonus points for First Blood, Warlord and Linebreaker. In general, US tournament win conditions seem kind of simple and unbalanced.
Lol, what? Sorry that just sounded very condescending (probably unintentionally).
We also typically use a mixture of maelstrom, eternal war and bonus point missions, go check what the ITC ran for the past 4 years and that is it. We’re playing these simplified missions now only because the edition is new and we’re giving folks a chance to acclimate to it.
I was gonna say, tho. I’m pretty sure that last Game was less about the First Turn system and more about The Relic. I did basically the same thing a bunch of times in 7th Scouting Flesh Hounds up onto it.
>heavy maelstrom
>U.S. tournaments seem kind of unbalanced
Man, that is some pot and kettle right there.
He’s, for some reason, conflating “lots of rules” with “balanced.”
Rock-paper-scissors is the most balanced game in the world (every option has the exact same chance to win) yet it’s also one of the most simple.
Maelstrom on the other hand is more complicated yet about as balanced as the tower of Pisa.
Ooh any chance there’s a copy of James’ list floating around somewhere?
I don’t think so but could ask. He had all the mean stuff: Magnus, Brimstones, 2 Kharybdis full of Berzerkers, and two Soulburner toting Decimator Engines. Nasty!
Why not play Maelstrom? This would force more mobility and wouldnt be so binary oftentimes.
Again, they’re playing Eternal War missions to keep things simple. A lot of the people at the event had never played 8th, so they pretty much ran things out of the book as folks learned to play the new 40k.
I love Eldar Wraith units! Those look great, Reece.
I had assumed Wave Serpents for transporting the Wraithguard were still essentially. Apparently not. Which is good, cause I don’t want to get another Wave Serpent.
I’ve got all those models except the Wraithknight. I’m building a similar list without him, hoping an extra Wraithlord, Wraithblades, and my Wraithseer can pick up the slack.
Yeah, I don’t even have any Wave Serpents, lol. I had to proxy them in testing. I have so far had no issue running them in foot.
Any chance we can hear about this FW heavy Khorne list?
I will see if James wants to poke his head in and talk about it. I do not have the list or anything.
The list looks good! I might be more interested in going the Wave Serpent route, but footslogging seems to be doing good for you.
How do you think the list is to play against? I held off on playing an Iyanden force in 8th because of how “unfun” it was to play against multiple D weapons, and Wraithknights in general. Do you think 8th has made this list more entertaining to play against?
I just hate giving my opponent unfun games.
Yeah, I have a soft-spot for Footdar of all flavors for whatever reason. But I think the list is fun to play against? The firs time folks get Soulburst on with D-Scythes it can be a bit…alarming, lol. But in general the army is fun for both sides of the table I think as it plays so fast and looks cool.
Have you yet had a chance to play against a long range high damage army like Guard or Tau? The sort of list that can wreck a WLord or unit of WGuard before they get across the table.
I’ve been eyeing up a very similar army (always loved Eldar Wraith models) but low model count armies feel like they might be iffy.
I did, in round two of this report =) That was a crazy shooty army and they did in fact drop the Wraithknight.
Big fan of the Footdar too. Probably because I started in 2nd Edition and we didn’t have transports back then.
Yeah, I love the Footdar!
Just a quick note about your points. I believe the autarch automatically comes with the force shield which adds 8 points.
Ah, he does! Doh! It’s not in his wargear section but you are right. Le sigh. We need a list building app. But, I will correct that going forward, thanks for pointing it out.
I was unsure if you were meant to pay for the forceshield for the Autach. I thought that the forceshield entry in the points list was for wraithblades with axes and that the forceshield was an ability of the autach not a peice of wargear as it was not listed in the war gear section. You don’t pay for any other things listed in ability section of any other units.
Is there any other occurrences like this in other indexes?
You’ve convinced me to build a Wraith army. My first and favorite Warhammer mini was a metal wraithguard back in 3rd edition.
This list just looks like a load of fun.
Awesome! And yes, it is very fun. I wish you success with it.