Eldar Rumours

[Lane]

I've been in love ever since Mike McVey did his duel diorama for WD back in the day:

IIRC that Dragon is just an old Cold One with the upper head from the Dragon Prince horse, plus some sculpting to extend the neck and tail.

[eldargal]

Yep, and given GWs tendency to do things a litlte different (look at the sabretusk things vs expected rhinox) I doubt we will get simply cold ones in space.

[RebelGrot]

IIRC that Dragon is just an old Cold One with the upper head from the Dragon Prince horse, plus some sculpting to extend the neck and tail.

Indeed it is. The tail is one of the old 'proper' dragon tails, the rider is half an old scout/ranger. It's still probably my favourite thing McVey did though.

I also wouldn't expect Cold Ones in space, but I would hope for a more sleek/agile looking creature as in the conversion over the quite robust/slower looking current Cold One style. Who knows? We're a good way off but I'll be waiting...

[flatdice]

I know this is unlikely but, any thoughts on the idea of exodite dragon knights as a Calvary aspect warrior lol ?

[eldargal]

Nope, it would be like Imperial Guard Space Marines. Same species, different way of doing things. Exodites don't have Aspects.

[Defenestratus]

As juicy as the thoughts are of new units, specifically new aspects- I'd much rather them just make the current aspects more relevant in the current meta.

Neither of the close combat aspects are truly frightening anymore. Scorpions are probably ok right now, but like all eldar units, they are overcosted.

The Banshees on the other hand are too weak to cause real pain with their power weapons, and are too fragile to withstand the pain coming back their way. Especially with the prevalence of both T5+ and counter attack (which I'm sure will get even worse when BT come back) I think the girls need a bit of a boost IMO. Certainly I don't expect them to get tougher, but perhaps giving them FC would help with the whole S3 thing.

Shining Spears are expensive, and squad sizes are too small - making the exarch incredibly easy to kill with plain bolter fire.

Again, I welcome more units, but I'd be even more excited to see how they fix the current aspect warriors that we already have.

[eldargal]

Well it goes without saying every unit in the book needs fixing (price, abilities or both), we have had one new infantry unit since 1994 (storm guardians) not including FW stuff. As much as I love the current codex, the Eldar unit lineup is rather stale.

[DrLove42]

The problem with adding more units is where they'd go. I know with 6th rumoured to include more FoC changing, and curretn codexes swapping slots make it easier but all the slots are currently VERY FULL

Troops have 5 - Storm Guardians, Regular Guardians, Pathfinders, Jet Bikes and Avengers
Elites have 5 - Quins, Banshees, Dragons, Scorpions and Wraithguard
Heavy has 6 - Lords, Prisms, Falcons, Batteries, Reapers and Walkers
Fast has 4 - Hawks, Spiders, Spears and Vypers
HQ has 2 generic customisable and 8 SC.

With competion for all the slots very tight as it is, where are you going to add extra to that with trimming some other units? Compared to more modern dexes thats seems a lot per slot. Both the Necs and the DE only have 2 troops choices.

I can see them giving us new aspects....but cutting some of the old stuff. I can see Spears dissappearing. After all they are the only aspect that didn't get finecasted

Or worse...getting rid of an aspect, but giving us a new one that does exactly the same role...

[eldargal]

Well I could see them combining the Falcon, Nightspinner and Fire Prism slots into one like the IG has for LR variants. Ditto for Guardians, just one slot for each type (Defender, Storm and jetbike), I also think it would make more sense for support batteries to be included in with Guardians rather than in HS. The DE book has 7 Elite choices too, so using that as a precedent you could fit one or two more in Elite and another in a streamlines HS section.

The above is all speculation obviously, I just think it wouldn't be hard to do.

[Alessander]

First, new aspects are totally possible. GW writes the fluff and can ret-con anything, having a new aspect complete with new Phoenix Lord for them and saying they were there since the founding of the Asurya would not be unusual for GW.

I can see the aspect warriors getting consolidated into generic FOC choices as upgrades to the entire squad, in the same way that the current Eldar Pathfinders are simple suqad-wide upgrades to Rangers.

And as the Aspect Warrior boxed sets automatically come with an Exarch now, I foresee that Exarchs are automatically going to be part of the squads, not optional upgrades.

Ie Having a single elite army list entry "Close Combat Aspect Warriors" where you choose the gear of the squad to make it either Banshees or Scorps. The current codex does this, since both HB and SS have the same statline and the only difference is the wargear, really.

"Ranged Aspect Warriors" choose either Fire Dragon or Dark Reaper

"Fast Aspect Warriors" squad choose either Warp Spiders or Swooping Hawks

Dire Avengers an upgrade to Guardians?

Shining Spears are upgraded Guardian Jetbike squads?

Likewise, I can see the Wraithlord being a character upgrade to a squad of wraithguard.

This would slim down the number of FOC entries in the army lists CONSIDERABLY. It really wouldn't matter much to us players in the end gameplay wise, but would make the army list look a lot more streamlined.

I forsee see Falcons, Fire Prisms and Night Spinners being a single FOC entry as well as coming squadrons - just like the variants of the Leman Russ entry in IG. GW needs to get people to buy more Falcons etc, and limiting Eldar to only 3 or so skimmer tanks would hurt sales. Or if one of the new units is another Falcon variant, have a squadron of Falcons and/or it's variant be one Army List, and have the Fire Prism and Spinner be another Army List squadron option.

Remember the rumors for 6th ed is that you can drop FOC slots for new ones (ie limit yourself to 1 heavy slots to be able to take 4 Fast attack)

The trend since Codex Blood Angels is for all armies to have at least one flier, so the "Vampyre" is probably a new Flyer, likely a smaller plastic version of Vampire Raider in the same way the Storm Raven is a smaller version of the Thunderhawk.

So here's what I predict the Army List will look like:

HQ

• Phoenix Lord (probably a generic HQ now, and you choose which wargear to make it a named character)
• Farseer(I see Farseers having different levels of power now, from "Warlock" to full on disciple of Eldrad)
• Autarch (maybe Phoenix Lord is an upgrade to this?)
• Avatar
• Solitaire (If they keep him as uber as he was before, I totally see him being an HQ to prevent people from spamming him, and to have him compete with other HQ)
• Exodite Lord
  
• Seer Retinues
• Warrior Retinue (could be for Autarch or Avatar as the court of the Young King)

Elites

• WraithGuard (and Wraithlord)
• Harlequins
• Close Combat Aspect Warriors (either Banshees or Striking Scorpions, possibly a new Exodite themed close combat Aspect?)
• Ranged Aspect Warriors (either Fire Dragons or Dark Reapers, possibly a new Exodite themed aspect?)

Troops

• Guardians (option for Support Batteries, and Dire Avengers as upgrade)
• Rangers (Pathfinders as upgrade)
• Assault Guardians / Exodites on foot (I see them as being the same entry)

Fast

• Scouting Aspect warriors (either Warp Spiders or Swooping Hawks)
• Vyper
• Jetbikes (Shining Spears as Upgrade)
• Exodites on lizards

Heavy

• War Engine of Vaul Squadron (Falcon & a new variant)
• Siege Engine of Vaul Squadron (Fire Prisms & Night Spinners)
• War Walker squadron
• Exodite on Big Dragon (total guess, probably the new kit)