The Chime of Eons - Descendants of Isha (part 1)

"Feel the rush of the wind against your skin and hear her keening cry in your ears. Listen to her call well, for are we not the Wild Riders, the children of the storm?"

- Nuadhu "Fireheart", Vyper Pilot of Saim Hann

"You may as well try to catch starlight as bring Eldar to battle."

- Imperial Naval aphorism

"Have you any idea what it's like to have the wind rushing through your hair, George?"

- Lord Flasheart (Blackadder Goes Forth)

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There's no secret that I favour the Eldar. The larger part of my 40k miniature collection is Eldar, and taking pride of place at the centre of that collection are the Phoenix Lords.
For me, the love for this faction began with the Rogue Trader book, and a black and white double age art spread, showing Eldar mercenaries descending from the sky on dragonfly wings. The alien and ethereal aesthetic of the forces appealed to me, and I've stuck with the pointy eared sods since then.

When, FFG brought us the Conquest LCG. The Eldar in the Core Set did not disappoint, and have rapidly became my favourite faction in how they play, even if the nature of LCGs means that being a one-faction player isn't my preferred approach. I was disappointed when I heard that the second Eldar Warlord would be the last one of the new cycle, but absolutely overjoyed when I heard it would be a Phoenix Lord!

Descendants of Isha is the warpack I'd been gleefully anticipating above and beyond any other.

So, who are the Descendants of Isha?

Well broadly, the answer is the Eldar. Isha and Kurnous were the gods who were mother and father of the Eldar race in their stories.

The Eldar Mythic Cycle describes a pantheon of gods in ancient times, and after they were created the Eldar walked alongside the gods, blessing them with their knowledge and wisdom. This coexistence would end when the maiden Goddess Lileath saw a prophecy revealing to her that the Eldar would cause the destruction of Khaine, God of War.

Khaine resolved to destroy the Eldar race rather than allow this to happen.The ensuing slaughter was beyond the power of Isha or Kurnous to stop, so Isha petitioned Asuryan (who was Phoenix King and greatest of all gods). Asuryan responded by placing a barrier between the heavens and the mortal realm, thus dividing the Gods and the Eldar. This barrier, along with the mandated decree of Asuryan, would prevent Khaine or any other God of the pantheon from harming the Eldar again.

Isha was distraught at being separated from her children, so wept muchly. Taking pity, the God Vaul secretly forged Spirit Stones from her tears, which would allow her to communicate clandestinely with her descendants.

This was not to last though, as Khaine stumbled upon this secret and revealed it to Asuryan. Asuryan was sympathetic to Isha, but could not allow his decrees to be defied, and so he gave Khaine permission to do as he wished with Isha and Kurnous.

The War in Heaven that followed is another story, and predates the later events of the Eldar Fall by some tens of millennia.

The Eldar, a mythic people by nature, make little distinction between history and the myth-stories of their origins. They know that the Mythic Cycles are still ongoing, even if most of the Eldar Pantheon are now consumed by the Chaos God Slaanesh. As Lileath predicted, the Eldar themselves were the cause of Khaine's destruction.

Khaine is one of the two gods that has survived in some form, the other being Cegorach the laughing god of the Harlequins (though more obscure references also imply Isha may be alive as a prisoner of Nurgle, and that a new god named Ynnead is being born). Ironically, Khaine (who once sought the destruction of all Eldar) is now a protector of the Eldar race, in his own way. He is no longer as he once was, but instead exists as shattered psychic fragments that rest within the heart of each Craftworld, and which can be manifested in the Eldar Avatar at times of great need.






The Phoenix Lords

Immediately prior to the Fall of the Eldar, a number of Eldar Craftworlds fled their homeworlds to escape the cataclysm they knew was coming. Yet they also know that distance alone would not be enough to keep their destruction at bay.

Though the Craftworld Eldar could not yet know that the Fall would birth the Chaos God Slaanesh, nor that the Eldar homeworlds would be so consumed in such cataclysmic fashion, they did have the wisdom to recognise that it was mindset and psychic conditioning were every bit as important to their survival as merely fleeing the heartlands.

One of the leaders of these farsighted Eldar was a warrior named Asurmen, and it was he who is credited with creating the Eldar Path: a system of mental discipline by which the Eldar could channel and focus their potential, and protect themselves from the hedonistic excesses of their race.

As a warrior, he focused his own path on the practice of war. He soon found himself trapped on that path, and thus also became the first Exarch of the Eldar. Lessons were learnt from his own successes and failings, and he - and a group of his students - went on to formalise the Path of War, dividing it into multiple Aspects each exemplifying a single facet of the art of battle. We know the names of at least eight of his students, though some are better known than others.

So strong were the personalities of these Asurya that on their deaths it was found that any aspect warrior who donned their ritual armour would be subsumed by the reincarnated personality of the first and greatest to wear that armour.

Thus, they have been named Phoenix Lords. While they can be killed, their armour is (whether by fate or artifice) is ultimately beyond destructibility, and all it takes is for an Eldar warrior to put that armour on again, and the Phoenix Lord is born again. Each Phoenix Lord becomes the sum of every warrior who has ever worn the suit, though dominated by the will and identity of the first to wear the armour.

It is said that the Phoenix Lords will finally fall at the Rhana Dandra, a battle against chaos that will be the last fought by all Eldar, and likely their end.


Signature Squad

Baharroth

The most vibrant and youthful of the Asurya, Baharroth was the founder of the Swooping Hawks aspect warriors, and was the first of them to master flight and aerial combat. Light, wind and speed are is hallmarks, whether it is blinding enemies with the white fire, or lighting the skies with his lasblasters.

Baharroth has an especial hated for the servants of Chaos, as his home craftworld of Anaen (along with his people and his mortal family) was destroyed long ago by the Khornate Lord Trarkh.

His counterpart in the Asurya is often said to be Muagan Ra, Phoenix Lord of the Dark Reapers. These two are described as sun and moon, day and night, and many an enemy has been cut down by the combined firepower of shuriken from below and lasers from above.

In terms of the LCG, I have to say that I greatly appreciate the elegance and simplicity of a Warlord card whose special ability text is just a single keyword, and that I am awed by how this single keyword completely defines the Warlord's style of play in many subtle and clever ways.

For me, Baharroth is a triumphant return to fluffiness for the Eldar of the LCG. After cards like Black Guardians and Warlock Destructor, I was concerned that the faction's mechanical identity was being homogenised, becoming a faction of efficient small units that fights and wins games the same way as every other faction. This was a disappointment to me, as the Core Set Eldar had such a strong mechanical identity, with their strengths and weaknesses forcing a long term game of patient planning, followed by a crippling strike as forces converge.

Put simply, Baharroth exemplifies this style of play, with his ability and his signature cards creating an emergent play experience that feels subtle, clever and very very Eldar. Not for Baharroth a brute force approach or simple efficiency: instead we see a game style of fluidity and forethought, with deadly force converging without warning, or arrayed armies fading away like morning mist.

It works, it really does.

If I have one complaint, its that I'm now itching to see how FFG handles the remaining Phoenix Lords!

Baharroth's Hawks

As we've mentioned before, the Eldar Path of War is multifaceted and dangerous enough that it must be divided into specialised Aspects. The Swooping Hawks Aspect focuses on a doctrine of mobility and aerial superiority.

Their notable feature is their gravitic wings, that work through high frequency vibration rather than as the wings of an animal might. Their weapons are the lasblaster (like the lasgun of the Imperial Guard, but a far more efficient weapon - it is a common boast of the Eldar that their mastery extends to light itself) and the leg-mounted grenade pack, which can drop explosives as the hawks fly over their enemies.

Though they lack the close combat punch or sheer firepower of many of the Aspects, they are nearly unmatched in their flexibility and ability to traverse a warzone as needed.

While mechanically many have complained that a base 0 attack value is troublesome, I actually really like the way this card is designed. I think the abstraction here isn't so much to represent that the Hawks are toothless without Baharroth leading them, but rather that his battle plan has them choosing not to engage at that time, instead waiting for the perfect moment to strike with overwhelming force. Eldar lives aren't to be sold cheaply or in battles of attrition - rather, they prefer to pick the battles they can win without any losses.

Likewise, while the gamer in me would love to see a 1 or 2 cost signature squad, the fluff-lover in me is happy to see Eldar units stay expensive and specialised to a particular role, as that much better reflects the Eldar way of war.

Banner of the Ashen Sky

This card isn't based on any existing piece of lore, and indeed neither Baharroth nor Eldar in general are particularly noted for fighting around banners. Its notable that in the miniature wargame, the army books of most of the factions includes options for banners and standards, but that the Eldar have never rallied around a fluttering piece of cloth.

Having said that, the card is very evocatively named. Baharroth's default colours are, of course, the greys of an ash-filled sky.

This together with the artwork gives a great image of one who is at home on worlds torn apart by war, but who appreciates beauty even in the darkest places: wholly apt for an Exarch of Exarchs.

The game effect also feeds into the overall playstyle of the deck nicely, and encourages play in a fluffy way.

Late amendment: My mistake, the Shrine of the Ashen Sky is named in the latest Codex: Eldar as being a notable Swooping Hawks shrine. No additional fluff information beyond that, however, and no specific connection to Baharroth.

Cry of the Wind

I wasn't going to complain (again) about Mobile units planet-hopping, but the ability text of this card pushes the incongruity right in our faces.

Broadly, I'd have been happiest if the game recognised that a unit that flies through the air ought to really have Flying, and that a game scaled around planets as warzones ought to treat movement between those warzones as a matter for spaceships, not of a pair of wings.

But this is an old complaint, and we've been here before.

The "Cry of the Wind", incidentally, is the English translation of Baharroth's name.

Now I don't know about you, but I know that Prince has told me what it sounds like when doves cry. I imagine a baharroth is a similar sort of noise.

The Shining Blade

It seems that the FFG approach to a signature attachment has gone a little squiffy here.

For sure, Baharroth does carry a sword called the Shining Blade, and this is a master-crafted blade which was said to be forged by the daughters of Vaul in the heat of a supernova (likely Eldar poetic license for a process involving female artificers and plasma technology). Relic is a sensible trait here, definitely, as this is a one of a kind weapon that is at least ten thousand years old.

First fluff objection however is the obvious one. Its a sword. A close combat weapon. It'd be ridiculous enough if it was a long range gun hitting a unit at another planet, but you really need to force things to work out why a sword is abstracted as having this effect.

Second fluff objection is that because of the way this card plays, the only rational play I can think of for it (save discarding for shields) is on a Mobile Unit controlled by your enemy. That, when we try to force it into our visualisation of what is happening, is a really really bad fluff fit.

Third is the limitation: why exactly do you need to be mobile to use a sword?


Other Cards

For the Tau'va

It often seems to me as if the Tau don't have enough syllables in their language. T'au is the planet they come from, Tau is their race name, and Tau'va means "the greater good".

I've always assumed that we're meant to be looking at a translation of a concept into English, rather than a word for word direct translation. Tau'va probably translates more like "the greater benefit to the Tau as a whole", but the canny water caste diplomats likely realised that might be a hard core philosophy to sell to alien members of their Empire.

I can't complain about this card, however. Clearly, its a statement and execution of philosophy, with the self-sacrificing commander exposing himself to danger in order to serve the battle plans of the Tau as a whole, and to allow the Tau to execute the Tau style of warfare (which Kau'yon and Mont'ka aside really boils down to "shoot them, shoot them some more, and hope that they're all dead before we have to mess around with that close combat business we're so bad at").

I also think its no accident that Shadowsun, who is an exemplar of the greater good, is the Warord who gets the most out of this event, while its slightly less useful for Aun'shi (an Ethereal sacrifice his own safety? The very thought!) and almost worthless when played out of faction from a Space Marine or Eldar warlord. I'd been even more pleased if a future Farsight warlord card had no use for this card at all!

The art here, however, is somewhat amusing, with a fire warrior pointing his close combat weapon at an ultramarines assault squad that is clearly no more than a few paces away. A few seconds on from this picture, its likely the Fire Warrior is a bloody splatter, and the genetically engineered superhuman will be jump-packing his way to the next target.

For the greater good, indeed.



Hallow Librarium

The Librarium is the portion of a Space Marine Fortress Monastery where its psykers are trained. Its not entirely clear why such a place would have a "reverse Catachan Outpost" effect (and come on, how many of you haven't heard this card called that yet) or why in resource terms a Fortress Monastery costs half the resources of one building within that Fortress Monastery, though that's really a fault of the former card, not this one.

In a broader sense, its hard to assess this as being fluffy for Space Marines or not, as while combat tricks and combat superiority are a very Astartes thing to represent, it also seems to be out of keeping to have this based around static Supports rather than spur of the moment Events. I'd like to have seen this reskinned as an Astra Militarum card.

Something I must say here though is that I truly love the art for this card, and the Space Marine support cards in general seem to be turning out some great moody gothic pieces that are consistent with each other in tone (both chromatically and emotionally), which is making for a richer game experience overall.

Primal Howl

I object to this card on multiple levels.

First, I really don't like the aesthetics of the artwork. Is it just me, or does the beardy Space Wolf look plain odd? There's something about the proportions going on here, and the way the lines of the piece draw the eye to his belly rather than his face.

Second, the game effect isn't one that I like. Its uninteresting, hard to control when it triggers, and annoyingly too strong to leave out of a deck, at least at present. 2 shields, or +2 cards at no cost? That's an easy include!

Third, I don't get what its supposed to represent. Sure, we could say that Ragnar sees the enemy warlord and howls with joy / anger / wolfgasm, and his Company surges forward at his command. But card draw is something of an abstraction for this. Also, what happens when its not Ragnar? What happens when Cato sees Inquisitor Coteaz, and gives an unUltramarine-like howl, which somehow translates to an improvement in his lines of supply and logistics management, letting him put to use all those useful resources he gained from all those Khymera / Snotlings that Tactical Squad Cardinis killed last turn?

Ok, I get it, this is a card game, a level of abstraction is necessary. However, an Event card named Primal Howl really had no place triggering off anything other than a Space Wolves unit!

Shrieking Basilisk

The Basilisk is the Astra Militarum's long range bombardment artillery, suitable for shooting the crap of enemies long before they're in sight. Its a WW1 howitzer, dressed up as a 40k unit.

The shrieking presumably refers to the whine of the shells as they fly through the air. The support card exhausting is, I don't know, something to do with being able to bash up the enemy HQ from miles away.

The nature of support cards creates some stretches of imagination here, of course.

KABOOM! We shot Cato, and now the Hallowed Librarium in Maccrage will be lending books no more!

KABOOM! We shot a Ratling Deadeye in yonder trees, and now Coteaz's spaceship can't send in any more Guardsmen!

Space Wolves Predator

The Predator is one of several space marine tanks based on the chassis of the Rhino APC, but the Predator is very much a battle tank rather than a transport.

The pattern shown in the art is that of a Predator Annihilator - essentially, a large number of lascannon with some wheels to move them around.

Annihilators are tank hunters, best used to destroy enemy armour at long range.

The game effect here doesn't make a great deal of sense: its not clear why Cato won't lead his infantry into battle against Ragnar's anti-armour tank, nor why Nazdreg's Waaagh goes quietly next door because there's a shooty tank sat on a planet. The stats are also disappointingly balanced - a Predator with this load out ought to be reasonably tough, but really much more attack than defence, and possibly with some special anti-vehicle rule in place.

The Emperor's Warrant

I was amongst the confused when we saw this card, an Astra Militarum card with Space Marine artwork. Really, FFG Art Directors, you thought that was a good idea?

A Warrant is a writ of authority, granting powers to an Imperial official. Notable in the setting are warrants of trade, which allow Rogue Traders to operate freely within the Imperium.

I've not heard the term warrant used with regards to the inquisition before (normally they talk about the Holy Orders of the Inquisition, or the Inquisitorial Mandate, and the sign of their authority is the Inquisitorial Seal, or for juniors, the Inquisitorial Rosette). However, it makes sense that an organisation as byzantine as the Imperiumm would also recognise an Inquisitorial Warrant as a legal term.

Of course, despite the art, there's no Inquisition trait to this card, so it likely refers to the authority of a warlord to act in the Emperor's name on a broader basis.

The effect, however, doesn't match this concept. Regardless of the Imperial authority of a warlord, its hard to visualise how this grants him the ability to have one enemy unit fire on another enemy unit.

Vior'la Warrior Cadre

As previously noted, Vior'la is a major sept world, famed for its fire warriors and soliderly attitude. It makes sense to have fanatical warriors who perform better in the presence of an Ethereal (and Aun'shi himself is particularly adored on Vior'la). It makes less sense for this performance increase to come in the form of increased range (a HP boost might have been more appropriate), but in broader game mechanics terms the chosen implementation is more elegant, more interesting and encourages a Tau style of combined arms play.

I suspect that FFG is running into slight problems here with the Tau, who historically had less unit types and so have a lot of artwork pieces of fire warriors shooting at stuff! Still, a good card, and a good concept.


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Here we leave off for a short hiatus, before returning with Part 2. Urien awaits!