According to most fluff Craftworld Ulthwe although light on Aspect Warriors does have a very healthy number of them. The most prevalent of the Aspect temples on Ulthwe is not the Dire Avengers. It is Actually the Dark Reaper temples. This is reflected by fluff and the fact in the Apocalyptic formation “The Ulthwe Strike Force” you must take Maugan Ra and two units of Dark Reapers. Ulthwe and Maugan Ra are staunch enemies of chaos and fight to preserve the Eldar race as a whole.
Maugan Ra is one of my two favorite Phoenix Lords. He is the harvester of souls and the founder of the Dark Reapers. Maugan Ra of course has the standard Phoenix Lord stat line. This makes him an excellent shot hitting on a 2+ and being able to re-roll any misses on a 5+ thanks to an exceptional BS. He has the standard rules, Fearless, Eternal warrior, crack shot, fast shot and he makes any Dark Reaper unit he joins Fearless. This later fact is important. He also has the Acute Senses rule.
His weapon is the Maugetar which is a Shuriken cannon with Assault 4 that also causes pinning is rending and has an affixed executioner raising his strength by 2+ in close combat.
This is where the fearless thing comes in. When I use Dark reapers they tend to be prone to assaults by deep striking or very mobile close combat troops. Even if you have them rooted in a very hardened position the amount of casualties they inflict is pretty high when you have a Farseer handy to guide them and doom the units they are shooting at. Even on their own they tend to kill marines units quick. This makes them targets. What better way to deter assaults than having Maugan Ra in the unit dishing out 4 powered attacks at strength 6 and going first, usually. Its a nice deterrent. Most players do not want to get in close combat with a Phoenix Lord
The real payoff in using Maugan Ra though is he increases the long range killing power of a unit. Since he has the crack shot power you can send some possibly rending shurikens into a unit and they will get no cover save. He also has fast shot so assault 4 becomes 5. 5 rending shots that also pin This adds at least 50% more fire coming from the unit Add in an Exarch with a Eldar missile launcher and you could be killing a squad a turn. Maugan Ra is also the second cheapest Phoenix Lord. Clocking in at 195 points, he is still over priced in my opinion, he makes a good HQ choice and a great squad upgrade for a single squad of Dark Reapers.
Although the Maugetar does not have the range of a reaper launcher it helps with mid range fire. If you leave Maugan Ra apart from your Dark Reaper Units you can be a little more effective. You can create cross fires and pin units that the reapers cannot totally kill. You can use Maugan Ra as a clean up tool. You hit a unit hard with the Dark Reapers. If there are only a few left say 5 or less then you can take out the remaining troops with Maugan Ra using fast shot, unless they are in cover then use crack shot. You get one less shot but no cover save is allowed and this means more kills for lightly armored troops.
So there is my two cents about the Harvester of souls. Next to Karandras, Maugan Ra is my favorite Phoenix Lord. He really is a good HQ choice to go with. Next in the series we will cover the Storm of Silence. Jain Zar the Phoenix Lord of the Howling Banshees. I really can't wait for the Dark Eldar Codex to come out I want to do a Gladiator fight between Lelith and Jain Zar to see who wins. I smell a video Idea.
So next time more tactics and I may be getting my hot little hands on a Dark Eldar Codex this coming week to browse.
Until then.....
Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!
The only problems I have with all the phoenix lords is the high points costs and the lack of an invulnerable save (except asurmen). Why does every tom dick and harry get an invulnerable and not the founders of the eldar warrior aspects? Makes no sense GW! They should have a 3+ invuln I think. Also I think banshees should have some kind of invuln dodge save like wyches, they are just as agile.
ReplyDelete3+ is a little excessive but I agree an invo save would be appropriate. Having an exarch power that gives banshees a wych like close combat save would be way better than war shout that power blows.
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