Eldar Rumors 2013.5.21: First-hand Comments on the Eldar White Dwarf

Copied and pasted from the Eldar Rumors thread on DakkaDakka. Looking pretty good. Seems tricky and there are lots of psychic options here. Not to mention versatility which is very important to me. Basically double powers if they all have two modes. The artifacts look obscenely powerful, Wraith units sound appropriately durable, the army as a whole sounds fast. Holy cow I can't wait!

Powerguy wrote:
Got a sneak peek of the White Dwarf today, managed to dig out some actual rules from the battle report, preview teasers and a couple of tiny pages from the codex that were printed in the WD that I managed to read. Not many stats on offer but still a reasonable chunk of rules. I'm probably mis-remembering the names of some of these rules but here is what I picked up in no particular order:

- From what I saw all the non Wraith infantry have the run/shoot shoot/run ability (the rule was called Battle something). Avengers definitely do (from the report) and Rangers definitely do (from tiny printed profile in the WD) as well. Not sure if its just for Shuriken weapons (Rangers do have Pistols I guess).
- It looks likes all Eldar have the 'Ancient Foe' special rule, no idea what this does but I suspect its something like Hatred Daemons of Slaneesh (don't think it was Necron related as the report was against Crons) since all Eldar appear to have it (including the Wraith units).
- There are 14 Eldar specific psychic powers from 2 different charts, Runes of Battle and Runes of Fate. However it looks like several of the powers are 2 in 1, i.e they have a buff mode and a debuff mode, so there are actually HEAPS of powers. I.e the Primaris for Battle is Conceal/Reveal (as a single card/roll etc), Conceal gives you Shrouded and Reveal removes Shrouded from an enemy. The 1 on the Battle Chart was Destructor/Renew(?), Destructor being the same as before with Soul Blaze added and Renew allowing you to restore a wound to a friendy model within range (18" I think). Primaris for Runes of Fate was Guide, which is now 24" range but is otherwise the exact same as before. Very surprising to see this as aside from the range it is far worse than the Divination Primaris (although I guess you could take both and effectively Guide two units). The 1 on the Fate Chart was a terrible Focuses Witchfire power. Fortune and Doom are still options (the Farseer in the report had them) and appear to have the same effects.
- The Avatar has Fleet. Also one of the psychic powers increases your movement speed/charge range somehow
- The Wraithknight is insanely huge, it is literally twice the height of a Wraithlord, and the sword option it can take is basically the size of a Wraithlord as well. It can take up to 2 Suncannons, which are S6 AP2 Heavy 3 Small Blast or up to 2 Wraithlances(?) which are presumably the heavy anti tank option. Sword replaces one of the big guns I think (they are arm mounted like the Titans). This is in addition to the two shoulder mounted heavy weapons (I saw Scatters and Starcannons, so presumably the normal range of heavy weapons are available)
- Wraithguard and Wraithblades look good, think scaled down Wraithlords. They looked a bit bigger than the old ones, but I think it was partly just the added range of motion in the poses on 40mm bases (similar to the old 25mm base Terminators vs the newer 40mm base ones, they are bigger but the better poses help as well). Wraithguard can now get either Wraithcannons (which from the fluff descriptions seemed to still be single shot and very powerful) or D Scythes which were described as a multi shot weapon but it could still Pen vehicles on a 6. Wraithblades are only 1A base (sadly) but looked like they could go either 2 CCW (no idea on stats of their weapons, but they appeared to have sword/axe options) or 1 CCW + Shield gen arm.
- Wraithguard are definitely S5 T6, Lord is almost certainly not T6 (a full unit of Destroyers shot one in the report and did nothing, which suggests T8 or some other equivalent buff). No idea on the stats for the Knight.
- It looks like Aspect Warriors have the same base profile, include Exarches with Ld9
- Reapers have Slow and Purposeful
- Rangers have WS4. They also have a character (not sure if he is upgrade or HQ) who has a 120" range Sniper Rifle.
- One of the fliers has 2 Heavy D Scythes on the wings and a psychic based main gun. The other has 2 Bright Lances and a Pulse Laser.
- Saw stats for what looked like special weapons for characters, might have been for Special Characters as well since the 120" range sniper was in there. One weapon was +2S, AP- Melee, Rending, Fleshbane, Instant Death. Another was +1S AP3, Soul Blaze, and if you killed anything with Soul Blaze then every unit within 6" of that unit would become effected by Soul Blaze as well. There was also a one use only piece of wargear, which you could use when the character died. On a 2+ you place a S4 AP3 template over the character, hitting both friend and foe, but if you cause at least 1 wound then the character stands back up with 1 wound. Last one I saw was an item which gave the user Fearless, Shrouded, Stealth and re-roll cover saves but they lose the IC rule, which gives people a way to make a Solitare (the name was something to do with the Laughing God).