CODEX: ELDAR PIRATES
I have created a Rogue Trader inspired 4th edition army list for Eldar Pirates. You may view the list here.
Overview
Put most simply this army list isn't anything new. Eldar Pirates have been around since RT and they've seen actual miniatures in relatively recent years. The list is a mash up between the 3.5e Dark Eldar Codex and the late 4e ed Eldar codex. The list is fairly restrained in that it doesn't invent much, it mostly just ports rules and units from between the two Codices.
Why?
Why did I do this? It started at a local PNW oldhammer convention a couple years back when a friend brought in a copy of Space Fleet. I was hooked and set out to collect fleets for the three factions, Tyranids, Imperials, and the Eldar Pirates. It was also around this time that I was introducing my kids to 40k through 4th edition (also, introducing myself since I didn't previously play).
A few months passed and I organized a local swap meet and acquired a small army of RT era Eldar. Obviously they had to be pirates to go with my fleet. The tricky bit is that there is no "pirate" army list for 4th ed, at least not explicitly. Dark Eldar were the closest thing, at least in terms of rules, to space elf pirates. So for the last year or so I have been fielding an army of RT Eldar minis with Dark Eldar rules to be pirates.
To model this I've done head swaps and equipment swaps to rid my minis of any semblance of aspect warriors. The trickiest thing that I puzzled over for weeks was how to model a Wave Serpent for the pirates. I really love the old Epic Wave Serpent that looks vaguely like a greek trireme. I knew that there was a large epicast version floating out there, but it wouldn't fit the rules for the Dark Eldar Raider. So I had to improvise. I decided to make a mashup Wave Serpent and Raider in one. What I settled on is quite faithful to the trireme Wave Serpent except that it has open sides like the raider for quick ons and offs.
Next, I had to make a Ravager. My settled design for this is again a mashup. It has a similar body to the Wave Serpent, and a turret (no 'sail'), but to hearken to the Ravager it has two side sponsons made out of jet bikes. It is still a work in progress.
Anyway, long story short, I was having a lot of fun with my army, but the Dark Eldar codex wasn't quite scratching the itch. The early White Dwarf articles for Space Fleet discuss the Farseers at length. I had to have some psykers in the army.
So I decided to sit down and make the army list.
How?
Now we delve into the methods of my madness. When I make my own rules for Warhammer I have two guiding principles: 1. The choices have to be thematic - I can't just pick stuff that is powerful or cool, the choices need to reflect the theme of the army. 2. The rules and unit choices have to be under the curve. That is, the points values, the options available, etc have to be, on average on par or worse than what else is out there.
Theme
In this case, if I am being really honest, many of the unit choices were based on what random miniatures I had accumulated. So there was a little bit of bias in my creative process (I have to be able to play with the list at least.) But my main inspirations were RT era stuff, some White Dwarf articles, the Book of the Astronomican, unit similarities between the two 4th edition codexes (I see pirates as being a sorta middle between the two factions) and newer stuff that popped up when I googled Eldar Pirates (Void Sabers are an example of this, I wanted a less evil replacement for the Agonizers of the Dark Eldar).
Starting at the top: the Pelagarch and Kyberite. These are carbon copies of the Archon and Dracon of the DE list. The DE entries are objectively worse than the Eldar Autarch. Pelagarch is a combination of Pelagos (Greek meaning open sea) and Arch (meaning ruler.) So he's the ruler of the seas. Kyberite is a made up Greekish word (Kyber meaning to steer or govern) that sounds similar to Sybarite, so I kept it carry over the vibe of the words.
Farseers are directly ported over from the Eldar codex. Nothing interesting here.
Next, Boarding Parties. These are a mix between Witches and Storm guardians. My random mass of Eldar had an assortment of former striking scorpions and harlequins that were press ganged to function as witches in the DE list. Pursuant to my philosophy of going under the curve, the stat line of the Boarding party follows that of a standard Dark Eldar Warrior. I compared the points cost of normal guardians and storm guardians (they are equal) and assumed it would be okay to do the same to normal dark eldar warriors (swapping out Splinter rifles for Close Combat Weapons (CCW) and splinter pistols.
Lochiarch is just a Sybarite with a new name. Lochiarch is loosely equivalent to Sergeant in Greekish (Lots of time spent with Chat GPT to make up Greekish titles).
Lance Carbine is just a reskinned Blaster (short ranged lance weapon.) Flamers are borrowed from the Storm Guardian entry (as well as hearkening back to the Eldritch Raiders list in the Book of the Astronomican.) The option to have Standard Bearers and Musicians stems from the old RT Space Elf minis that featured Eldar with a Standard Pole and the musicians with space harps. Their abilities are taken from the Warlocks psyker powers but the cost is increased to compensate for the fact that you don't have buy the warlock to access it.
Exodite Beasts. These are just reskinned warp beasts. The only difference is that the Beastmaster doesn't get an agonizer. I plan to just use animals from my oldhammer wood elf army to fill this role.
Corsairs. This unit entry 100% stems from the fact that I have a small number of the RT space elves that are armed with a pair of small space weapons. The rule of thumb in 4th edition appears to be that if you have two of the same weapon they become twin-linked rather than just shooting twice - like the 4th ed Tau Crisis Suits or Tyranid Bio weapons. So their dual pistols are twin linked. I also gave them the Hit and Run special rule. In my head I imagine them like Jango Fett in the Prequels (say what you will about the prequels [they aren't great] but Jango Fett was pretty cool) running and gunning. I wanted them to be able to run and gun through and around the enemy position and felt this rule might help with that vibe. I have the feeling they are actually a trash unit.
Bonesinger. My initial instinct to design the bone singer was to reverse engineer the Space Marine Tech Marine since he has a similar role of repairing vehicles. This didn't work. Techmarines are covered in equipment: bolter, signum, auspex, power weapon, powerfist. Doing basic subtraction the Techmarine ends up being less than a normal marine, so it's not clear how much the repair ability is worth. So I just made up some rules - basically am Eldar Warrior with the relative stat bonuses of a Techmarine and a much more reliable permutation of the repair ability.
Warriors. basically this unit is a Combination of Dark Eldar Warriors and Guardians. It differs from Dark Eldar Warriors in that it has the option of adding a warlock to the unit. Here it should be noted the army may only have upwards of 2 psykers.
Serpent Squad is just a raider squad. Though the name, serpent squad, is borrowed from the book of the Astronomican.
The Waver Serpent is essentially identical to a DE Raider, except it has 12 frontal armor and it is a tank to represent the armored prow. It's cost has been increased almost 20% to account for this upgrade.
Skyraider Squad - name also taken from the Book of the Astronomican. Basically this is identical to the DE jetbikes except that the shredder has been replaced with a flamer.
Razorwings (also from the Astronomican), are just scourges. There is no substantive change here.
Wave Dragon (Dragon squads are a unit type in the Astronomican) is an up-armored Ravager.
The Last unit is the Wraithdrone. The wraithdrone is meant to represent a worker bot who assists the Pirates with the stowage and transport of cargo on their ships. Perhaps a bit undignified for a Wraithlord-adjacent being, but a suitable task for an articulated and strong construct. Compared to a Wraithlord the drone has less Weapon Skill, no ranged weapons, and less initiative. As such it is steeply discounted.
The Piratic Armory or War Gear choices. These are all taken from both the DE and Eldar codices. No equipment was invented whole cloth. A few are reskinned to be less evil. Some have been modified slightly - the goblet of spite now only grants a 3+ to hit against enemies in cover instead of a 3+ to hit all enemies. The Animus Vitae and trophy rack have been combined. The void saber rules were googled, and the points cost roughly in between a power sword and agonizer (since it has middling efficacy against Space Marines).
The psychic powers warrant little commentary except the Minor Powers. The minor powers were psyker powers from the 2004 Chapter Approved that included a handful of lores/categories of abilities. Each ability was relatively minor and one rolled randomly to determine what power they got, similar to the sanctioned psykers of the IG. I chose to add this because they are interesting, and it also seemed thematic that the pirate Eldar would play with psyker powers more casually than both the craftworld and Dark Eldar.
So far I have only used it in a few games. It doesn't feel like it is overpowered. A little bit more play testing is needed. Largely, the army still fights like a DE army. Most of the unit types are still mostly analogous to DE units. The boarding party is less fighty than wyches since they lack the 4+ invulnerable save in close combat and don't have combat drugs nor wych weapons. However, they are cheaper, can be given a shimmer shield, a standard bearer and a musician. This doesn't quite fix them, but it's a step in the right direction. The loss of agonizers is a considerable blow the fightiness of the army too. One can't get a bunch of Succubi or sybarites with agonizers. Void sabers are useful, but just not quite as good. The added durability of the vehicles is a useful boon. It is quite frustrating to lose a raider to bolter fire.
If you give it a go or have thoughts, please share them. I'd love some outside thoughts on the project.
