Imperial Armour Review part 3: Force of the Imperium and Background

Despite the Imperium taking a large part of the background of this book, it was very much under represented inside the rules section, with only 2 characters being represented. Still I will go over them and then the Background of the book.

The Imperial guard have two companies in the book, the Cadian 6^th, and the Elysian 226^th Drop troop company. However the only new unit in the book is Commander of the Cadian 6^th, General Myndoras Odon, and the Elysians get no love this book.

General Myndoras Odon

If you are playing though the book, and you want to represent the General, he replaces any senior officer for a fee of 55 points and he adds a little extra compared to a regular commander. First his wargear is rather standard, power first, refractor field, but only comes with flak armour, which is rather odd but I doubt you want him in combat. His special rules are the only unique thing about him, he can issue 2 additional order (for a max of 3 a turn) and has his own warlord trait. He is a 'Careful Planner' which allows him to re-roll the dice for seizing the initiative, nothing special and it doesn't aid the force much.

If you are taking this guy I don't think you will be doing it for his rules, it will be much more for his character as you are likely playing the Cadian 6^th more than anything else. However I can see him being a way to get that re-roll being used if you like that rule with out having to take Inquisitor Coteaz for less points? I'm not sure, why you would really take him.

Bran Redmaw

The other character rule that we get for the Imperium is the rules for the wolf lord, Bran Redmaw. A great warrior but is afflicted by the Curse of the Wulfen. For just over 200 points you get a Wolf Lord with a 2+ save, and an ap2 axe. He comes with a personal warlord trait, Saga of the hunter so no need to roll for it. His real price comes from his rule Curse of the redmaw, he rolls a D6 and if you get a 5+ he transforms into the Redmaw, gaining fleet, eternal warrior, feel no pain (5+), fearless, furious charge and rend. He can no longer use his axe but boosts his strength and toughness to 6, making him a real monster in combat.

He doesn't really help you tactically but is a real beat stick, and makes it rather hard for your opponent to kill as he retains his 2+ save and toughness 6. However he odes only have 3 wounds so it not impossible to just kill him off before he transforms.

Background

I rather enjoyed reading though the story section of the book even if it was rather short and skipping on some details. But for once it not just a large grinding war of attrition like the Imperium like, it covers the hit and run tactic of the Eldar, and how they get away with moving over the planet undetected (more or less).

To start the Eldar Corsairs attack taking out all the monitoring systems around the planet so they can move about with out the Imperium knowing who they are or where they are attacking from. Then the Forces of Alaitoc and Mymerea start attacking, taking out key positions reducing their ability to trike back. The Forces of the Imperium then ask for help from who ever can help, and in the surrounding area a maniple of Titans come to their aid supported by an escort of Elysians. The space wolves start making their way to aid as well.

A local force of Cadians come to their aid and take over the defence, as well as an Inquisitor. Using servitors the inquisitor sends them out to scout the Eldar positions and get a network of cameras to see the world. With this information the General of the Cadians manage to mount an offence, using 2 large forces of tanks to strike back, while the titans go hunting down the Eldar titans near the webway portal. After serious losses the eldar seem to be driven off.

However some eldar make it into a mine of the Imperium and the Inquisitor seals them in with a force of his retinue. Once again sending out servitors as cameras, the Inquisitor sees the Eldar uncovering an ancient suit of armour. Then all hell brakes loose as an Eldar warrior puts on the armour and becomes the lost phoenix lord of the Shadow spectres, and they fight there way out, killing every one. But in order to escape the Farseer finds the Inquisitor and links their minds, showing each other images. The farseer finds out how to escape, while the Inquisitor sees the fate of the Mymeara craftworld, and how it has slowly been declining since it escaped the fall of the Eldar Empire. With their task completed, the Eldar leave the system with what they came for.

I really liked the idea of they have gone to war just to retrieve a lost pheonix lord, but the war did cost a lot of Eldar life, both Corsair and Craftworld.

While I was reading it I expected something very bad to happen to the Craftworld Mymeara as the book is called 'The Doom of Mymeara' but nothing really happens out of the ordinary from war. There was no colossal space battle which destroyed the craftworld (as they attack via web way) so at first I was a little confused. But looking back over the flash backs the Inquisitor gets from the Farseer, with each passing battle the Eldar number drops, and at the time of the battle they were at a tenth of their starting number. This suggests that the craftworld is Doomed as they can't replace their population. So is war the doom of Mymeara? Probably? But thinking about what the book was about, retrieving a lost Phoenix lord, maybe we can expand upon that a little more.

Phoenix lords are great commanders, and they can lead the craftowrlds to war. Now that they have found the Shadow spectre Phoenix lord, I can only assume he is going to war, and not travelling the craftworlds to spread the world of being a ghost (he might, but I doubt it). So leading Mymeara to war spells doom for the craftworld, so is the Phoenix lord the doom? I'm guessing so but its just a guess, the title is rather confusing.

Over all View

So is this book worth the £50 price tag? Well if you want to recreate this battles described in the book you need another Imperial armour book for an Elysian list, which is a bit disappointing. I understand the Elysians aren't the main focus but it would have been nice to include the rules, same with the titans, but instead you need to buy another book or two. But one thing that upsets me a little is no more scenarios so if you do want to replay the book, you have to make your own scenarios which is a shame.

It's not a book for the Imperium player, but we knew that, its all about the Eldar, but even with that in mind, is £50 worth it for a single army list (Corsairs) about 10 pages of rules and a handful of formations? It sounds a little steep to me, but it is a very beautiful book with some very well designed graphics. But what I don't appreciate is 68 pages out of the 229 of just pictures of the units, drawings of them, now its meant to show different colour schemes but it feels like filler, and that's about 30% of the book. Not cool guys.

Over all its a good book, and if you play eldar its helpful, but its by no means needed.