Rise of the Warlock

Eldar Warlocks saw themselves drop a bit in utility, from my end at least, they were a 35 point Conceal caster that led my Guardians on the field. With the abundance of 'Ignores Cover' rules however, that usefulness dropped and they could no longer be relied upon to increase the survivability of my troops and eventually saw themselves left off the list.

With the dawn of 7th Edition however, and from what I have been reading in this weeks White Dwarf, I am seriously considering the Warlock in my forces again.




Now, to side track a bit, I know that as part of a JetSeer Council they were considered to be part of one of the most broken -star units in the game, but, I don't use that list and don't consider myself a tournament gamer. This is simply my view on a unit that I usually take on foot.

Another downside to the Warlock was their leadership of 8, it gave a ~72% cast chance of the one power that they took, and the Warhammer law of averages shows us that the likelihood of a power being cast is inversely proportional to the need of that power at any given time. With the advent of the new way of casting, that has been slightly buffed to 75%+ depending on how many dice you add to the pool.

Another side note, I say 75%+ because I believe that you will not be able to throw one dice into a power, although it has not been officially stated I base my assumption on two factors: 1) This new phase is borrowed quite heavily from Fantasy which doesn't allow single dice casts, and 2) A Perils is generated on a double 6 (maybe a double 1 aswell, but only double 6 has been stated in WD), if you roll a single dice, you will always avoid a perils result which I don't think the game will allow.

Also, you get the Primaris power for free if you select all your powers from one discipline, so with Warlocks only being allowed to select from Runes of Battle, you get Conceal/Reveal for free along with another power. Suddenly, you get the opportunity to have a variety of powers on hand for the situation rather than being a one trick pony. However, we will see next week if the Mastery Level of a Psyker still determines how many powers they can cast per turn.

The other great utility the Warlock will bring, especially for those Seers is the fact that they will add an extra Warp Charge to the pool, so, if someone else really needs to get a power going on one turn, you can sacrifice the Warlocks dice to make it happen. Maybe 35 points for an extra dice will turn out to be worthwhile? I know I am going to give it a shot.

My favourite part of a new Edition is always seeing how the new rules affects the usefulness of existing units and at the moment, I am looking at the Warlock and feel quite optimistic about taking them again. Then again, if all else fails, I can still put them on Jetbikes.