# Dark Eldar Khymera - Are they joking?



## Shadowbadger

We all know that the ne dark eldar miniatures look really good, and to be honest I think the prices have for the most part been fair. My box of Kabalite that arrived on Friday looks great and was not much more than £1 per model.

The new beastmaster units however:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440235a&prodId=prod1140009a
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1140015a
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440235a&prodId=prod1140016a

They look really cool and are on 40mm bases, that is where the good ends. You can by the Dark Eldar Codex create a unit which counts as a single fast attack choice:

5 Beastmasters:

5 Khymera for Beastmaster 1
5 Khymera for Beastmaster 2
5 Khymera for Beastmaster 3
5 Khymera for Beastmaster 4
5 Khymera for Beastmaster 5

So 5 Beastmasters, 25 Khymera. A nice little unit for 360 points. This little lot will however set you back a whopping £261!

The other models in the beastmaster range suffer from the same issue although not quite so badly as with the Khymera. What is next? £1 per point?

The main problem here I think it in the approach they have taken. This should have been done as a plastic set with multiple customisation options so that many unique beasts could be made. Whilst it would still be steep I would have paid £15-£20 for a set of 5 Khymera, perhaps £25 if the plastic set had included a Beastmaster but this is just nuts.

I am looking into Gamezone Chaos Hounds (I play a Chaos player who may have bloodletters which was my other thought). The LotR wargs I see people buying only have 2 variants and look crap.

</rant> :angry:


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## Shadowbadger

To make this thread a little less negative I will also suggest people post links to their suggested alternatives. These are the six Gamezone Chaos Hounds which Weyland miniatures do for £7.50 per three.



















These are the uninspired LotR Wargs:










These are Flesh Hounds of Khorne. I may use these but I do not want models identical to our chaos player:


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## bitsandkits

is the 5 khymera plus beastmaster x5 a compulsory unit ?


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## Stephen_Newman

No. It is someone maximising the unit to the most stuff as possible.


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## Shadowbadger

You can take just the two and you also get the Clawed fiend at £13 odd for three times the points which is OK because it is like a troll and quite big. There is also a flock of birds.

I am not trying to maximise everything, only doing so to point out hte price lunacy. I would however like to have more than two (say 5) Khymerae. I know it is not a compulsory unit but it is incredibly annoying. It would be akin to space marine jump infantry costing £14.50 each.

I also know I can just not buy them, it is still annoying though that GW have not in my mind designed that element of the range correctly.


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## Stephen_Newman

No. Don't try to talk to me about annoying units in metal. Your unit is not even compulsory. Not even in a wych army. You try collecting an Iyanden Eldar army when it costs over £90 for a troops unit. Then come back and tell me whats not fair.


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## Kreuger

There are also Hellhounds from the old Leviathan range.
I used to use them in place of flesh hounds during 2nd ed, because old flesh hound models were really anemic looking.










They're £10.00 for 5 hounds at Scotia Grendel.

They're also often available on ebay for cheap. They are made of resin and fit perfectly on a cav base.

Cheers,
Kreuger


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## Djinn24

Stephen_Newman said:


> No. It is someone maximising the unit to the most stuff as possible.





Stephen_Newman said:


> No. Don't try to talk to me about annoying units in metal. Your unit is not even compulsory. Not even in a wych army. You try collecting an Iyanden Eldar army when it costs over £90 for a troops unit. Then come back and tell me whats not fair.


Not even going to point out the irony that you try and call someone out for maximizing a unit when you can just take the damn wraithguard as an elite and be done with it. Iyanden are not all wraithguards, they do have guardians left, their fluff says they take more WG not all WG.

The true Iyanden list is 15 WG, 3 WL, 3 Wave serpents and whatever else you can jam in at whatever points.

Back to the OP: Welcome to pewter models. I remember when it was cheaper to buy a pewter then a plastic now the prices of white metal is so damn high, I wish they would go back to lead.


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## Strange Dude

Here are mine (vampire count dire wolves with tyranid claws on 40mm bases) have the advantage of being 100% GW so fully tournament legal and GW store friendly. They also work out to around £2.65 ish per model.


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## Stephen_Newman

Hang on. You say there should be more WG than guardians and such in an Iyanden list. Well with only 15 WG any other troops are gonna have to be small in size which means they will suck on the tabletop.


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## Djinn24

More as in more then other Eldar craftworlds but you are right, the 15 was when you could make a unit of 5 a troop. Trust me I know the pain, I have 40 Wriathguard and looking for more. (90 is the magic number).


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## Arm1tage

Strange Dude said:


> Here are mine (vampire count dire wolves with tyranid claws on 40mm bases) have the advantage of being 100% GW so fully tournament legal and GW store friendly. They also work out to around £2.65 ish per model.


Pretty good dude. :goodpost:


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## Vaz

You want to hear pain? £90 for a troop unit? Hows about it costing me £130+?

Gotta love customization.


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## Ascendant

Not fancy, but ten for $25. GW models, and you can paint them crazy colors or some shit if they look too normal for ya. Now the problem is solved and this thread can be a proper wang-measuring contest for people who want to own the most expensive army.


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## Djinn24

My shining spears are going to cost me 175.00 dollars.


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## Ascendant

djinn24 said:


> My shining spears are going to cost me 175.00 dollars.


Now, that's what I'm talking about. Of course, I am looking at $450 for my six battlewagons. Pretty steep stuff.



On topic, kroot hounds are more expensive but also weird-looking. Try green stuffing them a bit and it could be good.


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## Shadowbadger

Stephen_Newman said:


> No. Don't try to talk to me about annoying units in metal. Your unit is not even compulsory. Not even in a wych army. You try collecting an Iyanden Eldar army when it costs over £90 for a troops unit. Then come back and tell me whats not fair.


I thought that my post first was grumpy but jeez. Thank you to those who suggested alternatives although my first post perhaps does warrant an angry reaction.

Thank you Strange Dude and Ascendant in particular, those are both good options. I am very unlikely to play at a GW store or tournament but itis something worth considering. The kroot hounds do also look weird although they suffer from the same problem of repeated models with there only being two.

I do not know why it matters though who has been ripped off the most, surely any anger would be better directed towards GW instead other players. Here however are my thoughts on Iyanden:


Whilst Wrathguard may be a required unit for Iyanden you could chose collect another Craftworld. It is a subset of an army and not all that different from if I wanted a beastmaster only army for the sake of fluff.
Your Wrathguard probably (I do not have the codex) cost three times as many points so whilst expensive they are better value for money.
Your pitiful little Iyanden "ship" would have fallen to Waaagh! Rekkfist in 995,M41 were it not for the superior reinforcements provided by the Wraithkind Kabal and the Cult of the Flayed Hand. So keep waking your dead, worrying about your precious morals, it serves as a slight amusement to us.


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## Epidemius

you could try to use the Warhammer Fantasy Chaos Warhounds to count as them, they're plastic and much cheaper than buying all those expensive metal miniatures.


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## wombat_tree

Shadowbadger said:


> [*]Whilst Wrathguard may be a required unit for Iyanden you could chose collect another Craftworld.


While this is correct it also works both ways i.e. he could choose not to use Wraithguard but on the same note you could choose to not use Kyhmera.



Shadowbadger said:


> [*]Your Wrathguard probably (I do not have the codex) cost three times as many points so whilst expensive they are better value for money.


To be precise it is 3.33 recurring times more points.


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## Shadowbadger

Yeah I know I could chose not to use them, I could chose to get another hobby as well  My point was that both of us had a choice so one problem is no worse than the other.

I am just expressing my frustration that these miniatures are so far removed from the costings of the rest of the range. Perhaps my OP was a bit on the rant side but I think we have come up with some decent alternatives.

Are the Chaos Warhounds OOP? I cannot find them on the GW site, only Khorne Flesh Hounds which are £25.50 for 5 and I would rather avoid them because our Chaos player may have them in his army.

I am leaning towards the Gamezone ones at the moment as they look quite cool and at £15 for 6 unique ones they are not that bad.


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## Shadowbadger

Never mind sorry I found them, did not realise there were 2 WFB Chaos armines:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440109a&prodId=prod1570038


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## Arm1tage

Good thing that most of the expensive Necron miniatures suck in game - otherwise I'd end up broke.


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## KhainiteAssassin

the khymerae are meh, good if you want to maximize attacks on turn 1, else they are quite weak outside of being Power weapon attack Soaks.

I think the razorwing flocks are down right better for everything but dealing with a bunch of power weapon attacks. Why? the flocks have 5 a AND 5 w each with the same T as the Khymerae. so 2 flocks = 10 attack and 10 wounds. where the Khymerae would be 15 attacks but only 5 wounds, yes they have a 4+ invul but every wound reduces your squad, it takes 5 attacks to reduce the flocks


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## Shadowbadger

The razorwing are a little better value as well, they cost 25% more points and are £1 cheaper. They are a nice unit as well, having rending to offset the lower strength.

Using both might be quite good, with a second beastmaster and two flocks forming a screen for the Khymerae


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## Aramoro

I do think it's kinda weird having such an expensive model for such a disposable unit. Looking at £50 for a unit of 6 dudes who are not particularly good just ensure people will never use them. They're not like Fiends which are a must include unit or anything, seems an odd choice.


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## Shadowbadger

I play for fun not competitiveness and I just like units that are interesting. I am looking for alternatives to the Razorwing Flock now as well.

There is a good article on Razorwing flocks and models here: http://rathstarramblings.blogspot.com/2011/01/dark-eldar-razorwing-flocks.html

These beasts may be something I just leave for now purely down to cost and lack of models. Perhaps my OP was too aggressive and if so I apologize. I am not wildly bent out of shape about it, but it is a shame not being able to include such a diverse and interesting unit.

There are fortunately lots of other units, some of them with models which are very cool and not excessively priced.


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## bitsandkits

Why not just buy the unit slowly? a model a fortnight, thats how i buy my armies, im slowly building up an empire army, i buy a box or a blister every few weeks and they soon mount up.


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## Stephen_Newman

bitsandkits said:


> Why not just buy the unit slowly? a model a fortnight, thats how i buy my armies, im slowly building up an empire army, i buy a box or a blister every few weeks and they soon mount up.


This is similar to how I buy my armies. I buy something one week and buy something else the week after or the one afer that once I have painted it.


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## Shadowbadger

I do the same and it is fine for normal units.

The problem still stands though, £8.70 for very little points and only two model variants. Poor value for money is poor value regardless of when you spend.

I could, and probably will buy entire units for the same price as 2 Khymaera. It is just annoyance that part of the army list is priced so differently to the rest.


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## Strange Dude

I use 4 Beastmasters with 6 flocks and 5 Khymarae the use of khymarae is to take invulnerables wounds from str6+ weapons which would insta kill the flocks. Razorwing flocks kill nearly anything in my experience (including a lucky one turn mephiston drubbing 7 rends!) everything else is padding ld booster for the flocks to kill stuff.


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## Shadowbadger

That sounds like a good unit.

Did you find alternative beastmasters and birds or did you use the GW ones?


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## Strange Dude

Shadowbadger said:


> That sounds like a good unit.
> 
> Did you find alternative beastmasters and birds or did you use the GW ones?


Nah they were made before the GW ones came out.










greenstuff bayonets and a scale hex nut on wire 3 to a base.


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## Shadowbadger

They look really cool, it is a pitty there do not seem to be loose birds available somewhere at a good price, at least I cannot find them. I was looking at WFB for my Beastmasters but those you have done look really good.

I am going to put the beastmasters on hold for a while though and see what happens. I will have bought most of a 1000 point army soon as well as 30 Mantic zombies to use as pain tokens. I am going to make 30mm, 40mm and 50mm scenes of art/terror representing 1,2 and 3 pain tokens. I will mix in Ork and Chaos bits (my main opponents) to a couple of them as well to make army specific tokens. I am really glad I have need for something Mantic do as I really like a lot of their stuff and the models are very good value. £17.99 for 30 zombies with a good number of variant options.


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