GW debuted their Iyanden suplemental codex today and I have to admit, I've never been so excited to bust out my Wraithguard! The video gave us some insight into how the army will play so I'll discuss that in this post and go on about how I foresee an Iyanden style army to be built/played.
You can see the Iyanden preview video here. It has some mini previews of the dex which are really interesting...
So what can we expect from the new Iyanden codex?
-Spiritseers are now 1-5 per HQ choice and have a new Primaris for their Runes of Battle called Voice of Twilight. Also, incase anyone didn't notice, Spiritseers roll Warlock powers so they can still join Wraithguard and give them Warlock powers. This means that you roll for Spiritseer powers, choose which Spiritseer you want to join which squad since they are ICs and attach at deployment and you have a formidable set of buffs for Wraithguard units.
-You can take a Wraithlord or Wraithknight as an HQ choice to be your Warlord. Essentially, you could take 4 Wraithlords/Wraithknights!
-Iyanna Arienal returns which is super cool as she was a staple Iyanden special character back in the day. She had a special save which was a Ld test, pass a 9ld test and you don't take the wound which is probably one of the best saves in the game. In the fluff, she was also accompanied by a Wraith construct guardian which might indicate that in this codex, she might allow us to take another Wraithlord or something. Very excited to see her rules.
-New wargear/warlord chart...The first Warlord trait available is roll a d3, you get that many re-rolls you can use for to-hit, to-wound, saves, armor pen rolls. One piece of Wargear (wraithforge stone) affects a Wraithlord or unit of Wraithguard on a 3+ in the movement phase and possibly gives them FNP.
What will an Iyanden army look like?
For starters, I can see probably around 3-5 Wraithguard units at least with a Spiritseer attached. Aside from that, 3 Wraithlords and Wraithknight for a Warlord might be standard play seen in Iyanden armies. There are also a lot of possibilities with potentially new options for existing units like the Wraithfighter getting new weapon options or something. I know that for me, I might run 4X10 Wraithguard and 1x5 in a serpent and 3 Wraithlord with a Wraithknight for Warlord. Throw in some air support for good measure and you have a pretty fun and tough army.
Overall, I am really excited and can't wait to start throwing down with an old-school Iyanden army. It is a bummer that you can't get wide access to Fortune but if you have enough Wraith units with good Warlock buffs, that doesn't matter so much as a 2+ armor save is roughly equivalent to a fortuned 3+ save and so on...So here's to the new Iyanden supplement and it looks like we can expect another supplement for perhaps any of the other Craftworlds or unique armies as this is just one in a series of many.