THIS THREAD IS NOT ABOUT ADDING PHOENIX LORDS TO ETERNAL CRUSADE. There is a question I have been thinking on some time, and I would like the opinion of eldar players on this if possible. When the Phoenix Lords are brought up, they are often referred to as the eldar equivalent of primarchs. This is mostly in terms of their relation to the aspect shrines, but I would imagine this would carry over to their skills in war as well. While they are limited to the frail bodies of normal eldar, they have a full millennia of combat experience which I would imagine outstrips that of even Kharn or Abaddon. As such, the question I want to ask is what the upper limit of their power should be. Should they be able to take down small battalions single-handedly or have trouble facing down a Baneblade? Please feel free to answer on a case by case basis if a generalisation will not cover them all as a whole.
They shouldn't be in the game imho. I thought bE had said named characters already established won't/are unlikely to make an appearance in EC, and I support this. By introducing them, you go asking for a whole plethora of complaints that they weren't portrayed in the right way or whatever. I'm aware that GW would have confirmed their portrayal, and it would be their characters, but I'd rather make our own heroes on the battlefield EDIT: If you weren't referring to the game, but merely lore, then Primarchs sounds right, but as squishy as an Eldar. This is compensated by their experience and expertise in their style of warfare. This means they could take down battalions single-handedly in the right circumstances, but also be capable of being killed by a normal footsoldier in the wrong ones.
No i'm not talking about them being added to Eternal Crusade, lord knows how badly that would break the game, i'm just talking both in terms of the tabletop and in lore.
Just saying it before anyone else... IT'S OVER 9000!!! Anyway... Hopefully if anything the Phoenix Lords should be a once in a blue moon NPC appearance or special event thing. They are the founders of the various Aspect shrines and as such there are many battles that require their attention and they come and fight then leave. As a cameo I am fine seeing them every once and a while but as a constant thing... I hope not.
Hard to say how equivalent PL's are to Primarchs. Because they're still around and essentially unkillable, it's easier to Worf them, but some have equivalent feats to Primarchs. Also, the more time goes by, the better the Pheonix Lords get from additional soul power and experience from the multiple Exarches who end up in the armour. So even if they aren't now, there's a good chance they will by the time it really matters. It's quite unusual to actually have some active legendary/mythic figures in the 40k lore, so the Pheonix Lords are quite important from a fluff standpoint in regards to a 'ray of hope'. I don't think they'd be well served in appearing in the game, except, perhaps, to appear on the Eldar Council ship to found a new Aspect.
They are even more rare then the legion of the damned. But just maybe 1 appears to wage war on arkhona as a NPC cameo.
Funny because it wouldn't be that crazy to have a phoenix lord giving us the campaign objectives. Now on topic, we know very little about phoenix lords, GW and the BL guys prefere to write a story about any random SM chapter instead of the story of the phoenix lords... and it's a shame because that could be really awesome, they could have total freedom about them, you want them to loose a battle? done, kill them and let their armour root in a planet for centuries, you want big battles? sure, they will always appear in the most important battles to the Eldar race, you want to show their origins? you can tell how they became the first exarchs and how they discovered the different aspects of Khaine. So, how powerful they are? well we don't know (lol) but they have at least ten thousand years of fighting experience and they have Eldar ancient technology that is supposed to be much better than the actual eldar tech (and the actual eldar tech is much better than the human) also Karandras was able to stop a dreadnought that was about to stomp another striking scorpion, so they are not as "weak" as the regular eldar... if they are not as powerful as a primarch they are really close and they have the inmortality thing as an advantage, but until any of the BL authors makes a book about them it's all guesses.
