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Can an Ulthwé Seer Council take a Wave Serpent?

  • Yes

    Votes: 8 57.1%
  • No

    Votes: 6 42.9%
  • Other (please specify)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

Can an Ulthwé seer council take a transport?

1K views 15 replies 6 participants last post by  Elendor 
#1 ·
I am playing my first apoc game tomorrow, and I had a question concerning the Ulthwé Seer Council formation. Can they take a Wave Serpent provided they could all fit? The datasheet never specifies, but I imagine they act similar to a Warlock sqaud with independent characters attached to it, which could take a Wave Serpent as a dedicated transport.
 
#3 ·
Hmm, that's unfortunate.:\ Are you sure though? In this case couldn't a Warlock squad technically be taken as a Seer Council if you brought Eldrad and 3 Farseers and had them all attached to the Warlock squad? As such the Warlcok squad could take a Wave Serpent (as it states in the codex) with the independent characters along with it (as allowed by the rulebook). This squad would meet the criteria of the Seer Council as well as be able to take a transport. That's my argument at least.
 
#4 ·
But that is eldrad, some warlocks and extra farseers. Instead of the Ulthwe seer council from the formation. This means they don't have all the extra goodies of the council formation ( augment, and the extra stratagies ). If you were looking just for the models though then yes you could get a small warlock unit eldrad and a couple of farseers and toss them all in the dedicated transport of the warlocks.

The game has a permissive rule set ( because it is impossible to write down everything you can not do ), so unless it says you can do it you can't. In this case the only way the Ulthwe seer council can be fielded is detailed by the formation, it does not have an option for a transport so it is not allowed.

It has been a while since my last Apoc game but don't eldar have a transport with a full 12 man capacity in one of the Imperial armor books? If so then you could buy one of them and place the council inside of it to start as it is not dedicated to another unit.
 
#7 ·
That's true and I have considered doing that for other units in the past, but I will be using flank march and moving both the transport and the council in from reserve. If they have to come in separately, it's too much of a hassle to load them in the transport. And since the council itself gives me strategic redeployment, I can move them somewhere fast if I need to. :)
 
#8 · (Edited)
I've gotta disagree with nakaruru. If the "permissive ruleset" in this case limited you to only what was written in the datasheet, the formation would be unplayable. Nowhere does it list the point costs, stat lines, or upgrade options for any of these models-- does that mean they have none? There's an assumption that these models use the rules already provided for them in the codex. In which case, it doesn't require an explicit statement that they can take a transport, it's already allowed as a Warlock unit option. I don't think anyone would suggest for example, a Cloudstrike Squadron can't take Holo-fields because it's not explicitly stated in the formation rules, it's already an option available to the Falcon.
 
#10 · (Edited)
Hmmm, reread the council formation and I'd be willing to follow that line of thought if my opponent wanted to do it ( Not sure if it is something I would be doing). It does open up some interesting points with other formations though. The Ulthwe strike force could in theory be completely mech if we follow what is in the codex and IIRC it was not allowed to have any tanks when it was a valid army list.

Does anyone have any examples of a formation that shows units in vehicles that are not noted in the formation itself? The Aspect assault wave and the guardian formation ( forget the name ) specificly note transports ( IIRC they are required ).

Another interesting thought is that if they are treated like they are from the codex you could buy the formation ( for the strategems ) then have the farseers, Eldrad, and the warlocks all at different points on the table, which seems more than a little odd to me if they are the seer council.
 
#11 ·
Another interesting thought is that if they are treated like they are from the codex you could buy the formation ( for the strategems ) then have the farseers, Eldrad, and the warlocks all at different points on the table, which seems more than a little odd to me if they are the seer council.
Maybe they foresaw that they would need to split up? :p But that's a fair point, the formation doesn't have a "strike force" rule and playing them split up would be quite odd (though I wouldn't think game breaking-- even if they're just using it as a means to get stratagems they're still paying for it). But aside from those formations that have vehicles as a part of the formation, I don't know of any datasheets that specifically allows or disallows the unit to take a transport. Though there are a fair number of formations that would seem kind of pointless if they were required to footslog in a game of apocalyptic barrages and baneblades. In the end I'd really suggest you just discuss it with the people playing with you and ask yourselves-- is it going to break the game to allow them to have a transport? Would it defeat the purpose of fielding them if they couldn't take bikes or a wave serpent?

I think this is another example of GW taking the tact that Apocalypse and Planetstrike are meant more as a vehicle for telling epic stories through giant battles-- they don't really account for people wanting to play them competitively and so leave the rules at the players discretion.
 
#12 ·
The aspect formation specify you MUST buy serpents for each unit of aspect warriors (as you cannot let them on foot), as the warlock unit according to codex can buy a wave serpent and you have less than 12 models inside (maximum 9 warlocks) you should be able to buy a serpent for a seer council of ulthwe. And is even fluffy (you know serpent pilots are guardians, and ulthwe is known for mobility)
 
#13 ·
The old craftworld Ulthwe list ( from which the council is based ) did not let them go in a transport IIRC. the Ulthwe farseers also could not get on a bike. So fluff wise it isn't completely correct. Ulthwe was not fast, it was a footslogging core of guardians with a council leading it. There was the USF (Ulthwe strike force) which let them use a webway portal much like dark eldar can but that list was prohibited from bringing any of the large tanks.

In the end I think Archon Charybdis hit the nail on the head. Apoc is about massive armies, cool models, and big explosions. Talk with the other players, hope for some memorable moments and enjoy the ride.
 
#14 ·
Thanks for all the feedback, guys. I played the game without the seer council in a transport and had all of them together as one squad. An interesting note about whether or not they have to stay together in one squad is that my friend that I was playing against had a Masters of the Chapter formation (5 independent characters) but he separated the master of the fleet partway through the battle. This got me wondering whether I could do the same with Eldrad and the Farseers.

On a side note, it was quite a fail... after I was down to Eldrad, 1 farseer, and 1 last warlock they failed a morale check and had to fall back. They ended up running into an impassible wall and dying. One of the greatest heroes of the Eldar died by running head on into a wall... tsk tsk.
 
#15 ·
On a side note, it was quite a fail... after I was down to Eldrad, 1 farseer, and 1 last warlock they failed a morale check and had to fall back. They ended up running into an impassible wall and dying. One of the greatest heroes of the Eldar died by running head on into a wall... tsk tsk.
You know you can move around stuff while falling back, right? :p
 
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