Codex: Aeldari is up for pre-order this Saturday, and it’s set to change the way Aeldari forces play. Like you, we hear the beating of the war drums and the ululating chant of a craftworld preparing for war, and we really want to see just how wild the Avatar of Khaine is in combat.
We’ve already seen his rules, but there’s only one way to get across just how powerful a combat monster he is – by throwing it into the crucible of combat with a series of increasingly deadly adversaries and seeing where the dice land.
The Avatar of Khaine Vs. A Redemptor Dreadnought
The Redemptor rolled to go first, peppering the Avatar with high-yield munitions and landing one searing plasma bolt, which caused an almighty two wounds thanks to the Avatar’s ability to halve incoming damage.
The heated hulk strode forward through the onslaught, unleashing a flurry of seven Piercing Blows (dealing 1d6+2 damage each) which peeled the Redemptor like an orange, sending its reactor into meltdown and causing a catastrophic explosion which the Avatar walked right through without breaking stride.
Result: 16 Damage dealt. Avatars don’t look back at explosions.
The Avatar of Khaine Vs. Marneus Calgar
Even though he’s now crossed the Rubicon Primaris, the Ultramarines’ head honcho finds himself dwarfed by this new incarnation of the Avatar. Taking the initiative, Calgar unleashed hell, but his bolt rounds failed to make so much as a dent. He then pummelled away on the charge with his mighty gauntlets, barely scraping together a single point of damage.
In response, the Avatar unleashed the power of the Wailing Doom, making seven attacks, hitting with six, and smashing three lethal blows past Calgar’s invulnerable save. These caused an average of six damage each which, even after being halved by the Armour Heraclus, was too much for Calgar’s fragile constitution.
Result: Even with damage-halving armour, the Avatar wins out. Sit down, little man.
The Avatar of Khaine Vs. A Keeper of Secrets
Slaanesh is the archnemesis of the Aeldari, and a Keeper of Secrets is a fitting foe for the embodiment of the craftworlds’ wrath. Blindingly fast, this sinuous beast rolled to go first and cast Delightful Agonies to allow it to ignore wounds it took on a roll of a six. Its living whip tickled the Avatar’s molten chest, but this was followed up with a flurry of more painful attacks, landing a total of six wounds on the Avatar even after damage reduction. The Keeper sneered with superiority right up until the Avatar hit back with a mighty flurry of 17 damage.
Delightful Agonies gave the Keeper just enough juice to survive on three wounds, and in the second round of combat, the greater daemon even managed to take the Avatar down to its middle profile. But that middle profile doesn’t reduce Weapon Skill, and the Avatar’s riposte reduced its ancestral foe to a fine mist of musky ectoplasm.
Result: A satisfying win, but the Avatar is definitely leaking hot metal blood by the end. No Fall this time.
The Avatar of Khaine Vs. The Entire Chaos Half of Eldritch Omens
It’s rare for Characters to duke it out in the middle of nowhere, so how does the Avatar fare against a small war host? Seizing the initiative, the Avatar rent the very ground with a linear torrent of psychic flame from its Wailing Doom. This was absorbed by the Forgefiend’s armour, though it atomised a Chosen. So with a roar of crackling flame, the Avatar leapt into combat, forcing five hefty blows past the Daemon Engine’s warp-charged armour, dealing an eye-watering 15 wounds. Reader, it blew up.
The band of Chosen shot back, dealing two wounds before their perfidious Warpsmith unleashed hell. He dealt a scary eight damage* (halved to four) with his meltagun and another point of damage with an overcharged plasma bolt, which duly exploded, evaporating its twisted owner as millennia of poor weapon maintenance took their toll. The Avatar then smashed in 12 attacks with his Sweeping Blows profile, laying the final four low without even breaking a molten sweat.
Result: Enemy force eradicated, Avatar only hungry for more.
The Avatar of Khaine Vs. A Fully Tricked-out Baneblade
Can a walking inferno defeat over 300 Imperial Tons of Astra Militarum firepower? Let’s find out. Before the Avatar could close in, the Baneblade fired every gun on its chassis, delivering a staggering total of 34 shots from its two cannons, heavy bolter sponsons, autocannon, and two lascannons.
As the smoke cleared, the fiery form of the Avatar emerged, having taken a respectable seven wounds. It flexed and hit back for a below-par 10 wounds. With the two locked in combat, the Baneblade rammed the Avatar before unleashing a point-blank salvo of destruction via Big Guns Never Tire, bringing the Avatar almost to its knees – and its final profile.
Bellowing with insensate rage, the embodiment of Kaela Mensha Khaine hit back with five attacks that absolutely chunked its Superheavy adversary with an astonishing 28 wounds – more than enough to one-shot it in the first place.
Result: Pitiful Mon-keigh machinery falls before the Wailing Doom (just).
The Avatar of Khaine Vs. Mortarion, Daemon Primarch of Nurgle
Mortarion is one of the most formidable single combatants in all of Warhammer 40,000. How would the Avatar of Khaine fare against Nurgle’s emissary? Our fiery favourite got the jump and launched into Mortarion, unleashing a flurry of blows, dealing a whopping 17 damage, reduced to eight wounds thanks to the Primarch’s Disgusting and Revoltingly Resilient traits. Wiping a trickle of corrupted blood from a cut on his face, the Prince of Decay hit back with his trusty scythe, Silence, carving great chunks out of the Avatar, leaving him with 7 Wounds.
During the next round, Mortarion flubbed his psychic powers, failing to cast Miasma of Pestilence and only causing a single mortal wound with Smite.** Even The Lantern glanced off the Avatar’s roiling hide, but he did manage to chop the beleaguered Avatar down to one single wound. In return, the Avatar tapped into his last reserves of power, reducing the Pale King to a handful of Wounds remaining – before Mortarion neatly lopped off his opponent’s head, liquid fire spitting from the fresh wound. Cowed but not beaten, Mortarion returned to the warp to wrap a load of dirty bandages around his injuries.
Result: Extinguished by the power of a Daemon Primarch.
There you have it. The Avatar is a combat powerhouse, more than capable of punching beyond his weight class and able to shrug off massive damage and to fight with all the rage the Asuryani do their best to repress.
He’s not quite a one-manifestation army, though, so make sure you’re ready to pre-order Codex: Aeldari this Saturday to provide an adequate vanguard to cut the heart out of your foe’s forces.
* Once upon a time, the Avatar would have ignored superheated melta shots, but now he’s so tough he doesn’t even need to.
** Fitting that Mortarion, notorious psyker-hater, would fumble his attempts to manifest warp powers.