The Eldar’s Remnants of Glory Revisited

The Eldar’s Remnants of Glory are a bag of nasty tricks.

The Mantle of the Laughing God and Faolchú’s Wing caught most people’s attention early on. As I noted in my article on these two, the game designers apparently made an effort to make these unique, trademark items more relevant in the game of 40K.

So what about the rest of the Eldar’s Remnants of Glory? There are five more:

1. Shard of Anaris
2. Firesabre
3. The Spirit Stone of Anath’lan
4. Uldanorethi Long Rifle
5. The Phoenix Gem

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#1 – Shard of Anaris

The Shard of Anaris is one of the two melee weapons among the Remnants of Glory. It shines mainly in challenges, where it gets the Fleshbane and Instant Death rule.

That said, it costs nearly as much as the Chaos Space Marine’s Black Mace (which always has Fleshbane, not only in challenges), comes with AP – as a default (if with Rending) and suffers from the fact that the most potent close-combat HQ that can take this weapon, the Autarch, isn’t ever going to be able to go up against the A-list of close combat characters in Warhammer 40K.

In my opinion, the Eldar Codex simply doesn’t lend itself to the kind of all-out close-combat assassins that would make such a piece of equipment work.

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#2 – Firesabre

The Firesabre is the other melee-weapon among the Remnants. It’s essentially a Power Weapon with Soul Blaze that’ll bring your Autarch (again the most likely bearer of this weapon) up to S4. Not impressive for the points, but no doubt useful for an Autarch on Marine-hunting-duty.

It also has the unique Wildfire rule, which will rarely do much. It affects neither the unit fighting with the bearer of the Firesabre, nor the unit he (or she) is fighting. If there are other units within 6″ (friend or foe), they might also suffer Soul Blaze on a 6. It’s so circumstantial, it hardly matters.

Not the most impressive weapon I’ve ever seen, and pricey for what it does. It does seem more in line with the kind of fights you’d want your Autarch to be in than the Shard of Anaris, however.

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#3 – The Spirit Stone of Anath’lan

Do you think your Farseer cannot cast enough powers? Than the Spirit Stone of Anth’lan is for you. It’s the cheapest Remnant of Glory in the book. It effectively allows a Farseer (or Spiritseer) to reduce the Warp Charge cost of a power by 1, to a minimum of 1, at the cost of temporarily losing their Rune Armour save (leaving you with a T3 model without a save!).

Only Farseers and Spiritseers can take the Stone of Anath’lan. It is wasted on a Spiritseer, as Runes of Battle have no Warp Charge 2 powers and Telekinesis has but 2 (I think). The Farseer’s Runes of Fate include many Warp Charge 2 powers however, including Fortune.

If you plan on using your Farseer a lot, the Spirit Stone of Anath’lan is a worthwhile investment.

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#4 – Uldanorethi Long Rifle

The infamous 120″ Sniper Rifle!

It has the range. It has AP3. But who would use it? I don’t honestly don’t know.

Perhaps some people will find this useful for an Autarch sitting in the back with some objective-holding Rangers, a unit of Dark Reapers or a Vaul’s Wrath Support Battery.

However, for rangers, I would rather pick Illic Nightspear, simply because he doesn’t interfere with their Infiltrate special rule. For the other options, a Missile Launcher will likely serve an Autarch better in almost all situations.

The Uldanorethi Long Rifle is a flavourful entry. However, it’s far from being the kind of game-changer that some of the other Remnants of Glory are.

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#5 – The Phoenix Gem

There is something undeniably cool about a model blowing up as it takes the last wound. It used to be a signature ability of things like the Eversor Assassin. Tau have it, obviously. Now Eldar do too, but with a twist. Instead of a simple explosion, the Phoenix Gem could restore a single wound to the character that carries it, so long as the boom causes at least one unsaved wound.

The Failsafe detonator is a fun gadget of spite. The Phoenix Gem could be a true game-changer, mainly if it keeps an Eldar character alive for a crucial extra round at the end of the game.

Of course, the Phoenix Gem is a gamble and it may fizzle in various ways. It is also a lot more expensive than the Tau-equivalent, so there is a temptation to trigger it late in the game by doing something daring (or stupid). Still, for an Autarch equipped to get in close, I’d give it a try.

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Thoughts?

Looking at all the Remnants of Glory, I still think that they almost all offer useful and interesting options to an Eldar Army. The two I would not use are the Shard of Anaris and the Uldanorethi Long Rifle, and the former, not because the weapon itself is bad, but because the Eldar lack the sort of close-combat beast to make it shine (and an Avatar cannot take Remnants of Glory).

Others, such as the Spirit Stone of Anath’lan, are up their with “the Mantle” and “the Wings” in usefulness.

What do you think?

• Which Remnants of Glory would you use in an Eldar army?
• Which Remnants of Glory have you tried in a game of 40K?
• Which Remnants of Glory do you consider underwhelming?

I would love to hear some comments!

Z.

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