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I really haven't played BFG in years and I'm looking to get back into it and play in Adepticon in 2011. Anyway here is my first attempt at a list, let me know what you think and what you might change.

Pirate Prince w/ 1 reroll 125

Void Stalker 380

Eclipse 250

Eclipse 250

Nightshades x 3 120

Nightshades x 3 120

Hemlocks x 3 120

Hemlocks x 3 120

1485 pts

Im also thinking about dropping 1 eclipse for 4 arconites which would bring me up to 1495. Let me know what you think, Thanks

Have you looked into any of the light cruisers?

I considered both of them, but given the Eldars vulnerability to critical hits (4+ vs 6+ for everyone else) I figured that the light cruisers, which don't have a whole lot of armament, arent any better than taking 3 hemlocks or nightshades. If I took the Aurora instead of 3 other escorts I would also be 5 pts over. If I did drop an eclipse it might be worth it instead of 2 arconites, but for the same points I get 2 extra points of weapons batteries.

The Aurora is good.

In your fleet I would indeed drop the 2nd Eclipse. Add Aconites indeed.

Or
Drop a both Eclipses for an Aurora, 3 Aconites and some HL/NS.

Here you go... see if you can make heads or tails of this. It's a chart (using strictly average dice) of damage out put vs cost of ships against the armor values.



Obviously this does not take into consideration manueverability, hits, hitting holofields etc - it's strictly vs armor, and all ships are assumed to have 2 turrets.

What am I reading?

As a point of focus: Hellebore is total rubbish.

It makes an odd sort of sense if I'm looking at it right, It does suggest that the Aurora and Shadow do end up doing quite a bit of damage, but it seems that the Hemlock and Nightshade still out pace them.
However I feel that BFG is a little more tactical than just looking at damage output vs cost. The major issue is the Fragility of Eldar Cruisers compared to escorts which die after 1 hit anyway whereas the cruisers take 4+ critical hits. The second thing is combined fire for weapons batteries of squadroned ships. Alone an Arconite might not be too great, but with 4 of them you're potentially getting alot more hits in. Same with the Nightshades on a smaller level. Combined fire seems to be important too, eg. using weapons batteries to negate shields before using lances and small tactical maneuvers like that, more escorts means more varied types of guns. The last point is leadership and command checks. In this particular list I feel that the Eldar cruisers are too expensive to use more than 1 or 2 light cruisers, and I feel that with squadroned escorts I'll use less command checks, which means 1. less chance to fail, and 2. fewer rerolls I'll end up using. However I will need to do some testing.


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I also feel that when choosing escorts, number of hits come into play. The Hellebore might be close to putting out the same damage as say a Nightshade and a Hemlock, but for the cost of two Hellebores I can get 4 smaller escorts.
The only reason I'm really considering Aconites is because they can easily help me make up part of the 15 pts I am short, and because they offer me weapons batteries en masse which I am lacking. The Hellebore basically serves the same role as Nightshades and Hemlocks, but less cost effectively, and are less durable.

You're looking at a weapons output vs cost (point cost of ship with said weapons).

Overall I think the aurora is a total bad ass. I ordered 4 of em.

I think overall escorts are not 'worth it' except for maybe eldar due to the fact that there is a holofield save vs them, and you can now brace too.

I play Chaos, Orks, Dark Eldar and now have Eldar. I've used Imperial, Space Marines and Tau extensively as well. From what I gather, eldar and chaos have the best chances of winning tournaments, so long as you play 'correctly' and min/max your threats as well as your weaponry.

You said escorts are not worth it except maybe Eldar, but that's the army we are talking about, so it's fairly relevant. Also from everything I've read playing eldar isn't really like playing other fleets so I don't feel that comparisons to other fleets are really valid.

Hi Maaksel,

previous Adepticon winners (one of the largest BFG tournaments):

Dark Eldar
Tau Armada (twice)
Orks (twice iirc, local forum member Deadshane)

Chaos is always cutting low (I blame fleet selection). Eldar (Corsair/Craftworld) strong but never winning.

So much for your 'guess' heh heh.

Personally I like escorts a lot. My 1500pts fleets:

Tau Kor'or'Vesh : 9 escorts
Chaos: 9 escorts
AdMech: 6 escorts
Craftworld Eldar: 2-4 escorts
Corsair Eldar: heh

Look out for FAQ2010 as the biggest anti-escort threat: assault boats, will be neutered with an elegant small rule change.

Generally escorts are more nifty to use but they are really good mobile and fast platforms.

And when 3 Iconoclasts cripple an Emperor BB in one salvo (had 3 shields down) you'll never ever leave without them again. haha.

Now, Corsair Eldar escorts are bad-ass. The Nightshade & Hemlock should really cost in the 50-60 point range.

The Hellebore problem is indeed the fact it is expensive and just as easy to kill as a cheaper escort.

Take 1 Nightshade + 1 Hemlock and you have exact the same weaponry for +5pts. But have two targets (hp), are faster and the loss of 1 is not so hard as the loss of 1 Hellebore.

A Hellebore fix: 2wb, 1 pulsar, 1 fighter launch bay, 80pts. New distinct role.

Eldar escorts are really hard to hit when played well. One of the strongest fleets ever.

From the powergames I know that you can better stay away from the Shadow and Solaris. Aconites are expensive as well but they have the distinct factor to bring many weapon batteries into the fleet. I always have a squad of 3 around. Reall killers, 15 Eldar WB is fun.

If you want a twist: take the Hero (100pts FAQ2010) and a Flame of Asuryan (Void Dragon Class Grand Cruiser) into your 1500pts in addition to our as a replacement to the Void Stalker.
My fave ship.

/on the table: what does 4+ etc mean? Do you have the underlying calculations available?

4+ means the armor value of the opponent. Notice the lance never changes, regardless of the armor it is against.

I know full well what adepticon is, as I won it last year - I should be the Dark Eldar in that list =D I really liked the TO from Adepticon and I really hope he does it again. He even saw how overpowered the tyranid list was and did as promised by limiting the number of upgraded they could take. We're trying to get a BFG group around here (from our 40k players), we're having a BFG night at the local GW, hopefully we can get more than just me and the store manager!

I'm going to Adepticon again this year (unless I win the war machine pre-qual [which I doubt I will, since I just ordered my army yesterday]).

Here is the excel document that has the calculations (remember, all averages were used). Unfortunately it's not pretty, so you'll need to go through each cell to confirm.

I wanted to find a list of tournaments and compute a weighted ratio based upon actual fleets presens (using their average armor value). Luckily with eldar always counting as closing it makes the math quite a bit easier.

Hey,
congrats! The community has been searching that Dark Eldar player.

Tell us about your fleet, the scenarios and why you won anyway (since DE aren't noted for long lasting fleet engagements).

In the new FAQ2010 players must agree if Tyranids may use Evolutions or not. FAQ2010 is cool.
Drafts are cool (Marines, Tau, Eldar Haven) and have prospect (Powers of Chaos pt2) and some need work (Inquisition) and others need a start (Orks) and the Dark Eldar cruiser will get str2 Impalers.

So...

edit: the formula.

Okay, explain me the Pulsar formula and from where the 2,19 comes. (I mean this is so basic I need to get it straight before I tack on other stuff ).

I believe my fleet for that tournament was:

Dark Archon, 2 rerolls
Torture - Bays
Torture - Bays
Torture - Bays

3 Escorts - Assault Module
3 Escorts - Assault Modules
3 Escorts - Lance
3 Escorts - Lance


Trying to remember scenarios and opponents -

first one was I think just a modified cruiser clash, I don't remember who my opponent was. There was a gravity field on one edge that sucked all ships Turn# x D6 bottom of each turn. I tabled that opponent.

Second was a space marine player - objective was to get to the planet and sit for 1 turn with no special orders. This one was fairly mean of me since I all ahead fulled, launched ordnance to defend myself. Next turn just sat there with escorts blocking - he failed LD to shoot my cruisers and had to shoot at abeam escorts that braced. Got my 'cargo' (or dropped it off, I don't remember), then high tailed it out of there. with him having to brace and not being able to go on special orders to reload, I was able to cripple/destory most everything.

Last scenario, there was a warp in the middle (I lost this one). Against a nid player that had like 2 ~500 point hive ships with ~6 shields each etc. (This is where the TO declared next year he was limiting their upgraded). I actually think this one was considered a draw. This opponent got best general though.

Mission was just anihilation, I killed all his escorts with AB's, and he just had bombers hitting me, or fighters trying to defend my bombers. I just couldn't get through his 6 shields/turrets, so the last 3 turns were literally us just bombing eachother and he would cause a hit or so, brace that ship etc.






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As for the equation, the math works out that 1 pulsar lance has .875% chance to hit - my math was :

(0.25*1+0.125*2+0.125*3)*X

Other way would be (X*.5)+(X*.5*.5)+(X*.5*.5*.5)

They both equate to 87.5% chance of hitting (considering the bonuses for rerolls)

The 2.19 from the hemlock comes from total ship cost (hemlock is 40) so .40

Divide the weapon 'value' by the ships 'value' and you get 2.19 - the overall cost of other ships is the average vs 4+ 5+ and 6+ armor (hence the lance stays the same since it doesn't care).

Thanks on the DE, perhaps you should write a tactica on them for Warp Rift?

As said, the Nid upgrade saw an official limit/agreement in FAQ2010.

But the Pulsar hits on a 4+. Right? So that is 0.5 (50%).
On Lock-On it should be 1.0 (100%). Right?

That is the chance to hit. Then for a 4+ rolled another attempt may be made to roll a 4+ (2nd time), in total for 3 times. Without LockOn this would be:

0.5 = 1hit
0.25 = 2hits
0.125 = 3 hits

Plus, Lock On is one of the least used Eldar Special Rules so I would not use them in the formula to be honest.

Your math is a little off. You have a 50% chance to hit (4+) with lock on, you get to re-roll that, so you have another 4+ to hit. 50% of 50% is 25%. So you have a 75% chance to hit with lock on. (same odds as rolling 2 dice and hoping one of them is a 4 or better).

The math works out the same, as I said, 50 + 25 + 12.5 is 87.5% chance to get AT LEAST 1 hit with a lance. This doesn't work out well with only using 1 lance, but do it with 1,000 lances, and the math works that you should hit

375 hits from triple hits 500 from 2 hits (BUT! you need to subtract the 3 hits here, so - 125[else you're double counting the 2 hits from the 3 hits... you can't count all the 3 hits (375) but only the 2nd hits from the 3 hits which is 12.5% of 1000])

Bah - let me explain it this way


500 hits

250 hits (2nd shot)

125 hits (3rd shot)

875 hits.

Lock on (assuming you can reroll the 2nd and 3rd missed shots and not just the first)

500 hits + 250 hits

375 hits + 188 hits

282 hits + 141 hits

if 1000 lances are fired, you have 1731 hits.

lock-on for eldar pulsar is far superior to other races... if they weren't eldar and it was just 1 lance. you would only see 750 hits as opposed to 1731, 230% increase.

No, ans yes, I was mistaken on the Lock On roll, that is indeed 75%.

But the chance on 1 hit with the Pulsar = 50%.
Nothing more nothing less.

The chance on 2 hits 25% (0.5 x 0.5)

The chance on 3 hits 12.5% (0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5)

You should/cannot add them for this calculation since you throw the dice one after another, not together.

But after re-reading we are looking at a different thing on what we want to know. Yours is right, mine as well.

You = average damage potential
mine = average to hit potential

Yup, all I care about is how much damage 1 pulsar can do. It does 87.5% 'damage' as where a regular lance does 50% 'damage'.

That was the calculation used to determine the value of ships cost vs damage out put. That is why the nightshade is such a decent ship, the built-in reroll for torpedos.

None of this has any strategy other than numbers. You can guide people with torpedos, make them shoot either them or bombers etc.