I can't recall them ever providing any data on how many aspect warriors there are per capita. Have they?

yukishiro1 wrote:
I can't recall them ever providing any data on how many aspect warriors there are per capita. Have they?

Probably changes heavily from Craftworld to Craftworld. I suspect Biel-Tan is (was?) a higher proportion.

 vipoid wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Eldar have never seemed like a dying race. Just sayin.

Maybe it's the way they use their civilians as cannon-fodder?

Which didn't really happen in 2nd ed.

Guardians had better armour than guardsmen (5+ flat rather 6+ and 5+ against blast). They were either using lasguns or catapults, both 24" range.

You could equip them with melee weapons instead, but you could quite comfortably build your squads as support units sitting in cover or as far back as possible.

The less squishy aspects would then take up medium and Close range positions.

In terms of army function guardians have only been chaff since 3rd almost entirely because of the requirement they carry 12" ranged weapons.


Going back to 24" and allowing 1 heavy weapon platform per 5 would be a better way to reflect their position. And not being able to ake them in squads of 20....

Yeah that doesnt help.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hellebore wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Eldar have never seemed like a dying race. Just sayin.

Maybe it's the way they use their civilians as cannon-fodder?

Which didn't really happen in 2nd ed.

Guardians had better armour than guardsmen (5+ flat rather 6+ and 5+ against blast). They were either using lasguns or catapults, both 24" range.

You could equip them with melee weapons instead, but you could quite comfortably build your squads as support units sitting in cover or as far back as possible.

The less squishy aspects would then take up medium and Close range positions.

In terms of army function guardians have only been chaff since 3rd almost entirely because of the requirement they carry 12" ranged weapons.


Going back to 24" and allowing 1 heavy weapon platform per 5 would be a better way to reflect their position. And not being able to ake them in squads of 20....

They were still cannon fodder

The Shuriken Catapults were pretty awesome though.

They really should be 24" range again.

A 2nd edition Eldar army could pump out a terrifying amount of 24” shuriken fire. They actually outshone Dire Avengers due to sheer volume of fire. They actually contributed as opposed to being meat shields in 3rd edition. They could shred a Tyranid hormagaunt horde. Even if admittedly the 2nd edition catapult was overpowered, a tweaked version but with still 24” range would still be better than the 12” useless 3rd edition version.

I remember even outfitting a squad of Guardians with power swords and power fists as a bodyguard unit for a Farseer, not because it was good or efficient but thematically to show more widespread dissemination of power weapons as compared to the Imperial Guard. Guardians from their beginning were basically Guardsman+1, much like how WHFB high elf infantry were human infantry+1. Part of the problem has been the shift of the comparison point from baseline normal human to MEQ.

To reflect how they are described I think you'd have to design the list to force players to take guardians rather than maker them an army.

As they are used to shore up the military because they don't have enough professional soldiers, they should only be taken as supporting elements to aspects (unless black guardians).

Ie you can take supporting guradians when you take dire avengers, but you can't have more of one than the other (for each avenger squad you'd have to have a guardian squad and vice versa).


Avengers can't deploy with the numbers so they are supported by militia. Same with the other aspects.



The Eldar army is the aspect host. Guardians shouldn't be considered their main fighting force and imo shouldn't really be available to do that excepting ulthwe.

Yeah, it's aspect warriors that should be troops choices and guardians that should be elites in the force organization chart, the same way that servitors are for space marines. But at the same time, aspect warriors should be buffed to be more primaris equivalent than minimarine equivalent.

I would hesitate to put restrictions on the army in that way. I think there's a place for armies to represent a less-than-ideal outing by a faction. Since a game of 40k is often just representing a tiny part in a larger conflict, it might be the case where the majority of the Aspect Warriors are off doing something else, and all of a sudden the Eldar are forced into a situation where they have to send in more Guardians because of some immediate need.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I would hesitate to put restrictions on the army in that way. I think there's a place for armies to represent a less-than-ideal outing by a faction. Since a game of 40k is often just representing a tiny part in a larger conflict, it might be the case where the majority of the Aspect Warriors are off doing something else, and all of a sudden the Eldar are forced into a situation where they have to send in more Guardians because of some immediate need.

Yeah I don't expect it to happen.

But I'd like them to rebuild the army from the perspective of aspects and make them function as the army, inserting the wraith and guardian units as clearly support units after the fact.

The cynic in me feels like because aspects are like marines in eliteness, GW deliberately leaves them crappy so they don't compete for customer dollars with their favourites... Because a full expanded aspect warhost army list (and plastic miniatures) would be amazing and give marines a run for their money in the coolness factor.

For the OP.

GW has expanded the Eldar. There are now realized codecies for both Drukhari and Harlequins, in which they can be played alongside Craftworlds. GW introduced the Ynarri, another Eldar (Aeldari) faction.

The Aspect Warriors are in a weird spot right now. I am not sure what direction GW wants to take with them. With the Howling Banshee and Jain War release, I feel it was just a marketing tactic to help clear out older models as well as gauge consumer interest in buying new Aspect Warriors. I suspect based upon sales figures, GW would then determine the most profitable time for them to release more. I think the next codex with new models release will be dictated on their anticipated sales. Great sales could prompt more risk in producing and releasing more Aspect Warriors. Poor sales could detract from releasing more.

I think lots of folks want new Aspect Warriors; I'm hopeful they met GW sales target. Howling Banshees sales will likely be a key factor on when we see more releases.

Rules wise, I'm not too fussed. I'd love for every unit to have equal utility. But, that does not occur in any of the 20+ armies out there. Luckily, Craftworlds has such a wide array of units, it has ben able to be very playable in every edition.

But rules are what sells models, on the whole - this has been demonstrated again and again, most notably with thunderfire cannons. I would be very surprised if the new banshees sold even vaguely decently, given that the rules remained as underwhelming as before.

 Sarigar wrote:
For the OP.

GW has expanded the Eldar. There are now realized codecies for both Drukhari and Harlequins, in which they can be played alongside Craftworlds. GW introduced the Ynarri, another Eldar (Aeldari) faction.

The Aspect Warriors are in a weird spot right now. I am not sure what direction GW wants to take with them. With the Howling Banshee and Jain War release, I feel it was just a marketing tactic to help clear out older models as well as gauge consumer interest in buying new Aspect Warriors. I suspect based upon sales figures, GW would then determine the most profitable time for them to release more. I think the next codex with new models release will be dictated on their anticipated sales. Great sales could prompt more risk in producing and releasing more Aspect Warriors. Poor sales could detract from releasing more.

I think lots of folks want new Aspect Warriors; I'm hopeful they met GW sales target. Howling Banshees sales will likely be a key factor on when we see more releases.

Rules wise, I'm not too fussed. I'd love for every unit to have equal utility. But, that does not occur in any of the 20+ armies out there. Luckily, Craftworlds has such a wide array of units, it has ben able to be very playable in every edition.

Id love me some plastic swooping hawks and new scorpions(not warp spiders coz I have a lot of them in metal and they have a sick carapace pattern). Like Id spend a lot of money on those lol. Hawks are the only ones I don't want to get coz metal and wings just doesn't Mesh and scorpions are hard to find in metal for cheap

 Arschbombe wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

* Banshees: I've fielded a lot this edition (I play Iybraesil).

Consider that image stolen.

 Argive wrote:

 Sarigar wrote:
For the OP.

GW has expanded the Eldar. There are now realized codecies for both Drukhari and Harlequins, in which they can be played alongside Craftworlds. GW introduced the Ynarri, another Eldar (Aeldari) faction.

The Aspect Warriors are in a weird spot right now. I am not sure what direction GW wants to take with them. With the Howling Banshee and Jain War release, I feel it was just a marketing tactic to help clear out older models as well as gauge consumer interest in buying new Aspect Warriors. I suspect based upon sales figures, GW would then determine the most profitable time for them to release more. I think the next codex with new models release will be dictated on their anticipated sales. Great sales could prompt more risk in producing and releasing more Aspect Warriors. Poor sales could detract from releasing more.

I think lots of folks want new Aspect Warriors; I'm hopeful they met GW sales target. Howling Banshees sales will likely be a key factor on when we see more releases.

Rules wise, I'm not too fussed. I'd love for every unit to have equal utility. But, that does not occur in any of the 20+ armies out there. Luckily, Craftworlds has such a wide array of units, it has ben able to be very playable in every edition.

Id love me some plastic swooping hawks and new scorpions(not warp spiders coz I have a lot of them in metal and they have a sick carapace pattern). Like Id spend a lot of money on those lol. Hawks are the only ones I don't want to get coz metal and wings just doesn't Mesh and scorpions are hard to find in metal for cheap

Me as well. Swooping Hawks are my favorite Aspect Warrior aesthetic. I bought two boxes of Banshees when released separate of the larger box set. I hope sales are/were a strong enough indicator. I'll gladly replace my old metal versions for new plastics.

I would really love to see some options for the aspects exploring their fighting philosophy.

Dark reapers aren't the aspect of missile launchers, they're the aspect of khaine the destroyer. Missile launchers are just one physical representation of that philosophy. Maugan Ra uses a shuriken cannon, so obviously if the founder of the aspect considers it representative of khaine the destroyer, then it's totally in keeping for reapers to use them.

Swooping hawks could have access to a range of grenade options (which they did in 2nd ed). They represent khaine the retributive, as demonstrated by taking the image of the hawk (which is an Eldar sign of retribution). They could carry different types of laser weapons that bring retribution from near or far. They could wear weaponised wing packs that create vibro blasts as they swoop in for the kill. They could all be armed with power swords as their lord is.


GW manages to invent new marine unit types and weapon types, slicing them ever finer between units.

And the Eldar who are supposed to be overly complicated in everything they so, with layers of meaning in the simplest of gestures and philosophies so esoteric humans struggle to under stand them, are relegated to sword guys or missile guys.

No exploration of their shrines, how they fight, how they organise, how exarchs train, why exarchs carry different weapons, the special skills manifested by these devotees of khaine.

Just 'these gun guys and their squad leader are your troops choice, these sword girls are your elites'.

It's not just space marine players that want to learn the minutiae of their armies structure, the different ranks and levels etc.

I refuse to believe that a striking scorpion aspect warrior squad is the sum total representation of the striking scorpion aspect shrine. The Eldar are far too complicated for that to be true.

You're way overselling marine variety.

Striking Scorpions have to spend decades unlearning everything they learned to be the gimps they are in 8th edition, it's hard work.

 Galas wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Galas wrote:

Bolter marines have always been ablative wounds for the special/heavy weapons guys. Heck in devastators even the sargeant is the first to go. Theres nothing wrong with that. Someone has to die first.

Disagree. The members of Aspect squads should be pretty competent themselves, esp. as this was their original design and legacy.

Also, the basic Bolter guy is pretty solid these days. With the ability so split fire and use of Doctrines, they're doing great. They sure seem to fare better than the Aspect Warriors that they used to be in the same league as.

Banshees should be worth more, and cost more, than Scouts.

Why? Theres many more banshee on the universe than scouts.

You keep making this assertion - what's your source?

 Daedalus81 wrote:
You're way overselling marine variety.

I totally agree that marines aren't that varied - but GW has spent a tone of time and money creating variation out of them anyway. I'm simply pointing out what GW has written and what they've models of. The sheer number of marine units, and variations within units.

I totally agree that intercessors and their 3 different bolters are not as varied as the philosophical training ideology behind a Scorpions claw vs a biting blade.

But it's the bolters that got miniatures and rules, not Scorpions.

 Sarigar wrote:
For the OP.

GW has expanded the Eldar. There are now realized codecies for both Drukhari and Harlequins, in which they can be played alongside Craftworlds. GW introduced the Ynarri, another Eldar (Aeldari) faction. .

GW has expanded the Imperium. There are now codexes for both Sisters of Battle and Admech, in which they can be played alongside Space Marines. GW introduced Custodes, another Imperium faction.

Whilst I'm not so sure about the masses of varying armaments (they are RITUAL weapons after all), I am intrigued by having the relationship between exarch and warriors feel more like Teacher and Pupils. So if you picked skill X for your exarch, it has a lesser effect on the squad. Or - or perhaps as well as - if that Scorpion exarch has the Fist, it means this shrine follows the Way of The Single Strike - fewer attacks than normal, but more powerful. The biting blade - large sweeping weapon, so this shrine has more attacks; or give them a 'pushback' mechanic like those new hammer elves get, and resurrect the Chainsabres as the Way of the Exploding Attacks. Maybe even alter the exact weaponry; if that DA exarch has a diresword, the shrine may carry Aeldari Blades like the Storms do.

We won't get this latter one, seeing as it would mean potentially recutting the DA and Banshee kits (or selling upgrade blisters), and in any case I'd be wary of diluting that special feel they have, but it would be something a bit different.

Pilum wrote:
Whilst I'm not so sure about the masses of varying armaments (they are RITUAL weapons after all), I am intrigued by having the relationship between exarch and warriors feel more like Teacher and Pupils. So if you picked skill X for your exarch, it has a lesser effect on the squad. Or - or perhaps as well as - if that Scorpion exarch has the Fist, it means this shrine follows the Way of The Single Strike - fewer attacks than normal, but more powerful. The biting blade - large sweeping weapon, so this shrine has more attacks; or give them a 'pushback' mechanic like those new hammer elves get, and resurrect the Chainsabres as the Way of the Exploding Attacks. Maybe even alter the exact weaponry; if that DA exarch has a diresword, the shrine may carry Aeldari Blades like the Storms do.

We won't get this latter one, seeing as it would mean potentially recutting the DA and Banshee kits (or selling upgrade blisters), and in any case I'd be wary of diluting that special feel they have, but it would be something a bit different.

Totally. The very fact that the teachers of the shrines don't restrict themselves to the ritual weapons of the shrine shows the variety of interpretation in the philosophy of the aspect. This would thus be expressed as you say by different teaching styles leading to a wider variety of unit expression than we currently get.

Why is everyone dunking on Scorpions so much? Let's take the cheap as chips version: a biting blade/scorpion's sting exarch with 9 in tow for 91pts, in an expert crafters detachment.

They natively deepstrike, and ghost step is pretty easy to tag them with, hopefully giving them a 7+ charge. Nice.

Against a squad of 5 Intercessors, ignoring cover shenanigans (marines are out in the open) we see: 3 mortal wounds from mandiblasters, 2 wounds from scorpions, 2 wounds from biting blade for a total of 7 wounds average. The sarge is left untouched with a squaddie on one wound.

Marines strike back with 8 attacks, killing 2 scorpions. At the start of the next fight phase, if they're still in combat, the scoprions are in with a good chance to kill the remaining intercessors before they even get to swing, doing an average of 2.67 mortal wounds.

That's a great outcome for the Scorpions, no? Pretty nice for 91pts.

Are they the best of the best? No. But that's an unrealistic demand to make of a unit - a better question is, does the unit bring some utility to your list? Here the answer is yes, it does: turn-3 objective grabber, infantry or character hunter, disposable 3+ bodies that can sling mortal wounds very effectively.

 grouchoben wrote:
disposable 3+ bodies

This is the part people have problems with as it isn't evocative of what Eldars should be. Without checking your maths, if the same squad could achieve the same thing at the 5 models size (change the points per model of course), I think there would be less talk about how aspect warriors feels garbage. It also doesn't help that aspect warriors had way deadlier incarnations on the tabletop in the past.
Also, this unit cost 66€/82$, 95/110 for a squad of 10 banshees, they deserve to be something else than "disposable bodies" imho.

 Hellebore wrote:
This would thus be expressed as you say by different teaching styles leading to a wider variety of unit expression than we currently get.

Hmm. You know, I was just going to indulge my inner GM and see if I could come up with a matrix for each aspect but - it's almost there already. If you have a copy of the PA book, look at some of those Exarch skills; a surprising number already say "if exarch then squad gets X", a lot more than the Exarch Superstar type. Assuming the blurb about "PA will get carried forward" is true, the thinking is clearly leaning in this direction. While I doubt it'll go as far as weapon variants, I'll give them credit for at least trying to jazz things up a bit.

Maybe this is one of those pendulum swings you get in wargaming; swishing back and forth between streamlined simplicity and RPG-esque ultra-detail.

if they did hopefully the weapons would stay on theme, my aged Reaper Exarch cares not for his web of skulls

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
web of skulls

 Daedalus81 wrote:
You're way overselling marine variety.

.....Side-eyes eighteen discreet boltgun profiles, eight missile launcher variants, and twelve plasma weapons in codex: Space Marines alone....

I really loved the web of skulls as it showed a really esoteric side to the aspect fighting styles. Imo the weapon options these days are very vanilla.

I loved the idea that an exarch had taken the philosophy of the aspect they were currently following and interpreted it through really bizarre weapons that no one else would understand let alone be able to use without the crazy exarch skills they've learned.

They've been plumbing the depths of 40k nostalgia with all sorts of stuff recently (including the throwback catapult on the new inquisitor), I'd like to see this return.

Maybe if they made an independent exarch lord that had more freedom in weapon options we'd see something like it

 grouchoben wrote:
Why is everyone dunking on Scorpions so much? Let's take the cheap as chips version: a biting blade/scorpion's sting exarch with 9 in tow for 91pts, in an expert crafters detachment.

They natively deepstrike, and ghost step is pretty easy to tag them with, hopefully giving them a 7+ charge. Nice.

Against a squad of 5 Intercessors, ignoring cover shenanigans (marines are out in the open) we see: 3 mortal wounds from mandiblasters, 2 wounds from scorpions, 2 wounds from biting blade for a total of 7 wounds average. The sarge is left untouched with a squaddie on one wound.

Marines strike back with 8 attacks, killing 2 scorpions. At the start of the next fight phase, if they're still in combat, the scoprions are in with a good chance to kill the remaining intercessors before they even get to swing, doing an average of 2.67 mortal wounds.

That's a great outcome for the Scorpions, no? Pretty nice for 91pts.

Are they the best of the best? No. But that's an unrealistic demand to make of a unit - a better question is, does the unit bring some utility to your list? Here the answer is yes, it does: turn-3 objective grabber, infantry or character hunter, disposable 3+ bodies that can sling mortal wounds very effectively.

You seem to be ignoring

A) the psyker you need to get over to them to improve their charge to a 7+

B) the fact that with a 7+ charge you have a 42% chance to do absolute diddly gak and get hosed immediately by Intercessors the following turn.

Nobody would take Intercessors, good as they are, if you needed to roll a 2d6 x 4 Spot Check to see if they can declare a shooting attack against a unit X" away.

Doesn't matter that that gives them a potential 48" range, a rule that requires you to roll dice to see if a unit gets to EVEN TRY TO MAKE ITS HIT ROLLS makes you pretty much garbage unless you're absurdly overtuned.

Which scorps are not.

Hence they are not part of the 5% of melee units worth taking.

the_scotsman wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
Why is everyone dunking on Scorpions so much? Let's take the cheap as chips version: a biting blade/scorpion's sting exarch with 9 in tow for 91pts, in an expert crafters detachment.

They natively deepstrike, and ghost step is pretty easy to tag them with, hopefully giving them a 7+ charge. Nice.

Against a squad of 5 Intercessors, ignoring cover shenanigans (marines are out in the open) we see: 3 mortal wounds from mandiblasters, 2 wounds from scorpions, 2 wounds from biting blade for a total of 7 wounds average. The sarge is left untouched with a squaddie on one wound.

Marines strike back with 8 attacks, killing 2 scorpions. At the start of the next fight phase, if they're still in combat, the scoprions are in with a good chance to kill the remaining intercessors before they even get to swing, doing an average of 2.67 mortal wounds.

That's a great outcome for the Scorpions, no? Pretty nice for 91pts.

Are they the best of the best? No. But that's an unrealistic demand to make of a unit - a better question is, does the unit bring some utility to your list? Here the answer is yes, it does: turn-3 objective grabber, infantry or character hunter, disposable 3+ bodies that can sling mortal wounds very effectively.

You seem to be ignoring

A) the psyker you need to get over to them to improve their charge to a 7+

B) the fact that with a 7+ charge you have a 42% chance to do absolute diddly gak and get hosed immediately by Intercessors the following turn.

Nobody would take Intercessors, good as they are, if you needed to roll a 2d6 x 4 Spot Check to see if they can declare a shooting attack against a unit X" away.

Doesn't matter that that gives them a potential 48" range, a rule that requires you to roll dice to see if a unit gets to EVEN TRY TO MAKE ITS HIT ROLLS makes you pretty much garbage unless you're absurdly overtuned.

Which scorps are not.

Hence they are not part of the 5% of melee units worth taking.

Exactly. The cost is no longer just 91 points. It also includes the cost both in points and opportunity cost of the psyker.

The introduction of possible points of failure means the results better be really powerful and worth the risk, not just "pretty nice". This is the same mistake that GW makes in requiring the Eldar player to jump through hoops to squeeze decent performance out of some units. The payoff just isn't worth the effort and trouble for the overall population of players so what happens is the units that are overpowered or that are reliably performing are spammed instead. Extra effort has to give extra reward for the risk, but I'm sure there would then come the screams of "Nerf this overpowered combo!"

Yeah, a 91 point squad that comes in T2 or T3, requires a psychic power to have an about 60% of making it (dropping to less than 30% without that power) and will hurt, but usually not kill, an 85 point unit... That's not worth it.

You're quibbling the inclusion of a warlock in a list, with ghoststep? That's such a cheap unit, and taking that power has almost no opportunity cost, and the power has a WC of 6! And of course, you'll be bringing at least one 45pt warlock in most CWE lists. Why quibble over this?

And with a CP reroll, you have an 80% chance of making that 7" charge. Just how reliable do you want a deepstrike charge to be before you'll consider it as a possibility?

 grouchoben wrote:
You're quibbling the inclusion of a warlock in a list, with ghoststep? That's such a cheap unit, and taking that power has almost no opportunity cost, and the power has a WC of 6! And of course, you'll be bringing at least one warlock in most CWE lists. Why quibble over this?

And with a CP reroll, you have an 80% chance of making that 7" charge. Just how reliable do you want a deepstrike charge to be before you'll consider it as a possibility?

The issue is not being able to make the charge reliably-or at least, that's not the whole issue.

The issue is that that squad is no longer 91 points-or, if you don't count the cost of buffers and CP, then the Marines have a CM and Lt with them.

If they fail their charge (fully possible even with Ghostwalk) they eat 10 shots, close to 9 hits, about 7 wounds, and right around 4-5 failed saves. From that one squad.

 grouchoben wrote:
You're quibbling the inclusion of a warlock in a list, with ghoststep? That's such a cheap unit, and taking that power has almost no opportunity cost, and the power has a WC of 6! And of course, you'll be bringing at least one 45pt warlock in most CWE lists. Why quibble over this?

And with a CP reroll, you have an 80% chance of making that 7" charge. Just how reliable do you want a deepstrike charge to be before you'll consider it as a possibility?

Because Eldar are the only army were doing something normal like being a competitive melee unit requires 3 hoops and rolls before you can achieve it for.... No reason except "flavour"?

As for whether it's worth spending 91pts on a unit that can beat up a 5-man intercessor squad (I chose the example because of their prevalance and their toughness for CWE infantry to deal with) out of deepstrike, that's a decision you'll have to make I guess.

Making back nearly 100% of your points is handy, but so is native deepstrike, ten 3+ bodies, 10 shuriken shots, and some mortal wounds output. They are a tool in the box, use them if you wish. Just don't act like they're rubbish, because they're not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Passing a WC6 test is actually a very low bar to get a 7" charge from DS. CWE are lucky to have that capacity at all, it's pretty damn rare.

It makes the army unnecessarily complicated to play for no reason. It ensures people go looking for units that don't need to jump through hoops to get equivalent use out of instead.

It is directly responsible for the cheesy spam competitive players use that gets all the hate.


And it's for no reason, except that GW have decided that Eldar are the army that has to do everything the hard way

What are you talking about? Ghostwalk? You don't like a power that adds +2" to your charge because it makes you 'jump through hoops'?

 grouchoben wrote:
What are you talking about? Ghostwalk? You don't like a power that adds +2" to your charge because it makes you 'jump through hoops'?

Use them without Ghost walk and tell me they're still good.

In any other army Ghost walk would make the unit GREAT at what it does.

In the eldar it's used to allow them to do it at all

 JNAProductions wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
You're quibbling the inclusion of a warlock in a list, with ghoststep? That's such a cheap unit, and taking that power has almost no opportunity cost, and the power has a WC of 6! And of course, you'll be bringing at least one warlock in most CWE lists. Why quibble over this?

And with a CP reroll, you have an 80% chance of making that 7" charge. Just how reliable do you want a deepstrike charge to be before you'll consider it as a possibility?

The issue is not being able to make the charge reliably-or at least, that's not the whole issue.

The issue is that that squad is no longer 91 points-or, if you don't count the cost of buffers and CP, then the Marines have a CM and Lt with them.

If they fail their charge (fully possible even with Ghostwalk) they eat 10 shots, close to 9 hits, about 7 wounds, and right around 4-5 failed saves. From that one squad.

That's pure whataboutery. The squad is still 91pts. You might start them on the board. You might DS them onto an objective. You might use them as a screen vs an asault rush. If you think me mentioning an easily cast power from a 45pt unit (which is in 90% of CWE lists already) that works well with another unit disqualifies discussion of that unit's usefulness, I don't see how we'd ever have any useful discussion about 40k tactics. That's sucha low bar. It's a bit silly isn't it?

And why would you bother when you could apply this rule to a unit that's better and would work better using it?


Everyone can come up with a way to get any unit to'work' in isolation to 'prove' point, but as you see, most people wouldn't bother trying to get Scorpions to work.

They're just spam shining spears and get units that are easier to use, more durable and more effective.


Like I said, this mentality of trying to get units to work just pushes players to take units that are better and you get the spam lists people hate.

 grouchoben wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
You're quibbling the inclusion of a warlock in a list, with ghoststep? That's such a cheap unit, and taking that power has almost no opportunity cost, and the power has a WC of 6! And of course, you'll be bringing at least one warlock in most CWE lists. Why quibble over this?

And with a CP reroll, you have an 80% chance of making that 7" charge. Just how reliable do you want a deepstrike charge to be before you'll consider it as a possibility?

The issue is not being able to make the charge reliably-or at least, that's not the whole issue.

The issue is that that squad is no longer 91 points-or, if you don't count the cost of buffers and CP, then the Marines have a CM and Lt with them.

If they fail their charge (fully possible even with Ghostwalk) they eat 10 shots, close to 9 hits, about 7 wounds, and right around 4-5 failed saves. From that one squad.

That's pure whataboutery. The squad is still 91pts. You might start them on the board. You might DS them onto an objective. You might use them as a screen vs an asault rush. If you think me mentioning an easily cast power from a 45pt unit (which is in 90% of CWE lists already) that works well with another unit disqualifies discussion of that unit's usefulness, I don't see how we'd ever have any useful discussion about 40k tactics. That's sucha low bar. It's a bit silly isn't it?

So it's not a 91 point unit, it's a 136 point unit. Especially since Warlocks (correct me if I'm wrong-I legitimately am not sure) only get one cast per turn, so they ain't buffing anything else.

In addition, doesn't that draw more into the issue of fluff and theme? Should you really be using Striking Scorpions as chaff to eat a charge?

Yeah you're right about Warlock casting. But it's a 91pt unit that can synergise with a 45pt unit in your army in an interesting way that is generally overlooked.

As to fluff, well, I guess I'm talking primarily about the game of 40k, not about how fluffy or realistic it is.

 grouchoben wrote:
Yeah you're right about Warlock casting. But it's a 91pt unit that can synergise with a 45pt unit in your army in an interesting way that is generally overlooked.

As to fluff, well, I guess I'm talking primarily about the game of 40k, not about how fluffy or realistic it is.

That's not synergy. That's having a unit dependent on another to function.

synergy (from dictionary):
"the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects."

Like my earlier post in this thread several pages ago, synergy is 1+1=3. That's not what this situation is described as. This situation is more like 1+1=1.

 Hellebore wrote:
And why would you bother when you could apply this rule to a unit that's better and would work better using it?


Everyone can come up with a way to get any unit to'work' in isolation to 'prove' point, but as you see, most people wouldn't bother trying to get Scorpions to work.

They're just spam shining spears and get units that are easier to use, more durable and more effective.


Like I said, this mentality of trying to get units to work just pushes players to take units that are better and you get the spam lists people hate.

1) CWE don't have another unit that does what Scorpions do. Other factions have much better units in the role of cheap backfield disrupter; CWE do not.
2) People don't use units ... until they do. Netlisting groupthink is real in the community. I think Scorpions are not a write-off competitively, and you don't.
3) if you'd rather take 3 Spears instead of 10 Scorpions, fair enough. Either unit is interesting, I'm a fan of Spears too. But they're very different units...
4) The mentality of getting underused units to work is what makes people take overused units? That's tortured logic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"That's not synergy. That's having a unit dependent on another to function." ... But both units do stll function.

The Scorps *in that situation* still make the charge over 50% of the time with a CP.

The Warlock still have value casting on another unit, or using another power, etc.

Put them together and they do something interesting. If you don't like the word synergy, alright. I don't care enough about that to argue the definition, honestly.

 grouchoben wrote:
You're quibbling the inclusion of a warlock in a list, with ghoststep? That's such a cheap unit, and taking that power has almost no opportunity cost, and the power has a WC of 6! And of course, you'll be bringing at least one 45pt warlock in most CWE lists. Why quibble over this?

And with a CP reroll, you have an 80% chance of making that 7" charge. Just how reliable do you want a deepstrike charge to be before you'll consider it as a possibility?

....Because you took the ghost step power specifically to improve the chances of this unit getting into combat, because what other eldar CC units are you taking, Storm Guardians? and he increases the cost of the squad by 50% (45pt warlock to buff a 91pt unit)?

Why do people quibble over any buff being given for free when you analyze units?

How reliable does the charge roll need to be? Well, let's see, if 136 points of deep striking Striking Scorps kills 51pts of intercessors, and the exact same number of points buys me 2 5-man swooping hawk squads, who kill the exact same number of intercessors (an EXTREMELY sub-optimal target for them) and they don't have to make a charge roll at all?

The charge roll would have to be 100%. Charging intercessors doesn't decrease their offense, it actually increases it from 2 S4 Ap-1 D1 shots to a total of (Edit, sorry, forgot shock assault) 7 S4 AP- attacks between my turn and theirs, so it's not like charging them is "locking them down", killing them in shooting is much more effective at doing that.

That's a weird example. 10 swooping hawks shooting do less damage vs 5 intercessors than 10 Scorpions in CC.

The also can't hope to tangle with them in CC and live, so can't tie up units, and so they fulfil a different role.

Hawks aren't bad, take em if you want.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Galas wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Galas wrote:

Bolter marines have always been ablative wounds for the special/heavy weapons guys. Heck in devastators even the sargeant is the first to go. Theres nothing wrong with that. Someone has to die first.

Disagree. The members of Aspect squads should be pretty competent themselves, esp. as this was their original design and legacy.

Also, the basic Bolter guy is pretty solid these days. With the ability so split fire and use of Doctrines, they're doing great. They sure seem to fare better than the Aspect Warriors that they used to be in the same league as.

Banshees should be worth more, and cost more, than Scouts.

Why? Theres many more banshee on the universe than scouts.

You keep making this assertion - what's your source?

Well. The amount of space marines on the galaxy is aprox 1 million. Theres much less scouts than that number. Lets put 400.000. A single Craftworld has a population much higher than that. Eldar are a Dying race at a galactic scale. That doesn't mean they are low in number, theres probably billions of eldars (Craftworlders, even more if you count dark eldar and exodites). Each Craftworld is nearly the size of a continent, and theres a bunch of them. Is just a matter of galactic squale and the ridiculous small canon numbers of space marines. Not only that, probably theres many Eldar that were banshee but stopped to become other things.

If you don't like 80% charge success, I don't know what to tell you. If it's reallllllly such a big deal to you stick them in a Headstrong detachment: a 6" with a cp is 90% success.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anyhow, I guess I'll stop responding to these posts, as they seem to be very whataboutery. I've made my point, which was pretty limited: Scorpions aren't a write off, you can make them work pretty well if you want to.

 grouchoben wrote:
If you don't like 80% charge success, I don't know what to tell you. If it's reallllllly such a big deal to you stick them in a Headstrong detachment: a 6" with a cp is 90% success.

Swooping Hawks (5-man, one is an Exarch with a Talon) for 68 points, put out...

16 S3 shots
32/3 hits
32/9 wounds
32/27 unsaved

4 S5 shots
8/3 hits
16/9 wounds
16/27 unsaved

For 48/27 or 1.78 damage. Plus, they also get an average of .83 mortal wounds, for a total of 2.61 damage.

Two squads are 136 points-the exact same as a 10-man squad of Scorpions with a Warlock buddy. They put out, assuming a successful charge (but no shooting-don't want to make the charge harder)...

18 S4 attacks
12 hits
6 wound
2 failed saves

and...

3 S5 AP-1 D2 attacks
2 hits
4/3 wounds
2/3 failed saves
4/3 damage

For a total of 3.33 damage, plus the Mandiblasters (on a 5+ thanks to the Exarch) for another 3.33 damage.

6.66 total damage, as compared the the Hawks' 5.22 damage.

So they're better, by about 20%. Assuming they make their charge. Assuming they don't suffer any serious losses to Overwatch. Assuming the Warlock manages to get within 6" of them to cast Ghostwalk.

Edit: Also, I didn't know till I looked at Battlescribe that Ghostwalk had a 6" range. I thought it was a long-ranged buff. Something you could really rely on, and not be within easy denial range, or might just be out of range entirely of your intended buff target.

 grouchoben wrote:
If you don't like 80% charge success, I don't know what to tell you. If it's reallllllly such a big deal to you stick them in a Headstrong detachment: a 6" with a cp is 90% success.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anyhow, I guess I'll stop responding to these posts, as they seem to be very whataboutery. I've made my point, which was pretty limited: Scorpions aren't a write off, you can make them work pretty well if you want to.

If anything you've proven that Scorpions are a write-off if by your argument they require an additional Warlock to boost, or the allocation of a CP. This is the fundamental concept you seem to be missing: If a player has to allocate more resources to accomplish the same result that can be achieved by something else that does not require those additional hoops, then the player will choose the option that requires less effort or allocation of resources. Resources can be points, it can be the opportunity cost of taking up the attention of another unit, it can be CP, it can be assuming the risk.

That is what is seen on a large scale player population level. People gravitate to the option that gives best bang for the buck. Hence why your very scenario shows Scorpions are a write-off as they stand. There is insufficient reward to incentivize people to put in that additional effort and investment of resources.

 Galas wrote:
Well. The amount of space marines on the galaxy is aprox 1 million.

There would appear to be far far too many marine codexes considering how few Astartes there are. If numbers in the lore mattered a jot, Flayed Skull should have their own codex, as there's more of them than all the Unforgiven Chapters combined.

JNA, Scorpions do:

2 damage from their chainswords.
3.3 mortal wounds from their mandiblasters
1.8 from the biting blade (using expert crafter rerolls)
2.2 from the shuripistols.

For an average of 9.3 damage to the 10 health intercessors. 10 man squad should be able to be equidistant to 2 intercessors to stop the charge range being lenghtened by the pistol kill.

 grouchoben wrote:
JNA, Scorpions do:

2 damage from their chainswords.
3.3 mortal wounds from their mandiblasters
1.8 from the biting blade (using expert crafter rerolls)
2.2 from the shuripistols.

For an average of 9.3 damage to the 10 health intercessors. 10 man squad should be able to be equidistant to 2 intercessors to stop the charge range being lenghtened by the pistol kill.

Except then you need a high roll on the charge to make them all into Close Combat.

And even with that (I won't check your math on the Biting Blade, despite your math on the Pistols being wrong) it's still not that much superior. Not enough to be worth the effort of getting a Warlock within 6" of your deepstriking squad, not enough to be worth risking a failed charge, not enough to eat overwatch...

Edit: Pistol Math, for reference:

10 shots
20/3 hit
20/9 at AP0, 10/9 at AP-3
20/27 damage from AP0, 25/27 from AP-3
45/27 total, or 1.67

I'll say that in WTC with how close (scenography speaking) tables are , in general small infantry units are much more valuable (Thats with banshee are great, very easy to have them out of LOS jumping from ruins to shut down everything for measly 55 points), so the different perception in how eldar work is fundamentally different if you play in ITC-USA meta than in UK or Europe. Theres value to units besides how much they do kill, much more here than on ITC.


And I'll say that I can understand for people that wants their eldar specialists to be much better and costs more points and be in general more elite. Thats what I would want for nearly everything in the game. But I seriously doubt it will ever happen.

 grouchoben wrote:
You're quibbling the inclusion of a warlock in a list, with ghoststep? That's such a cheap unit, and taking that power has almost no opportunity cost, and the power has a WC of 6! And of course, you'll be bringing at least one 45pt warlock in most CWE lists. Why quibble over this?

And with a CP reroll, you have an 80% chance of making that 7" charge. Just how reliable do you want a deepstrike charge to be before you'll consider it as a possibility?

Because it's just disingenuous to argue that the value the warlock contributes is somehow a part of the scorpion's effectiveness. It isn't. That ability is contingent upon the warlock; it is not an inherent property of the scorpions, so it can't be counted as an advantage for them in a comparison between one unit and another.

If you're going to factor in a support characters effect on a unit when determining its effectiveness against another unit, the comparison is only fair if it includes a support character for the squad to which they are being compared.

No one is beefing about the cost of the warlock. We're saying you don't get to include him when you're comparing scorpions to intercessors because he isn't a scorpion.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
if they did hopefully the weapons would stay on theme, my aged Reaper Exarch cares not for his web of skulls

Look at the Phoenix Awakening Reaper Exarch power options. One of those deals specifically with assault (Deadly Touch). It's at least an indicator of what GW has been testing out. Maybe the Web of Skulls will return.

Groucho, you also ignore the fact that this 45 pt Warlock is a) 2 wounds and therefore super fragile (even if your opponent doesn't have snipers) and is b) casting a 6'' range power to boost that charge. How are you getting him there? Well, that means you're probably taking a 62 pt Warlock Skyrunner instead.

 grouchoben wrote:
You're quibbling the inclusion of a warlock in a list, with ghoststep? That's such a cheap unit, and taking that power has almost no opportunity cost, and the power has a WC of 6! And of course, you'll be bringing at least one 45pt warlock in most CWE lists. Why quibble over this?

I don't think the inclusion of a Warlock is necessarily an issue in these comparisons.

The issue is that a Warlock can only buff a single unit, and even with multiple Warlocks you can still only cast ghsotstep once per turn.

Hence, the opportunity cost lies not in the inclusion of the Warlock but rather in the fact that it's having to buff the Scorpions over any of the other units in your army.

Would pulling the Exarchs out of the units (making them have a "Sargeant" type instead) help you think?

Move the Exarchs to an Elites slot, but you get 1 slotless one if you have 1 or more units of the connected Aspect, where they could be used as a unit-booster, akin to the Sister Repenta and the Repenta Superior from the Sister of Battle?

Then you could focus on the Aspects individually, with the Exarchs having their own role.

From there, you could focus on the Aspects, prepping rules and, in theory, new models at the same time.

That'd let you focus on getting the units right, then making them even better with the "teacher" around.

Taking the oft-mentioned Banshees as an example, you might wind up with a unit that was designed to be fleet, nimble, and excel at taking down heavy infantry, which could look like so:

BANSHEES (5-10)

M 7, WS 3+, BS 4+, S 3, T 3, W 1, A 2, LD 7, SV 4+
(Unit leader as above, +1 A, +1 LD)

Power Sword (S, AP -3, 1 damage)
(Basic Eldar rules)

Wail of the Banshee: Models cannot Overwatch this unit. In addition, any enemy unit in Engagement Range with this unit suffers -1 LD.

Nimbleness: Models in this unit have a 5+ Invulnerable save.

Acrobatic: This unit may charge even if it Fell Back this turn.

Duelists: Enemy units attacking this unit in the fight phase suffer -1 to hit.

Perfect Placement: This unit may reroll failed rolls to wound against Infantry models during the Fight phase.

This gives them the speed to engage, the ability to get in, and out, of combat, showcases their swordsmanship, and with the reroll on wounding lets them land telling blows more often without having to explode the number of attacks.

Trying to get the points cost for this would be tricky, since if they were, say, 18 point models with 1 wound, no one would use them, but 10 pts is clearly too cheap, so it'd take a bit, but... workable? Maybe.

The Exarch would then have three abilities to pick from, some focused on themselves, some focused on helping their aspect (IE, "Pick a unit of Howling Banshees within 8" to blah") … I don't have the Psychic Awakening book with their new options in it, but, y'all probably get the gist.

Each unit gets a focus like this, generating some nice options, but to get around the old "It doesn't look like an army, it looks like a circus!" canard, there'd probably be some new guidelines for what Aspect Warriors LOOK like.

Like the Exarch gets the classic scheme, but the Aspects are a blend of craftworld colors and Shrine colors, since they have a foot in each world.This is akin to the Marines who have officers (Apothecary, Chaplain, etc) with a special uniform but who also bear the chapter iconography. Each Aspect needs something that links them to the army overall, but I'm not sure what that should be or even if it's needed.

I just know that, back in the day, one of the higher-ups HATED Eldar because of the Flying Circus look.

That sounds awful to me honestly. Part of the point of an Exarch is they train and lead members of their Shrine so they should be with their squad. Plus I'm generally against GW's weird thing of separating sergeants from their units like they did with Harlequins and Mistress Repentia. It makes things more tedious and it's plain silly.

The original Exarchs were separated from their squads and geared independently. They had the combat stats closer to a SM Captain, too.

 Insectum7 wrote:
The original Exarchs were separated from their squads and geared independently. They had the combat stats closer to a SM Captain, too.

Yeah, the Exarchs would be scarier versions of their current form. 3, maybe 4 wounds, for instance. I just didn't take the time to spitball one here.

 Insectum7 wrote:
The original Exarchs were separated from their squads and geared independently. They had the combat stats closer to a SM Captain, too.

Original doesn't mean better. You can still give better stats/independent gear without the weird separation. Or they could return the character rules to what they were...

 vipoid wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
You're quibbling the inclusion of a warlock in a list, with ghoststep? That's such a cheap unit, and taking that power has almost no opportunity cost, and the power has a WC of 6! And of course, you'll be bringing at least one 45pt warlock in most CWE lists. Why quibble over this?

I don't think the inclusion of a Warlock is necessarily an issue in these comparisons.

The issue is that a Warlock can only buff a single unit, and even with multiple Warlocks you can still only cast ghsotstep once per turn.

Hence, the opportunity cost lies not in the inclusion of the Warlock but rather in the fact that it's having to buff the Scorpions over any of the other units in your army.

Fair point, well made. Yes, that's quite an issue and leans you into a multi-warlock list, which may not be ideal.

rather than faff with exarchs just let autarch trade the re-roll ability for an exarch power, go go build-a-bear hq

Exarchs are the only part of the aspect warrior squads that are any good, separating them would just make the aspect warriors themselvs even worse.

What needs to happen is aspect warriors need to get reworked to be actual elite infantry, not bargain-basement trash. Scorpions at 9 points a model with 2 S4 attacks are a mockery of the Eldar lore in a world where even non-combat focused space marines get 3 S4 attacks, probably with an AP bonus too.

At the end of the day fixing aspect warriors is just contributing to the problem. GW need to look at everything together and rebalance it all at once rather than looking at one bit at a time.

I'm just getting into 40k gaming again after not playing since probably 5th edition.

The Eldar, barring their name change, are exactly the same army as they were 5th edition - in fact, they are the same as they were in the 1990s. No new units, no new ideas. Now compare these to Space Marines which have changed beyond all recognition: dozens of new vehicles, units, flying tanks, even the basic troopers now have new weapons and a different profile.

Would it kill any of their designers to introduce more vehicles, more Aspects? In Epic, Tempests are a mandatory pick, but they are absent from 40K.

The Eldar ruled the galaxy with one type of troop carrier and one type of tank?

I'd rather they make the existing units work than put in a bunch of new ones.

pm713 wrote:
At the end of the day fixing aspect warriors is just contributing to the problem. GW need to look at everything together and rebalance it all at once rather than looking at one bit at a time.

And re-write the game.

 NoPoet wrote:


Would it kill any of their designers to introduce more vehicles, more Aspects? In Epic, Tempests are a mandatory pick, but they are absent from 40K.

The Eldar ruled the galaxy with one type of troop carrier and one type of tank?

have you met t...forge world, no idea why it go a new name but the scorpian is the same thing

pm713 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
The original Exarchs were separated from their squads and geared independently. They had the combat stats closer to a SM Captain, too.

Original doesn't mean better. You can still give better stats/independent gear without the weird separation. Or they could return the character rules to what they were...

But only sometimes

Honestly the real loss is the continued loss of customization for Exarchs and then their spiritual replacement, Autarchs. One of the pillars of the OG design was these hyper-customizeable champions with exotc alien weapons and abilities. The current incarnation is pretty lackluster in comparison. If Exarchs remain Sergeants, the Autarch should have more customization available, at the very least.

 Insectum7 wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
The original Exarchs were separated from their squads and geared independently. They had the combat stats closer to a SM Captain, too.

Original doesn't mean better. You can still give better stats/independent gear without the weird separation. Or they could return the character rules to what they were...

But only sometimes

Honestly the real loss is the continued loss of customization for Exarchs and then their spiritual replacement, Autarchs. One of the pillars of the OG design was these hyper-customizeable champions with exotc alien weapons and abilities. The current incarnation is pretty lackluster in comparison. If Exarchs remain Sergeants, the Autarch should have more customization available, at the very least.

Its a shame we will never see the level of character custimization again, since GW doesnt want to make the models and they refuse to let 3rd party profit off their laziness

pm713 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
The original Exarchs were separated from their squads and geared independently. They had the combat stats closer to a SM Captain, too.

Original doesn't mean better. You can still give better stats/independent gear without the weird separation. Or they could return the character rules to what they were...

It has never been true that all shrines had one squad in it, or one squad for every exarch in it. Not only is that not sustainable (completely stunting aspect numbers based on how many eldar got lost on the warrior path - how do you get lost if no exarchs are alive to lead you down the path in the first place), it didn't make any kind of logistical sense for a military force.

This is still reflected at least partially by the fact you don't have to take an exarch in every squad (in terms of choice, not effectiveness).

The shrines have always evoked like classic Kung Fu temples with rows of initiates being trained by masters walking back and forth amongst them (you've seen the movies)..

There will always be more more students then teachers. Squad will always deploy without a teacher in them. If they were green recruits in their first battle I could totally see an exarch babysitting them specifically. But the warrior squad is of a certain experience and training level. This is what I meant earlier about the lack of exploration of the shrines.

It would actually make far more sense for exarchs to be separate and leading their many squads to battle, rather than only being in one of them. Being able to move between them is far more in keeping than sticking with only one.


And we've only concentrated on discussing their role as teacher. Exarchs are also the priests of khaine and specialists par excellence in their path. They are also driven to fight perpetually. We don't get the solo exarch on a mission from khaine to slaughter their foes as a one man army. We don't get the menshad korum exarchs chasing themselves through the path perpetually either.


. The squad babysitter is only one very narrow role for an exarch for one type of squad (newbs). There are plenty of other roles they fulfill we don't get anything of in the game despite them being vital lynchpins to the Eldar military structure and on the field of battle.


Exarch SHOULD be as varied and annoying as the glut of Lieutenants GW keeps making fun of, as they represent a wealth of rules and options

 Hellebore wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
The original Exarchs were separated from their squads and geared independently. They had the combat stats closer to a SM Captain, too.

Original doesn't mean better. You can still give better stats/independent gear without the weird separation. Or they could return the character rules to what they were...

It has never been true that all shrines had one squad in it, or one squad for every exarch in it. Not only is that not sustainable (completely stunting aspect numbers based on how many eldar got lost on the warrior path - how do you get lost if no exarchs are alive to lead you down the path in the first place), it didn't make any kind of logistical sense for a military force.

This is still reflected at least partially by the fact you don't have to take an exarch in every squad (in terms of choice, not effectiveness).

The shrines have always evoked like classic Kung Fu temples with rows of initiates being trained by masters walking back and forth amongst them (you've seen the movies)..

It's a question of vision and scale. For example, Gav Thorpe seems to adhere to the small numbers school of thought (which I disagree with), giving ridiculously low populations for Eldar craftworlds. His view seems to be 1 Exarch per shrine and 1 squad per shrine as standard. In other words, it's the Karate Kid small fry local neighborhood dojo.

Iracundus wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
The original Exarchs were separated from their squads and geared independently. They had the combat stats closer to a SM Captain, too.

Original doesn't mean better. You can still give better stats/independent gear without the weird separation. Or they could return the character rules to what they were...

It has never been true that all shrines had one squad in it, or one squad for every exarch in it. Not only is that not sustainable (completely stunting aspect numbers based on how many eldar got lost on the warrior path - how do you get lost if no exarchs are alive to lead you down the path in the first place), it didn't make any kind of logistical sense for a military force.

This is still reflected at least partially by the fact you don't have to take an exarch in every squad (in terms of choice, not effectiveness).

The shrines have always evoked like classic Kung Fu temples with rows of initiates being trained by masters walking back and forth amongst them (you've seen the movies)..

It's a question of vision and scale. For example, Gav Thorpe seems to adhere to the small numbers school of thought (which I disagree with), giving ridiculously low populations for Eldar craftworlds. His view seems to be 1 Exarch per shrine and 1 squad per shrine as standard. In other words, it's the Karate Kid small fry local neighborhood dojo.

Hence why I said 'all shrines'. Thorpe's shrines are from a very specific craftworld that has avoided conflict for a huge amount of time (alaitoc?). I don't think it's at all representative of shrines in general. The descriptions of shrines through the codices has definitely not been so parochial.

So yes, there will definitely be small shrines neglected on craftworlds. Especially to the more esoteric aspects. But the more popular shrines on the more active craftworlds fit within the descriptions of shrines as large structures with armouries and training grounds for many students.

 Hellebore wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
The original Exarchs were separated from their squads and geared independently. They had the combat stats closer to a SM Captain, too.

Original doesn't mean better. You can still give better stats/independent gear without the weird separation. Or they could return the character rules to what they were...

It has never been true that all shrines had one squad in it, or one squad for every exarch in it. Not only is that not sustainable (completely stunting aspect numbers based on how many eldar got lost on the warrior path - how do you get lost if no exarchs are alive to lead you down the path in the first place), it didn't make any kind of logistical sense for a military force.

This is still reflected at least partially by the fact you don't have to take an exarch in every squad (in terms of choice, not effectiveness).

The shrines have always evoked like classic Kung Fu temples with rows of initiates being trained by masters walking back and forth amongst them (you've seen the movies)..

It's a question of vision and scale. For example, Gav Thorpe seems to adhere to the small numbers school of thought (which I disagree with), giving ridiculously low populations for Eldar craftworlds. His view seems to be 1 Exarch per shrine and 1 squad per shrine as standard. In other words, it's the Karate Kid small fry local neighborhood dojo.

Hence why I said 'all shrines'. Thorpe's shrines are from a very specific craftworld that has avoided conflict for a huge amount of time (alaitoc?). I don't think it's at all representative of shrines in general. The descriptions of shrines through the codices has definitely not been so parochial.

So yes, there will definitely be small shrines neglected on craftworlds. Especially to the more esoteric aspects. But the more popular shrines on the more active craftworlds fit within the descriptions of shrines as large structures with armouries and training grounds for many students.

I agree with you but a small quibble. Gav wrote about Alaitoc, one of the biggest Craftworlds and which is involved in a lot of the galaxy's wars, which is why I disagree so much with his portrayal of the shrines (and his low Craftworld population estimate) though appreciated some fleshing out of civilian Eldar paths and life. If it were some tiny never before heard of Craftworld, maybe, but not one of the big 5

Iracundus wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
The original Exarchs were separated from their squads and geared independently. They had the combat stats closer to a SM Captain, too.

Original doesn't mean better. You can still give better stats/independent gear without the weird separation. Or they could return the character rules to what they were...

It has never been true that all shrines had one squad in it, or one squad for every exarch in it. Not only is that not sustainable (completely stunting aspect numbers based on how many eldar got lost on the warrior path - how do you get lost if no exarchs are alive to lead you down the path in the first place), it didn't make any kind of logistical sense for a military force.

This is still reflected at least partially by the fact you don't have to take an exarch in every squad (in terms of choice, not effectiveness).

The shrines have always evoked like classic Kung Fu temples with rows of initiates being trained by masters walking back and forth amongst them (you've seen the movies)..

It's a question of vision and scale. For example, Gav Thorpe seems to adhere to the small numbers school of thought (which I disagree with), giving ridiculously low populations for Eldar craftworlds. His view seems to be 1 Exarch per shrine and 1 squad per shrine as standard. In other words, it's the Karate Kid small fry local neighborhood dojo.

I seem to remember the other scorpion shrine in those books being bigger, not immensely, but definitely not the minimum squad that the protagonist's original shrine seemed to be.
Of course, falling off the wagon and re-starting another shrine is a fairly dynamic way of introducing more, even if the novel itself cut that short.

Personally, I think Gav just took shortcuts to focus on the handful of characters he cared to abuse.

Voss wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
The original Exarchs were separated from their squads and geared independently. They had the combat stats closer to a SM Captain, too.

Original doesn't mean better. You can still give better stats/independent gear without the weird separation. Or they could return the character rules to what they were...

It has never been true that all shrines had one squad in it, or one squad for every exarch in it. Not only is that not sustainable (completely stunting aspect numbers based on how many eldar got lost on the warrior path - how do you get lost if no exarchs are alive to lead you down the path in the first place), it didn't make any kind of logistical sense for a military force.

This is still reflected at least partially by the fact you don't have to take an exarch in every squad (in terms of choice, not effectiveness).

The shrines have always evoked like classic Kung Fu temples with rows of initiates being trained by masters walking back and forth amongst them (you've seen the movies)..

It's a question of vision and scale. For example, Gav Thorpe seems to adhere to the small numbers school of thought (which I disagree with), giving ridiculously low populations for Eldar craftworlds. His view seems to be 1 Exarch per shrine and 1 squad per shrine as standard. In other words, it's the Karate Kid small fry local neighborhood dojo.

I seem to remember the other scorpion shrine in those books being bigger, not immensely, but definitely not the minimum squad that the protagonist's original shrine seemed to be.
Of course, falling off the wagon and re-starting another shrine is a fairly dynamic way of introducing more, even if the novel itself cut that short.

Personally, I think Gav just took shortcuts to focus on the handful of characters he cared to abuse.

In those books, a rival Scorpion shrine was looked down upon because it took more students. The small shrine sizes did not seem limited to just the Scorpions. The Dire Avenger shrine shown also seemed to just be 1 squad. The main character of the 1st book was also forced to leave his shrine to go revive an empty one when he became trapped, again showing Gav adhered to the 1 Exarch per shrine view.

I personally prefer the big martial arts temple with multiple Exarchs myself.

Given there is descriptions of different sizes, I'm not sure his small ones really matter in the scheme of things.

Gw normally (read when making imperial/marine lists) gives you all the possible options and lets you decide how to implement them.

If they treated marines like shrines, the codex would be missing large chunks of units because some chapters couldn't take terminators, or don't have librarians.


This comes back to what I've said before - GW has no trouble taking an expansive view of marines, but they take a restrictive view of xenos and especially Eldar. They contract and make less.

It's that mentality more than anything else that really turns me off 40k. The double standard in customer treatment effectively. They've done it to themselves and just keep reinforcing it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
While I'm happy to accept the existence of many different sizes of shrine, I'm not sure that Thorpe's depiction makes much sense for a variety of reasons.

As I stated previously, it creates an unsustainable training cycle. One exarch to teach. Without it no one can follow the path. No one can get lost on the path. That aspect goes extinct after one battle.

Also, many of these shrines were supposed to be set up by the Phoenix lords and the idea of a Phoenix lords swooping in and building a dinky little dojo and telling them to keep it small and only have a single exarch is just bizarre. They're obsessed with the path of war, they aren't going to try to reduce the number of recruits their shrines get.



And this has all come about because of this focus on them as squad leader teachers, rather than as living embodiments of the path of the warrior and priests of khaine - mighty, LEGENDARY, warriors in their own right. Heroes lauded and feared by the fellows.

Excuse my ignorance, but is it only Exarcahs that teach, or do more experienced Aspect Warriors do it too?

 harlokin wrote:
Excuse my ignorance, but is it only Exarcahs that teach, or do more experienced Aspect Warriors do it too?

The canonical GW answer as it is portrayed in Gav Thorpe's books, and Guy Haley's Valedor books, is the Exarch teaches. The Exarch lives in the shrine which itself is in a separate environmental dome of the Craftworld, The Aspect Warriors go there for their lessons then at the end of the day leave and can walk around the rest of the Craftworld and go to their homes. The Aspect Warriors in Gav's novels do spar against each other, though again under the supervision of the Exarch.

 harlokin wrote:
Excuse my ignorance, but is it only Exarcahs that teach, or do more experienced Aspect Warriors do it too?

That's actually an example of GWs neglect in writing about the aspects. Where we get huge swathes of minutae on marines, we get very little on aspects.

It's unclear. I don't think it should be impossible for someone to learn an aspect without an exarch - the path of the warrior is a philosophy or concept that has been formalised. But anyone that concentrates on warfare in a structured way would be on the path to some degree. We see that guardians can use catapults, bikes, melee weapons, fusion guns etc without HAVING to have walked the warrior path.

In my opinion, a temple shrine would have many levels of student, from New recruits, to returning veterans who have come back to the path more than once (but not become trapped on it). There would be many exarchs of very different shades as each falls in a unique way.

Senior students would be able to teach new ones, as it's no different to real martial arts - whoever has more experience is encouraged to support their kouhai.

 harlokin wrote:
Excuse my ignorance, but is it only Exarcahs that teach, or do more experienced Aspect Warriors do it too?

IIrc both can teach. An Exarch is basically wholly obsessed though, and forever trapped on the warrior path. I think of Exarchs as Eldar Space Marines in a way. They do nothing but train and pray, and will never return to be part of the 'normal' populace again. Individual Aspect Warriors will vary in experience though, and it would only make sense that some could teach others 'the way', while themselves not being lost to it.

 Hellebore wrote:

 harlokin wrote:
Excuse my ignorance, but is it only Exarcahs that teach, or do more experienced Aspect Warriors do it too?

That's actually an example of GWs neglect in writing about the aspects. Where we get huge swathes of minutae on marines, we get very little on aspects.

It's unclear. I don't think it should be impossible for someone to learn an aspect without an exarch - the path of the warrior is a philosophy or concept that has been formalised. But anyone that concentrates on warfare in a structured way would be on the path to some degree. We see that guardians can use catapults, bikes, melee weapons, fusion guns etc without HAVING to have walked the warrior path.

They can learn how to use the equipment, but the Warrior Path is about the unlocking and controlling that part of the Eldar psyche. Historically that has been IMO why the old Eldar went from WS BS 3 to 4 (I from 4 to 5 and Ld increase etc.) when they became Aspect Warriors. This was from the training and the shrine rituals like the ritualistic donning of the armor and the psychological war mask. WIthout going back to the Warrior Path and undergoing those rituals, those with past experience cannot revive their skills to the same level though they retain their experience (from the 2nd edition Codex). Past Aspect Warriors, again from the 2nd edition Codex, could be Guardian squad leaders.

Gav Thorpe's Ranger character could shoot his rifle without having been a Warrior, but I think he started taking just a little too much glee and pleasure in the act of shooting and killing Grots. That would be the risk of prolonged fighting without past experience on the Path, and is what Corsairs would face. The risk is over time they may slide over into actions more becoming of Dark Eldar or Slaanesh followers.

I really enjoy these conversations and it shows just how much potential for interesting units, rules and exarchs the Eldar could have.

Which just highlights how deliberately neglectful and underwhelming they have been treated.

You could create just as much unique and interesting character as the Harlequin codex around a single shrine, if you chose to laser focus your creativity on it like they've done with the different colours in marine shoulder trim, or how many types of terminator armour you can get that all need different rules

 Hellebore wrote:
I really enjoy these conversations and it shows just how much potential for interesting units, rules and exarchs the Eldar could have.

Which just highlights how deliberately neglectful and underwhelming they have been treated.

You could create just as much unique and interesting character as the Harlequin codex around a single shrine, if you chose to laser focus your creativity on it like they've done with the different colours in marine shoulder trim, or how many types of terminator armour you can get that all need different rules

I'm still miffed they took a saying they initially attributed to Asurmen in a WD and retconned it to be from Farsight.

"To strike! That is the distillation of purpose into a single perfect moment. Be the first to strike."

I try not to let novels influence how I think about things that are a part of the actual game. The novels help me come up with scenarios, and they inspire me, but only material from a game book is actually cannon as far as I'm concerned. Opinions may vary, of course.

Separating exarchs has potential if tweaked, but it's hard to get right. As someone mentioned earlier, the squads are bad without the exarchs, so the exarch powers would have to become aura abilities. But even then...

I mean, the thing about separate Exarchs is that's kinda what a Phoenix Lord is, right? So if you dump exarchs into that design space, PL become superfluous.

I think the idea of re-tooling them as REAL elites would be my preference. They should all have 2 wounds and minimum strength and toughness of 4. If you don't like it because it's inconsistent with the Eldar species stat template, you just create a piece of gear or an ability that makes the model function as if it had S4 T4. And obviously, their costs can go up substantially to justify this.

PenitentJake wrote:
I try not to let novels influence how I think about things that are a part of the actual game. The novels help me come up with scenarios, and they inspire me, but only material from a game book is actually cannon as far as I'm concerned. Opinions may vary, of course.

Separating exarchs has potential if tweaked, but it's hard to get right. As someone mentioned earlier, the squads are bad without the exarchs, so the exarch powers would have to become aura abilities. But even then...

I mean, the thing about separate Exarchs is that's kinda what a Phoenix Lord is, right? So if you dump exarchs into that design space, PL become superfluous.

I think the idea of re-tooling them as REAL elites would be my preference. They should all have 2 wounds and minimum strength and toughness of 4. If you don't like it because it's inconsistent with the Eldar species stat template, you just create a piece of gear or an ability that makes the model function as if it had S4 T4. And obviously, their costs can go up substantially to justify this.

Problem with Exarch aura abilities is the squad loses them if somehow the Exarch is eliminated first, unless it is specifically worded that the ability remains with the squad. This led for example in 3rd edition to things like a Scorpions forgetting how to move stealthily if their Exarch was picked off.

Scorpion chainswords are already worded to boost S, because enough people complained about Gav Thorpe's 3rd edition Codex having Scorpions with S4 in their base stateline, which might have mattered due to the possibility of special weapons requiring S tests.

T4 and W2 are supposed to be really far above normal human/Eldar levels of durability. Characters get extra W I suppose to represent plot armor.

The capping of to-hit modifiers in 9th edition however means that the Eldar way of protection via "not being hit" is not going to get much benefit, not without introducing yet some other rule like a dodge save.

PenitentJake wrote:
I try not to let novels influence how I think about things that are a part of the actual game. The novels help me come up with scenarios, and they inspire me, but only material from a game book is actually cannon as far as I'm concerned. Opinions may vary, of course.

Separating exarchs has potential if tweaked, but it's hard to get right. As someone mentioned earlier, the squads are bad without the exarchs, so the exarch powers would have to become aura abilities. But even then...

I mean, the thing about separate Exarchs is that's kinda what a Phoenix Lord is, right? So if you dump exarchs into that design space, PL become superfluous.

I think the idea of re-tooling them as REAL elites would be my preference. They should all have 2 wounds and minimum strength and toughness of 4. If you don't like it because it's inconsistent with the Eldar species stat template, you just create a piece of gear or an ability that makes the model function as if it had S4 T4. And obviously, their costs can go up substantially to justify this.

In regards to separate exarchs, they managed fine in 2nd alongside the Phoenix lords, as they represented path lost, not aspect fixated. because they could equip themselves much more flexibly because they were lost on the path of the warrior which encompassed all aspects, while Phoenix lords were the epitome of a single aspect of war.

And from a conceptual level, the Phoenix lords Occupy the same space as a primarch, while exarchs are captains or chapter masters of their 'chapter' of the Lord's 'legion'.

If captains, lieutenants, chapter masters and now a primarch can all exist in the same design space, exarchs can too.

Your ideas around making them elites, while effective, I think highlights the limitations on the game design these days. That is, if you don't look like a space marine, you suck.

It's why I think necrons have become GWs preferred xenos. They occupy the same space as marines and are much easier to balance and make interesting. If making aspects into Eldar marines is how you get them to the elite rules they need then absolutely. It's just sad that the rules are getting so restrictive that that's the only viable path to take.

It's a systems issue. Right now the 40K system has few ways to show survivability through any other means except toughness, armor, or Wounds. All of those are essentially about soaking the hit, rather than evasion. Evasion currently is lumped into invulnerable saves like what Harlequins have, or a FNP save like what Ulthwe has.

To boost Eldar infantry survivability now with the cap on to-hit modifiers, one would have to consider something like a 6++ or 6+++ save, but not sure whether that is really going to make a difference given the current high lethality environment with buckets of dice.

Iracundus wrote:
It's a systems issue. Right now the 40K system has few ways to show survivability through any other means except toughness, armor, or Wounds. All of those are essentially about soaking the hit, rather than evasion. Evasion currently is lumped into invulnerable saves like what Harlequins have, or a FNP save like what Ulthwe has.

To boost Eldar infantry survivability now with the cap on to-hit modifiers, one would have to consider something like a 6++ or 6+++ save, but not sure whether that is really going to make a difference given the current high lethality environment with buckets of dice.

Yes I bemoaned this when 9th announced the cap. The shrinking of design space. They've continued this route ever since 3rd ed. This is just the latest in a long line of changes that whether intentionally or not, hit the Eldar design concept squarely. The last one was the removal of initiative, a survival by going first approach.


There are other methods of imposing speed as protection, but they're gamey. Like 'eldar are so fast you cant hit them on better than 4+'. That means you can keep their stats relatively frail because they'll survive longer. Phoenix lords with rule wouldn't need an invulnerable save as badly as they do now...

Another one could be 'eldar are considered 6" further away when shooting at them, and 3" further away when charging them' because reflexes. This would give them more control over who got the charge first which would keep them alive longer.

 Hellebore wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
It's a systems issue. Right now the 40K system has few ways to show survivability through any other means except toughness, armor, or Wounds. All of those are essentially about soaking the hit, rather than evasion. Evasion currently is lumped into invulnerable saves like what Harlequins have, or a FNP save like what Ulthwe has.

To boost Eldar infantry survivability now with the cap on to-hit modifiers, one would have to consider something like a 6++ or 6+++ save, but not sure whether that is really going to make a difference given the current high lethality environment with buckets of dice.

Yes I bemoaned this when 9th announced the cap. The shrinking of design space. They've continued this route ever since 3rd ed. This is just the latest in a long line of changes that whether intentionally or not, hit the Eldar design concept squarely. The last one was the removal of initiative, a sit acted as a survival by going first approach.


There are other methods of imposing speed as protection, but they're gamey. Like 'eldar are so fast you cant hit them on better than 4+'. That means you can keep their stats relatively frail because they'll survive longer. Phoenix lords with rule wouldn't need an invulnerable save as badly as they do now...

That will create unstoppable force vs immovable object scenarios because I think there are already cases of "Always hit on X" or "Ignore modifiers". Is a limitation to 4+ hitting a modifier? and so on.

I think Phoenix Lords should have an invulnerable save to bring them up to par with other characters. A 4++ is practically a mandatory now for all major characters in any faction. This can easily be justified as due to their special Phoenix Lord skills such as Jain Zarr deflecting shots and blows with her Blade (as done in the Night Lords novels), Karandas having an aura of supernatural shadow/darkness (as in Gav Thorpe's novels), Fuegan outright tanking it, Baharroth flitting around and dodging, etc...

Iracundus wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
It's a systems issue. Right now the 40K system has few ways to show survivability through any other means except toughness, armor, or Wounds. All of those are essentially about soaking the hit, rather than evasion. Evasion currently is lumped into invulnerable saves like what Harlequins have, or a FNP save like what Ulthwe has.

To boost Eldar infantry survivability now with the cap on to-hit modifiers, one would have to consider something like a 6++ or 6+++ save, but not sure whether that is really going to make a difference given the current high lethality environment with buckets of dice.

Yes I bemoaned this when 9th announced the cap. The shrinking of design space. They've continued this route ever since 3rd ed. This is just the latest in a long line of changes that whether intentionally or not, hit the Eldar design concept squarely. The last one was the removal of initiative, a sit acted as a survival by going first approach.


There are other methods of imposing speed as protection, but they're gamey. Like 'eldar are so fast you cant hit them on better than 4+'. That means you can keep their stats relatively frail because they'll survive longer. Phoenix lords with rule wouldn't need an invulnerable save as badly as they do now...

That will create unstoppable force vs immovable object scenarios because I think there are already cases of "Always hit on X" or "Ignore modifiers". Is a limitation to 4+ hitting a modifier? and so on.

I think Phoenix Lords should have an invulnerable save to bring them up to par with other characters. A 4++ is practically a mandatory now for all major characters in any faction. This can easily be justified as due to their special Phoenix Lord skills such as Jain Zarr deflecting shots and blows with her Blade (as done in the Night Lords novels), Karandas having an aura of supernatural shadow/darkness (as in Gav Thorpe's novels), Fuegan outright tanking it, Baharroth flitting around and dodging, etc...

They've actually already answered that with the dark reapers FAQ, as they have a fixed hit roll. The attacker's fixed roll overrides the target's. So I don't think it's a problem.


I have a.lot of opinions on phoenix lords (as you've seen). Their psychic powered suit souls of the dead, swirling light in the suit concept imo means they should actually be very resistant to damage. As in, a Phoenix lord only takes half damage. They can't be flesh wounded, they don't sleep or eat or really breath. They don't take their helmets off.

Imo they should be more daemonic in ability given how long they've been absorbing souls. I still think they're conceptually more like daemon princes of khaine, but an equivalent rather than identical to chaos ones.

I would love to see aspects at war - a Phoenix host like maugan Ra created during the eye of terror campaign. An army of dark reapers lead by their founder.

You'd have the demigod lord with their many varied exarchs and the many varied squads with different teachings.


Speaking of, I would also take the whole squad effects from the exarch powers.list and make them squad teachings you can choose from. Leaving unique exarch abilities as the special powers they learn from fighting forever. This gets around the stupid ability disappears when the exarch does issues and also provides variety to the squads

 Hellebore wrote:

They've actually already answered that with the dark reapers FAQ, as they have a fixed hit roll. The attacker's fixed roll overrides the target's. So I don't think it's a problem.

Have they? I admittedly don't keep up to date on the rules FAQ, but a quick check seemed to show a specific interaction with the Culexus that altered BS to 6+ however the Reaper ability turned the to-hit rule to a 3+ irrespective of BS, so it wasn't so much attacker trumps target but rather both take effect, and the Reaper rule was not directly affected by the Culexus rule.

Im tellin ya'll..

We need powers that buff the squad and bigger squads. Like having 15-20 banshees is different beats to having 10 max.

Or having many exarchs running around with a small bodyguard I.e. having 3 man squads where you could field 3 exarchs with their exarch power buffing only them.

The squad size limitation is my biggest bug bears. If I had spare points id happily field the odd 3 fire dragons or 3 scorpion exarchs to strike from different directions and go charcter hunting.

Iracundus wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

They've actually already answered that with the dark reapers FAQ, as they have a fixed hit roll. The attacker's fixed roll overrides the target's. So I don't think it's a problem.

Have they? I admittedly don't keep up to date on the rules FAQ, but a quick check seemed to show a specific interaction with the Culexus that altered BS to 6+ however the Reaper ability turned the to-hit rule to a 3+ irrespective of BS, so it wasn't so much attacker trumps target but rather both take effect, and the Reaper rule was not directly affected by the Culexus rule.

Apologies you are right. I had read it and simply recalled that the reaper attack trumped the fixed hit. I would say it would be fairly simple to make the decision regardless, but it does highlight the kind of gamey requirements to represent the speed defence concept in the current design space.

Argive wrote:Im tellin ya'll..

We need powers that buff the squad and bigger squads. Like having 15-20 banshees is different beats to having 10 max.

Or having many exarchs running around with a small bodyguard I.e. having 3 man squads where you could field 3 exarchs with their exarch power buffing only them.

The squad size limitation is my biggest bug bears. If I had spare points id happily field the odd 3 fire dragons or 3 scorpion exarchs to strike from different directions and go charcter hunting.

Whole I'd love small sqauds of kinlost (the remainder of a squad that all got trapped together), I'm not a fan of 20 aspects in a squad, it's going in the opposite direction to the way the eldar and the aspects travel - dying race few in number hyper elite.

 Hellebore wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

They've actually already answered that with the dark reapers FAQ, as they have a fixed hit roll. The attacker's fixed roll overrides the target's. So I don't think it's a problem.

Have they? I admittedly don't keep up to date on the rules FAQ, but a quick check seemed to show a specific interaction with the Culexus that altered BS to 6+ however the Reaper ability turned the to-hit rule to a 3+ irrespective of BS, so it wasn't so much attacker trumps target but rather both take effect, and the Reaper rule was not directly affected by the Culexus rule.

Apologies you are right. I had read it and simply recalled that the reaper attack trumped the fixed hit. I would say it would be fairly simple to make the decision regardless, but it does highlight the kind of gamey requirements to represent the speed defence concept in the current design space.

Argive wrote:Im tellin ya'll..

We need powers that buff the squad and bigger squads. Like having 15-20 banshees is different beats to having 10 max.

Or having many exarchs running around with a small bodyguard I.e. having 3 man squads where you could field 3 exarchs with their exarch power buffing only them.

The squad size limitation is my biggest bug bears. If I had spare points id happily field the odd 3 fire dragons or 3 scorpion exarchs to strike from different directions and go charcter hunting.

Whole I'd love small sqauds of kinlost (the remainder of a squad that all got trapped together), I'm not a fan of 20 aspects in a squad, it's going in the opposite direction to the way the eldar and the aspects travel - dying race few in number hyper elite.

In my head I justify that as a popular shrine or co-operative action between several shrines. Like if jain zar turned up to a bunch of craftworlds and told the banshees to grab their gear and follow her to a battlefield I cant imagine they would say no because we can only band in groups of 10 or 5

I think 20 might be too much but 15 doesn't seem that bad. 15 dark reapers would be scary but also very costly and very vulnerable. Im more interested in fielding like 3 exarchs gunning for the jugular of the enemies army or a fire dragon jumping out of a WS to back up some Dire avengers and an an autarch.

 Argive wrote:

In my head I justify that as a popular shrine or co-operative action between several shrines. Like if jain zar turned up to a bunch of craftworlds and told the banshees to grab their gear and follow her to a battlefield I cant imagine they would say no because we can only band in groups of 10 or 5

The old Apocalypse datasheets did have such examples of a Phoenix Lord showing up and leading off a bunch of their own Aspect Warriors. The Scorpion version was named the Shadow Cult of Karandras. It also showed some of the abilities of the Phoenix Lord. In the Shadow Cult case, the Scorpions if they were in like area terrain cover could vanish and deep strike again into another piece of area terrain, representing them fading into one set of shadows and emerging from another, without passing through the intervening space.

Iracundus wrote:

 Argive wrote:

In my head I justify that as a popular shrine or co-operative action between several shrines. Like if jain zar turned up to a bunch of craftworlds and told the banshees to grab their gear and follow her to a battlefield I cant imagine they would say no because we can only band in groups of 10 or 5

The old Apocalypse datasheets did have such examples of a Phoenix Lord showing up and leading off a bunch of their own Aspect Warriors. The Scorpion version was named the Shadow Cult of Karandras. It also showed some of the abilities of the Phoenix Lord. In the Shadow Cult case, the Scorpions if they were in like area terrain cover could vanish and deep strike again into another piece of area terrain, representing them fading into one set of shadows and emerging from another, without passing through the intervening space.

As problematic as those sheets were, there were some really cool fluff-centric ideas that came out I sure wish had been extended on rather than ignored completely.

The only other Phoenix Lord/Aspect formation was Baharroth's Tempest where he'd lead the Hawks to zoom in up and in front of an enemy flyer to drop their haywire grenades as aerial mines. Enemy flyer cannot stop, gets fried, and plummets like a brick. RIsk was a Hawk could mistime it and get plastered on the front of the flyer.

There were some Warp Spider formations but no Phoenix Lord. Then Apocalypse ended without getting round to the other Aspects.

 Galas wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Why? Theres many more banshee on the universe than scouts.

You keep making this assertion - what's your source?

Well. The amount of space marines on the galaxy is aprox 1 million. Theres much less scouts than that number. Lets put 400.000. A single Craftworld has a population much higher than that. Eldar are a Dying race at a galactic scale. That doesn't mean they are low in number, theres probably billions of eldars (Craftworlders, even more if you count dark eldar and exodites). Each Craftworld is nearly the size of a continent, and theres a bunch of them. Is just a matter of galactic squale and the ridiculous small canon numbers of space marines. Not only that, probably theres many Eldar that were banshee but stopped to become other things.

So, just to confirm - no source?

Let's look at Scout numbers first. We're told by the setting that there are 1,000 Chapters of Space Marines (whether this has gone up significantly since Guilliman's reappearance is unknown). If following the Codex Astartes - which most do - the 10th Company is the Scout Company. While the Scout Company doesn't represent all the trainee Marines, it reflects the senior recruits. Theoretically, the 10th Company should be roughly equal in size to the other ten companies, at ~100 Scouts plus command staff. 1,000 * 100 leaves us with roughly 100,000 Scouts in active service, though I accept that the actual number is probably lower than that.

Now let's look at Banshees. We know that they're one of a number of major Aspect paths, which appear with enough frequency to merit a unit entry (and a Phoenix Lord, in the form of Jain Zar). However, the Path of the Warrior is one of a host of paths than a Craftworld Eldar may choose to follow at a given time, and that's before they are drawn to (or assigned to?) a given Aspect Shrine. We do know that during the course of their lives, most Craftworlds will walk the Path of the Warrior, but obviously they don't all do so at the same time, even on Biel-Tan.

There are four limiting factors we can't estimate, as I don't believe we've ever been given numbers for these - a deliberate move, and one I kind of agree with. In order to truly estimate the number of Banshees in the galaxy, we'd need to know:
- How many Craftworlds are there?
- What's the average population size of a Craftworld, give the whole "dying race" malarky?
- Roughly what proportion of the population is on the Path of the Warrior at a given moment?
- What proportion of those on the Path are getting a really sore throat from screaming at people?

Depending on these variables, there may be more Banshees than Scouts in active service, or there may be more Scouts than Banshees - the point here is that we don't have the data to even provide an appropriate estimate on the Eldar side of things.

If you asked me to guess, I'd say with confidence that there are more Aspect Warriors in the Milky Way than there are Scouts. I couldn't, however, make a claim in good conscience that there are more of a given Aspect in the galaxy than there are Scouts.

Iracundus wrote:
The only other Phoenix Lord/Aspect formation was Baharroth's Tempest where he'd lead the Hawks to zoom in up and in front of an enemy flyer to drop their haywire grenades as aerial mines. Enemy flyer cannot stop, gets fried, and plummets like a brick. RIsk was a Hawk could mistime it and get plastered on the front of the flyer.

So rather than firing a frozen turkey at a plane's cockpit when testing them in 40k, you have to fire a frozen Swooping Hawk at them? Hardcore...

An idea I had was to make the exarchs individual Force org slots, but make the squads free.

Ie, a banshee exarch is independent model and for each one you buy, you can take up to say 2-3 banshee squads.

Exarchs will be in every war that the eldar fight as that's their soul purpose. If their students come or not is not necessarily related.

It means you can also just take an exarch as a single slot if you want.

 Hellebore wrote:

It means you can also just take an exarch as a single slot if you want.

Given the current meta, can't see why anyone would want that. High lethality environment, no general auras boosting other units, and general lack of invulnerable saves for any Exarchs aside from Avengers, means easily killed Exarch. Also don't want things to degenerate towards Herohammer, which was what 2nd edition became in the end, with troops just being a tax for the hero blenders. So that means there should be a ceiling to how individually powerful an Exarch or any other character should be.

Personally, I don't really want standard exarchs running around on their own. While they do arguably warrant a power (and cost) increase, having them attached to a squad makes plenty of sense and is just way less messy than having what essentially a squad leader running around on his own.

That said, I don't hate the idea of shrineless exarchs as character units. The idea being that this exarch doesn't have any or enough students to be an active shrine, but that doesn't mean they want to pass up an excuse to shed some blood. So you deploy them, sans a squad, and let them run wild.


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 Hellebore wrote:

Argive wrote:Im tellin ya'll..

We need powers that buff the squad and bigger squads. Like having 15-20 banshees is different beats to having 10 max.

Or having many exarchs running around with a small bodyguard I.e. having 3 man squads where you could field 3 exarchs with their exarch power buffing only them.

The squad size limitation is my biggest bug bears. If I had spare points id happily field the odd 3 fire dragons or 3 scorpion exarchs to strike from different directions and go charcter hunting.

Whole I'd love small sqauds of kinlost (the remainder of a squad that all got trapped together), I'm not a fan of 20 aspects in a squad, it's going in the opposite direction to the way the eldar and the aspects travel - dying race few in number hyper elite.

Agreed. I don't really want to see bigger aspect squads except maybe for avengers. I'm sure that there at least 20 banshees on a given craftworld, but if you're fielding as many banshees as your opponent is fielding termagaunts, your armies are conveying a different story than the fluff is.

I think people underestimate the size of Craftworld populations consistently.

For example, Iyanden had billions because they lost billions in the fight against the Tyranids (p. 5, Iyanden supplement). How many billions is not exactly given but even at the minimum of 2 billion (in order to qualify for the plural of billions):

2,000,000,000 Eldar
Assuming a 0.5% militarization as Aspect Warriors yields 10 million Aspect Warriors
Assuming that the Aspects with existing Phoenix Lord models are the most common Aspects (which seems to be Gav Thorpe's view as well from his blog), and assuming an even division among these common Aspects:
1000000/6 = 1.66 million Banshees

Even if that is an overestimate by an order of magnitude, we are still talking about 166,000 Banshees.

They do. Because "dying race" is on a galactic scale. Marines don't exist in a galactically relevant scale no matter how many special ops they do. They mainly matter b/c GW can't stop making kits for them.

Yeah. Thats what I said earlier. And many people believes 40k Eldar are LOTR elves. And they are not.

Is like imperial guardsmen. By our standards, they would be extremely elite and harded soldiers with top notch equipement, but in Warhammer they are trash.

The same happens with Eldar. Yeah they live centuries and they are fast as feth and obssessed with what they do... but so are space marines, with the point of being actual super soldiers trained from young that can live centuries and that are physically superior to eldar in every respect with the exception of the top bracket of agility and speed.

A 300 year old banshee has no advantage over a 300 year old assault marine by fluff. Actually (Yeah I know that who wins depends in context and who whants the author to win), but the assault marine should have the advantage. Hes not as fast but is pretty fast, much stronger, much more resilient, with better armor (It doesnt matter because the banshee weapons ignore it but) and even with a chainsword he would not have a problem killing the banshee in a single blow, the same can't be said about the banshee.

And this happens with other things. For example Tyranid Warriors are nearly infinite and one single tyranid warrior would win agaisnt a normal space marine in 1vs1 combat. Other common duality is the Terminator agaisnt the Genestealer. Up front a genestealer has a fair chance of killing a terminator 1vs1 but their actual advantage is the context were they fight, attacking from the shadows, etc... but the moment the terminator has the range advantage he can kill dozens or hundreds of genestealers (Just like in our world a guy with a assault rifle can kill hundreds of unarmed people)

 Galas wrote:
Yeah. Thats what I said earlier. And many people believes 40k Eldar are LOTR elves. And they are not.

Is like imperial guardsmen. By our standards, they would be extremely elite and harded soldiers with top notch equipement, but in Warhammer they are trash.

The same happens with Eldar. Yeah they live centuries and they are fast as feth and obssessed with what they do... but so are space marines, with the point of being actual super soldiers trained from young that can live centuries and that are physically superior to eldar in every respect with the exception of the top bracket of agility and speed.

A 300 year old banshee has no advantage over a 300 year old assault marine by fluff. Actually (Yeah I know that who wins depends in context and who whants the author to win), but the assault marine should have the advantage. Hes not as fast but is pretty fast, much stronger, much more resilient, with better armor (It doesnt matter because the banshee weapons ignore it but) and even with a chainsword he would not have a problem killing the banshee in a single blow, the same can't be said about the banshee.

And this happens with other things. For example Tyranid Warriors are nearly infinite and one single tyranid warrior would win agaisnt a normal space marine in 1vs1 combat. Other common duality is the Terminator agaisnt the Genestealer. Up front a genestealer has a fair chance of killing a terminator 1vs1 but their actual advantage is the context were they fight, attacking from the shadows, etc... but the moment the terminator has the range advantage he can kill dozens or hundreds of genestealers (Just like in our world a guy with a assault rifle can kill hundreds of unarmed people)

Comparing Eldar to Guardsmen? C'mon man. I agree with the general gist of your point (i.e. every faction gets talked up in their own fluff and significantly up-gunned/up-hyped) but you're basically taking the Marine fluff hook, line, and sinker, and trivializing Eldar and Tyranids here. You've done a lot of "I assert it's true so it must be so" in this thread, but you've got to back it up with something more than that.

I'm not saying an Eldar is the same as a guardsmen.

I'm saying the problem of perception is the same: A Guardsmen would be a extremely good soldier , a super soldier, by today standards. Just look at Cadians, training since they are children. But in the warhammer 40k scale they are some of the weakest things on the galaxy.

Eldars, are also a super advanced alien race that thinks and moves faster than most humans can even process what they are seeing, and a Eldar baker shoots better than a trained human soldier.
But a single, humble Eldar compared with the horrors of the galaxy, even a veteran one like an aspect warrior isnt really that impressive compared with most of what others factions and races have.

And that also applies to Space Marines. I have always said that the numbers of space marines are absurds because it doesnt matter that a space marine is actually quite good, and superior to things like necrons warriors, tyranids hordes, normal eldars, ork boyz... when theres many more tyranid warriorss or tyrand guard, necron inmortals and lych guard, or even ork nobz than space marines.


Space Marines are always written as Comic Book protagonists, were giant invasions can be destroyed because casually theres always a bad guy separated from the main force, or theres a ship that if you destroy is core, the battle is won or other nonsense to make them incoherently effective.

And I apologize for not presenting sources like Iracundus. I have read a ton of warhammer 40k background but I'm horrible to remember where each piece of information comes from, specially when I have read those in spanish with spanish titles and names, and years ago.


My point is: I know people want eldar to feel elite, etc... but by their fluff, having an Eldar Specialist being equal to a tactical marine (Remember, tacticals are actually more veteran than devastators and assault marines and normally have at least a century of battlefield experience), a genestealer, a necron inmortal, etc... is actually how they should be.
Yeah we all know Intercessors have generated a problem with stat creep. I mean. Just look at those primaris bikes, having the same wounds and more attacks than a Adeptus Custodes Jetbike.

Problem being, if the Intercessor is the "new marine standard" as the Tactical Marine has been for decades, then that's what gets compared to.

The problem is the standard of comparison. Way back in the old days, the standard was (at least in theory) the Guardsmen rather than the MEQ standard. Against that, the old Guardian statline was meant to show how an Eldar civilian who only trains part-time can still perform at the same standard as a full-time normal human soldier, with WS BS 3. The human equivalent of an Eldar Guardian would have been WS BS 2. The Eldar equivalent of a Guardsman would be the Dire Avenger. In the 2nd edition Codex Imperialis, it even says the Aspect Warriors show what level of focus the Eldar mind is capable of. WS BS 4 is supposed to be a level of skill beyond professional human soldiers and I 5 was supposed to be blurringly fast. The extra Ld the Eldar had at both Guardian and Avenger levels was again also +1 over the normal human, supposedly to show the greater resiliency and determination of the average Eldar over the average human.

The problem unfortunately is over the editions the standard has shifted towards MEQ, and the various rules have led to a decrease in the importance of I and Ld. Ironically that has led to the situation opposite that of the original fluff, with Eldar more likely to fail Ld tests and break than Guardsmen, who at the price of one executed Guardsman get to either auto-pass or re-roll Ld tests depending on the edition.

Now that's for the average Eldar. Exarchs though can be the anime ninja heroes because of their powers. One could argue Warlocks and Farseers achieve their levels of skill through maybe some abstracted low level prescience, with powers like Guide being a sharpening of the predictive ability to the point of allowing re-rolls.

The removal of initiative, the cap in modifiers and the shift to fixed hit rolls has taken most of the design room the Eldar exist in away.

A higher WS would allow them to offset their low toughness, as would a high initiative.

A penalty to hit due to speed would offset their fragility to shooting.

None of these things are possible anymore.


They're already 3+ to hit minimum. This reflects the better than a Guardsman Perspective, but it squashes the aspects into 'slightly better than guardians' rather than the Eldar elite equivalent of a Marine.

They've also got tau battlesuits to compete with in the field, which they don't really do.

I think the most important issue they have is maintaining 'elven fragility' while also being able to survive the game to do their job. The melee aspects suck at attack, but they all suck at survivability.

And GW have pretty much only given you 4 options - toughness, wounds, saves or some kind of special rule which in most armies turns out to be a form of save anyway...

Ask the protoss about "elven fragility". Speaking of which, the Eldar could get extra wounds in the form of energy shields just like the Protoss.

Martel732 wrote:
Ask the protoss about "elven fragility". Speaking of which, the Eldar could get extra wounds in the form of energy shields just like the Protoss.

It would have made sense to give eldar protoss shields back in the day, but we're several decades into accepting that most eldar don't have such shields. Handing them out now would be about as elegant a fluff change as adding primaris.

You could maybe say that their speed and training translates into multiple wounds with the underestanding that losing a wound might just mean you suffered a narrow miss or a graze rather than a direct hit. Obviously, you'd probably want to increase the wounds on a lot of units throughout the game if you took this approach to keep eldar feeling fragile, DG feeling durable, etc. Of course, some people struggle with the abstraction of rolling saves after to-wound rolls, so...

I think part of the problem with aspects is just the scale creep of the game. Avengers currently do have certain advantages over guardsmen, but those advantages are really hard to leverage when your opponent has multiple mortar teams and spare sponsons just waiting for a target. I look forward to seeing how aspects behave in smaller games of 9th. Maybe dire avengers will do alright when your opponent only has a handful of units and most of them are focused on killing your wave serpent. Maybe fire dragons will contribute more meaningfully with their single sucker punch out of reserves if that sucker punch nearly kills the only vehicle in your opponent's army. Maybe banshees doing almost no damage won't matter if the one unit they tangle up represents a large percentage of your opponent's total army.

Martel732 wrote:
Ask the protoss about "elven fragility". Speaking of which, the Eldar could get extra wounds in the form of energy shields just like the Protoss.

true but those trixy pooter forces have the advantage that they and their war besties can be tweaked in far finer lumps than the 16.6% 40k is broadly bound to,

Wyldhunt wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Ask the protoss about "elven fragility". Speaking of which, the Eldar could get extra wounds in the form of energy shields just like the Protoss.

It would have made sense to give eldar protoss shields back in the day, but we're several decades into accepting that most eldar don't have such shields. Handing them out now would be about as elegant a fluff change as adding primaris.

You could maybe say that their speed and training translates into multiple wounds with the underestanding that losing a wound might just mean you suffered a narrow miss or a graze rather than a direct hit. Obviously, you'd probably want to increase the wounds on a lot of units throughout the game if you took this approach to keep eldar feeling fragile, DG feeling durable, etc. Of course, some people struggle with the abstraction of rolling saves after to-wound rolls, so...

I think part of the problem with aspects is just the scale creep of the game. Avengers currently do have certain advantages over guardsmen, but those advantages are really hard to leverage when your opponent has multiple mortar teams and spare sponsons just waiting for a target. I look forward to seeing how aspects behave in smaller games of 9th. Maybe dire avengers will do alright when your opponent only has a handful of units and most of them are focused on killing your wave serpent. Maybe fire dragons will contribute more meaningfully with their single sucker punch out of reserves if that sucker punch nearly kills the only vehicle in your opponent's army. Maybe banshees doing almost no damage won't matter if the one unit they tangle up represents a large percentage of your opponent's total army.

Just do it. Shields are badass. What's another retcon? They've already shown there's nothing they can do to drive people away except maybe formations.


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 Turnip Jedi wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Ask the protoss about "elven fragility". Speaking of which, the Eldar could get extra wounds in the form of energy shields just like the Protoss.

true but those trixy pooter forces have the advantage that they and their war besties can be tweaked in far finer lumps than the 16.6% 40k is broadly bound to,

It's almost like computers are a better medium for wargames.

You can certainly provide a blanket invulnerable - or even make their basic save invulnerable. With low wounds and T this will keep them alive for a little bit longer. Despite how crazy it sounds, they still aren't going to last long. T3 3+ invulnerable is still pretty fragile.

GW have also given almost every army with subfaction options one where they either get FNP or an invulnerable to represent, well anything from bionics, to BDSM enjoyment, to being able to predict the future.


To me it just seems a bit tepid that they've shrunk the design space so much that the invulnerable save/FNP is the only real way to reflect this.


You end up with a huge range of armies that all function very similarly while representing very different things.

Personally I think I'd rather see them messing with people's to hit rolls. You can get around the modifier cap by just saying you can't hit Eldar on better than 4+. I reckon the current army would play more like they're supposed to without any unit changes with that one rule

I'm a little annoyed they set the cap at -1 instead of -2. With a limit on modifiers and auto-hit on 6s, plus the redesign of rerolls to rerolling all misses after mods, having the cap at -2 would have been fine.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I'm a little annoyed they set the cap at -1 instead of -2. With a limit on modifiers and auto-hit on 6s, plus the redesign of rerolls to rerolling all misses after mods, having the cap at -2 would have been fine.

The cap was one of the reasons I started this thread as it was one of last design areas that reflected the speed defence.

But unless they change it after release, we're stuck with it.

So i look at the army list as it sits and think that unless it's rebuilt completely, it's going to keep being a boring, annoyingly gimmicky spam army, reliant on farseers and whatever other units are MEQ

The cap has more problems for the game in general other than Eldar. Other armies have situations or units that are explicitly allowed and expected to get a -2 to hit and in 9th we're going to have a weird interaction where if you're shooting something -1, it's automatically better to advance and shoot assault weapons or move and fire infantry heavy weapons. That interesting tactical choice has now been removed. In fact you're giving your opponent a big advantage if you have lots of -1 to hit units because you are indirectly improving their mobility (which is a fething bizarre interaction)

Rather than listening to 3 years worth of feedback from players that a free -1 to hit across Altaioc, Raven Guard and Alpha Legion armies was just unfun and bad design, GW decided to introduce a cap instead which just breaks a whole load of unrelated units. relics, psychic powers etc.

 Bosskelot wrote:
The cap has more problems for the game in general other than Eldar. Other armies have situations or units that are explicitly allowed and expected to get a -2 to hit and in 9th we're going to have a weird interaction where if you're shooting something -1, it's automatically better to advance and shoot assault weapons or move and fire infantry heavy weapons. That interesting tactical choice has now been removed. In fact you're giving your opponent a big advantage if you have lots of -1 to hit units because you are indirectly improving their mobility (which is a fething bizarre interaction)

Rather than listening to 3 years worth of feedback from players that a free -1 to hit across Altaioc, Raven Guard and Alpha Legion armies was just unfun and bad design, GW decided to introduce a cap instead which just breaks a whole load of unrelated units. relics, psychic powers etc.

-1 was only an issue if you could stack so far that certain armies couldn't hit.
Funnily enough, it was also one of the few defensive buffs, that worked in an overall growingly lethal environment without the need for extra rolling for defensive mechanisms.

Also it shows indeed that GW's claim that PA was written with 9th in mind is bollocks, especially when you look at AL in F&F.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
The cap has more problems for the game in general other than Eldar. Other armies have situations or units that are explicitly allowed and expected to get a -2 to hit and in 9th we're going to have a weird interaction where if you're shooting something -1, it's automatically better to advance and shoot assault weapons or move and fire infantry heavy weapons. That interesting tactical choice has now been removed. In fact you're giving your opponent a big advantage if you have lots of -1 to hit units because you are indirectly improving their mobility (which is a fething bizarre interaction)

Rather than listening to 3 years worth of feedback from players that a free -1 to hit across Altaioc, Raven Guard and Alpha Legion armies was just unfun and bad design, GW decided to introduce a cap instead which just breaks a whole load of unrelated units. relics, psychic powers etc.

-1 was only an issue if you could stack so far that certain armies couldn't hit.
Funnily enough, it was also one of the few defensive buffs, that worked in an overall growingly lethal environment without the need for extra rolling for defensive mechanisms.

Also it shows indeed that GW's claim that PA was written with 9th in mind is bollocks, especially when you look at AL in F&F.

Tao could not hit aeldar and chaos is bad, but drones that take insane amount of damage is fine

Marin wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
The cap has more problems for the game in general other than Eldar. Other armies have situations or units that are explicitly allowed and expected to get a -2 to hit and in 9th we're going to have a weird interaction where if you're shooting something -1, it's automatically better to advance and shoot assault weapons or move and fire infantry heavy weapons. That interesting tactical choice has now been removed. In fact you're giving your opponent a big advantage if you have lots of -1 to hit units because you are indirectly improving their mobility (which is a fething bizarre interaction)

Rather than listening to 3 years worth of feedback from players that a free -1 to hit across Altaioc, Raven Guard and Alpha Legion armies was just unfun and bad design, GW decided to introduce a cap instead which just breaks a whole load of unrelated units. relics, psychic powers etc.

-1 was only an issue if you could stack so far that certain armies couldn't hit.
Funnily enough, it was also one of the few defensive buffs, that worked in an overall growingly lethal environment without the need for extra rolling for defensive mechanisms.

Also it shows indeed that GW's claim that PA was written with 9th in mind is bollocks, especially when you look at AL in F&F.

Tao could not hit aeldar and chaos is bad, but drones that take insane amount of damage is fine

Now i normally like sarcasm and irony but:

As a player with an army about 60-80% BS5+ not hitting WAS a massive issue.
Orkz just ignored it more or less after their dex, but the 6's hit allways should've been a thing from the get go if we add in negative to hit modifiers that are and imo SHOULD'BE stackable.

The issue with Tau is that beyond the drones they don't got much really going for them.

Maybe a better version of the cap would have been "No worse than -1 from enemy sources." That means if you do something (like move) you can make the negative modifier worse than -1.

Iracundus wrote:
Maybe a better version of the cap would have been "No worse than -1 from enemy sources." That means if you do something (like move) you can make the negative modifier worse than -1.

No, the fact remains that, if you want to achieve more then -1 you often have to invest rather heavily into ressources to achieve it, and frankly, -1 to hit or even stacking to it, and frankly i see it as a symptom to the core issue, the massive hike of offense that has been going on, defense get's the catchup hike, and so forth and so forth.

 grouchoben wrote:
That's a weird example. 10 swooping hawks shooting do less damage vs 5 intercessors than 10 Scorpions in CC.

The also can't hope to tangle with them in CC and live, so can't tie up units, and so they fulfil a different role.

Hawks aren't bad, take em if you want.

Yeah, they actually don't though. 2x5 units of Hawks with the 5+ grenade pack exarch ability do exactly the same damage in shooting to 5 intercessors that scorps do in melee. And considering that, like I said, you do not actually decrease the damage output of INtercessors if you "Tie them up" in melee, it seems to me like you'd need to basically take the charge roll out of the equation to make scorps at all worthwhile.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I'm a little annoyed they set the cap at -1 instead of -2. With a limit on modifiers and auto-hit on 6s, plus the redesign of rerolls to rerolling all misses after mods, having the cap at -2 would have been fine.

A cap of -2 means nothing 95% of the time. I do sympathize with the loss of decision making in some narrow scenarios as a result though I suspect there's more to the picture though.

I expected it, but those eradicators certainly make fire dragons look crappy.

Especially as the exarch's fire pike is supposed to be this highly advanced mythical melta weapon, but hey apparently the imperium can manufacture better versions in the thousands...

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I'm a little annoyed they set the cap at -1 instead of -2. With a limit on modifiers and auto-hit on 6s, plus the redesign of rerolls to rerolling all misses after mods, having the cap at -2 would have been fine.

A cap of -2 means nothing 95% of the time. I do sympathize with the loss of decision making in some narrow scenarios as a result though I suspect there's more to the picture though.

If a cap means nothing 95% of the time, that's good, as it is only hitting the edge cases. The fact that dense cover means there's no downside to moving and firing with heavy weapons, and other combinations, is a problem. If the common complaint is that the game is too lethal, having organic ways to defensively buff is a good thing. Capping at -1 is too limiting.

 Hellebore wrote:
I expected it, but those eradicators certainly make fire dragons look crappy.

Especially as the exarch's fire pike is supposed to be this highly advanced mythical melta weapon, but hey apparently the imperium can manufacture better versions in the thousands...

Geez, I only just saw that. More erosion then of the Eldar "high tech". It's like GW is so desperately averse to giving anything good tech-wise to the Eldar (like that whole 3rd edition thing with S6 fusion guns for Fire Dragons) ...which then is ironic because in each edition they then seem to mess up and end up letting something truly overpowered slip through like star cannons and Wraithknights.

GW releases new flying tanks and troops armed with Haywire (mines).....no, not Aeldari, what would have made you think that?

Iracundus wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
I expected it, but those eradicators certainly make fire dragons look crappy.

Especially as the exarch's fire pike is supposed to be this highly advanced mythical melta weapon, but hey apparently the imperium can manufacture better versions in the thousands...

Geez, I only just saw that. More erosion then of the Eldar "high tech". It's like GW is so desperately averse to giving anything good tech-wise to the Eldar (like that whole 3rd edition thing with S6 fusion guns for Fire Dragons) ...which then is ironic because in each edition they then seem to mess up and end up letting something truly overpowered slip through like star cannons and Wraithknights.

it seems very much as though GW only pay lipservice to these things unless they're marines.


Eldar are currently as "technologically advanced" as they are "protected by their speed".


i find this more egregious than I what they were doing 10 years ago - because they are deliberately stripping one army of its uniqueness and rules to give to their posterboys. So long as marines look cool and keep selling they don't seem to care that they're killing the identity of another army to do it.


Maybe we'll get an 'update' where 'dying race' means 'breed like rabbits' and 'have bad memories so forget their tech' and eldar will come in low fi swarms, that way they never have to be a threat to the identity of marines and there's nothing for people to complain about...

I'm hoping Wraith Constructs will become viable with 9th. Great looking models and unique to Eldar. If point values are reasonable and I feel I can reasonably play the missions, it is a direction I'd like to take.

 Sarigar wrote:
I'm hoping Wraith Constructs will become viable with 9th. Great looking models and unique to Eldar. If point values are reasonable and I feel I can reasonably play the missions, it is a direction I'd like to take.

I wouldn't count on it. First I think it is basically then emulating sort of an MEQ, which I think we need less of not more. Second, there has always been complaining whenever the Eldar received anything that was not fragile as tissue paper. For example, in 2nd edition people complained about the Eldar dreadnought (now known as the Wraithlord) then the Falcon when it first came out, even going so far as to claim a main battle tank was not part of the Eldar them (ignoring that Falcons albeit of the old wedge design were present in Epic long before the 40K Falcon). Similarly in BFG, there were people that tried to argue Eldar wouldn't have a battleship since that was not in keeping with Eldar fleet doctrine. Then GW released the Void Stalker battleship. Then the complaining shifted from saying Eldar shouldn't have a battleship to saying the Void Stalker was too good or too tough.

 harlokin wrote:
GW releases new flying tanks and troops armed with Haywire (mines).....no, not Aeldari, what would have made you think that?

GW releases the first Harlequin special character. No, of course it's not for Harlequins! Get your grubby mits off it, you filthy Xeno players!

the_scotsman wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
That's a weird example. 10 swooping hawks shooting do less damage vs 5 intercessors than 10 Scorpions in CC.

The also can't hope to tangle with them in CC and live, so can't tie up units, and so they fulfil a different role.

Hawks aren't bad, take em if you want.

Yeah, they actually don't though. 2x5 units of Hawks with the 5+ grenade pack exarch ability do exactly the same damage in shooting to 5 intercessors that scorps do in melee. And considering that, like I said, you do not actually decrease the damage output of INtercessors if you "Tie them up" in melee, it seems to me like you'd need to basically take the charge roll out of the equation to make scorps at all worthwhile.

Oh blimey. Alright, assuming no buffs of any kind (which counts against the scorps, as the exarch loses the EC rerolls on his blade), with the exception of both exarch powers taken to buff mortal wounds to 5+...

3.33 mortal wounds per squad. It's a wash.
2.67 damage from lasblasters + 0.59 from the Talon, vs 2.04 from the shuripistols. Hawks are 1.27 damage ahead.
1.43 in CC for the hawks vs 3 from chainswords, 1.67 from biting blade, making it:

8.02 for the hawks, killing 4 intercessors.
10.04 for the scorpions, wiping the squad.

The big difference is the Scorps dependence on the charge, as you pointed out. Like I said, Hawks ain't bad, take em if you want; ditto Scorpions.

 Sarigar wrote:
I'm hoping Wraith Constructs will become viable with 9th. Great looking models and unique to Eldar. If point values are reasonable and I feel I can reasonably play the missions, it is a direction I'd like to take.

It came up in the tactics thread but the more I look at the new "in your face" rule set the more I think flamer wraithlords are a go to counter charge unit for us. Can't decide on a heavy weapon loadout, will see what points values look like.

Eh, I don't think you can have unique faction traits in a world where homogenization between factions happens at the behest of the primaris release schedule.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I'm a little annoyed they set the cap at -1 instead of -2. With a limit on modifiers and auto-hit on 6s, plus the redesign of rerolls to rerolling all misses after mods, having the cap at -2 would have been fine.

A cap of -2 means nothing 95% of the time. I do sympathize with the loss of decision making in some narrow scenarios as a result though I suspect there's more to the picture though.

If a cap means nothing 95% of the time, that's good, as it is only hitting the edge cases. The fact that dense cover means there's no downside to moving and firing with heavy weapons, and other combinations, is a problem. If the common complaint is that the game is too lethal, having organic ways to defensively buff is a good thing. Capping at -1 is too limiting.

Yea, I suspect there is more to the picture including the 'Remain Stationary' rule.

Iracundus wrote:

 Sarigar wrote:
I'm hoping Wraith Constructs will become viable with 9th. Great looking models and unique to Eldar. If point values are reasonable and I feel I can reasonably play the missions, it is a direction I'd like to take.

I wouldn't count on it. First I think it is basically then emulating sort of an MEQ, which I think we need less of not more. Second, there has always been complaining whenever the Eldar received anything that was not fragile as tissue paper. For example, in 2nd edition people complained about the Eldar dreadnought (now known as the Wraithlord) then the Falcon when it first came out, even going so far as to claim a main battle tank was not part of the Eldar them (ignoring that Falcons albeit of the old wedge design were present in Epic long before the 40K Falcon). Similarly in BFG, there were people that tried to argue Eldar wouldn't have a battleship since that was not in keeping with Eldar fleet doctrine. Then GW released the Void Stalker battleship. Then the complaining shifted from saying Eldar shouldn't have a battleship to saying the Void Stalker was too good or too tough.

Not sure I understand the MEQ reference. Wraithguard/Wraithblades have a 3+ save, but the other stats are different from Marines; with that logic, any infantry unit in the Craftworld codex is MEQ. Also, the Hemlock also has the keyword, Wraith Construct; there are more than just Wraithguard/Wraithblades with the keyword.

People find things to complain against another army. Cherry picking one item from 2nd edition does not make for a strong case. People complained about my Exarchs and not my Wraithlord in 2nd edition; in 3rd, it was Starcannons, Guide,Doom, and Seer Councils; 4th was Falcons and Harlequins; 5th was a bit quiet; 6th was Taudar,, Bike Counsels with Baron Sathonyx; 7th was Wraithknights and Scatbikes. Those are just off the top of my head.

Other than just trying to find the negative, what is your intent with your post? Wraith Constructs probably will not be worth playing because some folks complain?

@ Grouch

remember the hawks being gentleman wont chuck more than 1 grenade per enemy target, suspect it wont shift them numbers too much but might give the melee scorps a slight edge against damaged units, fingers crossed that rule goes away come 9e codex as besides half-baked character sniping its a silly rule

 grouchoben wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
That's a weird example. 10 swooping hawks shooting do less damage vs 5 intercessors than 10 Scorpions in CC.

The also can't hope to tangle with them in CC and live, so can't tie up units, and so they fulfil a different role.

Hawks aren't bad, take em if you want.

Yeah, they actually don't though. 2x5 units of Hawks with the 5+ grenade pack exarch ability do exactly the same damage in shooting to 5 intercessors that scorps do in melee. And considering that, like I said, you do not actually decrease the damage output of INtercessors if you "Tie them up" in melee, it seems to me like you'd need to basically take the charge roll out of the equation to make scorps at all worthwhile.

Oh blimey. Alright, assuming no buffs of any kind (which counts against the scorps, as the exarch loses the EC rerolls on his blade), with the exception of both exarch powers taken to buff mortal wounds to 5+...

3.33 mortal wounds per squad. It's a wash.
2.67 damage from lasblasters + 0.59 from the Talon, vs 2.04 from the shuripistols. Hawks are 1.27 damage ahead.
1.43 in CC for the hawks vs 3 from chainswords, 1.67 from biting blade, making it:

8.02 for the hawks, killing 4 intercessors.
10.04 for the scorpions, wiping the squad.

The big difference is the Scorps dependence on the charge, as you pointed out. Like I said, Hawks ain't bad, take em if you want; ditto Scorpions.

10 Pistol shots
20/3 hit
20/9 at AP 0, 10/9 at AP-3
20/27 plus 25/27 failed saves
1.67 damage from the pistols

Your math is just WRONG.

HBMC with a nice graphic illustrating the point:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Join the Imperium!

Spoiler:

 Hellebore wrote:
HBMC with a nice graphic illustrating the point:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Join the Imperium!

Spoiler:

That's just shameful.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
HBMC with a nice graphic illustrating the point:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Join the Imperium!

Spoiler:

That's just shameful.

I'm not sure what to think about the points values - new ones are supposed to be MORE expensive, so that would imply eradicators would be cheaper in the current paradigm...

"Your math is just WRONG."

Yeah you're right, I'd left some fields filled in 40k.ghostlords for some of my calculations, apologies.

But are you denying that the scorps do more damage overall? And are you willing to chat, or concede the point, without going all lockcaps on me?

Mortal wounds: Hawks MW: 1.66 vs Scorps MW: 3.33
Hawks shooting: 2.67+0.59 vs Scorps shooting: 1.67
Hawks CC: 0.81 vs Scorps CC 2+1.33

Hawks = 5.73
Scorps = 8.33

 grouchoben wrote:
"Your math is just WRONG."

Yeah you're right, I'd left some fields filled in 40k.ghostlords for some of my calculations, apologies.

But are you denying that the scorps do more damage overall? And are you willing to chat, or concede the point, without going all lockcaps on me?

Mortal wounds: Hawks MW: 1.66 vs Scorps MW: 3.33
Hawks shooting: 2.67+0.59 vs Scorps shooting: 1.67
Hawks CC: 0.81 vs Scorps CC 2+1.33

Hawks = 5.73
Scorps = 8.33

I'll freely admit I may have missed some of the discussion. But considering that almost all the scorpion damage comes from cc I'd hope for a better difference than that. It's far easier to harm with shooting than cc.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
HBMC with a nice graphic illustrating the point:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Join the Imperium!

Spoiler:

That's just shameful.

But also misleading and cherry picked though.

Swooping Hawks is per model in the target unit. The Skystalker unit is per model in their unit. So a single hawk can literally drop 20 dice on 20 models and score on 5s. They can also drop their bombs straight from deepstrike 12" away.

Eradicators are potentially 120 points. Crack shot is also disregarded even though it isn't huge as well as their run and shoot without penalty.

And while the fluff for Asurmen is silly he's close to the same result.

 grouchoben wrote:
"Your math is just WRONG."

Yeah you're right, I'd left some fields filled in 40k.ghostlords for some of my calculations, apologies.

But are you denying that the scorps do more damage overall? And are you willing to chat, or concede the point, without going all lockcaps on me?

Mortal wounds: Hawks MW: 1.66 vs Scorps MW: 3.33
Hawks shooting: 2.67+0.59 vs Scorps shooting: 1.67
Hawks CC: 0.81 vs Scorps CC 2+1.33

Hawks = 5.73
Scorps = 8.33

136 Points-two squads of Swooping Hawks with the 5+ Grenade Pack power and Hawk's Talon on the Exarch.

vs.

10 Striking Scorpions with the Exarch having a Biting Blade and the 5+ Mandiblaster Power, plus an assisting Warlock to cast the +2 Charge power.

Both are up against a squad or two of Intercessors.

Swooping Hawks:
Land and deal 10/3 Mortal Wounds on average.
Shoot, and deal...
32 S3 Shots
64/3 hits
64/9 wounds
64/27 failed saves
Plus...
8 S5 shots
16/3 hits
32/9 wounds
32/27 failed saves
For a total of 96/27, 32/9, or 3.56 damage
Plus the 10/3 or 3.33 mortal wounds, they deal 6.89 damage total, without having to charge.

Striking Scorpions
Shoot and deal...
10 S4 shots, AP-3 on 6s to wound
20/3 hits
20/9 AP0 and 10/9 AP-3
20/27 plus 25/27 failed saves
For a total of 45/27, 5/3, or 1.67 damage
Then, they charge. Assuming they make it in without taking any losses to Overwatch and all can make it into fighting range, they get...
10/3 Mortal Wounds from Mandiblasters, and...
18 S4 attacks
12 hits
6 wounds
2 failed saves
Plus...
3 S5 AP-2 D2 attacks
2 hits
4/3 wounds
2/3 failed saves
4/3 damage
For a total of 3.33 damage
Total damage is 20/3, or 6.67, plus the shooting, for 8.33 damage overall

They are marginally better. But they cannot split fire like the Hawks can, they are one squad which means they can get Auspex Scanned to oblivion, they have to make the charge, they have to avoid wounds to Overwatch, and you have to get the Warlock to within 6" of them to make the charge any kind of reliable, which isn't always gonna happen.

Plus, if we add the Hawk's melee, that nets them an extra .89 damage, for a total of 7.78.

Even without that, you're doing about 20% more damage, but with less reliability, less ability to pick your targets, more vulnerability...

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
HBMC with a nice graphic illustrating the point:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Join the Imperium!

Spoiler:

That's just shameful.

But also misleading and cherry picked though.

Swooping Hawks is per model in the target unit. The Skystalker unit is per model in their unit. So a single hawk can literally drop 20 dice on 20 models and score on 5s. They can also drop their bombs straight from deepstrike 12" away.

Eradicators are potentially 120 points. Crack shot is also disregarded even though it isn't huge as well as their run and shoot without penalty.

And while the fluff for Asurmen is silly he's close to the same result.

Up to the maximum of one die per hawk. That's the rule. So no, one Hawk can not damage 20 enemies.

True on the using it from deepstrike though.

PenitentJake wrote:


Up to the maximum of one die per hawk. That's the rule. So no, one Hawk can not damage 20 enemies.

True on the using it from deepstrike though.

My mistake.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Hellebore wrote:
HBMC with a nice graphic illustrating the point:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Join the Imperium!

That's just shameful.

But also misleading and cherry picked though.

Swooping Hawks is per model in the target unit. The Skystalker unit is per model in their unit. So a single hawk can literally drop 20 dice on 20 models and score on 5s. They can also drop their bombs straight from deepstrike 12" away.

Eradicators are potentially 120 points. Crack shot is also disregarded even though it isn't huge as well as their run and shoot without penalty.

And while the fluff for Asurmen is silly he's close to the same result.

The substance remains shameful. The Imperial unit hits with their grenades on a 5+ instead of the Hawks 6+. The Imperial unit gets a bonus against vehicles, the Hawks don't. The Imperial unit can hit a vehicle multiple times while the Hawks cannot.

And, as pointed out above, you did not read it correctly. A single Hawk cannot roll 20 dice against 20 models.

And even if they were equal abilities, it's another example of the Imperium getting something that was traditionally the realm of Xenos.

True enough, JNA. I can't really be bothered with this anymore brother. But just to point out that if we go 2x5 then scorps' damage output goes up too, and if the hawks get to do damage in CC, I don't see why Scorps are paying a 45pt tax for a warlock in this example, while the hawks don't. Take that away and the numbers skew harder for Scorps. But what you're saying is all true enough.

The reason I went 10 man scorp and 2X5 Hawks is that the Scorps get a one-unit buff. The Hawks don’t.

And it’s WITHOUT CC that hawks do only about 20% less, but way more reliably.

I might actually kind of be coming around on scorpions, actually. I haven't played with them much post-PA, but some of the options they gained access to are pretty handy. Upping their mandiblasters to a 5+ does increase their damage a little (though it's still weird that mandis are more efficient against expensive elite infantry). The one that lets you get a -1 to hit while in cover can make them a decently cheap and durable screen or objective holder, though capping to-hit penalties makes that less useful.

It still bugs me that scorpions are basically assault marines with with worse mobility and fewer attacks (and assault marines aren't combat monsters themselves), but scorpions probably *do* have a place in casual lists right now.

Truthfully, Dire Avenger should have 2 attacks as the ''generalist'' base aspect that they are. But the better overwatch is a nice trade off, I suppose! In an edition or two ago you had the choice of the overwatch or an counter-charge attack. Overwatch all day.

Banshees and Scorpions should have an extra attack also.

Dragons' Meltabombs aggravate me to no end. It made sense when they could use them in melee vs vehicles. As it is, they are just wargear that we pay for and never use.

Hawks could use an update to hit with their grenades as well as the imperium versions can.

Haywire needs some sort of special rule in unit or two outside of a stratagem.

Spiders.... Need a look. It was their move-shoot-move that gave them any real identity other than just being fast with S6 rending guns. Jetbikes can do that from a safe distance with reliable speed now. It's another unit that should be given a rule that currently exists as a stratagem.

Shining Spears/ Crimson Hunters/ Dark Reapers are honestly about where they need to be, rules wise.

The Avatar needs Greater Daemon treatment and/or a huge aura buff.

Phoenix Lords should be able to get warlord traits. (among other buffs)

Guide evidently needs to be an aura, apparently.

---------

I don't mind point increases with unit buffs. I just don't think Eldar elites should 9 pts each with minimal impact or 22 pts for a weaker equivolent of an imperial unit.

I do miss my 16 pt Fire Dragons when I make a list these days. Sure, since then they have gained a rule or two and a better save. (not that the save means as much) But 22 points for a model that is almost definitely going to die immediately afterward is a punch in the gut.

I liked Asurmen having multiple Warlord Traits. I thought that was a really good bit of fluffy traits.

I'm a bit confused - which stratagem do you think should be a Spider rule?

Goobi2 wrote:
Truthfully, Dire Avenger should have 2 attacks as the ''generalist'' base aspect that they are. But the better overwatch is a nice trade off, I suppose! In an edition or two ago you had the choice of the overwatch or an counter-charge attack. Overwatch all day.

Banshees and Scorpions should have an extra attack also.

Dragons' Meltabombs aggravate me to no end. It made sense when they could use them in melee vs vehicles. As it is, they are just wargear that we pay for and never use.

Hawks could use an update to hit with their grenades as well as the imperium versions can.

Haywire needs some sort of special rule in unit or two outside of a stratagem.

Spiders.... Need a look. It was their move-shoot-move that gave them any real identity other than just being fast with S6 rending guns. Jetbikes can do that from a safe distance with reliable speed now. It's another unit that should be given a rule that currently exists as a stratagem.

Shining Spears/ Crimson Hunters/ Dark Reapers are honestly about where they need to be, rules wise.

The Avatar needs Greater Daemon treatment and/or a huge aura buff.

Phoenix Lords should be able to get warlord traits. (among other buffs)

Guide evidently needs to be an aura, apparently.

---------

I don't mind point increases with unit buffs. I just don't think Eldar elites should 9 pts each with minimal impact or 22 pts for a weaker equivolent of an imperial unit.

I do miss my 16 pt Fire Dragons when I make a list these days. Sure, since then they have gained a rule or two and a better save. (not that the save means as much) But 22 points for a model that is almost definitely going to die immediately afterward is a punch in the gut.

I disagree on some points.

Banshees i dont think need more attacks, they need either something like +1 to wound rolls, S5 weapons, +2 strength on the charge, re-roll wounds, any of those and they would be in a much better spot. more attacks just push towards chaff clearing than elite killing

Scorpians definatelyi need more atttacks, my suggestion would be change mandiblasters to be a 2 addtional attack weaopn thats S4 either ap0/-1, and give them effectively 5 attacks total.

Hawks definately got power creeped by the mechanicus version and could use adjustments, even if it was all hawks could drop grenades on a single model would at least be a start.

All the aspects are so out of date, they went from the exclusive all our models are armed with a unique special weapon to, hey marines sole our idea but they also have better weaopns and some even have weaopn options!. they could go a long way if they either let the basic members use exotic equipment, or even if they went the wych rout and let some members take special equipment. but at least fusion guns are s8 and not s6 anymore.

 warmaster21 wrote:


Banshees i dont think need more attacks, they need either something like +1 to wound rolls, S5 weapons, +2 strength on the charge, re-roll wounds, any of those and they would be in a much better spot. more attacks just push towards chaff clearing than elite killing

I agree that it should be something other than just more attacks. Since 2nd edition it was also about Banshees being devastating shock troops when successfully landing the charge compared to the general melee endurance of Scorpions, another possibility for reform would be to make the Banshees' masks do something like a weaker version of the Exarch power which does d3 MW on 4+ when charging. Like maybe 1 MW on 4+ when charging.

Iracundus wrote:

 warmaster21 wrote:


Banshees i dont think need more attacks, they need either something like +1 to wound rolls, S5 weapons, +2 strength on the charge, re-roll wounds, any of those and they would be in a much better spot. more attacks just push towards chaff clearing than elite killing

I agree that it should be something other than just more attacks. Since 2nd edition it was also about landing the charge compared to the general melee endurance of Scorpions, another possibility for reform would be to make the Banshees' masks do something like a weaker version of the Exarch power which does d3 MW on 4+ when charging. Like maybe 1 MW on 4+ when charging.

I agree the banshee mask could use some love, the change to overwatch denial was cute but with the overwatch changes not nearly as needed. DE in psychic awakening had a few alternate abilities that gave MW on charges, would be an easy port to banshees for the banshee masks. they could do something like -1 toughness on a charge, really anything else than what they do now.

making them all or nothign on charging and being obliterated during a counter charge would be a decent change to really diferentiate them from scorpians.

 warmaster21 wrote:

I agree the banshee mask could use some love, the change to overwatch denial was cute but with the overwatch changes not nearly as needed. DE in psychic awakening had a few alternate abilities that gave MW on charges, would be an easy port to banshees for the banshee masks. they could do something like -1 toughness on a charge, really anything else than what they do now.

You could give them Meticulous Flayers, an obsession that PA 'hilarously' gave to Kabalites; re-roll charges, and 6s to hit automatically wound vs non vehicle/titanic.

 harlokin wrote:


You could give them Meticulous Flayers, an obsession that PA 'hilarously' gave to Kabalites; re-roll charges, and 6s to hit automatically wound vs non vehicle/titanic.

haha...god that book was atrocious... but DE still made it off better (even though i shleved my army) than what my sisters are getting in psychic awakening...


I dont even know what to do with warp spiders, they were great in 3rd when they could teleport behind a tank and shred it with their S6 weapons, and s6 was just great back then. maybe if they could all have the forarm mounted powerblades, i dont think they should get much play around cover, that seems more of what a striking scorpian should do, unless they want warp spiders to be a more defensive unit to get better terrain bonuses.. though i guess they could change it up a bit and make striking scorpian the shock infantry and spiders the defensive infantry but idk... aspects really need work.

 harlokin wrote:

 warmaster21 wrote:

I agree the banshee mask could use some love, the change to overwatch denial was cute but with the overwatch changes not nearly as needed. DE in psychic awakening had a few alternate abilities that gave MW on charges, would be an easy port to banshees for the banshee masks. they could do something like -1 toughness on a charge, really anything else than what they do now.

You could give them Meticulous Flayers, an obsession that PA 'hilarously' gave to Kabalites; re-roll charges, and 6s to hit automatically wound vs non vehicle/titanic.

do you not run your kabalites into melee everygame? After all, the Sybarite has options for melee weapons, clearly that's how everyone plays them, not as the shooty third of the codex


/S

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

 warmaster21 wrote:

I agree the banshee mask could use some love, the change to overwatch denial was cute but with the overwatch changes not nearly as needed. DE in psychic awakening had a few alternate abilities that gave MW on charges, would be an easy port to banshees for the banshee masks. they could do something like -1 toughness on a charge, really anything else than what they do now.

You could give them Meticulous Flayers, an obsession that PA 'hilarously' gave to Kabalites; re-roll charges, and 6s to hit automatically wound vs non vehicle/titanic.

do you not run your kabalites into melee everygame? After all, the Sybarite has options for melee weapons, clearly that's how everyone plays them, not as the shooty third of the codex


/S

What else would I use for melee? The gladiators? The durable monsters? Ha.

pm713 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

 warmaster21 wrote:

I agree the banshee mask could use some love, the change to overwatch denial was cute but with the overwatch changes not nearly as needed. DE in psychic awakening had a few alternate abilities that gave MW on charges, would be an easy port to banshees for the banshee masks. they could do something like -1 toughness on a charge, really anything else than what they do now.

You could give them Meticulous Flayers, an obsession that PA 'hilarously' gave to Kabalites; re-roll charges, and 6s to hit automatically wound vs non vehicle/titanic.

do you not run your kabalites into melee everygame? After all, the Sybarite has options for melee weapons, clearly that's how everyone plays them, not as the shooty third of the codex


/S

What else would I use for melee? The gladiators? The durable monsters? Ha.

If we had a CCW/Pistol kabalite i might even do it lol, bring back trueborn give them melee options! go on a safari and bag us some choice slaves. While flying transport spam is certainly a way to play cabals... its certainly boring after awhile. What ever happened to all of our cool lore based exotic wargear and weapons.... bring back the clonefield!

 warmaster21 wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

 warmaster21 wrote:

I agree the banshee mask could use some love, the change to overwatch denial was cute but with the overwatch changes not nearly as needed. DE in psychic awakening had a few alternate abilities that gave MW on charges, would be an easy port to banshees for the banshee masks. they could do something like -1 toughness on a charge, really anything else than what they do now.

You could give them Meticulous Flayers, an obsession that PA 'hilarously' gave to Kabalites; re-roll charges, and 6s to hit automatically wound vs non vehicle/titanic.

do you not run your kabalites into melee everygame? After all, the Sybarite has options for melee weapons, clearly that's how everyone plays them, not as the shooty third of the codex


/S

What else would I use for melee? The gladiators? The durable monsters? Ha.

If we had a CCW/Pistol kabalite i might even do it lol, bring back trueborn give them melee options! go on a safari and bag us some choice slaves. While flying transport spam is certainly a way to play cabals... its certainly boring after awhile. What ever happened to all of our cool lore based exotic wargear and weapons.... bring back the clonefield!

That's what puts me off starting DE. Every time I look into it I realise I basically take the same few units and copy them until I have the points needed. It's so boring and anything with customisation like trueborn or bloodbrides would fix it.

But thank the Emperor I can take a hundred different kinds of Primaris, a worthy place for GW to put all their effort.

pm713 wrote:

 warmaster21 wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

 warmaster21 wrote:

I agree the banshee mask could use some love, the change to overwatch denial was cute but with the overwatch changes not nearly as needed. DE in psychic awakening had a few alternate abilities that gave MW on charges, would be an easy port to banshees for the banshee masks. they could do something like -1 toughness on a charge, really anything else than what they do now.

You could give them Meticulous Flayers, an obsession that PA 'hilarously' gave to Kabalites; re-roll charges, and 6s to hit automatically wound vs non vehicle/titanic.

do you not run your kabalites into melee everygame? After all, the Sybarite has options for melee weapons, clearly that's how everyone plays them, not as the shooty third of the codex


/S

What else would I use for melee? The gladiators? The durable monsters? Ha.

If we had a CCW/Pistol kabalite i might even do it lol, bring back trueborn give them melee options! go on a safari and bag us some choice slaves. While flying transport spam is certainly a way to play cabals... its certainly boring after awhile. What ever happened to all of our cool lore based exotic wargear and weapons.... bring back the clonefield!

That's what puts me off starting DE. Every time I look into it I realise I basically take the same few units and copy them until I have the points needed. It's so boring and anything with customisation like trueborn or bloodbrides would fix it.

But thank the Emperor I can take a hundred different kinds of Primaris, a worthy place for GW to put all their effort.

dunno about worthy but certainly with greater dividends for them.

BrianDavion wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 warmaster21 wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

 warmaster21 wrote:

I agree the banshee mask could use some love, the change to overwatch denial was cute but with the overwatch changes not nearly as needed. DE in psychic awakening had a few alternate abilities that gave MW on charges, would be an easy port to banshees for the banshee masks. they could do something like -1 toughness on a charge, really anything else than what they do now.

You could give them Meticulous Flayers, an obsession that PA 'hilarously' gave to Kabalites; re-roll charges, and 6s to hit automatically wound vs non vehicle/titanic.

do you not run your kabalites into melee everygame? After all, the Sybarite has options for melee weapons, clearly that's how everyone plays them, not as the shooty third of the codex


/S

What else would I use for melee? The gladiators? The durable monsters? Ha.

If we had a CCW/Pistol kabalite i might even do it lol, bring back trueborn give them melee options! go on a safari and bag us some choice slaves. While flying transport spam is certainly a way to play cabals... its certainly boring after awhile. What ever happened to all of our cool lore based exotic wargear and weapons.... bring back the clonefield!

That's what puts me off starting DE. Every time I look into it I realise I basically take the same few units and copy them until I have the points needed. It's so boring and anything with customisation like trueborn or bloodbrides would fix it.

But thank the Emperor I can take a hundred different kinds of Primaris, a worthy place for GW to put all their effort.

dunno about worthy but certainly with greater dividends for them.

It's short sighted dividends though. Marine players can only fight other marines for so long before they get bored of 'training exercises' between chapters....




With regards to the army, this is what I think:

Battle Focus: All eldar get X special rule that makes them more survivable (take your pick between an invuln, extra wound, harder to hit etc). Wraith units don't get this.


Guardians: 24" range catapults, option to take lasblasters (assault 4 ap0). Come in squads of 5-10 and can take a heavy weapon per 5.


Avengers: 18" Assault 3 guns (they are the ones that SHOULD be in closer), +1 Attack. Always overwatch (never need CP for them) and negative to hit in melee when charged

Scorpions: S+1 Ap-1 +1 attack chainswords (3 atttacks total). Mandiblasters (2 attacks each auto strike first every round, AP0 poison 4+ against infantry, 6+ against vehicles and monsters), always count as being 12" further away from shooting attackers, ignore terrain

Banshees: S+2 D2 powerswords (yes), normal attacks (elite killers), Banshee mask (no overwatch, enemy can only hit on 6+ if charged(yes)), Charge is 3D6" (yes)

Fire dragons:Fusion gun assault 1 18" S10 Ap-4 D6 (yes - superior tech but shorter more focused), firepike (assault2 24" S10 Ap-4 D3+1d3), burning fury (6++ ignore damage), fusion bombs (may make 1 attack per unit as per grenades, even in melee). Assured destruction - re-roll 1s to hit. 6s to hit do max damage (yes).

Spiders: deathspinner (12" auto hit d6 S6 - they used to be heavy flamers) - phase step (if they make a second jump they can only be hit on 6+), second jump (charge phase, 2d6" in any direction, on a double lose a model). 2 attacks each from the extra limb harness.

Hawks: Hawk Lasblasters (same, ap-1), grendade harness (4+ mortal wounds - on a deep strike target takes 1d6 additional on 4+). swooping strike - on the charge they get +2 attacks at +1 strength.


schools of the shrines: pick a different school for each squad, this grants a special ability (like infiltrate for scorpions, or cloud jump for hawks. 3 per aspect to give them variety of focus)


Aspect squad leaders: proto exarchs, just on the path. Get 1 exarch power.

HQ - for every 2 aspect squads of a specific shrine you can take a shrine exarch
Shrine Exarch: 2+2+445493+
choose a shrine: 2 exarch powers
Choose from relic wargear

Khaine's fury manifest: 4+ invulnerable. Aspects of same shrine can use 1 of the exarch's powers if within 6".

 Hellebore wrote:

With regards to the army, this is what I think:

Battle Focus: All eldar get X special rule that makes them more survivable (take your pick between an invuln, extra wound, harder to hit etc). Wraith units don't get this.

I like this. Something I pitched a while back was to have battle focus impose a -1 to hit if the unit advances (instead of letting them ignore the advance and shoot penalty). It's kind of niche to need d6" to get in range of a thing, and if you do need those d6" to shoot at something, you're possibly making any charge rolls harder to pull off.

Guardians: 24" range catapults, option to take lasblasters (assault 4 ap0). Come in squads of 5-10 and can take a heavy weapon per 5.

Haven't run the numbers, but I worry that giving catapults and lasblasters the same range will result in one being clearly preferable to the other in most situations. Or, if they perform almost identically against most targets, then it throws the necessity of the second gun into question. I say give them lasblasters, but leave shuriken catapults unchanged. My guardians see use as-is. If you want a deepstriking sucker punch, you go shurikens. If you want to keep your distance, you'd go lasblasters.

Avengers: 18" Assault 3 guns (they are the ones that SHOULD be in closer), +1 Attack. Always overwatch (never need CP for them) and negative to hit in melee when charged

Like the general direction you're going. I'd probably leave their catapults as-is but make assault 3 catapults a shrine power option. That would compete with the current BladeStorm; maybe it should replace it?

Always overwatching isn't very impressive (especially if it's on a 6+ instead of a 5+), so I'd be tempted to make this a shrine power too and possibly go so far as to make it full BS overwatch (as avenger shooting isn't all that impressive). Alternatively, maybe let them always overwatch for free but also create an avengers-specific strat that lets them overwatch better?

Negative to-hit in melee is already the Defend exarch power, and it should definitely stick around in some form. Not sure about the extra Attack. I get it from a fluff perspective, but an extra strength 3 AP 0 D1 attack isn't worth much. I'd be tempted to remain at A1 if the extra attack was going to cost any points. The exarch woudl appreciate it, I suppose.

Scorpions: S+1 Ap-1 +1 attack chainswords (3 atttacks total). Mandiblasters (2 attacks each auto strike first every round, AP0 poison 4+ against infantry, 6+ against vehicles and monsters), always count as being 12" further away from shooting attackers, ignore terrain

Lots to like here. People always seem to want to give mandiblasters the poison rule, but I feel like just making them strength 4 would help them be anti-horde and avoid stepping on banshees' anti-elite toes.

I'd scrap the "12 inches furhter away" part; it makes them untargetable by lots of guns (mostly pistols), and they already have the exarch power that makes them harder to hit while in terrain that is similar in spirit. I guess with the changes to 9th, you could maybe allow them to be untargetable while inside obscuring terrain instead of only when on the other side of it? Not sure what you mean by the "ignore terrain" part.

Banshees: S+2 D2 powerswords (yes), normal attacks (elite killers), Banshee mask (no overwatch, enemy can only hit on 6+ if charged(yes)), Charge is 3D6" (yes)

I'd be okay with most of this. Saying their power swords are just that much better than normal power swords seems fluffy and lets them actually be good at their intended job. The "only hit on 6+" part seems pretty un-fun to face off against. Sure, you can just counter charge or shoot them on the following turn, but making them semi-invulnerable to the 20+ ork boyz they didn't kill for a turn is pushing it for me. This rule would probably push their points cost up by quite a bit too. Which, in the spirit of making them more "elite", I'm fine with, but we wouldn't want to make them so expensive that they stop being playable.

3d6" charge is probably fine, but it weirdly makes them better at charging out of deepstrike than scorpions. I actually kind of like having a reason to advance the banshees every turn. I wouldn't mind leaving Acrobatic as-is.

Fire dragons:Fusion gun assault 1 18" S10 Ap-4 D6 (yes - superior tech but shorter more focused), firepike (assault2 24" S10 Ap-4 D3+1d3), burning fury (6++ ignore damage), fusion bombs (may make 1 attack per unit as per grenades, even in melee). Assured destruction - re-roll 1s to hit. 6s to hit do max damage (yes).

Kind of kitchen-sinky. Lots of t hose rules would probably work well as a shrine/exarch power. Strength 10, 18" fusion guns seem reasonable to me. Per the melta discussion in Proposed Rules, it may even be justifiable to go as high as Strength 14 or 16 on melta given their recent unpopularity. The firepike doesn't scream "assault 2" to me, but it does look mechanically useful. I'd probably make burning fury into a shrine power. Fusion bombs look good.

Not a fan of having to track separate dice pools for assured destruction. I also don't hate how assured destruction works as-is.

Spiders: deathspinner (12" auto hit d6 S6 - they used to be heavy flamers) - phase step (if they make a second jump they can only be hit on 6+), second jump (charge phase, 2d6" in any direction, on a double lose a model). 2 attacks each from the extra limb harness.

Also kind of kitchen-sinky. Making them a gnarly flamer unit again is probably fine (with the right points cost). Are you removing their monofilament rule?

Phase step looks pretty unfun to face. Their easy access to -1 to hit is actually pretty good as-is. Rather than adding extra rolling for the second jump, I think I'd be tempted to basically give them the equivalent of Fire and Fade. It would be more reliable with a shorter max range and would force them use terrain to hide properly; all of which seems appropriate to me. Plus, you'd resolve it immediately after shooting and with less dice rolling.

Extra strength 3 attacks from the limb harness feel like they confuse the unit's role and wouldn't really improve its performance much. If you want to make this a buff tied to Power Blades, fine, but I don't love it on normal sp iders.

Just to toss out an alternative I've been considering: what about backing off on the buffs to the spiders' offense but letting them prevent a unit from falling back to represent their monofilament tangling and slicing up anyone that moves too abruptly? Something like...

"If all models in this unit shoot at the same infantry, bike, or beast target, the target unit may not Fall Back in the following movement phase unless it uses the Emergency Breakout stratagem." (Or whatever that new strat is called.)

This would bring back some of the old craftworlder synergy, with spiders making it easier for your melee units to hide in melee. The spiders themselves may want to charge in and hide in melee too at that point, giving the exarch's Power Blades more of a purpose.

Also, it might be good to give spiders a way to fall back and shoot in 9th.

Hawks: Hawk Lasblasters (same, ap-1), grendade harness (4+ mortal wounds - on a deep strike target takes 1d6 additional on 4+). swooping strike - on the charge they get +2 attacks at +1 strength.

I've never really felt my lasblasters needed more AP. The sheer number of low-strength shots is just fun to roll as-is. Not a game breaker though.

Don't care for Swooping Strike. Hawks really aren't a melee unit. I wouldn't want to move further away from being "specialized," and I just don't see my fragile hawks turning into melee battering rams. If you want to give t hem a melee buff, maybe give the exarch a power similar to Baharroth's sword? Basically, if he hits anyone with an attack, they're at -1 to hit for the rest of the turn. So a sunrifle + blinding blade hawkxarch could potentially impose multiple -1 to hit penalties for your own fight phase, adding synergy between his shooty squad and your melee units.

The grenades as you've presented them ups their lethality against all targets equally which means they're extra effective against heavily armored targets but no more effective against ligihtly-armored hordes. Which is the opposite of how the grenades have worked in the past. Also, I will say that the mortals on a 5+ thing with the PA exarch power has proven pretty lethal in my recent games. Maybe switch the grenade pack back into a blast weapon like it used to be? Strength4, AP0, D1, D6 auto hits, blast, and up it to 2d6 autohits if the hawk squad contains 6+ models? Maybe add a shrine power for haywire grenades that does d3 mortals to a tank (2d3 for 6+ hawks) and gives them a -1 to hit until the start of your next turn (representing haywire's old role as a stun lock weapon).

schools of the shrines: pick a different school for each squad, this grants a special ability (like infiltrate for scorpions, or cloud jump for hawks. 3 per aspect to give them variety of focus)

I like this.

Aspect squad leaders: proto exarchs, just on the path. Get 1 exarch power.

So as-is but with different fluff? Sure. I wouldn't feel compelled to change the fluff though.

HQ - for every 2 aspect squads of a specific shrine you can take a shrine exarch
Shrine Exarch: 2+2+445493+
choose a shrine: 2 exarch powers
Choose from relic wargear

Khaine's fury manifest: 4+ invulnerable. Aspects of same shrine can use 1 of the exarch's powers if within 6".

Seems a little clunky. If you want character exarchs, fine. Rather than having to design all exarch powers as being balanced both on a single model and on an entire squad, just break up the exarch power list into "squad" and "solo" powers, and only let exarchs take one selection from each list max. This would also work for squad exarchs that want to spend CP to take a second power.

I will note that the Shrine Exarch concept and the 4+ invuln especially feel a little unfleshed out. Hawk and Spear exarchs, for instance, should have higher movement stats, but wings aren't currently a piece of wargear iirc. That 4+ invul save is going to have less value on an avenger or spear exarch (who already potentially has it) than on a banshee exarch.

Also, character exarchs in general probably demand Phoenix Lord overhauls, which I wouldn't object to.

Hellebore, something you may not have considered:

Do you really WANT to make Eldar as broken as Marines are shaping up to be? Wouldn't it be better to tone down the top end, rather than bring everybody up to that insane level of lethality?

 JNAProductions wrote:
Hellebore, something you may not have considered:

Do you really WANT to make Eldar as broken as Marines are shaping up to be? Wouldn't it be better to tone down the top end, rather than bring everybody up to that insane level of lethality?

Yes, it would be better if Primaris had never existed. But we all know that isn't going to happen.

This is what happens when you inflate things by releasing a new faction (or a new variant of the faction) that blows everything else in the water. You have to go back and fix the old stuff that was supposed to be powerful to be powerful based on the new standard.

It's unfortunate, but it's too late to do anything else at this point, especially with them doubling down on Primaris in 9th.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Hellebore, something you may not have considered:

Do you really WANT to make Eldar as broken as Marines are shaping up to be? Wouldn't it be better to tone down the top end, rather than bring everybody up to that insane level of lethality?

I don't think that's what most peoole are asking for. I think most are asking for Aspects to be better, but also pay appropriate points for it.

Personally, I think my ideal would be for primaris to be different from but not superior to mini-marines and for aspect warriors to be similar in price and power to their marine counterparts.

Well, my *ideal* would be for "primaris" to be a type of armor instead of a new type of marine, but that bridge is smoking behind us at this point.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Hellebore, something you may not have considered:

Do you really WANT to make Eldar as broken as Marines are shaping up to be? Wouldn't it be better to tone down the top end, rather than bring everybody up to that insane level of lethality?

Totally but not specific to primaris - I'd do the whole game.


However we know from experience that GW don't do that very often. So the most realistic thing is to chase the genie now it's out of the bottle