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What will be the mainline CC troops if not Harlequins? Scorpions would be my main guess, but i'd like to hear your opinion on if you would continue utilizing the Harlequins, or go another route entirely.

Why would you stop using Harlequins? The Rending change doesn't hurt them all that much.

Vaelar wrote:What will be the mainline CC troops if not Harlequins? Scorpions would be my main guess, but i'd like to hear your opinion on if you would continue utilizing the Harlequins, or go another route entirely.

Harlequins getting nerfed doesn't make the other alternatives any stronger. Scorpions and Banshees are both horrible for their cost, so 'going another route entirely' is the most likely option.

Oh come on Therion...!

Rending is supposed to work on the to wound roll. So you lose about one third of possible rending rolls. That doesn't make them ineffective, but brings them somewhat on par with the other choices.

I'd say that the different niches for the different choices are further cleared.

Scorpions -> Hordes
Banshees -> MeQs
Harlies -> MCs and HQ (they ain't bad against other units, though)

Scorpions will lose one Powerclaw attack if the rumors are true, so making the squad worse against armored foes.

Greets
Schepp himself

So you lose about one third of possible rending rolls. That doesn't make them ineffective, but brings them somewhat on par with the other choices.

You lose one third of rending kills against MEQ, and fully half of the rending wounds against characters, Hive Tyrants and such. Rarely if ever has a unit been nerfed this hard without lowering the points cost.

Therion: Another route entirely? Do you mean like seer council or shining spears, or forgo CC completely?

No, another route meaning "play Orks."

Your CC support depends on your list. For footslogging gunline (static or advancing) Scorpions aren't bad for CC countercharge. Their ridiculous number of S4 attacks were always more important than their powerfist attacks anyways. That said, Stelek's strange idea about several 3-strong units of Clowns with Death Jesters as countercharge/shooty units is also interesting. In 4+ cover alongside Pathfinders, they might rock. I'm going to try them.

For Mech, Shining Spears will take over from Falcon Clowns in my list, should a few test games prove that their nerfage is bad enough to warrant that. I dumped the Spears for Harlies when I decided to give in to the cheese in some settings (like 'Ard Boyz and games against "My army can beat everything" types). I'm going to be taking them back, I guess.

Even with Serpents getting better (Fortuned cover saves versus much shooting), I'm not any more excited by Aspects in Mech than I used to be. MAYBE in large amounts, like a stereotypical 3rd ed. assault wave with 2x Banshees, 2x Scorpions, Shining Spears and a nifty new Autarch on Jetbike. But even that's going to get stomped by a horde.

The other thing is that the Harlie delivery system has gotten weaker in Mech games, while the Serpent has gotten stronger. This alone might tip the balance against them in Mech. But on foot, it's really going to take some playtesting. This being theoryhammerland, we might be able to figure that out with math a bit. Unfortunately, I am a mathematical moron after 2 in the after noon (coffee crash). So, would anyone care to do the math to compare Harlies vs. Scorpions against either/both MEQ and Orks on foot?

Believing that Harlequins got worse is interesting.

If you support them properly, they'll be more dangerous than before.

Same thing with Genestealers, but at least they don't need a supporting unit to be successful.

Um, they're less likely to rend. I'd call that worse, unless you're into your opponents getting attacks back. True, a wipeout is less likely and you're therefore better protected from enemy shooting, but I'd rather consolidate into cover and hide behind the Veil than have to worry about making more 5+ saves against CC attacks.

How can they be more dangerous than before? They rend less. For fast delivery (mech), their best transport option is nerfed. Finally, the rest of the infantry are catching up to them in speed, whether to close with or evade them.

What got better for them in 5th?

I just know some clown is going to take thirty harlies and mount them in wave serpents he bought for his guardians.
Serpent became more cost effective. Even with lascannons you need a 5+ not to glance. If you glance it's -2 to your roll on the damage table. And since entanglement is gone even if you get shot down you can still make assault.

I'm still trying to figure out though if you units can assault out of a transport that has moved.

Well, there's always VE, too. It's saved my transported troops (and my battle plan) too many times to be cheap about the 60 points or so.

Serpent became more cost effective.

Not enough, considering it lost 6" of its movement. It's still 50 points overpriced.

double

Harlies are fine, rending was too good.
Scorpions are fine, infiltrate and wave serpents are both much better anyway. Personally I like Chain Sabres just because.
Banshees are fine, if anything much better.

after that it comes down to taking in changes to the game mechanics as a whole, LoS etc. We have elite assault troops and cheapo bullet catchers, we have nothing to worry about.

Our main concern is that our bullet catchers are our Troop and our good stuff is in Elite, Fast and Heavy.

I'm thinking another direction completely is the way to go.

Harlies are just too damned easy to butcher with a single rapid firing squad to be using squads of 10 of them.

Two more comments:

1) All three work well with Farseers. They all do well with doom, especially against T4, and all three (to a lesser extent harlies) do well with Fortune.
2) I think what we will want to do is make sure the Elite stuff is the stuff that gets killed. Normally what I do is run Guardians with Assault stuff, and (for lack of a better term) use tactics via movement, backed up by shooting, to outmanouver my opponent. Previous to 5th ed I didn't care what got killed off: some games guardians led the way, sometimes it was the scorpions or harlies in a falcon etc. It depended on what my opponent did. Now in 5th I want my guardians to live and meanwhile my opponent is trying to kill them off while I'm doing the same to him.

So in that sense I really like Harlies and even banshees (altho Harlies are better against hordes) because fleet really helps us control the game. But scorpions will always be useful in their way.

If you're worried about the effectiveness of Harlies vs MEQ take a Troupe Leader and give him a power weapon. It's S4 on the charge, I find it very effective when backed up by the additional rending attacks.

I was some what annoyed by the lack of balance among the 4th ed Eldar close combat Elites choices. With 5th edition, it seems that it'll be a toss-up amongst them. That's good for me.

Asmodai wrote:I was some what annoyed by the lack of balance among the 4th ed Eldar close combat Elites choices. With 5th edition, it seems that it'll be a toss-up amongst them. That's good for me.

I take it you don't have the PDF.

A) Only non vehicle troops are scoring units.

Therefore, armies that have strong troop choices will be at an advantage.

B) Victory points are almost completely gone. What is used now is kill points. One point per troop choices, three per HQ choice, and two per anything else.

Therefore, armies that have strong troop choices will be at an advantage. Armies that consist of only troop choices and a HQ choice will be worth nearly half the 'VP' as most of their opposing armies. They can lose nearly their entire army and still get a massacre win against their opponents.

In my opinions wild speculations about some internal balance between three elite units should end. Since they are elite units, they will be at a disadvantage against all armies that have been built with the missions in mind.

I've read the PDF.

You're welcome to try to win with an army consisting of nothing by Dire Avengers, Jetbikes, Rangers, and Guardians.

I think Eldar will still rely on close combat specialists to displace the enemy from objectives, attack the enemy's heavy weapons, etc. Scorpions will do a better job of killing a unit of Lootas or Devastators than Guardians will.

Troops will absorb more incoming fire, this improves the usefulness of Elites. Your opponent will be forced to shoot at your 8 points Fortuned Guardians to take the objective and ignore the Banshees - in which case you butcher him, or he'll shoot at the Banshees and concede the objective in which case you win.

My point was that Harlequins are no longer objectively better than Banshees. Scorpions now actually have a useful role with their ability to flank.

Certainly they're not as good as 180 Ork Boyz running forward in a tide - but nothing else in the game is either. That's just an unbalance that people will need to accept until Orks gets redone again.

That's not unbalanced. That's a shooting gallery for blast weapons and template weapons, and the occasional Bladestorm.

Yeah, victory points are gone, but you only use them if the mission is a draw. Sure, you can try to kill all scoring units and play for a draw because you know that you will get more kill points, but that may or may not work.

I don't get which army is at a disadvantage due to their Troops choices. If a marine player masses Space Marines with all the gubbins, they will be vulnerable against anti meq stuff (Banshees, Reapers, harlies ect.). If you kill'em, they can't score. And troops often don't have the offensive power of the other choices or am I missing something here.

And Eldar have some very good troops choices to get on topic a bit.

Greets
Schepp himself

Very true.

10 Wraith Gaurd marching with spiritseer anyone with conceal and fortune?

Pathfinders in cover (or behind now) lol.

Brother Bartius wrote:10 Wraith Gaurd marching with spiritseer anyone with conceal and fortune?

That can run first turn.

I can't find out why rending had got so much changed.

The only change I read is the D3 aganist cars.

Michel wrote:I can't find out why rending had got so much changed.

The only change I read is the D3 aganist cars.

Used to be a to-hit of 6 was an automatic wound.

Now you need 3+ to hit, and then 6+ on a wound roll is a power weapon wound.

So you have just as many attacks hitting, but your rending hits are reduced by 1/3 (since you roll less dice in your to-wound roll than you do on your to-hit roll).

It's not much of a nerf, really, but you'll notice it when you get down to a small squad size.

I think there's also a small hit since those 6's don't have to roll to wound now.

6 Harlies, on the charge at S4 against MEQ and T3 5+.

Old Harlies, MEQ
6 * (4 attacks) * 1/6 + 6 * (4 attacks) * 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/3 == 4 + 2 == 6 dead MEQ
New Harlies, MEQ
6 * (4 attacks) * 4/6 * (1/6 + 1/3 * 1/3) == 6 * (4 attacks) * 4/6 * 1/6 + 6 * (4 attacks) * 4/6 * 1/3 * 1/3 == 2.667 + 1.778 == 4.444 dead MEQ

Old Harlies, GEQ
6 * (4 attacks) * 1/6 + 6 * (4 attacks) * 1/2 * 4/6 * 4/6 == 4 + 5.333 == 9.333 dead GEQ
New Harlies, GEQ
6 * (4 attacks) * 4/6 * (1/6 + 1/2 * 4/6) == 6 * (4 attacks) * 4/6 * 1/6 + 6 * (4 attacks) * 4/6 * 1/2 * 4/6 == 2.667 + 5.333 == 8 dead GEQ

wee.

So 8 new harlies will be about as effective against MEQ as 6 old harlies.

I'm not sure about you guys, but I'm cooking up some Iyanden and Sain Hain lists. As far CC goes I still thing Harlies are pretty good. Though I feel the should be closer to 18 pts w/ a kiss.

I cant find it in the 5thrulebook, can you please tell me the page or the chapter

Thanks

I think eldar skimmers got really bad know, even the serpent hasnt been improveed.

The Serpent, like all other non-Holofield tanks got harder to kill in the new Edition compared to 4th.

Savnock wrote:Um, they're less likely to rend. I'd call that worse, unless you're into your opponents getting attacks back. True, a wipeout is less likely and you're therefore better protected from enemy shooting, but I'd rather consolidate into cover and hide behind the Veil than have to worry about making more 5+ saves against CC attacks.

How can they be more dangerous than before? They rend less. For fast delivery (mech), their best transport option is nerfed. Finally, the rest of the infantry are catching up to them in speed, whether to close with or evade them.

What got better for them in 5th?

Considering everyone elses army in the whole game gets to re-roll only the HITS (like say a SM Chaplain) the downgrading to Rending hurts everyone.

However, Harlies supported by Doom get additional chances to rend.

Genestealers don't need support but end up costing a little bit more.

So it's really not all that bad when compared to say the Death Company, which cannot re-roll the to-wounds.

Harlequins are, strangely enough, enticed to stay in combat so they lose their strength bonus giving them less fewer attacks but more chances to re-roll and rend.

There's a silver lining, if you just look for it. Oh and play some games.

I found the thing about rending, thanks

the serpent can just fire one good weapon on 12"

And it hasnt any glancing hit any more... now its "killable" at a 4+ I mean a immobilized is like killed...
I think I don't have to talk about Falcons


I think Banshees are now more effektive than harlequins, because the serpent get better than the falcon is then comparing to the points it costs, and 10 banshees kill 5 SM 6 Harelqins kill then 4,5 SM
On their own feet Banshees are stil better because 10 Harlies cost 250 points and kill even just 6,6 men