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Remove Jetpack abilities from all eldar jetbikes
Remove Wriathknights, "Jump" profile
Change Warp Jump Generator back to Any Double rather than double 1's.
Make Flicker Jump a once per game ability.

I think that the 3 units in question are generally viewed as the most broken in the Eldar dex. I think what makes them so powerful is that they are undercosted because GW doesn't really factor movement into unit cost. So if you nerf their movement, but still allow them to keep their weapons and current points, are they now more fairly costed? I think these changes could be made with no effect. The Wraithknight has those intakes on its shoulders but they sort of curl into its body. There are no definitive boosters, so the rule change wouldn't require a model resculpt.

If these changes we're made would that be enough to make Eldar less powerful? Is this too much? Would they drop to a mid-tier codex?

The thing about the Eldar codex, holistically, is it's better / more efficient / superior to other codices, in basically every way. Some units are whole bodies taller, while some are just head and shoulders. Honestly, the only thing that's not playable, compared to other codices, is the Rangers / Pathfinders. I mean, Guardians are pretty meh, but nobody plays them anyhow when "really good" Avengers are available.

Because you can still play insanely good Wraith Lists. They're less insanely good, but they're still better than basically anything else. And if you take that away, you still have really amazing Aspect Hosts. And if you take that away Wraithknights are still insanely good, since jump just lets them ignore terrain... they still move a long distance. And Scatterbikes are still amazing because of their firepower at incredible range... and if someone gets close enough you can move 4 or 5 feet in a turn to get away.

Without picking individual units apart, you could instead apply a wholesale +10 % points hike on every unit. Or whatever seems fair in your metagame, because they're simply better than most if not all other codices.

It wouldn't actually change anything. The mobility is the icing on the cake of incredibly cheap, tough damage output.

If a scatterbike loses the ability to hide after launching it's volley, how much does that weaken them?

If a wraithknight has to move around terrain instead of leap over it, how much does that weaken them?

If a warp spider warp jumps with higher probability of failure and can only flick jump once per game, how much does that weaken them?

The answer to all 3 questions is a lot.

The wraithknight is probably the least affected. The Bikes and Spiders would probably no longer be spammed on the tournament scene as those movement changes also reduce their survivability.

None of those suggestions either make sense, or are enough (and I am an Eldar player).
Honestly all jetbikes should have the "jet" pack move, but that is for another discussion.

If you really want to address Scatterbikes, Spiders and WKs, do the following:
-Scatter lasers are 20ppm for Windriders. They get so much out of the Scatter laser that no other unit does, they should pay for it.

-Remove ALL special snowflake Aspect warrior rules, this includes Flicker Jump, Assured Destruction, etc.
Aspect warriors are special because of their wargear. Only Exarchs should be bringing other special abilities and Exarch should be a 20pt upgrade for that, not just 10

-Make the WK have only 5 wounds, have the secondary weapons built in, and cost 350pts. Now it costs more and is 17% easier to kill. More than reasonable

-

The Jetbike change I oppose because while it's reasonable for Windriders, Shining Spears and DE Reavers don't need the nerf. I also think that Necron Tomb Blades and Ork Deffcoptas probably should have the same jet pack move option, but that's getting off into the weeds.

I'd agree with Galef in most respects, here. Lose the special-snowflake rules on the base guys, make the Exarch do more, make the Exarch more expensive. Warp Spiders, as Fleet Jet Pack Infantry with Battle Focus, would still be stupidly zoomy. If they really need something extra, have the Exarch confer Jink to the unit while it's alive.

Other things I might change: Bladestorm is AP3 instead of AP2. Makes Terminators, Tyrannofexes and other 2+ armor units less irrelevant, and still does a job on Marines, Immortals, Crisis Suits and other sorts of things where it's relied on.

Improve internal balance on heavy weapons:
Scatter Laser: Change to R36 S5 AP- Heavy 4
Starcannon: Change to R36 S7 AP2 Heavy 2
Brightlance: Change to R36 S8 AP1 Heavy 1, Lance

Naaris wrote:
If a scatterbike loses the ability to hide after launching it's volley, how much does that weaken them?

If a wraithknight has to move around terrain instead of leap over it, how much does that weaken them?

If a warp spider warp jumps with higher probability of failure and can only flick jump once per game, how much does that weaken them?

The answer to all 3 questions is a lot.

The wraithknight is probably the least affected. The Bikes and Spiders would probably no longer be spammed on the tournament scene as those movement changes also reduce their survivability.

The answer to all 3 questions is "barely". 27pts/model for four BS4/S6 shots, with zero squad size tax, in Troops, that have a 36" turbo-boost for last-turn objective grabbing, and can Jink, is stupidly good with or without an assault-phase move. A Wraithknight that moves (3d6 pick highest)x2" (average 10") a turn through terrain instead of 12" through terrain is still a ridiculously cheap T8 GMC with a D-strength melee weapon, or a low-AP poisoned Hellstorm template, or 36" range D-strength guns. A Warp Spider is still a 19pt model with two S6 Monofilament shots.

Speed is relevant. Speed isn't the start and the end of the problem. In this case it isn't even the start of the problem.

I will say that 36" turbo-boost is a bit ridiculous. 24" would have been just fine.

The scatterlaser is a 20 pt gun. It kills goddamn IKs. Update the weapon cost, and it all falls into place for scatbikes.

WK is a 400-450 pt model. Fixed.

Charge warp spiders 10 pts for a flickerjump generator. Fixed.

Martel732 wrote:
The scatterlaser is a 20 pt gun. It kills goddamn IKs. Update the weapon cost, and it all falls into place for scatbikes.

WK is a 400-450 pt model. Fixed.

Charge warp spiders 10 pts for a flickerjump generator. Fixed.

Pretty much this.

The other option to bumping up the price on Scatterlasers would be to limit them to 1 for every 3 Jetbikes.

Still powerful, but increases the chaff for how much wheat you can get (which I think is one of the main reasons Eldar are so dominant).

There's no reason to nerf them to a 3rd tier codex. That doesn't solve any problems. What needs to happen is the Eldar (and other 1st tier codices) get a couple of nerfs to bring them down to mid-tier, then the lowest tier codices get buffs til they're mid-tier as well.

You can't go 1 per 3 because of the model kits.

Just make models cost what they are worth.

Martel732 wrote:
You can't go 1 per 3 because of the model kits.

Just make models cost what they are worth.

Also, I don't have a problem with Eldar all having good guns from a fluff perspective. Totally agree they just need to cost a bunch more points.

Martel732 wrote:
You can't go 1 per 3 because of the model kits.

Just make models cost what they are worth.

...What.

Does that mean Space Marine Devastators all need to be able to take heavy weapons because the kit comes with enough guns to? Can I have more than one gun per five GK Terminators? The kit has more guns than that. Why can't I put four guns on a War Walker? They ship it with ten gun models, why would they do that if I wasn't supposed to use them?

Scatter Lasers should be 5pts more expensive and reduced to S5, Windriders upped to 20ppm and moved to Fast Attack, they shouldn't be Troops.

Wraithknights stay at 300pts base but now have to buy each arm indavidually, with the Wraithcannons and Ghostglaive at 50pts each and the Suncannon (changed to S7, AP2 Heavy 2, Large Blast) and Scattershield being 20pts each.

Warp Spiders are boosted to 25pts each base with the Exarch (or all Exarchs given what they get) now a 15pt add on.

Whilst we're at it, Farseer's are increased to 130pts base.

That should balance out the 4 most powerful units in the codex better.

I actually like the special snowflake rules on most aspect warriors. Things like the scorpions' "stealth mode" or the hawks' sky leap are a big part of what drew me to the army. You could tie all those special rules to an exarch, but then you risk turning him into a challenge/barrage/sniper magnet that becomes something of an expensive liability. And then people just spam more strength 6 instead of cool stuff like reapers and scorpions because some of the flavor of the fluffy units got removed.

With exceptions (warp spiders, for instance), I think most of our units would be fine with a modest price increase. A lot of our stuff got better in the most recent book wtihout a price increase. I for one rather like the idea of eldar being a cut above most enemies while also having a relatively low model count. It seems fluff for them.

Other changes I'd like to see:

Warp Spiders:
Keep flicker jump, but get rid of the exarch's pseudo-fearless. It keeps the "night crawler" angle, but it also makes it much easier to simply melee them to death and then sweep them after you win combat. They're less durable than sisters of battle or marines once you're in melee, so choppy units can deal with them that way. Flickerjump averages a 7" jump meaning that most shooty armies will still be in range of them if they do jump away. It doesn't fix the "jump behind a wall" issue, but I kind of feel like that's a big part of the spiders' gimmick.

Oh! I'd also kind of like to see death spinners become strength 4. Possibly S5 against models without an initiative value (vehicles) and possibly using initiative instead of Toughness to determine instand death. Monofilament is a cool rule that almost never matters except against MCs. Making spider guns strength 4 means they'll be one of our best shooty options for tackling things like necrons, orks, or Tau, but it makes them shuriken catapult equivalents against marines, guardsmen, etc.

So they'd keep the cool, fluffy rules that define their gimmick, but they'd be more specialized and have a clear weakness in the form of close combat. Very fitting for eldar in my opinion.

Scatbikes:
Just make the heavy weapons 1 in 3 again. It was perfectly fine in 5th edition. In 6th edition, we got a bunch of new advantages (hammer of wrath, jink, bladestorm), but their price went down despite this. In 7th, we got the 1 to 1 big gun to bike ratio, and that's when they went from a cool, quirky unit to a devastatingly powerful meta shaper.

At 1 heavy weapon per 3 bodies, you're looking at 61(?) points per scatter laser or shuriken cannon. This makes it much pricier to spam strength 6 on jetbike platforms and encourages people to consider getting in close to use their shuriken catapults or even charge(!). This in turn means that you might actually see some use out of the windrider host's special rules. Flexible enough to keep your distance, encouraged to get in close to shuriken things to death, and much easier to deal with in general. Reasonable, no?

Wraith Knights
These just need a price increase. Simple as that. They're actually a pretty big investment if you up their cost by 100 or 150 points. They'd still be strong enough to be worth taking, but they wouldn't be embarassingly similar in cost to a land raider.

Guardians
I... kind of want these guys to go back down to ws/bs 3. I know! I know! They're not OP, but hear me out! I'd like guardians to be a place where the tech of the eldar can be shown off a bit more. So lower their base BS to 3, but give them an option for an "Eye of Kurnous" or whatever that ups it back to 4. Give them a guy who can deploy a Dawn of War style energy shield. Give them a piece of gear that can act sort of like a servo skull. Improving their statline has done wonders for their utility, but I kind of want a corsairs-esque glimpse into the kind of technology the eldar can field when they aren't obsessed with a specific path of war.

Rangers:
Are actually pretty solid as back field objective holders and monster/bike hunters, but I wouldn't mind seeing their ranger rifles get a 24" assault 1 profile so they can opt to battle focus in and out of cover. Very elf-ranger-y.

Shining Spears:
Would actually be really solid right now if they just had hit & run back!

And we could probably stand to lose some of our formations too. The aspect host is a "free bonuses with no drawback" formation. The seer council makes an already good combo (farseers with warlocks) that much better. The spirit host is mostly fine, but I'd like to see the wraith knight requirement dropped.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I actually like the special snowflake rules on most aspect warriors. Things like the scorpions' "stealth mode" or the hawks' sky leap are a big part of what drew me to the army. You could tie all those special rules to an exarch, but then you risk turning him into a challenge/barrage/sniper magnet that becomes something of an expensive liability. And then people just spam more strength 6 instead of cool stuff like reapers and scorpions because some of the flavor of the fluffy units got removed.

With exceptions (warp spiders, for instance), I think most of our units would be fine with a modest price increase. A lot of our stuff got better in the most recent book wtihout a price increase. I for one rather like the idea of eldar being a cut above most enemies while also having a relatively low model count. It seems fluff for them.

Other changes I'd like to see:

Warp Spiders:
Keep flicker jump, but get rid of the exarch's pseudo-fearless. It keeps the "night crawler" angle, but it also makes it much easier to simply melee them to death and then sweep them after you win combat. They're less durable than sisters of battle or marines once you're in melee, so choppy units can deal with them that way. Flickerjump averages a 7" jump meaning that most shooty armies will still be in range of them if they do jump away. It doesn't fix the "jump behind a wall" issue, but I kind of feel like that's a big part of the spiders' gimmick.

Oh! I'd also kind of like to see death spinners become strength 4. Possibly S5 against models without an initiative value (vehicles) and possibly using initiative instead of Toughness to determine instand death. Monofilament is a cool rule that almost never matters except against MCs. Making spider guns strength 4 means they'll be one of our best shooty options for tackling things like necrons, orks, or Tau, but it makes them shuriken catapult equivalents against marines, guardsmen, etc.

So they'd keep the cool, fluffy rules that define their gimmick, but they'd be more specialized and have a clear weakness in the form of close combat. Very fitting for eldar in my opinion.

Scatbikes:
Just make the heavy weapons 1 in 3 again. It was perfectly fine in 5th edition. In 6th edition, we got a bunch of new advantages (hammer of wrath, jink, bladestorm), but their price went down despite this. In 7th, we got the 1 to 1 big gun to bike ratio, and that's when they went from a cool, quirky unit to a devastatingly powerful meta shaper.

At 1 heavy weapon per 3 bodies, you're looking at 61(?) points per scatter laser or shuriken cannon. This makes it much pricier to spam strength 6 on jetbike platforms and encourages people to consider getting in close to use their shuriken catapults or even charge(!). This in turn means that you might actually see some use out of the windrider host's special rules. Flexible enough to keep your distance, encouraged to get in close to shuriken things to death, and much easier to deal with in general. Reasonable, no?

Wraith Knights
These just need a price increase. Simple as that. They're actually a pretty big investment if you up their cost by 100 or 150 points. They'd still be strong enough to be worth taking, but they wouldn't be embarassingly similar in cost to a land raider.

Guardians
I... kind of want these guys to go back down to ws/bs 3. I know! I know! They're not OP, but hear me out! I'd like guardians to be a place where the tech of the eldar can be shown off a bit more. So lower their base BS to 3, but give them an option for an "Eye of Kurnous" or whatever that ups it back to 4. Give them a guy who can deploy a Dawn of War style energy shield. Give them a piece of gear that can act sort of like a servo skull. Improving their statline has done wonders for their utility, but I kind of want a corsairs-esque glimpse into the kind of technology the eldar can field when they aren't obsessed with a specific path of war.

Rangers:
Are actually pretty solid as back field objective holders and monster/bike hunters, but I wouldn't mind seeing their ranger rifles get a 24" assault 1 profile so they can opt to battle focus in and out of cover. Very elf-ranger-y.

Shining Spears:
Would actually be really solid right now if they just had hit & run back!

And we could probably stand to lose some of our formations too. The aspect host is a "free bonuses with no drawback" formation. The seer council makes an already good combo (farseers with warlocks) that much better. The spirit host is mostly fine, but I'd like to see the wraith knight requirement dropped.

All of these are really solid suggestions. I they do these, I would be really pleased (and that's coming from a hardcore eldar chap).

One tiny little change, I don't think Deathspinners should be able to wound vehicles (or at least heavy ones). Doesn't seem to me like an armour-piercing weapon. Keeping them at S4 would make sense, given that they might just be able to damage a light vehicle.

The last edition in which mobility mattered was 4th. If you want to balance anything, nerf firepower.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
The last edition in which mobility mattered was 4th. If you want to balance anything, nerf firepower.

Lol, no. Mobility matters more now than it ever has done before due to the need to grab objectives, why do you think units that only move 6" are never taken in a competitive setting?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
You can't go 1 per 3 because of the model kits.

Just make models cost what they are worth.

...What.

Does that mean Space Marine Devastators all need to be able to take heavy weapons because the kit comes with enough guns to? Can I have more than one gun per five GK Terminators? The kit has more guns than that. Why can't I put four guns on a War Walker? They ship it with ten gun models, why would they do that if I wasn't supposed to use them?

Well the kit is the reason they wrote the rules the way they did, so I'm assuming they're unwilling to change that.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
You can't go 1 per 3 because of the model kits.

Just make models cost what they are worth.

...What.

Does that mean Space Marine Devastators all need to be able to take heavy weapons because the kit comes with enough guns to? Can I have more than one gun per five GK Terminators? The kit has more guns than that. Why can't I put four guns on a War Walker? They ship it with ten gun models, why would they do that if I wasn't supposed to use them?

One of the complaints about Terminators IS the one-in-five heavy weapon restriction. So actually yes they should.
Also I know SM and CSM players would love the Heresy Era Devastators configuration where even the Sergeant has a Heavy Weapon. So yeah they should.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galef wrote:
None of those suggestions either make sense, or are enough (and I am an Eldar player).
Honestly all jetbikes should have the "jet" pack move, but that is for another discussion.

If you really want to address Scatterbikes, Spiders and WKs, do the following:
-Scatter lasers are 20ppm for Windriders. They get so much out of the Scatter laser that no other unit does, they should pay for it.

-Remove ALL special snowflake Aspect warrior rules, this includes Flicker Jump, Assured Destruction, etc.
Aspect warriors are special because of their wargear. Only Exarchs should be bringing other special abilities and Exarch should be a 20pt upgrade for that, not just 10

-Make the WK have only 5 wounds, have the secondary weapons built in, and cost 350pts. Now it costs more and is 17% easier to kill. More than reasonable

-

The rules is what makes the Aspect Warriors special. Removing the rules gives you no reason to use Avengers over Guardians or Dragons over Wraithguard for example, and no reason to ever use the Reaper.

1. Make the Warp Spiders weapon S5
2. Scatterlasers are 15 points on a Windrider.
3. Wraithknights and the FW variants are 350 stock.

Then someone else can readjust HQ pricing and bam. We didn't have bloody massacre the codex like some of you want to.

Martel732 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
You can't go 1 per 3 because of the model kits.

Just make models cost what they are worth.

...What.

Does that mean Space Marine Devastators all need to be able to take heavy weapons because the kit comes with enough guns to? Can I have more than one gun per five GK Terminators? The kit has more guns than that. Why can't I put four guns on a War Walker? They ship it with ten gun models, why would they do that if I wasn't supposed to use them?

Well the kit is the reason they wrote the rules the way they did, so I'm assuming they're unwilling to change that.

This is Proposed Rules. What GW is or isn't willing to change has no bearing here.

Fine, then 1 per 3. But the price should still increase.

"2. Scatterlasers are 15 points on a Windrider. "

15 pts everywhere. Minimally. I'd say 20 is closer because it compares very favorably to the assault cannon, especially because of platforms.

Martel732 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
You can't go 1 per 3 because of the model kits.

Just make models cost what they are worth.

...What.

Does that mean Space Marine Devastators all need to be able to take heavy weapons because the kit comes with enough guns to? Can I have more than one gun per five GK Terminators? The kit has more guns than that. Why can't I put four guns on a War Walker? They ship it with ten gun models, why would they do that if I wasn't supposed to use them?

Well the kit is the reason they wrote the rules the way they did, so I'm assuming they're unwilling to change that.

Not a reason to ignore one of the easiest ways to balance them though.

definitely not a fan of boosting stuff to keep up with the Eldar.

'One of the complaints about Terminators IS the one-in-five heavy weapon restriction. So actually yes they should.
Also I know SM and CSM players would love the Heresy Era Devastators configuration where even the Sergeant has a Heavy Weapon. So yeah they should.'

Index Astartes says otherwise heretic! lol

No, I feel the proliference of heavy weapons and special uber units everywhere just makes things feel less special and more of an arms race. 1 in 3 for scatbikes is fair (as an older eldar player) and a number of other things said here seem like decent balancing points

No reason the scatterlasers on bikes can't be nerfed while leaving the version on other models intact.
Give them a version that's only S5, or has fewer shots, or short range. However you feel like balancing it.
Fluff justification is that it's a lightweight variant, used on bikes to let them maintain their speed.

Eldar players can continue to use the 3 guns on the sprue.

There's precedent for GW splitting up the same gun into 2 profiles depending on the model taking it. It's how we ended up with 'Devourers' vs 'Devourers With Brainleech Worms'. 'Stranglethorn Cannons' vs 'Barbed Stranglers', etc.

Except the scatterlaser is broken on all platforms.

Martel732 wrote:
Except the scatterlaser is broken on all platforms.

Guardians? Falcons? Vypers?

Honestly, scatter lasers are good, but they're only really OP when you can spam a ton of them cheaply. On things like falcons and serpents, you're basically paying over 100 points for a durable, non-rending assault cannon. Vypers are roughly on par with non-deepstriking land speeders. Guardians are... guardians. It's 100ish points for a non-rending assault cannon and some guardsmen to shoot it. Scatbikes and maybe war walkers are the real culprits. The scatter laser would still be good with a modest price increase, but it would also be fine at its current price if you just made it harder to spam.

Aspect Warriors:
I'd much rather see aspect warriors have less impressive raw firepower or a higher price tag and keep their special rules. The special rules are what give most units their unique play style and personality.

Wyldhunt wrote:


Aspect Warriors:
I'd much rather see aspect warriors have less impressive raw firepower or a higher price tag and keep their special rules. The special rules are what give most units their unique play style and personality.

I think rules wise the only Aspect Warriors that need much changing are the Howling Banshees and the Shining Spears, neither of which are much good. As for the others, Dire Avengers, Striking Scorpions, Swooping Hawks and Dark Reapers are fine as is, Fire Dragons and Warp Spiders though need a notable points increase.

Wyldhunt wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Except the scatterlaser is broken on all platforms.

Guardians? Falcons? Vypers?

Honestly, scatter lasers are good, but they're only really OP when you can spam a ton of them cheaply. On things like falcons and serpents, you're basically paying over 100 points for a durable, non-rending assault cannon. Vypers are roughly on par with non-deepstriking land speeders. Guardians are... guardians. It's 100ish points for a non-rending assault cannon and some guardsmen to shoot it. Scatbikes and maybe war walkers are the real culprits. The scatter laser would still be good with a modest price increase, but it would also be fine at its current price if you just made it harder to spam.

Aspect Warriors:
I'd much rather see aspect warriors have less impressive raw firepower or a higher price tag and keep their special rules. The special rules are what give most units their unique play style and personality.

You have to remember that Martel is working from an imaginary world where AP is irrelevant and the yardstick against which heavy weapons are judged is the Terminator assault cannon.

 Imateria wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:


Aspect Warriors:
I'd much rather see aspect warriors have less impressive raw firepower or a higher price tag and keep their special rules. The special rules are what give most units their unique play style and personality.

I think rules wise the only Aspect Warriors that need much changing are the Howling Banshees and the Shining Spears, neither of which are much good. As for the others, Dire Avengers, Striking Scorpions, Swooping Hawks and Dark Reapers are fine as is, Fire Dragons and Warp Spiders though need a notable points increase.

I think it's better to change the rules than just add more points. They're still just T3 3+ so you don't want them to be too expensive.