Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Bego wrote:

Have to correct that one slightly. Rerolling 1s is roughly a 11% boost for units starting with a BS of 3. More for a better BS, less for a worse BS. FNP works after all saves have been made, rerolls only work for a certain amount of all hits is why it doesn't just translate to a general 1/6 improvement here.

You mean that re-rolling 1s causes an additional 11% of hit rolls to hit, but this is not really a number anyone cares about. The better way to think about it is that it's a 17% increase in the number of hits you expect.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 Bego wrote:

Have to correct that one slightly. Rerolling 1s is roughly a 11% boost for units starting with a BS of 3. More for a better BS, less for a worse BS. FNP works after all saves have been made, rerolls only work for a certain amount of all hits is why it doesn't just translate to a general 1/6 improvement here.

You mean that re-rolling 1s causes an additional 11% of hit rolls to hit, but this is not really a number anyone cares about. The better way to think about it is that it's a 17% increase in the number of hits you expect.

You're right. Got my numbers wrong and argue the converse.

 Bego wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

momerathe wrote:
Biel Tan should have Iyanden's attribute; Iyanden should have Ulthwe's; and Ulthwe should have Biel Tan's.

Like, re-rolling 1s to hit is just not that big of a deal. It's a 17% offense boost which lots of armies can get in aura form pretty cheaply.

Have to correct that one slightly. Rerolling 1s is roughly a 11% boost for units starting with a BS of 3. More for a better BS, less for a worse BS. FNP works after all saves have been made, rerolls only work for a certain amount of all hits is why it doesn't just translate to a general 1/6 improvement here.

However, I see room for all Craftworld attributes so far. Ulthwe is the most versatile, but I could imagine going for different Craftworld detachements with different unit selections. At a pinch you can go for one Defender Guardian unit with Ulthwe attribute to defend an objective close to your own deployment zone while going for one in the opponent's zone with a unit of Biel-Tan Dire Avengers. The one unit is slightly more defensive while the other one is slightly more offensive. Both are just minor adjustments but you can not expect a detachement-wide attribute to double the output/resistance of a single unit.

The attributes might be a little bit underwhelming at first but I like that they don't restrict your army composition and keep it simple. We'll see what it's worth in total if the full codex is revealed.

Pretty much everything is underwhelming so far. No one is going to be too upset if we don't have the most rocking traits, but eldar are in a poor position right now. They need considerable boosts and there are only so many forms in which those can come (traits were one of them). Guardians needed to go down in points to be on par with good troops: they didn't. Wraithblades are a poorly designed unit: giving them morale boosts and an increase to toughness isn't what they needed to be a well designed unit (they needed protections against multi-wound weapons and plasma and/or considerable mobility). The spirit seer thing is nice, and that unit will likely see use now, but I'm not sure anyone was asking for spirit seers to become core of the meta, and they needed a change to their buff to synergize properly with the most common unit they are buffing: scytheguard, which they continue to do nothing for. Wraithlords and wraithknights really need a lot of help to be good. Same goes for striking scorpions, war walkers and banshees. Dire avengers are getting a point drop, but if it's a point off their weapon and a point off the unit, they will still be awful. The number of avenues for some pretty drastic improvements shrinks every time a new spoiler comes out. That's what's disconcerting, not so much the individual traits.

Guardians are double the price of Guardsmen...and 1/3 again as expensive as Veterans. So it seems somewhere in the mix GW is hugely overvaluing Battle Focus, 1" of movement, or shuriken catapults (I will happily concede that BS 3+ is likely worth 2 pts per model).

Starting with the catapults, they are definitely better than lasguns profile-wise, but their 12" range makes them nearly useless this edition. I struggle to think of an infantry unit that CAN'T outrange the Guardians, not to mention specialty units. But some might say, well the 1" and Battle Focus make up for that! Well let's say on average that's 4" additional mobility over a Guard infantry...that still only increases their weapon's threat range to 16"...the lasgun reaching 24" plus the varied and tactically diverse benefits of orders is definitely worth more in 8th, in my experience.

Some might also say this is what Wave Serpents are for...but there are honestly there are so many better things that get more value out of being in a Wave Serpent.

Without a price break or a Webway/Deep Strike stratagem (which we might still get, we'll see...) guaranteeing at least one round of shooting spending 80pts minimum on 10 models with T3 and a 5+ (and access to 4++ for some CP here and there) seems pretty hard to justify given what we've seen.

Surely it's 11% extra hits overall though? I.e. 33% fail on first volley. Half of which will be 1's that you can re roll (so 16.5% so far), of which 66% of those re-rolls which result in the additional hits, which rounds up to 11% extra hits from the 100% initial volley.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Guardians might still see a drop to 7 points. I don't think its single point would be article worthy, and probably raise more negative storm from a news point of view, but may well be in he Codex once it drops. That would put them on par with Kabalite Warriors for points and still bit better than right now.

Drake003 wrote:
Guardians might still see a drop to 7 points. I don't think its single point would be article worthy, and probably raise more negative storm from a news point of view, but may well be in he Codex once it drops. That would put them on par with Kabalite Warriors for points and still bit better than right now.

I think an important note on the article is that is says "at no extra cost" or something like that. All that means is that Guardians are no more expensive, but does not have to mean they are the same cost.
They could indeed be cheaper as you say.

-

 exliontamer wrote:
Guardians are double the price of Guardsmen...and 1/3 again as expensive as Veterans. So it seems somewhere in the mix GW is hugely overvaluing Battle Focus, 1" of movement, or shuriken catapults (I will happily concede that BS 3+ is likely worth 2 pts per model).

Starting with the catapults, they are definitely better than lasguns profile-wise, but their 12" range makes them nearly useless this edition. I struggle to think of an infantry unit that CAN'T outrange the Guardians, not to mention specialty units. But some might say, well the 1" and Battle Focus make up for that! Well let's say on average that's 4" additional mobility over a Guard infantry...that still only increases their weapon's threat range to 16"...the lasgun reaching 24" plus the varied and tactically diverse benefits of orders is definitely worth more in 8th, in my experience.

Some might also say this is what Wave Serpents are for...but there are honestly there are so many better things that get more value out of being in a Wave Serpent.

Without a price break or a Webway/Deep Strike stratagem (which we might still get, we'll see...) guaranteeing at least one round of shooting spending 80pts minimum on 10 models with T3 and a 5+ (and access to 4++ for some CP here and there) seems pretty hard to justify given what we've seen.

I think that in general the index suffers from GW not actually understanding why other armies' point costs work out okay. Like, a tactical marine is 13 points. This seems like a lot for what they are. You'll note that nobody is taking squads of bolter marines. Everyone who brings tactical squads is also upgrading one of them with a special weapon, and is never even just bringing extra tacticals. It's always 5 guys. What this says is that the actual marines are overcosted while their weapons are relatively undercosted. The final result can work out to be about right -- you buy some expensive marines and then a cheap weapon. This works out because the bolter marines you have to buy function as ablative wounds for the weapon. The squad's firepower degrades only slowly as it takes casualties because the bolter marines aren't adding much.

Eldar squads are weird because they don't really get special weapons. Typically, every model in the unit is pretty well-armed. 8 points for a Guardian would be a perfectly reasonable price as an upgrade to an IG Infantry Squad, where you upgrade two of them and then still have six or seven 4-point wounds in the unit. But it doesn't work well for actual Guardians because you start losing your expensive shuriken catapults as soon as the squad takes any fire. You're basically forced to put them in a Serpent because in order to get value out of them they have to shoot before they get shot. This is true for special weapons in every army, but in other armies those weapons can hide behind other members of the squad.

I think that's where it's coming from, mostly. Eldar models are priced as if they're upgrades to a squad of cheaper dudes.

Drake003 wrote:
Surely it's 11% extra hits overall though? I.e. 33% fail on first volley. Half of which will be 1's that you can re roll (so 16.5% so far), of which 66% of those re-rolls which result in the additional hits, which rounds up to 11% extra hits from the 100% initial volley.

It's an increase of 11 percentage points. Which is also a ~17 percent increase . As a rule of thumb, percentage points add, while percent multiply. Mind you, newspapers get this wrong all the time too.

Colgado wrote:
Biel-Tan is up, more or less confirms the image making the rounds for the final two craftworlds. Can't say I'm too impressed. The fallback stratagem is army wide and looks good. But the Biel-Tan specific one is lacklustre to say the least. Their attribute matches up with the others we've seen as strictly 'okay'.

As a person that has many Shuirken bikes and Walkers, that likes to use Wraithguard and Jain Zar fitted in WS with Shuirken.

This works out for me, most my army will Re-roll 1's, my Wraithguard can now Fallback and shoot, Jain Zar can charge a vehicle, fallback and charge something else aswell.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
my Wraithguard can now Fallback and shoot

They can do that anyway thanks to their "Implacable" rule.

I seriously hope they keep that in the new Codex.

 Karhedron wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
my Wraithguard can now Fallback and shoot

They can do that anyway thanks to their "Implacable" rule.

I seriously hope they keep that in the new Codex.

Not only should they keep it, but they should give it to Wraithlords too. It's weird that WG and WKs can fallback and still shoot, but the "in-between" construct cannot.

Yeah your right, i completely forgot, i just dont play them to muhc, been focusing on harlequins, im so used the them ALWAYS having it and i think not many others do, just rules mix up.

My army usually consists of about 4 wave serpents containing avengers/guardians, fire dragons and something else. The serpents have 3 Shuriken cannons each so they can still shoot after advancing and stay cheap as they are primarily for transporting stuff. It's a classic swordwind type list and gains a decent boost from reroll ones on shurikens. +1 ld on 10 man aspect units is relevant even if it's minor.

Doesn't seem that bad to me.

Altioc is a nice trait in general but is not as good for a list that likes to get in close.

Ulthwe is solid but I think increased firepower is better than increased defence for a list which is all about glass cannon units.

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:
My army usually consists of about 4 wave serpents containing avengers/guardians, fire dragons and something else. The serpents have 3 Shuriken cannons each so they can still shoot after advancing and stay cheap as they are primarily for transporting stuff. It's a classic swordwind type list and gains a decent boost from reroll ones on shurikens. +1 ld on 10 man aspect units is relevant even if it's minor.

Doesn't seem that bad to me.

Altioc is a nice trait in general but is not as good for a list that likes to get in close.

Ulthwe is solid but I think increased firepower is better than increased defence for a list which is all about glass cannon units.

The reroll on shuriken weapons is interesting, sure. I can see it being worth it if you run an army with all shuriken weapons. Dire Avengers, Jetbikes, Shurikan serpents. It might make for an interesting theme, especially if starcannons and scatter lasers remain as terrible as they are at the moment.

With what has been released so far I may use the Iyanden trait for my Yme-Loc forces. Negating damage profiles on vehicles seems to fit their theme a little better. Ulthwe is still tempting.

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:

Altioc is a nice trait in general but is not as good for a list that likes to get in close.

Ulthwe is solid but I think increased firepower is better than increased defence for a list which is all about glass cannon units.

I disagree with the alaitoc comment. Because the list wants to get close it is super useful. Helps to minimise casualties moving in so that your close range weapons can take effect. Plus if you pick your point of attack it can be difficult for an opponent to get everything into that 12 inch range.
This ability in an army that already has easy access to -1 to hit through conceal and decent units that already carry -1 to hit in built is potentially amazing. It remains to be seen if they even get that ability and if it applies to all craftworld units or just infantry and bikes. But shadow spectres, warp spiders and hemlocks at -3 to hit will be crazy. Not to mention all the fliers, vectored engined vehicles etc at -2

I'm just hoping for some buffs and/or points reductions for all the Aspect Warriors.

Wyldcarde wrote:

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:

Altioc is a nice trait in general but is not as good for a list that likes to get in close.

Ulthwe is solid but I think increased firepower is better than increased defence for a list which is all about glass cannon units.

I disagree with the alaitoc comment. Because the list wants to get close it is super useful. Helps to minimise casualties moving in so that your close range weapons can take effect. Plus if you pick your point of attack it can be difficult for an opponent to get everything into that 12 inch range.
This ability in an army that already has easy access to -1 to hit through conceal and decent units that already carry -1 to hit in built is potentially amazing. It remains to be seen if they even get that ability and if it applies to all craftworld units or just infantry and bikes. But shadow spectres, warp spiders and hemlocks at -3 to hit will be crazy. Not to mention all the fliers, vectored engined vehicles etc at -2

Shadow specters are amazing as Alaitoc. Combine with a Hemlock Wraithfighter (Conceal) and Irrilyth and you are causing serious deaths. Combine a -2 leadership, roll 2 dice for moral take highest, 2+ save in cover, and a -3 to hit. Lastly specters have a 18" range with weapons (up to 3 strength 6, AP -3, dmg 1) and great charge deterrent heavy flamer equivalent. Hello to the new Warp Spider hater replacement.

I find that the different CWTactics are quite well balanced with each other.

Ulthwe: Bland but nice.
Iyanden: The wraith bonus is not as good as Ulthwe, but also adds a commissar effect to all infantry.
Biel Tan: Increasing damage output by 1/6 is usually better than reducing wounds suffered by 1/6, but since it is limited to shuriken weapons then the Ulthwe bonus comes ahead. For this reason GW has put a +1 ld in there, to even the scales.
Alaitoc: Nice defensive buff, but highly situational. Sometimes you will find that you are playing without a CWTactic.
Saim-Han: Got to see exactly how it is worded. I don't think it will affect only bikes, it would go against GW design principles.

Spectres are already one of the best units for eldar. Adding an extra -1 is ludicrous. Hopefully warp spiders will get a bit of a fix or point reduction as well to compliment.
I wouldn't call alaitoc's bonus situational. It's just what eldar love. Another tool to dictate the flow of battle. Sitting back at range with -1 to hit forces the enemy to play to your style, and come into that 12" danger zone that most of the eldar units love. Especially with the mobility of the eldar where they can better keep the enemy at arms length.

Yes, if Alatoic works the way it seems like it will then it's pretty clearly the best Attribute in almost every case for almost every unit. Eldar have the most trouble against low-BS hordes and this is a massive durability increase against them, and a good durability increase in general. It is possible that Alatoic's will contain language like Ulthwe's where it won't stack with other similar effects (though this would again have a bizarrely unfluffy effect in that it would do nothing for Rangers). In this case you'll generally prefer Ulthwe for those units, and Hemlocks would just be sad since no Attribute would actually get them much of anything.

Ulthwe is perfectly fine. It's less of a durability buff than Alatoic outside of 12", but it's not that much worse against BS3+ for most units, and obviously it also works at close range. It's also almost strictly superior to Iyanden unless you're willing to take Spirit Stones to get the Iyanden trait on grav tanks (not worth it IMO). Note that it is a 20% increase in durability, not 17% -- it's 6/5 not 1-5/6 or however people are getting that it's a 1/6 increase.

Biel-Tan is good for specific units but you will basically never want an all Biel-Tan army. Possibly the best choice for Guardians and Dire Avengers in Serpents, but that's it.

Even if Saim-Hann lets BIKE units re-roll charges and lets everything move and shoot with heavy weapons it's still likely to be pretty mediocre. How many failed charges do you expect to see from Shining Spears in a given game? Why not just use 1 or 2 CP re-rolling one die from these instead of wasting a trait selection? Guardian Heavy Weapon Platforms are still going to be bad. Scatter Lasers are probably still going to be bad. The big winners here are Wraithlords, really, since nothing else needs to be moving that much. There's a reason why GW just let Russes move and shoot their main gun and let Baneblades move and shoot heavy weapons: this benefit is not actually worth that much on long-range heavy weapons platforms, but it's stupid as hell to not be able to move your tanks for fear of missing. Wraithlords are the only thing that actually benefit a great deal from being able to move and shoot heavies, since they want to get into CC.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So now we know that the Saim-Hann Attribute is this:

Re-rolling charges doesn't seem particularly great unless lots of other CC units become useful. It's a pretty big deal for Scorpions if they're otherwise worth taking because they need to pull off a 9" charge. Serpent-borne units are typically pretty close when they charge, and Banshees even get a bonus. I don't feel like Shining Spears need this because you wanted to be within 6" anyway to shoot their lances. Windriders should be staying farther back and not charging.

Scatter lasers will need to be really good to be worth taking over shuriken cannons and an otherwise-better Attribute on Windriders or Vypers. Possibly bright lances on Vypers will make sense.

Saim-Hann is up.

The heavy weapons on move buff is just for bikes, but the charge re-rolls for everyone. I was hoping for it to be army wide to help the aforementioned wraith lords.

Old battle focus is back as a stratagem which I think most saw coming. And a points reduction to windriders and scatter lasers is definitely welcome. Not the best attribute but scatpack Saim-hann armies look to make a return. Otherwise the article was lighter than some of the others.

But how much is a "considerable" cost reduction? Scatbikes are 35ppm in the Index, are we looking at 25ppm now? 15ppm for the Windrider, 10ppm for the Scatter laser?
That's the minimum reduction that would make them even remotely appealing. Any higher and most players will leave them on the shelf.

Fire and fade is nice to have access to. Tho only a 7" move (which is still great). Should help a lot of units out of sticky situations and minimise harm.

Now to see what wording alaitoc gets. If it's similar to the ulthwe one in that there is the provision that they can't get any other -Ve hit it would make sense but be disappointing. Especially since Rangers wouldn't benefit. Which would make zero sense but be not surprising and fit with the headscratching applications some of the other rules have illicited.

Will be interesting to see how much of a point reduction they are talking about for some key models. And how reworked the fire prism is. Could it actually be playable?! (Doubt it)

Dionysodorus wrote:
Yes, if Alatoic works the way it seems like it will then it's pretty clearly the best Attribute in almost every case for almost every unit. Eldar have the most trouble against low-BS hordes and this is a massive durability increase against them, and a good durability increase in general. It is possible that Alatoic's will contain language like Ulthwe's where it won't stack with other similar effects (though this would again have a bizarrely unfluffy effect in that it would do nothing for Rangers). In this case you'll generally prefer Ulthwe for those units, and Hemlocks would just be sad since no Attribute would actually get them much of anything.

Ulthwe is perfectly fine. It's less of a durability buff than Alatoic outside of 12", but it's not that much worse against BS3+ for most units, and obviously it also works at close range. It's also almost strictly superior to Iyanden unless you're willing to take Spirit Stones to get the Iyanden trait on grav tanks (not worth it IMO). Note that it is a 20% increase in durability, not 17% -- it's 6/5 not 1-5/6 or however people are getting that it's a 1/6 increase.

I know, that's why i said "Reducing wounds suffered", i didn't talk about survivability, which indeed is 20% more. Generally though, offensive buffs are better than defensive buffs, since you have more choice in how to exploit them, while defensive buffs usually involve a choice for the opponent.
Also, Alaitoc is not strictly superior to Yianden if you are facing an assault army. That's the main point of it,too many people here are assuming that the shooting centric meta we have now, will still be here after all the codices have landed. Be alert, we have yet to receive a codex for assault armies, many thing could change.

drakerocket wrote:

 Bego wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

momerathe wrote:
Biel Tan should have Iyanden's attribute; Iyanden should have Ulthwe's; and Ulthwe should have Biel Tan's.

Like, re-rolling 1s to hit is just not that big of a deal. It's a 17% offense boost which lots of armies can get in aura form pretty cheaply.

Have to correct that one slightly. Rerolling 1s is roughly a 11% boost for units starting with a BS of 3. More for a better BS, less for a worse BS. FNP works after all saves have been made, rerolls only work for a certain amount of all hits is why it doesn't just translate to a general 1/6 improvement here.

However, I see room for all Craftworld attributes so far. Ulthwe is the most versatile, but I could imagine going for different Craftworld detachements with different unit selections. At a pinch you can go for one Defender Guardian unit with Ulthwe attribute to defend an objective close to your own deployment zone while going for one in the opponent's zone with a unit of Biel-Tan Dire Avengers. The one unit is slightly more defensive while the other one is slightly more offensive. Both are just minor adjustments but you can not expect a detachement-wide attribute to double the output/resistance of a single unit.

The attributes might be a little bit underwhelming at first but I like that they don't restrict your army composition and keep it simple. We'll see what it's worth in total if the full codex is revealed.

Pretty much everything is underwhelming so far. No one is going to be too upset if we don't have the most rocking traits, but eldar are in a poor position right now. They need considerable boosts and there are only so many forms in which those can come (traits were one of them). Guardians needed to go down in points to be on par with good troops: they didn't. Wraithblades are a poorly designed unit: giving them morale boosts and an increase to toughness isn't what they needed to be a well designed unit (they needed protections against multi-wound weapons and plasma and/or considerable mobility). The spirit seer thing is nice, and that unit will likely see use now, but I'm not sure anyone was asking for spirit seers to become core of the meta, and they needed a change to their buff to synergize properly with the most common unit they are buffing: scytheguard, which they continue to do nothing for. Wraithlords and wraithknights really need a lot of help to be good. Same goes for striking scorpions, war walkers and banshees. Dire avengers are getting a point drop, but if it's a point off their weapon and a point off the unit, they will still be awful. The number of avenues for some pretty drastic improvements shrinks every time a new spoiler comes out. That's what's disconcerting, not so much the individual traits.

>Points decrease to windrider weapons
>Allowing windriders to fire heavy weapons with no penalty
>Allowing units to reroll 1s

Combine those three and congrats, you've gotten broken windriders wrecking tables all over again. (And their stats got BETTER in 8th)

 sfshilo wrote:

>Points decrease to windrider weapons
>Allowing windriders to fire heavy weapons with no penalty
>Allowing units to reroll 1s

Combine those three and congrats, you've gotten broken windriders wrecking tables all over again. (And their stats got BETTER in 8th)

Not really, the problem with windriders in 7th was their ability to always scoot 2d6" away every single time they shot someone. Now you can only do that for a CP, and in matched play you can only do it once a turn. Combine that with the loss of Jink and they are definitely not 7E broken.

 sfshilo wrote:


>Points decrease to windrider weapons
>Allowing windriders to fire heavy weapons with no penalty
>Allowing units to reroll 1s

Combine those three and congrats, you've gotten broken windriders wrecking tables all over again. (And their stats got BETTER in 8th)

I assume you're talking about traits there? Or do you mean the reroll 1's from an Autarch? Wind riders had that already in the index, and it wasn't overpowered then. The only difference between the index and now, is that they might be a bit cheaper, and they don't get -1 to hit when firing heavy weapons. Hardly a huge difference, depending on how much cheaper they are.

They are still incredibly fragile, able to be killed off in droves by any D2 weaponry (which is very common). They will go from being expensive and useless, to being ok and usable. They will only be "wrecking tables" if they drop in points by a lot. They'd pretty much have to become half the price they are right now.

 sfshilo wrote:

>Points decrease to windrider weapons
>Allowing windriders to fire heavy weapons with no penalty
>Allowing units to reroll 1s

Combine those three and congrats, you've gotten broken windriders wrecking tables all over again. (And their stats got BETTER in 8th)

Hardly. They still only have a 4+ armour in an edition that will often reduce that. No option to Jink
Even with the Fire & Fade stratagem, that's only 1 unit per turn and spends CPs in a faction have can't get very many CPs to start with
Windrider are not Troops, thus limiting the options to get said CPs
Even with a points drop, Shuricannons are probably still better in this edition than Scatter lasers because cover improves armour (so you NEED that occasional AP -3) and stripping HPs (which is what made Scatters good) is no longer a thing.

Please don't jump to false conclusions. Scatterbike spam is not back, nor will it ever be

-

In 7E you could spam mid strenght high rate of fire weapons and they would be good against any target.
Try to take down tanks without dedicated weapons in 8E (and without a certain primarch that ignores every design decision behind this edition).