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I thought we were talking about Dark Angel Black knights. I haven't seen a dire avenger in a long time. That's how many better options the Eldar have.

" If they face 80 SL shots and a WK, aren't they at least as boned? "

Go read the mutilator thread. They at least have resiliency that BA only dream of.

Rereading it, it seems clear it was dire avengers.
At first pass I also assumed dark Angels, to be fair. I'm the only Eldar player I know that runs dire avengers

Also, you wouldn't let me put a drop pod next to your DA anyway unless you were a bad player.

I might let you if you asked nicely

I think the avatar above that post made me think of Dark Angels. BA drop pods are really not a good idea in general. In my opinion.

Martel732 wrote:
BA drop pods are really not a good idea in general. In my opinion.

Unless, you know, Admech....

Oh so my list I wrote in ten seconds gets beaten by the most op list in all of 40k. Surprise surprise. Funny how I get a second turn charge with my Thunderwolves EVERY SINGLE GAME I PLAY. And I play almost every weekend. Sure they are more durable. But for what they cost you could get 3 times as many DC (counting wargear costs).

Martel, if you play in a Meta where your facing 80 SL shots and a wraithknight on a regular basis I feel bad for you. I would probably quit 40k. I've only ever come across one and I wouldn't play him again. Against normal armies BA are quite good. Dante, sang priests, storm ravens, DC, flamer tacs in drop pods, fast vindicators... All good choices.

Because (all of these are true, personal anecdotes):

2x deff dreads and a morkanaut charge ~12 warriors with a cryptek. Warriors manage to hold my 3 walkers, with a total of 12x str 10, ap2 attacks a round for 7 rounds of combat. One round in particular I got 7 wounds, he made 7 RP rolls.

20 nobz (NOBZ, not boyz) charge 20 warriors and lose combat - granted, they used a Rez orb.

Shrugging off ~30 wounds from combined loota and lobba fire, 12x warrior squad didn't lose enough to make a morale test.

Skullhamma 10" str 9 Ap3 blast over giant blobs of immortals and warriors and killing like 3-5 a shot.

~20 choppa boyz with a nob/PK charge necron lord with 3+ armor, and in 3 rounds of combat, do not inflict a single unsaved wound. The lord fails to wound at all until the 3rd round, in which he kills the nob, boyz fail morale & MR, he runs them down and destroys them all. I think my opponent was feeling bad for me in that game and wanted to give me an easy kill, and it didn't work out that way.

10 nobz + warboss + wierdboy charge 2x cryptek + c'tan shard formation, lose combat, fail morale & MR, sweeping advanced. I will admit that we did it wrong - PKs still instakill crypteks, because they're wounded at T8, but not ID'd at T8. But it was a bit frustrating at the time.

Not all of us have handy access to str D flamers out the ass. I have won some games v. necrons since the new codex, but it's always, ALWAYS, a massive uphill battle.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure I have won any games v. necrons since their codex came out.

 Kavish wrote:
Oh so my list I wrote in ten seconds gets beaten by the most op list in all of 40k. Surprise surprise. Funny how I get a second turn charge with my Thunderwolves EVERY SINGLE GAME I PLAY. And I play almost every weekend. Sure they are more durable. But for what they cost you could get 3 times as many DC (counting wargear costs).

Wolves are a lot more durable than DC, hit a lot harder, and are a bit faster. It's why they are, overall, considered to be better.
Capslock doesn't serve to prove a point. If you can't state how you are clearing 20" of board space that the enemy has outside your threat range with the DC, without them moving close to you or deploying poorly, they are probably deploying poorly or moving towards you. Or you are playing on a small board.
It's simple math. Most people in battle reports will state that Jump infantry get turn 3 charges, Bikes get turn 2, and Beasts get turn 2 or 3 depending on the enemy army and their speed.

 Kavish wrote:

Martel, if you play in a Meta where your facing 80 SL shots and a wraithknight on a regular basis I feel bad for you. I would probably quit 40k. I've only ever come across one and I wouldn't play him again. Against normal armies BA are quite good. Dante, sang priests, storm ravens, DC, flamer tacs in drop pods, fast vindicators... All good choices.

Define normal. 80 SL shots (20 bikes) and a wraithknight seems normal to me.

I would define that kind of list leaning towards hard competitive.

Me and my buddy tend to tailor to each others lists, so when we have a game both of us have fun. There is a list of units and formations we have both agreed we would tell each other if we plan of fielding them, just to keep it balanced. The fact that decurion, harvest, destroyer cult and lychstar are on there by both of our blessings says a lot about the army

 Kavish wrote:
Oh so my list I wrote in ten seconds gets beaten by the most op list in all of 40k. Surprise surprise. Funny how I get a second turn charge with my Thunderwolves EVERY SINGLE GAME I PLAY. And I play almost every weekend. Sure they are more durable. But for what they cost you could get 3 times as many DC (counting wargear costs).

Martel, if you play in a Meta where your facing 80 SL shots and a wraithknight on a regular basis I feel bad for you. I would probably quit 40k. I've only ever come across one and I wouldn't play him again. Against normal armies BA are quite good. Dante, sang priests, storm ravens, DC, flamer tacs in drop pods, fast vindicators... All good choices.

Vindicators? Okay. Those have been bad since they put in hps. In fact, dc are the only unit you listed that I would consider good.

I've got some bad news. Scatbike WK lists ARE normal. Your refusal to play against standard eldar underscores my point about ba pretty well. Oh and one wk and 20 scatterlasers is light for my meta.

One thing I see a fair amount of is "Decurion isn't OP when we have scat bikes and Wk and SM gravspam and etc..." I think it's not fair to everyone who wants to play a non-cheese list that Decurion is counted as balanced but only when put in a vacuum against those things everyone agress is OP anyways. Scatbikes never should have been a thing, WK need a points hike, SM grav spam needs a nerf somehow, the bridge between MC and vehicles needs to be made, especially for walkers, melee/assault rules need a small buff (especially in terms of getting to combat for some armies), CSM desperately need a new codex, tyranids need more viable builds than just flyrants with brainleech, All pre-necron codexes that are considered 7th edition (orks, BA, DE) need to be re-made with the current 7th edition formats, invisibility is stupid as it's written, Decurion needs to be shifted from 4+++ to something not as survivable as it is but still worthwhile and fun to both use and PLAY AGAINST etc... This list can be endless.

The answer is not "well x has this so I should get that" because what about poor y and z who languish with poor weak units and rules? Not everything needs to be made more powerful to compensate for the other popular builds but rather those popular builds should be brought down to be in line with what exists. This is how we have such huge gaps between the "auto-take" units and the "shelved collecting dust" units.

Balancing this whole game has got to be tough, there is a ton of stuff to consider but I don't think this staggered realease system of codexes works, especially the way they historically write them using what seems to be people with wildly different scales of what they feel the power level should be. GW should take a page from video games and find a way to track what units are being played, what units are not, what gear is used, what gear never is added to units, what fromations are popular, which ones never see use. All of this data can then be used to see numbers. These numbers can be used to identify what units/gear/formations are powerful and which could use some love. With that info you can softly nerf the popular stuff while gently increasing the viability of the un-popular stuff. that's what many video game developers do for their online multiplayer games and after a lot of hard work a general average can be achieved. Balance will always be a juggling act but if GW dedicated a team to monitoring it and implementing them via a system similar to the AoS warscrolls then I think 40K could just maybe be that much better of a game.

/end rant

I once had a DA Exarch one-round a Wraith. With a Power Lance/shimmershield. Not on the first round of combat. (Did 2 wounds with his 2 attacks, needing 6s to wound...)

That doesn't mean Wraiths are so terrible that DA Exarchs can take them in CC.

Should all early 7th books (ed drop - pre-Necrons) be brought up to Eldar levels, or should all the post-Necron books be brought down to pre-Necron levels? Certainly debatable, but I prefer the former.

Vindicators are good in vanilla SM armies where squadrons of three automatically form that old Linebreaker Apocalypse formation and put out a S10 AP1 Ignores Cover 10" blast.

heck, sm gravspam isn't even that good against necron decurion. Eldar and tau are just pretty much good against everything though necrons tend to counter tau a bit. Not sure how much that has changed with the new tau stormsurge


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 master of ordinance wrote:
Vindicators are good in vanilla SM armies where squadrons of three automatically form that old Linebreaker Apocalypse formation and put out a S10 AP1 Ignores Cover 10" blast.

I play IH and i wouldn't try this even. For one there are much better things to take in the heavy slot and two it still isn't very durable.

Only use the best units. Who cares about fluff. I love it when everyone takes the same list. Hell. Just pick the best units from Tau, Necrons, and/or Eldar, spam them until your points run out, and enter tournaments with a pillow so you can fall asleep.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or you could pick a nice selection of units with a fluffy theme to your army and interesting strategic options. And win hard fought battles.

 Kavish wrote:
Only use the best units. Who cares about fluff. I love it when everyone takes the same list. Hell. Just pick the best units from Tau, Necrons, and/or Eldar, spam them until your points run out, and enter tournaments with a pillow so you can fall asleep.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or you could pick a nice selection of units with a fluffy theme to your army and interesting strategic options. And win hard fought battles.

But that's the problem currently, there are some units that are amazing, some are average and some are disgustingly inferior. That means guys who really want to win will take all the best units and tourneys only will ever see certain units/formations/wargear. But when I play I want a good fair fight and that won't happen at all if I make a list of the units I like because fluff or I like the model etc and my opponent built an army of the units he likes because they are powerful and he likes having a powerful force. Neither of us are wrong but it won't make for a fun match because it will be so terribly one-sided. The balance needs to hit a point to which I can take the units I want, he can take the units he wants and we can have a fair and fun match where no one is going to be the clear winner based on his list. Clearly things like making sure you have enough anti-tank/MC are important but that's a fine part of the strategy. But truthfully I don't want to always have to fight an uphill battle ever single time I set up across from certain armies just because clearly their codex is written with a bigger power creep than mine. Some people thrive on these underdog challenges but not everyone does, having the underdog challenge forced upon you based on your army choice/unit preferences/disposable income to buy the biggest baddest new toys just doesn't make for a fun game to many people.

I guess I'm lucky that in my area people mostly take balanced sorts of lists and openly bitch about people that spam op units. The only time I ever saw/played a scatbike list was a guy who came from interstate for a tournament. Although we call them tournaments they are mostly just an excuse to play some games.

Lucky or not, it has no bearing on a discussion if certain units are worth it.

This game isn't very complicated, it's usually a simple matter to determine a unit's uses and relative power level and determine if it has a place in your meta.

The bottom line is don't be afraid of the soulless robots. You will never learn to beat them by avoiding them.

 darthdaddy wrote:
The bottom line is don't be afraid of the soulless robots. You will never learn to beat them by avoiding them.

Nope but I will learn to lose by facing them.

It's times like this I'm glad to play assaulty armies. If the Necrons want the objectives they're going to have to move forward. Which makes it easier to charge them and score a sweeping advance. Grey hunters with ccw (or assault marines or whatever your armies equivalent) can do it just fine. Just avoid the unit with the res orb and the wraiths. You'll need something beefier for that.

 Kavish wrote:
It's times like this I'm glad to play assaulty armies. If the Necrons want the objectives they're going to have to move forward. Which makes it easier to charge them and score a sweeping advance. Grey hunters with ccw (or assault marines or whatever your armies equivalent) can do it just fine. Just avoid the unit with the res orb and the wraiths. You'll need something beefier for that.

And what about us peasants whom dont play one of the big four?

Sorry but Orks and Tyranids are screwed.


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And Guard.

SW run over the entire Necron list with TWC.

I don't understand this mentality. Give me the toughest list from any army and let me have a swing at them. If I loose at least I learned something and get to spend a few hours doing something I love.

What's annoying is hearing people moan about 80 scatter shots from Eldar, but those same 80 shots won't scratch the paint off Necrons. You might be lucky after rolling to hit, wound, they save, and then rp, and rez orb, to kill maybe 2-5 WARRIORS a turn. It's bs.

They is no guaranteed, surefire way to take them down unless you get lucky.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
What's annoying is hearing people moan about 80 scatter shots from Eldar, but those same 80 shots won't scratch the paint off Necrons. You might be lucky after rolling to hit, wound, they save, and then rp, and rez orb, to kill maybe 2-5 WARRIORS a turn. It's bs.

They is no guaranteed, surefire way to take them down unless you get lucky.

With average rolls, even in a decurion (no rez orb), you will kill ~11 warriors a turn.

Yes, the rez orb halves that. However it's a 1-use only item that costs a bunch and won't be spammed at all, especially not in warrior squads.

For comparison those 80 shots will kill ~15 Tactical Marines (~12 if they're Iron Hands), or the same number of non-Decurion, non-Cryptek-joined warriors.

The problem isn't RP, it's the Decurion.

Ninja'd

Being tough is the necron's bag but they don't have as many options on their units, or as much high S low ap (or d when talking about eldar), mid-low range shooting for the majority of their guns. Don't get me wrong necrons are still a strong army but I'd say the majority of that comes from their durability. If they didn't have their rp they would not be anywhere as strong as they are. Eldar could have their D back into the old way it was and they still would have a crazy army because of scatter laser spam and other things. Even if Necrons kepted the 5th ed RP but all the other changes stayed how they are now (anything dealing with RP would be worded to effect the old rp of course) people would say the necrons where hit pretty hard without the RP change (and people where saying necrons where doomed once they heard about the tesla changes and point increases).