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It wasn't snark.

The prior version of Fate Dice made leaning into that mechanic a very strong proposition. Get lots of high value Fate Dice paired with a few High Damage Devastating Wounds attacks and you can clear your enemy's fire most important units off the board with little effort.

The new version means it is a scalpel rather than a hammer. Use the right dice at the right moment to slowly bend the game towards victory rather than smashing your way there with a massive Alpha Strike. Make it less of your game plan and therefore less critical to build your army around.

This change I see as a good thing. Players seeing that is also a good thing.

Who'da thought we'd end up in a world where taking a maligned unit like Guardians and using them as intended is "abusing your faction rule"!

 kodos wrote:
really?
did not encountered that from 3rd to 9th, any source for that people always used the basic loadout and never paid points for the upgrades?

and if this is true, why even have different weapons, just a generic "heavy weapon" for everyone would be enough

I think it depended on the army, some armies had upgrades you wanted to take, others had upgrades that where inefficant traps, still others had situational upgrades. I do know that in previous editions it was RARE to see a 10 man marine squad with special weapon and heavy weapon

Sarigar wrote:Regarding Fate Dice, I ended up with 4-6 Fate Dice remaining after each game. I'd like to get in more games but it did leave me wondering if I even needed Guardian Defenders in my list and really see no reason to add Eldrad to future lists.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Who'da thought we'd end up in a world where taking a maligned unit like Guardians and using them as intended is "abusing your faction rule"!

He did mention dropping both Eldrad and Guardian Defenders. This means they were going for lots of Fate Dice and then finding they ended up with more than they could use. I'm sure it will be interesting to see what they thinks after dropping both from their list.

Not quite. I used one squad of Guardians and pondered if I would even add Eldrad to my list.

Prior to the changes I would use 3/4 of my Fate Dice in turns one and two and try to hold out the rest of the game. It worked well vs Knights and Marines but horribly against a certain Necron build. These lists utilized 2-3 Wraithknights which is where most Fate Dice were expended.

This past weekend, we utilized new points and Fate Dice changes. I fielded one Wraithknight as a result as I felt the points increase kept two off the table. The change to Fate Dice vs Knights was very impactful and I had 2 Knights in my backfield by turn 3. He outscored me on Primary but only got 7 points on Secondaries which kept in the game and win as I nearly maxed Secondaries.

Fate Dice change was fairly impactful vs Deathwatch. Squads of T6, 3 Wound Marine models are tough to chew through without the Mortal Wounds reliability in my list. To be fair, my opponent played a very solid game and beat me. This game provided me some insight of how the points increase and reduction of Fate Dice usage reduced the utility of the Wraithknight.

Game three. Fate Dice came into play vs Tau but Towering was the bigger issue. Skyray tanks, Broadside and Crisis Suits had nowhere to hide vs my Wraithknight and Fire Prism extreme range further exasperated the issue. My opponent conceded on turn 3 after he failed to destroy my Wraithknight (in cover) and I then destroyed his Tigershark and both Crisis Teams (with characters). He built an army to beta strike but did not quite hit hard enough and got punished for it.

The one area that did not feel right the game is spiking on overwatch. This is now the second game where I overwatch with a Wraithknight, use a 6 to hit and roll the other dice. Then, I get hot and roll a couple more 6's and the one dice reroll gets me another 6. This spike destroys units. In both Fate Dice iterations, Wraithknight Overwatch feels exceptionally strong.

However, I finally got to play my Wraithknights after sitting on the shelf for 6+ years. Many players have now prepared for them and Wraithknights are terrible to play into GSC and certain Necron builds.

GW Fate Dice rule change and points increase only put my Wraithknights back on the shelf and has me fielding a more efficient army that really does not even need Fate Dice. It is a shame as I really like the model. I think Ynarri will begin to see more play at large.

fire the guy who wrote the eldar index

I've been able to play several more games post changes to Fate Dice and Wraithknight points increase.

-Wraithknight. Taking a single Wraithknight has still been a viable choice. I have played two Wraithknights in games, but always felt I didn't have enough stuff to effectively play the Primary and Secondary missions. A Wraithknight is not a auto include, but taking one does not gimp the army.

-Overwatch. Warp Spiders and a Wraithknight are the two units opponents are having their movement plans disrupted. I've found it very impactful in every game I've played.

-Fate Dice. This is why a single Wraithknight is worth the 475 points. Shooting phase guarantees one to wound roll of a 6 and the Overwatch guarantees one to hit roll of a 6. There have been multiple games where I will Overwatch, use a Fate Dice for one 6 to hit and after the free reroll, I'll get another one or two hits with the Heavy Wraithcannon. This, combined with Towering, is really game changing. Locally, we utilize the GW tourney terrain layout which dramatically limits lanes of fire, except for the Towering keyword.
At this point, the Wraithknight is the only unit I factor Fate Dice into. Other usages of Fate Dice become very situational. Opponents are not finding Fate Dice to be an unfun to face mechanic post change.

-Battle Host Detachment Ability. I'm really baffled GW brought this back. In late 8th edition, this was Expert Crafters and was so good it became a defacto standard and GW gutted it in the 9th edition codex. Yet, they brought it right back in 10th. Aeldari have an exceptional number of units that benefit from this rule allowing one to build the bulk of the army around it. D-Cannon Support Weapons, Hornets, War Walkers, Fire Prisms, Void Weavers are excellent, cheap platforms for this detachment ability, especially for their points.
Opponents are not overly enjoying this aspect of the Aeldari play experience.

-Weapons. Well, we have Brightlances, and Brightlances. When I get the weapon option choice, it really is a non choice. Vyper: Brightlance, War Walker: Brightlance, Hornet: Brightlance, Guardian Defenders: Brightlance. I would like more options to give me a more enjoyable in game experience.

-Warp Spiders. If you've not faced them, these are a frustrating Infantry unit for opponents. For 100 points, take 2-3 squads every game.

-Shadow Spectres. This is the other frustrating to face Infantry unit. At 80 points, this is a very likely candidate for a points increase. Another unit people will be taking 2-3 squads every game.

-Fire and Fade. Game changing. When combined with the above two mentioned Infantry units, this is the feel bad moment for opponents. Both units provide such mobile flexibility and for 100 points (Spiders) and 80 points (Spectres)
Warp Spiders 24" Normal Move (Flickerjump), then Fire and Fade an additional 12".
Shadow Spectres 12" Normal Move, additional 6" Normal Move after shooting, then Fire and Fade an additional 12".

-Mortal Wound output. I still think it is necessary to retain in 10th edition and I'm not finding MW output to be an issue. There are army builds out there that can handle Aeldari MW output (which is high). Diminishing that ability won't fix an issue, only shift the problem. Ironically, this is a real weakness for Aeldari as they really have not built in defenses against Mortal Wounds.

- The Yncarne. Raise the points and I'd still bring the model. I think it is much better than the Avatar, yet the Avatar is more points. Opponents are having to make decisions to NOT shoot at my army because of this model. The ability to charge after it teleports is massive. I think this is the model, not a Wraithknight, that folks will see in every army. It is simply that good.

- Missions. I'm at the point that if I could score over 40 on Secondary Objectives, I would. The army plays the Secondary so well that I can generally score both Secondaries every turn which is extremely important. For myself, I am not maxing out on Primary Objectives. I'm not a top tier tournament player and that is where my shortcoming arises. When I lose a game, this is where it happens; I just can't score enough and/or my opponent scores 45-50 on Primary.

-Opponents. This is something I don't see discussed. I'll broadly break down opponents into three categories
1. This group has basic fundamentals of the game but are not overly efficient. This group I generally avoid unless I tone down lists and the game is more instructional. I've run into this person in a local RTT and it becomes a bit of a non game and I don't think it is enjoyable for either of us.
2. This group understands the game and builds efficient armies. These can go back and forth, but I'm still winning more of my games against these players. This is where I'd personally rate myself.
3. This group is very experienced and travel to attend multiple GTs and generally has winning records. This is the group that simply outplays me. Locally, there are 3-4 players that I'd rate here and I've lost every game to them with my Aeldari and they are not utilizing Aeldari.

Fixes? Not sure. The knee jerk reaction to Fate Dice and Wraithknights didn't 'fix' the Aeldari early tournament win rate (which is what I assume prompted GW to implement the quick fix as there was some amount of observable data) ; it just changed how folks win with Aeldari. The army has fantastic tools to play the missions.

All within the span of a month, my army dropped the following:

-2 x 10 Guardians,
-Eldrad
-1 Wraithknight

What became defacto auto includes after the changes:

-2 x 5 Warp Spiders
-2 x 5 Shadow Spectres
-The Yncarne (to be fair, this model was in pre rules changes, but points became a limiting factor at that time)
-Nightspinner
-1 x 5 Rangers

Wins/losses have not drastically changed. For myself, who I play against is a more definitive factor determining win/loss.

I'm actually interested to see over the next few weeks how the meta will adapt and see what shakes out. Terrain layouts are exceptionally important as we saw with the GW Tacoma GT. I'm guessing September would be technically the beginning of 'Fall' and we could see either/both the Tyranid and Space Marine Codex which could become the next bogeyman army.