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 harlokin wrote:
Part of the problem is that it's an army that is quite reliant on penalties to hit as a defence, which can be really unfun for your opponent, and has been increasingly eroded by the slow drip of 'ignore penalties' and re-rolls.

Even with Drukhari, it can be dispiriting to play against someone who constantly moans about Venoms being -1 to hit, but is quite happy destroying vehicles with simple bolter fire.

It may all be too much trouble for GW, who I suspect would be happiest rolling all the Aeldari factions into 'Codex Spess Elfs'

My local is starting to learn that Raider spam is by far worst than venom spam. Venom spam seems bad b.c its -1 (something you need to keep trak of when rolling/rr's) and has lots of shots so lots of dice. Raiders has no -1 (tho they are actually tougher vs 1D weapons) and has less shots. But when you play 9-10 of them vs 10-11 venoms, it is a HUGE difference in power for only 1 less model on the table. Then when you take them as AotF or DT they are either a lot more survivable or even more damaging.

About rolling into 1 book. Nah DE and CWE needs to stay separated, they have enough differences to not even think that should be a possibility. Ynnari and Quins being in the same book i'll be ok with (but separated sections and rules)

There are a few things I hope for in the new edition to make my eldar (and harlequins, and dark eldar) work as I'd actually like them to, as a lightning-strike army.

1) The ability for transports to drop units off after they move. 95% of eldar units have a 1-2" move differential between themselves and imperials, which doesn't really make for an army that actually feels FAST. What we do have is transports that move 12-14" with fly. I'm extremely hopeful that with all the rules for the TRANSPORT keyword living in the main rulebook, GW will realize that transports are supposed to do TWO jobs, not just one: 1, protect the models inside, they do that fairly well, but also 2, make footslogging models FASTER than they would be on foot! Seems obvious, apparently not to GW. Just make it at the end of the movement phase, so the units can't move afterwards except to charge, and you won't see any particular increase in the prevalence of turn 1 charges versus where we're at now, where many units can move just as fast if not faster than the transports (Reavers, Hellions, Razorwings to use some DE examples)

2) reworked terrain rules are actually quite nice for mobile MSU, as is "Defender fights first" that was just recently previewed. Eldar is very good at getting in to terrain in general, and I'm hopeful the new terrain system will lend them some solid advantages. Particularly if the system is less "All or Nothing". Currently, units only gain Cover if every single model meets the terrain-claiming criteria, but all the new previewed rules have said "Models" gain the benefits. We haven't seen the core rules for Obstacles and Area Terrain which will be how you actually claim cover, but I think that's a good sign.

3) Reworked morale to be more of a factor favors eldar, both because we have many rules that mess with morale AND primarily MSU units that typically don't get affected much by morale. waiting to see what the new attrition rule is, but better morale is better eldar.

4) Army building without (as much) of a troop+HQ tax focus. Partiuclarly the CWE do not like bringing tons of troops, it looks like the new army building structure is going to revolve around players trying to use every part of the buffalo and fit their army into a single Battalion detachment. Partiuclarly if the rumor of Drukhari keeping their triple patrol bonus is true (god I hope so, it'd be great to be able to field a triple patrol for free like others field a single battalion) that bodes well for arguably all but Harlequins, though they're so elite that fitting into just a batt isn't much of a challenge.

 Amishprn86 wrote:


My local is starting to learn that Raider spam is by far worst than venom spam. Venom spam seems bad b.c its -1 (something you need to keep trak of when rolling/rr's) and has lots of shots so lots of dice. Raiders has no -1 (tho they are actually tougher vs 1D weapons) and has less shots. But when you play 9-10 of them vs 10-11 venoms, it is a HUGE difference in power for only 1 less model on the table. Then when you take them as AotF or DT they are either a lot more survivable or even more damaging.

About rolling into 1 book. Nah DE and CWE needs to stay separated, they have enough differences to not even think that should be a possibility. Ynnari and Quins being in the same book i'll be ok with (but separated sections and rules)

How often in history of w40k were eldar considered to be fun to play against with most armies in the setting? I know about pre 8th eldar only from local stories.

I think GW is often schizophrenic in their design philosophy on many of the units in the game. How do you make a brand new Jain Zar model (a freakin' Phoenix Lord) with only 4 attacks, and in the same breath allow a new space marine bike have 6 attacks?
Aspect warriors should be better, much better than they currently are.
I woudl love for Independent Exarchs to exist again, but don't see it happening (unless they call them Great Exarchs).

It's not all doom and gloom though, since the drop of Phoenix Rises, many Eldar units got a boost (along with points drops, but that will change here soon). Falcons became relevant again, weapon platforms, AP-1 on shuriken weaponry, etc.

I will be interested to see where they go with Eldar, and I do feel that 9th edition will be a major update for them. They have so many old kits that need to be redone, and have room for new models. The big decision they have to make, is what to do with Ynnari.

As others have posted, it's weird in that Eldar have been among the most competitively capable armies in every edition, and been among some of the most horrifically broken in several of them, and yet also often have abysmal internal balance and ostensibly fundamental core units like Guardians being underwhelming for the entirety of my 40k career and most editions of this game, along with some of the oldest models (though many hold up fine, the Falcon is a 2E kit and is still awesome).

I'm not sure what GW wants to do with them, and I'm not sure GW knows what GW wants to do with them. The Primaris thing has been kinda stepping on everyone's toes in various ways and Space Marines at this point can kinda do everyone else's schtick except for building a horde army.

Karol wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:


My local is starting to learn that Raider spam is by far worst than venom spam. Venom spam seems bad b.c its -1 (something you need to keep trak of when rolling/rr's) and has lots of shots so lots of dice. Raiders has no -1 (tho they are actually tougher vs 1D weapons) and has less shots. But when you play 9-10 of them vs 10-11 venoms, it is a HUGE difference in power for only 1 less model on the table. Then when you take them as AotF or DT they are either a lot more survivable or even more damaging.

About rolling into 1 book. Nah DE and CWE needs to stay separated, they have enough differences to not even think that should be a possibility. Ynnari and Quins being in the same book i'll be ok with (but separated sections and rules)

How often in history of w40k were eldar considered to be fun to play against with most armies in the setting? I know about pre 8th eldar only from local stories.

I mean, he's talking about Dark Eldar, who historically have been an extremely different story to Craftworlds. Dark Eldar are possibly the most consistently bottom-tier army in 40k, possibly they've been competitive more than Tyranids have, maybe, but it's a close race to the bottom.

Craftworlds by contrast are typically a high tier except for in 5th edition. Harlequins have existed only in 2nd ed, 7th and 8th, and were not good in any edition they've existed in.

 Vaktathi wrote:
As others have posted, it's weird in that Eldar have been among the most competitively capable armies in every edition, and been among some of the most horrifically broken in several of them, and yet also often have abysmal internal balance and ostensibly fundamental core units like Guardians being underwhelming for the entirety of my 40k career and most editions of this game, along with some of the oldest models (though many hold up fine, the Falcon is a 2E kit and is still awesome).

I'm not sure what GW wants to do with them, and I'm not sure GW knows what GW wants to do with them. The Primaris thing has been kinda stepping on everyone's toes in various ways and Space Marines at this point can kinda do everyone else's schtick except for building a horde army.

Fully agree. The problem is as Hellebore stated erosion of theme.

When the Tau came out, they took the theme of high tech shooting that the Eldar used to have in 2nd edition. When the Dark Eldar came out, they took the sheer speed from the Craftworld Eldar. Thousand Sons and other introduced psychic disciplines gradually eroded the theme of Eldar psychic superiority. So what are Craftworld Eldar meant to be? Are they meant to be a sort of jack of all trades that compared to humanity leans more towards speed as defence but not as much as the Dark Eldar? Except the rules don't seem to really reward speed with much extra protection. Also having a jack of all trades is a bit "meh" when other factions have a theme of being good at something. The blanket +1 to WS and BS that Guardians got devalued Aspect Warriors' level of skill, and was a clumsy attempt to boost Guardians who remain a relic of the time when their competition was meant to be the Imperial Guardsman rather than MEQ.

That is not to say the Eldar have not been competitive. Their lists have always had stuff that worked, but it was littered with useless units that were relics of earlier editions, with an odd mixture of rules trying to make them useful. Point decreases for the unused Eldar units, while not unwelcome, are sort of an admission of defeat of any ideas to make them work. Eldar horde strikes me as very wrong in terms of background. The random grab bag of Exarch powers they threw in Phoenix Rising was an example of them throwing random rules and hoping something sticks. There is also the stubbornness of refusing to admit or abandon ideas that didn't work, such as the drop in shuriken catapult range from 24" in 2nd edition to 12" in 3rd edition. The following increase of the Dire Avenger catapult's range to 18" is a tacit admission that 12" wasn't a good weapon especially for fragile infantry like Guardians.

GW needs to take a good fundamental look at the Craftworld Eldar as many of the units, like Aspect Warriors, were initially designed for a far smaller game. Small squads of fragile infantry get deleted all too easily now, and even if not, their contribution is often very limited or dependent on too much other support.

the_scotsman 789398 10838860 wrote:

I mean, he's talking about Dark Eldar, who historically have been an extremely different story to Craftworlds. Dark Eldar are possibly the most consistently bottom-tier army in 40k, possibly they've been competitive more than Tyranids have, maybe, but it's a close race to the bottom.

Craftworlds by contrast are typically a high tier except for in 5th edition. Harlequins have existed only in 2nd ed, 7th and 8th, and were not good in any edition they've existed in.

Wait. So in prior editions people couldn't mix different races in their armies

Quins were moved into the DE book for 4th-6th then they got a new army again.

There also was no mixing from 3rd-5th of armies and no one other than Corsairs in late 6th had Army traits. There was Formation bonuses or unit bonuses if you took XYZ or X amounts.

Karol wrote:

the_scotsman 789398 10838860 wrote:

I mean, he's talking about Dark Eldar, who historically have been an extremely different story to Craftworlds. Dark Eldar are possibly the most consistently bottom-tier army in 40k, possibly they've been competitive more than Tyranids have, maybe, but it's a close race to the bottom.

Craftworlds by contrast are typically a high tier except for in 5th edition. Harlequins have existed only in 2nd ed, 7th and 8th, and were not good in any edition they've existed in.

Wait. So in prior editions people couldn't mix different races in their armies

Allies existed in 7th and 6th but they were a very limited thing in 5th and before. in 7th and 6th though the problem with bringing eldar allies with dark eldar and harlequins was the same problem you had earlier in this edition with "just bring guard allies" with the GK - why bring any GK then and not just 100% guard? The BEST parts of Harlequins and dark eldar were worse than the worst parts of Eldar.

DE have had two competitive metas since their introduction in 3rd ed: Both of them based around Venoms. now it's Kabalites in venoms, then it was Trueborns and Wyches in venoms.

I can remember the same number of competitive meta builds out of Tyranids and Orks, but I feel like Nids and Orks hung out around middle tier a lot more than Dark Eldar did, who were basically unplayable all thru 4th and 5th before their codex release, then went right back into the dumpster in 6th and 7th and prior to their codex 8th.

A big problem for Dark Eldar is that we have so few weapons and also relatively few units. This means when one thing is too good and gets nerfed (especially triple nerfed, like disintegrators got) we have nothing to replace it with, so we just become awful. If, for example, you nerf Assault Cannons, then Space Marines just switch weapons. We can't we don't have any others.

What perfect timing!

Now GW can tell you what Eldar will be like in 9th.

The nightspinner BY ITSELF is going to completely warp the game. Taking any unit more expensive than ork boyz at 6+ is basically suicide against any army that has a nightspinner.

Drager wrote:
A big problem for Dark Eldar is that we have so few weapons and also relatively few units. This means when one thing is too good and gets nerfed (especially triple nerfed, like disintegrators got) we have nothing to replace it with, so we just become awful. If, for example, you nerf Assault Cannons, then Space Marines just switch weapons. We can't we don't have any others.

Don't worry, GW addressed this problem by removing ever more units and wargear from the DE codex.

If you're wondering how this solves the problem, it encourages DE players to give up and play a proper army instead.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

About rolling into 1 book. Nah DE and CWE needs to stay separated, they have enough differences to not even think that should be a possibility. Ynnari and Quins being in the same book i'll be ok with (but separated sections and rules)

There was a time when I would have wholeheartedly agreed.

Now though, this seems like the only way DE might ever be allowed worthwhile HQ choices.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
What perfect timing!

Now GW can tell you what Eldar will be like in 9th.

Spoiler:

Not to give it away, but it turns out that the new general rules that apply to everyone also apply to the Eldar! WOW!

Hey now! That's not a fair assessment of the preview at all.

Why, we also learned that Eldar units have the abilities they already had.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
What perfect timing!

Now GW can tell you what Eldar will be like in 9th.

Spoiler:

Not to give it away, but it turns out that the new general rules that apply to everyone also apply to the Eldar! WOW!

JFC, that last previewed rule...

So, when exactly is that ever going to be useful on a substantial unit of DA and not used on the couple that are miraculously left after one of the many guns in other armies that can easily wipe them out looked their way?

ERJAK wrote:
The nightspinner BY ITSELF is going to completely warp the game. Taking any unit more expensive than ork boyz at 6+ is basically suicide against any army that has a nightspinner.

It's the Nightspinner's turn, though. Most Eldar units get to have an edition where they're the most broken thing in the Codex, the Nightspinner hasn't gotten one yet.

 Grimtuff wrote:
JFC, that last previewed rule...

Previewed? Buddy that last one ain't new. That's one of the replacement Exarch Powers that the DAs got in Phoenix Rising, the first PA book.

I'm sorry if this made the pain worse somehow.

Drager wrote:
A big problem for Dark Eldar is that we have so few weapons and also relatively few units. This means when one thing is too good and gets nerfed (especially triple nerfed, like disintegrators got) we have nothing to replace it with, so we just become awful. If, for example, you nerf Assault Cannons, then Space Marines just switch weapons. We can't we don't have any others.

The problem is 90% of the gear was taken away, changed, or nerf. They have lots of units, just most of it fills the same roles as other units now and are straight bad. And they also took away literally over 20 unit entries between 2 books. When they redsign the 3 main heroes into plastic they then took away even more options instead of giving them more like Wings/Skyboard/Bikes.

Reavers use to auto hit when they flew over or charged, that weapons is there melee weapon now locked at Str 4, so drugs can not effect it and they no longer have 2 attack profiles (the Auto hits + melee) making the leader pointless to take a weapon, not only did they get their rile taken away, but they also are 1/3 the damage as before. Finally a lot of their special gear rules went to a stratagem.. which is stupid b.c that means Reavers and Hellions both can use each others special rules making them not special at all.

Hellions was made to kill characters in units, they had a special rule to target characters, this is gone and now they have no purpose other than trash

Court used to be in units, this is gone so now they are no longer viable in any way to protect the character

Scourges, they are to weak, thats it, they don't do anything and just die. Mandrakes does what they do better.

Beasts again used to be in units and the BM was 12pts, you took X amount of beasts per BM and you can have 1-5 BM's in a unit. This was a horde unit with 3-5 Wyches on Skyboards and a mix of 8-10 kymerae's, 4-6 RWF, and a Clawed fiend. Their entire unit is ripped apart and way over costed. Also the BM doesn't need to be a character, and if he is make him an HQ ffs.

DE had lots of units and options, GW just kept taking them away one after another making each unit more and more just Str 4 or poison, or Blaster/Lance/HWB only.
It also doesn't help that 8th doesn't care about dedicated specialist units like Incubi when Grots does the same thing but are just better at it b.c they are tougher and rolls more dice, they also have a stratagem to re-roll wounds which Drazhar gives to Incubi, having multi units with the same rules makes specialist units pointless.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
JFC, that last previewed rule...

Previewed? Buddy that last one ain't new. That's one of the replacement Exarch Powers that the DAs got in Phoenix Rising, the first PA book.

I'm sorry if this made the pain worse somehow.

Ah, not picked any of them up as I saw them as a waste of cash. Lobbing my money down the toilet would have been more useful and representative of what buying those books would be to me.

Drager wrote:
A big problem for Dark Eldar is that we have so few weapons and also relatively few units. This means when one thing is too good and gets nerfed (especially triple nerfed, like disintegrators got) we have nothing to replace it with, so we just become awful. If, for example, you nerf Assault Cannons, then Space Marines just switch weapons. We can't we don't have any others.

...except in those situations where we have 67 weapons that all do the exact same thing in the exact same way.

"Say jim I'm just about done designing that Haemonculus melee weapon list and I just have one question"

"Yes steve?"

"Should any of these weapons be like, an anti-horde weapon, an anti-tank weapon, maybe a strength boosting one?"

"Nah, I was thinking just 9 different poison melee weapons with slightly different AP values"

"Ok, sounds good to me"

"Make sure one of them does a mortal wound on a 6"

"YES, I was JUST thinking that - I LOVE that dang mechanic, it is just my favorite!!!"

Iracundus wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
As others have posted, it's weird in that Eldar have been among the most competitively capable armies in every edition, and been among some of the most horrifically broken in several of them, and yet also often have abysmal internal balance and ostensibly fundamental core units like Guardians being underwhelming for the entirety of my 40k career and most editions of this game, along with some of the oldest models (though many hold up fine, the Falcon is a 2E kit and is still awesome).

I'm not sure what GW wants to do with them, and I'm not sure GW knows what GW wants to do with them. The Primaris thing has been kinda stepping on everyone's toes in various ways and Space Marines at this point can kinda do everyone else's schtick except for building a horde army.

Fully agree. The problem is as Hellebore stated erosion of theme.

When the Tau came out, they took the theme of high tech shooting that the Eldar used to have in 2nd edition. When the Dark Eldar came out, they took the sheer speed from the Craftworld Eldar. Thousand Sons and other introduced psychic disciplines gradually eroded the theme of Eldar psychic superiority. So what are Craftworld Eldar meant to be? Are they meant to be a sort of jack of all trades that compared to humanity leans more towards speed as defence but not as much as the Dark Eldar? Except the rules don't seem to really reward speed with much extra protection. Also having a jack of all trades is a bit "meh" when other factions have a theme of being good at something. The blanket +1 to WS and BS that Guardians got devalued Aspect Warriors' level of skill, and was a clumsy attempt to boost Guardians who remain a relic of the time when their competition was meant to be the Imperial Guardsman rather than MEQ.

That is not to say the Eldar have not been competitive. Their lists have always had stuff that worked, but it was littered with useless units that were relics of earlier editions, with an odd mixture of rules trying to make them useful. Point decreases for the unused Eldar units, while not unwelcome, are sort of an admission of defeat of any ideas to make them work. Eldar horde strikes me as very wrong in terms of background. The random grab bag of Exarch powers they threw in Phoenix Rising was an example of them throwing random rules and hoping something sticks. There is also the stubbornness of refusing to admit or abandon ideas that didn't work, such as the drop in shuriken catapult range from 24" in 2nd edition to 12" in 3rd edition. The following increase of the Dire Avenger catapult's range to 18" is a tacit admission that 12" wasn't a good weapon especially for fragile infantry like Guardians.

GW needs to take a good fundamental look at the Craftworld Eldar as many of the units, like Aspect Warriors, were initially designed for a far smaller game. Small squads of fragile infantry get deleted all too easily now, and even if not, their contribution is often very limited or dependent on too much other support.

Yeah, the army feels very stuck in its 2E/early 3E paradigm (which in some ways is cool, but in some ways doesn't work either). Honestly I'm not sure they have a coherent design philosophy really beyond that, GW is really good at making a couple things really busted seemingly just "Because Space Elfs" that makes the army work competitively, but has largely let the game overrun itself and kinda bury the utility of many units like Aspect Warriors. The point about stuff like Aspect Warriors being suited to smaller games is absolutely true, scale creep has really thrown off a lot of stuff with 40k in general and they're certainly one of the victims, and GW's repeated patching of Shuriken weapons definitely shows they've never quite nailed them down either.

the_scotsman wrote:

Drager wrote:
A big problem for Dark Eldar is that we have so few weapons and also relatively few units. This means when one thing is too good and gets nerfed (especially triple nerfed, like disintegrators got) we have nothing to replace it with, so we just become awful. If, for example, you nerf Assault Cannons, then Space Marines just switch weapons. We can't we don't have any others.

...except in those situations where we have 67 weapons that all do the exact same thing in the exact same way.

"Say jim I'm just about done designing that Haemonculus melee weapon list and I just have one question"

"Yes steve?"

"Should any of these weapons be like, an anti-horde weapon, an anti-tank weapon, maybe a strength boosting one?"

"Nah, I was thinking just 9 different poison melee weapons with slightly different AP values"

"Ok, sounds good to me"

"Make sure one of them does a mortal wound on a 6"

"YES, I was JUST thinking that - I LOVE that dang mechanic, it is just my favorite!!!"

It's the Necrons and their staffs all over again.

The Warhammer Community Faction Focus today is on Eldar, and it really, really feels like the guy GW used to make commentary was struggling very hard to make it sound like Eldar in 9th were going to do great.

He totally downplayed Eldar "soup" saying you'll want to field a single detachment to maximize your CP, or accept the consequence of cherry picking and running more than one detachment with fewer CP (so... overall nerf?). The spoiled objective, "Engage on All Fronts".... ummm.... smaller games on a smaller table and I can score extra points by spreading out my army to three or more table quarters? Hmmmm. Key Units: Shining Spears (go figure), Night Spinners because they are apparently getting blast to the Doomweaver, and Dire Avengers. Color me... underwhelmed.

Good luck Eldar players! Looks like you ain't gettin' nothin' out of 9th.

the_scotsman wrote:

Drager wrote:
A big problem for Dark Eldar is that we have so few weapons and also relatively few units. This means when one thing is too good and gets nerfed (especially triple nerfed, like disintegrators got) we have nothing to replace it with, so we just become awful. If, for example, you nerf Assault Cannons, then Space Marines just switch weapons. We can't we don't have any others.

...except in those situations where we have 67 weapons that all do the exact same thing in the exact same way.

"Say jim I'm just about done designing that Haemonculus melee weapon list and I just have one question"

"Yes steve?"

"Should any of these weapons be like, an anti-horde weapon, an anti-tank weapon, maybe a strength boosting one?"

"Nah, I was thinking just 9 different poison melee weapons with slightly different AP values"

"Ok, sounds good to me"

"Make sure one of them does a mortal wound on a 6"

"YES, I was JUST thinking that - I LOVE that dang mechanic, it is just my favorite!!!"

I'm glad you brought this up. I think it's one of the most frustrating things about a lot of DE units, with the Haemonculus probably being the worst.

I'd suggest that another problem is that GW have made us a poison-themed army, yet our Poisoned weapons are consistently awful, compared to those of other races.

As an example, not counting Relics, DE have 2 varieties of Poison Pistol:
Splinter Pistol: S- AP0 D1 Poison 4+
Stinger Pistol: S- AP0 D1 Poison 2+

Now let's compare that to the Needle Pistol available to some GSC units:
Needle Pistol: S- AP0 Dd3 Poison 2+

So their poison pistol is objectively better than both of ours.

Now how about another comparison:
Haemonculus Tools: S- D1 AP0 Poison 4+
Venom Blade: S- AP0 D1 Poison 2+

Now let's look at the GSC Toxin Injector Claw:
Toxin Injector Claw: S: User AP-1 D1 Poison 2+
Injector Goad: S+1 AP0 Dd3 Poison 2+, Can potentially inflict d3 additional wounds against a damaged character.

Once again, both of the GSC weapons are just objectively better than the ones available to DE. For the record, I'd also take the Toxin Injector Claw over either an Agoniser or Scissorhands, but at least those have *something* going for them.

One final comparison. This is the best weapon available to a DE Haemonculus:
Electrocorrosive Whip: S- AP-2 D2 Poison 4+

Now let's look at a last one from GSCs:
Sanctus Bio-Dagger: S1 AP-2 D2, Poison 2+, Wielder makes an extra attack

So the Electrocorrosive Whip is literally the best possible weapon a Haemonculus can get, and the Sanctus Bio-Dagger outclasses it completely. Hell, the Sanctus Bio-Dagger basically takes the best traits of every weapon available to a Haemonculus and combines them together into a single weapon.


Now, to be clear, I'm not arguing that these things necessarily make GSCs better than DE. Instead, my point relates to the aforementioned erosion of theme. What is the point of giving DE a Poison theme, only to then give them the worst Poison weapons in the game. Even if their weapons aren't the best, surely they should at least be able to claim access to the best Poison Weapons? But instead what we see is the opposite. Races without a strong poison theme like Nids or GSCs are given a multitude of strong/useful/thematic Poison Weapons, whilst the Poison-Themed DE have to live with a trash-heap of bland, flavourless and almost universally ineffective options.

Compare a Canoness to a Archon (Blessed blade vs Huskblade, Inferno P vs Blast P, PfP vs AoF/MD, other supporting heroes and traits). And you'll just like me hate the Archon and wish you were playing SoB.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Compare a Canoness to a Archon (Blessed blade vs Huskblade, Inferno P vs Blast P, PfP vs AoF/MD, other supporting heroes and traits). And you'll just like me hate the Archon and wish you were playing SoB.

That's also very true. Even the basic wargear of a Canoness puts that of the Archon to shame.

What's more, there seem to be far more effective ways to build a Canoness, which are supported by the available Relics and Warlord Traits.

Meanwhile, Archons are generally stuck not doing a whole lot regardless of how you equip them.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
As others have posted, it's weird in that Eldar have been among the most competitively capable armies in every edition, and been among some of the most horrifically broken in several of them, and yet also often have abysmal internal balance and ostensibly fundamental core units like Guardians being underwhelming for the entirety of my 40k career and most editions of this game, along with some of the oldest models (though many hold up fine, the Falcon is a 2E kit and is still awesome).

I'm not sure what GW wants to do with them, and I'm not sure GW knows what GW wants to do with them. The Primaris thing has been kinda stepping on everyone's toes in various ways and Space Marines at this point can kinda do everyone else's schtick except for building a horde army.

Fully agree. The problem is as Hellebore stated erosion of theme.

When the Tau came out, they took the theme of high tech shooting that the Eldar used to have in 2nd edition. When the Dark Eldar came out, they took the sheer speed from the Craftworld Eldar. Thousand Sons and other introduced psychic disciplines gradually eroded the theme of Eldar psychic superiority. So what are Craftworld Eldar meant to be? Are they meant to be a sort of jack of all trades that compared to humanity leans more towards speed as defence but not as much as the Dark Eldar? Except the rules don't seem to really reward speed with much extra protection. Also having a jack of all trades is a bit "meh" when other factions have a theme of being good at something. The blanket +1 to WS and BS that Guardians got devalued Aspect Warriors' level of skill, and was a clumsy attempt to boost Guardians who remain a relic of the time when their competition was meant to be the Imperial Guardsman rather than MEQ.

That is not to say the Eldar have not been competitive. Their lists have always had stuff that worked, but it was littered with useless units that were relics of earlier editions, with an odd mixture of rules trying to make them useful. Point decreases for the unused Eldar units, while not unwelcome, are sort of an admission of defeat of any ideas to make them work. Eldar horde strikes me as very wrong in terms of background. The random grab bag of Exarch powers they threw in Phoenix Rising was an example of them throwing random rules and hoping something sticks. There is also the stubbornness of refusing to admit or abandon ideas that didn't work, such as the drop in shuriken catapult range from 24" in 2nd edition to 12" in 3rd edition. The following increase of the Dire Avenger catapult's range to 18" is a tacit admission that 12" wasn't a good weapon especially for fragile infantry like Guardians.

GW needs to take a good fundamental look at the Craftworld Eldar as many of the units, like Aspect Warriors, were initially designed for a far smaller game. Small squads of fragile infantry get deleted all too easily now, and even if not, their contribution is often very limited or dependent on too much other support.

Yeah, the army feels very stuck in its 2E/early 3E paradigm (which in some ways is cool, but in some ways doesn't work either). Honestly I'm not sure they have a coherent design philosophy really beyond that, GW is really good at making a couple things really busted seemingly just "Because Space Elfs" that makes the army work competitively, but has largely let the game overrun itself and kinda bury the utility of many units like Aspect Warriors. The point about stuff like Aspect Warriors being suited to smaller games is absolutely true, scale creep has really thrown off a lot of stuff with 40k in general and they're certainly one of the victims, and GW's repeated patching of Shuriken weapons definitely shows they've never quite nailed them down either.

warhammer 40k

Expectation: superhuman warriors of various alien races maneuver around the battlefield to achieve objectives. Troops charge an enemy position, tanks trade fire across ruins, elite units leap from transports to unload short range weaponry into the enemy

Reality: players set their armies up, roll and re-roll 500 dice over the course of 4 hours, pick their miniatures up and call the game top of turn 3 with 2-3 units on either side having moved any meaningful distance.

 vipoid wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Compare a Canoness to a Archon (Blessed blade vs Huskblade, Inferno P vs Blast P, PfP vs AoF/MD, other supporting heroes and traits). And you'll just like me hate the Archon and wish you were playing SoB.

That's also very true. Even the basic wargear of a Canoness puts that of the Archon to shame.

What's more, there seem to be far more effective ways to build a Canoness, which are supported by the available Relics and Warlord Traits.

Meanwhile, Archons are generally stuck not doing a whole lot regardless of how you equip them.

That b.c they took away 15+ pieces of wargear away and nerf the ones that are left. Huskblades used to be INSANE, now they are weaker than everyone else's version.

ERJAK wrote:
The nightspinner BY ITSELF is going to completely warp the game. Taking any unit more expensive than ork boyz at 6+ is basically suicide against any army that has a nightspinner.

No, it won't. Because of the 2d6 profile, the bonus against units of 6 to 10 is effectively nothing - you go from a minimum of 2 shots to a minimum of 3. It ends up being an increase of maximum of one shot, and on average it's about 1/20th of a shot more than before. It's completely irrelevant.

The bonus against units of 11+ is huge, but 9th edition seems intent on making nobody ever want to take units of more than 10, so I don't expect you'll see any in the first place. And even if you did, a nightspinner is rarely going to be wanting to shoot at horde units even with a gauranteed 12 shots.

If fall-back is getting a nerf so FLY doesn't allow you to shoot after falling back (obviously just a rumor, nobody knows at this point), nightspinners getting blast will actually be a NERF, not a buff.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Compare a Canoness to a Archon (Blessed blade vs Huskblade, Inferno P vs Blast P, PfP vs AoF/MD, other supporting heroes and traits). And you'll just like me hate the Archon and wish you were playing SoB.

That's also very true. Even the basic wargear of a Canoness puts that of the Archon to shame.

What's more, there seem to be far more effective ways to build a Canoness, which are supported by the available Relics and Warlord Traits.

Meanwhile, Archons are generally stuck not doing a whole lot regardless of how you equip them.

That b.c they took away 15+ pieces of wargear away and nerf the ones that are left. Huskblades used to be INSANE, now they are weaker than everyone else's version.

Huskblades, Hex Rifles and Implosion Missiles all used to cause instant death. I miss that. Now they're all just bad.