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 Flinty wrote:
If the concept is super specialised aspects that are great against a narrow range of opponents and rubbish against everything else, then does being able to choose an additional objective balance the likelihood of being kerb stomped by bad match ups? In the context off all the fluff I agree that eldar foresight isn’t perfect, but it at least gives a hook to hang some fancy last minute force change shenanigans from. Marines in the game do not match up exactly with the fluff based capabilities either, but the concept is there.

Aspects should be a viable, potentially fieldable subfaction of their own within the Craftworlds book. Phoenix Lords should get an improved version of their Aspect's bonus while Autarchs get to pick and choose bonuses from the Aspects on the field.

They would have literally nothing to do with the additional objective. That's a Farseer being present in the army.

Idoneth, bluntly, have been a wonderful exemplar for what the Craftworlds could be. The Tides of Battle table is basically a giant honkin' blueprint for the Runes of Battle as a concept. Farseers as Tidecallers, able to flip the script at the start of the game if they choose to is aces.

It would be cool if Aspects could be treated similarly to assassins, where if you include them in an army list there is a stratagem to swap them for another aspect before the game starts.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Spoiler:

A big problem for CWE is they’re the army with the least change since Rogue Trader.

In those days, armies were pretty small, perhaps a couple of dozen models, certainly well under 100.

In that, well, meta I suppose, you could afford to heavily specialise. Not only were there rather limited options for building your army, the pool of units was quite small. So a CWE force was less likely to end up fighting something it didn’t have some kind of specialist unit to counter with.

Of course, the game has grown and expanded. Lots and lots of units, whole new armies, and a greater availability of tanks and flyers. CWE have to my mind never quite kept up with those changes.

In particular, the Aspects are just nowhere near what they once were in terms of being a scary prospect. In 2nd Ed, Howling Banshees and Warp Spiders in particular were horrific to fight. I won’t go into the exact mechanics, but suffice to say both absolutely excelled in their specialist sphere. If Banshees got into combat, they’d have to fail pretty hard not to simply delete the victim of their attentions, and Warp Spiders would regularly turn their targets to soup, before running off like the cowards they are.

This I feel is best reflected that whilst CWE have usually been a force to be reckoned with into the modern day, it’s often been due to beardy spam lists, rather than the whole of the thing being viable. Please note I am not having a go at anyone who fields or fielded such armies.

There are a few things they could do with recovering rules wise.

First, make Aspects utterly deadly again. If I as your opponent fail to deal with them (such as shooting Banshees to death) then they should spank me like a red headed stepchild.

Second, greater interaction with Psychic Powers. Allowing Guardian Squads to take a Warlock as a unit leader is a decent start there.

Third? Bring Back Pop Up Attacks. These were ace. Basically you parked your Grav tank behind some terrain, and in your turn it could levitate to take its shot, before returning to safety. It could be frustrating for an opponent, but as with many of their former strengths, it required me as the opponent to be more aggressive and try to control and dictate the flow of the battle.

Make them a frustrating foe. Make them an encounter where the opponent must seize the initiative or be run rings around. Keep them relatively fragile, so when we can land a blow it feels satisfying. But man the opponent should need to really sing for their supper when facing a skilled CWE player.

Exalted, but especially this:
"First, make Aspects utterly deadly again."

In particular, if a CC Aspect makes it into contact with Marines, the Marines should get trounced.

That would run up against the Astartes power fantasy and is probably a no-go.

I have no idea how you would go about making a unit-swapped army work. It'd be like playing a card game where you get to pick out all the trump cards from the deck after your opponent has shown their hand.

 Flinty wrote:
If the concept is super specialised aspects that are great against a narrow range of opponents and rubbish against everything else..

They weren't exactly that specialised - more that you'd have a unit good against tanks and monsters but not able to punch through an infantry screen for example, so you would need to have another unit on hand to support them if they were screened out. In theory anyway, and it was always hard to be the tricksy elf army when you were advertising the function of each of your units.

There just used to be a whole lot less to consider in early editions when it came to be specialised- it was a game of paper scissors stone, now it's paper scissors rock lizard spock dynamite lightning dragon water moon sponge ...

A.T. wrote:
I have no idea how you would go about making a unit-swapped army work. It'd be like playing a card game where you get to pick out all the trump cards from the deck after your opponent has shown their hand.

"Craftworld armies can allot up to 20 PL as Premonition Power. In step X of the pre-game sequence, they can pick up to the alloted Premonition Power value of ASPECT units to add to their army. In Combat Patrol games a Craftworld army can allot only 10 PL, in Incursion games a Craftworld army can allot up to 30 PL, and in Onslaught games a Craftworld army can allot up to 50 PL.

Designer's notes: In Matched Play games a Craftworld player must pay reinforcement points for any units added to their army list in this way."

Something like that, so it's not like they get to tailor their entire list. They just get to bring the right tools for the job, and then have to execute the job.

Rihgu wrote:

A.T. wrote:
I have no idea how you would go about making a unit-swapped army work. It'd be like playing a card game where you get to pick out all the trump cards from the deck after your opponent has shown their hand.

"Craftworld armies can allot up to 20 PL as Premonition Power. In step X of the pre-game sequence, they can pick up to the alloted Premonition Power value of ASPECT units to add to their army. In Combat Patrol games a Craftworld army can allot only 10 PL, in Incursion games a Craftworld army can allot up to 30 PL, and in Onslaught games a Craftworld army can allot up to 50 PL.

Designer's notes: In Matched Play games a Craftworld player must pay reinforcement points for any units added to their army list in this way."

Something like that, so it's not like they get to tailor their entire list. They just get to bring the right tools for the job, and then have to execute the job.

For the sake of avoiding time-consuming last minute list rewrites, you could make it even more like the assassin rules and turn it into a strat.

Premonitions of Battle (2CP)

Use this stratagem during the Deployment step before you deploy any units. You may remove one <Aspect> unit from your army and replace it with a single <Aspect> unit that costs equal or fewer points (or Power Level). The new unit has the same <Craftworld> as the original unit.

I'm not convinced leaning into the sideboard idea too heavily is a good idea (even though it's cool), but this would be a way to allow it in a limited fashion.

 Flinty wrote:
Eldar are supposed to rely on having units that are specific counters to the enemy, and the foresight to know what to bring with them.

This is hard to represent at the tactical level of 40k.

Therefore, let eldar players either choose an army in full knowledge of the enemy, or permit swapping out units during deployment. therefore, eldar players can get use out of specific units and don't have to rely on spamming one unit type that is just less bad at dealing with the enemies who are not their speific prey.

This will have the secondary benefit to GW that Eldar players will therefore need multiple units of EVERYTHING! just to allow counters to enemy armies

This is quite possibly the single most broken rule I've ever seen suggested in a thread like this.

If allowed in any way that is significant, the ability to just swap out entire units is game-breakingly powerful. Being able to tailor your list on the fly in tournaments would break competitive play.

Which is really representative of the problem, isn't it? Your post went the furthest, but this sentiment that CWE as an army should focus on hard-countering with highly specialized units while being dogshit otherwise is incredibly hard to balance.

This is an excellent question Wyldhunt with many great answers in the thread already.

For me I've always found Eldar to be a very engaging lorewise since they're somewhat of an underdog faction. Sure they used to be top dog in the galaxy before their hubris ruined it all but now they're a dying race clinging on to their last breath of life. They don't have numbers, they can't afford casualties (unless Gav Thorpe is writing), and while their technology and powers are mighty they are often a double edged sword. That's only scratching the surface there's plenty of other distinct fluff in there that makes the 40k kitchen sink setting so appealing.

As for how to represent that on the tabletop, that's a tough one, but I hope they got something unique (like how Cabal Points were a unique spin for 1k Sons) where they are rewarded for not taking casualties (for living Eldar at least), and have play styles setup that allow them to engage in subterfuge & treachery, a bit more brains than brawn. I think that would be fun and very unique for an army to play like that.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

If allowed in any way that is significant, the ability to just swap out entire units is game-breakingly powerful. Being able to tailor your list on the fly in tournaments would break competitive play.

Good, i hope Competitive Play's disability pay is refused as well after it's broken.

Joking aside, the best way to represent how eldar work would be to give them unique missions and side objectives, to show that they're not really playing the same game of take and hold as every other race. BUUT that'd make competitive scene scream like someone took shears do its privates i imagine so it's not really feasible (and I dont think GW can handle the inherent difficulty of coming up with inventive missions anyway).

Something that currently somewhat irks my understanding of how Aspect Warriors play. And that’s the squad being mostly an Exarch delivery mechanism.

I feel this is particularly noticeable with Striking Scorpions, as the Exarch’s claw is suited to targets the rest of the squad just, well, isn’t.

Something to 100% consider as well is exploring some alternate weapon options for a few Aspects.

Nothing wrong with Fire Dragons having their Firepikes, Flamers, or Fusion Gun(it's the Fusion Gun that's their version of a melta right? I kept waffling between Gun or Blaster and I'm 99% sure that the Fusion Blaster is the Tau version), but they need to retain a part of that theme: for Fire Dragons it's right there in the name.
Flamers+Fusion are set in what they do, they're a Known Quantity. Letting the Firepike be a happy medium between the two outliers would be a Good Thing.

Could see Warp Spiders and Dark Reapers seeing alternate loadouts too. It wouldn't detract from what they are, conceptually, while also giving the Aspects a bit of variability.

Could even fluff it as different Temples having different ideas of the Aspect itself.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I feel this is particularly noticeable with Striking Scorpions, as the Exarch’s claw is suited to targets the rest of the squad just, well, isn’t.

That is by player choice though - exarchs have options to either add to their squads speciality or to cover one of the squads weaknesses.

Right and its the same with Space Marines as well, my Tac squad used to be a delivery vehicle for my Sgt with a Powerfist, same thing really.

As a random, totally not related to anything at all note...

What would people think of the Storm Serpent making an appearance?

The problem with "aspect warriors should be hyper specialized and super deadly against one particular type of enemy but weak against others" is that the basis of the game design doesn't really allow that to happen using the standard game mechanics. A unit which is highly specialized at killing vehicles is also going to be really good at killing terminators, simply on the basis that most armies don't field units of more than 5 terminators and a squad of 5-6 vehicle killers with proper buffs wills till annihilate a squad of terminators despite haivng low ROF (see also: Fire Dragons).

The only way to achieve this design goal is to give aspects absolutely wonky special rules and weapon stats. I.E. Weapons which are strength 3, ap 0 d1 against INFANTRY, but are strength 8, ap -4, d6 against VEHICLES and MONSTERS. Units which can fight twice or shoot twice against units with toughness 3 or less, or 2+/3+ armor saves, etc. Stuff like that. Otherwise, basic rules and capabilities otherwise essentially picks winners and losers as certain specializations inherently come with the toolset to tackle a wider range of problems and answer a broader range of questions posed by threats than others will.

chaos0xomega wrote:
The problem with "aspect warriors should be hyper specialized and super deadly against one particular type of enemy but weak against others" is that the basis of the game design doesn't really allow that to happen using the standard game mechanics. A unit which is highly specialized at killing vehicles is also going to be really good at killing terminators, simply on the basis that most armies don't field units of more than 5 terminators and a squad of 5-6 vehicle killers with proper buffs wills till annihilate a squad of terminators despite haivng low ROF (see also: Fire Dragons).

The only way to achieve this design goal is to give aspects absolutely wonky special rules and weapon stats. I.E. Weapons which are strength 3, ap 0 d1 against INFANTRY, but are strength 8, ap -4, d6 against VEHICLES and MONSTERS. Units which can fight twice or shoot twice against units with toughness 3 or less, or 2+/3+ armor saves, etc. Stuff like that. Otherwise, basic rules and capabilities otherwise essentially picks winners and losers as certain specializations inherently come with the toolset to tackle a wider range of problems and answer a broader range of questions posed by threats than others will.

a squad of fire dragons takes down 2 terminators in melta range, but Terminators and other W3 infantry are right on the cusp of being basically walking tanks anyway....as I think a lot of players believe they should be.

But elite infantry compared to tanks is generally more likely to have invulnerable saves and mid toughness values - the only reason why FD's work well against Terminators is because they have T4, which is unusual for a 38ppm elite infantry unit. The same unit is merely decent at taking down (for example) Grotesques, a similarly costed elite infantry unit that doesnt have quite the ideal stat distribution termiantors have.

chaos0xomega wrote:
The only way to achieve this design goal is to give aspects absolutely wonky special rules and weapon stats

They don't need to be bad, just inefficient.

Ideally a specialist squad like firedragons would perform far better than their points in generalist units when positioned well, but worse when positioned poorly (i.e. your standard 10 men two melta and a powerfist type squad is much more useful against chaff when you've mis-moved it or been cut off by a screening unit, but far less devastating if given a free run to their objective).

Eldar should play as they did best in Man o War and Gothic, skirting the edges of range, ducking in and out of line of sight, popping off from long ranges with lances, leading frustrated units into traps. If met head on, if senseless enough to charge into the center, then they should melt to most everything. Attrition is not something that Eldar can do well. They are low in numbers, relying on wraith (ghosts, effectively) units to fill in where volume of fire and numbers of tougher factions (orks, marines) may take and hold. Trouble is, this is not a gameplay style that is 1) intuitive and 2) possible on kitchen table cardboard box sized boards. Bring back 8x4foot tables, make the game play at 1500 pts for 5 to 7 turns, and then Eldar should have gamespace for their distinctive gameplan. Otherwise, it is square peg round hole trying to make CWE fit on a tiny table packed with harder units that can charge most everywhere almost immediately and with cover and terrain rules that do nothing to help.

Agreed that the current core rules and table size really holds back how they should function.

They could still achieve it by steering hard into a debuffing/control playstyle but that's miserable to play against.

Look it's pretty clear that GW has spent the last 10 years mining the eldar army for ideas to give to the imperium, so nothing they do is unique to them any more.

They've also spent a long time removing core mechanics that advantage the eldar, as well as removing the capacity for shenanigans because their opponent's don't enjoy being shenaniganed.


So, in the current paradigm of 40k, what they're going to have to do is take a leaf out of the imperium's book and give it back to the eldar.

Within the paradigm, extra wounds, toughness save and invulnerables are the only means of protection, so that will need to be used in a variety of ways for the eldar.

ie: guardian armour is 4+, aspect armour is 3+, heavy aspect armour is T+1 3+ (reapers, scorpions, warp spiders, dragons all are T4 3+).

Their weapons need to go back to being superior to non eldar weapons.


Aspects need to be seen as classes from shrines and shrines as the large war schools they are, not some kitchy joe's dojo on the corner street. Exarchs need to be explored and separated further into differring levels of skill and I wouldn't say no to aspects that have trod the same path multiple times and are elite just shy of exarchs, as small squads.



As I've said before, they need to balance the combat aspect of the army first and make it viable, BEFORE adding psykers. The army is very one note with always having a farseer or 2.

Autarchs are pointless at the moment.

IMO they need to build the army in 3 ways:

Guardian host
Aspect host
Wraith host

With a leadership combination of seers, exarchs and autarchs.


Unless they decide to really change the core mechanics, there are only a few narrow options for them to pursue.

 jeff white wrote:
Eldar should play as they did best in Man o War and Gothic, skirting the edges of range, ducking in and out of line of sight, popping off from long ranges with lances, leading frustrated units into traps. If met head on, if senseless enough to charge into the center, then they should melt to most everything. Attrition is not something that Eldar can do well. They are low in numbers, relying on wraith (ghosts, effectively) units to fill in where volume of fire and numbers of tougher factions (orks, marines) may take and hold. Trouble is, this is not a gameplay style that is 1) intuitive and 2) possible on kitchen table cardboard box sized boards. Bring back 8x4foot tables, make the game play at 1500 pts for 5 to 7 turns, and then Eldar should have gamespace for their distinctive gameplan. Otherwise, it is square peg round hole trying to make CWE fit on a tiny table packed with harder units that can charge most everywhere almost immediately and with cover and terrain rules that do nothing to help.

An army based on being untouchable will never work, no matter how large you make your table. The game plan you are suggesting is merely asking back for easy wins by moving back faster than enemies can advance and while outshooting everyone.
Pretty much every edition before 9th has shown how horrible and hated this kind of playstyle is and that it should never, ever come back. Besides that, no-mans land is just as many inches as it has been since 5th, irrespective of table size.

Eldar should totally be able to outrun their enemies, but they should do so by running circles around them, not by moving away in straight line and shooting from positions that infantry couldn't even dream of reaching them in two games.
An idea how this could be realized would be by allowing eldar to move after shooting (pile in in any direction like some warlord traits?) or by letting them advance without any penalties or restrictions.
Or you could allow stationary eldar to move at the end of the shooting phase or something, effectively an army-wide fire and fade.

Super-specializing aspects also isn't that hard, they could just give them highly specialized bespoke rules that help them against their preferred targets, similar to beast snaggas. Almost all of them could use some help anyways, so a strong buff against their intended targets would still leave them quite "meh" against everything else.

One more thing I feel like it is lacking with my current favorite nemesis is the feel of psychic might that they had in the past. In 5th a farseer could pick up tanks and spinn them around, and warlocks could fry half a unit of boyz with their mind. Right now, the slew of buffs and debuffs at their arsenal might be strong mechanically, but they don't feel "mighty". Instead, they feel like imperial officiers sending orders with their mind instead of yelling them.

 Jidmah wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
Eldar should play as they did best in Man o War and Gothic, skirting the edges of range, ducking in and out of line of sight, popping off from long ranges with lances, leading frustrated units into traps. If met head on, if senseless enough to charge into the center, then they should melt to most everything. Attrition is not something that Eldar can do well. They are low in numbers, relying on wraith (ghosts, effectively) units to fill in where volume of fire and numbers of tougher factions (orks, marines) may take and hold. Trouble is, this is not a gameplay style that is 1) intuitive and 2) possible on kitchen table cardboard box sized boards. Bring back 8x4foot tables, make the game play at 1500 pts for 5 to 7 turns, and then Eldar should have gamespace for their distinctive gameplan. Otherwise, it is square peg round hole trying to make CWE fit on a tiny table packed with harder units that can charge most everywhere almost immediately and with cover and terrain rules that do nothing to help.

An army based on being untouchable will never work, no matter how large you make your table. The game plan you are suggesting is merely asking back for easy wins by moving back faster than enemies can advance and while outshooting everyone.
Pretty much every edition before 9th has shown how horrible and hated this kind of playstyle is and that it should never, ever come back.

To some extent, I feel like the style jeff is describing (which is totally how I though they would behave when I first got into the game) is sort of like Alpha Legion trickery. In theory, 99% of their fights should be perfectly orchestrated one-sided affairs. But 40k games assume that both players have roughly equally threatening forces that will trade blows on the table rather than spending an afternoon slowly getting whittled down by ambushes and guerilla attacks. So like, what jeff is describing definitely seems like it should be how eldar do battle, but the game (especially 9th edition) doesn't really support that. Which is partly why I created this thread. What do eldar look like if we assume they're not allowed to actually utilize their speed and trickery as advertised?

Besides that, no-mans land is just as many inches as it has been since 5th, irrespective of table size.

Eldar should totally be able to outrun their enemies, but they should do so by running circles around them, not by moving away in straight line and shooting from positions that infantry couldn't even dream of reaching them in two games.

Eh. So in 8th edition, I could spread out objectives and spend a big chunk of the game fight on opposite or denying a flank after suckering my opponent into committing to one side.I wasn't really kiting per se, but I could use my speed to nope off far enough from one chunk of the enemy army to leave them without targets. In 9th edition, the table is small enough and enemies fast enough to make working the flanks like that difficult. So while we technically move faster than the enemy, there's kind of nowhere to move except straight toward the enemy or the objectives.

An idea how this could be realized would be by allowing eldar to move after shooting (pile in in any direction like some warlord traits?) or by letting them advance without any penalties or restrictions.
Or you could allow stationary eldar to move at the end of the shooting phase or something, effectively an army-wide fire and fade.

I'm all for bringing back a form of move-shoot-move, but I'm surprised you like the idea given that it's basically a way to kite the enemy without having to move as far.

Super-specializing aspects also isn't that hard, they could just give them highly specialized bespoke rules that help them against their preferred targets, similar to beast snaggas. Almost all of them could use some help anyways, so a strong buff against their intended targets would still leave them quite "meh" against everything else.

I played eldar back in 5th when they were still leaning extra hard into the "specialized targets" thing. Honestly, the 6th edition and onward paradigm shift of letting units be a little more flexible just works better without really sacrificing a sense of identity. Like, you could give Fire Dragons S1 guns that always wound vehicles on a 2+, but just giving them meltaguns is simpler and avoids making them useless when you face armies without tanks. I feel like modern eldar should be "specialized" in the sense that each aspect fills a niche without too much crossover between aspects. That doesn't have to mean that they're only good against one very specific target type. For instance, banshees and dark reapers can both be decent at killing marines, but the former's niche could be tarpitting via scream debuffs (letting you shut down targets too tough to kill outright) while the reapers' niche is having more reach than most units in your army, shutting down to-hit penalties, or somehow offering supporting fire to other units.

One more thing I feel like it is lacking with my current favorite nemesis is the feel of psychic might that they had in the past. In 5th a farseer could pick up tanks and spinn them around, and warlocks could fry half a unit of boyz with their mind. Right now, the slew of buffs and debuffs at their arsenal might be strong mechanically, but they don't feel "mighty". Instead, they feel like imperial officiers sending orders with their mind instead of yelling them.

I don't really mind our powers generally being more subtle, but I agree about missing the feeling of tossing an eldritch storm or a destructor template on something. Current destructor actually being a nerf (outside of a conclave) rather than a buff feels really weird too. I also miss warlock buffs being always-on. Like, our safety-first psykers being so good at their powers that they were always active rather than fizzling out about 40% of the time was a nice nod to our fluff without being tremendously powerful.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I'm all for bringing back a form of move-shoot-move, but I'm surprised you like the idea given that it's basically a way to kite the enemy without having to move as far.

I'm not opposed to eldar being faster than most other armies, that is part of their fluff and their identity. This kind of kiting can be countered by attacking them in a pincer attack, cutting off their escape routes with fast elements or blasting them with powerful guns from a distance. Every army has the ability to one or the other.
What I'm opposed to is the non-interactive playstyle that you were describing earlier in your post that allowed them to dodge out range of anything but long-ranged weapons entirely. This does not work in a game that has entire armies relying on 5" movement and 24" range weapons.

Jidmah, I think that you are wrong. Done. Not going to waste another second on it. A dios.

@OP:

A couple of months ago I started a thread about the traits of the most prominent 40K factions. According to that Eldar should play like this:

- Most mobile of all factions. This doesn´t only include fast vehicles but the ability to use warp tunnels and psi-powers to quickly relocate units on the table.

- Long range firepower. This suits a high-tech faction very well and was a trait for them in 2nd and in Epic. However GW trashed the Eldar since 3rd when they reduced shuriken catapults to 12´´ range.

- Emphasis on force shields rather than thick armour for protection.

- General aspect: Highly specialized army. They have aspect warriors for every combat role. Downside would be that Eldar can´t improvise. So if you don´t bring scorpions or banshees you will suck in cc.

- Small unit sizes. Goes well with the fluff of a dying race and the need to pay a lot of points for their exotic tech.


The above listed traits were watered down to some degree with the arrival of Tau and Dark Eldar which made zero sense gamewise but a lot of sense considering the sales driven ruleset of 40K. So now the game is burdened with three high-tech races which needlessly add to the faction bloat.

 Strg Alt wrote:
@OP:

A couple of months ago I started a thread about the traits of the most prominent 40K factions. According to that Eldar should play like this:

- Most mobile of all factions. This doesn´t only include fast vehicles but the ability to use warp tunnels and psi-powers to quickly relocate units on the table.

- Long range firepower. This suits a high-tech faction very well and was a trait for them in 2nd and in Epic. However GW trashed the Eldar since 3rd when they reduced shuriken catapults to 12´´ range.

- Emphasis on force shields rather than thick armour for protection.

These surprise me a little. I definitely think of us as being fast, and a single unit (warp spiders) use the warp to relocate, but to my knowledge using psychic powers to relocate hasn't really been our thing in fluff or on the tabletop. I guess we had access to Gate of Infinity in 7th edition? We have Quicken now, but iirc it didn't provide a double-move until 8th edition.

Long-range firepower definitely makes sense for us, but most of our units have traditionally been pretty short-ranged. Reapers and heavy weapon platforms are just about our only man-portable guns with more than 24" range, and most of our heavy weapons have comparable or inferior range to our imperial counterparts. Shuriken catapults specifically did get a range decrease back in the day though. Basically, I agree that having long-ranged weapons makes sense, but it's odd to me that people feel this is a part of our identity given that we haven't actually been all that long-ranged for big chunks of our history.

We have *some* force shields, but they're pretty scattered through the army. War walkers, wave serpents, autarchs, wraith blades, and maybe avenger exarchs (shimmer shields) are described as being force-fields. Psykers sort of have them via rune armor, but that's a different sort of tech. Our tanks can take holo-fields that aren't force-fields but more like light shows that trick your eyes. 8th edition gave guardians a celestial shield strat. But aspect warriors, most wraith units, vypers, rangers, pre-8th guardians, vaul support batteries, and most phoenix lords have generally gone without force-fields. So it's another thing that would make sense for them, but I don't tend to think of force-fields as being an iconic piece of eldar kit.

I like a lot of this discussion.

It makes me wonder if, when we are talking about how the eldar, doing the whole dying race reliant on superior tech and psychic ability thing, could be an army that NEEDS combined arms. I had this thought that they could be a army that leans really heavily into debuffs.
We've got a lot of armies that have synergies by combining characters and CORE units to give a killer combo. But maybe eldar should work that each unit makes life harder for the enemy in some specific way... slowing them down, reducing armour saves, removing invuln, lowering morale. The whole 'death of a thousand cuts' treatment.
I'm no expert in coming up with mechanics to support this, but it could be less annoying than pop-up attacks (as it doesn't totally neutralize you... just makes everything harder).
My only thought would be to go with the combined arms idea, that the debuffs a unit gives should be of limited benefit to that unit... so spamming one aspect won't help, you would need something else to take advantage of it.
But as a lot of people have said, with the number of factions we have, and the limited wiggle room in game mechanics... it'll be interesting to see what GW come up with to make them fun and unique.

That's essentially how a lot of Eldar psyker powers work by crippling the enemy, the problem is a lot of them have such a poor range it's a big gambit to even attempt. A range boost to those debilitating powers would be nice.

It would be nice to have the ability to make life harder for the enemy without it being Psyker only trait as well, something to represent the misdirection, superior stealth, and treachery of the Eldar.

WaaaghPolice wrote:
I like a lot of this discussion.

It makes me wonder if, when we are talking about how the eldar, doing the whole dying race reliant on superior tech and psychic ability thing, could be an army that NEEDS combined arms. I had this thought that they could be a army that leans really heavily into debuffs.
We've got a lot of armies that have synergies by combining characters and CORE units to give a killer combo. But maybe eldar should work that each unit makes life harder for the enemy in some specific way... slowing them down, reducing armour saves, removing invuln, lowering morale. The whole 'death of a thousand cuts' treatment.
I'm no expert in coming up with mechanics to support this, but it could be less annoying than pop-up attacks (as it doesn't totally neutralize you... just makes everything harder).
My only thought would be to go with the combined arms idea, that the debuffs a unit gives should be of limited benefit to that unit... so spamming one aspect won't help, you would need something else to take advantage of it.
But as a lot of people have said, with the number of factions we have, and the limited wiggle room in game mechanics... it'll be interesting to see what GW come up with to make them fun and unique.

Yeah. It would be tricky to work out the specifics, but I like the high-concept of this. It lets eldar seem badass not by overpowering the enemy ala space marines, but by having the skill and tech to mitigate the enemy's ability to hit back. My fire dragons are alive at the end of the game not because their advanced armor gives them T5 and 3 wounds, but because their banshee and spider pals kept the enemy tangled up while the dragons killed the big guns.

Some thoughts I've had along these lines:
* Banshee masks prevent the enemy from falling back (probably replaces the overwatch cancelling rule). So while reasonably killy, banshees' job is more about keeping select units from shooting/charging rather than murdering targets outright.
* Warp spiders. When they don't split fire, put a "monofilament token" next to their target until the start of the next eldar turn. Units with a monofilament token have a chance of taking mortal wounds if they move. Chance goes up if they move farther or advance. Number of wounds goes up if they're a larger squad. Or just lower the target's movement and prevent advancing instead of doing MW.
* Scorpions: Let them arrive from reserves on the enemy turn after enemy reserves have arrived. This means scorpions can potentially block enemy charges (hidden countercharge) or that they're in position to get an easy charge on your own turn if your opponent doesn't dedicate shooting towards the unexpected threat.
* Dragons: Honestly, these guys should probably just be a simple, cost-efficient anti-tank unit. But I like the idea of being able to manipulate Explodes! tests (similar to the Alpha Legion stratagem). Dragons kind of encourage your opponent to spread out because every vehicle in their army is that much more likely to turn into a pile of mortal wounds. Alternatively, any vehicle that loses wounds to a fire dragon uses its lowest wounds bracket in the following turn becaues the dragons know how to target key systems if they can't kill a target outright.
* Hawks: Possibly my favorite aspect, but I really really miss their haywire grenades. Wouldn't mind seeing their grenade packs shift away from dealing damage and towards applying debuffs to targeted units. Alternatively, just bring back the sunrifle and its blind rule. Let the sunrifle shut off overwatch or reduce BS for a turn. Slightly off-topic, but I miss Baharroth letting these guys hit & run, and we should maybe consider changing sky leap to an instant relocation rule given how short 9e games are and the size of the board.
* Avengers: I'd love for these guys to get Tau style overwatch and a stratagem to intercept charges. It would give their melee options a little more value and turn them into a unit that you take to protect your other units rather than trying to make them extra murdery in their own right.
* Spears: Like dragons, I feel like these guys should probably be more of a straight-forward hammer unit.
* Reapers: You could give these guys Death Jester/Interceptor(?) style rules. Let them turn off overwatch of the units they target. Maybe let the exarch snipe out specific models from units. Maybe let them overwatch for friendly units. But honestly, reapers are kind of okay as another raw damage hammer unit.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
That's essentially how a lot of Eldar psyker powers work by crippling the enemy, the problem is a lot of them have such a poor range it's a big gambit to even attempt. A range boost to those debilitating powers would be nice.

It would be nice to have the ability to make life harder for the enemy without it being Psyker only trait as well, something to represent the misdirection, superior stealth, and treachery of the Eldar.

The problem that I run into is that I just don't have the points or slots to squeeze in a ton of psykers, and other powers take priority. Especially on the Runes of Battle table. Jinx is great, but do I really want to Enervate a single enemy unit when I could Empower one of my own units and just kill that enemy instead? Do I want to give one of my opponent's units a movement penalty, or do I want to double move my own unit out of their threat range or close enough to blast them off the table?

If guardian squad warlock sergeants made a return, I'd probably end up using all of the RoBattle powers.

 Strg Alt wrote:
@OP:

A couple of months ago I started a thread about the traits of the most prominent 40K factions. According to that Eldar should play like this:

- Most mobile of all factions. This doesn´t only include fast vehicles but the ability to use warp tunnels and psi-powers to quickly relocate units on the table.

- Long range firepower. This suits a high-tech faction very well and was a trait for them in 2nd and in Epic. However GW trashed the Eldar since 3rd when they reduced shuriken catapults to 12´´ range.

- Emphasis on force shields rather than thick armour for protection.

- General aspect: Highly specialized army. They have aspect warriors for every combat role. Downside would be that Eldar can´t improvise. So if you don´t bring scorpions or banshees you will suck in cc.

- Small unit sizes. Goes well with the fluff of a dying race and the need to pay a lot of points for their exotic tech.


The above listed traits were watered down to some degree with the arrival of Tau and Dark Eldar which made zero sense gamewise but a lot of sense considering the sales driven ruleset of 40K. So now the game is burdened with three high-tech races which needlessly add to the faction bloat.

TBH i think "long range firepower" as an army trait will never, ever work on the new tiny board. "outranging" an enemy is meaningless. Space Marines and IG have range = board on basically all their stuff, you could make shuricats 48" range and it'd be a meaningless distinction.

Instead, I think the only way to achieve the "mobile, finesse-based" fantasy of eldar/harlequins is via some kind of post-attack movement paradigm. If you just hand them invulns but call them "dodgey-dodges" then you end up with the current frustratingly tanky setup harlequins have. The ONLY way to increase your defenses naturally using movement in 9e is to move yourself behind Obscuring or Dense cover, and even Dense is...basically meaningless.

So, that leaves us with move-shoot-move or move-attack-move as our option, and the obvious drawback is to stick with the limited range weaponry paradigm theyre currently on.

It could work. Probably would work even better if yu also allow eldar units to embark with their second move, so a wave serpent could facilitate one squad swapping out of the serpent and another squad swapping in.