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so i got to thinking latley, about the status of the game in general, and what ive come to notice while browsing forums, and previous discussions on new codex, is that people seem to expect EW on EVERYTHING. c'tan, any HQ choice, demon princes, etc. now, im not complaining about lack of or too much EW on units... but to immediatly discount a unit as underpowererd or overcosted just because it lacks EW... well that seems off to me.

i recall back in 3rd, the only things that had EW were the phoenix lords of the eldar. because they literraly were "eternal warriors" and couldnt die. (if they did they just repaired the armor, and put some new guy in it to assume the phonex lords soul or whatever the eldar do) i think calgar may have also had it.... but literally no one else did.

now, everything has it. generic HQ can have it... daemons, demon princes, and so on. really to the point of making the EW rule kind of redundant and "meh"

my theory on it is simple... lack of EW shouldnt relegate a unit to the "useless" category, it should instead simply make you more tactical while using said. using the chaos book as an example, (because its the newest) a demon prince with EW would probally just fly or march up the center and wrecking ball anything it can. the 40k equivilant of a bulldozer. take away EW, and the prince is still a super fast, awsome skilled and strong beat stick... but you have to be a bit more... unique with him. cant just throw him up the middle and laugh as he shrugs off everything thrown at him. TMC, ctan and others should also follow this same sort of rule... yes its powerful, yes it can wreck an opposing army, but it should'nt live without "fear". i believe for every unit, there SHOULD be something out there that can take it down with ease. sort of a "paper/rock/scissors/lizard/spock/plasma/force/MC" situation.

while I would like to see people more focused on the actual rules and what a unit can do, regardless of EW and make the call on it that way, instead of looking for 1 rule, and discarding the unit if said rule is lacking. has that what the game has devolved into? trying to spam as many EW and other special rules as possible into a list? if so - it saddens me to see the game at this point.

anyway, not complaining at all, was just wondering if im completly out to lunch on this or do others feel the same?

 DarthSpader wrote:


anyway, not complaining at all, was just wondering if im completly out to lunch on this or do others feel the same?

all nice and good , but when some armies get EW and others dont , then the armies with eternal warrior are just better suited for combat . The DP , which I personaly think is bad because how much it costs not because of no EW , without EW makes no sense for chaos players when they can get battle brother MC with EW offten with more utility and/or lower cost .

Same goes for other meq . Why take a TH/SS cpt/chapter master when taking calgar or lysander or a SW wolf lord is just better .

Saying that people should be smarter in use of stuff , is nid players talk . You have to be smart in using something and other armies dont have to be smart in using their melee deathstars , then it is a handicap on all player levels , be it two noobs or two GT champions playing against each other.

To me Eternal Warrior is a nice thing to to have, but to many people put to much in it. Most armies have either something that has EW or a toughness of 6+. I know that many don’t, but that should not be the end of the world.

What I am tired of is every time a Codex comes out it seems that some Character don’t get there are screams of “That Character is now worthless without it!” like its some sort of “Divine Right” for it to be handed out left and right.

It should be a rare thing, with my Space Wolves I can get it Tree Times; Once with Logan, Once with Arjac and Once with a Wolf Lord. To put all of them on the same list you are going to be spending over 500 points. Yet every time I post a Canis List the first thing I am told “Don’t Take Him! Without EW He Is Worthless! You Would Be Better Off With A Wolf Lord!” If I want to play a Wolf Lord with Paired Wolf Claw, I would. Sometime I like to use my Canis Model as Canis. It has gotten so bad that I have stopped posting Canis List, because the next two pages are people telling me how worthless he is without EW.

Sorry for the mini-Rant, but I agree that EW should be a little bit more Rare and Common at the same time. Each Codex should have one Signature Character with it and the option to buy it if there is no other Character on your list with it and that Character Automatically makes him/her your Warlord. Maybe it should no longer be an option and your Warlord gets it. Either that or give it to all Unique Characters.

I have an issue with the new CSM Daemon Prince not having EW when the price was significantly increased.

In the current codex, you can get a power armored DP with wings for 130 points and it has EW.

In the new codex, the same thing is going to cost 205 points and you lose EW.

From my understanding, this was done to bring the C:CSM DP more in line with the DP found in C:CD, but daemons in that codex are immune to instant death.

Then again, I've never heard anyone with a well thought out opinion bemoan the fact that they don't have enough EW.

Edit. I missed the "MUST take one of the following" when being a Daemon of X. That means that it costs a minimum of 215 to field a DP that's comparable to the current codex.

I suppose the question here is not one of EW, it's one of ID. EW only exists to ignore ID, so the question really is what purpose ID serves in a game of 40k.

Clearly the game designers have been trying to limit the usefulness of this rule, but they still apparently want to keep it around for some reason.

I'd like to see EW go away altogether. Just because your special snowflake has a special name doesn't mean he should be able to walk away from catching a demolisher cannon shell in the teeth.

 daedalus wrote:
I'd like to see EW go away altogether. Just because your special snowflake has a special name doesn't mean he should be able to walk away from catching a demolisher cannon shell in the teeth.

I'm currently painting up a Pink and Purple, Rainbow-Brite Daemon Princess for giggles. Her name will be Snowflake. I love it!

 kcwm wrote:

 daedalus wrote:
I'd like to see EW go away altogether. Just because your special snowflake has a special name doesn't mean he should be able to walk away from catching a demolisher cannon shell in the teeth.

I'm currently painting up a Pink and Purple, Rainbow-Brite Daemon Princess for giggles. Her name will be Snowflake. I love it!

This is Wildberry Poptart. Because of his colors.

I have to agree with the prevalence of EW. I started playing in 4th edition and while it existed, it wasn't as in your face as the current codexes (sp) have made it to be.

I don't play in a games store, instead I have couple buddies who come to my house to play. That helps, because we were able to come to an agreement with EW. We house ruled it so that if a model with EW is subject to instant death due to strength being double their toughness, then we roll d3 and take that many wounds. It has actually helped a good deal, and it's meshed fairly well with 6th edition and the other randomness they added.

I don't expect GW to make any serious changes to their policies on HQ's and EW, or any significant changes to EW itself.

Daemons got army-wide EW because it helps make-up for the facts that;
a) We're an almost purely close combat based army can only ever deploy via Deep Strike.
b) We have 0 transports to help protect our troops on their way into combat.

I am however expecting my Daemons to lose their army-wide EW when the new codex comes out. From my experience though, the only units that will really take it on the chin will be Fiends who will become glass cannons, while Screamers & Flamers will simply become balanced for their reletively cheap cost in comparison to their new abilities.
Heralds likely won't enjoy the EW loss either, but again, some of the most popular builds are way too cheap for what you get! (chariot Tzherald - I'm looking at you!)

Bloodcrushers, Nurgle units, Princes & Greaters won't care much since they're all at least base T5.

GK's will be a bigger problem mind, since now they'll get double insta-kill unless GW FAQ's away the Daemonbane rule.

Overall though, I'm sure us Daemon players will adapt and carry on with being able to curbstomp most opponents!

 Ailaros wrote:
I suppose the question here is not one of EW, it's one of ID. EW only exists to ignore ID, so the question really is what purpose ID serves in a game of 40k.

The purpose it serves is that if you take a direct hit from a titan you're gone. It doesn't matter how tough you are, or how good you are at fighting through pain, or even if you can still kill the enemy with an arm blown off, some weapons are just powerful enough that they go straight past "wounded" to "there isn't enough left of the body to identify it".

Therefore the solution is to remove EW entirely. Don't want your mighty hero killed by a krak missile? Too bad.

As a tyranid player I can tell you it is much better to never have EW than to have it and then lose it. The loss of EW and the threat of ID has made some units irrelevant. ID is something I always have to consider when thinking about a build. I would love to use Tyranid warriors, ravenors, and shrikes but when I'm looking across the board at 2 full groups of long-fangs, taking those units feels absolutely pointless. All the shortfalls Deamons have are the same issues Tyranids have but at least Deamons all get invul saves, even if the are only 5++ it is better than a 4+ or 5+ armor save. Spending 30-45 points on a W3 model to have it explode from 1 krak missile is not very fun. I don't want to be overpowered, I just want my units to be useful or at least fun to field.

I don't know or claim to know what the best answer is. The threat of ID is an important element of list building but to have ID makes portions of your codex useless isn't fair either. ID also makes good sense. Maybe turn EW into a chance to ignore ID, like DtW, as if the blast or hit only grazes them.

Also, what's the deal with Necrons getting to take an ID hit and then get back up.

Peregrine wrote:The purpose it serves is that if you take a direct hit from a titan you're gone. It doesn't matter how tough you are, or how good you are at fighting through pain, or even if you can still kill the enemy with an arm blown off, some weapons are just powerful enough that they go straight past "wounded" to "there isn't enough left of the body to identify it".

Sure, but why?

The best I can figure is that ID serves to allow for the creation of units that are practically immune to whole swaths of attacks, but are instantly destroyed by hard counters. I mean, the best example of this is ogryn. Against most things, they're really tough, but then they instantly fold the moment mephiston or a death ray hits the table.

The question is why would you want this?

GW seems to be going the opposite way with HP for vehicles. Vehicles, like ID-able infantry, used to be fine until they were suddenly dead. If GW doesn't want this for vehicles, but instead wants something that more smoothly collapses as it takes damage, then why bother with ID for infantry?

The question isn't why should we get rid of EW, the question is why should we even bother keeping ID around in the first place?

What's Eternal Warrior? -Tyranid players

 Ailaros wrote:
The question isn't why should we get rid of EW, the question is why should we even bother keeping ID around in the first place?

I already said why: because it's the best way of representing what's going on. Multiple wounds represents the ability to suffer injuries and keep fighting, whether it's a Catachan yelling about how dying of bullet wounds is for lesser people, or a space marine shutting off the bleeding and continuing to fight with an arm blown off. However, some weapons are simply powerful enough that they don't inflict wounds, they completely destroy the target. If you take a direct hit from a demolisher cannon shot you aren't going to be wounded, you're going to be obliterated.

Really there are only two problems with instant death:

1) Eternal warrior exists. EW is nothing but GW listening to people who whine and cry if their great hero is killed in one shot. Get rid of it entirely.

2) It doesn't happen frequently enough. Forget the whole "double toughness" rule, if you want more realism weapons should start inflicting multiple wounds at lower strength, to the point that you effectively have instant death for anything 2-3 points higher than toughness.

GW seems to be going the opposite way with HP for vehicles. Vehicles, like ID-able infantry, used to be fine until they were suddenly dead. If GW doesn't want this for vehicles, but instead wants something that more smoothly collapses as it takes damage, then why bother with ID for infantry?

Except that wasn't happened. Hull points isn't about causing a smooth collapse (since a vehicle is even less hurt by glances than in 5th), it's about ensuring that vehicles eventually die no matter how badly you roll on the damage table. They can still be 100% fine (and often will be) right up until they die, but now their death becomes "when", not "if". This has nothing at all to do with ID/EW.

Peregrine wrote:I already said why: because it's the best way of representing what's going on.

I don't see why this is so. It seems like its "realistic" because it's traditional. I bet if we weren't all used to seeing instant death in the rules, and expect it to be how things work, we wouldn't even notice. For a vast majority of cases, when a model fails a save, it takes a wound, and only in a tiny set of circumstances does a model fail a save and take multiple wounds. It's the presence of ID that's the aberration here.

I mean, if we were going by realism here, then nobody would have more than W1, as taking an exploding bolt to anywhere in your body would instantly make basically anything a casualty. The fact that a space marine can get hosed down by 30mm autocannon fire and more or less shrug it off and keep going while catching a krak missile causes basically the opposite to happen doesn't seem that realistic.

And from a game design standpoint it doesn't make sense either.

I have no problem with ID, but EW is tossed out too liberally. Instead of just being tossed on heroes, it should be on units that wouldn't be killed outright by a cannon, etc. like non-coporeal stuff. I personally think EW units hit by a double S weapon should take multiple wounds, d3 would be fine. A man taking a Demolisher shell to his face that can keep fighting because he's "heroic", yeah . . . bit ridiculous.

As for multiple wounds, there's definitely a reason for them. It may not make sense for humanoids, sure, but it makes sense for Carnifexen and Bloodthirsters.

 Ailaros wrote:
I don't see why this is so. It seems like its "realistic" because it's traditional. I bet if we weren't all used to seeing instant death in the rules, and expect it to be how things work, we wouldn't even notice. For a vast majority of cases, when a model fails a save, it takes a wound, and only in a tiny set of circumstances does a model fail a save and take multiple wounds. It's the presence of ID that's the aberration here.

Sure I would notice it. If my titan shoots a human-size target I expect the human-size target to be vaporized, not just wounded. The only thing unexpected about ID is that it's so hard to get, when I'd expect even T5 stuff to be blown away entirely by STR 8 weapons.

I mean, if we were going by realism here, then nobody would have more than W1, as taking an exploding bolt to anywhere in your body would instantly make basically anything a casualty. The fact that a space marine can get hosed down by 30mm autocannon fire and more or less shrug it off and keep going while catching a krak missile causes basically the opposite to happen doesn't seem that realistic.

You're right. Those autocannon shots should be inflicting more than one wound.

But really the problem is one of scaling. The difference between an autocannon and a krak missile fluff-wise is a huge step in firepower, but GW makes it only +1 STR. I suspect this is so that vehicles don't die as quickly as they really would (for example, my Vulture with 6x "hellfire" missiles should pop out from behind cover and kill 5-6 Leman Russes, not fire the whole load and hope to get a glance) and end the game after the first shooting phase.

60mm wrote:As for multiple wounds, there's definitely a reason for them. It may not make sense for humanoids, sure, but it makes sense for Carnifexen and Bloodthirsters.

Fine, but why throw around multiple wounds everywhere just to ignore it somewhere?

ID makes the game inconsistent. Adding in EW makes it even more inconsistent. The solution here is to get rid of ID, not tweak EW.

Peregrine wrote:Because some weapons don't inflict wounds, they obliterate the target entirely.

Yes, and there already ARE those weapons out there. They have rules that say "remove from play". That affects all units, not just ones with certain toughness values.

Peregrine wrote:You're right. Those autocannon shots should be inflicting more than one wound.

But now the system is getting MORE convoluted. The strength of a weapon determines how easy it is to wound AND how many wounds it does based on the opponent's toughness? Are we going to need another chart?

Of course, weapons could have another stat that says how many wounds they do when they apply wounds, but that's adding more complexity and is still insufficiently nuanced.

It would be much, much better if they kept the rule at one unsaved wound = one wound. If you wanted stuff to do damage more quickly, either be more judicious about wounds, or make weapons have more shots or something. There are definitely ways to fix this without the awful system we have now.

In fact, I think this might just be why we have EW everywhere now. ID is a bad rule, but they can't just get rid of it without it screwing a bunch of other stuff up. As such, they are slowly transitioning to a new paradigm codex by codex where ID is being phased out by the use of EW showing up more and more in the new codices. Eventually there will be EW basically everywhere and then they can just drop ID and EW at the same time, and no one will notice.

You'll also note that they weakened ID by making it no longer applying to base toughness. The number of places where ID is showing up on the tabletop is slowly shrinking. Perhaps it will be practically gone before it becomes literally gone.

 Ailaros wrote:
Fine, but why throw around multiple wounds everywhere just to ignore it somewhere?

Because some weapons don't inflict wounds, they obliterate the target entirely. This really isn't hard to understand.


If you want to remove ID, you need to abandon the entire D6 system. You can represent toughness by difficulty to wound, but not when it caps out at a 2+ almost immediately. If, for example, 40k was a D20 system you could make everything have one wound and represent the massive firepower of a demolisher cannon by giving it a 2+ to wound everything, while a bolter might need an 18+. But in a D6 system the only way to resolve the problem is to have stuff inflict more than one wound, and have powerful weapons kill in one shot no matter how many wounds you have.

I agree. However, from a sales point of view, making a character EW will make them sell better. People are hesitant to use characters that can die with a lascannon to the face, or other things like that. It's discouraging. It can really ruin your day!

Abaddon used to be the only character in the CSM codex who had EW. He deserved it. He was the warlord of chaos, and cost 275 points! I haven't looked at the new codex, but somehow I'd imagine a lot more things have EW now.

i think the biggest thing here, is that you have a TON of multiple wound models out there, sitting at toughness 4. and with every army packing a good number of str 8 or higher weapons... (kraks, lazcannons, the new chaos...whatever it is, psyflemen cannons, meltas, and so on...) it ends up where people take as many of these high strength guns as possible, not for shooting tanks (as is their intended purpose) but for mowing down the huge assortment of multiple wound T4 critters. (nobs, nid warriors, wraiths, etc)

so you have great multiple wound models, wich are super tough and can take a beating... but get wiped out by anti tank weapons... makes sense. sort of. EW was put in to represent ultimate bad *** mutha ******s who simply would not die, even after a demolisher to the face. super rare, and on super expensive unique characters. it worked well. then everyone started getting it. now its just....kinda broke.

my opinion... if your tough enough to take a bullet in the elbow and keep rocking... then be TOUGHER. it should be minimum T5 for 2 wound models, and T6 or more for 3+ wound models. for guys that are ancient, and fight on no matter what (ie: space marine characters) perhaps keep them at 2 wounds and T5, but give them a special "shut off the pain" rule... on an unsaved wound they get a roll to ignore it. i think maybe a 4+ and it replaces any feel no pain they get from something or anything else and cant be improved. this way, you have guys that can ignore lesser shots, and are harder to hurt, but still get trounced properly without being impossible to kill. imho the only things that should have eternal warrior is stuff with some ultimate supernatural source of being in existance. such as eldar phoenix lords, avatars and greater daemons, c'tan and MAYBE hive tyrants...although kinda pushing it. anything else would just be normal as above. calgar may be the ultimate space marine... but if he takes a rail cannon in the chest/head area he should be done. he is after all still "mortal" and flesh and bone.

i realize the cries of "how come they get and we dont?" are probaly echoing through the internets... but those units should also be rather expensive. minimum 300pts a pop. taking such a nasty critter that wont die should be a significant investment and make the owner think about it.

"do i want a guy who can shrug off lazcannons and railcannons, and demolish an army, or do i want a guy a little less powerful, slightly squishier, but i can have 2 of them?"

 Samus_aran115 wrote:
I agree. However, from a sales point of view, making a character EW will make them sell better. People are hesitant to use characters that can die with a lascannon to the face, or other things like that. It's discouraging. It can really ruin your day!

Abaddon used to be the only character in the CSM codex who had EW. He deserved it. He was the warlord of chaos, and cost 275 points! I haven't looked at the new codex, but somehow I'd imagine a lot more things have EW now.

Actually it is less now.. none of the Daemon units have it..

DarthSpader wrote:my opinion... if your tough enough to take a bullet in the elbow and keep rocking... then be TOUGHER. it should be minimum T5 for 2 wound models, and T6 or more for 3+ wound models.

Sure, and that would be one fine way of handling it. Of course, the idea of instant death no longer makes sense, as nothing with more than one wound would be effected, so you might as well get rid of the rule by that point.

But it would certainly achieve the desired effect (badasses taking a lot of fire to wipe out), without the silly ID mechanic that needs to be countermanded all the time.

Of course, you would have to change the wounding table slightly so that lasguns and bolters could wound higher-toughness models, but that would be an easy fix. And it would be "realistic", and it would be much smoother and less complicated, and you wouldn't need any special rules at all, rather than a special rule, and a special rule to block the special rule.

 Ailaros wrote:
But it would certainly achieve the desired effect (badasses taking a lot of fire to wipe out), without the silly ID mechanic that needs to be countermanded all the time.

Except the ID mechanic doesn't need to be countermanded, it needs to be used more frequently and GW needs to stop catering to 12 year olds who can't stand the fact that their character died. "Badasses taking a lot of fire to wipe out" is exactly what caused this problem, one character gets EW and then everyone else demands it. The solution is to just accept that human-size badasses can take a lot of fire from smaller weapons, but some things just kill you no matter what.

And it would be "realistic", and it would be much smoother and less complicated, and you wouldn't need any special rules at all, rather than a special rule, and a special rule to block the special rule.

Except it isn't realistic at all. I don't care what abstract toughness value you have assigned to you, if you're a human-size target a titan shot is going to leave a smoking crater and maybe, if you're very lucky, a large enough scrap of bone to run a DNA test and know that you were caught in the blast.

I only have access to 3 codices here, SM, ork, IG, and unless I missed someone, there are 1, 0, and 1 characters with EW. They are also ridiculously expensive. It's not clear to me that not being able one-shot them is a problem - lots of other things are really hard to kill too, even without EW, but we manage it (or not).

Snapshot wrote:
I only have access to 3 codices here, SM, ork, IG, and unless I missed someone, there are 1, 0, and 1 characters with EW. They are also ridiculously expensive. It's not clear to me that not being able one-shot them is a problem - lots of other things are really hard to kill too, even without EW, but we manage it (or not).

It's not a game balance problem, it's a fluff problem. It's absolutely stupid that just by being "awesome" enough you can survive weapons that will reduce a human-size target to a red stain on the wall.

In the case of the loyalists, you're clearly forgetting that "The Emperor Protects"

[Edit: for spelling :-) ]

Peregrine wrote:It's not a game balance problem, it's a fluff problem.

So your vision for 40k differs from GW's vision. So?

Just because you have a certain aesthetic doesn't mean that everybody is going to share it, and it certainly doesn't mean that whatever you believe is efficient game design. It's not that people don't understand your particular vision of how certain weapons should work, it's that people are disagreeing with your vision. A subtle but important difference.

Over in my aesthetic, having a system whereby you have multiple wounds AND a system wherein multiple wound models are sometimes treated as single wound models makes no sense. There are several ways to make units tougher without multiple wounds, and there are ways to change the system to make it so that you don't need rules that exist only to contradict other rules. ID and EW is a poor way of doing it.

 Ailaros wrote:
So your vision for 40k differs from GW's vision. So?

Not really, since instant death is still part of 40k, and I suspect the reason they give out EW has more to do with whiny kids than any "vision" about how the fluff should be.

It's not that people don't understand your particular vision of how certain weapons should work, it's that people are disagreeing with your vision.

Except that's exactly what it is, you're arguing that ID has no place in the game and completely ignoring what I'm saying about the reasons GW put it there.

Over in my aesthetic, having a system whereby you have multiple wounds AND a system wherein multiple wound models are sometimes treated as single wound models makes no sense. There are several ways to make units tougher without multiple wounds, and there are ways to change the system to make it so that you don't need rules that exist only to contradict other rules. ID and EW is a poor way of doing it.

Except those alternate ways involve giving up the D6 system. You can't have models become harder to wound without giving them multiple wounds, the STR vs. T system just doesn't allow it. So, which is the better solution:

1) ID/EW.

or

2) Re-write the core mechanics of the game, and re-write and re-balance every single codex to account for the changes.

or

3) Remove EW entirely. EW is stupid, ID makes sense. If there's a conflict between the two, get rid of the stupid rule.


The ONLY thing wrong with ID is that the stat compression in weapon strengths means that an 20-30mm autocannon and a 120mm tank shell are separated by only one point of strength. If you look at it fluff-wise you see a distinct gap between "things that cause instant death to T4" and "things that don't cause instant death to T4".