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Posted By anathema on 03/11/2007 7:31 AM
I forgot about Preds, which is a rather large omission. The best place for a lance IMO is on a Wraithlord along with an EML. The Serpent option is just so damned expensive. However if you're not using Prisms or Falcons and want some ranged AT then it is useful. The War Walker option again is so expensive for what you get. Its incredibly fragile and likely to get popped before you get a second shot.
If you do want some cheeky 36" anti-tank, you could do worse than a pair of Vibrocannons for 100 points or so. Twin-linked and auto-glance is v. useful. 2 pairs will cover most of the board provided you have decent cover.

Both  vibro cannon and wraithlord are equally handy in COD.

Wraithlords go from tough to nigh unkillable when they are in cover.

Vibro cannons must be killed through maneuverability as they are likely going to be stuck behind impassable terrain or something equally hard to get around.

I'm finding the same is also true playing Cityfight. Now, I just need Harlequins for my Cityfight style army to be complete.

I find it funny that there is so many arguments over the Eldar being competitive and yet my biggest fear in tournaments is a 3 Falcon with a bunch of 6 Harlie squads type army or some varient of that optimized down to the nth degree.

I think it's not so much that that the Eldar can't be competitive, but that there is really only one competitive build (ie: Eldar flying circus) with other builds getting considerably nerfed, as usual.

But isn't that true of all the new codexes?

spase marienz! hurr!!

haha the answer to every eldar question...

Hrmmm lets see:

Tau: One competitive build - Mech Tau, varients include swapping stuff out on the tanks, how many suits, etc.
Nids: Godzilla, varients include whatever troop choices you take to go with all the TMC's.
Witch Hunters: Mech Sisters.
Orks - Uh hoard if you're going to even attempt it, I think Spikydavid proved this. KoS is dead due to skimmer lists just laughing at it and Ferals aren't legal anymore.
Demon Hunters - Hah.
IG - Is there even one? Maybe all infantry IG, but that'll have problems much like the Orks. Maybe drop troops, but it ain't gonna be easy.
DE - Wytch Cult or a normal Kabal, either way it's going to be based around Raiders and probably Web Way Portals.
Necrons - You can go Destroyers or Immortals, with Immortals being the better build. Much of the choices are pretty well locked in stone though, like almost everything else.


So only Marines & Chaos get a few varients that really can "work" as highly competitive, and even then they're using sub-lists most of the time.

When you talk about being "competitive" at a high level you're pretty much talking about stretching the limits of the game and codex in question to it's absolute limits to achieve the strongest list possible. Any Dex you get into will lock you into one choice or so with what you'll want to take for a particular FOC slot.

The list that came in third at the UKGT Final for Eldar used Warp Spiders. How many competitive armies for Eldar do you think of that use that unit? Heck he even went with Pathfinders for troops, instead of DA on a Serpent or just minned out Jetbikes, which is what I normally see in Eldar.net.lists.

I think Eldar have the normal amount of choices that almost any dex or list variant has for doing "competitive" armies.

>>Tau: One competitive build - Mech Tau, varients include swapping stuff out on the tanks, how many suits, etc.

Torgoch showed that an O'Shovah based "Gundam Wing" army could be competitive.

There are two troubles here.

First some lists were written by monkeys who shouldnt be allowed near a pen or keyboard, Pete Haines comes to mind. GW time and time agin part fixes entries in a codex and in doing so gets the rest wrong. Paying 20pts to 'upgrade' an assault cannon to a twin linked lacannon comes to mind most of all. Six Carnifii. Siren - the list goes on.
Many of the inclusions were never playtested at all.

Second when lists are fixed it is done sequentially. Codex Eldar clears up a lot that was inbalanced - though they overpriced the bright lance in doing so. yes that does mean Codex Eldar is weaker in the metagame - however as other codexes ar brought into line this should change.
Dark Angels are a perfect example, assault cannon go up in price, heavy flamers come down. Not everything was handled correctly. A fixed Dark Angels codex would have keopt two heavy weapons (at fair prices) but limited assault cannon to 0-1. The result is a Dark angels codex that is fixed, but until every other (competeitve) codex is redesigned will be at a disadvantage.

So what we are getting is a double whammy of badly designed Codii with glaring loopholes, then a slow trickle of repointed codii with mostly balanced but imperfect fixes.

The only solution will be a 5th edition with a watertight 40K 'Ravening Hordes' to go with it. GW cannot release codex after codex and try to rebalance. the only way they can balance the game now would be with a simultaneous repointing and release of everything at once. They could take the time to fix the rules too, and if they dont know how

One GW manager who is well connected with the company once told me that some (but not all) the GW designers are smarter than they look. some codexes contain deliberate imbalanced either to promote certain units or to give need for a future edition (and thus repeat the sale). The only unit I definately know was upgunned over what the designers wanted in order to boost sales was the Slann Mage Priest, Jervis Johnson admitted as much to me. However by now the constant rehashing is not clever, just incompetent and isnt even generating the sales volume the company expects. Even now people spend most of their money buying the miniatures they like, the odd sales of metal assault cannon bits and three of a kind elite choices a new codex encourages competitive players to take is a smaller portion of the purchase than GW or players would admit.

It really is time for a change, it will need to happen, so it might as well happen now as much as later. If GW cannot find people to help rebalance the Ravening Hordes. Which is understandable as everyone thinks they know what is needed to make the game better from the 10 year olds up. They could do far worse than inviting 20 or so tourney winners to a brainstorming session and letting them repoint all the units and tweak the rulebook.

I really cannot see any successful alternative.