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Posted By Will on 05/22/2007 1:30 PM

That army also has a T8 monstrous creature with a 3+ save, you can't tell me that's not resilient.

I don't think making glancing on a fast moving skimmer happen 50% of the time is a drastic downgrade.  It is still a huge improvement over land based vehicles, which has to look for terrain instead of just moving 6+".

The T8 MC with 3+ save is in direct competition for a spot with falcons/fire prisms though.

If it's not a dramatic downgrade then why bother.   However, I think it is a pretty big downgrade on vypers, speeders, raiders, etc.  

BTW, yes, necron army as a whole is easier to deal with in general, but I was simply asserting that monoliths are harder to deal with then falcons.

Play it out and see how it works. It didn't seem to have much of an effect in the games we played with other skimmers. 3 Falcons is the worst case scenario, and has been showing in quite a few tournaments. It's not the offensive power, it's points denial. If you can't kill those falcons with the troops inside, all he has to do is kill enough of yours in shooting to get the win. It's all about the denial.

ya three but i had not seen much of that even in tournamnet. usually opting for a wraithlord.
ok so the skimmer still has to move to get a glance i just dont see the big beef really. most glances will deny move and than next turn or even if you go first on the first turn its a pen. all that needs to be covered it the very back so cc and shooting it will kill the unit inside also. if i cant accomplish that in four turns much less six i should quit.

Most glances will not deny move, since all of those falcons come with spirit stones. Only a glancing 5 or a 6 will deny move, through either immobilization or destruction, and on a falcon with a holofield, you've got roughly a 1/12 chance of doing one of those two (although it seems to happen a lot less often than 1/12).

After reading these, my preference would be two changes:
1) use the obscured rule for skimmers moving fast, as suggested by many -- but with one caveat, where the model is both moving fast and actually obscured (by terrain, or something else), allow the skimmer player to reroll the obscured die (giving a 4+ with a reroll to downgrade penetrating hits to glances).
2) reduce the cost of the eldar holofield, and give it the same rule effect as venerable for a SM dreadnought.

I propose these because it seems that there are two different problems, that just happen to coincide with falcons. First, skimmers are more resilient for their points than ground vehicles are. Second, holofield makes skimmers too resilient for the points it costs. In the falcon, these combine to make a nearly unkillable vehicle.

If new codexes continue to reduce the price of ground vehicles, then the first problem is solved (or at least less of a problem) since most ground vehicles have been reduced by a relatively large margin (although some of the upgrades have gone up in price). The second problem will continue to be a problem until the rules for the holofield change (which I would prefer) or the price for holofied goes up (which I would not prefer). As it's written, the holofield is just too strong.

Saying monoliths are tougher to deal with than Falcons is silly. Maybe for Dark Eldar, but that's not by much.

The real fix for Eldar Skimmers is to get rid of the option to take Spirit Stones, then Holofields aren't as much of an assurance that your skimmer is unkillable.

Just making everything work the same in the rules would be more than fine.

Holofields don't roll two dice and pick the lowest. Just like venerable, it should only allow a reroll.

That and or making fast the same as obscured. Obscured (hull-down) was the same as fast last edition. It was an automatic glance. They changed this up to only be 50%, so doing the same type of thing for fast isn't really unreasonable. I agree that fast and obscured should then also give you a reroll. Fast vehicles still have the great advantage of being able to move quick and fire a wide range of weapons, while not taking many return hits. Being fast they can if they choose limit the weapons that can shoot back at them. It's what I do on the ground with warbuggies, wartraks and trukks. I scoot from cover to cover, which is what fast vehicles are great at.

First turn i go first penetrating hits all around, there goes one or even two. Going first is key i realize but its still a 50 50 chance or better with certain wargear. I just dont think you get that the whimpy troops inside the wave serpants (easy kill) need something more going for them. And wraithlords and falcons are the answer, How easy would it be to widdle an eldar army down so it cannot take objectives, Not to friggin hard. T 3 with expensive units is not exactly tough. If you change any key piece to make it weaker eldar fall apart. Its that simple. The only thing saving them after heavy armour is I and that only takes you so far when dealing with mostly marine armour or tau str 5 30" range weapons.

The rules are the same your talking about two totally differant units.

Posted By Voodoo Boyz on 05/25/2007 6:31 AM
Saying monoliths are tougher to deal with than Falcons is silly. Maybe for Dark Eldar, but that's not by much.

The real fix for Eldar Skimmers is to get rid of the option to take Spirit Stones, then Holofields aren't as much of an assurance that your skimmer is unkillable.

Monolith vs falcon should probalby go in a different thread, but if you run the math, any str 8 gun has about a 50% harder time to deal with monoliths, and the immunity to assault cannons makes them pretty hot against drop pod marines w/o to much melta.


On Topic, reasons I don't like the obscured rule for SMF.

The new eldar codex was written with holofield, current SMF rules and vehicle damage chart in mind

Spirit stones were changed to make eldar vehicles more durable.

The proposed rule will destroy a falcon more than 3 times as often on a 13+ roll

Falcons would be way overcosted at that point.

And finally, I already have enough vehicles in storage, I don't need to add more.

Falcons overcosted? Heh heh. Everyone has an opinion, that's for sure.

Spirit Stones were changed to come in line with extra armour.

Even without SMF Falcon's are one of the best tanks in the game for the value.

Mmmm hmmm. Now how about Str 9 and 10 weapons?

Posted By 5thelement on 05/25/2007 11:03 AM

First turn i go first penetrating hits all around, there goes one or even two. Going first is key i realize but its still a 50 50 chance or better with certain wargear. I just dont think you get that the whimpy troops inside the wave serpants (easy kill) need something more going for them. And wraithlords and falcons are the answer, How easy would it be to widdle an eldar army down so it cannot take objectives, Not to friggin hard. T 3 with expensive units is not exactly tough. If you change any key piece to make it weaker eldar fall apart. Its that simple. The only thing saving them after heavy armour is I and that only takes you so far when dealing with mostly marine armour or tau str 5 30" range weapons.

The rules are the same your talking about two totally differant units.

How do you shoot the skimmers, on the first turn, if they are sitting behind area terrain?  Since the vast majority of games are played with area terrain, any eldar player worth anything is going to deploy his falcons behind the terrain.  He knows he can just fly right over it on his turn. 

Do you read about the GT's that happen?  What about Adepticon?  If you have, you'd know what armies consistently place in the top...You really can't tell me that it's coincidence that Eldar are always there.  The way you're talking, it's hard for me to think that you've actually played against a competent Eldar opponent.

Overcosted if you made the suggested changes, which would cause them to die 3 times as often on rolls that exceed their armor value

As far as best tank for it's points w/o smf, preds outshoot it, and have a higher armor value for less points.  That covers chaos and loyalist, so that what?  80% of the armies?

A possessed predator is better than a falcon for shooting most of the time, and 100% of the time if it didn't have SMF since it's not that hard to have one sitting in cover.

Chaos codex is changing, so that one is hard to reference.

So, a predator with TL lascannon from the DA codex is 105pts. Throw on the HB and it is 130.

An Eldar Falcon is 120 with the minimum shuriken cannon you can put it on, upgrade the cats to cannon and it is 125.
It's fast, it's a skimmer, it can hold 6 people. It has 12/12/10 where as the Pred has 13/11/10. It has a decent anti-tank weapon, that isn't as powerful as the TL lascannon with the BS of 4, but comes near enough to count. All this for only 15 pts more base and it isn't worth it?

Lormax not only do i play eldar in tournament myself but against them quite often. Have you seen the cover used in tournaments? If anything the word that comes to mind is JOKE. Its an imperial gaurds wet dream and a khorne players nightmare.
The falcon is a hard kill i wont say its not. But to make it weaker is to make an eldar t3 army weaker as a whole. I only use one and i do fine against other players useing two/ three. And its not even a falcon its a fire prism.
Placing them in cover means very little against the likes of 30" moveing ravenwing and deepstriking first turn deathwing. If the cover is even there to begin with.

Falcons are a good price but if you change them up i would shelf them as fren said. Once they are that easy to kill reapers and wraithlords become a better option.

What if falcons were 0 - 1?

So what exactly do Ravenwing and Deathwing have to bring down a falcon with?

Had a great game this weekend. DA vs Eldar. It was very even with some of the tanks not coming on until the last few rounds. As soon as the Falcon showed it was over. I couldn't bring it down, and he used it to roll up my army. My predator never had a chance. But like I said, we agreed that it was a very even game, and because of escalation most of what we had battled it out on foot. T3 is not bad when you have all of the weapons and skills that Eldar have. That is their great benefit. They do not need the falcons to win, the falcons just make it over the top unless you can get lucky.

Now you are really telling it like it is.

- Greenie

Posted By Green Bloater on 05/27/2007 3:20 PM
What if falcons were 0 - 1?

I like this idea, a lot.


5thelement, yeah I was just at a convention over Memorial Day and took a look at the setup for the Warhammer 40k RTT.  They "said" it was 25% terrain, but yeah, whatever.  There really was almost nothing on the board, it was pitiful. 

I wouldn't complain much if falcons went to 0-1 choices. I rarely (if ever) use more than one anyway.

I think the only problem with 0-1 is that GW is trying to get away from that. Either changing the rule so they are still survivable or upping the points a bit more would solve the issue, but some things, no matter the cost, are still worth taking.

Make the Falcon kit cost $100 so no one could afford to buy 3! 

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I've thought falcons were crazy good from day one.   The problem with changing the rules for falcons only is that there's no way to do that in friendly play.   "Oh, by the way, I think your unit X is too powerful and we're making it 0-1".   Not a good way to keep your gaming buddies.

My choice for fixing skimmers -

All skimmers start the game moving except in special scenarios.

Skimmers moving over 6" gain a special saving throw against non death or glory shooting:

D6

1-2   The skimmer gains no benefit from its movement and takes a penetrating or glancing hit as if it hadn't moved.

3-4   All penetrating hits are downgraded to glancing.

5-6  The hit is completely negated.

Our local eldar player might actually like this since he complains that his falcons are "nibbled to death" and spend the game shaken until their weapons are destroyed due to the torrent of fire coming their way.   This way at least he has a 33% chance to negate a hit.

This might be too big a benefit to light skimmers like Dark Eldar and SM speeders though....?