Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Bharring wrote:
"Ok, Civie. Here's a shotgun. Go that way. Try not to die."

Guardians on the battlefield generally *are* taking a note from the Red Army and their defense of Stalingrad. They can't equip every Guardian with a walking heavy weapons platform (WarWalker) or top-shelf battletank/APC (Serpent). Guardians aren't given Catapaults because they'd rather have 10 Catapault-slinging doods than 10 WarWalkers or Serpents. They're given Catapaults because that's what they have resources to give them. The ASC is clearly the better weapon. So is the MeltaGun. LasBlaster. But those cost more resources.

How do they not have enough production with high tech automation NOT to equip a shrinking population? I don't think any infantry equipment really consumes significant resources in the scheme of things. So Melta and lasblaster away.

The difference is that Zhukov was just buying time with what he had at the moment while he built a real army. The Eldar have the time to turn guardians into a real military, but GW is stuck with their concepts.

Martel732 wrote:
I think the Eldar need to take some notes from the Soviet Union about how to fight existential battles.

Just because marines exist to fight doesn't mean they have the numbers to do anything. The royal dutch marines are the most elite force on the planet. What do they amount to?

That's why they're the Angels, not the Shield. If our world were being overrun by unknowable horrors, we'd try to fight it back.

Ten Power Armored super-equipped supersoldiers will only do so much in battle directly. But if we're trying to hold the line against the horrors, and those guys drop in, shining Power Armor steadily moving forward as exemplars, the effect they have on the rest of the line is going to do more than what those ten guys will do. The rest of us are more likely to hold, not because they've taken the heat off, but because they've given us hope. They've given us reason to believe. We are fighting tooth and nail with devils, but Angels have arrived. They fight with us. We fight on.

In a pitched battle, Marines do more as Angels of the Emperor than they do as combatants.

And before you say "So what", remember things like Alexander's Companions, or the USS Johnston in WWII.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
"Ok, Civie. Here's a shotgun. Go that way. Try not to die."

Guardians on the battlefield generally *are* taking a note from the Red Army and their defense of Stalingrad. They can't equip every Guardian with a walking heavy weapons platform (WarWalker) or top-shelf battletank/APC (Serpent). Guardians aren't given Catapaults because they'd rather have 10 Catapault-slinging doods than 10 WarWalkers or Serpents. They're given Catapaults because that's what they have resources to give them. The ASC is clearly the better weapon. So is the MeltaGun. LasBlaster. But those cost more resources.

How do they not have enough production with high tech automation NOT to equip a shrinking population? I don't think any infantry equipment really consumes significant resources in the scheme of things. So Melta and lasblaster away.

The difference is that Zhukov was just buying time with what he had at the moment while he built a real army. The Eldar have the time to turn guardians into a real military, but GW is stuck with their concepts.

How would the Eldar turn their Guardians into a "real military"? Sure, they could drill them. But then nobody's left to build or equip their Shuriken Catapaults. Their population is dwindling, but the threats they face are not.

Zhukov was defending one city in eastern Russia. The Eldar's position is more similar to fighting a Stalingrad in every city. The rest of Russia could put together a force, and he could buy time to build that force. But the rest of the Craftworld is wholly invested in the immediate conflicts.

Yeah, I'm still going with "so what". Because those ten guys get smoked almost instantly by the gak running around in 40K. I know they don't in bolter porn, but that's not really how wars work at all.

If those horrors are equipped with powerful artillery or energy weapons, your whole line turns into jelly or a hiroshima burn, marines included.


Build. Your. Equipment. With. Robots. 21st century humans do it. Eldar can certainly do it.

A Melta Gun might not be a significant expendature compared to a Dragon Cruiser, but then again neither is a War Walker. But they add up. Even Marines are afforded only a limited number of Melta Guns. Remember Guardians are civilians - if the very people who would build the Melta Guns are needed on the battlefield, they don't have time to produce Melta Guns.

It's like the Bread vs Guns argument. Except instead of Bread, it's "Not getting erradicated". It's hard to make an economic argument that you should make guns instead of not being erradicated.

Do they REALLY add up in the scheme of things? I know when playing as WWII US or UK, small arms are a pretty small fraction of production. They easily make so many they can give them away to places like Greece or Yugoslavia.

As I said, build with robots. And maybe use some robot combatants while you are it.

Martel732 wrote:
Yeah, I'm still going with "so what". Because those ten guys get smoked almost instantly by the gak running around in 40K.

They get smoked if they get shot at. That's why they don't fight pitched battles. They don't get smoked if they don't get shot at.

A better gun doesn't change that.

Pretend you give every one a Lasblaster. They still get smoked if they get shot at. They do slightly more damage while getting shot at, but still get smoked. But don't do anything else better. While costing more to produce.
Wouldn't it be better to use a Heavy platform if you need the range?
Wouldn't it be better to use a tank to trade shots with enemy infantry?

Pretend you give every one a Melta Gun. They still get smoked if they get shot at. They're still only useful in carefully executed plans. They now do much worse at handling infantry or light targets at the same range, but can take on very heavy targets better. But you have far fewer of them.
Wouldn't it be better to use your Fire Dragons or similar to handle the heavy targets? You have fewer of them, but targets heavy enough to need them are rare.
Wouldn't it be better, if you didn't have enough Fire Dragons, to have a specialist anti-Tank Guardian squad with a couple Meltas, than replace all Guardians with Melta Guardians? This way, you have units for engaging Infantry, and units for engaging Tanks.

The primary advantage of having fewer Guardians but giving them that "better weapon" is that they are more versatile. Which means they can play an unintentional role better, but their intended role worse. When you can't control the flow of battle, that's super awesome. But when your only way to win a battle is to flawlessly execute an intricate plan, not so much. In that case, you need every unit to be as good as possible at a *very specific* role. Any ability to do anything else is of marginal value. So very specific weaponry is better.

This is why, traditionally, it makes sense for Eldar to use Aspect Warriors and Marines to use Squads with a Special and Heavy. Eldar only win if they can leverage each unit perfectly. A Fire Dragon unit trading shots with Marines loses. A Swooping Hawk unit faced with a Predator loses. Marines, on the other hand, win by having all the tools and leveraging each one maximally. So the squad trades Boltgun fire with Dire Avengers, while putting a Melta Gun into a Wraithlord, and firing a Missile at the Fire Prism downrange.

You're viewing Eldar ways of war and judging it based on Humanities strengths and weaknesses. They aren't human. They can do some things humans can't, and can't do some things humans can.

I know they don't in bolter porn, but that's not really how wars work at all.

If those horrors are equipped with powerful artillery or energy weapons, your whole line turns into jelly or a hiroshima burn, marines included.

Sure, if the horrors have unlimited power. If the horrors are so strong that there's nothing that amount of resources can do to turn the tide, then it doesn't matter what you spend those resources on. But if those resources can make the difference, then morale is a concern that should be addressed.

Build. Your. Equipment. With. Robots. 21st century humans do it.

40k humans tried it. It went really, really badly.

Eldar can certainly do it.

They likely do. But who builds the robots? Probably robots. But somewhere down the chain, not-robots.
And who programs them? Who tells them how to function? What to do?
Who decides how many? Who decides distribution? Allocation?
Where do raw resources come from?
"Robots" are just tools. They only increase productivity, they don't remove the human(oid) element. And they certainly don't remove economic constraints. Resources are still limited, you just get a lot more per person-hour.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Do they REALLY add up in the scheme of things? I know when playing as WWII US or UK, small arms are a pretty small fraction of production. They easily make so many they can give them away to places like Greece or Yugoslavia.

Even if it adds up to a small fraction, one small arm can still cost ten times what another one would. If a MG cost 10x a Shuriken Catapault, would you take a single MG Guardian and ten unarmed civies or 10 Catapault Guardians? When not looking for someone to pop tanks?

As I said, build with robots.

Where do you get the assumption that manual labor is necessarily a major part of the cost?

And maybe use some robot combatants while you are it.

They did. The Empire fell. They don't have the resources to do that, now. Clearly, they'd want to - but wishing doesn't just make it so.

"40k humans tried it. It went really, really badly. "

Only because GW mindlessly ripped off Dune. Even in Dune, IX actually saved the day in the long run. GW kinda missed the memo on what was actually happening in Dune. Any 40K author at any time can decide it works just fine.

" Resources are still limited"

Sigh. Mining robots give you almost unlimited resources in the first place. Even rudimentary AIs are just fantastic for this. In effect, once you have FTL and mining automation, there is no realistic limit on resources.

GW has a series of genre excuses so they can sell plastic. I get this, but that doesn't mean it makes sense at all.

"If the horrors are so strong that there's nothing that amount of resources can do to turn the tide"

No, just some simple artillery and energy weapons to vaporize you handful of marines and whatever "line" they are around. The rest of the battle might totally go your way, completely independent of the marines that are now atomized. Waffen SS were certainly better soldiers than American conscripts. But did it matter when they were turned into soup by 155s or P-47s? Of course not. Morale and training become a lot less important if I just vaporize you.

Martel732 wrote:
"40k humans tried it. It went really, really badly. "

Only because GW mindlessly ripped off Dune. Even in Dune, IX actually saved the day in the long run. GW kinda missed the memo on what was actually happening in Dune. Any 40K author at any time can decide it works just fine.

" Resources are still limited"

Sigh. Mining robots give you almost unlimited resources in the first place. Even rudimentary AIs are just fantastic for this. In effect, once you have FTL and mining automation, there is no realistic limit on resources.

Go play Factorio. You can get automated mining easily enough. You then have absurd amounts of the resource you're mining. But it then takes a lot of work to leverage those resources.

GW has a series of genre excuses so they can sell plastic. I get this, but that doesn't mean it makes sense at all.

"If the horrors are so strong that there's nothing that amount of resources can do to turn the tide"

No, just some simple artillery and energy weapons to vaporize you handful of marines and whatever "line" they are around.

You mean, if the eldrich forces had sufficient energy/artillery to basically nuke the battlefield, anything on it is doomed? How does sending in 10 Marines vs sending in equal costs of IG infantry change that equation? I agree that sending in Marines into a fight that's going to be nuked won't make a difference. But then, neither will anything else.

The rest of the battle might totally go your way, completely independent of the marines that are now atomized. Waffen SS were certainly better soldiers than American conscripts. But did it matter when they were turned into soup by 155s or P-47s? Of course not. Morale and training become a lot less important if I just vaporize you.

If they can just vaporize you, it doesn't matter whether it's 10 Marines, a thousand Guardsmen, or nothing at all. If they can't vaporize you, and it's a question about whether you'll be overrun, morale suddenly matters a lot more.

I think morale matters relatively little in modern warfare. US forces broke constantly in WWII, but came back the next day. It's about killing the enemy and strategic destruction, not if you run on a particular day.

Also, often times you don't know you're in deep gak until you are. That's why the US developed time on target for artillery. Way more effective at killing those Waffen SS guys.

We're not going to agree on this. I find the problems GW present for Eldar to be silly. Just as I find chapters of 1000 marines to be silly. Just as I find the abandonment of science by the Imperium as silly. I don't accept GW's reasons or logic and never will. I'd tell them to go read Dune again, very carefully.

We're certainly not going to agree.

GW does lots of silly things. But some of the conclusions make even less sense.

Guardians don't face a bottleneck of equipment production (though it should be noted that within its effective range their light toy-looking carbine is, round-for-round, superior to the weapons carried by power armoured Space Marines...).

They face a bottleneck of personnel, because Eldar don't do things by halves. It's what caused the fall – you don't WANT Guardians being given powerful complex weapons that require lots of training, because then you're asking them to effectively commit to the Path of the Warrior, or just go bonkers with war-lust.

"or just go bonkers with war-lust"

War-lust? Can't someone just be a guy or gal who fights because they have to?

RevlidRas wrote:
Guardians don't face a bottleneck of equipment production (though it should be noted that within its effective range their light toy-looking carbine is, round-for-round, superior to the weapons carried by power armoured Space Marines...).

They face a bottleneck of personnel, because Eldar don't do things by halves. It's what caused the fall – you don't WANT Guardians being given powerful complex weapons that require lots of training, because then you're asking them to effectively commit to the Path of the Warrior, or just go bonkers with war-lust.

They give Guardians Wave Serpents, War Walkers, and Vampyr Raiders. Wouldn't those qualify as 'powerful complex weapons that require lots of training"?

And isn't this like asking why they don't just give every Guardsman a Baneblade?

I agree the shuriken weapon is not very eldar like. It plays like an auto shotgun. Shotguns are a garbage weapon in warfare. They are basically breaching weapons only. I would imagine an ancient advanced alien species would have a much better standard weapon that you didn't have to risk getting close to use....like...a rifle or something.

The standard CWE weapon is not the Catapault. It's the Ork Boy or IG Guardsman.

Fighting a standoff at range with a rifle means they don't need to risk getting close, but they instead have to risk a standoff. A "breaching" weapon means they don't have to risk a standoff. It's a type of weapon designed to not risk not ending your opponent immediately.

Why do you feel it makes more sense for Guardians to intend to risk their lives in a standoff passively? If you don't intend to engage beyond effective range of a shotgun, and things not going as intended means you die regardless, what value is there in a rifle?

Bharring wrote:
The standard CWE weapon is not the Catapault. It's the Ork Boy or IG Guardsman.

Fighting a standoff at range with a rifle means they don't need to risk getting close, but they instead have to risk a standoff. A "breaching" weapon means they don't have to risk a standoff. It's a type of weapon designed to not risk not ending your opponent immediately.

Why do you feel it makes more sense for Guardians to intend to risk their lives in a standoff passively? If you don't intend to engage beyond effective range of a shotgun, and things not going as intended means you die regardless, what value is there in a rifle?

I love that a summary of this post can be: "Eldar are so advanced they've moved beyond traditional warfare and use their enemies as weapons against each other". Which is a fantastic counter to the "Eldar should have better weapons like rifles" comment above.
Truly great stuff.

But stepping outside the fluff for just a moment (well, not entirely), and given the following:
A) Battle Focus applies to Rapid Fire weapons the same as Assault weapons and
B) Eldar originally as lasgun equivalents

I don't see anything wrong with Shuricats becoming RF weapons (like most other basic Infantry weapons). You could still Advance and Fire them a la Battle Focus, and getting more shots up close makes perfect sense for them.
Thusly, I'd like to see them with the following profiles:
Catapults - 18" Str3 RF2 AP-1
Avengers - 18" Str4 RF2 AP-1
- Both of these getting 4 shots at half range would be pretty sick, even though that range would be 9" and the Str being quite low for Guardians. But it would FEEL more like a barrage or razor discs

Cannons could be the following- 24' Str5 RF3 AP-1. So again lots of shots, but almost never wounding on 2+. I'd keep the range of these 24" to avoid stepping on the toes of Scatter lasers

-

It's not about being "beyond" traditional warfare. It's about having the ability to manipulate others and not having the ability to face your foes on the field.

I like my Shuriken Catapaults as Shotguns/sidearms. I didn't at first, but it's grown on me. If you want Lasgun-equivelents, why not just allow them their Lasgun-equivelents? LasBlasters are still a thing, although only a couple units can take them.

 Galef wrote:

Bharring wrote:
The standard CWE weapon is not the Catapault. It's the Ork Boy or IG Guardsman.

Fighting a standoff at range with a rifle means they don't need to risk getting close, but they instead have to risk a standoff. A "breaching" weapon means they don't have to risk a standoff. It's a type of weapon designed to not risk not ending your opponent immediately.

Why do you feel it makes more sense for Guardians to intend to risk their lives in a standoff passively? If you don't intend to engage beyond effective range of a shotgun, and things not going as intended means you die regardless, what value is there in a rifle?

I love that a summary of this post can be: "Eldar are so advanced they've moved beyond traditional warfare and use their enemies as weapons against each other". Which is a fantastic counter to the "Eldar should have better weapons like rifles" comment above.
Truly great stuff.

But stepping outside the fluff for just a moment (well, not entirely), and given the following:
A) Battle Focus applies to Rapid Fire weapons the same as Assault weapons and
B) Eldar originally as lasgun equivalents

I don't see anything wrong with Shuricats becoming RF weapons (like most other basic Infantry weapons). You could still Advance and Fire them a la Battle Focus, and getting more shots up close makes perfect sense for them.
Thusly, I'd like to see them with the following profiles:
Catapults - 18" Str3 RF2 AP-1
Avengers - 18" Str4 RF2 AP-1
- Both of these getting 4 shots at half range would be pretty sick, even though that range would be 9" and the Str being quite low for Guardians. But it would FEEL more like a barrage or razor discs

Cannons could be the following- 24' Str5 RF3 AP-1. So again lots of shots, but almost never wounding on 2+. I'd keep the range of these 24" to avoid stepping on the toes of Scatter lasers

-

So advanced, but can't supply their limited citizenry with anything better than 5+ armor. Oh, and here's a gun that puts you within charge range of everything in the known universe. Makes. No. Sense.

Bharring wrote:
The standard CWE weapon is not the Catapault. It's the Ork Boy or IG Guardsman.

Fighting a standoff at range with a rifle means they don't need to risk getting close, but they instead have to risk a standoff. A "breaching" weapon means they don't have to risk a standoff. It's a type of weapon designed to not risk not ending your opponent immediately.

Why do you feel it makes more sense for Guardians to intend to risk their lives in a standoff passively? If you don't intend to engage beyond effective range of a shotgun, and things not going as intended means you die regardless, what value is there in a rifle?

Realistically advantages in range and firepower mean you decimate your opponent. One only need to look at the gulf war to figure that.

We had roughly equal numbers of tanks in that engagement. They had similar guns but were able to engage outside of their effective range not to mention serious advantages in targeting. We lost like 3 tanks in combat and 2 were to friendly fire. I get where you are going with your idea - but a farseer and some rangers could pull off that kind of eldar trickery. The guardian is a last resort to protect the craftworld. They are basically militia BUT they are 1000 year old military veterans that are all peak physical condition with lighting fast reactions. Realistically they should all have ranger long rifles.

I always thought that for eldar forces the aspect warriors should make up the troops and guardians should be elites as they are much more limited use in an eldar army.

Martel732 wrote:
So advanced, but can't supply their limited citizenry with anything better than 5+ armor. Oh, and here's a gun that puts you within charge range of everything in the known universe. Makes. No. Sense.

It's Aeldari arrogance at it's finest. They don't give them better armour or longer range because they aren't supposed to even need it. The Seers are supposed to manipulate events so that protracted engagement never occur.
It obviously still does happen, but from an Aeldari perspective, it isn't supposed to.

The Aeldari mind is an enigma wrapped in a riddle marinated in sensations that a human mind could never comprehend

 Xenomancers wrote:
I always thought that for eldar forces the aspect warriors should make up the troops and guardians should be elites as they are much more limited use in an eldar army.

Well, Avengers are Troops, but I think the reason the others are not is for the following 2 reasons:
A) They just aren't enough CWE. That's why the common citizenry go to war at all and why they even wake the spirits of their dead to fight too and
B) Aspect Warriors are not something a CW "recruits" or solicits for. It is only when an Aeldari feels the "touch of Khaine" that they are directed to join a Shine.
It's like a rehab center to teach them how to deal with and compartmentalize that part of their psyche.

-

That's so stupid, I can't even. After they get in ONE battle that wasn't supposed to happen, the jig is clearly up.

Martel732 wrote:
That's so stupid, I can't even. After they get in ONE battle that wasn't supposed to happen, the jig is clearly up.

Agreed. But the point of Eldar is that "it's too late" for them. They are going extinct and are not an....adaptable species like Humans or T'au. They are basically set in their ways.
Remember that in the lore of 40K, the Aeldari race did not evolve like Humans or T'au. They were made ready to go to war by the Old Ones and aside from some cultural schisms as a result of the Fall, haven't really changed in 65+ million years

-

But... they don't have to be? This is all arbitrary GW nonsense. Eldar in LoTR had to go west because the WORLD was changing. GW just cut and paste into space and then provided handwaving explanations.

Also, aren't there probably like trillions of Eldar? That seems a far cry from "too late for them".

 Xenomancers wrote:

Bharring wrote:
The standard CWE weapon is not the Catapault. It's the Ork Boy or IG Guardsman.

Fighting a standoff at range with a rifle means they don't need to risk getting close, but they instead have to risk a standoff. A "breaching" weapon means they don't have to risk a standoff. It's a type of weapon designed to not risk not ending your opponent immediately.

Why do you feel it makes more sense for Guardians to intend to risk their lives in a standoff passively? If you don't intend to engage beyond effective range of a shotgun, and things not going as intended means you die regardless, what value is there in a rifle?

Realistically advantages in range and firepower mean you decimate your opponent. One only need to look at the gulf war to figure that.

What reach and firepower advantages did the aircraft have over the battleship in WW2?
What reach and firepower advantages did the Sherman have over the Panzer?
What reach and firepower advantages did guys with swords have over a trebuchet?
What reach and firepower advantages did a Greek hoplite have over a Persian archer?

In the modern military, they don't give an entire team machine guns. They give one guy a machine gun, and the other guys rifles. Because they have different jobs. They do different things, and have different roles. The machine gun has the reach and firepower over the rifle, 4 riflemen and a machine gun toter outperform 5 machine gun toters.

If you have a unit that will only fight at close range, why would you arm it with a weapon that trades close-range firepower for longer range?

We had roughly equal numbers of tanks in that engagement. They had similar guns but were able to engage outside of their effective range not to mention serious advantages in targeting. We lost like 3 tanks in combat and 2 were to friendly fire. I get where you are going with your idea - but a farseer and some rangers could pull off that kind of eldar trickery. The guardian is a last resort to protect the craftworld.

You do realize that the primary weapons of Guardian squads - Brightlance, EML, Weavers, VibroCannons, etc - outrange other factions' infantry weapons, right? Much like how you have riflemen supporting a single Machine Gun Guy in the modern military, you have Guardians supporting their Heavy.

They are basically militia BUT they are 1000 year old military veterans that are all peak physical condition with lighting fast reactions. Realistically they should all have ranger long rifles.

I always thought that for eldar forces the aspect warriors should make up the troops and guardians should be elites as they are much more limited use in an eldar army.

There are Dire Avengers to play that way. But again, they're exemplars of perfection, not excess. They're kitted to execute devestating killboxes and ambushes, not prolonged standoff firefights.

I do agree they should mass produce long range rifles with heavy firepower. And mount them on autonomous platforms that don't risk Eldar lives in battle. They call them T'au.

If you consider the plane in WW2 as ordinance it effectively meant that CV's had 10x+ the range of a BB and they were more accurate than a BB as well. CV's sunk ships at will with impunity.

Shermans got wrecked by Tigers. Germans at that point in the war were so poorly supplied and didnt even have fuel for their tanks most the time. Not even to mention the fact they had no airforce. Airforce destroyed more tigers than Shermans did. Good point though superior firepower didnt win out there - production is a factor I was speaking in terms of a fair engagement. Never take an unfair engagement.

Trebuchet basically made fortifications worthless so...Im not sure what you mean by this.

Hopilites had superior armor to their firepower so I would say it wasn't an advantage in firepower. They had range but they couldn't hurt them.

In modern military Squads typically have 2 MG's - they all fire the same ammo so in the US military so they have generally equal ranges though MG's do slightly outrange a rifle. We don't have 2 mgs and bunch of guys with shotguns in a unit. That makes no sense.

What does 9 guys doing nothing while 1 guy shoots a bright lance do? If you are up against a force that is equal and their units are firing a bright lance plus 9 sniper rifles at you while your guns are out of range. You are gonna lose that fight every time.

Agree on your last point. Eldar at this point should have a full army of advanced drones and hemlocks with farseers piloting them to fight 99% of their battles.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Spoiler:

"What reach and firepower advantages did the aircraft have over the battleship in WW2?
What reach and firepower advantages did the Sherman have over the Panzer?
What reach and firepower advantages did guys with swords have over a trebuchet?
What reach and firepower advantages did a Greek hoplite have over a Persian archer?

In the modern military, they don't give an entire team machine guns. They give one guy a machine gun, and the other guys rifles. Because they have different jobs. They do different things, and have different roles. The machine gun has the reach and firepower over the rifle, 4 riflemen and a machine gun toter outperform 5 machine gun toters.

If you have a unit that will only fight at close range, why would you arm it with a weapon that trades close-range firepower for longer range? "

If you consider the plane in WW2 as ordinance it effectively meant that CV's had 10x+ the range of a BB and they were more accurate than a BB as well. CV's sunk ships at will with impunity.

That's like saying a Guardian is an ordinance of a Craftworld. It gets a little silly.

Shermans got wrecked by Tigers.

A tiger beat *a* Sherman. 3 Shermans beat a Tiger. Shermans were engineered to be mass produced. We produced heavier tanks, too, but it was the Sherman that did the bulk of the lifting.

The Sherman was lighter armored, with less firepower. But it was the better engineered tool.

Germans at that point in the war were so poorly supplied and didnt even have fuel for their tanks most the time. Not even to mention the fact they had no airforce. Airforce destroyed more tigers than Shermans did.

Again, Shermans weren't an anti-tank weapon.

Good point though superior firepower didnt win out there - production is a factor I was speaking in terms of a fair engagement. Never take an unfair engagement.

Which is why the super-advanced race shouldn't engage in a standoff firefight. They have some advantages to fighting that way, sure. But a lot more disadvanges. When you can fold reality, see the future, and have thousands of years of experience, you don't meet the opponent toe-to-toe. You certainly don't meet them on *their* terms. And the rifle is really only good for doing so.

Trebuchet basically made fortifications worthless so...Im not sure what you mean by this.

Even way back then, you could build something with a range and firepower advantage. But if that's all you care about, you'll lose to a more adaptable force. If one side spends resources to build a trebuchet, and the other side builds resources to storm a trebuchet, the side with the range and firepower lost. Range and firepower are two important aspects, but not the only important aspects.

Hopilites had superior armor to their firepower so I would say it wasn't an advantage in firepower. They had range but they couldn't hurt them.

They had superior armor, but not firepower. Archers had range and firepower, but again other facets (armor and terrain) overcame it.

In modern military Squads typically have 2 MG's - they all fire the same ammo so in the US military so they have generally equal ranges though MG's do slightly outrange a rifle. We don't have 2 mgs and bunch of guys with shotguns in a unit. That makes no sense.

You do realize that Guardians can take 2 SLs, Shuriken Cannons, StarCannons, etc? That's like having 2 MGs, only better.

What does 9 guys doing nothing while 1 guy shoots a bright lance do? If you are up against a force that is equal and their units are firing a bright lance plus 9 sniper rifles at you while your guns are out of range. You are gonna lose that fight every time.

Conversely, if you pop out of the webway or around a corner or from hiding with 10 sniper rifles point blank, you're not killing many enemies before you get killed. If you do the same with 10 Shuriken Catapaults, you're killing a lot before they even realize what's happening.

As for Sniper Rifles, there's a reason why marksmen are a lot more common in fighting forces than snipers.

Agree on your last point. Eldar at this point should have a full army of advanced drones and hemlocks with farseers piloting them to fight 99% of their battles.

Why even risk the Farseers? Much less then Honored Dead? Why not just get an entire force of automated units? Getting a T'au battleforce involved risks 0 Eldar lives.

Guardians are for when you can't. When you don't have resources to fight that way. When you're already boned, it's just a question of how badly.

When the Eldar are on the battlefield, they've already lost. They're just fighting to keep from losing *more*.

Don't forget that the black guardians are the standing army of ulthwe, not all Eldar use guardians as support.

Any argument you use to justify having short range catapults also works for longer ranged ones. It's not like those features go away.

They just get extra benefits like being able to shoot the enemy multiple times before they get close enough to threaten them.

Because those guardians are going to be killed by fire from greater than 12", or they're going to have to hope the enemy is a melee unit that needs to get closer.

An assault 24" gun would make guardians continually move, making it impossible for the enemy to close without specialist speed. It would keep them away from the enemy deliberately, rather than put them in harm's way passively.

As for resources, wraithbone is solidified warp energy. They literally sing stuff into existence. Even now at the nadir of their society, they are post scarcity. And they are inventive, everything the dark Eldar use is post fall invention.

The main reason we are arguing this at all is that the Eldar more than any other army is still suffering post 2nd ed legacy disfunction.

In 2nd, the guardian was a faster Guardsman (with better armour - mesh was 5+ while flak was 6+ with 5+ against blast) with the potential to carry a better weapon. They always stood far away.

When they switched to 3rd, they retained the fragile profile, but gimped the gun.

So you've got a half legacy, and the unit has made no sense since. They've piled on special rules to try and cling to a profile that makes no sense, and still haven't managed to fix them. Just for comparison, in the 6 editions since 2nd ed, guardians have always been a problem argued over on how to fix them. In 2nd ed, they were not divisive....

Because if you're going to have them as a unit and equip them to fight, then you're either going to have to increase their survival with their danger prone gun, or retain their fragility and reinstate a longer range.

Making them cheap is a terrible idea - the solution to them isn't too give you more of them

Martel732 wrote:
"or just go bonkers with war-lust"

War-lust? Can't someone just be a guy or gal who fights because they have to?

With eldar? That's actually genuinely ambiguous. Path of the Outcast had a guy get into his first boots on the ground fight and almost instantly start getting so obsessed with killing orks via sniper rifle that another range had to snap him back into a more reasonable state of mind; and the text calls out that rangers use sniper rifles specifically because you're less likely to get caught up in blood lust or scarred by the horrors of war from a distance. And then Asurmen had a character kill a rando human for the first time and realize she had to join the path of the warrior because she'd otherwise be unable to deal with the blood lust the act had awoken within her.

I don't necessarily buy that all eldar will instantly go insane with murder jollies as soon as a fight breaks out, but it does seem to be a canonical concern for many of them. As has been pointed out, the eldar were built for war.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hellebore wrote:

Any argument you use to justify having short range catapults also works for longer ranged ones. It's not like those features go away.

Side-comment that I realize isn't relevant to your point, but I always interpreted the longer range on avenger shuriken catapults as being a result of their aspect training. Shuriken weapons seem to be kind of a spray and pray weapon, almost akin to a flamer. I like to think that the extra inches on an avenger catapult are the result of the guy wielding it spending possibly decades focusing on improving the grouping of a more lethal version of one of those foam disc shooters.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
We're spending a lot of time trying to justify the range on space elf ninja star guns and picking apart the manufacturing logistics of a species whose primary natural resources seem to be star light and emotional singing.

I think most of us agree that it's not unreasonable for guardians to have something akin to a lasblaster. Heck, corsairs can use lasblasters, so it's not as though they're some kind of exotic, difficult to use weapon.

My wishlist for guardians would be:
* Maybe dropping minimum squad size to 5.
* Making heavy weapons 1 per 5
* Making special weapons 2 per 5 if they don't take a heavy weapon. I feel like letting storm guardians be cheaper, worse fire dragons with fewer meltas or a handful of flamers isn't OP.
* In the same way that guardians have "worse avenger guns," let them have access to worse lasblasters. Assault 2 or 3 lasblasters is probably reasonable; it's less offensive oomph thank hawks, even point for point if you cost them properly, but it's enough firepower at long enough range to contribute to a fight; especially if doom is involved.
* Maybe lower their WS/BS to 4+, but have ways to situationally improve this (see below).
* Let one guardian in 5 take an "Eye of Kurnous" (the cyclops visor some models have) that lets him fire a heavy weapon platform at BS 3+.

I also think it's worth bringing up the fact that guardians used to be able to take warlocks as "sergeants" and that said warlocks once had powers that were just always active. So it used to be that you could constantly give your guardians the benefit of cover or boost their performance in close combat, etc. I don't hate the idea of bringing back a "sergeant warlock" option that can choose from a list of "runes" that provide always-on buffs for the guardian squad he's attached to. These runes could protect guardians or boost their offense (I'm picturing +1 to hit in melee) or mobility or let the warlock himself contribute to the squad's offense (giving him something akin to a heavy flamer ala the old "destructor" power.)

These "safe" psychic powers were fluffy for the eldar and, in my opinion, did a lot to bring out the personality of the craftworlders. Like, sure, we're forced to send our poets and chefs into battle, but we're going to give them a psychic walkie-talkie/jedi to help them out. Plus, this strongly supports the thematics of an Ulthwe themed list.

Also, I've seen a few suggestions regarding making shuriken catapults rapid fire. Just remember that craftworld vehicles also have those (well, twin versions usually) but also generally lack battle focus.

I commented earlier that I haven't played eldar in a very long time, but that guardians used to have lasguns with 24" range. Reading through the suggestions above, it seems that the short range of shuriken catapults is very deliberate.

How would everyone feel about doubling down on the short range aspect of the weapon and making it more like a flamer/template type wepaon. It seems to me that the fluff of the weapon would fit with an auto-hit capapbility as it basically fires a boatlaod of monomolecular discs that should be pretty much impossible to avoid/miss with.

How about this as a shuriken catapult profile:

Range 8", Assault D6, autohit, Strength 4 AP 0 D 1

I'd prefer a fixed number of shots, maybe 3 or 4 but it seems that its always random shots for autohit weapons so I left that in.

Not sure how this would alter the Avenger catapult as there don't seem to be any autohit weapons with more than 8" range AFAIK. Maybe make it more shots or higher strength? And still have the wound roll of a 6 for AP-3.

Back in RT and 2nd edition shuriken catapults were just better bolters, IIRC. It's been a long time. Weren't they just bolters with more AP? Same 24" range. This always made sense to me fluffwise; eldar technology should be better than Imperial technology and be costed appropriately. The reduction to 12" came in 3rd edition, and bolters became rapid fire while catapults became assault 2. I think GW envisioned this working out to be functionally equal but it has never worked out that way.

The basic gun of a faction in 40k just shouldn't be such short range, especially a fast, maneuverable army like the Eldar who should be difficult to assault. If anything, 12" range basic guns make more sense fluffwise for the poor technology of orks or biotechnology of tyranids. It would work better mechanically for assault based armies, as well.