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 warmaster21 wrote:
The problem with giving banshees more attacks is it steps on the toes of striking scorpians who should be the aspect that vomits out attacks to deal with hordes.

Why should sxorps be the horde killer? Why is that they are thrust into that tiny design space? Banshees are fast and do devastating lightning assaults, they should just blend units, while the Exarch takes on tougher targets.
The goal should then be to create a new design space for scorpions. They're infiltrators for one, and are more armoured than banshees. Their chainsword should be S4 AP-1 base. I'm all for GW changing the fluff on these guys to go full Predator. Malus to hit that possibly extends to untargetable over x inches, shoulder mounted weapon on Exarch, base S4 across the board. They shouldn't be frontline assault specialists, but enemy backfield hunters taking out weaker units and hiding in the shadows.

Edit: only downside to untargetable would be people using them for home-based secondary scorers. Maybe just slap them with the Ravenguard chapter trait rules.

BrianDavion wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Let's try not to derail this into a marines argument.

I think straight up durability bonuses for the eldar would... feel wrong. they're an army noted for swift mobility etc.

I think if I was writing a codex craftworld Eldar I'd do two things.

first of all I'd get rid of lighting fast reactions, and instead make it a intrinsic ability of most eldar units. (this means most CWE forces would have a built in -1 to hit)

.

The main problem I have with this idea is how it now interacts with the stupid stupid -1 to hit cap.

It means when playing against eldar, you get the following special abilities army-wide for free:

-Move and fire heavy weapons
-Advance and fire assault weapons
-ignore Dense Cover

It's not gonna feel super fluffy to play "the fast army" with your grand old +1" of movement if your opponent's just like "Welp, might as well advance with all my gak, you're already -1 to hit!"

yeah on that I agree. why I'd be tempted to also add in that the -1 STACKS with other -1s (meaning eldar can impose a max of a -2 to to hit them) I'd possiably also require the eldar unit to have moved to get the benifit (so no parking a unit in dense cover all game)

Sure, why the heck not. We already just added Attrition into the game and then granted a solid 1/3 of the armies and 9/10ths of the units in the game complete and total immunity to any modifiers to attrition tests, screw the modifier cap I never liked it anyway.

The -1 to hit cap was a mistake.

Hecaton wrote:
The -1 to hit cap was a mistake.

yeah, making 6's autohit was enough of a fix to the mechanic IMO

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
The -1 to hit cap was a mistake.

yeah, making 6's autohit was enough of a fix to the mechanic IMO

Let's be clear, it wasn't about fixing anything - it was about buffing Astartes wrt Eldar. -1 to hit means orks lose 50% of their shooting effectiveness whereas Astartes only lose 25%.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
The -1 to hit cap was a mistake.

yeah, making 6's autohit was enough of a fix to the mechanic IMO

Honestly, I'm not sure it was needed. 6s always hitting, that is.

I'd rather have addressed certain combos that could make large portions of your army unhittable, like the -4 Lord Discordant and the AL Strat to make anything behind it untargetable. Because, with the exception of Orks (who already HAD 6s always hit) most people hit on a 4+ or better in their chosen phase. -1 wasn't too hard to get. -2 was harder. But could you reasonably get -3 across the board? And, more to the point, SHOULD YOU be able to do that?

Making one or two units unhittable isn't the end of the world, especially if there's counterplay (like getting within 12", killing support characters, etc.).

at the very least it should be a -1 cap from abilities/powers/conditions applying to the target, and -1 from abilities/powers/conditions applying to the firer.

If my unit has -1 to hit, you should still suffer -1 to hit if you advance and fire an assault weapon, or move and fire a heavy weapon, or if you are firing through dense cover.

I can understand stacking up to -4 to hit on an eldar flyer with a trait and a strat and a whatever is obnoxious.

I think most of all we need:

1. Attacks boost to out CC unit specialist and lords . All of them. Scrpions and banshee rocking like 4-5 attacks on the charge would actualy make them a threat.

2. A whole heap of new traits, warlord traits, and startegems and psychic powers.

3. Auto advance 6" and range boost + damage boost to shuriken and Pts drops on basic infantry troops. Because we are not getting stat boosts. A ranger can not be 15 pts compared to a tac marine...

4. Make the wraithlord great again..

I have no idea, but I'd bet the farm they will get some D2 buffs as with marines gaining a wound, we will see D2 all over. Kinda makes you scratch your head and wonder why make the change if they will now just be sure it means little eh ? Oh GW, when won't you make change for changes sake then raise the bar to make the change pointless. You scamps you.

 AngryAngel80 wrote:
I have no idea, but I'd bet the farm they will get some D2 buffs as with marines gaining a wound, we will see D2 all over. Kinda makes you scratch your head and wonder why make the change if they will now just be sure it means little eh ? Oh GW, when won't you make change for changes sake then raise the bar to make the change pointless. You scamps you.

Not useless with an Apothecary.

6+++ means that D2 against W2 only has a 70% chance of killing a model.

While I don't collect or play Eldar I'd personally love to see a reworked Avatar. I've always loved the models (mainly the FW ones) and the rules should reflect that he's pretty much a god. He should be on-par with the likes of Guilliman, Ghaz and the C'tan.

 Valkyrie wrote:
While I don't collect or play Eldar I'd personally love to see a reworked Avatar. I've always loved the models (mainly the FW ones) and the rules should reflect that he's pretty much a god. He should be on-par with the likes of Guilliman, Ghaz and the C'tan.

i fully expect him to be once we get the codex. The fact that GW was finally willing to make Ghaz and Ctan shards good is a good indicator imo

But would that not require a new model?
Be a pain for newcomers to eldar to have to invest in crappy failcast avatar only to use his potentially super decent rules..

If the answer is yes we know its not likely to happen becasue unfortunately GW doesn't care about eldar models.

The apothecary will only be so many places and with enough saturation it'll still not be much of a boon when we haven't seen how far this D2 train will go yet. I'd be willing to bet it'll grow much larger in saturation. It's what you call the terminator situation. Where they have high armor, yet plasma is all over, so they get a mild invuln and still can't live, so get cheaper, but not still kinda meh, then get good SS and now too hardy and now the SS gets worse.

I think marines may follow this trend once they over D2 it all up. Also any kind of FNP ends up being near useless then on single wound models when all these D2s come a knocking.

I mean we can agree to disagree but even incubies went up to D2 and they are a usually thought to be elite unit to hunt elites, I doubt that is an oddity and more a sign of things to come and a showing what some eldar weapon and unit changes will be. Probably won't gain any durability but they can easily ramp up their damage and the best defense is a good offense as they say.

 Argive wrote:
But would that not require a new model?
Be a pain for newcomers to eldar to have to invest in crappy failcast avatar only to use his potentially super decent rules..

If the answer is yes we know its not likely to happen becasue unfortunately GW doesn't care about eldar models.

Theyve shown with banshees and Jainzar that theyre willing to make new models.

Based on the FW Compendium, GW seems willing to expand defensive abilities to the Eldar beyond more Toughness and Wounds. I sincerely doubt there will be an exception to the -1 Hit Roll rule, so expect other bonuses instead. GW isn't highly likely to negate that rule so quickly after putting it in place. Probably a mixed bag of buffs rather than the same one for everything. Maybe Battle Focus gives a -1 Hit and adds a +1 Save if the target gets -1 Hit from another source (the reverse of the Raven Guard rule)?

Useful speculation won't really happen until we see what they did with the Drukhari, but I wouldn't be surprised to see living infantry get at -1 Hit (like the Shadow Spectres) while the Wraith Constructs get other buffs (hopefully more compelling that just AP -1 is AP 0). Vehicles may be looking at combinations of -1 Hit and/or Invulnerable Saves.

That being said, I expect more emphasis on maneuverability and offense than defense. Aeldari are supposed to be fast and deadly. That means they need better weapons. More range on Shuriken weapons. More deadly close combat ability. Just imagine what the Incubi stat block, adjusted slightly for each Aspect, would do for Aspect Warriors.

Expect to see an upgrade on weapon damage and attacks for the more than small arms of the faction. Shuriken Cannon will almost certainly be D2 given it is the Eldar Heavy Bolter-equilvant weapon. Fusion Weapons will get the new Melta rules. An half the things we will never predict.

 alextroy wrote:
Based on the FW Compendium, GW seems willing to expand defensive abilities to the Eldar beyond more Toughness and Wounds. I sincerely doubt there will be an exception to the -1 Hit Roll rule, so expect other bonuses instead. GW isn't highly likely to negate that rule so quickly after putting it in place. Probably a mixed bag of buffs rather than the same one for everything. Maybe Battle Focus gives a -1 Hit and adds a +1 Save if the target gets -1 Hit from another source (the reverse of the Raven Guard rule)?

Useful speculation won't really happen until we see what they did with the Drukhari, but I wouldn't be surprised to see living infantry get at -1 Hit (like the Shadow Spectres) while the Wraith Constructs get other buffs (hopefully more compelling that just AP -1 is AP 0). Vehicles may be looking at combinations of -1 Hit and/or Invulnerable Saves.

That being said, I expect more emphasis on maneuverability and offense than defense. Aeldari are supposed to be fast and deadly. That means they need better weapons. More range on Shuriken weapons. More deadly close combat ability. Just imagine what the Incubi stat block, adjusted slightly for each Aspect, would do for Aspect Warriors.

Expect to see an upgrade on weapon damage and attacks for the more than small arms of the faction. Shuriken Cannon will almost certainly be D2 given it is the Eldar Heavy Bolter-equilvant weapon. Fusion Weapons will get the new Melta rules. An half the things we will never predict.

They definitely need something. always strike first in melee as a racial trait (given the current system being entirely around whether you charged or not) would also be helpful for all eldar. It basically reflects their Initiative in previous editions being higher than most so they would always go first. That was one of their 'defensive' abilities in melee - by striking first they had the opportunity to remove incoming attacks and survive better.

IMO in this current design paradigm it's the most practical melee buff you can give living eldar.

I'm unsure what the incubi stat block represents TBH. It was only with 8th ed iirc, that their WS normalised with aspect warriors. Previously they'd always had higher WS than CWE aspects. But perhaps it's a sign that aspects will get their main stat at 2+ as a buff? Avengers at BS2+, scorpions at WS2+? Not sure if that will work with Reapers and Crimson hunters though...


There are 2 areas of survival - shooting and melee.

And there are ~3 types of response to these:

Changing eldar armour - giving them all great armour as it's more advanced. Even a 2+ sv T3 1W model isn't that great, but heavy aspect armour at 2+ could work, while normal at 3+ would be a little boost. That or special rules about ignoring AP levels to represent their ability to dodge - armour is only affected by AP if it reduces it to 7+ (ie all or nothing armour to reflect their acrobatics) and so on.

Changing eldar movement - keeping them as-is, but making them move so fast that they cross the board before you and strike. Perhaps with Charge phase movement for jump shoot jump.

Defensive rules - invulnerable saves, always count as 12" further away to minimum of 6" (ie the further away they are the harder it becomes to hit them AT ALL), always strike first in melee, unmodified hit rolls of 2 are also considered failures etc.


DE have had power from pain for a while now so they've always had that special ++ protection, I assume they'll continue this in the next codex.

 bullyboy wrote:

 warmaster21 wrote:
The problem with giving banshees more attacks is it steps on the toes of striking scorpians who should be the aspect that vomits out attacks to deal with hordes.

Why should sxorps be the horde killer? Why is that they are thrust into that tiny design space? Banshees are fast and do devastating lightning assaults, they should just blend units, while the Exarch takes on tougher targets.
The goal should then be to create a new design space for scorpions. They're infiltrators for one, and are more armoured than banshees. Their chainsword should be S4 AP-1 base. I'm all for GW changing the fluff on these guys to go full Predator. Malus to hit that possibly extends to untargetable over x inches, shoulder mounted weapon on Exarch, base S4 across the board. They shouldn't be frontline assault specialists, but enemy backfield hunters taking out weaker units and hiding in the shadows.

Edit: only downside to untargetable would be people using them for home-based secondary scorers. Maybe just slap them with the Ravenguard chapter trait rules.

Becuase tiny niche cases is how aspects were designed in the first place? they hone 1 art to master craft at the expense of all others? fire dragons are anti tank/monster. sure id love to give them the option to swap our their fusion guns for the flamers. Banshees were suppose to be elite infantry killers in melee and have always struggled with that role becuase s3. reapers were fire support who were good at gunning down everything. etc etc

Scorpions by how their gear is designed are like the opposite of banshees. banshes light armor, becuase armor doesnt help fighting against other elite infantry also armed with power weapons, scorpians? heavy armor to shrug off the attacks of hordes while they rip the lightly armored foes apart with chainswords and their mandiblasters, which id rather see turned into like 2 extra attacks at like s4 ap-2, and the scorpian exarch to claw their way out of being engaged by elite infatry with their power fist.

but sure ill make some consessions that some of the roles of aspects could change, but still banshees = melee anti elite, scorpions = melee anti light infantry. swopping hawks = ranged anti light infantry, reapers = ranged anti heavy infantry, and later also added in anti tank/monster for reasons. fire dragons = anti tank/monster. warp spiders= something. exarch with power blades used to be scary, s6 used to be scary against vehicles, their mobility is great i guess? i guess they are also ranged anti light infantry. could probably diverge hawks and spiders more. dire avengers = line infantry all rounders.

and I'm probably wrong on several of my assessments on the aspects.

I agree they need to add more design space for the aspects but some things just step on the toes of other aspects.

I have it backwards in my mind. Ive always imagined scorpions to be elite killers/assasins. Striking from the shadow to ambush the enemy leader + bodyguard. While the banshees can blender and dance their way through line troops.

I honestly wouldint mind if they reverse the roles for those two. Give scorpions more oomph vs elite units and banshees the ability to just blender hordes.

ID liek to see swoopng hawks to get nieche ability to harass enemies with soem sort of haywire/tangle grenades to slow down vehicles and plink off supporting infantry. A debuff grenade halving movement would be solid. Maybe thats more of a deathspinenr thing.

What are ideasd for monofilament weapons? Currently they seem to be little different to shuriken. Still fishing for wounds on 6's which aint great.

The deathshroud cannon on the scatchach wraithknight suggest we are moving to a dual profile of either flamer short range or long range focused with static AP and higher damage.

This could potentially make the spiders really good.

Also, judging by the shadow spectre data sheet, exarch powers are going the way of the dod unless we get generic ones :(

Was fun while it lasted

 Argive wrote:
I have it backwards in my mind. Ive always imagined scorpions to be elite killers/assasins. Striking from the shadow to ambush the enemy leader + bodyguard. While the banshees can blender and dance their way through line troops.

I honestly wouldint mind if they reverse the roles for those two. Give scorpions more oomph vs elite units and banshees the ability to just blender hordes.

ID liek to see swoopng hawks to get nieche ability to harass enemies with soem sort of haywire/tangle grenades to slow down vehicles and plink off supporting infantry. A debuff grenade halving movement would be solid. Maybe thats more of a deathspinenr thing.

What are ideasd for monofilament weapons? Currently they seem to be little different to shuriken. Still fishing for wounds on 6's which aint great.

The deathshroud cannon on the scatchach wraithknight suggest we are moving to a dual profile of either flamer short range or long range focused with static AP and higher damage.

This could potentially make the spiders really good.

Also, judging by the shadow spectre data sheet, exarch powers are going the way of the dod unless we get generic ones :(

Was fun while it lasted

monofilament weapons should just go back to being flamers.
scorpions are anti-geqs (chainswords), banshees anti MEQ (power swords)

Wow! 3 pages. Just goes to show how much love there is for the Asuryani on t'internet.

I doubt the minus cap will change as someone was hoping for as that caused too many feel bads for opponents and it looks like GW is cutting right back on those.

I'm not convinced of durability buffs being the way 2 go for us. Our durability is poor and i don't see how making it mediocre will help much tbh.

I'm in on making the Wraithlord great again.

So, you have basically decided what the role of the Aspect is based purely on weapon loadout instead of fluff. All that does is continually jam the units into a small design space. I'm more with Argive, banshees should be the blender unit with more attacks, greater speed, etc. Scorpions need a different role, and not be the horde blender (which they're not that great at anyway)

From the fluff, Banshees are the straight up combat specialists, capable of killing a fully armoured marine as well as a simple guardsman, whereas scorpions excel in ambush and attacking in cover from the shadows. They deserve a redesign based on the fluff, not a sweeping "banshee power weapon...elite killer, scorpion chainsword....horde killer". This is probably why Aspects generally suck right now. They need a new philosophy to redefine what they can do on the battlefield.

Banshees should for starters be 3A, 4 for the Exarch. Heck, Incubi now have that and they are not as swift as banshees and are equipped with more sluggish weapons.

Now, I'd want more time to create Scorps to be fluffy and useful, but plonking them as a horde killer is just lazy.

 bullyboy wrote:
So, you have basically decided what the role of the Aspect is based purely on weapon loadout instead of fluff. All that does is continually jam the units into a small design space. I'm more with Argive, banshees should be the blender unit with more attacks, greater speed, etc. Scorpions need a different role, and not be the horde blender (which they're not that great at anyway)

From the fluff, Banshees are the straight up combat specialists, capable of killing a fully armoured marine as well as a simple guardsman, whereas scorpions excel in ambush and attacking in cover from the shadows. They deserve a redesign based on the fluff, not a sweeping "banshee power weapon...elite killer, scorpion chainsword....horde killer". This is probably why Aspects generally suck right now. They need a new philosophy to redefine what they can do on the battlefield.

Banshees should for starters be 3A, 4 for the Exarch. Heck, Incubi now have that and they are not as swift as banshees and are equipped with more sluggish weapons.

Now, I'd want more time to create Scorps to be fluffy and useful, but plonking them as a horde killer is just lazy.

Given that ambushing is the name of the game for Scorpions, maybe make their specialty deep strike CC assassins? Like for each scorpion squad they can choose an enemy unit as a their "prey" (each SS squad needs to choose a different target) pre-game and be able to reroll failed charges when charging against said unit which cannot overwatch against them and give them either a flat +1 to wound or some other kind of bonus against their designated target. Makes them more of a lurking threat your opponent has to be worried of mid-game versus that of banshees who should be the shock assault troops that attack the front line as soon as possible.

I hope scorpions will get a good look at. I love those models. I think a perfect ambush type of startegem/ ability would be really good along with the ability to put hurt on T5 characters..

Being able to DS closer than 9" as well as a true infiltrate deployment would be huge as it would give the unit ultilty to be either DS assasins of characters or sacrifical screen which eldar need anyway.
.
The exarch is no push over with the claw.
With proposed more attacks he would be something like 3-4 S6 -3 D3 attacks so not to shabby.

I dont see why the design needs to be totaly hobbled by the wargear..

The only real way to make scorpions assassin types, is with special rules. Their equipment is useless for it.

So you'd basically have do things like:

Shadow strike: if the unit attacks an enemy infantry unit in cover, they increase their AP and Damage by 1.

Patient hunter: on the turn the scorpions reveal themselves, they automatically wound enemy infantry.

Exarch powers - if the exarch rolls a 6 to wound, the target suffers an additional 1d3 mortal wounds (decapitations).

mandiblasters - 5+ mortal wounds.

AMbush: the scorpions deploy 1D6+3" away from the enemy.


Those sorts of things make them more assassin-y.



Banshees

Need more attacks, perhaps 6s to hit generate more hits on the charge.

A 9th ed version of the 2nd ed banshee mask would be:

Can't be overwatched, units charged are reduced to 6+ to hit (given in 2nd most enemy units would lose combat with charging banshees virtually automatically, this is a less lethal equivalent).

I still strongly believe we will be seeing new scorps next year (also Warp Spiders), simply because of their mention in PA stories. This allows GW to expand upon the design and possibly make some changes while keeping a similar aesthetic. They didn't change banshees at all, so I doubt they'll mess with the design too much.

Of course, now the issue is what is T3 1W 3+ save worth these days? Not much really. I hate that Eldar will still be constrained to relying on their armoured vehicles to work.

You know... Thats an interesting idea.
A "can only be hit on X" could be a mechanic to get around hit penalty.

But again it affects armies disproportionately..

If we take say, Say Vectored Engines what about something along the lines of:

"when this unit advances, any ranged attacks made against it, can only hit on an unmodified roll of a 5 or more"

Effectively im going for a trans-human for to hit rolls...

 Grimskul wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
So, you have basically decided what the role of the Aspect is based purely on weapon loadout instead of fluff. All that does is continually jam the units into a small design space. I'm more with Argive, banshees should be the blender unit with more attacks, greater speed, etc. Scorpions need a different role, and not be the horde blender (which they're not that great at anyway)

From the fluff, Banshees are the straight up combat specialists, capable of killing a fully armoured marine as well as a simple guardsman, whereas scorpions excel in ambush and attacking in cover from the shadows. They deserve a redesign based on the fluff, not a sweeping "banshee power weapon...elite killer, scorpion chainsword....horde killer". This is probably why Aspects generally suck right now. They need a new philosophy to redefine what they can do on the battlefield.

Banshees should for starters be 3A, 4 for the Exarch. Heck, Incubi now have that and they are not as swift as banshees and are equipped with more sluggish weapons.

Now, I'd want more time to create Scorps to be fluffy and useful, but plonking them as a horde killer is just lazy.

Given that ambushing is the name of the game for Scorpions, maybe make their specialty deep strike CC assassins? Like for each scorpion squad they can choose an enemy unit as a their "prey" (each SS squad needs to choose a different target) pre-game and be able to reroll failed charges when charging against said unit which cannot overwatch against them and give them either a flat +1 to wound or some other kind of bonus against their designated target. Makes them more of a lurking threat your opponent has to be worried of mid-game versus that of banshees who should be the shock assault troops that attack the front line as soon as possible.

maybe have them works a liiiitle like Hounds of Mokai in that their pistols can ignore look out sir?

Maybe some enemy targeting manipulation based on positioning like Alpha Legion or Deepkin in AoS. Aside from allowing neg stacking or the can only be hit on X ideas not sure how else they can represent resilience through speed and elusiveness in the current system.

 Eldarain wrote:
Maybe some enemy targeting manipulation based on positioning like Alpha Legion or Deepkin in AoS. Aside from allowing neg stacking or the can only be hit on X ideas not sure how else they can represent resilience through speed and elusiveness in the current system.

6++ invul save, that improves to 5++ if the unit moved, and 4++ if the unit advanced?