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So, let's get down to it

All distort weapons that at str 10 are now str 7 and they are all ap3 (thanks forgeworld! We have enough ap2 already)
Jetbikes are now +1 to armor, maximum 3+ that makes wind riders 4+ and the seer council has to rely on their invulnerable save.
Eldar long rifle is now assault one at 24" (now the elven rangers can shoot and scoot)
The dreaded serpent shield is 6" range (described as a close range weapon of last resort)
Avatar of Khaine is a lord of war
Phoenix lords are also LOW, but, can be chosen up to 3 in a slot ( they almost never come alone)
Scatter lasers give the laser lock rule on a 6 to hit

What do you think dakka?

Frankly, I'm wondering about a lot of these.

Why change the Avatar and Phoenix Lords?

Why change the rifle?

why change eldar at all... personally i think they need help

Trash compactor? Hammer? Oven? Any of those will fix them.

And what are you going to do to the useless units to compensate for nerfing the powerful ones?

Varnos wrote:
why change eldar at all... personally i think they need help

This is a joke right?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
So, let's get down to it

All distort weapons that at str 10 are now str 7 and they are all ap3 (thanks forgeworld! We have enough ap2 already)
Jetbikes are now +1 to armor, maximum 3+ that makes wind riders 4+ and the seer council has to rely on their invulnerable save.
Eldar long rifle is now assault one at 24" (now the elven rangers can shoot and scoot)
The dreaded serpent shield is 6" range (described as a close range weapon of last resort)
Avatar of Khaine is a lord of war
Phoenix lords are also LOW, but, can be chosen up to 3 in a slot ( they almost never come alone)
Scatter lasers give the laser lock rule on a 6 to hit

What do you think dakka?

I like some of these. Need to buff things like banshees in recompense.

The rifle is because our snipers should not work exactly like imperial ones, they have the mobility with battle focus, but only if using their pistol. The jetbike nerf was to make the heavy bolter and autocannon the bane of jetbikes, instead of being ignored by them. Other than banshees, I don't think we have week units, really. They only look subpar by comparison.
The avatar is already a pseudo LOW, and the phoenix lords shouldn't compete for the HQ slot. They always arrive right before the fight, and they deserve to be positioned above autarchs/ far seers in rarity and importance.

Ugh...
Can only use the defensive or offensive capability once per game turn! Just realized that's not the way it works. 30" range nerf.

Point increase

With the vehicle design rules I updated ( link in sig), games workshop prices the serpent shield at about 12-15 points. Glad it's not once per turn, but, even just utilizing it as a gun, it should be worth a little more than 2 auto cannons (50 points) average shots is 4, ignores cover + long barreled is slightly better than ap4. Making it 6" range means the defensive ability would be active longer, and the waveserpent would be utilized more as an actual delivery system, instead of a gunboat. And 15 points to limit the chance of explodes results is actually about right.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
So, let's get down to it

All distort weapons that at str 10 are now str 7 and they are all ap3 (thanks forgeworld! We have enough ap2 already)
Jetbikes are now +1 to armor, maximum 3+ that makes wind riders 4+ and the seer council has to rely on their invulnerable save.
Eldar long rifle is now assault one at 24" (now the elven rangers can shoot and scoot)
The dreaded serpent shield is 6" range (described as a close range weapon of last resort)
Avatar of Khaine is a lord of war
Phoenix lords are also LOW, but, can be chosen up to 3 in a slot ( they almost never come alone)
Scatter lasers give the laser lock rule on a 6 to hit

What do you think dakka?

I do like the idea of a Long Rifle as an Assault Weapon - sorta fits with how they operate
Serpent shield is good fix
Avatar of Khaine - hmm ok as LOW and I guess the Pheonix Lords are also - be tempted to have Aspect Warrior squads unlock specfic Pheonix Lords
Scatter Lasers are ok

I would also try and give Banshees something - eg they can Assault out of non assault Vehicles? Banshee mask also counts as Assault grenades?

With the formation thing going around these days giving every Phoenix Lord a formation with 2-3 squads of their Aspect wouldn't be all that far-fetched; we've got precedent on a few (Karandras' Apocalypse formation that let his force relocate from anywhere in cover to anywhere in cover, though that's powerful enough it should probably be a once per game trick if it's used at all). Banshees could stand to have assault grenades; how about a variant on Battle Focus where if you don't run and shoot you can run and charge? Might help. I'd also support giving Banshees AP2 at Initiative to give them their niche back.

I have always used banshees as objective deniers. I hide them by an objective in the open ( I may have placed it there on purpose) then alert my opponent about their presence. Usually gets them to load up the area to claim that objective, allowing me to thereby control their movement phase.
With the avatar, he is already a pseudo LOW, the first non unique unit in 6th edition with a limit on how many are allowed. I see him as the precursor to the whole idea.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
With the avatar, he is already a pseudo LOW, the first non unique unit in 6th edition with a limit on how many are allowed. I see him as the precursor to the whole idea.

Grandfather clause. He's from an era in which restricted units were a part of army lists, not a precursor to test the LoW concept. (LRCs were 0-1 in the 4e Marine book, but nobody's calling them proto-LoW).

True, but he is 1 per detachment, not army. All the other things are from older editions, and lost that restriction totally in newer books. Other things would have kept it, if there was any grandfathering going on.

I like some of these, and I dislike some of these.

I don't care for your changes to distort weaponry. Wraithguard are good, but they certainly have their counters. They're also expensive. Also, do you really see the wraith-weaponry causing a lot of problems? Wriathknights are scary, but not because of wraith weaponry. The vaul support batteries are sort of a rare sight. Wraithguard die to power fists, poison, etc.

I personally think jetbikes would be fine if they went back to their price from the last book. As is, they got both a power increase and a price reducation. No one complains about shining spears. The armor save on a seer council helps, but only so much (mostly by letting you use runes of battle to get a 2+ save.) I'd be fine with your changes though. That said, I wouldn't treat them as a modifier. It's simpler to simply have a couple units with a 3+ or 4+ save. Keep it under the hood, you know?

The long rifle idea is cool, but it would make rangers pretty bad at actually snipping stuff from a distance. What about giving it a 24" Assault 1 profile in addition to the normal 36" heavy profile so that you can fade away as the enemy approaches at the cost of not being able to aim at a distance as well?

6" serpent shields is one of many fixes that I like for the wave serpent. I still wish there was a way to assault out of them to help out banshees though.

LOW units. These make sense fluff-wise, but I have a few mechanical gripes. For one thing, Phoenix Lords and the Avatar can be pretty hard to justify in a list. Forcing you to take an hq on top of them further restricts your ability to use them and (iirc) makes it impossible to use them in Zone Mortalis. Personally, I'd like to see some formations (even apoc formations) brought in to make the PLs more useful. The avatar just needs some sort of delivery system or some way to not be bullet bate the first few turns.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I like some of these, and I dislike some of these.

I don't care for your changes to distort weaponry. Wraithguard are good, but they certainly have their counters. They're also expensive. Also, do you really see the wraith-weaponry causing a lot of problems? Wriathknights are scary, but not because of wraith weaponry. The vaul support batteries are sort of a rare sight. Wraithguard die to power fists, poison, etc.

I personally think jetbikes would be fine if they went back to their price from the last book. As is, they got both a power increase and a price reducation. No one complains about shining spears. The armor save on a seer council helps, but only so much (mostly by letting you use runes of battle to get a 2+ save.) I'd be fine with your changes though. That said, I wouldn't treat them as a modifier. It's simpler to simply have a couple units with a 3+ or 4+ save. Keep it under the hood, you know?

The long rifle idea is cool, but it would make rangers pretty bad at actually snipping stuff from a distance. What about giving it a 24" Assault 1 profile in addition to the normal 36" heavy profile so that you can fade away as the enemy approaches at the cost of not being able to aim at a distance as well?

6" serpent shields is one of many fixes that I like for the wave serpent. I still wish there was a way to assault out of them to help out banshees though.

LOW units. These make sense fluff-wise, but I have a few mechanical gripes. For one thing, Phoenix Lords and the Avatar can be pretty hard to justify in a list. Forcing you to take an hq on top of them further restricts your ability to use them and (iirc) makes it impossible to use them in Zone Mortalis. Personally, I'd like to see some formations (even apoc formations) brought in to make the PLs more useful. The avatar just needs some sort of delivery system or some way to not be bullet bate the first few turns.

The change to distort is to allow things like terminators to charge without being totally whipped out. We have WAY too much ap2 in this army. The drop to str 7 allows you to still wound most units on a 2+, but gives bigger creatures a chance. I t has the added bonus of having the distort rule mean something against vehicles that aren't av17+. The eldar weapons are all short to medium ranged, this is the reason they have battle focus. With the change to the long rifle, the rangers now fight in a way that meshes with the rest of the army. The only static position the eldar should have is the artillery. Speaking of which, the reason they aren't taken is due to being in the same slot as war walkers and wraithknight. If these weapons were manned by space marines, I think they'd see table time
The LOW change would possibly get people to field them. The avatar is a beast! I run a melee centric eldar army, and he always does work for me. He is worth his points, if you don't have to choose between him and a 115 point farseer jetbike. With my changes, you don't have to, and the jetbike isn't an auto include.

I know that "it's not fluffy!" is kind of a weak argument, but I just feel like wounding some MCs on anything but a 2+ with the wraithcannon feels odd. I mean, it's a blast of energy that transports chunks of the enemy into the warp. It's not something you laugh off and go, "mwahaha, I'm durable against your plasma/bullets/explosions." It's not trying to break through your chitin or burn through your armor. It's just taking whatever chunk of you it touches and relocating it to the warp.

If you want to reduce the amount of AP2 in the army, I feel like the wraith weapons are the last place to do it. I'm not any of our other AP2 makes sense to reduce to AP3 or worse (star cannons would be just a little bit extra inferior to imperial plasma, scorpion's claw doesn't see enough use to be noticable, you could get rid of bladestorm though.) Wraith weaponry is potent but expensive. Those terminators you mentioned are one of the best targets for them to shoot at because you kill a lot of points each time you land a shot. If you're going to charge with termies, charge something you don't care about first to eat overwatch or don't feed an ideal target to the wraithguard.

Also, terminators will totally still win that fight. 10 wraithguard will land about 1.5 hits in overwatch. Let's round up to 2 as they might have a spiritseer handy. Those two hits will probably wound, but there's about a 50/50 chance that one of them will be ignored by a 5+ invul save meaning you lose 1.5 terminators. The termies will lose something like half a guy if they have a storm shield up front instead. So being generous, the terminators might lose 2 guys leaving with 3 to charge in. Assuming they all have power fists or something similar, that's 9 attacks, 4.5 of which will hit, chances are good that they all wound, and the wraithguard just lost about half their squad.

I guess I just don't see why you're trying to nerf wraith weaponry. I know d-scythes specifically can be pretty nasty, but is anyone dominating your local area with wraithguns and d-cannons? O_O

So ranger rifles. don't get me wrong. Making them assault *is* very cool. I love the idea of guerilla warfare rangers that infiltrate in to harass a flank. Thing is, making them 24" makes them pretty poor at their *current* job of sitting back on an objective and taking pot shots at stuff. Not terrible. I mean, I'd still get to shoot an advancing army on turn 2 or 3. But shooty armies will never come near to them. I don't really want to infiltrate a 24" ranger squad all that badly because I have better options for taking distant objectives in the form of bikes, hawks, serpents, etc. Your proposed changes work, I just feel that they weaken the rangers' role. I'd rather pay a point or two more and have both an assault profile and the normal profile on them.

And yes, vaul artillery isn't bad. You're right that it's mostly not taken because other things are better. And if you nerf it, other things will become that much better meaning it will be taken that much less. So why are you nerfing the d-cannon exactly?

Regarding LOWs, maybe you and I play different points values or something. When I take more than one HQ, it's usually because I lack the models to do much else or I need a quick, fun way to fill up the points. I don't run seer stars, so the HQs usually feel a little underwhelming for their points. If I want to squeeze in a PL or the avatar, I basically always can. The issue is that they're just not great for their points. The avatar is less durable than a dark eldar Talos (worse toughness and an invul instead of FNP plus he has fewer wounds), but he costs almost twice as much. The fearless bubble is nice, but eldar generally try to hit hard enough and be slippery enough that they don't have to worry about strong retaliation. The Avatar hits hard enough, but you'll be waiting until turn 3 to swing with him unless the enemy is eager to feed a unit to your MC for some reason.

Phoenix Lords have some interesting tricks, but for their points, you can generally take a farseer or autarch plus another squad of their aspect. EW is nice, but many of them lack an invul save meaning the face-smashing characters in other armies can usually have a field day with them.

The Avatar and Phoenix Lords aren't terrible options, but they've got enough downsides to make them hard to include sometimes. When I look at my man Baharroth and decide not to include him in a game, the reason is almost never that I lack an HQ slot. When I do use him, my justification is usually, "Well, he's only X more points than the autarch or farseer I might have included instead." Making him a LOW means that he's that much harder to justify including.

Change to distort weapons: hell no. Distort weapons are fine, only one that ive ever seen to be a problem is the flamer and thats a different kettle of fish anyway. D cannons and wraithcannons are fine, yeah it may be 5 STr10 Ap1 shots on a wraithguard squad but they have a 12" range and 5 T6 3+ wounds isnt that hard to deal with... Clocking in at 32ppm aswell its not a cheap investment.

Not sure about the long rifle change.., I think just allowing them to battle focus with long rifles would be better.

jetbikes I think just increasing the cost would be a better idea, they hold a niche in the eldar lineup and I think making them a 4+ or worse save would actually see them almost dissappear. Never realised people had any issues with them until now tbh. Jetcouncils maybe but again thats a different story and since the changes to warlock powers they have become way less powerful anyway.

Avatar as LOW yeah but buff his attacks, strength, and increase cost slightly. Also NEW MODEL PLEASE GW (or just FW i guess)

Pheonix lords as 1-3 per LoW sounds very interesting. Certainly better than the current mess they make of the HQ section. Perhaps a slotless LoW choice of 1-3 even?

Agree on laser lock. Its just too good at the moment

Agree 100% on serpent shield, should be 6" range. I still think 60 was a typo that they just decided not to change

Distort being less than S10ap1 seems wrong. Its almost a proto-Destroyer weapon. It isn't like you're firing some super-powerful slug or energy at them. You're telling the *materium* itself to kinda forget what it is. No purely physical trait (armor save) can save you. And anything smaller than a bus (t5 and below) can't shrug it off. No matter how tough you are, if your body has been distorted, you're dead. Even bus-sized greater demons have a good chance of losing a critical part.

Their balance is they're on slow but steady platforms. The WK being that fast is a bit off, but its shooting is fine for its points.

If you're worried about overwatch, Scytheguard are more the problem, and they're s4 anyways. Always seemed wrong that such a slow and purposeful frame (wraithguard) weren't slow and purposeful. So that rule would probably be the much better fix.

As for Rangers and other potentially a static forces, they seem right to me. Rangers getting a s3 assault 1 24" option would feel OK, to represent shooting withdrawal, but they do have pistols already. And Rangers are the sort to sneak into position then try to pick off individuals while crouched/prone. So Heavy 1 seems right already.
For Vaul's Wrath, sometimes Eldar need to set up emplacements to bring the big guns to bear. All CW Eldar are in desperate situations. Setting up fire positions for an ambush or last line of defence seems very in keeping with their fluff. Even with their tech, sometimes your firepower just doesn't have mobility.

For Wind riders, 4+ for jetbikes in general takes them into about-right territory. Still fast. Still moderately survivable. Still absurdly maneuverable.

Avatar could easily be a LoW. His stats aren't great, but he seems right in casual games.

I could see formations for Phoenix Lords at (aspect in question),1+. Perhaps any PL taken this way gets his Warlord Trait despite not being the warlord? Perhaps something else?
PLs are kinda weak as is. Asurmen just lost a duel to a Shadow field /Agonizer Archon on Monday. He should have won, yes, but not by that wide a margin (same statline, Archon gets combo weap for +1 attack, Asurmen gets master crafted to match. Archon has 2++, Asurmen gets to use his 2+, etc. Only real difference was Asurmen wounded on 2s, Archon on 4s, but I failed my saves, Archon didn't)

I almost always run 2 HQs with my Eldar. They're all just so much fun!

Personally, if you wanted a fluffy version of distort weapons, any hit would cause a penetrating hit on vehicles, and any other model hit would have to succeed on a strength test or lose d3 wounds. My change was to bring the distort ABILITY into focus more. I couldn't instant death ANYTHING without a wound roll of 6 with the last edition, I feel they wanted a math reason that almost everything in the game would be wounded on a 2+, so, str 10. I always used distort weapons with the old dex, wraithseer, d-cannons, and wraithguard were always in my list. Now, distort weapons feel cheap somehow when side armor 12-13 isn't any protection at all. If they are proto-D weapons, the profile shouldn't be a big cannon with an arbitrary rule, the rule should be what makes then gun awesome.

Outside WWP and Wraithknights, getting the distort weapons into range should be a decent balancer. CW Eldar don't exactly have delivery methods in spades.

Laser Lock on 6 to hit would be OK, but would just making you select one weapon it affects do better? Serpent Shield is nerfed another way above, but even if it wasn't, it wouldn't be a weapon at the time, so couldn't be selected.

I know SLs are viewed as our heavy weapon high ROF of choice, but I wish it were more about scattering and laser lock.

What about one of these potential changes, with an eye for making it a support option?:

-If SL hit (regardless of how often), one other shot from another weapon hits on a 2+, ignores cover. Affects snap shots. Would make SL better at setting up a BL or PL, and worse at high-ROF shooting. And makes Falcons and SL/non-SL warwalkers better. And a passable version of anti-air.

- Or, s5 heavy 6 always snap fire. Select another weapon. For each hit, the other weapon hits on one better per hit (min 2+).

Either option would feel a lot more like a scattering of lasers looking for a target, I think.

wow this is interesting. i keep seeing csm needing major boosts but eldar needing nerfs. i agree with the 6"serpent shield.