Homeskillet wrote:
Good call on the majority of the analysis. It's a shame too, because now I again feel like I won't be able to play my Eldar. There are just SO many good units, and the formations are just out of bounds. I envisioned the same idea of an Avatar-led assault-based list for my aspect warriors! I think plenty of other armies will take the Crimson Hunters formation solely as their anti-air/anti-tank option, it is just so good. They get a jink save without jinking?? Come on. This is an uber-strong codex.

 Truth118 wrote:

I think you'll find that the Eldar units are a lot less resilient than before and those that are super resilient pay a premium in points.

I'd like to see some examples. Compare the price and effectiveness of most Eldar units to a similar unit of another race and... uh... I shouldn't have to explain this.

Eldar shooting remains best in the game but still suffers from short range. Anything that catches them in an assault will make them wilt and anything that survives to return fire will do some damage.

Scatter laser is 36" mounted on an extremely mobile unit, and it's range isn't even impressive by Eldar standards. Can you name three units in this game that would reliably be able to chase down windriders, survive overwatch and wipe them in melee for a roughly equivalent amount of points?

The wave serpent took a serious nerf and so did warlocks. They can't join units off the conclave now and get far less powers and warpcharges than before. An Eldar force built around a CAD for ObSec is still very good, but lost tons of firepower with the serpent nerf that will be hard to replace and caps out at a single Wraithknight.

Wave serpents are no longer a broken fire-platform but are a very viable dedicated transport. Scatbikes replace the wave serpent's loss of firepower easily. It's possible to take multiple CADs for multiple wraithknights and it might be possible to take multiples via the decurion-like formation, it's not clear.

Good codex, but not great. I think its balanced very well with the other 7th edition releases.

I don't even know.

 Red Corsair wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:


Good codex, but not great. I think its balanced very well with the other 7th edition releases.

LOL What!??!?

I no longer value your opinion on the subject.

Razerous wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:
Lets look at a specific spammy example: 3 jet bike farseers, 6x 3 windriders with scatter lasers, 3x wraithknights.

Older Serpent Spam builds were viable. A random off-the-top 'spammy' list is sure to be a poor comparison. Just because you can field 3 CAD doesn't mean you should. Also, correct me if I'm wrong... but the triple jet bike squads with no upgrades were considered one of the best troop choices in-the-game. Has that changed? Are you forced to take upgrades on any/all of your jetbikes?

The wraithknights shooting is slightly better now (d6+6 wounds, no saves on a "6" instead of Instant Death with saves)

1 wound vs d6+6 is not slightly better. Not even close.

So what do you have overall in this example?

My point being, this is a bad example. Once good synergies and combos arrive after some trail & error, we can see specifics then. However, what we can all see now, is that there is potentially for hugely powerful army lists, far above what is about currently.

Scatterlasers are nice. But a good shooting platform (say a 95 point Predator with HB sponsons) stands a great chance of killing a 81 point 3 windrider, 3 scatterlaser squad before they kill or disable the tank

Also to respond to this... I would advise that you base your arguments on reasonable assessments. Otherwise you may be misleading to others. A 95pt tank (moves 6") that shoots 8xbs4 shots, wounding on 2's, kills 1.49 bikes (1-2 bikes). Also, a good shooting platform a HB Predator is not - Very sub-par str5/7 firepower. The bikes can move 12" and use the JSJ moves to maneuver out of LOS. All of that does not constitute a 'great chance'.

 Homeskillet wrote:
Sorry Panzer, you're on an island here. The elves are broke as all hell.

 Red Corsair wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:

 Homeskillet wrote:
Sorry Panzer, you're on an island here. The elves are broke as all hell.

I don't mind being on an island. I respect the new elves but I don't fear them in the way that rest of the community seems too.

No wonder when your delusional enough to recommend a dakka predator as a counter to the scatbikes. Was that a serious suggestion? You must be ing

Your also going to suggest that the D weapon is only a slight upgrade from S10? WTF? It's like you have never played a serious game. Single shot low AP weapons struggle against vehicles and MC's, yet sD makes a mockery of such things. Even worse in template form.

So while my previous post was short, I'd say it was much more grounded in reality and constructive then multiple paragraphs of uneducated handwaving.

Your also making the very stupid mistake of judging a books power level based upon house rules. That's right, any TO's packet restricting abusive unit types and rules are just that, house rules. Not 40k, but that TO's opinion of what 40k should be. That very fact illustrates how broken a book is. Are you making comments assuming a 2 CAD, unique limit? Banned ranged D? No LoW? My guess is you are, guess what bub those very restrictions are proof it's that busted.

 Orock wrote:
Dakka predators are not realistic answers as nobody but list tailors would take them and its very easy for jetbikes to hide turn one and find side armor when its their turn.

Razerous wrote:

Chancetragedy wrote:
I love how a multiple GT winner and consistantly good placing player is uninformed, and has never played a "serious" game RC. I actually agree with most of what panzer has said except I do believe Eldar are a great codex(not unbeatable but definately top of the heap). And his counter of scat bikes with a dakka pred is brilliant. It's simple math 6+D6 is max value 12, dakka pred front armor is 13 and has similar range to fire back.

Ah buts its not! A dakka pred has side armour 11 and has a 6" move to re-position. On the other hand, bikes can turbo-boost or move 12" and JSJ. In terms of having the ability to protect itself, surely the bikes come out tops? Or at the very least, it is not clear-cut.

I do agree something like a Wyvern would be a good counter. It has range, ignores LOS, has the right kind of firepower to force wounds in a reliable way.

I think the abuse that the previous Eldar codex was capable of will continue, unless changes are made. I do concede that the smaller changes the better (check out my new post..!), it could actually be very minor. Things like the scat-bikes may just force a meta change.

 Orock wrote:
A vaccum is a terrible way to try and justify the hands down best point for points troops in the game are not overpowered. You might as well say the other guy could just use 3 land raiders and the eldar player would be completely helpless! You cannot justify a cheezy unit because " specific the unit that nobody uses and would be a terrible choice in any other matchup has a partial counter to said cheeze unit". I guess you think decurion wraiths are a o.k. because someone could run multiple units of 30 fearless grots and conciecably tie them up all game?

 lessthanjeff wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:

 Orock wrote:
Dakka predators are not realistic answers as nobody but list tailors would take them and its very easy for jetbikes to hide turn one and find side armor when its their turn.

This has been covered. The jet bikes boost to hide out of LOS in the predators side armor. The predator player backs up 12" and turns his AV13 to face the jet bikes. The jet bikes now cannot reach the side armor with a 12" jump and so reposition again for a shoot next turn, causing the predator to reposition. Its a literal stand off in a vacuum with neither unit being able to leverage an advantage on its own. You could do the same thing with the newly popular Sicarians who are front AV 13, side AV 12.

Thanks for the acknowledgement Therion and Chance.

I don't think I get how the predator tank is in any way countering the jetbikes. The situation you're describing has the predator tank using 18" of movement just to stay alive meaning it can't put out any shots or accomplish anything in the game. I'm looking at this as the jetbikes are completely negating the tank by preventing him from doing anything in the game while still getting to shoot at other units and earning their points back. Seems to me more like the jetbikes are eliminating two units for their cost in this situation.

As far as power level concerns and questions as to why people make the claim that they're OP, it's based on comparisons to what other armies have for the same cost. Take a unit of firedragons and compare them to a unit of blasterborn now. The fire dragons get 5 shots instead of 4 (and I think you can assume BS5 base now instead of bs 4), have a 3+ save instead of a 5+ save, are AP1 melta (with an extra +1 on the damage table) instead of AP2 lance, get to run and shoot or shoot and run allowing them to cripple common threats like imperial knights, and for a mere 10 points get an exarch with improved WS, BS, W, I, A, and rerolls on hit/pen while the dark eldar pay 10 points just to get the extra A. The biggest slap in the face here is that the Blasterborn cost 125 points for this unit making the fire dragons cheaper to boot!

We could do some similar examples for Windrider jetbikes compared to Reaver Jetbikes or Howling Banshees compared to Wyches if you'd like. The problem is, the Eldar are getting significantly more for their points than other armies in the game. That's what is making them overpowered and it unbalances the armies.

I'm up for the challenge to face them because it'll mean something to me when I do pull of a win against them, but I do think this was a poorly balanced codex compared to what others have at their disposal. Yes, I agree that it is fun as hell and I wish every codex had as much stuff that seems fun and awesome in it, but that's not the world we're in and now they're standing on the shoulders of their opponents.

 lessthanjeff wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:


In the vacuum example, its a mutual negation. The Eldar jetbikes have to forfeit shooting to keep boosting around to get a flank shot on the tank. In a proper game where each unit gets mutual support, the context is completely different. The Predator wouldn't be worried about moving in that context because there'd be other units to handle things flanking it.

Trueborn are also more versatile than Firedragons. You can make a unit of Trueborn with 4 S6 blasts. Trueborn are also troop choices and so can have OBSEC in a CAD. They also have access to cheap, 55 point transports that they can fire out of to full effect. Firedragons have to expose themselves to shoot and get inside 6" to make the maximum effect of their weapon. They'll be exposed and your almost guaranteed to trade the entire unit for a single vehicle kill, especially if they have to run first to guarantee melta range. Trueborn can use a venom or raider to move up a flank and hang at the 12" mark while still making full use of their weapons from inside, giving them an additional layer of protection. Different strengths. The biggest difference in anti-tank capability is against super-heavy vehicles, where Fire Dragons really shine.

In an isolated example, the bikes can block the tank to prevent it from moving. Even if it only interferes with a few inches of movement for the tank, it allows the bikes to get in the side arcs to kill the predator tank. He can try to tank shock them, but then he can't move flat out so again the bikes get to hit the side armor and kill it. The tank does not negate the bikes even in an isolated example.

Trueborn are not troop choices and do not have objective secured. Few people would argue that the venom is a more desirable transport than a wave serpent or grav tank and fire dragons also have very easy access to venoms as well, but are you comparing venoms to wave serpents then or fire dragons to trueborn? Sure, you can give trueborn shredders instead, but then their output suffers even more compared to the Eldar units. What is being demonstrated there is that the Dark Eldar are versatilely worse than Eldar units.

The trueborn are strictly inferior at all ranges and against all targets because they have less shots with lower BS and worse bonuses on the damage table (in addition to worse survivability). This is not an advantage specific to super heavy tanks as you're claiming either since even if your target is a monstrous creature or elite unit, having more shots at a higher BS with increased survivability and at a lower cost is universally better. If you don't believe me, crunch some numbers. Even when they're outside of melta range against AV 10 the fire dragons average 1.5 explodes results with their shots while the trueborn average 0.3 explodes results. Put them in melta range and the fire dragons are just embarassing their peers. Where is your reasoning coming from that they're only better against superheavies? Perhaps you want to crunch them against against a target like a Riptide? the trueborn average 1.5 wounds from their shooting while the fire dragons average 2.5. Nope, that didn't work either. To add insult to injury, despite paying less points for the firedragons and their output being strictly superior, they also come with melta bombs standard, so if you happen to fail to kill something with their extraordinaire numbers, feel free to assault and finish the target off.

The fact that one army can pay 10 points for captains with +1 WS, BS, W, I, and A while also getting absurd bonuses like "deep strike without scatter for the entire unit" or "reroll to hit/wound" is obscene when other armies pay 10 points for +1 A and in some cases +1 LD. It's a direct example of Eldar getting far more for their points than other armies. I'm sorry bud, but if you think those concepts are balanced consider that in sports 90% of the fans of the home team will declare a foul was a bad call by the refs while simultaneously 90% of the fans of the away team will say it was a good call. I think your bias is influencing your assertions on this.

 GargoyleKing wrote:
I think the majority of people are mis-understanding how the Warlock Councils work now. You only get powers based on how many warlocks are in the squad. But you get 1 warp charge point for each model on the table each turn. As warlocks die, you lose their warp charge points and once below each of the threshholds, you begin to lose powers. So, with 7 Warlocks you will only have 3 powers, but you will also have 7 warp charge points to spend from the unit.

 lessthanjeff wrote:
When you leave out the +1 BS, free 6" move, and ability to fire 3 shots in a single turn to justify your claim that a unit is comparable to another one even though it still costs less than the CSM without mentioning that your results leave out that information that's dishonest to me. People who log on here to read that math and don't understand it themselves will see your results and say "oh, I guess people were just exaggerating their power", and they'll wonder why the dire avengers are consistently kicking their butts in the game since you showed them they're no stronger.

I would equate that to the people who say "hey, I did a study and my results show smoking doesn't cause cancer" without mentioning "by the way, I'm paid by the tobacco companies and I may have gone out of my way to find ways to run the tests that supported what my boss wanted to hear." Math is too often manipulated by people to support their claims. You can pretend those bonuses aren't there all you want, but that's what people will see in the game and a lot of that is the source of why people are saying they're OP, so don't "disprove" it by leaving out those numbers.

 lessthanjeff wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:


Your math is disingenuous though. You've been effectively comparing 195 points of Dire Avengers (the minimum points cost for the "Avenger Shrine" formation to receive those benefits) to 140 points of CSM. Those extra 55 points are missing and represent at least 2 CSMs and a heavy bolter which greatly changes the math involved. You are making a faulty assumption that any unit of Dire Avengers can receive those bonuses and than comparing equal size units while ignoring the actual points cost of the Avenger Shrine.

I'm not comparing the 195 points of DA because I'm not crunching the numbers from all 15 in the formation. I'm taking a lesser cost of DA and comparing them to a greater cost of CSM where the points cost is what the game is balanced on. Otherwise, you could say it's not fair to compare to a single unit of CSM because you need another troop choice and an HQ to make a CAD out of them. Since the other units are not being fielded or contributing to the computations, they're irrelevant to the situation.

notredameguy10 wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:

 lessthanjeff wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:


Your math is disingenuous though. You've been effectively comparing 195 points of Dire Avengers (the minimum points cost for the "Avenger Shrine" formation to receive those benefits) to 140 points of CSM. Those extra 55 points are missing and represent at least 2 CSMs and a heavy bolter which greatly changes the math involved. You are making a faulty assumption that any unit of Dire Avengers can receive those bonuses and than comparing equal size units while ignoring the actual points cost of the Avenger Shrine.

I'm not comparing the 195 points of DA because I'm not crunching the numbers from all 15 in the formation. I'm taking a lesser cost of DA and comparing them to a greater cost of CSM where the points cost is what the game is balanced on. Otherwise, you could say it's not fair to compare to a single unit of CSM because you need another troop choice and an HQ to make a CAD out of them. Since the other units are not being fielded or contributing to the computations, they're irrelevant to the situation.

Except its very relevant that you are taking a unit of Avengers that costs 130 points and treating them with the rules that have a minimum cost of 195 points. If you want to do a roughly equal comparison, you can't assume in 55 points of extra rules. You'd have to run the math at the closest possible match up (15 Avengers vs ~13 Chaos Marines) to truly illustrate the difference between the two. The way you've presented your math is very disingenuous without explicitly listing your assumptions that give the 10 Avengers an extra 55 points of buff.

You are wrong. again. If anyone is going to use dire avengers, they will ALWAYS take them in a formation (or almost always). Therefore, on the battlefield, they will be 130 points with all those bonuses.

 lessthanjeff wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:


Except its very relevant that you are taking a unit of Avengers that costs 130 points and treating them with the rules that have a minimum cost of 195 points. If you want to do a roughly equal comparison, you can't assume in 55 points of extra rules. You'd have to run the math at the closest possible match up (15 Avengers vs ~13 Chaos Marines) to truly illustrate the difference between the two. The way you've presented your math is very disingenuous without explicitly listing your assumptions that give the 10 Avengers an extra 55 points of buff.

I'm guessing you and math don't get along too well. We can run the numbers at 15 dire avengers vs 15 CSM just as easily and the CSM still cost more. It actually goes more in favor of the Dire Avengers if you take them both to the 15 squad cost. You're saying that it was somehow dishonest to take 130 points out of a formation for comparison against 140 points out of a CAD, but like I said, the same argument would apply to not being able to take a single unit of CSM too.

Since you're interested though, here's the math for you. The 15 Dire Avengers (195 points) kills 10.5 of the CSM in the first round of shooting. The 15 CSM (205 points) kill 3.3 Dire Avengers in their first round of shooting. I ran both numbers as if they were at full strength firing into the enemy, not by picking one arbitrarily to get to shoot first and then reducing the opponents' shots. So do go on about how I was somehow dishonest and fudging numbers in my favor or leaving out important information. What you requested for the comparison goes far far worse in the Eldar's favor with them still costing less. Anything else you'd like me to run?

 lessthanjeff wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:


Math and I get along fine. I agree that DAs in the Shrine formation are amazing. My point was that you hid those assumptions earlier while trying to disparage others who framed their variables differently from your own. Obviously the extra 15 shots at a higher BS make a huge difference. But people will still field stock DAs outside of the formation for a variety of reasons. It is not intellectually dishonest to evaluate both possibilities since the key variables (BS and rate of fire) change dramatically between the two. It is deceitful to hide your own assumptions while criticizing others.

I hid nothing in any of my calculations. I clearly showed how many I counted, what point cost I counted them at, and what rules I was counting them with. Your claim is predicated on me manipulating data to my advantage, but I was forthcoming with my calculations and showed exactly what I was doing along the way. You may disagree with how I partitioned out the units to pick a fairly standard unit size of 10 Dire Avengers against 10 CSM (giving a generous point advantage to the CSM), but your argument is illogical when you say "you can't just consider one part of the formation" even though you're saying it's fine to consider just one part of the CAD for chaos. Why aren't you insisting we buy an HQ and another troop choice to finish the detachment? What exactly is the difference between those two cases in your mind? I question your math and logic because you also wanted to balance out 130 points of Eldar models with 176 points of Chaos models, so tell me again about dishonesty and fudging numbers.

What is dishonest is saying "I ran the numbers, the Dire Avengers come out equivalent to the CSM" without saying he wasn't using all those rules to counter my argument even though I clearly cited them in my comparison that he was responding to. This wasn't a case of saying "let's compare other settings", this was him saying "your claim is inaccurate and here's the data that disproves it".

 lessthanjeff wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
Okay guys the CSM vs Dire Avengers arguement started as somewhat pointless and has escalated downwards.
1) CSM are an awful unit. They are overcosted in every comparison so measuring any unit against them gives the same thing. You could compare them to Imperial Guardsmen and IG would come way out on top.
2) CSM's best ability is being able to purchase upgrades and various transports. Ironically their most prevalent and by far and away best use is as spare wounds for a HQ...so you are comparing apples and oranges when you compare CSM to Dire Avengers. In the original comparison it was somewhat strange but when comparing the formation (who loose ObjSec) to the CAD CSM (whose only role in life is ablative wounds and ObjSec) it becomes ludicrous. BTW the loss of ObjSec by one of these formations just lost Reece 250 usd...so I guess ObjSec is worth something.
3) If you are going to try comparing the two units then it should be in configurations that have meaning. Comparing any number of CSM without upgrades to Dire Avengers is like comparing IG vets without upgrades to Necron warriors. The vets are a very good troop unit but they will be laughably bad in this comparison.
4) Ironically in the formation you have veered sharply away from a troops choice and are now talking about damage dealing unit. They are not required to unlock anything and they also lack ObjSec. Thus by all rights they have more in common with a thunderfire cannon or purifiers than CSM.


One the topic of allies. IMO the webway portal and armour of misery alone make DE a premier if not the premier allies choice for CWE. Even if you don't use the WWP for scythe guard it is still devastation just to get fire dragons or a foot seer council in place. In fact you could make an alternative freak show list out of foot seer council formations. What it lacks in Ld modifiers it makes up for in getting 2-3 times the number of powers off.


I am actually very happy to see the buffs to aspect warriors. They were mostly not functional before as they either did to little damage for their price (dark reapers), had been neutered by the AP1 nerf (fire dragons), had no durable assault transport and lacked damage output and even grenades (Banshees and Scorpions), etc. They fixed almost all the problems with aspect warriors that kept them from being meaningful. The warp spiders actually got a sideways movement on their gun profile (better against many MCs and worse against vehicles and many infantry) but they got a pretty huge durability buff in their new blink away ability. I like the rule however as it makes playing with and against them a much more tactical experience, which is cool. Hopefully they FAQ it to only work once per turn.

If you have other units in mind you think are easier to compare with and are more valid then I'd be glad to hear them. I've proposed a fair number of pairings that I think fill similar roles, but I'm open to other options. I feel like there can almost always be an argument made that "such and such comparison is invalid" because no two units have the EXACT same rules and options available to them and it's quite difficult to get agreement on things like "how much is ATSKNF worth?" so do share if you have suggestions.

To points 1 and 2, I don't think of CSM as worse than the standard troop choices in other armies either though. I just chose CSM because they're 13 points each. I personally like to field a unit or two of them in rhinos when I play chaos, but I'd take DA in a wave serpent any day that I had the choice. I've definitely never used mine as wounds for an HQ because I've found Chaos HQ's are typically riding on juggernauts/bikes or are daemon princes.

To point 4, maybe you're expecting a different sort of list from the Eldar than I am. I'm expecting lists built like the following:
CAD
Autarch/Farseer on jetbike
Couple windrider jetbike squads with scatter lasers
Squadron of 3 grav tanks
Wraithknight
Maybe a squadron of wraithguard

Supported by some combination of the following formations
Aspect Host formation (3x fire dragons) mounted in the 3 grav tanks for precision deepstrikes
Crimson Death formation for air dominance and more anti-armor
Dire Avenger Shrine in wave serpents for shredding anything with toughness values
More Aspect Hosts with some mix of Warp Spiders and Dark Reapers

It seems it would be pretty easy to adjust the formations according to local playstyles and I don't rate the objective secured that highly for the infantry because I think in general the windriders will do it far better.

 Ratius wrote:
What do you guys think of the Falcon cloudstke rule. You basically get 3 DS'ing Falcons that dont scatter on arrival. Combined with an autarch for +1 to Res rolls, could be a semi alpha strike idea. Can you load them up with FDs before they drop if they are not dedicated transports for the FDs?
Idea being to drop 3 in, fire their weapons, hopefully survive a turn and then get out the FDs for even more firepower behind enemy lines.

 The Shadow wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
Yeah, I've thought about using it too. Essentially one of the Falcons would contain Fire Dragons (dead whatever tank you want) and the others would contain DAs. The Dragons would be part of an Aspect Host with Spiders and Hawks, and there'd be another footslogging DA unit for the Shrine, with Eldrad in tow. Add in one of the Core Detachments and you're done. It comes up to about 2k, but I think it'd be a pretty cool army to use. One of the posters here did bring up the issue of DS-ing 3 Falcons next to each other being actually very difficult in practice purely due to their footprint, but I reckon it'd be something you'd have to test out.

Wouldn't a Ghostwalk Matrix let them DS into cover? That would make them easier to DS in, despite their size.
Or, would that trigger a DS Mishap?

I've not played in a while, but as far as I can remember, deep striking into cover is absolutely fine (though I guess, considering the fact the vehicles, which are skimmers, are ending their move in terrain they'll need to take a Dangerous Terrain test). I think the issue here is other models and impassable terrain. And even if a Ghostwalk Matrix did help in anyway, it's an expensive upgrade that I don't think I'd want to take.