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.

Back when the Eldar codex initially came out (in fact, even prior to its official release, when bits and pieces of the codex were being leaked online), I remember the uproar on dakka forums. By and large, the Eldar release proved to be exactly the OP, game changing load of bull gak that the mathhammer guys thought it would be. Scatter bikes and wraithknights have, in fact, drastically changed the competitive meta, and even casual eldar lists tend to be pretty darned good.

At the time, I recall tons of threads being started about how evil the codex was and there were general calls of boycotts against, not only the eldar codex and eldar products, but also against eldar players.

In sum:

There were calls for tournament organizers to ban the 7th edition eldar codex, as well as calls to say "no" to casual pick up games with players using the 7th edition eldar codex.

So, several months later:

Has any of that actually happened? Have there been any tournaments, in your experience and local metas, which have actually banned any entire codices, eldar or otherwise, from tournament play?

Do you know any players in your local metas who outright refuse to play against Eldar, independently of the particular lists that the eldar player is using?

More broadly:

In your experiences and local metas, are there any tournaments which actually ban entire codices? Do you know people in your local metas who refuse to play against entire codices independently of unit selections?

I don't think any tournament would ever simple ban a whole Codex out of hand like that. The Eldar aren't so good that any list of theirs will demolish even the best lists other factions can bring. It all depends on the type of player using the army. Eldar has a lot of great options that are cost-efficient and can bring massive firepower to bear using fast moving elements.

Tournament players utilize all of these tools to the max when building their force (and rightfully so with money and prestige on the line, when logic assumes your opponents will similarly be bringing all their best toys.) That's fine and to be expected given the circumstances.

What's kind of dicky is when people bring that same tournament calibre army to a friendly pick up game to demolish everyone else. They are perfectly in the right, rules-wise, to do so but it somewhat goes against good taste. I always joked that if I was just out to smash people, I'd do it in a literal fight.

ITC did nerf Eldar.

 Gamgee wrote:
ITC did nerf Eldar.

How?

I don't play against Eldar. I don't find the games fun and would rather just screw around on my phone for 2 hours than waste my time in a game I know I won't enjoy.

I don't know of any events that ban any codex armies, however I know many players that will absolutely refuse to play against certain armies (though they're usually polite about it). I'll play any army but will often refuse games where I don't think it'll be any fun (e.g. running my DKoK Assault Brigade against a Decurion or competitive Eldar army or anything Gladius or War Convocation).

Don't know of any events. The word "codex" is typically treated as some kind of sacred magic word that means that a set of rules can never, under any circumstances, be banned. So people will talk about how much they hate a particular codex and wish it could be changed, but since it says "codex" on the cover nothing can be done about it. Meanwhile FW rules are regularly banned, regardless of their power level, because they don't have the magic "codex" word included. Needless to say this is a really stupid way of running an event, but that's how it is.

I've not seen anything beyond people swearing a cuss-filled oath, post getting rekt, about never facing an army ever again.
Usually happens with Eldar, but I've seen it with Inquisition aswell.
(But that's using a ruddy 5th edition Inquisition codex in 7th edition - Screw that)

Anyone that bans an entire codex is nothing more than a whiney crybaby, there are so far no codexs that break the game so bad banning them is rational, limiting units for sure go for it, but banning entire army's is stupid to say the least

Imperial Knights got Banned in a bunch of places when they came out, sometimes only banned as primary, but I think that's the first actual banning of a 'Dex (even if it/was a glorified dataslate reather than a codex).

Gamgee is right, sort of, they didn't nerf Eldar, but IIRC, the nerf to ranged str D was the first big change to the larger competative community that was ... accepted is probably not the right word, but it's close enough. Since eldar were the only ones to have access to ranged D outside of FW that was/is still banned at numerous events, it was a way of nerfing eldar without directly nerfing a single codex. Though as always, once you change something, it becomes easier to justify changing something else and now we have the rampant clusterfeth that the ITC has become with allegations of favouritism and bias that would make a GW codex writer proud.

There are quite a few people in my (non-ITC) meta who flat out refuse games against Eldar, some wholesale, some being dependant on the Eldar list, some being dependant on the players list.

One of our newer players bought serpent spam in 6th and switched to a mix of WK's, seer council min jetbikes and some scytheguard in 7th and wondered why he didn't get many games. I decided to make a point and played him with my Iron Warriors and was tabled in 3 turns (though that last turn was cleanup, I had maybe 5 models left). He saw nothing wrong with this. I played him again with skyhammer, culexus in a pod, marines and a firebase support cadre and tabled him in 2 turns (the 2nd was a formality, he had maybe 8 guys left on the table). He then understood what it was like to be on the recieving end of an asskicking since he was so used to flattening people since day one of playing that he just didn't realise how much it sucked.

While I don't personally refuse any codex, I have a few players I will not play and I have noticed a *ahem* certain "theme" in there armies. To prevent this thread going completely grox- crap crazy I will not say what codrx they share. But I am willing to give any player from this codex two games before judging them by there choice. Locally my favorite game I ever played was actually against eldar!

No problem with casual Eldar but I won't play against riptide spam, Wraithknight spam, IK, Wave Serpent spam, or any of their ultra competitive builds.

 thepowerfulwill wrote:
While I don't personally refuse any codex, I have a few players I will not play and I have noticed a *ahem* certain "theme" in there armies. To prevent this thread going completely grox- crap crazy I will not say what codrx they share. But I am willing to give any player from this codex two games before judging them by there choice. Locally my favorite game I ever played was actually against eldar!

This, I'll play against any army or codex but I might turn down a player.

I've never seen any army banned outright (forgeworld included) at my flgs. We generally play somewhat casually so if someone is too competitive we discuss this with them to see if we can find a common ground that we both enjoy playing. If there is no common ground shake hands and agree to play other people. I don't turn down armies, just players.

I don't play against eldar anymore. I tried to ignore the hate and superstition attached to the army and give them a solid go. I played mostly CSM at the time, so I'm already used to defeat. (Too many people here refuse to play against forgeworld, so I don't even bother to invest in it.)

That said, I still try to like 40k besides that. I join up in a progressive BEGINNER league to help teach some other players and generally get some small games in, which I tend to have a more fair chance in. League makes a rule preventing armor over a combined value of 33 until we reach 1000 pts, basically limiting people to rhinos because a vindicator or predator can be a lot to handle at 500 pts. Also means dreadnaughts and helbrutes are out of commision too.

2nd game of the league, 500pts, I have a biker lord, some cultists, some autocannon havocs, and 3 deepstriking terminators in true termicide style. My opponent brings farseer on bike with warlock and scatter bike entourage. He gets first turn and proceeds to remove two of three wounds off my lord as well as every other well painted and based model i had brought with me... with his grey half put together bikes. Game went two turns because he let me roll to DS my terminators in 1st turn out of pity. They came in but didn't make it to second turn.

I quit the league that day and went on my 40K hiatus once again. I worked the overnight before, stayed up way past my bedtime to play this game with him on the only day he could meet with me and then went home to put all my models on the shelf they love to collect dust on indefinitely . Good thing I didn't bring a predator, that would of been unfair.

So, as someone who actively tried to ignore the doom and gloom and give them a shot out of the spirit of the game, I will now happily refuse a game against eldar no matter the point level, player, or competitiveness of the list, and I'll smile while I do it.

My local meta did nothing in particular to Eldar. We don't use ITC and we vary our tourneys from month to month. Generally, we would only use 1 Gargantuan Creature, but we've had events where multiple GC were allowed.

The game didn't implode and Eldar didn't win every event, so not a lot changed.

I've had two friends who played Eldar and have subsequently dropped them due to finding it hard to get casual games. I even had to turn down games to him because it was a done deal, my Covenite Pain Engines just couldn't stand up to Str D and my Raiders couldn't stand up to...anything. They just weren't fun games. That friend has is now disenfranchised with 40K, preferring Warhammer Fantasy (Or now 9th Age) and the other dropped them to pick up Imperial Guard.

So I would say yeah, at least on a casual pick up game at the local GW store, Eldar players have suffered. I for one wouldn't play an Eldar army in a pick up game where i didn't know the guy, my Dark Eldar have suffered too much from last editions unkillable Wave Serpents and this editions unkillable Wraithknights that it's just not worth it.

I won't play against Imperial Knight players because I think an army of all super heavies is stupid in a skirmish style combined arms game. A single knight is fine but an entire 2000 point army of knights just isn't fun to play against.

As to the Eldar topic I think a lot of Eldar players have learned some restraint with the 7th edition codex as spamming Scatter Bikes, Warp Spiders, D scythe Wraithguard (with their Dark Eldar WWP escort), and/or Wraithknights will quickly piss of people and they end up not getting games. In general there are those players who value their own self satisfaction and then there are players who value their opponents satisfaction. The former tend to gravitate towards cheese builds because winning is more important than everyone having fun while the latter learn when to tone things down to compensate for inexperienced/less skilled players and/or a mismatch in codex power.

It can be hard to play Eldar in a more relaxed format. They get powerful, fast.

I brought Eldar to my last store’s escalation league. It was fairly casual. Didn’t get any complaints. They have always been my second army, but were back-burnered from sometime around 2-3rd edition until the 6th edition codex dropped. You need to know the level of game you are looking to play. I built for my more casual environment, and had fun games. Both my opponent and I. You can build curb-stomp list for any army, Eldar just default to that.

I've had no problems getting games but then I run an Aspect Warrior heavy list with a few foot slogging Wraithguard. Anybody that brings a full tournement list from any of the 2015 codexes to a friendly game needs a good smack on the back of the head, that is not cool.

 Traditio wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
ITC did nerf Eldar.

How?

Warp Spiders flickerjump was nerfed to once per shooting phase as opposed to whenever it's targeted.

I think alot of players just fail to adapt their armies to the meta imo.

I won't refuse to play against an entire codex, except pure IK's since as mention above, an entire army of SHW is just stupidly boring. Likewise, back in 5th, I refused in general to play against any Grey Knight army, unless my opponent agreed to not use any Warp Quake until T2 & toned down a lot of the other heinously stupid crap they could pull against Daemons.

I do know of events that have banned an entire codex, however, it of course the Imperial Knights codex!
Most events will allow a single Knight or other super-heavy/GMC within reason, (ie: actual Titans of all flavours are generally banned), however, I don't know of too many events that will actively allow a full army of 100% super heavies. (again, games where 80%+ of your army is effectively useless is just boring... sure you can win on objectives, but most of the fun of the game is also in removing mots of your opponent's models, which simply won't happen vs. 4-5 Knights.)

As for never playing against an Eldar opponent? I'll at least open my pie-hole for a few minutes and try to discuss what kind of game we'd like to potentially play.
Most Eldar players I've met over the years are decent people who realise their army is typically a 'cut above' the rest, and will have no problems leaving a couple of their more obnoxious toys in their case for a casual friendly game...
I mean, really, how hard is it to simply politely discuss with your opponent something along the lines of;
Me: "So I see you've got a Wraithknight alongside some MSU Scatbikes and a couple units of Spiders?"

Eldar Player: "Yep, it's my typical tourney list."

Me: "Well, my Tzeentch Daemons are a fluff bunny army, and I doubt I'd be able to give you much of a game... Here's my list if you'd like, maybe we can change a few things up to make the game a bit more fun?"

Eldar Player: "That's cool, I guess no.1 you're probably worried about Mr. Wraithknight?!"

Me: "Lol. Yeah, he's pretty beastly! Would you mind maybe going back to the previous rules for 1:3 Scatlasers on your Bikes as well?
And to keep things friendly, I'll re-roll Precog on my LoC so he's not completely bonkers, and my 'fighter' Tzherald here won't use the Herald or Greater Daemon summoning powers."

Eldar Player: "Yeah that sounds fair. I can take a couple of Wraithlords in place of the knight, and since your Tzeentch are mostly hopeless in combat, I can use some Scorpions for once!"

Me: "Sounds awesome, let's do this!"


It's really not hard to compromise...

Now against the local Marine players? Those are the typical TFG's in my experiences... Always whining about everyone else's "OP crap" and will only ever play optimised Gladius or Superfriends Deathstar builds.
A few Loyalist players have a heart, but for me, most of the WaaC's donkeycaves are the traditional whiney, over-entitled, spoiled Marine players, and not the Eldar & Tau crowd.

 sfshilo wrote:
I think alot of players just fail to adapt their armies to the meta imo.

I agree with this completely, definitely something I've noticed in this hobby is that it's easier to blame another book or Army then to look at what you have and make the best of it. Granted I'm not denying the fact that certain armies struggle greatly or have no shot against certain lists that the Eldar can bring but simple communication outside of a tournament format solves that issue quite easily I found.

In regards to banning Eldar that would never happen at my flgs, in fact you would probably be labeled "that guy" for demanding it. Most of us actually enjoy the challenge that Eldar bring as it forces us to change our tactics and become better players as a whole.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Now against the local Marine players? Those are the typical TFG's in my experiences... Always whining about everyone else's "OP crap" and will only ever play optimised Gladius or Superfriends D eathstar builds.
A few Loyalist players have a heart, but for me, most of the WaaC's donkeycaves are the traditional whiney, over-entitled, spoiled Marine players, and not the Eldar & Tau crowd.

I have noticed this as well and it is unbelievably annoying, especially considering they are another Top Tier army in the game and have certain builds that absolutely wreck Eldar Tournament Lists. Granted I think this is because newer players tend to pick up Space Marines as they are the poster boy / one of the easiest armies to build and play with but it has been my experience as well that Marine players are the ones that complain the most when they have zero reason to.

Experiment 626 wrote:


Now against the local Marine players? Those are the typical TFG's in my experiences... Always whining about everyone else's "OP crap" and will only ever play optimised Gladius or Superfriends Deathstar builds.
A few Loyalist players have a heart, but for me, most of the WaaC's donkeycaves are the traditional whiney, over-entitled, spoiled Marine players, and not the Eldar & Tau crowd.

Welcome to 40k, where spess mureenz are underpowered and everything else is op lol. it also sucks since mureenz are such a massive player base they have the numbers behind then to back them up. I don't see why people don't talk to their opponents before hand about their games, it's a game do change it to have fun with your opponent!

 Mr_Piddlez wrote:
I will now happily refuse a game against eldar no matter the point level, player, or competitiveness of the list, and I'll smile while I do it.

You sound nice.

 sfshilo wrote:
I think alot of players just fail to adapt their armies to the meta imo.

Hrm, there's a lot that just isn't simply a matter of adapting. Take Eldar for instance. With their newest book, they were just made across the board stronger (from what was already a top tier army). There's nothing to adapt to, no new hidden weakness, no new trick hidden away to undercut them, you still fight and kill them the same way you always did, the Eldar just have far more impressive firepower and special rules to throw at you.

 cosmicsoybean wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:


Now against the local Marine players? Those are the typical TFG's in my experiences... Always whining about everyone else's "OP crap" and will only ever play optimised Gladius or Superfriends Deathstar builds.
A few Loyalist players have a heart, but for me, most of the WaaC's donkeycaves are the traditional whiney, over-entitled, spoiled Marine players, and not the Eldar & Tau crowd.

Welcome to 40k, where spess mureenz are underpowered and everything else is op lol. it also sucks since mureenz are such a massive player base they have the numbers behind then to back them up. I don't see why people don't talk to their opponents before hand about their games, it's a game do change it to have fun with your opponent!

Tell me about it. There is one at my local club that thinks that the Imperial Guard are overpowered and that Leman Russ hulls should be limited to a maximum of three per army and Veterans should not be BS 4. On the other hand his four/five 30K armies (made mostly from proxied 40K models) is perfectly fine and his constant spamming of the most over powered combo's in the game is fair and balanced.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 cosmicsoybean wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:


Now against the local Marine players? Those are the typical TFG's in my experiences... Always whining about everyone else's "OP crap" and will only ever play optimised Gladius or Superfriends Deathstar builds.
A few Loyalist players have a heart, but for me, most of the WaaC's donkeycaves are the traditional whiney, over-entitled, spoiled Marine players, and not the Eldar & Tau crowd.

Welcome to 40k, where spess mureenz are underpowered and everything else is op lol. it also sucks since mureenz are such a massive player base they have the numbers behind then to back them up. I don't see why people don't talk to their opponents before hand about their games, it's a game do change it to have fun with your opponent!

Tell me about it. There is one at my local club that thinks that the Imperial Guard are overpowered and that Leman Russ hulls should be limited to a maximum of three per army and Veterans should not be BS 4. On the other hand his four/five 30K armies (made mostly from proxied 40K models) is perfectly fine and his constant spamming of the most over powered combo's in the game is fair and balanced.

Is this the guy you tell stories about?

 master of ordinance wrote:

 cosmicsoybean wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:


Now against the local Marine players? Those are the typical TFG's in my experiences... Always whining about everyone else's "OP crap" and will only ever play optimised Gladius or Superfriends Deathstar builds.
A few Loyalist players have a heart, but for me, most of the WaaC's donkeycaves are the traditional whiney, over-entitled, spoiled Marine players, and not the Eldar & Tau crowd.

Welcome to 40k, where spess mureenz are underpowered and everything else is op lol. it also sucks since mureenz are such a massive player base they have the numbers behind then to back them up. I don't see why people don't talk to their opponents before hand about their games, it's a game do change it to have fun with your opponent!

Tell me about it. There is one at my local club that thinks that the Imperial Guard are overpowered and that Leman Russ hulls should be limited to a maximum of three per army and Veterans should not be BS 4. On the other hand his four/five 30K armies (made mostly from proxied 40K models) is perfectly fine and his constant spamming of the most over powered combo's in the game is fair and balanced.

IG can be pretty fething OP. With certain builds, it's pretty much all pie plates all the time.

No thanks.