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Agreed, I'd like to see more narrow synergies where some units are great in some combinations but not always great. Though I also wish there were more list building restrictions as they allow for more balance mechanics.

 peteralmo wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 peteralmo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Reapers functionally have 2+ armor and their offense is insanity. If i could take a model with those rules for 45 or 50 ppm id strongly consider it. Thats how you know something is reasonably costed; its neither an autotake or autopass.

Your point increase leaves them as an autotake. That's not really enough. They'd see play at 45-50 because they are that strong.

So do oppose anything you see to be an auto-take in 40k? Do you feel 40k should have no units ever considered an auto-take?

In a word? Yes.

And at the same time, no unit should be an auto-pass.

I'm okay with CERTAIN LISTS having auto-take units (for instance, Spoilpox Scrivener for Plaguebearer-heavy Nurgle armies) but if it's an auto-take no matter what, it's too powerful.

"It's too powerful" is a purely subjective statement, it's your opinion. I don't think things that are auto-takes are "too powerful," I just think they are the best thing at the moment that codex offers, and there always has to be a best thing.

That's an external balance issue.

Each Codex (or even Index Faction) should be as good, with a well-built list, as any other Codex.

Within the Codex, no option should be so powerful as to be an auto-take.

I do agree that an auto-take for Tau is probably not overpowered compared to, say, Guard, but do you understand the point that I want a balanced game?

I don't think there should ever be an auto-take unit.

 peteralmo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 peteralmo wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Oh, the pearl clutching! Only mid-tier! Scandalous!

They weren't actually mid tier in 5th - I destroyed people with fortuned foot warlock units. Fire prisms and wraith lords and warwalkers were also amazing.


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This issue with elder is currently their underpriced units. Shinning spears and dark reapers and even wave serpents (is it really reasonable that a 130 point transport is has the effective wounds of a land raider vs anti tank weapons?). Compared to similar units they perform about 30-40% too well for their points.

Also their rules are just better...amazing stratagems and army traits that affect their entire army.

At some point the community has to accept that the fluff has to inform the tone of certain races at a baseline level. Eldar are light years ahead of humanity in regard to technology, their weapons and tanks should do as much, or more, for less. Where the balance comes in is predominantly with other metrics, marines have a universal 4+ toughness, pretty much 3+ armor or better, and never break ranks. Eldar are basically 3+ toughness across the board, 4+/5+ armor, can easily run away, etc. Orks, by the basic strictures of the lore, are super tough, but also extremely crude technologically, and their BS is also not great, etc. I never understood why people complained that a reaper launcher is better than a missile launcher, or that a wave serpent is better than a rhino, they have to be, the entire foundation of the lore of the game would crumble away if they weren't demonstrably better. If your natural reaction would then be to say, well then they should cost twice as much, you have just asked for the same end to be accomplished through different means; if you're not going to make them equal via the lore, then make them equal via points. And that just isn't what 40k is, it's not checkers, or chess for that matter. Some things are just better than other things in 40k, full stop, the game designers want it that way, everything isn't supposed to be equal. You're meant to pick an army, play to it's strengths, become strategic with what they can do well, what they can't do well, and master your choice. Not cry foul because the reaper launcher isn't directly equatable to the missile launcher, which isn't directly equatable to the big rokit (or whatever the Ork version is called).

Sorry, but to me, they have disconnected fluff from crunch entirely. There is no excuse for the eldar, imo. Other than some authors fapping off to them when they write the codex.

I'm sorry Martel but the foundational lore of the grim dark, the very thing that undergirds this whole thing we call 40k, was written before there was even rogue trader, and it's not changing. You don't have to like it, you can choose not to play the game, but the Eldar are far more advanced than space marines, and they always will be, and the rules will always reflect that. You wishing so hard for marines and eldar to somehow be equals isn't going to make a difference. It is what it is. Given that, we can discuss rules tweaks, and point tweaks, and that's what we're all trying to do here, for the most part.

No one is, or should, show up with some far reaching foundational and philosophical, wholesale change to the core of the game and it's respective races, that's frivolous and unhelpful.

By the way, it's also unhelpful to say, I don't like these guys so double all there point costs.

I agree with what Martel is saying, but I don't like the way he's saying it. I disagree with what you are saying, but the tone is far less constructive then Martel's.

The technology level of the Eldar has never had anything to do with the price of their units. Here's a post from a designer explaining how they are priced:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer/comments/7k1tp0/im_james_m_hewitt_freelance_tabletop_games/drb6ka0/

No fapping was involved either. So, you are wrong, and he is wrong, and since you are both wrong, maybe stop wronging everything up for the rest of us and be civil to one another.

Ynarri could be fixed by making Strength from Death a Stratagem. If you need to argue about something, tell me why that's a bad idea.

I've already said it's a fine idea, but it also renders ynnari obsolete, it can just as easily be a craftworld stratagem included in the craftworld codex. In order to keep ynnari they still need a unique craftworld attribute to make them distinct from craftworld. Or don't, make snd a stratagem within craftworld and also include the three unique characters in the codex as well, I suppose.

Also your link to that AMA is just completely demoralizing. It means we're all wasting our time discussing balancing issues ad naseum, because they don't actually use play testing and game design theory, or competitive balance, to price units, they assign points purely with sales of the models in mind. What that tells us is, stop trying to figure this all out. When each new codex comes out, look for the best units, acknowledge those are the models they want to sell more of, and decide whether you want to pay to win, or just play inferior units and deal with it.

Also how in the world did you come up with the conclusion that I'm being less constructive lol?

 peteralmo wrote:
I've already said it's a fine idea, but it also renders ynnari obsolete, it can just as easily be a craftworld stratagem included in the craftworld codex. In order to keep ynnari they still need a unique craftworld attribute to make them distinct from craftworld. Or don't, make snd a stratagem within craftworld and also include the three unique characters in the codex as well, I suppose.

Also your link to that AMA is just completely demoralizing. It means we're all wasting our time discussing balancing issues ad naseum, because they don't actually use play testing and game design theory, or competitive balance, to price units, they assign points purely with sales of the models in mind. What that tells us is, stop trying to figure this all out. When each new codex comes out, look for the best units, acknowledge those are the models they want to sell more of, and decide whether you want to pay to win, or just play inferior units and deal with it.

Also how in the world did you come up with the conclusion that I'm being less constructive lol?

Uh... it doesn't mean that at all. It just means the claim from the previous post is incorrect.

To answer your question, condescension is not constructive.

 peteralmo wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 peteralmo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Reapers functionally have 2+ armor and their offense is insanity. If i could take a model with those rules for 45 or 50 ppm id strongly consider it. Thats how you know something is reasonably costed; its neither an autotake or autopass.

Your point increase leaves them as an autotake. That's not really enough. They'd see play at 45-50 because they are that strong.

So do oppose anything you see to be an auto-take in 40k? Do you feel 40k should have no units ever considered an auto-take?

In a word? Yes.

And at the same time, no unit should be an auto-pass.

I'm okay with CERTAIN LISTS having auto-take units (for instance, Spoilpox Scrivener for Plaguebearer-heavy Nurgle armies) but if it's an auto-take no matter what, it's too powerful.

"It's too powerful" is a purely subjective statement, it's your opinion. I don't think things that are auto-takes are "too powerful," I just think they are the best thing at the moment that codex offers, and there always has to be a best thing.

There doesn't actually always have to be a best thing. It often ends up like that but it is not a requirement of game design. You can instead have best things in certain combinations, or situations. Now your meta may end up dictating what is the best thing for you, that in part is due to the lack of restrictions in list building. IT is possible though to design several equally good lists that are playable within a codex that rely on different HQ choices, stratagems, chapter traits etc. I feel like Guard has come the closest to this with their traits (though still not there). But GW could have easily made traits that were super beneficial to specific units in a book to make those units good in some situations and not as optimal in others. They could have been restrictive on list design within specific traits where maybe say Dark Reapers are really good for Alaitoc (get some extra bonus) but they don't have very many so you are limited to a single squad or 2 small squads or something. IT is incredibly hard to have a lot of variety of units, rules, and balance when your only real mechanic for balance is points, and you have put the points on such a small scale that every point increased is a relatively large change in value for most models.

"Uh... it doesn't mean that at all. It just means the claim from the previous post is incorrect.

To answer your question, condescension is not constructive."

Uh huh, and so is bluntly repeating over and over again "just hike their points up." And I obviously take issue with the condescension remark, no condescension is intended on my part.

I'm not going to begin to imagine how you come up with "uh it doesn't mean that" when the GW higher-up clearly directed the game designer to drastically increase the potency of the unit, or "excitement" in his terms, while leaving the points cost alone. The designer in the AMA even offers an insight into his thinking in the moment, "of course, you'll need more models." But you interpret that as you will, I'm sure the community here will as well.

"There doesn't actually always have to be a best thing. It often ends up like that but it is not a requirement of game design. You can instead have best things in certain combinations, or situations. Now your meta may end up dictating what is the best thing for you, that in part is due to the lack of restrictions in list building. IT is possible though to design several equally good lists that are playable within a codex that rely on different HQ choices, stratagems, chapter traits etc. I feel like Guard has come the closest to this with their traits (though still not there). But GW could have easily made traits that were super beneficial to specific units in a book to make those units good in some situations and not as optimal in others. They could have been restrictive on list design within specific traits where maybe say Dark Reapers are really good for Alaitoc (get some extra bonus) but they don't have very many so you are limited to a single squad or 2 small squads or something. IT is incredibly hard to have a lot of variety of units, rules, and balance when your only real mechanic for balance is points, and you have put the points on such a small scale that every point increased is a relatively large change in value for most models."


Yes, definitely. To put it slightly differently, it would be OK if every codex had a 10/10 unit as long as it's best usage was situational, and the rest of the codex was populated with a plethora of 8's and 9's to allow for a variety of interesting and useful builds. I'm of course in favor of this, that would be awesome if every codex was like that, alas it's more of a pipe dream at this point, unfortunately. Not because it's impossible, only because GW appears to be incapable of writing a codex like that with regularity. Heck, even with erratas and FAQs do they manage to achieve it.

 peteralmo wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 peteralmo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Eldar were god tier in 2nd ed. So there is no "before" they were god tier.

Perhaps, I was a middle schooler when I started playing them with my buddies, we had no clue about competitive lists, I was thinking more about those middle editions when they were average.

They've been top tier in every edition where they got a codex.

My understanding is not in 3rd/4th/5th.

That would be incorrect.

Once they got their codex in 3rd they were great. No codex in 4th. In 5th they were great as well.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 peteralmo wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 peteralmo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Eldar were god tier in 2nd ed. So there is no "before" they were god tier.

Perhaps, I was a middle schooler when I started playing them with my buddies, we had no clue about competitive lists, I was thinking more about those middle editions when they were average.

They've been top tier in every edition where they got a codex.

My understanding is not in 3rd/4th/5th.

That would be incorrect.

Once they got their codex in 3rd they were great. No codex in 4th. In 5th they were great as well.

They had a Codex in 4th and dominated because they did Fish of Fury better than Tau.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

They had a Codex in 4th and dominated because they did Fish of Fury better than Tau.

Yes, quite right.

OK, I'll take your word on it.

I'd be okay with the "soul burst actions as stratagems, and dying stuff gives you CP" approach. It's functionally similar to my tokens proposal but with the added flexibility of being able to use the bonus CP on non-ynnari stratagems.

So it offers eldar players more versatility than my proposal, but you're also less likely to get tokens/CP from a given thing dying.

To me, one of the main things I liked about the original batch of ynnari mechanics was that it softened the blow of losing a unit. Like with the blood tithe mechanics, losing units became a source of fresh options and a chance to do more damage rather than purely being a source of frustration. So I"m fond of any mechanics that manage to do something similar.


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 novaspike wrote:
That does sound pretty cool.

But then you'd have to specify enemy deaths or someone will take a bunch of cheap single beasts or archon court models to self kill and pad out CP.

I'd consider that more of a feature than a bug. Not only is it arguably more fluffy to be gaining soul bursts from drinking eldar souls than ork souls, but it gives a role to units in a ynnari army might not have one otherwise. In 7th, people kept half-jokingly talking about how great wyches were for a ynnari army because they're raw crumminess meant you'd be able to soul burst more often with more lethal units. That doesn't say good things about the state of wyches at the time, but the point is that you could take small units of relatively cheap and squishy things without feeling bad about it.

Current ynnari rules reward you for taking about 2 large units (one for shooting and the other for stabbing). As a result, you'll probably never soul burst with, for instance, a squad of dire avengers unless they're the only candidate for doing so. You'll also probably never take those dire avengers with the intention of doing anything useful with them other than letting them screen against deepstrikers before they die, and kabalites do that better. But in a rules set where taking lots of small, squishy units means I gain some sort of resource? Those avengers are suddenly a useful battery for soul bursts (or CP or whatever) to fuel my heavy hitters. Sure, I'll still take a fat squad of shining spears, but they'll be hitting the enemy with hellions or wyches nearby to support them.