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Apparently the banshee mask does -5 Init on the charge.

Does anyone know what the banshee mask does in this edition? It's unclear in the rules leak. Since jain-zar's mask in minus 5 in/ws on the enemy when she charges, perhaps something similar for a regular banshee mask? At 15 points each, this may be workable. Also, executioner is now ap2 (yay)

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Gods, looks like we're gonna drag up every panzee whine from the last 15 years. It's pretty obvious that most Eldar players secretly really want to play Marines.

I'm sorry for wanting Banshees to actually reach combat. You know, be a functional unit.

They could even do something like say the banshee mask disallows overwatch. It would still be flipping hard to get them into combat but it would be a step in the right direction.

Also, it's great that farseers are mastery level 3 at base XD. God mode imo.

The -5 I on the charge is kind the same with the previous ability they had with their initiative going up to 10 (maybe going before GK quicksilver). Exarch being AP2 is nice since she does most of the killing but the abilities suck... why wouldn't she want to attack on a challenge and gain a +3 inv save?

Well it is meant to be Eldar's strength. If they were any lower then the random psychic powers would just cripple Eldar.

 Capamaru wrote:
The -5 I on the charge is kind the same with the previous ability they had with their initiative going up to 10 (maybe going before GK quicksilver). Exarch being AP2 is nice since she does most of the killing but the abilities suck... why wouldn't she want to attack on a challenge and gain a +3 inv save?

Tarpit a big bad character mostly.

 shamikebab wrote:
They could even do something like say the banshee mask disallows overwatch. It would still be flipping hard to get them into combat but it would be a step in the right direction.

This would be a good start. There is even a precedent for it with the chaos dirge caster. I would also like to see a rule or upgrade that lets them assault from a vehicle, either an assault ramp for the wave serpent or an ability or exarch power for the unit.

On a side note, does the battle focus ability (run and shoot) do the same thing for every unit that has it or do different units get different bonuses from it?

Disarm (which can be taken) and assassin are far more appropriate and fun for a banshee exarch

 Capamaru wrote:
The -5 I on the charge is kind the same with the previous ability they had with their initiative going up to 10 (maybe going before GK quicksilver). Exarch being AP2 is nice since she does most of the killing but the abilities suck... why wouldn't she want to attack on a challenge and gain a +3 inv save?

If you were fighting an incredibly good cc IC, she can basically challenge him so he can't kill your normal banshees with his ap2 or 3 weapon then she can either go for the disarm to take away his weapon bonus or if he has more than 1 weapon she can use saving grace to deny him wounds for combat resolution. At ws 5 a good few IC will be hitting on 4s some on 3s and then wounding on 3s or 2s. So say 4 attacks 2 hit, 2 wound she has to make 2 3++ which isn't too hard. Personally I would just go for the kill with disarm unless it was some high toughness MC

KaiyaA wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Good points by people concerning guardians, but what the game needs is a spinal tap turn it up to 11 option for the really elite, elite units! Otherwise, everybody will be running around with BS4, and where's the fun in that!

What's a spinal tap?

It's referring to a movie that came out in 1984. "This Is Spinal Tap" was a movie about a British heavy metal band of the same name making a come back tour in America. The scene below explains the "turn it up to 11" that he was talking about....




Not trying to derail the thread, just answering the question.

 Magc8Ball wrote:

lobos wrote:
Indeed S 7 will pen a lot of side armour with a lucky roll AP1 on a six.
Always was a fun toy for cowering MEQ behind cover.

Guys, remember the FAQ already has an errata for the Nightspinner's weapon reducing it to STR 6.

The FAQ appears to refer to the support weapon battery version of the weapon as given in the back of the book. The 'rumours' give this profile correctly. I'd say the Nightspinner looks likely to get S8 against vehicles.

 Zathras wrote:

KaiyaA wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Good points by people concerning guardians, but what the game needs is a spinal tap turn it up to 11 option for the really elite, elite units! Otherwise, everybody will be running around with BS4, and where's the fun in that!

What's a spinal tap?

It's referring to a movie that came out in 1984. "This Is Spinal Tap" was a movie about a British heavy metal band of the same name making a come back tour in America. The scene below explains the "turn it up to 11" that he was talking about....




Not trying to derail the thread, just answering the question.

Thank you for explaining! And for the hilarious clip

Is it just me or are swooping hawks actually good now

No scatter really helps yes.

From what I've seen, they're basically 16pts a model, come with scatterless deepstrike, skyleap and the grenade pack, which now ignores cover and changes size by how many Hawks there are... at 5 it's a 3" S4 AP 4 blast, at 6+ its a Large blast.

I'd say definitely got better, though they compete hard with how much Spiders and Shining Spears have got better too.

Not to mention the flyers are Fast Attack, too. Looks like a lot of hard choices for Heavy and Fast Attack - I love when codex have multiple options per slot that are viable. I am so excited.

Considering what they have done for reapers, spears, hawks, scorpions and spiders the least they could have done is given banshees the ability to function properly, especially as almost every eldar player owns them.

Does anybody know if there are any characters we can attach to Banshees to give them Outflank? We'd still need cover to reach combat effectively, and it wouldn't be the BEST fix...but it seems the better fixes are not in GWs plan.

 Khaine wrote:
Considering what they have done for reapers, spears, hawks, scorpions and spiders the least they could have done is given banshees the ability to function properly, especially as almost every eldar player owns them.

Especially if you own 40 of them....

 Khaine wrote:
Considering what they have done for reapers, spears, hawks, scorpions and spiders the least they could have done is given banshees the ability to function properly, especially as almost every eldar player owns them.

I'm always at a loss of why GW makes rules that causes units to be non-functional in the game. You would think they realize that banshees are completely awful and give them anything to make them usable again. Unfortunately so many units are added to books that just plain suck, I don't understand it from a game design perspective yet I've learned to expect it.

There is no reason to have obviously horrible units, it's just lazy writing.. just no way to change it. Could have made it so Banshees treat all vehicles as assault vehicles and there, they function again.. even if not very well considering it's not an assault edition.

 shamikebab wrote:
Well it is meant to be Eldar's strength. If they were any lower then the random psychic powers would just cripple Eldar.

Well Warlocks did get nerfed, you can take conceal always but the rest of the abilities are random and you get 1 shot at rolling it and hoping to roll a 4, and you know for a fact that warlock is going to get gunned down as fast as possible if he can reduce marine armour. I'm not overly pleased with it as you cant rely on them getting good powers that work with your list, and the psyker defense is gone as far as shutting down enemy powers. You get half the powers with a Farseer every game, but more then half the fate powers are junk.

On the other hand they're +1w +1i and get access (if not a guarantee) of a stronger power, for the same price.

I think the reality is that if you're going to use them you want to be using a few to maximize your chance of rolling what you are after.

Warlocks and I5 and W2 now? Thats pretty awesome.

I too am thinking that more Warlocks might be required to spread the powers around the army. Does anyone know if they are still restricted on the units they can join?

Only thing I can think of now is avatar with disarm and crushing blow mouhahahah

 rohansoldier wrote:
Warlocks and I5 and W2 now? Thats pretty awesome.

I too am thinking that more Warlocks might be required to spread the powers around the army. Does anyone know if they are still restricted on the units they can join?

I5 yes, 2W no. According to the leaked data for the seer council.

17 guardians with a scatterlaser plus a warlock with -1 to armour save will kill a 10 man taq squad in 1 round of shooting for 203 pts, thats a kill worth 160 pts

If you don't have the warlock it takes 20 to kill 9.65 so 1 marine might be left he might not and the cost is 195 pts.

Now the only problem is getting them in range I'm thinking 11 in a wave serpent with a warlock will be very good for clearing objectives late game, if you see my post further up 11 plus a warlock can do 6 to 7 marine deaths on average in 1 turn of shooting, this along with the added survivability of wave serpents will cement guardians with a warlock in a wave serpent as my troop of choice.

 rohansoldier wrote:
Warlocks and I5 and W2 now? Thats pretty awesome.

I too am thinking that more Warlocks might be required to spread the powers around the army. Does anyone know if they are still restricted on the units they can join?

Except that Warlocks don't autocast anymore and are ld8 according to the rumors. Leak says they can only join guardian units or seer council. Spiritseers join wraith units. No restrictions mentioned on Farseers.

 Khaine wrote:
Also, I cant believe farseers are mastery level 3 at base XD. God mode imo.

Why is that so hard to believe? CSM level 3 sorcerer is 115 but has marine stats.