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Sounds like the name of a Star Trek episode doesn't it?

Anyway, I think this is one of the biggest areas of attention when trying put together an edit or fandex eldar update. What do you do about their weird uncomfortable guns. How would this effect the point cost of core units, how close do you want to get to bolters, storm bolters or shootas, what feels flavourful?

I guess I'm not of the opinion that it is necessary for their to be a change, I like the way the poor range and versatility make the gun feels on the battlefield, but the game has certainly changed around them and so much of the time eldar small arms fire just ends up completely discounted in favor of spamming heavier options and staying incredibly mobile.

So what do you all think would make a reasonable fix for the core eldar units RE:
Shuriken Pistols
Shuriken Catapults
Avenger Catapults
Shuriken Cannons
points adjustment on core affected units.
consider the relative change in purpose (internal and external balance)

I think this is one of the main areas I get uncomfortable with vs JustDave's fandex. My current plans in my own projects are to bump range up to 18 on the catapult and maybe drop the AP to 6. The cannon I was planning on giving AP4 and keeping it more or less the same to give it a little character vs the Scatter Laser.

My biggest change was to lump avenger catapults in with the twin linked ones on bikes and underslung. Something like an Advanced Shuriken Catapult that would bring things a little more in line and make the ones built into your skimmers more worthwhile and flavorful. I was thinking they might have 24 range, shred or AP4 (or some combo of those) but they all feel a little hollow. I'd really rather not make Dire Avengers to guardians what Immortals are to Necron Warriors.

TBH, while new to Eldar, I feel that most Shuriken based weaponry is right in line. However, I do feel that the standard Shuriken Catapult should get a buff. The extremely short range makes Guardian Defenders primarily a large heavy weapons team that MIGHT get a few extra shots off before the enemy decides to charge and wipe them out.

A couple of things I could see done would be:

1. Increase the range of the vehicle mounted Shuriken Catapults to 18" or 24", keeping them Assault 2. Rename them to something fitting for a vehicle, while keeping Shuriken Catapult part of the name, to separate their stat line from that of a standard Shuriken Catapult. Alternatively, they could be made to be in line with either of the changes in #2.

2. Make the base Shuriken Catapult (like those found on Guardian Defenders) 24" Range Rapid Fire while making the Avenger Shuriken Catapult 24" Range Assault 2, or make the standard Shuriken Catapult either 18" or 24" Assault 1, while leaving the ASC as is.

I vaguely recal that in the second edition shuriken catapults used to be as good (or maybe they even had better save modifier) than storm bolters. I think that's reasonable. Guardians need to have the range and Eldar need to be mobile. Just adjust the price of the Guardians and Dire Avengers as needed.

 Crimson wrote:
I vaguely recal that in the second edition shuriken catapults used to be as good (or maybe they even had better save modifier) than storm bolters.

They were better. Both were 24" range, Strength 4, 1 rapid fire die. Storm Bolters had -1 ASM, Shurtkins had -2 ASM. Not sure about hit modifiers.

In my gaming club, our Eldar players use a fandex based on Just Dave's work, and there, Shuriken weapons have the following stats:

Avenger Shuriken Catapult: R18” | S3 | AP4 | Assault 3, Rending, Shred
Shuriken Cannon: R24” | S4 | AP4 | Assault 6, Shred
Shuriken Catapult: R18” | S3 | AP4 | Assault 3, Shred
Shuriken Pistol: R12” | S3 | AP4 | Pistol, Shred

I often play against these, and I could say, they have insane DPS against everything that isn't a vehicle (the ASC can rip even vehicles apart though).
Dunno about the point changes. Guardians cost 8 ppm and DAs cost 14 ppm there IIRC. This sounds more expensive than their current versions, but I don't know the Eldar Codex that much.

I dont think the points values should be changed too much, if at all. The Eldar Codex is currently overpriced compared to pretty much any other Codex (except maybe poor Tau)

I feel that with the change in rapid fire weaponry to be a much more mobile weapon; why do the Eldar need assault weapons any longer? Assaulting with Dire avengers is silly and only useful if you gear your exarch that way. And as most rapid fire weapons make our Assault 2 18" pointless now(Eldar player shoots 2 shots at 18", rapid fire player moves forward 6" and shoots us for 2 shots as well), we should just convert to rapid fire now as well. Also, unless they make dire avengers better in assault there is no point for having an assault weapon, as I usually just back away with dire avengers rather than charge in.

Regarding regular shuriken catapults on guardians, maybe we should just go back to having guardians with lasblasters. Assault 2 24" seems like it would be a lot more useful especially coupled with the guardians BS3. Another reason why I tend to run a corsair army now too.

Range 18, shred
Avengers, range 24, shred.... Done

 Formosa wrote:
Range 18, shred
Avengers, range 24, shred.... Done

That would be amazing, but it would never happen.

I'm not sure you guys understand how good shred is on small arms fire!

I think Eldar have a pretty good idea. We've got Doom after all.

I dont mind the short range. The weapons are firing a projectile with much lower weight and aerodynamics than a bullet or bolt round. 12" and 18" are fine. Making them 24" makes them into mid-range shooting which this game already has enough of.

As for buffing them, im not sure you are going about it in the right way. In game design you quickly learn that you can balance something in two ways: Strength in game and Cost in game. If guardians were 5 or 6 points and avengers 11 with exarchs 5 pts across the board then the units using the weapons are buffed.

AP4 Cannons might be a decent upgrade to a weapon that is largely overlooked due to Scatter laser's advantages for a slight cost more.

I would also like to see the return of las blasters guardian squads as a free upgrade. S3, 24", assault 2. Simple solution to the 12" range, especially if you can mix-and-match the weapons. The Swooping hawks should get Rapid Fire 2 las blasters instead, making them very deadly in quantity of fire at close range.

I would agree that shred on basic weapons along with that quantity of fire is way too strong. With doom S3 isnt as bad as it is for most armies since you are rerolling more.

The problem with adjusting Guardians to a lower price is that then the rules no longer match the fluff in any sense of the word. Shurikens are by no mean a strong weapon, albeit significantly stronger than a flimsy fragile glass star.
The Eldar are technological marvels whom are dying. It is within their industrial capacity to equip their soldiers well. Barring that, each Eldar life is held as a precious thing, unless you are a Guardian or civilian in which case their survival is the main and overriding purpose of war. To even hint at letting an Eldar player use Guardians as trash troops is in direct violation to the Eldar fluff.
Female Space Marines sanctioned and blessed by each and every codex is more appropriate than throw-away Guardians and would require less rewriting of the fluff. Hell, even official My Little Pony Marines are fluffier as it stands.

Imperial Armour has reptilian humanoids being cut hide and flesh to have their bone rendered and hint at these reptilians being significantly stronger physically than an Eldar - whom, by the way, is clearly the physical superior of a human in every sense of the word.

That said, upgrading weapons isn't the only solution. Upgrading Guardians and Dire Avengers and Guardian Jetbikes and under-slungs and wrist-cat-Lords in other ways is also a way to go. Just needs more work. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Only real problem is that A2 S4 AP5 <=18" weapons for expensive light infantry just doesn't work. You'd either need to add extra equipment which would make the cat into simply a back up weapon or you'd need to make them something other than light infantry.

You see, in my eyes these guys are no better equipped to fight than a guardsman. They are drawn upon only in dire need. Bringing back Black Guadians may be a way to get your expensive light inf, but guardians dont have much going for them. I always thought the limitation on the # of a certain unit you could bring was a very good limiter. Make guardians 0-2 and 6 points with the las blaster option, 1 platform/10, or two special weapons. You have then made guardians playable.

Well here are some of my thoughts:

As I said there is a line of thinking that would propose leaving the weapons as they are but reducing the point cost of the units carrying them to something that reflects their value (or lack). I have a couple issues with this. One of the main one's being how gross it feels vs the fluff. They really aren't supposed to be chaff. The way they are equipped and some weird numerical issues mean they will always be putting themselves at risk if they ever want to be relevant (and like in dumb crummy situations) which doesn't at all feel like the way the eldar should be treating their precious and vulnerable core units. These guys shouldn't be little more than henchmen/guardians with bolters.

The way around that problem is I guess, a price cut, and trying to fit a lot more efficient support units and weird tactical advantages into the codex. Skimmers used to sort of work that way, and felt really good and fluffy with the tactical tricks you could pull and the use of resources but the edition has moved on since then and it shouldn't be all they lean on.

These core units also suffer from a lack of utility. They are really good at having a cheaper doubletap with a bolter profile than most armies out there but that is about all they do competently, and they pay for it in all sorts of relevant deficiencies. That's okay I guess, Eldar tend to be all about specialists, having the forethought to bring the right tool for the job at the right time and fading away. But they are also supposed to be flexible. Having to purchase units with extreme focus and then spend so many points on core units that are more liability than workhorse means you'll be left with a strong match against one or two targets and then feeling woefully unprepared against others. I'm not sure how to fix that problem, I think having more floater units that switch psychic tech trees might help but I think a real necessity will be to make Guardians and Dire Avengers more useful. Right now they are just tactically awful because of logistical issues (fleet change, hard to fit effective numbers in transports, require expensive support characters, pretty much all small arms fire gets a shot on them before they reply) and Guardian Jet Bikes suffer from of the same issue of only existing because at some time you will need troop board presence somewhere.

I guess that works. Maybe Eldar really should seem like trash, and should be relying on power units and last minute arrival to seal the deal, but then the power units need to be cheap and plentiful and maybe have broader scope and we probably don't need so many varieties of trashy scoring units with shootas. Give them more ways to play the objective game better than other people and more non combat buffs and I'd say you were putting together a characterful eldar codex.

So far I know they can't be as expendable as guardsmen, or as utilitarian and powerful as spacemarines or as glass cannony as tau, but that doesn't leave them much room to stand.

I'd love to see more weird support wargear and warlord stuff to go along with the psychic powers like the crypteks do for the necrons. They are supposed to be inheritors of a civilization that stood against the necrons during the war in heaven. They may not have the manufacturing ability of other armies but they should have some amazing works, technological advancement doesn't have to be purely represented by shooting profiles.

I do think the shuriken catapult is a big issue though. It really doesn't let them make use of their small arms fire without making tough choices. I'd hope the eldar frame of mind would lead to troops equipped with weaponry that lent flexibility.

Tau aren't glass cannons. A Tau Firewarrior is better at melee than a Guardian armed with a catapult because the Firewarrior is not a glass cannon but properly armoured. There is actually nothing which says Guardians can't carry special weapons and extra platforms and all sorts of techy goodies, it's the Eldar paths which are specialized and comparmentarized - Guardian isn't a path, it's a necessity and they fill whatever role the Aspect Warriors do not.

This is also the reason why Guardians shouldn't be a Troop unit and why more Aspect Warriors should be Troop.

Eldar armor should be improved across the board in my opinion. At least guardians, I mean the full body suit they wear is no better than the chest and shoulders of a guardsmen?

As for the shuriken weapons, range is the biggest issue here, combined with the mobility of rapid fire weapons and changes to fleet. I would like to see either shuriken weapons with a 24 inch range or the ability to run after shooting assault shuriken weapons as a way to model the eldar speed better.

I would love to see the shuriken catapults and cannons go up in range by 6" (so guardians 18", avengers 24" and cannons 30") and add the shred rule as I think it is a characterful way to represent the sharp monomolecular edges that the shurikens are described as having while also giving them a usable range on the battlefield.

With these changes, I would happily pay 8pts for a guardian and 12 for a dire avenger.

As for the people saying about this being unbalanced, I don't think it would be when you consider armies like tau that have 30" range, strength 5 basic weaponry on a 10pt model. High strength basic weaponry is the tau thing, mid range basic weaponry with a decent chance to cause wounds can be ours.

Hell, if we got the range increase and the shred rule, I wouldn't argue too much if the ap of shuriken weaponry got dropped to 6 for pistols and catapults and 5 for cannons.

DevianID wrote:
Eldar armor should be improved across the board in my opinion. At least guardians, I mean the full body suit they wear is no better than the chest and shoulders of a guardsmen?

As for the shuriken weapons, range is the biggest issue here, combined with the mobility of rapid fire weapons and changes to fleet. I would like to see either shuriken weapons with a 24 inch range or the ability to run after shooting assault shuriken weapons as a way to model the eldar speed better.

My line of thought for Eldar in general: Adaptive Armour. You need to beat, not match, armour value to penetrate. I.e. you need to have an armour piercing value capable of penetrating armour one point better than the Eldar's value. Makes it somewhat better, but not +1 better. Also, Fleet on everything with two legs. Including War Walkers. Oh, and Fortune would be far too good with Adaptive Armour, so Fortune is changed significantly.
My line of thought for the Guardian: 1. Any member in squad may replace Catapult with Vibro Blade (AP5) and Pistol. 2. One special weapon (PW, Long Rifle, Fusion Gun, Flamer) per 3 Guardians. 3. One platform per 5 models. 4. 5-10 models and the Warlock is an upgrade.
My line of thought for the Dire Avenger: These catapults are Shred, possibly, not sure if improvement to Dire Avenger base line is needed if given proper and more universally useful aspect powers. Naturally Bladestorm is too good.
My line of thought for the Catapult: +6" range

Essentially, baby step them. Some units won't need much change (Warp Spiders that get 3+ save against power weapons do not need improvements, Surprise Assault still needs fixing) while others can take the universal benefits and get extra baby steps to make them more useful (Swooping Hawk Wings grant Swoop and Glide, Intercept allows assaulting airborn targets, while flying all weapons are considered Shred but they aren't Grounded).
Dark Eldar get to be the glass cannons, Craftworlders makes more sense to have better armour. Both have Eldar Amount of Special Rules (insert over 9000 joke here).

Yes, I'm tinkering with a "codex".

Lucre wrote:I'm not sure you guys understand how good shred is on small arms fire!

Agreed.

What if eldar simply got to run and shoot?

Like onslaught on tyranids.

I think that in the eldar update the phoenix lords will make their aspect troops to help out with the whole I need more hawks but there are only 3 fast slots problem and for more fun themed armies

Well judging by the DA codex the 'making elites into troops' rules are indeed probably going to be for the Phoenix Lords.

Also makes it so GW can sell more of those old sculpts

Really just need to tack on 6" to the weapons range. Seeing as everyone with a rapid fire gun can move their 6 and fire at the full 24.

shred/rending would be to dam powerful for the catapult

I really can't see Phoenix lords unlocking aspects as troops.

I'd absolutely love it to happen (I used to be a biel tan player) but it'd open the codex up to so many spam lists it'd be horribly abused.

Eg - an army of permanently sky leaping hawks who take all the objectives on the last turn.
A whole army of fire dragons.

But it'd be fun for us

Things I'd love to see in the new codex

The shuriken change proposed above- 24" on avengers. I'm not fussed about shred. That'd be fantastic anyway.
An assault transport.
And lastly a warp spider phoenix lord.

 Mahtamori wrote:

My line of thought for Eldar in general: Adaptive Armour. You need to beat, not match, armour value to penetrate. I.e. you need to have an armour piercing value capable of penetrating armour one point better than the Eldar's value. Makes it somewhat better, but not +1 better. Also, Fleet on everything with two legs. Including War Walkers. Oh, and Fortune would be far too good with Adaptive Armour, so Fortune is changed significantly.

Essentially, baby step them. Some units won't need much change (Warp Spiders that get 3+ save against power weapons do not need improvements, Surprise Assault still needs fixing) while others can take the universal benefits and get extra baby steps to make them more useful (Swooping Hawk Wings grant Swoop and Glide, Intercept allows assaulting airborn targets, while flying all weapons are considered Shred but they aren't Grounded).
Dark Eldar get to be the glass cannons, Craftworlders makes more sense to have better armour. Both have Eldar Amount of Special Rules (insert over 9000 joke here).

Yes, I'm tinkering with a "codex".

I like the adaptive armor sounds great. but there are problems bigger than warpspiders. Phoneix lords that can only lose their armor saves to warsythes and meltaguns would be really really really good.
I wrote up rules for a Iron Warriors special character who had a 1+ armor save a while back(a 1 always fails but it was only negated by AP1 weapons. It was really strong, and he was otherwise fairly weak and costed appropriately)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

PredaKhaine wrote:
I really can't see Phoenix lords unlocking aspects as troops.

I'd absolutely love it to happen (I used to be a biel tan player) but it'd open the codex up to so many spam lists it'd be horribly abused.

Eg - an army of permanently sky leaping hawks who take all the objectives on the last turn.
A whole army of fire dragons.

But it'd be fun for us

Things I'd love to see in the new codex

The shuriken change proposed above- 24" on avengers. I'm not fussed about shred. That'd be fantastic anyway.
An assault transport.
And lastly a warp spider phoenix lord.

I think the way to go with slot unlocking woudl be the Orky Nob way. A phoneix lord unlocks ONE squad to be taken as troops. So you can have 4 fire dragons, 1 of which is scoring, but not 6.

Heres an idea:

Keep shuriken weaponry at the range, strength and ap it is and add shred

or as others have suggested, increase the range and lower ap to 6 (or 5 for cannons) plus add shred.

I don't think the strength needs to be reduced as imo a spinning razor sharp metal blade moving at high speeds should be a higher strength than a beam of light.

I love the idea of adaptive armour as well. It totally fits the fluff as all Eldar tech is made from Wraithbone and the background says that Wraithbone shifts to deflect incoming attacks. This could be a great way of representing that while making eldar more survivable instead of cheaper (as would reflect a dying race).

Also allowing one unit of relevant aspect warriors to become troops with a phoenix lord is a great idea. After all, phoenix lords would attract members of their Aspect to them, would they not?

I say go back to the days when everyone whined about the cheesiness of an entire Eldar army armed with Shuriken Catapults.

Get rid of Avenger Shuriken Catapults. They only exist so that Avengers are actually viable. The Avenger's special things are BS4 and Exarch powers.

Make all Shuriken Catapults into what they were - Storm Bolters but better (Range 24", S4 AP4 Assault 2) - in the fluff, Shuricats cut through power armour, for crying out loud. I don't think ignoring Carapace is too much of a stretch.

Give Guardians back their basic Lasguns (Range 24" S3 AP6 Rapid Fire) and let them upgrade to Shuricats for 3 points/model. Any model may upgrade, but no model has to upgrade.

Dire Avengers have Shuricats by default, of course.

That's not a bad suggestion, Furyou Miko, though I'd say no Lasguns. Basic weapon would be Lasblaster. That Lasgun wouldn't take care of the problem that Guardians are grossly overpriced, Lasblasters are marginally better but still not quite 8p-material.

Have you thought that maybe shuirkens arnt ment to be long range? I've always thought of them as shot guns, because thats what they are. If they where made as shotguns, whatt is the reason to change it? Just because you want something long range? Thats like saying Bolters should be 36'' because they want long range...

8 points isn't terribly overpriced for a model with a shot gun. 7 points would be better to me, but thats what we live with. The shuriken catapults are there to protect the heavy weapon team in the unit from assult, thats just what they do. Maybe the avengers could be range 24, but i dont like it. Give them shred and they will be too good. If you've played bladestorm on a doomed unit, you know what i mean. Adaptive armour would justify there price, so i like that change, but everything else is trying to make the catapult into something its not.

They're not really shotguns.
A shotgun is a somewhat inaccurate gun with a poor ratio between the propellant chemical and the pellets focusing on spreading the pellets over an area significantly larger than a single bullet would (but still very tight so no flame template nonsense) in order to increase stopping power on unprotected tissue. Typically it will fling 6-12 pellets per shot and up to maybe 600 shots per minute, magazine size is limited due to the large size of the cartridges, but on the up side the little devils are cheap to make.

A Shuriken Catapult is a burst-fire assault rifle with exotic shaped bullets. While not necessarily accurate as such, even the shuriken pistols are described as being accurate enough to hit individual body parts from a significant distance away by an experienced shooter.
Typically a Shuriken weapon will be able to fire a short controlled burst at around 200 projectiles per burst, which one could only assume would translate to a fire rate of up towards 10,000 per minute. The magazine is solid core, leaving no cartridges behind for an efficient matter use and since the weapon is entirely energy driven it doesn't need a chemical propellant which also means that all in all the weapon's ammunition will be used in full rather than a mere fraction of the ammo providing actual stopping power. Given the Eldar technology it is also fully possible that the weapon does not care what Newton has to say about actions requiring equal reactions, meaning that kinetic energy similar to a mallet swung by a top athlete focused in a monomolecular disc is fully possible.

Well, yes, it could be likened to a shotgun. A very, very, high powered shotgun. In fact, the shotgun doesn't stand a chance as long as it is chemically propelled.

Since the Catapult is an assault rifle, however, it shares more traits with a M14 than it does with a Jackhammer. Among other things, it's possible to shoot the discs in single-fire and even in burst fire the discs will not travel in a swarm.

At the end of the day, though, the Catapult is so alien that it's actually up to the fluff writer to determine it's effective range and accuracy. That means that you should look at the effect in game and nothing else.

Also, shotguns are laughably feeble weapons on a battlefield where people wear proper armour. It's biggest advantage - it's intimidation effect - just doesn't work on a battlefield where there's pale guys able to rip your brain through your ears with their minds and monsters the size of a country estate.