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I wanted to be cool like everyone else and fix the eldar codex. Here are my thoughts. What do you think? Note that some of these rules are flatout stolen from others including some of you brilliant dakka dakka forum goers.

Serpent Shield: Retains its defensive rules. Still lose the defensive rule when you fire it. if you fire it, you can't fire any other weapons. Instead of being an actual gun, it just causes enemy units within 6" to take a pinning test and allows models who disembarked from the serpent that turn to assault.

Wraithknights: Become lords of war so spamming them becomes more difficult. They're supposed to be insanely rare. Allowing three in a combined arms detachment seems silly.

Howling Banshees: Their masks lose the -5 to initiative rule. Instead, the masks count as assault grenades, and units they're charging can't overwatch as they're too busy clutching their ears (which are bleeding.) Note that they can still be overwatched by nearby tau units, just not the unit they're charging.

Guardians: Change guardians and storm guardians to WS/BS 3 instead of 4 like they used to be. Have an Ulthwe formation that let you up their WS/BS to 4. Guardian defenders can now take a second platform at 15 models and and a 3rd platform at 20. So you have the option of going minimum squad (10) and sticking them in a serpent, 15 guys to get relatively cheapish extra shooting, or full 20 man blob squad for 3 big guns at BS3 that are relatively hard to remove thanks to all the bodies.

Storm guardians would have the option to take haywire grenades at 2 points per model meaning they'd have more flexibility and a 3rd anti-tank weapon (assuming you bought 2 fusion guns), but they're firing at BS 3 instead of 4.

Also, up to 2 models in a guardian defender/storm guardian squad would be able to take an energy shield (ala dawn of war II) which could be deployed in lieu of that model's shooting. They would basically be barricades that offer a 4+ invul to the unit behind it (meaning they have solid protection, but they can't boost that protection with shrouded from a psyker). The point of these changes is to give guardians less of a suicide conscript feel and to emphasize the advanced tech of the eldar. Plus, it emphasizes the differences between guardians and aspect warriors by letting them exchange focused martial training (WS/BS 4) for the flexible gear loadout available to those not obsessed with war.

Also, boost jetbikes back up to about 22 points each. They needed a price decrease in the old book, but not in the new edition where they have hammer of wrath, bladestorm, etc. I think this alone would end a lot of the complaints about guardian jetbikes, but you could also have them lose objective secured due to their highly mobile nature if you wanted to. Moving them to Fast Attack wouldn't work as jetbikers just don't compete with spiders and most of the other units competing for FA.

Phoenix Lords could probably stand to have their own formations to make them a bit more playable for their points, and the Avatar needs a delivery system.

Thoughts?

P.S. I'm playing around with the idea of giving the Autarch bonus strategic traits and/or "orders" that he can issue similarly to an IG commander. He's meant to be the super tactical genius of the eldar, but as is, he kind of just comes across as a meh combatant with a usually-unnecessary reserves manipulator. I like autarchs, but they don't exactly shine. Except maybe for the biker builds, but that really shouldn't be a player's only viable option.Note that an order system would give players another reason to use exarchs which, while awesome, seem to have fallen out of style. Their bonus Ld would make orders more reliable.

Why, exactly, are you nerfing Guardians? Are they particularly powerful now? Were they particularly powerful under the 4e book with WS/BS3? Do they need it?

The changes to guardians is, admittedly, more of a personal preference thing I feel that they are overpowered by any means, but I also feel that they could be more interesting with a few tweaks.

The reasons I would like to implement the proposed changes to guardians are as follows:

* I'd like to have the millitia be less skilled at shooting/stabbing things than those of their race who dedicate their entire lives to war.
*I'd like to make them feel less like poorly equipped conscripts with their 5+ saves. I know that guardians are emergency soldiers, but it seems like they're woefully equipped for a technologically advanced society that values eldar life.
*I'd like to make everyone in the squad that's *not* firing the weapons that matter feel like they have a purpose. In a 15 man squad with 2 energy shields and 4 heavy weapon platform operators, you have 9 guys there with the "basic kit." This just feels more appropriate than sending out your citizens en-masse with short-ranged guns and poor armor. ^_^;

That said, I also recognize that guardians were awfully unimpressive in 5th edition with storm guardians only seeing use thanks to their anti-tank potential in an edition that needed AT and an army that lacked it. BS 4 and bladestorm made guardians a lot more playable, but it also made them feel very similar to dire avengers. My goal with their changes is to make them well-equipped and flexible front-liners that use advanced tech to gain the advantage as opposed to aspect warriors who have more innate skill and better basic weapons but are also more niche in their use.

The debuffs to guardian jetbikes are in response to frequent complaints I've heard both here and offline about jetbikes.

So I totally understand the objection to lowering guardian stats, but I think this might be a fun direction to go with them. Thoughts on the other changes I've proposed?

Have you considered lifting the concept of the Eldar Superheavy in Epic that was basically a Cobra chassis with a giant Webway Portal in place of a gun (not necessarily literally, it might have to be bigger than the Falcon chassis but not Cobra sized)? You could make that the Assault transport and give it rules that let it run with the Avatar without having to futz with the Wave Serpent too much.

As to Jetbikes they're way, way too fragile to be more expensive than SM Bikes (also for the record you've got them at the exact same price as they were under the last book), and I've been pushing for the same thing you've suggested for the Autarch anytime anyone suggests any changes to the Eldar, so bonus points there.

On Guardian WS/BS I'm in favour of a compromise; stats in 40k aren't granular enough to be hilariously precise about anything but it does seem to me that WS3/BS4 Guardian Defenders and Jetbikes, BS4 Eldar tanks, and WS4/BS3 Storm Guardians make more sense than WS/BS3 across the board if you take issue with WS/BS4. As to the combat role of Guardian Defenders their purpose is as a defensive line more than the Dire Avengers' mobile fire tactics, to that end more interaction with the gun would seem to be warranted. I don't have a lot off the top of my head right now but taking the guy out of the Guardian kit with the sensor mast and giving the sensor mast rules that interact with the gun (can the sensor dude see it? If so grant a reroll to hit or penalty to cover or some such) would be cool.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Have you considered lifting the concept of the Eldar Superheavy in Epic that was basically a Cobra chassis with a giant Webway Portal in place of a gun (not necessarily literally, it might have to be bigger than the Falcon chassis but not Cobra sized)? You could make that the Assault transport and give it rules that let it run with the Avatar without having to futz with the Wave Serpent too much.

As to Jetbikes they're way, way too fragile to be more expensive than SM Bikes (also for the record you've got them at the exact same price as they were under the last book), and I've been pushing for the same thing you've suggested for the Autarch anytime anyone suggests any changes to the Eldar, so bonus points there.

On Guardian WS/BS I'm in favour of a compromise; stats in 40k aren't granular enough to be hilariously precise about anything but it does seem to me that WS3/BS4 Guardian Defenders and Jetbikes, BS4 Eldar tanks, and WS4/BS3 Storm Guardians make more sense than WS/BS3 across the board if you take issue with WS/BS4. As to the combat role of Guardian Defenders their purpose is as a defensive line more than the Dire Avengers' mobile fire tactics, to that end more interaction with the gun would seem to be warranted. I don't have a lot off the top of my head right now but taking the guy out of the Guardian kit with the sensor mast and giving the sensor mast rules that interact with the gun (can the sensor dude see it? If so grant a reroll to hit or penalty to cover or some such) would be cool.

I've thought about doing a sort of mobile webway portal tank, and I think it would be a solid answer to delivering avatars and other units. I'm not as familiar with the rules for it that you mentioned however, so it's hard for me to comment too much on it.

Jetbikes: Putting them at their old price was my intention. If they'd remained unchanged from the old book, I'd say their price drop was warranted. As is, they've gained bladestorm and hammer of wrath, and you could argue that jink beats out the old turbo boost cover save. They're much more fragile than marine bikes thanks to their lower toughness, but they also have their assault move which can help them hide from the enemy and be even more mobile. Your thoughts? do you feel that they are fair at their current points and abilities? Personally, I can see an argument for either upping their cost or lowering their abilities slightly.

Guardians: I'm not a huge fan of doing WS 3/BS 4 for defenders as they're going to be losing assault one way or the other and the WS debuff isn't really significant for them. I'm fine with vehicles and their guardian pilots staying at BS 4 (maybe their machines have aim-assist or something). With the changes I've proposed, I think storm guardians at BS 3 is reasonable as you're trading a point of BS for the ability to fire a third AT weapon (haywire grenades). I like the idea of allowing visor guy to provide some sort of shooting buff. Maybe allow one guardian squad member to take a "targeting visor" that he can use instead of firing a weapon? Maybe have it allow the guardian squad to reroll to-hit rolls of 1 (thus offsetting the BS nerf)? That math comes out (roughly) like this:

BS 4 guardians firing 18 shots (one guy is using the big gun) will hit with about 12 shots.
BS 3 guardians firing 16 shots (because one guy is is using targeting visor) will hit about 8 times, then reroll an average of 2.67 (round up to 3) 1s which will generate 1.5 extra hits for a total of 9-10 hits.
A BS 4 heavy gun will land about .67 hits per shot.
A BS 3 heavy gun will land about .5 hits per shot, but will reroll 1s giving it a comparable chance of hitting per shot to the BS 4 heavy gun.

Hmm. So assuming a 10 man squad, the BS 4 guardians still come out ahead by a few hits. I still kind of like this setup because it makes the guardians feel more tech dependent rather than being comparable to aspect warriors, and opponents can try to snipe the visor guy out of the squad (which, while a disadvantage for the eldar player, allows for interesting choices for your opponent).

Or for simplicity's sake, what about letting visor guy up the BS of the squad to 4? That way, their abilities still feel more tech dependent, but their abilities are comparable (losing 2 shuriken shots won't generally be a huge deal).

Now, to be fair, that's adding a step of complication just to make them end up exactly where they already are. What if visor guy *also* added 6" to a weapon's range or something? It would let guardians hide with battle focus (something they struggle to do right now if you're in range for their 12" guns to do anything) and gives their heavy weapon platforms a slight advantage over their vehicle-mounted equivalents.

Note that I'm not married to the idea of lowering guardian WS/BS. I just felt they ought to lose something to balance out their ability to fit extra heavy guns into a squad more easily. Also, BS4 storm guardians with haywires seemed like they might be too good.

Wyldhunt wrote:The reasons I would like to implement the proposed changes to guardians are as follows:

* I'd like to have the millitia be less skilled at shooting/stabbing things than those of their race who dedicate their entire lives to war.

Just for the sake of an alternate angle, maybe you should think about modifying the fellows who train all day, for example to s4. What's that? Eldar a pretty strong, an exarch should make it easily.

It seems a little easier than visor-guy contortions.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I just felt they ought to lose something to balance out their ability to fit extra heavy guns into a squad more easily. Also, BS4 storm guardians with haywires seemed like they might be too good.

It's a very good idea. It's not like people are taking bs4 guardians too much as it is. I've used the same thought for chaos troops.

BS3 is all in good order. People are like oh, it would be better to use wider profile ranges, use a d10, use a d20, because it's so wrong that a veteran human could be as good as an aspect warrior or a marine. This is a useless idea. Skills 3, 2, and 4 are just grading your units as normal, unreliable, and reliable. From that perspective, bs3 is the default.

I think the basic problem is that the natural eldar attribute, high initiative, doesn't help when shooting.

You mean giving them a strength profile of 4? I could see that on storm guardians (arguing that they use similar weapons to the scorpion chain sword), but it seems out of place for other units. I guess you could make the argument that their suits boost their strength, but that's never been the eldars' thing. I'd rather avoid making all eldar strength 4. Even an ork is only strength 3 unless he's charging!

To me, BS 3 always seemed a bit more appropriate for guardians. They're average joes with minimal millitary training. They just also happen to process the world at a faster rate than humans (essentially experiencing life in "bullet time") which, to me, evens out to make them BS 3. Remember, a guardsman's whole life is fighting. It's his job, and he drills for it extensively. I can see the argument for BS/WS 4 guardians (their tech makes them better shots, some used to walk the path of the warrior, they have inhuman reflexes, etc.), but personally, I like having an apparent skill difference between Bob the Poet and Jim the Striking Scorpion.

P. S. One of the reasons guardians don't see much use right now is that jetbikes are quite a bit better at similar jobs, and dire avengers are a cheaper way of spamming wave serpents. If my changes make wave sepents less tempting to spam, then avengers should start to become a less obvious choice over guardians.

No I definitely meant that since you want aspect warriors' rules to be more elite than guardians', you should consider making aspect warriors better, instead of only considering debuffing guardians. /One/ way to buff aspect warriors over guardians is to make them s4.

Well, even if it's only aspect warriors, I'm not sure what the justification would be for making them stronger than orks. Again, I guess you could argue "super suit", but I still don't think it's inkeeping with the "feel" of eldar.

Boosting regular aspect warriors up to WS (and maybe BS) 5 could be interesting (precedent in dark eldar incubi who are comparable conceptually), but I wouldn't feel completely justified in doing that either.

It's unclear as to how much training an aspect warrior receives before hitting the battlefield. Path of the Warrior makes it seem like a relatively brief amount of time (maybe weeks or months), but it could easily be longer. Meanwhile, we know that a space marine sergeant who's possibly been kicking butt for centuries generally comes in at WS/BS 4.

I love my eldar, but I just wouldn't be comfortable pumping up their stats beyond an astartes without justification.

pelicaniforce wrote:
No I definitely meant that since you want aspect warriors' rules to be more elite than guardians', you should consider making aspect warriors better, instead of only considering debuffing guardians. /One/ way to buff aspect warriors over guardians is to make them s4.

Consider also that Incubi (DE Aspect Warriors, so to speak) are WS5 on the normal folk and WS6 on their 'Exarch'. It may seem like overkill but you do have to admit the DE use more of the WS spectrum than most armies.

I quite like OP's changes.

Autarchs should get something like choosing their warlord trait during deployment or something.

Perhaps BS3 guardians should be cheaper? I liked the idea of upgrading to Black Guardians for points instead of detachment to give the player more choices, but your wargear options sound better.

What if the Sensor on the Guardian was +1BS for that specific model? Granted, people would just plop them on grav plat shooters then, but it seems more right. Or forego shooting the model for +1bs on another in the same unit provided the sensor model can see the target?

For Autarchs, I really feel they're much more about strategy than tactics, but not really about motivating Eldar directly at all. To that end, warlord traits or reserve shenanigans seem much more reasonable. A suggestion I've given before is a bonus warlord trait from a different table?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and Banshees being categorically worse at swordplay always seemed wrong. And now any random Archon is as skilled as Jain fing Zar?

For the Serpent, perhaps only counts as an assault transport when assaulting units hit by the Shield?

Finally, for WWP, probably instead of transport cap, units ariving from reserve may disembark from the Portal ?