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Yeah, I have to agree here, the Eldar have always been stupidly OP and cheesy. One can but hope that they get a massive nerf sometime soon.

Played 2nd for years and never saw anyone wiped off the table turn one. Saw some major hits with a lucky spell like Plague Wind or freak decapitation of armies by a lucky autocannon first shot, but I have seen far worse(and did) in 3rd or with the advent of superheavies having massive death throes 7th.

Martel732 wrote:

Umm...... not even close. The Space Wolves were the only playable loyalist marine faction. All the others were pure victims. I never saw Ultramarines win, either. EVER. The Eldar were one of the power three in 2nd. I can't even conceive of a way for loyalist marines to beat Eldar in that game short of the Eldar player having a stroke during the match.

Which is a problem if you're only ever playing against Eldar... less so if you're playing against other armies.


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Col. Dash wrote:
Played 2nd for years and never saw anyone wiped off the table turn one. .

It happened from time to time (even ignoring the aforementioned Virus Outbreak, which did cause some havoc before it was removed) but was mostly a result of the exact same thing that has caused turn 1 tabling in every edition since - not using enough terrain.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Yeah, I have to agree here, the Eldar have always been stupidly OP and cheesy. One can but hope that they get a massive nerf sometime soon.

I personally believe GW use Eldar as their Great Leveller. When things get stale, start looking balanced and the game starts looking stable? Throw in the Eldar!

 insaniak wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Umm...... not even close. The Space Wolves were the only playable loyalist marine faction. All the others were pure victims. I never saw Ultramarines win, either. EVER. The Eldar were one of the power three in 2nd. I can't even conceive of a way for loyalist marines to beat Eldar in that game short of the Eldar player having a stroke during the match.

Which is a problem if you're only ever playing against Eldar... less so if you're playing against other armies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Col. Dash wrote:
Played 2nd for years and never saw anyone wiped off the table turn one. .

It happened from time to time (even ignoring the aforementioned Virus Outbreak, which did cause some havoc before it was removed) but was mostly a result of the exact same thing that has caused turn 1 tabling in every edition since - not using enough terrain.

I don't like the terrain excuse for horrible mathematics in a game. List A should not be even mathematically capable of a thing that List B is not mathematically capable of. Also, there was considerable terrain on the map. But each opposing unit could see at least one target. It's not like terrain was a big deal in 2nd anyway, as you had to shoot the closest thing anyway.

You also had to declare your fire at the start of the shooting phase, making it damn near impossible to table someone first turn.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
You also had to declare your fire at the start of the shooting phase, making it damn near impossible to table someone first turn.

I saw it happen several times in 2nd. Not that hard in the right matchups.

Martel732 wrote:I don't like the terrain excuse for horrible mathematics in a game.

Whether or not you like it, it's always been a thing. The game works better with more terrain. The less terrain you use, the more freedom shooty armies have to knock you down before you can do anything.

List A should not be even mathematically capable of a thing that List B is not mathematically capable of.

Of course it should. The whole point of having different armies is that they can do different things.

It's not like terrain was a big deal in 2nd anyway, as you had to shoot the closest thing anyway.

Having to shoot the closest visible target made terrain a very big deal in 2nd edition, as it meant that you could effectively choose what your opponent was going to have to shoot at.

That, combined with the fact that cover made your guys harder to shoot made cover more useful for MEQ armies than it is now.

SlaveToDorkness wrote:You also had to declare your fire at the start of the shooting phase, making it damn near impossible to table someone first turn.

No you didn't. You had to declare all of your charges at the start of the Movement phase, but shooting was just done unit by unit as it is now. Although I did come across players from time to time who played it the way you suggest... I suspect it was the rule in Fantasy at the time, as the rulesets were very similar at that point.

"Of course it should. The whole point of having different armies is that they can do different things. "

List A should not be able to cause enough damage to destroy all of List B in one turn. That means List A's shooting is way too cheap.

" made cover more useful for MEQ armies than it is now. "

Yeah, too bad the armor was basically worthless in 2nd.

Martel732 wrote:
List A should not be able to cause enough damage to destroy all of List B in one turn.

If you're using sufficient terrain, and deploying so as to make the best use of that terrain, it won't be able to.

The fact that you want to ignore the fact that shooting in this game is balanced by terrain filtering what can and can't be shot at doesn't change the fact that this is how it works.

And for the most part, it works well. The vast majority of turn 1 tablings I've seen over the years have come down to either insufficient terrain or bad deployment.

Yeah, too bad the armor was basically worthless in 2nd.

No moreso than it is now. Marines still got their armour save against most basic weapons, and still didn't get their save against most heavy weapons. But with the tradeoff that a marine standing behind a bush was harder to hit, whereas now the bush might as well not be there most of the time.

Don't forget that any unit deploying in or behind cover could start the game in hiding. My Guard very rarely get the first turn, and so most of my infantry will start the game in hiding. Very hard to table an opponent you can't see:-)