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 Vaktathi wrote:
Exactly, AV13 with a 4+ save and 4HP's (for god knows what reason) is not exactly the easiest thing in the world to "just blow up"...

Melta squad or grav centurians. Again as I have stated I have played imperial fists so maybe that has skewed my experience some.


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And it's only 13 if you hit it's front/side arcs pretty sure .. so rear shot is same old


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I have never had an issue with cron vehicles.. it's always that 4+ reanimation that is the bane of my existence

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
Over in the Tau HRR Tactica thread, HRRs are bad because over 36" range is worthless. Here, autocannons are way better than HBs because of the extra range.

Aren't HRR rifles bad because they are outperformed in most cases by HYMPs, which have a drastically higher rate of fire, and within the glance-to-death sweet spot?

And the fact that HRRs are almost twice the range matters not!

 Grizzyzz wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Exactly, AV13 with a 4+ save and 4HP's (for god knows what reason) is not exactly the easiest thing in the world to "just blow up"...

Melta squad or grav centurians. Again as I have stated I have played imperial fists so maybe that has skewed my experience some.


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And it's only 13 if you hit it's front/side arcs pretty sure .. so rear shot is same old


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I have never had an issue with cron vehicles.. it's always that 4+ reanimation that is the bane of my existence

Does somebody want to show how well "Melta squad" does according to math? I'm currently eating dinner.

For the Grav Centurions, you still get the jink. Then otherwise it is still free to fire and camp on an objective.

 Grizzyzz wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Exactly, AV13 with a 4+ save and 4HP's (for god knows what reason) is not exactly the easiest thing in the world to "just blow up"...

Melta squad or grav centurians. Again as I have stated I have played imperial fists so maybe that has skewed my experience some.

Which is usually a whole lot more investment than the 105(?) pt Ark, and with the Meltas, you're needing an average of 8 BS4 meltaguns in optimal range for that through a Jink save to average 1 Explodes result to dump the dudes inside out.

even a full squad of Grav Centurions, through a 4+ Jink save, will only barely average a kill, and not every army has access to Grav Centurions.

And it's only 13 if you hit it's front/side arcs pretty sure .. so rear shot is same old

Which assumes you can get the rear, not always possible (usually not possible if you don't have something with accurate deep strike), and those Ghost Ark has a very narrow rear arc.

I have never had an issue with cron vehicles.. it's always that 4+ reanimation that is the bane of my existence

It's the Jink on top of the AV13 shields that does it. Having effectively an "always on" 4+ save adds a tremendous amount of durability. The only saving grace is the fact that they're open-topped.

 Grizzyzz wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

 Grizzyzz wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

If we start mathhammering we will be here all day.

Not really? There are only 2 relevant target types that you'll fire them again. Meqs and Geqs, with the latter, if they are expensive enough, being the only target worth firing at.
It literally took me 2 minutes to run those numbers, it's extremely easy math. Standard deviations would help, but that's more complicated.

My point being. We can sit here and draw numbers for countless weapons in the game that can be better or worse in numerous scenerios.

It doesn't need to be countless weapons. But looking at your statement that a ghost ark is easy to blow up, I have a feeling the math won't matter.
For some people, that is fine. If that's the case for you, no big deal.
We could easily list weapons that you feel are worse that are commonly taken (PG, Flamer, Melta, Grav) and compare to a few different targets and see in what scenarios H bolters do well. I have a feeling the results are obvious and is why H bolters haven't been seen in a decade however.

 Grizzyzz wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

 Grizzyzz wrote:

A squad of bolter marines in rapid fire range kills 7 guard. Outside about 3.. the devestator squad takes out 4 and out of threat range.

Let's be clear, if you are coming up equal or lower to bolter marines at any point, and are more expensive, stop.

If you can remove cover (through psychic) or catch troops in the open the HBs suddenly become much better then that of a marine bolter. And they are out of range of most threats. Where a bolter marine crew won't kill their target and is left in the open nearby.

36" range isn't great for an immobile platform. On a transport or similar tank it's not bad, I doubt the extra 12" comes up often unless you are facing tau or eldar.
But, for example, against scat bikes, the enemy could move and shoot while you can't fire back all game. Other armies with 48+ weapons also have a similar ability.

Removing cover helps bolters as much as h bolters unless facing 4+ saves. So that's warriors, firewarriors, the weaker aspect warriors...and scouts? Can't think of many units that sport 4+ saves that matter. It's usually 3+ or they have another save mechanic, or a strong transport.
Removing cover to add a few more wounds against guardsmen or aspect warriors seems like a weak use of a divination power (re-rolling to hit is almost as effective, and you always get it) but alright. I'd rather use my psyker on grav cents or something that does more damage though.

 Grizzyzz wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
claiming HBs are great isn't true. With tank hunter, they do okay against light armor (shred is a bit much, it still isn't great and you're better off with the other options marines have for armor) but missile cents are downright awful and inferior to grav cents in nearly everyway.

Again it comes down to scenerio. Fire them into MEQs meh results but better then some other choices. Fire them at geqs, decent results. Additionally I find them very useful against cron warriors who tend to March across the table.

Let's be clear, they only do well against Geqs that cost a lot. That's Firewarriors and the weaker aspects from eldar. Against guardsmen they don't cause enough wounds to be point effective, as was shown.
Crons get an RP roll, and with cover, are one of the toughest troops in the game when it comes to weapons like h bolters. Decurion makes it worse. Warriors have little reason to leave cover, since they aren't the hammers in that army. Or will be in the tough to kill ghost ark.

 Grizzyzz wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
But I'm not trying to change your mind, I just wouldn't go around saying H. Bolters are amazing if you can't back it up. Also, don't assume everyone is comparing it to a scat laser. I don't appreciate strawmans.

Not sure how me supplying scenerios where I have had success with a weapon that's fairly costed and available on multiple platforms is strawman ing.. I assume comparison to scatter lasers because of the track record of this entire thread comparing everything to mass s6.

And here you are again.
The part I had quoted, the part you had removed, clearly pointed out that you were suggesting that everyone is only comparing them to scatter lasers and nothing else, making them look bad by using a skew. It had nothing to do with scenarios.
Many armies spam mass str 6-7. CSM havoks, Plasma guns, tyranid MCs...it's more than scat bikes.

 Grizzyzz wrote:

Centurians dev squad with tank hunter effectively at 36" will cause 3 glances and 2 pens on av10 armor. On an average cover of 5+ your going to wreck most vehicles. I'm not saying your going to take out land raiders with the things, but against many light vehicles or rear armor targets your going to do some work. Again.. my experience though. My DE and ork friends hated me when I ran sentinals of terra, as some examples for good matchups.

Orks and De are pretty weak dexes, a lot from the marine dex will run over them. Front armor 10 is extremely rare in the game, but we can assume they get to the rear armor of every tank and that it is av 10 if you want.
Grav cents will wreck 2 of any tank in the game unless it's a flyer, so are easily twice as good (if not better) and don't require tank hunter to work.
Are you really arguing that h bolters are better than grav cents? I'm just surprised, since grav cents are one of the best units in the game, and h bolters are one of the weakest weapons and have been for a very long time.

 Grizzyzz wrote:

Being at a safer distance means you can build up your points return over the course of the game rather then trying to get your points back in one go.

Assuming your enemy just stays in your range and not in his, sure. But you can't back up or you lose firepower, so why would he?
Many fast melee threats can turbo boost or move incredibly quickly (Wraiths, for example, and TWC is slower but still quite fast) while being extremely resistant to H bolter fire. 24 or 36, you essentially have one turn of shooting before they charge the next turn. At 48, you have 2 turns (if you can't move) where a charge isn't reliable, which is why this number is seen as better. So it doesn't buy you a lot of time. If H bolters were assault weapons, you could buy an extra turn and this range would matter more.
Most shooting threats are either just as fast, have the same or better range, or deep strike and ignore range. I can think of a few where this isn't the case (Warp Spiders?), so H bolters seem like pretty bad weapons to me.

I'm not going to quote anything here... I'm not trying to cut quotes of anything being said.. just not trying to consume so much space.

Every weapon in the game has a place. I've said my peace. If someone wants to try it out I suggest they do.

In no way anywhere did I say heavy bolters were better then grav. But that said in some cases they can be.. since grav wound against armor save..

A dev team can't move but that's fine. You give your opponents enough threats and other choices to make and that doesn't become such a problem.


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It's fine they don't work out for you. And they don't show at the tourney level, but I think that is more to do with what other armies bring. If wraith spam and flyrants and taubot spam is what you see then I 100% agree you would be foolish to field heavy bolters when you have grav and plasma options.

This turned into something that was not my intention. My apologies for speaking up to what has worked for me and wanting to share.

Cheers!

So what kind of army are heavy bolters good against?

It's somewhat better vs footslogging infantry. So, any army that uses footslogging infantry.

Those that employ lots of light infantry? Isn't it this too obvious to state?

Alcibiades wrote:
Those that employ lots of light infantry? Isn't it this too obvious to state?

Depends. Against guardsmen, it will take a dev wielding a H bolter 5 turns to earn his points back. That's nearly an entire game, and with a 36" range and not being able to move and shoot, it's unlikely they will get a target for 5 rounds.
Against Eldar or Tau, it's a lot better, since you only need 2-3 rounds of firing to earn your points back, which is good but not great. In heavy cover, or if your opponent simply does not use the 4+ save units since they tend to be weaker anyway, this takes longer and they become a bad choice.

Tacticals are bad for similar reasons. It usually takes them 5 turns to earn their points back, outside of the work that special weapons do.
10 tacticals armed with bolters kill 7 guardsmen, which isn't many points unless they eliminate some special weapons (guardsmen really need a discount on special weapons), but 10 tacticals armed with 2 flamers does a lot of damage to guardsmen. For a small points increase, it's crazy how much the firepower of the squad gets boosted.

At no point, however, are h bolters good. Certainly not against an entire faction, and barely against certain units within certain factions. You are always better off taking flamers or heavy flamers on more mobile platforms than heavy bolters. It's sad, because the weapon looks amazing and is very fun in Dawn of War 2, but in the game it has never been a decent choice.

Every weapon in this game, sadly, does not had a place because this game isn't balanced. Certain options are clearly superior to others.
If your meta consists of DE and Orks, and you are somehow easily able to kill the toughest transport in the game, than sure, H bolters are great. If you face Eldar, Tau, Crons, Marines of any flavor, Sisters, FMC/MC spam, H bolters are bad. They need more shots or shred or something more to make them worth it.

Bottom line you play the army that you think looks cool and do you enjoy regardless of what other people think. If people at your FLGS or being that childish and refusing a game against your army then you're better off not playing them because whether they like it or not every updated army so far in the game has several nasty units are combinations that can kick the crap out of others. Space Marines and other Imperial armies are not immune to this either. Your best bet would be to collect enough to play friendly lists and competitive lists and pick and choose regarding who and what your opponent brings. A super fluffy Ultramarines company list you bring a fluffy Eldar strike host. A Space Marine player throws down as many Grav Centurions supported by the Skyhammer Annihilation Force you bring your nasty list out. Believe it or not communication also before a game helps limit and eliminate a lot of this issue.

The only communication that SHOULD exist is what mission and point level to play.

I'm not going to ask my opponent to take out stuff because it is mean. That makes me look like a tool and a jackass.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The only communication that SHOULD exist is what mission and point level to play.

I'm not going to ask my opponent to take out stuff because it is mean. That makes me look like a tool and a jackass.

I agree, but sadly GW's ineptness at balancing things has murdered any chance of this being a sure fire way to get a balanced game at the moment.

Alcibiades wrote:
Those that employ lots of light infantry? Isn't it this too obvious to state?

Ok but which armies are those. I can't think of any army on the to be beat to be good that runs infantry like that. Eldar and necron infantry is very tough, tyranids don't run small nids, marines are tough by default, so that leaves something like IG, but why would anyone want to counter IG ?

Plus it isn't like Heavy Bolters are actually delivering enough firepower for the points, even IF the unit has no cover save.

This game is not won or lost by whether or not a unit earns its points back, in terms of eliminating a certain number of enemy units. This is really silly and I can't believe people are actually making this argument, since I know they aren't dumb.


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Makumba wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
Those that employ lots of light infantry? Isn't it this too obvious to state?

Ok but which armies are those. I can't think of any army on the to be beat to be good that runs infantry like that. Eldar and necron infantry is very tough, tyranids don't run small nids, marines are tough by default, so that leaves something like IG, but why would anyone want to counter IG ?

"on the to be beat to be good that runs infantry"?

Maybe not competitively, I wouldn't know, but this is obviously totally dependent on local meta otherwise.


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I see such armies in online battle reports all the time.

Heavy bolters aren't even good against infantry. Cover usually negates the AP 4. They generate significantly less wounds than scatterlasers and come on derpy platforms.

I think it's rather pathetic that people would refuse a game because the other player has a potentially stronger army. I'm sure it's really nice for them to only pick the games they have a good chance at winning. If they won't play your eldar army they are just weak players who like to moan and grown about what they perceive as an an unfair advantage.

Any real player will accept your challenge and if they lose they will blame themselves, not the codex or your army. Anyone else isn't really worth your time anyway.

are you a friend of Dman137?

Some of the pro-playing unbalanced eldar people are posting quite provocatively and in a condescending manner

Alcibiades wrote:
This game is not won or lost by whether or not a unit earns its points back, in terms of eliminating a certain number of enemy units. This is really silly and I can't believe people are actually making this argument, since I know they aren't dumb.

You are confused. No one is discussing units. Units can be judged outside of how much damage they do, since toughness, speed, special rules, and other factors come into play.
Weapons can only be judged by how much damage they do. There is literally no other function most weapons have, certainly not heavy bolters (some weapons have special rules that act as pseudo support...but not h bolters).
There is literally no other metric to use but damage in this case.
But hey, go on suggesting people are dumb when you've clearly misunderstood the entire discussion

Alcibiades wrote:

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Makumba wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
Those that employ lots of light infantry? Isn't it this too obvious to state?

Ok but which armies are those. I can't think of any army on the to be beat to be good that runs infantry like that. Eldar and necron infantry is very tough, tyranids don't run small nids, marines are tough by default, so that leaves something like IG, but why would anyone want to counter IG ?

"on the to be beat to be good that runs infantry"?

Maybe not competitively, I wouldn't know, but this is obviously totally dependent on local meta otherwise.


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I see such armies in online battle reports all the time.

Sometimes they show up on battle reports online, but that does not make them competitive units. In this thread, we've listed what targets H bolters want to see, and it's a relatively small list. Furthermore, the units on the list aren't exactly dangerous units, so this makes the H bolter seem weak.
By all means, if your meta consists of Dire avenger spam or Dark eldar, H bolters are fine. If you're like most people, where Meqs are more popular and anything less doesn't leave cover unless forced, h bolters are awful.

PoisonWood wrote:
I think it's rather pathetic that people would refuse a game because the other player has a potentially stronger army. I'm sure it's really nice for them to only pick the games they have a good chance at winning. If they won't play your eldar army they are just weak players who like to moan and grown about what they perceive as an an unfair advantage.

Any real player will accept your challenge and if they lose they will blame themselves, not the codex or your army. Anyone else isn't really worth your time anyway.

So it my fault that GW refuses to balance their game? Thanks got it

PoisonWood wrote:
I think it's rather pathetic that people would refuse a game because the other player has a potentially stronger army. I'm sure it's really nice for them to only pick the games they have a good chance at winning. If they won't play your eldar army they are just weak players who like to moan and grown about what they perceive as an an unfair advantage.

Any real player will accept your challenge and if they lose they will blame themselves, not the codex or your army. Anyone else isn't really worth your time anyway.

It's not potentially stronger. It is stronger. MUCH stronger. Random Eldar units will pulverize pretty much any BA list.

Martel732 wrote:

PoisonWood wrote:
I think it's rather pathetic that people would refuse a game because the other player has a potentially stronger army. I'm sure it's really nice for them to only pick the games they have a good chance at winning. If they won't play your eldar army they are just weak players who like to moan and grown about what they perceive as an an unfair advantage.

Any real player will accept your challenge and if they lose they will blame themselves, not the codex or your army. Anyone else isn't really worth your time anyway.

It's not potentially stronger. It is stronger. MUCH stronger. Random Eldar units will pulverize pretty much any BA list.

I have to agree with Martel at this point, the Eldar are so stupidly strong that they make mincemeat of a BA or IG army. The Eldar player does not even have to bring a Scatbike/Wraithbrigade list, they can just throw anything they feel like together and they will still win almost every game that they play against us weaker armies. Bringing a meta list just means that they take two turns to table us instead of three.

It's basically Codex: Scatguard at this point. I've never seen units that ridiculously efficient.

Alcibiades wrote:
This game is not won or lost by whether or not a unit earns its points back, in terms of eliminating a certain number of enemy units. This is really silly and I can't believe people are actually making this argument, since I know they aren't dumb.

First of all, purge the alien.

Second, correct, there are many times where killing power is not the only metric. Transport space, movement speed, having obsec, being really really hard to remove. These are all good abilities, and I don't believe anyone is saying what you are thinking they are saying about units. WEAPONS, however, have ONE JOB. They are there to murder an intended target. They can't transport anyone, hold anything, or survive without their platform.

Points killed vs. points paid is about the only objective measurement that can ever be applied to them, as well as considering intended target and the importance of having an answer to that target, and prevalence of that target. Yes it isn't a perfect measurement, as sometimes a 50 point quad gun is worth its weight in gold because you have a bunch of flying threats, so you want it dead superbad before turn 2 rolls around, even if it's not point-efficient on paper.

I haven't paid anything more than 0 points (thanks gladius) for a heavy bolter in 2 editions. I would rather pay one extra point for another scout with a boltgun, who can outflank, infiltrate, hold objectives with obsec, and is an extra body to remove. Why? Because the heavy bolter doesn't target anything I consider important to specifically bring answers against. Anything the HB can kill, enough scouts with bolters and/or krak grenades can also kill. Sure rarely I might face an enemy that hit the sweet spot of having 4+ armor out of cover all over the place, but it's so rare, except for decuriCron warriors. And against them, the best bet is melee and sweeping or obsec stealing anyhow, so I would STILL take the scouts over heavy bolters in that list tailor situation.

master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

PoisonWood wrote:
I think it's rather pathetic that people would refuse a game because the other player has a potentially stronger army. I'm sure it's really nice for them to only pick the games they have a good chance at winning. If they won't play your eldar army they are just weak players who like to moan and grown about what they perceive as an an unfair advantage.

Any real player will accept your challenge and if they lose they will blame themselves, not the codex or your army. Anyone else isn't really worth your time anyway.

It's not potentially stronger. It is stronger. MUCH stronger. Random Eldar units will pulverize pretty much any BA list.

I have to agree with Martel at this point, the Eldar are so stupidly strong that they make mincemeat of a BA or IG army. The Eldar player does not even have to bring a Scatbike/Wraithbrigade list, they can just throw anything they feel like together and they will still win almost every game that they play against us weaker armies. Bringing a meta list just means that they take two turns to table us instead of three.

I disagree. As we found out in the Randomly Generated Eldar Army thread, you can't just take any old collection of units out of the Eldar codex and make them work as an effective army (this is also true for most every army).

Take away Scatbikers, Wraithknights, and D-weapons, and Eldar are still powerful but beatable. Without those infamous models, Eldar suddenly aren't totally dominant in ranged anti-vehicle and turn into GEQ with better armour (mostly). They are fast, but this can be countered with proper deployment and use of board space. Outside of Wraith units and the Wave Serpent, Eldar are only somewhat more durable than Dark Eldar. Any form is Ignore Cover weaponry is a serious threat to Eldar, and Blast weapons and artillery in general are kryptonite to Eldar infantry. While they possess some effective CC units, outside of those units (and the Wraithknight) the army folds in the Assault Phase, to the point where losing combat is something I can reliably count on. Evne then, Eldar do not have CC units on the level of Death Company (except the Wraithknight).

Put it this way: if the Eldar player is pulling their punches, and you as a BA or IG player are not, you have about an equal chance of victory.

niv-mizzet wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
This game is not won or lost by whether or not a unit earns its points back, in terms of eliminating a certain number of enemy units. This is really silly and I can't believe people are actually making this argument, since I know they aren't dumb.

First of all, purge the alien.

Second, correct, there are many times where killing power is not the only metric. Transport space, movement speed, having obsec, being really really hard to remove. These are all good abilities, and I don't believe anyone is saying what you are thinking they are saying about units. WEAPONS, however, have ONE JOB. They are there to murder an intended target. They can't transport anyone, hold anything, or survive without their platform.

Points killed vs. points paid is about the only objective measurement that can ever be applied to them, as well as considering intended target and the importance of having an answer to that target, and prevalence of that target. Yes it isn't a perfect measurement, as sometimes a 50 point quad gun is worth its weight in gold because you have a bunch of flying threats, so you want it dead superbad before turn 2 rolls around, even if it's not point-efficient on paper.

I haven't paid anything more than 0 points (thanks gladius) for a heavy bolter in 2 editions. I would rather pay one extra point for another scout with a boltgun, who can outflank, infiltrate, hold objectives with obsec, and is an extra body to remove. Why? Because the heavy bolter doesn't target anything I consider important to specifically bring answers against. Anything the HB can kill, enough scouts with bolters and/or krak grenades can also kill. Sure rarely I might face an enemy that hit the sweet spot of having 4+ armor out of cover all over the place, but it's so rare, except for decuriCron warriors. And against them, the best bet is melee and sweeping or obsec stealing anyhow, so I would STILL take the scouts over heavy bolters in that list tailor situation.

I agree. Even with the easiest fix (Salvo 2/3) to the Heavy Bolter, it still runs into the problem of being too much of a generalist weapon to make an impact. Even if they were priced at the same level as Flamers, I still don't think people would take them; there are other and better specialist weapons that are more effective on the tabletop. Consider that for the points of a heavy Bolter, you're almost on your way to buying another Scout.

Put it this way: if the Eldar player is pulling their punches, and you as a BA or IG player are not, you have about an equal chance of victory.

In what kind of an eviroment is it possible for people to buy top tier IG or BA armies, what ever those are, and low tier eldar lists? Either all people will try to buy the best stuff, in which case the IG or BA players are in deep trouble. Or all people buy random stuff, which means we have a bad IG army vs a non top tier eldar army, which has a good chance to beat a top tier IG one. So the IG player is in even bigger trouble, as he won't understand why, with both players taking non optimal units his army gets beaten, so bad.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

I disagree. As we found out in the Randomly Generated Eldar Army thread, you can't just take any old collection of units out of the Eldar codex and make them work as an effective army (this is also true for most every army).

I did not mean random units. I meant an Eldar player just taking units that they liked but where not optimal. And even still, a randomly generated Eldar list would still stand a good chance of thrashing an Imperial Guard list.

Take away Scatbikers, Wraithknights, and D-weapons, and Eldar are still powerful but beatable. Without those infamous models, Eldar suddenly aren't totally dominant in ranged anti-vehicle and turn into GEQ with better armour (mostly). They are fast, but this can be countered with proper deployment and use of board space. Outside of Wraith units and the Wave Serpent, Eldar are only somewhat more durable than Dark Eldar. Any form is Ignore Cover weaponry is a serious threat to Eldar, and Blast weapons and artillery in general are kryptonite to Eldar infantry. While they possess some effective CC units, outside of those units (and the Wraithknight) the army folds in the Assault Phase, to the point where losing combat is something I can reliably count on. Evne then, Eldar do not have CC units on the level of Death Company (except the Wraithknight).

Once again, debatable. The issue with the Eldar book is that unlike most other books there are no true bad choices. Everything is good and this means that even those so called 'suboptimal' units are still performing extremely well.

Put it this way: if the Eldar player is pulling their punches, and you as a BA or IG player are not, you have about an equal chance of victory.

I would not be too sure. As I mentioned above there is not one true 'bad' choice within the Eldar army. Suboptimal when compared to Scatbikes and Wraithbrigade yes, but not actually suboptimal in the sense of things like Hellhounds, Storm Troopers, etc. They are still good and even with an optimised IG list the fight will be a hard one.
That said very few Eldar players pull their punches and almost all of them will include something nasty within their list even this ideal sub/max matchup is unlikely to ever occur.

 Vankraken wrote:
@War Kitten. Thanks, I know the feeling of being hated for playing or liking a faction (Tau) and it really sucks. People can hate my blue anime space commie goats all day long but please don't direct that hate to me

@Ace Rimmer. Most of my dislikes of Eldar are from my perception of them. In the case of #4 its just how often they can alter game mechanics to their favor. Its basically Eldar's M.O. but honestly its just not a style that I'm not very fond of. Individually each one of those mechanics aren't what a directly dislike (except fortune, rerolling saves start to get ugly when you get down to 3+ and 2+ rerollable) but its the sum total of all of them that rub me the wrong way. The issue with the Serpent Shield was that 5/6 of the time it down graded a pen to a glance. Shooting the shield is definitely annoying (glad 6th edition style serpent spam is "dead") in its own right but that mechanic of ignoring pens goes along with the whole Eldar bending the rules theme that I am not fond of.
With #6 its the combination of points cost and codex rules that makes them seem incredibly power. Scatter bikes combine decent durability, good firepower, crazy mobility, and being troops that feels like they are above average at most things but without any premium for that versatility. Ork Tankbustas are guilty of this as well with stupidly dirt cheap assault krak missile spam and melta bombs all with tankhunter. If Orks had good army wide rules then Tankbustas would be brokenly OP but given the glaring weaknesses of the Ork codex Tankbustas aren't as unbearable to go up against (and often times have to carry the Ork codex on their back).

That's fair enough, no-one other than you can decide how you feel about such mechanics, even if almost every army has some level of them. As for the shield, even downgrading pen's to glances, most armies (although form reading through this thread, apparently not Blood Angels...) can glance a serpent to death. I still think the shield mechanic will have to be changed again in the next codex, but it is in essence a toned down version of the old rules from Epic where it was immune to all shooting attacks from the front/side arcs unless the weapon fired over/under the shield (artillery and mole mortars basically) and when it shot it completely disabled the enemy unit so you could assault them and basically wipe them. I would happily trade some of it's defensive capabilty and it's current shooting attack in order to make it either a)an assault vehicle or b)make the shield stun an enemy unit (either by shooting it, or maybe passing over to represent the shield hitting them that way?) so that units could then assault them in their following turn without being shot up first.

As for 6 - Jetbikes really aren't all that durable, they are just MEQ. Base comparison, for 4 points more, a Space Marine Bike gets +1S, +1T, -1I, a Bolt Pistol, Frag/Krak Grenades, better basic weapons, ATSKNF, Chapter Tactics and can still be troops if the captain takes a bike. The Eldar get a better turboboost and all can take heavy weapons at +10 (Str6), but the space marine bikes get arguably better special weapons (only 2, but the sergeant can take a combi). I'd happily lose Scatter Lasers in favour of fusion guns for +10points!

Mine die all the time because I use their speed for capturing objectives so they end up out in the open and die to anything from a wet fart upwards in strength/AP. If you use them to shoot, then they are only slightly quicker than a jetpack and tbh, if you're planning to JSJ, then you won't use the full 12" move anyway so as to risk being out of cover. The 36" turboboost is a bit tasty, but I think that is often a much better use than shooting, in maelstrom in particular.

I think the problem re:points costs is simply that the new 7th ed codices are at least 1 edition ahead of so many others and the overall costs of units/upgrades tends to decrease from 1 edition to the next, so when the newer codices are released, they will fall more into line with bang for buck with Eldar/Tau/Space Marines.
Throw in some funky formations and I think the problem will be solved, it's just waiting on GW to pull their finger out and start throwing out the updates. Hopefully 2016 will see a shift away from the AoS rush and give a bit more back to 40k.