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Eldar are rarer than Space Marines? You do know they only had two less players in the event running Eldar, and in the ITC as a whole 393 players have played Eldar, while only 376 players have played Space Marines.

You're being very disingenuous when you claim Marines are somehow significantly more common than Eldar.

 Tinkrr wrote:
Eldar are rarer than Space Marines? You do know they only had two less players in the event running Eldar, and in the ITC as a whole 393 players have played Eldar, while only 376 players have played Space Marines.

You're being very disingenuous when you claim Marines are somehow significantly more common than Eldar.

Originally I thought he meant historically, which I think most of us would agree is true but I certainly can't prove with tournament results, but after reading his post over now I'm not so sure.
Locally at least, Eldar and Necrons are the most popular. When I look at tournaments, it does seem that Eldar and Marines are equal, with Necrons and Tau having about 2/3-1/3 of their numbers with every other army lagging behind by quite a bit in representation.

Well that is a large eldar jump from previously. It would also explain how they skitted by the scat bike nerf vote. I dont think it changes my point much. You dont see eldar nearly as much as marines outside of a competative tournament. And I am willing to bet the average person has played 2-3x as many games against marines as against eldar.

Yup, because all those Marine players, and every other army player, wouldn't have voted against the bikes if they wanted to nerf them. Not only that but Bikes weren't the problem in the LVO, but rather Warp Spiders.Clearly the Eldar and Marines alley to nerf Tau, but when it's the Eldar vote, the Tau, Marines, Necrons, whatever don't alley to vote against them, because reasons. Remember, no matter what army you play, there are infinitely more people that don't play it than people who do play it.

Additionally, this is a competitive tournament, in fact this is THE competitive tournament, so all of these players have been playing competitively and have probably seen as much Eldar as they have Space Marines. Though lets even assume they only saw it half as much, are you really going to claim that there's no benefit decay after a certain point, and they just continue to get better against Marines at the same rate each game, from game one to game twenty?

You're just being silly now if that's what you're claiming in any of this.

As I have stated before, the ITC gets no respect from me until the nerf bat hits the Eldar. Hard. Ban scatterlasers perhaps so they get to play the same game as the rest of us.

Didn't they nerf Warpspiders?

Akiasura wrote:
Didn't they nerf Warpspiders?

Yes, but when Top lists at LVO had 45 warp spiders, they weren't nerfed enough lol

First of all, the eldar scat bike nerf was advertised weeks in advance for the vote, and BARELY squeaked by less than 10 votes needed to nerf them. Also there was talk, BY frontline, of ballot stuffing. So lets not pretend everyone was hunky dorey on the imperial side of things, and voted fairly, as opposed to in their best interest.

The tau vote, on the other hand had less than 5 days notice, and STILL was plagued with rumors of ballot stuffing. Both were "how do you want to play it" with eldar just straight up getting less access to the bike guns, and tau's special rules being nerfed-not clarified as so many claimed. THEN when people were talking about the holophoton projectors being a sensible nerf, HALF the people commmenting thought it was just 3 instances of turn long straight up invisibility. When its one round of snap firing, per unit used, on ONE unit.

You even said yourself there are far more eldar players than tau. Well majority vote isnt always a fair system. So lets not pretend the tau nerfs were any more justified than what eldar had coming to them if not for their majority voting getting them out of trouble.

i see no problems here at all, nerf away at the tau, can we swing a little harder?

I'll take sentences I never thought I'd hear for 500 please.


Still, it's impressive that spiders are that good now. Guess that explains why I do so well locally.
And here I thought I was at a handicap staying away from the bikes

Martel732 wrote:
As I have stated before, the ITC gets no respect from me until the nerf bat hits the Eldar. Hard. Ban scatterlasers perhaps so they get to play the same game as the rest of us.

That's the thing of it. The Tau were not nerfed directly. The new Tau models got an abundance of units with ambiguous rules. When decisions were made how to interpret the rules, the more conservative interpretations were used. If GW explicitly wrote:
"and shooting as one unit allows all the special rules to be transferred" or
"the piranhas can enter from reserves and leave in the same movement phase" or
"countermeasures affect all models in the unit and the ability can be used by each model in the unit once"
the Tau would not have been "nerfed".

The rules for warp spiders were ambiguous and the less powerful interpretation of the rules was used.

The only things that the ITC "nerfed" at the behest of its players was invisibility and 2+ re-rollable saves. If the actual vote to change the availability of scatter lasers passed, we'd never hear the end of the complaining.

bogalubov wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
As I have stated before, the ITC gets no respect from me until the nerf bat hits the Eldar. Hard. Ban scatterlasers perhaps so they get to play the same game as the rest of us.

That's the thing of it. The Tau were not nerfed directly. The new Tau models got an abundance of units with ambiguous rules. When decisions were made how to interpret the rules, the more conservative interpretations were used. If GW explicitly wrote:
"and shooting as one unit allows all the special rules to be transferred" or
"the piranhas can enter from reserves and leave in the same movement phase" or
"countermeasures affect all models in the unit and the ability can be used by each model in the unit once"
the Tau would not have been "nerfed".

The rules for warp spiders were ambiguous and the less powerful interpretation of the rules was used.

The only things that the ITC "nerfed" at the behest of its players was invisibility and 2+ re-rollable saves. If the actual vote to change the availability of scatter lasers passed, we'd never hear the end of the complaining.

They came right out in the vote and said "How would you like to play it?" they clarified nothing. Because all the "its confusing!' arguements fell flat shortly before the vote even took place. The countermeasures were not even VOTED on, just straight up decided. Personally I thought the piranha formation was broken as written, so am not upset, but it was VERY clear, especially since it was an apocalypse formation years before, crystal clear, and nobody complained.

bogalubov wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
As I have stated before, the ITC gets no respect from me until the nerf bat hits the Eldar. Hard. Ban scatterlasers perhaps so they get to play the same game as the rest of us.

That's the thing of it. The Tau were not nerfed directly. The new Tau models got an abundance of units with ambiguous rules. When decisions were made how to interpret the rules, the more conservative interpretations were used. If GW explicitly wrote:
"and shooting as one unit allows all the special rules to be transferred" or
"the piranhas can enter from reserves and leave in the same movement phase" or
"countermeasures affect all models in the unit and the ability can be used by each model in the unit once"
the Tau would not have been "nerfed".

The rules for warp spiders were ambiguous and the less powerful interpretation of the rules was used.

The only things that the ITC "nerfed" at the behest of its players was invisibility and 2+ re-rollable saves. If the actual vote to change the availability of scatter lasers passed, we'd never hear the end of the complaining.

Such complaining would be music to my ears. Eldar have had it too good for too long.

 Orock wrote:

They came right out in the vote and said "How would you like to play it?" they clarified nothing. Because all the "its confusing!' arguements fell flat shortly before the vote even took place. The countermeasures were not even VOTED on, just straight up decided. Personally I thought the piranha formation was broken as written, so am not upset, but it was VERY clear, especially since it was an apocalypse formation years before, crystal clear, and nobody complained.

The reason it was phrased "how would you like to play it" is because there is no definitive answer in the rulebook. It's ambiguous, so we got to pick which interpretation was used. If there was no interpretation picked, people would be having debates during the games.

No one complained about the piranha apocalypse formation because no one plays apocalypse competitively. As for the countermeasures, they needed a decision before the LVO, so they made a decision. I imagine it will get a vote on the next ballot. If they don't, we can promise to take out the pitchforks and pack up our toys and go home.

I also don't understand the answer of "it's crystal clear!!!" whenever rule ambiguity comes up. You can tell me that I'm dumb or being a selfish non-Tauist, but I'm certain that the rule is ambiguous because I don't read it the same way as others in this thread. We can discuss which interpretation is more correct, but I won't presume that other interpretations don't exist.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Such complaining would be music to my ears. Eldar have had it too good for too long.

They did suck in 5th edition and the start of 6th. Which I guess is a relatively short term compared to the BA sucking since 3rd edition except for a short blip in 5th edition.

There is no cavet for "shoots as one unit". Can one unit benefit from objective based buffs like skyfire? Yes. Can a unit with a buffmander benefit from his buffs? Yes. Can one unit use all markerlights? Yes. In both 12+ page threads argueng "unit coherency" and other nonsense, after credible sources were quoted and discussion, the non-buff sharing arguments died out. so unless you have some other argument that 300+ people had not thought of, it was settled decisively.

 Orock wrote:
There is no cavet for "shoots as one unit". Can one unit benefit from objective based buffs like skyfire? Yes. Can a unit with a buffmander benefit from his buffs? Yes. Can one unit use all markerlights? Yes. In both 12+ page threads argueng "unit coherency" and other nonsense, after credible sources were quoted and discussion, the non-buff sharing arguments died out. so unless you have some other argument that 300+ people had not thought of, it was settled decisively.

The rule makes specific allowances, the sharing of marker lights. It says nothing else about sharing special rules. If firing as one unit in this instance brought all the implicit benefits of being one unit, the marker light usage would not have to be clarified. By explicitly specifying that marker lights can be shared across units the writer indicates that "one unit" doesn't have all the usual implications.

And lo and behold, sharing marker lights and improved ballistic skill are a buff that you get for using the formation.

"They did suck in 5th edition"

This is false. Eldrad + fortune + scatterwalkers + ruins = many, many unhappy lists.

Suck is probably too far, I don't think eldar ever have flat out been a bad army, but they certainly weren't top tier in 5th.

It was pretty much a marines game in 5th, of various flavors.

Eldar were mediocre in 5th edition. Not awful, had a couplr neat tricks, but not too tier. Its just about the only edition where they werent at the top of the power pyramid

bogalubov wrote:

 Orock wrote:
There is no cavet for "shoots as one unit". Can one unit benefit from objective based buffs like skyfire? Yes. Can a unit with a buffmander benefit from his buffs? Yes. Can one unit use all markerlights? Yes. In both 12+ page threads argueng "unit coherency" and other nonsense, after credible sources were quoted and discussion, the non-buff sharing arguments died out. so unless you have some other argument that 300+ people had not thought of, it was settled decisively.

The rule makes specific allowances, the sharing of marker lights. It says nothing else about sharing special rules. If firing as one unit in this instance brought all the implicit benefits of being one unit, the marker light usage would not have to be clarified. By explicitly specifying that marker lights can be shared across units the writer indicates that "one unit" doesn't have all the usual implications.

And lo and behold, sharing marker lights and improved ballistic skill are a buff that you get for using the formation.

permissible does not denote denial, otherwise all rules would have to be 3 page explanations.

Flying monstrous creatures have the ability to shoot at flyers normally. This does not mean they have skyfire and snapfire at the ground.

Marines may throw a grenade in the shooting phase. This does not mean they cannot also fire the rest of their weapons.

They used markerlights as an example, as discussed hundreds of pages over. It very clearly says "shoots as if it was one unit" If it did not intend for the unit to count as one unit, it would simply say everyone firing at the same unit if more than 3 units gain +1 BS and can benefit from the same markerlights. It does not. As much as tau haters would like it the other way, its not the way it works.

 Jancoran wrote:

yeah going there isn't worth it. We can never really know.

The sisters of Battle showing sucked. We have got to mobilize the sistahs. We created a Facebook for that. I am hoping we get off the schneid and start organizing our various forces. I would love to see some Suisters at these things more frequently. It makes me want to go despite all my reservations, just to kick hiney with them.

I've got a nice sisters/BA combo list written up that I'd love to take to events...if I had money for sisters models!
Feel free to donate some and I'll gladly run em all the time.

 Orock wrote:


permissible does not denote denial, otherwise all rules would have to be 3 page explanations.

Flying monstrous creatures have the ability to shoot at flyers normally. This does not mean they have skyfire and snapfire at the ground.

Marines may throw a grenade in the shooting phase. This does not mean they cannot also fire the rest of their weapons.

They used markerlights as an example, as discussed hundreds of pages over. It very clearly says "shoots as if it was one unit" If it did not intend for the unit to count as one unit, it would simply say everyone firing at the same unit if more than 3 units gain +1 BS and can benefit from the same markerlights. It does not. As much as tau haters would like it the other way, its not the way it works.

We can make this pretty simple. You and I read the same rule. We have come to two different interpretations. I am fairly certain that you won't convince me and I'm fairly certain that I won't convince you. Ergo, the rule is ambiguous. I can certainly see how people arrive at the same conclusion you did, I just simply don't agree with it. I can probably be extended the same courtesy, that my opinion is not out of the realm of possibility even if you don't agree with it. Since we can't agree and until GW clarifies what they meant with a FAQ we don't have a concrete reason to side with either interpretation.

I've mentioned this in a different thread on the same topic, but really the ruling here doesn't matter to me. What does matter is that we have a clear ruling that's made before an event. In a tournament setting there is not enough time to hash out the reasons for playing the game one way or the other. That's why I support the ITC. They actually take the time to identify sloppy rule writing and address the issue before events. Whether I agree with their rulings or not is irrelevant to me in terms of my support. It keeps me from having pointless debates where neither side will convince the other one because we can't point to a page number to get a black or white answer.

bogalubov wrote:

 Orock wrote:


permissible does not denote denial, otherwise all rules would have to be 3 page explanations.

Flying monstrous creatures have the ability to shoot at flyers normally. This does not mean they have skyfire and snapfire at the ground.

Marines may throw a grenade in the shooting phase. This does not mean they cannot also fire the rest of their weapons.

They used markerlights as an example, as discussed hundreds of pages over. It very clearly says "shoots as if it was one unit" If it did not intend for the unit to count as one unit, it would simply say everyone firing at the same unit if more than 3 units gain +1 BS and can benefit from the same markerlights. It does not. As much as tau haters would like it the other way, its not the way it works.

We can make this pretty simple. You and I read the same rule. We have come to two different interpretations. I am fairly certain that you won't convince me and I'm fairly certain that I won't convince you. Ergo, the rule is ambiguous. I can certainly see how people arrive at the same conclusion you did, I just simply don't agree with it. I can probably be extended the same courtesy, that my opinion is not out of the realm of possibility even if you don't agree with it. Since we can't agree and until GW clarifies what they meant with a FAQ we don't have a concrete reason to side with either interpretation.

I've mentioned this in a different thread on the same topic, but really the ruling here doesn't matter to me. What does matter is that we have a clear ruling that's made before an event. In a tournament setting there is not enough time to hash out the reasons for playing the game one way or the other. That's why I support the ITC. They actually take the time to identify sloppy rule writing and address the issue before events. Whether I agree with their rulings or not is irrelevant to me in terms of my support. It keeps me from having pointless debates where neither side will convince the other one because we can't point to a page number to get a black or white answer.

The best way to judge the clarity of a rule is through technical writing and technical writing applied to rules.
https://learntechwriting.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/back-to-basics-the-10-golden-rules-of-technical-writing/
http://ryanmacklin.com/2015/02/11-rules-board-game-writing/

Following this, the Coordinated Firepower rule is fairly tight. It fails on using an active voice, but solid otherwise. This was an unnecessary change.

For the Holophoton Countermeasures, it changes its focus half way through the rule. The first half of the rule references only a single model and a single enemy unit, the second half references the unit now, but refers back to the single enemy unit in the first half. This is a mess of a rule in all regards and needed an FAQ, but was controversial in how it was done.

 Jancoran wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

I'm surprised that such great units like Mutilators and Warp Talons didn't make CSM appear more..

Pretty sure the Chaos Marine list didn't have them in it. So no real surprise on the result, Slayer-Fan.

Indeed. The CSM general was clearly competent, doing as good as he did with that codex, in particular avoiding trap choices.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

yeah going there isn't worth it. We can never really know.

The sisters of Battle showing sucked. We have got to mobilize the sistahs. We created a Facebook for that. I am hoping we get off the schneid and start organizing our various forces. I would love to see some Suisters at these things more frequently. It makes me want to go despite all my reservations, just to kick hiney with them.

I've got a nice sisters/BA combo list written up that I'd love to take to events...if I had money for sisters models!
Feel free to donate some and I'll gladly run em all the time.

Oh I have a lot of them. If you came I could loan them to you for the weekend. Do the whole late night painting roomate thing and then juts kick the doors in and say "We are come, destroyers of worlds.

If you don't like the ITC, don't play in it. I don't because you have "D" all around, but can't use a Warhound because they are too broken. 7th Ed is just Apoc light for all purposes.

But they do get cudoes for trying to clarify ambiguous GW rules.

Martel732 wrote:
"They did suck in 5th edition"

This is false. Eldrad + fortune + scatterwalkers + ruins = many, many unhappy lists.

Was it 4th or 5th edition that had the almost unhittable Eldar Skimmers with holofield projectors?

4th edition. This was Harlies in unkillable god-falcons. They then nerfed the god-falcons in 5th edition. Eldar's 5th edition codex was not updated throughout 5th so armies like Space Wolves and Grey Knights were in the ascendancy.

Eldar were strong in 3rd edition with seer villages and starcannon spam. We know what's happened with Eldar in 6th and 7th edition.

bogalubov wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
As I have stated before, the ITC gets no respect from me until the nerf bat hits the Eldar. Hard. Ban scatterlasers perhaps so they get to play the same game as the rest of us.

That's the thing of it. The Tau were not nerfed directly. The new Tau models got an abundance of units with ambiguous rules. When decisions were made how to interpret the rules, the more conservative interpretations were used. If GW explicitly wrote:
"and shooting as one unit allows all the special rules to be transferred" or

What are you saying? That the often quoted rule of an IC being part of the unit for all rules purposes suddenly has no bearing here? What's ambiguous in a unit of 1 buffmander and 9 crisis suits with target locks vs 1 buffmander in a unit of 3 crisis suits joining fire with 2 other units of 3 crisis suits? Suddenly our minds can't bend to fact that in both cases there's just one unit doing a shooting attack? Let's not kid ourselves here, please.

"the piranhas can enter from reserves and leave in the same movement phase" or

This ruling made sense, but it's not a rules clarification.

"countermeasures affect all models in the unit and the ability can be used by each model in the unit once"

It clearly states who the actor is here. Using the countermeasures does not benefit the unit, it affects the enemy. There's nothing ambiguous in that.

the Tau would not have been "nerfed".

What? So trying to limit scatterbikes to one heavy per a unit of three would have been because the rule was ambiguous? Or is it because people see them as being too powerful?

The rules for warp spiders were ambiguous and the less powerful interpretation of the rules was used.

While I agree with the ruling I don't see it being ambiguous either. There's no limitation saying it works once.

The only things that the ITC "nerfed" at the behest of its players was invisibility and 2+ re-rollable saves. If the actual vote to change the availability of scatter lasers passed, we'd never hear the end of the complaining.

Ooookay... See it your way.