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One of the sad things about the DE codex is the limitation on what squads can take what weapons. GW made this limitation due to what units actually came with in their box sets.
I can understand this, but it really wasn't necessary, especially since most of the sets were designed to have interchangeable parts.

What I propose is to remove the notation on the special weapons that says "Scourges only", thereby allowing Kabalites, & Trueborn to have access to Haywire Blasters & Heatlances
Then I would make all "Dark Light" weapons AP1. There is no reason that a "Bright lance" and "Dark Lance" should be the exact same thing.

Now for the Shredder. I want to make this thing useful. At minimum it needs the "Monofilament" rule since it functions EXACTLY like the Death Spinner, Shadow weaver & Doom Spinner in the Eldar fluff.
It would also be nice to make it a template weapon since DE don't have a "standard" template, but we also want to keep it cheap, so str6 is out with these changes
So here is my proposed new profile for Shredders:

Str: 4, AP: - , Range: Template, Special rule: Monofilament

-

Ok, I would agree wholeheartedly with all of these.

If I were going to make a few other changes in a related vein:

Archons may now take any special weapon, instead of just blasters.

Add Disintegrators to the Heavy Weapon list. (15 points? 20?)

Add the following to the Special Weapon list:

Disintegrator Carbine: (15 points)
R24 S5 AP2 Salvo 1/2 (Alternatively, R18/Assault 2)

Add the following to the Heavy Weapon list:

Nerveshredder Cannon: (20 points, or 25 points but counts as a splinter weapon)
R36 S1 AP3 Salvo 2/3, Fleshbane, Shred

Haywire blaster trueborn would be quite nice.

I would also like to see the min squad size dropped to 4 or the max special weapons in a squad of trueborn increased to 5. It always feels gakky that you have one guy in your venom that is basically useless.

lusciifi wrote:
Haywire blaster trueborn would be quite nice.

I would also like to see the min squad size dropped to 4 or the max special weapons in a squad of trueborn increased to 5. It always feels gakky that you have one guy in your venom that is basically useless.

Or heck, just let the Dracon take a special/heavy weapon! I'd extend this to Sybarites, too: it'd actually give me a reason to take one. Squad of Warriors, heatlance, Sybarite with a heatlance? Cool.

jade_angel wrote:
If I were going to make a few other changes in a related vein:

Archons may now take any special weapon, instead of just blasters.

Add Disintegrators to the Heavy Weapon list. (15 points? 20?)

Yes to the Archon, but I don't think Dissies need to be carried by units. I can't explain why, it just doesn't "feel" right. Plus what would be the point with all the other weapons they'll now have access to?

jade_angel wrote:

Disintegrator Carbine: (15 points)
R24 S5 AP2 Salvo 1/2 (Alternatively, R18/Assault 2)

Add the following to the Heavy Weapon list:

Nerveshredder Cannon: (20 points, or 25 points but counts as a splinter weapon)
R36 S1 AP3 Salvo 2/3, Fleshbane, Shred

Those both sound cool and very DE, but I am attempting to stay within existing weapon options.
And the Nerveshredder is clearly designed to kill 1 particular unit. I would make it Poison 3+, Shred, AP2. Now it's an all around MC killer and not just designed to assassinate WKs

jade_angel wrote:

lusciifi wrote:
Haywire blaster trueborn would be quite nice.

I would also like to see the min squad size dropped to 4 or the max special weapons in a squad of trueborn increased to 5. It always feels gakky that you have one guy in your venom that is basically useless.

Or heck, just let the Dracon take a special/heavy weapon! I'd extend this to Sybarites, too: it'd actually give me a reason to take one. Squad of Warriors, heatlance, Sybarite with a heatlance? Cool.

Making Sybarites and Dracons able to take special weapons would be sweet, but I think it opens up too many cheese builds. Imagine a Venom spam list with min Kabalite units w/ 2 Haywire blasters. You could build a Dark Eldar "leaf blower" list too easily and it would be boring.

-

I always liked the idea of Shredders having 2 firing modes, so I'd go with:

Dispersed- R Template, S4, AP-, Assault 1, Monofiliment, Shred

Cluster- R18", S4, AP-, Assault 4, Monofiliment, Shred

I've said before I love the idea of a Nerveshredder Cannon, though I feel it's the kind of weapon that should be available only to Coven units, I could see this being amazing on a Talos and usable on a Wrack.

I like the idea of the Disintegrator Carbine, particualrly the Assault 2 version, though I've always felt the Dissies should all be bumped to S6, S5 Plasma really doesn't feel quite right.

Whats the point of making Dark Lances AP1? They'd still be useless being S8, Assault 1 and play second fiddle to heat Lances and Haywire Blasters. In my Homebrew codex I suggested bumping them to S9, AP2, Lance and make the Dark Scythe R24", S9, AP2, Heavy 2 and making them available to Ravagers as well as the Voidraven.

 Imateria wrote:
I always liked the idea of Shredders having 2 firing modes, so I'd go with:

Dispersed- R Template, S4, AP-, Assault 1, Monofiliment, Shred

Cluster- R18", S4, AP-, Assault 4, Monofiliment, Shred

I've said before I love the idea of a Nerveshredder Cannon, though I feel it's the kind of weapon that should be available only to Coven units, I could see this being amazing on a Talos and usable on a Wrack.

I like the idea of the Disintegrator Carbine, particualrly the Assault 2 version, though I've always felt the Dissies should all be bumped to S6, S5 Plasma really doesn't feel quite right.

Whats the point of making Dark Lances AP1? They'd still be useless being S8, Assault 1 and play second fiddle to heat Lances and Haywire Blasters. In my Homebrew codex I suggested bumping them to S9, AP2, Lance and make the Dark Scythe R24", S9, AP2, Heavy 2 and making them available to Ravagers as well as the Voidraven.

I like your Shredder idea. I'm not sure having 18" range 4 shot version would keep it at 5pts though. That's be more like 20pts, especially with Shred.
Speaking of Shred, I think having Shred on a Shredder makes sense. But so does Monofilament. The problem is that both those rules together can be broken.
If we add Shred, we need to lower the str again.
Therefore I would amend my earlier profile to this:

Shredder: R: template, Str 3, AP - , Monofiliment, Shred. Now it will wound most units on 5+, re-rolling and potentially get more 6's, but will have a harder time getting any wound on single model units.

And yes, making the Dark Lance str 9 Ap2 is a good way to set it apart from the Bright lance AND make it useful.

-

 Galef wrote:

Yes to the Archon, but I don't think Dissies need to be carried by units. I can't explain why, it just doesn't "feel" right. Plus what would be the point with all the other weapons they'll now have access to?

OK, conceded on that point.

 Galef wrote:

jade_angel wrote:

<snip>
Nerveshredder Cannon: (20 points, or 25 points but counts as a splinter weapon)
R36 S1 AP3 Salvo 2/3, Fleshbane, Shred

Those both sound cool and very DE, but I am attempting to stay within existing weapon options.
And the Nerveshredder is clearly designed to kill 1 particular unit. I would make it Poison 3+, Shred, AP2. Now it's an all around MC killer and not just designed to assassinate WKs

This is more intended to be a generic anti-GC weapon, since Poisoned only wounds GCs on a 6+, and AP3 is more so that it's not also the perfect anti-Riptide and anti-TEQ weapon. Maybe Fleshbane(4+) instead? Granted, WKs are the most seen GCs, but Stormsurges, Heirodules, Harridans and Heirophants were in my mind when I hatched this one, too.

 Galef wrote:

Making Sybarites and Dracons able to take special weapons would be sweet, but I think it opens up too many cheese builds. Imagine a Venom spam list with min Kabalite units w/ 2 Haywire blasters. You could build a Dark Eldar "leaf blower" list too easily and it would be boring.

Hmm, OK, fair point. Maybe Dracons but not Sybarites? And maybe only Heavy weapons, not specials? A Dracon with a splinter cannon or a nerveshredder could still contribute, but would be an expensive enough option to not be a no-brainer (and be an Elites choice).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galef wrote:

<snippity>
And yes, making the Dark Lance str 9 Ap2 is a good way to set it apart from the Bright lance AND make it useful.

As long as the Void Lance gets bumped up to S10 so it remains more effective than the Dark Lance, sure. (Not that Void Lances are amazing or anything, but they should be at least somewhat better. And there's not much other S10 available, so...)

 Galef wrote:

 Imateria wrote:
I always liked the idea of Shredders having 2 firing modes, so I'd go with:

Dispersed- R Template, S4, AP-, Assault 1, Monofiliment, Shred

Cluster- R18", S4, AP-, Assault 4, Monofiliment, Shred

I've said before I love the idea of a Nerveshredder Cannon, though I feel it's the kind of weapon that should be available only to Coven units, I could see this being amazing on a Talos and usable on a Wrack.

I like the idea of the Disintegrator Carbine, particualrly the Assault 2 version, though I've always felt the Dissies should all be bumped to S6, S5 Plasma really doesn't feel quite right.

Whats the point of making Dark Lances AP1? They'd still be useless being S8, Assault 1 and play second fiddle to heat Lances and Haywire Blasters. In my Homebrew codex I suggested bumping them to S9, AP2, Lance and make the Dark Scythe R24", S9, AP2, Heavy 2 and making them available to Ravagers as well as the Voidraven.

I like your Shredder idea. I'm not sure having 18" range 4 shot version would keep it at 5pts though. That's be more like 20pts, especially with Shred.
Speaking of Shred, I think having Shred on a Shredder makes sense. But so does Monofilament. The problem is that both those rules together can be broken.
If we add Shred, we need to lower the str again.
Therefore I would amend my earlier profile to this:

Shredder: R: template, Str 3, AP - , Monofiliment, Shred. Now it will wound most units on 5+, re-rolling and potentially get more 6's, but will have a harder time getting any wound on single model units.

And yes, making the Dark Lance str 9 Ap2 is a good way to set it apart from the Bright lance AND make it useful.

-

Yeah I was definitely thinking of a major points hike on the Shredder, to 10 or 15pts but I don't think it's worth 20, but I'd be completely against making it S3. There's a reason no one takes Liquifier Guns and it's not just the 15pts tag, also given that Monofiliment works against Initiative it would be all but useless against Eldar and many Daemons. Maybe a modified version of the monofiliment rule can be used instead so that it doesn't have AP2 on 6's.

 Imateria wrote:

Yeah I was definitely thinking of a major points hike on the Shredder, to 10 or 15pts but I don't think it's worth 20, but I'd be completely against making it S3. There's a reason no one takes Liquifier Guns and it's not just the 15pts tag, also given that Monofiliment works against Initiative it would be all but useless against Eldar and many Daemons. Maybe a modified version of the monofiliment rule can be used instead so that it doesn't have AP2 on 6's.

The difference here, though, is that Liquifiers are only str 3 and wound on T, which is usually 4 but can often be 5+ and has an unreliable AP.
My proposed Shredder would be str 3 with shred and wound vs initiative, of which there is no average.
There are whole armies that have I:2 (Necrons, Tau, Orks), but only 1 unit in the game is T2 (grots)

The re-roll to wound will get more 6's, and it makes perfect sense for I:5+ units to be able to "get out of the way" and avoid being wounded.
At str 3 we could keep it at 5pts, but str4 would need to be 10pts (which would be fine too)

-

 Galef wrote:
One of the sad things about the DE codex is the limitation on what squads can take what weapons. GW made this limitation due to what units actually came with in their box sets.
I can understand this, but it really wasn't necessary, especially since most of the sets were designed to have interchangeable parts.

What I propose is to remove the notation on the special weapons that says "Scourges only", thereby allowing Kabalites, & Trueborn to have access to Haywire Blasters & Heatlances
Then I would make all "Dark Light" weapons AP1. There is no reason that a "Bright lance" and "Dark Lance" should be the exact same thing.

Now for the Shredder. I want to make this thing useful. At minimum it needs the "Monofilament" rule since it functions EXACTLY like the Death Spinner, Shadow weaver & Doom Spinner in the Eldar fluff.
It would also be nice to make it a template weapon since DE don't have a "standard" template, but we also want to keep it cheap, so str6 is out with these changes
So here is my proposed new profile for Shredders:

Str: 4, AP: - , Range: Template, Special rule: Monofilament

-

I support all of these ideas, Archon Galef. Excellent suggestion. On the subject of the shredder, I think your proposed rules would work well, but I'd kind of like to propose upping the strength of the liquifier to 4 again and increasing the points cost by 5. This would mean that the liquifier would arguably step on your shredder's toes as a strength 4 template that sometimes ignores good armor. Perhaps the liquifier gun should simply be changed to strength 1 poison 4+ instead? It would wound equally well against everything short of a GMC, but the shredder would have a chance of wounding more regularly against low initiative things.

Alternatively, how would you guys feel about leaving the shredder as is but giving it monofilament? I know small blasts aren't popular, but monofilament would make them okay against terminators, MCs, etc. while also letting them be half-decent against transports.

 Galef wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

Yeah I was definitely thinking of a major points hike on the Shredder, to 10 or 15pts but I don't think it's worth 20, but I'd be completely against making it S3. There's a reason no one takes Liquifier Guns and it's not just the 15pts tag, also given that Monofiliment works against Initiative it would be all but useless against Eldar and many Daemons. Maybe a modified version of the monofiliment rule can be used instead so that it doesn't have AP2 on 6's.

The difference here, though, is that Liquifiers are only str 3 and wound on T, which is usually 4 but can often be 5+ and has an unreliable AP.
My proposed Shredder would be str 3 with shred and wound vs initiative, of which there is no average.
There are whole armies that have I:2 (Necrons, Tau, Orks), but only 1 unit in the game is T2 (grots)

The re-roll to wound will get more 6's, and it makes perfect sense for I:5+ units to be able to "get out of the way" and avoid being wounded.
At str 3 we could keep it at 5pts, but str4 would need to be 10pts (which would be fine too)

-

The average is I4, because most people play Marines. Saddly Eldar firepower and Marine stats are the two most important things to take into account, the former being the benchmark and the latter being the most popular type of army found in the game by some way. Yes, there are multiple factions where I2 and 3 are the norm but they'll be seen considerably less than Marines for most people. I'm perfectly OK with the Shredder being more expensive and made S4 with the profile I gave it, if it was S3 I'd probably never use it and just stick to Blasters, Heat Lances or Haywire Blasters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyldhunt wrote:

 Galef wrote:
One of the sad things about the DE codex is the limitation on what squads can take what weapons. GW made this limitation due to what units actually came with in their box sets.
I can understand this, but it really wasn't necessary, especially since most of the sets were designed to have interchangeable parts.

What I propose is to remove the notation on the special weapons that says "Scourges only", thereby allowing Kabalites, & Trueborn to have access to Haywire Blasters & Heatlances
Then I would make all "Dark Light" weapons AP1. There is no reason that a "Bright lance" and "Dark Lance" should be the exact same thing.

Now for the Shredder. I want to make this thing useful. At minimum it needs the "Monofilament" rule since it functions EXACTLY like the Death Spinner, Shadow weaver & Doom Spinner in the Eldar fluff.
It would also be nice to make it a template weapon since DE don't have a "standard" template, but we also want to keep it cheap, so str6 is out with these changes
So here is my proposed new profile for Shredders:

Str: 4, AP: - , Range: Template, Special rule: Monofilament

-

I support all of these ideas, Archon Galef. Excellent suggestion. On the subject of the shredder, I think your proposed rules would work well, but I'd kind of like to propose upping the strength of the liquifier to 4 again and increasing the points cost by 5. This would mean that the liquifier would arguably step on your shredder's toes as a strength 4 template that sometimes ignores good armor. Perhaps the liquifier gun should simply be changed to strength 1 poison 4+ instead? It would wound equally well against everything short of a GMC, but the shredder would have a chance of wounding more regularly against low initiative things.

Alternatively, how would you guys feel about leaving the shredder as is but giving it monofilament? I know small blasts aren't popular, but monofilament would make them okay against terminators, MCs, etc. while also letting them be half-decent against transports.

Unless your going to make the Liquifier gun a guaranteed AP2 there is no reason to up the cost of it, it's already significantly overcosted at 15pts. I'd be happy with either of your suggestions, upping it to S4 or Poison (4+), and keeping the AP D6, both would make it much more usable and maybe even worht it's current cost. Also sets it appart from the Medusae's Eye Beam S4, AP3 flamer.

As for the Shredder, if you keep it a small blast you'd have to make it Strength D for me to remotely consider ever using it, since there's no way to up the BS or give re-rolls to hit to units that can take the Shredder I avoid small blast weapons like the plague as they almost always miss.

Oops! I was thinking liquifiers were 10 points these days. Yeah, 15 points for a poison 4+ template with apd6 seems like a good fit to me. It would be a solid anti-bike weapon that could help out in overwatch.

We've probably had different experiences with small blasts. What I've found is that small blasts usually don't miss entirely. They still usually hit a vehicle if I center the blast, and they usually catch a single model (but usually no more than that) in an enemy infantry unit.

I'm not opposed to the shredder being a template though. It would be a nice call back to older warp spider rules without being broken. Just to double check though, we'd be talking about something along these lines as far as templates in the dark eldar army:

Liquifier Gun: S1, Apd6, Poison(4+)
Shredder: S3, Ap -, Monofilament, Shred
Eye Beam: S4, Ap3
Spirit Syphon(?): S3, AP3

Does that seem like a reasonable amount of diversity to everyone? No weapons stepping on one anothers' toes? I kind of feel like putting Shred on the shreddermeans that it will consistently wound things with relatively high initiative and often ignore their armor when it does so. This kind of feels like it steps on the toes of the liquifier to me. Would it be unreasonable to have the shredder simply be S4 and lose Shred? This would make it better against low initiative targets but flatly worse than a liquifier against higher initiative targets (anything initiative 5 or higher) thus giving the liquifier more of a niche.

It's called a Shredder for a reason, and like I said I'd be completely against it being S3.

I think you proved my point with small blasts, if all your getting is a single model with a template whos sple purpose is to hit multiple models with a single shot then it was a complete waste.

lusciifi wrote:
Haywire blaster trueborn would be quite nice.

I would also like to see the min squad size dropped to 4 or the max special weapons in a squad of trueborn increased to 5. It always feels gakky that you have one guy in your venom that is basically useless.

Am I missing something here? Give the 5th guy a heavy weapon...

Up to four Kabalite Trueborn may take items from the Special Weapons list.
Up to two Kabalite Trueborn may take items from the Heavy Weapons list.

Crispy78 wrote:

lusciifi wrote:
Haywire blaster trueborn would be quite nice.

I would also like to see the min squad size dropped to 4 or the max special weapons in a squad of trueborn increased to 5. It always feels gakky that you have one guy in your venom that is basically useless.

Am I missing something here? Give the 5th guy a heavy weapon...

Up to four Kabalite Trueborn may take items from the Special Weapons list.
Up to two Kabalite Trueborn may take items from the Heavy Weapons list.

As for trueborn, they don't serve the same roles. The dark lance is heavy so I would never mix them with blasters. Basically you just wasted 20 points for a single snap shoting lance. Splinter cannons generally don't want to be targeting the same thing as blasters and trueborn with splinter cannons are really points inefficient anyways.

And to top it all off, scourges are capped at 4 special/heavy weapons total.

lusciifi wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:

lusciifi wrote:
Haywire blaster trueborn would be quite nice.

I would also like to see the min squad size dropped to 4 or the max special weapons in a squad of trueborn increased to 5. It always feels gakky that you have one guy in your venom that is basically useless.

Am I missing something here? Give the 5th guy a heavy weapon...

Up to four Kabalite Trueborn may take items from the Special Weapons list.
Up to two Kabalite Trueborn may take items from the Heavy Weapons list.

As for trueborn, they don't serve the same roles. The dark lance is heavy so I would never mix them with blasters. Basically you just wasted 20 points for a single snap shoting lance. Splinter cannons generally don't want to be targeting the same thing as blasters and trueborn with splinter cannons are really points inefficient anyways.

And to top it all off, scourges are capped at 4 special/heavy weapons total.

There's also the problem that you can't stick an IC with the unit and still put it in a Venom, an anoying change over the previous codex that had a min squad size of 3.

And yes, completely removing the weapon cap on Scourges would be great.

 Imateria wrote:
It's called a Shredder for a reason, and like I said I'd be completely against it being S3.

I think you proved my point with small blasts, if all your getting is a single model with a template whos sple purpose is to hit multiple models with a single shot then it was a complete waste.

I'm not a huge fan of small blasts, but I think we're looking at them from different perspectives. To me, a small blast isn't really a way to hit multiple models; it's a way to not have to worry about rolling a 1 or 2 on a to-hit roll. If you're shooting a vehicle or a unit where models aren't especially well spread out, you're pretty likely to hit at least one guy with the shredder. Those rare times you hit multiple guys are kind of a bonus. But I'm not married to the small blast thing.

The bigger issue with the small blast is the range. It's entirely possible for a 12" range weapon (that you will probably be close than 12" to use it) to scatter back onto you. For AV10 transports and T3 models that rely on FNP, that str 6 hit is gonna hurt.

Making it a template gives Kabal units a flamer option (as right now the only flamers are in Coven units and the Court) as well as making the Shredder a usefull option for any platform that can take it. It needs to be cheap though, since every other factions "flamer" is 5pts only, which is why Str 3 makes sense.
I think we are all in agreement that adding Monofilament and Shred should be mandatory for any change, just for fluff reasons. But by doing that, having str4 makes it too much of a bargain for 5pts, as you know have what equates to a regular flamer with Rending and Shred. Having str3 balances it better against other army's flamers.

-

What if I don't like the Monofiliment rule to start with? I went back to my homebrew DE codex and this was what I had for the Shredder

Shredder

Range S AP Type
Focussed 18” 5 5 Assault 4, Bind, Shred

Dispersed Template 5 5 Assault 1, Bind, Shred

Bind: A unit that suffers at least 1 unsaved wound from a weapon with this special rule must immediately pass an Initiative Test, if failed the unit counts it's Weapon Skill and Initiative as 1 in the controlling players next turn.

Looking at it again, I'd drop the AP5 for - and change the consequence of the failed Initiative check to -1 on WS, BS, I and A, to a minimum of 1 until the end of the targets next turn. Bind would make a good replacement fo monofiliment IMO. Yes, it would be more expensive than the current 5 point and useless Shredder, but I see no reason why we should aim to match the current points cost or make it a direct analogue to the flamer.

I like the idea of giving the shredder the monofilament rule as it is a monofilament weapon. I like the consistency there. For similar reasons, I'd kind of like it to be strength 6. Deathspinners, spinerette rifles, harlequin kisses, harlequin embraces, shadow weavers, and night spinners are all strength 6. The only exception I can think of are Skathatch knight weapons.

So for the sake of consistency, I kind of like the idea of the shredder having some sort of strength 6 monofilament profile.

I also agree, however, that there's no harm in upping its cost to something higher.

What about giving it two profiles? One that's basically a warp spider's death spinner, and one that's a lower strength template. Something like:

Profile 1: see Death Spinner
Profile 2: strength 3, Ap -, monofilament, template

The first profile would be sufficiently different from a blaster to avoid stepping on its toes while still giving dark eldar a potential anti-vehicle weapon with a decent volume of fire. You would use it against MCs, vehicles, etc.

The second profile would be for mopping up infantry, maybe hunting bikes, etc. Basically, you would use it any time you need to ignore cover or simply need to hit lots of low initiative guys all at once.

Considering you'd either only have 1 per squad or else would have to take multiple shredders on the more expensive scourge and trueborn platforms, I feel that 10 or 15 points would be reasonable for such a weapon.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Imateria wrote:
What if I don't like the Monofiliment rule to start with? I went back to my homebrew DE codex and this was what I had for the Shredder

Shredder

Range S AP Type
Focussed 18” 5 5 Assault 4, Bind, Shred

Dispersed Template 5 5 Assault 1, Bind, Shred

Bind: A unit that suffers at least 1 unsaved wound from a weapon with this special rule must immediately pass an Initiative Test, if failed the unit counts it's Weapon Skill and Initiative as 1 in the controlling players next turn.

Looking at it again, I'd drop the AP5 for - and change the consequence of the failed Initiative check to -1 on WS, BS, I and A, to a minimum of 1 until the end of the targets next turn. Bind would make a good replacement fo monofiliment IMO. Yes, it would be more expensive than the current 5 point and useless Shredder, but I see no reason why we should aim to match the current points cost or make it a direct analogue to the flamer.

I don't dislike this idea either though. I prefer my idea purely because I feel it's more consistent with other monofilament-related weapons and because Bind, while cool, would make the weapon slightly more complicated to explain to opponents. Cool idea.

@ Wyldhunt:
Ok, I like that idea. str 6 Death Spinner profile, or the str3 flamer profile, both with Monofilament. though I think it also needs Shred in both cases (because it is a "Shredder")
At that point, it would have to be 15pts just for the shear versatility. Otherwise there would be little reason to take a Blaster in 5-man Venom squads.

and btw, Night Spinners are another exception to the Str6, they are 7 like the Skathach Knight.

-

 Galef wrote:
@ Wyldhunt:
Ok, I like that idea. str 6 Death Spinner profile, or the str3 flamer profile, both with Monofilament. though I think it also needs Shred in both cases (because it is a "Shredder")
At that point, it would have to be 15pts just for the shear versatility. Otherwise there would be little reason to take a Blaster in 5-man Venom squads.

and btw, Night Spinners are another exception to the Str6, they are 7 like the Skathach Knight.

-

Are they? I could have sworn they got dropped down to 6 in the newest codex. I may be playing mine wrong. XD

I'm not completely married to the idea of shred (despite the name) for a couple reasons:
* It would make the death spinner profile even better than a spider's spinner, which seems odd.
* No other monofilament weapons have shred.
* It does funny things to the weapon's effectiveness against higher-initiative targets. Without shred, it's mostly a way to deny cover saves or put lots of wounds on orks and necrons. With shred, the reroll actually makes you more likely to generate armor-ignoring wounds. I'm not sure on my math here, but wouldn't it actually be preferable to hit two jinking bikers with a strength 3 shred template than with a two shot death spinner? The death spinner is more likely to generate normal wounds, but the bikes will ignore 2/3 of those with their power armor saves. The lower strength shredder won't generate normal wounds, but all of its wounds will ignore both armor and cover. I could be wrong.
* I worry that, by upping the likelihood of the shredder to generate armor-ignoring wounds against high-toughness targets, you step on the toes of other armor-ignoring templates like medusae and liquifiers. Even if liquifiers were poison 4+ (as I suggested above), they'd still be losing ground to a shredding monofilament shreddera against high toughness targets because any wounds generated will also ignore armor.

I'm not totally against the idea of giving them shred, but the name alone shouldn't be why they have shred. Are we sure we like what giving them shred does to the math?

Wyldhunt wrote:

 Galef wrote:
@ Wyldhunt:
Ok, I like that idea. str 6 Death Spinner profile, or the str3 flamer profile, both with Monofilament. though I think it also needs Shred in both cases (because it is a "Shredder")
At that point, it would have to be 15pts just for the shear versatility. Otherwise there would be little reason to take a Blaster in 5-man Venom squads.

and btw, Night Spinners are another exception to the Str6, they are 7 like the Skathach Knight.

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Are they? I could have sworn they got dropped down to 6 in the newest codex. I may be playing mine wrong. XD

I'm not completely married to the idea of shred (despite the name) for a couple reasons:
* It would make the death spinner profile even better than a spider's spinner, which seems odd.
* No other monofilament weapons have shred.
* It does funny things to the weapon's effectiveness against higher-initiative targets. Without shred, it's mostly a way to deny cover saves or put lots of wounds on orks and necrons. With shred, the reroll actually makes you more likely to generate armor-ignoring wounds. I'm not sure on my math here, but wouldn't it actually be preferable to hit two jinking bikers with a strength 3 shred template than with a two shot death spinner? The death spinner is more likely to generate normal wounds, but the bikes will ignore 2/3 of those with their power armor saves. The lower strength shredder won't generate normal wounds, but all of its wounds will ignore both armor and cover. I could be wrong.
* I worry that, by upping the likelihood of the shredder to generate armor-ignoring wounds against high-toughness targets, you step on the toes of other armor-ignoring templates like medusae and liquifiers. Even if liquifiers were poison 4+ (as I suggested above), they'd still be losing ground to a shredding monofilament shreddera against high toughness targets because any wounds generated will also ignore armor.

I'm not totally against the idea of giving them shred, but the name alone shouldn't be why they have shred. Are we sure we like what giving them shred does to the math?

This is why I'm not a huge fan of the current Monofiliment rule, the moment you start throwing re-rolls into the mix it can become obscenely leathel. Never understood why it wounds against Initiative either, I mean it's a cloud of wires being whipped around so how fast you move isn't going to matter.

I'm pretty sure monofilament is supposed to be a single atom in width. The idea is monofilament is that it dosn't matter how tough you are. If you don't get out of the way you will take significant damage.

lusciifi wrote:
I'm pretty sure monofilament is supposed to be a single atom in width. The idea is monofilament is that it dosn't matter how tough you are. If you don't get out of the way you will take significant damage.

Right, the slower you are, the more of the monofilament thread will get on you, thus the more you'll have to struggle to get it off, thus you'll get cut more and have a higher chance at getting significantly wounded.

I was re-reading the Shredder fluff description yesterday and the word "monofilament" is in the freakin' description.
But as WyldHunt pointed out, there are other "monofilament" weapons such as the Harlequins' Kiss and Embrace that do not actually have the Monofilament rule
So it would be perfectly fine if the Shredder didn't have monofilament as the weapon design might function slightly different than the Eldar monofilament weapons.

The important change that I want to see most is making it a template instead of a blast. If that was the only change made, I would be happy.

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^I think we can all agree to that last part.

Yeah, I'd definitely second that. It'd give me a reason to actually use a Shredder, for one.

So if we wanted to avoid putting monofilament on the shredder and give it the template rule, what would we want it to look like exactly?

Just a strength 6 AP- template? Possibly with rending? That would need to be somewhat more expensive than it is now, but it would still be a neat option.

I kind of like the idea of making it higher strength if the model firing it is in a transport, representing the idea that you shoot out molecule-thin wire and then zoom past them, slicing them up with the unspooled wire. But that gets complicated and unwieldy considering combat speed rules, etc.

What does a deathwatch frag cannon cost, 20? Because thats a 2 shot S6 rending template with an extra profile. I would say no more then 10, even with S6 shred rending.