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New overhauled Homebrew Codex, found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PJgPvxwnlULHga-ovkC3X5EpPgKsW1H9mrGVS54rh18/edit?usp=sharing

Broadly the army seems to small to fit into 40k easily. The units are too similar, there aren't enough weapons, and the psychic discipline doesn't feel focused or complete.

If I were you I'd go back to the source material and see if you can split the Beam/Blast ranged attacks up into a wider array of infantry weapons, cut the idea of across-the-board Brotherhood of Psykers in favour of quicker/easier rules to do the same thing (e.g. if you want everyone to have access to a long-distance teleport you may want to give them GK Interceptors' teleport shunt or Swooping Hawks' port-into-Reserves ability instead of making it a psychic power), and cut Soul Blaze (it's a clunky rule that doesn't have much effect on the game).

I do think you've succeeded in finding a game-role niche for the Codex that isn't easily replicated by other armies, and I like the shapeshifting dragon idea quite a lot. I don't know much about the source material but I think you could make quite an interesting 40k army book if you polished and expanded on this, and I look forward to seeing where you go with it.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Broadly the army seems to small to fit into 40k easily. The units are too similar, there aren't enough weapons, and the psychic discipline doesn't feel focused or complete.

If I were you I'd go back to the source material and see if you can split the Beam/Blast ranged attacks up into a wider array of infantry weapons, cut the idea of across-the-board Brotherhood of Psykers in favour of quicker/easier rules to do the same thing (e.g. if you want everyone to have access to a long-distance teleport you may want to give them GK Interceptors' teleport shunt or Swooping Hawks' port-into-Reserves ability instead of making it a psychic power), and cut Soul Blaze (it's a clunky rule that doesn't have much effect on the game).

I do think you've succeeded in finding a game-role niche for the Codex that isn't easily replicated by other armies, and I like the shapeshifting dragon idea quite a lot. I don't know much about the source material but I think you could make quite an interesting 40k army book if you polished and expanded on this, and I look forward to seeing where you go with it.

Feedback! Huzzah!

On Soul Blaze-it seemed fitting, but I'm definitely not married to it or anything. If it seems best for that to go, I'll remove it.

As for how to expand it, while I don't think I can do much with Eliatropes themselves, I could add some other races of the World of Twelve to them. Xelors and Iops, for instance, could be interesting additions, as well as fitting with the source material... Kinda.

Is there any reason I shouldn't keep it as a psychic power, though? It makes it only semi-reliable (though more so with the MFD) and comes at an opportunity cost (do you cast Teleport? Or some other power, like Portal Guard?).

Finally, do you think the points in general are balanced? I could definitely work on the army some more, but I'd like to know if what I have now is reasonably well-balanced.

I don't want to give specific points feedback because I'm recommending such sweeping changes. The most concrete thing I can recommend on balance right now are to reconsider the quick/easy do-everything possibilities for the dragons, as written your superheavy dragon is edging close to Wraithknight levels of over-the-top (remember that Gargantuan Creatures can fire all their weapons at different targets every turn).

If you can't expand the Eliatropes I don't think they've got enough substance to make an army out of. As is if you clean up and polish out the redundancy in the list you'll end up with three units (four, if the dragon remains distinct from the superheavy dragon) with identical game roles; if you can't split out and specialize your units more or create options/flexibility the end result isn't going to work very well.

As far as the teleport goes you can make the effect semi-reliable without making it a psychic power; your psychic powers don't seem to have a theme or personality beyond 'these are what Eliatropes do'. Giving your army a single psychic discipline that does everything takes choice away from the player and makes your psykers more powerful than the competition.

The other problem with across-the-board Brotherhood of Psykers is that most armies can't replicate the number of dice you're throwing out and you end up making the psychic phase non-reactive and dull (you get everything you need to off, your opponent can't cast everything).

Soul Blaze is rules slowdown, nothing more, nothing less. The idea is cool but it's out of scale for the game and requires lots of extra dice rolling that does nothing in most games.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I don't want to give specific points feedback because I'm recommending such sweeping changes. The most concrete thing I can recommend on balance right now are to reconsider the quick/easy do-everything possibilities for the dragons, as written your superheavy dragon is edging close to Wraithknight levels of over-the-top (remember that Gargantuan Creatures can fire all their weapons at different targets every turn).

If you can't expand the Eliatropes I don't think they've got enough substance to make an army out of. As is if you clean up and polish out the redundancy in the list you'll end up with three units (four, if the dragon remains distinct from the superheavy dragon) with identical game roles; if you can't split out and specialize your units more or create options/flexibility the end result isn't going to work very well.

As far as the teleport goes you can make the effect semi-reliable without making it a psychic power; your psychic powers don't seem to have a theme or personality beyond 'these are what Eliatropes do'. Giving your army a single psychic discipline that does everything takes choice away from the player and makes your psykers more powerful than the competition.

The other problem with across-the-board Brotherhood of Psykers is that most armies can't replicate the number of dice you're throwing out and you end up making the psychic phase non-reactive and dull (you get everything you need to off, your opponent can't cast everything).

Soul Blaze is rules slowdown, nothing more, nothing less. The idea is cool but it's out of scale for the game and requires lots of extra dice rolling that does nothing in most games.

I know that about Gargantuan Monstrous Creatures-but it's also 450 points. It's more expensive than a Knight Crusader, and nearly half again the price of an upgraded Wraithknight. (And, unlike the Wraithknight, lacks ranged D.)

I honestly don't see the redundancy you're talking about-that's like saying that Space Marines exist, so Devastators and Assault Marines don't need to. I could use some more units, but without more reasons why, I don't see the need to collapse the existing units into less.

I'll think about removing the Psykerness of the army. I'm not sure I should-I do want them to rock the Psychic Phase, seeing as they're pretty innately magical, but I'll think about it. See what others have to say about it. (They're no worse than Tzeentch Daemons or Grey knights in this way.)

Soul Blaze... Yeah, I'll get rid of it. It's thematic, but SUCH a useless rule.

Edit: In addition, the general theme of the Discipline is Portals, with an emphasis on movement. If you have ideas on how to make EVERYTHING in that discipline about movement, I'd be glad to hear it! (So.;.. Wakfu Sense probably needs to go. It doesn't fit.)

Plus, I don't think the Eliatrope Discipline does everything. It's a good Discipline, but it's not the be-all end-all.

JNAProductions wrote:
I know that about Gargantuan Monstrous Creatures-but it's also 450 points. It's more expensive than a Knight Crusader, and nearly half again the price of an upgraded Wraithknight. (And, unlike the Wraithknight, lacks ranged D.)

You've taken a unit that's at least 100pts underpriced, eliminated all of its weaknesses, given it a way to have effectively permanent Invisibility, and made it close to the strongest possible tool for dealing with any target that isn't a superheavy. For 450pts total. Do you want me to give you the numbers on how much better than a Knight Crusader or a Wraithknight it is?

I honestly don't see the redundancy you're talking about-that's like saying that Space Marines exist, so Devastators and Assault Marines don't need to. I could use some more units, but without more reasons why, I don't see the need to collapse the existing units into less.

Space Marines are a fantastic example of this concept done right. A Tactical Marine is a cheap ground-holder, an Assault Marine is a mobile close-quarters shock trooper, a Bike is a flanking light-cavalry artillery-hunter, and a Devastator is a backfield fire-support unit; this is achieved with a widely varied arsenal on a constant statline.

By contrast you've got five close-range jump riflemen units and a close-range jump melee unit with minor variants in statline. Your troops have the same speeds, effective ranges, and frequently the same optimal targets as each other. The end result is something more like Grey Knights, where everyone does close enough to the same thing that some of your units invalidate others by being strictly better

I'll think about removing the Psykerness of the army. I'm not sure I should-I do want them to rock the Psychic Phase, seeing as they're pretty innately magical, but I'll think about it. See what others have to say about it. (They're no worse than Tzeentch Daemons or Grey knights in this way.)

This is an implementation point. I play or have played Eldar, Tzeentch Daemons, and Grey Knights; in older editions of the game units that were 'psykers' frequently had passive/permanent effects (GK in the 3e book had Night Fighting spotting distance and S6 passively, described by the rules as psychic effects; Warlocks in the 4e Eldar book provided passive buffs to their units, and Pink Horrors used to just have a shooting attack); it made the game faster and it didn't invalidate other peoples' psykers the way the 7e psychic phase does. 'Inherently magical' shouldn't have to mean 'has Warp Charge that can be used to shut down 90% of Codexes' psychic game'.

Edit: In addition, the general theme of the Discipline is Portals, with an emphasis on movement. If you have ideas on how to make EVERYTHING in that discipline about movement, I'd be glad to hear it! (So.;.. Wakfu Sense probably needs to go. It doesn't fit.)

Plus, I don't think the Eliatrope Discipline does everything. It's a good Discipline, but it's not the be-all end-all.

Consider that everyone's Jump Infantry, I assume because they're all teleporting short distances, not because they have rocket packs. Why do you need to implement 'we teleport everywhere!' in two different places in your army book?

 AnomanderRake wrote:
You've taken a unit that's at least 100pts underpriced, eliminated all of its weaknesses, given it a way to have effectively permanent Invisibility, and made it close to the strongest possible tool for dealing with any target that isn't a superheavy. For 450pts total. Do you want me to give you the numbers on how much better than a Knight Crusader or a Wraithknight it is?

Space Marines are a fantastic example of this concept done right. A Tactical Marine is a cheap ground-holder, an Assault Marine is a mobile close-quarters shock trooper, a Bike is a flanking light-cavalry artillery-hunter, and a Devastator is a backfield fire-support unit; this is achieved with a widely varied arsenal on a constant statline.

By contrast you've got five close-range jump riflemen units and a close-range jump melee unit with minor variants in statline. Your troops have the same speeds, effective ranges, and frequently the same optimal targets as each other. The end result is something more like Grey Knights, where everyone does close enough to the same thing that some of your units invalidate others by being strictly better

This is an implementation point. I play or have played Eldar, Tzeentch Daemons, and Grey Knights; in older editions of the game units that were 'psykers' frequently had passive/permanent effects (GK in the 3e book had Night Fighting spotting distance and S6 passively, described by the rules as psychic effects; Warlocks in the 4e Eldar book provided passive buffs to their units, and Pink Horrors used to just have a shooting attack); it made the game faster and it didn't invalidate other peoples' psykers the way the 7e psychic phase does. 'Inherently magical' shouldn't have to mean 'has Warp Charge that can be used to shut down 90% of Codexes' psychic game'.

Consider that everyone's Jump Infantry, I assume because they're all teleporting short distances, not because they have rocket packs. Why do you need to implement 'we teleport everywhere!' in two different places in your army book?

I'll be honest-I only own the Knight Codex, not the Eldar Codex. So I'm going off memory of the store copy on the Wraithknight. But I'm not sure we're reading the same thing-how does it have permanent Invisibility?

Hrm. How would you advise differentiating units more? I'd like to keep the Jump unit type on pretty much everything except maybe Militia, but outside that, how would you change them to make them overlap less?

And alright. I'm kinda tired at the moment, so I won't do a complete overhaul at the moment, but tonight, I will overhaul them and remove most of the Psyker abilities.

JNAProductions wrote:
I'll be honest-I only own the Knight Codex, not the Eldar Codex. So I'm going off memory of the store copy on the Wraithknight. But I'm not sure we're reading the same thing-how does it have permanent Invisibility?

When flying you're only hit on 6s by ground targets, can't be hit by blasts/templates, and can't be hit in melee. I'm calling that roughly equivalent to Invisibility in most contexts.

Honestly the closest point of comparison I can find for your dragon isn't a Knight, it's An'ggrath the Unbound (the FGMC Daemon Lord). He's got two more Wounds, a 3++, two S7/AP2 shots at 12" range, Instant Death on 6s to wound, Denies on 2+, and has +d6 attacks when charging. You've got I8, frag grenades, three S10/AP5 shots, a S10/AP4 flamer, and a multimode weapon that can fire at S8/AP2 Hellstorm or Large Blast or S10/AP1 Lance or Blast, a 6++, four Warp Charge dice to hand to the rest of the army, Denial on 4+, and the ability to trade out your guns for more S10 flamers.

That comparison makes your dragon look quite a bit better than An'ggrath, honestly. And he's half the price.

(The other FMGC Daemon Lord does have arguably better shooting than your dragon, but he's also 999pts, has to stand still on the ground to shoot, and has to shoot friendlies if you let another MC get too close to him)

Hrm. How would you advise differentiating units more? I'd like to keep the Jump unit type on pretty much everything except maybe Militia, but outside that, how would you change them to make them overlap less?

If you're dead set on a jump army I'd strip it back to a jump/cav unit, a jump/shooty unit, and a jump/melee unit and work from that as a design space. I don't know the source material so I can't suggest a more specific method of categorizing units/abilities. Will do some research and get back to you another day.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

JNAProductions wrote:
I'll be honest-I only own the Knight Codex, not the Eldar Codex. So I'm going off memory of the store copy on the Wraithknight. But I'm not sure we're reading the same thing-how does it have permanent Invisibility?

When flying you're only hit on 6s by ground targets, can't be hit by blasts/templates, and can't be hit in melee. I'm calling that roughly equivalent to Invisibility in most contexts.

Honestly the closest point of comparison I can find for your dragon isn't a Knight, it's An'ggrath the Unbound (the FGMC Daemon Lord). He's got two more Wounds, a 3++, two S7/AP2 shots at 12" range, Instant Death on 6s to wound, Denies on 2+, and has +d6 attacks when charging. You've got I8, frag grenades, three S10/AP5 shots, a S10/AP4 flamer, and a multimode weapon that can fire at S8/AP2 Hellstorm or Large Blast or S10/AP1 Lance or Blast, a 6++, four Warp Charge dice to hand to the rest of the army, Denial on 4+, and the ability to trade out your guns for more S10 flamers.

That comparison makes your dragon look quite a bit better than An'ggrath, honestly. And he's half the price.

(The other FMGC Daemon Lord does have arguably better shooting than your dragon, but he's also 999pts, has to stand still on the ground to shoot, and has to shoot friendlies if you let another MC get too close to him)

Hrm. How would you advise differentiating units more? I'd like to keep the Jump unit type on pretty much everything except maybe Militia, but outside that, how would you change them to make them overlap less?

If you're dead set on a jump army I'd strip it back to a jump/cav unit, a jump/shooty unit, and a jump/melee unit and work from that as a design space. I don't know the source material so I can't suggest a more specific method of categorizing units/abilities. Will do some research and get back to you another day.

Flight. Dur. Now I feel like a dumb. I can't really think of how to scale back the Ancient Dragon, so I might just make it the Lord of Skulls equivalent-a ridiculously expensive Lord of War that should, in all rights, only be taken in 3,000+ Point games.

Would 800 points be a reasonable price tag on the Ancient?

Posting cus I cant find subscribe

 Dwarfmorf101 wrote:
Posting cus I cant find subscribe

Could you do me a favor and post some feedback? I really want to hear how I can make this army better balanced and more fun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay! I did what was suggested and pretty heavily overhauled the whole thing.

Find the new Homebrew Codex right here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PJgPvxwnlULHga-ovkC3X5EpPgKsW1H9mrGVS54rh18/edit?usp=sharing

Two of the disciplines aren't yet finished, but the Xelor one is about Time and the Eniripsa one is about healing. Suggestions are welcome!

I Just started the hobby, So I have no idea what would be good or not, sorry. I'm just watching to see other peoples insights so I might be able to learn something useful.