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 Vaktathi wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
And that is why 4E vehicle rules would be acceptable. Skimmers should only be hit on 6s. I could see 5+ if they Embarked or Disembarked or Hovered during the movement phase. Regardless, Skimmers would only be hit on the Side, not the Rear, because they expect to take fire from below, whereas Tanks don't expect to be attacked from above.

I guess I just don't see why they should only be hit on 6's, they're not flying ultra high, and the undercarriage of a skimmer shouldn't be any less vulnerable than "rear" on anything else, probably moreso looking at most of my skimmer models (particularly those Eldar ones), and it's certainly hard to see a good game balance reason for such. I could live with it if there was a meaningful cost difference between skimmers and non-skimmers, but there really isn't and never has been.

The 4E rules were especially egregious. Skimmers that moved 6" a turn couldn't be penetrated, only glanced. Penetrating hits killed on a 4+ and also forced a disembark automatically and a pinning test for transports, while penetrating explodes or Annihilated results would cause heavy damage or total annihilation of passengers (that Skimmers were, again, immune to). Skimmers were only ever hit on 6's in CC regardless of if it moved or not (while a non-skimmer was auto-hit if it didn't move), and almost all Skimmers were Fast or could fire as if they were Fast so they all always moved at that 6" (and could simply always declared they moved 6" and end up back in the same spot). Their supposed downside was that they were killed if they were Immobilized and had moved over 6", but then the only race that had to deal with that was Dark Eldar because Eldar and Tau all had wargear to negate that drawback. All that on top of getting to ignore terrain while moving. Tracked tanks and walkers had zero advantages to counterbalance that.

Skimmer bonuses always felt like "well they just get to be better just because", rather than some rational tradeoff of mobility versus durability with tracked tanks. Comparing vehicles with similar stats, roles, and costs between the two types, it's hard to see where Skimmers need such bonuses over their tracked counterparts.

Let's be clear that pretty much all Skimmers are Helicopter or V/STOL equivalents. That means there should be ZERO chance to hit them with a sword unless they are sitting on the ground. Flying low is still like 50 feet off the ground, not 5 feet off the ground. If it's a balance issue, simply have ALL hits be Penetrating or reduce Hull Points by one... High risk / High reward.

4E handled things much more reasonably.

The problem is that 7E breaks immersion. 4E didn't. That's the difference.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
And that is why 4E vehicle rules would be acceptable. Skimmers should only be hit on 6s. I could see 5+ if they Embarked or Disembarked or Hovered during the movement phase. Regardless, Skimmers would only be hit on the Side, not the Rear, because they expect to take fire from below, whereas Tanks don't expect to be attacked from above.

I guess I just don't see why they should only be hit on 6's, they're not flying ultra high, and the undercarriage of a skimmer shouldn't be any less vulnerable than "rear" on anything else, probably moreso looking at most of my skimmer models (particularly those Eldar ones), and it's certainly hard to see a good game balance reason for such. I could live with it if there was a meaningful cost difference between skimmers and non-skimmers, but there really isn't and never has been.

The 4E rules were especially egregious. Skimmers that moved 6" a turn couldn't be penetrated, only glanced. Penetrating hits killed on a 4+ and also forced a disembark automatically and a pinning test for transports, while penetrating explodes or Annihilated results would cause heavy damage or total annihilation of passengers (that Skimmers were, again, immune to). Skimmers were only ever hit on 6's in CC regardless of if it moved or not (while a non-skimmer was auto-hit if it didn't move), and almost all Skimmers were Fast or could fire as if they were Fast so they all always moved at that 6" (and could simply always declared they moved 6" and end up back in the same spot). Their supposed downside was that they were killed if they were Immobilized and had moved over 6", but then the only race that had to deal with that was Dark Eldar because Eldar and Tau all had wargear to negate that drawback. All that on top of getting to ignore terrain while moving. Tracked tanks and walkers had zero advantages to counterbalance that.

Skimmer bonuses always felt like "well they just get to be better just because", rather than some rational tradeoff of mobility versus durability with tracked tanks. Comparing vehicles with similar stats, roles, and costs between the two types, it's hard to see where Skimmers need such bonuses over their tracked counterparts.

Let's be clear that pretty much all Skimmers are Helicopter or V/STOL equivalents.

That wouldn't seem to apply to all skimmers, and certainly not necessarily when they're operating at the level of 40k battle is portraying. Sure, Wave Serpents or Land Speeders might meet that in some ways, but not necessarily a Devil Fish or Ghost Ark or the like.

That means there should be ZERO chance to hit them with a sword unless they are sitting on the ground.

There should be 0 chance for a sword wielded by anything less than a flying warp spawned megademon to hurt anything in the first place on a tank, but that's another conversation

Flying low is still like 50 feet off the ground, not 5 feet off the ground.

That would be the first time I've ever heard of that interpretation. Most portrayals do not show them flying like that, especially non-Eldar skimmers. Most skimmers are not Wave Serpents. Flyer transports are operating at treetop height like that, but Skimmer portrayals of things like Hammerheads or Ghost Arks or Annihilation Barges and Devilfish are almost exclusively just a few feet off the ground, and even most portrayals of Eldar and Dark Eldar skimmer show them just a few feet above the ground, being capable of higher level flight for long distance travel cruising but not generally operating at such heights during battle.

If it's a balance issue, simply have ALL hits be Penetrating or reduce Hull Points by one... High risk / High reward.

Sure if we must, as long as there's a meaningful downside to skimmer bonuses.

The problem is that 7E breaks immersion. 4E didn't. That's the difference.

Hrm, having a Leman Russ blow up when a single bolt pistol shoots it in the butt and it explodes on a lucky 6 or a Rhino have to auto-disembark because a Big Shoota penetrated it once was pretty ridiculous, also vehicles being unable to take cover saves...and the 4E Eldar Invinci-skimmers weren't fun for anyone but the Eldar players, that's when I started my Eldar

Vehicles didn't work right in 4E and non-skimmer transports were effectively useless, there was a huge skimmer vs non-skimmer gap, just like we have now. 5E was really the only edition that didn't have a fundamental core imbalance between skimmers and non-skimmers, skimmers got a cover save for moving with a meaningful downside, the big issue was that half the big skimmer armies didn't get a codex update during the edition, but the skimmer armies that did get 5E updates (DE and Necrons) did very solidly.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
In other words, buff Craftworld Eldar even more.

No thanks.

In an ideal scenario, additional changes would be made to the Eldar to make them not as powerful.
The first step is to not let Phil Kelly anywhere near them. The second step to make limit the availability of scatter lasers, make the strong weapons shorter ranged, and make the eldar vehicles considerably more fragile, en par with Dark Eldar vehicles.

Remove assorted restrictions on what vehicles can fire on the move so they can become a genuine threat beyond Fast Vehicles or Superheavies. (Or POTMS Iron Hands too).

Make "War Hymn"-style prayers universal to "priest" Characters, and make such characters more prevalent among armies. For example, Chaplains/Dark Apostles should get assorted hymn options, as well as characters like Aun'va, or even Ghaz (he is da Profit of da Waaagh, after all...)

ALL of my skimmers are Eldar Falcon-class hulls, Land Speeders or Valkyrie models. ALL are shown flying high in the artwork. NONE of those should be vulnerable to Assault except when disembarking. 4E handled them correctly.

Now, if you want to argue that Tau / Necron skimmers are actually ground effect hovercraft, that's fine. I'd be OK with that.

But I wouldn't agree with that for the atmospheric craft.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
ALL of my skimmers are Eldar Falcon-class hulls, Land Speeders or Valkyrie models. ALL are shown flying high in the artwork. NONE of those should be vulnerable to Assault except when disembarking. 4E handled them correctly.

Now, if you want to argue that Tau / Necron skimmers are actually ground effect hovercraft, that's fine. I'd be OK with that.

But I wouldn't agree with that for the atmospheric craft.

I have always understood that Eldar tanks are used in similar manner to the old Centurion Grav tanks - you can fly with them but they are horibly vulnerable when they do so. usually they will stay near the ground and cover.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
ALL of my skimmers are Eldar Falcon-class hulls, Land Speeders or Valkyrie models. ALL are shown flying high in the artwork. NONE of those should be vulnerable to Assault except when disembarking. 4E handled them correctly.

Now, if you want to argue that Tau / Necron skimmers are actually ground effect hovercraft, that's fine. I'd be OK with that.

But I wouldn't agree with that for the atmospheric craft.

Valkyries are Flyers, they were only Skimmers when Flyers didnt have rules. Now, if you want Eldar tanks and Land Speeders to be Flyers, there may be some case for that, but thats a different argument than skimmer bonuses. From what I recall stuff like Eldar tanks dont fight while flying if they can help it, its essentially a supercruise transport mode and they drop altitude and speed to actually fight, there used to be an Apoc formation that allowed certain Eldar vehicles to act as Flyers but IIRC they couldnt shoot to reflect that. Ill have to look it up again.

OK, fine, make the Eldar tanks and Landspeeders Flyers like the Valkyrie. Done.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
OK, fine, make the Eldar tanks and Landspeeders Flyers like the Valkyrie. Done.

Soon as they drop to AV10 and increase in price.

Because Falcons aren't expensive enough already?

Valkyries are AV12/12/10 and they're not cheap, nor particularly good.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Let's be clear that pretty much all Skimmers are Helicopter or V/STOL equivalents. That means there should be ZERO chance to hit them with a sword unless they are sitting on the ground. Flying low is still like 50 feet off the ground, not 5 feet off the ground. If it's a balance issue, simply have ALL hits be Penetrating or reduce Hull Points by one... High risk / High reward.

4E handled things much more reasonably.

The problem is that 7E breaks immersion. 4E didn't. That's the difference.

Even in 4th it had some problems. Skimmers were still gaining cover form low-height terrain, the "Skimmers do not block LOS" was not so immersive for the Monolith.

Much earlier in 2nd, Skimmers were explicitly closer to the ground, but could make a "pop up attack" in the shooting phase.

I don't think it's a safe assumption that they're all supposed to constantly be 50+ feet off the ground.

Back in 2E, the only skimmers were Eldar and Landspeeders. There were no Valkyries, no Necron vehicles, no Tau at all, no Dark Eldar, either... I can accept Tau / Necron stuff as hovercraft, and getting hit as such.

Eldar Falcons and Landspeeders and Valks are helicopter-like V/STOL.

Well, if you want to get technical, in 1st edition "hoverers" and 2nd edition "skimmers", float a foot or so above the ground, but are then able to pass over terrain features without hindrance. In 1st Ed. this is in comparison to Flyers, which had an "Air Speed" (and no Ground Speed), which explicitly covered units like helicopters.

While I think Land Speeders and Falcons are capable of limited (or maybe even unlimited) flight in the description or fluff, their rules history is that they don't enter combat like that. Once in battle they're more or less hugging the ground.

Does anyone else notice the trend for bad rules where someone claims something needs to be "balanced" but then their suggestion for that thing is instead to make something "fluffy" or "immersive"?

The falcon is a transport, so unless every eldar unit eldar had grav chutes this whole time and forgot to tell us, I imagine they need to be close to the ground to disembark. Since they can disembark/Embark at any point, they must always be close to the ground.

If we are in the market for giving powerful armies buffs why can't my monolith just land on people, give it the stomp rule or something. It makes sense from the fluff perspective, but it's flying rodent gak crazy from a rules perspective.

 Grimgold wrote:
The falcon is a transport, so unless every eldar unit eldar had grav chutes this whole time and forgot to tell us, I imagine they need to be close to the ground to disembark. Since they can disembark/Embark at any point, they must always be close to the ground.

That's a non-sequitur. It only needs to be close to the ground while it embarks / disembarks, like a helo touch & go for fast roping...

It's not like modern helicopters spend their time at walking speed a foot off the ground...

Eldar tanks are very much tanks really, their physical design strongly suggests very low level flight and operating in a 2D environment. They have armor over the top, fore, and sides, but not the rear or more critically underneath (where an aircraft would take most fire), suggesting a primarily 2d threat profile and operating mode, and just about every camo and color scheme seen follows the same pattern. A Valkyrie is a true aircraft and is built as such, whereas something like a Falcon or Wave Serpent is more a tank that *can* fly to make operational or strategic level redeployments than an actual flyer running around at dozens or hundreds of meters of altitude in a tactical engagement. Id be fine with giving them a flight mode at a cost bump where they cant fire or count as AV10 (to represent exposed unarmored bits) or something, but their physical design and longstanding non-differentiation from other hovertanks suggests that they generally arent much more than a few feet off the ground in combat *most* of the time.

We already have units for modern helicopter analogs, Flyers with hover. That is not what a falcon is.

I invite you to look at the GW canon artwork for the Falcon-class Grav-Tanks:





They are well above the ground.

So are Dark Eldar Reavers. Are they fliers now?

 Vaktathi wrote:
Eldar tanks are very much tanks really, their physical design strongly suggests very low level flight and operating in a 2D environment. They have armor over the top, fore, and sides, but not the rear or more critically underneath (where an aircraft would take most fire), suggesting a primarily 2d threat profile and operating mode, and just about every camo and color scheme seen follows the same pattern.

A Valkyrie is a true aircraft and is built as such, whereas something like a Falcon or Wave Serpent is more a tank that *can* fly to make operational or strategic level redeployments than an actual flyer running around at dozens or hundreds of meters of altitude in a tactical engagement.

Id be fine with giving them a flight mode at a cost bump where they cant fire or count as AV10 (to represent exposed unarmored bits) or something, but their physical design and longstanding non-differentiation from other hovertanks suggests that they generally arent much more than a few feet off the ground in combat *most* of the time.

That is some willful disconnection there. The Falcon fluff has been crystal clear for over a decade that Falcons are very fast and easily capable of high altitude operation:

Lexicanum wrote:The anti-gravitic generators which give the Falcon its amazing speed and agility are prime examples of the Eldar's technological mastery. Thanks to these powerful devices a Falcon can achieve speeds of up to 800 kph and soar to altitudes much higher than the equivalent Imperial craft, giving it limited flight capability. The Falcon's crew of pilot and gunner will themselves be veteran pilots, having learned their craft either on Eldar Jetbikes or along a similar Path, and take full advantage of these abilities, hiding within cloud cover only to swoop down on their pre-selected targets at high speed to deliver death and destruction.

Like all Eldar vehicles the Falcon is constructed from Wraithbone and other psycho-plastics, lightweight material which is incredibly strong and specially attuned to the Eldar's psychic abilities. This not only allows the vehicle to be controlled with both mind and body, but makes it impossible for other races to duplicate or operate the vehicle.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Falcon

The Eldar Tanks are dominated by massive axial engines and anti-grav lift vanes, with secondary directional thrusters / stabilizers. Those huge intakes and giant engines suggest tremendous forward speed, far in excess of what would be generated by the much smaller diameter engines of a Valkyrie. Speed that would be off the ground and up in the skies, as pictured. The heavy forward armor is because the Eldar have non-inertial, non-aerodynamic thrust vectoring to keep their heaviest armor facing at the target. The Eldar don't use camo paint - they have holofields, remember? Those patterns are decorative; nevertheless, if you've seen an airplane in Euro paint, they were camo on top, neutral below. A Valkyrie apes an aircraft, in the same way that an early automobile apes a horseless carriage. But to say that the high-speed environmentally sealed Falcon isn't an aircraft is nonsense.

From the quote you pulled: "Limited flight capability"

"Limited" As in it may not be the primary mode of engagement. On the 40K table it's not flying, because that's not how it handles close support with Eldar troops.

Drop Pods are "immobile" because despite falling thousands of miles through space and atmosphere, in the context of a 40K game they simply appear on the table, and no longer move.

I guess C'Tan are flyers as well since all that you require to prove that is an advertising image


While we are handing out the wings lets not forget or assult marine brethern who can fly and have airborn fights with FMCs. Because if it's an image it's cannon right?


I hope this proves how silly that argument is.

I'd rather they overhaul the system to make most things have some semblance of balance, not to mention give some more distinct uses for some of the factions, specifically the space marines. As it stands if I asked "which is the CC Chapter" I could get, quite literally, almost half a dozen different answers, only differentiated by minute differences (one has fast vehicles, one has scout, one has rerolls on some strange weapon, one has wolves, etc...) but all generally boil down to some roving deathstar with a threat radius of almost 24" (and most of the time packing some sort of AP2 weapon and an invul save of 3+).

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Eldar tanks are very much tanks really, their physical design strongly suggests very low level flight and operating in a 2D environment. They have armor over the top, fore, and sides, but not the rear or more critically underneath (where an aircraft would take most fire), suggesting a primarily 2d threat profile and operating mode, and just about every camo and color scheme seen follows the same pattern.

A Valkyrie is a true aircraft and is built as such, whereas something like a Falcon or Wave Serpent is more a tank that *can* fly to make operational or strategic level redeployments than an actual flyer running around at dozens or hundreds of meters of altitude in a tactical engagement.

Id be fine with giving them a flight mode at a cost bump where they cant fire or count as AV10 (to represent exposed unarmored bits) or something, but their physical design and longstanding non-differentiation from other hovertanks suggests that they generally arent much more than a few feet off the ground in combat *most* of the time.

That is some willful disconnection there. The Falcon fluff has been crystal clear for over a decade that Falcons are very fast and easily capable of high altitude operation:

I haven't disputed that anywhere.

Rather I pointed out they don't operate up there against the enemy and only really "fly" for travel as opposed to combat, your quote even points out that they drop altitude to actually engage their targets. Both fluff and game mechanics GW have used in the past reflect that. They're capable of flight, but they've never been presented as aircraft in the way a Nightwing, Barracuda, Stormraven, Valkyrie, Razorwing, Orca, Thunderhawk, Crimson Hunter, etc are, as actually engaging in combat as aircraft as general practice. There's a reason they're called hovertanks and not dropships, and why GW has kept them as Skimmers and not moved them to be Flyers the way they did the Valkyrie over two consecutive codex updates and rules editions since introducing Flyers to the core rules.

As I said, I wouldn't be opposed to some sort of alternate flight mode with some sort of downside as I mentioned before, but it doesn't appear GW ever intended for them to really be "flyers" in the way a Valkyrie or Stormraven are.

Regardless, I want them buffed, per the topic.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Regardless, I want them buffed, per the topic.

That's fine. Do understand, most people disagree with you.

Eldar get no buffs until they suffer nerfs or others are buffed.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Does anyone else notice the trend for bad rules where someone claims something needs to be "balanced" but then their suggestion for that thing is instead to make something "fluffy" or "immersive"?

What I find more common is instead of removing or changing a bad rule people would rather add more bad rules to compensate.

 Grimgold wrote:


While we are handing out the wings lets not forget or assult marine brethern who can fly and have airborn fights with FMCs. Because if it's an image it's cannon right?


I hope this proves how silly that argument is.

Dunno..., kinda makes sense and would be epic...

Airborn CC combats, where Jump/Flying units engage others or Flyers...

I mean if i din't have any AA weapons , but i had Assault/flying troops at mt disposal, i'll sent them to harase and try to disable those ennemy crafts/monsters...