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 Karhedron wrote:
I am slowly warming to Wraithlords once again after using 3 in a Spearhead detachment against Custodes. The degrading profile is a pain but for around 400 points, you get 24 T8 3+ wounds

Wraithlords have 10 wounds each.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Karhedron wrote:
I am slowly warming to Wraithlords once again after using 3 in a Spearhead detachment against Custodes. The degrading profile is a pain but for around 400 points, you get 24 T8 3+ wounds

Wraithlords have 10 wounds each.

Whoops! Well, that makes them even better then!

 Fafnir wrote:

Spartacus wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:


2 turn games

This is why you can't ever trust tournaments from a balance standpoint. The game wasn't designed to be shorter than the prescribed 5-7 turns, and so many army styles suffer when you try to shoehorn a game into 2-2.5 hours

But if the game wasn't designed to end in two turns, why do they design each army to blow the better part of each other off the table by the first?

Because people build mobile, glass-cannon armies to take maximum advantage of the limited time available to them in a tournament environment. Why would you build an army designed to win a 6 turn game when you know it'll likely only last 2-3 turns?

I'd say I have relevant experience in time-critical tournament conditions, as well as a large fairly competitive gaming group where games are not time limited. The difference in games and top performing armies is huge. An army which could be totally irrelevant in a tournament and never scores any points can be massively effective given enough time/turns to move where it needs to be and win the battle of attrition vs its opponent.

Spartacus wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:

Spartacus wrote:



I'd say I have relevant experience in time-critical tournament conditions, as well as a large fairly competitive gaming group where games are not time limited. The difference in games and top performing armies is huge. An army which could be totally irrelevant in a tournament and never scores any points can be massively effective given enough time/turns to move where it needs to be and win the battle of attrition vs its opponent.

See ...THIS!!

Instead of Narrative and Matched, etc... The games designers should have thought more of speed chess and chess.

So plan your smaller 1250 point fast rounds in a tournament setting.
Plan for bigger battles ala 2k points for leagues
And leave Flyers, super heavies and such for Apoc games.

There is no reason every single game CANNOT be Narrative.

As far as Historical games...they need to give us pre made lists/armies/board layouts, etc so that we can relive the Nids on Ultramar...etc.

Spartacus wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:

Spartacus wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:


2 turn games

This is why you can't ever trust tournaments from a balance standpoint. The game wasn't designed to be shorter than the prescribed 5-7 turns, and so many army styles suffer when you try to shoehorn a game into 2-2.5 hours

But if the game wasn't designed to end in two turns, why do they design each army to blow the better part of each other off the table by the first?

Because people build mobile, glass-cannon armies to take maximum advantage of the limited time available to them in a tournament environment. Why would you build an army designed to win a 6 turn game when you know it'll likely only last 2-3 turns?

I'd say I have relevant experience in time-critical tournament conditions, as well as a large fairly competitive gaming group where games are not time limited. The difference in games and top performing armies is huge. An army which could be totally irrelevant in a tournament and never scores any points can be massively effective given enough time/turns to move where it needs to be and win the battle of attrition vs its opponent.

There are no viable long-game armies in 8th, even when you remove time from the equation (and I've never considered 'time to play' as an element of my assessment of a units' viability). Durability just isn't a thing in the face of the edition's overwhelming firepower and excessively fast movement. You can kind of get there with the more degenerate hordes, but that's about it. The best armies that wipe others off the table on turn 2 will continue to be able to wipe them off on turns 3,4,5, and 6.

Spartacus wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:

Spartacus wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:


2 turn games

This is why you can't ever trust tournaments from a balance standpoint. The game wasn't designed to be shorter than the prescribed 5-7 turns, and so many army styles suffer when you try to shoehorn a game into 2-2.5 hours

But if the game wasn't designed to end in two turns, why do they design each army to blow the better part of each other off the table by the first?

Because people build mobile, glass-cannon armies to take maximum advantage of the limited time available to them in a tournament environment. Why would you build an army designed to win a 6 turn game when you know it'll likely only last 2-3 turns?

I'd say I have relevant experience in time-critical tournament conditions, as well as a large fairly competitive gaming group where games are not time limited. The difference in games and top performing armies is huge. An army which could be totally irrelevant in a tournament and never scores any points can be massively effective given enough time/turns to move where it needs to be and win the battle of attrition vs its opponent.

The implication here is that a list like the one that won LVO was built not to go the distance which is simply untrue. First I know of no tournament player who doesn't strive to have the game end naturally and certainly don't know any who are building for 3-4 turns of game play, simply because doing so can cripple you if the game goes longer. It would be foolish to build a list expecting only to get 2 turns if your goal is to win the event because any game that goes longer means your losing - that's not a gamble worth taking. Additionally (to use it as an example) the list that won LVO is just as punishing across 6 turns as it is 2 because of how much damage it does early, it will cripple most armies so quickly that its left to play the remainder of the game the way it chooses.

Do Eldar play better in Major events because we as a whole have access to less re-rolls, and field smaller, elite lists, meaning we simply play faster and more effectively than our opponents?

No. They do so because Dark Reapers are the best unit in the game.

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
Do Eldar play better in Major events because we as a whole have access to less re-rolls, and field smaller, elite lists, meaning we simply play faster and more effectively than our opponents?

With Doom, Guide, Autarchs and linked fire prisms, I think we have decent access to rerolls.

P.S. Reapers spam does bring a whiff of gorgonzola.

Anyone tried mechanized lists? I was a big fan of 5th edition Mechdar and with the ability of most of our vehicles to leave assault and stil shoot seems to be significant. I've got a list I am looking at with 12 or so vehicles (Wave Serpents, fliers, Hornets etc...).

Serpents are good but lack a bit of damage output, fire prisms are solid and become great if you have a pair (or more) and feed one cp a turn. Night spinners are under performing, as are vypers. War walkers are solid.
Eldar fliers are strong.
The "problem" is the infantry to be mechanized. Wraithguard are pretty expensive so you won't run a lot, psykers don't do things to units in transports and our basic infantry is hardly worth buying a transport for.

Cpt. Icanus wrote:
Serpents are good but lack a bit of damage output, fire prisms are solid and become great if you have a pair (or more) and feed one cp a turn. Night spinners are under performing, as are vypers. War walkers are solid.
Eldar fliers are strong.
The "problem" is the infantry to be mechanized. Wraithguard are pretty expensive so you won't run a lot, psykers don't do things to units in transports and our basic infantry is hardly worth buying a transport for.

A big difference in 8th is we can do without basic infantry. I can take a Spearhead (for example), and take one Warlock, 3 Fire Prisms, and now have up to 4 Wave Serpents available to take. However, I limit which Detachments are available if I don't take Troop choices.

I don't think it will be top tier, but it is mostly because I like the playstyle and enjoy painting Eldar vehicles.

If you enjoy mechdar and understand that it is not top tier, then it sounds like you've made your decision already.

Vehicles pay for endurance, which means they will put out less dakka per point than their fragile counterparts. Vehicles also control significantly less space that infantry piles for their points, which means your opponent has more freedom to deep strike around and put his counters into prime targets, basically he determines how efficient his army is with targeting priority.

I'm going to try a list with a couple of Wraithlords, a Knight, an Avatar, some Prisms, a Hunter Exarch... basically anything bad that I can toss in a list but looks like it rounds into a very fun army. I don't expect it to go and win some crazy number of games, but it should be good for a laugh and a few delightful games while everyone has salt saturating their taste buds due to Ynnari and Dark Reaper over-seasonings.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
If you enjoy mechdar and understand that it is not top tier, then it sounds like you've made your decision already.

Vehicles pay for endurance, which means they will put out less dakka per point than their fragile counterparts. Vehicles also control significantly less space that infantry piles for their points, which means your opponent has more freedom to deep strike around and put his counters into prime targets, basically he determines how efficient his army is with targeting priority.

I'm going to try a list with a couple of Wraithlords, a Knight, an Avatar, some Prisms, a Hunter Exarch... basically anything bad that I can toss in a list but looks like it rounds into a very fun army. I don't expect it to go and win some crazy number of games, but it should be good for a laugh and a few delightful games while everyone has salt saturating their taste buds due to Ynnari and Dark Reaper over-seasonings.

I have enough models to try out various combos. Some of the challenges have been turn 1 assaults and I would like to see if Mechdar has the durability to offset those assaults, then move away and still shoot. May or may not work. I play locally and attend a few 2 day events per year (within driving distance), which would be the match ups as opposed to LVO top lists all over the tables.

I have found that our Grav tanks are very durable and usually live long enough to pull back from assaults and then light up whatever was trying to charge them.

Having said that, we have some great stratagems so getting 3 cheap Troop units to fill a Battalion is worth the effort in my experience. I normally run a mix of Avengers (to fill transports and nab late-game objectives) and Rangers for screening and board control.

Ulthwe, Alaitoc and Iyanden traits all have potential in a mechanised army.

I think saturation of either extreme has advantages.

Horde lists tend to devalue anti-tank weapons, as they really only have subpar targets to shoot at. Especially if it is a true horde list with no armor.

Armor heavy lists do not devalue anti-infantry as much as the reverse given that all infantry can threaten tanks on 5-6, but you have to eclipse your opponent's armor punching capacity to really reap benefits here.

Either style list can wreck havoc on lists who fit more in the middle. I think that mech lists are more affected by the local environment than horde lists are, given how infantry-friendly 8th edition is. But I think a good game could be had, regardless.

I was actually looking at Iyanden for my list with lots of armor and wraith constructs. Given that those things are going to be under duress the whole game... Iyanden makes that middle tier all but vanish, forcing people to push a lot more damage at individual targets before they become impaired.

Alaitoc is great, but it is as useful as your opponent's dice are streaky. Some games they'll never roll the number to make that -1 be significant, other games they never roll over a 2, so it won't matter anyways.

I do like Ulthwe, though. But I think in a saturated army, removing the middle tier is probably better than possibly negating 1-2 more wounds. Especially when you can just spirit stones a few of your more important assets and get Alaitoc/Iyanden on top of it.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Alaitoc is great, but it is as useful as your opponent's dice are streaky. Some games they'll never roll the number to make that -1 be significant, other games they never roll over a 2, so it won't matter anyways.

I do like Ulthwe, though. But I think in a saturated army, removing the middle tier is probably better than possibly negating 1-2 more wounds. Especially when you can just spirit stones a few of your more important assets and get Alaitoc/Iyanden on top of it.

One could roll a lot of 6's and make Ulthwe amazing, but ultimately anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. Statistically speaking, your opponent will miss an additional 16.667% of shots fired outside of 12" due to Alaitoc's trait. This combined with Lightning Fast Reactions, will increase the number of missed shots by an additional 16.667% for an important unit.

The beauty of Ulthwe and Alaitoc is that they effect everything, not just units with degrading profiles.

I mean, the reason that Iyanden is so terrible is just that it mostly only impacts a single unit per turn, and only sometimes. It's perhaps justifiable on something like a Scorpion or Vampire, if you're particularly worried about things within 12", but it doesn't make any sense for a list with tons of similar vehicles.

Consider an admittedly artificial setup, which is nevertheless pretty useful for thinking about how units stack up to each other: you take a ton of points of one unit and line it up opposite a ton of points of another, and then work out the average effect of their shooting on each other simultaneously over several rounds and see who's coming out ahead.

If you have a million points of Iyanden Wraithlords and a million points of Alatoic Wraithlords going at each other with twin bright lances from 24", the Alatoic Wraithlords absolutely crush the Iyanden ones. Because the Iyanden trait is a rounding error on this scale: the Alatoic group kills 23% of the Iyanden group in its first volley, while the Iyanden WLs kill only 17.5% of the Alatoic ones. Maybe there's a single Iyanden WL, out of the ~7000 you started with, which is on its second or third profile and gets a bump in the next round thanks to the trait, but this is basically irrelevant. In the next round Alatoic kills another 19.3% of the original Iyanden, while Iyanden kills only 13.4%. Probably somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of the Alatoic WLs will still be standing when Iyanden is wiped out. The problem for Iyanden is that focus fire is a thing -- no one is bringing all of your vehicles down to half wounds before killing any of them. They shouldn't be doing this even without the trait in play -- you get more mileage out of killing wounded vehicles than in wounding new ones, unless negative hit mods are in play.

Obviously this is a limiting case, but the same basic principle applies when you have fewer vehicles. Iyanden does nothing for your vehicles that get killed in a single turn. It does nothing for your vehicles that haven't gotten shot yet. It doesn't even keep your hurt vehicles alive for longer, except very indirectly. It gives you a small offense buff on what's probably a single vehicle, provided your opponent even left one at a lower profile at all. Meanwhile Ulthwe and Alatoic just make all of your vehicles harder to kill, which will always improve your firepower in later turns because you'll have more vehicles alive to fire.

Statistically, Ulthwe is just always better than Iyanden for every vehicle in your list after the 1st. If your opponent is primarily concentrating on one until it dies, then moving to the next, the 3rd Ulthwe vehicle doesn't drop to half wounds until the 3rd Iyanden vehicle blows up. It always functions at at least the same level as the Iyanden one, and often higher. The math is a little trickier but this even holds true for the 2nd vehicle. When the 2nd Ulthwe vehicle drops to half wounds, the 2nd Iyanden vehicle is on its last profile, so they're at the same level on the damage table. By the time the 2nd Ulthwe vehicle is on its last profile, the 2nd Iyanden vehicle is dead. So that's why Iyanden is only even halfway tempting for the first vehicle in your list, and only if it's likely to survive while damaged.

It's also not really true that Iyanden is somehow more reliable, whereas the others are more prone to fail entirely due to bad luck. Iyanden is also prone to catastrophic failure when your opponent rolls some lucky damage and quickly destroys a vehicle entirely, whereas for the same number of shots that's a lot less likely to happen with Ulthwe or Alatoic.

Also, note that several recent codices have gotten a 1 CP stratagem that lets a single vehicle ignore the damage table entirely for a turn. Judicious use of this stratagem will often be even better than the Iyanden trait, because it's rare to have multiple vehicles on a lower profile and this lets a vehicle with 1 wound left shoot at full BS rather than just +1. A faction trait which is outdone by maybe 2 or 3 CP over the course of a game is not a very good faction trait.

I get all of this information, and in vacuums, it is great information. I like how we rail on Iyanden's trait when it is working at its worse, while giving Alaitoc the benefit of a flat "always on" state. Truly, the only one that is REALLY universal and impossible to somehow play around is Ulthwe, as a 6+++ is always a 6+++, and only really is meaningless when multi-damage vs 1 wound or overwhelming damage comes into play.

Mathhammer suffers from a lot of the same problems that real life war scenarios suffer from, the same problems that chess players can suffer from: it doesn't account for environment variables.

If I put a fire prism in line of sight of every lascannon required to destroy it, would that be a failure of Ulthwe/Alaitoc/Iyanden/god to save me... or would it be me just plain playing like a bone head? I don't play on wide open 6x4 play surfaces just for that reason. Then warhammer does devolve into mathhammer, and the game was decided at list creation.

While I cannot keep a fire prism out of 100% line of sight and range from EVERY threatening weapon in the enemy army, I can minimize the exposure. This is where 16.67% or whatever starts to skew, because the sample size is shrunken. Less attacks roll 3 to hit or I roll less 6s to save. Then, the opponent is forced to spread his fire across your base, and you do end up with multiple wounds on multiple vehicles.

Also, for 10 points, you can get Spirit Stones on a lot of vehicles and get the 6+++ where you want it and enjoy bits of both (Alaitoc and Iyanden could enjoy these).

Regardless, Mechdar and Wraithlord+ heavy lists are not top tier, they're not going to score well in mathhammer, and the trait isn't going to skew things so radically that it suddenly becomes awesome. That sure is a cop out of the discussion, but after a point, I get tired of seeing only Craftworld X or Y being viable. Alaitoc has to be the biggest Craftworld in the galaxy, anymore, by FAR. There may be a way to make some other craftworld traits not as bad, and injecting bias in a vacuum just won't allow that discussion to get past 16.67%.

I have played a few games with Ilyanden and the trait just does not come up. In two games it didn't have any effect whatsoever, in another it saved some guardians on a Ld test. I was using 20 man Guardian blobs and vehicles every time. Units were either wiped out or didn't take enough damage to need the trait.

If you can play entire games where your trait never even gets triggered it is a bad trait.

Ulthwe, Altioc and Beil-Tan have always triggered every turn in the games I have played with them.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
I get all of this information, and in vacuums, it is great information. I like how we rail on Iyanden's trait when it is working at its worse, while giving Alaitoc the benefit of a flat "always on" state. Truly, the only one that is REALLY universal and impossible to somehow play around is Ulthwe, as a 6+++ is always a 6+++, and only really is meaningless when multi-damage vs 1 wound or overwhelming damage comes into play.

Mathhammer suffers from a lot of the same problems that real life war scenarios suffer from, the same problems that chess players can suffer from: it doesn't account for environment variables.

If I put a fire prism in line of sight of every lascannon required to destroy it, would that be a failure of Ulthwe/Alaitoc/Iyanden/god to save me... or would it be me just plain playing like a bone head? I don't play on wide open 6x4 play surfaces just for that reason. Then warhammer does devolve into mathhammer, and the game was decided at list creation.

While I cannot keep a fire prism out of 100% line of sight and range from EVERY threatening weapon in the enemy army, I can minimize the exposure. This is where 16.67% or whatever starts to skew, because the sample size is shrunken. Less attacks roll 3 to hit or I roll less 6s to save. Then, the opponent is forced to spread his fire across your base, and you do end up with multiple wounds on multiple vehicles.

Also, for 10 points, you can get Spirit Stones on a lot of vehicles and get the 6+++ where you want it and enjoy bits of both (Alaitoc and Iyanden could enjoy these).

Regardless, Mechdar and Wraithlord+ heavy lists are not top tier, they're not going to score well in mathhammer, and the trait isn't going to skew things so radically that it suddenly becomes awesome. That sure is a cop out of the discussion, but after a point, I get tired of seeing only Craftworld X or Y being viable. Alaitoc has to be the biggest Craftworld in the galaxy, anymore, by FAR. There may be a way to make some other craftworld traits not as bad, and injecting bias in a vacuum just won't allow that discussion to get past 16.67%.

I don't find this to be a persuasive response, and below I'll get into why. I certainly agree that my million points of Alatoic vs Iyanden isn't representative of a real game -- I said that -- but I disagree that in real games of 40k it is feasible to hide your Fire Prism from the firepower needed to destroy it. IME the game often does devolve into mathhammer, even when there's significant terrain. It tends to be extremely hard in 8th to block LoS, and in addition lots of weapons are more mobile than they've ever been. I guess my question to you is: is this really your experience with the game, that your opponent is often forced to scatter wounds across a bunch of your vehicles because he just can't concentrate fire such that you often end up with multiple degraded vehicles? Or is this actually just your own armchair theorizing? My own experience lines up with Moosatronic's.

I don't think we need to assume that Alatoic is always on in order to see that it's hugely superior to Iyanden for mechanized forces or Wraith armies. You typically get more out of one turn of Alatoic than you will out of a whole game of Iyanden, and you can guarantee this with screening units. Alatoic is also especially likely to be useful for vehicles, because lots of anti-tank weapons suffer a penalty for moving. Even a Hemlock typically gets a lot out of the Alatoic trait despite needing to be within 16" to shoot -- as long as it is 13" away from the guy with the lascannon, he's going to be shooting it at -2 whether he stays still or moves closer. I feel like it is pretty inconsistent to talk like you can keep your vehicles out of LoS or range of a significant portion of the enemy army while then objecting that it's hard to keep more than 12" from enemy heavy weapons.

Even in games with lots of terrain, you can rarely count on being able to expose your vehicles to only a handful of anti-tank guns. Popular units that really don't care at all about terrain include: Fire Raptors (and other flyers), Obliterators and Scions (and other deep strikers), Seraphim and Coldstar Commanders (and other fast melta, but tbf these also don't care about Alatoic), and Manticores/Basilisks (and other artillery). Lots of other units care very little about terrain, such as Leman Russes, which can now move 6" and still shoot at full BS -- it is very hard to keep a vehicle out of LoS of any part of the Russ when it can do this.

I also note that Fire Prisms, while probably the easiest vehicle to actually hide due to their range (other than the terrible Nightspinner), benefit even less from the Iyanden trait than most other vehicles. You are probably bringing Fire Prisms specifically to use their stratagem -- otherwise you should just be using Crimson Hunters. The stratagem provides re-rolls to hit, which provide more relative benefit at lower BS. Where a Falcon is getting a 33% boost from Iyanden when at half wounds, a Prism with the stratagem is getting only a 20% boost.

It's true that you can duplicate the effect of the Ulthwe trait for 10 points per grav tank. So then the question is: is the Iyanden trait worth 10 points per grav tank? Now, obviously you should just be taking Alatoic instead, but we can ignore that for the moment and just ask what you're really getting for these 10 points. Let's do the same sort of analysis that I did last time for Ulthwe vs Iyanden, where we ask how many vehicles you need before Ulthwe is better, except now with Iyanden using Spirit Stones. Grav tanks are about 150 points, and SS add 6.7% to their cost. So if the two spend equal points on similar stuff, Ulthwe will have 6.7% more firepower from turn 1. Since the grav tanks from each are equally durable, this is a persistent advantage that Ulthwe will have whenever no tanks are degraded, and it will grow as your total firepower reduces when tanks die. When the first tank is reduced to half wounds, Ulthwe loses 25% of that one tank's firepower. Iyanden is now shooting better than Ulthwe as long as it's paying for SS on fewer than 4 tanks (so right from the get-go it's worse than just Ulthwe on an all-out Mechdar force, no matter what). Then when the first tank dies completely, Ulthwe is back on top, except now its absolute firepower edge is a larger relative difference. This will continue, where they keep trading the top spot, and which one is better depends on how likely it is that you have a degraded tank and how many tanks you had in the first place. I'd say that Iyanden with SS seems like a reasonable alternative to Ulthwe if you have no more than 2 tanks and it's basically 50/50 whether one will be degraded on any given turn. That's for something like a Falcon or Serpent -- for a Fire Prism you can probably only justify Iyanden with 1 since the stratagem cuts Iyanden's effectiveness so much.

I'm not saying you can't play Iyanden, and I don't mean to be attacking you for not playing something that's top tier. I didn't mean to communicate that the issue here is that Iyanden doesn't make Mechdar great; my issue is that Alatoic or Ulthwe are better traits for Mechdar. I was objecting to your claim that the Iyanden trait seemed more appealing on certain armies. I understand why people get this impression and I think it's important to point out that Iyanden actually gets worse the more vehicles you have, since that's counter-intuitive. I also think it's important to understand that it is basically never a better choice for a list than other traits. You can certainly still play it if you want, and more power to you.

At the top of my last post, I suggested what I think is the best-case scenario for Iyanden. What you want is a single huge vehicle that can take SS or which you're going to be casting Fortune on every turn, and (this is the part that's a reach) which for some reason you're expecting to take a lot of hits from inside 12". The Scorpion or Vampire chassis, for example. It's an especially solid pick for Vampires -- assuming you have some reason not to go with the obvious Alatoic -- because they have a very weird damage table that starts degrading at 78% wounds, and they lose a 4++ when they drop below that. Unfortunately CA nerfed the Vampire Hunter and therefore nerfed the single thing that benefits most from Iyanden. I doubt a single Skathach (or however that's spelled) Wraithknight is big enough to be worth it but you could give that a shot.

But, yeah, it sucks that the Craftworld traits are balanced so terribly. Alatoic is head and shoulders above everything else, Ulthwe is solid, Biel-tan is pretty meh, Saim-Hann is mostly only valuable for the stratagem but could potentially be upgraded to okay if Vypers and Scatterbikes get big buffs, and Iyanden is among the worst traits so far published (for the army that has access to it). You're not changing that. If you want to find specific builds where something other than Alatoic or Ulthwe makes sense you'd be a lot better off looking at some sort of shuriken spam with Biel-tan. Maybe tons of Guardians in Serpents in a meta where Alatoic isn't great.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Regardless, Mechdar and Wraithlord+ heavy lists are not top tier, they're not going to score well in mathhammer, and the trait isn't going to skew things so radically that it suddenly becomes awesome. That sure is a cop out of the discussion, but after a point, I get tired of seeing only Craftworld X or Y being viable. Alaitoc has to be the biggest Craftworld in the galaxy, anymore, by FAR. There may be a way to make some other craftworld traits not as bad, and injecting bias in a vacuum just won't allow that discussion to get past 16.67%.

But are you actually seeing Alaitoc, or are you seeing some Eldar armies with a different color scheme,say Mymeara, claiming to Alaitoc's Fieldcraft ability? Or worse yet, are you seeing examples of the other big five (Ulthwe, Iyanden, Biel-Tan, Saim Hann) claiming Alaitoc's Fieldcraft instead of the trait that matches their scheme?

mokoshkana wrote:

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Regardless, Mechdar and Wraithlord+ heavy lists are not top tier, they're not going to score well in mathhammer, and the trait isn't going to skew things so radically that it suddenly becomes awesome. That sure is a cop out of the discussion, but after a point, I get tired of seeing only Craftworld X or Y being viable. Alaitoc has to be the biggest Craftworld in the galaxy, anymore, by FAR. There may be a way to make some other craftworld traits not as bad, and injecting bias in a vacuum just won't allow that discussion to get past 16.67%.

But are you actually seeing Alaitoc, or are you seeing some Eldar armies with a different color scheme,say Mymeara, claiming to Alaitoc's Fieldcraft ability? Or worse yet, are you seeing examples of the other big five (Ulthwe, Iyanden, Biel-Tan, Saim Hann) claiming Alaitoc's Fieldcraft instead of the trait that matches their scheme?

Paint color makes little difference.

 Gangrel767 wrote:

mokoshkana wrote:

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Regardless, Mechdar and Wraithlord+ heavy lists are not top tier, they're not going to score well in mathhammer, and the trait isn't going to skew things so radically that it suddenly becomes awesome. That sure is a cop out of the discussion, but after a point, I get tired of seeing only Craftworld X or Y being viable. Alaitoc has to be the biggest Craftworld in the galaxy, anymore, by FAR. There may be a way to make some other craftworld traits not as bad, and injecting bias in a vacuum just won't allow that discussion to get past 16.67%.

But are you actually seeing Alaitoc, or are you seeing some Eldar armies with a different color scheme,say Mymeara, claiming to Alaitoc's Fieldcraft ability? Or worse yet, are you seeing examples of the other big five (Ulthwe, Iyanden, Biel-Tan, Saim Hann) claiming Alaitoc's Fieldcraft instead of the trait that matches their scheme?

Paint color makes little difference.

Not with respect to his comment that Alaitoc is the biggest Craftworld because people are using its rules in game. A rule doesn't make the force Alaitoc, it just gives them the benefit of Fieldcraft. If they are painted as Alaitoc or a Craftworld that doesn't have a predefined train, then fair play. Otherwise its a load of crap to say that your primary black and secondary bone colored miniatures are Alaitoc, when clearly those are Ulthwe colors.

mokoshkana wrote:

 Gangrel767 wrote:

mokoshkana wrote:

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Regardless, Mechdar and Wraithlord+ heavy lists are not top tier, they're not going to score well in mathhammer, and the trait isn't going to skew things so radically that it suddenly becomes awesome. That sure is a cop out of the discussion, but after a point, I get tired of seeing only Craftworld X or Y being viable. Alaitoc has to be the biggest Craftworld in the galaxy, anymore, by FAR. There may be a way to make some other craftworld traits not as bad, and injecting bias in a vacuum just won't allow that discussion to get past 16.67%.

But are you actually seeing Alaitoc, or are you seeing some Eldar armies with a different color scheme,say Mymeara, claiming to Alaitoc's Fieldcraft ability? Or worse yet, are you seeing examples of the other big five (Ulthwe, Iyanden, Biel-Tan, Saim Hann) claiming Alaitoc's Fieldcraft instead of the trait that matches their scheme?

Paint color makes little difference.

Not with respect to his comment that Alaitoc is the biggest Craftworld because people are using its rules in game. A rule doesn't make the force Alaitoc, it just gives them the benefit of Fieldcraft. If they are painted as Alaitoc or a Craftworld that doesn't have a predefined train, then fair play. Otherwise its a load of crap to say that your primary black and secondary bone colored miniatures are Alaitoc, when clearly those are Ulthwe colors.

I stand by my comment. Paint color shouldn't force you to choose an inferior rules set.

Paint color makes little difference.

Marine players have been doing it for years.

Having said that, I run my own craftworld (Maer Novar), who are painted Blue/Orange/Silver, and have been since 2nd edition. If I want to run Saim-hann detachment... I guarantee you they'll still be Blue/Orange/Silver (or their aspect color).

Yeah it seems pretty silly to insist that people use the rules that correspond to their paint scheme. They're not saying "This is Alatoic". They're saying "I'm using the Alatoic rules". It'd be one thing if, like, Iyanden and Biel-Tan's rules did a great job capturing what's special about those Craftworlds and didn't fit any of the others, but nobody thinks this is the case. Iyanden isn't known for fearless Guardian hordes or particularly reliable grav tanks. Biel-Tan isn't known for especially competent Guardians. And all of the Craftworld rules are pretty plausible for Eldar as a whole -- it wouldn't be unfluffy for any of them to be a faction trait alongside Battle Focus.

Dionysodorus wrote:
Yeah it seems pretty silly to insist that people use the rules that correspond to their paint scheme. They're not saying "This is Alatoic". They're saying "I'm using the Alatoic rules".

I think we are all saying the same thing here. I was trying to point out that Purifying Tempest's statement comes across to me as stating that all armies using Alaitoc rules inherently makes them Alaitoc in nature, but the rules on the table have to be somewhat separated out from the fluff though. The fact that everyone is using the best trait doesn't make everyone out there an Alaitoc player. It just means they want to use that rule to gain a competitive advantage, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Any word when the March update will be released?
And will it be online or an actual book?

 admironheart wrote:
Any word when the March update will be released?
And will it be online or an actual book?

Its an FAQ so online. Most likely the last weekend of the month.

I know the March FAQ is due any day now and that it. Could change everything, but are there any “safe” units that I could buy to build a 500 point starter list? I’m switching from Space Marines, which I picked because it was “beginner friendly” rather than what I really wanted to play.