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Reducing damage doesn't hit your model count, so i could see why that's more attractive.

Yeah that's my thinking. Lowing each shot's damage by 1 (regardless of mode) is a very small change that pushes Reapers from an Auto-take unit to a just a good unit.

This should always be the goal.

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I still think that always hit on a 3+ needs to be tied to standing still.

2 shots @ s5 -2 ap 1D doesn't seem too bad for the secondary firing mode. Maybe eldar players would rather s4 -1 w/ 3 shots or -0 w/ 4 shots (assault so no - for moving?) but maybe they have plenty of s4 horde clearing shooting.

But honestly we should probably slow nerf them. Start with your settled changes and the always hit on 3+ if didn't move and then see where we're at. If they disappear give them their always 3+, if they are still a problem bump the price up 4-5 points.

Problem is with other codex dropping Tau/necrons may get the reaper remover gun (s6, -2 ap, 48" range, or something) and then they become nerfed by meta shifts. Maybe this is why GWs is reticent to implement any changes to them so far?

I feel like it is a piss poor way to release a game and agree with a lot of people that this feels like beta and 8th won't really start until everyone has a codex. I'm taking a break from games for a while, I'll try to tackle this mountain of grey plastic and all these naked bases...

I'd really like to go to the bay area open but it will be hard to start prepping/practicing an army with so much unsettled between registration and the tourney (mid July?)

 Galef wrote:
So to recap, I have settled on the following changes:

-S8 mode is now D3 damage instead of straight 3 (GW already did this with Starcannons in an FAQ for this very Codex)
-S5 mode is now only 1 damage per shot
-Max unit size is only 5, not 10

That pretty much solves all the major issues with Reapers without having to price them up out of viability or tweaking their special rules.
Less damage and smaller unit sizes mitigates both their effectiveness and the ability to layer buffs onto more Reapers.
Forewarning is now much less of a "delete X unit that drops in LoS of 10 Guided Reapers". 5 Reapers can do a good bit of damage to a unit with Forewarning, but it is much less likely to outright delete them

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Access to Str 8 dmg 3 costs 15ppm, max one in 3 can take the upgrade.
Str 5 is standard, heavy 2, dmg 1
unit size 3-7, or 5+exarch, something like that. Small, with 2 possible Str 8 upgrades.

That works too.

Martel732 wrote:
Only because you are spoiled by the current incarnation. Which is worth far, far more points than its current cost.

Spoiled by what exactly? I don't spam Dark Reapers. D3 damage is crap on a heavy weapon. Dark Reapers originally carried Missile Launchers. End of story. You want to bump points? Go nuts, nobody cares.

 Elbows wrote:
You want to bump points? Go nuts, nobody cares.

Clearly some of us do care (and I don't even play Reapers).

Bumping points is the lazy answer. Sometimes it is the right answer, but not always.

50ppm Reapers, while an "appropriate" cost, would absolutely kill the unit.
The "right" answer for Reapers is to fix what they are capable of doing, while trying to keep them in the 27-35ppm range.

Remember that Terminators used to be 40ppm with only 1 wound. Everyone considered them garbage because it was too easy to focus fire them dead, despite having T4, 2+/5++

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 Elbows wrote:
D3 damage is crap on a heavy weapon.

And yet, nearly 99% of all non D1 heavy weapons have variable damage... except for reapers and few others. Even AM have variable damage heavy weapons FFS.

 skchsan wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
D3 damage is crap on a heavy weapon.

And yet, nearly 99% of all non D1 heavy weapons have variable damage... except for reapers and few others. Even AM have variable damage heavy weapons FFS.

Exactly. And most D3 damage heavies are only 1-2 per unit (usually on a vehicle). So Reapers having not only a straight 3 damage weapon, but up to 10 per unit is obviously more powerful than 95% of all other heavy options

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To be honest I would prefer 2 damage over D3 just by virtue of not rolling so many dices. But that doesn't fix Dark Reapers obliteraging primaris, terminators, bikers, etc... (Theres no problem with Dark Reapers being effective agaisnt those units, just like Plasma is. The only problem is when they do it for too cheap)

I think d3 damage is fine.

It's certainly not GOOD damage (flat 3 is better!) but the whole point is to nerf them, and going from a d3 is about as flat a nerf as you can get from 3 damage; it's roughly comparable to going to flat 2 damage, I would say.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
It's certainly not GOOD damage (flat 3 is better!) but the whole point is to nerf them, and going from a d3 is about as flat a nerf as you can get from 3 damage; it's roughly comparable to going to flat 2 damage, I would say.

Right, but it allows the potential for 3 damage if you roll well. It makes them want to shoot at multi-wound targets. not just 2-wound ones. It also allows the potential for only 1 damage, thereby giving those 2-wound targets a 33% chance to not go splat from 1 failed save.

 Galef wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
It's certainly not GOOD damage (flat 3 is better!) but the whole point is to nerf them, and going from a d3 is about as flat a nerf as you can get from 3 damage; it's roughly comparable to going to flat 2 damage, I would say.

Right, but it allows the potential for 3 damage if you roll well. It makes them want to shoot at multi-wound targets. not just 2-wound ones. It also allows the potential for only 1 damage, thereby giving those 2-wound targets a 33% chance to not go splat from 1 failed save.

Right, yes. I just meant in severity of nerf, not mechanically.

Frankly, are there any other weapons that deal flat 3 damage?

Thunder Hammers, Automatic Cannons... and other things.

 Galas wrote:
Thunder Hammers, Automatic Cannons... and other things.

Also Pulse lasers. The trick is that none of the flat 3 damage weapons both:
A) Shooting and
B) more than a few per unit.

Having a unit that can have 10 flat 3 damage shots is all but unheard of outside of Reapers. Which is why they need to be D3 damage instead.

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 Galef wrote:
So to recap, I have settled on the following changes:

-S8 mode is now D3 damage instead of straight 3 (GW already did this with Starcannons in an FAQ for this very Codex)
-S5 mode is now only 1 damage per shot
-Max unit size is only 5, not 10

That pretty much solves all the major issues with Reapers without having to price them up out of viability or tweaking their special rules.
Less damage and smaller unit sizes mitigates both their effectiveness and the ability to layer buffs onto more Reapers.
Forewarning is now much less of a "delete X unit that drops in LoS of 10 Guided Reapers". 5 Reapers can do a good bit of damage to a unit with Forewarning, but it is much less likely to outright delete them

-

That's a very reasonable set of changes that I personally would probably never field. Would I be correct in thinking that you view Reapers as an anti-heavy-infantry unit per their older incarnations? For me, reapers are the unit I look to to start hurting high wound targets on turn 1 without having to sacrifice a squad of suicide dragons or rely on 4+ to hit vehicle heavy weapons. At just d3 damage I think I'd probably invest in something with a higher damage output.

My sloppy math says that to kill a rhino, you need to do 10 wounds means you need to roll 5 damage dice means you need to do 7.5 wounds (5+ rhino saves assuming no cover) means you need to hit about 12 times (2/3rds of 12 is 8) means you need to roll 18 strength 8 attacks means you need 18 reapers means you need to spend about 486 points on reapers (not factoring in special rules for exarchs) in order to average (not guarantee) a single dead rhino. Which would be a minimum of 4 squads (so a slightly higher price tag) if we're changing the squad size to 5 max. Of course, you could get lucky and do slightly better than that, but only slightly. That just isn't efficient enough for me to take them as my long ranged support for poking at vehicles, MCs, etc. I guess you could look at them as marine hunters that occassionally chip in to help finish off straggling vehicles?

Now that said, I think you've balanced them pretty well against blaster born who basically trade the reapers' armor and range for better AP and the ability to shoot while hiding inside a transport. I'm just also one of those weirdos who considers blaster born to be kind of meh tank hunters (despite being one of the better tank hunters in the dark eldar faction).


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 Galef wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Thunder Hammers, Automatic Cannons... and other things.

Also Pulse lasers. The trick is that none of the flat 3 damage weapons both:
A) Shooting and
B) more than a few per unit.

Having a unit that can have 10 flat 3 damage shots is all but unheard of outside of Reapers. Which is why they need to be D3 damage instead.

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Tank bustas with rokits. Not that that's a comparison I intend to defend.

I want Reapers to do ML damage like they were envisioned.

So a Marine is 13 points with 20 ml. That is 33 points.

Reapers have str 3 t 3 AND no ability to take some cheap ablative wound bodies in the unit.

So Make the Reaper launcher str4 str 8 with the latter doing d6 damage each.
Since they will die faster than Dev Marines for 2 reasons....they should remain around 28 points.
Then you can get rid of the Inescapable Accuracy.

OR add in the Reaper Range Finder and make them cost the same as Dev (they still don't have flexibility to swap out weapons, lower toughness, and cannot spend 26 points to have 2 free wound soaking bodies to pad those heavies)

So now a unit of 4 can have a good chance of wiping a Land Raider on some lucky dice.

Missile launchers are 25.

Why sohuld Marines pay points for weapon options they aren't taking? That's insane.

 admironheart wrote:
I want Reapers to do ML damage like they were envisioned.

So a Marine is 13 points with 20 ml. That is 33 points.

Reapers have str 3 t 3 AND no ability to take some cheap ablative wound bodies in the unit.

So Make the Reaper launcher str4 str 8 with the latter doing d6 damage each.
Since they will die faster than Dev Marines for 2 reasons....they should remain around 28 points.
Then you can get rid of the Inescapable Accuracy.

OR add in the Reaper Range Finder and make them cost the same as Dev (they still don't have flexibility to swap out weapons, lower toughness, and cannot spend 26 points to have 2 free wound soaking bodies to pad those heavies)

Why should you "have flexibility to swap out weapons"? You're Eldar. Every unit is supposed to have some kind of specialized role tied to its weapons. The Exarchs of the squads have always had the ability to 'swap out weapons' to add a bit of differentiation to the squad.

So now a unit of 4 can have a good chance of wiping a Land Raider on some lucky dice.

Why in the hell are Dark Reapers "wiping a Land Raider"? That's NEVER been their role. They're supposed to be picking on light vehicles and things equivalent to that(such as Marines).

They're not tank hunters. That's the role of Fire Dragons.


This is why we can't have nice things, people!

 Kanluwen wrote:

Why in the hell are Dark Reapers "wiping a Land Raider"? That's NEVER been their role. They're supposed to be picking on light vehicles and things equivalent to that(such as Marines).

They're not tank hunters. That's the role of Fire Dragons.

Which I why I am holding to my suggestion that the S8 mode be D3 damage and the S5 mode be 1 damage per shot. It keeps Reapers in the role of "light vehicle/medium infantry" killer without the need to up their points cost by much (maybe 30ppm with that simple change)

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 Galef wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Why in the hell are Dark Reapers "wiping a Land Raider"? That's NEVER been their role. They're supposed to be picking on light vehicles and things equivalent to that(such as Marines).

They're not tank hunters. That's the role of Fire Dragons.

Which I why I am holding to my suggestion that the S8 mode be D3 damage and the S5 mode be 1 damage per shot. It keeps Reapers in the role of "light vehicle/medium infantry" killer without the need to up their points cost by much (maybe 30ppm with that simple change)

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I'd put the S8 mode at 2 damage, flat. That puts it at the same damage as an Autocannon.

Only 1 weapon firing mode for free. The other costs points.

D3 damage.

Change their ballistic skill to 4+ with no penalties. or, leave it at 3+ but have them incur penalties like everyone else.

Tempest launchers increased cost.

Is there a reason a "light vehicle killer" is str 8?

Surely str 7 is more reasonable if your best targets are sentinels and land speeders, and your heaviest targets are rhinos.

Fair enough. Keep Reapers as-is (points, stats, abilities) but -1 damage to all fire modes. Easy.

Alternatively, we could ditch the dual fire modes and just give them an Autocannon-like statline with AP -2.
36" range, Heavy 2, Str7, AP -2, Damage 2

Have the Exarch be the only model that can swap guns to either Tempest launcher or Shuricannon

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No matter what, I'd change the "No Penalties" to require a target to have moved a certain distance or to have boosted/advanced/whatever "It went fast" thing you want to call it.

Same with the flat 2 damage on the S8 mode.


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Is there a reason a "light vehicle killer" is str 8?

Surely str 7 is more reasonable if your best targets are sentinels and land speeders, and your heaviest targets are rhinos.

That's a good question as to why. I'm guessing because it's meant to be a Krak Missile in all but name?

Well, Krak Missiles are anti-tank weapons, not anti-light vehicle weapons.

It'd be like if a historical game said that a .50 cal anti-material rifle had the same anti-tank capability as an 9K112 Kobra missile, because hey, they both kill vehicles amirite.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Well, Krak Missiles are anti-tank weapons, not anti-light vehicle weapons.

It'd be like if a historical game said that a .50 cal anti-material rifle had the same anti-tank capability as an 9K112 Kobra missile, because hey, they both kill vehicles amirite.

No, I get this. That's what I'm saying here--when they put the secondary fire mode in they might have just done it as a "Hey, Imperial Missile Launchers do this--make it match, k?".

It's like how Transauranic Arquebi for the Skitarii lost their bonus to hunting vehicles(Armourbane allowed for them to roll 2D6 for armor penetration and total the results) and instead just got S7 AP-2 with D3 damage and then the generic Sniper Rifle rules.

 Kanluwen wrote:

They're not tank hunters. That's the role of Fire Dragons.


This is why we can't have nice things, people!

Says you....I have printed GW codexes and White Dwarf articles that says otherwise back in RT and 2nd ed. THEY are difinatley infantry tank hunters.

LOOk.

Every race has a foot trooper option to fire heavy weapons. Without the need for Vehicles. That has always been that way. Fire Dragons/wraithguard are close range assault units....you don't throw devestators with meltaguns in the front line.

That is what you are asking. This is the Eldars Anti tank (the Reaper Launcher WAS ALWAYS the equivalent of a Missile Launcher....always in the early days WHEN the unit was created. FACT.

If everyone else has long range foot troops with anti tank weapons...even tyranids....why don't you want elder to have it? Are you that biased?


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You also have the Star Cannon which is a strong anti LIGHT VEHICLE weapon!

We DO NOT need another.

Why change the fluff because for a couple years in this reincarnation of the game you don't like the rules. That is BS
and horrible game design and player treatment! Period.

I don't even take dark reapers in my last 2 list.

FYI the Eldar player will just take a Vypers or scat bikes and shoot the blazes out of any reserves with Forwarned.

Don't dumb it down...the trick to Forwarned is how to tactically play against it. For the Marine Auspecs it is to stay out of 12" range.
For Farseer+ Reapers it is to use LOS blocking terrain OR to drop in a 'bait' unit.

The Strategem says they MUST use it IMMEDIATELY. So if they go after the bait then you can drop in your big boyz. If not then they just wasted any chance of using it as you can still hold your guys in reserves.

If your tactics are so simple that YOU must in your face alpha strike with no more planning than just dropping in then that is both the fault of the simple rules of the game and perhaps a poor quality player.

In any game you try to overwhelm your enemy with more than they can handle. In your face alpha strikes pretty much takes any build up of tactics and dumbs it down so 10 year olds can play. Use flanking attacks, combined rushes, come from multiple sides, draw the enemy out or just use cover to get into the battle...you know stuff that any war game should have.


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Well, Krak Missiles are anti-tank weapons, not anti-light vehicle weapons..

Exactly! The Reaper Missile Launcher was designed to fire Krak Missiles and Frag Missiles. They just changed up the names later on.

There was even a note in the book that they could be loaded with other missile types like the Imperium, but no actual rules were in place to do so unless you had a friendly agreement.

Make the Reaper Launcher a copy and paste of the ML like it always was. Add 3 points and do what you want with the range finder.

I prefer it stays the same, but no more move and fire. The Reapers are supposed to have the bulkier armor to support them while shooting....that is why they get the slower movement......Move and Fire weapons used to be a thing. Somehow work that in and make movement modifiers NOT a thing due to the Range Finder. [It is a 'range' finder not concealment finder or run from the hip shooting finder.....they implemented it too simply]