The Raven Guard issue

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Daedalus81**

Tyranid Horde wrote:

Do you know how Eldar play? Sure you can hide them turn one but psykers can't spend time in transports not buffing and most Eldar players (myself included) take skyrunners so transports are a moot point.

Dark Reapers don't ignore LOS, only the Exarch with a Tempest Launcher does which gets 6-7 shots from 2D6. You can't kill them easily.

How is this a new problem for you guys? The Vindicare has been on lists for quite some time now as well as KM and Sanctus.

CSM have practically zero means to counter-battery or do character protection. Either we take tougher characters or get into transports. If you get first turn then hop out and cast. If you're not in position to make the casts effective then you stay in.

**Slipspace**

Karol wrote:
Slipspace 781731 10612927 wrote:

Part of your problem seems to be that you're treating all Eldar players or all SM players (or any group of players) as one unified group. They're not. What you're actually seeing with the behaviour you describe is people wanting to protect their own army or downplay the power of it (possibly because they don't want to admit their success in the game isn't entirely down to their amazing tactical skills). Plenty of Eldar players would freely admit they were broken at different times in 40k's life, just like many SM players admit the current Codex is/was broken in some ways.

Good game design would see all armies roughly equal with no clear best and worst armies. Wanting some armies to be bad because they used to be good 5+ years ago, and vice versa, is a terrible attitude to have towards the game.

Why should I or anyone else care about protecting other people army? I don't see people dieing or writing letters to GW about armies they don't play being bad. Also there is something like probability. If one army was good for a few months or a year, over 30+ years of w40k. the chance of it being good again is much lower, then an army being good every edition. Why should a marine player, remember I don't play marines, care that right now eldar feel bad for eldar players. And this is true for both people that played only this edition, and those that played over multiple ones. It sounds kind of a disingenuous, when eldar players, start to claim that balanced should be a thing and armies should be on equal footing, the very moment their army starts to bottom out to the majority of armies being played. I haven't seen any huge eldar player movments to make marines great, when Inari or flyer lists were rolling over them. Why should eldar players expect that suddenly everyone is going to go, yes let us defend the fun of eldar players, they are so unused to having a weaker or even bad army.

You're still treating all Eldar players as one unified group. They're not, nor are all Necron players, or all GSC players. It's not about caring about someone else's army, it's about caring about the health of the game overall. Read my last paragraph in the post above again - the point still stands. Your approach is just needlessly vindictive and doesn't help the game improve at all. A healthy balance between armies is a good state for the game to be in.

**Tyranid Horde**

Daedalus81 wrote:
Tyranid Horde wrote:

Do you know how Eldar play? Sure you can hide them turn one but psykers can't spend time in transports not buffing and most Eldar players (myself included) take skyrunners so transports are a moot point.

Dark Reapers don't ignore LOS, only the Exarch with a Tempest Launcher does which gets 6-7 shots from 2D6. You can't kill them easily.

How is this a new problem for you guys? The Vindicare has been on lists for quite some time now as well as KM and Sanctus.

CSM have practically zero means to counter-battery or do character protection. Either we take tougher characters or get into transports. If you get first turn then hop out and cast. If you're not in position to make the casts effective then you stay in.

Does the Vindicare ignore LoS? No it doesn't.

**Daedalus81**

Tyranid Horde wrote:

Does the Vindicare ignore LoS? No it doesn't.

No, but he ignores invulns and you can't be w/i 24" for Doom and out of LOS forever.

**bullyboy**

I did the math for you guys. 9 eliminators does not kill a warlock on jetbike Turn 1. Therfore you have 1 turn to utilize Reapers and Nightspinners to take out the snipers. The sky is not falling.

**BrianDavion**

bullyboy wrote:
I did the math for you guys. 9 eliminators does not kill a warlock on jetbike Turn 1. Therfore you have 1 turn to utilize Reapers and Nightspinners to take out the snipers. The sky is not falling.

I think people may not be realizing that eliminators have 3 differant types of rounds they can fire, thus they get hit by the 1d3 damage round and panic that that round can hit them out of LOS. when the ignors LOS round simply deals 1 damage.

that andf people simply assume their army has to have access to it's tricks all the time. As I said earlier, if your army literally cannot go a single round without your HQ's casting psyki shinnagens etc, it's not space marines whom are poorly designed, Space Marines are simply allowing a serious flaw in another army to come to light.

**Daedalus81**

BrianDavion wrote:

that andf people simply assume their army has to have access to it's tricks all the time.

This applies to the list building stage, too. People want all the super killy toys and sacrificing units to have a more TAC list pains them, but honestly its good for the game even if marines wind up being too strong for the moment.

**BrianDavion**

Daedalus81 wrote:
BrianDavion wrote:

that andf people simply assume their army has to have access to it's tricks all the time.

This applies to the list building stage, too. People want all the super killy toys and sacrificing units to have a more TAC list pains them, but honestly its good for the game even if marines wind up being too strong for the moment.

as I've been saying, eliminators occupy the heavy support slots. this is a pretty "in demand" slot for Marines, it's where Repulsors Elimnators Devestator and devestator centurions, Land Raiders of all types, hellblasters and thunderfire canons are. So if the marine player is taking a lot of eliminators chances are he's sacrificing other equally useful heavy support.

**Karol**

Slipspace 781731 10613206 wrote:

You're still treating all Eldar players as one unified group. They're not, nor are all Necron players, or all GSC players. It's not about caring about someone else's army, it's about caring about the health of the game overall. Read my last paragraph in the post above again - the point still stands. Your approach is just needlessly vindictive and doesn't help the game improve at all. A healthy balance between armies is a good state for the game to be in.

And I say that to me, the sudden call for balance from eldar players when their army gets bad or worse is funny to me. Has nothing to with being vindicative.

as deadlus said. character killing existed already. armies like chaos already had problems with it. I haven't seen chaos players, write petitions to GW to save chaos from evil snipers, when the eldar were doing good or great. now that both flyer get traunced, by IH and characters get hunted by RG, sudden love of balance from eldar community is an awesome thing to see.

**Daedalus81**

BrianDavion wrote:

as I've been saying, eliminators occupy the heavy support slots. this is a pretty "in demand" slot for Marines, it's where Repulsors Elimnators Devestator and devestator centurions, Land Raiders of all types, hellblasters and thunderfire canons are. So if the marine player is taking a lot of eliminators chances are he's sacrificing other equally useful heavy support.

Well, either they sacrifice slots or CP. They can have all the toys, but no CP to run them. Lots of people need to adjust to marines - part of their early success might be people were running lists that were too skew and marines are REALLY good at TAC now.

**Tyranid Horde**

Karol wrote:
Slipspace 781731 10613206 wrote:

You're still treating all Eldar players as one unified group. They're not, nor are all Necron players, or all GSC players. It's not about caring about someone else's army, it's about caring about the health of the game overall. Read my last paragraph in the post above again - the point still stands. Your approach is just needlessly vindictive and doesn't help the game improve at all. A healthy balance between armies is a good state for the game to be in.

And I say that to me, the sudden call for balance from eldar players when their army gets bad or worse is funny to me. Has nothing to with being vindicative.

as deadlus said. character killing existed already. armies like chaos already had problems with it. I haven't seen chaos players, write petitions to GW to save chaos from evil snipers, when the eldar were doing good or great. now that both flyer get traunced, by IH and characters get hunted by RG, sudden love of balance from eldar community is an awesome thing to see.

You're cherry picking comments from this thread to suit your argument. I was using Eldar as an example, I could have used IG for orders or 1k Sons for the same issue Eldar has.

Snipers of course exist but you've missed the point that snipers that don't need LOS is bad game design. You can play around snipers using terrain but something that entirely removes it and targets key characters can't be played around when the RG player can infiltrate snipers so close to an opposing army AND be hidden. It's not hard to grasp.

**Daedalus81**

If the Vindicare rifle didn't need LOS it would be horrific, really. Same with the Sanctus. To be a downgrade in damage and other abilities, but get to shoot out of LOS is a reasonably fair trade -- and factor in that they won't have additional AP when RG get their bonus. Eliminators are perhaps a bit cheap, but they're not murdering multiple characters per turn.

Either you counter-battery, protect (transport/bodyguard), or build in redundancy.

Eldar have options to counter battery - the CHE included. They have transports. And warlocks are cheap if you need redundancy.

I agree that it's hard to run softer characters. I can't even think about running a shaman these days. Going back to the old 'Look out sir' mechanic could smother sniping for most occasions (i.e. shield drones). Softer characters could be made cheaper, but we'll have to play things out a bit longer and get reliable data for feedback.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Could also be saying maybe you need to invest in bodyguard units. Just saying

**Not Online!!!**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Could also be saying maybe you need to invest in bodyguard units. Just saying

A: Not all armies have them.
B: those that have them maybee saddled with terribad versions of it.
C: due to not beeing an option for all faction E.g. Situation Implementation flyers and aa and or lack thereoff differing by faction that is a bad argument.

**fraser1191**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Could also be saying maybe you need to invest in bodyguard units. Just saying

This is exactly what I was thinking! Guard have ogryn bodyguards for this reason.

Unfortunately I don't think every army has bodyguards.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Not Online!!! wrote:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Could also be saying maybe you need to invest in bodyguard units. Just saying

A: Not all armies have them.
B: those that have them maybee saddled with terribad versions of it.
C: due to not beeing an option for all faction E.g. Situation Implementation flyers and aa and or lack thereoff differing by faction that is a bad argument.

Well let's start with which armies are lacking them.

**Argive**

bullyboy wrote:
I did the math for you guys. 9 eliminators does not kill a warlock on jetbike Turn 1. Therfore you have 1 turn to utilize Reapers and Nightspinners to take out the snipers. The sky is not falling.

Except when it doesn't ? Except when it kills a farseer T1.. or A spirit seer...Averages are nice and that's all they are. Its annoying because it forces you to play a certain way especially if soup in some assassins it gets worse.. The killiness is there even on averages, and even if it wiffs the threat of those means you have to play a certain way...

Its easy I now need to take 3 spinners on top of 3 alitoic fliers to have a crack at winning you say?

Don't get me wrong, I really rate the spinners. Been saying they rock for ages.
But the minute my list building choices are made for me.. I'm playing an NPC. Not for me.

**Not Online!!!**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Could also be saying maybe you need to invest in bodyguard units. Just saying

A: Not all armies have them.
B: those that have them maybee saddled with terribad versions of it.
C: due to not beeing an option for all faction E.g. Situation Implementation flyers and aa and or lack thereoff differing by faction that is a bad argument.

Well let's start with which armies are lacking them.

Csm, orks, atleast.

So what do you do there? Both armies require massive imput from their hq buffs aswell.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Not Online!!! wrote:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Could also be saying maybe you need to invest in bodyguard units. Just saying

A: Not all armies have them.
B: those that have them maybee saddled with terribad versions of it.
C: due to not beeing an option for all faction E.g. Situation Implementation flyers and aa and or lack thereoff differing by faction that is a bad argument.

Well let's start with which armies are lacking them.

Csm, orks, atleast.

So what do you do there? Both armies require massive imput from their hq buffs aswell.

Orks have one with the Grot Strat, so while it isn't a consistent one it does exist.

**Not Online!!!**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Could also be saying maybe you need to invest in bodyguard units. Just saying

A: Not all armies have them.
B: those that have them maybee saddled with terribad versions of it.
C: due to not beeing an option for all faction E.g. Situation Implementation flyers and aa and or lack thereoff differing by faction that is a bad argument.

Well let's start with which armies are lacking them.

Csm, orks, atleast.

So what do you do there? Both armies require massive imput from their hq buffs aswell.

Orks have one with the Grot Strat, so while it isn't a consistent one it does exist.

Since when is a single stratagem,which will be used otherwise else you allready mostlikely lost as orkz, a bodyguard?

Ask yourself that.

So no, my point remains, not all have one, and not all of them are good enough.

**BrianDavion**

Daedalus81 wrote:
BrianDavion wrote:

as I've been saying, eliminators occupy the heavy support slots. this is a pretty "in demand" slot for Marines, it's where Repulsors Elimnators Devestator and devestator centurions, Land Raiders of all types, hellblasters and thunderfire canons are. So if the marine player is taking a lot of eliminators chances are he's sacrificing other equally useful heavy support.

Well, either they sacrifice slots or CP. They can have all the toys, but no CP to run them. Lots of people need to adjust to marines - part of their early success might be people were running lists that were too skew and marines are REALLY good at TAC now.

I tend to agree a big part of it is people are having trouble adjusting to Marines. everytime a new codex comes out there IS an adjustment period.

**Vilehydra**

I'm pretty sure that the eldar psykers on bikes essentially outrange the eliminators 14" move + 6" flat advance and most offensive powers are 18-24". giving a range of 38-44" to 36-42".

If your opponent is putting eliminators so far forward that your back is against the wall, then they are going to be super vulnerable to any counter attack, even just tying them down would work.

I don't remember how exactly rangers work either, but if they can infiltrate they'd also be a useful infiltrate-screen.

It seems that the eliminators are just adding a character buffer zone. Which is kind of what your paying for.

Orks do have semi-bodyguards in the form of grotshields. They can only block for one character but that may be what is needed. Again if those eliminators are hitting back field characters, they are probably somewhat exposed to counterplay.

Got nothing for CSM beyond the deathshroud terminators, which are DG only I think

**Not Online!!!**

Again a stratagem, which will be used on other units, ISN'T A BODYGUARD.

And yes deathshroud only work for DG.

**BrianDavion**

Not Online!!! wrote:
Again a stratagem, which will be used on other units, ISN'T A BODYGUARD.

And yes deathshroud only work for DG.

what exactly is the stragitium and what exactly do you mean "will be used on other units?" do you mean "I need the CPs to spend elsewhere"?

**Slayer-Fan123**

Not Online!!! wrote:
Again a stratagem, which will be used on other units, ISN'T A BODYGUARD.

And yes deathshroud only work for DG.

It sorta functions as one. And Eliminators aren't exactly killing Marine Commanders at a fast rate.

**Smirrors**

Ravenguard make up a small portion of marines and even smaller portion of overall armies. In a five round tournie you are just as likely to never come across RG.

People are over reacting on theory hammer.

That RG army will just as likely come across armies were their trait is effectively useless, or go second there by negating all their advantages.

This game is now a game of scissors paper rock.

It takes a good player to overcome these challenges and win.

**Vilehydra**

Not Online!!! wrote:
Again a stratagem, which will be used on other units, ISN'T A BODYGUARD.

And yes deathshroud only work for DG.

The strategem being used on other units is up to the player, forcing them to decide on how to expend a resource is actually a good thing. Otherwise you might just have to rely on kff for character protection or a Dok for wound mitigation. Honestly at that point your getting better mitigation then marine players are T1. T4 5+ save with no FNP (unless your IH) and 4-6 wounds.

**BrianDavion**

also we've had eliminators around for awhile now, the issues people are expressing concern with are nothing new, why are people suddenly panicing like it's the end of the world?

**Smirrors**

Because no one took them prior to Codex 2.0.

People expect to play 1 game and understand how it all works. Most people complaining haven't had even 5 games against Ravenguard.

There are plenty of games where RG Eliminators have done squat.

**Marin**

bullyboy wrote:
I did the math for you guys. 9 eliminators does not kill a warlock on jetbike Turn 1. Therfore you have 1 turn to utilize Reapers and Nightspinners to take out the snipers. The sky is not falling.

I think you have to do the math again. With Sergent they kill warlock on bike without any problems.
3x Spinners kills max 3 eliminators per turn(because -1 to hit cover) and that is with the most anti marine combo expert crafters+ masterful shoots.
Masterful shoots remove bonus to save and not the -1 to hit. Without this it`s even worst 1-2 models, with autarch you can get a 1 extra model.

I watched games where for 1 turn 9 eliminators killed Shadowseer, for 2 turn 2 units killed Calgar.
I lost Farseer from 1 unit for 1 turn, because i failed 2 saves and with the rerolls and mortal wounds its almost impossible for this guys to miss something.
This damage should never coast 72 pts.
Because dice can always happen, and its much harder to get average 4++ than to hit on 2 and reroll 1.
If you start putting more LOS shooting or other treats, now they have Impulsion who can safely hide SM BS units.