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yukishiro1 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Jain Zar gets 4 attacks (along with a goofy rule your opponent can play around that might give you a few more in weird circumstances). Primaris bikers get 6. Primaris has become the punch line to every joke in 40k.

*sigh* We're really going to be comparing apples to oranges all edition, aren't we?

The only way this is apples to oranges is in the opposite direction. A melee phoenix lord should be vastly better in melee than a stock primaris biker. She is better, but not by nearly as much as she should be. A white scars stock primaris biker on turn 3 and beyond puts out 6 S4 -2AP 2 damage hits, probably with rerolls. A BA one has 7 attacks at +1 to wound.

It's just stupid. Eldar in general have been hugely left behind by the inflation in the number of attacks most other factions *cough* SPACE MARINES *cough* get. Primaris bikers are the worst, but they're not the only example.

This is just bad game design. The greatest warriors of a race that were ruling the galaxy when humans were still poking each other with sharpened sticks should not get totally dunked on by the Imperium in the way they are.

Turn. Three.

Let's make an assumption that they're 40 points each. JZ is 115. 3 to 1. gak, no. Let's do 5 bikes.

They charge. JZ fights first.

4 * .833 * .888 * .833 * 2 = 4.9 -- one bike dead; 4 remain
24 * .5 * .5 * .333 = 2 wounds to JZ
another bike dead; 3 remain
18 * .5 * .5 * .333 = 1.5 wounds to JZ
another bike dead; 2 remain
12 * .5 * .5 * .333 = 1 wound to JZ
another bike dead; 1 remains
6 * .5 * .5 * .333 = 0.5 wounds to JZ

JZ is sitting on one wound and killed five Outriders - and I didn't even make an expectation for damage to overflow onto other models between each round.

So what do you want? You want JZ to be able to kill the world? Sure, your White Scars are scary. So are Dark Reapers shooting them with Doom. You want rerolls for the bikes? JZ gets Protect or the bikes get Enervate. You want to kick those bikes up with WS doc? Then she doesn't need to fight 5 to 1. You want her to be an uber killy badass? Then double her points and get her more rules.

I would love for most of the units in the game to be made better, points increased, and to play with less miniatures, but thats not what most people wants.


For example the letality problem could be fixed without touching the wound chart with just GW using the whole Tougthness value. Make baneblades and knights T10, make leman russes and land raiders T9, t7 vehicles become t8, make things like normal space marines, necrons inmortals, ork nobzs S5/T5, and leave all shooting S unchanged.

But GW is not gonna make those sweeping changes because thats not what people expect. Theres need of a change like fantasy to sigmar for something like that to happen.

 Galas wrote:
Intercessors also outshoot Tau Fire Warriors and out meele ork nobz. The only troop I believe they don't win against point per point are saggitarum guard from Custodes (I have not done the math, purely from personal experience) but the moment you factor rerolls auras things become insane.

But thats what happen when you have people wishing for masturbatory fantasy with their space marines armies. Horus Heresy became so popular for a reason. I hate what the horus heresy has done to normal 40k, and I hate primarchs, but what can I do? They are here to stay. They have been here for 3 years, and they are gonna be for many more. I played my dark angels when they were trash for the two first years of 8th and stopped after the new marine codex because I knew how they would end. Thats why I learned to play agaisnt space marines, with a ton of loses in between (And even today).

The reality of Primaris, we can defy it or we can accept it, but we can't deny it.

You can also nerf Primaris, and boost Aspect Warriors. Solutions are available.

Primaris are unfortunately a mistake that is here to stay. Now that SM have 2 wound basic infantry that can outmelee most other factions elite melee specialists I´m not sure what can be done outside of a massive stat overhaul they are not going to do.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Jain Zar gets 4 attacks (along with a goofy rule your opponent can play around that might give you a few more in weird circumstances). Primaris bikers get 6. Primaris has become the punch line to every joke in 40k.

*sigh* We're really going to be comparing apples to oranges all edition, aren't we?

The only way this is apples to oranges is in the opposite direction. A melee phoenix lord should be vastly better in melee than a stock primaris biker. She is better, but not by nearly as much as she should be. A white scars stock primaris biker on turn 3 and beyond puts out 6 S4 -2AP 2 damage hits, probably with rerolls. A BA one has 7 attacks at +1 to wound.

It's just stupid. Eldar in general have been hugely left behind by the inflation in the number of attacks most other factions *cough* SPACE MARINES *cough* get. Primaris bikers are the worst, but they're not the only example.

This is just bad game design. The greatest warriors of a race that were ruling the galaxy when humans were still poking each other with sharpened sticks should not get totally dunked on by the Imperium in the way they are.

Turn. Three.

Let's make an assumption that they're 40 points each. JZ is 115. 3 to 1. gak, no. Let's do 5 bikes.

They charge. JZ fights first.

4 * .833 * .888 * .833 * 2 = 4.9 -- one bike dead; 4 remain
24 * .5 * .5 * .333 = 2 wounds to JZ
another bike dead; 3 remain
18 * .5 * .5 * .333 = 1.5 wounds to JZ
another bike dead; 2 remain
12 * .5 * .5 * .333 = 1 wound to JZ
another bike dead; 1 remains
6 * .5 * .5 * .333 = 0.5 wounds to JZ

JZ is sitting on one wound and killed five Outriders - and I didn't even make an expectation for damage to overflow onto other models between each round.

So what do you want? You want JZ to be able to kill the world? Sure, your White Scars are scary. So are Dark Reapers shooting them with Doom. You want rerolls for the bikes? JZ gets Protect or the bikes get Enervate. You want to kick those bikes up with WS doc? Then she doesn't need to fight 5 to 1. You want her to be an uber killy badass? Then double her points and get her more rules.

Your math displays misunderstandings of basic rules like ASF and ignores doctrines and chapter tactics and the sergeant (who at a minimum has an additional attack, but may also be able to take better weapons), but that's not the point. The point is that a Phoenix Lord has 4 attacks in a game where a primaris biker has 6. Eldar have been ridiculously left behind by the huge inflation in attacks that space marines have seen over the course of 8th edition.

The entire point of this thread is that eldar have fallen from elites to has-beens. Of course you would have to increase points if you made them back into the elite warriors they should be. You're making my point for me, apparently without realizing it.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Jain Zar gets 4 attacks (along with a goofy rule your opponent can play around that might give you a few more in weird circumstances). Primaris bikers get 6. Primaris has become the punch line to every joke in 40k.

*sigh* We're really going to be comparing apples to oranges all edition, aren't we?

The only way this is apples to oranges is in the opposite direction. A melee phoenix lord should be vastly better in melee than a stock primaris biker. She is better, but not by nearly as much as she should be. A white scars stock primaris biker on turn 3 and beyond puts out 6 S4 -2AP 2 damage hits, probably with rerolls. A BA one has 7 attacks at +1 to wound.

It's just stupid. Eldar in general have been hugely left behind by the inflation in the number of attacks most other factions *cough* SPACE MARINES *cough* get. Primaris bikers are the worst, but they're not the only example.

This is just bad game design. The greatest warriors of a race that were ruling the galaxy when humans were still poking each other with sharpened sticks should not get totally dunked on by the Imperium in the way they are.

Turn. Three.

Let's make an assumption that they're 40 points each. JZ is 115. 3 to 1. gak, no. Let's do 5 bikes.

They charge. JZ fights first.

4 * .833 * .888 * .833 * 2 = 4.9 -- one bike dead; 4 remain
24 * .5 * .5 * .333 = 2 wounds to JZ
another bike dead; 3 remain
18 * .5 * .5 * .333 = 1.5 wounds to JZ
another bike dead; 2 remain
12 * .5 * .5 * .333 = 1 wound to JZ
another bike dead; 1 remains
6 * .5 * .5 * .333 = 0.5 wounds to JZ

JZ is sitting on one wound and killed five Outriders - and I didn't even make an expectation for damage to overflow onto other models between each round.

So what do you want? You want JZ to be able to kill the world? Sure, your White Scars are scary. So are Dark Reapers shooting them with Doom. You want rerolls for the bikes? JZ gets Protect or the bikes get Enervate. You want to kick those bikes up with WS doc? Then she doesn't need to fight 5 to 1. You want her to be an uber killy badass? Then double her points and get her more rules.

Jain Zar doesn't shoot, and she doesn't tank wounds nearly as well as the bikes. ALL she does is CC, and she barely wins. So for similar points, you get a CCCharacter. . . OR You get a shooting unit, a tough unit, and a CC unit that nearly kills the CC character. They could just kite her and shoot her off the board with ease. So if the bikes control the engagement, they win easily. If SHE dictates the engagement, she barely makes it out alive.

 Galas wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I cannot take seriously when most eldar players complaint about stuff like Swooping Hawks or Banshee as being bad.

What happens when Banshees charge a unit of Intercessors? They've spent their turns somehow getting past the Intercessor Bolt Rifles and gotten into a nice ambush position and are assaulting. What happens? Is the result what you'd expect?

2nd edition, Power Swords have a S 6, a -3 save mod, and they can parry. Banshees have an initiative of 5 or 6, I forget their Mask bonus. They have 2 attacks because they hold a pistol and CC weapon, and possibly a 3rd attack because they charged (or it's a +1 to the result, I forget). Their target, a Tac marine has 1A and 1W.

8th Edition. . . S3, 1A? What else do they get? Intercessors are hitting back with 3A and have 2W in defense.

Why are you charging with your banshee at the intercessors?

What happens when khorne berzerkers charge a unit of imperial guard infantry? They kill a unit that costs 40 and unless they tri-point it they die.

Banshee are not there to kill anything, they are one of the best tools in this edition to shut down shooting units. TBH I don't really care about other editions, and I'm sad that you would like for them to kill intercessors in combat. I would like for my kroot to be actually usable in HTH but they aren't, and I use them to what they are actually very good for.

I'm a pretty mediocre player, but the reality is that the one that wants to improve at the game adapts and learns, the one that don't just complaints why things don't work when he tries it instead of understanding why that happens. Is legitimate to complaint about balance problems, in 40k there are many, but not as many as most people thinks: People mistakes their perception in how things should work on the tabletop with a unit not working or not being worth taking.

The issue is that Banshee's purpose is not to be a gunline disruptor, they're supposed to be shock assault troops, which they're awful at being. Their fluff is pretty clear about that, preferring to advance and engage the enemy on foot, stunning their opponents into being unable to react, and engaging elite armored foes just as easily as they do cannon fodder.

They're not even all that good at shutting down shooting units, the only thing they really do in that regard is deny overwatch, which while not without value, is highly variable in utility. They're fast, but only relative to other basic infantry, and their actual CC punch in removing said units is probably less than equivalent investment in other Eldar shooting platforms to just blast them off anyway.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
It is truly pathetic how far aspect warriors have fallen in comparison to marines.

To be fair, it's amusing how far Marines have fallen in comparison to Marines looking at a Tactical Marine and an Intercessor next to each other

Those basic Tac Marines are looking pretty phenomenal when compared to most aspects these days.

Dire Avenger: S3 T3 4+, 18" Assault 2 AP0-ish gun. 1A

Tac Marine: (UM Doctrine) S4 T4 3+ 24" Assault* 2 AP-1 gun. 2A in the first round of CC.

*The constant buffing to Rapid Fire has removed the majority of it's downsides in comparison to Assault weapons. UM Marines are now moving and firing twice up to 24, and are able to assault afterwards.

While true, this is also only because of a grip of layered on special rules, and they're still not much to speak about next to an Intercessor

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Jain Zar gets 4 attacks (along with a goofy rule your opponent can play around that might give you a few more in weird circumstances). Primaris bikers get 6. Primaris has become the punch line to every joke in 40k.

*sigh* We're really going to be comparing apples to oranges all edition, aren't we?

The only way this is apples to oranges is in the opposite direction. A melee phoenix lord should be vastly better in melee than a stock primaris biker. She is better, but not by nearly as much as she should be. A white scars stock primaris biker on turn 3 and beyond puts out 6 S4 -2AP 2 damage hits, probably with rerolls. A BA one has 7 attacks at +1 to wound.

It's just stupid. Eldar in general have been hugely left behind by the inflation in the number of attacks most other factions *cough* SPACE MARINES *cough* get. Primaris bikers are the worst, but they're not the only example.

This is just bad game design. The greatest warriors of a race that were ruling the galaxy when humans were still poking each other with sharpened sticks should not get totally dunked on by the Imperium in the way they are.

But this makes sense because GW lore explicitly states that Marines are unmatched by any other fighting force in the whole of the galaxy. So...it makes perfect sense that a Primaris marine is better at fighting than some space elf.

 Togusa wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Jain Zar gets 4 attacks (along with a goofy rule your opponent can play around that might give you a few more in weird circumstances). Primaris bikers get 6. Primaris has become the punch line to every joke in 40k.

*sigh* We're really going to be comparing apples to oranges all edition, aren't we?

The only way this is apples to oranges is in the opposite direction. A melee phoenix lord should be vastly better in melee than a stock primaris biker. She is better, but not by nearly as much as she should be. A white scars stock primaris biker on turn 3 and beyond puts out 6 S4 -2AP 2 damage hits, probably with rerolls. A BA one has 7 attacks at +1 to wound.

It's just stupid. Eldar in general have been hugely left behind by the inflation in the number of attacks most other factions *cough* SPACE MARINES *cough* get. Primaris bikers are the worst, but they're not the only example.

This is just bad game design. The greatest warriors of a race that were ruling the galaxy when humans were still poking each other with sharpened sticks should not get totally dunked on by the Imperium in the way they are.

But this makes sense because GW lore explicitly states that Marines are unmatched by any other fighting force in the whole of the galaxy. So...it makes perfect sense that a Primaris marine is better at fighting than some space elf.

It doesn't because the same lore explicitly states that they're at best, equal to aspect warriors. Marines shouldn't be better than Aspects .

 Togusa wrote:


But this makes sense because GW lore explicitly states that Marines are unmatched by any other fighting force in the whole of the galaxy. So...it makes perfect sense that a Primaris marine is better at fighting than some space elf.

I honestly can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
It is truly pathetic how far aspect warriors have fallen in comparison to marines.

To be fair, it's amusing how far Marines have fallen in comparison to Marines looking at a Tactical Marine and an Intercessor next to each other

Those basic Tac Marines are looking pretty phenomenal when compared to most aspects these days.

Dire Avenger: S3 T3 4+, 18" Assault 2 AP0-ish gun. 1A

Tac Marine: (UM Doctrine) S4 T4 3+ 24" Assault* 2 AP-1 gun. 2A in the first round of CC.

*The constant buffing to Rapid Fire has removed the majority of it's downsides in comparison to Assault weapons. UM Marines are now moving and firing twice up to 24, and are able to assault afterwards.

While true, this is also only because of a grip of layered on special rules, and they're still not much to speak about next to an Intercessor

Individually no, although as units they remain plenty viable because of their options. But either way we're still left with the current problems with Aspect Warriors.

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Togusa wrote:


But this makes sense because GW lore explicitly states that Marines are unmatched by any other fighting force in the whole of the galaxy. So...it makes perfect sense that a Primaris marine is better at fighting than some space elf.

I honestly can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.

I will help you. I play salamanders, and some times Black Legion. Of course, all other factions are inferior to my lovely volcano bois.

A whole lot of the Aspect Warrior problem has to do with the continued betterment of Rapid Fire. In 3rd, a Marine unit could only fire twice up to 12" if it didn't move. It couldn't even fire once up to 24" if it moved, in fact. It's waaaay easier to get CC troops closer when common weapons had such limitations. Also, Assault weapons on fast units like Jetbikes and Warp Spiders had a lot more kick to them comparatively, because they could shoot multiple times after moving a pretty good distance.

These days? Warp Spiders are practically laughable in execution. They have to spend a turn or two moving into position when all an Intercessor has to do is stand there are fire twice up to 30" in return. And the payoff for the Spiders' gun is hardly worth the effort.

Honestly, if we're going to accept that we aren't going back to the artful limitations of 3rd and 4th Ed design, and embrace the fact that Bolters are firing twice up to 24" in the hands of Marines. . . Shuriken Catapults should be back up at 24" range, and we should look at buffing the Avenger Catapult to 24" but with an additional AP or something. Possibly consider dropping Guardian BS back down to 3.

I think that leading the Edition with a long overdue Xenos update is a sign of things to come. I am hopeful that this edition is going to see much updates to all Aeldari factions.

I think that the love given to marines at the close of 8th and the beginning of 9th will keep marines in a high performance space, thus keeping the player base content while other armies come up to meet the bar via 9th ed dexes and releases.

Kabalite Trueborn and Hekatrix Bloodblades ARE DE primaris; Aspect Warriors are CWE primaris. Quins, Ynnari, Exodites and Corsairs are released as supplements with ranges about the size of current Quins. A dedicated Ynnari Aspect for an elites (read: Primaris) unit, and a dedicated Ynnari troop choice.

(Note: by Primaris, I mean a shift to 2W, min 4T, 4S)

The final elimination of finecast from all Eldar ranges.

Then the Tau get attention.

There will, of course, be tiny Imperial Releases in between, but nothing like what the Xenos get.

I hope the Crons sell like nothing in recent history and teach GW the valuable lesson of "If you build it, they will come."

I huge success with Crons will incentivise them to give more Xeno attention.

I really hope you're right but I have 0 faith in that.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I cannot take seriously when most eldar players complaint about stuff like Swooping Hawks or Banshee as being bad.

What happens when Banshees charge a unit of Intercessors? They've spent their turns somehow getting past the Intercessor Bolt Rifles and gotten into a nice ambush position and are assaulting. What happens? Is the result what you'd expect?

2nd edition, Power Swords have a S 6, a -3 save mod, and they can parry. Banshees have an initiative of 5 or 6, I forget their Mask bonus. They have 2 attacks because they hold a pistol and CC weapon, and possibly a 3rd attack because they charged (or it's a +1 to the result, I forget). Their target, a Tac marine has 1A and 1W.

8th Edition. . . S3, 1A? What else do they get? Intercessors are hitting back with 3A and have 2W in defense.

CC in 2nd edition was both sides rolled their Attacks in number of dice, and added their WS to the highest die result. Additional 6's beyond the first added +1 to the total, while 1's subtracted 1 from the total. Compare the totals and the winner inflicts the difference in hits on the loser.

Masks in 2nd edition took effect if the Banshee charged the enemy, and meant the enemy rolled 0 Attack dice in that first round of CC. Jain Zarr's special Mask worked in the 2nd round of CC as well. That meant Banshees were extremely powerful if they charged home because they would inflict massive number of hits with their S5 -3 power swords. Scorpions filled the role more of horde killers as their mandiblasters shot before combat with stats more suited to take down stuff like Ork Boyz.

The issue now is Banshees now being laughable in damage output. The fact people are now claiming they are used as distraction rather than shock assault troops shows how far the Banshees have fallen. The only thing even slightly approximating their old power is that new Exarch power from Phoenix Rising that allows the Exarch to do d3 MW on a 4+, when charging.

Over the years I have also heard arguments by people claiming these kinds of units just needed to be used with "synergy". However what they seemed to mean by this was to essentially babysit the weak unit such as Dooming their target or buffing the unit with things like Fortune. That's not synergy. Synergy is 1+1=3, where the result is more than just the sum of its parts. Right now units like Banshees are more like 1+1=1. Any unit that requires babysitting or some conditional alignment of factors to work in a halfway decent manner is essentially underpowered. Why bother taking such a unit that requires so much effort and potential points of failure over another more reliable and effective unit? That is why the Eldar army has had such horrible internal balance.

Those banshees were way too good, but an effective demonstration of the issue

I think the differing perspectives in the thread show that players and GW are confused by what the eldar should do.

The tactica on the warcom site says they're now the most tactically flexible eldar army, which I suppose is true and yet many seem to consider them uber specialists because of their single use squads. Now they can be both, if you balance out the unit choices to be tactically flexible by using a range of specialist units.

But they're not very good at it. The spam problems are because people hunt for the one or two good units in the army list and then take as many as they can in order to work.

Aspects are sold in boxes of 5 or 6, but most don't work very well in squads that small.

They have a damage output and a damage input issue. If people are spamming shining spears and dark reapers it's because they don't have the output/input issue every other aspect has.



So the question is, are GW just going to keep limping on with the hodge podge of underpowered units, T3 specialists that are so bad you need to do backflips to get them to function even slightly?


Sometimes I wonder if GW's playtesters take a perverse pleasure in how hard they are to play and how great it feels for them to be able to pull of stupid combos and gimmicks, thereby feeding back that they're great as they play in a style they like.

IMO, the eldar (all 3 kinds) are currently some of the hardest armies to play because if you don't know how to pull off those tricks, the armies are underpowered.

GW needs to go back to the drawing board. If it wants to make the game more accessible as they've said many times in the lead up to Indomintus, then they need to make ALL armies accessible. Not just one and wonder why new players only play that one. They need to strip all the gimmicks out of the eldar army and playtest them until they're good.

They've been overly relying on effectively FARSEERS to carry the whole army for 20 years. Take them out, balance the army and then balance their reintroduction.

No army in the game (not even the other two eldar) has the burning need for a single unit that the craftworld's do for the farseer. Without one the army falls apart. No army should fall apart without the inclusion of a specific HQ choice.

This was one area the 2nd ed army fell down, as if you didn't want a farseer the only other HQ you could take as general was the Avatar. But at least you could take a full aspect army led by the avatar with actual punch.


TLDR, the eldar need to work led by nothing but Autarchs. If you can do that, then I think it might have a chance of being closer to what it used to look like (it would be great if the added solo HQ exarchs back in too though...).

Oh man, I haven't played my Eldar in a while, but when I ran them it was a 5E mechanized reserve-denial army that ran with only Autarch HQ's (running with the fluff that the craftworld's farseer's had interpreted their visions incorrectly and that resulted in its destruction and their own demise). It was a fun army, but it really had to play like a tank company to work without Farseers, and I don't think that concept has been anything near workable in any edition since, not that it was anything but mediocre in 5E anyway

Yeah, the complete reliance on Farseers in every edition is definitely one of the defining traits of the army. One the one hand, it's nice to have such an integral part of the army actually work as one would intend throughout the game's history, nicely reflecting the background. The problem is that it also becomes a crutch and other army builds that should function don't. Far too many units are designed to function properly only in conjunction with direct Farseer support.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Oh man, I haven't played my Eldar in a while, but when I ran them it was a 5E mechanized reserve-denial army that ran with only Autarch HQ's (running with the fluff that the craftworld's farseer's had interpreted their visions incorrectly and that resulted in its destruction and their own demise). It was a fun army, but it really had to play like a tank company to work without Farseers, and I don't think that concept has been anything near workable in any edition since, not that it was anything but mediocre in 5E anyway

Yeah, the complete reliance on Farseers in every edition is definitely one of the defining traits of the army. One the one hand, it's nice to have such an integral part of the army actually work as one would intend throughout the game's history, nicely reflecting the background. The problem is that it also becomes a crutch and other army builds that should function don't. Far too many units are designed to function properly only in conjunction with direct Farseer support.

Yeah, while you see other armies regularly taking units like Guilliman, it's not actively crippling if you don't. No army that I can think of actually NEEDS a unit to function.

Craftworlds actually NEED farseers to work and this need is wrapped up in their underpowered unit designs. The farseer is basically GW's one man patch for the army. If there's a problem, farseer will patch it...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What I would do is build the three Hosts of the craftworlds out into capable forces:

Wraith hosts - wraithseers and various types of construct

Guardian hosts - Autarchs and the guardian units

Aspect hosts - exarchs and the aspect units


With the Seer councils acting as a kind of Inquisition that joins each, but is not 'part' of any.

Arguably vanilla marines need a Captain/Chapter Master to function because those re-rolls are absolutely critical. Otherwise I agree with the general premise.

Martel732 wrote:
Those banshees were way too good, but an effective demonstration of the issue

Imo they weren't "too good" because they were still T3 and 4+sv. On top of that basic Assault Marines could also all have Power Swords (and chainswords for two parries), and had a longer charge range because of their jump pack. Banshees were great at their specialty, and just fell apart if they got caught out. Totally fine in terms of balance.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Arguably vanilla marines need a Captain/Chapter Master to function because those re-rolls are absolutely critical. Otherwise I agree with the general premise.

I think it's definitely a matter of degrees. There's a spectrum of dependency with eldar and farseers on one end and the other armies spread along.

Intercessors are pretty capable by themselves, the rerolls just make them even more capable. Banshees suck and a farseer makes them suck less...

I'ma be honest. I'd have more sympathy for Eldar players, IF you guys didn't have the top codex for the last three editions. I remember my first LVO, 2017. Something like 6-7 of the top ten were eldar lists. Every other table had a wraithknight on it, sometimes hanging out with some T'au friends.

The first year I brought my Salamanders, I remember the list like it was yesterday. Captain, Librarian, Tactical Marines, Sternguard Vets, Thunderfire cannon or two, a Devestator Squad, 2 squads of terminators and a Landraider Crusader. Not competitive, but not terrible.

You know what happened game 1? Eldar Jet bikes, game was over by turn 2, I lost 80% of my forces. Game 2? Eldar jet Bikes, same result. Game three was a treat, I got to play against Necrons. Necron jet Bikes. Game was over turn three, with a VP score in each game 3:1.

That was the day I learned to hate the Eldar player. And, sometimes the Necron Player. But mostly Jet bikes.

I played against Eldar a lot in 3rd Ed. They were tough, but beatable.

When I finally played my only 7th (I think they were 7th) games, most of them were against Eldar. Getting blasted off the table by Wave Serpents shield attacks and Wraithknights and Tau allies wasn't fun in the slightest.

 Togusa wrote:
I'ma be honest. I'd have more sympathy for Eldar players, IF you guys didn't have the top codex for the last three editions. I remember my first LVO, 2017. Something like 6-7 of the top ten were eldar lists. Every other table had a wraithknight on it, sometimes hanging out with some T'au friends.

The first year I brought my Salamanders, I remember the list like it was yesterday. Captain, Librarian, Tactical Marines, Sternguard Vets, Thunderfire cannon or two, a Devestator Squad, 2 squads of terminators and a Landraider Crusader. Not competitive, but not terrible.

You know what happened game 1? Eldar Jet bikes, game was over by turn 2, I lost 80% of my forces. Game 2? Eldar jet Bikes, same result. Game three was a treat, I got to play against Necrons. Necron jet Bikes. Game was over turn three, with a VP score in each game 3:1.

That was the day I learned to hate the Eldar player. And, sometimes the Necron Player. But mostly Jet bikes.

You'll notice that, almost without exception, every time a new eldar dex is released and people 'hate' them, it's almost always because of a single unit (generally in association with a farseer), or a couple. Being able to abuse one or two units every edition might make them possible to win with, but it hides how terrible the army is and how impossible it is to play them in any other way than that one particular spam build flavour of the edition.

Giving eldar players the ability to use the whole dex isn't asking to make the whole dex as broken as those specific unit combos, it should actually reduce the broken nature of them.

I want to be able to play the army as they should play, not have to resort to crappy tricks that make people hate the army in order to get any kind of advantage.


At the moment the eldar army is the most gamiest, least representative army out there. That it can only really be competitive with unrealistic army compositions highlights this issue.

It is hard for me to say what direction they will take Craftworlds. I really thought GW had a plan to revise and streamline the entire Aeldari range through the introduction of the Ynarri; this would be their way to forge a more coherent direction for the three Aeldari factions. Somewhere along the line it seems that plan was shelved and GW ended up shoehorning those three models into three different armies.

yukishiro1 wrote:


Your math displays misunderstandings of basic rules like ASF and ignores doctrines and chapter tactics and the sergeant (who at a minimum has an additional attack, but may also be able to take better weapons), but that's not the point. The point is that a Phoenix Lord has 4 attacks in a game where a primaris biker has 6. Eldar have been ridiculously left behind by the huge inflation in attacks that space marines have seen over the course of 8th edition.

The entire point of this thread is that eldar have fallen from elites to has-beens. Of course you would have to increase points if you made them back into the elite warriors they should be. You're making my point for me, apparently without realizing it.

- Fair point in ASF, but I'd wager she gets the charge most games - doesn't change the calculus that much
- I didn't bother adding in doctrines, because the points were skewed heavily against her
- A single sarge attack means diddly squat (a power sword, however...)

So the quality of attacks has literally no bearing? Or the +3 to charge? Or ASF? Or -1 to be hit? (Or the much less useful ignore O/W) - obviously none of that matters, because its not moar attaks. And on a smaller note her shooting does 1.4 wounds to marines. That bike does something like 0.8. (yes, yes blah blah range blah blah she can run and shoot)

Or how we ignore that she can make 6 to 8 attacks against 10 IS, Boyz, Electropriests, Sisters, etc? No, we're going to ignore that, because it doesn't fit the narrative.

I mean...Knights only have FIVE attacks. Those bikes are just wreckin' everything! gak, White Scars could have used regular bikes right now and seen the same number of attacks per point and similar durability. They'll even get the new CS. But they didn't, because D2 is scary apparently unless you're Primaris so then it isn't. These bikes will die just like the old ones - just half as fast for twice the points.

And...oh gak...isn't this funny. Those Outriders lose 3 attacks after the first round of combat and I didn't even bother to reduce them. Enjoy.

White Scars biker: 6 S4 -2AP 2D attacks on T3.

Phoenix Lord, greatest warrior of a race that ruled the stars when humans were still using sharpened sticks: 4 S6 -3AP 1d3 damage attacks.

Primaris intercessor that isn't even a melee specialist: 3 S4 attacks, -1AP on T3+.

Striking Scorpion that spends decades or centuries training to be elite shock infantry: 2 S4 attacks, 0AP.

You can mathhammer away all you want on stuff that's totally ancillary to the discussion, but these relative stats are just stupid. Elite Eldar - both characters and units - have totally been left behind. We could ram the point home even more by bringing up a smash captain and comparing him to the phoenix lord too...but that would just be rubbing salt in the wound.

Tyel wrote:

As people have said, Eldar have had a top tier selection of units in every edition except 5th (and even then I think their "badness" is exaggerated - but they lacked an obvious *take X, Y and Z, mop the floor with 50% of the game* build).

I'm late to the party and the discussion has moved on, but I wanted to comment on Eldar in 5th edition anyway. I got into Eldar halfway through the edition's span and it's when I had the most fun with them. I kept playing them in 6th where they were significantly more powerful and actually had a current codex. In 5th people were happy to play me. In 6th not so much.

The reason I enjoyed them so much in 5th because they were a spoiler army. By the time I put them on the table, the metal bawkses meta was well-established and everyone had melta. I had footdar. A good number of my opponents had a hard time grasping the concept that the Avatar was immune to melta weapons. Others had a hard time accepting that wraithlords were T8 and those meltas wounded on a 4+ not a 2+. Similarly they struggled with wasting quality shots on a fortuned, concealed guardian blob. My lists weren't superpowerful and I certainly didn't win any local tournies, but I had fun with the army. So, 5th edition may have been a low point for Eldar codex power historically, but it was my personal Eldar golden age.

yukishiro1 wrote:
White Scars biker: 6 S4 -2AP 2D attacks on T3.

Phoenix Lord, greatest warrior of a race that ruled the stars when humans were still using sharpened sticks: 4 S6 -3AP 1d3 damage attacks.

Primaris intercessor that isn't even a melee specialist: 3 S4 attacks, -1AP on T3+.

Striking Scorpion that spends decades or centuries training to be elite shock infantry: 2 S4 attacks, 0AP.

You can mathhammer away all you want on stuff that's totally ancillary to the discussion, but these relative stats are just stupid. Elite Eldar - both characters and units - have totally been left behind. We could ram the point home even more by bringing up a smash captain and comparing him to the phoenix lord too...but that would just be rubbing salt in the wound.

And a chaos lord thousands of years old has four attacks, well 5 now, I guess.

It isn't stupid, because the effectiveness matters. Nurglings get 4 and no one is writing home about those.

Ok, fine. Striking Scorpions get 4 S4 AP0 attacks now. This clearly makes them superior to Primaris. Problem solved?

Listen, I'm not unsympathetic, but the reality is if you want more attacks you're going to pay more points and then you're robbing peter to pay paul by creating a glass cannon. So, pick your poison.