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ERJAK wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I thought 9th was gonna be different and better because it was written with tournament players and playtesters in mind?

Have you played it?

Have you?

Dude, if they don't listen to the playtesters, there's nothing they can do. Do you honestly think ANYONE on the playtest team looked at a handflamer and said "yeah, that needs to be FIVE TIMES more expensive?" No, they didn't.

The core rules seem to be a pretty vast improvement over 8th, especially with terrain, it's just the repointing that gakked the bed and you can tell just by how wacky it is that it was done mostly by spreadsheet, not by playtesting.

My critique is aimed squarely at GW; I also have critique of the playtesters but not as people (they did a fine job) but as the category chosen (tournament players) based on things like the Tabletop Titans Ork video, but there's no need to rehash that here given the other thread on it.

9th edition is... an adequate change, but I wouldn't say a vast improvement. The biggest improvements, IMO, come from the missions and terrain, both of which could come from Chapter Approved 2020 instead of a new edition (they've had new terrain and missions in CA before as well).

The actual core rules changes (Models that can fight being .5" instead of 1" away, the coherency changes, the blast weapon changes, and the 5" vertical engagement range) are either well-intentioned and ill-executed (lol 5" engagement range. That should just be on a monster datasheet, rather than having a unit on a catwalk prevent other units from walking underneath it) or baffling and unnecessary (unless tournament speed is your concern re: blast weapons).

the_scotsman wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:
Completely aside from all the discussions of specific examples here, does anyone else think it's a really weird move to go "we've increasing the points of everything to improve granularity and give more flexibility at the low end of the scale" while simultaneously reducing granularity (by bumping most everything to multiples of five) and reducing flexibility at the bottom of the scale (by shifting the "points floor" upwards to minimum 5ppm)?

It certainly isn't an irony that hasn't escaped my attention.

Honestly, I just think there's a certain subset of units that GW is just trying to discourage appearing in competitive games. Whether the reason for that is "they aren't an 'iconic' part of the faction" or "they slow down competitive events and we don't like that" you can look at what units are most effected and see a pretty clear theme: Light infantry units that aren't "the star of the show" for that army.

Cultists
Guardians/Storm Guardians
Grots
Brimstones
Servitors
Conscripts
Kroot
Wracks
Neophytes

A storm guardian is self-evidently not the equal to a Skitarii, or a Fire Warrior, or worth one point more than a Bloodletter. They're not supposed to be. Fire Warriors and Skitarii and Bloodletters are what GW wants to see on the table when an army of that faction wins a tournament event, Guardians and Storm Guardians are not.

You are 100% wrong about DE and Wracks. the DE community is moving MORE towards Wracks b.c of how 9th is and Wyches/Kabals also went up by 3pts (2pts to many b.c the transports also went up). Every competitive DE player is thinking of taking at least 15-20 Wracks. If Kabals and Wyches did not go up so much with their transports going up then you might be correct.

 McMagnus Mindbullets wrote:
There's no denying that, I agree. Hopefully we'll see them changed in the near future with a dex- they should most definitely be a premium unit
More talking about down at the 4-8 ppm range

Fair enough.
I agree this can be marginal. Its more that its.. upsetting, when you have say X at 8 points, and Y at 9 points, and its... very unclear why Y is meaningfully better.
But really, unless you were planning to chuck 100 Y in your list, its probably not wrecking the game.

I think Kabalites have been done dirty at 9 points - but I'm not convinced its going to massively change DE if they were subsequently buffed to being just 8. Nerfing Dissies into the floor is going to have a rather more negative impact on the faction.

I was first elated at the pts increases, since i hoped that this would solve the wierdness in the low bracket infantry realm, of conscripts, militia , IS and cultists sharing a spot pts wise, even though they are NOT EQUAL.

Now we get even more at 5 pts, units that have no buissness beiing there. We have 6 pts cultists and 5 pts IS.
We . Have. Grots. At. 5 Pts.


if you ask me, that alone is a failure...

Not Online!!! wrote:
I was first elated at the pts increases, since i hoped that this would solve the wierdness in the low bracket infantry realm, of conscripts, militia , IS and cultists sharing a spot pts wise, even though they are NOT EQUAL.

Now we get even more at 5 pts, units that have no buissness beiing there. We have 6 pts cultists and 5 pts IS.
We . Have. Grots. At. 5 Pts.


if you ask me, that alone is a failure...

The worst part is that it doesn't even open up any more design space. If they wanted more space to differentiate between IG, Cultists, and Grots (for examples), then why not make IG 10 pts and increase game size to compensate? All this does is make it unbalanced - and then when points go back down to balance them, we end up exactly where we were in CA2019 so there's no reason to touch things in the first place (unless you're deliberately trying to imbalance things, that is).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
If they wanted more space to differentiate between IG, Cultists, and Grots (for examples), then why not make IG 10 pts and increase game size to compensate?

Because that would destroy the 2k game size. I know that you could change that, but community inertia on that point is huge. I think they wanted smaller games, to lower the price of a normal size army and make the game more appealing to start. If they pushed the point increases too far, people would go to 2.5k or more. So they had to walk the line of increasing things, but just enough so that people would take less stuff.

the_scotsman wrote:

Honestly, I just think there's a certain subset of units that GW is just trying to discourage appearing in competitive games. Whether the reason for that is "they aren't an 'iconic' part of the faction" or "they slow down competitive events and we don't like that" you can look at what units are most effected and see a pretty clear theme: Light infantry units that aren't "the star of the show" for that army.

Cultists
Guardians/Storm Guardians
Grots
Brimstones
Servitors
Conscripts
Kroot
Wracks
Neophytes

Sadly (from my pov) the points changes have done the opposite for Drukhari. It is Wracks that will be increasingly fielded, because Kabalites and their boats have seen a big points hike, and their hit-and-run playstyle has been nerfed into the ground.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
If they wanted more space to differentiate between IG, Cultists, and Grots (for examples), then why not make IG 10 pts and increase game size to compensate?

Because that would destroy the 2k game size. I know that you could change that, but community inertia on that point is huge. I think they wanted smaller games, to lower the price of a normal size army and make the game more appealing to start. If they pushed the point increases too far, people would go to 2.5k or more. So they had to walk the line of increasing things, but just enough so that people would take less stuff.

Points is a number. They could of said they are doubling the base value for things and tweeking it from there so a 2000 point game from 8th is roughly equal to a 4000 point game. It gives more room for granularity and is easy to work with. People are a lot more likely to run a 4K game than they are to use GW's weird new table sizes (which requires modifying/replacing existing 4x6 play areas).

 Mr Morden wrote:


Why do people always defend the most broken units - same with the Cheese Serpents, and Eldar jet bikes, Iron hands....

I'm not "defending" Eradicators.

I'm trying to tell you that you're going to fill up all your Heavy on a unit that still has to cross the board and is not overwhelmingly durable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I thought 9th was gonna be different and better because it was written with tournament players and playtesters in mind?

Have you played it?

Have you?

Ayep - three games now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Oaka wrote:
A Spearhead Detachment full of Eradicators seems like a no-brainer, considering their special rule is basically a free stratagem.

Especially if a lot of people drop horde units for elite/monsters. The math doesn't look good for my 115-point Talos when this 120-point unit walks onto the board from any table edge.

Write me a list. What else is in this army?

 Vankraken wrote:
Points is a number. They could of said they are doubling the base value for things and tweeking it from there so a 2000 point game from 8th is roughly equal to a 4000 point game. It gives more room for granularity and is easy to work with. People are a lot more likely to run a 4K game than they are to use GW's weird new table sizes (which requires modifying/replacing existing 4x6 play areas).

People generally hate change. If you want to reduce army size, you can't do it to such an extreme degree. For example, say you doubled points costs but made 3k the new standard. People are going to take their lists, see that they are now 4k, then make 4k the new standard. 4k will filter through the community via events and forums. So because you tried to change too much, you failed at your objective. However, give people something familiar like 2k and just tweak what they can fit in that by 15-20%, they are much more likely to adopt that army size.

 Oaka wrote:
A Spearhead Detachment full of Eradicators seems like a no-brainer, considering their special rule is basically a free stratagem.

Especially if a lot of people drop horde units for elite/monsters. The math doesn't look good for my 115-point Talos when this 120-point unit walks onto the board from any table edge.

Well, a 120 point unit should probably have a decent chance of killing a 115 point model, shouldn't it? especially if that target is a dreadnought style model and these guys are designed to kill dreadnought and vehicle style models? Wouldnt the other two in the unit of 3 just run up and eat them in melee without thinking about it? cause then its 345 points vs 120, and that would make sense?

These guys are good, I'm not saying they aren't, but the doom train is a bit crazy on this one. I also agree with the position that they are better than they should be, or probably so, but I don't think their existence is world ending.

They are t5, 3w, spd 5, and can only be transported by a repulsor or an executioner. Additionally, you can put them in TR, but at the cost of CP to do so, but that also kind of just telegraphs their play and where they are going. they're good, but a buddy played with them against me with proxies and they weren't the end all be all. They killed a Carnifex. They then got overran and eaten. of course that's completely anecdotal to the situation at hand and has more variables that can be counted to take it seriously, but I really think if you look at the limitations of the unit they really arent as bad as most people think.

Still very good. Still, probably a bit too points efficient, but not the end all be all of the hot new brokeness.

Seabass wrote:

Well, a 120 point unit should probably have a decent chance of killing a 115 point model, shouldn't it?

Yes and no. It should usually take more points to kill a unit. A quad las pred does 5.2 to a dread at a fair bit more points. Eradicators do 9.3. Obviously the predator is more durable, longer range, and doesn't worry about move and shoot any longer. There's a gap there with some pros and cons to consider.

The worst part is that it doesn't even open up any more design space. If they wanted more space to differentiate between IG, Cultists, and Grots (for examples), then why not make IG 10 pts and increase game size to compensate? All this does is make it unbalanced - and then when points go back down to balance them, we end up exactly where we were in CA2019 so there's no reason to touch things in the first place (unless you're deliberately trying to imbalance things, that is).

GW said from day 1 of announcing the points changes that they were NOT about balance but rather being done specifically to alter the size of the standard game to make it play faster. I said from day 1 that not only would this not make the game faster, it would damage it in other areas. I was accused of all manner of terrible things, and yet here we are. lol

While these are not nearly as bad as I thought they would be, they aren't going to make 9th faster. So far, from the games I've played and seen played, the game isn't faster. Armies dropping by 100-200 points (which amounts to about 1 - 1.5 squads for most armies) isn't going to speed up ... anything. If that one ten man squad of old marines was causing your games to be appreciably longer, no amount of changes to the game will help you.

I think people screaming about tourney players being the testers is a bit silly. If you feel that way you may not understand how testing this kind of thing works.

You need:
1. Consistency -

You need a group of people playing the same way or you don't have controls. The last few years I've been much more of a garage player than a tourney player and I can tell you that, on average, if you go to 3 different "for fun/narrative" groups, you're likely to se at least 4 different styles of play. There's no way to use that as a test because of the radically different views they will have.


2. # of games. You're average garage gamer or LGS pick-up player isn't likely to have even a third the number of games over the course of 6 months that a tourney player will get in two weeks.


Having narrative players give feedback on narrative items is awesome. Trying to get them to balance the game is a disaster waiting to happen ...

Not that GW listens to the testers anyway. That kind of makes it a moot point I suppose. lol

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Seabass wrote:

Well, a 120 point unit should probably have a decent chance of killing a 115 point model, shouldn't it?

Yes and no. It should usually take more points to kill a unit. A quad las pred does 5.2 to a dread at a fair bit more points. Eradicators do 9.3. Obviously the predator is more durable, longer range, and doesn't worry about move and shoot any longer. There's a gap there with some pros and cons to consider.

Is it? The gap between T5 and T7 is pretty small (we know that, recall the discussions surrounding the drukhari meta) and the unit of eradicators has 9W vs the predators...11w, right? Every 3W the eradicators lose 1/3 of their firepower and the predator loses 1 from its BS.

The real question is how much 24" range matters vs 48" range on the new board. I'd say "not a whole hell of a lot". the eradicators are also much less likely to get tied up by a cheapo unit, since they can punch their way out of a paper bag.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
It’s to allow room to finesse up and down later without pretending they’ve playtested to the new level of granularity yet. It’s a reset to be tuned later.

wasn't their statement along the line off "most playtested ever", have they so low faith in their own and those that they hired?

Btw, why not make the playtesting public, give some insights, not that much off effort and would allow for better feedback of the community...

Yeah I'd be very curious about the playtest methodology. What was actually tested? What was the goal? What if anything was the acceptance criteria?

Swooping Hawks vs Pteraxii Skystalkers. The same type of unit performing the exact same role on the tabletop. Skystalker has more than double the survivability, more than double the melee capability, their bomb is more than twice as good, and their gun is 66% better. Hawks have better leadership, a little more movement and a leadership buff that is at cross purposes to what you would be doing with this unit. Skystalkers cost ONE more point!

I test software for a living. It seems clear to me that they didn't do any sort of comprehensive testing as I understand it, or that their acceptance criteria prioritizes something other than game balance. It is similar to the birth of 8E where they thought things like Wyches and flamers were super powerful (kill one or two light infantry at short range, wow!).

Its just a tabletop game and no one is going to die because the Swooping Hawks or whatever aren't any good, and they probably don't have any paid testers, but I certainly wouldn't be bragging about the testing if I were them.

yeah, how you could ever not go "hmmm, let's compare this brand new admech unit's point cost to the unit that it is clearly most similar to in the eldar arsenal and make sure the cost is within the same universe of reasonableness" is beyond me.

one point. ONE POINT difference between them. Just laughable.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
It’s to allow room to finesse up and down later without pretending they’ve playtested to the new level of granularity yet. It’s a reset to be tuned later.

wasn't their statement along the line off "most playtested ever", have they so low faith in their own and those that they hired?

Heh. They named some (out of how many?) of the playtesters in the faction focus articles. That strikes me as a pretty high degree of faith. Or providing obvious scapegoats. One of the two.

Though personally I don't like putting playtesting in the hands of people with a vested interest in specific factions and units 'winning' the test process. Even unconscious bias is a thing, and I can't imagine that every unit that's considered 'bad' in tournament play got the same scrutiny and was argued for with the same passion as the faction favorite units.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I thought 9th was gonna be different and better because it was written with tournament players and playtesters in mind?

Have you played it?

Have you?

Ayep - three games now.

You're pretty quick if you got 3 games in since the points came out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also worth mentioning that the whole "A unit should be able to kill 100% of its preferred target in a single shooting phase" is a flawed measure of a unit, because if you scale that up to armies, then you're saying "An army should be able to kill 100% of its points value in a single shooting phase".

I.e., an army should table another army in a single shooting phase. This means the only way to survive at all is terrain, and I don't think it's a healthy gamestate for an IGOUGO system.

A unit should make its points back over the course of a game, perhaps, and points should be measured by firepower endured as much as firepower output. So a unit that has great output and great armor should be more expensive than a unit with the same output but fragile armor.

I wrote a post about this ages ago in a lethality thread; let me see if I can find it.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
If they wanted more space to differentiate between IG, Cultists, and Grots (for examples), then why not make IG 10 pts and increase game size to compensate?

Because that would destroy the 2k game size. I know that you could change that, but community inertia on that point is huge. I think they wanted smaller games, to lower the price of a normal size army and make the game more appealing to start. If they pushed the point increases too far, people would go to 2.5k or more. So they had to walk the line of increasing things, but just enough so that people would take less stuff.

I sincerely doubt it. People will play whatever the tournament standard is and generally you only get complaints about points levels being too HIGH at tournaments. There are some people who will talk about going to 2500 but that's not likely to happen just because most tournament players will be more than happy to get home at 8 after an event rather than 10.

The more likely reason is that someone at corporate didn't want people buying less models for tournaments.

I found it, here's what I proposed:
"If I was a game designer, I'd make "all purpose" guns (like a Leman Russ Battlecannon) needing a 4-1 ratio against most targets (e.g. you need 4x the points of a Leman Russ with Battlecannon to completely destroy a unit worth 1x points). Specialized guns (e.g. the Exterminator autocannon against multi-wound infantry) would need a 3-1 against their specialist targets (so only a 3x points advantage to totally wipe a unit in one round of shooting) and a 5-1 against suboptimal targets. Then, hyperspecialized units (e.g. Ork tankbustas) need a 2-1 to wipe a unit of their preferred target type, and a 6-1 to wipe a unit of another type."

In this case, the Eradicators should need a 3x points advantage to wipe out a tank, and a 5-1 to wipe out other things (e.g. guardsmen). The only reason I didn't rule them as hyperspecialized is because of their melee capability, which makes them fairly alright against light hordes of infantry; they aren't as hyperspecialized as, say, Ork Tankbustas.

In this case, a 150-point Predator should need about 450 points of unbuffed eradicators to kill it. Right now, if I am not mistaken, the ratio is considerably less.

Of course, my original formulation was for shooting only, but the general rule should apply (obviously melee specialists exist).

The usual meter is that a unit should hit between 1/4 and 1/3 of his point value. Can get up to 1/2 if it specialized against a specific target, or if it is really glassy.

Spoletta wrote:
The usual meter is that a unit should hit between 1/4 and 1/3 of his point value. Can get up to 1/2 if it specialized against a specific target, or if it is really glassy.

Good, we're roughly in agreement then (I said 4-1, 3-1, and 2-1 also, though I framed my ratios differently ). Unfortunately, people are expecting units to make back their points in a single battle round, which is just too much.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I thought 9th was gonna be different and better because it was written with tournament players and playtesters in mind?

Have you played it?

Have you?

Dude, if they don't listen to the playtesters, there's nothing they can do. Do you honestly think ANYONE on the playtest team looked at a handflamer and said "yeah, that needs to be FIVE TIMES more expensive?" No, they didn't.

The core rules seem to be a pretty vast improvement over 8th, especially with terrain, it's just the repointing that gakked the bed and you can tell just by how wacky it is that it was done mostly by spreadsheet, not by playtesting.

My critique is aimed squarely at GW; I also have critique of the playtesters but not as people (they did a fine job) but as the category chosen (tournament players) based on things like the Tabletop Titans Ork video, but there's no need to rehash that here given the other thread on it.

9th edition is... an adequate change, but I wouldn't say a vast improvement. The biggest improvements, IMO, come from the missions and terrain, both of which could come from Chapter Approved 2020 instead of a new edition (they've had new terrain and missions in CA before as well).

The actual core rules changes (Models that can fight being .5" instead of 1" away, the coherency changes, the blast weapon changes, and the 5" vertical engagement range) are either well-intentioned and ill-executed (lol 5" engagement range. That should just be on a monster datasheet, rather than having a unit on a catwalk prevent other units from walking underneath it) or baffling and unnecessary (unless tournament speed is your concern re: blast weapons).

So you're splitting hairs over what part of the core rules the rules are written in? I know that some people create this arbitrary distinction between the matched play rules and the "core rules" but let's be real, if you're not using the matched play rules you're likely not all that fussed with following the "core" rules either, usually in an effort to build a better play experience for your local group. The letter of the rules only really ever matters to tournament players.

Models fighting within .5 is weird but ultimately not particularly impactful. The coherency changes are there to stop congalining large squads, which they do effectively if inelegantly. The 5" vertical engagement range is quite odd in practice, yes, but it is an improvement over 'I'm on a crate, you can't touch me, neener neener neener!', which your proposed solution still faces for any non-monster.

As for Blast and the other changes that limit horde armies, that's a deliberate design choice made to limit large hordes of models on the table. I don't know WHY they made that choice, but the steps they've made have been effective in doing so.

Changing the CP reroll strat was massive, the changes to morale create a much less binary interaction and as such opens up design space for GW to stop handing out immune to morale like candy, and the terrain rules fix one of the biggest flaws 8th had.

If they had just dropped us in with 8ths points and then adjusted everything in december with (some) actual DATA, rather than a spreadsheet, we would have been fine. As is they botched the points so the fact that the core rules are better doesn't really matter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I found it, here's what I proposed:
"If I was a game designer, I'd make "all purpose" guns (like a Leman Russ Battlecannon) needing a 4-1 ratio against most targets (e.g. you need 4x the points of a Leman Russ with Battlecannon to completely destroy a unit worth 1x points). Specialized guns (e.g. the Exterminator autocannon against multi-wound infantry) would need a 3-1 against their specialist targets (so only a 3x points advantage to totally wipe a unit in one round of shooting) and a 5-1 against suboptimal targets. Then, hyperspecialized units (e.g. Ork tankbustas) need a 2-1 to wipe a unit of their preferred target type, and a 6-1 to wipe a unit of another type."

In this case, the Eradicators should need a 3x points advantage to wipe out a tank, and a 5-1 to wipe out other things (e.g. guardsmen). The only reason I didn't rule them as hyperspecialized is because of their melee capability, which makes them fairly alright against light hordes of infantry; they aren't as hyperspecialized as, say, Ork Tankbustas.

In this case, a 150-point Predator should need about 450 points of unbuffed eradicators to kill it. Right now, if I am not mistaken, the ratio is considerably less.

Of course, my original formulation was for shooting only, but the general rule should apply (obviously melee specialists exist).

Salamanders eradicators kill a predator outright on average dice in melta range.

ERJAK wrote:
Salamanders eradicators kill a predator outright on average dice in melta range.

And this is why (free) faction bonuses are a bad idea. It is literally impossible to accurately point units with them. (Not that this unit would have been accurately priced even if we ignore such bonuses.)

ERJAK wrote:
So you're splitting hairs over what part of the core rules the rules are written in? I know that some people create this arbitrary distinction between the matched play rules and the "core rules" but let's be real, if you're not using the matched play rules you're likely not all that fussed with following the "core" rules either, usually in an effort to build a better play experience for your local group. The letter of the rules only really ever matters to tournament players.

Models fighting within .5 is weird but ultimately not particularly impactful. The coherency changes are there to stop congalining large squads, which they do effectively if inelegantly. The 5" vertical engagement range is quite odd in practice, yes, but it is an improvement over 'I'm on a crate, you can't touch me, neener neener neener!', which your proposed solution still faces for any non-monster.

As for Blast and the other changes that limit horde armies, that's a deliberate design choice made to limit large hordes of models on the table. I don't know WHY they made that choice, but the steps they've made have been effective in doing so.

Changing the CP reroll strat was massive, the changes to morale create a much less binary interaction and as such opens up design space for GW to stop handing out immune to morale like candy, and the terrain rules fix one of the biggest flaws 8th had.

If they had just dropped us in with 8ths points and then adjusted everything in december with (some) actual DATA, rather than a spreadsheet, we would have been fine. As is they botched the points so the fact that the core rules are better doesn't really matter.

I'm not splitting hairs. I'm saying the best parts of 9th could've come out as changes for 8th in Chapter Approved (since it's terrain rules and missions, which are literally what's in every Chapter Approved in 8th).

The other changes that came with 9th, well, it sounds like we're in agreement. Some random changes which are okay as a shake-up but don't exactly make sense or could have been done better. The morale rules are clunky and take up extra time, as well as being unintuitive (failing morale = models die? Is there no positioning? Does the morale of nearby units matter? does this strange mechanic have more to do with game mechanics than with the psychology of our plastic soldiers?) and the command re-roll is a more subtle change than adding a stratagem whole-cloth, which they did in an 8th Edition FAQ of all things (prepared positions). So nothing published for 9th that couldn't be published for 8th is really a "vast improvement"

Eradicators are a complete mess at the current points value, and a good test of whether someone's ideas about game balance are worth taking seriously. Nobody can seriously say these aren't hugely undercosted. They looked undercosted when we first saw the datasheet, and they absolutely are.

Playtesters aren't stupid. They knew this, and I guarantee you they reported it, just like I guarantee you they reported many of the obvious errors in the points. And yet, as usual, GW ignored the feedback and did nothing. Is this simply because of incompetence, or because of a deliberate desire to sell the kits? Does it really matter? The end result is the same - game balance sacrificed in order to make the most powerful faction even more powerful.

ERJAK wrote:
Salamanders eradicators kill a predator outright on average dice in melta range.

Which is why Eradicators are a problem, yeah. Definitely in agreement there.

the_scotsman wrote:

The real question is how much 24" range matters vs 48" range on the new board. I'd say "not a whole hell of a lot".

Yep - not certain. Terrain makes that harder to use as well.

the eradicators are also much less likely to get tied up by a cheapo unit, since they can punch their way out of a paper bag.

An IS squad can tie them up for a couple rounds.

I'd switch things around - but 25% (4-1), 33% (3-1) and 40% (2.5-1) returns work for me.

The problem in 8th is that the indexes (ignoring outliers) were priced at about 25% effectiveness.
This then rapidly jumped towards 35% in the codexes - and with optimal chapter tactics, warlord traits, stratagems etc you moved towards 40-45%.

And this is where you get ye infamous two turn Warhammer, if you don't *also* have a bunch of debuffs (minuses to hit being the most successful. invuls and FNPs also helping) to bring that percentage down.

Seabass wrote:
Well, a 120 point unit should probably have a decent chance of killing a 115 point model, shouldn't it?

Absolutely not- unless you think an army should have a decent chance of tabling an equivalent points army in one Shooting Phase, which is what that boils down to.

Can you name some other anti-tank infantry that reliably kill their own points' worth of vehicles in one attack? Or just infantry in general that get a 100% return against their preferred target? Bonus points if they're not Marines.

Seabass wrote:
They killed a Carnifex. They then got overran and eaten.

A Carnifex costs as much as they do in 9th. A Carnifex has fewer wounds, albeit at slightly higher T, and is more vulnerable to multi-damage weapons. There is no Carnifex build that reliably makes back its points in one round of melee, let alone one round of shooting at 24".

The Eradicators shoot once and then it's all gravy. They absolutely have to be killed before they have a chance to shoot, they have the range to hit anything that leaves its deployment zone, they can move and fire without penalty (so can hide out of LOS to start), and they're not that squishy either. There is not a single infantry model in the game that compares favorably- put them side-by-side with Kataphron Breachers or Wraithguard and it's like a bad joke. Then put them in the context of being in an army with easy access to re-rolls to hit and to-wound, and it gets even worse.

I am continually amazed that there are people defending this, and especially the glib statements like 'it's just that melta has always sucked' or 'well they're not that hard to kill' or 'but it costs me CP to make them even better by outflanking' or 'they're not guaranteed to make back their points' or- and this is my personal favorite- 'my army is already so overpowered that I'd still rather just take Eliminators'.