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 Crimson wrote:
the Eldar units need serious buffs, but increasing toughness or wounds is completely wrong way to do it (at least outside Exarchs and Warlocks which should be proper characters with profiles to match.) The Eldar can have other buffs. If durability is desired, then dodge saves, an ability to move out of LOS or the hit penalties are the way to go.

I would agree with this.

 Mr Morden wrote:


Elves and Eldar in both universes are at least as durable as base line humans - with far faster reactions and agility.

Not sure what your point is here – Space Marines certainly aren't "base line humans"; it's kinda the whole point of them


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 vipoid wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
the Eldar units need serious buffs, but increasing toughness or wounds is completely wrong way to do it (at least outside Exarchs and Warlocks which should be proper characters with profiles to match.) The Eldar can have other buffs. If durability is desired, then dodge saves, an ability to move out of LOS or the hit penalties are the way to go.

I would agree with this.

Likewise. Seems like "Space Marines got a resilience boost, so Eldar should too" rather misses the point of them being two entirely different armies.

Aspect warriors have always had special armor that is extremely durable in the fluff. They need to keep them at 1 wound but give them all a 2+ save. The superior technology of Eldar aspect armor needs to be updated.

Yeah. Space elves definitely need a buff, but throwing toughness and wounds at everything is just bad game design.

Eldar need a design space of their own. Whether that's simply being so bloody amazing everyone always has -1 to hit them that can't be mitigated by any means, or something more subtle, they need a change.

Part of that change needs to be undoing the nerf to their basic weapons. Yes, shuriken catapults were obscene in 1st and 2nd edition. That does not matter in the 9th edition world of firepower++. Putting your citizen militia at point blank range makes no sense whatsoever.

Poison also needs some design work. 4+ minimum, +1 to wound vs 5+ (or worse) armor saves, or something. More poison getting to lightly armored units. Or +1 to wound on a 6 to hit, getting an extra dose through a chink in the armor.

Currently the basic eldar units are worse (and more expensive) guardsmen, and that's an utterly ridiculous starting point for an army.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
In no battle field situation should a Space Marine lose to an Ork boy if we are going by fluff alone.

Do you know who was an ork boy? Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka. Along with basically every boss and nob. Sometimes upsets happen.

And going by the fluff he didn't beat a single Space Marine by himself when he was a boy. In the fluff a Space Marine can take on dozens of ork boyz with little chance of getting hurt except by the occasional lucky shot. In the fluff Ghaz got his head half blown off when trying to raid a marine base lol. The point I was making is that if you want to think of the fluff as being accurate than instead of viewing each boyz model as an individual boy, think of them as their own mob of boyz represented by that single model. In the fluff 10 Marines would never get overwhelmed by 30 boyz but in the game it happens all the time. But if you viewed each boy as representing 10-20 boyz each for fluff reasons than all of the sudden it makes more sense.

Again though, from a balance perspective that is irrelevant. Boyz are currently 8ppm, Tac Marines are what? 18pts? Back in 5th Boyz were 6ppm and Tacs were 14pts, or 2.3 Boyz per Marine. Since that time Boyz have gained....1 strength (they had it already on the charge) Tac Marines have gained ...wow, I don't want to go over it, but lets just say A LOT! and now the difference in price is 2.25 boyz per Marine And as of right now those Marines are 2 wounds and boyz are still 1.

We have gone from somewhat balanced to absurdly one sided and I believe Jidmah said it best himself where he explained the reason was GW is tired of Ork players playing their army how they want to and instead are trying to hamfist orkz into playing how they envision the NPC army to play as, a couple of mobz of boyz a squad or two of grots and lots and lots of toyz that tend to explode very easily.

SemperMortis wrote:
And going by the fluff he didn't beat a single Space Marine by himself when he was a boy.

Ref for that?

 Nazrak wrote:
Likewise. Seems like "Space Marines got a resilience boost, so Eldar should too" rather misses the point of them being two entirely different armies.

100% agree. You don't fix Eldar by giving them the stats that Marines used to have. Eldar are not tough.

 Crusaderobr wrote:
Aspect warriors have always had special armor that is extremely durable in the fluff. They need to keep them at 1 wound but give them all a 2+ save. The superior technology of Eldar aspect armor needs to be updated.

... you're joking right?

Two plus saves have very little value in the game currently TBH, they're never worth the points premium GW puts on them

BrianDavion wrote:

 Crusaderobr wrote:
Aspect warriors have always had special armor that is extremely durable in the fluff. They need to keep them at 1 wound but give them all a 2+ save. The superior technology of Eldar aspect armor needs to be updated.

... you're joking right?

2+ is steep but for a technologically supposed advanced race a 3+ should be in it imo, especially when the speed as defence thing got curbed to the side...


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stratigo wrote:
Two plus saves have very little value in the game currently TBH, they're never worth the points premium GW puts on them

Are you sure about that? Considering terminators, especially the chaos brand, exist and do very well?

The point being made is that GW have REMOVED all the mechanics that you COULD improve Eldar with in a lore appropriate way.

There's no initiative, there's now even less ability to reduce incoming attacks chances of hitting.

Hell back when WS was an opposed test, giving eldar good WS meant they were harder to hit in melee.

All these core mechanics that directly reflected Eldar abilities are now gone.

So people are now saying 'given the much narrower design space of 40k the only options available are toughness, wounds and saves'.

The only other way is giving them a special mechanic that breaks the core rules - like can't be hit on better than a 4+, always hit first in melee, save can't be reduced to less than 4+, ignore an incoming hit on a 4+ etc.

But the very fact you can't just give them an improved core rules shows how far the game has slid towards a very narrow design space specifically favouring marines and their equivalents

SemperMortis wrote:

We have gone from somewhat balanced to absurdly one sided and I believe Jidmah said it best himself where he explained the reason was GW is tired of Ork players playing their army how they want to and instead are trying to hamfist orkz into playing how they envision the NPC army to play as, a couple of mobz of boyz a squad or two of grots and lots and lots of toyz that tend to explode very easily.

Meh that applies to nearly all armies tho, think Chaos with 6 ppm cultists for no reason but to force people to use CSM.Or the constant pushes to Daemonengines. (funnily enough gw still hasn't figured out why they don't work and their solution was the creation of the discordant, which in it's very mission to make a Daemonengine list finally playable didn't work out aswell) . I do wonder if they insist to force CSM players to remain buffstacker combo wombo or actually start fixing the issue that comes with that. People can only play so often against 3 obliterators- slaanesh- sorcerer - Lord prescience cacophony votwl combo without getting bored to death.

 Hellebore wrote:
The point being made is that GW have REMOVED all the mechanics that you COULD improve Eldar with in a lore appropriate way.

There's no initiative, there's now even less ability to reduce incoming attacks chances of hitting.

Hell back when WS was an opposed test, giving eldar good WS meant they were harder to hit in melee.

All these core mechanics that directly reflected Eldar abilities are now gone.

So people are now saying 'given the much narrower design space of 40k the only options available are toughness, wounds and saves'.

The only other way is giving them a special mechanic that breaks the core rules - like can't be hit on better than a 4+, always hit first in melee, save can't be reduced to less than 4+, ignore an incoming hit on a 4+ etc.

But the very fact you can't just give them an improved core rules shows how far the game has slid towards a very narrow design space specifically favouring marines and their equivalents

Guardians can certainly have 4+ save, they have full body covering ultra-tech armour. Should be better than the crap they give to the IG. Aspects can have 3+, or they can 5+ invulnerable dodge save or even both. Some aspect (or hell, just all Eldar) could have -1 hit penalty on turns they moved a certain distance (or to make it simple, at all.) And then of course fix their weapons, for starters make Shuriken Catapult assault 2, range 24". S4 AP -1 or something like that. There are plenty of simple ways to easily improve the Eldar and of course you can have bespoke special rules on top of pure stats.

 Crimson wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
The point being made is that GW have REMOVED all the mechanics that you COULD improve Eldar with in a lore appropriate way.

There's no initiative, there's now even less ability to reduce incoming attacks chances of hitting.

Hell back when WS was an opposed test, giving eldar good WS meant they were harder to hit in melee.

All these core mechanics that directly reflected Eldar abilities are now gone.

So people are now saying 'given the much narrower design space of 40k the only options available are toughness, wounds and saves'.

The only other way is giving them a special mechanic that breaks the core rules - like can't be hit on better than a 4+, always hit first in melee, save can't be reduced to less than 4+, ignore an incoming hit on a 4+ etc.

But the very fact you can't just give them an improved core rules shows how far the game has slid towards a very narrow design space specifically favouring marines and their equivalents

Guardians can certainly have 4+ save, they have full body covering ultra-tech armour. Should be better than the crap they give to the IG. Aspects can have 3+, or they can 5+ invulnerable dodge save or even both. Some aspect (or hell, just all Eldar) could have -1 hit penalty on turns they moved a certain distance (or to make it simple, at all.) And then of course fix their weapons, for starters make Shuriken Catapult assault 2, range 24". S4 AP -1 or something like that. There are plenty of simple ways to easily improve the Eldar and of course you can have bespoke special rules on top of pure stats.

At the minimum I think All Eldar should go up in armour.

Guardians 4+
Aspects 3+
Wraithguard could go to 2+ imo, but not that important


How you keep them alive with T3 and w1 after that will require some kind of special rule, inventive (fixed to hit roll for all attacker's) or boring (invulnerable save).

But if we expect that Eldar will stay t3 w1, even a 3+ means nothing. Something else must come into play.

pts.

Glasscannon builds for eldar seem thematic.

allbeit i'd hate to see them turn into horde like other factions did for no reason at all.

 Hellebore wrote:

But if we expect that Eldar will stay t3 w1, even a 3+ means nothing. Something else must come into play.

SoB work just fine with that. Scions and Tau work with T3, Sv4+.

scions have inate deepstrike , better gun, better special gun access and really good stats overall aswell as a more synergystic dex to draw from.

 Crimson wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

But if we expect that Eldar will stay t3 w1, even a 3+ means nothing. Something else must come into play.

SoB work just fine with that. Scions and Tau work with T3, Sv4+.

But they cost less. Sisters are the closest thing to a power armour horde army. And they don't do just fine with that anyway because they have their special rules that give them invulnerable saves etc.

There's a reason no one takes eldar aspects and it's because they're too fragile to do anything before they die.

 Hellebore wrote:

But they cost less. Sisters are the closest thing to a power armour horde army. And they don't do just fine with that anyway because they have their special rules that give them invulnerable saves etc.

There's a reason no one takes eldar aspects and it's because they're too fragile to do anything before they die.

Sure, aspects need a buff, no question. But that's not hard to do*. Also 6+ invulnerable on 3+ save model doesn't have much of an impact. And aspects obviously should have a nice set of special rules of their own.

(* GW, feel need to contact me if you need someone to write an Eldar codex. I have my second edition one right here for inspiration.)

 Crimson wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

But if we expect that Eldar will stay t3 w1, even a 3+ means nothing. Something else must come into play.

SoB work just fine with that. Scions and Tau work with T3, Sv4+.

Wasnt the main army build for Tau in 8th mostly built around commanders and riptides, rather than infantry?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

But if we expect that Eldar will stay t3 w1, even a 3+ means nothing. Something else must come into play.

SoB work just fine with that. Scions and Tau work with T3, Sv4+.

Wasnt the main army build for Tau in 8th mostly built around commanders and riptides, rather than infantry?

Fire warriors had a role, not a main one but a role.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

But if we expect that Eldar will stay t3 w1, even a 3+ means nothing. Something else must come into play.

SoB work just fine with that. Scions and Tau work with T3, Sv4+.

Wasnt the main army build for Tau in 8th mostly built around commanders and riptides, rather than infantry?

Fire warriors had a role, not a main one but a role.

Anything other than being the main Line troop choice they are would mean they aren't succeeding at their main job then.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

Fire warriors had a role, not a main one but a role.

It sounds fine to me for Guardians to be in a similar position. They shouldn't even be mandatory for an Eldar force.

 Hellebore wrote:
The point being made is that GW have REMOVED all the mechanics that you COULD improve Eldar with in a lore appropriate way.

There's no initiative, there's now even less ability to reduce incoming attacks chances of hitting.

Hell back when WS was an opposed test, giving eldar good WS meant they were harder to hit in melee.

All these core mechanics that directly reflected Eldar abilities are now gone.

So people are now saying 'given the much narrower design space of 40k the only options available are toughness, wounds and saves'.

The only other way is giving them a special mechanic that breaks the core rules - like can't be hit on better than a 4+, always hit first in melee, save can't be reduced to less than 4+, ignore an incoming hit on a 4+ etc.

But the very fact you can't just give them an improved core rules shows how far the game has slid towards a very narrow design space specifically favouring marines and their equivalents

I think this is a very good point. The loss of initiative in particular seems like a heavy blow - particularly for the more glass-cannon Eldar factions and units. Before, high initiative meant they might have at least taken some foes down with them. Now, being charged is a death-sentence.

What's more, most Eldar units were not compensated for the loss of Initiative. Yes, some got slightly higher movement speeds, but an extra 1-2" is simply irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Firstly, because of how movement works in 9th. In a game like Warmachine, everything is based on a model's movement. You can move up to your model's movement, you can charge your model's movement +3" and you run twice your model's movement. And since most movement is concentrated within the 5-7" bracket (with very few outliers), an inch or two more or less movement can make a substantial difference. However, in 40k, there's a lot more randomness involved. A model can advance its movement +1d6 and charges its movement plus 2d6 (3d6 if it can advance and also charge). So the difference in charge distance between a guardsman and a "fast" Eldar model is 2d6+6 (8-18") and 2d6+7 (9-19"), respectively. In other words, almost negligible.

The second problem is that 40k has so many units and such a variety of move characteristics that these tiny increases in basic movement speed are often completely overshadowed. Let me give you another example: Archons are supposed to be very fast, so their movement is 2 higher than that of a SM Captain (8 vs. 6). However, the SM Captain can simply take a Jump Pack, which gives him M12. So with that simple upgrade, the SM Captain not only matches the Archon's movement - he leaves the Archon in the dirt.

Put simply, Eldar would need a substantial boost to movement (we're talking 12" for basic troops) in order for it to actually count for anything and be a viable replacement for initiative. Anything lower is simply overshadowed both by the randomness of Charge and Advance dice and also by the movement provided by bikes, jump packs etc. in armies that are supposed to be slower.

I imagine many people wouldn't want to see all Eldar infantry moving 12" minimum, but the alternative is for either Initiative to make a comeback or else for every non-vehicle Eldar model (barring Wraith-constructs and Coven) to get Always Strikes First.

Voss wrote:
Yeah. Space elves definitely need a buff, but throwing toughness and wounds at everything is just bad game design.

Eldar need a design space of their own. Whether that's simply being so bloody amazing everyone always has -1 to hit them that can't be mitigated by any means, or something more subtle, they need a change.

Part of that change needs to be undoing the nerf to their basic weapons. Yes, shuriken catapults were obscene in 1st and 2nd edition. That does not matter in the 9th edition world of firepower++. Putting your citizen militia at point blank range makes no sense whatsoever.

Poison also needs some design work. 4+ minimum, +1 to wound vs 5+ (or worse) armor saves, or something. More poison getting to lightly armored units. Or +1 to wound on a 6 to hit, getting an extra dose through a chink in the armor.

Currently the basic eldar units are worse (and more expensive) guardsmen, and that's an utterly ridiculous starting point for an army.

From the day I took this game up in 1998, I’ve never ever understood why the basic Eldar weapon is so short ranged.

 Waking Dreamer wrote:

 Esmer wrote:
Here's hoping they'll at least give the Grey Knights 2W, since there are apparently no plans to primarise them for now.

There's rumors all Firstborn Space Marine models will start at 2W (no image to back this up though), while I think basic Primaris will stay at 2W as well.

These drastic changes is probably partly why BA, SW, DA, DW are being compiled into Codex SM, as they can be updated altogether.

If the +1W is added to all models with Terminator Armour, this will definitely help keep GK relatively on par with Chapters with Primaris access (read: every SM chapter except for GKs). Only a total of 3 GK HQs / Characters DON'T have Terminator Amour so we might see:

- Paladins = 4W
- Librarians, Apothecary, Chaplains, Ancients = 6W
- Brother Captains, Grand Masters = 7W
- Kaldor Draigo = 8W...!

Who needs Primaris when you have a SM chapter where everyone gets their own Terminator Armour upon graduation...?! lol

Well, I'm really excited about GKSS getting 2W in the near future.
They are out core units and so GK should largely benefit from it.
I don't care about Tacticals - nobody played them in the 8th.

 Future War Cultist wrote:

Voss wrote:
Yeah. Space elves definitely need a buff, but throwing toughness and wounds at everything is just bad game design.

Eldar need a design space of their own. Whether that's simply being so bloody amazing everyone always has -1 to hit them that can't be mitigated by any means, or something more subtle, they need a change.

Part of that change needs to be undoing the nerf to their basic weapons. Yes, shuriken catapults were obscene in 1st and 2nd edition. That does not matter in the 9th edition world of firepower++. Putting your citizen militia at point blank range makes no sense whatsoever.

Poison also needs some design work. 4+ minimum, +1 to wound vs 5+ (or worse) armor saves, or something. More poison getting to lightly armored units. Or +1 to wound on a 6 to hit, getting an extra dose through a chink in the armor.

Currently the basic eldar units are worse (and more expensive) guardsmen, and that's an utterly ridiculous starting point for an army.

From the day I took this game up in 1998, I’ve never ever understood why the basic Eldar weapon is so short ranged.

According to the tails i heard, aeldar range get reduced by half but they received the ability to move after shooting that increased their suitability. But with that abillity gone and with the range of new models mainly primaris the range 12 looks super absolute.

 Future War Cultist wrote:

From the day I took this game up in 1998, I’ve never ever understood why the basic Eldar weapon is so short ranged.

Trust me, we who started before that have even harder time understanding it (they used to be 24" in the second edition.)

 Future War Cultist wrote:

Voss wrote:
Yeah. Space elves definitely need a buff, but throwing toughness and wounds at everything is just bad game design.

Eldar need a design space of their own. Whether that's simply being so bloody amazing everyone always has -1 to hit them that can't be mitigated by any means, or something more subtle, they need a change.

Part of that change needs to be undoing the nerf to their basic weapons. Yes, shuriken catapults were obscene in 1st and 2nd edition. That does not matter in the 9th edition world of firepower++. Putting your citizen militia at point blank range makes no sense whatsoever.

Poison also needs some design work. 4+ minimum, +1 to wound vs 5+ (or worse) armor saves, or something. More poison getting to lightly armored units. Or +1 to wound on a 6 to hit, getting an extra dose through a chink in the armor.

Currently the basic eldar units are worse (and more expensive) guardsmen, and that's an utterly ridiculous starting point for an army.

From the day I took this game up in 1998, I’ve never ever understood why the basic Eldar weapon is so short ranged.

It was GW nerfing the catapult into the ground in an overcompensation for their overpowered 2nd edition version. Back then it was 24" S4 -2 Sustained fire dice 1. That meant effectively 1-3 storm bolter shots per Guardian. The same sort of thing applied for the Shuriken Cannon which was 40" S5 -3 Damage d4 Sustained fire dice 2. A Guardian and Jetbike army's sheer volume of fire at a good armor save modifier was enough to delete virtually any infantry even in 2nd edition's era of layered saves, and was one of the few viable counters to the 100+ Hormagaunt horde. It didn't matter that Guardians had BS 3 as most vehicle mounted weapons had targeters (+1 to-hit) and Guardians were cheap, being only marginally more expensive than Guardsmen yet far better equipped.

So yes, the 2nd edition version needed to be reduced. But they could have done so by either reducing number of shots and/or the armor save modifier to -1. Of course, 3rd edition was the edition that had the whole all or nothing AP system.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:
Likewise. Seems like "Space Marines got a resilience boost, so Eldar should too" rather misses the point of them being two entirely different armies.

100% agree. You don't fix Eldar by giving them the stats that Marines used to have. Eldar are not tough.

So there is no really point of them having higher toughness. The problem is people play to much DND and dont realize aeldar are not elfs and there is no real reason to equalize their toughness, strength and constitution to normal human.
Actually hitting SM should be much easier than hitting a guardsmen or aeldar, because they are to big and fat and SM armor is not better than the aeldars.
It`s fine, marines have 2 more wounds that make them tougher, but are not much harder to get wounded in the first place.