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yukishiro1 wrote:
Eldar profiles were outdated even in 8th, now they're just a joke. And the Incubi profile they showed a while ago shows they're still committed to keeping eldar as T3 1W infantry, even though the rest of the game has passed that by completely. So I wouldn't expect that Aspect Warriors are going to move up from bargain basement garbage any time soon either.

"Space Marines" /= "The Rest Of The Game."

Guard Sisters Tau Eldar GSC Nids Necrons etc etc etc etc etc still use 1W infantry as a baseline. It's literally just the marines that have been elevated.

We're doing a "Marines feel overpowered" edition. Since marines are 99.99% of the play meta but also are supposedly the top .001% of the imperium's most elite warriors, you can either have a game that acknowledges that marines are the most common infantry unit in the game and are going to be the measuring stick everyone compares everything to, or you have a game that makes marines feel as elite as they're supposed to be in the hallowed "lore".

It used to be in 8th everyone had solid motivation to include a platoon of Imperial Guardsmen in their armies, and everyone apparently hated it.

I thought Eldar are part of Harlequins

 Da Boss wrote:

Dire Avengers and Banshees both are plainly just a rip off testing the waters to see how high they can push the price.

Oh no, there's no test involved. GW already knows what price they can push it to:https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Varanguard-Knights-of-Ruin
That's $33/chaos knight. For chunky spikey evil mounted knights - something many many other companies supply much cheaper.

the_scotsman wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Eldar profiles were outdated even in 8th, now they're just a joke. And the Incubi profile they showed a while ago shows they're still committed to keeping eldar as T3 1W infantry, even though the rest of the game has passed that by completely. So I wouldn't expect that Aspect Warriors are going to move up from bargain basement garbage any time soon either.

"Space Marines" /= "The Rest Of The Game."

Guard Sisters Tau Eldar GSC Nids Necrons etc etc etc etc etc still use 1W infantry as a baseline. It's literally just the marines that have been elevated.

We're doing a "Marines feel overpowered" edition. Since marines are 99.99% of the play meta but also are supposedly the top .001% of the imperium's most elite warriors, you can either have a game that acknowledges that marines are the most common infantry unit in the game and are going to be the measuring stick everyone compares everything to, or you have a game that makes marines feel as elite as they're supposed to be in the hallowed "lore".

Right, but that's really the issue of the thread: Eldar have fallen precipitously by comparison. Eldar have gone to being equivalent or superior to marines to weaklings that marines dunk on for fun - even aspect warriors get taken to the cleaners by generic intercessors at this point. GW's approach has been to just devalue Eldar infantry to the point where they're cheap trash with a cheap trash points value, and that doesn't work with the faction image. It leads where we are now, to a dysfunctional faction with an identity that is a complete mismatch for their actual rules.

Karol wrote:

 Imateria wrote:
^I think he meant Reivers more than Infiltrators, which makes mroe sense.

Specially considering how often both options gets used.

I disagree on that point. Termiantors are pretty good again.

But thats becasue they got 3W now and aces to invulns as well as heaps and heaps of rules in an game that got vastly more deadly...

The DA and DG termintors are good. The other not so much, and a lot of armies don't even have 3W termintors. 1ksons, csm and GK have them a 2W, but costing as if they had 3.

So you are agreeing that terminators are decent ?
Ok great thanks.

Dysartes wrote:

Spoiler:

Racerguy180 wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
It's odd that the race based on fantasy elves gets so little love in Sci-Fi.

If you think that's bad, wait till we tell you what happened to the Dwarves In Spaaaaace....

Dammit, now why'd ya have ta bring that up

Simple - if people want to complain about "Elves in Space" getting so little love (defined as three factions, plus three special characters in their own little bubble) - I'm going to point out that one of the other mainstay fantasy races in space has gotten a much worse end of the stick.

When you're doing worse than Halflings in Space and Ogres in Space, it feels a bit off when someone complains about "so little love" for pointy-ears in space.

And I'm not saying that Kraftwerld Eldar don't need some attention, but "so little love"? Please...

I'd hope no one has their faction deleted like mine was. I still get a little mad when anyone casually jokes about a faction being unloved by GW or squatted. At least you still have a faction....

On the space elf subject, I feel GW is transitioning craftworlds to be mostly spirit constructs. Less and less living eldar and more inhabiting spiritstones. Ynarri would seem to be key to this but seems like they've pivoted away from them(hopefully not as Ynarri lore is what got me to buy elves in the first place).


Yvraine is one of the best eldar sculpts they've ever done. I really like the Deldar stuff and absolutely love Harlis in plastic. Currently I'm waiting on more Ynarri stuff to buy any more pointy ears as it would determine which direction I want to go(playstyle). Unfortunately it doesn't look like I'm gonna expand it any more for the foreseeable future. Which is a shame.

Aspects being T3 W1 is fine, as long as they get other defensive and mobility buffs to offset this, while also having their offensive output skyrocketed and new abilities be added. Incubi are halfway there currently; that previewed offensive profile is exactly what it needs to be. It just depends on what tools GW gives space elves to allow their Elite nature to shine through despite being a T3 W1 army.

Like, Banshee's are bad because despite being the pre-eminent shock troops in the galaxy that are a cut above almost every other races elites, they do 0 damage to even tactical marines now. You cannot be an elite-killing elite unit with D1, unless you get other serious buffs or utility to counteract this (such as Shield Lychguard, who are tough as nails and with the right buffs can still blend stuff despite being D1). On a base level the unit needs D2 on its swords and probably some insane charge bonuses too, to represent its shock troop nature (like +1 A and re-rolling wounds on the charge). Then it could actually fulfil its role. Scorpions certainly need -1 ap on their chainswords, but really they could benefit from some kind of Obsec-disabling ability, maybe an aura-disable ability, or maybe just something to represent they have unique and special shuriken catapults which currently have no special rules in-game whatsoever. But it's totally fine for Infiltrators and Incursors to have their super special bolt guns both do different unique things though. :V

 Da Boss wrote:

Dire Avengers and Banshees both are plainly just a rip off testing the waters to see how high they can push the price.

It stings even more knowing that Dire Avengers used to come eight to a box instead of five, and for less $$.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:

Dire Avengers and Banshees both are plainly just a rip off testing the waters to see how high they can push the price.

It stings even more knowing that Dire Avengers used to come eight to a box instead of five, and for less $$.

When they were metal upgrades for plastic guardians.

When these plastic ones were released they came out in a box of 10 - two of the sprue currently in the 5 man box.

 jaredb wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Maybe another means to get at the "they know what you're going to do" schtick is to give them means for moving opponents models. I remember it being a powerful effect from a while back with a previous edition of Slaanesh force. I forget the name of the power/artefact that permitted it. Lash princes or something.

The Lash of Submission was a very abusive psychic power back in its time. There is something very unfun about abilities which let your opponent move your models.

That is fair enough, but for a glass cannon like.Eldar to.work, they cant take any real.damage. therefore they will be frustrating to play against regardless of the mechanic that drips them from.taking damage.

Nurglitch wrote:
It used to be in 8th everyone had solid motivation to include a platoon of Imperial Guardsmen in their armies, and everyone apparently hated it.

I loved how this looked on the table personally.

I agree T3 1W is fine with other defensive abilities, but they haven't given those - in fact, they removed what little defense Eldar had from stacking -to hit in 9th edition because people didn't enjoy it. Apparently it's ok to have models that are hard to wound, or hard to kill because they have multiple wounds, but it's not ok to have models that are hard to hit, because <reasons>.

GW just doesn't seem to have any ideas left when it comes to Eldar. Hopefully we'll be proven wrong with the DE codex, but based on what we've seen so far, I'm not optimistic.

Edit: duplicate post.

yukishiro1 wrote:
I agree T3 1W is fine with other defensive abilities, but they haven't given those - in fact, they removed what little defense Eldar had from stacking -to hit in 9th edition because people didn't enjoy it. Apparently it's ok to have models that are hard to wound, or hard to kill because they have multiple wounds, but it's not ok to have models that are hard to hit, because <reasons>.

GW just doesn't seem to have any ideas left when it comes to Eldar. Hopefully we'll be proven wrong with the DE codex, but based on what we've seen so far, I'm not optimistic.

Actually judging by the horrifying amount of people rejoicing when my DG lost their old Disgustingly Resilient, it seems lots of people take issue with hard to kill models regardless of why that is.
As for the topic at hand, I feel the 2 main issues with Eldar are both an old model range with plenty of stuff not in plastic and the fact that conceptually GW seems to have no idea what to do with them. In some of the multiple "let's hate on marines" threads people mentioned that SM have guzzled up design space from other factions, and I personally think no other faction has been hit as hard by this as Eldar. Their elites are supposed to be some of the best yet even their aspect warriors get dumpstered by regular marines/DG now. Their psychic superiority isn't really all that compared to what some other factions can do now and a lot of their "too speedy/crafty" for you has also been cannibalized by other factions (not just SM).

 Bosskelot wrote:
This is an issue with Ynnari and a lot of AOS factions in that, they're so focused on being part of an ongoing narrative, that GW doesn't bother to actually flesh them out and make them feel like a real civilization/organisation/country (choose whichever, depending on faction)

The most compelling and interesting part of Ynnari is: how do they even live their daily lives? What does Ynnari society look like? How do they live? Where do they live? What does a Ynnari civilian do?

We know the answers to these questions for Craftworld and Drukhari, we even know lots of these things for Corsairs and Exodites, neither of which really exist anymore in real terms. Even Harlequins have some of this stuff expanded and explained, despite being mostly kept as a mysterious force.

But GW have expanded on none of this for Ynnari. Instead they're a narrative-focused faction, revolving entirely around 3 named characters, a vague concept of "hope" and an impossible goal to achieve. Why should I give a gak about that? This is an issue that is going to catch up to AOS eventually too and kind of already limits the appeal of some of its factions. You need to give me actual reasons to care about the faction in order to be invested in it. Hell, even in battlefield terms its all still really vague and I'm still unclear as to how Spirit Stones, Drukhari life leeching and Cegorach's protection even work or apply with them. What is a Guardian Defender or Kabalite Warrior within the context of a Ynnari army? Instead we just get vague gak about "oooooh the powers of death swirl around them and give them power" yeah okay cool dude but how is a Ynnari army actually organised? That's what people are actually here for.

I really couldn't agree more even as an Eldar fan I have no interest in them at all.

I just began back in the game as Eldar again for the first time in a long time and, well, thank goodness I have so many model kits such as Dire Avengers as GW seem to not just slowed or stopped updating the Eldar units but also make sure to sell them at twice the price and half the models. A five man Dire Avengers squad costs MORE than a ten man squad did back when I was last collecting. And a five woman squad of the new Howling Banshees is 105.00 NZD which is just insane in my eyes.

I'd like some for my Kill Team, but refuse to buy them from GW at such a price on principle alone.

Also, I agree that the old Swooping Hawks look like arse.

I'm also glad I had my old metal Striking Scorpions as I'd rather them than the frigging Fine Cast ones. That's another huge problem is that far too much of the range are Fine Cast, I'd just be happy if GW updated them to plastic. Would that be hard to do? That's not rhetorical I genuinely don't know.

Not just that but GW don't bother to produce the old Autarch models, such as the one with the Howling Banshee mask.

I do love some of the new models the Autarch with Swooping Hawk wings, mandiblasters, fusion pistol and power sword is magnificent in my eyes I've been painting one over the past few weeks and he is a joy to paint and the new Farseer and Eldrad Ulthran are great as well, but there are too few compared to the other factions have got in 40k.

I'd like a few more options that might make them a bit more nuanced something such as a 'veteran' upgrade option for squads, because why do the comparitively shorter lived humans get to become veterans where an Eldar guardian or Aspect Warrior who ha s tred two maybe three paths of the warrior not? Hell, what about a guardian who spent three centuries on the Path of Command before becoming an artist, who fights only a short time after transferring? He doesn't have to become an Autarch again.

Sorry for the whining lol

yukishiro1 wrote:
I agree T3 1W is fine with other defensive abilities, but they haven't given those - in fact, they removed what little defense Eldar had from stacking -to hit in 9th edition because people didn't enjoy it. Apparently it's ok to have models that are hard to wound, or hard to kill because they have multiple wounds, but it's not ok to have models that are hard to hit, because <reasons>.

GW just doesn't seem to have any ideas left when it comes to Eldar. Hopefully we'll be proven wrong with the DE codex, but based on what we've seen so far, I'm not optimistic.

In the case of the multi-wound models, at least it feels like you've done something if a unit's shooting strips a couple of wounds off something - as opposed to missing entirely (due to stacked penalties) or bouncing off their saves (however many layers of them there are).

If I fire the lasguns off one Infantry Squad at Wraithguard or Aggressors - or even Intercessors - and get a couple of wounds through from the attack sequence? It's progress, even if not by much, and the Squad might finish the wounded model off.

N.B - Please don't now go unto the nth degree of Mathhammer disproving my examples, in a game where dice happen.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:

Dire Avengers and Banshees both are plainly just a rip off testing the waters to see how high they can push the price.

It stings even more knowing that Dire Avengers used to come eight to a box instead of five, and for less $$.

When they were metal upgrades for plastic guardians.

When these plastic ones were released they came out in a box of 10 - two of the sprue currently in the 5 man box.

Oh man, is that how that went down? Even worse :(

I agree with Dysartes. I think that's why vehicles have gone the way they have. Gives bith the players a feeling of agency when stuff is happening. The owner is less likely to have to deal with losing a big nice expensive and lovingly painted model to a single weapon hit, while the opposition gets the sense of achievement for reducing those wounds by some measure.

That's a different feeling for the players to constantly pounding hits off something for no discernable effect.

 Dysartes wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
I agree T3 1W is fine with other defensive abilities, but they haven't given those - in fact, they removed what little defense Eldar had from stacking -to hit in 9th edition because people didn't enjoy it. Apparently it's ok to have models that are hard to wound, or hard to kill because they have multiple wounds, but it's not ok to have models that are hard to hit, because <reasons>.

GW just doesn't seem to have any ideas left when it comes to Eldar. Hopefully we'll be proven wrong with the DE codex, but based on what we've seen so far, I'm not optimistic.

In the case of the multi-wound models, at least it feels like you've done something if a unit's shooting strips a couple of wounds off something - as opposed to missing entirely (due to stacked penalties) or bouncing off their saves (however many layers of them there are).

If I fire the lasguns off one Infantry Squad at Wraithguard or Aggressors - or even Intercessors - and get a couple of wounds through from the attack sequence? It's progress, even if not by much, and the Squad might finish the wounded model off.

N.B - Please don't now go unto the nth degree of Mathhammer disproving my examples, in a game where dice happen.

so the reason why elfs got gutted is because people love the dopamine hit of seeing the number go down even if its an illusion of meaningful progress.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
I agree T3 1W is fine with other defensive abilities, but they haven't given those - in fact, they removed what little defense Eldar had from stacking -to hit in 9th edition because people didn't enjoy it. Apparently it's ok to have models that are hard to wound, or hard to kill because they have multiple wounds, but it's not ok to have models that are hard to hit, because <reasons>.

GW just doesn't seem to have any ideas left when it comes to Eldar. Hopefully we'll be proven wrong with the DE codex, but based on what we've seen so far, I'm not optimistic.

In the case of the multi-wound models, at least it feels like you've done something if a unit's shooting strips a couple of wounds off something - as opposed to missing entirely (due to stacked penalties) or bouncing off their saves (however many layers of them there are).

If I fire the lasguns off one Infantry Squad at Wraithguard or Aggressors - or even Intercessors - and get a couple of wounds through from the attack sequence? It's progress, even if not by much, and the Squad might finish the wounded model off.

N.B - Please don't now go unto the nth degree of Mathhammer disproving my examples, in a game where dice happen.

so the reason why elfs got gutted is because people love the dopamine hit of seeing the number go down even if its an illusion of meaningful progress.

But they haven't been gutted. They just haven't been kept up to date in the same way that the other factions have. And that may be partly to do with that sense of player experience. Certainly won't be the only reason, but it may be contributory.

 Flinty wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
I agree T3 1W is fine with other defensive abilities, but they haven't given those - in fact, they removed what little defense Eldar had from stacking -to hit in 9th edition because people didn't enjoy it. Apparently it's ok to have models that are hard to wound, or hard to kill because they have multiple wounds, but it's not ok to have models that are hard to hit, because <reasons>.

GW just doesn't seem to have any ideas left when it comes to Eldar. Hopefully we'll be proven wrong with the DE codex, but based on what we've seen so far, I'm not optimistic.

In the case of the multi-wound models, at least it feels like you've done something if a unit's shooting strips a couple of wounds off something - as opposed to missing entirely (due to stacked penalties) or bouncing off their saves (however many layers of them there are).

If I fire the lasguns off one Infantry Squad at Wraithguard or Aggressors - or even Intercessors - and get a couple of wounds through from the attack sequence? It's progress, even if not by much, and the Squad might finish the wounded model off.

N.B - Please don't now go unto the nth degree of Mathhammer disproving my examples, in a game where dice happen.

so the reason why elfs got gutted is because people love the dopamine hit of seeing the number go down even if its an illusion of meaningful progress.

But they haven't been gutted. They just haven't been kept up to date in the same way that the other factions have. And that may be partly to do with that sense of player experience. Certainly won't be the only reason, but it may be contributory.

ok. maybe not gutted but at the very least they lost any semblance of resilience.

Well no, it's both nerfs and being left behind, at the same time. Eldar defenses used to be largely based around being very hard to hit by stacking minuses. Then 9th came along and that got nerfed.

At the same time, Eldar have been left behind during the massive stat inflation we've seen over 8th and now 9th edition.

So while marines are now tougher than they ever have been, Eldar are even more fragile than they used to be, because their one defense got neutered.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Well no, it's both nerfs and being left behind, at the same time. Eldar defenses used to be largely based around being very hard to hit by stacking minuses. Then 9th came along and that got nerfed.

At the same time, Eldar have been left behind during the massive stat inflation we've seen over 8th and now 9th edition.

So while marines are now tougher than they ever have been, Eldar are even more fragile than they used to be, because their one defense got neutered.

Pretty much this. The -1/+1 rule was probably put in place with craftworlders in mind. No other faction could really stack to-hit penalties the way we could. And honestly, that's a good change for the game; it's just not a good change for our faction specifically. As others have pointed out, missing entirely is much more frustrating than chewing through extra wounds because the latter gives you a since of progress/accomplishment.

But yeah, craftworlders definitely feel like they're missing something. At various points in time, we've had transports that were only hit on 6+ if they moved far enough, the ability to swing in melee before most enemies, relatively high WS stats that functionally lowered most units' chances of hitting us in melee, the ability to move-shoot-move almost army-wide, and stackable to-hit mods. As of 9th edition, we've basically lost all of those mechanics, and we haven't gotten much to replace it. And the lethality of the game is high enough that the -1 to hit penalties we do have here and there don't feel sufficient.

I feel like most of the "elevator pitches" for eldar mechanics from when I started playing in 5th still apply. We're not the most psychic faction any more, and most of our best psychic powers basically just do what marine auras do without a psychic test. We're not really that much faster than most factions, and the smaller board size combined with our meh melee makes what speed we do have less useful. We can't really even claim the "army of specialists" niche any more as many armies have started gravitating in that direction and several imperial units are basically aspect warriors but better. (Pteraxii are better swooping hawks, eradicators are better dragons, etc.)

If I were in charge of the next eldar codex, I think I'd try to give them mechanics that make them more durable via their speed and coordination. While some aspects could probably stand to be a bit more lethal, I don't really want to promote an arms race that leads back to 7th edition levels of silliness. Instead, emphasize that the craftworlders don't have extra lives to waste. Make their style of war all about mitigating casualties despite not being wrapped in power armor. A given aspect warrior should either be efficiently lethal against its preferred target (but not significantly moreso than marines) or else should have special abilities that let them shut down the enemy's offense. So fire dragons should be good at killing tanks. Warp Spiders should be able to run away after shooting. Banshees should be moderately good at stabbing things but should also be able to hold enemy units hostage and/or reduce their melee offense.

And the whole army should maybe get a ward save (like FNP, but one roll for all the damage instead of 1 roll per damage) if they advanced or charged in their previous turn.

 Stormonu wrote:
It's odd that the race based on fantasy elves gets so little love in Sci-Fi.

I think the problem is that no one at GW has been able to follow on the original designs Jes Goodwin set down for the race.

Perhaps it is time to fracture the craftworlds monolith appearance (& traits) so they inject some new units and aesthetics into the line.

I think GW is consciously avoiding focusing on them to head off any loss of attention on Space Marines.

Even if Eldar get the best rules ever in the new codex it still won’t matter if they don’t get new updated models to go with them.
How are you going to convince anyone to start an army with 20 year old models that aren’t even readily available in plastic?

 dan2026 wrote:
Even if Eldar get the best rules ever in the new codex it still won’t matter if they don’t get new updated models to go with them.
How are you going to convince anyone to start an army with 20 year old models that aren’t even readily available in plastic?

Indeed..

Iracundus wrote:

dhallnet wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
I don't mind the Ynnari if it revitalizes the Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Harlequins as a whole, but the Ynnari need to be fleshed out as a faction rather than having units that are basically scavenged from elsewhere. They would also benefit from more background and generic characters rather than the same triumvirate over and over.

As far as I'm concerned, I just don't want Ynnari if it means "let's make a super faction and merge CWE/Dark eldar designs together !". I'm also completely fine with them being a bunch of specific characters with followers from various other Aeldari cultures. Since that's actually what they are.

Your two sentences just seemed to contradict each other, first by saying you don't mind a super faction merging them together, but then saying you don't mind them being characters with followers from different cultures.

I don't think Ynnari should be Eldar soup. They need to develop their own identity as a faction rather than just consist of units scavenged from Craftoworld, Dark Eldar, or Harlequin lists.

The problem is right now we don't have information on what the Ynnari are up to now, or how they function as a society/cult. The movement is described as spreading yet all we ever see the focus on is Yvraine and her immediate circle of followers.

Ynnari need to have more done and be their own faction and flavor, as it is now, Harlequinns are just specialists... They barely have enough to really be considered a different army. I never liked Harlequinns being anything more than specialists that Eldar Craftworlds could take.

Ynnari specifically felt like a great idea, with its own faction and rules, and codex, and units, because it makes sense. IT does not make sense they would utilize khaine oriented units because Khaine / Aspect Warriors are Priests of Khaine. They would hate Ynnead in all forms. And they even hint at that throughout all of the lore. It doesn't make sense that the ynnari wouldn't develop their own style and units to fit.

Eldar will continue to languish under little to no attention.

Gw have progressively moved the game away from mechanically representing the things eldar are good at.

The game has now shifted to a mechanic focus on the simplest aspect of damage - resilience.

This is why IMO the necrons got such a massive boost - they're the one xenos army that effectively matches marines in resilience, which is the only way the game now plays.



There is now very few options available mechanically to allow the strengths of the eldar to be represented.

Invulnerable saves - but you'd have to give the whole army a basic one to represent reflexes.
Saves against hits rather than against wounds
Transhuman to hit (ie no one can hit better than a 4+ against eldar).

There's not much else you can do to reflect their strengths.

With the DE, they're piling on the attacks so they can make up for the inevitable casualties.

But even then, they still had power from pain that protected them, making them in some ways more resilient than the CWE.

 Hellebore wrote:
Transhuman to hit (ie no one can hit better than a 4+ against eldar).

Oooh, I like that idea a lot. I was thinking just making all the Eldar saves invulnerable (which you said) but that could be a lot better!