Craftworld Eldar have the worst of it.

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**dhallnet**

A.T. wrote:
Hellebore wrote:
There's not much else you can do to reflect their strengths.
Give them a second move, redeployment, or some other strength the ability to switch out their own objective

Things like 'never better than 4+ to hit', vetos on scoring, blanket penalties on swathes of enemy movement and so on have similarities with the stacking hit modifiers and other bad game design like invisibility - they don't give the eldar new toys, they just take other players toys away.

Same as stuff forcing you to fight last, removing auras, hit modifiers, invuls, reducing/ignoring invuls, reanimation protocols, whatever. You're just making distinctions based on opinions/taste. Or those are bad too but you forgot about them while they are becoming increasingly common.

**Mmmpi**

Flinty wrote:

This is an interesting point though. The background on Eldar is that the farseers largely know what will happen ahead of time and therefore the very limited Eldar forces can be chosen specifically for the mission. Eldar should never have to build a take all comers force, because they should know ahead of time what they will be facing and can cannon up accordingly. This is a logistics and strategic maneuverability issue out with the ability of 40k to address.

To be true to the ethos of eldar, the players really need a stratagem that allows them to basically tailor their force after they know what their opponent has taken. I dont see this as being likely to ever be implemented as it would require all.Eldar players to basically have multiple sets of each possible unit to counter all of the things they might come up against. It also runs the risk of the pre-game time being radically extended while the eldar player peruses the list and fiddles.

On the wider point of the thread, I wonder if eldar suffer from having a very early extensive set of models that, in my opinion, absolutely smashed aesthetics and design space out of the park. GW tried to refresh them as has been mentioned but utterly failed in translating the aesthetic and then reverted back to something very close to the original. It's possible GW just doesnt want to open themselves up to mucking about with what are already nice models. So they test the waters occasionally, leaving everyone unsatisfied.

I don't know if anyone already said this.

Probably the easiest way would be to make it like Daemon summoning. Set aside points at the start of the game to have units of aspect warriors standing by to strike in from the webway. Maybe make it a feature of the Farseer to call them?

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Am I right in thinking we’ve seen the odd power or stratagem which can switch off buff bubbles?

If so, and I didn’t imagine it, wouldn’t that make a pretty superb ability for Eldar? Get inside the targets mind and strike them temporarily mute, or force them to give a daft order - however you want to background explain, it could make for a seriously pokey ability, as used cleverly, you can interrupt their synergy, making them easier prey?

Now, exactly how widespread that should be, and whether it should be automatic or contested roll I’ll again leave to wiser minds than my own.

Perhaps an old classic in the form of Doom could allow for free targeting of enemy characters? Or at least to grant that ability to a nominate unit?

Automatically Appended Next Post:
How effective is redeployment before the game these days? I know the Deceiver used to be able to do this, but is presently considered a bit naff - but not sure if these are particularly closely linked.

Hell, why not allow Craftworld Eldar to withhold deploying a number of units to reflect their predictive abilities? Or force the opponent to deploy a set number before alternating?

**dhallnet**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Am I right in thinking we’ve seen the odd power or stratagem which can switch off buff bubbles?

If so, and I didn’t imagine it, wouldn’t that make a pretty superb ability for Eldar? Get inside the targets mind and strike them temporarily mute, or force them to give a daft order - however you want to background explain, it could make for a seriously pokey ability, as used cleverly, you can interrupt their synergy, making them easier prey?

Now, exactly how widespread that should be, and whether it should be automatic or contested roll I’ll again leave to wiser minds than my own.

Perhaps an old classic in the form of Doom could allow for free targeting of enemy characters? Or at least to grant that ability to a nominate unit?

Automatically Appended Next Post:
How effective is redeployment before the game these days? I know the Deceiver used to be able to do this, but is presently considered a bit naff - but not sure if these are particularly closely linked.

Hell, why not allow Craftworld Eldar to withhold deploying a number of units to reflect their predictive abilities? Or force the opponent to deploy a set number before alternating?

CWE already have a strat to redeploy a bunch of units. It could become free but it's kind of a powerful rule under the right circumstances.
Turning off auras and obsec are some of DA's psychic powers, if I'm not mistaken Mortarion can turn off auras too, and yes this kind of shenanigans should and is becoming more common.
Is this what CWE needs ? I don't know, they kinda need a lot of stuff to change, not only to make them decent but also interesting.

**InVerno**

A.T. wrote:
InVerno wrote:
Problem is, eldar should hit so hard you could not hit back, that is the definition of glass cannon, and with a good banshee charge you can kill 3 marine at best, and when they hit back they will oblitered the squad
But all of the suggestions so far have been about making the eldar hard to hit, harder to wound, harder to charge, better saves.

To be a glass cannon you need the glass as well as the cannon. But that has never exactly been the eldars style.

Never said i want them toughter, i want every eldar unit to be like the aspect warriors they are supposed to be, banshee should do a lot of damage and be very frail, for objective holding i want DA or wraith units.

Eldar should be rewarding when you use the units well for what they are designed for, and not forgiving when you make mistakes (example: if you leave banshee on open field as easy target or when you let your dark reapers in melee)

**A.T.**

InVerno wrote:
Never said i want them toughter, i want every eldar unit to be like the aspect warriors they are supposed to be, banshee should do a lot of damage and be very frail, for objective holding i want DA or wraith units.

It was intended as a broad reply to try and cover the several pages of posts. The general trend of suggestions in the thread have revolved around either making the eldar tougher or making opponents less able to play back against them.

dhallnet wrote:
Same as stuff forcing you to fight last, removing auras, hit modifiers, invuls, reducing/ignoring invuls, reanimation protocols, whatever. You're just making distinctions based on opinions/taste. Or those are bad too but you forgot about them while they are becoming increasingly common.

No, I didn't forget about them, they just hadn't come up in this thread until you mentioned them. Playing against things like the the old necron decurion certainly wasn't all that fun either.
But in 9th most of those you mention are at least singular effects with the option of mitigation by counter-play, rather than army wide rules that just screw your opponent.

If it was a different faction - say daemons for example - that got army wide '4+ or worse only' would you really be happy about your costly 2+ and 3+ to hit units against them? Or would you post about how GW screwed eldar again by creating a rule that hurts elite units with low volume high accuracy weapons?

**dhallnet**

A.T. wrote:

dhallnet wrote:
Same as stuff forcing you to fight last, removing auras, hit modifiers, invuls, reducing/ignoring invuls, reanimation protocols, whatever. You're just making distinctions based on opinions/taste. Or those are bad too but you forgot about them while they are becoming increasingly common.
No, I didn't forget about them, they just hadn't come up in this thread until you mentioned them. Playing against things like the the old necron decurion certainly wasn't all that fun either.
But in 9th most of those you mention are at least singular effects with the option of mitigation by counter-play, rather than army wide rules that just screw your opponent.

If it was a different faction - say daemons for example - that got army wide '4+ or worse only' would you really be happy about your costly 2+ and 3+ to hit units against them? Or would you post about how GW screwed eldar again by creating a rule that hurts elite units with low volume high accuracy weapons?

I don't reach to my keyboard as soon as I see a potentially good rule in an army that I don't play. So I guess I would wait to see how the whole book plays ? It's like the outrage about how hordes and close combat would be dead with 9th before anyone even had the chance to even read the rules in the book.
And we're spit balling here, so if an idea needs polish, it's to be expected.
Also, not all of these have counterplay or are counterable by everyone.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Dial back a wee bit please gents.

In terms of Craftworld play style, I’d say it should be close to a Blue deck in MtG, in that it should be about careful control.

Maybe not quite as frustrating as a blue deck (oh, you’re spending loads of man? Let me stop you with...erm....one mana. Lol), but certainly ways to manipulate your opponents actions to your own ends.

**A.T.**

dhallnet wrote:
I don't reach to my keyboard as soon as I see a potentially good rule in an army that I don't play.

I guess what i'm trying to say is that it's not a good rule.
At least not good in terms of the game balance or experience. 40k already has something of an issue with the limited outcomes of a 6 sided dice without a rule that makes every shot a coin flip instead.

**InVerno**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Dial back a wee bit please gents.

In terms of Craftworld play style, I’d say it should be close to a Blue deck in MtG, in that it should be about careful control.

Maybe not quite as frustrating as a blue deck (oh, you’re spending loads of man? Let me stop you with...erm....one mana. Lol), but certainly ways to manipulate your opponents actions to your own ends.

Actually countering a unit action (shooting/moving/ etc) could be a nice idea, obv it should be at a heavy cost (CP/PSI power etc) or a roll that gets highter and if you fail it you get penalised

**dhallnet**

A.T. wrote:
dhallnet wrote:
I don't reach to my keyboard as soon as I see a potentially good rule in an army that I don't play.
I guess what i'm trying to say is that it's not a good rule.
At least not good in terms of the game balance or experience. 40k already has something of an issue with the limited outcomes of a 6 sided dice without a rule that makes every shot a coin flip instead.

It's as good a rule as anything else currently. Should it be on the whole army or not and/or having conditions though ? Maybe. But the idea in itself isn't flat out wrong.
And I think it's because we're limited to 5 results (since 1 is never a success afaik) that these kind of rules are needed. If there were 7 or 9 results possible instead, we could go back to modifiers or less binary rules, aka : they can't give modifiers because they take the risk of them removing any chance to do anything so instead they cap the successes.
Although, we all seem to have no issue with saves being modified so hard that you can't take them and requiring caps to failures in some cases (invuls). Weird.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

InVerno wrote:
Actually countering a unit action (shooting/moving/ etc) could be a nice idea, obv it should be at a heavy cost (CP/PSI power etc) or a roll that gets highter and if you fail it you get penalised

I think flat out denying an action is entering the realm of "not fun". Decreasing it's effectiveness though looks fine. Maybe effects like swooping hawk blinding a unit with their flashlights could force that unit to reduce it's movement (instead of doing barely anything useful nowadays) or monowires. This kind of stuff would bring the "combined arms" and synergy approach without relying only on strat/psy powers.

**yukishiro1**

Another way to simulate the impact of the Farseers foreseeing things would be some kind of Fate Point system or something like that, which allows you to guarantee certain predetermined results and/or give substantial bonuses at key times. In keeping with the theme, you could have to declare what they are going to be used for ahead of time secretly, then reveal them as they come up. There's a million different directions you could go with it - it could be turn-based, i.e. "this turn I use a fate point to give all my units +1 to saves" or unit based, i.e. "the first time this unit is selected as a target for attacks, until the end of the phase, it gets a 4+ FNP" or "the first time this unit makes a charge roll, it automatically succeeds" or whatever else. Numbers just examples, not a suggestion of particular values.

I think what this thread shows is that there are actually tons of different ways you could make Eldar better match their lore and be more interesting on the tabletop, it's just that GW has not shown any interest in any of them for many editions now.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Those are cool ideas.

Definitely make it a resource to be husbanded, rather than ‘tech says no’ type native stuff.

And once again....Let Warlock’s Be Squad Leaders For Guardians!

**InVerno**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Those are cool ideas.

Definitely make it a resource to be husbanded, rather than ‘tech says no’ type native stuff.

And once again....Let Warlock’s Be Squad Leaders For Guardians!

Even cooler if spiritseer could be wraith squad leader

**A.T.**

dhallnet wrote:
Although, we all seem to have no issue with saves being modified so hard that you can't take them and requiring caps to failures in some cases (invuls). Weird.

Yeah, those old iron hands and their save modfiers. What a blast they were.
More broadly speaking high save modifiers tend to be applied to low volume of fire weapons, so are a trade-off. Similarly invulnerable saves protect you against the quality but not the quantity and do become a real problem when you end up with army wide high invulnerable saves.

Rolls to hit are a notable problem however as it's no longer a case of trying to match suitable attacks to suitable targets, whole armies just lose power arbitrarily and across the board.

**Cronch**

That doesn’t mean Banshees should be able to carve through a squad of Marines in a single turn for instance.

Going by the lore, they should. They each have more experience carving up enemies with swords than a chapter master of astartes. Hell, a single banshee probably has more total hours of combat experience than a whole company of Primaris, seeing as they only operated for around 100 years now.

The problem with Eldar is that in lore, loss of even one individual is a tragedy, and the army hits hard and hits so well it rarely loses those individuals.
That can't translate to tabletop, because if you spent the whole game to kill one banshee and two guardians out of an army, it'd feel massively frustrating, even if those three models netted you 20x more VP than the eldar killing 10 of your models.

To me it sounds like a fun rule- they get obscene rules, being ancient, experienced warriors armed with technology far outside of human grasp, but they lose even a few, and they lose the game no matter how many VPs the score otherwise.
But I suspect most people would hate that high risk gameplay, and the other player might not get the same rush as they would from removing 10 models in one successful shooting round.

**dhallnet**

A.T. wrote:
dhallnet wrote:
Although, we all seem to have no issue with saves being modified so hard that you can't take them and requiring caps to failures in some cases (invuls). Weird.
Yeah, those old iron hands and their save modfiers. What a blast they were.
More broadly speaking high save modifiers tend to be applied to low volume of fire weapons, so are a trade-off. Similarly invulnerable saves protect you against the quality but not the quantity and do become a real problem when you end up with army wide high invulnerable saves.

Rolls to hit are a notable problem however as it's no longer a case of trying to match suitable attacks to suitable targets, whole armies just lose power arbitrarily and across the board.

It's the exact same thing, if my army is designed to have low armour pen in general (and I'm not sure a lot of armies are able to spam a good amount of armour pen or do it in shooting as well as in melee), it will suffer against armies that have good armour values only.
There also is some stuff that hit with bonuses or on static values, auto hits, have rerolls available, etc to mitigate a hard cap on hitting results. I dunno if it is enough to counter an army full of these but as I said, maybe applying on some units only would be fine. If 2+/3+ to hit rerolling blobs aren't breaking the game, the idea of "to hit" caps in itself isn't something that would break it either imho. How it's applied might though.

**Wyldhunt**

InVerno wrote:
A.T. wrote:
InVerno wrote:
Problem is, eldar should hit so hard you could not hit back, that is the definition of glass cannon, and with a good banshee charge you can kill 3 marine at best, and when they hit back they will oblitered the squad
But all of the suggestions so far have been about making the eldar hard to hit, harder to wound, harder to charge, better saves.

To be a glass cannon you need the glass as well as the cannon. But that has never exactly been the eldars style.

Never said i want them toughter, i want every eldar unit to be like the aspect warriors they are supposed to be, banshee should do a lot of damage and be very frail, for objective holding i want DA or wraith units.

Eldar should be rewarding when you use the units well for what they are designed for, and not forgiving when you make mistakes (example: if you leave banshee on open field as easy target or when you let your dark reapers in melee)

Question: Should craftworlders actually be "glass cannons"? The faction's whole thing is that they try to avoid losing any more lives than they have to. They're less heavily armored than some armies, and they're only T3, but should, "dies easily during the opponent's turn," be a description that applies to them?

I say no, and that's why I like the idea of emphasizing their ability to stay alive via dodging and coordination. If we just raise their lethality through the roof so that the enemy is too dead to meaningfully counterattack, then we just contribute to the arms race and risk making craftworlders a frustrating alpha strike army.

**A.T.**

dhallnet wrote:
It's the exact same thing, if my army is designed to have low armour pen in general (and I'm not sure a lot of army are able to spam a good amount of armour pen or do it in shooting as well as in melee), it will suffer against armies that have good armour values only.

Your army would be paying the low cost of low penetration weapons. Their army would be paying the high cost of having all good armour values. In return you get more models on the table, they fail less saves - you both get what you have paid for.

**dhallnet**

A.T. wrote:
dhallnet wrote:
It's the exact same thing, if my army is designed to have low armour pen in general (and I'm not sure a lot of army are able to spam a good amount of armour pen or do it in shooting as well as in melee), it will suffer against armies that have good armour values only.
Your army would be paying the low cost of low penetration weapons. Their army would be paying the high cost of having all good armour values. In return you get more models on the table, they fail less saves - you both get what you have paid for.

Did anyone say the ability to cap to hit values should be free ?

**Wyldhunt**

Karol wrote:

That's why I like the ward save approach. It's just a straight up, "Ignore 1/3rd of the harm you would normally suffer because you're fast enough to avoid/mitigate harm." Plus, it works against both melee and shooting attacks, and you don't have weird interactions with the modern to-hit modifier rules.

But it has a ton of interactions with one shot weapons or armies that are build around less numerous number of stronger attacks. Any army that wouldn't be able to spam melta weapons, and uses 1-2 shot heavy weapons for anti tank would not be able to destroy an eldar vehicles with a cumulative -2 to hit and a ++5 sv in melee and shoting.

Not sure why you're applying the cumulative to-hit penalty on top of the 5++ ward save. My pitch is to just give them the ward save. And only after they charged or advanced, and probably instead of the current benefits of Battle Focus.

Low rate of fire weapons having trouble hitting the backflip ninjas feels like a feature rather than a bug, but you could always make the ward save only apply to infantry and bikes if it was really a problem. Just like the current Battle Focus. I'm very okay with lascannons and sniper rifles being bad at 360 no-scoping the ninja elves.

**dhallnet**

Wyldhunt wrote:

Question: Should craftworlders actually be "glass cannons"? The faction's whole thing is that they try to avoid losing any more lives than they have to. They're less heavily armored than some armies, and they're only T3, but should, "dies easily during the opponent's turn," be a description that applies to them?

I say no, and that's why I like the idea of emphasizing their ability to stay alive via dodging and coordination. If we just raise their lethality through the roof so that the enemy is too dead to meaningfully counterattack, then we just contribute to the arms race and risk making craftworlders a frustrating alpha strike army.

They are conceptually supposed to be the most resilient Eldar flavour due to their access to more heavily armoured machines/constructs and are supposed to be the most suited to wage war.
I'm not sure it's holding up these days

**A.T.**

dhallnet wrote:
Did anyone say the ability to cap to hit values should be free ?

I'm honestly not sure how you would go about costing it as an army-wide ability, though as a stratagem it would work well and as a unit-specific ability it would probably work too.

**dhallnet**

A.T. wrote:
dhallnet wrote:
Did anyone say the ability to cap to hit values should be free ?
I'm honestly not sure how you would go about costing it as an army-wide ability, though as a stratagem it would work well and as a unit-specific ability it would probably work too.

To be honest, I feel like if they can manage to give free caps on to wound rolls to Inner circle, they can give free "to hit" caps to some eldar units. I don't know how they would manage to do it on the scale of the army but it might also just be the only defence they have and be fine. CWE isn't brimming with good saves or invuls outside of certain builds (for the good saves part) but I guess to start we could not give this hypothetical rule to wraith units as it might be too much and not really inline with the idea.

**Tyel**

I don't think CWE have been meaningfully "Glass Cannon" since 2nd/3rd edition. They have some glass cannon units - but as a rule, even back to 3rd, people just take the cannon and ditch the glass. As a rule people don't take say 60 Guardians and have them run across no mans land for the glory of Khaine.

Some sort of Mech has predominated for.. 15ish years(?). Its unclear Falcons or Wave Serpents are in any sense fragile by comparison with other factions. The flyers are just flyers, psykers had a 4++ before it was cool etc.

**dhallnet**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Those are cool ideas.

Definitely make it a resource to be husbanded, rather than ‘tech says no’ type native stuff.

And once again....Let Warlock’s Be Squad Leaders For Guardians!

We can't have "characters" be squad leaders anymore. There are no rules for mixed toughness/armour and GW didn't publish any unit like that since 8th.
There could be mechanics to let warlocks help guardians more easily though (like auras for example).

Edit : Scratch that, different armour save isn't an issue and both units have the same toughness. GIVE US BACK OUR WARLOCKS GW !
Edit 2 : And there are a few cases of mixed stuff.

**Karol**

dhallnet 796763 11075267 wrote:
To be honest, I feel like if they can manage to give free caps on to wound rolls to Inner circle, they can give free "to hit" caps to some eldar units. I don't know how they would manage to do it on the scale of the army but it might also just be the only defence they have and be fine. CWE isn't brimming with good saves or invuls outside of certain builds (for the good saves part) but I guess to start we could not give this hypothetical rule to wraith units as it might be too much and not really inline with the idea.

there is still a difference in getting it on inner circle models, and getting it on the whole army. Stuff has dimnishing returns. When you are hitng a big multi wound eldar model with an inv save on +5 there are some problems with it.

**dhallnet**

Tyel wrote:
psykers had a 4++ before it was cool etc.

Or even rerollable 3++

**the_scotsman**

Tyel wrote:
I don't think CWE have been meaningfully "Glass Cannon" since 2nd/3rd edition. They have some glass cannon units - but as a rule, even back to 3rd, people just take the cannon and ditch the glass. As a rule people don't take say 60 Guardians and have them run across no mans land for the glory of Khaine.

.

Only because you dont play my eldar babyyyyyyyyyyy

avatar

summoned

storm guardians

assembled

one of each aspect warrior squad

standing around awkwardly like people cosplaying the same character at an anime convention

I am ejected from the battlefield.

**dhallnet**

Karol wrote:
dhallnet 796763 11075267 wrote:
To be honest, I feel like if they can manage to give free caps on to wound rolls to Inner circle, they can give free "to hit" caps to some eldar units. I don't know how they would manage to do it on the scale of the army but it might also just be the only defence they have and be fine. CWE isn't brimming with good saves or invuls outside of certain builds (for the good saves part) but I guess to start we could not give this hypothetical rule to wraith units as it might be too much and not really inline with the idea.

there is still a difference in getting it on inner circle models, and getting it on the whole army. Stuff has dimnishing returns. When you are hitng a big multi wound eldar model with an inv save on +5 there are some problems with it.

Weird since I field armies comprised of inner circle units only.
Which big multi wound eldar has a 5++ ? A knight ? It's only against range and he gives up firepower for that. And even then how many of those do you see breaking the game at the moment ? Yep, none.
You might also notice that I said "To be honest, I feel like if they can manage to give free caps on to wound rolls to Inner circle, they can give free "to hit" caps to some eldar units."