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dhallnet wrote:
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).

Huh.
Was convinced weapon platforms were T4. And that immobile not-drone Fire Warriors can take. Turns out this isn't the case.
Although... Deathwatch are a thing. So presumably its not actually impossible.

Tyel wrote:

dhallnet wrote:
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).

Huh.
Was convinced weapon platforms were T4. And that immobile not-drone Fire Warriors can take. Turns out this isn't the case.
Although... Deathwatch are a thing. So presumably its not actually impossible.

Yep I had a brainfart, I edited my post in the mean time.

Another potential route is to.tie a lot of benefits in to the farseer. Then the opponent has a specific target to go for and the eldar player needs to balance buffed offence against defence of their farseer. If the farseer does, the benefits go.too.

 Flinty wrote:
Another potential route is to.tie a lot of benefits in to the farseer. Then the opponent has a specific target to go for and the eldar player needs to balance buffed offence against defence of their farseer. If the farseer does, the benefits go.too.

The old beta-codex sisters worked a little like that. I remember a battle report back in 8th where a cron player rolled out a combined fire strategem turn 1, nuked all of the bubble characters at once with the first shot and the game was over :p

Warlocks supporting guardians has been a cornerstone of guardian power + utility through all of the classic editions, as well as strong thematic element (every eldar has some psychic ability). Crazy that you can't do that anymore. Not sure why Warlocks aren't just an upgrade option for guardian units.

Would it be so bad if we went back to affect tables?
Command protocols, chaos knight pacts etc. are already some veriance of this in my opinion.

I wouldint be opposed to Eldar Farseers providing some sort of table of buffs army wide you roll for before battle to then apply in respective battle rounds.

Like so:

1 - Eldritch storm shroud - Improve Cover save by a further +1
2 - Precision Strike - Heavy weapons Deal extra 1D against vehicle and monster units
3 - Fleet of foot - Add 2" to M characteristic
4 - Decapitating Strike - Add 1 to attack characteristic
5 - Forwarning - Add 2 CP to your CP pool
6 - Add +1 to wound rolls against Infantry models

The idea is you roll these up before battle round and use to plan your startegy. If you roll up +1 A in BR1 you probably won't see any benefit as you are unlikely to be in combat. But likewise if you get the heavy weapon one and all you face is infantry / loose your heavy weapons by T3 it wont really benefit.

Anyway. Spitballing here..

Slipspace wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
You can take off and nuke the site from orbit

It's the only way to be sure.

But this facility has a SUBSTANTIAL dollar value attached to it.


Back on topic

A system like miracle dice or wraithpoints would be an interesting take if the made it different enuff.

I don't feel modifiers are going to work as the current ruleset really prevents stacking now and I can't see them doing away with that or giving exceptions. I would like to see our movement actually mean something as were supposed to be the fastest race in the game.

What about a defence against to hit roll's in a way? Some thing like asuryani warhost units get a 6+ against the hits that maybe gets upped to a 5+ if the unit advanced.

So attacker would roll to hit dice applying modifiers and re-rolls as usual and give successfull hits to asuryani player who would then roll them as above and the attacker would then roll to wound with the fails. You could add psy powers to change the roll or give exarch powers a way to affect it. Ie scorpion exarchs could have a power that gives +2 if the unit they are assaulting is in cover, that sort of thing.

I think of it as a front loaded RP and would fit with the fluff and effect no unit or army type above another, as far as I can tell so far. It would still allow what modifiers that exist to apply but give us a unique rule that I think fits. Call it what you want and add it to a better battle focus adjust points accordingly and I'd be a happy camper.

Cheers, K

Edit: Dodge, I've just realised this is a sort of old dodge save lol.

 Mezmorki wrote:
Warlocks supporting guardians has been a cornerstone of guardian power + utility through all of the classic editions, as well as strong thematic element (every eldar has some psychic ability). Crazy that you can't do that anymore. Not sure why Warlocks aren't just an upgrade option for guardian units.

The guardian box doesn't come with an eldar warlock inside the box, would be the prime reason.

I wouldint be opposed to Eldar Farseers providing some sort of table of buffs army wide you roll for before battle to then apply in respective battle rounds.

I feel like random tables kind of undermine the concept of master psykers being able to peer into the future to plan for the perfect strike.

I dunno, it would represent that they don’t always get it quite right.

In ancient times of gaming Eldar were the technology race. They could hit and run with spiders when others couldn't. They could deepstrike with hawks when others couldn't. Their farseer had serious pyker powers.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I dunno, it would represent that they don’t always get it quite right.

Idoneth (and DoK) that this rule kind of matches in concept have set order, and it helps with planning for your game. On a purely tabletop level making it random just makes it another variable to fight against, while set order makes it something you can plan around from the start. And one less thing to keep track of during the game (was it 1,5,4,2,3 or 1,4,5,2,3....). And I really don't think eldar deserve to have their biggest asset turned into orky randomness. GW loves it's random tables far too much, cause it takes away the weight of balancing off them. Oh this is balanced, you just rolled poorly (then how is it balanced...)

IMO too much of the eldar has been tied to the farseer.

There's an autarch there who should be able to lead the army without a farseer.

This IMO is one of the reasons the eldar become a gimmick army using only a few good units.

Everything is set up to rely on psychic intervention, buffing units and piling on the upgrades. Which makes them a one trick pony, because then it's always built around a farseer.

Not even tyranids, who have been specifically designed around synapse to function in the background, rely on a hive tyrant as much as the eldar currently rely on farseers to function at all.

It's a mistake to go even HARDER on the farseers, because it's reinforcing a one dimensional angle of the eldar and likely just encouraging the same play style.

You'll see that over the last few editions the 'optimal' eldar forces have been whatever unit was made better than the others, spammed, with seer buff support.

This is one of the reasons they're so annoying to other players and frankly boring to play.



GW needs to reevaluate the entire army, look at it as a force by itself and THEN add psykers in as a supplement, rather than a requirement. They are a capable of military force, they don't always need psychic babysitting to perform their missions. There aren't enough farseers to attend every battlefield.

don't tie it to a single unit. Idoneth have their Tides of Battle regardless of who's on the tabletop, the "farseer" (Tidecaster) just lets you flip the order of the turn buffs from 1-5 to 5-1.
Seriously, elves in AoS have so many good ideas you could plunder for the eldar it's not funny. Maybe not *all* of them, giving the whole army psychic power to make their weapons do MW on 5+ to hit would be a bit OP...

Having a mechanic to simulate the farseer foreseeing how things are going to turn out and manipulating them doesn't depend on having a farseer on the table - though if you wanted to, you could maybe give a bonus to the effect if you do.

I.e. Any Eldar army that is 50% or more CWE by points gets gets X fate points to spend secretly before the game like I described above; if you take a farseer, you get X+1, or X+3 for Eldrad. Something like that.

True enough. Craftworld forces are generally directed by a Farseer, even if the Farseer doesn’t join them.

As for Warlocks? If they’re not already, let people field them as I can Crypteks, with up to three counting as a single slot.

Or if they’re currently T4, just drop them to T3 and let them be chosen for Guardian squads as a Marine Squad can have a Veteran Sergent.

 Hellebore wrote:
IMO too much of the eldar has been tied to the farseer.

There's an autarch there who should be able to lead the army without a farseer.

This IMO is one of the reasons the eldar become a gimmick army using only a few good units.

Everything is set up to rely on psychic intervention, buffing units and piling on the upgrades. Which makes them a one trick pony, because then it's always built around a farseer.

Not even tyranids, who have been specifically designed around synapse to function in the background, rely on a hive tyrant as much as the eldar currently rely on farseers to function at all.

It's a mistake to go even HARDER on the farseers, because it's reinforcing a one dimensional angle of the eldar and likely just encouraging the same play style.

You'll see that over the last few editions the 'optimal' eldar forces have been whatever unit was made better than the others, spammed, with seer buff support.

This is one of the reasons they're so annoying to other players and frankly boring to play.



GW needs to reevaluate the entire army, look at it as a force by itself and THEN add psykers in as a supplement, rather than a requirement. They are a capable of military force, they don't always need psychic babysitting to perform their missions. There aren't enough farseers to attend every battlefield.

Couldn't agree more.

Yet that’s traditionally how Eldar have worked on the table top?

Farseer and Warlocks use their powers to alter dice rolls, whether in your favour for friendly rolls, or negatively for opponent’s rolls.

That’s their jive, man. That’s what they do. I would say that’s what they do best, expect right now, it doesn’t seem to be true.

The trouble is, as I see it, right now it’s all too in-game. They don’t reflect how Craftworlders prepare for war.

They don’t just turn up on the off chance of a scrap. Each of their battles is a calculated intervention. The impact they seek isn’t necessarily annihilating the enemy force. It could be as simple as quadra-spazzing a single, very specific Guardsman - because it has been foreseen that person is a link in a chain which spells Major Trouble. Their fate needn’t even be interesting (such as somehow becoming the next Lord Solar. It could be they’re the clumsy git that trips up, busts their nose and bleeds all over the wrong thing, awakening a Tomb World which would otherwise slumber on).

That? That can be done with objectives and bonus VPs.

For Matched Play, perhaps allow the Craftworld player to select their Secondaries once you know what your opponent is fielding? Or allow them to score Double Points for fulfilling one of their chosen Secondaries?

Perhaps have it done as a secret note. The reason I suggest that is if your opponent knows, they can move to specifically counter - which to my mind doesn’t really suit the intent behind the rule.

And remember. All the suggestions I’m farting out my brain hole, and others are making aren’t intended to be cumulative. This is spitballing, not a list of demands

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

That’s their jive, man. That’s what they do. I would say that’s what they do best, expect right now, it doesn’t seem to be true.

Yeah but this focus, as already mentioned, is at the same time what kept them good and "bad". Some units can't be good because "you have buffs from this and this and this !", some slip through and become too good because of the buffs, etc.
And it's a bit boring to start every single list with a farseer and two warlocks.
At least, you could keep the focus on buffs/debuffs, but not tie them to the psychers. This "ancient arcane weaponry" they're supposed to have, could do some work too. Bring back a form of the "over powered" scatter laser and let its hits provide +1 to hit to other units, monowire weapons prevent fall back, blinding lasblasters reduce movement, whatever, go nuts and make them redundant so you don't end up with 20 different buffs available if you pick psychers + aspects, and we're good to go.

My proposition doesn't have to mean that the Farseer has to be on the table. It could be representative that he had directed the force to battle in the first place.

Then having an actual Farseer take to the field could let you manipulate the "tides/Docrines/Protocols/whatever" to some degree or improve them maybe?

One of the things I really disliked about 8th was the overwhelming reliance on farseers to the point you had to base your army around that and take one or at least two.

We did get that somewhat fixed with Expert Crafters meaning that Doom and Guide combo, which lets be honest was the only play worth making with CWE, was no longer the most optima way to run. We got freed up from having to take a big blob of "something" and then buffing it up to the gills in order for it to function. And also failing the psychic tests and auto loosing...

But I don't like the idea of the Farseer to simply be a MW battery... I think smite in general is a boring mechanic. It means all psykers basiclay do the same thing. Was really dispointed they kept that in.

I like the idea of farseers manipulating dice. Obviosuly anything like that makes things OP.
I remember playing vs my friends ulthwe and he was rerolling all the saving throws.. that was a bit much. But now when you often have to make 20+ saving throw from a single units shooting it wont matter for poor guardians getting hosed.

I think it should depend on the Craftworld, some like Ulthwe are heavily dependant on farseers and such, but it'd be nice to not have to depend on them so much especially for homebrew fluff options. Such as my own which seems to have their vision of the future constantly being blocked by their enemies, so have learned to less lean on the "crutch" of far sight so much.

I think the balance that needs to be struck is as follows...

You can stack your buffs and your nerfs. But, being inherently squishy, should you blow it, it’s gonna cost you. That way, you can frustrate your opponent, and should you eff it up, they can take that frustration out on you without mercy.

My thoughts also turn to Aspects. Now this isn’t a complete thing. But consider the Fire Dragon. Their Exarch is a bit odd, as he can have a weapon with a longer range than his mates, or a Heavy Flamer equivalent. Both are kinda oddball fits. After all, the Firepike on its own won’t achieve a massive amount - so you’re still wanting to get your other dudes nice and close, yes? But what if the Exarch could snipe with the Firepike, and use his Heavy Flamer to torch a unit freshly disembarked from a vehicle his mates just slagged - or representing him aiming it at the whole they just melted in it.

But i definitely feel they need some kind of pre-first turn shenanigans. Because joking apart, I find it very in-character for a Craftworld’s opponent to say something like “oh you Richardcranium” in response to shifty sneaky stuff.

I think there's a big difference between farseers telling autarchs where they need to go to war and the autarchs prosecuting one.

Farseers should only be on the battlefield if there's a fated reason/need of psychic shenanigans to intervene in that particular instance.

Otherwise, the eldar army should function 100% under the autarchs and their command structure.

Farseers aren't military leaders, they're advisors.

Warlocks are overtly militaristic psykers as they are ex aspects, so them showing up on the battlefield is wholly expected.


So IMO they should be creating an Autarch and guardian command structure, build the army around that, and then add farseers and warlocks as optional support.

The army should completely function without a single psyker present.

 Hellebore wrote:
I think there's a big difference between farseers telling autarchs where they need to go to war and the autarchs prosecuting one.

Farseers should only be on the battlefield if there's a fated reason/need of psychic shenanigans to intervene in that particular instance.

Otherwise, the eldar army should function 100% under the autarchs and their command structure.

Farseers aren't military leaders, they're advisors.

Warlocks are overtly militaristic psykers as they are ex aspects, so them showing up on the battlefield is wholly expected.


So IMO they should be creating an Autarch and guardian command structure, build the army around that, and then add farseers and warlocks as optional support.

The army should completely function without a single psyker present.

I find that a little hard to reconcile with the fact that Farseers have been commanders in Eldar armies since as long as I can remember. I mean I understand the idea behind a non-Farseer-led force being competent and available, but Farseers themselves have always been such a keystone in 40k because they have these explicitly combat oriented psychic abilities. Granted, I also really like the ancient "pointing" Farseer model from ancient times, since he doesn't have his weapon drawn. He looks like somebody who should sit in the back, directing and providing psychic support.

Imo that model is the counterpoint to the original "Sicarius" Captain model. You know the UM one. A commander who's concentrating on commanding rather than fighting themselves.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I think the balance that needs to be struck is as follows...

You can stack your buffs and your nerfs. But, being inherently squishy, should you blow it, it’s gonna cost you. That way, you can frustrate your opponent, and should you eff it up, they can take that frustration out on you without mercy.

Please no.. Already had to live through this throughout most of 8th edition.
Loosing a game simply because you failed your Doom & guide 7+ psychic test on 2D6 in your first turn is weak sauce.. Anyone whos played CWE has been there.

That's why people are fed up with farseer being the lynchpin you HAVE TO base your army around weather for buffs or debuffs. Because without them the units you take on their own are not good enough.

Its only thanks to Expert Crafters Customer Craftworld trait (which is mini Doom & Guide rolled into one) were we able to get creative and make lists without any farseers and warlocks at all and still have a chance of winning. It was even worse in the CHE age..

1/2 of your army pts was spoken for(Faseers + Warlock + 3x Troops+ 3 X Crimson Hunter Exarchs) before you even started writing a list... Its not a good place to be.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
I think there's a big difference between farseers telling autarchs where they need to go to war and the autarchs prosecuting one.

Farseers should only be on the battlefield if there's a fated reason/need of psychic shenanigans to intervene in that particular instance.

Otherwise, the eldar army should function 100% under the autarchs and their command structure.

Farseers aren't military leaders, they're advisors.

Warlocks are overtly militaristic psykers as they are ex aspects, so them showing up on the battlefield is wholly expected.


So IMO they should be creating an Autarch and guardian command structure, build the army around that, and then add farseers and warlocks as optional support.

The army should completely function without a single psyker present.

I find that a little hard to reconcile with the fact that Farseers have been commanders in Eldar armies since as long as I can remember. I mean I understand the idea behind a non-Farseer-led force being competent and available, but Farseers themselves have always been such a keystone in 40k because they have these explicitly combat oriented psychic abilities. Granted, I also really like the ancient "pointing" Farseer model from ancient times, since he doesn't have his weapon drawn. He looks like somebody who should sit in the back, directing and providing psychic support.

Imo that model is the counterpoint to the original "Sicarius" Captain model. You know the UM one. A commander who's concentrating on commanding rather than fighting themselves.

So this is an interesting discussion and something that's ironically due to the slight revision of the eldar in 4th ed.

In 2nd ed, you had the option of taking a farseer or an avatar as your force commander. The avatar was 300pts and the farseer was 170+wargear, so in the end they end up being relatively similar in cost. The 3rd option was a great harlequin if the whole army was harlequin units.

So you could take an army of nothing but the avatar, exarchs and aspects and the army would function fine.

Interesting to note that guardians had their own squad leader (designated without a separate statline) who had access to special weapons separate from the rest of the unit. The farseer had a set of powers that were not as integrated into the functionality of the army and they were shared with the warlock. Only Mind war (roll between 5 and 7 d6 -6s cause a wound with no save on the target model), Doom (one model doomed is auto wounded) and battlefate (+1 to hit for targeted unit).

The remaining powers, executioner, fortune, guide, eldritch storm, destructor were useable by warlocks and farseers, so the farseer wasn't as necessary to buff the army, and there were already plenty of bonuses floating around so a +1 to hit was not earthshattering.


For 3rd, you could only take an avatar or a farseer with the warlock bodyguard as HQ. Eldar lost exarchs, pirate captains, exodite lords as other HQ choices (and harlequins entirely).

As the avatar SUCKED, the farseer was pretty much the only HQ choice taken. So although you could technically reflect the avatar of khaine leading his followers (the exarch priests and their students) it was suboptimal due to a combo of focusing farseer powers to pure buff bot, and the avatar being crappy for its slot.

4th is where this changed and they added the Autarch to the army. This retconned the entire eldar military background somewhat and decided that the Autarch was the military commander of the eldar. Which annoyingly sidelined the exarchs while somehow still keeping phoenix lords as powerful exarchs...

The entry for the autarch specifically says that eldar armies led by autarchs act as well oiled machines. So they were clearly army leaders and were if not superior, at least equal to farseers in terms of command.

The eldar now have TWO(!) generic HQs to take. but again because the farseer was an effective buffbot and the rest of the army wasn't great at its job without those buffs, Autarchs were just not taken that much. They cost more and only granted +1 to reserves rolls. Farseers were cheaper and had more utility so kept getting taken.

And that's basically where the army still is today, 15 years later. Farseers are just too useful, the army is underpowered in order to balance what a farseer does, and the supposed military commander of the eldar army is ineffective an ignored.

Whatever my personal feelings on the very existence of an autarch, they're now supposed to be an equal choice (I would argue default due to their being more autarchs than farseers) but the combination of crappy units and farseer buffs make the seers far too valuable to not take.

If they retconned the retcon and made autarchs an elder exarch, I'd be fine with the farseer staying where it is to some extent. But if they're going to keep pushing autarchs as not fallen to the warrior path and tactical geniuses, they need to make them equal to the farseer, by either making the army more useful without farseers, or giving the autarch super buffs that compete with the seer's.

Hellebore wrote:I think there's a big difference between farseers telling autarchs where they need to go to war and the autarchs prosecuting one.

Farseers should only be on the battlefield if there's a fated reason/need of psychic shenanigans to intervene in that particular instance.

Otherwise, the eldar army should function 100% under the autarchs and their command structure.

Farseers aren't military leaders, they're advisors.

Warlocks are overtly militaristic psykers as they are ex aspects, so them showing up on the battlefield is wholly expected.


So IMO they should be creating an Autarch and guardian command structure, build the army around that, and then add farseers and warlocks as optional support.

The army should completely function without a single psyker present.

No thank you.

Eldar are the most psychically powerful race. It's what they do. Let's not be imperial guard with elves. Bring back warlocks as guardian leaders, bring back seer councils, more psykers, not less. The autarch came in 4th edition, and was at least far more interesting than the current ultra bland version, but farseers are iconic. If you don't like them or psykers in general, to be frank eldar aren't the army for you.

@Hellebore: Hmmm . . .

So, for 2nd I definitely ALWAYS saw a Farseer because not having a competing Lvl 4 psyker when the opponent had a level 4 psyker was more or less disastrous. Either way, I don't think we can count on Farseers going away as an Iconic Eldar include.

As for the Autarch, I think the general feeling is that the army ought to have UNITS that are capable of doing their job without the outside support of the traditional Farseer (or Autarch).

The Autarch then has to find yet another personal capability or niche-buff to put forward to have any worth. So, either he be a buff-elf, or he be able to sorta roll the way that 2nd Ed Exarchs used to roll, with lots of custom options with which to tailor their role.

Soo, yeah. . . I dunno what to do with those. I was pretty ok with their original incarnation but GW has trimmed back their options because of no-model-no-rulez. So I guess I'd advocate a much more customizeable unit and a sweet new kit or two (jetbike and non-jetbike Autarch kit with tons of options for each?) Then give him a nice ability to buff uints either this way or that.

dhallnet wrote:

 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.

Yeah, if Space Wolves can have Battle Leaders in their squads still, I don't see the issue with Warlocks. Both used to operate the same way back in the day. Just don't give them the character keyword in that case.