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 Sarigar wrote:

 Argive wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

 Sarigar wrote:

 warmaster21 wrote:
Dark eldar preview for today looks pretty good. Bonus points If eldar get the same treatment.

The Drukhari version of Webway Strike is ace. I hope Craftworld is changed to read like the Drukhari versiomm.

I assume you mean Insidious Misdirection since Webway Strike wasn't previewed and is identical to the Craftworlds version. Insidious Misdirection is pretty much identical to Phantasm, only updated to 9th ed wording and locked behind Poisoned Tongue rather than being available to any build.

Have there been start leaks apart from the redeploy ?

No. I listed the wrong stratagem. I meant to state Phantasm, not Webway Strike. Drukhari' Insidious Misdirection is an improved version of Phantasm. I use Phantasm a lot and would love the option Insidious Misdirection has.

I wouldint be too upset with with infiltrating rangers.. :(

 Imateria wrote:

If you're running nothing but Warriors then you have a skew list thats turning the game into rock, paper, scissors. Most armies that rely on Warriors though will have things like the Silent King, Ghost Arks, Reanimators and Catacomb Command Barges in support, all perfect targets for Fire Dragons. A less skewy Necron list that still relys on infantry may have Destroyers, Wraiths, Spiders and Tomb Blades, all of which are decent targets to shoot Fire Dragons at. There's nothing wrong with specialising, if anything it encourages players to take a more varied list so that they've got answers to a wider range of situations.

Exactly this. And even in the skewiest skew list, there's probably a couple characters running around that the dragons can try to get into position to take out. Will they be less efficient than usual in such a matchup? Sure. But that's the whole point of a skew list.

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 Hellebore wrote:

Imateria wrote:I'm with Wyldhunt, if you start giving all of the aspects abilities to deal with a wider variety of targets you'll have them stepping on each others toes pretty quickly, and 1 will turn out to be better against the widest range of targets and become the defacto top choice everyone takes. It will also start taking away from their identity on the table top.

That's what happens now though, so it's not really a relevant issue.

Only because most of the Aspects are rubbish at any tasks so we're left with Spears and Reapers doing everything. And I'd say it's very relevant, I know it's impossible to avoid some overlap as thats the nature of the game system, but I think diluting their specialisations is a terrible way to go with Aspects.

I'd also argue that the aspects don't necessarily need to compete for roles all that much if you actually give them tools to fulfill distinct roles. Scorpions, banshees, and spears don't all need to be competing for the job of "run forward and stab things." Scorpions should be better at making charges out of deepstrike to tie up exposed elements of the enemy army. Maybe give them bonuses against isolated units. Spears should hit harder than banshees, but banshees should be better at shutting down offense; so the former is what you use to kill hardier targets, but the latter can be better at surviving a round of combat against targets that are too hardy to wipe out.

Hawks and avengers are maybe the exceptions, with the former being generally good at debuffing/harassing a wide variety of targets and getting onto objectives. Ideally, I'd like avengers to specialize in "supporting other units," but I'd settle for being able to build them into both decent shooty units and tarpits with the right exarch builds. (And we're arguably about there with them now.)

Spiders' role should arguably be, "moving out of the way so that they don't get shot back," but there are probably too many bad memories tied to their 7th edition antics. Reapers are fine as-is. Dragons are just a victim of the change in design philosophy that discourages wiping out a vehicle with a single round of shooting. They need to either be more lethal (which is arms racey), cheaper (so that they're less of an investment), or get some sort of overhaul that lets them be useful against vehicles even if they don't kill them outright (count vehicles as being in their lowest bracket the turn after dragons hurt them?)

 Sarigar wrote:

 Argive wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

 Sarigar wrote:

 warmaster21 wrote:
Dark eldar preview for today looks pretty good. Bonus points If eldar get the same treatment.

The Drukhari version of Webway Strike is ace. I hope Craftworld is changed to read like the Drukhari versiomm.

I assume you mean Insidious Misdirection since Webway Strike wasn't previewed and is identical to the Craftworlds version. Insidious Misdirection is pretty much identical to Phantasm, only updated to 9th ed wording and locked behind Poisoned Tongue rather than being available to any build.

Have there been start leaks apart from the redeploy ?

No. I listed the wrong stratagem. I meant to state Phantasm, not Webway Strike. Drukhari' Insidious Misdirection is an improved version of Phantasm. I use Phantasm a lot and would love the option Insidious Misdirection has.

Whats the difference, because I can't see one?

 Sarigar wrote:


No. I listed the wrong stratagem. I meant to state Phantasm, not Webway Strike. Drukhari' Insidious Misdirection is an improved version of Phantasm. I use Phantasm a lot and would love the option Insidious Misdirection has.

So would I, but Insidious Misdirection is sub sub faction locked, it is Poison Tongue not Drukhari.

 Imateria wrote:

 Sarigar wrote:

 Argive wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

 Sarigar wrote:

 warmaster21 wrote:
Dark eldar preview for today looks pretty good. Bonus points If eldar get the same treatment.

The Drukhari version of Webway Strike is ace. I hope Craftworld is changed to read like the Drukhari versiomm.

I assume you mean Insidious Misdirection since Webway Strike wasn't previewed and is identical to the Craftworlds version. Insidious Misdirection is pretty much identical to Phantasm, only updated to 9th ed wording and locked behind Poisoned Tongue rather than being available to any build.

Have there been start leaks apart from the redeploy ?

No. I listed the wrong stratagem. I meant to state Phantasm, not Webway Strike. Drukhari' Insidious Misdirection is an improved version of Phantasm. I use Phantasm a lot and would love the option Insidious Misdirection has.

Whats the difference, because I can't see one?

Insidious Misdirection allows for units on the table to be placed into Strategic Reserve.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 harlokin wrote:

 Sarigar wrote:


No. I listed the wrong stratagem. I meant to state Phantasm, not Webway Strike. Drukhari' Insidious Misdirection is an improved version of Phantasm. I use Phantasm a lot and would love the option Insidious Misdirection has.

So would I, but Insidious Misdirection is sub sub faction locked, it is Poison Tongue not Drukhari.

Fair enough. I don't play Drukhari and am not as familiar.

Decided to chime in on this thread, which is truly a great one (kudos to you folks for keeping it civil!) and one I actually want to contribute to in some way.

Opinion incoming!

On the topic of aspects, I don't think that aspects necessarily need to have more utility baked in. It would be cool to have, say, Dire Avengers have the option to bring power swords on the squad so that they could deal damage at range and up close, but otherwise I'd honestly rather the rest of the aspects stay in their 'hard counter' lane. I think the biggest issue now is that they simply aren't anywhere CLOSE to being good in their lane. If you make the squad EXTREMELY good at their chosen thing and then give the exarch the ability to make them just a smidge more reliable at that chosen thing, I think your on the right track!

All Eldar need a reliable way to move around the board, and with extreme change to battle focus and game mechanics we have now, I think most people are on the page that the extra 1" movement and the ability to fire assault weapons without penalty isn't enough. It's cool that Banshees can get into charge range more reliably, but that should be something the Eldar do as a whole rather than how GW tries to make one aspect usable. As someone else said, their speed is something about them that should be relatively army-wide and easily represented on the table top.

My ideas are below. I've tried to think of exarch powers that buff the squad to really high levels for their specific roll, but that require forethought to use correctly since I think if you're going to have solid 'free' buffs, you should have to plan correctly.

Make banshees turn elite troops into mush. 2 attacks each (3 on the exarch), S4, AP -3, D2. Enough to kill a squad of SMs without support. Enough to blenderize a gravis squad with support. Make the exarch powers something like 'choose between fight first , -1 AP, or ignore invuln saves in the command phase for their unit'.

Make dark reapers great at killing light vehicles, medium vehicles, and flyers (so more shots but less damage). You brought a leman russ? Adorable. Take if off the table. Exarch powers could be +1 to hit, +1 damage, or ignore the penalty for moving and shooting.

Make fire dragons delete heavy tanks (if a squad of 5) and super-heavies (if a squad of 10) (so I'm thinking less shots but more reliable damage). Is that a knight? It WAS a knight...Exarch powers could be disembark transport after moving with no penalty to hit, melta bonus regardless of range, +8" range on melta weapons.

Make striking scorpions excellent at sneaking in the backfield and assassinating small units/ characters OR equip them to take on hordes. 20 boys? No problem. Is that a Vindicare assassin in the tower? He's got some friends now *cue Predator laughter*. Exarch powers could be +1 attack, -1 to hit, fight again at the end of the fight phase.

Ultimately, Eldar as a faction aren't that difficult to balance because the vast majority of your army is trapped in a T3, W1, AS 4+ body. They should be able to deal obscene amounts of damage to their choice targets because if you screw up, it doesn't exactly take a tournament-level army to punish you for your misstep. They should be great at killing, but they should lose MOST of their utility if you point them at the wrong target.

Just my two cents.

 Sarigar wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

 Sarigar wrote:

 Argive wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

 Sarigar wrote:

 warmaster21 wrote:
Dark eldar preview for today looks pretty good. Bonus points If eldar get the same treatment.

The Drukhari version of Webway Strike is ace. I hope Craftworld is changed to read like the Drukhari versiomm.

I assume you mean Insidious Misdirection since Webway Strike wasn't previewed and is identical to the Craftworlds version. Insidious Misdirection is pretty much identical to Phantasm, only updated to 9th ed wording and locked behind Poisoned Tongue rather than being available to any build.

Have there been start leaks apart from the redeploy ?

No. I listed the wrong stratagem. I meant to state Phantasm, not Webway Strike. Drukhari' Insidious Misdirection is an improved version of Phantasm. I use Phantasm a lot and would love the option Insidious Misdirection has.

Whats the difference, because I can't see one?

Insidious Misdirection allows for units on the table to be placed into Strategic Reserve.

I missed that, in fact I'm rather surprised they FAQ'd against it with Phantasm since similar abilities like the Deceivers allow you to remove a unit and put it in reserve.

Some neat ideas there, godswildcard, but I'm going to focus on this last bit rather than the specific changes you mentioned.

 godswildcard wrote:

Ultimately, Eldar as a faction aren't that difficult to balance because the vast majority of your army is trapped in a T3, W1, AS 4+ body. They should be able to deal obscene amounts of damage to their choice targets because if you screw up, it doesn't exactly take a tournament-level army to punish you for your misstep. They should be great at killing, but they should lose MOST of their utility if you point them at the wrong target.

Unfortunately, there are some problems with trying to fix craftworlders by just making them hyper lethal (even if only against specific targets). For one thing, someone else is eventually going to feel like they deserve to be at least as lethal as the hyper-specialized space elf, and then another unit will follow suit, and eventually you're just upping lethality across the board in the same problematic arms race we've seen for years. This is more or less how you end up with things like eradicators and pteraxii that are better tankbusters than dragons and better swooping hawks than swooping hawks.

For another, matchups (especially blind ones) can become really hard to balance. If aspect A is amazing at killing little stuff and aspect B is amazing at killing big stuff, then spamming a few units of A and a few units of B will pretty much let me alpha strike my opponent's army to pieces. If you try to limit that by saying B isn't good against all big stuff but only, say, big stuff with at least 10 wounds, the vehicle keyword, and a points cost high enough to make it worth unit B's time, and if you then make it so every aspect is only efficient against similarly specific targets, then you risk making the eldar army ineffective if it didn't happen to bring enough of a specific aspect or if it faces a skew list where it literally can't take enough units of a specific aspect. This was sort of a problem for us in 5th edition. Our fire dragons could obliterate whatever you pointed them at, but many mechanized armies had more vehicles than we had fire dragon squads. So the dragons would disembark, kill a tank, and then immediatley die, leaving the rest of your army to try and blast their way through the dozen (hyperbole) other transports in your opponent's list with BS4+ (at the time) bright lances.

And fundamentally, if my units are both lethal enough to-one-shot your units and squishy enough to be one-shotted by your units, then the game devolves into a matter of peekabo alpha strike tag. (Unless points costs mean you have enough units to wipe me out after every unit in my army just wiped out a unit in your army.)

These are all reasons that I'd like to see aspects embrace their roles without necessarily resorting to raw lethality increases. Some aspects could probably stand to be a little more lethal or at least more points efficient, but many (most?) of them could probably be fixed by giving them rules that help them stay alive, shut down enemy offense, or support other units. Banshees don't necessarily need to one-shot gravis marines in melee if we make them sufficiently hard to hit back and run away from. Hawks don't need to 1-up the pteraxii that have already 1-upped them. And dark reapers, in my eyes, are actually reasonably good at their job as-is.

 godswildcard wrote:
They should be able to deal obscene amounts of damage to their choice targets because if you screw up, it doesn't exactly take a tournament-level army to punish you for your misstep.

They would have to be pretty hideously expensive. Two of the top armies at the moment are T3 W1 and as deadly as harlequins are you seem to be suggesting a higher level of devastation.

I mean between the eldars speed and suggested output how would you expect the table to look after the first turn against anyone who didn't hide their army in reserve?

Eldar damage output is already fairly good - just a small bump on damage for a few key weapons would do it.

The main problem is not having any midfield units to contest with - they are just so flakey. Until CWE can have a hope of contesting the objective game they'll be pretty frustrating to play. To my mind wraith units need a serious look. Like, serious. They suck pretty hard and cost a lot of points, can't get obsec and don't do any damage - yet they're one of our best midfield units. Sort them out and the rest is gravy.

I'm sorry - a harlequin is a move 8, T3 4++ model with a meltagun for shooting and 4 WS3+ melee attacks for 19pts, right? with a transport that can move 26" and they get to fire out of after doing that with no penalty. That's the level of deadliness a harlequin is at.

I'd say a fire dragon would have to get pretty goofalicious to match that. Also, note that (I think, wildcard you can correct me here) wildcards suggestions arent that the exarch should grant ALL these abilities, that it should be the exarch power LIST, of which you choose ONE, i.e. between full range melta damage, +more range, disembark after transport movement etc.

Basically it seems like he's asking for the exarch power lists to be...relevant and useful, rather than what they are now, which is often not that.

the_scotsman wrote:
I'm sorry - a harlequin is a move 8, T3 4++ model with a meltagun for shooting and 4 WS3+ melee attacks for 19pts, right? with a transport that can move 26" and they get to fire out of after doing that with no penalty. That's the level of deadliness a harlequin is at.

I'd say a fire dragon would have to get pretty goofalicious to match that. Also, note that (I think, wildcard you can correct me here) wildcards suggestions arent that the exarch should grant ALL these abilities, that it should be the exarch power LIST, of which you choose ONE, i.e. between full range melta damage, +more range, disembark after transport movement etc.

Basically it seems like he's asking for the exarch power lists to be...relevant and useful, rather than what they are now, which is often not that.

Basically that. The idea is that the exarch powers are different abilities to choose from in the Command phase of your turn, so you've got to plan ahead. Choose the wrong ability at the wrong time and you risk not being able to accomplish a task or not having any sort of defensive staying power. Similar to Space marine doctrines, but more flexible overall as you can choose the same one every turn if you wanted, although I would like to see the list be powerful enough and varied enough that you would actually have to think about it rather than just sit your Dark Reapers in 'dark reaper doctrine a' all game.

And maybe that's enough? I think a lot of the eldar weapons (both ranged and melee) need some serious attention, but maybe having different abilities that exarchs can choose to activate on different turns for different situations, and having adjusted points costs, and valid weapons options for our aspects would be enough to give the army a shot in the arm for utility and make the aspects work against the targets they're supposed to work against again.

 godswildcard wrote:
Decided to chime in on this thread, which is truly a great one (kudos to you folks for keeping it civil!) and one I actually want to contribute to in some way.

Opinion incoming!

On the topic of aspects, I don't think that aspects necessarily need to have more utility baked in. It would be cool to have, say, Dire Avengers have the option to bring power swords on the squad so that they could deal damage at range and up close, but otherwise I'd honestly rather the rest of the aspects stay in their 'hard counter' lane. I think the biggest issue now is that they simply aren't anywhere CLOSE to being good in their lane. If you make the squad EXTREMELY good at their chosen thing and then give the exarch the ability to make them just a smidge more reliable at that chosen thing, I think your on the right track!

All Eldar need a reliable way to move around the board, and with extreme change to battle focus and game mechanics we have now, I think most people are on the page that the extra 1" movement and the ability to fire assault weapons without penalty isn't enough. It's cool that Banshees can get into charge range more reliably, but that should be something the Eldar do as a whole rather than how GW tries to make one aspect usable. As someone else said, their speed is something about them that should be relatively army-wide and easily represented on the table top.

My ideas are below. I've tried to think of exarch powers that buff the squad to really high levels for their specific roll, but that require forethought to use correctly since I think if you're going to have solid 'free' buffs, you should have to plan correctly.

Make banshees turn elite troops into mush. 2 attacks each (3 on the exarch), S4, AP -3, D2. Enough to kill a squad of SMs without support. Enough to blenderize a gravis squad with support. Make the exarch powers something like 'choose between fight first , -1 AP, or ignore invuln saves in the command phase for their unit'.

Make dark reapers great at killing light vehicles, medium vehicles, and flyers (so more shots but less damage). You brought a leman russ? Adorable. Take if off the table. Exarch powers could be +1 to hit, +1 damage, or ignore the penalty for moving and shooting.

Make fire dragons delete heavy tanks (if a squad of 5) and super-heavies (if a squad of 10) (so I'm thinking less shots but more reliable damage). Is that a knight? It WAS a knight...Exarch powers could be disembark transport after moving with no penalty to hit, melta bonus regardless of range, +8" range on melta weapons.

Make striking scorpions excellent at sneaking in the backfield and assassinating small units/ characters OR equip them to take on hordes. 20 boys? No problem. Is that a Vindicare assassin in the tower? He's got some friends now *cue Predator laughter*. Exarch powers could be +1 attack, -1 to hit, fight again at the end of the fight phase.

Ultimately, Eldar as a faction aren't that difficult to balance because the vast majority of your army is trapped in a T3, W1, AS 4+ body. They should be able to deal obscene amounts of damage to their choice targets because if you screw up, it doesn't exactly take a tournament-level army to punish you for your misstep. They should be great at killing, but they should lose MOST of their utility if you point them at the wrong target.

Just my two cents.

Funny you mention that because Eldar used to have those abilities but htey have been lost over time. Striking scorpions used to have 5 attacks per model (+1 from charge) and very powerful exarch weapons that only made him even more capable. a squad of 6 striking scorpions could take out 20 ork boys pretty easily.

The issue with this is GW has removed the utility. Each codex since 4th and 5th has removed the special flavors and powers for dire Avengers to Warp Spiders. They haven't been pushed in the right direction only hit with the nerf hammer repeatedly. I can even pull out my older eldar codex, Dark Reapers used to be great with killing vehicles, and Fire Dragons used to have a melta innate ability that reduced all armor by 2 (to 12) for vehicles back when we had that as an option. But they have removed that power utility with more shots which does not help the Strength to Toughness issue Eldar have been having.

 godswildcard wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I'm sorry - a harlequin is a move 8, T3 4++ model with a meltagun for shooting and 4 WS3+ melee attacks for 19pts, right? with a transport that can move 26" and they get to fire out of after doing that with no penalty. That's the level of deadliness a harlequin is at.

I'd say a fire dragon would have to get pretty goofalicious to match that. Also, note that (I think, wildcard you can correct me here) wildcards suggestions arent that the exarch should grant ALL these abilities, that it should be the exarch power LIST, of which you choose ONE, i.e. between full range melta damage, +more range, disembark after transport movement etc.

Basically it seems like he's asking for the exarch power lists to be...relevant and useful, rather than what they are now, which is often not that.

Basically that. The idea is that the exarch powers are different abilities to choose from in the Command phase of your turn, so you've got to plan ahead. Choose the wrong ability at the wrong time and you risk not being able to accomplish a task or not having any sort of defensive staying power. Similar to Space marine doctrines, but more flexible overall as you can choose the same one every turn if you wanted, although I would like to see the list be powerful enough and varied enough that you would actually have to think about it rather than just sit your Dark Reapers in 'dark reaper doctrine a' all game.

And maybe that's enough? I think a lot of the eldar weapons (both ranged and melee) need some serious attention, but maybe having different abilities that exarchs can choose to activate on different turns for different situations, and having adjusted points costs, and valid weapons options for our aspects would be enough to give the army a shot in the arm for utility and make the aspects work against the targets they're supposed to work against again.

Oh, I didn't think you were suggesting that a given squad get all of those specific abilities you mentioned. I was more arguing against the idea that craftworlders should focus on being hyper-lethal glasscannons. See above about escalating the arms race, making the game all about alpha striking, etc. For instance, dark reapers are already plenty killy. I don't feel that giving them the option to hit on a 2+ or do 4 damage per shot fixes any problems.

In 7th edition, scatbike squads and BS2+ aspect shrine warp spiders could delete whole units easily, and they died in return pretty easily (provided you could draw a bead on them). But that level of lethality did not a good game make.

Your suggested exarch options seemed to focus primarily on increasing lethality with the exception of a couple -1 to hit rules. I don't see a -1 to hit penalty doing a ton to boost eldar survivability (it helps, but only so much), and the other changes seemed to be all about creeping us closer to those 7th edition levels of lethality. Obviously there's room between where we are now and 7th edition scatbikes, but trying to solve balance issues by upping offense always makes me nervous.

Plus, I really question whether "glass cannon" is actually an appropriate description of what craftworlders should be. We aren't wrapped in power armor, but our fluff is all about how we're a dying race that tries to preserve lives wherever possible. I'd be perfectly fine with passing on offense increases if we got some fluffy rules that focused on defense. Maybe dragons can temporarily reduce the effeciveness of tanks they shoot but don't kill, letting them contribute to diminishing the enemy's offense cost-effectively without having to let a 115 point unit reliably nuke a land raider. Maybe banshees lean into the "scream that steals" thing, shutting down enemy offense and preventing escape, but not having the raw damage output to chop their way through an aggressor blob in a single turn. That sort of thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Asherian Command wrote:

Funny you mention that because Eldar used to have those abilities but htey have been lost over time. Striking scorpions used to have 5 attacks per model (+1 from charge) and very powerful exarch weapons that only made him even more capable. a squad of 6 striking scorpions could take out 20 ork boys pretty easily.

The issue with this is GW has removed the utility. Each codex since 4th and 5th has removed the special flavors and powers for dire Avengers to Warp Spiders. They haven't been pushed in the right direction only hit with the nerf hammer repeatedly. I can even pull out my older eldar codex, Dark Reapers used to be great with killing vehicles, and Fire Dragons used to have a melta innate ability that reduced all armor by 2 (to 12) for vehicles back when we had that as an option. But they have removed that power utility with more shots which does not help the Strength to Toughness issue Eldar have been having.

Was that the third edition codex? I don't have my 2nd edition book in front of me, but I know that 4th edition scorpions were only 4 attacks each (1 + pistol +charge + mandiblasters), and fire dragons definitely didn't have the lance (the AV12 thing).

Are people not using dark reapers to kill vehicles these days? I am, and they do just fine. Vehicles aren't as flimsy as when they had a couple hull points gluing them together, but reapers are definitely one of my go-to anti-tank units at the moment.

Losing out on exarch powers definitely stank. The ones in PA are generally pretty neat though. Each aspect has some stinkers, but there's at least one interesting one for each aspect too. Avengers can sort of tarpit again or else can get a boost to their shooting through bladestorm. Warp spiders can use web of deceit to feel a lot more mobile or surprise assault to up their ambush damage a bit. Dragons can turn their guns into pistols. Scorpions can double the number of mortal wounds they do or become surprisingly durable in cover (even though I'm sad that that's all they do at the moment.) Sure, letting your reaper exarch punch mortal wounds at people isn't all that impressive, but there's a lot to like in the current power options.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Funny you mention that because Eldar used to have those abilities but htey have been lost over time. Striking scorpions used to have 5 attacks per model (+1 from charge) and very powerful exarch weapons that only made him even more capable. a squad of 6 striking scorpions could take out 20 ork boys pretty easily.

3e scorpions had 4 attacks on the charge including the mandiblasters.
4e Scorpions were much the same but got plasma grenades for free.
6e scorpions got all of the old 4e exarch bonuses baked in for free, gained fleet and battle focus, bladestorm, the mandiblasters moved to init 10 and were auto-hit, and the exarchs scorpion claw hit on init 6 instead of init 1.
7e scorpions as above plus shrouding, better mandiblasters, and WS5 with morale rerolls as part of the aspect host.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Dark Reapers used to be great with killing vehicles, and Fire Dragons used to have a melta innate ability that reduced all armor by 2 (to 12) for vehicles back when we had that as an option

You'd have to go all the way back to 2nd edition to find reapers better at killing vehicles than they are now. I'm not familiar with the fire dragons ability - are you are thinking of the old lance rule?

Not all editions have improved aspect warriors but it wasn't a conveyor belt of nerfs either.

3e scorpions had 4 attacks on the charge including the mandiblasters.
4e Scorpions were much the same but got plasma grenades for free.
6e scorpions got all of the old 4e exarch bonuses baked in for free, gained fleet and battle focus, bladestorm, the mandiblasters moved to init 10 and were auto-hit, and the exarchs scorpion claw hit on init 6 instead of init 1.
7e scorpions as above plus shrouding, better mandiblasters, and WS5 with morale rerolls as part of the aspect host.

Where did I get the +5 attacks then? Huh.

I'm not familiar with the fire dragons ability - are you are thinking of the old lance rule?

Yes I am thinking the old lance rule. I got the two mixed up been ages, but I remember melta's having a 'melta rule' which I might need to recheck. But yes the old Lance Rules were neat.

I mean this is the one edition where we have the weakest aspect warriors, in some cases its not even worth taking the majority of them because how weak they are on the tabletop.

Are people not using dark reapers to kill vehicles these days? I am, and they do just fine. Vehicles aren't as flimsy as when they had a couple hull points gluing them together, but reapers are definitely one of my go-to anti-tank units at the moment.

I use them to pop infantry / heavy infantry, and use my other units to blow up tanks. Reapers are lot better at killing units than vehicles at least in my experience.

there's a lot to like in the current power options.

I still have a ton of issues with the Exarchs / Power abilities, and then the rest of the issues. with Eldar in general. The lethality issues and also just being unable to dish out multiple wounds to space marines means they are lagging behind in terms of damage.

If anything space marines and weapons in 40k need to be scaled horrifically back. They are all far too powerful.

Yeah honestly, my starting point for fixing aspects would be a whole lot simpler.

Eldar codex:

-everything with a 5+ armor gets a 4+ armor
-Everything with a 4+ armor gets a 3+ armor
-Everything with a 3+ armor gets a 2+ armor
-Everything with a 2+ armor gets a 4++.

And then

-Everything gets +1A.

Gw has elevated space marines to the much much much much tougher T4 3+ W2 game space, and what they should do with that design space is create some meaningful distinction between the 'elite xenos' factions and the 'chaff' factions.

And the other thing they learned is: A unit whose thing is "theyre good in melee AND in shooting!" is never ever ever ever ever ever in a million billion years going to use melee if it means dividing their attacks in half. That's exactly what shock assault fixed for tactical marines: They punch the same as they shoot, and when they don't get shock assault, they get a pistol attack to make up for that. That's great. We're not in fifth ed anymore, melee does not have a big red "everything that fails its morale check now DIES INSTANTLY" button at the end, legacy stuff should get a boost to its melee attack numbers.

Basic eldar at A2, Eldar Elite Warrior at A3, Harlequin at A4 is where we should be at, and where we seem to be going with Drukhari.

Figure out the special snowflake rules for every single unit after that if you need to. Obviously weapons are going to need to be rejiggered a bit, but I think the biggest thing eldar need is a hefty armor boost and just a bit more oomph in the baseline melee department.

 harlokin wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
One thing I'd love to ask someone at GW is why they effectively abandoned the Ynnari thing.

I would also love to know, if only so that I could buy whoever made the decision a beer.

Ok I'm putting on my tin foil hat here, but I think I could be onto something here that's relevant to the Thread.

I believe that Craftworlds will get a refresh overhaul at some point, but the reason their being put on hold for so long is because tgheir not going to refresh just the Craftworlds but two factions with one (soul)stone: Craftworlds and Ynnari

My reason being is because when we saw the new Howling Banshees we didn't just get a Craftworld variant but also a Ynarri Varient too which is odd sicne they are dedicated to one God IIRC.

Now what if they did this to the rest of the range? The other aspect warriors, the Guardians being a three-way kit of Guardians, Storm Wardens or whatever their called and Ynarrri heads for distinction. For books either they will have two Codex's or make Ynarri a supplement to both Craftworlds and Drukhari. Tbh I'm expecting Harlequins to go the same way within context to their book too.

 The Warp Forge wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
One thing I'd love to ask someone at GW is why they effectively abandoned the Ynnari thing.

I would also love to know, if only so that I could buy whoever made the decision a beer.

Ok I'm putting on my tin foil hat here, but I think I could be onto something here that's relevant to the Thread.

I believe that Craftworlds will get a refresh overhaul at some point, but the reason their being put on hold for so long is because tgheir not going to refresh just the Craftworlds but two factions with one (soul)stone: Craftworlds and Ynnari

My reason being is because when we saw the new Howling Banshees we didn't just get a Craftworld variant but also a Ynarri Varient too which is odd sicne they are dedicated to one God IIRC.

Now what if they did this to the rest of the range? The other aspect warriors, the Guardians being a three-way kit of Guardians, Storm Wardens or whatever their called and Ynarrri heads for distinction. For books either they will have two Codex's or make Ynarri a supplement to both Craftworlds and Drukhari. Tbh I'm expecting Harlequins to go the same way within context to their book too.

I agree....I guess we are wearing the same tin foil hat. I suspect that the Drukhari are a bit safer for now because their remaining finecast (Grotesques, Mandrakes, Beasts and CotA) are mostly unsuitable for Ynnarification.

I feel like a lot of what's happening with 40k currently is caused by a lot of the early fandom backlash surrounding AOS. The primaris/marine soft-squat, the dialing back of the fall of cadia plotline into a big ol'....nothin.... the Ynnari going from up and coming rising force mover and shaker in the universe to...yep, they're still just 3 awkward characters standing around somewhere, doing something. It all feels like grand plans laid to waste.

the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah honestly, my starting point for fixing aspects would be a whole lot simpler.

Eldar codex:

-everything with a 5+ armor gets a 4+ armor
-Everything with a 4+ armor gets a 3+ armor
-Everything with a 3+ armor gets a 2+ armor
-Everything with a 2+ armor gets a 4++.

And then

-Everything gets +1A.

Gw has elevated space marines to the much much much much tougher T4 3+ W2 game space, and what they should do with that design space is create some meaningful distinction between the 'elite xenos' factions and the 'chaff' factions.

And the other thing they learned is: A unit whose thing is "theyre good in melee AND in shooting!" is never ever ever ever ever ever in a million billion years going to use melee if it means dividing their attacks in half. That's exactly what shock assault fixed for tactical marines: They punch the same as they shoot, and when they don't get shock assault, they get a pistol attack to make up for that. That's great. We're not in fifth ed anymore, melee does not have a big red "everything that fails its morale check now DIES INSTANTLY" button at the end, legacy stuff should get a boost to its melee attack numbers.

Basic eldar at A2, Eldar Elite Warrior at A3, Harlequin at A4 is where we should be at, and where we seem to be going with Drukhari.

Figure out the special snowflake rules for every single unit after that if you need to. Obviously weapons are going to need to be rejiggered a bit, but I think the biggest thing eldar need is a hefty armor boost and just a bit more oomph in the baseline melee department.

Kinda better than conditional -1 AP isn't it (doctrines) considering it is always on.
I think it's clear harlies with 4 attacks each is too much - it has always been too much. Eldar HQ's I think more attacks in general but harliquens need less. Every aspect warrior should have 2 base - 3 for exarchs.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Kinda better than conditional -1 AP isn't it (doctrines) considering it is always on.
I think it's clear harlies with 4 attacks each is too much - it has always been too much. Eldar HQ's I think more attacks in general but harliquens need less. Every aspect warrior should have 2 base - 3 for exarchs.

so the "quick and agile" race should get less attacks (with lower strength) than basic marines?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
so the "quick and agile" race should get less attacks (with lower strength) than basic marines?

Ideally the quick and agile race should be dancing away from the big and tough race to gang up on them piecemeal. Kind of like in blood bowl where the entire wood elf team saunters past your line and sh*tstomps your ball carrier.

Worked a whole lot better as a principle when the game was slower.

A.T. wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
so the "quick and agile" race should get less attacks (with lower strength) than basic marines?

Ideally the quick and agile race should be dancing away from the big and tough race to gang up on them piecemeal. Kind of like in blood bowl where the entire wood elf team saunters past your line and sh*tstomps your ball carrier.

Worked a whole lot better as a principle when the game was slower.

Agreed, but in a world where 5 Intercessors dish out 16 attacks on the charge, my dire avengers getting only 6 feels like gak.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Kinda better than conditional -1 AP isn't it (doctrines) considering it is always on.
I think it's clear harlies with 4 attacks each is too much - it has always been too much. Eldar HQ's I think more attacks in general but harliquens need less. Every aspect warrior should have 2 base - 3 for exarchs.

so the "quick and agile" race should get less attacks (with lower strength) than basic marines?

A basic marine has 1 attack - a primaris which is basically a marine on steroids has 2 attacks.

 Xenomancers wrote:
...A basic marine has 1 attack - a primaris which is basically a marine on steroids has 2 attacks.

Cool. So why can't the Eldar get Dire Avengers on steroids?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
so the "quick and agile" race should get less attacks (with lower strength) than basic marines?

Ideally the quick and agile race should be dancing away from the big and tough race to gang up on them piecemeal. Kind of like in blood bowl where the entire wood elf team saunters past your line and sh*tstomps your ball carrier.

Worked a whole lot better as a principle when the game was slower.

Agreed, but in a world where 5 Intercessors dish out 16 attacks on the charge, my dire avengers getting only 6 feels like gak.

I am suggesting that they get 11 in every round where a tactical marine unit gets 11 on the charge. Trust me - nothing is worse than paying for stats you don't intend to use. You don't want to pay for 3 attacks on all your aspects. I think Eldar weaponry could use an overhaul. Shuriken cats need a range buff for sure including the avenger. I'd like to see dires get the ability to overwatch for free and always allowed and in the first round of combat they can use the avenger profile for their melee attacks or something like that anyways.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
...A basic marine has 1 attack - a primaris which is basically a marine on steroids has 2 attacks.

Cool. So why can't the Eldar get Dire Avengers on steroids?

isn't that what dire avengers are compared to guardians?

 Xenomancers wrote:

isn't that what dire avengers are compared to guardians?

Ah, Eldar steroids only affects leadership.

dhallnet wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

isn't that what dire avengers are compared to guardians?

Ah, Eldar steroids only affects leadership.

I am suggesting they get +1 attack.

When it comes to kabalites and their +1 attack on their stat sheet - it makes sense. Khabs are professional pirates. Guardians are literally potters that get a space suit and a catapult to fight in the most fire of needs.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I am suggesting they get +1 attack.

Ah my bad.
But why would you limit all aspects to 2 though.