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I think we're saying the same thing really. GW does keep writing bad rules for them and one of those "bad rules writing" happened because they removed of a statline from a dice based tabletop game that has been used to define character agility (especially for "elven" forms) from the very beginning of RPGs. For sure GW could fix this by writing Eldar rules to reflect that, but they haven't yet.

And I'm not so sure Drukhari feel that great at the moment honestly. I think their charge phase is pretty well-flavoured. At face-value raider spam sort of feels fluffy, but the way its working right now is kind of uhhh not great. Its not very sinister or "trickery". Its just a powerful gun that moves fast and deletes units.

If i think about it, to me the GSC ambush mechanics feel a lot more "raiding party" than the way drukhari play.


To me Eldar need to feel "wise" and highly intelligent but also fatal flawed with a type of arrogance or ambivalence that clouds judgment.

Similar to how dwarves (the fantasy counterweight to elves) are strong and tough, but hindered by odd dogmas or spiteful stubbornness.

Drukhari are very reliant on the mathematical strength of T6 W10 5++ that costs a bag of chips. And open topped being far too strong in 8/9th.

 T800Necron wrote:
Drukhari are very reliant on the mathematical strength of T6 W10 5++ that costs a bag of chips. And open topped being far too strong in 8/9th.

Sincere question: What makes you say that open-topped is "too strong"? Orks have plenty of OT too, but they don't seem to be considered especially powerful at the moment. And most of the things that can shoot out of a raider/venom don't seem that potent. Warriors/trueborn. Mandrakes. DT Liquifiers were good but aren't a thing any more. What am I missing?

BrianDavion wrote:


Now, back in 5th edition when I started power weapons just OUTRIGHT ignored armor saves, which meant they where pretty solid, able to deal fairly signifigant damage to marines..

5th edition was peak 40k for me. I always liked Banshees and wanted to use them. Those power swords were very tempting. It certainly seemed like they had the potential to do some work, but they very rarely made it into any lists. Serpents and Falcons were seriously overpriced in the 4th edition codex relative to what everyone else was getting in their 5th edition books. So they didn't have a reliable means of delivery and I didn't ever really find a way to make them work in Footdar lists. Scorpions were usually a better bet. But even Scorpions didn't get a lot of table time in an edition that was dominated by marine and IG parking lots.

I've heard stories about how scary the Banshees were back in the day like in 3rd and 4th, but I think they've been lacking for a long time. Which seems kind of ironic given how prominent they've been in the Dawn of War games over the years.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 T800Necron wrote:
Drukhari are very reliant on the mathematical strength of T6 W10 5++ that costs a bag of chips. And open topped being far too strong in 8/9th.

Sincere question: What makes you say that open-topped is "too strong"? Orks have plenty of OT too, but they don't seem to be considered especially powerful at the moment. And most of the things that can shoot out of a raider/venom don't seem that potent. Warriors/trueborn. Mandrakes. DT Liquifiers were good but aren't a thing any more. What am I missing?

Because most other transports completely remove their contents from the game. These things pay less to fly and let the units inside interact with the game with no downside like they used to have. They can shoot extra lances out of these things, for example. And ask Orks about poison weaponry. Open topped just doesn't help Orks as much because BS 5+. Open topped used to have real downsides and then other vehicles lost their firing points. That's why I say open topped in 9th is too strong.

 Arschbombe wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:


Now, back in 5th edition when I started power weapons just OUTRIGHT ignored armor saves, which meant they where pretty solid, able to deal fairly signifigant damage to marines..

5th edition was peak 40k for me. I always liked Banshees and wanted to use them. Those power swords were very tempting. It certainly seemed like they had the potential to do some work, but they very rarely made it into any lists. Serpents and Falcons were seriously overpriced in the 4th edition codex relative to what everyone else was getting in their 5th edition books. So they didn't have a reliable means of delivery and I didn't ever really find a way to make them work in Footdar lists. Scorpions were usually a better bet. But even Scorpions didn't get a lot of table time in an edition that was dominated by marine and IG parking lots.

I've heard stories about how scary the Banshees were back in the day like in 3rd and 4th, but I think they've been lacking for a long time. Which seems kind of ironic given how prominent they've been in the Dawn of War games over the years.

Yeah. 5th edition was my first edition, and I mostly remember it as the parking lot edition. Everyone was spamming tons of vehicles, so we had strong incentives to spam fire dragons, wraith guard, and other anti-tank options because we didn't really have the ability to sprinkle meltaguns throughout our army like most factions. So units like banshees were relatively low priority. Back then, banshees and scorpions were usable (scorpions were generally a little better, but banshees came out slightly ahead against marines after you factored in Doom), but they were also lower priorities. I didn't really play competitively back then, but I remember every list starting with some combination of a seer council (impossible to kill death star that was good at killing tanks) and several fire dragon squads; usually with 3 falcons featuring a Dire Avenger Vehicle Upgrade (joke name for avengers who were too squishy to contribute much but made whatever tank they were in score.)

Basically, it was a somewhat extreme example of why it's bad to make the game skew too much into a pro-vehicle meta. XD

 Arschbombe wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:


Now, back in 5th edition when I started power weapons just OUTRIGHT ignored armor saves, which meant they where pretty solid, able to deal fairly signifigant damage to marines..

5th edition was peak 40k for me. I always liked Banshees and wanted to use them. Those power swords were very tempting. It certainly seemed like they had the potential to do some work, but they very rarely made it into any lists. Serpents and Falcons were seriously overpriced in the 4th edition codex relative to what everyone else was getting in their 5th edition books. So they didn't have a reliable means of delivery and I didn't ever really find a way to make them work in Footdar lists. Scorpions were usually a better bet. But even Scorpions didn't get a lot of table time in an edition that was dominated by marine and IG parking lots.

I've heard stories about how scary the Banshees were back in the day like in 3rd and 4th, but I think they've been lacking for a long time. Which seems kind of ironic given how prominent they've been in the Dawn of War games over the years.

I'd honestly question whether Banshees have been scary since 2nd edition - being able to ignore armour saves from 3rd to 5th was nice, sure, but wounding Marines on 5's (down from 3's in 2nd) kept a lid on how much cannon was in this glass cannon unit.

I've said before that Banshee's should be shock troops, with a focus on killing elite units and being incredibly strong on the charge. Giving them Mastercrafted Power Swords would be the baseline way to give them an elite-killing statline and they'd get WS2+ to represent their duellist nature and let them be on the same sort of level as Incubi, but they'd also get +1 Attack on the charge too. Most of their actual special rules are fine and why they're still kind of useful in current 40k missions, but they just don't feel like a scary melee threat. When they're hitting better with ASF and shutting down any potential for Overwatch it does turn them into a legit combat unit. It's tempting to suggest more on-charge bonuses to really drive home the concept, like rr wounds if charging, but these sorts of effects can be gotten from psychic powers and elsewhere and it makes more sense to encourage different CWE units to support each other, rather than each being entirely self-sufficient in what it can do.

Scorpions could use some stat-changes with the obvious ones being their chainswords needing an Astartes chainsword sort of glo-up and their special shuriken pistols having rules too. To represent their disruption and terror-troop sort of rule they could have rules or stratagems that let them turn off enemy obsec and/or auras. They would not be ultra-killy on their own (outside of killing chaff infantry) but would be a great support unit to flip objective control if anything survives a charge from say obsec-less Banshee's.

In general a lot of the Aspect rules are fine, they just need stat improvements and maybe a specific stratagem to really drive home their battlefield nature/role. Fire Dragons with a similar stratagem to that AL one from PA, allowing you to manipulate the explosion roll for a vehicle for instance (representing their knowledge and expertise in how to best exploit vehicle weaknesses to cause maximum destruction or to avoid it)

The big issue though is army-wide special rules and depending on what these are changed to really effects a lot of the potential ideas surrounding individual units. Most of my suggestions above are predicated on the current special rules which are basically crap and non-existent. But if the army suddenly gets a -1 to be wounded ability and a 4++ if it advances, can double activate like LRL in AOS and can move d3" in the enemy charge phase as a charge reaction then that would be pretty damn big.

 Bosskelot wrote:
I've said before that Banshee's should be shock troops, with a focus on killing elite units and being incredibly strong on the charge.

And once upon a time they were pretty good at killing Marines. S3, sure, but power weapons ignored armour. I'm just worried that in our desire to make them good we would do what GW does and overbalance them, making them too good. I remember a friend's homebrew dex that gave Banshees a 4+ dodge save against everything. What should be a glass cannon unit was suddenly shirking off fully 50% of everything you hit it with. Never sat right with me. Would want to avoid similar things.

I just see GW redoing banshees by, I dunno, making their masks cause Mortal Wounds on the charge. Sounds like the kind of thing they'd write.

I like your idea for Scorps having some other strategic level with obsec and auras ie. something outside of just killing chaff. And yeah, they need better Chainswords. Or, y'know, more Mortal Wounds.

Maybe a dying race with advanced technology shouldn't have glass cannon units in the first place.

I'd make pretty sweeping changes given the codex trends in 9th. I might start with giving all Craftworld eldar an extra wound from personal force fields. I'd make their weaponry defeat power armor easily in general and also have some countermeasures against invulns. These changes are not conducive to selling plastic though.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
I've said before that Banshee's should be shock troops, with a focus on killing elite units and being incredibly strong on the charge.

And once upon a time they were pretty good at killing Marines. S3, sure, but power weapons ignored armour. I'm just worried that in our desire to make them good we would do what GW does and overbalance them, making them too good. I remember a friend's homebrew dex that gave Banshees a 4+ dodge save against everything. What should be a glass cannon unit was suddenly shirking off fully 50% of everything you hit it with. Never sat right with me. Would want to avoid similar things.

I just see GW redoing banshees by, I dunno, making their masks cause Mortal Wounds on the charge. Sounds like the kind of thing they'd write.

I like your idea for Scorps having some other strategic level with obsec and auras ie. something outside of just killing chaff. And yeah, they need better Chainswords. Or, y'know, more Mortal Wounds.

Banshees should get a "always fights first" rule, some extra attacks, and maybe for fun a "melee blast" rule that gives them additional attacks based on the size of the unit they're fighting./

BrianDavion wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
I've said before that Banshee's should be shock troops, with a focus on killing elite units and being incredibly strong on the charge.

And once upon a time they were pretty good at killing Marines. S3, sure, but power weapons ignored armour. I'm just worried that in our desire to make them good we would do what GW does and overbalance them, making them too good. I remember a friend's homebrew dex that gave Banshees a 4+ dodge save against everything. What should be a glass cannon unit was suddenly shirking off fully 50% of everything you hit it with. Never sat right with me. Would want to avoid similar things.

I just see GW redoing banshees by, I dunno, making their masks cause Mortal Wounds on the charge. Sounds like the kind of thing they'd write.

I like your idea for Scorps having some other strategic level with obsec and auras ie. something outside of just killing chaff. And yeah, they need better Chainswords. Or, y'know, more Mortal Wounds.

Banshees should get a "always fights first" rule, some extra attacks, and maybe for fun a "melee blast" rule that gives them additional attacks based on the size of the unit they're fighting./

I can tell you that skorpekhs get cut to pieces by incoming fire very regularly. It's hard to imagine how to make T3 4+ units meaningful by changing just their melee swings and such.

 T800Necron wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
I've said before that Banshee's should be shock troops, with a focus on killing elite units and being incredibly strong on the charge.

And once upon a time they were pretty good at killing Marines. S3, sure, but power weapons ignored armour. I'm just worried that in our desire to make them good we would do what GW does and overbalance them, making them too good. I remember a friend's homebrew dex that gave Banshees a 4+ dodge save against everything. What should be a glass cannon unit was suddenly shirking off fully 50% of everything you hit it with. Never sat right with me. Would want to avoid similar things.

I just see GW redoing banshees by, I dunno, making their masks cause Mortal Wounds on the charge. Sounds like the kind of thing they'd write.

I like your idea for Scorps having some other strategic level with obsec and auras ie. something outside of just killing chaff. And yeah, they need better Chainswords. Or, y'know, more Mortal Wounds.

Banshees should get a "always fights first" rule, some extra attacks, and maybe for fun a "melee blast" rule that gives them additional attacks based on the size of the unit they're fighting./

I can tell you that skorpekhs get cut to pieces by incoming fire very regularly. It's hard to imagine how to make T3 4+ units meaningful by changing just their melee swings and such.

Aeldari units can utilize transports and are much smaller than Skorpekhs.

Eldar are fragile, thats kinda their thing, insisting they be made tanky is like demanding Tau firewarriors be made into a bad ass melee unit.

Bosskelot is right, Eldar can make use of transports, they can hide in terrain, and they absolutely should have strats for this. Eldar absolutely should be an eliteish army, they shouldn't have anywhere near as many models on the board but they should be mobile and sneaky able to manuver and move fast.

Eldar shouldn't feel like Marines with a xenos keyword. Fighting Marines should feel like fighting a iron mountain.
Fighting eldar should feel like fighting the ocean.

And like it or lump it, armies have to have thematic weaknesses. Using the above Tau example, Tau suck in HTH. The solution to that is not "make them awesome in HTH". They shouldn't be awesome in HTH.

BrianDavion wrote:
Banshees should get a "always fights first" rule, some extra attacks, and maybe for fun a "melee blast" rule that gives them additional attacks based on the size of the unit they're fighting./

Hang on a sec. I haven't play Eldar in a very long time (with or against), so just what the hell do Banshee masks do right now... *opens Codex* ... ahh... cannot fire Overwatch. Right. Well... that's good... sort of.. but Overwatch is a strat now, so it's not as useful. Having said that I'd imagine that a player would save the use of their Overwatch for that round for a unit of HTH experts all armed with power swords, so I certainly wouldn't dream of taking that rule away from them, especially given how fragile they are.

Having said that, and I realise that it's a bit of a much of a muchness, but I wouldn't have their masks make them fight first. I'd have their masks make their opponents fight last. Banshee masks are offensive weapons, not buffs for the people using them.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
I've said before that Banshee's should be shock troops, with a focus on killing elite units and being incredibly strong on the charge.

And once upon a time they were pretty good at killing Marines. S3, sure, but power weapons ignored armour. I'm just worried that in our desire to make them good we would do what GW does and overbalance them, making them too good. I remember a friend's homebrew dex that gave Banshees a 4+ dodge save against everything. What should be a glass cannon unit was suddenly shirking off fully 50% of everything you hit it with. Never sat right with me. Would want to avoid similar things.

I just see GW redoing banshees by, I dunno, making their masks cause Mortal Wounds on the charge. Sounds like the kind of thing they'd write.

I like your idea for Scorps having some other strategic level with obsec and auras ie. something outside of just killing chaff. And yeah, they need better Chainswords. Or, y'know, more Mortal Wounds.

There is precedent. Banshee Exarchs have the power Graceful Avoidance giving 5+++ in Fight phase. Not quite the same as a dodge save, and odd to go for that mechanism instead of an invulnerable 5++, but that combined with War Shout can make Banshees more survivable.

They also already have precedent for MW on charge as that is exactly what the Exarch power Nerve-shredding Shriek does, D3 MW on 4+. This emulates the 2nd edition Banshee mask that dropped opponent Attacks to 0 if the Banshees charged, which often meant a definite kill that could be represented by the MW.

Iracundus wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
I've said before that Banshee's should be shock troops, with a focus on killing elite units and being incredibly strong on the charge.

And once upon a time they were pretty good at killing Marines. S3, sure, but power weapons ignored armour. I'm just worried that in our desire to make them good we would do what GW does and overbalance them, making them too good. I remember a friend's homebrew dex that gave Banshees a 4+ dodge save against everything. What should be a glass cannon unit was suddenly shirking off fully 50% of everything you hit it with. Never sat right with me. Would want to avoid similar things.

I just see GW redoing banshees by, I dunno, making their masks cause Mortal Wounds on the charge. Sounds like the kind of thing they'd write.

I like your idea for Scorps having some other strategic level with obsec and auras ie. something outside of just killing chaff. And yeah, they need better Chainswords. Or, y'know, more Mortal Wounds.

There is precedent. Banshee Exarchs have the power Graceful Avoidance giving 5+++ in Fight phase. Not quite the same as a dodge save, and odd to go for that mechanism instead of an invulnerable 5++, but that combined with War Shout can make Banshees more survivable.

They also already have precedent for MW on charge as that is exactly what the Exarch power Nerve-shredding Shriek does, D3 MW on 4+. This emulates the 2nd edition Banshee mask that dropped opponent Attacks to 0 if the Banshees charged, which often meant a definite kill that could be represented by the MW.

via that logic there's a precident to give all intercessors a power sword

Just saying there has been precedent for making Banshees more survivable through their powers like War Shout and now Graceful Avoidance. So less glass.

Alternatively more cannon by having MW on the charge.

Seems like the general complaint about Banshees is a combination of fragility and not enough hitting power. Both of the above show lines of thought in which GW could further revamp Banshee rules. The problem of durability was less of an issue in 2nd edition when anything they charged pretty much died and when there were to-hit modifiers for speed. However Banshees were never really described as fragile. That's more Hawks. Banshee 4+ armor is the same as Dire Avenger armor so is "average" for Eldar armor.

 Galas wrote:
How is it that necrons, orks, tau, dark eldar, and harlequines, all can feel very distinct from all 40k human factions

Do they?

I look at the most recent DE codex and outside of maybe their transports they just feel like Evil Sisters of Battle but with less customisation and less interesting rules.

Hell, they've even got an army-wide 6++ now. Man, that sure sounds familiar from somewhere.

Wyldhunt wrote:


Yeah. 5th edition was my first edition, and I mostly remember it as the parking lot edition. Everyone was spamming tons of vehicles, so we had strong incentives to spam fire dragons, wraith guard, and other anti-tank options because we didn't really have the ability to sprinkle meltaguns throughout our army like most factions.

My solution was Wraithlords, War Walkers and Spiders. Troops were Wraithguard, Guardians blobs, or Rangers. It worked as a spoiler list. Everyone was tooled up to pop transports and didn't know what to do against a foot-slogging Eldar list. I always loved the shock of players trying to wrap their heads around the Avatar being immune to melta and Wraithlords being wounded on a 4+ by meltaguns. Guard was always a bad matchup, but I could handle most everything else.

One of my favorite memories from that era was playing against a local hero. He was very good and always chased the meta. He was a nid player in theory, but at this time he was tuning his GK for tournaments. We played one Sunday at the shop. I remember him saying, "Footdar? This won't take long." He won, but I made him work for it and it was a close match.

Basically, it was a somewhat extreme example of why it's bad to make the game skew too much into a pro-vehicle meta. XD

GW tends to swing from one bad idea to another. 3rd had rhino rush, so 4th had transport deathtraps. The pendulum swings back again and 5th has tables full of Razorbacks.

BrianDavion wrote:
Eldar are fragile, thats kinda their thing, insisting they be made tanky is like demanding Tau firewarriors be made into a bad ass melee unit.

Bosskelot is right, Eldar can make use of transports, they can hide in terrain, and they absolutely should have strats for this. Eldar absolutely should be an eliteish army, they shouldn't have anywhere near as many models on the board but they should be mobile and sneaky able to manuver and move fast.

Eldar shouldn't feel like Marines with a xenos keyword. Fighting Marines should feel like fighting a iron mountain.
Fighting eldar should feel like fighting the ocean.

I don't think they should be tanky by any means. there are 3 basic defensive stats to work with. I would agree that toughness is not something to increase on Eldar no issue there they stay T3, wound wise same most thier units should be 1W possible exceptions for scorpions based on armor and what they are fluff wise but that is probably the only one that could get that justification. The last basic factor is armor. I think a dying race with limited numbers would put better armor on their guardian troops than the imperials do on the guard (admittedly not professional soldier but they would still care about the limited lives they have on the ship).

They could also go the invunerable save route for some fast units with lightning reflex type saves for the aspect warriors. seems like it would be hard to recruit fire dragons as an example since no fire dragon has ever survived more than 10 seconds after getting out of the wave serpant. Speaking of which were do they get thier exarchs? the ones who signed up first so have seniority by 37 seconds?

BrianDavion wrote:
Eldar are fragile, thats kinda their thing, insisting they be made tanky is like demanding Tau firewarriors be made into a bad ass melee unit.

Bosskelot is right, Eldar can make use of transports, they can hide in terrain, and they absolutely should have strats for this. Eldar absolutely should be an eliteish army, they shouldn't have anywhere near as many models on the board but they should be mobile and sneaky able to manuver and move fast.

Eldar shouldn't feel like Marines with a xenos keyword. Fighting Marines should feel like fighting a iron mountain.
Fighting eldar should feel like fighting the ocean.

Too bad the game has been rendered down to a state where toughness/armor/wounds are the only way to accurately ensure models aren't going to be turned into fine confetti. Unless you're willing to give them 2++ save or something similar, because that's one way to ensure the 1W meatbags get to do anything.

Wyldhunt wrote:

B.) Let us move 7" instead of charging in the charge phase. Makes the whole army feel tricky and mobile.

A lot of great ideas here. I prefer simple and easy to remember rules and generally don't care for tokens so my favorite of the bunch is the move 7" during the Charge phase. Sort of a Jump Shoot Jump but with a disadvantage that you can no longer charge.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

The last basic factor is armor. I think a dying race with limited numbers would put better armor on their guardian troops than the imperials do on the guard (admittedly not professional soldier but they would still care about the limited lives they have on the ship).

They could also go the invunerable save route for some fast units with lightning reflex type saves for the aspect warriors. seems like it would be hard to recruit fire dragons as an example since no fire dragon has ever survived more than 10 seconds after getting out of the wave serpant. Speaking of which were do they get thier exarchs? the ones who signed up first so have seniority by 37 seconds?

Catbarf mentioned earlier giving a +1 to Armor Saves on all Eldar wouldn't be that bad. I also wouldn't mind seeing a lightning reflexes Invul save. Could be army wide (6++) or limited to Aspects (5++), could be any attack or just melee.

Haha, it does make you wonder how quickly new Fire Dragon Exarchs are nominated. Perhaps their short lifespan is why their warfare hasn't changed one bit in a few millennia.

BrianDavion wrote:
Eldar are fragile, thats kinda their thing, insisting they be made tanky is like demanding Tau firewarriors be made into a bad ass melee unit.

Bosskelot is right, Eldar can make use of transports, they can hide in terrain, and they absolutely should have strats for this. Eldar absolutely should be an eliteish army, they shouldn't have anywhere near as many models on the board but they should be mobile and sneaky able to manuver and move fast.

Eldar shouldn't feel like Marines with a xenos keyword. Fighting Marines should feel like fighting a iron mountain.
Fighting eldar should feel like fighting the ocean.

DG feels like an iron mountain. Marines feel like a kid's sandbox. I'm just working within the confines of GW's mechanics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cronch wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Eldar are fragile, thats kinda their thing, insisting they be made tanky is like demanding Tau firewarriors be made into a bad ass melee unit.

Bosskelot is right, Eldar can make use of transports, they can hide in terrain, and they absolutely should have strats for this. Eldar absolutely should be an eliteish army, they shouldn't have anywhere near as many models on the board but they should be mobile and sneaky able to manuver and move fast.

Eldar shouldn't feel like Marines with a xenos keyword. Fighting Marines should feel like fighting a iron mountain.
Fighting eldar should feel like fighting the ocean.

Too bad the game has been rendered down to a state where toughness/armor/wounds are the only way to accurately ensure models aren't going to be turned into fine confetti. Unless you're willing to give them 2++ save or something similar, because that's one way to ensure the 1W meatbags get to do anything.

I have to agree. That's why I suggested fake force field wounds. Remember that the indirect based armies haven't really arrived yet either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Eldar are fragile, thats kinda their thing, insisting they be made tanky is like demanding Tau firewarriors be made into a bad ass melee unit.

Bosskelot is right, Eldar can make use of transports, they can hide in terrain, and they absolutely should have strats for this. Eldar absolutely should be an eliteish army, they shouldn't have anywhere near as many models on the board but they should be mobile and sneaky able to manuver and move fast.

Eldar shouldn't feel like Marines with a xenos keyword. Fighting Marines should feel like fighting a iron mountain.
Fighting eldar should feel like fighting the ocean.

I don't think they should be tanky by any means. there are 3 basic defensive stats to work with. I would agree that toughness is not something to increase on Eldar no issue there they stay T3, wound wise same most thier units should be 1W possible exceptions for scorpions based on armor and what they are fluff wise but that is probably the only one that could get that justification. The last basic factor is armor. I think a dying race with limited numbers would put better armor on their guardian troops than the imperials do on the guard (admittedly not professional soldier but they would still care about the limited lives they have on the ship).

They could also go the invunerable save route for some fast units with lightning reflex type saves for the aspect warriors. seems like it would be hard to recruit fire dragons as an example since no fire dragon has ever survived more than 10 seconds after getting out of the wave serpant. Speaking of which were do they get thier exarchs? the ones who signed up first so have seniority by 37 seconds?

Given their technology, I think they should be extremely tanky actually. But through technology, not physical attributes. I'm very skeptical of "glass cannons" in the first place much less how this plays in 9th. Drukhari are fearsome because they are a T6 5++ army in practice, not T3 4+. Giving Eldar infantry a pittance invuln on a T3 W1 body is near meaningless the way the game plays.

Rules wise,Did cwe have holofields back in the day?

I don't particularly like the idea of fluffing a buff to eldar defense as forcefields. Outside of specific units, they've never (to my knowledge) been described as making widespread use of them, and it would be really awkward to retcon in a standard issue personal forcefield that's totally been present but not mentioned in every battle scene to ever feature eldar. We're not marines, you guys.

That said, I do think overhauling craftworlders to be "tanky elves" might be a reasonable way to go. People say, "Oh, eldar are meant to be squishy," but is that really true? They're a dying race that probably values the preservation of each others' lives more than any other playable faction. Their armor has always been a step or two better than their imperial guard counterparts. Being fast enough to be hard to hit is supposed to be one of their main "things," and they use tons of tech and training to try and stay alive (warp jump generators, banshee masks, scorpion stealth, energy shields for avengers, guardians and vehicles, holofields, etc.)

They're not gorillas wrapped in a tank's worth of armor like space marines, but headbutting bullets isn't the only way to be durable.

You could lean into the speed-as-defense thing in a ton of different ways and tweak some of our special rules to serve as debuff/lockdown mechanics to help keep us alive. So rather than turning us into protoss elves, the eldar playstyle becomes all about throwing waves of debuffs and suboptimal targets into the enemy to keep them from hitting back at 100%. Feels appropriately eldar-y, and also gives you a way to make craftworlders better without simply making them more killy (like they did with Drukhari).

I was thinking to just Protoss-ify the Eldar. Protoss succeed at being what it sounds like Eldar should be. What the fluff states has always had minimal impact on the table. Marines don't have force fields. Giving them force fields does make them marines. It makes them not die.

I like the idea of Protoss-ifying Eldar. Give them all a 2nd wound to represent the forcefield.
Reduce all damage to 1 as long as the model taking said damage is at full Wounds.
Regenerate 1W at the start of your command phase.

Rihgu wrote:
I like the idea of Protoss-ifying Eldar. Give them all a 2nd wound to represent the forcefield.
Reduce all damage to 1 as long as the model taking said damage is at full Wounds.
Regenerate 1W at the start of your command phase.

It's almost like technology helps keep your people alive or something...

Besides a lift in A value to bring them up to modern values I really dont think the stat lines need jiggling

What they need is tricksy tricks, either baked into units or as strats to make them frustrating to fight, not -5 to hit frustrating but needing some thinking to counter

But I suspect it wont happen as GW have an aversion to even the remote chance of negative play, guessing the harlies got lucky as there rules slid under the codex radar by being in WD