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"Just give them strats"
Strats have been a mistake, that much is clear. Strats should compliment the stats, not make up for abysmal stats.

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.

So what, the eldar are just fielding an entire army of C'tan now? Why are we giving the glass cannon faction the best defensive ability in the game

 Arachnofiend wrote:

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.

So what, the eldar are just fielding an entire army of C'tan now? Why are we giving the glass cannon faction the best defensive ability in the game

Because glass cannons don't make much sense anymore. If they ever did. Most of the successful Eldar lists in the past found ways to edit out the glass cannony parts of the list anyway.

A glass cannon style list usually ends in a feels bad manner. Either the cannon part dominates and the opponent feels bad or the cannon part dominates and the Eldar feel bad.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

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.

So what, the eldar are just fielding an entire army of C'tan now? Why are we giving the glass cannon faction the best defensive ability in the game

because glass cannons don't work when every other army also hits like a cannon, but without the glass part. You want to make them glass cannons? You can, but everyone will whine that their units get deleted right away when they get shot/chopped, because glass cannons are the most annoying kind of army to face- either you get deleted or you delete someone.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Gregor Samsa wrote:
Ever since GW removed initiative eldar have really struggled to find their right "feel" in the game. They require a lot of work to feel distinct from "humans with guns" and initiative/psychic phase were those features which set them apart.

With the game shifting to more "units performing actions" there is good design space for GW to give Eldar their fluff role as ancient and wise psykers. However without initiative its hard to get the feel of their agility properly translated. A lot of the dominance of Dark Eldar codex comes from the fact that their fluffy "speed" has been diluted into just "kill things fast", which is not really the same thing as graceful agility.

I have elsewhere in another past thread suggested that Eldar prophecy and foresight could be represented not just by the current existing psychic powers but by a pool of dice similar to Miracle dice for SoB. However instead, these dice could replace opponent rolls, representing the Eldar having acted to bring about fates and timelines where the enemy fails. So the enemy would seem to experience extreme bad luck with targeting system failures, fumbling blows, armor giving way, etc...

If Miracle dice are considered fine, when they can basically give a guaranteed unmodified 6 on a roll, then Eldar players forcing an opponent roll to be 1 should be equivalent.

Not necessarily.

I'm not opposed to the mechanic, but I don't think you can draw one to one equivalence between Miracle Dice and messing with opponent dice. It's a cool idea-but one that has the potential to be both broken and unfun, if handled poorly.

Could be neat, but I worry about it being a feelbad mechanic. Miracle Dice are framed as, "Hooray! I automatically succeeded at something!" Your proposal is framed as, "Oh great. I automatically failed at something for no reason." Abstractly, there's not much difference, but psychologically one feels much worse.

It's not failing at something for no reason just as Miracle dice are not succeeding for no reason (their faith and/or the Emperor did it). They fail because it was foreseen ahead of time so the Eldar is not there for the shot or blow, or sees that a hit to the enemy's armor at that tiniest of cracks will shatter their armor entirely and get through. An auto-success at an invulnerable 6++ thereby negating a lascannon shot for example creates the same result as an auto-failed 1 to-hit roll making the lascannon miss entirely and also negating the damage. Yes psychologically some players may feel different but I would argue that trying to fight Eldar thematically has always been described for example in BFG as "trying to catch starlight" (i.e. frustrating). They aren't supposed to just sit there conventionally and tank hits.

People have been trying to find ways to give some survivability to Eldar in a unique way beyond just armor saves. So far most suggestions have been along the lines of more W, to-hit modifiers (which are capped), saves (either ++ or +++), etc... My idea for Prophecy dice is just another idea. It would be pinpoint and ideally the number of such dice would not be enough to keep up with the demand so they have to be used carefully. The way for an opponent would be to overwhelm through enough rolls so that even auto-fails will not be enough to make a difference.

why should Craftowlrd Eldar be glass cannons?
Thats a concept that has never been part of the faction.

Are elves glass cannons? They weren't in fantasy with the exception of wood elves. Both Dark and High Elves weren't less resilient than most factions, just a bit more expensive.

In 40k, only 1/3 of Drukhari are proper glass cannons. Kabals have always been middle of the road towards fragile army and covens have always been tought.
Harlequines are full glass cannons, thats for sure. But Craftworld? Extremely tought monsters, vehicles, monstrous infantry, and just middle of the road fragile infantry.
Point per point craftworld eldar have never been extremely fragile, even compared with marines.

And the cannon part. When were craftworld eldar defined by their offensive capabilities? They were never shown more destructive than space marines, or necrons. They were just an army of specialist. The combination of a ton of specialist units working in tandem, relative high (but not the highest, they are the slowerst eldar) movility, with psychic fuckery and some really tought elements IS the personality of craftworld eldar. In the other hand, Tau are pretty similar to craftworld eldar, lacking in psychic and meele power for more middle and long range firepower and less mobility (But more mobility in bigger platforms)

 Galas wrote:

And the cannon part. When were craftworld eldar defined by their offensive capabilities? They were never shown more destructive than space marines, or necrons. They were just an army of specialist. The combination of a ton of specialist units working in tandem, relative high (but not the highest, they are the slowerst eldar) movility, with psychic fuckery and some really tought elements IS the personality of craftworld eldar. In the other hand, Tau are pretty similar to craftworld eldar, lacking in psychic and meele power for more middle and long range firepower and less mobility (But more mobility in bigger platforms)

The problem is GW has interpreted specialists working together and "synergy" to mean they are useless unless they have babysitting support such as Doom or Fortune. That's not synergy. Synergy should mean the total is more than the sum of their parts, not that the individual part is useless by itself.

I feel like y'all have narrowed in on arguing the "glass cannon" definition so you can ignore how ludicrously broken the proposed rule is

Yeah that rule is bad and absolute broken and eldar have never been shown to have force fields outside the walkers so whatever

isn't the Dire Avenger exarch equipped with personal shield? And autarch?
I suppose we can just leave them at T3 and 4+ save because they're glass cannons with their mighty 12" S4 guns.

So the Dire Avenger refresh got a shimmer shield Exarch option and therefore every Eldar should get a Forcefield? This thread has taken a weird turn with "Eldar should be super durable and here are some C'Tan rules".

Agreed on shuriken weapons. Eldar should have normal range guns again, since fragile units shouldn't be blitzing into rapid fire range of the enemy.

Its a proposal that isnt - to hit or a useless invuln. I was just thinking that force fields are high tech and would help preserve an alledgedly dying race.

Im not sure what design space is left for t3 w1 models.

I wasnt thinking of the shimmer shield i was cribbing protoss because that army works. Theres no reason to limit the game by fluff when GW doesnt do it either.

 T800Necron wrote:
Its a proposal that isnt - to hit or a useless invuln. I was just thinking that force fields are high tech and would help preserve an alledgedly dying race.

Im not sure what design space is left for t3 w1 models.

I wasnt thinking of the shimmer shield i was cribbing protoss because that army works. Theres no reason to limit the game by fluff when GW doesnt do it either.

GW did it bad, therefore we should do it bad too is not a very compelling argument.

Furthermore, the suggested rule means it takes two unsaved wounds from a Reaper Chainsword or Thunderstrike Gauntlet to kill ONE Eldar. I'm not opposed to making Eldar more durable-but that's durability on par with a Dreadnought.

That wasnt my rule. I just suggested a singular fake wound as a starting point.

Ah, it was Rihgu who had the "Reduce damage to 1" suggestion.

My bad.

Banshees have *never* been efficient at killing elite infantry. Even back in 5th they were averaging 5 meq kills on the charge (30 attacks, hitting on 4s wounding on 5s ignoring armor), which is just "ok", considering that it's going to take one or two turns to get into combat against those Marines and they can't be swept due to ATSKNF.

Which highlights a interesting thing about Eldar. I think they might be the oldest army in the game who has had glaring design flaws for like 90% of their existence with no tweaks or rules revamps to address them. You CANNOT be a anti-elite muncher with just strength 3 and 3 attacks on the charge. In order for a melee unit to be good in this game they MUST have either a high volume of attacks or very high and accurate strength. Yet addition after addition games workshop has looked at these girls and thought to themselves that they are basic profile is fine, and that cavalier attitude extends to large swaths of the codex.

The designers need to do a lot of soul-searching and decide what the actual philosophy of the faction on the tabletop should be, and then they need to do a rewrite basically from the ground up. Take the Avatar as he is now and throw it in the trash, take banshees as they are now and just throw them in the trash. These kinds of units need a revamp.

In 2nd ed banshees beat marines most of the time.

They wounded on 3s, would hit marines 1-2 times per model and their masks were actually scary.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 T800Necron wrote:
Its a proposal that isnt - to hit or a useless invuln. I was just thinking that force fields are high tech and would help preserve an alledgedly dying race.

Im not sure what design space is left for t3 w1 models.

I wasnt thinking of the shimmer shield i was cribbing protoss because that army works. Theres no reason to limit the game by fluff when GW doesnt do it either.

GW did it bad, therefore we should do it bad too is not a very compelling argument.

Furthermore, the suggested rule means it takes two unsaved wounds from a Reaper Chainsword or Thunderstrike Gauntlet to kill ONE Eldar. I'm not opposed to making Eldar more durable-but that's durability on par with a Dreadnought.

It would also only take 2 unsaved wounds from grot blasters to kill one. I'd have to do the math to be sure but I think Dreadnoughts win out there.

I'm also not talking about Eldar Guardians being 8ppm with this rule. It's not like you'd be digging through an army of 90 eldar armed only with Thunderstrike Gauntlets.

We have 20 skitarri one shotting morty 30% ish of the time. The bar for "broken" is pretty high in 9th

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Banshees have *never* been efficient at killing elite infantry. Even back in 5th they were averaging 5 meq kills on the charge (30 attacks, hitting on 4s wounding on 5s ignoring armor), which is just "ok", considering that it's going to take one or two turns to get into combat against those Marines and they can't be swept due to ATSKNF.

Which highlights a interesting thing about Eldar. I think they might be the oldest army in the game who has had glaring design flaws for like 90% of their existence with no tweaks or rules revamps to address them. You CANNOT be a anti-elite muncher with just strength 3 and 3 attacks on the charge. In order for a melee unit to be good in this game they MUST have either a high volume of attacks or very high and accurate strength. Yet addition after addition games workshop has looked at these girls and thought to themselves that they are basic profile is fine, and that cavalier attitude extends to large swaths of the codex.

The designers need to do a lot of soul-searching and decide what the actual philosophy of the faction on the tabletop should be, and then they need to do a rewrite basically from the ground up. Take the Avatar as he is now and throw it in the trash, take banshees as they are now and just throw them in the trash. These kinds of units need a revamp.

the problem is banshees are a choppy unit that is expected to walk up the board. as I said the problem isn't defences it's delivery.

a second wound isn't going to magicly make them any better.

BrianDavion wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Banshees have *never* been efficient at killing elite infantry. Even back in 5th they were averaging 5 meq kills on the charge (30 attacks, hitting on 4s wounding on 5s ignoring armor), which is just "ok", considering that it's going to take one or two turns to get into combat against those Marines and they can't be swept due to ATSKNF.

Which highlights a interesting thing about Eldar. I think they might be the oldest army in the game who has had glaring design flaws for like 90% of their existence with no tweaks or rules revamps to address them. You CANNOT be a anti-elite muncher with just strength 3 and 3 attacks on the charge. In order for a melee unit to be good in this game they MUST have either a high volume of attacks or very high and accurate strength. Yet addition after addition games workshop has looked at these girls and thought to themselves that they are basic profile is fine, and that cavalier attitude extends to large swaths of the codex.

The designers need to do a lot of soul-searching and decide what the actual philosophy of the faction on the tabletop should be, and then they need to do a rewrite basically from the ground up. Take the Avatar as he is now and throw it in the trash, take banshees as they are now and just throw them in the trash. These kinds of units need a revamp.

the problem is banshees are a choppy unit that is expected to walk up the board. as I said the problem isn't defences it's delivery.

a second wound isn't going to magicly make them any better.

I think that last paragraph sums up the issue, GW has to work out what they want the faction and the game as a whole to represent and how it should play.

Glass cannons in a table top game tend to just end up as roll more dice before you opponents can. Win before they get a turn, talking about delivery of units means that GW has to think about that.
And they have to think about it as a whole from the game design as well.

Force fields I think is the best direction to go, Eldar have used them in other media allready a fair bit, and have them in game.
They are also always making new things and advancement is despite what some people think part of the craftworlds way of life.

Probably the best way for GW would simply as a miniature you drop from a unit like guardians or dire avengers that give effective extra worlds to the unit. Same save, same toughness, 2 extra wounds. Can drop 3 after movement.
Dire avengers getting a slightly better or can drop onto other units.
Gives them the chance to update the boxes with new things to incentivise purchase as well.

Lorewise Craftworlders are not glass-cannons either. A baseline Aeldari is just as if not more resilient than a baseline human and on top of that they're all wearing body armour that is superior to any Carapace armour the Imperium produces and some of which is superior to most forms of power armour too (without the "punching through solid concrete walls" thing that, say, an Astartes is capable of).

Then their vehicles are all made of Wraithbone (an absurdly tough material that again, outclasses basically most protective material the Imperium uses on its vehicles) and often use various types of energy field protection, whether that be Holofields or Serpent Shields.

 Bosskelot wrote:
Lorewise Craftworlders are not glass-cannons either. A baseline Aeldari is just as if not more resilient than a baseline human and on top of that they're all wearing body armour that is superior to any Carapace armour the Imperium produces and some of which is superior to most forms of power armour too (without the "punching through solid concrete walls" thing that, say, an Astartes is capable of).

Then their vehicles are all made of Wraithbone (an absurdly tough material that again, outclasses basically most protective material the Imperium uses on its vehicles) and often use various types of energy field protection, whether that be Holofields or Serpent Shields.

Yeah except Baseline humans AREN'T Resiliant.

seriously you need to quit reading "baseline humans"

and thinking "space marines"

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
So the Dire Avenger refresh got a shimmer shield Exarch option and therefore every Eldar should get a Forcefield? This thread has taken a weird turn with "Eldar should be super durable and here are some C'Tan rules".

Agreed on shuriken weapons. Eldar should have normal range guns again, since fragile units shouldn't be blitzing into rapid fire range of the enemy.

GW hasn't done much with eldar lore in decades. They've shown they're willing to revamp whole factions if they don't work within the narrative with the Necrons, making Eldar "grow" personal shields/forcefields isn't remotely as drastic a change as that.

BrianDavion wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Banshees have *never* been efficient at killing elite infantry. Even back in 5th they were averaging 5 meq kills on the charge (30 attacks, hitting on 4s wounding on 5s ignoring armor), which is just "ok", considering that it's going to take one or two turns to get into combat against those Marines and they can't be swept due to ATSKNF.

Which highlights a interesting thing about Eldar. I think they might be the oldest army in the game who has had glaring design flaws for like 90% of their existence with no tweaks or rules revamps to address them. You CANNOT be a anti-elite muncher with just strength 3 and 3 attacks on the charge. In order for a melee unit to be good in this game they MUST have either a high volume of attacks or very high and accurate strength. Yet addition after addition games workshop has looked at these girls and thought to themselves that they are basic profile is fine, and that cavalier attitude extends to large swaths of the codex.

The designers need to do a lot of soul-searching and decide what the actual philosophy of the faction on the tabletop should be, and then they need to do a rewrite basically from the ground up. Take the Avatar as he is now and throw it in the trash, take banshees as they are now and just throw them in the trash. These kinds of units need a revamp.

the problem is banshees are a choppy unit that is expected to walk up the board. as I said the problem isn't defences it's delivery. They some serious business because the wave serpent is not going to be as crazy efficient as a raider.

a second wound isn't going to magicly make them any better.

I said a starting point. Maybe banshees get a stealth field: +1 fake W and this unit can only be targeted if its the closest target.

So instead of creating rules that use any of their existing or interesting fluff like their unnatural speed, powers of foresight, masters of specialized warfare, trickery and treachery we should just throw the baby out with the bathwater and make them all 2W.

I never would have guessed that Primaris Eldar would be the solution we arrive at.

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
So instead of creating rules that use any of their existing or interesting fluff like their unnatural speed, powers of foresight, masters of specialized warfare, trickery and treachery we should just throw the baby out with the bathwater and make them all 2W.

I never would have guessed that Primaris Eldar would be the solution we arrive at.

I didn't create the very limited design space we are left with. When the indirect armies come into their own, most of tricks and schemes are going to fall apart. When the rubber hits the road and you need to get DG off an objective or you are going to lose, tricks and schemes fall apart. Maybe if blown leadership tests still made people fall back Eldar would have some wiggle room. But a big chunk of the game is getting in there and forcing enemy units off objectives.

I'm talking 2W as a minimal starting point because their transport is not as efficient as drukhari.

I suspect Eldar are going to heavily lean on 6X bright lance war walker squadrons. Won't that be fun for everyone?

Honestly, I'd playtest the aspect warriors with 1 physical wound and 2W force field just to see how that looks. Give guardians a 1W force field. Aspect warriors should be feared, not a footnote. If you run 1W aspect warriors into T5 orks or DG, they'll be a footnote.

I don't know Eldar lore really I just know what is working in 9th more or less. Marines have 2W and aren't even doing especially well, so Eldar probably need even more than this.

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
So instead of creating rules that use any of their existing or interesting fluff like their unnatural speed, powers of foresight, masters of specialized warfare, trickery and treachery we should just throw the baby out with the bathwater and make them all 2W.

I never would have guessed that Primaris Eldar would be the solution we arrive at.

Maybe if the game supported such things. But it doesn't really.

Iracundus wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Gregor Samsa wrote:
Ever since GW removed initiative eldar have really struggled to find their right "feel" in the game. They require a lot of work to feel distinct from "humans with guns" and initiative/psychic phase were those features which set them apart.

With the game shifting to more "units performing actions" there is good design space for GW to give Eldar their fluff role as ancient and wise psykers. However without initiative its hard to get the feel of their agility properly translated. A lot of the dominance of Dark Eldar codex comes from the fact that their fluffy "speed" has been diluted into just "kill things fast", which is not really the same thing as graceful agility.

I have elsewhere in another past thread suggested that Eldar prophecy and foresight could be represented not just by the current existing psychic powers but by a pool of dice similar to Miracle dice for SoB. However instead, these dice could replace opponent rolls, representing the Eldar having acted to bring about fates and timelines where the enemy fails. So the enemy would seem to experience extreme bad luck with targeting system failures, fumbling blows, armor giving way, etc...

If Miracle dice are considered fine, when they can basically give a guaranteed unmodified 6 on a roll, then Eldar players forcing an opponent roll to be 1 should be equivalent.

Not necessarily.

I'm not opposed to the mechanic, but I don't think you can draw one to one equivalence between Miracle Dice and messing with opponent dice. It's a cool idea-but one that has the potential to be both broken and unfun, if handled poorly.

Could be neat, but I worry about it being a feelbad mechanic. Miracle Dice are framed as, "Hooray! I automatically succeeded at something!" Your proposal is framed as, "Oh great. I automatically failed at something for no reason." Abstractly, there's not much difference, but psychologically one feels much worse.

It's not failing at something for no reason just as Miracle dice are not succeeding for no reason (their faith and/or the Emperor did it). They fail because it was foreseen ahead of time so the Eldar is not there for the shot or blow, or sees that a hit to the enemy's armor at that tiniest of cracks will shatter their armor entirely and get through. An auto-success at an invulnerable 6++ thereby negating a lascannon shot for example creates the same result as an auto-failed 1 to-hit roll making the lascannon miss entirely and also negating the damage. Yes psychologically some players may feel different but I would argue that trying to fight Eldar thematically has always been described for example in BFG as "trying to catch starlight" (i.e. frustrating). They aren't supposed to just sit there conventionally and tank hits.

People have been trying to find ways to give some survivability to Eldar in a unique way beyond just armor saves. So far most suggestions have been along the lines of more W, to-hit modifiers (which are capped), saves (either ++ or +++), etc... My idea for Prophecy dice is just another idea. It would be pinpoint and ideally the number of such dice would not be enough to keep up with the demand so they have to be used carefully. The way for an opponent would be to overwhelm through enough rolls so that even auto-fails will not be enough to make a difference.

The big problem here is that it would be WILDLY more powerful than Miracle dice, especially at the end of games.

Cronch wrote:

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
So instead of creating rules that use any of their existing or interesting fluff like their unnatural speed, powers of foresight, masters of specialized warfare, trickery and treachery we should just throw the baby out with the bathwater and make them all 2W.

I never would have guessed that Primaris Eldar would be the solution we arrive at.

Maybe if the game supported such things. But it doesn't really.

Warfare is constant escalation usually. Not the static event GW is trying to sell.