Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

If Saim hann biker units advance give 5+ invuln to ranged attacks
Windriders and shining spears have objective secured
Shuriken cannons go to D2 -2 ap
Bright lances go to 3+D3
Eldar infantry get to advance snd shoot or move shoot and move d6
Windriders get 3+ base save.
Shuriken catapults base 24”. -1Ap base. -2 AP if within 12”
For Saim hann bikers heavy weapons count as assault
For Saim hann vehicles all heavy weapons count as assault

warpedpig wrote:
If Saim hann biker units advance give 5+ invuln to ranged attacks
Windriders and shining spears have objective secured
For Saim hann bikers heavy weapons count as assault
For Saim hann vehicles all heavy weapons count as assault

Seems reasonable. Makes you want to constantly advance your Saim-Hann units to get a defensive buff. Gives the opponent an opportunity to shut down your invuls by tying you up in melee, which is good. The main thing that jumps out at me h ere is that it would be nice to have a little more access to biker units without having to bleed CP for an Outrider. All of our bikers are in the FA slot. I miss troop bikers, but that's probably outside the scope of these changes.

Eldar infantry get to advance snd shoot or move shoot and move d6
Windriders get 3+ base save.

I'm assuming these are changes for eldar in general and not Saim-Hann specifically? I'd welcome a return of the move-shoot-move mechanic, but I'd probably make the second move a flat distance rather than a d6 roll. When we had this mechanic in 7th, the Run roll added a fair bit of unnecessary rolling to the game, and an unusually low roll could lead to slowdown as you struggled to place all your models just so to hide the unit back behind terrain. If you made it a flat 3" instead of d6", you'd be able to premeasure and plan your second move without having to bother with the extra rolls and slowdown. May want to disallow charging after making that secondary move.

Giving windriders a 3+ save is probably fine but also sort of seems unnecessary. Hopping on a bike doesn't seem like it should make a guardian marine durable. It also devalues the invuln save you propose they get for advancing; you'd get the same save or better against anything AP-2 or worse. Is there a problem being solved or feature being added by this particular change? If you just want them to be tougher for their points, a points reduction might get us to the same place.

Shuriken cannons go to D2 -2 ap
Bright lances go to 3+D3
Shuriken catapults base 24”. -1Ap base. -2 AP if within 12”

I'm assuming these are also a general eldar change rather than being Saim-Hann specific. Shuricannons going D2 seems likely (even though I don't love the idea of them basically being tailored to keep up with marines' extra wound and overlapping with star cannons.) Would the AP-2 replace their current "AP-3 on 6+ to wound) rule? Gaining a single extra point of AP on to-wound rolls of 6 feels a little fiddly (and I don't like the Drukhari Blade Artists rule for the same reason).

Bright lances changing to d3+3 like dark lances seems likely. No strong opinion on the catapult changes. We've had threads discussing a hundred different ways to handle shuriken weapons, and there are lots of valid ways to go. Same question as the shuricannon though: does this new AP replace the AP-3 special rule?

You were correct on some of them being general Eldar changes. I forgot to mention that Windriders should take up troop slots for Saim hann as wel.

The rumor mill said Shuriken cannons would be going to -3 AP amd D2 But in a wound roll of 6 it would be -3.

Winderiders being 3+ would reflect the fact you’re shouting at a jetbike more so than the guy riding it. Shining spears also have a 3+ base save.

Star cannons probably need to go to flat 3 damage to set themselves apart and be useful against units that give -1 to damage.

I remain optimistic Saim Hann would be pretty awesome when the new codex comes out. I look forward to running a huge jetbike/vyper/grav tank list

I’d also love it if they made new vypers that carried D-Cannons lol

warpedpig wrote:
If Saim hann biker units advance give 5+ invuln to ranged attacks
Windriders and shining spears have objective secured
For Saim hann bikers heavy weapons count as assault
For Saim hann vehicles all heavy weapons count as assault

I'd remove the invulnerable thing to clean things up and to avoid advancing 1" with a unit using heavy weapons to get an invulnerable save. You could make Windriders troops for Saim Hann, same as World Eaters get Berzerkers as Troops.

Shuriken cannons go to D2 -2 ap
Bright lances go to 3+D3

The units that got similar changes have become way too deadly (laser chickens) or have made other weapons look pitiful (autocannons).

Eldar infantry get to advance and shoot or move shoot and move d6

It's going to make Eldar way too reliant on ruins they can move behind and become invisible, it is already a thing that Dark Reapers can move shoot move, giving it to the entire army would mean the army would become extremely brittle under some circumstances as their points costs would soar to account for this rule. It would make Craftworlds very unique so despite the problems it would definitely be something interesting if not fun or balanced to test. I think being able to charge after is the most interesting feature, not a bug. I might change it to D3" in any direction (to make jumping behind a ruin less likely) and then a 3" move towards the nearest enemy unit.

Shuriken catapults base 24”. -1Ap base. -2 AP if within 12”

As a replacement for the shuriken rule? I really dislike the rule for Craftworlds (makes their anti-infantry weapons anti-vehicle), so if your intention was to remove that rule then double thumbs up, the first thumbs up is for allowing Guardians to fight at mid-range. I think the numbers might be off like maybe it should be base AP- and AP-3 at short range or something to make closing in a viable option, the details would have to be playtested, but I like the idea.

Would be good to give swooping Hawk move shoot move for sure. They’re extremely vulnerable and die so easily. Could be a special unit specific type of ability. The entire Eldar codex needs some work.

 vict0988 wrote:

I'd remove the invulnerable thing to clean things up and to avoid advancing 1" with a unit using heavy weapons to get an invulnerable save,

Interesting. To me, the 5+ invul was the best part of the pitch. Eldar already move pretty fast and have ways to treat heavy weapons as assault weapons. So the extra mobility is more of a flourish than a main selling point. But being able to get a little extra defense (possibly at the cost of offense in the case of vehicles) lets the army play differently and helps address the army's durability issues.

How do Raven Wing handle their Jink rule these days?

Shuriken cannons go to D2 -2 ap
Bright lances go to 3+D3

The units that got similar changes have become way too deadly (laser chickens) or have made other weapons look pitiful (autocannons).

I'm always wary of increasing the raw power of weapon options, but I'm not all that worried about it here. Making lances d3+3 (just like dark lances) does buff them, but craftworlders can't really spam them for cheap. Putting one in a guardian squad costs you about 100 points. Putting two of them on a wave serpent costs about 180 points. War walkers probably do it cheapest at about War walkers probably do it cheapest at 80 points for 2 lances (and that's a very solid cost for what you get), but they're an outlier. Plus, bright and dark lances have been more or less identical for most of their mutual history, so it would just be weird if they didn't get the same treatment dark lances did.

Shuriken cannons going to D2 and getting better AP would be similar to splinter cannons (probably less popular now than they were before) and heavy bolters getting the same treatment. Which seems workable but does step on the star cannon's toes.

Eldar infantry get to advance and shoot or move shoot and move d6

It's going to make Eldar way too reliant on ruins they can move behind and become invisible, it is already a thing that Dark Reapers can move shoot move, giving it to the entire army would mean the army would become extremely brittle under some circumstances as their points costs would soar to account for this rule. It would make Craftworlds very unique so despite the problems it would definitely be something interesting if not fun or balanced to test. I think being able to charge after is the most interesting feature, not a bug.

In the past, I've pitched having this replace the current Battle Focus (count as holding still with non-heavy weapons after advancing). If you took that approach and made it not work on units that fired heavy weapons, then JSJ would stop being a thing for dark reapers and instead become a thing for all the other eldar units that are generally shorter-ranged. So we'd be talking about swooping hawks and dire avengers hopping behind terrain from 24" away rather than reapers doing it from across the table. It is very board-dependent though; good point.

I might change it to D3" in any direction (to make jumping behind a ruin less likely) and then a 3" move towards the nearest enemy unit.

That seems off to me. Making it D3" brings back all the downsides of 7th edition Battle Focus but also makes it even more important to waste time fiddling with angles to ensure you can get out of LoS with a 1" move. And then encouraging units to go straight towards the enemy seems kind of off for most units that would benefit from this. My vypers and windriders want to kite; not charge.

Maybe give the fast attack units the option to advance up to say 16+6 for jetbikes for their 22”. But anywhere along the 22” you could move shoot move. So move ten, shoot, move 12. So Saim Hann can do drive by shootings.

Infantry can keep what they have now unless they are swooping hawks which could have a similar flicker jump type movement ability where if they are shot at they can fly away immediately or something.

Wyldhunt wrote:
How do Raven Wing handle their Jink rule these days?

It's part of their chapter tactic, they don't get it if they don't use the basic DA chapter tactic. 5+ invul against ranged if they move, 4+ if they advance.

...bright and dark lances have been more or less identical for most of their mutual history...

I know it's going to happen, that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it. I'd rather GW errata dark lances back to D6 damage as that was how they playtested the codex and the only problem with dark lances previously was IMO that their cost was too high relative to dissies and last I checked dissies cost too much so balance isn't any better off.

Having squad of 3 vypers with bright lances then firing and missing with one. Then failing to wound with another. Then doing D1 damage when you roll gakky. That’s the worst. I think they need to do minimum damage range of 4-6 which D3+3 gives them.

 vict0988 wrote:

I know it's going to happen, that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it. I'd rather GW errata dark lances back to D6 damage as that was how they playtested the codex and the only problem with dark lances previously was IMO that their cost was too high relative to dissies and last I checked dissies cost too much so balance isn't any better off.

Well, you're technically right about dissies, but to add nuance: dark lances were theoretically a more specialized weapon that you were meant to lean on for killing tanks while dissies were meant to be mediocre against tanks but better than lances against hordes, heavy infantry, etc. The problem was that dissies (especially with certain buffs in place) were almost as good at killing tanks as the theoretically specialized dark lances while also being better against those other targets. Raising the damage of lances to d3+3 raises the average damage of lances vs vehicles thus helping the specialized weapon come out ahead against its specialized target, and the relative increased cost they gave dissies lowered their cost-effectiveness against everything including vehicles.

So you could just lower the cost of dissies and revert lances to Dd6, and it could probably work, but you'd have to be careful not to make dissies so cost-effective that they go back to matching the more specialized dark lance at their own game. It's a fine line. And honestly, dissies aren't as terrible as people say right now.

Also, if we really needed to lower dark lance damage but wanted to avoid the feels-bad experience of rolling low on damage, we could make them Dd6 minimum 3. So you'd always do more damage than a dissy with a given shot, but your average damage would drop slightly.