Australian gamers

Since moving to Australia for work in the last couple of weeks I have since discovered that Perth has a lively and interesting 40k scene.

Now having spent a couple of consecutive afternoons at the local store I can see myself coming back however what I'm more interested in is getting these people out of their retail happy-fun-vibe shells and into something a bit more brutal and competitive.

In looking at Kirby's post about competitiveness in people he is fundamentally correct. At a psychological level people who play sports are instinctively compelled to compete against others for material benefit, despite any claims to the contrary. Whether that material benefit is measurable eg money or un-quantifiable eg prestige and leadership value is moot. They tend to come hand in hand.

One minor observation about Australian players so far is that they have no, read 0 (zero) functional knowledge of the direction of GW and performance based analytical review of what they're using, where or why.

Simple example: yesterday I was watching IG and CWeldar fighting it out on a 4x4 board. I'm assuming about 1k each player though I could be wrong.

Rough estimation of player forces:

Eldar; farseer with guide. (yes only guide. No army list but no other power or wargear expressely used so this is my assumption.)
Bikeautarch w/ laser lance
roughly 20 guardians with support platforms (2x scatter lasers) with warlocks in each squad.
1x10 dire avenger squad
Wraithlord with brightlance and sword?
Nightspinner with shuriken cannon?
falcon with scatterlaser. no upgrades.

IG; 6man command squad with at least 1 voxcaster, one commander and 1 commissar.
2 chimera with heavy laser thingies both containing melta veterans
1 basilisk (? really. so retarded)
1 mortar squad of 3
3 hwts with MLs & HBs on opposite side of board.

Amazingly the IG player lost. The falcon died in turn 3 having accomplished fucking nothing but shaking the basilisk and the guardians did fuck-all as well. Autarch creamed a chimera and its veterans before dying like a chump to MLs.

CCS did nothing. Like literally nothing except fire off orders once and dying like bitches to moving after being hit by nightspinner. Idiot. So fucking stupid. Basilisk fired once AT GUARDIANS WOO.

I could go on but it's just so sad.

I mean look, these guys are nice enough but they're obviously new and totally can't accept an alternative point of view on what they're fielding. The eldar player told me he'd been playing for 3 years which is hard to believe since he was using store models in 2 cases. Even if he was telling the truth he took himself pretty seriously while he chopped up a total newb with a bajillion unpainted models with his own craptacular army.

It wasn't just the list construction that was poor, it was their utilisation as well. The whole game reeked of amateurish decisions with little to no understanding of the underlying principles of the game. I'm all for playing 'just for fun' but these two clearly thought they were pretty pro, even going as far as to argue (admittedly only a little) over a couple of things. Totally pointless. I would savour bringing my army to the local scene here and totaling that other eldar player. I wouldn't even need to build a list specifically designed to do it either, a balls-standard army could have done the deal in 3 maybe conservatively 4 turns.

My list to use against that other eldar player?

3x5 Direavengers w/ gunxarchs in eml waveserpents w/ scannons.
1x autarch w/ pw & fusion gun
2x falcons with eml and holofields.

that's roughly 1k isn't it? I don't even care to count.

9 s6
10 s8
everything able to move 24"
reserves manipulation.
Anti-infantry to deal with stupid troops choices.
Why holofields? Simple. Falcons take only 1 hit to kill. So holofields increases chances of weapon destroyed? As if I give a shit? I have only 2 MBTs, if weapons get popped that's better than losing the chassis and everything else at the same time. The 70pts those holofields cost me wouldn't be justified by taking more troops, another autarch or warwalkers or whatever since the falcons themselves are there to suppress infantry and KILL tanks.

Who is the workhorse here? Noone, really. Waveserpents carrying 3 s6 1 s8 can multirole, falcons can multirole, autarch is there to mop up. Direavengers dont have bladestorm since that's a waste of points. The extra Ld and a higher I for at least one guy seems justified though.

And there you have it. Resilient and flexible. Not even designed to specifcally kill his list, it just will though, through being better constructed.

Working on some fiction

So earlier this week I started writing up some background to my army. In lieu of actually being able to paint/build what I've got since it's in another part of the country, I've taken to writing up some speculative fiction on them to stay interested.

It probably won't last but it's worth starting anyway.

Another note on GW policy.

Just reading forums and /tg/ and seeing a lot of  'finecast is a moneygrab'. This is true. Harkening back to an earlier post I made on the subject; the reason it is a moneygrab is because the market is saturated with readily available models. At a discount.

So now people are saying that the switch to resin will just promote the piracy effect of casting your own models.
Wakey wakey this is what they want to happen because it's easy to sue people and generate money from fines than it is to peddle metal/plastic/resin to a tight market. Lawyers get it good because it's like finance. They don't actually have to produce any kind of good that gets sold. The pen truly is mightier than the sword.. by perception.

I think that we're about to see GW downsizing its model production immensely. The fact that their products are at an unsustainably high price over their production levels is no secret, what is a secret is that it doesn't matter because all you do is close stores, shift the product to independant retailers and reduce the size and number of your production facilities. In a sense, GW could have and maybe should have opened localised production factories in its major centres. Especially now since they've switched to resin.

NZ has oilfields. It can supply the very minimal amounts of resin/plastics needed to GW plants. The US? Detroit hello? Large population of impovershed ex-factory workers in a society that celebrates the implied slavery of 'working for what you're worth' and 'the invisible hand of the market' even though most historical evidence suggests that conditions will never improve for the larger population unless they murder their social superiors. The US could very easily manufacture, locally, the required levels of product-X and pay fuck all to the employees there as well. The UK? Forgeworld already exists. Expand it. Problem solved. Greater Europe? I imagine Serbia wouldn't mind the work.

Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about and if that's true its most likely legal issues rather than ones of purely production/markets/sales.

5e Necrons and GW game design

So I'm browsing /tg/ and reading up on 40k rumours through the webs.

There's a couple of comments being made across the world that don't make the greatest sense..

Try dodging or parrying a blade that can phase through anything, it'll be hard as shit, especiall when Pariah were NOT slow asshat robots and were semi-human.

But yeah, you guys think it's fine when why not have EVERY closecombat weapon be something thats a power weapon that adds +2 strength.
Because A warscythe. a Klaive and an Honourblade are all practically the same thing right?

In fact, lets hope Gauss weapons are bolters exactly, with no anti-tank or rending rules because hell! it makes sense too right? It shoots at people, and it hurts! So it must be equal to the mighty bolter!

Well that's just fascinating really. A very simple way to look at 5th edition and the inevitable 6th edition is: simplify, streamline, better core rules, fewer core rules.

So in that sense you have races which relied on oodles of special rules have throughout the editions received fewer perks over the big 3 (Chaos, SM and Orks). Some races still have special rules in their 5th edition format (IG for example) but the general format of the game as a whole is moving towards, summarily: convergence.

It is held that evolution converges on certain designs as needs see fit. Horses and Zebra? Buffalo and Cow. Lynx and Tiger. Yes they share genetic ancestors but so do Humans and Apes and yet we developed cities and they are at the mercy of their environment. Certain physiological designs gain prominence and stay on top while poor or overspecialised trends die out. It's nothing to fear really.

The same concepts can be applied to game rules. Rules which are poorly designed or overspecialised will be scorned and un-used while the cheesiest will be abused and find their way in to every list. So we are observing convergence on the game rules here; what specifically is happening?

The base unit attribute set is still the s3/t3/5+. Necrons specifically are converging toward contemporary space-marine stat-lines (albeit now with a 4+ save however they have their technical 5+ secondary save and are cheaper) and their weapons are being diversified at the expense of their special rules. So now Necrons quite truly have Lascannons and Assault Cannons and probably Melta Guns and in the case of Pariahs specifically; they are rumoured to being removed from the game entirely. Perhaps they are.

So they are converging to the 5th/6th edition standard of codex and greater game design. As said elsewhere by people with longer gazes than I. From my perspective we're seeing the game shifting to being a matter of having 3 templates that the armies are based off and deviation from the armies themselves is simply a matter of applying unique abilities to that army as a whole rather than trying to balance 9 different sets of stats AND their weapons/special rules.

Where does that leave the other armies then? I think CSM will stay much as they are. Their unique problems are more that they are overshadowed by contemporary SM's and not so much that they as an army are outright terrible. They need to be updated and have the things which gimped their army removed. I'm not saying to give them back Daemons in the bloodletter/GUO sense but certainly make the overall effect of taking a themed Lord have more impact, eg, Lord of Khorne opens up bloodletters but restricts Tzeentch units. Whether or not the Daemons themselves become worth the purchase is a different question altogether.

Tau? BS3 firewarriors. At the very minimum. Heavy weapons options on more squads. Whether those take the form of railguns, missile launchers or meltabomb-kroot I don't know but that's the theory.

 Craftworld Eldar? Now there's a good question. Were it up to me, banshees would be dropped and there'd be slight decreases in price on our tanks and heavy weapons. As far as infantry are concerned? DarkReapers with access to EML on each unit member (really, 35pts a piece, 55 for exarch with EML. Most expensive HS infantry ever?) CWEldar are a tough cookie because they are only just sub-par right now so any sweeping changes to them would probably put them in the easymodo catagory.

The theme as always is convergence.. but when the race in question is the one who sets the standard if you screw it up you screw over all the others that are based on it.

Fundamentally the 3 templates are CWE, SM and Nids. Tell me I'm wrong.

CWE = DE, Tau, IG
SM = CSM
Necrons = Tyranids, Daemons

Eldar heavy weapons; the complete edition

From thread; http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/eldar/206944-repairing-our-codex-one-unit-time-part-ix.html



Post 1;

In thinking of what I've just said on the vypers discussion page.. we really need to talk about the heavy weapons choices for Eldar. Do we need to add any? Can we replace one? Do we make them rending or give them a lower AP? Add more blast templates? More flamers?

Unfortunately lazy me cannot just grab a synopsis of the units from MWG.com but since we have so few heavy weapons anyway I hardly think it matters.

So, me first.

We definitely need a largeblast heavy weapon. It can be low strength for all I care (though if it is <5 I demand rending). Let's say... hmm..

Sunburst; S4, AP4, 48", Heavy 1, Largeblast, Rending, Blinding*.
"The sunburst is a new weapon seen employed by eldar forces. It fires a nimbus of energy at the target, which explodes in an intense flash of heat and light. Eyes are burnt out, optics damaged and tyres singe and burn under the projectiles energy release."
*Targets of the sunburst roll for a 3+ coversave. If they fail, they are considered blinded and move as if under the USR slow and purposeful and they fire with a -2 BS modifier for their next turn.

Eldritch zephyr; S7, AP5, template*, Heavy 2, pinning.
"In recent years, the increased militarisation of the Craftworlds has borne new weapons to their arsenal. In addition to new aspect warriors emerging or re-emerging after prolonged absence, bizarre and frightening equipment has surfaced on the ancients' vehicles and wraithconstructs. Of these, the bizarre psychic 'flamer' has also been recorded. Soldiers who have come under this weapons furious grip sometimes emerge alive, though very rarely. Video records show soldiers burnt to cinders or falling down, spasming and frothing from the nose and mouth, lightning dancing over them as they thrash and wretch. Others still are seen stiffening in place, typically from the arcing energy off an already dead comrade."
*The eldritch zephyr fires out from the firing model with a range of up to 6", place the template so that the narrow end is within 6” of the weapon and the large end is no closer to the weapon than the narrow end.

--- ahem----

So that's two new weapons. I'll let others talk about the infinitely more graspable weapons we already possess.

Post 2; 

At the risk of combining better weapons with better BS..

The IG codex has demonstrated that a large variety of heavy weapons is achievable (though not always fair or economic).

Post 3;

We have approximately two cover-ignoring heavy weapons, both of those are mounted on Forgeworld tanks. One is a d-flamer and the other is the doomweaver (Nightspinner might be codex approved but it is still a forgeworld creation so dig it). I'm totally confident to say that if we left the Eldar purely in the hands of GW and its staff, then all you'd see is a reshuffling of points and strengths on our current weapons totally ignoring that yes, we still don't have a decent multiple-barrage weapon or a tank-mounted flamer of any kind.

Post 4;

Let's not lie to ourselves. A wraithlord is a 3-wound AV12 dreadnought and DarkReapers are gimped Devestators. So the exarch gets a multiple-barrage weapon? Only available thanks to an FAQ ruling. That hardly counts. It's S4 ffs. We need something s8-s10 that's ordnance and a decent tank-mounted flamer.

Post 5;

Actually now I'm really liking that mirv idea. Would be better than a tankmounted flamer anyway.

Post 6;

If that's the case then our heavy weapons platforms need to be more accurate no? These guns aren't literally being held by infantry, where their heartrate or jostling from running or whatever is having an impact - these are guns mounted on tanks mounted on anti-gravatics. If we are going to depend on singleshot, non template weaponry, then our tanks should be BS4 base, with wraithlords and prisms being BS5.

If we are not going to significantly change our modus operandi for the weapons themselves, then we need to adjust the platforms they are mounted on. Ok so we pay 40pts for a brightlance on a wraithlord, make it AP1 and consider it's now on a BS5 AV12 dreadnought with 3 wounds. Is that worth it yet? What if brightlances were S9?

Post 7;

Well it's more than just for fluff reasons. I put down the changes I do because we must break our dependancy on farseers. Our playstyle has stagnated as a race because instead of a farseer being an optional extra that can twist the game in new ways, they're a mandatory choice. It's said best in one of my links, ie that our units have cost of a farseers' guide/doom built into their mostly mediocre stats but then you need the farseer anyway AND the power you're going to cast.

So these series of threads have been a massive experiment for me to determine in what ways we can change the meta for eldar by making the units themselves act in a way that accomplishes their design goals without requiring a farseer to be dependable. So that when we come to look at the farseer we don't have to have doom or guide or whatever as mandatory powers for a farseer, they're optional extras used to boost guardians up to par, that the powers a farseer will possess will be more applicable to *an army* and that the farseer will himself be a just an alternative to other HQs wherein all HQs provide army-wide benefits and that no HQ on its own will be so gamechanging as to be a surefire winner for affection.

Let's face it, if farseers didn't have guide or doom or fortune would you ever take them? I wouldn't.

 Post 8;

Yes. Heavy 3 starcannon seems fair. The gamebreaker of 3rd edition was the crystal targetting matrix, it was never actually the starcannon that was the problem. As for the brightlance I have trouble finding a way to improve it. Maybe just remove it altogether and make the pulsar have lance as a rule? Pulsar for 40pts (50 for wraithlord) doesn't sound too terrible if it has lance. 48" S8 AP2 lance heavy 2.

 Post 9;

Not bad. Let's go one step further:

48" S8 AP2 Heavy2
48" S8 AP1 Heavy1, Lance

NOW it's worth the points.

Post 10;

Example: a 15point brightlance is still just brightlance. It's a singleshot s8 weapon which gains bonuses over less than 50% of ingame vehicles. Contrast with eml which is 20pts and can change to a template with pinning for those times you want to gib some troops. Even if brightlances were 15 pts I probably wouldn't take more than 1 per army. Much more effective to spam EML at a tank and then blast the contents the next turn.

Moving on from eldar

Far from abandoning my CWE book altogether, I'm contemplating running my guys counts-as DEldar. Probably with a view to buying some cheap vehicles as they become available on auctions rather than going all-in for the moment.

But why? Well I think it's because CWE are, at least for the next year to 1.5years minimum, dead. Yes you can still play them but why bother? There are well established 'good' units with plenty of real experience to back them up.. and a good 18 units hardly worth taking in anything more srs than a weekend drinks+game. Fritz manages to pull gimmicks to win, and that's plenty fine but after a while I guess I kinda got bored of his videos because they became predictable and his list never changed.

Which is pretty much a symptom of eldar everywhere. LO, BOLS, warseer, dakka et al just seem to have players produce the same things over and over. And that's only partly the fault of the players (it is tempting after all to dismiss stuff that's "bad on the internet") but unlike (apparently) most of those players I do own about 90% of the models for eldar and have playtested every god damned one. The eldar codex is mediocre at best and cannot unto variety propegate.

So I'll switch over to the next best thing: Dark Eldar. Since I'm not digging their fluff I'll just run as corsairs and handwave the rest as necessity.

Already I feel a zephyr of fresh energy through me. Now I can actually have choices that matter! I can win based on my preferences, not what the internet tells me! New models actually actually!

So ... what to pick. I'm thinking.. assloads of those ghost dudes with the smoke bodies.

Since I can just proxy DA for kabalites I won't worry about them right now, I'll just focus on getting myself the mandrakes or whatever, the guys I actually want to run and then fill out the rest later.

Lesse..
Decapitator.
Vect? Maybe Drazhar instead. A nice counterweight to my Kharandras.
At least 20 mandrakes. With their nightfiend sergeants (haven't seen anything to indicate a unique sculpt for this)
Trueborn? Bloodbrides? Both?
2 squads of each troop probably. I normally run 3 troops so this will give me a bit of flexibility.
1 scourges and some beastmasters look pretty good.
Probably limit myself to 4 raiders. I will want to run some foot troops after all.
A bomber? Ravagers? Maybe a cronos.

I definitely like to run "dickish" armies so the more wacky crap I can pull the better. Nothing quite beats upsetting an opponents grandplan because you refuse to obey the laws of convention.

On the subject of a competitive 40k

I wrote up a series of thoughts on the game a long time ago when I was at work (I had a LOT of free time) and posted it on 4chan originally. Took a lot of time before some people actually got it, and they agreed the potential was there.

One of the sideeffects however would be dropping the max points limit to like 750 or something, at least as far as testing is concerned, because without adding in randomisation again, the games would be too brutal and fast to really warrant a high points limit. You'd spend assloads of time pulling models and not actually playing.

At the same time though that's what you'd get for sucking so who knows?

FOUR TEE KAY

Holy shit, I am sick to fucking death of seeing people post the same god damn shit for eldar lists on forums

and fucking IG are just as bad.

Can people not wrap their heads around the idea that the dice will fuck you over?? 40k is not a competitive game. It never was. It can never be, so long as it uses dice.

Fucking asshats like stelek post big long tirades about how someones a shithead for not using xyz unit in abc formation for the purposes of prosperity but you know the big joke? He fails to grasp that none of it fucking matters if you roll 1's the entire game. People want to treat 40k like it's a fucking sport or something nevermind that beyond some basic target prioritisation and knowing how to move models, there's no skill involved. It all comes down to the dice.

A mathematically perfect 40k would be competitive. Penalties to being shot at without any hope of recovery would force unit selection and movement much more seriously than o em gee I just might make dat cuvvuh saev.

I am so fucking sick of it. I can't even bring myself to read army lists anymore because the level of idiocy is beginning to hurt my tender heart.

And so long as incompetant weaklings keep running to websites looking for all the answers on FOTM super-units pricks like stelek will keep posting his drivel.

So I just read some YTTH

And in particular beyond the usual complete mess of information that Stelek posts, was a post about MMOs.

I've thought about this for a long time. MMOs. Hmmmm. There must be something to them that makes them tick. In thinking of the upcoming 40k MMO Dark millenium and the whole 2 faction business spawned a thought.

Between the major complaints people have with MMOs a couple come through the strongest: endgame content and PVP.

Endgame content is a no-brainer to anyone reading this blog I hope. It refers to the stuff you can do once you hit max level. In WoW's case it's either griefing low level players or grinding better gear for no reason at all.

And PVP? Another beast yet again. I mean yeah you can do it the guildwars way and have guilds face off in 10player matches like a giant arena. Or WoW with 30person arenas. Or you can try for a slightly more esoteric approach by defining an area or resource that needs to be taken just because and then have people congregate there for war. EVE... Planetside and to a much lesser degree WAR.

Ho ho ho.

Here's my idea (and I'm gonna spend a lot more time thinking about it because it's good)

3 factions. 2 primary 1 secondary.

Primary factions are 'regular army' factions, complete with vehicles, standardised equipment, chain of command and little sub-factionisation (ie few """""guilds"""""). Primary factions are everything you expect from a big MMO, with a twist. Players can renounce their ties to their main faction and become mercs. Mercs are your """""""""guilds"""""""""". Mercs gain a few key bonuses, for example being able to recruit from the secondary faction, as well as using equipment from both primary factions. Mercs are all-comers and can accept contracts from both primary factions. Mercs are also targets for both factions at any time. They get no security forces beyond those they recruit or NPC pirates they employ, but have a larger armoury.

Primary factions by contrast of course get the safety net of standing security forces, a regular income, large community to draw from and some AoE benefits from teamwork related activities.

Finally comes the secondary faction. They are secondary in the sense that they completely deviate from the primary factions in such a way as they do not function under any similarity, have none of the same bonuses and get to do unique things in place of territory command.

So in my head this is probably going to be a game set in a futuristic setting.. say.. 2300 for the sake of argument. Forward in time but not enough to be completely unrecognisable. The two primary factions are going to be like east vs west. Different leadership, similar capabilities, huge battles.. battlefield/arma-esque unit structure.

Secondary faction is STALKERs, for the easiest comparison. Pseudo-supernatural, initially shit weapons and no armour, totally unique capabilities that by the time they reach "endgame" they're so far removed from the primary factions in function that they're like a whole other species. I'm talking jumping 40m, climbing up the sides of a building, stealth cloaks, energy weapons, a totally unique economy (that mercs only see the very surface of) and most importantly: no formalised structure. To each of these players is a nation, his weapon his army, his vest his fortress. I dub these players uncreatively for now 'raiders'. Raiders are predominantly PVE thanks to their unique nature being unsuitable for the kinds of PVP I envisage for the primary factions.

And I'll stop there for now.

Vypers, the complete edition

From thread; http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/eldar/206711-repairing-our-codex-one-unit-time-part-viii.html

Post 1;

They gain a 3+ cover for turboboosting.
They are BS4.
They may deepstrike with no scatter. If they elect to do this, they count as having turboboosted and may not shoot this turn.
They may deepstrike normally (up to 12") and may move&shoot but must move at cruising speed and may not fire their main weapon.
They have a 6" assault phase movement.

Post 2:

The comparison of Vypers to Hornets was inevitable, and it is fair but they are very different units. Hornets have higher armour, are not opentopped and can carry more heavy weapons. They scout and have starengines in their base cost. At this exact moment in time Hornets outclass vypers.

Introduce my changes however and you gain a couple of key differences that make vypers a more valid alternative. Well first off they hit more often. Secondly they gain a higher save from turboboosting and can deepstrike whereas hornets may only scout. They can assault move back behind cover.

The net effect is that Hornets are fast warwalkers, vypers are heavy jetbikes with deepstrike.

Post 3:

Of course I'd like to remind people at this point to consider defining a role for the vyper that's independent of and complimentary to the hornet, rather than trying to make it a direct competitor. What I'm seeing here in this thread is things that would make the vyper a matter of list min-max. Certainly it's true many lists won't have a use for vypers in the future much like now, but look at spearhead. Our 5e/6e codex might incorporate some of those ideas, allowing mixed squadrons - which is why I made the heavy jetbike comparison... and I suspect why farseer mcloud thought of allowing the vyper to be taken as a 'support platform' in much the same way as a guardian squad takes a scatterlaser. Instead you're looking at guardian jetbikes getting an av10 jetbike that mounts a heavy weapon.

Post 4:

Which brings about next question.. does the idea of a vyper being a razorback type transport (low model count, 1 TL heavy weapon) differentiate it enough from the hornet to make the vyper viable?

Post 5:

The reason I'd say you keep it as a vehicle is so you can abuse wound allocation out the ass. Since it's a mixed unit, just place all <s5 shots on the vyper and laugh as they have only a 17% chance of even damaging a mediocre unit. One vyper per squad of 10 jetbikes is barely worth attacking directly, but you can mitigate assloads of damage that would otherwise be hitting your troops by aiming it at your fortuned, turboboosting vehicle.

Post 6:

Falcon transport capacity exists for no other tank... I'd prefer it if GW made the falcon an actual BS4 tank that gains titan-holofields or something. Shove the transport to vypers and make falcons better.

Post 7:

I'm not sure I see how making vyper susceptible to S2 weaponry is making them better Yes sure they require more 'hits' to go down this way.. but against every single S2+ weapon they can now be more reliably damaged.

Post 8:

Where vypers are concerned it comes down to the idea that they're heavy weaponry, which is really the next topic I should cover before I move on to other units that use heavy weapons. If we thought that making a starcannon s6 ap2 h3 again for example, and loaded it on our brand spanking new vyper, 2 in a jetbike guardian squad.. you've got flying SoBs that shoot something like 6-15 S6 shots per squad. Provided costs aren't altered.. I'm not sure it's quite balanced, possibly leaning to the OP side.

A quick thought on GW

Nothing amazing in this post. Just a general observation about GW's practices lately.

Ok what first needs to be established is that this company is not stupid. Think about it. For the last 6 years they have reported lower sales figures and are compensating for this by increasing efficiency in both production and their stores. This overall process is probably not sustainable and will eventually implode but not before 2 key things occur, for 3 key reasons.

Key reason 1; There is only so much you can raise prices to offset lower sales. People have finite spending money for toys. This limit is commonly accepted as having been reached already.

2; They, as a company, have been introducing policies that aren't working. They've been doing this for years. These policies are far reaching in effect and wide in scope and have culminated in job losses, store closures and decreased performance from the stores that remain. A brilliant compendium on this can be found here (about 4/5ths down, no hotlink directly there)

3; Market saturation. By this I'm referring to the process of there not being a large enough incentive to buy from the manufacturer (ie GW) because online retailers and auctions (like ebay or amazon) sell them for much cheaper. MUCH cheaper. Plenty of posts I see refer to "veterans" picking up models en masse for cheap from what seems like mostly teenagers who may have bought models when they were 12/13 and then dropped the game later due to lack of interest. The fact is, at some point GW will see itself trying to push models in an environment where so much second hand stock already exists that nobody will feel any need to "buy new". The same problem exists in the car market in NZ, for the record. I don't know a single person who owns a 'new car'. Everything is second hand. Everything. Selling new cars to NZers is like trying to sell homemade chocolate to a supermarket, you just simply cannot hope to do it.

So with that being said, what are the 2 key things that will occur during the death throes of  this current incarnation of GW.

1; Vigorous defence of 'intellectual property'. The suing of people who attempt to copy or emulate a GW game system (which might fail, given what happened to d20 and WOTC) or a GW iconographic "thing". CHS recently got plugged with a court date because they used the terms "space wolves" and other stuff like that to describe his products. Since the term "space marine" cannot be copyrighted or trademarked to GW on the basis of the fact they didn't invent the term, it was the very specific matters of "Space wolves" and "Blood angels" and "eldar farseer" and other things like that used in direct reference to what are clearly plagiaristic uses of another company's iconography.

What's amusing for me is that this new trend of big companies suing EVERYONE who dares use some term that's tangentially related to a product of theirs was predicted in the 2005 citigroup "plutonomy" memo. Apparently fatcats have no imagination and all follow the same rules. As set by a corrupt mega-bank that bribes politicians. Ha ha ha.

2; A switch over to the production of books and computer games. Simply put this is the future of GW. They will continue to produce new models, using forgeworld as an initial launch platform to test for market interest, however the company GW itself will run much lower production sizes on models and instead switch over to lucrative royalty schemes involving computer games. Dawn of war in 2004 saw a peak in sales and income for the company that has not been met or exceeded at any point within the last 10 years. Then there's things to consider like WAR (which was EA's fault for flopping), DoW2, the already planned DoW3 and now an MMO based on the 40k universe. Books will also begin to surface more regularly as we've seen with the HH novel series which in 23years of 40k has only just started relatively recently to appear in official novels rather than passing mention in other fiction, not to forget that they have that trio of eldar books and for all we know soon enough there'll be one about Tau as well.

GW will switch over to products which carry no need for retail space beyond a middlemans shelves, it will continue to introduce policies that lower the throughput of retail stores for their models and forgeworld will see an increase in activity as the experimental skunkwerks of GW, launching untested products to the masses and then trawling the internet for feedback before officially introducing them to the main game either by making IA books 'canon' or by directly ripping the unit into a new codex.

In the death throes of the old GW, having failed to grasp the attention of longtime purchasers from auctions and making the barrier to entry too high for newcomers, it will be reborn from the ashes like a phoenix, bright and strong and ready to rape a new medium with the same cold, ineffective callousness that saw TCS get bought by Hasbro, only that this time GW has a pre-established computer market to maliciously exploit to the continued detriment of everyone involved. While GW will still produce pewter/resin/plastic miniatures, it will be in far smaller volumes than today and will act mostly as a supplement and as the "plastic crack" that the new generation of video gamers will buy without having fully understood the roots of the company, or why such cool little models aren't more popular. And probably without realising that there's thousands of online auctions everyday for the same shit at atleast 50% off.

Shadowspectres part 2

Just read a very interesting thread on the spectres on dakkadakka.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/340775.page

One thing I would like to point out about the spectres is that they can move a minimum of 13" a turn, should they need to rapidly redeploy. Not to mention since they have jump packs they ignore terrain for the purposes of passing over it ergo they can take shortcuts during movement/assault phase by hopping over the edges of terrain. Pretty handy. Don't forget of course that jetpack infantry can move like normal troops according to the BRB so it's actually not important either way. Your boys can just walk the first 7" before getting a nifty 6" leap to cover more ground.

The general consensus remains the same by the way; this units' abilities are squandered in the heavy support slot. It directly competes with 5 other options up to and including the new Warp Hunter.

But having said that there's a ray of hope. One poster mentions giving the squad a JOTWW/Blood lance effect where you just draw a line to the set distance and then count out penetrations on a given basis. I have no experience with Tau but I thought their big railguns worked in a similar way (or was that just wishlisting?) in that you measure downwind at a target, then for every penetrating hit you take the next model behind it and roll off for damage against that, and so on... or otherwise functions in a way similar to vibrocannons in that all hits are resolved automatically and you merely roll for penetration?

If that's the case, a single squad of these guys could deepstrike then obliterate an entire stream of vehicles. I really do hope this change to a 'line of effect'  does occur because it would then make the unit a very serious contender for even a HS slot. A decent position would mean that a spectres squad outclasses the fireprism in a way that would turn a prism green with envy.

Dire avengers and multiroles.

 Why would you want to take 5 shots that are hitting on 2+ away from your unit?
You should not be making them well-rounded, they are for one task, and one task only. Eldar are designed to control the game, not allowing assault units to assault your squishy troops etc. so if you're not doing this, then you're going to lose.
Your units should always be supported by other units. Your enemies assault units should not be assaulting your shooty troops because in order to do so, your Scorpions, Harlequins, Jetbikes or Banshees should have stooped them or be stopping them. You sould be shooting such units with your avengers, then assaulting them with something else. This is how Eldar works.

There can be many reasons for not taking a dedicated assault unit in your army. Consider your average 1750pt game, you're looking at around 3 troops, the tanks to carry them, outfitting those tanks with weapons, taking more tanks in other slots, your HQs (whom are rarely cheap unless you wish to lose) and finally any elites you may wish. And we all know firedragons are probably the best there and they'll need a tank too! For each squad!

And then once you've built this list and look back at the cost and suddenly realise you're 700pts overbudget and start cutting..

and finally you end up with 3 troops, 2 squads of elites (all in serpents).. maybe 2 fireprisms and a decent HQ.

So... now you start bean-counting. Maximising throughput on every unit. A squad of banshees only works properly against MEQs. Which is fine, assuming you get to charge them in the first place. FDs on the other hand can pop a tank and then you just EML the contents to death. Scorpions have some nice tricks.... buuuttt fall apart once you get to anything more complex than guardsmen. IIRC gaunts rip&tear scorpions like nobodies business so no point there.

So what do you do? Yes it's true that eldar aren't generalists and yes that means that if they start doing things they weren't "designed for" then they start falling apart but consider the following; Would you use assault marines to kill tanks? Do you use wyches to kill terminators? Do you use Trygons to soak up damage? Do you use SM dreadnoughts as gun platforms? What about SM dreads as assault units? Do you ever use Chaos sorceror powers? Gift of chaos?

The answer... is yes. In all cases.

Let us be perfectly honest here, in any game over 750pts the extra TWO attacks from doublecata in shooting isn't going to matter squat in the long term. The last time someone posted about DAs vs terminators, it takes nearly 200 shots to kill 10 terminators. That's more output than a squad of DAs can make in an entire game.

Now what Mortiki is saying (and based off my own experience) is that suppose you have a squad of DAs. Let's say 10. You have an exarch and a PW/SS and find yourself staring down a group of nasty spacemarines. Doesn't even have to be terminators. In my case it was bikers. Anyway, so these marines are going to be able to shoot/charge you. You are going to shoot/charge them. In this instance you might as well shoot&charge. If you skimped on bladestorm and just took defend that's totally acceptable. I mean, not only do the marines suffer casualties from shooting, they strike later than you in assault and only get one attack each.

So WHY take the PW/SS? For a defensive squad. One that is going to bait units into attacking them. The careful art of attack and defend, the parry and riposte. A unit of DAs that gets into a charge can be assumed to have already lost against a dedicated assault unit which is why you try and use your PW/SS exarch to launch attacks against units that aren't dedicated assault units. Like generic marines. The PW/SS exists only to mitigate the damage of a tactical marine sergeants PW. A 33% chance to save against a S4 attack is pretty reasonable, especially since in ideal cases that attack is coming after yours anyway.

So I'll say it again; The PW/SS exists only to mitigate the damage of a tactical marine sergeants PW. If you can get in 2 rounds of shooting before suffering an assault, that's great. If you risk being overrun in the assault, you may as well assault first. If you're facing low numbers of PW attacks, then the PW/SS is an excellent choice and gives you more flexability. You will use this squad to attack enemy troops choices, preferably ones on foot that are already below full strength, as you are trying to force them to fail combat resolution and therefore not be capable of regrouping.

Because honestly? Why would I pay 90+ pts for a dedicated melee (and totally mediocre) elites choice, not to mention their transport, when 30pts on an exarch power and a PW + 33% invulnerable can net me the same result.

Also if you think DAs are good at shooting you are so, so very wrong. They only become good when the 140pt DA squad has a 130pt farseer babysitting them with guide+doom. A PW/SS works on its own.

In response to children pandering about games for consoles.

The following is a response to a thread with a poll on the The Witcher forums, regarding two other threads where idiots are complaining at each other about how the idea that TW2 is 'designed with consoles in mind' ie 'for future consideration in regards to a port' is the same as 'ohnoes GoW3 ripoff loololooolol cancelled mah perorduh TW2 dumbed down consoleport'.

What do you mean? I'll have you know that I played console games ever since like 1994-2008 and most of those years were on my own personal playstation/sega/whatevers. Console games aren't inherently terrible and this topic just makes my head spin with how narrowminded the options are.

What is consolisation? Consolification? Is it some tangible process of making a game that can be physically held? I mean are we talking about the differences between a wooden spoon and a steel spoon? Same function, different material and tools used.

If you are, infact, referring to the difference between an item of identical size and shape but of different construction and materials then you might be on to something. To suggest that console games are shallower than PC games isn't quite fair. Matters of story complexity comes down to writing. Matters of control scheme simplicity is an inherent limitation to the system but never ever get to thinking that giving a game like halo a number of controls equal to ARMA2 will ever make it a better game.

I think chap, what you are actually referring to, is a symptom more commonly found in a condition of games hit by "the activision factor" aka "CODolitis". It's an insidious disease that affects games by reducing content to a minimum as an effort to maximise post-counter (after sale) profits via microtransactions. These games are built on tired engines, are limited in scope and are comprised of 'high action' sequences in frequency and are habitually filled with 2-dimensional characters, mostly of the short-brown-haired stubble-face white-guy variety. Even when characters like that are contextually irrelevant or counterintuitive to the setting or medium.

If you've been keeping track of FPS games for the last 2 years or so, you would have seen just about every goddamned one become a COD4 ripoff. My older brother was interested in buying crysis 2.. and then I loaded up youtube with 5 different videos. MW2, BLOPS, Crysis 2, MOH and Killzone 3. Suffice to say he said I had "ruined the next 2 years worth of games for him". Derp. Saved him money is what I did.

Now microtransactions themselves are the root of the problem but that's a story for another time.

Comparing DAO to TW1.

I, for one, couldn't even be bothered playing through DAO to the end.

That being said, I have only 1 completed playthrough of the Witcher as well. I've owned the game since... early 2008 I think.

I will expand on my thoughts now;

1. The differences in the story between DAO and TW1.

DAO; you play as whoever you want (within 6 predefined archetypes). Once you have left your origin, the game follows a strictly pre-defined path as you are given tasks by the Warden. A major event occurs that sees a paradigm-shift in the nature of the game from pre-constructed narrative to a "make your own adventure" novel. The illusion of choice is maintained by offering the player 4 or 5 different locations to begin searching through, with those locations themselves allowing a 'weaving' of interdependent quests [notably the Red village quest with the boy which takes you to the tower which takes you to somewhere else]. While not a fault in itself to offer a pre-set narrative the story is weak for reasons I will detail below.

Prima; The story is weakened by the sudden change in narrative style, from a predetermined path you are on it switches to a multiple-choice map. Instead of having a few choices that are well detailed to propel the character forward we are presented with 4 totally different locations that demand us to disregard all our narrative and plot points to focus on the immediate surroundings. The result here is that the story feels disjointed and schitsophrenic, major events from previous locations are ignored or deemed irrelevant by the game as a result of the developers desire to provide 'choice'. The truth is, you must still visit all these places, still complete their main quests and to the developers I say the only thing I'm lacking in this game is immersion.

Secundo; The story itself revolves around a random individual from a variety of backgrounds and locations and races being selected by another individual to become some sort of demonically possessed undead-hunter/monster-slayer. The premise of the game offers no buildup to the Wardens arrival, no explanation of what he is or why he is here[there?] and expects you to blindly follow a total stranger into war against an army of undead with marginal or ineffective support and drink the blood of a demon. The story concludes with you, the player, the only remaining Warden on the continent, defeating a demon-god in combat with support from your [non-Warden] friends and allies. This suggests that the main character is infact nothing more than a living compass and that the entire game could have been completed by any suitably skilled individual who happened to walk in on the major population centres currently under attack. [If this series of events doesn't strike you, the reader, as totally inane and unbelievable then I wash my hands of you now.]

Tertio; Aside from the main plot of the game [becoming harder to interpret and understand?] there are many minor quests that revolve around helping individuals within the towns you enter, as well as some activities relating to your comrades (though normally only when you meet them). Let's examine some specific examples: in Lothering you are tasked with collect bear hides (or was it spider husks, I forget) from the surrounding wilderness by some person in a tavern. What this person has in relation to the main story is left unexplored. The quest seems to exist only to provide 'xp' and pad out the game length by requiring you to kill a randomly assigned number of specific creatures. [obviously TW1 includes quests like this but we will focus on DAO for right now]. Another quest in Lothering includes exploring the same wilderness for a campsite (or somesuch) to find the occupants. This quest is resolved by finding it infested with spiders and a locked chest. The quest, we can conclude, exists for no reason than to provide 'xp' and equipment. Where companions are concerned the quests they require are predominantly fetch quests. Morrigan wants a book, Alistair is a wanker, OldWoman wants you to find[read:fetch] a friend/tutor in the tower and Lelaina wants you to have awkward conversations and feel scared as she watches you in your sleep [she probably wants some ridiculous religious symbol or "love and acceptance" or some other garbage but once again I never played the game through to completion]. From these points we can see that the nature of DAO has a large "MMO" focus to it. [I will come back to this later]

TW1; TW1 follows the story of a Witcher, a person who typically was found as an orphan or promised to existing Witchers,  who undergoes physical tests and biological modifications in order to become a 'professional monster slayer'. These words are important: they brook no further explanation of the characters motivations for his job and do not permit asinine or pretentious reinterpretations of who this man is, or what he does. He kills monsters for money, it's very simple. The characters' simplicity aside, the story of TW1 sees us assume command of the character 'Geralt', as he returns from death to his home Kaer Morhen, introducing us to people from his history and providing us a chance to establish a new identity to play off the canonical old one via Geralts struggle with amnesia.  There are still flaws in the execution of TW1 and will be examined now.

Prima; Choice and moral ambuiguity are [advertised on the box, but I digress] key parts of TW1. Geralt makes decisions and must deal with the consequences. This is sometimes handled poorly. Notably right at the start of the game, in chapter 1, when Geralt must decide to allow or not to allow a group of Scoiatel to collect some smuggled weapons. If he does allow them to take the weapons, in chapter 2 we find a character that would have accelerated a quest lying dead in an inn. The problem begins with the story behind the Scoiatel. It is not adequately explored before the decision over the smuggled goods becomes important. Chapter 1 is focussed on dealing with Abigail and the priest, not the Scoiatel and their war. If Geralt had been told bluntly that the Scoiatel were terrorists who murder merchants and peasants then the decision of the weapons would have had more impact, as Geralt would have knowingly been aiding a group of insurgents. What is found however is that the Scoiatel offer to pay Geralt and due to a lack of information we find later that someone important has just been killed. There was no reason to refuse them except for someone who has already played through the game and wanted to avoid that particular result.

Secundo; The story itself is a rigid and linear progression of events that follow directly on from previous events, except for when it doesn't. By this I mean the infamous chapter 2 runes quest, the chapter 4 Dagon quest and the Chapter 4 sun-wraith quest. These quests unfortunately are quite long and are only tangentially related to the main plot. The story drags, forcing players to collect things that feel meaningless and offers no direct recompense to the character beyond 'xp' and potentially gear. The events are weakly held together by, at the end, forcing Geralt to speak about himself to a companion, therefore presumably assigning some measure of allegiance to a philosphical stand-point. The pacing of these quests, the subject matter and the results of them leave the player feeling like they have wasted their time.

Now that the story has been looked at in brief, we can move on to gameplay.

2. Gameplay differences: analysing the combat system, the quest mechanic and the players involvement.

DAO; This game claims to be the 'spiritual successor' of the Baldur's Gate series. As the producers of the games are the same people, that claim just doesn't make any sense. [Had they claimed it to be a literal successor to BG it would have implied some kind of actual balance or quality, so I can see why they didn't do that.] They said this because they wanted to give the impression that DAO had a combat system reminiscent of BG in function. In this at least they weren't lying. Fighters fight, rogues backstab and magi shoot fireballs. Friendly fire is a possibility which helps to encourage micromanagement of the characters and just generally compensate for a lack of well-programmed AI. Amusingly, the balance of the game is similar to BG, with casters being unstoppably powerful in later levels and fighters generally underperforming. Bioware didn't seek to just make a game that tips its hat to BG, they fumbled dumbly into making a clone of that game and tried to cover their tracks. The cooldowns on the narrow selection of abilities is the icing on the cake, screaming "MMO" into the eyes of every player.

The quest mechanic is equally uninspired. I will compare it to WoW's quest log and say no more.

The players involvment is the saddest part. Combat is a chore involving micromanagement of 4 unflexible characters, often resulting in every fight having the same solution (cone of cold, fireball, charge). This is as much to do with enemy variety as anything, to which I will point my finger at the dwarf tunnels and say no more. Overall player involvement in the game truly shines in combat, with most other times the player being a quest recepticle and scapegoat. Actual character interaction is kept to a bare minimum.

TW1; The combat system of this game revolves around a timed series of clicks, feints and spells. The major difference between DAO and TW1 is the lack of cooldowns and the special enhancements provided by potions brewed by the player. Ultimately both games boil down to an attrition model with damage output variably being related to skill selection and play style.

The quest mechanic has a duality to it. On one hand we have the obligations of a pest exterminator, in the killing of and collection from a selection of monsters in varying quantities. On the other hand we observe a traditional RPG staple of talking to people, doing them favours and exploration. Calling this method 'questing' is a derogative term to be used sparingly. Some 'quests' resolve without any benefit to the player and can be safely labeled as plot progression. Others are key checkpoints that when completed grant the player a predetermined benefit. Quests are in essence something that is a side focus and done purely for material benefit. What Geralt is doing, that is to say, the hunt of Salamandra and the return of the Witcher formulae is his quest. It spans the entire game. The game is his 'quest'. Every plot related activity is story progression. The monster killing activities similarly are "quests" in the sense that they provide some quantifiable return on effort.

The players involvement is to assume the identity of Geralt, to shape him down any of 8 specialisations they prefer, to any degree and to not be dependant on one particular strategy at any time. The addition of alchemy which enhances certain abilities while producing another layer of threat to the health of the character is also noteworthy as players must balance a dependancy on alchemy against being good combatants. Where the story is concerned, the player conducts an investigation, an autopsy, makes key decisions about loyalty and whether or not to kill some characters. This requires background research and good reasoning skills.

There is more I could say, but in consideration of the points above I challenge people to think for themselves about what *precisely* makes you feel the way you do. For me? I feel strongly that DAO was an aborted MMO, with a stale Bioware classic plot tacked on [I'm not kidding, someone actually produced a chart showing the similarities in plot for every Bioware game made since BG2. That so many similarities exist to warrent a chart, and then to have that chart actually provide visual assistance to the criticism is worrying] it's no surprise that the community is divided on it. There aren't many neutral people, but plenty of people who either love it or hate it. I would speculate at this point that the people who love it are fans of games that don't encourage independant thought and games that could get confused with a typical newgrounds hentai dating simulator. These players are willingly overlooking the MMO style UI and are quite willing to 'quest' for things. To support my argument I will bring your attention to the DLC for the game. Replacing a permanent subscription model for receiving more 'game time' via microtransactions (at US$11.25/hour for the record) does not make the game any less similar to more well known games that operate on an identical principle. The principle of "pay to play".

I for one will not buy another Bioware game again. They and the publishers have demonstrated a continuing disregard for enduring games that will sell based on the merits of its content and rather than on marketing hype and the push for pre-orders. Games that are assumed to be good based on pre-orders are simply games that are not designed to stand up to the criticism they will face after release.

Regarding RPG games, a break from 40k

From thread; http://tw2.thewitcher.com/forum/index.php?topic=31402.60

Ah, I never realized you disagreed with me in the first place.  Your statement didn't oppose anything I said, you simply made a statement that didn't agree with or oppose anything in my post.  So nope, I didn't disagree with you simply because you brought a new idea to the table.  I disagreed because I don't believe the actions possible determine whether a game is complex or overly simplified.  Especially when it comes to an RPG where they've stated the story is the number one priority.  Perhaps in an action RPG it'd be relevant because they'd be focusing on combat as a major part of the game and story would be more of a filler that gets you from one fight to the next. TW1 had very simplistic console-like combat, that I agree with.  But I didn't play TW1 for the combat, I enjoyed it because of it's complex and mature story, which is not a common feature in consoles.  And you'd never be able to tell how good the game's story is by reading the instruction manual.

RPG... it in itself is an overused term. You played TW1 for its storyline? Ok. Take Metal Gear Solid (the original playstation one) and break it down. You play a deep and mature storyline from the perspective of a disgruntled and abused specops soldier. You string melee combos together (admittedly only 3 attacks but that's still a combo) and you have a wide variety of weapons (ie damage types).

So could MGS be considered an RPG? It fits all the catagories, only that you don't get to choose specific conversation outcomes. You are roleplaying David Hayter aka Solid Snake. The storyline is strictly narrative but we see Snake grow and develop as well as become objectively stronger.

Then you get WoW. It's not an RPG. Your character undergoes no development, only advancing through the game and gaining new attributes. There's no story to engage with.

Then you get something like TW1. What was this? Ok so you could use a console controller for the game. That's handy and I've occasionally considered playing it that way (except I get sore hands). More seriously though, you have a character that starts out quite naive and he ends a little jaded and idealistic. Geralt undergoes noticable and tangible character development, which transfers over to his mechanical attributes as well, as he can ingest the werewolf pelt (as an example) or otherwise ends the game a couple of levels higher depending on the number of sidequests he completed. Combat is limited but deeply dependant on underlying stats.

So in effect in TW1 you can manipulate the universe on more than one level depending on your storyline choices as well as how you develop your characters skills and abilities (although they didn't get reflected in conversation or cutscenes, the potential WAS there, and now IS there since you get to do interrupts or whatever).

You say that combat isn't what really defines an RPG. I say it is critical to an RPG. I say so because without the combat mechanics being dependant on player decisions there's no difference between playing Heavy Rain, STALKER or Saints Row 2 and your theoretical game. The three I've just mentioned include combat without reference to player decisions and a storyline (though not of equal significance) without truly being RPGs in and of themselves. Heavy Rain is an interactive movie, STALKER is a survival horror game with rpg-esque elements and Saints Row2 is "like but not" GTA3/4 also with elements derived from pure RPGs.

So from where I'm sitting I can objectively disagree with how you said that combat is "more relevant" to only an action-RPG because having a strong focus on one without the other is like being a one-armed man. The moment you attach the label of "RPG" to a title I personally expect both sides of the equation to be compelling and involving. A lack of development in one area for the sake of focussing on the other leaves one arm underdeveloped or even disfigured for the sake of appearing strong through misdirection.

Remember. R P G.

ROLE: There is a character in a story.
PLAYING: The player participates in the story through a character.
GAME: Typically defined by overcoming challenges with the character.

So when I say that I want an intricate and developed combat system (even if it is conducive to buttonmash spam) as well as an equally developed storyline that revolves around my character (especially in narratives like TW1 where you don't get to generate a character) I think I am both correct and being perfectly reasonable because by definition an ARR PEE GEE involves both of those constituent elements as they are implicit to the design of anything in the genre.

Rangers, the complete edition

From thread; http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/eldar/206545-repairing-our-codex-one-unit-time-part-vii.html

Post 1;

Now I use rangers already and don't consider them to be "that terrible" but a lot of other players I see call them outright worthless.

Why is this? Yea sure they're expensive but let's talk about what would make them worth 19/24pts instead of just demanding they get cheaper. Cheap troops that are useless are are just cheap and useless, not suddenly worthwhile, afterall.

I'm really gonna need other people to kick this off because personally I don't think they're that bad.

Post 2;

If every unit in a game could 'earn its points back through firepower' then I'd wager most games would be over in a 2 turns. It's endemic to the IG codex.. their shit is just too efficient. Most other codeci are bordering towards 50-70% efficiency which is the only way to prolong a game for 6 turns. From what I see anyway.

Post 3;

I've just had a totally crazy thought.

STALKERs. Eldar rangers are stalkers. BS4 GEQs, who are really good at hiding. They have 2 weapons. Ranger longrifle which is a rending weapon that wounds on a 2+, Shuriken UMP which is a pistol with the following profile S5 AP5 6" Assault 2. Rangers have defensive grenades. Pathfinder upgrade gives them Hit&run and they count as relentless.

Post 4;

In addition to testing out the new Spectres unit I have ran two seperate lists that included pathfinders. My results have been skewed by my opponent being a newbie and me taking a lot of time to teach him the game. But pathfinders are pretty much a 'press the big red button' unit so they're relatively easy to talk about.

So first off what I've found is that, simply, they don't provide enough of a net benefit to an army to be worth taking, for reasons I will detail now.

Firstly they're really designed to cover and assist a foot list. These guys are useless for mechdar. Mixed list doesn't have that much of a benefit either but it's better. For a foot list pathfinders primarily provide movement suppression and MC killing. Against tanks they're a waste of time, despite rudimentary transport popping power. The best way to use pathfinders is to get a group of 6-8 and park your farseer in with them, deep centre. From there you have a tough to kill core of psyker powers and a launching platform for starengine tanks to benefit from fortune. I was playing on a 5' x 5' board (roughly) and the main mistake myself and my opponent made were putting our eldrad to the side parked with pathfinders, when eldrads main strength really only gets leveraged from the centre of the table. He's an expensive target, he's in a unit of pathfinders under fortune, he can snipe your commanders and doom your troops. Any tanks near him can receive fortune for that lovely 36" charge into your rear lines ready to disperse hot fiery death.

The pathfinders themselves though.. from the centre of the board they hold a commanding position over skimmers/MC's. If you had 3 moderate sized units placed in a line across your part of the board, they could pretty effectively force your opponent into a detrimental movement methodology. As happened to me with my zilla cluster.

When I landed my DAs near to his pathfinders, and they got within charge range.. because they're in cover a few problems emerge. Obviously even pointblank shooting with bladestorm was mostly ineffective. Charging in afterwards meant he struck first thus reducing my assault power slightly. The second time I attempted this on a different unit of pathfinders, they weren't in range to charge. In his turn he had two choices, pistol me and charge at initiative 1, or sniper me and risk me saving/no pinning. Well as it happened he snipered me, killed only a couple of guys and on my turn I tankshocked 75% of his list off the board. BUT THE POTENTIAL WAS THERE.

IF he had had shuriken UMPs or analogue on his pathfinders then maybe we'd be looking at a very different story. A high strength low AP machine pistol that allows a charge afterwards. In that case, a last ditch attempt to keep his pathfinders alive and score another killpoint would definitely have been more accessable for him and the game might have gone very differently for me then.

I'm contemplating testing out all our 'new rules' in an upcoming game against this same opponent (since he's new it's not like he knows any better) and we'll see how they stack up. Since he and I have agreed to standardise our loadouts via xml comparisons (ie we use identical troops choices with no deviation allowed, preset limits on the other catagories) it will help to balance things out (he will be using eldar too so obviously I won't have a massive advantage over him or anything).

My predictions for eldar after the introduction of my 'codex repairs' will be that eldar may play much more aggressively than it does now.

Post 5;

Alright.. so adapting on your two ideas.. make their UMP 12" range and still a pistol? There's your valid carbine-AR alternative to the longrifles for when things go pear-shaped.

The fundamental weakness of 5e eldar

More of a rant than anything this time. I had a good idea for a post a few days back but never wrote it down so mostly I've been just trying to remember it. If there's one thing that I'm prone to doing, it's over-analysis of unimportant shit. So here goes.

Having played eldar for nearly 2 years now I've come to read and agree with opinions on the web about what things are, how they are and why they are. Three similar but ultimately different states of existence that compound on each other to form the basis of an army that appeals to perfectionists and only disappoints them.

One of the best paraphrases I can make is from LO where one person said something about 'ooh eldar only seem weak, they just need to have a really good player behind them'. This statement is both true and totally wrong on many levels.

A fellow member of LO (niraco I believe) responded to the above post with (paraphrasing!!) 'any army that requires a perfect player to play perfectly is weak'.

Brilliant. Hard to say it better than that. It's very true. Lets break it down for the sake of completion;

1. First of all 40k is luck dependant. You can maneuvre, position perfectly but if you roll 1's the entire game it's game over baby.

2. Like above, your chances of success are a hard-coded statistical probability. How often you fall within the limits of success might be determined by the dice, yes, but getting the most dice as you can requires good judgement.

3. Combining the above two points brings open the third; if to field a 'competitive' force you must not only min-max your list (and preferably tailor it too) but also play extremely well from what you can do without dice interfering, you might just be looking at a weak army.

Summary? If a ball-standard player can play a IG mech list and toast most of his opposition he's very likely going to be regarded as a noob. Some people even refuse to play IG because of the total bullshit they can field. Compare with Tau.. what are you looking at? The best lists generally have crisis suits and pathfinders working together. A manta and maybe a pair of those big ass railgun tanks.  There's no room for experimentation left, a couple of bad rolls really puts the hurt on and in reading OSH's preliminary works on introducing new Tau players... there's a very finite procedure to follow. The modus operandi is 'shoot shit, move into the gap'. Not really brain surgery. I pity Tau players, gimped by association thanks to their choice of army. But those things alone don't immediately scream "bad army" do they? So what explicitly about Tau makes them bad?

Following our earlier 3 step program lets see.

1. Shooting dependant. Low BS and fuck all TL weapons from what I know. If you waste a turn of shooting on a target.. that's a massive hit to your game plan. Luck however it out of the players hands..

2. A good shooting phase for Tau depends on the players ability to line up shots and make sure they're in range. Not so hard.. good range on their guns or so I'm told. Most require direct LOS I think except for some missile attack which is handy but I doubt it's a game changer.

3. What have we got? An army with one strength, low/mediocre attributes and a heavy dependancy on gimmick units? Musical wounds is for noobs, but OSH suggests players deliberately add drones to give ablative wounds for suits. Tsk tsk. When the resident master of a race is telling you that... there's a fundamental flaw in how your army works. The above two points combine into this army where if things don't go perfectly for the Tau player, they fight an uphill battle that is very steep indeed.

Such armies aren't good for the hobby. There's a certain 'elitist' attitude held by chaos players that is immediately noticable. Eldar players like myself generally resign to the idea that we have what.. 3 good units? Out of 33? Awesome. Tau I dunno. They power through the mediocrity which I guess deserves some respect but ultimately looks silly. I don't know any GK players personally. WH? 1 guy. Cheater.  Necrons? Total bro. DEldar? Quiet, reserved and generally pretty honourable. Orks? A showmans army.

I could go on. And I am ranting.

So what about eldar? Why does this army still get considered good provided we have an excellent general at the helm? Well I wonder. If you took an accomplished eldar/Tau player and gave them an optimised netlist razorspam army or something, how would you expect them to do? I've now arrived at the point where I can consistently put my guys 1/2 inch out of charge range for an enemy melee unit. Hilarious when I shoot them round 1, bladestorm round 2 then charge to finish them off. PW/SS exarch yeyuh.

But that's not really what I'm trying to get across here. What I'm trying to say is: if an army is so bad the only way it can win is by having the best players, then it is NOT OK and it NEEDS improvement. GW try to make out they're "just a model company" but hoo have practices changed just recently with DE and now the FAQs which previously took years to emerge... all in response to competitors gaining players from disenfranchised ex 40k who are tired of no variety and the retarded superiority that comes with blowing a sizable portion of your yearly income on plastic.

Using visuals for a competitive advantage.

An interesting idea struck me today while browsing the internet. One word: Zebra.

What is a zebra though? Well sure it's an animal. It's also tangentially related to the horse. It can be ridden like a horse. They taste pretty good too or so I'm told. But that's not what a zebra is.

A zebra... is a walking camo suit. Zoologists on animal planet suggest that the construction and positioning of the lines on a zebra make it hard to determine the orientation of the animal for predators. In the same way that conventional camoflague for humans uses irregular shapes in no particular pattern to break up the outline of the object/soldier, zebras developed this trick naturally over millions of years. Not knowing exactly where to shoot a camo soldier is a potent trick in jungle warfare. Not so good against bombs, but alright for use against troops. Also, just how many camo soldiers are identified may be an issue too. You see one soldier moving but noone else. You can guarantee he's got friends.. but what if he doesn't? What if he's carrying a message/package from one officer to the next? What if he's a distraction? What if he's a vanguard of the main force?

As far as 40k is concerned it theoretically won't be an issue. The whole battlefield is visible at all times, camo makes no difference to your plastic men unless there's a special rule in effect. You can paint your CSM bright pink or pitch black and it makes no difference from a gameplay perspective.

From a gameplay perspective. But let me tell you something about 40k. You're not actually playing a game of dice. Not really. It's involved but there's a whole macro-strategy that must be determined before you even begin the game. Camo on your plastic helps, and here's why.

Camo paint on your troops, breaks up their outline. A casual glance at the unit might produce mental affirmation of 6 models when the real number is 9. A more scrupulous player might know already, but miss their exact location because from 4 feet back, out of the corner of his eye, their exact location isn't simple to determine. Camo can force your opponent to mentally count each model every turn, mentally log their location every turn. Added benefit to you? He's wasting time and diverting valuable attention away from his core strategy. WAAC players will suffer the most from this, as they misinterpret the threat over and over again, and feel pressured by time constraints to act more quickly.. thus generating more mistakes and oversights for him.

Camo is to most people a 'tryhard' thing to paint on your guys. It's not thematically compatable with 40k (which for the record is bright&gaudy with few exclusions) and may help you as your opponent views you as being more amateurish. You know those popular stories about xyz marine player seeing abc opponent and thus playing a totally gimped list in sarcastic retaliation and then losing horribly? It's the same thing, but without the requirement of turning up with GK to a 2500pt tournament. 

The most efficient form of attack is one that uses as many vectors as possible simultaneously. Attacking your opponent himself at the mental level is a valuable +1 over what you would otherwise be doing purely on the tabletop. And the best part about camo is? You get all those subtle benefits without any trashtalking, joking around or pokerface. It's implicit to your army, meaning you still have all those other tricks to dispense at leisure in addition to him psychologically being unable to take your plastic army seriously.

Musing on 5e and GW

 Below is a direct copy of a post on librarium online made this day;

 ---------------
All the blogs I am reading.. everything is pointing to a dramatic shift in GW policy regarding the handling of the 'game' part of 40k. Things are getting updated more often, previously abandoned sections of the game are now getting their updates and we may start to see a return of necromunda (which I believe kill teams was a 5e pilot for).

And this shift in policy is good. Previously the game survived on the theory of exclusivity, 40k was a reclusive thing for nerds that got played in the corner of a comic-book store. Now we have movies and big-budget vidya gaems being made for the universe and that has proven at least one thing to the corporate; accessability sells. So where previously you saw.. what.. 12 codeces on a shelf and anyone nearby could tell you that only 4 of them are objectively 'good' with 2 more being 'alright' and the rest being 'crap' and/or 'useless' now you have 12 codeces with some 6 being good, another 2 or 3 in the pipeline for updates and the remainder on the backburner.

So how does that translate to the rules for a nightspinner being posted for download? Well first off it means all those people who bought a nightspinner after june 2010 will now actually be able to use them. Always good to keep those people happy. Secondly it means that GW is now embracing the increased number of players DoW 1/2 have brought in, and let's be honest here, since the release of DoW the population of 40k players has probably at least doubled. Before those videogames were made the only people I saw playing 40k were late 20-somethings, typically of the grognard variety. Now you have a whole pile of wheezing 15-18year olds with skin problems but whatever at least there's more variety.

Let's also compare a couple of things before this drags into tl;dr territory. Within the last year we've seen; BA officially launched, DE (12 years) updated, Necrons (9 years?) rumoured, GK (9-12 years?) confirmed, DA/BT (9 years?) modernised via FAQ, FAQs for the BRB (finally), FAQ for DE (bizarrely fast) and 3 new models for eldar via FW with another aspect still coming not to mention the nightspinner being a codex approved model now via WD 365.

What has been the driving factor for all this? Dark eldar. These guys have sold a metric shitton of models. People are sick of marines and corporate GW has noticed.

[edit] not to mention that if you have 6 marine codeces what's to stop someone from just calling their army whatever the FOTM force? A generic SM player has 6 different flavours to pick. DEldar actually required people to buy new models. Hurrr GW exists to sell products right.. so more marine codeces means only a book gets sold in comparison to several dozen plastic mans..

-----------

I will return to this topic eventually.

Dark reapers, the complete edition

From thread; http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/eldar/206205-repairing-our-codex-one-unit-time-part-vi.html

Post 1;

First question; are these guys worth 35pts a piece? No not really. 30 would be more reasonable considering the penalties they have.
Second question; is there a unit that does what these guys do, but better? Yes. Devestators are cheaper, can take more heavy weapons and at greater variety. Largely similar statlines too.
Third question; What is a reasonable way to improve the dark reaper? Allow the regular members to select other heavy weapons, for instance EML and shuriken cannon. Allow the exarch to select ALL heavy weapons.

Post 2;

Thinking of the warpspider discussion and how I would add rending to many weapons...

10 Dark Reapers, each of them armed with a scatterlaser (that rends. Why? Because shurikannon is s6 ap4 but scatter is s6ap6 so give it rending) and then make fast-shot apply to the whole squad. Suddenly you have 50+ s6 rending hits coming downstream @36".

I'd pay 400pts for that. Yes plz.

Post 3;

If it were up to me... scorpions would be troops, dark reapers would be elites and falcon would be fast attack.. but that's just me.

Post 4;

We're talking about a 16pt troop that's slow and can only take 1 power weapon. Yea sure they put out a lot of hits but consider this; they aren't popular now, why would they be popular as a troops choice in their current incarnation? I still think DA would edge out ahead for cost efficiency and usefulness. The best thing you'd use SS for is infiltrating onto an objective and being a big pain in the ass for basic troops.

Post 5;

Warwalkers are cheaper and can carry more net heavy weapons. While it's a good idea I've since come to accept that we always had a devastator unit, which is the warwalkers. Now supposing that they all work like death jesters or something, or even closer to Maugan Ra (who really is a lot more like a death Jester than a darkreaper when you think about it). I like the premise of darkreapers but I'm not sure they can be salvaged in their current incarnation.

Warpspiders, the complete edition

From thread; http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/eldar/206018-repairing-our-codex-one-unit-time-part-v.html

Post 1;

How this unit can be improved, so that we'll actually see them fielded more often;
Exchange the exarch powers (yea like this wasn't totally obvious) to powers that grant Stealth and Infiltrate USR. Make their weapons rending (woohoo potential s15 hit on tanks! No armour saves!).

Post 2;

One of their hidden bonuses is the fact they have AP- as this lets them glance transports to death, while surrounding, thus causing everything inside to die for free. Switching their weapons for flamers would be interesting, but I have heard through the grapevine that the second new aspect from forgeworld may or may not be a flamer-jumppack unit.

I don't think rending would be that powerful at all. A full squad with double exarch guns shoots only 22 times, at 17% rending thats only 4 rending hits. Statistically average anyway, there's nothing stopping every shot from rending, just as there's nothing stopping every CQC attack from harlequins from rending either. 12" range guns will make a big difference.

Post 3;

How do you figure a Phoenix Lord doesn't exist? Fundamentally the father of the PL's is Asurmen, who is still around and it's his decision. Moreover, each PL is essentially the first Exarch of the relevant shrine which would suggest that it's possible all shrines have a PL and they only reason we don't see that explicitly said is only because they've not been explicitly said. This is 40k afterall, where both sides of the story are lies and truth and noone's really sure of anything.

Finally, how do you propose to 'make rending good'? I thought a 17% chance to ignore armour and wound automatically was pretty good, considering the kinds of units that have rending generally output -very- large amounts of hits. Harlequins between 10-32 rending hits yes? Assuming iron law average of 17% thats still 6 rending hits.

Post 4;

I'm pretty happy with Warpspiders and don't want anyone messing them up - yes they can't take down a landraider, nor can they take on a hoard of orks in CC - but they're not supposed to, that the point of aspect warriors, they're good at different things.

Now that is very interesting to see someone say. Let's suppose for the sake of argument that every unit in 40k follows a rock-paper-scissors formula. Now I know that's not really what you're talking about, but it's where you're headed. What is this theoretical warpspider unit a hard counter for? Transports? Aren't there enough S6 shots coming from your tanks? What about fast skimmers like DE tanks or squadrons of artillery or landspeeders or warwalkers etc. Anything < or = AV11 all around. Well first you might argue in favour of shuriken cannons etc and that does seem fair except that warpspiders can deepstrike behind enemy lines, something tanks cannot do. They also are effectively an X-wound S6 platform. One solid hit might down a waveserpent/falcon/fireprism, however X many hits are required for a warpspider unit of a given size. Assuming economic equality you're looking at 6-7 warpspiders per tank, so in effect you have a 6-7 wound scatterlaser tank with 3 times as many ablative wounds per shot.

What if you designate warpspiders as being dedicated MC hunters? Once again tanks do it better, as do Fire Dragons. Missiles+melta go a long way to killing MCs. Light infantry killers? They're no good against hordes as you said. Heavy infantry killers? Their shots are just as effective as a guardians under that consideration, except that the guardian/DA is likely to have guide+fortune. Medium infantry killers? 3+ or 4+ armour saves, low model count typically within 5-10 models. You get about 4 dead models from a full shooting phase. Not bad. Zip away from the combat with assault move. That idea totally neglects that medium infantry are typically troops and inside cover/transports.

Now see if you wanted to express that warpspiders were some kind of harassment unit I could almost sympathise, but I can think of far better units to use for harassment than a 22pt model with a sub-par gun. A much better unit for harassment would be storm guardians. Similar weapon ranges, similar physical stats, more useful in direct combat, generate more wounds and to top it off have dedicated transport and are scoring. All at 8-14pts/model. Simply put, there are better and cheaper units to use as harassment.

So now we can deduce that warpspiders are not designed for killing hordes, tanks, heavy infantry, prevalence of FNP renders them moot against most new codeci medium infantry. They can't harass well. They aren't scoring. They have a strong chance of DYING in their own deployment. They kill their own members during their assault phase. Infact the only thing these guys seem to be designed for is killing units of low model count skimmers/artillery. They might be considered worthwhile for killing enemy HQs and in some cases they are but that all depends on a good deployment and overlooks their measly 24" effective single turn lethal range. It also overlooks the fact that getting near your opponents HQ often subjects you to the better part of that armys total firepower as the reacting player aggressively defends his most expensive unit. Also not considering that HQs have FNP out the ass, good armour saves and special weapons in cahoots along with shooting being unable to single-out a particular model for the purposes of wound allocation, something that could be performed by a melee unit.

In most cases a dire avenger unit is just as good as spiders for the purposes of dealing wounds. Anything that spiders could handle that avengers can't is normally dealt with by the units accompanying tank. Even if you claimed that the 24" range was significant, 24" doom, DA move 6", fire at 18". More hits, more wounds gross. Same armour save in most cases. Doom split across a 150pt DA unit is 2pts/unit/turn/152pts-base. The same for a warpspider squad outputting a comparative number of wounds would be 1.2pts/unit(size14)/turn/304pts-base(14models incl 2 exarchs). You increase the price of your game in a single turn by nearly 21% gross just for taking warpspiders instead of direavengers. You better hope those warpspiders are killing 21% more models. That's WITH doom by the way, on both squads.

Remove bladestorm from the DA and the figures adjust slightly. 2pts/model/turn/137pts-base vs 2pts/model/turn/237pts-base. Oooops. That makes warpspiders nearly 43% more expensive than DA for a comparative number of potential wounds on a 4+ or better target.

I'm pretty happy with Warpspiders and don't want anyone messing them up - yes they can't take down a landraider, nor can they take on a hoard of orks in CC - but they're not supposed to, that the point of aspect warriors, they're good at different things.

So I'm finding this particularly interesting to see. Spiders look good on paper but unfortunately everything they do is done better by either an elites or HS option or for cheaper by a troops choice.

Post 5;

Personally I see Warp Spiders as horde-killers, at least that's how I perceive their current role. Sadly they are outperformed in this area by cheaper units like DA's. Today most people who field them use them as a way to take out light vehicles like Land Speeders, and that's fine in itself but isn't really their job, it's just a byproduct of having a high strength weapon.

I think we pretty much agree here. Also any enemy commander that allows his skimmers to get targeted by warpspiders is probably not very good.

So, I propose they get poisoned weapons instead of high strength weapons. This would remove the duality of the unit (no more hunting vehicles) and let them focus on one thing. Now, what that one thing should be I'm not certain of as of yet, but I still think they are a unit that's made for putting a lot of wounds on tough enemy models (e.g. Thunder Wolf Cavalry, Carnifex Broods). The problem is, even with a lot of wounds most models like that have a pretty good Armour Save, so Rending is not entirely inappropriate for their weapons.

They could also be focused more on horde type units, like Hormagaunts, Ork Boyz and similar, but how many lists like that do we face today; not a lot as you all know so I prefer them as Elite hunters. However, if one would make them anti horde they would need more shots, or possibly we could change their weapons to be template weapons, but we wouldn't really need Rending.

I think rending is the superior option to poisoned weapons for the following reason; S6 guns wound almost 80% of models reliably on at least 4+. The issue that spiders have is that once those wounds are dealt, they're no more effective than a lasgun against the target. Literally everything can roll a save against them (except kroot). So in effect, you might as well take a squad of dire avengers because they share the same threat radius and are much cheaper. Rending by contrast would be the best upgrade to warpspiders as it would allow them to reliably down between 3-5 models in a shooting phase, which would make them a much more credible threat to retinues or high-value infantry.

If the role of warpspiders is harassment (and it's currently very poor at that job) then allowing them to actually damage a target is necessary. Harassment only works if the harasser is credible threat, designed to occupy and divide a portion of the opponents army.

For a unit with a 6+ save against warpspiders you're looking at about 9 wounds per round of 20 shots with no exarch. Against a T3 unit with 4+ you get 5-6 wounds. 3-4 against generic space marines. 1-2 against terminators. Unsaved wounds btw.

220 points shooting generates on average about 90 points in return deaths.

Upgrade to rending?
T3 6+; 9.6
T3 5+; 8
T3 4+; 6.6
T4 3+; 5
T4 2+; 3.7

From the above calculations we can deduce that rending would improve performance against Terminators by nearly 50%, but against hordes would have negligable impact. Against Spacemarine units in general you gain 1 extra model killed. On the wider game scale it's probably not significant. Rending against vehicles places them at an 11% chance to wreck a landraider for 20 shots. AV11 has a 31% chance to be wrecked.

In brief, poison wouldn't help them that much.

The Exarch should get a purchasable ability to re-roll the dice for the second jump. His second ability I'm less sure of, possibly something along the lines of any unit he wounds moves as if in Difficult Terrain (not Dangerous Terrain though) on the following turn.

Finally, I think they should have a 2+ Save to further differentiate them from Jetbikes.

As for Exarch Wargear I'm still at a loss for what to do.

That's what these threads are for. 2+ armour seems kinda silly since it doesn't address the core issues of warpspiders lack of killyness and bad special rules. Exarch wargear could do with some modification. Give the exarch a doomweaver-style flamer template and I'm good.

Post 6;

About the only other thing I'd do is make their weapons 18" range. 12" just puts them way too close to their targets for little benefit (as you said, doom wouldn't really help). A flamer template is like 7" long, what's to stop a tank of any kind just driving 6-11" then blasting you with a heavy flamer?

Post 7;

I agree that they don't need poison, the reason behind my suggesting it is to remove their ability to hunt vehicles. It isn't their job to do so, and with Rending and S6 a lot more people will be using them that way, thus I think giving them a Poisoned weapon is the better option. Also, this lets them put the hurt on Thunderwolf Cavalry and similar units more reliably, if we want them to be elite hunters that is.

The 2+ save isn't required and doesn't do a whole lot, but it would aid in making them less like Jetbikes and more like their own unit type; it would also make them slightly more survivable for their points, especially when casting Fortune on them forcing the opponent to properly deal with this harassment rather than just sending some stray bullets in their way and gnawing them to death.

And yet I still must disagree. Thematically it doesn't fit. CWE don't use poison. The only 2 weapon types we have that wound on a set value are witchblades and d-cannon tech. Witchblades already function like CQC poison weapons and as people can attest they're far from brilliant. D-cannons are 12" on wraithguard but those already have special rules that differentiate them from spiders and jetbikes in quite a significant way.

Thematically eldar weaponry is all over the place. You get powerweapons and pseudo-forceweapons on a number of S3 models which aren't really meant to see CQC. You get shooting weapons with really unusual characteristics, like deathspinners but also d-cannons and prism cannons. There are no prevailing factors for this army and it leaves kind of wallowing in the muck in 5th edition because there's no one thing we're really good at. Take necrons for example; their most basic weapon can glance even a landraider to death. It's unreliable but it's still there as an option for dealing with surprise deepstriking/outflanking skimmers or tanks. Tau have a couple of really cool toys that can be combined with other units to dramatically increase their effectiveness. CSM are like angry, emo SpaceMarines who have an extra attack for free and can take a variety of cheap squad-level permanent upgrades. Eldar don't have any of this. Our shit (and at this point it really is 'shit') is transient or limited to one model per squad. You can't depend on anything but firedragons, dire avengers or waveserpents to do their job without babysitting or in needing to be in large groups. And this is the prevalent shortcoming.

The Eldar army needs "a theme".

Space Yiffs get lots of mixed units/HWTs and some ludicrously good psyker powers. Their theme is that they run in, f*ck with your shit and laugh at you as you bleed to death in the snow.
IG are TANKS ALL DAY ERRY DAY, or, SO MANY INFANTRY. IG's theme is WW2 Russia. And by that I mean mediocre performance done by massive numbers.
DEldar are "poison, poison everywhere, your toughness means nothing to me".
Vanilla marines are "we are whatever you want us to be" in reference to their ease of play and how noob friendly they are. Their theme truly is jack of all trades, master of none.
Tyranids are "pop goes the weasel!". I'll leave you to work that one out.

That's 5th ed codices. Orks don't count. They're blatantly 4th edition and nothing will convince me otherwise.

So yeah. Eldar need a theme. Let's try... "drop powerweapons from everything but banshees, and make all other special melee weapons rending! Make all web-thrower weapons rending too! To top it off, let's make eldar better at disruption of movement and psykers!"

That sounds pretty good to me. No other army has that overall theme either. Obviously storm guardians wouldn't have rending CQC weapons, but scorpions would. Which, for the sake of argument, would mean only 1 in 2 scorpions will land a rending hit, average. Hardly a huge improvement. Rending makes Doom better, makes guide worthwhile, reduces our reliance on fortune. It makes our underperforming elites better, our fast attack better and the relevant heavy support choices better too. Adding rending to shuriken cannons would be largely unnecessary but quite cool. How about rending krak EML? Your S8 missile is now a S17 missile. Finally! Reliable long distance AV14 breakers!

If a unit is unable to reliable hurt in any way (by principal weapons or by special weapons or by decent cheap transport option) armour value targets that believe me in 5`th ed competitive environment is almost useless. Spiders without any At capability will not see the light of day because now you need to open the can before killing the little plastic men inside. And specialization as we think at it is bad due to the fact we have an elite army. Compare with tyranids which really is a specialized army. But they are pretty cheap and that allow them to have this kind of specialization.

Exactly. Eldar need to be 1.5x as capable as any comparative unit. We have bugger all model count and high costs. Bad weaponry is just icing on the cake.

Firedragons are designed to kill tanks but they'll do just fine against MEQs in a pinch. Dire Avengers are meant to kill hordes but they'll kill terminators too. Harlequins were meant to be a specialist assault squad for snipers and stuff, but they got pinned with MEQ duty anyway. Waveserpents were meant to be our primary transport but now they're our MBT too. Seer councils on bikes? Doesn't matter what the target, you better BELIEVE they'll ruin your day.

So what you find is you have about 8 reasonably good units that do one job very well and another job sort-of-average vs about 20 other units that are ineffective against their primary targets or due to the meta-strategy of the game, no longer have a target to attack because their opponent is much more likely to field a particular other kind of unit.

You don't want eldar to have rending? On what basis? A 3.5% chance that a full squad of spiders might get a penetrating hit against an AV14 vehicle? How does rending change ANYTHING on the macro-scale? It barely makes an impact against the specialised/super units of other races. What it does do, is make them a bigger threat because the chance of them being a threat goes up in all catagories.

Post 8;

Not to be an ass but how does your first version of events differ from the second version? In regards to hard counters then there's a hard counter available for that. The whole concept of hard counters depends on something being extremely good at one function only. So infact... Eldar are a rock-paper-scissors army. The couple of units we have that can multi-task are overshadowed by the large number of hard-counter units we possess that see no screen time due to my argument in an above post.