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.

Support platforms, the complete edition

From thread; http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/eldar/205929-repairing-our-codex-one-unit-time-part-iv.html

Post 1;

Today we talk about the heavy support platforms. They've got a lot of potential. A counterweight to fast skimmers? A trap for heavy infantry? Our only real artillery (literally) options.

Let's follow the formula, and break them down. When we've looked at their guts, we build them back up.

D-cannon
Short range, extremely high killing power. Small blast. This weapon epitomises defensive artillery.
Unfortunately defensive artillery don't have a place in an eldar army. With less range than some infantry weapons it's difficult to justify their use. The special rules the weapon gets for damage may or may not be brilliant, but only really against infantry hordes, especially slow MCs. Doesn't allow barrage rules even though it really should. Coversaves against blackholes?

Vibrocannon
Rather unique procedure of target acquisition and firing give some leeway. Decent range, pinning and up to S7 so make this weapon great for scoring large numbers of hits that can wound anything in the game.
Once again the critical problem with the support weapons emerges. Units get coversaves, and an AP- value. 36" puts this above the range of infantry weapons but at or below most vehicle mounted ones. The unit can't decide what it's meant for. If you find yourself being able to whip out dozens of wounds from a single shot, good for you. JoTWW costs less and is even better.

Shadow weaver
The simplest of the support artillery. This is a primitive doomweaver that, critically, lacks the special rule which makes doomweavers useful. Longest range of the 3 also.
This weapon needs to be rending at least to be useful. If it also gained the special rule from the doomweaver then that would be excellent, but I wouldn't count on it. It would start stepping on toes then.

So these things in consideration, I can see some areas to improve on.
D-cannon; increase range to 36". Barrage rules.
Vibrocannon; always strikes rear armour on vehicles and rolls for damage like other weapons, range increased to 48".
Shadowweaver; redundant. Can be safely pruned. But since they just released a new set of models for them they could, theoreticly just benefit from rending, multiple barrage rules.

Thats the big IMO on these guys. I always wanted to field them, I can see their field applications but they just have no good rules for use. Vibrocannon is a possible exception against guard in its current form, as you automaticly score a glancing hit thus many shaken/stunned results can neutralise a big portion of their army per shot should you actually get to fire. As they don't require LOS to fire that's even better.

Does anyone else see a way to make them worth their points? They aren't going away, like I said before, they just got new models. We're very obviously stuck with them for at least another edition. Let's make them worthwhile for once then.

Post 2;

Ok so for my own satisfaction I think I've got a working list of necessary improvements to Support platform units.

Increase the ranges on all weapons.
Increase the stats on crewmen OR allow more crewmen OR allow these weapons to be granted to Guardian squads
Modify shadow-weavers to have doomweaver characteristics
Modify D-cannon to be more effective against vehicles

Not that many changes. There are obviously going to be a lot of suggestions for a unit that is used often. Support platforms are not one of those units.

And that's why we're doing these threads.

Swooping hawks, the complete edition

From thread: http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/eldar/205849-repairing-our-codex-one-unit-time-part-iii.html

Post 1;

Today's unit to hit the spotlight is the Swooping Hawk. Yes. *that* one.

What is there to say? This is potentially the single least used unit in our current codex. Like the Shining Spear, this unit is situational, poorly defined, has counter-intuitive stats to it's suggested role and is otherwise a very poor use of 21pts.

Let's break down what the unit is designed for. How well it does it, and what it needs to improve.

The unit is a jump-pack, anti-horde, shooting focused GEQ. It possesses anti-tank grenades, much to the confusion of every human being alive.
Well you can't really argue with jump-packs. They're fine. Good maneuverability. The unit does possess a metric ton of shots at very acceptable range. The haywire grenade is also a nice addition that makes the unit a bit more flexible. These guys can really ruin someones day.
Unfortunately this is where problems begin to emerge. Because the unit gets a bonus attack on deepstriking, it's very tempting to use. Unfortunately under 5e rules this bonus attack scatters, and is also rather weak. Then the unit itself scatters. Joy, now they're twice as unreliable. The number of shots these guys put out is impressive for the range.. but only because of the range. The shots themselves are weak, but arguably sufficient in their role. Until you remember that they have to roll to hit first. So on raw mathematics alone, a full squad of 10 Swooping hawks kills an average of 6 IG guardsman a turn. It then takes up to 24 shots in return. Not very efficient. For these guys to do their job better, they need at least guide. Lastly you have the haywire grenade, which would be perfect if these guys actually ever got to assault a tank.

So a couple of quick fixes are in order. Without making adjustments to the units points, and remembering these guys are specialists some simple ideas come to mind.

Hawks scatter only 6" after arriving from deepstrike. Similarly their grenades only scatter 6". Give hawks a shorter ranged, but more powerful gun. 18" assault 3. Finally, to facilitate the use of haywires properly, Hawks may fleet&charge after deepstriking.

Bam. Now they're instantly better, through only a few small adjustments.

What does everyone else think?

Post 2;

because in 40k today 24" is the range where you get a heavy flamer in your head and you die..... 24" is close range now

Yea but he meant like.. for example swooping hawks had 12" s3 assault 4 weapon. Deepstrike 6", unload 40 shots, skyleap. They're never actually meant to get hurt.

Post 3;

Eh. It's been said before, and I'll say it again. I wouldn't really care if Hawks were given the golden handshake. They "kind of" have a purpose, but you can see they were obviously much more useful during 4th edition back when vehicle rules were crap and there were more big ork foot lists.

Post 4;

What about just making hawks ignore cover? - MrBenis

That'd be cute but then you have an AP 5 weapon that ignores cover that's strenth 3 for some reason I still dont like those odds. then again that would make them light infantry superkillers. - fombat

Post 5;

Well this thread kind of went how I expected. Hawks are an unpopular unit.

Popular suggestions seemed to be
Improve haywire grenades to pen on 5 & 6.
Give hawks more shots
Reduce their scatter from deepstrike
Ability to assault after deepstriking

Undiscussed options were increasing their armour save. Which I don't think is entirely necessary, but it's an option.

Post 6;

That said, ignoring cover saves-- even as an expensive exarch power--is too much. Maybe forcing a re-roll on successful cover saves would be reasonable though.

That seems like a reasonable compromise. I theory these guys are flying around, shooting down onto units. In theory, noone is getting coversaves unless they're in a forest or building.

Shining spears, the complete edition

Taken from here: http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/eldar/205782-repairing-our-codex-one-unit-time-part-ii.html

Post 1;

Our next unit to face the axe-head is Shining Spears.

I will be the first to admit that I wouldn't shed a tear if these guys were replaced by some completely different unit in the future. These guys are almost embarassingly bad for how much they cost. Since forgeworld mentioned they were in the process of creating TWO new aspects, we may very well see a jumppack melee unit emerge that will completely marginalise Shining Spears as we know them, ending with a final nail in the coffin.

But being the completionist I am (as well as an insomniac, it's 2.30pm and I've been awake since 10am yesterday) I will have to give them their dues.

Shining spears are IMO equipped with weapons that are too short range, much too low strength, they're too slow and have no staying power. Once they complete their charge they can jump 6" away, right? Only if they win, and even then, everything may charge at minimum 12" so you're boned right away.

So before I offer any changes, let's identify what they're meant to be. MC killers? Retard-level antitank? It seems like that's the case. Their initiative is too low to threaten HQ's and they don't have anywhere near enough attacks to handle any squad larger than 10 enemies.

Changes I propose are; they may charge after turbo boosting. Exarch gives them furious charge USR. Their assault phase movement feint is always 2d6". Strength of laser lance is now S7 AP3, star lance becomes s9 Ap1. Laser/Starlance are now 9" range weapons.

Exarch may equip a "D-bomb". The D-bomb is an s6+2d6 grenade which functions like a melta-bomb except that it ignores any rules that prevent the bomb from rolling +2d6. D-bombs cost 30pts and may only be used once per game. They add +2 to rolls on the damage chart.

I think that would make them pretty good actually. Maybe increase max squad size to 10?

Post 2;

I think that the unit is meant to be more of an anti MEQ close combat unit. The real problem I find with them though is that they just can't get the numbers to favour them enough in combat and with their high point cost and small unit size they will just slowly get eaten away by that hidden Power Fist in a Tactical Squad.

I disagree. Banshees were clearly designed to deal with MEQs and terminator-analogues. Banshees are given powerweapons but fail to be compelling against enemy HQ units, therefore making their target the next juiciest one down. On the other hand, shining spears have a s6 power weapons on the charge. That's double the strength of a banshee. There are arguments for both cases which are very good, but not all of them address the simple point that if you destroy an enemy unit on the turn you charge, you're open to all surrounding units shooting. Not to mention someone using 200+ pts of tactical marines or whatever to bait ~230 worth of jetbikes isn't a good exchange. Especially when you use the 7-turn economic theory. SSpears striking at s6 was meant to represent attacking things like mephiston, carnifex, necron destroyers, warboss etc. Low model count, MC toughness creatures with multiple wounds. Preferably with a low invulnerable save thus giving you the option to exarch-withdraw and get so safety should the target not die outright.

My solution to fixing this is first to help to give them enough punch to eat through a Marine Squad (or at least do some serious damage). This can be done either by giving the Shining Spears an extra attack each, or boosting their Weapon Skill to 5 so that they will be able to hit most opponents on a 3+.

Depending on how the codex grand-reformation occurs, you might find the public at large in favour of giving all shooting centric aspects +1bs and all melee focussed aspects +1ws. Here you might get your wish. I wouldn't count on an extra attack though. Otherwise a squad of 5 guys is putting out 16 s6/8 attacks which is more than 3 wraithlords + avatar make.

The second fix is to try and make them a little less vulnerable to those hidden Power fists that have become oh so common. A 5+ invulnerable save on the turn might do the trick. Fluff wise it could be justified by the speed unit will reach when crashing into combat.

The best I can say is that you expect to take 1 or 2 losses, then leave the unit open for being killed by shooting attacks whicle the spears charge a different unit altogether. Fulfills the condition I spoke about above and maximises the use of their kinda measly attacks.

These changes won't make Shinging Spears a great unit, but hopefully they can at least make them worth taking.

Post 3;

wow looks like I nerfed myself the one time i ever used shining spears then... completely did not remember the power weapons on the charge part *slaps self* thanks for pointing that out!

The biggest problem is the volume of attacks. You are paying about the same for 5 spears as you do for 10 tactical marines. 5 spears cannot do long distance shooting, and are an elite unit compared to the marines being a troops choice. Therefore the 5 bikes should be able to win an assault against 10 marines. Thats the benchmark. They just dont have enough attacks when you lose so many dice trying to hit WS4 enemies and you ARE going to roll 1's to wound as well. An extra attack and always having power weapons, only getting the strength bonus on the charge perhaps?

Which is where a farseer comes in, but that's a discussion for another time.. If autarchs granted preferred enemy to any squad they joined then that might work, since they can also take a laserlance AND powerweapon. Like I said above, I don't consider Spears to be MEQ killers in any sense. That being said, one of my proposals was to lift unit limits to 10 models a squad, which very definitely would give you MEQ killing powers, at the expense of nearly 450pts or so. At which point a seer council becomes a better option in almost all scenarios.

Post 4;

Fixes for Shining Spears first off the spears special rule is on 24/7 instead of the first round of combat,

I'm not sure I know why people want this. It's an inbuilt penalty system for poor decision making. Exactly the same as rolling psyker tests under a hood.

hit and run comes in for free,

Perhaps. If anything getting it for free would mean dividing the powers cost amongst the units minimum squad size. Suppose we leave it at 3. Now you have 42pt Spears. They retain hit&run regardless of there being an exarch, but they need to fork out for it somewhere.

points drop to no more then 25,

As I wrote up top it would be preferable not to change point values for units if possible. Once you start screwing around with a units cost, it throws off the original aim of improving the units stats. Why make a unit of spears cheaper if it's still a sub-par choice with no clear role that it can't perform effectively?

range of the lance goes 12" and AP 3.

AP3 yes. 12".. will need some justification. I'd like you to present a reasoned argument in favour of changes you propose.

I would to see them more as TEQ and high T killers instead of AT.
Well that's an acceptable goal.. but why give them AP3 if they're intended to kill things with an armour save of 2+... things that generally excel in melee and use powerfists?

I am trying to imagine in my head what a 25pt jetbike with a 12" s6 ap3 gun that counts as a s6 powerweapon in melee, that has hit&run as a base feature would look like.

The expressions of horror on any marine players face would be priceless, every time.

Post 5;

I would rather warlocks have their weapons count as force-weapons or something than give shining spears poisoned weapons. From where I'm sitting warlocks were never meant to become what they did. Warlocks on bikes are your heavyflamer option for dealing with tough hordes of Nobs etc.

Shining spears as I must have said a half dozen times by now, appear to be designed to fight MCs. And possibly dreadnoughts.

Post 6;

So this thread in summary seems a bit funny but this is what we've got so far as the most popular suggestions.

Lances in CC count as powerweapons permanently.
+2 attacks on the charge.
Shooting attacks are now AP3.
Give them a movement bonus. Somewhere.
Increase the strength of laser lance to at least S7
Add a fly-by attack/status-effect mechanic?

Based on what I've seen. Now we debate the points an a case by case basis. Remember people the objective is to make a unit that's worth the 35pts we pay. Generally speaking, reducing the points of the unit will still not address it's weaknesses, just make them easier to fit in.

Guardians, the complete edition

Taken from; http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/eldar/205745-repairing-our-codex-one-unit-time.html

Post 1;

IMO the guardians biggest fault is that it is an overpriced IG guardsman, with inferior weaponry. Guardians offer very little to a convential Eldar army, beyond being 8pt, wussy scorpions-analogues for when all your elite slots are already occupied.

IMO we can fix the guardian by raising his bs/ws both to 4. Just having guardians being slightly more reliable in combat (3+ to hit) would improve their viability.

Post 2;

Infact, in lieu of making guardians ws/bs 4/4 I'd be happy with making their catapults 18", and leaving dire avenger catapults unmodified. 8pts for a guardian, 12 for a DA. Is the +1 BS +1 ld +1I 4+Sv of a direavenger worth the 4pt difference?

17% more chance to hit, 17% more chance to survive an attack for a DA. Ergo, you maintain a noticeable distinction between Guardians and DA without forcing DA to become elites. Guardian defenders can take heavy weapons, DA get exarchs+powers.

Post 3;

The difference being that IG stand on their own without orders. Eldar units almost *need* a farseer as a crutch for their units, simply because we are limited to 5 or 10 for an aspect squad, and said aspect squad has weaponry/stats only on the grounds of equivalent to spacemarines. In exchange for approaching the glory of Ultramarines and their illustrious primarch (whom our eldar brethren have yet to accept as their spiritual liege [curses!!!]) we get worse S, T, Sv, and the only thing which can carry a special weapon in most cases are the exarch sergeants. Most of these ultraspecialised units also cost equivalent to a His Holiests Finest Mighty Imperial Space Marine, in most cases.

There is literally nothing stopping an IG or spacemarine army from outspecialising your typical eldar army. For less.

THe biggest inhibitor to an eldar army is (and I quote)

This is just a mild annoyance most of the time , play a runepriest/Njal spam army sometime and you may realize how utterly on powers many of our units are, which is not as it should be.

Currently my biggest pet peeve has to be the cost/rules for most eldar heavy weps and the fact that its on a bs3 delivery most of the time.

I have not used a brightlance in fifth , they were overpriced in fourth but since the damage chart changes they are now shorter ranged, less accurate and weaker on the majority of targets and nearly twice the price of lascannon, so much for eldar technological superiority. if given the choice of a plasma cannon (imperial) or starcannon I would take the imperial weapon every time , in-fact except from the scatter laser all of the eldar weps are either worse than the imperial equivalent or where they are roughly comparable hugely overpriced.

Also the eldar heavy weaps being overpriced could be attributed to the assumption that they will somehow always be guided at a doomed target .....never mind the fact that you have to buy a farseer for a not inconsiderable amount of points to potentially be able to do it.

If we gave storm guardians plasma and defensive grenades, would that make them better? What about the option for 1 power weapon per 5 models, at +5pts each?

Post 4;

Ok so a summary of the most popular list of changes. In future I will be sure to specify the additional condition of not adjusting the cost of the unit itself for each model.

Add a real sergeant to the squad.
Allow multiple heavy weapons.
Modify shuriken catapults to at least 18".
Lower min# of units for a squad to 5.
Reduce heavy weapon costs by minimum 5 pts.
Give Guardians grenades.
Storm guardians specificly need at least assault grenades.
Allow SG's access to sergeant.

My final thoughts on this thread are to give SG's the powerweapon/shimmershield combo from direavengers. I feel it's more appropriately placed in a SG squad than in a predominantly GEQ killer shooty squad. What DA replace it with will be covered when we do that thread.

C&C on revised list necessary. From now on, challenge only one change, and propose only one change.

Post 5;

For the sake of argument, the sleeve mounted forcefield you see is present on autarch models and Yriel. The principle operation is not unique. A Guardian Sergeant could very easily be justified as possessing a 5++ that only triggers in melee. It doesn't necessarily mean removing it from DireAvengers at present, but maybe improving the DA version as right now everyone takes doublecata in lieu of anything else... which pretty simply suggests there's a principle shortfall in the other options.

Shadow spectres, part 1

From here: http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/eldar/206416-new-forgeworld-pre-order-shadow-spectes-warp-hunter.html

Post 1;

I somehow see myself using the haywire launcher for the exarch. Also, I think prism lance could do with being small blast, and ghost light being large blast. THEN they would be reaaaaally scary.

Post 2;

You're thinking in terms of a squad of 5 when a squad of 3 is just as effective, smaller ergo harder to hit, cheaper and only 1 less strength.

Personally since they're a permission-for-use unit I'll just ask my opponent if I can field them as a fast attack option. Simplify things for everyone. They really should not be in HS or elites. We need more core troops/FA desperately.

Post 3;

Highly depends.. bonus FDs have is multiple +2d6 shots.. negative is needing to get close enough to do that.
Spectres have range on their side, and are basically a multi-wound fireprism with an invulnerable save (fortune up lol... 75% survival armour save and 50% survival rate invl) but are kinda iffy deployment and a bit slow.

In thinking of their deployment.. the prevalence of things to now ignore the mishap table or have reduced scatter might be either a cure to the symptom of 5e (lots more terrain everywhere) or a sign of what 6e will hold (generally more reliable deployment options, lots more LOS blocking terrain).

Post 4;

No it doesn't matter. So long as ghostlight is used then the shot counts as a lance hit. So an exarch with special cannon +2 guys is a 36" s9Ap2 hit that that can reroll shots.

Now let's see.. that altogether costs 3x35+12+10+15=142. To get the same from a fireprism you'd need the fireprism as a base + a farseer who has guide. So that's 200 minimum, more for gadgets. Then you have the logisitical issues of having a farseer to babysit a fireprism, the fact that guide only rerolls the scatter dice, not the distance scattered (so if your shot scatters 7" and you go for reroll there's only a 33% chance it will successfully hit, or combined total 53% chance to direct hit) but also the fact that a fireprism can be destroyed outright by S7 hit. And it's a bigger target. And it won't get coversaves most of the time. And it has no invulnerable save.

As flickerfields are demonstrating a 5+ invulnerable is PRICELESS. With fortune rerolling that value goes up even higher.

Post 5;

I don't think you'd want to run a warphunter tandem to a nightspinner. I've got a thought surfacing here...

Ok so if you run a nightspinner you are intending to control movement. If you run a warphunter you are intending for maximum killing power over a given area or against a given target.
So really it's the tank you choose that determines how the spectres are used, or if they're even used at all.

Nightspinner: Perfect combo for spectres. Controlling movement of large-tanks and/or their contents is invaluable. The nightspinner exists to protect the spectres from assault squads. The nightspinner dual purposes by pinning transports in place to that spectres can get the side-armour shot.

In my mind spectres are like a fireprism for a given number of models. As I explained earlier in the thread, for 3 models you get a s9 lance that rerolls. You'd need another 60-90pts for the same from a prism.

Warphunter: The warphunter is the opposite to the nightspinner. Since you aren't gaining any control over your opponents movement your top priority becomes maximising the number of times you can fire that flamer template. For this I would run a warp hunter with either 2 squads of warwalkers, or 2 fireprisms. Multiple targets with similar threat thresholds means that your opponent will be sinking shots into units he can't really prioritise that well. Running a warphunter behind a pair of waveserpents would be pretty clever as well since LOS becomes an issue, warphunter cracks open the rhinos (or whatever) and then your waveserpents dump their hot gooey loads all over their contents.

That's the gist of it anyway.

Hello and hello.

This blog is a collection of my thoughts on various forums, a means to collect the voluminous amounts of data my brain processes daily while I argue with people on the internet.