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.