Craftworld Eldar in the rumormill

[Gamgee]

Oh I think we know the Eldar could hypothetically end up balanced, but I could also win the lottery tomorrow six consecutive times. If the codex is balanced then no need for any of this, but I'm preparing for the worst.

If it's as broken as anticipated then I'm fully serious. All too serious. Me and several others across many forums. Which could quickly become many many... disappointed others. Already talk of banning ranged D weapons in tournaments.

[Lost Vyper]

The Eldar Codex has now become so overpowered in relation to every other codex that it's at risk of completely breaking any sort of fairness or competitive spirit. We're beyond needing some nerfs. This is full blown nerf nuke time. Until that happens all I can say is turn down every Eldar player you can.

[Mr Mystery]

Oh I think we know the Eldar could hypothetically end up balanced, but I could also win the lottery tomorrow six consecutive times. If the codex is balanced then no need for any of this, but I'm preparing for the worst.

If it's as broken as anticipated then I'm fully serious. All too serious. Me and several others across many forums. Which could quickly become many many... disappointed others. Already talk of banning ranged D weapons in tournaments.

Most of which have a 12" range, yes?

That's really quite easy to keep outside of. And they'll need a Waveserpent Taxi to get into range in the first place, further adding to the points required to field them in significant quantities - as well as limiting the overall squad size.

Yes, SD is incredibly nasty. Very, very nasty. But only against really big stuff - stuff which should be able to avoid it as necessary. To an infantryman, being shot in the moosh by SD is little different to being gibbed by a Krak Missile - it's still pretty much a 2+ for your opponent to decorate the nearest wall in a pleasing shade of brain.

[ShadowcatX]

Oh I think we know the Eldar could hypothetically end up balanced, but I could also win the lottery tomorrow six consecutive times. If the codex is balanced then no need for any of this, but I'm preparing for the worst.

If it's as broken as anticipated then I'm fully serious. All too serious. Me and several others across many forums. Which could quickly become many many... disappointed others. Already talk of banning ranged D weapons in tournaments.

You're not being prepared, you're being a baby. You are crying over a codex with 1 unit entry known. Seriously, 1 entry.

And back when you had to field an Imperial model to get strength D weapons, they were fine. But now that they are in xenos hands you want people to deny us games? But that's alright, cry marine player, cry We will drink your tears and then get games with adults.

[Mr Mystery]

Just thinking more about it - who is genuinely affected by lots of SD weapons?

Nids are probably a bit concerned, as the resilience of their biggest bugs goes down the pan at that point. Funny as it might be on occasion, having your Carnifex single shotted would get dull fairly quickly. But then, they have lots (and lots) of little bugs, who if kept within synapse can tie up those 'orrible units more or less indefinitely, and at the very least provide a handy cover save.

Again, I cannot stress enough the limitation the most common wraith weapon has - a 12" range, and Assault 1. That's stupendously short ranged. Hideously so. To really get them into play, they'll be wanting a Waveserpent, limiting their squad size to 5 (or is it 6? Can't properly recall). Which sounds great, except it's further expense, and it still needs to get close to their intended target to drop them off in-range. Because if they're not in range when deployed (I can see your rear armour......) your choice target will either stomp them in combat (Nids, Greater Daemons) because the risk of Snapshots is nothing compared to letting them chase you, nick off (tanks), or blow them to bits (Battle Cannons and supporting infantry type stuff).

And if an opponent takes no steps to make the most of your short ranged Wraithcannon? That's not the fault of the Eldar Codex.

[-Tom-]

I'm not going to play Eldar players at all until this codex is fixed. I encourage everyone to turn down all Eldar players. It doesn't matter how much or how little they cheese. We need to send a message to Games Workshop. We aren't going to tollerate a codex this blatantly broken and overpowered. The more we rally togeather and put an end to this the swifter we can be rid of this obsenity.

I'm not sure how this will send a message to GW? I for one certainly don't pass on a record of games I play.

Obviously, as has always been the case, you're entitled to play, or not play, anyone you want. Unless you're at a tournament I suppose and then will be in a position of playing who you get drawn to play against, or who you need to play based on score/rankings.

Sure, there's probably going to be something overpowered coming from the new codex, because that's generally what happens. Someone finds a new trick and then it takes people a while to work out how to counter it. Eventually the competitive meta shifts.

I'm remembering a game I played against a friend when Escalation first came out. He wanted to try out taking a Stompa in a 1500 point game. He crammed a load of Mekboys into it, and had grots as his units, so it wasn't even an 'unbound' list. This was before 7th Ed, and was a fully legal list. The Mekboys could repair the Stompa each round for more Hull points than I could possibly take off it. It could fire an apocalyptic blast template (so it didn't even really matter that much if it scattered a bit, chances are it would still hit). It had a stomp attack, and the Strength D CC weapon. I had a Wraithknight with 2 Heavy wraithcannons, a unit of 7 rangers (to hopefully be able to grab objectives with), a fire prism and a couple of guardian units with antigrav platforms in wave serpents. Now, I got overly lucky with 6s on his first turn, as he aimed to obliterate the rangers with the massive template. For their 2-up or 3-up cover saves I rolled 7 6's. After that, the dice gods felt the need to redress the balance and on my first turn, lots of 1's were rolled. All the damage I did to the stompa was then repaired in his next turn and at that point I started to lose units. I was tabled by turn 3, and thanks to the Mekboys the stompa was probably in better condition at the end of the game than at the start. It was fully repaired to full hull points, and they probably even had time to install fancy TVs in the back of all the headrests.

Now, we started off that game with it being a "let's see how horrible this is" mentality. It wasn't like he just sprung it on me. It was horrible, and it would have been a bit of a dick move to just spring that list on anyone. That said, it's an allowable list so I don't see any reason to not take that to a 1500pt tournament that allowed Lords of War. Should we advocate not playing against Orks in 1500pt games to get a message out to GW?

So, based on my experience in that game, personally, I like the idea of Eldar getting some D weapons. I've not seen the codex itself, I don't know how points costs will be affected, or what exactly the rules will be. Like others, I've looked at some leaked photos of snippets from WD which give a bit of a 'gist', and there's maybe newer photos that I've not seen.

Flavour-wise it kind of feels right that Distortion weapons / Wraithcannons have some link to being 'Strength D'. They're meant to be some of the most hideously destructive weapons in the 40k universe. Under the basis that they're tearing chunks out of things and pulling them into the warp, I think you ought to be justifying why to NOT have them as D weapons. Especially as other armies have D weapons creeping into their normal codex entries, I definitely welcome a move to have at least some in the Eldar codex too. Most the time, as Mystery said, it's irrelevant - it doesn't matter to your T3 guardsman, or even a T4 space marine, or for that matter, even a T5 SM character or demon prince, if they get hit by a S10 heavy wraithcannon shot or a SD shot. It's instant death anyway until the target is T6+. Even then, on a wound roll of 6, it's still instant death with the current rules. The only thing it will really make much of a change against is going against superheavies or gargantuan creatures.

Now, I'm speculating, but what if for D-scythes or small Wraithcannons like the Wraithguard have the rule comes in to replace the 'Distort' rule that is in the current codex, so that on a To Wound roll of 6, the weapon counts as strength D rather than just having the Instant Death rule? Maybe this has already been ruled out as to how it could be working and I'm forgetting something, or not seen some info.

[Charon]

Now, I'm speculating, but what if for D-scythes or small Wraithcannons like the Wraithguard have the rule comes in to replace the 'Distort' rule that is in the current codex, so that on a To Wound roll of 6, the weapon counts as strength D rather than just having the Instant Death rule?

Would be pretty clunky.
You first roll to hit, then you roll to wound/pen and then on a 6 you roll on a table again to have your wound/pen cancelled to "Luck! No damage this time" ?

[-Tom-]

Would be pretty clunky.
You first roll to hit, then you roll to wound/pen and then on a 6 you roll on a table again to have your wound/pen cancelled to "Luck! No damage this time" ?

Fair point.

Could be on a 'to hit' roll of 6 that it goes to D table instead then perhaps, but again, pure speculation about what would make it not just D all the time and therefore less of a change. However, my main point was really just to wait until the codex actually comes out before having **** fits guessing what rules and costs will be.

Edit: That 'to-hit' would be for small wraith cannons, not d-scythes, as Mystery points out. Might even just be re-wording of current distort rule that makes them more like D weapons vs super heavies rather than revert to D table under x criteria.

[Mr Mystery]

Trouble there, is template and blast weapons don't roll to hit

[StingrayP226]

I'm not going to play Eldar players at all until this codex is fixed. I encourage everyone to turn down all Eldar players. It doesn't matter how much or how little they cheese. We need to send a message to Games Workshop. We aren't going to tollerate a codex this blatantly broken and overpowered. The more we rally togeather and put an end to this the swifter we can be rid of this obsenity.

So your saying as a potential new player who has picked Eldar due to Lore/looks I should be punished and never allowed to play my army of choice, or worse the player who has invested $1000+ into their army that they love.

Instead we are forced to buy a new army simply because this one is too OP... even if we don't use the OP units we are to be shunned.

Well if this does happen (which it will not) I will not touch 40k with a 100 foot pole. Nope instead I will focus on other games where I can play the army I picked on looks/lore. This is the worse suggestion I've ever heard...

If you do not like the direction GW is going then YOU should quit the game instead of trying to punish others for not playing your list of "OK to play" armies.