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Author Topic: Hey eldar, how is it going?  (Read 3452 times)

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Offline mikesusername

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Hey eldar, how is it going?
« on: August 17, 2018, 03:04:30 PM »
My question is this. As a competitve* strategy game how has the game changed since 7th? specifically how do the eldar play since 7th and their new codex release.  my take so far is that the game seems to revolve around getting a big buble augment effect(s) and then capitalizing on them.  Is terrain important? how important?  where are the big tactical choices in the game?  what do competitive lists look like? for eldar? for others? what does competitve play look like (in general obviously)?  How has the change to AP, damage, and to hit rules changed meta list building? 

I don't expect to get back into 40k until 9th edition (Ive been playing from 2nd to 7th), whenever that is, but I am intrested in where the game has gone and how my eldar peers are doing. 

To clairify I am vaguely familiar with 8th ed, i just havent played it more than a handfull of times around when it came out.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2018, 03:06:05 PM by mikesusername »

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #1 on: August 17, 2018, 05:02:01 PM »
Probably one of the bigger changes is the removal of AV. With everything operating on toughness and vehicles having 10+ wounds, certain strategies that used to work (like using S6 shots on rear/side armor to take down vehicles) don't work any more. Many guns that used to rely on high strength now also deal multiple damage. With AP being modifier-based rather than threshold-based, most terminators are now considered bad- 2+ armor is still nice, but when a Heavy Bolter's AP actually does something against 2+ armor instead of nothing, 2+ armor is a lot worse.

Changes to reserves also are significant.

In the ITC format, the best modern Eldar lists with many Craftworlds units tend to focus on one of two things. Either stacking buffs and bonuses on a large unit, or using many fliers.

The typical buff stacking list looks something like this:

Patrol of Ynnari
Yvraine
20 Guardians (Ulthwe)
9 Shining Spears (Saim-Hann)
(sometimes a second squad of 9 Shining Spears) (Saim-Hann)
9 Dark Reapers (Alaitoc)

Battalion of Alaitoc
Farseer or Farseer Jetbiker
Warlock Jetbiker or Spiritseer
3x5 Rangers
2 Wave Serpents

Additionally, perhaps a supreme command with more psychic support

The craftworld keywords in the ynnari detachment matter for stratagems (Guardians and Spears) or for getting inside transports (Dark Reapers). The Eldar player with this list will tend to use several spells on a Shining Spears squad as well as the Warrior of the Raging Winds stratagem to get off a fast, early charge with them and devastate the enemy lines. With the Soulburst mechanic, the damage output of a large, appropriately buffed unit is excellent. Shining Spears are fast, good at shooting, and good at fighting, so they can benefit from any form of Soulburst. The Dark Reapers are generally just excellent.

A pure Craftworlds list tends to rely on mobility and vehicles and negative hit modifiers these days. The highest ranked Craftworlds list at BAO was something like:

Alaitoc
Air Wing: 3 Hemlocks
Air Wing: 3 Crimson Hunter Exarchs
Battalion: Farseer, Illic Nightspear, 3x5 Rangers, 2 Wave Serpents

Or something like that. Presents the enemy with no good shooting options.

--

Eldar isn't much for bubbles, but we have directed buffs that can be used together.

Terrain is hugely important, particularly LoS blocking terrain, this edition. If you don't have enough, which armies are good changes a lot.

A lot of swarmy lists are considered good this edition, but paradoxically, Imperial Knights are also excellent.

The current king of the meta is the concept of "soup" - basically, the allies system is almost completely unbound. An example of a competitive imperium list might include a couple Imperial Knights, some Blood Angel Captains, and an Imperial Guard battalion. Souping different allied factions together lets them cover each other's weaknesses and makes Imperials, Chaos, and Eldar much stronger.
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Offline Rhyleth

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #2 on: September 8, 2018, 09:33:13 PM »
Can't speak to changes since 7th since I played from late RT to the very earliest part of 5th - and mostly played 4th - until returning in 8th, but as to specific questions:

My question is this. As a competitve* strategy game how has the game changed since 7th? specifically how do the eldar play since 7th and their new codex release.

I like the way they play a lot - they feel a lot more 'Eldar' with the Codex than with the Index rules, with their mobility and firepower somewhat restored and the best non-special character psychic powers in the game. Having said that I have not been having a great deal of success.

In large part that's because of significant play choices rather than the usual 40k issue of 'who rolls best, wins', which is welcome. The downside is that some of those play choices are a case of not being aware how to game the rules (such as the 'multiple charge' system and need to keep units widely separated from one another to avoid getting them caught in combat unable to fire when they neither charge nor were charged and yes issues being unfamiliar with specific auras), rather than truly tactical decisions.

Oddly, given that the ruleset is essentially identical to Age of Sigmar which is (presumably) a close-range game, the assault and melee rules are especially poorly thought-through and open to unnecessary exploits (such as charging past an intervening unit with the ridiculous notion that a solitary model can simultaneously charge two units, and completely bypass the first - negating a whole area of tactical positioning to keep ranged units from harm present in earlier games).

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my take so far is that the game seems to revolve around getting a big buble augment effect(s) and then capitalizing on them.

That's more significant for some armies than others (I lost a game today in large part because of the Shadowseer aura nullifying most of my attacks), but in fairness this has always been the case to a large degree.

Overall I'd say the most important aspect of the game - and the one where it's a big improvement over the versions I used to play - is correct use of command points and stratagems. You can basically think of 40k8 as a bad (and in a couple of areas terrible) core ruleset with an excellent tactics card system, rather than as a good game in its own right. Now that the Codices have nearly all been released the game plays much better than it did at release.

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Is terrain important? how important?

Broadly I'd say not particularly as far as defence vs. shooting (it now does nothing at all in assault), but then I play on relatively terrain-light boards (and with a mobile army that can obviously often avoid directional cover protecting enemies). It can be very effective at blocking LOS, though, as mentioned above. Terrain works very strangely in 40k8, in that it provides a save modifier rather than a to hit modifier. With the reinstatement of save modifiers, 40k8 has many of the problems that led to the system being removed in the first place: modifiers often make armour irrelevant, and the +1 from cover is therefore relatively marginal.

The corollary is that now invulnerable saves are absolutely everywhere, and frequently set at 4+ and above, which makes it much less punishing to simply stand about in the open than it otherwise would be. Remember how the change to the AP system in 40k3 meant that Marines didn't care in the slightest about cover since they ignored AP4 and 5 weapons that were the norm? Transpose that to basically every army that isn't Guard, Tau or (non-Harlequin) Eldar, and that's 40k8. Oh, and basically every army is also swimming in ways to give saves (usually 6+) against anything that bypasses armour anyway.

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where are the big tactical choices in the game?

How to use command points and what to target when shooting. That's basically it - so, a whole system (command points) more than 40k has offered in the past. 40k8 is not a game for especially serious tactical wargamers - but it's 40k, a game which never has been. Warhammer 40,000: standing across the board from the other guy and rolling dice at each other until someone's dead since 1987 (except 3rd Edition, where it was all about charging and rolling dice in melee until someone's dead).

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  what do competitive lists look like? for eldar?

What do competitive lists for Eldar look like? Dark.


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for others? what does competitve play look like (in general obviously)?

Knights and Imperial Soup, apparently. In 40k8 there are no longer major and subfactions - in place of 9 major armies with specific, essentially mutually exclusive subfactions like Marine Chapters, there are now upwards of 20, and rather minimal restrictions on how they can be mixed and matched. Basically anything belonging to the same race can ally with anyone else. So, for Eldar, for instance, it seems optimal lists are essentially Dark Eldar with attendant Dark Reapers and possibly Wave Serpents.

This is a fundamental mistake - word is that a fix may be incoming for the Imperial issue specifically, but the problem is with the concept and GW feels that people like mixing their factions together too much for them to be likely to ditch the system, as would be ideal.

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How has the change to AP, damage, and to hit rules changed meta list building? 

I don't know what the 7th Ed. meta was, but a change in the current beta rules - which will probably be official in the next Chapter Approved - restricts the number of units of a given type (to a maximum of 2 in typical tournament-style armies). Given 40k's tournament scene's infamous tendency towards 8 Dreadnought or all-Razorwing Flock armies (the latter not a thing in 4th but I've heard about it), this is likely the most significant overall change in years.

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Probably one of the bigger changes is the removal of AV.

I neglected this, but indeed it's huge - and probably especially for Eldar. The short of it is, Eldar are now far worse against tanks than they used to be. We still have very high-strength weapons, but these nearly all have damage 1 or (low) variable damage output - where before you could reliably take down a tank with a small number of fusion guns or heavier anti-tank weapons, in a world where main battle tanks have 14 wounds and prism cannon only deal D6 (same as a lascannon) at most per shot, most Eldar AT platforms are inefficiently priced relative to other races'. The new damage table is also not kind to the Eldar arsenal of S8-10 weaponry, as S10 wounds on the same rolls as S8 against most things (with 6-7 being the common toughness values for most tanks).

The new system does allow Eldar AP weaponry to do damage to vehicles, as low strength weapons with large numbers of shots, like lasblasters, can actually harm them in principle - and more importantly, with no distinction in the base rules between infantry and vehicles the assorted 'free' ways Eldar have to cause mortal wounds (psychic powers, Ranger longrifles, Hawk grenade packs, mandiblasters...) are all strong against vehicles. Which results in the oddity that Rangers can actually be anti-tank units.
« Last Edit: September 8, 2018, 10:10:42 PM by Rhyleth »

Offline magenb

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #3 on: September 9, 2018, 04:57:01 PM »
Alots changed, basically all the special rules have been pushed to the codexes, so very few universal special rules, so if you want to be competitive you better learn the other codexes.

Most of the tacticle game play has been stripped away, no firing arcs, LOS is from any part of the model to any part of the other model, so you get stupid things like turning a turrent to stick out from behind a wall, do a magic curve shot and then put the turrent back behind the wall again so you don't get shot. Deep strike has no down side, it is pin point accurate.

No templates, they now do a dice roll on the number of shots, except for flamers which do a dice roll for the number of autohits. This makes them brutal against most things in the game.

Twinlinked has gones, you just get extra shots, the sheer volkume of shots things put out now means stuff flies off the table, expecially if it doesn't have an invul save.

Mortal Wounds is new, most stuff doesn't get any save against them, regardless if your a massive titan or a firewarrior, so some armies will try and spam it. There are a few armies which do get saves against MW, like nurgle, they also get multiple saves, so armour save, then a feel no pain save against each point of damage.

Since Armour Values are gone now, everything has a toughness and an armour save. This means big things get lots of Wounds. To ocmpensate, heavy weapons generally do mutiple points of damageper unsaved shot.

You now have a command point system that lets you do some uber moves, but there are limits.

If you played towards the end of 7th where it was completely unbalanced, then you'll find there is more balance here.

Offline Rhyleth

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #4 on: September 9, 2018, 07:57:02 PM »
Alots changed, basically all the special rules have been pushed to the codexes, so very few universal special rules, so if you want to be competitive you better learn the other codexes.

Most of the tacticle game play has been stripped away, no firing arcs, LOS is from any part of the model to any part of the other model, so you get stupid things like turning a turrent to stick out from behind a wall, do a magic curve shot and then put the turrent back behind the wall again so you don't get shot.

I understand why they did this - like removing templates, it's a concession to competitive play where it was possible to argue over exactly where the LOS line is drawn/what is or is not under the template. In the case of the template system it also has the advantage that you no longer have people painstakingly ensuring that models are exactly as far as they can be from one another to minimise damage from blasts.

Still, the loss of fire arcs is unfortunate and they should at least bring them back for fliers - where it is usually obvious from the model where the weapons are and facing actually matters. It would help with balance if they could do the same for superheavies, given the issues with Knights, and those should have restrictions on where they can turn/face after movement as well.

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Deep strike has no down side, it is pin point accurate.

Similar issue, and also one that's welcome from a gameplay perspective. Unwelcome randomness in where you might land is of no value when determining tactical positioning, but does lead to a time consuming exercise of measuring exactly where you are relative to every board edge and piece of terrain or unit you could conceivably collide with.

The new rule that you can only deep strike in your deployment zone in turn 1 works pretty well (though if it had been there from the start, then units that should logically be excepted from it - such as Striking Scorpions and Lictors which, conceptually, are just revealing themselves after sneaking into forward positions ahead of the battle rather than actually deep striking - could have had exemptions in their rules) and I like the dynamic it adds. Do you hold the unit for later when it can be positioned better, or stick it in reserve so that it can evade enemy firepower on turn 1 if the opponent goes first but bring it in at the first opportunity to maximise the number of shots/attacks you get with it? Also, as deep strike happens at the end of the movement phase it's a relevant consideration for units that may want to assault or disembark whether.

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No templates, they now do a dice roll on the number of shots, except for flamers which do a dice roll for the number of autohits. This makes them brutal against most things in the game.

As above templates needed to go for sensible logistical reasons, but I do feel they could have found a better solution than one that makes most former blast weapons weak and flamers a bit too strong. It is a good way to represent grenades, though.

Maybe a rule that a missile launcher blast mode is Heavy 1 but for each hit you then roll an extra D6 autohits against the unit? If it misses it's assumed to scatter out of harm's way so there's no further damage.

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Twinlinked has gones, you just get extra shots, the sheer volkume of shots things put out now means stuff flies off the table, expecially if it doesn't have an invul save.

Which, however, nearly everything that people actually play does.

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Mortal Wounds is new, most stuff doesn't get any save against them, regardless if your a massive titan or a firewarrior, so some armies will try and spam it. There are a few armies which do get saves against MW, like nurgle, they also get multiple saves, so armour save, then a feel no pain save against each point of damage.

Seems most armies have some form of feel no pain save. It's the same arms race as in past editions of 40k - armour is effective so everything is given high AP. Armour then becomes so ineffective that everything needs invulnerable saves. Then the more ways you have to get through invulnerable saves, the more feel no pain saves are added.

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Since Armour Values are gone now, everything has a toughness and an armour save. This means big things get lots of Wounds. To ocmpensate, heavy weapons generally do mutiple points of damageper unsaved shot.

But, relatively speaking, far less damage than they would have previously. A basic AT weapon needs to roll a 6 to take out small open-topped skimmers, and it's not possible for things like lascannons to ever destroy a tank or Dreadnought in a single shot.
« Last Edit: September 9, 2018, 07:59:47 PM by Rhyleth »

Offline magenb

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #5 on: September 10, 2018, 10:22:59 PM »
You are using static models to represent a dynamic environment, its really not hard to work out LOS, you need to be able to see the torso or hull. The work around is that you now need big pieces of terrain to block LOS.

Deep striking mishaps and scattering represented weather conditions, electronic warfare, anti-air firepower, etc. Not only is it very thematic, but from a game play perspective what you are doing is powerful, so to balance it out there was some risk involved, ranging from simply being out of position to losing the entire unit. It really didn't take long to do deep striking units under the old rules, in fact, now that you have pre-measuring and pinpoint accuracy it has slowed that part of the game down.


With regards to saves vs mortal wounds some armies have an option as a race/army trait to get a 6+ save, where a few armies get a better or equal save straight out of the gate. They are trying trim this back in AOS, so I would expect to see update into 40k to stem that tide as well. Who would have thought being able to spam unsavable wounds would have been a problem lol..


Single AT weapons no longer take out a tank, but, a lot of AT weapons used to be twin-linked, so now you have multiple shots, you also have more stuff that can hurt tanks easier, like most infantry units can wound it on 5's (flip side is the tank gets an armour save) AND there is the degradation system on a lot of the tanky things, its a bit random on what degrades though.

The outcome is dreadnaught style things don't last long at all, most tanks still don't last very long. The previous edition where glancing tanks to death wasn't that great either.


There are things I like in 8th, love the battle card system for determining the objectives etc. I like how generally more thought has gone into how an army plays on the table vs the fluff. The command system is an interesting idea. Advancing in the movement phase just makes sense. There are a lot of things to like, but they haven't been balanced out very well.

The changes to blast templates is a tricky one, a roll to hit then having it cause Dx hits is not a bad option, the down side is it is easier to completely miss compared to both the existing method and the old scatter template system. You'll also notice GW is release games with templates again, not sure what to make of that.

The changes to flamers needs to be changed to something like Dx autohits up to the number of models in the unit being flamed. IT will stop the silliness of a single model being hit by 30+ autohits lol.


My group has been actively playing 8th and 5th, neither system is perfect, but you can start seeing why they used things like twin link and some random events like the mishap table, vehicle damage table, etc. While you can get that one lucky shot, on unbiased dice, its rare, so our tanks and dreads tend to last longer in 5th ed than they do in 8th. Infantry also last longer, while I don't like the cover mechanic (being harder to hit makes more sense than a saving through), it starts to make some sense in how the game is being balanced out.


We like playing both systems, but 5th just seems to produce closer games.

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #6 on: September 10, 2018, 11:19:49 PM »
I'm not going to get into the weeds of talking about 7th edition vs 8th edition differences. That discussion has been talked to death.

I play competitively, so I can speak towards that aspect.

Eldar, are probably one of the only factions which have been very good for multiple editions in a row. They have very solid units, and pretty much everything in the book is usuable. Standouts however, are farseers, dark reapers, shinning spears, wave serpents, and rangers.

I've also seen swooping hawks and guardians used quite a lot competitively too.

For best results, you can run eldar as ynnari, for very little downsides and huge bonuses. Ynnari-craftworlds consistently place in the top 3 in events. 

I think Dark Eldar is stronger however, and imperial soup is on par with ynnari eldar.

We have a big game changing Faq/errata coming this month or next, which may rattle things.
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Offline Rhyleth

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #7 on: September 12, 2018, 05:13:59 PM »
You are using static models to represent a dynamic environment, its really not hard to work out LOS, you need to be able to see the torso or hull. The work around is that you now need big pieces of terrain to block LOS.

The issue wasn't line of sight to a unit, it was arguments over where to draw fire arcs from - which is why fire arcs have now gone; maybe also part of the reason vehicle facings have. Not every GW vehicle is conveniently box-shaped, and there were stories of people modifying certain vehicle models in ways that could give them an advantage depending on how the rule was interpreted.

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Deep striking mishaps and scattering represented weather conditions, electronic warfare, anti-air firepower, etc.

The issue wasn't that it wasn't thematic, but that it wasn't good gameplay. As it is 40k is ultimately a game all about rolling dice at the other player more than it is a game of tactics, but it's evident that 40k8 was designed to be a more tournament-friendly system than it ever has been in the past, and actual tactical play demands a minimum of variance. Especially in unit positioning decisions.

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Not only is it very thematic, but from a game play perspective what you are doing is powerful, so to balance it out there was some risk involved, ranging from simply being out of position to losing the entire unit. It really didn't take long to do deep striking units under the old rules, in fact, now that you have pre-measuring and pinpoint accuracy it has slowed that part of the game down.

Possibly from the perspective of some general play, but I haven't experienced that and '9" from a table edge' is far quicker to measure than "more than 8" from any terrain piece of unit they could conceivably scatter into". Make no mistake - when it comes to competitive gaming that is the way it would be measured.


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Single AT weapons no longer take out a tank, but, a lot of AT weapons used to be twin-linked, so now you have multiple shots, you also have more stuff that can hurt tanks easier, like most infantry units can wound it on 5's (flip side is the tank gets an armour save) AND there is the degradation system on a lot of the tanky things, its a bit random on what degrades though.

Basic rule is that anything with 10 or more wounds that isn't a character degrades, but there is some variance in exactly how they degrade. Why don't fliers (at least Eldar fliers) suffer any degradation in their Attacks?

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The outcome is dreadnaught style things don't last long at all, most tanks still don't last very long. The previous edition where glancing tanks to death wasn't that great either.

I've only seen tanks die quickly to entire units with AT weapons - in one game, I took out a Predator turn 1 using an entire Reaper squad to do so, and in my last game a 6-bike Harlequin bike squad dealt exactly enough damage to kill my Wave Serpent with the full 6 haywire launchers. In my experience Dreadnoughts are easy to take down, but tanks are anything but fragile and light vehicles are tougher than they ought to be - you shouldn't need to get lucky to take out a Vyper or Sentinel with a lascannon-type weapon. The armour system was never ideal, but it's preferable to what we have now especially as units are almost fully functional until they're practically dead - the degradation tables are fairly generous.

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There are things I like in 8th, love the battle card system for determining the objectives etc. I like how generally more thought has gone into how an army plays on the table vs the fluff. The command system is an interesting idea. Advancing in the movement phase just makes sense. There are a lot of things to like, but they haven't been balanced out very well.

I pretty much only play Maelstrom of War missions because I love the objective system - though it's bitten me at least once as I've lost games to victory points that I would probably have won through damage in other mission types. The CP system is the game's true redeeming feature: as I say, I consider 40k8 a basically bad ruleset with a good tactics card system.

The biggest mechanical gripe I have (other than the loss of the morale system) is with the apparent reversion to a 3rd Ed. style assault phase and - with the loss of the Initiative stat - an unsatisfactory way to determine combat order. We're back to armies being able to race across the battlefield with exploits of the 3" 'pile-in' move that doesn't need to exist (certainly in addition to consolidation), there are no modifiers to Ld tests for winning/losing combat (which simply makes sense), no benefits of any kind for being in cover, randomly rolled charge distances instead of the standard double move of past editions, and overwatch is a free bonus rather than a tactical decision (similarly, there is no trade-off between advancing or shooting and charging - a unit can do it all in one turn), and no option exists to react to a charge by falling back (oddly this still exists in Kill-Team).

An exploit I only learned about in my last game is the idiotic multi-charge system, where you can screen a unit against assault (a reasonable and legitimate tactical play) but, if the unit is still within charge range, a charging unit can just 'multicharge' both units and run past the first one. This doesn't make either mechanical or flavour sense - especially when the charging unit consists of a single model that can apparently charge multiple targets simultaneously.

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The changes to blast templates is a tricky one, a roll to hit then having it cause Dx hits is not a bad option, the down side is it is easier to completely miss compared to both the existing method and the old scatter template system. You'll also notice GW is release games with templates again, not sure what to make of that.

Those are games that aren't aimed at being played competitively, so there's less incentive to 'game the system' - and are also, for the most part, trading on nostalgia. Nostalgia's the only obvious reason to play Necromunda over Kill-Team, for instance - even back when it was fresh Necromunda was a wildly popular game but not - when you got right down to it - a terribly good one. Now that I hear it uses the more abstracted 8th Edition rules for a 2nd Edition-scale game I don't imagine it's any better as a ruleset than the new version of Kill-Team, which uses similarly scale-inappropriate rules.

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The changes to flamers needs to be changed to something like Dx autohits up to the number of models in the unit being flamed. IT will stop the silliness of a single model being hit by 30+ autohits lol.

Yes, that would be reasonable - flamers ought to be anti-mass infantry, not AA weapons. And probably something should be done about how they function on overwatch (I say this speaking as someone who runs a Dragon's Breath flamer Exarch purely as overwatch defence).
« Last Edit: September 12, 2018, 05:22:40 PM by Rhyleth »

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #8 on: September 13, 2018, 02:05:03 AM »
I neglected this, but indeed it's huge - and probably especially for Eldar. The short of it is, Eldar are now far worse against tanks than they used to be.

This couldn't be further from truth. This is the first edition since 4th where Eldar are devastatingly good against tanks (whereas this area used to be their weakness in the past).


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We still have very high-strength weapons, but these nearly all have damage 1 or (low) variable damage output - where before you could reliably take down a tank with a small number of fusion guns or heavier anti-tank weapons, in a world where main battle tanks have 14 wounds and prism cannon only deal D6 (same as a lascannon) at most per shot, most Eldar AT platforms are inefficiently priced relative to other races'.

This sounds like a very strange statement - effectively, you evaluate Fire Prism and then extend the conclusion to all other AT platforms in the codex. The problem is, Fire Prism in particular is just crap, that is true. However, there are several other platforms which are awesome.

1. Lances and Pulse lasers are among the best AT weapons in the game now (whereas they used to be mediocre in the past). It is so because most vehicles are now T7, and Eldar S8 AT weaponry wounds them on 3+, with exellent AP.
2. The psy-power Doom, arguably the single best power in the game, now affects vehicles. This makes focussing a vehicle with long-range AT a breeze.
3. Shuriken weaponry couldn't wound most vehicles at all before; now an average tank is wounded by a shuricat on 5+, with a "6" being a -3AP wound.

In fact, I would say that in this edition the situation has turned around for the Eldar: in the past they used to be strong vs infantry and weak against vehicles; now they are stronger vs vehicles than vs infantry, and horde armies generally are more of a problem to deal with compared to mechanised or monster-heavy armies.

The most highly efficient AT platforms currently are:

1. Crimson Hunters
2. Dark Reapers
3. Hemlocks

Also, Shining Spears may not look like an AT unit, but in fact they are. With average dice, a unit of just 6 Spears can destroy a 12-wound T7 3+ vehicle on their own in 1 turn, provided they can move within 6" of the vehicle to shoot it with both shuricats and lances, and then assault it to finish the job in melee. Hell, given how tough and reliable Wave Serpents have become, even Fire Dragons can finally qualify as a good AT unit (something they last were in 4th).

The most important thing however is that pretty much every weapon in the army can wound a vehicle now, and with help of Doom it makes huge difference. Since our current codex was released, in my games I've been routinely destroying up to 2 heavy vehicles per turn - and taht's something that I could accomplish never before, not even in 7th when vehicles were rubbish.
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Offline magenb

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #9 on: September 13, 2018, 05:51:40 PM »
The only problem CWE faces against tanks in 8th is when its on mass and you didn't build for it, but that's most armies.


CWE being OK at AT since 4th.. hmm.. I don't see that in my 5th ed games. AT is spread through out the army. FD are a solid option and make it to just about every list but they are to go after the heavy tanks. A squad of war walkers with BL and Scat lasers are a good all round option. Warp spiders, waves and falcons are all fast enough to hit side or rear armour, so they can all chase light to mid tanks. A seer council hits at S9 in CC. Haywire grenades, from swooping hawk were soooo funny. Tanks across the board generally last longer in 5th than in 8th they tent to be able to fire less often though (stunned and/weapon destroyed results).


6th and 7th CWE got D strength weapons, scat bikes and tanks could be glanced to death, enemy tanks were just mobile cover lol.

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #10 on: September 13, 2018, 07:19:48 PM »
I neglected this, but indeed it's huge - and probably especially for Eldar. The short of it is, Eldar are now far worse against tanks than they used to be.

This couldn't be further from truth. This is the first edition since 4th where Eldar are devastatingly good against tanks (whereas this area used to be their weakness in the past).

As I noted at the start my point of comparison is 4th, so apologies if things changed between then and now - in terms of the editions I'm familiar with Eldar are worse than is typical vs. tanks, specialist units aside. The basic heavy weapon platforms - not just the Prism, but the Falcon, Wraithlord, Guardians etc. - have underperformed and War Walkers look unappealing as well. Vypers perhaps a bit better. Swooping Hawks are no longer a haywire platform and Warp Spiders don't shred light vehicles or anything they can hit from the rear like they used to (they still wound them on 4s, but a wound is no longer a chance to kill).

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This sounds like a very strange statement - effectively, you evaluate Fire Prism and then extend the conclusion to all other AT platforms in the codex. The problem is, Fire Prism in particular is just crap, that is true. However, there are several other platforms which are awesome.

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1. Lances and Pulse lasers are among the best AT weapons in the game now (whereas they used to be mediocre in the past). It is so because most vehicles are now T7, and Eldar S8 AT weaponry wounds them on 3+, with exellent AP.

I like pulse lasers but I don't particularly like their platforms - the FP may be an extreme example, but all Eldar vehicles other than the fliers, Vyper, Wave Serpent and perhaps the Wraithlord are underarmed for their price relative to alternatives in other armies (Fire Prism's about on a par with the Hammerhead, though). Lances, as ever, look as though they perform about the same as EMLs vs. vehicles. In my experience most things bigger than a Predator, and even many dreadnoughts, have invulnerable saves so the AP is largely irrelevant. Also, as I previously mentioned, Eldar AT weapons mostly have S8-10, making them generally as good at wounding or worse than they used to be - everything other than D-Scythes, D-Cannon and superheavies wound T6-7 on 3+, while in the past T10 would wound anything short of a Land Raider on 2-3+ (again, back in 4th-5th).

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2. The psy-power Doom, arguably the single best power in the game, now affects vehicles. This makes focussing a vehicle with long-range AT a breeze.

My point was the low damage output of Eldar weapons, not whether or not they could get through. Doom is as excellent as ever, for sure, but it doesn't solve that problem. Smite, however, I've found to be a big bonus, since the Eldar have such liberal access to psykers. The Eldar have little long-range AT other than Reapers, and what they have is expensive because Eldar tanks have 1-3 shots each with longrange AT weapons and none cost less than about 150pts. Their superheavy is underamed and apparently not viable, and the Forgeworld superheavy grav-tanks are also reportedly overcosted (I have a Scorpion but haven't tried it out).

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The most highly efficient AT platforms currently are:

1. Crimson Hunters
2. Dark Reapers
3. Hemlocks

I love both Reapers and Hemlocks, but I haven't had all that much success using the latter as an anti-tank unit. In my last game my Hemlock was in a very thematic game-long dogfight with a Voidraven; a lot of fun and it distracted the enemy flier from doing anything useful for the entire game, but 5 turns to kill something with the resilience of a medium tank is not exactly a record, especially since with its range the Hemlock is not going to have the luxury of taking repeated shots at most vehicles. It utterly wrecks Dreadnoughts, but I've found them fairly soft targets in general (I had a Dreadnought-heavy opponent who was surprised by this opinion prior to the game, so maybe this isn't typical of other armies).

I haven't yet finished assembling my Crimson Hunter - I'd understood from things I'd read on here and back-of-the-envelope stats that thanks to Smite the Hemlock is about as good vs. vehicles.

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Also, Shining Spears may not look like an AT unit, but in fact they are. With average dice, a unit of just 6 Spears can destroy a 12-wound T7 3+ vehicle on their own in 1 turn, provided they can move within 6" of the vehicle to shoot it with both shuricats and lances, and then assault it to finish the job in melee. Hell, given how tough and reliable Wave Serpents have become, even Fire Dragons can finally qualify as a good AT unit (something they last were in 4th).

I think we may have different metagame experiences here. Dreadnoughts go down easily and the one time I faced a Predator it went down on turn 1 - so far so much in line with what you describe, and with my experiences back in 4th and earlier. But I'm not facing main battle tanks in most of my games, I'm facing Knights, fliers, Venerable things with invulnerable saves and higher than typical Dread toughness, and skimmers and light transports such as Stormravens or Starweavers (or entire units of light vehicles like robots) in quantities that make them difficult to take down with 200-pt anti-tank platforms armed with 2-3 guns each, and can't be caught with infantry shuriken weapons. Most have some form of Feel No Pain save on top of that. Even Land Raiders have given me problems. That gives me a perspective that expensive heavy weapon platforms that deal 1-6 damage per wound and can expect to get 2 hits a turn are not the way to go.

As for Shining Spears, I anticipate that they will eventually be upgraded with the new bikes (I don't know why they didn't just make a Spear sprue for the Jetbike kit) and they cost a fortune to convert since you have to buy the whole Spear unit rather than just the metal/resin components. So I'm holding off on purchasing those.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2018, 09:54:01 PM by Rhyleth »

Offline Blazinghand

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #11 on: September 14, 2018, 04:10:35 AM »
A new sprue for the new jetbike kits would be pretty tricky. Almost nothing in the existing mold would work for it, so you'd need to make an entirely new one, which is pricey. It's a big up-front cost for what has, historically, been a bit of a specialist and rare unit.

Converting Shining Spears isn't that expensive if you go about it the right way. Just buy windriders, and use some bits you have lying around to make them look fancier and better-armored. Then, use some Silver Helm Knight arms, or Eternal Guard spears, and you have Shining Spears, ready to go.
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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #12 on: September 14, 2018, 11:44:27 PM »
As for the spears, I've been pulling the torso and lance arms off my old ones and hollow out the lower plastic legs and then assemble. If you don't have them I'm pretty sure you could pick up the bits on line.


Something I haven't seen addressed yet is no more Initiative. I really like the new cc rules. Also banshees are good again, finally. Also the shooting rules, you can split what each unit wants to shoot at.


Pistols! Holy cow, they're finally worth taking.

I've played since 2nd. Hated it. Loved 3rd, less with 4th, more with 5th, hated 6th, liked 7th better but 8th kicks butt, imho.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2018, 11:46:53 PM by Dread »
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Offline Rhyleth

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #13 on: September 15, 2018, 10:38:18 PM »
A new sprue for the new jetbike kits would be pretty tricky. Almost nothing in the existing mold would work for it, so you'd need to make an entirely new one, which is pricey. It's a big up-front cost for what has, historically, been a bit of a specialist and rare unit.

Yet this is fairly routine for most units. These days nearly every plastic set is designed with a sprue that allows it to represent two units, and ultimately it's either that or make an entire new plastic Shining Spears kit at some point in the future when the Eldar range is revised, since ultimately the intent seems to be that everything will be plasticised. Few enough Eldar units can be convincingly modelled with a new sprue for one of the existing kits, so this would seem the simplest option had they gone that route.

As for the spears, I've been pulling the torso and lance arms off my old ones and hollow out the lower plastic legs and then assemble. If you don't have them I'm pretty sure you could pick up the bits on line.
(Image removed from quote.)
(Image removed from quote.);

Thanks - those look nice results but it ultimately comes down, of course, to finding the pieces available online.

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Something I haven't seen addressed yet is no more Initiative.

In my experience it pretty much means Eldar other than Harlequins and Scorpions should mostly avoid close combat. I miss the Initiative stat for simple play convenience - alternating combat based on whose turn it is is arbitrary, and becomes complex in multiple combats.

I also don't think it's unreasonable mechanically that certain armies should expect to get an edge in close combat that allows their line units to be a bit better-able to hold their own, as well as allowing different units within an army to vary in reaction time - both sides will know in advance who those are and it doesn't seem appropriate either fluffily or mechanically that a Wraithblade can react faster than a Genestealer if it happens to be the Eldar player's turn.

Okay, there's also Eldar bias involved - I do miss the days when Dire Avengers could hold up a Tac Marine squad and Warp Spiders or Swooping Hawks were serviceable assault units against low-initiative light infantry like Guardsmen. Though of course the fact that plasma grenades actuallt did something in combat helped there.

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I really like the new cc rules.

Really? What about them? I find them by far the worst-implemented area of the rules. The multiple extra bonus moves (pile in, consolidate, disembark as applicable) for units in assault, most of which are available for free, recalls the excesses of 40k3 (aka Khorne vs. Blood Angels Edition).

The lack of combat winners/losers means no modifiers for things like outnumbering and essentially removes an entire tactical element of combat positioning as a result.

Roll to charge vs. simple move or double move is an unwelcome level of variance, and both that and overwatch are completely unrelated to either the attacking or receiving units' stats (other than whether it has special rules or, if overwatching, flame weapons), so an entire portion of the combat step might as well be Yahtzee.

Having no effect of cover at all makes the value of positioning much less relevant and means the advantage is pretty much always with the unit that charged - something exacerbated by 'he who charges, attacks first'.

The multicharge system is completely unnecessary and not remotely logical as it applies to single models.

Close combat in 40k8, in my experience, is the purest form of 40k's traditional 'stand in one place and roll dice at each other'. Stratagems aside, it's completely lacking in tactical play and allows no meaningful counterplay by a unit on the receiving end. The fact that the units least suited for getting into close combat, and so the ones most likely to want to fall back, are usually going to be unable to do anything after falling back due to the 'no fall back and shoot' rule (and will probably be charged again as a result), again, means counterplay for units that make it into assault is very limited.

At the same time the speed available to assault armies and the overwhelming importance of going first in this edition means that it's very hard to stop an assault army getting into melee. This isn't an issue of sour grapes at having issues with melee armies as a shooty army - it's simply the fact that a tactical wargame ought to allow counterplay to what the opponent's doing and, win or lose in the assault phase, that option simply isn't there with the way 40k8 currently works.

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Also banshees are good again, finally.

Haven't tried them in this edition - I only have six - but the loss of strength with power weapons makes me wary. I've had generally good results with Scorpions.

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Also the shooting rules, you can split what each unit wants to shoot at.

This is something I'm equivocal about. It played poorly in 40k2 and plays poorly now, possibly moreso given how many vehicles there are with multiple heavy weapon systems and no fire arcs (which at least constrained them in older editions). It's part of the reason turn 1 can be so punishing for the player who doesn't go first. 40k seems to be missing the core demand of a tactical game that there should be trade-offs, instead of every unit being able to do everything it wants. Usually units can shoot multiple targets and still assault (and the target of the assault need not be among the units they fired at) - and, in certain cases, also advance. I'd be in favour of a rule that, at least, allows units to split fire only if they didn't move (as on the move they're more focused on a single target and don't have the time to split their fire), and doesn't allow units that split their fire to assault that turn for the same reason.

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I've played since 2nd. Hated it. Loved 3rd, less with 4th, more with 5th, hated 6th, liked 7th better but 8th kicks butt, imho.

I liked both RT and 2nd Ed. in their time, but with a more mature perspective I recognise that they were rather poor (and hideously unbalanced) games that were however great for flavour. I liked 3rd a lot but much preferred 4th, with its greater focus on objective-based play and mobility and the reduced power of assault armies (yes, I hate 40k8's assault system, but truth be told I haven't much liked any 40k melee system since 40k2). I don't recall what little I played of 5th being any different from 4th, and missed both 6th and 7th.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2018, 11:13:37 PM by Rhyleth »

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #14 on: September 16, 2018, 12:01:40 AM »
Regarding Banshees, I've found they've been most useful as disruption units rather than damage output units. With their high speed, charge advantages, and Banshee Masks, they're able to make good charges on units that don't want to waste a turn of shooting by Falling Back - Leman Russ Battle Tanks, etc. I've found their damage output a little underwhelming, even with the customary Doom support that they tend to need. I actually find myself preferring the hardy infiltrating Striking Scorpions against harder targets, since the chance of the mandiblasters taking a model down (cutting through all saves in the process) is nice, and they have their own delivery system built in.

Slingshotting a Banshees unit up the board with Quicken and Advance (maybe with Matchless Agility) to disrupt a crucial shooting unit can be a lot of fun, though I would not include this in a tournament list.
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Offline magenb

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #15 on: September 16, 2018, 06:56:10 PM »

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Something I haven't seen addressed yet is no more Initiative.

I miss that system as well, however it seems to be a trade off for moving the overwatch system to a mechanic that can deal wounds. Having high Init and being able to fireover watch is rather op. Wouldn't mind if it was an option to pick either fighting at I step or firing overwatch, this would give low I armies at least some form of balance.


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I really like the new cc rules.

I'm not a huge fan of this, if a unit gets caught in melee, you are not going to be able to simple run out of it. There needs to be a greater penalty for leaving combat or maybe something like the old hit and run rules for it being a roll before you can just leave.

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Also banshees are good again, finally.

Banshee's are the best they have been for a long time, but they are still a unit that needs seer support for T4+ armies, warlocks that improve the wound roll and the good old doom, can make these girls badass, having the same to W roll against T5's also makes things interesting.


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Also the shooting rules, you can split what each unit wants to shoot at.

I'm a fan of this where it make sense. Like a Vyper where the pilot can shoot the underslug, cannon and the rider on the back can fire the heavy weapon. It would make more sense with firing arcs, so side mounted weapon could shoot at a different target as long as its in the arc, not through its own chasis lol. It also make sense with a mixed weapon infantry squads. The anti-infantry weapons/members are there to help keep infantry away from the guy firing the heavy weapon.


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I've played since 2nd. Hated it. Loved 3rd, less with 4th, more with 5th, hated 6th, liked 7th better but 8th kicks butt, imho.

I liked both RT and 2nd Ed. in their time, but with a more mature perspective I recognise that they were rather poor (and hideously unbalanced) games that were however great for flavour. I liked 3rd a lot but much preferred 4th, with its greater focus on objective-based play and mobility and the reduced power of assault armies (yes, I hate 40k8's assault system, but truth be told I haven't much liked any 40k melee system since 40k2). I don't recall what little I played of 5th being any different from 4th, and missed both 6th and 7th.

4th allowed you to do things like being able to consolidate into combat, this sort of makes sense, but CC hada good chance of smashing a unit, either by straitout killing of the board or making it run away, so it was unbalancing. 5th balanced out CC better it was still brutal but they stopped the rolling effect, you still didnt really want to get caught in CC and you could still use a CC unit to tie thingss down. 5th to 6th from memory introduced overwatch as we now know it.

2nd edition was far more of a skirmish game than latter editions, so its not a straighforward comparision, there are some really nice idea's in there though.

Offline Rhyleth

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #16 on: September 16, 2018, 10:55:07 PM »
I miss that system as well, however it seems to be a trade off for moving the overwatch system to a mechanic that can deal wounds. Having high Init and being able to fireover watch is rather op. Wouldn't mind if it was an option to pick either fighting at I step or firing overwatch, this would give low I armies at least some form of balance.

Overwatch seems mostly irrelevant for units other than Tau, vehicles, and units with flamers, and under the old initiative system vehicles would not have high initiative (in fact they wouldn't have any, but obviously accommodation would need to be made for them now having a statline). "Some form of balance" would suggest that the system isn't presently heavily skewed in favour of assault armies, but with the army that charges automatically having initiative, no effect of cover, and the age-old equation that always made melee good in 40k (melee units tend to have more attacks, at similar or higher strength to most typical ranged attacks, and prevent the targeted unit doing anything), this is far from the case.

The loss of the morale system means it isn't even possible for a defending unit to force an assaulting unit to retreat - either it completely destroys the attacking unit (which effectively never happens since no one's going to be assaulting if the odds are that close), or it loses at least one turn to what amounts to automatic suppression, as it can do nothing other than fall back to get out of it.

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4th allowed you to do things like being able to consolidate into combat, this sort of makes sense, but CC hada good chance of smashing a unit, either by straitout killing of the board or making it run away, so it was unbalancing. 5th balanced out CC better it was still brutal but they stopped the rolling effect, you still didnt really want to get caught in CC and you could still use a CC unit to tie thingss down. 5th to 6th from memory introduced overwatch as we now know it.

I probably have better memories of 4th in that regard less from the mechanics than from simple balancing of the armies. The assault armies just weren't as good as they were in 3rd, and transports were no longer deathtraps so things like mobile Devilfish and Wave Serpent-borne armies were the norm. Some of the melee armies couldn't catch up - movement rates were universally slower than they are now, difficult terrain was a thing and actually slowed movement, and I'm pretty sure the free 3" move at the start of combat didn't exist. I can't recall if the random charge distance dates back that far - I don't think so, I think units just got a charge move at their typical movement speed. That meant most armies would charge 4-5", not the average of 7" with 2D6 let alone up to 12". If I recall correctly units could also fall back and still fire with non-heavy weapons in those days, which made charging shooty units a risky proposition.

Consolidating into combat was only possible if the units were too close - while that was often unavoidable, the 8th Ed. "you're in combat if you're within 1"" rule does much the same thing, and unlike the old consolidate rule it can allow you to engage multiple units in combat with a single charge even if only one of those units is the target (then there's the silliness of multicharge).
« Last Edit: September 16, 2018, 10:59:52 PM by Rhyleth »

Offline Dread

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Re: Hey eldar, how is it going?
« Reply #17 on: September 16, 2018, 11:05:50 PM »
Well, okay, I stand corrected. But in my defense, being able to conto multiple different combats by which one you choose can make some difference. I've pretty much always played high I armies so this change actually upset me at first but with the right possitioning, chance, I've been able to control, lucky dice rolls, some of the outcomes. That's what did it for me.

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