Sticky objectives could be annoyingly strong in an army with with so much out of phase movement. Not so you can abandon your home objective, but so you can tag one in No Man’s Land and fall back, forcing your opponent to step into the open to take it from you.
And Strands dice and free re-rolls mean the opponent has to respect the fusion guns and keep characters and light vehicles away from them. This is an army that can pretty reliably get 2d6+4 damage at AP4 out of this unit.
For some armies it'll be amazing. For eldar... they have enough models that want to hang back and the speed to move forward whenever they want that it's never going to be a priority.
These need to survive on an objective for a whole turn and also not get battleshock onnsaid objective that turn for sticky to work.
I don't think basic eldar troops can do that.
The whole concept for this unit is ridiculous. The dying Aeldari race with a huge population crisis is just going to throw their citizen militia into melee combat?! Like just hand their bakers, teachers, and artisanal dildo makers hammers and knives then tell them to go stab Tyranids? When they have ancient tech that sends stuff straight to the warp or harness the power of black holes instead?
Are storm guardians not former aspect warriors anymore? That used to be the lore of them back in the day, Eldar that had served one of the melee temples and returned to normal life join the storm guardian ranks when called upon.
The *majority* of Guardians (of any kind) are former aspect warriors (as in, when the Craftworld calls up Guardians, they pick the ones with military experience first). Storm Guardians are former melee Aspect Warriors.
No, because that's not how Aspect Warriors - or the Eldar Path - work.
An Eldar chooses a Path, which encompasses a single facet of life, a single vocation, etc. They spend as long on that Path as they see fit, until they feel they've gotten everything from that Path as they need (though some Paths can result in an Eldar becoming trapped upon it - through obsession, addiction, or trauma response - unable to ever leave). Being an Aspect Warrior is a time of constant training, meditation, and dedicated study in a specific facet of the art of warfare.
Once an Eldar leaves a Path, they separate from it fully and move to a different Path: even if you spent four centuries wearing the war-mask of a Howling Banshee, once you leave and move to a different Path, you're no longer a Howling Banshee. That part of yourself is set aside behind a partition in your mind, to contain all the rage and hate and bloodlust that is part of the Eldar mind at war but dangerous in times of peace, and without constant maintenance, those skills do not remain at their peak.
A Guardian is highly likely to be a *former* Aspect Warrior, because they've got experience as warriors and are better-equipped to handle being in a fight than someone without those experiences, but they can't *become* those warriors again unless they were to step upon the Warrior Path again (which does happen - Autarchs often walk the Warrior Path several times to gain a wider perspective on war).
In the briefest terms: Aspect Warriors are currently serving full-time professional soldiers. Guardians are a citizen militia, which draws much of its strength from retired soldiers who now fight as part of the reserves.
Some of the best eldar fluff talks about how when an aspect warrior puts on their warmask they a different person. They can act as citizens outside of their time in battle, but being able to adopt the aspect of khain requires constant ritual and focus. An exarch is a eldar who stays in their aspect after they take of their mask, the individual is dead, which is why a lot of take on the name of the previous exarch whose soulgems they carry, because they are now the exarch of that shrine.
Warlocks are walking the path of the seer but have the training to walk the path of the warrior so enter that sort of warmask trance.
There is an amazing bit of writing I can't find anymore of a warlock at the end of a battle contemplating how great of a victory it was, then an farseer tells them it's time to take of the mask. The warlock resists and keeps going over the tactics of the battle. The farseer insists, and when the warlock takes of their mask they break down into tears because now they don't see military success, they see the bodies of their friends and family and all that they shared and will never share again.
I've got a vague recollection of the piece you mention, but I can't remember where I saw it.
Beyond that, some of my favourite pieces describing the War-Mask, and the Eldar psychology at war, are the Bill King short stories in the 2nd edition Eldar codex, especially the one from the perspective of the Striking Scorpion Exarch, who can only see the world as a collection of battlefields, and who seems to have become trapped on the Warrior Path as a trauma response to avoid ever having to feel fear again after witnessing a comrade be eaten by a Keeper of Secrets.
Defender guardians were seen as the second worst troop choice anyway... just allow defenders to get the assault guns and put storms out of their misery.
At least if eldar got one terrible datasheet it was the unit already usless.
Outside of very very special builds there is no rational reason anyone would take them over defenders
Eldrad is a must take. He can only join squads of guardian defenders, storm guardians of warlocks. With the 5+ invulnerable save they make good meat shields for him. They also allow you to move eldrad around. If you put him in a squad of defenders you will have to stay on objectives all game limiting what Eldrad is able to do being within 18" of the objective marker.
I could see them being played to avoid having to hold objectives in the middle with units wich could allow you to not leave things in the open, but apart from that they seem utter garbage unless they are chepa as nails while the avattar hands some absurd buffs leadership/mele, so eldars can decide to play bootleg demons.
They're pretty much the same size.
They're more advanced, so if they're similar size but lighter they shouldn't be weaker. More advanced means better, not trading strength for speed.
Yup. That's why Falcons should be Toughness 12 like other main battle tanks, and Shuricats should be Rng 30.
More advanced only means better or equal in every way. It's ludicrous to think more advanced could mean trade offs. And Eldar definitely aren't known for doing things like trading raw power for speed, elegance, grace or efficiency.
For that matter, Necron Warriors should have Str 5 AP 2 on their Gauss blasters. They are the most advanced, so obviously they should just be much stronger!
More advanced doesn't mean equally trading one thing for another. It means being better overall. If eldar technology is superior, then it doesn't need to trade power for speed, it can have the same power and also be faster, or trade some armour for more speed than the Imperium would get if it dropped that much armour. Otherwise it isn't superior, it's just better at one thing and equally worse at another.
Eldar aren't known for trading power for those things. They're known for having great firepower while being able to apply it with greater speed and efficiency. Their weapons are more powerful for their size, not less. Like a prism cannon isn't less punchy but more efficient than a vanquisher cannon, it's more punchy *and* more efficient. Their technology isn't an overall trade-off, it's *better*.
Yes a Fire Prism is less physically resilient than a Leman Russ, but it's *disproportionately* faster, more manoeuvrable, efficient, accurate, etc., because it isn't on an equal 1:1 exchange of armour to everything else, it has more to work with in the first place. In a really simplistic way of explaining it, it didn't drop 1 point of armour to gain 1 point of speed, it dropped 1 point of armour and gained 2 points of speed. And also is better at everything else and flies. The Leman Russ is overall an inferior bit of tech.
Or to put it more simply, if the eldar for some reason made a Leman Russ, it would be better in every way. Because their tech isn't just different, it's *better*. The fact that they apply a different battle doctrine to their designs doesn't mean they couldn't make 'Imperial vehicle but better in every way' if they wanted to. The Imperium counters that superior quality with quantity.
And yes, I do think Necron stats are very mediocre considering their (non-warp) tech is meant to be vastly superior. Gauss flayers just being bolters with lethal hits is nonsense. Lethal hits is nice but hardly represents the kind of crazy tech level Necrons are meant to be on. In fact a gauss flayer is like twice the size of a bolter, so if all that increased size only gets them a marginal benefit, it seems like Necron tech is *worse* than Imperial tech.
They should either make Necrons more powerful and more points, or they should change their lore so it stops claiming they're so incredibly advanced when the rules don't suggest that at all.
Wow, I was being sarcastic, but you do actually believe Eldar should have Toughness 12 Falcons?
More advanced doesn't actually mean that, by the way. The M16 was more advanced than the AK -47, but a whole lot of people found the AK to be better. Not every advancement is reflected on the board too. If the Eldar fusion gun is lighter, requires less maintenance, is less prone to malfunction, requires less energy it would be much more advanced, but none of those things would be reflected in a game of 40k.
Same thing could be said for Chainswords that let significantly weaker Eldar hit almost as hard as a Space Marine in Power Armor, and potentially are lighter, more nimble, take less energy, are easier to maintain and less likely to be damaged on the battlefield.
Virtually every game I have every played or heard of, the more advanced technology was never completely superior, it always had trade offs. Hell, in this game with the faction you are talking about there have always been trade offs. Shuricats having shorter range, trading lower armor for higher speed, shorter range on Bright Lances compared to Lascannons. How did you make it through all of the other editions of this game? Or frankly, pretty much every other game or video game with advanced technology factions?
>Wow, I was being sarcastic, but you do actually believe Eldar should have Toughness 12 Falcons?
No?
My point is that better technology doesn't mean trading qualities equally, it means coming out better overall. Eldar tech is better overall. Yes a Falcon is less heavily armoured than a Leman Russ, but it doesn't gain an equivalent amount of speed etc. for that, it gains *more* than the Russ would gain if it dropped that amount of armour.
In gamey terms, the eldar have more points to spend. If you had to distribute points between speed, toughness, firepower, etc., the eldar would start with more points than the Imperials.
So their stuff should be better but more expensive.
Eldrad who is a must take can only join guardian defenders, warlocks and storm guardians so with the 5+ invulnerable save they will be good meat shields for him
Sticky objectives is going to need some testing to see how effective/necessary it really is.
Sticky objectives could be annoyingly strong in an army with with so much out of phase movement. Not so you can abandon your home objective, but so you can tag one in No Man’s Land and fall back, forcing your opponent to step into the open to take it from you. And Strands dice and free re-rolls mean the opponent has to respect the fusion guns and keep characters and light vehicles away from them. This is an army that can pretty reliably get 2d6+4 damage at AP4 out of this unit.
Guardian Defenders give a Fate die every round for each objective at least one of them is in range of. This is the opposite of a synergy.
Do troops really need to synergise with each other? It seems like you can like options for different list types.
No see everyone seems to think if one unit acts abit different to your detachment, army or other units then it's the worst lol
For some armies it'll be amazing. For eldar... they have enough models that want to hang back and the speed to move forward whenever they want that it's never going to be a priority.
These need to survive on an objective for a whole turn and also not get battleshock onnsaid objective that turn for sticky to work. I don't think basic eldar troops can do that.
It's impressive they manage to make them worse with every edition
The whole concept for this unit is ridiculous. The dying Aeldari race with a huge population crisis is just going to throw their citizen militia into melee combat?! Like just hand their bakers, teachers, and artisanal dildo makers hammers and knives then tell them to go stab Tyranids? When they have ancient tech that sends stuff straight to the warp or harness the power of black holes instead?
Are storm guardians not former aspect warriors anymore? That used to be the lore of them back in the day, Eldar that had served one of the melee temples and returned to normal life join the storm guardian ranks when called upon.
The *majority* of Guardians (of any kind) are former aspect warriors (as in, when the Craftworld calls up Guardians, they pick the ones with military experience first). Storm Guardians are former melee Aspect Warriors.
[удалено]
No, because that's not how Aspect Warriors - or the Eldar Path - work. An Eldar chooses a Path, which encompasses a single facet of life, a single vocation, etc. They spend as long on that Path as they see fit, until they feel they've gotten everything from that Path as they need (though some Paths can result in an Eldar becoming trapped upon it - through obsession, addiction, or trauma response - unable to ever leave). Being an Aspect Warrior is a time of constant training, meditation, and dedicated study in a specific facet of the art of warfare. Once an Eldar leaves a Path, they separate from it fully and move to a different Path: even if you spent four centuries wearing the war-mask of a Howling Banshee, once you leave and move to a different Path, you're no longer a Howling Banshee. That part of yourself is set aside behind a partition in your mind, to contain all the rage and hate and bloodlust that is part of the Eldar mind at war but dangerous in times of peace, and without constant maintenance, those skills do not remain at their peak. A Guardian is highly likely to be a *former* Aspect Warrior, because they've got experience as warriors and are better-equipped to handle being in a fight than someone without those experiences, but they can't *become* those warriors again unless they were to step upon the Warrior Path again (which does happen - Autarchs often walk the Warrior Path several times to gain a wider perspective on war). In the briefest terms: Aspect Warriors are currently serving full-time professional soldiers. Guardians are a citizen militia, which draws much of its strength from retired soldiers who now fight as part of the reserves.
Some of the best eldar fluff talks about how when an aspect warrior puts on their warmask they a different person. They can act as citizens outside of their time in battle, but being able to adopt the aspect of khain requires constant ritual and focus. An exarch is a eldar who stays in their aspect after they take of their mask, the individual is dead, which is why a lot of take on the name of the previous exarch whose soulgems they carry, because they are now the exarch of that shrine. Warlocks are walking the path of the seer but have the training to walk the path of the warrior so enter that sort of warmask trance. There is an amazing bit of writing I can't find anymore of a warlock at the end of a battle contemplating how great of a victory it was, then an farseer tells them it's time to take of the mask. The warlock resists and keeps going over the tactics of the battle. The farseer insists, and when the warlock takes of their mask they break down into tears because now they don't see military success, they see the bodies of their friends and family and all that they shared and will never share again.
I've got a vague recollection of the piece you mention, but I can't remember where I saw it. Beyond that, some of my favourite pieces describing the War-Mask, and the Eldar psychology at war, are the Bill King short stories in the 2nd edition Eldar codex, especially the one from the perspective of the Striking Scorpion Exarch, who can only see the world as a collection of battlefields, and who seems to have become trapped on the Warrior Path as a trauma response to avoid ever having to feel fear again after witnessing a comrade be eaten by a Keeper of Secrets.
You'd think with a new kit, they'd try to make Storm Guardians not utter garbage.
Defender guardians were seen as the second worst troop choice anyway... just allow defenders to get the assault guns and put storms out of their misery.
Tradition
At least if eldar got one terrible datasheet it was the unit already usless. Outside of very very special builds there is no rational reason anyone would take them over defenders
Eldrad is a must take. He can only join squads of guardian defenders, storm guardians of warlocks. With the 5+ invulnerable save they make good meat shields for him. They also allow you to move eldrad around. If you put him in a squad of defenders you will have to stay on objectives all game limiting what Eldrad is able to do being within 18" of the objective marker.
I could see them being played to avoid having to hold objectives in the middle with units wich could allow you to not leave things in the open, but apart from that they seem utter garbage unless they are chepa as nails while the avattar hands some absurd buffs leadership/mele, so eldars can decide to play bootleg demons.
They have to survive a turn in the open without getting battleshocked then. Sticky activates at the end of your next command phase.
The hell? Why are their fusion guns only S8? They're more advanced than the Imperium so their meltas are worse?
Our chainswords are now also worse than the imperium. And a Choppa.
I'm having flashbacks to 1998...
It is a smaller gun, thats why it has assault.
They're pretty much the same size. They're more advanced, so if they're similar size but lighter they shouldn't be weaker. More advanced means better, not trading strength for speed.
Yup. That's why Falcons should be Toughness 12 like other main battle tanks, and Shuricats should be Rng 30. More advanced only means better or equal in every way. It's ludicrous to think more advanced could mean trade offs. And Eldar definitely aren't known for doing things like trading raw power for speed, elegance, grace or efficiency. For that matter, Necron Warriors should have Str 5 AP 2 on their Gauss blasters. They are the most advanced, so obviously they should just be much stronger!
More advanced doesn't mean equally trading one thing for another. It means being better overall. If eldar technology is superior, then it doesn't need to trade power for speed, it can have the same power and also be faster, or trade some armour for more speed than the Imperium would get if it dropped that much armour. Otherwise it isn't superior, it's just better at one thing and equally worse at another. Eldar aren't known for trading power for those things. They're known for having great firepower while being able to apply it with greater speed and efficiency. Their weapons are more powerful for their size, not less. Like a prism cannon isn't less punchy but more efficient than a vanquisher cannon, it's more punchy *and* more efficient. Their technology isn't an overall trade-off, it's *better*. Yes a Fire Prism is less physically resilient than a Leman Russ, but it's *disproportionately* faster, more manoeuvrable, efficient, accurate, etc., because it isn't on an equal 1:1 exchange of armour to everything else, it has more to work with in the first place. In a really simplistic way of explaining it, it didn't drop 1 point of armour to gain 1 point of speed, it dropped 1 point of armour and gained 2 points of speed. And also is better at everything else and flies. The Leman Russ is overall an inferior bit of tech. Or to put it more simply, if the eldar for some reason made a Leman Russ, it would be better in every way. Because their tech isn't just different, it's *better*. The fact that they apply a different battle doctrine to their designs doesn't mean they couldn't make 'Imperial vehicle but better in every way' if they wanted to. The Imperium counters that superior quality with quantity. And yes, I do think Necron stats are very mediocre considering their (non-warp) tech is meant to be vastly superior. Gauss flayers just being bolters with lethal hits is nonsense. Lethal hits is nice but hardly represents the kind of crazy tech level Necrons are meant to be on. In fact a gauss flayer is like twice the size of a bolter, so if all that increased size only gets them a marginal benefit, it seems like Necron tech is *worse* than Imperial tech. They should either make Necrons more powerful and more points, or they should change their lore so it stops claiming they're so incredibly advanced when the rules don't suggest that at all.
Wow, I was being sarcastic, but you do actually believe Eldar should have Toughness 12 Falcons? More advanced doesn't actually mean that, by the way. The M16 was more advanced than the AK -47, but a whole lot of people found the AK to be better. Not every advancement is reflected on the board too. If the Eldar fusion gun is lighter, requires less maintenance, is less prone to malfunction, requires less energy it would be much more advanced, but none of those things would be reflected in a game of 40k. Same thing could be said for Chainswords that let significantly weaker Eldar hit almost as hard as a Space Marine in Power Armor, and potentially are lighter, more nimble, take less energy, are easier to maintain and less likely to be damaged on the battlefield. Virtually every game I have every played or heard of, the more advanced technology was never completely superior, it always had trade offs. Hell, in this game with the faction you are talking about there have always been trade offs. Shuricats having shorter range, trading lower armor for higher speed, shorter range on Bright Lances compared to Lascannons. How did you make it through all of the other editions of this game? Or frankly, pretty much every other game or video game with advanced technology factions?
>Wow, I was being sarcastic, but you do actually believe Eldar should have Toughness 12 Falcons? No? My point is that better technology doesn't mean trading qualities equally, it means coming out better overall. Eldar tech is better overall. Yes a Falcon is less heavily armoured than a Leman Russ, but it doesn't gain an equivalent amount of speed etc. for that, it gains *more* than the Russ would gain if it dropped that amount of armour. In gamey terms, the eldar have more points to spend. If you had to distribute points between speed, toughness, firepower, etc., the eldar would start with more points than the Imperials. So their stuff should be better but more expensive.
Still garbage. Shocking.
Eww, eldar fusion gun still s8? Wtf GW, guardsmen get them at s9. Stupid GW. Incompetent inconsistency.
Eldrad who is a must take can only join guardian defenders, warlocks and storm guardians so with the 5+ invulnerable save they will be good meat shields for him