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Post by Jabberwocky on Aug 17, 2017 14:22:16 GMT
Can you name anything new that's come from any index we didn't have last edition?? I'll just use Eldar as an example: - All their skimmers have fly and can take a 5 point upgrade to shoot heavy guns without the -1. - Each Phoenix Lord offers fantastic buffs for the specific aspect temple they are from. (ie Jain Zair prevents overwatch on Howling Banshees, Fuegan gives a reroll of 1 to wound whilst Baharath gives a reroll 1s to hit which buffs their respective aspect in the best way possible) - The Avatar buffs all units around him very well and he has 8 wounds, - Autarch give a 6" buff to all troops. - Asurman gives an invul to all aspects and 4++ to dire avengers. - Illic makes rangers better. - Eldar's 2 psychic trees have powers that you can use to customize your army to run the way you want it to. - Eldar's CC units work quite nicely as CC units and their shooting units are best at shooting. Is that enough or do you need more? I can do the same for my Dark Eldar, Harlequins and Imperial Guard lists. Some of the combos have worked and some haven't. Again, if you had followed what I was saying, it wasn't that we are bad or that we can't stand up, it's that we are boring and very surface. To say wait for the codex and all will change is believing in unicorns and rainbows, it would be nice if it were true, but your assertion hasn't really been supported with the first few codexes and certainly not from AOS. So what you all are saying is that Tyranids is just perceived to be good but it is a low tier army. And codex creep will just make it worse. Direct quote, second paragraph, first 2 sentence. "Don't misinterpret, I'm not saying we are bad. We can actually be quite good."But you read it how you want. Almost all of those rules are copy pasted or at most adapted from 7e. Flyer is the new generic for skimmer and JI, jet bikes, etc. They had crystal matrix, spirit stones, etc last edition. They could snapshot at bull ballistic skill. The new version just brings it in line with the new shooting mechanics. Phoenix Lords gave buffs to their respective aspects last edition. The changes simply bring the buffs in line with the new mechanics. They don't introduce new ways to use the units. Same goes for illic, autarchs, psychics. Eldar actually have less psychic powers to choose from now. 6 less just with craftworlds. The improvement of picking your power came from core game mechanic changes. Nothing new or imaginative is from the index itself.
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Post by Jabberwocky on Aug 17, 2017 14:25:31 GMT
The reason I keep saying your original point is misguided, is that our problems aren't from a poor index.
They are problems we already had in 7e.
Most index are pretty much just basic updates to make units and their rules work with the new mechanics.
The new codex are what have been introducing actual new and interesting things like strategems, traits, relics, that give flavour to the army.
This is why I say wait for that to drop and THEN complain because it will undoubtedly be lacklustre but at least then the criticism will be justified.
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Post by mattblowers on Aug 17, 2017 14:50:26 GMT
Almost all of those rules are copy pasted or at most adapted from 7e. Flyer is the new generic for skimmer and JI, jet bikes, etc. They had crystal matrix, spirit stones, etc last edition. They could snapshot at bull ballistic skill. The new version just brings it in line with the new shooting mechanics. Phoenix Lords gave buffs to their respective aspects last edition. The changes simply bring the buffs in line with the new mechanics. They don't introduce new ways to use the units. Same goes for illic, autarchs, psychics. Eldar actually have less psychic powers to choose from now. 6 less just with craftworlds. The improvement of picking your power came from core game mechanic changes. Nothing new or imaginative is from the index itself. That shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Eldar units worked then vs. now. The Phoenix lords were unplayable in the last few editions and did next to nothing for units. Now they can take a meh unit and make it great. There was a reason you only ever saw scatbikes, warp spiders, and wraithknights in the 7th or wave serpents and dire avengers in the previous edition. Now Eldar won't work at all if you can't get your synergies going because you don't have auto include units that are just point and click. But what they haven't done is do anything to change the basic stat-line or playability of units. Bezerkers were great and are still great. Strategems just make them better at what they are great at. Chapter tactics really make units shine in unique ways and that is great, but it doesn't polish the turds. TH/SS terminators and bikes weren't suddenly made anything other than lackluster just because they got a codex. I'm happy to come back and say I'm wrong if it turns out that way, but I'm not expecting sweeping changes to our units that will suddenly make them interesting or unlock great potential. I HOPE it happens, but I certainly don't EXPECT it to happen. Hormogaunts will still be glorified speed bumps, maleceptors/hauruspex/toxicrene will still be garbage, and tyrants will still be pretty impotent. Our choices will still be too expensive to get more than 6/7 command points, and we will have too many drops to regularly go first against alpha strike armies. You can add whatever "flavoring" you want to codexes, but it won't make the basic meat of the units any more palatable. If anything I expect it do double down on the things that are already effective.
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Post by Jabberwocky on Aug 17, 2017 15:18:29 GMT
I guess the near 50% points hike for scat bikes whilst making them fast attack instead of OS troops, along with the points drop of all phoenix Lords and aspect warriors along with unlimited hq slots thanks to supreme command detachment, had little to do with the changes in the eldar meta.
I don't deny phoenix Lords aren't more desirable now but it's not thanks to some hidden strategy or combo. It's internal balance plain and simple. Eldar suffered (or benefited) a lot from poor balance over 6e and 7e.
But, like you say, let's wait and see what comes in the next few months.
I'm not really expecting a lot and to be honest I'm not too worried. I can play all my armies how I want too as both my main play groups are fairly non-comp and the new detachments have opened up tons of options.
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Post by purestrain on Aug 17, 2017 15:40:01 GMT
The basic rules changes for movement, shooting and charging are responsible for all of those. The tyrannocyte was certainly improved, but removing the restrictions on targeting was hardly imaginative or new. It was simply to make it usable as originally intended I expect. It's still answered your question. Next thread
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Post by almostmercury on Aug 17, 2017 16:07:33 GMT
Hey Matt, I'm trying to follow what you're saying, but I'm getting mixed messages of "not good enough" crossing with "not interesting enough" and I'm struggling to understand what you define as "good" or "interesting".
I mean, besides the Malanthrope giving a blanket -1 and being a cheap HQ with the character rule as the obvious model to take, I'm not sure I understand how Phoenix Lords buffing specific units is more interesting than tervigons buffing gaunts and broodlords buffing genestealers. Like, would a 9 Wound Hive Tyrant be more "interesting" or would it just be "good"? I don't know.
I'm not familiar with the Seraphon, so what synergies are there that make the army so interesting?
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Post by mattblowers on Aug 17, 2017 18:49:59 GMT
Hey Matt, I'm trying to follow what you're saying, but I'm getting mixed messages of "not good enough" crossing with "not interesting enough" and I'm struggling to understand what you define as "good" or "interesting". I mean, besides the Malanthrope giving a blanket -1 and being a cheap HQ with the character rule as the obvious model to take, I'm not sure I understand how Phoenix Lords buffing specific units is more interesting than tervigons buffing gaunts and broodlords buffing genestealers. Like, would a 9 Wound Hive Tyrant be more "interesting" or would it just be "good"? I don't know. I'm not familiar with the Seraphon, so what synergies are there that make the army so interesting? Great questions. 1. Interesting is good combos that you can pull of that might even be difficult, but if they work, they are great. IE. Eldar Firedragons in a Wave Serpent with an autarch and Feugan can get out and wreck some face as they get to reroll 1s on to hit and to wound. Pretty strong synergy. Another example: Scions with plasma are great because they get 2 shots each, can deepstrike in and and overcharge because they can reroll 1s with orders. Those are things that are some really interesting combos that take units and really ramp up their effectiveness. You can find things that work in our codex, but it's those sweet combos that you can link together that are a blast for me to find and play. 2. Phoneix lords buffing aspects is more interesting than the tervigon option because it allows you to play some otherwise meh units and have them shine. I actually like the tervigon for buffing gaunts and wrote a whole page about it. The broodlord buff on stealers and the primus buff on purestrains with a reroll of CA are really cool abilities. The primus in particular is something that I love because a lot of people don't see it coming and it really makes purestrains shine. I've written extensively about them in some threads. I don't care about the hive tyrant getting 9 wounds, it would be nice, but they don't really buff anything and my problem with them is their inability to deal with tough targets. I guess if they could hide they would be a good source of synapse that could screen themselves and jump out to crush something, but it's a toss up for me. 3. Seraphon have a lot of characters that buff units around them to make them hit harder or be more survivable. The things that degrade don't destroy the big monsters and they actually do what they are supposed to do. They aren't the best or strongest in AOS but I've had most of my opponents be shocked by how much of hit they can take and stay standing. Those basic stats are still unchanged form day one free releases. Try playing another army index and you'll see what I mean. For example, I've been playing Rough Riders/Deathkorps Krieg Riders lately and they are a really neat unit that people don't see coming. I also really like popping out a unit of Bullgryns to bog down a unit. No one plays Bullgryns, but they are a ton of fun that people aren't sure what to do with. I've also had some disastrous results: once I tried to spam Eldar Warwalkers and I got tabled by turn 2. I thought my list had some synergy but I faced a beserker army and they just rolled me. I also ran a sentinel spam list, got alpha striked and still tabled my opponent. We are so close though. The toxicrene is a great example. Why does it only have AP -1? With WS of 4+, and only D3 damage it will be lucky to get more than 2/3 wounds through on marines. There is no way to buff it or use if for something other than a roadblock. It's not even a very good deterrant and I hate that about it because I REALLY love the unit. TL/DR: I really enjoy high risk/high reward playstyle. I can usually find a way to minimize the risk and maximize the reward. I'm disappointed the Tyranid codex doesn't have more opportunity for that.
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Post by meavar on Aug 18, 2017 8:22:01 GMT
I like how you mention the fire dragons as the exemple. But fail to see the difference between that and the synnergy between the tervigon+gaunts etc (they also have reroll 1 to hit and wound), seems like same synnergy only based on large squad and HQ instead of 2 HQ. I feel that while the tyranids gained little new synnergy they already had a lot of it, which is why it feels like you get fewer new options to try out? And the synnergy within the tyranids (and eldar) are pretty ok. I find that dark eldar has a lot more problems with it. Not only do some of the basic troops have no such synnergy, they still rely a lot on their transports, and once inside transports most people say you can't say you are within range of someone else, even if they are in the same vehicle.
And I cannot speak for the necrons or chaos much, but I find that ork and eldar synnergy is similar to that of the tyranids, but in their case it is newer. Dark eldar have a lot of misfitting synnergy in my mind (mainly because characters cannot fit inside vehicles and are to slow to go on foot). The only ones who have more are the imperials.
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Post by kazetanade on Aug 18, 2017 8:37:23 GMT
I think the examples are basically that Nids aren't very flexible in their buffs and synergy. We've got 3 creatures with buffs that cannot fit in transports and cannot be protected, with a very specific buff to a very specific unit.
We do not have psychic spells which stack with our buffs - just a -1 to Hit and ld.
The units either cannot reach their target bevause they're too slow or cannot benefit from buff because the buffer can't fit.
So theres no overall army cohesion or synergy because although there are buffs, nothing else in the army can benefit off of it even on a tangent. The only guys that enable such buffs are Venom/Malan for -1to Hit, which stacks with Horror.
I guess that's what matts saying.
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Post by N.I.B. on Aug 18, 2017 11:16:19 GMT
GW still lack a vision for Tyranids. It's painfully obvious.
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Post by mattblowers on Aug 18, 2017 12:33:00 GMT
I like how you mention the fire dragons as the exemple. But fail to see the difference between that and the synnergy between the tervigon+gaunts etc (they also have reroll 1 to hit and wound) The difference is that fire dragons have a very specific use, to bring down high toughness/high wound models. They are wounding most things on 2 or 3s and the toughest things on 4s. They only get one shot each so making that one shot hit and wound is crucial. Termagaunts hit on 4s and wound on 5s. Yes the rerolling 1s helps but it's not as crucial as it is for the single shot the fire dragons get. What are termagaunts main purpose? To have table presence and screen areas from the enemy. Rerolling ones (while nice) doesn't make them any better at their job. Meanwhile the fire dragons already good at their job, get buffed to godhammer level with these buffs. You can put a unit in a wave serpent with a reasonable expectation that they are going to do what you expect them to do. Ditto for the swooping hawks, howling banshees, and striking scorpions. Put Asurman with a unit of Dire Avengers and suddenly they become a tough as nails troop choice.
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Post by killercroc on Aug 18, 2017 14:06:21 GMT
Also the Phoenix Lords not only buff their type around them but are pretty good themselves. None of them are pushovers and can actually do a fair bit of damage not to mention they're all relatively cheap for big baddass named buffing characters. The flip side is the Tervigon is terrible. Sure it gives the same buffs to gaunts but it's a giant target that can just be singled out by heavy weapons, 1-2 turns of shooting from a Predator annihilator or devastator squad and the Tervigon is done dead. It sucks in combat and shooting, and only buffs the most basic of our troops instead of our hardcore elites, and yes it can create 10 more each turn but only basic gaunts, and lets face it; if you want a Tervigon buffing gaunts to do high threat shooting you're going to give them Devourers which he cannot replace. I see a lot of people going 15/15 on the gaunts by him but all you're doing is cutting the units firepower in the hopes of replenishing any lost fleshborer gaunts, which is a fail tactic if the Tervigon gets killed or the gaunt squad looses so many casualties you're starting to dip into the devourer wound pool.
The Tervigon is a cool idea, but in practice it's pretty crippled. They should either make it be able to replace all gaunt types or reduce the points, cause let's face it the only reason to take it is as a baby factory, and at that point you might as well forget the re-roll 1's buff and just take another full squad of 30 devilgaunts.
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Post by Jabberwocky on Aug 18, 2017 15:35:32 GMT
Just to play devil's advocate, it isn't entirely fair to compare the benefits of a named, unique, character to a spammable generic hq.
Yes Phoenix Lords are great, but you can only have 1 and if it's sniped somehow, it's hard to build redundancy into your list to make that back up.
A fairer comparison would be how effective 2 Phoenix Lords are compared to the swarmlord and I think we can all agree eldar win hands down.
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Post by almostmercury on Aug 18, 2017 17:00:31 GMT
I think a lot of the concerns are actually about the character rule. If your abilities and auras come from +10 wound characters, it's basically irrelevant beyond warlord traits. We have what? 3 relevant characters? 1 of them is deeply unimpressive (Prime), 1 of them is basically an auto take (Malanthrope), and the other is fantastic maybe even without genestealers mostly by getting character status and a Tyranid psychic power (Broodlord).
The character rule is pretty great, but in it's current form it isn't very balanced. There sound really be a minimum range on targeting characters. It would make deployment and deepstriking even more relevant, but reserves are already balanced through only 50% of units.
Think about the resiliency of an Eldar Character. First you kill the transport, then you have to kill everything closer to you than the character (read: the buffed unit first). Whereas the Tervigon just eats las and melta and you're left with only 30 unbuffed gaunts.
The other issue is 6 damage. The cost of getting 14 wounds doesn't compare to the cost of equipping weapons that kill those 14 wounds.
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Post by biomassbob on Aug 18, 2017 21:26:53 GMT
I think a lot of the concerns are actually about the character rule. If your abilities and auras come from +10 wound characters, it's basically irrelevant beyond warlord traits. We have what? 3 relevant characters? 1 of them is deeply unimpressive (Prime), 1 of them is basically an auto take (Malanthrope), and the other is fantastic maybe even without genestealers mostly by getting character status and a Tyranid psychic power (Broodlord). What bothers me are issues like the malanthrope you mention as auto take (which I've heard before) as its not in the index and I expect it wont be in the codex when finally released. FW units are nice to have but when considered auto take (or close to it) it highlights a problem with the army. As NIB said above it seems GW doesn't seem to know what to do with nids. GW doesn't seem to know how to work out the philosophy behind the army and units; how should the army/units operate on the board? Why? Yes its early days and a nid codex may see changes to many areas - and I will wait and see but it does concern me.
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