After a number of games involving
the Eldar, the one glaringly obvious conclusion I have come to is that the Wave
Serpent is vastly overpowered. I’m not
brining what I feel is a “Let’s Spam Them” level of the things, but even the 4
that I was fielding were more than enough.
Averaging 9 wounds/WS/turn. With
3 of them starting on the field for me, and not particularly caring about cover
saves… Oh, and they can move 12” and
fire both of their main weapons? Mine
are coming in at 135 points with the Holo Field. The Shuriken Cannon would be awesome, but
just can’t quite justify the extra 10 points/Serpent… Yet.
It is a major consideration, and frankly with more Marine rumors
floating about? Not sure this isn’t
going to get FAQ’d out of existence. I
can count on one hand the number of times I have NOT fired the Shield as an
offensive weapon, and almost all of these were Turn 1 when I either had no
targets or the other side went first and I was unable to have fired J… Hoping to survive the Meltas dropping in on
me…
Last night’s game I used the
Farseer for the first time. Doom with
the sheer number of shots? And with
Sniper, Shuriken and “d” class weapons all getting huge bonuses on the 6’s to
wound? Have to say, the life span of the
big MC’s or Terminators will be very limited I think near one of these lads. Picked my target, Doomed and Guided… Did use the Eldritch Storm twice as well, and
rolled snake eyes for the wounding myself…
NOT a bad power I have to say.
Fleshbane and a large blast? 2
power points though… Still, bunched up
stuff wounding on 2+? Thinking that a
Farseer/Spiritseer combo will allow me to have the best of both worlds.
Troops? The 5 man Dire Avenger (DA) squads are
adequate if what you are doing is getting the 135 point uber-transport and a
few bodies to do the late game objective grabs.
The Wraithguard are awesome, and with the Spiritseer making them Troops
and granting a few other bonuses they have been my “go to” troop option. The DA with their 18” ranged rending (sort
of) weapon, move-shoot-move option and not bad stats overall are pretty darn
good. I’ve been less happy with the
Guardians with their limited range and large minimum size. Not bad per se, but unless you are running a
20 man squad I’m having a hard time seeing them being as good as or better than
the DA. The Heavy Weapon upgrades are
nice (except the Scatter Laser), but let’s be honest, I am NOT lacking on the
number of heavy weapon shots in my army.
Bright Lances might be the exception, but haven’t seen the massed AV 14
stuff in a while…
Picking up some terrain from one of
the other games locally… The set
includes 2 Bastions and 3 Aegis gun lines with the various guns. One Bastion I will be making standard for my
Imperial forces. Seeing the usefulness
of these recently playing with limited terrain, but having HtH Wraiths say
waiting in the building? Or just a squad
of Praetorians to man the extra Heavy Bolters?
The AAA option will I think be needed as well, though more for the
Interceptor option than the Skyfire recently…
Not seeing as many Aircraft, not entirely sure why, I think they are
still on the really powerful end of things…
Tau are hitting the field in bulk these days, a bit surprised I’m one of
the very few Eldar players.. But back on
topic, the second Bastion? Make it more
Eldar maybe? Dunno… Forgot to check if these were things I could
link together in Apocalypse games for one of the formations… So, if anyone local is looking to pick up a
Bastion or a few Aegis lines cheap, LMK…
Kind of in “wait and see” mode
really with most of the local gaming group…
The group is still large and growing, and with the Students coming back
now might even get larger… But most of
the people are cutting back on their purchases.
Dropping down to one or two armies, etc…
As more things get released in the 6th edition, I think the
game itself is getting a bit more balanced overall, but there are a few things
that really stand out about almost every new Codex. Chaos Marines got the Heldrake, Tau got the
load of “we break a lot of the game’s rules” stuff, the Eldar have their Wave
Serpent, etc… Really the only one I can
honestly say did NOT get something that stands out as broken/silly is the Dark
Angels. Without the Heldrake a LOT of
their stuff like the uber-bikers and the like would be really powerful and fun
to play… Now, they have the ability to
make their Bolters Salvo 2/4 with a magic banner. Neat I guess, if you are looking at causing
mass wounds to things that are concerned about bolters. So, yes, the people fielding the IG blobs,
Cultist blobs or Green Tide stopped doing that after a few of us played DA that
way… But overall, the DA book was the
one I’d point to and say it was a complete flop. A few “new” things in the special speeder and
unique flier, but the rules for both are such complete crap. A real shame, the flier at least looked nice
and having plasma armed speeders again was something in and of itself… Have to say, this is my big concern with the
Marine Codex coming out next month, or so the rumors go… FFS, a major company hiding its release
schedule until the last moment in this day and age? Anyway, the Marines have so much potential,
and there is SO much that they could draw on to make something new, unique and customizable
for almost every 3+ armor save player out there… Will they?
Hence the “Wait and See” attitude.
Right now a lot of us who play/played the 3+ armor armies are looking at
the game and seeing that for the first time that we can remember the “standard”
armor is no longer good enough. Either
weight of fire or low AP and/or the loss of cover saves has made it suicide to
bring certain units… Hell, certain
armies are just silly to bring these days.
Thinking for me my Fleshtearers are just silly to bring, but my Crimson
Fists are right there next to them. At
least the CF have the win big or die quick thing going for them. A lot of the players, especially the ones out
in Danville were REALLY not prepared for a hyper aggressive army played by
someone who understood how to use it.
But against someone who has either seen it or understands how to defend
against it or at least react to it? I
have one trick/shot to do so much damage as to force the game to end or I
die. This has gotten far worse with the
Tau and Eldar now hitting the field. My
Scouts were my “Troops” to sit on objectives, but they are one of the “Why
Bother” units these days. Sternguard are
great, but few in number. Few AA options
and the general feeling that the power spiral has passed the Marine based
forces by mean there are more than a few players simply finding other games or
just no longer showing up regularly… Of
course, the general feeling of being priced out of the game has grown a lot
recently, and I know that with reality being what it is I and a lot of the
others I talk to have had to seriously cut back on their purchases… Thus, dropping to fewer armies, not buying
new stuff, etc… Maybe this will reverse,
but…
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