Exhausted ranting :-)

Trying to wrap my head around some things, and I am thinking that I had what to me at least is a minor epiphany,,,  The more recent 40K things that I feel are "overpowered" or "broken" seem to universally be things that break the design rules.  Now, an example of this is the Grey Knight's Falchions...  They are functionally identical to every other Marine (well, not Wolves, but...) Lightning Claws, but they do not have the major disadvantage of the LC.  The Knights' swords still allow their user to wield them and retain the Storm Bolter for a good shooting attack.  So, it is "like" the basic thing but "just better".  It is a pattern that I am seeing over and over in the "top tier" armies.  Not sure if it is an intentional thing like Rackham did with Confrontation 3.5 in an effort to prepare the way for the next major edition to "fix the problems" in the game or if it just the way that codex creep works there...  Kind of why I am a bit concerned about my Eldar getting rewritten, I want a fun but NOT overpowered force.  Something a bit different for me because I feel that pretty much all of the other armies I play are top tier, and so I have to be a bit careful not to fall into the min/max trap and get bored :-)  So, something for me to think about while I am painting my toys... Getting to the point I can field a WYSIWYG and fully painted force for several of my armies....  Eldar now getting close, need to get some more Falcon hulls though...  The ancient Armorcast hull looks nice and I do think it would be a unique force to bring out...

The "less often used" Eldar stuff actually did quite well last night...  Dark Reapers, if they can set up in say, a building and shoot at things not in cover can really take a toll on whatever they happen to be across the table from.  The Exarch with the Tempest Launcher and Crack Shot is amazing.  Re-rolling to wound and no cover save on an AP 3 weapon usually means just no saves for his 2 blast templates. Mind, they DID die horribly to HtH when the last few of a Homogaunt swarm hit them...  I do kind of miss the old Exarch with the good HtH weapon options as well, and I have to admit that for the point cost, making the Reaper Launchers either Assault Weapons or giving them a second (or third) shot type option would be REALLY nice in the next edition :-)...  Pathfinders did actually wipe out the last of the 'Gaunts in HtH to hold their objective, the Swooping Hawks survived due to there being no shooting so not sure it was a good test...  Still, jumping around and throwing out 16 STR 3 shots at 24" range, some of which can cause pinning from a small unit is nice...  Just not so sure they'll last against say, an IG army with AP 4 firepower to spare.  Scorpions killed the enemy Psycher/anti-armor (forget their name...  I see it as recovering Eldar DNA) before getting destroyed by a swarm of Stealers...  They were "OK", but did what had to be done to win the game.  Drawing the uber CC element which also happened to be a Troop section away from one of my weakly held objectives kept it from being a draw.  There was no way his swarms would have made the trek across the large kill zone in the center of the table to contest/dislodge my fire base over there, so I would have held one to his one.

I do have to get away from setting up a "fire base" like that with so mobile an army as the Eldar...  I had the Dire Avengers, Eldrad, Wave Serpent, Wraith Lord, and a Fire Dragon Squad set up in a corner supported by my Spiders jumping around...  Fire Dragons (Exarch w/ Crack Shot for the all important "oops, I rolled a 1" to wound protection and "no cover save for you") did almost nothing as most of them died to the Genestealer Brood Lord, but the Exarch and one survived breaking from HtH to shoot him in the face and take the remaining wound away wiping the brood off the table as they fled...  Spiders survived a round of HtH against a strung out swarm of Gaunts to break away and allow the fire base to open up...  Really only did so well because I seized init...  I didn't realize just how fast the Gaunts really can run in a turn.  And I need to bring more "Troops" to hold objectives...

All in all, the Eldar did well enough...  Hawks I think stay on the shelf still though.  They might surprise a Mech army with Haywire Grenades, but the fact that they evaporate to the first thing that looks at them...  Real shame, they were among my favorite ancient models to actually play, and these days they are just so bad and overpriced that I feel like I am being silly to even consider fielding them...Reapers and Dragons go back into rotation.  War Walkers will I think be something I keep (didn't use them last night, I KNOW they are good), just need to determine the weapon loadout...  The traditional Bright Lance/Scatter Laser (OK, it was "Las Cannon/Scatter Laser" in the ancient times) might be good against Marine forces, especially if I keep them near Eldrad for a Guide...  Dual Scatter Lasers for the 8 STR 6 shots each though...  That works well against a LOT of things...  Just not Terminators.  Wraith Lord, even the Seer is going to be a harder one to take I think.  Just too much Mech/anti Mech in the local play group.  Just have to decide on what "Troops" to start fielding...  Probably a few min squads of Dire Avengers in Serpents as scoring light tanks...  Maybe an Autarch to play the Reserve game, especially in Kill Point missions...  Things off the table most of the game are less likely to die :-)  Just have to GET to the table at some point...

IA 11....

Well, on my initial read through of the book...  Well, I do think that the next edition's Eldar are being revealed a bit at a time.  BS 4 seems to be a running theme.  FAST.  The DE move fast and fire everything looks like it goes army wide...  The D-Cannon looks like it gets deadly again, and they start to bring out more low AP weapons...

Which brings me to what I am thinking might well be at least a slightly broken thing...  Corsair list gives them Troops that are AMAZING...  The current codex has a LOT of Troop choices, but by and large they are all mediocre at best.  The Corsair squad, maxxed out at 10 with all the good options comes to 175.  Jet Packs giving the Tau (well, "rulebook", but the Tau are the only ones who have it) move/shoot/move with Relentless... The squad would have 2 Fusion Guns (Melta Guns) and 2 Eldar Missile Launchers...  The basic troops have Assault 2 weapons with 24" range, so a crapton of Str 3 shots on a highly mobile platform...  Just concerned that it is getting cheap to throw out a bunch of really good shots in terms of high Str and low AP without much of a disadvantage...  And they can deep strike, shoot and move to scatter...  Might be a bit too good for ~200 points...  Mind, no clue whatever if the Eldar will get the same options as the Corsairs, but since that's where the tech originated...

Warp Hunter

Mkay, so I think I may have found one of the somewhat overpowered things in the IA2 book...  The Warp Hunter really is quite powerful, probably too powerful.  Fast skimmer for the 12" move, 36" ranged Barrage weapon OR (and I think this is the broken part) the Aether Rift which uses the flamer template placed within 6" of the gun, and the teardrop no closer to the gun than the narrow end.  And both fire modes are AP 2, wounding on a 2+ (ID on a 6)...  Template weapons negating cover saves means that I can bring it in from reserve or going fast and hit something REALLY hard.  Now, the template has no roll to hit, allows no cover save or armor save...  Mind, I can still roll 1's, but should the unit be say, doomed...  So, say goodbye to a whole lot of "Rock" units...

And against vehicles, the roll of 3-4 for a glance and 5-6 for a penetrating hit...  Combined with the template or large blast?  Well, parking lots are in trouble...  Go in a "V" formation with Serpents loaded out with Fire Dragons and watch the look of "Oh Shit" just creep onto the player putting the parking lot strategy into effect...

Yeah, still no "I kill hordes" really...  I guess the massed S6 shooting I can throw down will be what I can use to deal with the horde effect...

The Eldar next week...

Not sure who I'll be playing next week, but doing a bit of painting, etc...  Thinking of fielding:

Eldrad
Scorpions (Exarch w/ sabers, Shadowstrike and Stalker)
Pathfinders
Dire Avengers (8+ Exarch w/Bladestorm in Serpent)
My ancient Vampire class DN (EML/Scatter Laser)
Dark Reapers (Exarch w/ EML/Fast Shot or Tempest/Crack Shot)
Swooping Hawks (Exarch w/ Skyleap and one of the neat weapons)
+ ?

The Farseer kitted out the way I'd use them would be over 150 points, and Eldrad comes to 210 for a version far better in every aspect I think...  So, sadly, seems almost a no brainer for me, unless for whatever reason I am fielding 2 cheap Farseers just for the extra bodies I guess...

The rest?  Well, breaking out some of the REALLY rarely seen things just to give them a shot...  Might surprise some of the lads...  More likely to make a neat multi colored mist as they explode from anything more powerful than harsh language :-)  But might be fun all around...

Conventional Wisdom?

Not sure if I can effectively say that "conventional wisdom" is silly or not WRT 40K...  I've spent the better part of the last few years trying to play and win with a lot of the "sub-optimal" units/armies in 40K.  Some have been a success, in fact I have actually won a lot more often than I have lost.  Now, a fair amount of that is playing in a "small pond" with a fairly limited pool of opponents, but I do think a lot of it was really a combination of surprise and unfamiliarity with so many things that no one in their right mind would choose.  Saying that, there are still a lot of things that "conventional wisdom" is completely correct about in most situations...  :-)  My opinion only per usual...  My Swooping Hawks and Banshees in the Eldar army are still by and large "highly situational" in the case of the Banshees and  "Let's Wait For Next Edition" on the Hawks...  Thinking a lot more about my Eldar force as you'd guess, playing them in the current Gopher league...  Pathfinders are a solid choice, but fragile.  Guardians are not very good and fragile...  Dire Avengers or Guardians in Serpents seem to be the only one worth taking in a modern play environment.  The Wraith Guard are too expensive in general... Effective, yes...  But a "bit" expensive...

For the bulk of the folks there I'll be playing more "fun" lists and seeing how I can make them work....  My Scorpions with the Chain Saber Exarch flanking works out to be a really good flanking unit...  If they actually show up on a side with the enemy close that is....  Otherwise it's a LONG walk for the 150+ point unit...  The Biting blade seems the "let's get Mech armies" to me, and if it were rending or better Power, I'd say it was really good...  I seem to get a bunch of S7 hits that Marines laugh off with him.  But since I converted one of the lads to the Saber variant I've been running that to decent effect...  Tears through IG and even gets a fair number of wounds against T4 things with the re-rolls to mitigate my poor dice :-)  I don't HAVE enough Falcon type hulls to effectively run the standard "Mechdar" force, but I can do a close enough one I guess...  Just don't think it will be too effective against a well built IG or GK/Wolf "we shoot things" force.  Against that, I'll be relying on flankers and reserves to try to bring me closer to even...  Every advantage I can eke out of the force to try to come close to even odds. Pretty sad commentary that I have to rely completely on luck, "focused list building" and good generalship to even feel like I'm in an even fight with a well built "top tier" list.  To be expected I guess, and one aspect where the conventional wisdom is pretty well right on.  To fight the expected "focused build" IG in the league I'll be having to play the reserve game, hope my lads can roll in, shoot something down/up and maybe even survive the counter fire...  Not a game I'm likely to win or even have fun playing I think.  But sadly, I do think I have at least a shot of making it a hard game iff I build specifically for the expected opposition and they oblige by showing up pretty much as expected :-)...  So, to  restate this: To win, I'd need to min-max a custom force against his, he must field exactly what I'm expecting and I'll need to get lucky on the reserve rolls and with my shooting :-)  Yeah, he's a good player and so I'll likely lose or at best make it a bloody draw as my lads get destroyed...  Same thing happens against Mike, but at least we're both usually quite bloody at the end and it is an enjoyable game

Made the most obnoxious "Rock" or "Anvil" unit I could in the army for last night's game.

Eldrad (210)
Wraithguard (Full unit, w/ Spirit Seer/conceal/Spear) (399)
Wraith Seer (Scatter Laser) (205)

So, LOTS of points, but it gives me a T6, Fearless, Re-rollable save, FNP scoring unit I can march across the field and/or camp objectives with.  Yes, better than half of my army at 1500 points and against some forces it may never do anything but die slowly (I'd hope)...  OTOH, if the game revolves around the other side having to come dig me out...  Well, good luck.  Wraith Guns being in the "I Don't Care" class of weapon I really like to field should make even tooled out Paladins think twice about coming over to assault me.  Mind, I ended up playing to a draw against a good Necron force mostly due to several silly mistakes on my part to compound some bad dice for reserves/flankers...  Should have put the damn Pathfinders up on the second level of the building to make them immune to the Scarabs.  Should have been a bit more cautious with the Spiders and War Walkers, but at that point I really needed to blunt the Scarab's fast moving offensive to keep them away from my "home base" objective being held by a few Pathfinders or encircling my Anvil unit.  On the other hand, I should have realized once I killed one of his 3 Heavy Destroyers I could and SHOULD have moved my Wraith Seer out aggressively to dare his Scarabs to engage...  At that point his Spiders were really the only thing that could effectively hurt him, and he easily over-matched them unless all 6 hit him at once...  If I had moved him even one turn earlier he would have tied up the Scarabs and likely destroyed them in a turn or two, but in any case I would not have been drawn off of the 2 (!!!) objectives they were holding in the center of the field :-)  Still, it was a really fun game getting me more used to playing against the new Necrons...  Guessing it will be Tyranids next week...

Eldar on the move...

:-)  Not sure what direction to go with for the league...  But a bit bored with some of the more overpowered forces so Wolves and Grey Knights are definitely taking a breather...  The Dark Angels are powerful but REALLY limited in terms of viable armies, and a LOT less fun to actually play after a while...  IG are also potentially really too powerful coupled with the fact that they require WAY too may models...  Trying to get fully painted armies to the field, and even after watching Zulu again I doubt I could keep that level of interest in painting my Light Rifle Company...  Yeah, the bulk have a "base coat", but still...

In any case, I'm playing Eldar.  Looking at Imperial Armour, I'm really liking what the Eldar get...  The Hornet is what the Viper really should be in the current ruleset.  The Warp Hunter is their version of the Marine Vindicator, and it is I think better in a lot of ways.  Might be a bit overpowered offensively, the "Inferno" template fire mode for the D-cannon combined with the 5" blast for the main fire mode...  Both modes are "D Cannon" for the rule, so 2+ to wound, 6 is ID and 2-4 for a  glance and 5+ for a penetrating hit....  Yeah, I'll still roll lots of 1's, but AP 2 and no cover save is really quite deadly against a whole lot of things....  The Hornet and Jaeger look powerful but really fragile.  The Wraithseer looks like a potentially "fun" option, but with so many choices being made for me by simply choosing the Wraithseer...  Need another HQ AND a unit of Wraithguard...  So, my "Eldar Castle" army would work, but that leaves so little for anything below 1850+...  Eldrad, full Wraithguard squad and the Wraithseer comes to 800+ points...  So, tough to take down in a kill point mission with the potential for a unit of Fearless T6 FNP Troops with re-rollable cover and armor saves... Good luck killing them quickly.  But it makes for a one trick army...  Good trick, but only one...

So, Pathfinders as Troops...  Not particularly resilient, but could be hard to catch if I run a flank with them...  So, one squad, maybe 2...  Storm Guardians maybe?  Dunno, I've never been a fan of throw away suicide troops, and the SG are just not really good at anything...  Jet bikers are amusing, but WAY fragile...  I know, a running theme for Eldar.  Dire Avengers are "eh" at best in my opinion, but I suppose running around in a Wave Serpent can get me a scoring light tank...  I'll field my usual Scorpions and I've dug up some ancient Dark Reapers...  Thinking they might be nice against all of the 3+ armor out on the field at the Gopher at least...  And I snagged a bunch of Fire Dragons to shore up my horde of Aspect Warriors...  For some reason I only ever had a few of them.  Painting a bit on the Banshees, but I doubt I'll field them...

Eh, it'll be interesting at least :-)