Concerning scouts and deployment, your experience is interesting. I would be interested to know if IG and/or Tau players deploy similarly. They play the main targets of a putative deployment zone attack.

Concerning hiding artillery, how many artillery formations are you considering in your examples? Your arguments make some sense with 1 artillery formation but not with multiples.

If, as Eldar, you are only facing one artillery formation, I fail to see the big problem VS would solve. It is in the case of multiples that you must handle the issue or die.

Now concerning the complexity of the plan, it is really quite typical of Eldar play:

A couple mid range assault formations (SH, Wave serpent mounted troops, Vypers, etc.)

A couple long range assault formations (Storm serpent troops, vampire raider troops, SH, etc.)

3-4 prepping fire formations (Scorpions, Falcons, Fire prisms, Void spinners, etc.)

A couple scout screens (rangers, rangers, rangers, rangers, rangers, rangers and rangers omg no WW?!?)

A couple close support fire formations (guardians, Vypers, falcons, etc.)

There you got an Eldar army. And with pretty much any combination, you will play it out so as to minimize 1st turn damage from the enemy, maximize 2nd turn damage to the enemy, use superior speed to grab objective and win on turn 3.

If you want to do a full assault on the enemy in his deplayment zone on turn one however, you most definitely can, and you really dont have to use the Void spinner. If anything I really think the Ulthwe SR5, which I would be in favour of removing btw, is much much stronger than the option to have a 3 BP 250 points vulnerable artillery piece.

As I stated earlier, I think VS a fine unit. It accomplishes its intended battlefield role pretty well, and Eldar have to build a battle plan to accomplish a better result with alternative formations. VS are however, by far, not necessary for a successful Eldar battleplan, and definitely not the *only* unit to threaten enemy deplyoment zone on turn 1, which is what you stated as a reason to pick Biel-Tan and work from there.

Finally, because this is what these last few posts were about, I definitely not think VS should see a price increase. I rarely field them nowadays as they lack punch compared to similarly priced Eldar formations, and because of the *free lunch* they give the enemy on turn 2 onwards.

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

I stand exactly buy that statement , no other eldar unit can hit the opponents deployment zone like the void spinner can. With the spinner you can take out enemy artillery and target vital enemy formations with complete safety for the void spinner, all you need is to go first (if vs artillery) and to activate. All your examples either rely on luck (spaceship) or are a mutiple activation tactic rather than a first strike counter artillery strike like the VS. Taking out that artillery, even 1 formation, is vital for eldar with their small fragile units.
IMO, backed up by experience, and data on VS usage it should definitely go to 275 as it is far superior to the other SHTs as they all have an alternative to do their job or are too risky to use confidently.

Tau work well using scout screening to answer your query

Can I ask you again how you use terrain, terrain shadowing and pop-up?

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I am glad that you stand by your statement. It is undeniable that blinkeredness is one of you qualities.

We agree that the VS is a good unit, that fulfills a specific battlefield role better than other Eldar units.

We disagree that it is the only unit that can reach enemy artillery on turn 1.

We also disagree on its price value. But thats probably because we disagree with the price value of artillery in general, and because we are not considering the same stats for the other Eldar SHTs.

These disagreements are mostly due to the fact that despite your AC status, most of your experience is based on fanmade house lists with fanmade house stats.



Of course they do. That was not my question at all. My question was: how many Tau have you faced using that tactic against Eldar with Storm Serpents?

And if you tell me often, then I am not surprised all your tournament lists are air assaults so as to bypass the systematic weird use of scouts by Tau, considering your rules allow for scout screening air assaults.



As stated before, per the rulebook, with the ERC change to pop-up LOS.

Now can you answer my question: have you changed your mind regarding Scorpions, or do you still believe that 3x 2+ MW is overpowered?

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

Hilarious coming from you, applause for your various goading sigs too

Against any stats Ive seen the void spinner is markedly superior

If you are using them as in the rulebook then you need to consult the FAQs/errata on pop up and terrain as it was nerfed.

All lists be they netEA, f-ERC, EUK are fanlists so I don't see your point, I also don't know how how you know which lists I use kn our weekly games?

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Split.

If you two can't play nice I'll nuke the topic and talk to CS about warnings. Be warned.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

I wish the Ordinatus Medrengard was invulnerable... sadly that's not really true.
What it actually is is a slow, 600pt non-Fearless War Engine that needs to be hidden and/or babysat for a good part of the game. I don't lose mine often because I protect it.

Points for points, I'd prefer to have a Void Spinner.

Also, only having one terrain piece in the deployment zone is a bit unrealistic and contrived.
Try using the spaceship bombardment with a couple of obvious terrain feature targets in the deployment zone (as I believe most would play it) and this whole discussion changes.

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Well, rules say that a regular battlefield should have 12 terrain features, covering 25-33% of the battlefield + roads.

The nasty artillery formations that Eldar fear are mostly found in IG, Tau and some rare (in our playgroup) Chaos armies.

12 terrain features does not allow for much terrain in the (relatively) small EA deployment zones. How do you place them?

Also, Eldar (and especially Ulthwe, which I am arguing are too strong and definitely stronger than Biel-Tan)have a better strat rating than either IG or Tau so can choose their deployment zone (out of 6 options) so as to limit the number of terrain features in the deployment zone of these armies.

Consequently, and unless you think I am missing something, I do not think my argument is contrived.

On the contrary, warhound alpha strikes are quite common for SM in other playgroups as I have seen others post on this forum.

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

Of course, we place terrain as per the rules for the tournament game:
As can be seen here, there is no mention of a restriction on terrain in the deployment zone.
Your artificial limit creates a situation that favours certain armies and certain units (space ship bombardments for example).

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Thats exactly the rules we use.

12 terrain features, each player places half of them taking turns. The Eldar player places none of them in potential deployment zones, the other places all of them in deployment zones, resulting in exactly one terrain feature per potential deployment zone. At best, the IG player places a terrain feature in each corner, and then 2 opposite at the middle and gets 1 1/2 terrain feature in a L shaped zone.

That is unless you advise that we use the TRC interpretation on L deployment zones... which we don't currently.

Eldar then chooses his deployment zone, thereby choosing his opponent's deployment zone, where the most ill placed defensive terrain feature can be found.

Notwithstanding the fact that not all terrain features block LOS (craters for example), nor that Terrain features only block so much LOS (you cant hide an rmy behing 30 cm of forests for example, and forests hardly block large titan LOS) I don't see how a SL player (for example), or any other non-bunkerized army with a lower than 4 SR (or 5 for Ulthwe), can stop Eldar from making alpha strikes with Scorpions SHT/spacecraft on their artillery.

Edit: Actually, I am not being completely fair. Our IG players currently use Baneblade companies to hide their artillery behind. This forces you to kill the baneblades first, which can be a hassle depending on your force composition.

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

Well, it is artillery not killable by orbital bombardment, not killable by turn one pin-pont attacks (edit: except necrons iirc), not killable by counterbattery fire. It has indirect fire and so its unkillable by direct fire (as it can hide behind terrain features, and is not vulnerbale to spacecraft).

It is vulnerable to air assault and other deployment zone forms of assault (teleporters, portals), but that can all be protected against by scouts ZoC with the marked exception of Air assaults.

Playing Eldar, this Ordinatus and, even worse, Ordinatus Golgotha, are the epitome of dread.

Ordinatus Golgotha however, does not combine its power with incredibly strong fast attack formations like CSM can, but this is derailing the topic.



It's not invulnerable but definitely more resilient than any other artillery in the game, save artillery reavers and warlords, but thats really another debate.

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

For what its worth, I like the idea of both players positioning terrain alternatively and also having constraints on where they may place terrain. Also, in E-UK tournaments we tend to say that all hills, woods and towns / buildings etc block LoS (there are a few exceptions agreed in the 5 min warm up). Consequently there is usually a lot more terrain to hide behind, reducing the potential of direct fire quite significantly.

I suspect different interpretations of the impacts and use of terrain may be at the heart of this discussion.

The terrain discussion is very useful - in fact I was considering splitting it off into its own topic.

Reading the discussion between Steve54 and LordotMilk as they compare the various eldar units, its clear that the performance of some units is hugely influenced by how the terrain rules are treated.

For example LordotMilk is probably correct that Swooping Hawks can fill an alpha strike role in the environment he plays in, but I doubt they would be nearly as good where I am. The reason for this is that terrain is played as TLOS (True Line Of Sight), so if your shooting unit can see a model through a terrain feature it can shoot it (with a negative modifier) unless the terrain feature is a forest.

(I'd ask Onyx to add detail to how this works if needed but the key is we're not following "The line of fire is blocked by terrain features such as buildings, hills, woods. Buildings, rubble, woods, fortifications and the like don’t block the line of fire to or from units that are in the terrain itself unless the line of fire passes through more than 10cm of the terrain feature" literally. )

Before anyone blows their top, terrain rules are what players agree they are, and that's a long term 'agreement' in our local gaming environment that seems popular in that it allows more terrain and more interesting, larger buildings and features, but it would also mean that a unit like Swooping Hawks that relies on getting in, doing damage and getting out to a location out of sight.

So I have to read LordotMilk's comments regarding swooping hawks vs Steve54's about Void Spinners through the following filter:
1) The Swooping Hawks would probably not perform as well here, because enemies will draw sight and retalliate against them easier (unless the table has forests)
2) The Void Spinner does not have this issue, but it and all indirect fire units are less vital here because it is easier to find direct-fire targets
3) Both of these units are being suggested as counters to targets that Eldar struggle with like Guard artillery batteries - which in turn are less vital and less taken in a TLOS gaming environment

and that leads to the big ones

4) Eldar (or any jump-shoot-jump army) may be less powerful in an environment that doesn't treat all terrain over 10cm deep as blocking LOS.
5) It would be very important to know the way terrain is treated when making an army list for a game in a different country or state

And there's another example: Onyx's view on the vulnerability of the Ordinatus will be different from your own because where he plays it can and probably will be shot (unless he can find something large enough to actually block LOS to it).

Edit: This is a very interesting synopsis. Playing Eldar with your LOS conventions will require playing mostly reserve lists I guess (Air assault + portals)

Eldar do have some units that can distinctly take advantage of your rules on terrain. Scorpion SHTs, Phantoms with dual pulsars, Fire prisms can all be particularly Deadly with your terrain conventions.

Also, Eldar infantry assaults rely on killing everything in a battlefield segment within 3 activations so as to restrict potential counterfire. Sure this is often a bit of wishful thinking and quite hard to pull off (as Ginger mentioned) but that is the idea. Jump assault, consolidate to support, jump assault, consolidate to support jump assault (the Rolling assault).

1) Swooping hawks killing the scout screen, 2) prep fire and 3)Aspect air assault is a typical ploy.

Swooping hawks can also be replaced by any number of things, depending on placement and on which turn you need this to happen. If your static portal is near mid table, you can double with Vyper jetbikes, or assault with Shining spears on even well hidden enemy scout screens for example.

Of course, during turn 2, everything is easier for Eldar assaults, as they have had turn one to optimize placement with their incredible mobility. If they lose initiative, things can get ugly though... (SR5 imba imho )

Edit: @Matt-Shadowlord: i didnt quite get if you could shoot through terrain features in your set of conventions? i understood, perhaps wrongly, that you were saying that buildings for example did not bloc LOS unless they were at least 10 cm large?

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