Or 2 BG's and the Warlock in a 3000 point game.
Even with the old limit and just 2 BG formations it still possible to have an auto retain twice per turn.
Thats a possibility of 6 or 8 times per game, again if that's not a cause for concern I obviously don't know the game well enough for my views to be considered.

in isolation I think that would be cause for concern, however in the context of the list as a whole I think it's balanced out a fair degree by both the list structure and the difficulty Eldar have in shedding BMs with their lack of Leaders. Taking the 2 BGs plus Warlock as an example, that leaves the list without aircraft (either a deep strike Vampire or anything to CAP with to prevent air assaults) and 1650pts tied up in 3 activations. To take those 2 BG fms, you're going to need another 2 guardian fms and you'd be nuts to go without an SC, so that's another 400pts, which leaves you less than 1000pts for ground AA and other useful stuff and the need to make up a huge activation shortfall.

Even without the Warlock, you'll still have to spend 1200pts and have 2 semi-useless footslogging guardian fms, before you can get anything else. You might have a fm or two of mechanised Aspects, but they're 300pts each, or perhaps a Swooping Hawk fm. Get a fm of falcons and some nightwings and you're already over 2000pts with only 7 activations. I'm not saying it's impossible to build a competitive 2 BG fm list, just that it has its own trade offs.

Plus once Eldar start taking BMs it's extraordinarily hard to get rid of every last one from a formation. I know everyone's saying "yeah, but that applies to every army" but it doesn't to the extent that Eldar suffer from it as AFAIK, no army has as few Leaders as they do (Avatar, SC and titans and Leader on the avatar is kind of pointless). I'm usually pleased as punch if my army survives to the end of turn 3 with more than half of its formations not broken or destroyed and the rest all have varying no.s of BMs. So, the likelihood of being to pull of that many double auto retains in a single game is slim. Easily once in the 1st turn (no avatar and swooping hawks may not have arrived), possibly twice in the 2nd turn (if your opponent leaves your BG fms alone) and unlikely in the third turn (no avatar, swooping hawks probably dead, BG fms will have a bunch of BMs from their assaults/ counterattack/ being shot to pieces by an angry opponent). So a realistic no. is probably 2 to 3 times a game, which may or may not be game breaking.

Whenever I get a chance to play next, I'll make sure I take a BG mech heavy list and see how many times I can pull it off and whether the 1+ vs. 2+init makes a difference to the game.

The 1 in 3 restriction was in the original Ulthwe list, it was dropped (if I remember correctly) when the BG formation was split from the standard G formation and restrictions were placed on the upgrades BG could have.

I'd be interested in hearing opinions on whether a change from allowing BG to take transports and force more of a Stormserpent/Portal or air assault approach for them. This will often give a 2+ activation before the cascade of 1+ from the portals.

This is almost a different topic, but I consider that to be a problem with the list design and have expressed reservations about that since before Swordwind was published. Eldar should not be a horde army. I'm not sure how that can be fixed, since Guardians are supposed to be both weak and a staple of the Eldar forces, but it's out of character.

1/3 Restriction: As I noted in the design concept thread, the 1/3 was removed in favor of (nominally) correct pricing for the BG formations. I understand there may be some synergistic effects from multiple formations, but restricting numbers to create balance is usually a way of hiding problems, not fixing them.

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Pricing: This is the part I really don't understand. The Black Guardians, by the best comparisons I can think of, are fairly priced on a per-unit basis. They are about 20 points per unit compared to 15 for regular Guardians and 37.5 for Dire Avengers. Comparing to either makes them look right. You might argue they are worth just a bit more than that, but they'd be ~25 at the absolute maximum, and I really think that's a stretch. Even if you round it up, the BG formation would still be within 25 points or so of where it should be.

And let's say for the sake of argument that in addition to a 225 the basic Guardian host should be bumped 25 to cover the improved SR for the host and its 2 support slots. Now we're talking about a 25 point boost to both core formations.

If you accrue that across an entire army list, you're still not looking at more than ~100-125 "bonus" points from underpriced formations. That's noticeable, certainly, but it doesn't account for the extreme reactions and results being reported.

To me, that raises the question of what the heck is going on.

Indeed. I have played A LOT of Ulthwé, Guardian heavy, which is the way I play Biel-Tan too, and, it has been strong, but never "dominating", so I haven't seen these unbeatable issues, even with 3-4 Black Guardian formations... lose a single Wave Serpent, and you're really stuck.

But with that question on the floor, I think it necessitates the army being set to "Developmental" status instead of "Approved" and to then get in some very vigorous playtesting across these options

Discussion is still open, as the Army Book hasn't been finalized yet, but the wire is getting closer!

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I'm a bit lost, why do basic guardians need a price bump? For SR5? I don't remember SR5 ever winning me any games - I either play Marines, where SR4 or 5 would rarely make a difference, or 'nids/necrons/orks/IG, where SR4 or 5 would rarely make a difference. Sure, it may help every few games, but I'm not sure it's worth up pricing the basic cost of a fragile, fairly crap formation (caveat - guardians+upgrades=awesome). And that 100-125pts is a complete activation (fm of Rangers) which is a significant difference in a list like this, especially if you're using a webway assault strategy where every on board activation counts.

it would be good to get some feedback as to how balanced or not people thought the list of before the 1:3 restriction was removed vs. all the concerns voiced in this thread without that restriction. Fiddling with points values may appeal to sense of list design purity but it seems a complicated and unnecessary step given that the list didn't seem broken before that restriction was removed.

SR4 to SR5 is a huge jump. Just look at the effectiveness of Chaos terminators to SM terminators. With the vast majority of games who goes first in turn 2, and gets to do their 2 assaults or sustains or 3 automatically in Ulthwes case, goes a long way to determining the outcome of the game. So SR is a huge deal

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SR5 is great, especially for an aggressive engagement army list Eldar.

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I seem to remember nealhunt, someone who's opinion seems to be well regarded here, expounding on the SR4 vs. 5 and saying that it wasn't such a huge deal?

I'm merely recounting that, in my personal experience, there have very few strategy rolls where I drew when I should have lost or where I won by only 1. Clearly, it makes a difference in tactics as an army with a higher SR is more likely to position itself aggressively on the assumption that it will win the key strategy roll next turn, but I've lost enough games (even with SR5) doing that that I tend not to do so anymore. That also does reflect my webway focused strategy too, so a more mech Eldar list might have to play differently, I'll figure that out with practice.

I also think that the thing that makes SM terminators more effective is ATSKNF personally - half BMs, half hackdowns in resolution and 2BMs per broken kill is worth a lot more than SR4 vs. 5, imo obviously.

Don't forget SR 5 also helps with choosing tables sides,table edge or corner deployment and teleporting/summoning order at the begining of turns too, not just in the startegy roll off each turn.

Did some math on SR4 vs SR5. Let's say that the important part (for initial triple assaults) is the chance of failure against armies with SR3 or less, as against other armies with SR4+ you are not likely to gamble on winning strategy and so probably won't set up to gain as much either.

(Note: Numbers are for turn 2, and includes effect of who wins ties, my assumption is that if there is a tie in turn 1, the SR isn't rerolled, but there's rather a straight rolloff to determine who wins, giving each side 50% chance of winning ties in round 1 irrespective of SR. How does this work really? I find nothing in neither the FAQ nor the rulebook, at least not under 1.4.1.)

Against SR3, BTs chance of failure is 70% higher than Ulthwés (33% vs 19%)
Against SR2, 104% higher (19% vs 9%)
Against SR1, 200% higher (9% vs 3%)

So SR looks pretty significant to me...

true, I guess that has more of an impact in a tournament setting too, although doesn't it only matter vs. Chaos and to some extent SM (I'm guessing you'd roll off against Marines)? I also wonder why EUK Ulthwe still has SR5 with the same points costs as the other lists though, if it's as big a deal as it appears? Obviously they must have done extensive testing with that list to release it as tournament ready, so I'm surprised that it made the cut.

SR 5 isn't what is concerning players wanting to use the netEA Ulthwe it's the amount of 1+ activations with Farsight per turn that is the concern.
SR 5 without more than the 1+ Warlock with farsight is not causing concerns.

so SR5 wouldn't be a problem if Black Guardian fms were restricted then?