Purely from a fluff perspective (and not knowing how severely this would change internal balance) I'd prefer to see Ulthwe have a 5+ SR and have the Guardians back to 2+ activation to reflect their scrying, more than their discipline in combat.

The number of warlocks and farseers they have implies a "long view" buff reflected in the SR, rather than short-term buffs which buffing activation rolls reflects. It might not play as well that way, I don't know, but it fits written fluff better. I certainly agree though that they shouldn't have both benefits and further that the unit-reliant activation roll is very awkward (and would be resolved entirely with my preferred option).

I like your suggestion Doomkitten. 5+ stategy and 2+ guardians. Well they are elite, but maybe not as elite as aspects are.

But look forward for the test.

Dont have my own eldars ready atm.

Batrep up..

viewtopic.php?f=84&t=31550

_________________
Regards
Greg

*************************************************

Not against change, so long as it done fairly and no one is left behind....

I'm human and not a !@#$%^# Robot..

Long time no contribution, a lost username...anyway...

There has been a lot of fluff over the years written about Ulthwe Strike Teams. An idea about a unique way to treat aspects in this list, whilst maintaining the Guardian theme and (I think) quite Ulthwe fluffy. What about removing the Aspect Troupe, and adding the following Warhost:

Ulthwe Strike Team (200 points) - Four Guardian units and any four of the following Aspect units: Dark Reapers, Dire Avengers, Fire Dragons, Howling Banshees, Shining Spears, Striking Scorpions, Swooping Hawks, Warp Spiders. Extras: Replace one Guardian units with a Farseer unit for +50 points. Replace four Guardian units with four jet bike or Vyper units (in any combination) for +50 points. Add one Exarch character to an Aspect unit for +25 points. Add just enough Wave Serpents or Falcons to transport all units without Jump Packs or Mounted for +50 points each.

It would give the list another Warhost option. To not make it become the focus of the army add a similar list building rule like the way Iyandan treats Wraithlord hosts - 'Their cannot be more Ulthwe Strike Team Formations than Black Guardian Formations'.

Oh and make it initiative +2, that might release some angst about the +1 Black Guardian formation.

More Guardians, more Farseers and an alternate Warhost to the Black Guardian formation without overshadowing it.

Regards

Harry

Just a quicky before I'm away for the weekend.


Thanks for all the input.

I really like the strikehost idea and appriciate the rational approach on on strategy and initiative.


I will think hard ab this and might incorporate in the next version. Though I still have some questions to ask first.

Thank you pfe200 for the batrep. Truly appriciated. Maybe try some wraith Support for a host or two to add some punch and staying power? How did that variable initiative work out?

Best
Graf_Spee

Another Batrep..

viewtopic.php?f=84&t=31555

I change the list a little...and another fun game..

If talking about the BGWH rule, than in the last two games it hasn't come into play, since basically I've been keeping the Farseers at the back... ...

The SR 4 rating has worked nicely in the last two games, but I plan on facing a SM force and see how it goes.. int +1 is the trick bit. I plan on more games over the coming weeks and will see how the list goes..

Don't drink to much beeer while away...

_________________
Regards
Greg

*************************************************

Not against change, so long as it done fairly and no one is left behind....

I'm human and not a !@#$%^# Robot..

hey guys,

back from a delightfull short holiday trip to the netherlands and two awfull days at work.

hope everyone of you is fine

firstly: thanks pfe200 for those 2 games. yes, forgetting about an activation is a real bummer. especially if it meant an too early loss.

my question is, how did that strategy rating 4 worked out for you? would it have meant any difference to the last games? at least in the tau game you won strategy for every turn and vs. orks 2 out of 3 times.

you kind of spammed the board with black guardians without any real upgrade in form of wraiths or transport.
looks kind of fragile to me, but i guess the sheer number compensated. did the variable initiative come into play in the last game?

secondly:
with regard to initiative i really think about implementing doomkittens idea of strategy 5 (paying respect to the seers of uthwe) and dropping that variable initiatve concept --> reducing the initiative of the guardians to 2+. just like krigsminister put it quite on spot: "Well they [black guardians] are elite, but maybe not as elite as aspects are."

thirdly:
at he same thought i ponder gingers idea of allowing aspects as a regular upgrade for the black guardian warhost.
but the more i think about it the more questions arise for me:
1. what would that mean for the regular aspect troupe? will it have to go in order to keep the focus on guardians?
2. what would that again do to the initiative of that formation (with respect to to my writing above)
3. if the aspect host is lost along that way it would cut ulthwés options quite drastically to deploy ini 1+ formations and also take away the option to teleport in formations like swooping hawks and would cut the usefullness of shining spears and warp spiders quite drastically
4. this would add up some respectable punch to guardian formations which i have difficulties to balance in my head if the normal upgrade options of the black guardian warhost stayes untouched. thinking of a combination with wraiths
5. this would mean a significant impact on formation size, staying power, engagement resolutions
6. what about exarchs in that regard?

just my two cents, hope you guys come in on those.

thanks so much again for your interest!

i hope to manage 2 games in a row sept. 17th

have a nice evening

There has been a long debate about Ulthwe Strategy value.

When set at "5", this increases the chances that they will get to go first in the all important 2nd turn, and with a triple retain combined with hit-&-run to gain a rolling assault, this can be quite devastating. Dropping the Black Guardians to 2+ helps, but there are a number of other 1+ formations including the Avatar and Titans which serve the same purpose . . . .

Try it by all means, but E-UK decided that it is a tad OTT, and I tend to agree.

thats why i set the list down to strategy +4 from its previous +5. i know about those issues, faced them myself and used them myself. personally i would stick at +4 but i still took the debate because it was raised again.
and there are not that many ptent ini 1+ units in the ulthwé list apart from the warlock titan. the avatar can be potent but it is not a must. and aspects at 4 units simply lack the punch of biel tan troupes.

i'm waiting for a few more inputs on that ini 1+ guardians before opening that up again in earnest.

Upfront, I’ve never liked SR5. It doesn’t change the way I play, it just makes decisions I would already make less risky because of a higher chance to get the initiative in turns 2-4.

What is the point of SR5 for the army, with initiative 2+ Guardians? and why would I play this list over BT? Not that I think we should be designing a list with an edge over BT, but it just wouldn’t ever get played.

Decision - I want to play an Eldar army focusing on Guardians. Do I play a list with SR4 with eight strong aspect formations, or play a list with SR5 with four strong aspect formations.... oh and no Void Spinners and two farseers in each Guardian formation?

Maybe I just don’t realise the importance of the higher SR?

If the plan is to ‘force’ a player to take more guardian formations, that would certainly work but I can’t see to what end. It’s playing with a handicap just so I can proudly say I’m playing Ulthwe rather then BT.

Also, Initiative 1+ Black Guardians isn’t just about them being better then regular Guardians. It’s also a demonstration of the power of their copious amounts of Farseers. Which I suppose is a similar argument for SR5.

If you went SR4, Initiative 1+ Black Guardians and the Ulthwe Strike Team Formation (Initiative 2+) I suggested above, the result would be an army that is similar to BT, but the role of Guardian and Aspects completely reversed.

BT - Aspects supported by Guardians.

Ulthwe - Guardians (Black Guardians) supported by Aspects (Ulthwe Strike Teams).

It would also decrease the number of Aspect stands, and increase the number of Guardian stands.

Regards

Harry

If you want a list focusing on guardians then you shouldn't be looking at 8-strong aspects and sighing because you don't have them. If you want 8-strong aspects, go use 8-strong aspects and paint the guardians black. This is not a list that will huge packs of aspects roaming around.

If you see playing with an SR5 army with more activations a handicap and a very retaining ability (as Ginger rightly pointed out), then I don't know what to tell you. Besides which, the alternate army lists shouldn't be designed around the idea of making massively powerful new alternate lists that work in the same way as current lists, but fundamentally different structures that offer different ways to play instead of a handful of minor tweaks. An Ulthwe list won't just be a list whose differences are different guardian formations and smaller aspect units, at least I hope it won't. At the moment everything should feel open to change with the end goal being to create a distinct and dynamic army list with genuine flavour, not just a list with a couple new superunits and a snazzy paint job that obsoletes the original 'core' lists.

SR5 and 2+ better reflects the differences that were written in to Ulthwe's core, the knotty problems of Aspect Warriors and other list inclusions/rejections can be better dealt with once that decision is made and built upon that decision. Personally, I really do not like the idea of mixed guardian/aspect formations, it enormously hampers up the use of some aspects and overly boosts the powers of others with cheap increased breakpoints and suppression protection. That's distinctly against what you suggest - it will make guardians secondary to aspects in every single one of those mixed formations.

Doomkitten - completely understand that point of view. But that's not my dilemma. I can play eight strong Guardian formation (at initiative 2+) formations in either list. The choice is SR5 and weak Aspects to support them, or SR4 and strong Aspects to support them. I'm not sighing because their isn't an 8-strong Aspect formation. To me I think the BT list more appealing.

I'd just like to see the Guardian's be amazing in there own right as opposed to nerf the aspects and small bonus to everything other formation.



I do find that appealing. I just don't think that is the direction or theme the the ulthwe list should be heading. What you've said is 100% my concern. I don't think Ulthwe should be a high activation, high SR army. It should be an Eldar army with better guardians and more Farseers.

Then let's start looking at what can be done with a 'Seer Council' theme. Perhaps instead of a brand new formation, or adding aspects to black guardian units, we consider adding warlock/farseer units to formations of Black Guardians? Give a 0-1 (per army) upgrade for Black Guardians with SupCom, Farsight and improved combat abilities, then warlock unit upgrades with invulnerable save and +1 CC/FF attacks, maybe inspiring (basically pointy-eared commissars) that can be liberally scattered among only Black Guardians for a cost. Adds unique punch to Black Guardians, doesn't invalidate aspects, keeps them secondary to the theme (due to small, fragile unit sizes) but still viable because of the very powerful triple retain on an SR5 army with a core full of farseer unit options.

I just don't think making Guardians 1+ is viable, it infringes too much on aspect roles and opens up too much of the problem that Ginger elaborated on. I still think SR5 could be workable, though it might take some work to keep other 1+ formations in check. Additional blast marker propogation should those fancy, powerful, useful seer council units go splat, along the lines of Sanguinary Guard rules, perhaps?

I suspect that both options tend to have the same problem I described above.

• SR5+ with init 2+ means that the entire army has a higher chance of starting each turn,
• SR4+ with init 1+ means the (relatively cheap) Black Guardians have a much better chance of initiating combats, and especially of retaining.

Welcome to the pain of list design

IMHO, creating lists with different flavours is often about the presence or absence of a few different units, different formations and different formation makeups. In this respect, small changes can have quite far reaching consequences.

• The changes to the Black Guardians give them a slight boost to their to their combat and formation resilience and a significant boost to the Farseer 'resilience' which makes more reliable their ability to retain and summon the Avatar and especially to command other formations. Basically the BG's can risk at least one Farseer in B-B combat which in turn makes them more effective than other Eldar Guardians.
  
  
• Reducing the size of the Aspects dramatically reduces their capabilities and thus the player's reliance upon them. However it does mean that the player can buy more formations, and BG Farseers can command a formidable assault with several such formations - effectively the 'Strike Force' presented.
  
  
• The loss of the Void Spinner is applied to all Eldar lists but not too significant given the relatively cheap and very effective Night Spinner formations (try several grouped together . . . )

My personal preference is to have 4x Aspects for 175 with the option of a further 2x Aspects at +75. This would bring the larger formation in line with E-UK lists while making the smaller formation available for different purposes.

Finally, I understand that in the 'fluff' occasionally Aspects would lead Guardian formations, which has not yet been modelled anywhere in E:A. As a final 'wacky' thought, how about permitting the Black Guardians to replace one unit of Farseers with a single Aspect unit for free ? ?

Hi Graf_Spee,


Yeah, it was…But out all of the games I have played it would be the second time it’s happen…

Yeah the ork game, it was critical to win Turn 2 and I didn’t, so having SR5 may have affected outcome….Tau game, I was lucky to get all three SR rolls, two of the rolls, I won by a pip. So yeah to me it doesn’t mean an auto win when facing lower SR armies, OK Bugs/Necrons are different story. I think also that my opponents think they have a better chance at winning the SR, if set at 4 than 5…

Hey, going to happen again, but with a few upgrades…just my process. The list builds will be fragile; against certain army builds and I won’t deny that…. variable initiative, well no, none of the black guardian War-host went to a +2, from losing a Farseer…. It was fun trying to get the other Eldar formation that were +2 to move some times, like the Storm serpents, but hey that’s life..

As to the other stuff, I would hope you would hold off changing anything till…at least 12 games are played and reported on... Than review..

_________________
Regards
Greg

*************************************************

Not against change, so long as it done fairly and no one is left behind....

I'm human and not a !@#$%^# Robot..