I remember from earlier editions of epic that barrages negated holofields.

Would this not make sense in the current incarnation of the game?

Equally perhaps pin-point attacks should not be able to target them due to the disruption caused by the holofields and commensurate difficulty in targeting the eldar titans from orbit.

Yep.  The old holofields also had variable saves based on how fast the titan moved.  For simplicity's sake, though, it's just a flat save.

They get a good save against pinpoints.  All holofield saves against multi-TK hits are all-or-nothing.

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Neal

Yeah its al flooding back now. Particularly the evil squat cyclops cannon.

I've found many people that started playing before E:40k complain about the flat save in E:A. But, my question to them is: did barrages (in general) behave like they do in E:A?

Did the location of the 'center' of the template matter as much then as it does now? Were the templates subject to scattering?

It's hard to convince some people that it's an apples to oranges comparison.

I suppose it more of a conceptual than rule thing. Distorting/blurring the target doesn't help much against a bombardment attack targeting the whole vicinity of the target.

Its a bit like using top notch camflage in a jungle only for you opponent to deploy napalm

But then the question becomes "if the target has such good camouflage, how do you know where to target that napalm?"

Because barrages in E:A don't scatter, and because falling under the center hole of the barrage template causes additional hits, the holofield rule from 2nd Ed wouldn't really work.

I would suggest that if you wanted to play E:A in such a way that holofields are susceptible to barrages, you do it like this:

When a model protected by a holofield is targeted by a barrage, and the model falls under the center of the template, the model takes a single holofield save roll before any attacks are resolved. If the save is successful, the model suffers a single attack as if the center of the template had not fallen over the model.  If the save is unsuccessful, the model suffers the normal number of attacks.

When a model protected by a holofield is targeted by a barrage, and the model does not fall under the center of the template, the model takes a single holofield save roll before any attacks are resolved. If the save is successful, the model suffers no attacks.  If the save is unsuccessful, the model suffers a single attack as normal.

After attacks are resolved, the model may attempt a reinforced armour save (or invulnerable save) for each successful barrage hit it suffers , as long as the model has such a save and as long as the attack does not negate it.


Alternately, you could just say that barrages allow no holofield saves, but suffer from a -1  to-hit modifier. Of course, that's actually more protection to the holofield model in some cases.

You are correct. In SM2/TL, barrages negated the holofield. I don't remember for E40k.

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All said and done not trying to cast "real life" effects into quirky rules but keeping it simple is one of the great strengths of E:A.

One could easily add three steps to the process and a couple of pages in the rulebook to better rulify barrages vs. Holofields, but in the end, a simple fixed 3+ save usually nets the same result.

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In E40k, Holo-fields worked much the same as they do now, except they gave a 2+ save against all hits, rather than 3+. Barrages didn't make any difference.

Eldar Titans also had a special rule that any hits that weren't saved by the Holofields were automatically critical.

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