Jetbikes: six for 175

Why: Six Jetbikes with 5+ save and no spirit stones are not worth 200 pts. Skimmer is powerful, but their role is often to initate engagements, and they have become a lot more vulnerable with the two NetEA changes.

Howling Banshees: Change profile to CC 4+ and Base Contact extra attack +1 First Strike

Why: Something must be done for the proud banshees. With this proposition, they become viable alternatives to Scorpion Aspects, but they must choose their targets with care to overcome their lower save.

You get 6 skimmers which inititate engagements, then pop over to support another with a big consolidate via Hit & Run. Compare with 200 for Marine bikes (5 with 4+ armour and ATSKNF and a short consolidate) and it's pretty much a wash IMO. These were changed for a reason a long time ago to de-power them and should remian as changed.

that's pretty potent and would push scorpions out IMO, if you hunt around, there is masses of debate on banshees, which normally ends with 'epic isn't great at representing infantry-shredding CC troops'

I think with CC2+ and first strike they are sub-par, but not terrible, I've seen them used well before, if you want to give them a boost, instead of an extra attack, I would suggest infiltrate being much more characterful and would differentiate them from scorpions in role and how they play

I think it's about evens, with Biel-Tan, a formation of 8 banshees (with exarchs) would kick out 18 first strike attacks, with an average of 9 hits, against a formation of tactical marines that's 4.5 kills, with only 1.5 attacks back, or 1 dead aspect, leaving the formation in pretty good shape for being picked up by a nearby vampire and dropped again next turn

for scorpions you'd be facing 6 attacks back, which equals 3 dead aspects, leaving them just above 50% original strength

in both cases you would win the assault, assuming all other factors (outnumbering, prepping etc) but the banshees are in better shape afterwards, against smaller marine formations, odds are you'll break/wipe them out without suffering any casualties, and I would say that marines are far from 'soft' targets.....

on balance Scorpions are probably ~+1 combat resolution better off against stuff with reinforced armour, simply as they are a bit more survivable, but they're no better at damaging anything.....

Overall I don't feel Biel Tan need an adjustment in army balance.

Jetbikes: I'm not sure Dobbsy's comparison with marine bikes does him much good (arguably marine bikes are better with 1+ init, SR5, better in combat, and ATSKNF), but still I had not considered jetbikes to be a problem. Sure they aren't as good as they were with 4+ armour, but they are still regulars on the tournament circuit because they fulfill a niche - they're a relatively cheap fast formation that can claim objectives and support assaults. So I don't think a points drop is needed. Their 2+ initiative annoys me and they can be a liability because of it, but this and the armour is why I think they're better at supporting assaults: advance/double, place a blast marker with a vyper, then retain and engage with aspects/guardians. Next turn they do the same again or grab objectives.

Banshees: they are definitely the poor cousins of all the other aspects. I don't think CC4+ +1 EA first strike is as much of a boost as kyuss thinks, considering how extra first strike attacks interact with regular ones. I think I prefer CC2+ first strike though, probably because it is "cleaner" with only one attack, but TBH have not run it through in my head extensively.

Scorpions: not as good as revenants, but of course significantly cheaper. Not comparable to void spinners, they have completely different weapons and roles. In EpicUK they gained 75cm range which certainly helps, but feels weird to me. My problem with the tank is it doesn't have enough shots. 3x3+ puts it slightly better than 2x2+ on average whilst solving the problem of shots, but does encourage sustain fire and suffers on the double. I personally don't think that is important, it has sufficient range to not need to double too much anyway. It is a departure from the "pulse = 2x shots" erratum though.

Titan pulsars: I think just adding TK would be OK. Possible downgrade to the power fist too. It does beg the question though in your repeated comparison to revenants: are revenants too good? I personally don't think so (they are 650 points and no singles).

Avatar: hmm, I admit I feel compelled to take guardians when I don't necessarily want to, but costing the Avatar is a fundamental change and I worry about unintended consequences. You could argue it'd make balancing easier though. What might happen is, when given a cost, people start to think "well, 50 points isn't enough, maybe it should be 150". And all of a sudden you've added 150 points to every Eldar army that has ever run in the past. Arguably the free Avatar is more an army boost than a guardian one, so it's difficult to change without affecting the list on the whole..

Vampire Raider: I really don't think there are only 2 viable strategies with BT. I also don't think the Vampire strategy is a problem at all. Losing guardians' Farsight on a retain, and aspects' 1+ initiative, is a big big penalty for me. Plus you sacrifice activations. Fine at 200 for me. Even slightly too expensive...

Spirit stones: I feel like this is borne out of a desire to get rid of an Eldar weakness as it makes it easier to win, but I think the fragility is an important part of the Eldar list - for balance, and for "feel". When spirit stones first appeared out of the blue in Swordwind I was happy as an Eldar player, but really it was a bad thing. I personally don't think it should ever have seen the light of day. I only ever add it when I have 25 spare points that I can't spend on rangers.

Rangers: a must-take formation - cheap activations, garrisons, can use cover. It is true that I will never take a formation of 8, but this is the only number I will not take (I take 2 formations of 4 instead). Every other combination is fine for me (even maybe slightly too cheap, but it probably just seems like it due to the May Not Garrison rule). To approach this another way, you could just as easily change the formation to being "4 to 7 units at 25 points each". All 175 points would do is give you a free extra unit when you buy 7: not needed IMO.

War walkers: rubbish. Can't take cover, LVs, too expensive (both in terms of formation cost and per unit cost). They have weapons, but those don't seem to synergise well with how I'd want to use them. They'd probably have to be the same cost as rangers and have more flexible formation size for me to take them.

Cobra: my thoughts in the other thread. Really at this point of development I just want to see it get better so I can take one, any way that is possible.

Other units you never see: spacecraft, phoenix bombers.

Scorpions: not as good as revenants, but of course significantly cheaper. Not comparable to void spinners, they have completely different weapons and roles. In EpicUK they gained 75cm range which certainly helps, but feels weird to me.

Except Eldar don't have any other unit (save Storm serpent/air assault) that can engage defensive formations in the second turn. As it is you just wouldn't choose Jetbikes over the other two options, whereas with a cheper Jetbike formation, you could. As it is, jetbikes even compare poorly with Ork Motoboyz at the same price.

Banshees need to compare with Scorpions to compare at all. With only 1 attack, even at 2+ they are not as good defensively or offensively as Scorpions.

Pulsars already have TK(1). They are never picked.

Revenants are far from too good. They are just the only source of viable MW shots in the Eldar army atm, where Phantoms and Scorpions could indeed fit the bill if properly statted.

The idea behind 50 is not to charge the Avatar at value, but to force the Eldar player to commit to a strategy when using him in an army.

I am talking two versatile tournament strategies. When you know your oppment, Eldar can tailor a bit more.

SMs have ATSKNF, Orks have Mob rule and Nobz everywhere, Chaos has lords everywhere and countless Fearless units, Guard has Commissars, Tyranids have synapse, etc.

Eldar are brittle fine, but no BM management ability makes them played in only a way where they dont get hit at all. Whereas a point of my proposed changes is precisely to allow for alternative Eldar strategies, where you actually could play land based Eldar viably. Otherwise, sure the 2-3 Vampires, 2-3 Aspects, 2-3 Void Spinners, Guardians and Rangers to fill in strategy works fine.

I use spacecraft regularly to prep Air assaults. I find them particularly useful against mass AA defense. Sure Void Spinners can do pretty much the same job, but they are more expensive and BT limited.

I still find EUK Scorpions distinctly underwhelming to face, and easy to kill.