I think people are looking at the 3rd Ed 'Acrobatic' rule, which allowed the Exarch to reposition into contact with any model after the charge, but before attacks were struck. Now it just adds 'Counter-Attack'.

20cm Move and Infiltrate (or just Infiltrate) are not off the table. Nor is some sort of CC-Sniper. The next game I play will test the current rules.

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In 2nd edition Howling Banshees where the fastes Infantry. Everyone moved 4", Eldar 5" and the Banshees 6".
So i feel 20cm move for them in Epic is a good representation.

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Compare to Rough Riders: You're not going to "infiltrate" on a horse, but it's a good enough representation of a cavalry charge. It's easy to argue that the Banshee masks can work on the same principle (letting them bypass stunned infantry), and Banshees were the speediest aspect in 2nd edition, last time they still had a move stat.

It won't help them in a mechanized assault though.

20cm OR Infiltrate. Not both.
And iirc Rough Riders in Wh40k also are Scouts which would enable them to inflitrate enemy lines. But i don`t have my books here atm.

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This is where we run into problems when we start trying to extrapolate concepts too much from 40K. Many Exarch powers only affect the Exarch, or if they do affect the squad, they do in a way which is very hard to replicate using Epic rules.

I understand that infiltrate differs from its 40K version, but I can't come up with a good reason why Howling Banshees should get it in Epic, while Striking Scorpions should not, and clearly we don't need to add infiltrate to Striking Scorpions. On that basis, I would prefer to increase the speed of the Howling Banshees, should this be deemed necessary.

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I will make here the proposition I have already made on another thread concerning CC Exarchs whcih also has the aim of solving the Banshee Conundrum in one fell stroke:

All CC Exarch's (of all aspects) extra attack gains any special abilities the CC attacks of their unit has [i]AND is MW.[/i]

This should allow for more CC Exarchs in general and combined withh CC2+ of banshees is quite deadly.

One can add Infiltrate or move on top.

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I have given this a lot of thought, and here is my statted proposal:

- The following entry is added in the Master FAQ: "Q: When a unit that got into b-t-b with the enemy during the assault phase does not have an enemy unit in contact when it comes to rolling for its attacks, can it still use its CC attacks, or can it only make FF attacks?
A: When a unit gets into b-t-b with an enemy during an assault, it always will have to resolve all of its attacks in CC, independently of the order of deaths in the enemy formation."

- All Eldar CC Exarchs gain Ancient weapons (base contact) (assault weapons), MW, EA (+1)

- Banshees gain Infiltrate and Lance and return to their 3+ CC stat.

This way, Banshees are an interesting addition to the Eldar army, CC exarchs are a viable alternative to FF exarchs, making full CC Aspect formations more viable (and giving some defensive use to the Avenger exarch, which is fluffy), and the First Strike problem for Banshees, but also for Rough riders and other First strike formations is finally solved.

Even though Lance is somewhat of a stretch to banshee 40k stats, it is only a design choice of GW to make power weapons useless against vehicles. Fluff-wise, power weapons wad through anything with ease. Also, this is what the Shining Spears power weapons have as stats.

The sum of all this makes Banshees very deadly and very fast, while staying pretty weak defensively and vulnerable to FF counterassaults, which is exactly what they are in 40k. Also, it solves their 2+ CC stat which is not quite fluffy anyway.

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

So what happens when you b-t-b a skimmer?

I suppose the wording needs to be reworked, but it's not meant to stop the skimmer special rule from functioning.

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

I thought the general intention was that Banshees were 'Heavy infantry' killers rather than tank and titan killers, which is the Shining Spears role and which is what these stats would create. Under this argument, CC MW might be a better choice to allow them to kill infantry as well, which would make them more generalist. That said, it could be worth checking how they perform against armoured targets when deployed in Wave Serpents; the argument being that they need to kill off their target or suffer the consequences.


Also, would the proposed wording cause confusion where an assault goes into a second round - the implication being that the definition of "starting the assault in B-B contact" continues from round to round, which IIRC runs against earlier responses in threads and also FAQ.

Just give the Banshee Exarch First Strike. So much simpler than trying to make a convoluted wording work right.

What about the same problem for rough riders? or for any first strike unit with a character?

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

Don't put a commissar in the Rough Riders, problem solved.

The more serious side to that is you do have a choice with the commissar, if you chose to put him in the rough riders so you have made a decision that potentially you may lose that macro attack.

What Mephiston said, and also that we're trying to fix Banshees, not Rough Riders. Even though it's commendable to try to find a general solution, I think that it's not worth it in this case. Keep it simple.

Well for those to whom following closely to 40k is something to strive for, Banshees recently lost their ability to take on 'heavy infantry'(specifically anything with a 2+ save) in 40k. Not that I advocate strictly following 40k but for those that do it counters the anti-heavy infantry role somewhat. They're good for everything upto & including power armour with their customary power swords and with the changes to fleet in the current edition they are more likely to reach combat before Scorpians.

In short I think speed and CC value are closer to the mark if you want to fix banshees.