After so much talk about Eldar boosts, I would like to bring up the issue of Eldar nerfs. Eldar are a powerful army overall, winning a lot of its games, so perhaps some of its units could do with a small nerf.

These are all proposition, and the point is just to bring up opinions.

Biel-Tan:
- Warp spiders: remove First strike from notes. (best Aspect by too much of a margin)
- Firestorm: bring AA down to 5+. (incredible AA for its points. Chhanging the pulse rule was too good of a boost for this unit )
- Wraithguard: Make them implacable (only 1 move when routed, and no march move), and make their upgrade 3 only, not 2-3. (this is an awesome upgrade that is too flexible and/or cheap at the moment. Rather than increasing cost, as its an upgrade already, lets give it a fluffy drawback).
- Wraithlord: should be 150 points (no reason that they would be more expensive than wraithguard).
- Avatar: FF 5+ (small nerf to a fantastic unit).
- Holo-fields: they deactivate if move was not part of the last activation. (sustaining revenants and Phantoms are too good. this also is spot on with the fluff).

Saim-Hann: Boost the army, no nerf considered!

Ulthwe: as tated in its thread, SR5 is too strong and not needed. A lighter rule (as a strategy reroll) would be as adequate and quite more balanced.

Iyanden:

- Wraithguard & Wraithlord: see above for nerf and formations of theose should not have better than 2+ initiative, if that. (crzy powered atm).

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

LordotMilk, dude! I just bought my first Eldar army!
Literally at lunch time today!
And I thought we were friends!

Lol, carry on; I don't actually know all the army stats yet, so if you're going to nerf now is the time. I won't know what I missed.

Wraithguard used to be 3 units to an upgrade; I never really thought they needed that flexibility for Biel-tan.
I tend to agree something should be done to nerf the Warp Spiders.
Wraithlords are awesome CC units and provide cover since they are AVs. They should definitely be more expensive.
Holofields... I think losing them forever on a critical is bad enough.
On Ulthwe, I'm not sure they need the SR5 either. It seems OTT.

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They also make the formation more vulnerable to shooting, as AT fire can then be fired at the guardians. I have found that the cover gain on the guardians is balanced with the AT fire vulnerability in practice, whereas Warithguard are a straight-up resilience gain.

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

AT fire can only be levied against the AVs, but I get your point. I guess it is a matter of different experiences; IMO my Guardians which have no armor have more to benefit from having mobile cover modifiers (i.e. Wraithlords) than they do from mixed AP/AT fire.

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It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Wraithguard are also much better support in FF assaults, and Guardians awful at CC, so I the possibilities for Wraithlord to actually get to CC in BT are limited to portal assaults, maximum once per game, in a very specific configuration.

Even in that configuration, the superior FF of Wraithguard is preferable.

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

Well first off Spectrar Ghost is doing a great job as the AC for the Eldar and I would like to see more test rests up for his current list of changes before we move onto new stuff.

But to contradict myself straight away, some of my thoughts on the points that have been raised:
Warp Spiders – Difficult balance between these and other Aspects, yes they are probably the best Aspect formation, but dropping the FS would put them in the same bracket as Howling Banshees and I wouldn’t want to do that.
Firestorm – I can see the argument for it, but don’t see the need for the nerf.
Wraithguard – I’d always take the maximum number in a formation if I take them so a swop back to the original up-grade wouldn’t make any difference to me. I find the restriction of no transports or having to portal good enough not to need a further restriction/change.
Wraithlords – same again (& I thought this was a nerf threat) but they don’t need a reduction in cost as others have said they offer a great CC and cover option for Guardians.
Holofields – You are correct that is some of the old fluff. But we play a simpler game nowadays I would not propose to complicate the game anymore.
Ulthwe SR5 – they are the only list which can potentially disrupt Space Marines and their spacecraft, if you want to go along that route. Different type of fluff says that they should have a higher SR due to the higher proportion of Seers on the craftworld.

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I can't see the need for much of this to be done to be honest. I don't use Warp Spiders, so I can't comment on those, but I have used the rest of the units mentioned, and nothing strikes me as being so overpowered that it needs to be fixed.

Adding Wraithlords to Guardian formations hasn't done them any favours in my experience, but I'll be the first to admit that I struggle to get the most out of Guardian formations in EA. I'm much better at using them in NetEpic.

It sounds to me as though Wraith units are more of a problem in the Iyanden list, rather than the Biel-Tan list, so perhaps focus on doing something with that list?

Overall, I find the Eldar Biel-Tan list to be generally well balanced with very few excessively good/bad units.

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Wraithguard are 2-3 because a box of Eldar from SG only has two stands of wraithguard. Before changing it you should consider wether this is still a valid reason.

That is an excellent point.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Agreed. Model availability / box size is an utterly crap argument at this point. The size might make sense from a gameplay, theme, or balance point but no one should be using "they come in sets of X units" anymore (or at least regarding GW made items)

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I wouldnt be too worried. with the speed of things on this forum, if we start talking about those issues now, we might see them implemented in some way in 10 years!

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

I do like the idea of moving First Strike to the Warp Spider guns instead of unit notes, and will probably implement it on a provisional basis. I tend to see the other things as less neccessary. We could switch the Wraithguard back, though I'd probably want to poll peoples collections before taking any action.

Ulthwe - I don't know, I kinda like SR5 as a distinguishing factor. Do others feel the Init1+ Black Guardians are enough?

Saim-Hann - These guys have mad mobility. Their 35 cm move makes rolling assaults comparatively easy to pull off. I'm really not in favor of changing anything at this time. Jetbike armor was downgraded for a reason. They were too common and too good at Ar4+. They're still a mainstay at Ar5+, so I can't see a need for change there.

Iyanden - I'd prefer to keep Fearless and drop their base Init (with a modifier for seers) as discussed in the Iyanden thread.

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I disagree with virtually all these, the Eldar lists have been tested a very large amount over the last decade and are well balanced and not in need of nerfing.

Warp Spiders universally have first strike due to their sudden teleportation and appearance in the midst of the enemy. They're a good option, but probably fine as they are IMO.

Saim-hann might be a bit underpowered but I haven't played them enough to really comment myself.

Ulthwe should keep SR5, it's a very distinctive feature of the army and background and they have been tested and used that way for a very long time. It's worth mentioning that Epic-UK went for a more cautious SR4 when they did their Ulthwe list and then in a recent review have gone for SR5 afterall (and they even have cheaper Black Guardians at 175).

I played Iyanden again recently and don't think they are overpowered, they have significant disadvantages (speed, cost) that balance them out.

I tend to agree Glyn. The 2008 changes did much to balance the units and I have long contended that the Eldar are one of the more balanced lists. There are some units that are some that are less frequently taken, but few that feel overpowered.

However, I also think that the Eldar are more sensitive than many lists to the way they are played, and that some formations and units are easier to play well than others, resulting in these units appearing to be better. An example is the Void Spinner compared with the Night Spinner formation (using the current debate). IMO they are equally good, but the Void Spinner is much easier to use than the Night Spinners, because NS are more fragile and shorter ranged.

Good players are able to make the best of their own forces and to hinder those of their opponents - yes FireStorms are awesome, but only until the formation suffers BMs and they get suppressed or destroyed.

That said, the *only* nerf possibly worth considering is to move the Warp Spider first strike to the weapons, as I have explained elsewhere. However, doing this does make using them slightly more complex to play with as the player has to remember to separate out the Extra attacks.