The fist does seem pretty overpowered, having a good (if relatively shortranged) shooting attack, adding 2 TK CC attacks AND 3 FF attacks. Any 2 of those would make for an excellent titan weapon, all three together is just overkill.

If that's the case, you may want to try shifting some or all of the FF attacks from the Fist to the Titan itself (perhaps as part of the missile launcher that's universal on the Eldar Battle Titan chassis). That'd bump the pulsar up without taking away from the Fist.

Personally, I find the fist lasers weird. They're not on the model, and strike me as an inelegant fudge.

_________________
Industrious, red-robe wearing member of the PCRC

Those little "gems" on the back of the fist are actually the lasers, I believe.

Originally, back in "Space Marine" days, the Eldar Power Fist (same model as now) had a "battery of shuriken cannon", but those never appeared on the model either.

So, it's had both shooting and melee attacks since the start.

Well, originally, the fist FF attacks were added because it was felt underpowered compared to the pulsar.
Tuning that down would be the best step to take to make the inner balance of eldar titans better.

The pulse was dropped, along with other measures, because there were a lot of special rules in the eldar list and it was considered by most as overpowered in its originally released form.

Transfer extra FF attacks to chassis, balance fist and pulsar from there. At the moment, you're trying to balance one weapon with a built in chassis fix, against another without, of course the one with the chassis fix is gonna win most of the time.


OR, and this is more of a fundamental change, give just about all titan weapons (over all races) chassis adds, allowing for more titan customisation. The fist should add extra macroweapon CC attacks, no question, and the pulsar is a big rapidfire gun, so extra FF attacks seem justifiable.

Then what about the Imperial gattling blaster? Also a big, rapidfire gun. Extra FF attacks from that as well? Warlords are viewed as overcosted as they are, and adding FF attacks wouldn't be too much of a change as they're mainly used for their shooting attacks at the mo. maybe Inferno cannons as well adding ignore cover FF attacks.

Orks have less weapon options (which seems a bit wrong to me) and their gargants are generally viewed as more worth their points, but the idea of a soopagun adding a macroweapon FF attack still appeals.

You could even go more extreme, like the power fist adding 1 or 2 DC to the titan. It's big and clunky and looks kinda like a shield anyway, definitely less fragile looking than the pulsar.

this is all ugly creep.

Creep or not, it seems like the power fist is a better deal for the points than the pulsar is. We're just brainstorming ways to make them more evenly matched. The two broad choices are make the pulsar better or make the p-fist worse.

If the Biel tan Phantom changes (either by NetEA or EUK) then the titan clan list will want to reflect that change and make sure the other weapon choices are modified compensate for the change.

Then make the fist worse. The fist was first beefed up with the FF attacks to make it interesting compared to the pulsar which was originally a Pulse weapon. The pulse was taken out because the eldar list globally needed to be nerfed a bit.

Since then Turbo lasers have got a 15cm range upgrade, because Imperial titans were felt to be too weak, (which didn't prevent a price cut for Warlords, Reaver and Phantom to be discussed a month ago), and now we are discussing a pulsar buff. It's textbook Codex creep if I ever saw it.

The main problem of Eldar titans is the same issue than with most expansive formations : Activations > All.

I really like the idea of moving the extra attacks to the basic titan, regardless of them originally being on the first it's not obvious from the model. They could be assumed to come from a non-obvious weapon system on the model but perhaps they could be made part of the Twin Eldar Missile Launchers?

It's not that Eldar Titans per se are bad - the Warlock is a good and feared choice and used often enough, but a Phantom is worse and rarely taken. Ideally backgroundwise it would be preferable if the opposite were true and the more commonly taken one in games was the Phantom and a change is called for to help it.

I think you're mis-applying the concept of codex creep Atmospheric - codex creep is about GW making the new list/codex more powerful than the average existing list/codex in order to encourage sales. We have no sales or ulterior motive and tweaking individual underpowered, underused existing units to bring them up to the average is just a bit of re-balancing rather than codex creep and it helps the game by encouraging a wider range of competitive lists for variety and interest.

Codex creep can also occur when a specific list or unit is more desirable than similar units, and the other units or lists are improved to be competative with the relatively overpowerd choice. Making Tac Marines better instead of making Warhounds worse would be a good example.

It is important to make sure you improve/handicap the actual problem unit or list instead of trying to make the units that are balanced WRT each other match the unbalanced unit or list.

However, since the Phantom, especially the Twin Pulsar Phantom, is considered to be underpowered, a buff would seem to be in order.

_________________
SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

I don't think the phantom is underpowered. The Warlock is often taken instead, that's not the same. I'd say up the warlock cost. The Powerfist is often taken instead of a pulsar. Nerf the powerfist.

Since they are all about movement surely higher to hit is better than more shots that encourage more static play?

I'd say people don't play the Phantom because it is not as exciting, plain and simple. Players don't want to dance around with their jingle-bell-toed Space Elves playing keep away with a 750 point Titan, even when that is exactly what it was designed for. They want to stride onto the battlefield and CRUSH things. Nobody wants to get near a Warlock Titan because they fear it assaulting them the next turn.

But Phantoms with dual Pulsars are fantastic long range support units. They can fire effectively on enemies on turn 1 with 75cm range + 25cm movement. Turn 2 and 3 they can hit with deadly accuracy if placed well, having no fire arcs and a good number of dice rolling. Their movement base means they can travel on a double and still manage to make some awesome kills. They have a high probability of taking out a SHT outright in a single volley, or reducing a Leman Russ formation's effectiveness by 50% (two kills, 5BMs). God help the opponent who gets sustained fire from these things; using the LR formation as the target again, the likelihood is 4 kills and the LR formation effectiveness cut by 90% (6 of 10 survivors, 5 BMs).

Pulsars only start to lose their effectiveness when facing armies with lots of infantry and low/no valued armored targets.

Where I think you don't get your bang for your buck is equipping a Phantom with a Power Fist. The reason is because the target packages change from high valued armor & WEs to whatever you can shoot at (usually targets you feel more comfortable approaching within 30cm are not all that tough). Oft this places fire on large formations like mobilized infantry or big mobs or whatnot. A TK shot against a heavily armored target feels valuable; a TK shot against a Chimera or a stand of Boyz feels wasted. You think you are getting a jack-of-all-trades with this combo but you aren't.

This isn't a problem with the Power Fist or the Pulsar; it is a problem with the chosen combination and the choices of targets made as a result of this combination.

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

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