If by 'jumped on' you mean the flaws in it that make it overpowered pointed out then yes that what has happened. I don't see why you've flown off the handle - people have presented tactical insight+experience which doesn't agree with your opinion, all in up to now a perfectly civil manner.

EUK has nothing to do with it - nobody has mentioned aspect sizes, spirit stones, swords+shield of vaul or any other differences. All that has come up is experiences playing that list as well. It does seem to be just the best smokescreen to hide behind when experience+evidence doesn't agree with somebodies point.

Complaints over init 1+ have been going on for years but were dismissed and the eldar lists have somewhat stagnated since then.

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www.epic-uk.co.uk
NetEA NetERC Human Lists Chair
NetEA Chaos + Black Legion Champion

Didn't help me (with Int 2) as E&C has already noted

that's the point though Steve, the NetEA Ulthwe list isn't terribly overpowered otherwise I would be winning all my games (I don't) and there'd be howls of outrage echoing through the forums on a regular basis (there aren't, until this thread).

EpicUK has everything to do with it, as most of the people calling for a downgrade for NetEA Ulthwe and NetEA Black Guardians are relating their experiences based on EpicUK Ulthwe, which has a very different list structure (which I've pointed out above) to the NetEA list. Although their experiences with EpicUK Ulthwe are certainly valid in the EpicUK context, they're not valid here for exactly the reasons that I've outlined above.

Apart from Evil+Chaos who has played the netEA list and found it overpowered, myself (+I think dptdexys) who tested the netEA when we were doing the EUK Ulthwe and found 1+ to be a non-starter.

_________________
www.epic-uk.co.uk
NetEA NetERC Human Lists Chair
NetEA Chaos + Black Legion Champion

and if you assault with bare Black Guardians (as they can't take wraithguards or wraithlords in the NetEA Ulthwe list) they're going to get absolutely slaughtered given that they have, at best, 2 units with a save. Really, I've assaulted with bare guardians before, either out of necessity or just fun, and they've never won against a target of note. I never use bare guardians assaulting out of a portal - they usually have wraithguard, sometimes wraithguard+support weapons (if I need to avoid multiple BTSs), rarely with wraithguard and wraithlords.

Well at least my opinions should then be fine, from all the time I spent with Zap27 in the early days of this list.

I don't really know how to get my point across more clearly Steve, but the differences between the EpicUK Ulthwe and NetEA Ulthwe lists are huge:

NetEA can take both normal guardians (with all standard upgrades) and Black Guardians (waveserpents, SC or weapon platforms only), but can only take Black Guardians in a 1:3 ratio with normal Guardians (fractions rounded up)

EpicUK can take only Black Guardians and those can take all the standard upgrades, most importantly of all, wraithguard. They're also 25pts cheaper for what that's worth.

So, if you're testing NetEA Black Guardians (init1+, only likely to be one BG formation within the whole army) within the context of an EpicUK list (can take wraithguard, can take only Black Guardians, so there'll be at least 3 fms in your army), then clearly they're going to be overpowered, I'd agree with you, shake your hand and buy you a pint down the pub. But we're not talking about that here, we're talking about the NetEA list.

Seriously, if you can only feasibly take one Black Guardian formation in an entire army, how is its init1+ really going to win you a game over init2+? It's nice to have, sure, and if I was going all mech I'd probably take one just to avoid the chance of failing yet another initiative roll, but it certainly isn't a fm I would base my entire strategy around.

Isn't 2 normal and 2 black formations a possibility? (1/3rd rounding up.) Not that I think that's a bad ratio, but I'd rather see a rewrite to "No more than half (rounding down) can be Black Guardians". Same effect for 5 formations or less.

E+C - direct comments from playing netEA list

Myself - direct comments from playing netEA list when looking for EUk starting point.

_________________
www.epic-uk.co.uk
NetEA NetERC Human Lists Chair
NetEA Chaos + Black Legion Champion

That is what used to be allowed

Would you view change if the 1 per 3 limit has been removed and you can use all Black Guardians, which is what the list currently has?

And Tim, Steve and Dave have all stated that they tested the netEA version extensively 2 years ago and raised these concerns then.

It's up to the AC what happens next, and currently the question at hand is should the list be approved or developmental.

If I'm correct your view is Approved, others seem to be leaning to developmental. Chroma has a few days to make his decision on what to propose.

I didn't say that I agreed that it was too powerful. I like the way my Ulthwe played. Then Wraiths were dropped from the BG formation and I had a huff for a couple of years. However most of my tournament armies have been Ulthwe style even before they were approved.

that's true, forgot about that. Still nowhere near as easy to set up a triple auto retain as people are making out, for all the reasons I've stated already. If we really want to try and stop any possibility of a triple auto retain, then how about making Black Guardians a 1 for every 3 normal, no rounding up? Then you should get one maximum at 3000pts and probably not another until 5000pts, at which point you probably won't want to take more guardians as it's soul destroying to have to paint that many of them

to be honest, I don't think the 1 per 3 limit has been intentionally removed. If it has, for whatever reason, then we should definitely look into making Black Guardians init2+ and dropping their points (to 175pts, my guess). However, I do think that the limit should remain.

I don't know whether they should be Approved or Developmental. This bruhah suggests Developmental.

and did either of you play Ulthwe with the 1 per 3 limit on Black Guardians?