LoL - no offense taken

On your initial comments

• I would strongly recommend choosing your respective armies 'blind', rather than knowing which race is to be used. That way the Eldar will suffer less when used.
• If you fear artillery, you can always build an 'anti-artillery' list as you suggest - or even use counter-battery fire (2-3 Void Spinners or lots of Night Spinners used aggressively)
• Or you can ignore it altogether relying on transports, off-table forces or even large numbers of formations to negate the effect. One quite effective approach is a suicide squad of Swooping Hawks teleported in (or even marched from the baseline) such that they place offending batteries within their ZoC. The battery must assault or move away from the SH, losing their sustain.

On the Cobra, try putting it actually in the wood or built-up area. This provides a cover save against shooting, while the Cobra only takes a single Dangerous Terrain dice roll which will not kill the WE even if it suffers a single hit.

That said, the Cobra(s) need to activate very early in turn #2 because if they are in the correct position, they are likely to die as you point out - so plan accordingly. Having 3 Cobras in position means that the opponent cannot kill all of them, so at least one will get to fire.

And try to avoid 'popping up' to shoot because that stops you sustaining and reduces your firepower by 50%. Assume that the enemy will get to shoot at the Cobras and possibly kill them. If they have taken down the enemy titan (and BTS) their sacrifice will not be in vain.
More importantly, in concentrating on killing the Cobras, the opponent is allowing your Eldar to bring up some even nastier threats so they have fulfilled a second role of distracting your opponent and giving you the initiative - use it wisely to keep the opponent off-balance.

I think you've misinterpreted me. Currently cobras have a special unit specifc IC rule, and in general IMO such rules should be avoided. All I said was, the desire to restore the regular IC rule is not for balance (as Irisado somewhat disingenuously suggested), but the two factors are independent and need to be weighed up.

I have to be honest, I am becoming less convinced by your "you're doing it wrong" position the more detail you give. You talk about sustaining on an unshielded Titan, and somehow this requires to be able to activate -after- the Titan. Well, that's the opposite of what you need to do to be able to sustain - if its not an early activation the Titan isn't going to hang around. Apparently this will "usually" kill it - which is simply untrue. And of course titans at the beginning of the turn are never unshielded. Even after all that, I'm a bit underwhelmed at the prospect of sacrificing 750 points of cobra to kill a titan - not good value across all your games.

I know you like using them and are convinced they can work, but so much of what you're saying just sounds like you're misrepresenting general eldar themes to justify why cobras need so many excuses making for them. Yet unlike "air assaults" and "webway" I myself don't consider "anti Titan" to be a core strategy, so it is not something you should be expected to max out on in a tournament list in order to field them. Similarly, the soap bubble analogy is quite acceptable, except the main thing you're ignoring is that the eldar are supposed to play as to keep these fragile units out of harms way, not to sacrifice them in kamikaze moves. Aggressive sometimes, sure, but generally when the odds are stacked in your favour and the risk of reprisal low, and then escape.

None of this is to say I doubt there are circumstances where cobras can be effective, but please forgive me if it irks me to see you construe Lordotmilk as not knowing how eldar work. Clearly lots of people agree with him that they too rarely pay back their points, because they are rarely taken. You can't just assume that's because you know better - it's not because they can't pay off, but because the times that they do are too few and the points needed when they do are too high.

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Allow me to illustrate the problem.

Let's do some cross-list comparisons. The point is just to illustrate the different effectiveness of the overall units one may pick across different lists to kill Titans.

You mentioned 750 points for three cobras, but let's just say one is ready to invest 500 points for his anti WE contingent (not in allies), in a versatile list.

SM: 4 Terminators + character at 400
IG: 3 Shadowswords, or 1 Shadow + Deathstrike at 400
Orks: 'Uge Blitz with 3 ZZZaps
BL: 6 Terminators, 1 DP, at 450
LatD: 2 Subjugators
etc.

Any one of those other choices are superior in terms of versatility against different troops, resilience and effectiveness aginst the designed target, except perhaps some of E&C creations of doom (Mega-G, Imperators).

Now the Cobra doesn't need to be as good as any of the above. But it has a niche to fulfill for Eldar, and for it fulfil it in a way that allows its playability in a competitive environment, you need to increase either its versatility, or its effectiveness, or a bit of the two.

3BP increases both its versatility and effectiveness.
45 cm increases its resilience and versatility
Full IC increases its versatility
Treat all targets as Infantry increases its effectiveness

LotM

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

Subjugators are totally boned by the low SR of the LatD, I don't think I have ever gotten them anywhere near an opposing titan, and would much rather have Cobras!

Still, I pretty much agree with the rest of your post.

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I agree that cross list comparisons are pointless in the extreme, there are HUGELY more variables at stake than a simple stat+point comparison....

other than that, I still think we should be *testing* a variety of proposed changes before debating them, and people should also be using cobras as-is to provide solid comparitive data

All this continued discussion and debate is doing, is rehashing the same conversation and causing bad feeling, as well as devolving into 'my equally well informed opinion is more valid than yours' type arguments...... this helps nobody!

there have been complaints voiced about epic stagnating, and this is clearly one of the main reasons why....... please go and play some games, then we can all discuss the results!

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

I have games tomorrow. If I take a Cobra, what statline am I testing? These aren't full games but rather minigeddon games but still there will be WE on the field for sure.

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I'd start with Chroma's wish of upping BP to 3..... and seeing how it goes!

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

Note that the simple expression means that the Special IC rule is retained.

Therefore 3BP and IC on WEs

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

It already has IC against everything, no?

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Not according to the Compendium.

EUK has it as full IC.

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

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@Kyrt
I apologise for being irksome, and for my poor explanations. And I hope I do understand the aim to make this more "Eldar like" - so able to 'shoot and scoot', pounce when required and then melt back into the shadows etc.

The problem is that Cobras are a very "niche" unit. It is therefore extremely hard to find an appropriate balance in the stats and costs that reflects the desired nature. the Cobra also falls foul of the E:A rule mechanics which tend to mean it is much better if it behaves in an 'un-Eldar' manner. Here is a completely wild illustration to make the point:-

We could consider increasing the power of the weapon to something ridiculous while reducing the to-hit values, which makes it more a titan killer. so
D-Cannon - - 45cm BP1 - - TK(D6)+8 - - IC


• This increases the weapon power against titans, while reducing the impact against other targets.
• It would also encourage using multiple EoV to get better results.
  • A singlton would not gain from sustaining, but would suffer when doubling.
  • Two Eov would gain while sustaining, but not lose out if doubling - meaining this would be a more 'offensive' combination
  
  
• These stats would mean a 250 point Cobra could possibly take out any fully shielded titan in one shot,
  If making a single move, a single Cobra would have
  
  • a 1/3 chance of killing a fully shielded Warhound
  • a 1/2 chance of killing an unshielded Reaver, and a 1/3 chance of killing a fully shielded one
  • a 2/3 chance of killing an unshielded Warlord, and a 2/9 chance of killing a fully shielded one
  These stats are halved if the single Cobra doubles, and doubled if a pair of Cobras sustain.
  So there would be a 1/6 chance of a single Cobra killing a Warhound when doubling, while a Pair of Cobras would have a 2/3 chance of killing the Warhound when sustaining
  
  
• BUT, does this balance the cost of the Cobra(s) against the potential cost of titans they destroy? (IMO this is probably not the case, but YVMV)
  
  
• And, it still does not get around the main objection that the Cobra has to operate close to the enemy, thereby risking destruction. In this, hit-and-run does not help greatly because the weapons on the targets usually have a longer range. Even with 45cm range this gives an effective range of 60cm on a double - and small chance of scoring the all important hit on a titan. However if using a pair of Cobras with these stats, getting close in one turn and sustaining in the next increases the chances of sucess by a factor of 4, though it does not match the intended style of play for the Eldar.

Essentially there are three stats that could be changed to alter the Cobra; speed, weapon range and weapon power. We cannot really change the speed, and changing the weapon's power one way or another seems to have undesirable effects, which leaves us with manipulting the range. Even here, this cannot be changed too dramatically.

Does that explain my views more clearly?

Well, after ten pages of debate we agree

A range change to 45 cm seems the best option, and retaining the full IC rule it should never had lost.

At 45 cm range the Cobra can hope to hide sometimes, and most importantly, does not have to go under assault range to shoot, thereby greatly increasing the tactical uses of the unit.

In my opinion this does not make it overpowered, as the the to-hit values are still very small, and the price of the unit prevents spamming.

I will test that.

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

So 45cm, BP2, IC?

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