I'm going through lists, updating in the wake of the polls I've run. Before I release updated lists though, I want to get some feed back on the following: I'm probably going to remove the surcharge for Fire Prisms, making them freely interchangable with Falcons in non-transport roles. I've prepared the following breakdown of their capabilities:

As you can see, Fire Prisms have a marginal edge against infantry at all ranges, but may not split fire against AP/AT targets. At ranges up to 80cm Falcons have better AT even when firing only their Pulse Lasers. Falcons retain AT parity with Fire Prisms in the 80-95cm and range band when firing all available weapons. And of course only Fire prisms can even shoot in the 115-130cm range band. The Falcon is also better in FF.



As can be seen here, the Falcon is also better than the FIre Prism at doing at least one AT hit inside of 65cm, where it also has a 5/12 chance of doing two. Falcons retain a 1/6 chance to do two hits as far as 100cm

In reality, I see few reasons to take a Fire Prism over a Falcon even at equal points levels - Fire Prisms only gain the upper hand against infantry and outside of 80cm ranges. They are better at hit and run tactics due to their superior range; but they are worse than Falcons at supporting Engages, which means they lose utility in the heavily engagement focused Eldar playstyle. That said, I think evening up the points is a good first step to balance.

_________________
SG

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

What is wrong with returning to the original Swordwind stats and formation?

They aren't representative of Fire Prisms beyond 2nd Ed. The stats for shooting ground targets are too low, and there is no longer an AA component to the shots. I also feel that 75cm AA is simply overkill in the Eldar list which has excellent Aircraft and superb medium range AA in the form of Firestorms.

_________________
SG

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

I see no issue with lowering the cost of the Fire Prism. It seems like the most logical thing to do, and to play test, before we even consider, let alone actually implement, changing their stats.

_________________

E:A Fire Prisms have never adequately mirrored the 40K mechanics either.

The point is that the Lance AA gve the Fire Prisms a niche role that the other AA does not provide. Without it, the Fire Prisms are going to struggle to find a role and the appropriate stats; Falcons provide better medium range fire-power as well as transport options, while the 'restored' Scorpion gives better long range firepower.

E-UK returned to the Swordwind stats some years ago, since when the three strong Fire Prisms have been used in many tournaments without issue or complaints. Yes they are fragile, but the long range allows them to hide in or near the deployment zone, and judicial use of cover means they have a reasonable chance of survival - but equally means that the opponent has a reasonable chance of disrupting the formation.

If you are really concerned about the 75cm AA range, change the stats to add "OR" with a second line for the AA with a different range.

I approve of making them free, seems the best way to approach them.

Please ignore Ginger and don't return it to the Swordwind rendition of the tank, I would hate to see such unrepresentative stats back. It's meant to be a tank killer, not an AA tank.

It's clearly not an AA tank - the gun on the current model is fixed to the turret with little - possibly no - vertical rotation, so the only way for it to shoot aircraft above it would be for the entire tank to flip up to point at the sky and that would be silly/impractical.

I never understood the reasoning behind making the Fire Prism and AA tank. It doesn't fit with the description or background of its battlefield role from the Space Marine era, or its current role either. I really wouldn't like to see its AA profile make a return.

_________________

While I understand this perspective, IMO this is a case where we are 'guided' by W40k rather than following it slavishly - not least because of the way that things continue to change.

Lance makes the FP a tank-killer and it should be at good range, 75cm for preference to balance up against similar weapons and technology in other lists. However, by itself Lance / Tank-killer does not make the FP balance internally against the other AV (Falcon/FireStorm and Scorpion); hence why IMO we should return the Lance AA capability to provide the additional capability.

A brief history:

In the beginning, there were death stalker prism cannons and firestorm tanks. They were two separate tanks with separate roles and it was good. And lo, Epic 40k did combine these into the fire prism, giving it both roles because GW was too miserly to make yet another vehicle for the eldar after having completely redone the line of models. This was April 1997 (rules) and October 1997 (models).

Immediately after this the plastic falcon kit for 40k was released (January 1998), and then a few months later the fire prism (April 1998). That was in the last few months of 40k 2nd edition (I still have the datafax from the white dwarf) and 40k 2nd edition didnt have flyer rules. Therefore, the stats in 40k made no mention of the AA ability of the fire prism.

3rd edition rolled around quickly (November 1998), and GW had this idea of simplifying the rules to make the game faster so players could actually finish a game in a couple hours. Soon enough the eldar codex was released (September 1999) and the fire prism rules were basically a simplified version of the 2nd ed stats (minus the secondary diffused fire mode). At that time FW had yet to create their flyer rules, so still no AA ability for the 40k fire prism.

When flyer rules were finallized (in Imperial Armour in 2000 and later in Chapter Approved in 2001), none of the existing vehicles in 40k were retconned into having AA abilities because that probably would have been too confusing for people. Instead, FW resurrected the firestorm (in May of 2004) to act as the eldar AA tank. Interestingly, this kit was developed in the middle of the time that stormwind was being play tested (most of 2004). And so, the firestorm got inserted into the stormwind list because it allowed GW to add an extra vehicle for very little effort.

Of course, many of the play tests for swordwind were done before the firestorm was even hinted at. At that time the eldar needed an AA tank, so that role fell to the fire prism because it was the only option and that was how it was used in Epic 40k. The firestorm was revealed after a large number of playtest games were logged with the fire prism as the sole AA tank. By that time the fire prism couldn't just be changed to match the 40k version, because that might upset the system and the release date was looming.

Finally, after release of swordwind, it became clear that all the play testers had been high or drunk, because none of the swordwind lists were balanced against the original rule book armies. Thus, the Eldar list was adjusted to remove spiritstones and change the pulse rules. At the time this was done, the opportunity was given to change the fire prism to better reflect the role it has/had in 40k for nearly 10 years - ie tank hunter without AA.

Thus the Fire Prism was changed from the swordwind (2005)/ Epic 40k (1997) stats to the more 40k 3rd (1998) through 6th (2012) -fiendly stats we have now.

Lol

I honestly wonder how that could have happened tbh. Just by reading the swordwind lists one can see the possible abuses. 4x 2+ WM pulse revenants on sustain? How could anyone have thought that balanced?

Anyway, back to the topic. I believe that making FPs the same price as Falcons will be interesting, though I already can see the pale look of Minervan or AMTL players faced with 20 Fire prisms for 1k pts. slaughtering their armies with ease and while staying out of range and out of sight...

I would reduce their AT fire to 3+ if the same price costs wants to be reached.

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

I kind of agree with Lord of the Milk. I've always felt the fire prism to-hit was a tad high. Having a single formation of Fire Prisms strip all the shields off of a warlord on a pop-up single move without much fear of retribution feels gamey when it would take 2-3 activations to do the same using any other available formation - formations that would need to get closer to return fire.

I don't know if they'd be worth the same as a falcon if they were reduced to AT3+, though. It's more of a matter of what feels fair.

Not correct, spirit stones+pulse were changed in the 2008 GW Official errata. IIRC jervis rejected a lot of other changes that Sotec (then Eldar AC) had forced in at the last minute - these were then implemented for NetEA by Chroma.

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

Ah, but at the time of the official errata the official policy was to not change point costs or stats.

Which was all well and good but that didnt reflect what the ERC wanted to do. Jetbikes armour was reduced, howling banshee stats were changed, and transport falcon costs were reduced, in addition to the change to the fire prism. All by the ERC before the official errata document was finalized.

None of those four things caused too much controversy at the time, especially compared to the revanant vs phantom or scorpion vs falcon debates.

Unless my memory is playing tricks with me, spirit stones was nothing to do with the playtesters being high or drunk I seem to recall it turned up in the printed book without having been included up to that point - I.e. it was added on a whim by Jervis at the last minute. It proved totally OP of course, so was removed again in the errata. Likewise, Pulse was not changed for balance reasons but because it vastly encouraged sustained fire and made doubling a very poor choice. (We had this discussion on another thread recently).

Anyway, on the fire prism history, I don't know much of the old extinct tanks, but I do remember quite clearly that the Fire Prism was created first for Epic 40K as an AA tank and only afterwards for 40K 3rd edition (which had no aircraft). So chances are, the model was designed as an AA vehicle. Honestly im not bothered which role it has (although eldar has good tank hunters already it must be said, just as they do other AA). But this whole game of cat and mouse copying 40K I do find rather tiresome - will be having another discussion a year from now about whether the fire prism should suddenly get AA back again as the "new" 40K has it that way?

_________________
Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

Of course we will. It all comes down to the question: does Epic: Armageddon exist in the same universe as the current edition of Warhammer 40k, or in some alternate version of the 40k universe, like NetEpic does?

The answer will be different depending on who you ask. Can you really say which is 'correct?'

Effectively it is up to the army champion, and as long as the list is balanced and doesn't change too much in a given period of time, most players won't care one way or the other.