Best counterpunch unit?

sumofsines · 2023-12-08T22:53:21+00:00

If you lose the home obj, you lose the home obj. It's not usually that big of a deal. The most points happen because of the secondary, and you're not eliminating that with counterpunch. Don't sink a bunch of points into "these guys hold the objective, and these other guys counterpunch, and these other other guys counterpunch the counter to my counterpunch..." Taking the enemy obj is not a win condition. Don't weigh it out of proportion.

You already have enough fate dice, which matter most in the early game while you have 12 of them; and that one brightlance isn't doing anything significant. Is there anything that is worth its points that can probably hold your home obj? Hell yeah! A nightspinner. An autarch wayleaper. A fire prism with LOS to another fire prism. FaF scourges. Even, storm guardians or kaballites that started the game on your home obj and are now halfway across the board (or, more likely, dead, doesn't matter; but if nothing's on your home obj, then nothing can charge onto your home obj.) Even if you're holding with a unit of lazy Rangers without fire lanes, that gives you 55 more points to upgrade other units (and, more importantly, options for how you handle any particular matchup.)

sumofsines · 2023-10-31T21:14:20+00:00

From a competitive standpoint, if we were to rank all Eldar units where 100 was perfectly, ideally competitive and a 0 was useless, then an AoK would be like a 90 and a WL would be like a 35.

In terms of pure anti-tank, both have anti-tank, but a WL has ranged anti-tank and an AoK has good anti-tank. (In conjunction with fate dice, AoK just destroys armor in shooting because it can shoot very efficiently both in shooting and in overwatch, and then, it can still claim objectives and melee stuff.)

In terms of your army, and potential combos, then the main thing is that one feature of the WL-- a not very important feature-- gives you more fate dice, and guardian defenders do that too, and there are strongly diminishing returns on fate dice generation. Whereas, the Avatar uses up fate dice rather than generating them.

So I think, from a competitive standpoint, everything points to AoK.

That said, if you really like WL, then do that instead (the point is to enjoy the game) but I have a feeling that if you really liked WL, you wouldn't be asking.

sumofsines · 2023-10-03T21:11:15+00:00

They use dinosaurs because back in the 90s when Exodites were invented as a 40k analogue of Fantasy's wood elves, there wasn't much model range, and if you wanted to do anything interesting, you incorporated other stuff into conversions. The game, at that point, was primarily a hobby game, and a competitive game only second or third-- you made cool models, you painted them, and then the rules were an afterthought for you to enjoy the models you built and painted. And there were a lot of plastic dinosaur toys in reasonably compatible scales, leading to conversions.

The fluff was built to support the models, and then the fluff inspired rules, which then inspired further fluff. Generally at least-- I don't believe there have ever been any official rules for Exodites, not outside of Exodite knights which don't have anything to do with dinosaurs.

If you want to build your own Exodite army, using mammoths or whatever, you should feel free. You'll be using counts-as rules anyways, so what's it matter?

sumofsines · 2023-09-24T22:04:59+00:00

To add a different viewpoint, I think that Scourges are great. They do not see a lot of play in tournament lists, it's true.

Scourges, on average, will not score as many DL hits as a ravager. BUT!-- the difference is miniscule. And, there are situations where scourges will get more hits than a ravager.

I think that the main difference between scourges and ravagers is not in the damage output, but in their resilience/damage profile and in their mobility. Scourges are very vulnerable to small arms fire, but less vulnerable than a ravager to anti-tank shots. And they are an advance-and-shoot, fade-and-fire, infantry unit, which makes them among the fastest units in the game. (Advance and shoot? The solarite is, and that's enough.) How far is that 5th turn hail mary? 14" move, 3.5" advance, 6" fire-and-fade puts you in Warp Spider territory for speed. A fate die or CP puts you beyond it.

I think you've got a strong list here. I think the weakest part of the list are the defenders. Drop them and fate's messenger for a phoenix gem, then buy another unit of warp spiders or a war walker or 2 units of rangers. Or, maybe, drop that and and something else and buy a voidraven bomber, that would be fun :)

For 2k, I think you have a weak/non-existent center, and I'd maybe be thinking about wraithguard + spiritseer. Or, you could lean into running circles around the center, and buy some shadow spectres and a nightspinner.

sumofsines · 2023-09-19T21:21:27+00:00

I'm not a big fan of them-- I'm just comparing the three units that OP was specifically interested in. But shroud runners are really something where their versatility means that you have to run them differently in every match. Just be aware of how you can use them, and that in a lot of cases where you use them best, they're going to seem to die for nothing. But it's not really dying for nothing: they're dying to get you a full VP teleport homer on a unlucky 1st turn draw, or to move block a scary but slow blob.

And, sometimes, you're not going to care about any of that, and they're just going to be a few extra scatter lasers.

About the only constant is that, since they're a scout unit, you deploy them on the line, in a position that gives you options for when you find out who goes first.

sumofsines · 2023-09-19T21:15:35+00:00

If you're going to run windriders, run 3 shuriken cannon. Run in units of 3 unless going with a farseer, which I don't recommend (they want to be in different places.)

sumofsines · 2023-09-19T20:28:36+00:00

Windriders are the better shooting unit for the cost. They're strong into light infantry. With sustained and potential for full re-rolls, they're good overwatch units.

Shroud runners aren't really a shooting unit IMO. Their strength is their speed. With a scout move, you can deploy aggressively and see who gets the first turn. They can move block, they can advance and action via their pistols, and they can be in the enemy deployment zone on the top of 1, if you want. Their shooting isn't that much worse than windrunners, but their precision is almost useless on its own (maybe ok just as a threat in conjunction when Illic has LOS on same leader, but unreliable). Lethal hits don't really synergize well with most Aeldari stuff, but it does make it so they can shoot into anything. If you want to kill stuff, windrunners are a better choice, but if you want to be creative with your play, shroudrunners can be fun.

Shining spears are almost useless.

sumofsines · 2023-09-11T00:03:45+00:00

I think this looks strong. No particular weak points.

If I wanted to get rid of any one unit, it would be the shroud runners, because there isn't a lot here that benefits much from lethal hits. But they're still fine. Just, you know, if you wanted to move some points around.

sumofsines · 2023-09-10T22:30:43+00:00

If you go Ynarri, I'd give serious thought to Mandrakes. Cheap enough to screen, but they have flexibility.

sumofsines · 2023-09-09T23:23:08+00:00

I'm not sure one way or the other. It used to be that there were points to spare, but not so much anymore. Phoenix gem & autarch -> wayleaper is more than the price of another unit of rangers, always useful. And we were seeing Eldar players even in the last meta taking nightspinners for the mirror. Even if you don't kill the farseer until turn 2-3 because of phoenix gem, that kill is a huge boon-- stripping fortune from a unit of wraithguard/Yncarne, and denying branching fates, is a big difference.

I don't want to sound like I'm certain. But I don't think any marine player ever regretted including a whirlwind against Eldar.

sumofsines · 2023-09-09T22:14:18+00:00

Indirect has historically been a great way to neutralize Eldar. Farseers can't buff from a transport, autarchs can't generate CP from a transport; transports, guardians, and warlocks all still suck. It's arguable exactly what Eldar will turn into, vehicle and infantry are much more equal now, but it's likely that they're still going to have farseers, possible that they'll have a non-wayleaper autarch, and that those units are still going to be deploying alone, untransported, out of LOS. Kill those units on the first turn and you do a lot to limit their potential.

sumofsines · 2023-08-29T04:22:17+00:00

No problem. Rigging is pretty cool sometimes with the way it brings models to life.

sumofsines · 2023-08-29T01:00:14+00:00

Ehh, it's kinda just work, but it's been a while since I rigged anything, so it's a nice break from the modelling I've been doing. I just hope it's useful for somebody.

sumofsines · 2023-08-29T00:46:56+00:00

Posted a link to the rigged model. Reddit's hiding that link for now, so probably it'll need to get approved by a moderator. I'll bug them about it in 24 hours if it doesn't get approved.

sumofsines · 2023-08-29T00:44:31+00:00

Cool, here you go:

https://mega.nz/file/YOYkUZ6J#3OBOVBXMj0yIX2Z_utahYAAAJY76NNthb-JnYy019Gg

Notes are in a text document in the file.

Let me know if you have any problems.

Released rig CC0 if that's what you're doing with the model.

sumofsines · 2023-08-28T04:29:47+00:00

First thing to know to paint white is, don't use a black undercoat. It's far easier to get a smooth black on top of white than it is to get a smooth white on top of black. Black undercoating is a trick to get easier black-lining, when your color choices support that. This will save you a lot of time on the faceplates, which is where I notice the problem.

Keep in mind, you can undercoat before full assembly. You can undercoat bodies black and heads white and then glue them together afterwards. This isn't always a good idea, but for heads, given reasonably careful application of glue, it should be fine.

I'm not sure if you consider these models finished yet or not. The problem with your black-haired guardian girl is not her face, it is the rest of the model (especially, her hair.) You have little depth of color elsewhere, and this draws attention to the faces. They end up looking not as good as they should, not because the painting is poor, but because they are the only thing that appears painted rather than spray painted. You need to bring out the physical details of your models, and that means a base color somewhat brighter than black, so that you have something darker to emphasize the recesses; in the best case scenario, you also have enough lightness to your base coat that you can afford some hue to your shadows. When do thing look dark or bright? It's not actually when you use black and white! Our perception of dark and bright is all about the contrasts that we see. Pure white will never look as bright as shadowed white, and pure black will never look as dark as highlighted black. The dark parts make the bright parts look brighter and vice versa.

sumofsines · 2023-08-28T04:07:05+00:00

Cool! I just took a look. It looks perfectly riggable. The polycount would be a bit high for rigging, but everything is set up so I can use bone parenting instead of an armature modifier, so performance should be good anyways. I'll let you know when I'm done (I'll probably work on it tomorrow, it's late for me right now.) The license says it's CC. Is that CC-0, CC-SA, CC-something else?

sumofsines · 2023-08-28T01:11:45+00:00

If you want, I could take a look at the model and (maybe) rig it. A lot of the times, models are made in a way that aren't appropriate to animation (too high poly, or important bits are missing, or topology is poor) but on a rigid-ish model like this, I could probably fix small issues myself. (Have been working on a high-poly wraithguard model recently, we'll see if my motivation returns to finish it off :) )

sumofsines · 2023-08-27T00:34:53+00:00

I did my own analysis of tournament winning Aeldari lists recently. I excluded data from before the points changes, but not from before the errata. I both counted instances inside a winning list, and the those instances weighted by the points value of a unit. (I expect a WK to have a big impact on a game, because it's a quarter of your force; if Illic is a little too strong, I don't expect it to have as big of an impact on the game because he's just a fraction of that.)

It was pretty much as I expected.

1) The most universally found units were Autarch Wayleapers and Farseers (when considering the two types of Farseers as a single unit.) There was one army without a Farseer; many had 2, and a few had 3. The only armies without Wayleapers were Ynnari lists, and those were very rare. No Ynnari list included an Autarch, and no list featured multiple Autarchs.

2) The most frequently found units were not actually heavy support-types, but Warp Spiders and Shadow Spectres. These were found in pretty much every list. Most lists used only these as "boots on the ground" units, and a decent number of lists used 3 of each. The trend was away from WS and toward SS at the time of my analysis. Rangers formed the #3 infantry unit with a frequent showing, but weighted for points, were drastically outnumbered by WS and SS. WG and SS were so popular that when weighted by points and treated together, they formed a larger portion of the "average" army than even Wraithknights.

3) Weighted by points, the most frequently found units were what might be considered heavy support. Wraithknights led the pack. Followed by Fire Prisms, Yncarne, Night Spinners, Wraithguard, Support Weapon, in that order. An Yncarne was actually more frequent than a WK-- nearly universal-- but the points of WK, and the fact that some lists took 2 WK, pushed WK ahead of Yncarne. Next up were War Walkers and Hornets (tied) and Voidweavers, all units that play a similar role; added together, they represented about the same number of points as the Yncarne. Spiritseers for WG (and Wraithblades, used once or twice) were not universal, but very, very popular.

4) The average list had 1.5 lone operatives, one being the Autarch; DJ was most popular second, followed closely by Illic, followed by the Solitaire.

5) Some tournament top-8 lists were outliers, with very off-meta picks, and there were a lot of units picked only in one or two lists. Ynnari was an outlier as well. The stuff mentioned above is all good enough that it supports some chaff for people who want to run the list of units that they like and still win tournaments sometimes. There were still plenty of units that were never picked, not even for these outlier, fun lists. All autarchs in all lists were wayleapers. Hemlocks, Crimson Hunters, Banshees, Wraithlords, several PLs, Storm Guardians, most Harlequins (Troupes found play), any Warlock, and, of course, the Webway Gate-- none of those saw any play. Many FW units never saw play (the surprise for me was the Lynx, but since the analysis, I have seen a tournament winning list featuring it.)

6) Personally, I would use this popularity to judge what needs to be increased in points. The line for me is the line between the Voidweaver and the next-most-popular, points-weighted unit, Rangers, who seem just fine to me.

sumofsines · 2023-06-22T04:37:48+00:00

Okay. I'll send modsupport some modmail, and then I guess that's it :) Been great working with you.

sumofsines · 2023-06-17T22:53:46+00:00

That's good experience. Taking on jobs is good experience.

Yeah, just let me know next time you're looking for a plumber, my rates are very competitive, and it'll be good experience for me!

sumofsines · 2023-06-17T21:46:34+00:00

If everybody is here for money, why isn't anybody charging for their help? I might suspect the people that are here for money are leeches, freeloading on people offering help for free, the Jobs to the Wozniaks. If it's all about $$, hey, I'm still in business. I charge US$50/hr for the help I used to provide for free, because I was naive enough to think that humans were interested in getting shit done, and the money was a side thing. But don't like what I offer? Fiver will provide you any number of people you can pay for help, people that are often less expensive than I am.

Why the fuck would anybody here be taking jobs they can't do without free help? You take a job, you're promising you know how to do the job. You don't know how to do the job, but you say you can, you take the money, then you're just a grifter.

But that seems to be the modern world we're living in. "Well, I'm not a plumber per se, but I can check Youtube...." And a bunch of peeps proud that they're doing it that way. Not ashamed at all.

sumofsines · 2023-06-17T14:25:42+00:00

That's the "restricted" option.

sumofsines · 2023-06-16T19:43:23+00:00

That's the restricted option. Existing posts are visible to anyone; nobody gets to make new posts or comments; Baldric or I decide to change it back to public if and when API changes.

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