40K Doctor: Fixing The Worst Eldar Units
The Infinity Doctor is in. Luckily today we only have three patients to attend to.
Usually, when we talk about 40K, we tend to focus on what is the best. What units dominate the meta or can help you build a powerful list. While there are a lot of great units in the game, there are also a ton of mediocre and bad ones. While these mid-range units aren’t great or at the top of the meta, they can still often see play. However, below even these units, there exists another layer of units. These are the truly awful units. Many of these units have been bad for several editions, and not even casual, or fluff players use them much. Sometimes these units used to be great, but have become lackluster or bad. However, that doesn’t mean they have to stay bad.
Today lets take a look at some of the units in the Craftworld Eldar Codex that have fallen out of favor and see how they might be fixed. (Note I’ve already covered Storm Guardians so we won’t be rehashing them). I also know some might find it silly to talk about bad Eldar units, considering they are one of the factions dominating the meta right now. However the top Eldar lists all have a certain sameness to them and tend to draw from a handful of units leaving a lot of room for improvement in the rest of the book. While the units we are going to talk about aren’t the only bad units, they are ones that I feel have fallen to new lows.
N.B. My goal is to fix these units in as simple a way as possible, not rewrite the whole unit while keeping to the spirit of the fluff.
Night Spinner
The Basics: An Eldar indirect fire tank. Similar to the Space Marine Whirlwind the Night Spinner lays down long range bombardments on even the most hidden units. It’s primarily meant as an anti-infantry unit, and if it gets lucky can chew through even the toughest armor.
The Problem: The Night Spinner is a confused beast. It’s a fast skimmer that can jet around the table at ease, yet its also an artillery platform that wants to stay hidden and still. As such if its doing its job its not really making a lot of use of its skimming platform. Moreover its gun is simply put – not good. S7 and D2 seem pretty good on the surface, coupled with the ability to target units out of line of sight and it seems great. Even though it has random shoots, 2d6 isn’t the worst. But then we come to its AP of 0. Thats a real killer.
Yes it gets -4 AP on wound rolls of 6+, but realistically that should happen about once ever 2 times it shoots, not enough to make a real impact. S7 and AP-0 mean its really not a good gun for shooting tanks (its going to average 7 shots, 4 hits, 1-2 wounds depending on the T of the target, and most likely bounce off an armor save. Even that lucky 6+ to wound is only gunna net you 2 damage, woo). Its also not great vs heavy infantry where its D2 might come in useful as they tend to have a 3+ or 2+ save. So overall its only really good vs multi-wound light infantry, which isn’t very common at all.
The Fix: The Doomweavers attack is also known among the Eldar as the Chains of Vaul and is described as a web that traps the enemy troops. I think an easy fix here is to simply give the Doomweaver an extra rule saying that “Any unit targeted by the Doomweaver halves its movement in the next movement phase.” We’ve got a couple of other units that use this mechanic in the game, so it wouldn’t be out of place. More importantly it would give the Night Spinner a nice tactical use beyond just being a mediocre weapons platform.
Warp Spiders
The Basics: A tanky Aspect Warriors units with warp generators that let them teleport around the table. These guys are some of the toughest Eldar Infantry, with a 3+ save and the ability to get -1 one to ranged attack against them each turn. They are fast and can deepstrike. They carry Death Spinners.
The Problem: The main issue with Warp Spiders is, like the Night Spinner, they simply don’t have enough firepower. The Death Spinner has S6, which is nice and all, but outside of that is lackluster. Its got a short 12 inch range, and AP 0, as well as only D1. Top that off with the fact that the Eldar have both faster and tougher units and the Warp Spiders fall into a strange middle ground that just isn’t any good.
The Fix: Warp Spiders are unique in that they make short risky jumps through the warp to get into range of the enemy and surprise them. They should thus be a high-risk-high-reward unit. I don’t think the current rules really reflect this. I would add something to their Warp Jump Generator Rule to make it very risky, maybe any doubles kills a model, triples kills 2, etc. but give it a big impact. Something like the Warp Spiders attacks automatically hit after the jump because the enemy is so surprised.
Howling Banshees
The Basics: Lightly armored fast assault infantry. These deadly Eldar all carry power swords, can charge farther than normal and ignore overwatch.
The Problem: Strength 3. Banshees have all them makings of a great unit. They are fast and have rules to help them get into combat in one peace. However once they get into combat they tend to simply bounce off any real target. S3 just kills the unit, against MEQ, where their power swords should be shredding things, they wound on a 5+. Couple this with only 2 attacks and I’ve time and again seen perfectly placed Banshee charge hit the enemy and fail to make a dent.
The Fix: Give them +1 to wound on the turn they charge. Make that ferocious Banshee charge mean something. Now suddenly they have a real chance of hurting MEQs and can mow down cheaper troops, like they should. However as a light unit they won’t have the sticking power of other units, which fits them well. I’d also consider boosting their attacks by 1 to make them more on par with other armies elite assault troops.
Let Us Know What You Think Of These Fixes, And What Other Units You’d Like To See Fixed, Down In The Comments!
