Saturday, April 25, 2015

40K Opinion: Eldar Craftworlds Codex. Disappointment. But Don't Hate - Move Forward


I don't like to be negative - but this development does warrant at least a little bit of that if you enjoy the idea of army balance.

Cue the silly cheese memes.

Disappointment.
Dear Games Workshop, I am so very disappointed. I am so shocked that I can not even comprehend what you have done. You had the perfect opportunity to finally bring into line the most balanced playing field for 40K in like forever - and you blew it. Blew it big time.

How the sky fell.
GW fixed the Wave Serpent problem but then proceeded to give us to three more unbalanced problems: the Wraithknight and the Jetbikes and the D-weapons. One step forward and three steps backwards puts us into even more precarious territory than with the last Eldar codex. I'm baffled, even a little bewildered, at this lack of army balance after such a concerted effort to do so was commended by the community.

 I'm starting to wonder if the crazy release schedule for GW is starting to effect quality control? GW was doing a good job at codex balance (for the most part) for a couple of years then they just drop the ball all of a sudden and it was such a humongous drop - I'm left scratching my head in befuddlement.

We should not blame the player.

Let me say this one important thing: We should not blame Eldar players. Eldar players are given their codex just like everyone else and play with what they are given. I love you Eldar players just as much as the other players (except for Tyranid players, they still creep me out) and I know I rag Eldar a lot, calling them sissies, but it is because I love to hate the race, not the players. But if you are a band-wagoner, jumping on the Eldar ship just because they are on top of the 40K heap, I have news for you - nobody likes you.

Suck it up loser. Turn those lemons into some delicious lemonade.

Humor attempt.
Gads. Obviously I am quite disappointed but I want to turn this negative into a positive. Nobody but trolls wants to read a negative blog and I certainly don't want to feed said trolls.

Honestly, the good tournament players will adjust and find the best solution to dealing with the new Eldar meta, if not joining their ranks outright. Then there are those middling tournament players like me and hundreds of others whom look at this new development and shake their heads - the high hopes of seeing a balanced tournament playing field (among armies) is busted.

The end result is this: it appears the majority of my tournament days are over if this is what GW calls 'balanced', especially after mishandling such a golden opportunity to balance things out. My tournament schedule was already reduced but now it will consist of two, maybe three, tournaments a year that are fun and not so competitive in nature. Not that it matters much I won't be missed and I won't miss the drudgery of grinding out three competitive games in a single day. Actually this is quite liberating for me and it feels good to not have to make anymore excuses to friends for not wanting to be cooped up inside of a competitive environment on a weekend.

Game Room. My fresh lemonade.
On a personal level, one of the positive side effects of this codex fiasco is that it fuels my fires to get my game room up and running so I can jump right into some beer and pretzel games as quickly as possible. I also have designs on creating 2-3 video batreps a month and organizing some narrative campaigns with friends. Fun times ahead, indeed. No tournaments are needed and no worries about balance within the confines of a friendly game environment. If you are an Eldar fan and want to challenge me in a casual game I say bring it on! Let's have some fun.

Morale of the story.
If you were as dumbstruck as I was at this codex then take the time to absorb it all in, process it, settle down and then with a clear head decide how this will effect you going forward. Whatever you decide to do I implore you to make the best of it and not to blame those true Eldar players out there in the community. Humor helps, sarcasm doesn't.

What about you?
If this codex is really as crazy as it sounds do you think it will change any of your playing habits?





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4 comments:

  1. well I can't comment yet about the new codex as I haven't had time to read it yet but I do like your attitude after all isn't the point of being a good player is dealing with whatever hand you are dealt and coming out on top. I also agree that I sort of feel bad about the eldar players that I know some of which have had their models since 4th? edition when the last codex came out people complained when they faced him for the first time due to his army despite its clear age and the obvious effort and time put into them I think that we will just need to roll with it and keep our morale high ground

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    1. Yeah, I'm dealing with Eldar by switching my game to casual mode. While I consider myself a 'good' tournament player, speaking sportsmanship wise, I am not a good player as in winning a lot of games. There is only so many defeats in tournaments that even good sportsmen can harbor until it starts to grate on nerves so that is why I feel I had to bail - because don't think it won't happen, Eldar will dominate and we will see lots more Eldar armies as tournament players jump ship to them. I think I just did a mini-rant, oops.

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  2. This is the right attitude. This release clearly has its issues and doesn't make things look good on the GW front, but I like that you can still acknowledge that you still love the game, even if tournament play is somewhat ruined by this book.
    I'm interested to see how this book settles into the meta/scene whatever. It will be interesting when the first major tourney after this book comes back.
    I'm also keen to get down to the store to test my strengths against it.

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    1. I'm very interested to hear how you do against Eldar! Keep us informed.

      I expect the usual learning curve as players figure things out and expect to see Eldar armies growing in number at tournaments until (hopefully) a counter is discovered against them.

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