So, I'm looking for some opinions on Eldar ships. As the "preeminent race in space" that also happens to have ship stats presented, how well do they fare vs. players? I know that they don't have void shields, so that might sting; they DO have holo-fields, which can make them hard to HIT, but their Hull strength is a bit less, and their armor might be meh. Holos seem nice, but I often hear about people who, among their parties, really cheese up numerous stats, so I'm not sure if the +110 to BS checks party will care. They have some useful torpedoes, but I'm thinking they'll lack Nova cannons, or some similar "big hit" gun. Add to this that the Eldar seem to favor lances, which seem to kind of stink without Mathhammer, or something similar.

How well do you find they work? What little changes, if any have you used to make them more potent, as I feel Eldar should be, or do you find them efficient, as is?

I´ve only looked at the numbers so far and I´m rather unimpressed. Their big gun is supposed to be the pulsar lance with its lots of potential lance hits, but its range - in particular the one on corsair ships - is horrible. We are talking something like pyros melta cannons on a fairly fragile ship - which means it will be in macrobattery range to hit, so if it doesn´t devastate the enemy in one hit it has huge trouble. As torpedo boats and carriers, they could work, but the pulsar definitely falls short.

Craftworld craft have a somewhat longer-range version, which I can see doing something, and they are a bit less fragile. With good officers and all the tricks an imperial ship can get (good quality components, officers giving bonuses, psykers etc) they can be solid. I´d expect a bit more from a high-tech race that is supposed to be extremely good at naval combat, though.

Unimpressed ? Have you compared, side to side, say, an Aurora class light cruiser and a Lunar ?

The Eldar ship are faster, more nimble, hitting hard with their lances, able to launch "invisible" torpedoes and aircraft.

Sure , they have a short range, and hulls armored with papier maché.

But when they are straffing you from behind and then running circles around you, tacking solar sails, you sure won't laugh about their spaceships.

Basically, all their ships, whatever the size, should be played like raiders : hitting hard, from ambushes, right at weak points, and dodging the counter fire. And it seems like they were nerfed a bit from BFG, where they were beasts - right after necrons-.

The Effectiveness of the Eldar depends heavily on the How the Gm plays them. The combination of Holo fields and solar sails propulsion means they always start any engagement on 'Silent running.' Their speed means generally they will dictate the terms of any engagement.

Since they are VERY difficult to detect (-40) the very strong likelihood is that you will be surprised on the first turn of your engagement. In this case your Voidshields are DOWN! Since the Eldar rely heavily on Lance weapons, This is a VERY bad thing!

Basically, it amounts to this, If your ship isn't utterly shredded after the first turn of combat, you have a chance! Odds are not in your favor though!

BTW: Welcome back Venkelos! Haven't seen you here for awhile!

Unimpressed ? Have you compared, side to side, say, an Aurora class light cruiser and a Lunar ?

Ok, I´d edit my statement - it´s corsairs and the "big gun" they have in particular I´m not that impressed with. I had missed the part about their holo-field making detection much harder. Yes, they do have some options with torpedoes or carrier configurations, those I can definitely see working well.

Also, why would a voidship not have void shields up at any time except at docks?

Someone stop me if I'm wrong, as I'm away from books at the moment, but aren't they also the only ones with the ability to move, shoot, and keep moving? I feel like that really helped with their hit and run tactics during the one time I've used them so far.

Since they are VERY difficult to detect (-40) the very strong likelihood is that you will be surprised on the first turn of your engagement. In this case your Voidshields are DOWN! Since the Eldar rely heavily on Lance weapons, This is a VERY bad thing!

It's my understanding that Void Shields are always up. You need them to protect your ship from fast moving microasteroids, as well as the fact that the Imperium would recognise there's no reason to ever have them down since they're in a state of war with everyone, everywhere, forever.

Void Shields are always up, but I don't think they're always at full strength.

I find that the eldar are pretty good, but as Ms. Razgriz noted, they are not quite up to their BFG standard. For one, their holofields are weaker. The penalty to Macrocannons is arguably equivalent, except it gets broken by PC stats, and the lance defence isn't nearly as good (BFG is a 83% miss chance). They're mobility advantage is also hampered by the PC's "Do everything super" nature that lets them wheel around a cruiser like it's a raider.

On the other hand, if you put an Autarch level NPC at the helm, with a handful of Exarch level lieutenants, those eldar ships become extremely, extremely deadly, particularly their cruisers.

Give me Orks,Chaos, I'll even take several boarding torpedoes filled with Rak'gol hyped up on Slaught, but please do not give me Eldar to the rear.

I think we are missing something. Now Quick mentioned the NPC aspect of Eldar. Why would any GM throw any Eldar captain at the PCs that wasn't superior to them?

And more to the point, unless there was an incredibly pressing issue, why wouldn't the Eldar wait until they had a whole squadron to pummel the PC's ship with? I don't see Eldar attacking anyone at even odds.

When dealing with long-lived species, I'm always reminded of one of those solo programmed adventures from the 80's where you got to play a dragon. One of the scenes gave you the options to

A) accept the Black Knight's challenge and fight him in a fair fight

B) ignore the Black Knight and roast the castle

C) come back in a hundred years and let's see how tough he is then

I find that the eldar are pretty good, but as Ms. Razgriz noted, they are not quite up to their BFG standard. For one, their holofields are weaker. The penalty to Macrocannons is arguably equivalent, except it gets broken by PC stats, and the lance defence isn't nearly as good (BFG is a 83% miss chance). They're mobility advantage is also hampered by the PC's "Do everything super" nature that lets them wheel around a cruiser like it's a raider.

On the other hand, if you put an Autarch level NPC at the helm, with a handful of Exarch level lieutenants, those eldar ships become extremely, extremely deadly, particularlyvessel with a their cruisers.

The Eldar typically have a veteran crew and a detection rating of +20 - +25. This puts your "average" eldar vessel with a gunnery skill of 70-75 before any modifiers! This is hardly subpar, Even w/o Exarch gunnery masters (Although I admit, that's also very possible! Especially on larger ships like cruisers!)

On the point of void shields. I have my players running them at minimal power most of the time. Running them at full power lets them burn out. So except during combat, they're not ramped up to full power. At lower power they can't do diddly against weapons, but they can do plenty against say, micrometeorites and small asteroids.

So, I'm looking for some opinions on Eldar ships. As the "preeminent race in space" that also happens to have ship stats presented, how well do they fare vs. players? I know that they don't have void shields, so that might sting; they DO have holo-fields, which can make them hard to HIT, but their Hull strength is a bit less, and their armor might be meh. Holos seem nice, but I often hear about people who, among their parties, really cheese up numerous stats, so I'm not sure if the +110 to BS checks party will care. They have some useful torpedoes, but I'm thinking they'll lack Nova cannons, or some similar "big hit" gun. Add to this that the Eldar seem to favor lances, which seem to kind of stink without Mathhammer, or something similar.

How well do you find they work? What little changes, if any have you used to make them more potent, as I feel Eldar should be, or do you find them efficient, as is?

The real issue here is GM's allowing their players to get to the point where all combat is cheesed because of 32 bonuses to every roll making everything successful as long they don't roll 100. I suppose that's another story for another time. But, if you want a piece of advice, GM's should limit what the players get... and even in the late game, no one roll should be able to enjoy more than 3 sources of bonuses. This keeps things legit.

That said, in similar weight class, an Eldar ship has superior speed and damage potential vs. Imperial ships that will be considerably tougher. The Pulsar Lance is designed specifically to counter the Imperium's defensive philosophy - i.e. numerous hits from the lance where the voids can get neutralized and armour-ignoring shots come in... all from the same shot/weapon. Essentially, it's the tortoise and the hare... the Imperium's slow and steady wins the race vs. the Eldar's speed kills philosophy.

Void Shields are always up, but I don't think they're always at full strength.

If the captain isn't suicidal, they're always up, anyway.

Imperial Navy regulations mandate a minimum 50% power to Void Shields, no matter how safe the situation (even parked in orbit over a friendly planet with no hostile vessels in the system). Most captains prefer not to put the extra strain on the shield generators and content themselves with minimum power.

At least one IN captain has had his ship saved because he mistook blindly obeying every regulation with being a good officer (and the planet below turned out to be not so friendly). I suspect the same captains would find themselves (briefly) saved by the same regulation when faced with a typical eldar ambush.

The real issue here is GM's allowing their players to get to the point where all combat is cheesed because of 32 bonuses to every roll making everything successful as long they don't roll 100. I suppose that's another story for another time. But, if you want a piece of advice, GM's should limit what the players get... and even in the late game, no one roll should be able to enjoy more than 3 sources of bonuses. This keeps things legit.

A void-master with starting 50 Ag (easy to achieve with the right origin path and a good roll), +20 Ag advancement, + 20 and talented for Pilot (spacecraft) has a base pilot skill of 100 before anything else, Add a MIU and a Rogue Trader Lord Captain and you're rolling at 125+ ship maneuvrability. You don't need to stack bonuses like crazy, Just specialize a fair bit and you break space combat.

The real issue here is GM's allowing their players to get to the point where all combat is cheesed because of 32 bonuses to every roll making everything successful as long they don't roll 100. I suppose that's another story for another time. But, if you want a piece of advice, GM's should limit what the players get... and even in the late game, no one roll should be able to enjoy more than 3 sources of bonuses. This keeps things legit.

Auto-success is waay too easy to achieve in this game without by almost anyone on his own due to the way stats/skills play out.

A void-master with starting 50 Ag (easy to achieve with the right origin path and a good roll), +20 Ag advancement, + 20 and talented for Pilot (spacecraft) has a base pilot skill of 100 before anything else, Add a MIU and a Rogue Trader Lord Captain and you're rolling at 125+ ship maneuvrability. You don't need to stack bonuses like crazy, Just specialize a fair bit and you break space combat.

Plus, y'know, maneuverability rating. Most RT ships have a positive modifier, and whenever there's extra power, augmented thrusters tend to be popular in my experience.

If you wanted to blunt most of an eldars lance based weaponry to seriously hamper their attack ability against you. Simple. Take Ironclad ( double armour value but NO shields and half Maneuvering penalty/bonus ) This penalty is mitigated by use of augmented retro-thrusters. As for the no shield particular. Thats easy...It clearly stated that as a result of having such thick armour plating...you IGNORE the lance ability to ignore armour and go direct to Hull integrity. Making a lance no better than a macrocannon as a result of having to follow the same penetration rules as a macrocannon AND ( as a result of having such serious armour ) making any direct strike against you...substantially less threatening individually as well as in small groupings. Even a light armoured scout sloop ( armour of i think 14 ) gets turned into a adamantium sided bulldozer ( since with ironclad it makes the armour a 28 ( 32 if you took armoured prow ) and a battleship only has an armour of 25 max standard ) Let alone if you ironclad a cruiser or battleship class.....armour factors of 44-50 or higher then become possible.

BTW hello to my long lost friends Venkelos , Quicksilver , Errant Knight , and Javcs. Its been awhile.

Well to be honest i dont want to set my players up against eldar voidships.
first of all: the smallest eldar ships still have their cloaking ability. this grants -30 to any rolls to detect them, or hit them. now to how combat works: by rolling a good scan, you can get a +5 to hit for every degree of success. with a scan resistance of -30, that isnt going to be much. on average, you loose about 3 sucess levels, which results in a bonus of +15 to hit, that is actually never given, only because you are shooting at eldar. now when you shoot, you get -30 due to the cloak, and miss out on another -15 as established before. thats a total of -45, you loose out on, because you shoot an eldar ship. additionally, the defensive manneuvering bouns the eldar ships receive makes that -60 if the eldar captain is flying defensively. that is on average a -6 solid hits, which you loose out on if you fight eldar ships.

by comparison: scanning an imperial enemy vessel, you can easily give those +15 as bonus to a gunner. the void ships at frigate level have 1 void shield- maybe 2 if light cruiser or good frigate. the maneuverability is lackluster too, most ships granting about 10 bonus for defensive maneuvering. so you get +1 sucess to hit by scanning, -2 due to 2 void shields and -1 due to maneuvering. thats an average of -2 successes, and another due to the higher armor. so defence wise, imperial frigates get -3 hits when attacked by enemies compared to the minus 6 hits for eldar ships.

That is friggin HUGE! eldar ships are actually double strength in defence when comparing equally proficient crews. now .... eldar crews are better too on average, which honestly doesnt even need to be factored in any more. i think you get what i am talking about here. if anything, eldar ships are to strong in the defence.

in this i am comparing base stats of course. if you tweak in additional components like armor of movement boosts, thats where a balancing happens. without those mods however, it is realy hard to defeat eldar.