herichimo said:

Isn't the same basically true for most HQ models? You spent a slot on one model, unless they come with a retinue. So why is the Assassin that much better than almost everything else?

I don't think you can interpret TT stats that simply. The characters and units in TT are, of course, "balanced" for playing purposes. But they are also created to be representatives of what the fluff tells they should be. Grey Knights are supposed to be badass and especially badass in close-combat. They are. Their TT rules are created so that they are very, very, very badass even in low numbers. Orks are supposed to be poor shots, good in melee and they are supposed to be in big hordes. In TT, their rules are created to support big hordes who are poor shots but kick ass when they get close up. Eldar are supposed to have diverse specialized units which are less fragile than marines, but work better than marines when used together and with massive psyker support. Their rules do that.

Similarly, do you really think GW would create a Temple Assassin that can kill even the greatest Space Marine heroes if that wasn't their opinion of exactly how lethal TAs are supposed to be?

Polaria said:

Yeah, I'm just generally disagreeing with humanities abilities in 40k. That they can train and modify someone to take down the best they have created could still be within their abilities. But look at the weapon skill. I don't know all the new army books, but a temple assassin isn't just the best humanity can muster, it's the best except the avatar for a god of war. Equal in terms of WS is Crowe, a Grey Knight (human). After that phoenix lords, dark eldar archons and other beings who have spent around 10,000 years on perfecting their way of combat, together with the one or the other Grey Knight (again, humans. Then autarchs and normal Space Marine Captains (humans).

Is it not enough that half of the armies are human? Do they also have to be the best at everything even though they are stagnating since more than 10,000 years and their culture mirrors medieval Europe?

Of course, there's likely a million+ humans to every eldar in the universe, and amongst those millions, there are likely hundreds with both the physical requirements and natural genius in the art of shoving swords into people and/or shooting things with guns, and there will undoubtedly be at least one or two that have been trained for their entire life and been physically enhances sufficiently that the racial inequities would be more than compensated for.

Combined with a reasonable assumption that animals with a shorter life span might have a compensating mechanic that allows faster learning? We see Tau on an even more accelerated version of that, at least for the purposes of the 40k's sometimes-wonky numbers.

I'd just consider the Temple Assassinoriums (sp?) to basically blank out the previous shell, blast out its former chemical and psychological limiters, and through a rote program of perfect, impossibly grueling training, develop that shell to the exact limit of its peak in skill and physical capability. This would probably involve rote training, perfectly repeated through exacting training mechanisms, that utilize an augmented body to its full effect in the most efficient manner possible, along the lines of the Grammaton clerics in Equilibrium except with a lot more human weaknesses than emotion removed.

Crowe? I guess he just had a natural genius, a miraculously lucky perfect training regime, and learned special techniques to compensate for a self-imposed limit that most warriors would never have to learn.

Now, there would be hundreds of natural genius humans for every natural genius autarch... but there aught to be just as exceptional an autarch that shows the true upper limit of the eldar people. I can certainly agree that there should be an Autarch with WS 9 to show what a legendary eldar swordsman looks like. (Oh wait, did I just discribe Lilith?)

There's been a general inflation of both WS and BS for specialty units since 5th edition made them more useful. Examples include BS6 and highter giving a chance at a reroll, and now we have models with just such high skills, whereas anything higher than a 5 was mostly pointless except for wounds and toughness.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but Lelith Hesperax has the highest WS of any non Khorne Greater Daemon (and or Angron). Not to mention rules that make her even deadlier for it.

George Labour said:

Yes, Lelith is WS9, BS9, I9. The current (5th ed.) trend seems to be that WS/BS6 is the maximum they give to "normal" (mortal) heroes. WS7+ needs some specific reasons: Dark Eldar succubi and archons have it, but they are supposedly immortal (if they die, their haemonculi just resurrect them) and since they are Eldar they are supposed to be faster and more agile than anything based on human design (like marines). If the craftworld Eldar codex was written for 5th ed. I would imagine many of their heroes have WS/BS7+ too. Now Temple Assassins are a clear deviation from this trend, but I guess they thought that if TAs supposedly kill these awesome xeno heroes they must have the awesome statline to actually do it...

"Bloodtide rises, a daemonic ocean of gore that washes over all and turns them into berzerkers eager only for blood that can effect even the Grey Knights. Thankfully, a small contingent of Sisters of Battle trapped on the world remained pure, which the Grey Knights then kill, collecting and mixing their uncorrupted blood with sacred urgents, applying it to armour and weapons, rendering them immune to the Bloodtides effects..."

No f***ing way!

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

Totally agree, there is no way SIsters of Battle are that useful, dead or alive.

(Ducks for cover)

Mjoellnir said:

The problem here is quite simple... while I'm sure Eldar are due for a stat boost, the main issue is that you keep calling SPACE MARINES "human". They're not. Not really when you consider all the changes that have been made to them.

We don't even know if they can die of old age, because they don't die of old age. Something always fells them in combat before it can happen. Which always made the line in Blood Angels, about them living longer, so **** silly to me. Dante's 1100 isn't so impressive when you consider Logan Grimnar's 800.

Assassins, Astartes, Skitarii, and some other human forces are no longer human in many ways.

Skitarii are probably the low end of this spectrum with some being mostly human still (aside from the odd lobotomy and having more brass on their guns), and others being vat grown near mutants bristling with concealed heavy weapons and an almost terminator armor level of survivability. I daresay some of them might exceed the average astartes in capability, but this isn't noticed since there's no tabletop versions of them and or they usually are fighting at the foot of a titan.

Assassins are taken from very highly trained (and cultivated) specialists, then augmented further for their specific field, and finally given very focused equipment to fullfill their role. In their highly focused specialty they usually are a match for the elite of the more alien horrors average men hope to never face. Outside their field, they're about on par with regular elite humans.

The Astartes (also known as space marines) aren't human anymore. Many of them don't think of themselves as human, and even make that distinction between them and normal people in a very casual manner. It's the difference between a normal ape, and some sci-fi author's 'uplifted' apes that talk, have industry, and hunt humans for sport. Only, these guys also spit acid, and can take the average rifle shot to the face and not flinch.

I'd also place titan princeps into this category, except for the fact the thing that elevates them above normal people isn't physical capacity for war, but their ability to tame the machine spirits of a titan, and keep it moving even in the worst firefight.

Psykers might or might not be in this area as well. As could untouchables, and abhumans.

So, uhmm, don't use them as the baseline for humans when comparing them to nonhumans...or something.

I can't really bring myself to call Temple Assassins any more human than Space Marines are. Space Marine inhumanity has already been discussed far and wide and goes all the way from new organs, biochemical and genetic modifications to good old implants and brainwash.

The full extend of Temple Assassin modifications has never been laid out as far as I know, but the old fluff (Rogue Trader and 2nd edition fluff) speaks of them having gone through the "best genetherapies, implantations and biomodifications known to mankind". And in old fluff the best really meant the best. As in "better than the stuff space marines get". Then the assassins were pretty much forgotten from the fluff for 10 years and limelight shone hard on marines, raising them up to godlike levels. It was only when Nemesis came out last year that assassins got the treatment they deserved in fluff... and rose up on par with the toughest of the space marine breed (I'm purposefully excluding Primarchs from space marine breed, since they make normal marines look like wimps anyway).

Polaria said:

I would agree that the Temple Assassins are further removed from human than Astartes. They would be of the same "Hand Crafted" nature as the Custodes while the Astartes remain "mass production models"

You have to remember that Space Marines where suppoded to be "durable, cheap and fast to produce" for the Emperor´s Crusade. They where never meant to bee the allmighty, impossible to surpass Gods for which the all in the Imerpium hold them (like most players...). Yes they are supirior to normal men but are still limited by the borders of flesh and biology.

An Assassin is so human like a high Ranking Adeptus Mechnacum Magos. Thir muscels are artifically improved, they feature a lost of "cyberware" in their bodies, their brains are tuned up. all that remainds human is the apperance(at leat at some).

The need for Marines was ever and will ever be to high and in some way thei are expandable enough not to use the hightech of the tempels an them. Not to mention that every adeptus envious guards it´s knowledge and secrets.

As I said I'm don't know all the new army books, I pretty much stopped caring for some time after they killed off my infiltrating melee chapter. I know Lelith Hesperax as someone with WS 7. The eternal gladiator has the same as the Phoenix Lords who focus on their way of fighting for 10,000 years. That seemed logical. It's also the same as that of Abbadon and Kharn, all people who were around that long. 9 is more of a bad joke compared to others except maybe the Grey Knights now. And I somehow doubt that they will upgrade all special characters who once had WS 7 to 9.

I always thought that the "Blood Angels live longer" meant that they age slower. Since Space Marines never retire and always fight the day would come where skill wouldn't be enough anymore and becoming weaker and slower than the average Marine would cost his life. And of course Space Marines are superhuman. But they are still produced by humanity. That the Eldar don't have some kind of equivalent to those upstart monkeys just rubs me the wrong way.

I'm sure Eldar will get a buff when their Codex comes out...

But you're still undervaluing the Astartes to a vast degree. Eldar aren't supposed to be some sort of equal to them, at all, ever. It's only their own elite forces, like Incubi and Aspect Warriors, who can even try to stand toe to toe with them.

It pisses you off to see the Eldar made out ot be chumps? It pisses me off to see you call Space Marines a bunch of monkeys, since commiting genocide on the Eldar was one of the reasons the Emperor made them in the first place.

Also, humans aren't really lagging far behind Eldar in the grand scheme of things. The only reason humanity is in such rough shape is that they're in a fallen age, but their technology is incredibly sound. You can run a Leman Russ by burning wood in its engine, Rhinos are perfectly capable of remaining in good workind order for 10,000 years! They're not working with a box of scraps (in a cave!) here. So Marine equipment is some of the best stuff that was salvaged from that fallen age.

While the Marines themselves were created by an uber-being that was about as human as the Eldar are, just that he was still a human in the end, only light-years past them on the evolutionary chain. They were made by this 'man', and given the ability to make more of themselves. That's right, it's not "monkeys" that are scurrying around making more Space Marines, it's OTHER SPACE MARINES. It's not like Scout Sergeants are drawn from the Imperial Guard.

H.B.M.C. said:

Just remeber all this dosen't really matter, one luck bolt or one lucky die roll can kill any "bad ass". Instant death rule works on almost anything. but i digress on the table top rules. The new codex is for table top only. Use it as or if you please. The Grey knights are one of the best "one trick ponys" out there damons are pretty much in the deep hurt locker, when facing them. Just remember it is up to the gm what goes and what dosen't. If Fantasy Flight wants Grey knights they will give them to us i think.

darkreaper2425 said:

They do: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2061

As an aside, an interesting comment on there: "Daemon Hunter presents rules compatible with Dark Heresy for both PC and NPC Grey Knights. There are also additional rules and advice for including Grey Knights in a campaign using the Deathwatch Rulebook instead." Makes me wonder if it will also make it more streamlined to include 'regular' marines in the DH setting...

Aeddon said:

I'm afraid someone closer to local GW shop will have to steal their black-box codex away for a few moments... This bit I got off the Warseer forums and unfortunately haven't seen with my own eyes to confirm or deny

It really seems that the GK Codex is following the unfortunate path of... eccentric fluff of recent books . I will leave commenting at this.

Ranting has never been conducive to healthy blood pressure.

Aajav-Khan said:

Too true, we'll let GW go more and more off the rails, I don't even play the TT anymore, and certainly don't need to get het up about.....

....

1. Back to 2nd ed stats? Really? Cause I thought they were squashing them together on purpose.
2. Dreadknight background, don't like being encased in dreadnoughts? didn't know that was a choice envolved do you like walking around with deamon weapons?
3. Deamon Weapons. Are they really safer being carried by a character that's going to killed in 50% of games rather than leaving it on Titan, dropping it into the 50km deep seas of Europa or blasting it into the heart of the Sun?
4. Dreadknights, clearly some-one realised that monsterous creatures could take more damage than vehicles.
5. Dreadknights, looks silly, do you really need joysticks when you have a black carapace for that very job, put the guy inside.
6. Nemesis Beq du Corbin, Nemesis Manriki Gusari, Nemeswiss morning star, lets just nemesis everything. Also don't recall any eldar (or indeed any other races) power spears giving anyone +initiative before.

Actually I think that helped.

Face Eater said:

Actually that follows the recent trend: All Space wolf weapons are called 'Wolf-somethingsomething'. All Blood Angel weapons are called 'Blood-somethingsomething' and every piece that doesn't get a "cool" 1st founding chapter name is called 'Astartes-somethingsomething'...

Polaria said:

Sadly true. At least SW's alternated between Frost and Wolf, with Blood BA it's all Blood this and Blood that. But of course all the other First founding chapters are covered by codex SM so they get f'all. Cept for Dark Angels, we can expect Dark Swords, Dark Pistols and Dark Plasmaguns later whoop de doo.

Face Eater said:

The DA's just keep all of their naming conventions secret.

ItsUncertainWho said:

They are like the Sphinx because they are "Terribly Mysterious" (TM and said in a horrific British accent).