Is The Iyanden Fleet List Balanced?

[brownknight]

I was looking at the Iyanden Fleet List today, comparing it to the Eldar corsairs, and I Built the following force:

3 Dragonships, Weapon Batteries, Launch Bays, Aspect warrior crew, and Vampire Raiders, 1 Supreme Admiral, 1 fleet re-roll

6 Wraithships, Pulsar lances, Torpedoes

1 Shadow Hunter, phantom lance.

(1995 points total)

This force has the following weapons/features:

48 points of weapon batteries, standard Eldar range
12 points of pulsar lances, standard Eldar range
24 strength of Eldar Torpedoes
12 Launch bays with Fighters, Bombers, and Assault boats
+1 to hit and run attacks from the assault boats and Dragonships
+2 to boarding rolls from the Dragonships
standard Eldar cruiser speed, (the shadowhunter moves faster)
55 total hits
Shadowhunter has bonus to hit ordinance
5+ Armour
and normal Eldar holofields, movement, blast marker, gravity well and ordinance rules.

I tried to build a Eldar Corsair fleet to match these numbers, and this is the best I could do:

3 Shadow class cruisers, 1 Pirate prince, 1 fleet re-roll
3 Eclipse class cruisers
3 Aurora class light cruisers
1 Solaris class light cruiser

(2055 points total)

This force has the following weapons/features:

44 points of weapon batteries, standard Eldar range
12 points of pulsar lances, standard Eldar range
24 strength of Eldar Torpedoes
12 Launch bays with Fighters and Bombers
standard Eldar cruiser speed, (the light cruisers move faster)
52 total hits
4+ Armour
and normal Eldar holofields, movement, blast marker, gravity well and ordinance rules.

The Craftworld force seems to be better in every respect:

4 more weapon batteries
Assault Boats
3 more hits
5+ armour instead of 4+
Bonuses to hit and run and boarding
All for 60 points less than the Corsairs.

Am I missing something? Is this as unbalanced as it looks? Or is the ability to take pulsar lances and torpedoes on escorts and buy a void stalker enough to balance the huge discrepancy I saw here?

[kelsik]

On paper it may seem to be a imbalance. Look at it this way and it may help.
A craft world fleet is ment to be the last line of defence. If a incomming shot is going to hit the craft world and can be intercepted by a craftworld fleet ship, then that ship needs to be able to take a punch and live ( 5+ armour)
Vs
a corsair fleet thats light fast and if placed in that same spot as above, will likely dodge the shot and let the craftworld take the hit that may kill up to half a million eldar civillians.

Some times table top rules dont live up to the real world common sence of a units purpose. its up to you to either balance them or live with the imbalance.

[brownknight]

No offense to you, But I find a argument of what should happen in real life to not work here for two reasons.

1) It is a game. Points values should match the ability of the units. If the units are better, then they should cost more points. I can see why the Craft world fleets may be better at taking damage, but they should be more expensive or harder to manufacture, and therefore cost more points per model.

2) Since when has GW ever used real life to assign points values to a unit? As far as I can see, never.

I see no reason that the craft world models should cost as few points as they do. If each ship was 10-20 points more (not counting escorts) I believe there would be a better game balance.

That said, thank you for taking the time to respond. I had begun to fear that there wouldn't be any responses to this post.

[kelsik]

no worries,
ya got me on one point, Gw doenst seem to know what real life is.

I do stand by what I said that craft world ships are better at that they do than thier corsair cousins.
As for the cost, craftworld is as they say, Undercosted.

since there is no exact ship builder formula to calculate abilities vs cost in bfg were really on our own to come up with costs that are precieved as fair to us and them. BFG mags did produce a list for ship construction I think it was around issue 10, Ill have to confirm what issue when I get home. As for its usefulness, I tried to use it to add up the costs of existing ships in the chaos fleet and the numbers dont add up. it does seem ship costs were arbitrarily assigned reguardless of number of guns, shields turns speed and armour.

Incidently, do you have a craftworld fleet?

[brownknight]

Thank you for not taking any offense.

Agreed, the points do seem arbitrary and under what they should be. That is the reason I started this thread.

No, but after comparing this to the Corsairs (and Dark Eldar) I see no reason to continue to play Dark Eldar competitively. Every advantage Dark Eldar had, except slave taking and impailers, has been trumped by these guys. (some would add mimic engines, but I do not use them, so I do not count that myself.) Add in more wounds, more assault craft capability, and a fleet list that does not require 3 escorts per cruiser, and you are looking at a plainly superior force.

So now, I am thinking about using the Iyanden fleet list to make either a Altansar Craft world fleet or a Commorragh web way interceptor fleet. (I figure that the Dark Eldar must have some forces they use to keep others out of the twilight city.) Either way I can keep the feel of a Dark Eldar fleet, while not being outclassed and out gunned at every turn.

Better idea: See if I can get the Iyanden fleet disallowed for tourneys and campaigns I play in, as it was not released in official rulebooks, and clearly is not balanced. This way I am not forcing someone else to fight against such beardy cheese.

While I may seem bitter, it is because I find this game to be far better balanced than most GW games, and I really hate to see one force so much stronger than others. It really seems a slap in the face to the players of all of the other forces to do that.

On a more constructive note:

What if Wraith ships were rewritten as light cruisers? (IE. Cruiser/4) That would bring it closer to being balanced, as the fleet would be unable to sustain as much damage, and then the wraith ship would be very similar to the Aurora Class Eldar Corsair light cruiser (20 points more, and 0/0/5cm less move, for 5+ armour and choice of weapons) I do not think that this is the only thing that needs to be done, as the discrepancy is far greater than just the damage the craft world ships can take, but it is a start.