Welcome to Gaia! ::

Not necassarilly, By Fragile I don't just mean my Armor saves for the army, I also mean the Tactical roll for Each specific Squad, For Example, A squad of Howling Banshees, troop killers in the Assault, however if confronted by land speeders, Dreadnoughts, or Predators...they're screwed, as the str. of the whole squad is only 3. meaning that they can't harm those vehicles, even at what they're best at, Assault. And then we have Fire Dragons...there main roll is for Anti-Vehicle, but if approached by a squad of Assault marines or Termies, they too are screwed, as they each have only one attack, and once again at only a Str. of 3.

Now let's compare these situations to a Standard marine Squad with a plasma gun and missile launcher, with a Sergeant armed with a plasma pistol and power fist. 1. The Speeders, predators and Dreadnoughts, You have all these bolters, plus a plasma gun, plasma pistol and missile launcher if your squad didn't move. You can easily perform the roll of Anti-tank here, even when assaulted by the Dread as the comander has a power fist. 2. The Termies and Assault marines, Once again, you have all the weapons you need that hit on a 3+, and when assaulted, you can wound them on a 4+, My guys need 5+ to wound...then when getting wounded the Assault marines need only roll 3+ Against my guys, while needing a 4+ against marines.

My point? Marines have the survivability they need to live, and Can take on most objectives with a good chance of succeding in those objectives. And do fine on there own....True, Certain marine squads are made to be more lenniant to a more specific roll, but when encountered by something diffrent they can usually come out pretty well. Eldar on the other hand need everything in there army to Support Each other. They do not do well when confronted with something other than what they were made to do.
And on top of that, Eldar hit on a 4+ with shooting, Some people may think of 4+ as, "ok thats not to hard." But when you roll those to hit rolls for the first time you realize..."Dang, I roll alot of 3s..."

And yes we do have cheap guys....but when we lose one of those aspect Squads made to support the survival of another Aspect Squad by Destroying something, and they haven't done that, then say good buy to the rest of your army.
And then we have our heavy weapons becoming more common, yes thats true, but to have them do what they need to do, we need them all, as like said, we hit on 4+, And when those Heavy weapons are put in guardian squads that bolters can run down oh so easily, then we either lose the weapon from casulties, or we fail leadership below 50% and run of the board, whithout chance of regrouping.

And yes I do agree with you on the general talk thread becoming the only thread really used.....so If you would like we can continue this in the Eldar Tactica, or General Tactica forum if you'd like....or if you have a better place this can be talked about, we can do it whever you might think is better. And once again, I ask you all....What is cheese defined as in Warhammer?

marines are generalists, eldar are specialists
to quote heinlin "specilization is for insects"

Quiestion, I can't seem to find the answer to. What is Regimental strength for an Imperial Guard unit? How many guardsmen?