I now agree that Riptide are broken. In a game earlier I charged a Riptide with the lone surviving Striking Scorpion Exarch (with claw) as well as 5 wraith blades with axe and shield. On top of turn 2. It took the entire game to kill it. He kept rolling nova charge and getting a 3+ invul. I lost one wraith and my exarch ran away and off the table.

Put it this way: 3 Grav-centurions in a pod don't kill a Stimtide in one turn of shooting on average, doing (15*(2/3))*(35/36)*(2/3)*(2/3) or ~4,3 wounds on average. That's WITHOUT the 3++ or it being in 4+ cover, and it's from one of the most obscenely strong anti-MC units in the game.

Right which is why the upgrades are either undercosted, or the riptide has too much survivability for its current cost (again, 4+ to pass nova, 3+ armor save -1 a wound to start if we leave the stimtide at 225)

With that stat line 3 Grav-centurions in a pod STILL wouldn't one-shot a Riptide on average, because they're now wounding on 3+ rather than 2+. It'd be darn close, though, and 3+ is so much easier to get wounds through on than 2+.

Should anything ever just one shot anything else without spending more points than it though? Otherwise I feel the game would be very hard to balance around that philosophy/norm for units firepower

 Wolfblade wrote:
Should anything ever just one shot anything else with spending more points than it though? Otherwise I feel the game would be very hard to balance around that philosophy/norm for units firepower

And thats one of the major problems with vehicle as opposed to MCs or GMCs. Lots of things can one shot them - the latter not so much.

Also pretty much any 1 W unit can one shot another.

 Wolfblade wrote:
Should anything ever just one shot anything else with spending more points than it though? Otherwise I feel the game would be very hard to balance around that philosophy/norm for units firepower

3 Grav-turions in a pod are an ultra-hard counter to MCs and are more expensive than a Stimtide. It's essentially the worst-case scenario for the Riptide outside of formations and Deathstars, and it still lives.

 Wolfblade wrote:
Should anything ever just one shot anything else with spending more points than it though? Otherwise I feel the game would be very hard to balance around that philosophy/norm for units firepower

Hello? Vehicles.

Yes, yes I know, vehicles suck. Everyone knows that, and I DID mean to include that in what I said. Vehicles all need a points drop if they stay the way they are, or the damage chart needs serious work/be removed as it feels like a holdover from 5th. (Note, at no point did I ever say vehicles are fair/balanced/fine as they are, but that's a different discussion)

As for grav-turions with the changes purposed, they'll take on average 3.92 wounds with a 5++/5+++, which means if the riptide failed its previous nova, it's dead. (thats including the 3+ armor btw). If it had a 3++, then only 1.97 wounds go through, and assuming it fails the next nova (failing one every other turn), it's down to 2 wounds, which means weight of fire has a chance to kill it. Odds get slightly better if the centurions take MLs, inflicting another 1.11 wounds with a 5++, or .55 with a 3++ (hurricane bolters only dealing .296 at 13 inches or more,.592 in rapidfire).

So would losing 2 wounds, fail nova on a 4+ and gaining 3+ armor work then if it stays 225? Grav-turions kill in one turn assuming no nova, and they all make it past any interceptors. Otherwise I think as a start, raising the stimm price by 15 and IA by 20 would be a decent start (now costs 260)

As for 1W units, I assume you mean units of multiple models with 1W. Offhand, what completely wipes each other out while costing roughly the same or less? Units made of mostly special weapons firing at another unit?

3 X D-scythe wraithguard can kill far more than their point value.

" Otherwise I think as a start, raising the stimm price by 15 and IA by 20 would be a decent start (now costs 260) "

This might up end up being sufficient by squeezing Tau lists for a few more points. As the Tau can field fewer synergizing units, their effectiveness goes down.

In contrast, Eldar units usually do it alone, so WK has to go to 400 pts at least.

Thats a good point, wraith guard can pull down way more than they should be able to, assuming they get in range (tau might be able to put them down before they can fire depending on squad size)

edit: Actually a lot of eldar can do that (scatbikes i.e.), but they're the outlier really, having mostly underpriced or overpowered units.

 Wolfblade wrote:
Traditio, you just had a poll on this. Result was that more people than not thought the riptide was balanced, or at least fair.

Except, you can't claim that. Insaniak artificially ended the poll early.

The general trend of the poll was in my favor.

The most that you can claim is that, at the time at which the poll was ended, it was pretty close to an even split.

 Traditio wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:
Traditio, you just had a poll on this. Result was that more people than not thought the riptide was balanced, or at least fair.

Except, you can't claim that. Insaniak artificially ended the poll early.

The general trend of the poll was in my favor.

The most that you can claim is that, at the time at which the poll was ended, it was pretty close to an even split.

The majority side was still that it wasn't over powered THE ENTIRE TIME THE POLL WAS UP. Even if your false notion about a trend was true (which was only derived from a very short period of time so isn't actually valid) your trend was so small that you would have run out of active Dakka members before your side of the poll over took the majority

CrownAxe wrote:The majority side was still that it wasn't over powered THE ENTIRE TIME THE POLL WAS UP. Even if your false notion about a trend was true (which was only derived from a very short period of time so isn't actually valid) your trend was so small that you would have run out of active Dakka members before your side of the poll over took the majority

We'll never know. Insaniak artificially ended it early.

Again, all that we can claim is that, at the time at which the poll was closed, it was close to an even split/highly contested.

 Traditio wrote:

CrownAxe wrote:The majority side was still that it wasn't over powered THE ENTIRE TIME THE POLL WAS UP. Even if your false notion about a trend was true (which was only derived from a very short period of time so isn't actually valid) your trend was so small that you would have run out of active Dakka members before your side of the poll over took the majority

We'll never know. Insaniak artificially ended it early.

Again, all that we can claim is that, at the time at which the poll was closed, it was close to an even split/highly contested.

Or we could look at the information we actually did get from that poll which is the majority didn't think the Riptide was overpowered

And yet you still claim you won.
Why is it that we can only claim it was a draw (even though the 'it's balanced' side was winning) while you an claim you won (because of a slight trend that wasn't actually a valid reason for such a claim)?

CrownAxe wrote:Or we could look at the information we actually did get from that poll which is the majority didn't think the Riptide was overpowered

Accounting for margin of error, again, the result at the time of the poll's closing, statistically speaking, was a tie.

But again, Insaniak closed the poll early. We'll never know what the actual popular opinion on the matter is. Because he closed it early.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
And yet you still claim you won.
Why is it that we can only claim it was a draw (even though the 'it's balanced' side was winning) while you an claim you won (because of a slight trend that wasn't actually a valid reason for such a claim)?

You can either look at:

1. Actual results
2. Trends

1. The actual result, accounting for a margin of error, is a virtual tie.

2. If you look at the progression from the beginning of the poll to the time at which it was artificially ended for no good reason, the side supporting my opinion was increasing at a faster rate than the side disagreeing with my opinion.

So either:

1. I did not lose

or

2. I won.

That's not how margin of error works. For one you don't have a margin of error in a poll because you didn't do any calculations with it. It is just adding up the number of yes's and no's there is no error to have. And second of all a margine of errorr goes both ways so it does not automatically mean its in your favor because for all you know it could make the majority even greater against your favor (meaning it could be 60% think its balanced instead of the 55% it was shown)

CrownAxe wrote:And second of all a margine of errorr goes both ways so it does not automatically mean its in your favor because for all you know it could make the majority even greater against your favor (meaning it could be 60% think its balanced instead of the 55% it was shown)

I never claimed otherwise. All that I said is that, assuming a margin of error, we can no more say that I lost than that I won. It was a virtual tie. It could have gone either way, given enough time and people.

 Traditio wrote:

CrownAxe wrote:And second of all a margine of errorr goes both ways so it does not automatically mean its in your favor because for all you know it could make the majority even greater against your favor (meaning it could be 60% think its balanced instead of the 55% it was shown)

I never claimed otherwise. All that I said is that, assuming a margin of error, we can no more say that I lost than that I won. It was a virtual tie. It could have gone either way, given enough time and people.

You can't claim a virtual tie because it wasn't a tie it was 55-45%, thats not a tie. And trying to say that their could be a margin of error (which there isn't) makes it a virtual tie is wrong because thats not how margin of errors work. Margine of errors are +/-5% roughley which still averages out to 55-45% which is not a tie

CrownAxe wrote:You can't claim a virtual tie because it wasn't a tie it was 55-45%, thats not a tie. And trying to say that their could be a margin of error (which there isn't) makes it a virtual tie is wrong because thats not how margin of errors work. Margine of errors are +/-5% roughley which still averages out to 55-45% which is not a tie

1. If the result was 55/45 (in fact, it was actually getting a lot closer; at least at one point, I think it was at a 48/52 split), a margin of error of 5 percent could very well render a 50/50 even split.

2. You may want to look up "virtual" in the dictionary. A virtual tie =/= an actual tie.

 Traditio wrote:

CrownAxe wrote:You can't claim a virtual tie because it wasn't a tie it was 55-45%, thats not a tie. And trying to say that their could be a margin of error (which there isn't) makes it a virtual tie is wrong because thats not how margin of errors work. Margine of errors are +/-5% roughley which still averages out to 55-45% which is not a tie

1. If the result was 55/45 (in fact, it was actually getting a lot closer; at least at one point, I think it was at a 48/52 split), a margin of error of 5 percent could very well render a 50/50 even split.

2. You may want to look up "virtual" in the dictionary. A virtual tie =/= an actual tie.

The fact that a tie is which in a margin of error doesn't let you ignore every other possibility within the margin of error. That's why you are wrong about claiming its a virtual tie and you can;t just ignore the actual result of the poll.

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

CrownAxe wrote:You can't claim a virtual tie because it wasn't a tie it was 55-45%, thats not a tie. And trying to say that their could be a margin of error (which there isn't) makes it a virtual tie is wrong because thats not how margin of errors work. Margine of errors are +/-5% roughley which still averages out to 55-45% which is not a tie

1. If the result was 55/45 (in fact, it was actually getting a lot closer; at least at one point, I think it was at a 48/52 split), a margin of error of 5 percent could very well render a 50/50 even split.

2. You may want to look up "virtual" in the dictionary. A virtual tie =/= an actual tie.

The fact that a tie is which in a margin of error doesn't let you ignore every other possibility within the margin of error. That's why you are wrong about claiming its a virtual tie and you can;t just ignore the actual result of the poll.

Again, look up the word "virtual" in the dictionary.

 Traditio wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

CrownAxe wrote:You can't claim a virtual tie because it wasn't a tie it was 55-45%, thats not a tie. And trying to say that their could be a margin of error (which there isn't) makes it a virtual tie is wrong because thats not how margin of errors work. Margine of errors are +/-5% roughley which still averages out to 55-45% which is not a tie

1. If the result was 55/45 (in fact, it was actually getting a lot closer; at least at one point, I think it was at a 48/52 split), a margin of error of 5 percent could very well render a 50/50 even split.

2. You may want to look up "virtual" in the dictionary. A virtual tie =/= an actual tie.

The fact that a tie is which in a margin of error doesn't let you ignore every other possibility within the margin of error. That's why you are wrong about claiming its a virtual tie and you can;t just ignore the actual result of the poll.

Again, look up the word "virtual" in the dictionary.

You know virtual isn't actually applicable when trying to use statistics to prove your point

CrownAxe wrote:You know virtual isn't actually applicable when trying to use statistics to prove your point

I'll be waiting for you to copy/paste the definition when you find it out.

 Traditio wrote:

CrownAxe wrote:You know virtual isn't actually applicable when trying to use statistics to prove your point

I'll be waiting for you to copy/paste the definition when you find it out.

Virtual
"almost or nearly as described, but not completely or according to strict definition."

Which has nothing to do with math or statistics which is why i said you can't use it ignore your entire poll

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

CrownAxe wrote:You know virtual isn't actually applicable when trying to use statistics to prove your point

I'll be waiting for you to copy/paste the definition when you find it out.

Virtual
"almost or nearly as described, but not completely or according to strict definition."

Which has nothing to do with math or statistics which is why i said you can't use it ignore your entire poll

My initial claim was that the poll result, at the time in which Insaniak closed it early for no good reason, was a "virtual tie." Given the definition, would you disagree with me or agree with me?

If you say "but it wasn't a tie," I'll ask you to give me the definition for each of the words that you just quoted in your definition. And I'll keep asking you to do that until you figure out what the word "virtual" means.

This thread is for discussion on how to balance Riptides. The (fascinating as it is) discussion on whether or not a poll showed a majority or a tie can be better held elsewhere.

Or, you know, not, given that it was already discussed in the actual poll thread.

 insaniak wrote:
This thread is for discussion on how to balance Riptides. The (fascinating as it is) discussion on whether or not a poll showed a majority or a tie can be better held elsewhere.

Or, you know, not, given that it was already discussed in the actual poll thread.

"How should we balance riptides?" presupposes that Riptides are imbalanced and are publicly recognized as being imbalanced.

If riptides are balanced, or even are publicly perceived as being such, then there is no need to even ask the question of how to balance them. They already are balanced, under that hypothesis.

What people like CrownAxe, Matt.Kingsley and Wolfblade should be saying to the OP is:

"Keep riptides exactly the way that they are."

It's only under the supposition that riptides are imbalanced (and are publicly recognized as being such) that a need for a rework to make them "balanced" even appears necessary.

Note, it's not enough for riptides to be imbalanced to see a need for a rework. It's only under the supposition that there's public recognition of their imbalance that it makes sense to ask: "So how do we fix it?"

You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't both claim that riptides are fine and also claim that they need a rework to make them fine (contra Wolfblade).

There are two initial possible answers:

1. It is the case that riptides are imbalanced and are publicly recognized as being imbalanced.
2. It is not the case that riptides, etc.

If they are not, then no fix is needed.

If they are, then we must ask why they are considered as being imbalanced:

1. They have too much fire power.
2. They are too durable.
3. They are too points efficient.
4. They should be walkers, but are MCs instead.

At which point we come to my fix recommendations:

1. Decrease their firepower.
2. Make them less durable.
3. Price them appropriately.
4. Make them walkers.

So, the only thing I want to say on the matter before dropping it is that the poll was ended 2hrs before the arbitrary time length was up. That's barely early. Also assuming we're not going by when you seemed to want to call it early.

So again, since no one has given any input back, would 3+ armor. 4+ nova, -2 wounds work if it stays 225, or loses only 1 wound but IA raises by 20pt, and stimms by 15. (bringing the total cost to 260)

 Traditio wrote:

"Keep riptides exactly the way that they are."

You mean, except for my purposed changes. Or are you ignoring my posts and just forgetting to read them before you post? Also, in general right now Riptides are FINE, strong vs the weaker codices, and ok against the post-decurion codices. Because the level of power is so vast between the most bottom tier codex and the most top tier codex, a unit can range from super broken to nearly worthless. (i.e. the IG's AP4 russ that ignores cover is great vs orks, but worthless against any of the top 4). So yes, my feeling comparing the riptide to the game as whole is that it's ok, maybe on the strong side, but it's damage output is meh at best assuming average scatter/rolls to wound.

So yes, I'm purposing changes that are assuming everyone is being balanced to SM's level.

Wolfblade wrote:You mean, except for my purposed changes. Or are you ignoring my posts and just forgetting to read them before you post?

According to you, the riptide is balanced just like it's written in the codex. Why are you proposing changes to a unit that you think is just fine?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Also, in general right now Riptides are FINE, strong vs the weaker codices, and ok against the post-decurion codices.

There's no such thing as "against an entire codex."

C:SM isn't Codex: Teleporting/drop-podded grav centurions.

C:Necrons isn't codex: decurion.

C: eldar isn't codex: Wraithknight + scatterbikes.

We shouldn't be considering Riptides vs. the most broken gak in other codices. We should be considering Riptides in comparison to the things in the other codices that are actually considered of "average" power level.

You should be weighing riptides against dreadnoughts and devastator marines with lascannons, not to teleporting grav centurions.

Saying that x is fine because other codices have cheese too isn't really much of a defense of x being fine.

No codices should have cheese. Not even a little.

"
C:SM isn't Codex: Teleporting/drop-podded grav centurions.

C:Necrons isn't codex: decurion.

C: eldar isn't codex: Wraithknight + scatterbikes.
"

Except they basically are. The "cheese" is what makes C:SM great and C:BA awful.

Martel732 wrote:The "cheese" is what makes C:SM great and C:BA awful.

And take away the cheese, and all codices would be in a much better balance-situation relative to each other. Take away grav centurions, whether teleporting or drop-podded, increase the cost of drop-pods, nerf the feth out of wraithknights, riptides, etc., nerf Necrons, etc., and 40k would be a whole lot better off.

I mean, people with cheese armies would be much worse off. They'd actually have to rely on tactics, strategy and good list-building ideas. They'd actually have to "git gud" and "learn 2 play" instead of just relying on the latest net-list.

Why should riptides be balanced against dreads? They're not even remotely comparable. The closest thing any SM has would be a dreadknight.

I also want to point out a lot of comp players massively better than you. I don't see you with any major tourney wins under your belt. I see you yelling about how you have skill, or honor, or whatever, just like in that link I posted in the other thread. What you want is to not have to change or adapt in any way. You blatantly refuse to take any counters to problem units, then whine about said problem units.

 Wolfblade wrote:
Why should riptides be balanced against dreads? They're not even remotely comparable. The closest thing any SM has would be a dreadknight.

Except, dreadknights aren't really a fair comparison. "Good" GK lists include at least two of them. When it comes to balancing, you can't compare cheese to cheese. You have to compare it to a balanced, average unit that nobody considers "auto-take."

Dreadnoughts are the iconic 40k walker. They have a "shooty" configuration.

I also want to point out a lot of comp players massively better than you.

Even if true, I fail to see how this is even remotely relevant to the conversation. I mean, it makes for a "great" personal attack. But meh?

I don't see you with any major tourney wins under your belt.

You mean, those events where everybody spams the cheesiest builds available in their codex? Those things?

I see you yelling about how you have skill, or honor, or whatever

Where?

Quote me.

 Traditio wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:
Why should riptides be balanced against dreads? They're not even remotely comparable. The closest thing any SM has would be a dreadknight.

Except, dreadknights aren't really a fair comparison. "Good" GK lists include at least two of them. When it comes to balancing, you can't compare cheese to cheese. You have to compare it to a balanced, average unit.

Whether or not a Dreadknight is a fair comparison to make when trying to balance the Riptide, it's still a better comparison than a comparing the Riptide to a Dreadnought.

 Traditio wrote:
Dreadnoughts are the iconic 40k walker. They have a "shooty" configuration.

Just because the Dreadnought is Iconic doesn't in any way mean Riptides vs Dreadnoughts is a fair comparison. As for a 'Shoot-y Configuration', the "Basic" Dreadnought has a Power Fist, a Storm Bolter, and a Multi-Melta as its default configuration. I (and I'm sure many others) would say that - for a Walker - that's hardly a 'Shoot-y Configuration'.

IllumiNini wrote:Whether or not a Dreadknight is a fair comparison to make when trying to balance the Riptide, it's still a better comparison than a comparing the Riptide to a Dreadnought.

What would you consider a "fair" thing to compare the riptide against?

Note, the thing to which you are comparing it must:

1. Not be an auto-include or otherwise cheesy unit.
2. Must be commonly considered to be well-balanced.

Here, I repeat what I've often said before:

Balance is relative (in the sense of implying a relationship, say, of A to B).

If you want to balance a riptide, you have to balance it AGAINST something. If you balance it against cheese, you're going to get cheese.

Just because the Dreadnought is Iconic doesn't in any way mean Riptides vs Dreadnoughts is a fair comparison. As for a 'Shoot-y Configuration', the "Basic" Dreadnought has a Power Fist, a Storm Bolter, and a Multi-Melta as its default configuration. I (and I'm sure many others) would say that - for a Walker - that's hardly a 'Shoot-y Configuration'.

You can get a dreadnought that has neither a power fist nor a multimelta. See my earlier postings.

 Traditio wrote:

IllumiNini wrote:Whether or not a Dreadknight is a fair comparison to make when trying to balance the Riptide, it's still a better comparison than a comparing the Riptide to a Dreadnought.

What would you consider a "fair" thing to compare the riptide against?

Note, the thing to which you are comparing it must:

1. Not be an auto-include or otherwise cheesy unit.
2. Must be commonly considered to be well-balanced.

So now I have to conform to more of your conditions? No thanks, I'll pass.

 Traditio wrote:

Just because the Dreadnought is Iconic doesn't in any way mean Riptides vs Dreadnoughts is a fair comparison. As for a 'Shoot-y Configuration', the "Basic" Dreadnought has a Power Fist, a Storm Bolter, and a Multi-Melta as its default configuration. I (and I'm sure many others) would say that - for a Walker - that's hardly a 'Shoot-y Configuration'.

You can get a dreadnought that has neither a power fist nor a multimelta. See my earlier postings.

I am very well aware. It still doesn't at all mean that Riptides vs Dreadnoughts is a fair comparison.

IllumiNini wrote:So now I have to conform to more of your conditions? No thanks, I'll pass.

So there is no non-cheese to which you can compare the riptide.

Noted.

I am very well aware. It still doesn't at all mean that Riptides vs Dreadnoughts is a fair comparison.

Eheu.

This is something that constantly annoys me and smacks of blatant trolling on the part of my interlocutors. It's so patent a misrepresentation of what I've said that it makes me think that it's probably intentional:

I never said that we should compare riptides vs. (any and all) dreadnoughts.

Clearly, ironclad dreadnought vs. riptide is just a bad comparison.

Clearly, power fist + multimelta dreadnought vs. riptide is a bad comparison.

It would be very silly to compare these things.

If you're going to answer something that I've said, at least represent what I've said in a fair way that doesn't make me look like I'm saying something patently silly.

But how about a dreadnought with missile launcher and lascannon?

All of a sudden, it looks a lot more comparable, doesn't it?

 Traditio wrote:
If you want to balance a riptide, you have to balance it AGAINST something. If you balance it against cheese, you're going to get cheese.

Yes so go ahead and balance it against another unit in the same slot , performs the same functions , in the same type of codex.

 Traditio wrote:
You can get a dreadnought that has neither a power fist nor a multimelta. See my earlier postings.

So you admit they aren't even comparable since they can be set up something different that shooty . Riptides can only ever be shooty. Grats you just proved they need to pay a premium for the ability of having a choice, so they would never be equal the way you are looking at them.

 Traditio wrote:
But how about a dreadnought with missile launcher and lascannon?

All of a sudden, it looks a lot more comparable, doesn't it?

No , they do not

kambien wrote:Yes so go ahead and balance it against another unit in the same slot , performs the same functions , in the same type of codex.

This ultimately comes out to saying:

"But riptides are in the TAU codex. Look, my codex has TAU on the front. That means I should get a discount!"

So you admit they aren't even comparable since they can be set up something different that shooty. Riptides can only ever be shooty.

So what?

Grats you just proved they need to pay a premium for the ability of having a choice

Why?

so they would never be equal the way you are looking at them.

I don't admit that at all. Options or not, what you end up with in the case of a shooty dreadnought and a riptide is very much comparable. They fill essentially the same combat role. The only difference is that the riptide does it much better. As such, it should pay a lot more for it.

No , they do not

Why not?

 Traditio wrote:

IllumiNini wrote:So now I have to conform to more of your conditions? No thanks, I'll pass.

So there is no non-cheese to which you can compare the riptide.

Noted.

I didn't say that. All I said was that I was not going to do what you asked. There's a difference.

 Traditio wrote:
If you're going to answer something that I've said, at least represent what I've said in a fair way that doesn't make me look like I'm saying something patently silly.

Because you've always extended everyone that same courtesy...

 Traditio wrote:
But how about a dreadnought with missile launcher and lascannon?

All of a sudden, it looks a lot more comparable, doesn't it?

If you knew how bad a (Venerable) Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and a Missile Launcher really is, then you'd know that even that isn't a fair comparison to a Riptide.

 Traditio wrote:
It would be very silly to compare these things.

Given that you're comparing a Riptide to a very specific set of load-outs for Dreadnoughts, it's a silly comparison anyway.

IllumiNini wrote:If you knew how bad a (Venerable) Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and a Missile Launcher really is, then you'd know that even that isn't a fair comparison to a Riptide.

They fill the same combat role. Therefore, it's a fair comparison.

Given that you're comparing a Riptide to a very specific set of load-outs for Dreadnoughts, it's a silly comparison anyway.

Why is it a silly comparison? A fair comparison is to compare one thing with a given combat role to another thing with the same combat role.

A shooty dreadnought fills the same combat role as a riptide.

 Traditio wrote:

IllumiNini wrote:If you knew how bad a (Venerable) Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and a Missile Launcher really is, then you'd know that even that isn't a fair comparison to a Riptide.

They fill the same combat role. Therefore, it's a fair comparison.

Regardless of whether or not that's true, the fact that a Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and Missile launcher is severely under-powered makes it an extremely poor comparison to anything that is supposed to fill this particular combat role.

 Traditio wrote:

Given that you're comparing a Riptide to a very specific set of load-outs for Dreadnoughts, it's a silly comparison anyway.

Why is it a silly comparison?

See Above.

IllumiNini wrote:Regardless of whether or not that's true, the fact that a Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and Missile launcher is severely under-powered makes it an extremely poor comparison to anything that is supposed to fill this particular combat role.

Underpowered in comparison to what?

 Traditio wrote:

IllumiNini wrote:Regardless of whether or not that's true, the fact that a Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and Missile launcher is severely under-powered makes it an extremely poor comparison to anything that is supposed to fill this particular combat role.

Underpowered in comparison to what?

You don't have to compare it to anything. Consider the fact that you're paying 125 Points for a basic Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and a Missile Launcher. You get to make two shots (one of which is Twin-Linked), so assuming you're using a Krakk Missile, you're not going to be inflicting more than 2 hits. With a Frag Missile, it's hardly much better in terms of maximum number of hits. This is before you consider the To Wound rolls.

If - for 125 Points - that's not under-powered, then at the very least it's not on the same level of "Shoot-y-ness" of a Riptide and thus hardly makes it a fair comparison.

IllumiNini wrote:You don't have to compare it to anything.

Yes, you do. Balance is relative. If you tell me that dreadnoughts are under-powered with a missile launcher and TL lascannon, what you are saying is that a dreadnought of this configuration is not worth the 125 points that you would otherwise have paid on something else.

onsider the fact that you're paying 125 Points for a basic Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and a Missile Launcher. You get to make two shots (one of which is Twin-Linked), so assuming you're using a Krakk Missile, you're not going to be inflicting more than 2 hits. With a Frag Missile, it's hardly much better in terms of maximum number of hits. This is before you consider the To Wound rolls.

So what?

If you purchase 2 obliterators in the CSM codex, you get 2 shots for 140 points. What is your point?

If - for 125 Points - that's not under-powered, then at the very least it's not on the same level of "Shoot-y-ness" of a Riptide and thus hardly makes it a fair comparison.

Non-sequitur.

The fact that it's less shooty and gets less shootiness for its points doesn't contradict the point that the shooty dreadnought and the riptide fill the same combat role. The riptide just fills it a lot better.

That's why riptides should cost a lot more.

 Traditio wrote:
But how about a dreadnought with missile launcher and lascannon?

All of a sudden, it looks a lot more comparable, doesn't it?

No, it doesn't look comparable. The dreadnought is optimized for low-volume high-strength shooting (at least as far as a dreadnought can be), the Riptide's strength is its anti-infantry pie plate. For example, if you want to kill MCs the dreadnought is significantly better than the Riptide (two shots vs. one, and the blast doesn't help against single-model targets). But of course you'll insist they're comparable, because this is a classic Traditio argument: find some random unit, compare one of its stats to the "overpowered" unit and find it lacking, and declare that you must be right. And meanwhile any depth of analysis is completely ignored in favor of that single stat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Traditio wrote:
The fact that it's less shooty and gets less shootiness for its points doesn't contradict the point that the shooty dreadnought and the riptide fill the same combat role.

Except they DON'T fill the same role. The dreadnought is a melee unit that can be armed with double guns if you stubbornly insist on it. The Riptide is a mobile shooting unit in an army full of mobile shooting units. The fact that you can make an LC/ML dread and fail to accomplish much with it doesn't mean that the Riptide is overpowered, it just means that taking LC/ML dreads is a bad idea.

Here's an equivalent comparison: crisis suits with no weapons are clearly a melee unit, but they're obviously worse at it than all those overpowered melee units. Therefore we need to buff the basic stat line of crisis suits to be better in melee (while of course not making any nerfs to shooty crisis suits, since those are a different combat role). Sound reasonable?

 Traditio wrote:

onsider the fact that you're paying 125 Points for a basic Dreadnought with a Twin-Linked Lascannon and a Missile Launcher. You get to make two shots (one of which is Twin-Linked), so assuming you're using a Krakk Missile, you're not going to be inflicting more than 2 hits. With a Frag Missile, it's hardly much better in terms of maximum number of hits. This is before you consider the To Wound rolls.

So what?

If you purchase 2 obliterators in the CSM codex, you get 2 shots for 140 points. What is your point?

But we're not comparing Riptides to Obliteraters, so what's yours?


Also, I agree with Peregrine's most recent comment here.

 Traditio wrote:

I see you yelling about how you have skill, or honor, or whatever

Where?

Quote me.

By the fact you complain endlessly about "cheese", how you refuse to use it (or anything you THINK is cheese) to counter anything that beats your poor little helpless marines and:

 Traditio wrote:

They'd actually have to rely on tactics, strategy and good list-building ideas. They'd actually have to "git gud" and "learn 2 play" instead of just relying on the latest net-list.

bold mine. If they don't have skill by the inverse you must right? Otherwise how would you know they have no skill?

and, as Peregrine said about dreads, giving a melee unit guns does not make them firebases, especially when all the guns they get suck (except for maybe TL autocannons).

Plus, Traditio, let's consider exactly what you said:

 Traditio wrote:
If you want a fair comparison, the riptide must be balanced either against:

Space marine dreadnought with TL lascannon and missile launcher: 125 points

Or

Space marine dreadnought with TL heavy bolter and TL autocannon: 120 points

Or

Space marine dreadnought with TL lascannon and TL autocannon: 130 points

That is a very specific set of load-outs for one particular unit. Even if comparing Riptides to these load-outs is fair (which is very, very arguable at best), it's still an unfair comparison because you're comparing a unit with all its load-outs (Riptide) against a small sub-set of load-outs for a unit that isn't all that similar to it (3x Load-Outs for a Dreadnought). Now, I think it's more than fair to say that the Twin-Linked Lascannon/Missile Launcher Combo on a normal Dreadnought is not comparable to the Riptide and its load-outs because at the very least the capabilities of the various load-outs are very different.

Then there's the issue of the Dreadnought's other load-outs (i.e. the one's not mentioned in the above quote). The fact that you have not so much ignored as excluded a number of other load-outs automatically means that the Dreadnought vs Riptide Comparison is not a fair one because it relies on the Dreadnought taking a specific sub-set of load-outs.

So, with the Dreadnought comparison out of the way, we can focus on the real topic which is balancing the Riptide. The biggest problem with a Riptide (at least to my mind) is that to some extent or another it is under-costed in the current system. Honestly the issue surrounding units such as Riptides could also be fixed by limitations such as 'Only on can be taken for every 1,000 Points', but that's not only outside the scope of the current rule set, but also something that is even less likely to be agreed upon relative to a points increase.

Just got back from the ATC, where our Marine player went 5-1. He faced a Tau player and tabled him. The army had a Riptide Wing ,storm surges and Broadsides. Sorry but Riptides are just fine in the meta.

 Traditio wrote:

4. They should be walkers, but are MCs instead...

Prove this.

 raverrn wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

4. They should be walkers, but are MCs instead...

Prove this.

That's asking to derail the thread. We don't need more arguing about whether Riptides and other MC's should be Walkers or MC's.

Hezmana, I even said that in the original post. There have been threads on that very topic, over and over and over. The usual consensus seems to be that it would cause as many problems as it solves, and walkers suck, anyway. (and usually degenerates into various Dreadnought-as-MC proposals, sidetracks on Dreadknights and Wraithlords and such...)

It never goes anywhere productive. Spare us yet another frakking derail.

I still stand by my suggestion to get rid of the 72" pie-plate-puker. That's the genesis of about 75% of the salt, as far as I can tell. Durability is the rest, but the durability fades fast when the Riptide has to come to you, rather than you having to QWOP your entire army up the field at it, eating S8 AP2 large blasts every turn.

pm713 wrote:

 raverrn wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

4. They should be walkers, but are MCs instead...

Prove this.

That's asking to derail the thread. We don't need more arguing about whether Riptides and other MC's should be Walkers or MC's.

This doesn't mean Traditio gets to make these kinds of claims without backing himself up.

 raverrn wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 raverrn wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

4. They should be walkers, but are MCs instead...

Prove this.

That's asking to derail the thread. We don't need more arguing about whether Riptides and other MC's should be Walkers or MC's.

This doesn't mean Traditio gets to make these kinds of claims without backing himself up.

You know full well that he won't/ He'll spout rubbish and madness.

 Traditio wrote:

C:SM isn't Codex: Teleporting/drop-podded grav centurions.

Nor is it codex:exclusive use of las/plas tactical spam, maybe with rhinos. Which is all you insist on playing apparently.

 thejughead wrote:
Just got back from the ATC, where our Marine player went 5-1. He faced a Tau player and tabled him. The army had a Riptide Wing ,storm surges and Broadsides. Sorry but Riptides are just fine in the meta.

Was the marine player running teleporting grav centurions? I bet he was running teleporting grav centurions.

 thejughead wrote:
Just got back from the ATC, where our Marine player went 5-1. He faced a Tau player and tabled him. The army had a Riptide Wing ,storm surges and Broadsides. Sorry but Riptides are just fine in the meta.

Define "marine player". If this is Codex: Space Marines, then this post is invalid. "One army that has Grav Guns and Obj Sec dirt cheap Deep striking transports can beat Tau? My god man, everyone can do it then."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Traditio wrote:

 thejughead wrote:
Just got back from the ATC, where our Marine player went 5-1. He faced a Tau player and tabled him. The army had a Riptide Wing ,storm surges and Broadsides. Sorry but Riptides are just fine in the meta.

Was the marine player running teleporting grav centurions? I bet he was running teleporting grav centurions.

Damn, somewhat ninja'd.

Peregrine wrote:No, it doesn't look comparable. The dreadnought is optimized for low-volume high-strength shooting (at least as far as a dreadnought can be)

You mean, just like the riptide if you equip it with the 72 inch gun?

the Riptide's strength is its anti-infantry pie plate. For example, if you want to kill MCs the dreadnought is significantly better than the Riptide (two shots vs. one, and the blast doesn't help against single-model targets).

The 72 inch gun can fire up to 3 S7, AP 2 shots. It doesn't even get hot. Again, they're pretty comparable. The difference is that the riptide has a somewhat inferior statline, benefits from marker lights and has better guns.

The dreadnought is a melee unit that can be armed with double guns if you stubbornly insist on it.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this point. You'd be right in saying that the Ironclad dreadnought is a melee unit. The normal dreadnought, however, is as much a "melee unit" as anything else in the SM codex. The fact that it comes with a power fist makes it as much of a melee unit as it makes normal terminators a melee unit.

Yes, it can be a melee unit, but it doesn't specifically have to be for melee. Terminators can bring heavy weapons, and dreadnoughts can switch out their weapons.

The dreadnought is like just about the rest of the SM codex: it's a generalist unit that you can customize basically however you want based on your own gaming preferences.

What you are paying for when you take a dreadnought is the 12 AV, the word "walker" in the statline and the space marine dreadnought statline.

And really, shooty dreadnoughts aren't taken primarily for meta reasons. In the current meta, shooty dreadnoughts are terrible. Other things are way more durable and get way better shooting at a better points efficiency. There's too much in the game that will wreck a shooty dreadnought before it gets any real shooting in.

So why take one?

However, if you remove the cheese from the game, a shooty dreadnought becomes a pretty respectable option. Compare a shooty dreadnought to a lascannon predator (140 points). They're pretty "on par" with each other.

Here's an equivalent comparison: crisis suits with no weapons are clearly a melee unit

This is a stock Tau argument, and it just doesn't convince me. What you are paying for, in the case of a naked crisis suit, is a customizable weapons platform. You're not supposed to take them naked.

Frankly, I think it's silly that GW even gives Tau players the option to do so.

I can't believe this dispute has carried on this long.

Marines have nothing comparable to the Riptide, because marines don't rock MCs. It's virtually impossible to compare a walker, because said walker has a ton of extra disadvantages. I'd argue Riptides are superior to all SHW as well.

Martel732 wrote:
I'd argue Riptides are superior to all SHW as well.

And I would argue against that. I'm not sure how you could even make such a claim.

 krodarklorr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I'd argue Riptides are superior to all SHW as well.

And I would argue against that. I'm not sure how you could even make such a claim.

Because I can do math. Superior for the points. Does that clear it up?

 krodarklorr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I'd argue Riptides are superior to all SHW as well.

And I would argue against that. I'm not sure how you could even make such a claim.

Would you rather have 400 or so points of IKs or 400 or so points of riptides?

The fact that I can take one of the worst codices and the game (BA) and pay for dirt cheap ASMs with melta and pods and endanger a 375+ IK's life is a joke. The same squad can't scratch MCs. And there is no melta equivalent vs MCs. Because no table. Because reasons. You might say grav, but you still need WAY more points than just some chumpos with melta to field sufficient grav.

 raverrn wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

4. They should be walkers, but are MCs instead...

Prove this.

As per consensus in this thread, I'm not going to do that, in order not to derail the thread. However, let the following points be noted, all of which, I think, are pretty non-controversial:

1. If you were to make a poll of it, you would find the dakka community split pretty evenly on the question. If you remove the opinions of Eldar and Tau players, you'd find a much greater consensus that riptides should be walkers. With eldar/tau players taken into account, the poll would run anywhere from 40/60 to 60/40. Just a guess, but I think it's probable. Remove the Eldar and Tau players, and at least 60% would agree with me. Again, just a guess, but it seems probable.

2. If you examine the opinions of Tau and Eldar players who disagree with me, their reasons will come down to two things:

A. Because fluff.
B. Because nerf.

For this thread, we can safely ignore A, especially since A is what would most derail the thread. Let's attend solely to B. If would nerf Riptides to make them walkers, then it's a buff for Riptides to be MCs. If it would weaken them by making them walkers, then the fact that they are MCs makes them stronger and contributes to their being OP (if, in fact, they are OP).

Thus stands my insistence: if you want them to be balanced, if you want to nerf them, then get rid of the things that contribute to their being OP and imbalanced. Their MC status is one of those things.

The fact that they get free AP 2 close combat attacks and can't get immobilized, for starters, is pretty infuriating when you compare them to dreadnoughts.

I dont' care if they are walkers or MCs. It's only a problem because MCs are point for point far superior.

 Traditio wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I'd argue Riptides are superior to all SHW as well.

And I would argue against that. I'm not sure how you could even make such a claim.

Would you rather have 400 or so points of IKs or 400 or so points of riptides?

I'd rather the Riptides. Either as or against. Sure with the IK one of the player's turns will be relatively quick, but at least the Riptides have a chance to win.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Traditio wrote:

 raverrn wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

4. They should be walkers, but are MCs instead...

Prove this.

As per consensus in this thread, I'm not going to do that, in order not to derail the thread. However, let the following points be noted, all of which, I think, are pretty non-controversial:

1. If you were to make a poll of it, you would find the dakka community split pretty evenly on the question. If you remove the opinions of Eldar and Tau players, you'd find a much greater consensus that riptides should be walkers. With eldar/tau players taken into account, the poll would run anywhere from 40/60 to 60/40. Just a guess, but I think it's probable. Remove the Eldar and Tau players, and at least 60% would agree with me. Again, just a guess, but it seems probable.

2. If you examine the opinions of Tau and Eldar players who disagree with me, their reasons will come down to two things:

A. Because fluff.
B. Because nerf.

For this thread, we can safely ignore A, especially since A is what would most derail the thread. Let's attend solely to B. If would nerf Riptides to make them walkers, then it's a buff for Riptides to be MCs. If it would weaken them by making them walkers, then the fact that they are MCs makes them stronger and contributes to their being OP (if, in fact, they are OP).

Thus stands my insistence: if you want them to be balanced, if you want to nerf them, then get rid of the things that contribute to their being OP and imbalanced. Their MC status is one of those things.

The fact that they get free AP 2 close combat attacks and can't get immobilized, for starters, is pretty infuriating when you compare them to dreadnoughts.

Why remove the opinion of Eldar players? Are they not allowed an opinion on an army they have to fight? How about instead we disregard Space Marine and Tau players opinions, because the SM players are clearly going to want to nerf the Riptide.

We can argue fluff all day, but the reality that MC status is nothing but advantages and walkers have a couple advantages and pile of disadvantages.

Happyjew wrote:Why remove the opinion of Eldar players?

Because they have the same bias towards the question as Tau players do. Of course an Eldar player is never going to want a riptide or a storm surge to turn into a walker. The day that happens is the same day that wraithlords and wraithknights turn into walkers.

 Happyjew wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I'd argue Riptides are superior to all SHW as well.

And I would argue against that. I'm not sure how you could even make such a claim.

Would you rather have 400 or so points of IKs or 400 or so points of riptides?

I'd rather the Riptides. Either as or against. Sure with the IK one of the player's turns will be relatively quick, but at least the Riptides have a chance to win.

Yeah, I'd rather play against Riptides. Riptides I can ignore. IKs I cannot.

You can kill the IKs, though. Thereby removing the need to make decisions. It's embarrassingly easy to kill IKs.

Martel732 wrote:
You can kill the IKs, though. Thereby removing the need to make decisions. It's embarrassingly easy to kill IKs.

I mean, a Riptide is easier for me to deal with in general, as a Necron player. I would love to fight 2 Riptides instead.

IMHO, walkers bite badly. There are only a few interesting walkers as a result. Buff walkers, and then we can talk about making Riptides, Ghostkeels, Wraithlords, etc into walkers.

In the interim I suggest making the Riptide and Ghostkeel into Infantry and the Stormsurge into an MC (instead of a GC).

Ultimately, I think vehicles with AV should go away, and all models should be handled with a durability/Toughness score, armor save and Wounds/Hull Points, with some kind of special rule to differentiate between biological and mechanical things. (Yes, that might mean that things like Crisis Suits and Necron infantry would get the 'mechanical' tag.)

 krodarklorr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
You can kill the IKs, though. Thereby removing the need to make decisions. It's embarrassingly easy to kill IKs.

I mean, a Riptide is easier for me to deal with in general, as a Necron player. I would love to fight 2 Riptides instead.

1. Most of the things in your army, I am willing to bet, glance IKs on 6s.
2. Most of the shooting in your army, I am willing to bet, resolves at 24 inches or inferior.

You'd prefer the riptides? Really?

 krodarklorr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
You can kill the IKs, though. Thereby removing the need to make decisions. It's embarrassingly easy to kill IKs.

I mean, a Riptide is easier for me to deal with in general, as a Necron player. I would love to fight 2 Riptides instead.

You're on crack. You can Gauss out the IK like a boss.

jade_angel wrote:
IMHO, walkers bite badly. There are only a few interesting walkers as a result. Buff walkers, and then we can talk about making Riptides, Ghostkeels, Wraithlords, etc into walkers.

In the interim I suggest making the Riptide and Ghostkeel into Infantry and the Stormsurge into an MC (instead of a GC).

Ultimately, I think vehicles with AV should go away, and all models should be handled with a durability/Toughness score, armor save and Wounds/Hull Points, with some kind of special rule to differentiate between biological and mechanical things. (Yes, that might mean that things like Crisis Suits and Necron infantry would get the 'mechanical' tag.)

Hey, if that means mechanical things get some (fluffy) immunities to things like Poison, I'm all for it.

jade_angel wrote:
IMHO, walkers bite badly. There are only a few interesting walkers as a result. Buff walkers, and then we can talk about making Riptides, Ghostkeels, Wraithlords, etc into walkers.

IoW:

"I am only open to the idea of riptides being walkers if they remain OP as walkers."

And this is why discussions like these never get anywhere. Eldar and Tau players aren't actually interested in "balancing" anything.

 Traditio wrote:
GW aren't actually interested in "balancing" anything.

Fixed that for you. Now we can /thread.

 krodarklorr wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
GW aren't actually interested in "balancing" anything.

Fixed that for you. Now we can /thread.

1. I have to disagree with you. GW are interested in balancing...their finances. They just seem to be doing a poor job at it.

2. Presumably, JA is proposing house rules or fixes, just like Galef was doing with the WK.

The problem with these "fixes" is that they are proposing "fixes" from a position of bias. They don't actually want a fair fight. They just want to present enough of an illusion of a fair fight to make their opponents stop complaining.

Which might satisfy "competitive" opponents.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are going to see right past that. No, JA, making the riptide an infantry model isn't what I want. I don't care whether it has "infantry" or "MC" in the statline. What I do care about is its ridiculous durability and fire power and unreasonable points efficiency. Putting "infantry" in the statline won't change any of that.

You want to fix the riptide? Then fix those things.

You don't want to fix those things, but only want to "appear" to fix things?

Well let me tell you, JA, and let me tell the rest of you Eldar and Tau players:

I have the simplest "fix" of all. Players like me can simply say "no" to games with players like you. And we'll all be a whole lot better off.

 Traditio wrote:

jade_angel wrote:
IMHO, walkers bite badly. There are only a few interesting walkers as a result. Buff walkers, and then we can talk about making Riptides, Ghostkeels, Wraithlords, etc into walkers.

IoW:

"I am only open to the idea of riptides being walkers if they remain OP as walkers."

And this is why discussions like these never get anywhere. Eldar and Tau players aren't actually interested in "balancing" anything.

No, that is not what I said. Stop putting words in my mouth, stop accusing me of playing or arguing in bad faith.

What I said, is that the walker type, due to issues with vehicle rules at present, sucks. I did not say that I insist on leaving Riptides as totally OP. I'd still suggest nerfing them, even if walkers were just as good as MCs or even Infantry. But for now, walkers stink. They stink badly enough that there are almost no walkers in the game that are balanced other than maybe IG Sentinels. They either have OP levels of firepower (Eldar War Walkers) or they're too squishy to do their jobs (Dreadnoughts, Helbrutes). So, let's make vehicles not suck. That would help a lot of folks, BTW - perhaps Space Marines or Guard most of all.

We just have radically different ideas of what that nerf should be, mostly because we've got different ideas of what the Riptide's role on the battlefield should be. You see a Basilisk-equivalent, and wonder why in all hell a Basilisk has any business being as durable as a squad of Mark of Nurgle bikers. I see a giant XV8 and wonder why in all hell it has any business standing at the edge of the table barfing S8 AP2 pie-plates on things. That's how we come up with things as radically different as you thinking that a 10/10/10 2HP walker is a fair start, and me thinking that's flaming crazy (because that's a Sentinel statline, and Sentinels are dirt-cheap and not OP. They're actually about where they should be.) That's not a totally abominable idea for a mobile artillery piece sitting at the edge of the battlefield, after all. Of frigging course that's gonna die as soon as a squad of Sternguard or Dominions gets a clear look at it, and it should!

However, if you're expecting something that's supposed to go forward along with other units with short-range but strong guns and draw fire so they can do their jobs, you need something that can survive being shot at: T6 or AV12 with a save (or AV13 without), 3-4HP or 4-5W, and a gun scary enough that you can't ignore it, but it also won't just delete a unit per turn with no defense. (So, something like the cyclic ion raker or a shorter-ranged heavy burst cannon...)

For another thing, did you even freaking read my initial post? Changing the Riptide to Infantry is not the only change I made.

The 72" gun is gone. It's replaced with a gun that shoots a bunch of AP4, unless you nova-charge it. The 3++ is gone. The HBC's range was cut to 30" from 36".

I already gave a proposal for a drone turret version that is a walker, with 12/10/10 armor, whose whole trick is to sit at the back of the table and shoot, but well, I don't freaking want that. And you conceded that a Sentinel for 180 points is not reasonable. Make me a reasonable counterproposal here: you've proposed things weaker than Dreadnoughts for more points, which, considering the usual opinion on Dreadnoughts, makes no sense.

The only way to salvage this discussion is to simply ignore Traditio and let people discuss reasonably without dismissing someone's opinion based on an army they play.

 Traditio wrote:

jade_angel wrote:
IMHO, walkers bite badly. There are only a few interesting walkers as a result. Buff walkers, and then we can talk about making Riptides, Ghostkeels, Wraithlords, etc into walkers.

IoW:

"I am only open to the idea of riptides being walkers if they remain OP as walkers."

And this is why discussions like these never get anywhere. Eldar and Tau players aren't actually interested in "balancing" anything.

actually it's because you insist on bad comparisons, unwillingness to make any concessions, and putting words in other people's mouths (quote? See above). You can't tell me why the riptide should be compared to the dreadnought other than the dreadnought is "iconic", and can be equipped with very bad ranged weapons thus making it "fill the same role", despite it not doing anything like that (giving a combi weapon or special weapons to an assault squad does not make them a ranged unit i.e.). You have a random level of balance that you want, where everything basically lines up/rides in transports then lines up and just starts Revolutionary War style of fighting, and anything else is basically "shenanigans".

You also need to stop acting like every Tau/Eldar/Player who wants to play competitively is some sort of WAAC TFG and randomly discounting their opinions when it suits you because you assume they're WAAC TFGs. You need to move past 5th ed ideas. 5th ed was no more balanced than 6th, or 7th. Or whenever. And probably will never be except when players talk their lists over with each other (no, this doesn't include "Oh, you have X? Yeah, I'm never playing you, feth off WAAC TFG!").

In this case, YOU'RE that fething guy when it comes to anything that gives SM a run for their money competitively, or runs against your random "cheese" list (i.e. psykers, riptides, eldar, or tau).

 Traditio wrote:

I have the simplest "fix" of all. Players like me can simply say "no" to games with players like you. And we'll all be a whole lot better off.

Ironically, I think this is the best solution as I doubt very many people would have an enjoyable game with you from this thread, but you've pretty much always been in the minority so I doubt anyone would lose very many games anyways. There's always almost always another player looking to play.

 Blacksails wrote:
The only way to salvage this discussion is to simply ignore Traditio and let people discuss reasonably without dismissing someone's opinion based on an army they play.

Except, for the most part, I'm simply echoing the commonly voiced complaints. You may disagree with the precise details of my solution, but nobody can disagree that the following are the common complaints against riptides:

1. They are too durable.
2. Their firepower is too strong.
3. They are too points efficient.
4. They aren't walkers.

You may or may not agree with the legitimacy of those complaints. But you can't disagree that those ARE the common complaints.

If you haven't addressed all 4 of those points, then you simply have NOT proposed a fix which addresses the common complaints.

I don't think I've heard the complaint about it not being a walker in a LONG time. Got any proof that's a common complaint? I can give you 1 and 3 I suppose, but they only have one S8 AP2 gets hot! large blast. Not exactly earth shattering firepower. what makes it so good is the 72" range, which allows for multiple turns of shooting on a durable platform.

Then propose the details of your solution, and stop dismissing the arguments of people who happen to play a particular army. You complained about the discussion not going anywhere, but you are the problem.

Ok, how about this: let's start with a blank slate and build what this thing should look like, maybe even breaking it into two units.

One, the artillery suit. This thing has a big, frak-off scary megacannon, but it dies if you look at it funny. Devastators or Predators turn it into jelly. But they better, or it'll do the same to them.

Two, the close-support suit. This thing is a linecrasher, but with guns instead of power fists or giant swords. It should be durable enough to survive a fair bit of small-arms shooting but be a bit weak against heavy weapons, with enough firepower that you can't just blithely ignore it and kill the things it's there to protect instead.

What would you have those look like? Walker, Infantry, MC, Tank, doesn't really matter. Both should be targeted at a point value somewhere in the neighborhood of 200, because that's what the existing unit costs (180, but 200 or so with the shinies that most players bolt on).

 Wolfblade wrote:
I don't think I've heard the complaint about it not being a walker in a LONG time

There was a poll on dakka about it within the past several months, IIRC. The conversation included riptides, wraithknights and wraithlords. If memory serves, the conversation was so volatile and divisive that it ended up being locked.

My earlier points addressing why it should be a walker are basically pulled directly from that thread.

Got any proof that's a common complaint? I can give you 1 and 3 I suppose, but they only have one S8 AP2 gets hot! large blast.

S9, AP 2, large blast, barrage, gets hot. 72 inches.

That's the statline, iirc.

And that's only:

1. One of the weapons it can use.
2. One of the firing modes of that weapon. That gun has two other firing modes.

No barrage. And it's only s9 when nova-charged (that also makes it Ordnance, however). Most players don't do that because if they nova-charge at all with the IA (risky, kinda), they use it for the 3++ save. Which is, I fully agree, insult to injury on something that can sit 72" away.

By the way, the fluff about the damn thing in the Tau codex has it operating up close and being durable as its whole schtick. The ion accelerator's stupid-long range could be regarded as unfluffy by Tau players, even. That's why I want it to be short-range, but still be durable, not long-range but squishy.

In full, the IA's profiles:

R72 S7 AP2 Heavy 3
R72 S8 AP2 Heavy 1, Large Blast, Gets Hot!
R72 S9 AP2 Ordnance 1, Large Blast, Gets Hot!, Nova-Charge

 Traditio wrote:

Got any proof that's a common complaint? I can give you 1 and 3 I suppose, but they only have one S8 AP2 gets hot! large blast.

S9, AP 2, large blast, barrage, gets hot. 72 inches.

That's the statline, iirc.

And that's only:

1. One of the weapons it can use.
2. One of the firing modes of that weapon. That gun has two other firing modes.

And you picked the firing mode that no one uses.

The one you're referring too is S8 AP2 72" Large Blast, Gets Hot!.

 Traditio wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:
I don't think I've heard the complaint about it not being a walker in a LONG time

There was a poll on dakka about it within the past several months, IIRC. The conversation included riptides, wraithknights and wraithlords. If memory serves, the conversation was so volatile and divisive that it ended up being locked.

My earlier points addressing why it should be a walker are basically pulled directly from that thread.

Mind finding that?

 Traditio wrote:

Got any proof that's a common complaint? I can give you 1 and 3 I suppose, but they only have one S8 AP2 gets hot! large blast.
S9, AP 2, large blast, barrage, gets hot. 72 inches.

That's the statline, iirc.

That's the nova, which is inferior to the 3++ so it pretty much never gets used.

 Blacksails wrote:
Then propose the details of your solution

Ultimately, the precise details of the solution don't matter. The point stands, however, that if you haven't addressed all of the common points of complaints, then you haven't proposed a viable fix.

1. The riptide's firepower must be diminished.
2. It's durability must be diminished significantly.
3. It must be appropriately priced.
4. It must be a walker.

What do the details of this look like? Ultimately, you can propose whatever you want, just so long as it meets all 4 conditions.

Great you haven't done anything but rehash your 4 points without providing any details or actual ideas.

You know, we still haven't really gotten back on track...

This is where we were.
I I
I I
I I
I I
I I
......................................................And we're over here now.


As JA said, simply make Walkers relevant again and make the Riptide a walker. If you want some durability, hell make it 13/13/11 or something. Nerf the IA, and even let it keep a 5++. Price it appropriately, and we're solid.

There doesn't need to be a condition that it isn't an MC.

Ultimately, the only issue is to appropriately cost its abilities, or match its abilities its points, or a combination thereof. The specifics are up to the person proposing the fix, and the merits can be weighed then.

If the Riptides durability was lowered, but firepower and price remained the same while also being an MC, it could be balanced.

Those 4 criteria are your own, and if you wish to propose a solution that addresses those, then go for it. But for the sake of the discussion, stop enforcing it on others.

There are literally a thousand ways you could balance anything. Don't pigeon-hole yourself, and especially others.

*Edit* If I'm going to propose anything, it'll be that you make every large thing that currently uses either the MC or Vehicle rules into one ruleset, using either the MC or Vehicle template as a guide. Then you add two USRs, called Biological and Mechanical, or something along those lines. Then all those special weapons we have that have specific effects for MCs or Vehicles will be re-tooled for either Mechanical or Biological constructs. Now every large gribbly is under the same comparable game mechanic which eases learning for new players, easier to remember rules during a game for all players, easier to balance because now everything is directly comparable, and better fits the fluff of every unit.

The details of such a proposal would require a whole different thread, but that's what I'd do.

If we're only talking Riptides, just knock down the durability (basically remove the FnP option, reduce the invul, maybe shave off a wound) and play test from there. Maybe hike its cost up ~20pts with those changes, but even then I don't think its overly necessary.

Wolfblade wrote:Mind finding that?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/120/689446.page#8629667

"Should these models be walkers?"

Want to guess what the top contenders were? Any guesses?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

krodarklorr wrote:If you want some durability, hell make it 13/13/11 or something.

This would still be a grossly unacceptable "fix." Combined with the invuln and range, this would still result in a virtually immortal model. That's unacceptable.

 Traditio wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
Then propose the details of your solution

Ultimately, the precise details of the solution don't matter. The point stands, however, that if you haven't addressed all of the common points of complaints, then you haven't proposed a viable fix.

1. The riptide's firepower must be diminished.
2. It's durability must be diminished significantly.
3. It must be appropriately priced.
4. It must be a walker.

What do the details of this look like? Ultimately, you can propose whatever you want, just so long as it meets all 4 conditions.

Ok, fair enough. Here's one, aiming for the "close-support suit" concept:
XV104 Riptide - 195ppm
WS1 BS2 S4 AV12/12/10 4HP A1 I1, Jet Pack Walker
Wargear: two twin-linked pulse carbines, blacksun filter, point-defense targeting relay, nova reactor, Riptide shield generator
Special Rules: Move Through Cover, Large Target
Large Target: An XV104 Riptide is a very large target. All close combat attacks against it always hit.
Options: May exchange a twin-linked pulse carbine for:
Fusion blaster: 20 points / Twin-linked fusion blaster: 30 points
Burst cannon: 10 points / Twin-linked burst cannon: 20 points
Cyclic ion blaster: 20 points / Twin-linked cyclic ion blaster: 30 points
Plasma rifle: 20 points / Twin-linked plasma rifle: 30 points

Riptide Shield Generator: A vehicle with a Riptide Shield Generator has a 6+ cover save.
Nova Reactor: At the beginning of the controlling player's Movement Phase, a model equipped with a nova reactor may roll a D6. On a result of 1-3, the model loses a hull point and suffers a Weapon Destroyed result. On a roll of 4-6, the model may select exactly one of the following benefits until the beginning of its next Movement Phase.
1) Weapons: all of the model's weapons extend their range by 6".
2) Jets: When making a thrust move, the model rolls 4d6 instead of 2d6.
3) Escape: The model gains the Hit & Run special rule.
4) Shield: The model's base cover save improves to a 5+.

Alright, cool was curious, that still was a decent while ago though.

Gonna ignore the rest of the stuff though? Like cherry picking the nova profile? Or not actually providing any details to your 4 points? After all these are your points not ours. Just because you say something doesn't mean it's right or the only way to do something.

jade_angel wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
Then propose the details of your solution

Ultimately, the precise details of the solution don't matter. The point stands, however, that if you haven't addressed all of the common points of complaints, then you haven't proposed a viable fix.

1. The riptide's firepower must be diminished.
2. It's durability must be diminished significantly.
3. It must be appropriately priced.
4. It must be a walker.

What do the details of this look like? Ultimately, you can propose whatever you want, just so long as it meets all 4 conditions.

Ok, fair enough. Here's one, aiming for the "close-support suit" concept:
XV104 Riptide - 195ppm
WS1 BS2 S4 AV12/12/10 4HP A1 I1, Jet Pack Walker
Wargear: two twin-linked pulse carbines, blacksun filter, point-defense targeting relay, nova reactor, Riptide shield generator
Special Rules: Move Through Cover, Large Target
Large Target: An XV104 Riptide is a very large target. All close combat attacks against it always hit.
Options: May exchange a twin-linked pulse carbine for:
Fusion blaster: 20 points
Burst cannon: 10 points
Cyclic ion blaster: 20 points
Plasma rifle: 20 points

Riptide Shield Generator: A vehicle with a Riptide Shield Generator has a 6+ cover save.
Nova Reactor: At the beginning of the controlling player's Movement Phase, a model equipped with a nova reactor may roll a D6. On a result of 1-3, the model loses a hull point and suffers a Weapon Destroyed result. On a roll of 4-6, the model may select exactly one of the following benefits until the beginning of its next Movement Phase.
1) Weapons: all of the model's weapons extend their range by 6".
2) Jets: When making a thrust move, the model rolls 4d6 instead of 2d6.
3) Escape: The model gains the Hit & Run special rule.

That seems incredibly weak honestly, even with the cyclic blaster. And why is it BS2? It's still Tau, unless you're making it a drone unit. Either way it's not an auto take. In fact, it's a never take considering the ghostkeel can bring more firepower for way less. (130pt with a cyclic instead of 215), and has way more durability (AV12 wHP3 with a 6+ COVER save is basically worthless)

 Traditio wrote:

krodarklorr wrote:If you want some durability, hell make it 13/13/11 or something.

This would still be a grossly unacceptable "fix." 13 front and side armor would give it durability comparable to IKs. Combined with the invuln and range, this would still result in a virtually immortal model. That's unacceptable.

Virtually immortal? Drop pod meltas, grav, Gauss, Scarabs, Lances, Vehicle damage chart. I fail to see how that's immortal. Is my Triarch Stalker sitting in a ruin Immortal as well? If so, I guess I missed something.

krodarklorr wrote:Virtually immortal?

Front AV 13 means that missile launchers glance it on 5s and lascannons glance it on 4s. It would also make them immune to krak grenades.

If they can reach it. The gun has a 72 inch range.

jade_angel wrote:
IMHO, walkers bite badly. There are only a few interesting walkers as a result. Buff walkers, and then we can talk about making Riptides, Ghostkeels, Wraithlords, etc into walkers.

In the interim I suggest making the Riptide and Ghostkeel into Infantry and the Stormsurge into an MC (instead of a GC).

Ultimately, I think vehicles with AV should go away, and all models should be handled with a durability/Toughness score, armor save and Wounds/Hull Points, with some kind of special rule to differentiate between biological and mechanical things. (Yes, that might mean that things like Crisis Suits and Necron infantry would get the 'mechanical' tag.)

I agree with you completely on this. I understand the vehicle mechanics was to make things more "realistic" and to make vehicles killable, but ultimately they failed. Yes, they are killable, but they are far too easy to kill. The vehicle chart doesn't work very well or add any realism either. Which is a joke reason to keep the rules as are. When things come down to it, this is a game and you will never be able to simulate the fluff or get realism into things. You can however get the feel of things, and come as close to the fluff as is REASONABLY possible. Marines obviously shouldn't be able to kill armies single handedly as they seem to do in the books ect for instance. And things like game balance should be taken into account (both internal and external) when adding fluffy elements. You can't recreate the fluff exactly, but you can recreate the FEEL of the individual fluff. At least that is my take on things.

IKs are a joke compared to Riptides and even more so compared to WK. Vehicles in general are a joke. I can't offhand think of a single vehicle at the moment (excluding drop pods with current draft faqs in which case they should probably cost double for all they do) that couldn't lose about 25% or more of it's point cost, and be considered too cheap or overpowered. At least not in the Imperium codicies.

 Traditio wrote:

krodarklorr wrote:Virtually immortal?

Front AV 13 means that missile launchers glance it on 5s and lascannons glance it on 4s. It would also make them immune to krak grenades.

If they can reach it. The gun has a 72 inch range.

aaaand we're back to "if my premade marine army can't kill/MLs can't wreck in one turn/Lascannons can't auto pen/glance it, it's still too strong."

My hammerheads have AV13, and yet, they seem to die fairly easy.

 Traditio wrote:

krodarklorr wrote:Virtually immortal?

Front AV 13 means that missile launchers glance it on 5s and lascannons glance it on 4s. It would also make them immune to krak grenades.

If they can reach it. The gun has a 72 inch range.

Yes, but a Lascannon can one shot it. It can also make it snapfire that large blast, oh wait, it wouldn't be able to fire it at all. And what would a missile launcher do to it as it currently stands? Wound a 2+, but has to get through a 2+ armor and FNP. Seems like reliable damage to me! Also, as a 2+ armor MC it's virtually immune to small arms fire anyway, except now my gauss would eat it alive. It's also currently immune to Krak grenades, especially with the nerf to them in the FAQ.

This is all assuming that anyone would use Krak missiles or Lascannons, because most people just bring melta and grav. (Which would kill it even easier, methinks)

 Traditio wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
Then propose the details of your solution

Ultimately, the precise details of the solution don't matter. The point stands, however, that if you haven't addressed all of the common points of complaints, then you haven't proposed a viable fix.

1. The riptide's firepower must be diminished.
2. It's durability must be diminished significantly.
3. It must be appropriately priced.
4. It must be a walker.

If you do 1 & 2, #3 takes care of itself. Why over-nerf one of the THE centerpiece units of the Tau? #4 isn't going to happen, like ever.

--

Wolfblade wrote:Gonna ignore the rest of the stuff though? Like cherry picking the nova profile?

It has an S9, AP 2 barrage large blast. It also has an S8, AP 2 large blast. It has multiple modes of fire.

Or not actually providing any details to your 4 points? After all these are your points not ours.

They're not just my points. Again, they are completely commonplace criticisms of the riptide. If I started 4 polls, excluded Tau and Eldar player opinions, and asked the questions:

"Should the riptide be a walker?"
"Is the riptide undercosted?"
"Does the riptide have too much fire power?"
"Is the riptide just too durable?"

I can pretty much gaurantee you that at least 40 percent of poll respondents would agree with me on every point.

Either way it's not an auto take.

If it's an optional unit and auto-take, then it is almost certainly OP.

Every unit in every book, with the exception of core troop choices, should be "take it or leave it depending upon your personal preferences."

considering the ghostkeel

Is the ghostkeel balanced?

If the ghostkeel is cheese, then saying that the "fixed" riptide is inferior to it doesn't really say much.

Well, what do you think of it?

I think it's fairly balanced. If you try to kill it by raining long-range, high-S, low-AP weapons on it, it lives forever. If you get close and barrage it with tons of light weapons, it dies like a minimum squad of Plague Marines (so, takes a little doing - a squad of tac marines probably won't kill it in a single shooting phase, but the several squads in range probably will...)

It's got good firepower, but it's not point-click-and-squish.

For the nth time Traditio, the Nove profile isn't Barrage.

Also Auto-take doesn't necessarily mean OP. Unless you're going to suggest Chaos Spawn are OP.

jade_angel wrote:
Well, what do you think of it?

I think that there's any number of ways that the riptide could be fixed. Ultimately, my participation in this thread, at this point, is primarily negative.

Unless your "fix" meets these 4 criteria, it's a non-starter. Ultimately, how you meet those 4 criteria doesn't really matter a whole lot to me.

But you must meet those 4 criteria, and then, when you do, you must ask the question:

"Is this unit an auto-take, as it stands?" If the answer is "yes," then what you've come up with is unacceptable. However you "fix" it, it has to meet those 4 criteria and then end up as a "take it or leave it,depending upon your personal preferences" kind of unit. It's power level should be no better or worse than "ok for its points cost."

If you meet all of those criteria, then regardless of what it looks like, I'm pretty much fine with it.

If it doesn't, then I don't want to play against it. I'll continue to make it my policy to refuse to play against Tau players who field riptides in their army.

Ultimately, though, what you should end up with is a walker that's about as good as any other walker.

 Traditio wrote:

Ultimately, though, what you should end up with is a walker that's about as good as any other walker.

In an edition where walkers are largely rubbish, that's not a good baseline.


What it should be, ideally, is a unit (of whatever kind) that is about as good an option good as any other unit. It doesn't have to be as good as a walker, because it's not a walker, and it doesn't have to be as good as some other army's walker, because it's a different army.


But, frankly, I think trying to de-OP this one unit is like nailing jelly to a tree. In this edition, just about every army has access to overpowered silliness in one way or another. Depowering one option from the Tau list does nothing more in that sort of environment than remove one way for Tau to compete with those other armies' overpowered silliness.

Most of the time, issues with 'overpowered' ranged units can be resolved simply by putting more LOS-blocking terrain on the table. From my experience, most tables have far too little terrain, and that's where the bulk of the complaints about overly-shooty armies come from.

In this specific case, more of the complaints would, I think, be resolved not be nerfing specific MCs, but simply by fixing walkers.

Great. I'll never play you. I'll make sure I scratch that of my bucket list.

 Traditio wrote:

Happyjew wrote:Why remove the opinion of Eldar players?

Because they have the same bias towards the question as Tau players do. Of course an Eldar player is never going to want a riptide or a storm surge to turn into a walker. The day that happens is the same day that wraithlords and wraithknights turn into walkers.

Then we must remove your opinion.

So how do you recommend Crisis suits become Walkers?
This is a genuine question I'd be interested in, given the premise that Riptides are just an evolution of a Crisis suit (which is why they are not vehicles in the first place).
I can only accept the assumption that Riptides "should" be Walkers if Crisis Suits, Broadsides, Stealth suits, etc are Walkers as well.

Would a Crisis Suit be AV10 all around, 2 HPs? Or would you make something GW has never done and go below AV10, like AV9, or AV8?

As different and interesting as that would be, I think if we are redesigning a how bunch of units, it might be easier just to reclassify Walkers as non-vehicles with their own special rules. Imagine a unit type with a AV and an Armour save, with Wounds instead of HPs, yet it also rolls on a "damage chart" and could potentially lose weapons or become immobile.
Let's blur the line between MCs and Vehicles to create new rules for "Walkers". Then we can make the Riptide a Walker, and make Dreadnaughts better at the same time.

--

Why do that, as opposed to just making walkers MCs?

 Traditio wrote:

Unless your "fix" meets these 4 criteria, it's a non-starter. Ultimately, how you meet those 4 criteria doesn't really matter a whole lot to me.

But you must meet those 4 criteria, and then, when you do, you must ask the question:

No, it doesn't.

There is nothing stating it MUST meet those criteria. It only needs be balanced. How that is achieved is up to the person proposing it. You are not the authority on the specifics of how it gets balanced.

 insaniak wrote:
Why do that, as opposed to just making walkers MCs?

In a round-about way, that is what I'm getting at

 Traditio wrote:
I can pretty much gaurantee you that at least 40 percent of poll respondents would agree with me on every point.

That's sure setting the bar pretty low, isn't it?

 Traditio wrote:

Or not actually providing any details to your 4 points? After all these are your points not ours.

They're not just my points. Again, they are completely commonplace criticisms of the riptide. If I started 4 polls, excluded Tau and Eldar player opinions, and asked the questions:

"Should the riptide be a walker?"
"Is the riptide undercosted?"
"Does the riptide have too much fire power?"
"Is the riptide just too durable?"

I can pretty much gaurantee you that at least 40 percent of poll respondents would agree with me on every point.

No one cares about your polls, especially since you literally just ignore the results every time and use whatever you can to twist it into claiming your side won. Every. Single. Time. And you STILL have yet to provide ONE actual solution (i.e. raise X by Y points). You keep parroting these points without actually providing anything other than your own personal wishlist.

Also, like Peregrine said, only 40%? That leaves 60% on the other side. That's a pretty big difference. (50% more people voting against you than for you)

 Traditio wrote:

Wolfblade wrote:Gonna ignore the rest of the stuff though? Like cherry picking the nova profile?

It has an S9, AP 2 barrage large blast. It also has an S8, AP 2 large blast. It has multiple modes of fire.

It's not a barrage blast, and it's never used anyways. You simply picked the strongest profile to make it look stronger.

Either way it's not an auto take.

If it's an optional unit and auto-take, then it is almost certainly OP.

Every unit in every book, with the exception of core troop choices, should be "take it or leave it depending upon your personal preferences."

Ghostkeel is pretty annoying though...

It's annoying, but it's no stormsurge, especially since it has to be very close for it to deal any damage.

 Wolfblade wrote:
It's annoying, but it's no stormsurge, especially since it has to be very close for it to deal any damage.

Honestly I found the Stormsurge much less annoying without the invul. Stronger perhaps but less annoying.

Yeah, but that invul is pretty much an auto take. I mean, 50pt for a constant 4++, on a T6 W8 unit. At worst, it doubles its survivability.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
I can pretty much gaurantee you that at least 40 percent of poll respondents would agree with me on every point.

That's sure setting the bar pretty low, isn't it?

I'm claiming that these are the common complaints. "Common" doesn't necessarily mean "majority."

More to the point, you don't decide how to balance something based on a poll, regardless of what arbitrary % you set.

You decide how to balance something based on the problems it presents to the game. The issue with the Riptide is simply that its abilities don't match the points (like literally every problematic unit). The specifics of how to do that are varied and up to whoever proposes a sensible idea.

insaniak wrote:In an edition where walkers are largely rubbish, that's not a good baseline.

Again, my oft-quoted maxim: "Balance is relative."

Why are walkers rubbish?

Are they rubbish because of the predominance of high strength, low AP anti tank weapons?

No.

They are rubbish because of predominance of cheese, e.g., the predominance of high rate of fire, mid strength weapons.

Walkers suck because scatter bikes exist. Walkers suck because wraithknights exist. Walkers suck because storm surges exist. Walkers suck teleporting grav centurions exist.

If you take away the cheese, walkers are fine and open up perfectly legitimate tactical options. A shooty dreadnought would give you greater durability than a devastator marine, but more accurate firepower while moving than a predator, as also greater durability against close combat than a predator.

What it should be, ideally, is a unit (of whatever kind) that is about as good an option good as any other unit.

Yes.

It doesn't have to be as good as a walker, because it's not a walker

Petitio principii.

and it doesn't have to be as good as some other army's walker, because it's a different army.

So what? What is your point?

But, frankly, I think trying to de-OP this one unit is like nailing jelly to a tree. In this edition, just about every army has access to overpowered silliness in one way or another. Depowering one option from the Tau list does nothing more in that sort of environment than remove one way for Tau to compete with those other armies' overpowered silliness.

Or maybe no codex should have overpowered silliness.

And granted that every codex has overpowered silliness, perhaps we could all avoid the problems associated with the spam of overpowered silliness by simply not using those things.

Thus, to JA:

You know what's easier than toning down your riptide? Don't use your riptide. Field more crisis suits instead. Or anything else. Just no riptides, stormsurges or other overpowered silliness.

Most of the time, issues with 'overpowered' ranged units can be resolved simply by putting more LOS-blocking terrain on the table. From my experience, most tables have far too little terrain, and that's where the bulk of the complaints about overly-shooty armies come from.

That doesn't make the riptide any less durable or capable of firing high strength, low AP barrage pie plates.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blacksails wrote:
More to the point, you don't decide how to balance something based on a poll, regardless of what arbitrary % you set.

You decide how to balance something based on the problems it presents to the game.

How are you going to determine what those problems are?

My solution is: Ask the people who play the game, have played against riptides, and see what they think actually are the main problems.

We also must understand that overwhelming agreement tends to be uncommon about things like this, so we have to look at the most common complaints. If we breach 40 percent, then that's a pretty substantial complaint.

The issue with the Riptide is simply that its abilities don't match the points (like literally every problematic unit).

That's often the case. That's not necessarily always the only problem. Invisibility is bull gak at any points level.

S9, AP 2, large blast, barrage at 72 inch range very well might be such bull gak.

 Traditio wrote:
low AP barrage pie plates.

Do you bother reading other peoples' replies? It has been explicitly and clearly stated now several times it is not barrage.

Define the "overpowered silliness" I can't use. Your OP is my normal.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
low AP barrage pie plates.

Do you bother reading other peoples' replies? It has been explicitly and clearly stated now several times it is not barrage.

I read them. The 72 inch gun has three different modes of fire. One of them is barrage; the other two aren't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pm713 wrote:
Define the "overpowered silliness" I can't use. Your OP is my normal.

Imagine yourself making a poll. If at least 35 percent of poll respondents would complain about it, then it's OP silliness you shouldn't use.

That said, PM, for the life of me, I don't really understand why you disagree with me about these things so often. You play an Eldar army that doesn't use farseers, scatterbikes or wraithknights.

 Traditio wrote:

How are you going to determine what those problems are?

My solution is: Ask the people who play the game, have played against riptides, and see what they think actually are the main problems.

We also must understand that overwhelming agreement tends to be uncommon about things like this, so we have to look at the most common complaints. If we breach 40 percent, then that's a pretty substantial complaint.

I'd determine the problem by simply looking at the unit and its performance on the table. Simple stuff really.

Asking a forum at large that hasn't been selected to test a game/unit and that likely doesn't have much or any experience with game design and balance (or just a poor understanding) will lead to skewed results. There's a reason game developers don't do mass polls to make changes to individual units. They have small teams of testers who provide detailed and in depth analysis and data from dozens of games. The average forum denizen will complain because the model they played against wasn't painted to their liking.

Look at yourself even. You don't even know the rules for this unit or how its typically used. Why would anyone trust a common poll knowing a significant portion of the player base here will also have a flawed understanding of some portion of the unit or the rules it works with.

That's often the case. That's not necessarily always the only problem. Invisibility is bull gak at any points level.

Yes, there are exceptions. Unfun game mechanics being one of those exceptions.

None of the 3 modes are barrage for the billionth time...

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
None of the 3 modes are barrage for the billionth time...

QFT. Seriously Traditio, if you're not even going to bother to read the rules for the unit you're trying to "balance" then why should we listen to your opinions on it?

To modify a Traditio quote;

If you don't know the rules, your opinion doesn't matter.

 Traditio wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
low AP barrage pie plates.

Do you bother reading other peoples' replies? It has been explicitly and clearly stated now several times it is not barrage.

I read them. The 72 inch gun has three different modes of fire. One of them is barrage; the other two aren't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pm713 wrote:
Define the "overpowered silliness" I can't use. Your OP is my normal.

Imagine yourself making a poll. If at least 35 percent of poll respondents would complain about it, then it's OP silliness you shouldn't use.

That said, PM, for the life of me, I don't really understand why you disagree with me about these things so often. You play an Eldar army that doesn't use farseers, scatterbikes or wraithknights.

Most of what you say is absolute rubbish. That's why I disagree.

 Traditio wrote:
Imagine yourself making a poll. If at least 35 percent of poll respondents would complain about it, then it's OP silliness you shouldn't use.

And there you go again, setting such a low bar for "victory" that you're almost guaranteed to "win". If you exclude everything that can get 35% on an "overpowered?" poll you don't have much of a game left. 35% is not far off from the level of people who will complain about any unit, whether or not it is actually overpowered. So what you're left with is a squad of basic tactical marines with bolters facing a squad of boyz with their standard weapons, and nothing else is allowed because it's "OP silliness". Maybe you enjoy that game but the rest of us don't.

 Traditio wrote:

Why are walkers rubbish?

Are they rubbish because of the predominance of high strength, low AP anti tank weapons?

No.

They are rubbish because of predominance of cheese, e.g., the predominance of high rate of fire, mid strength weapons.

Uh, no, they're rubbish because they can be killed with a single shot, which was bad enough, and then 6th Ed added in wounds without giving them a corresponding saving throw to balance it out.

Or maybe no codex should have overpowered silliness.

And while that might be nice, it's simply not the game that 40k is currently designed to be.

If you don't want to accept the post-5th ed game, maybe you would be better off sticking with a previous edition, rather than spending your time railing against change.

Quit using your half-baked polls and use math. If you're not using math, your balance arguments are trash.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
None of the 3 modes are barrage for the billionth time...

I have just checked the rule, and you appear to be correct.

For some reason, I could have sworn it had barrage. I distinctly remember playing a game against a tau player and we had a dispute about whether or not his riptide had line of sight. Determining it did not, he rolled the scatter dice and did not subtract BS.

He apparently was playing it wrong.

Consider my comments about the barrage weapon retracted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

insaniak wrote:Uh, no, they're rubbish because they can be killed with a single shot

Lots of things can be killed with one shot. Why is this inherently a bad thing?

In order to kill a dreadnought with one shot, you have to use either AP 1 or AP 2 weaponry and you have to roll a 5 or better. Even if a dreadnought takes a direct hit from an orbital strike and suffers a penetrating hit, it only has a 1/3 chance of kaboom-ing.

which was bad enough, and then 6th Ed added in wounds without giving them a corresponding saving throw to balance it out.

Again, this is only a problem because of bull gak like scatter lasers, gauss, etc. What you are paying for when you purchase AV is immunity to things like poison, fleshbane and much small arms fire.

A walker is undeniably more durable, against a lot of things, than a comparable power-armored infantry model with a similar number of wounds.

If things like scatter laser spam and flyrants with twin-linked devourers didn't exist, vehicles would be much better off.

And while that might be nice, it's simply not the game that 40k is currently designed to be.

And with that, you do away with the legitimacy of any house rules proposals for the sake of "balance" at all. At that point, this entire thread becomes pointless.

You cannot have your cake and eat it too.


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Martel732 wrote:
Quit using your half-baked polls and use math. If you're not using math, your balance arguments are trash.

I'll leave the math to you, Martel.

So, I raised four points:

1. Riptides are undercosted.
2. Riptides should be walkers.
3. Riptides are too durable.
4. Riptides have too much fire power.

Would you say that mathematics agrees or disagrees with each of these points?

 Traditio wrote:
Lots of things can be killed with one shot. Why is this inherently a bad thing?

Because the whole point of vehicle vs. MC durability, in previous editions, was that vehicles could be killed in one shot but could also survive lots of shots without permanent damage, while MCs would fight at full effectiveness until their last wound was gone but would have a ticking clock of wounds remaining before they were dead. Adding HP to vehicles took away their durability advantage that was supposed to offset the one-shot issue and made them bad MCs.

Peregrine wrote:Because the whole point of vehicle vs. MC durability, in previous editions, was that vehicles could be killed in one shot but could also survive lots of shots without permanent damage, while MCs would fight at full effectiveness until their last wound was gone but would have a ticking clock of wounds remaining before they were dead. Adding HP to vehicles took away their durability advantage that was supposed to offset the one-shot issue and made them bad MCs.

And in 5th edition, vehicles were commonly admitted to be OP because too durable for their points cost. Perhaps hull points were a good thing and vehicles are just fine in terms of durability, and it's MCs that are too durable and should also be similarly nerfed.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
Lots of things can be killed with one shot. Why is this inherently a bad thing?

Because the whole point of vehicle vs. MC durability, in previous editions, was that vehicles could be killed in one shot but could also survive lots of shots without permanent damage, while MCs would fight at full effectiveness until their last wound was gone but would have a ticking clock of wounds remaining before they were dead. Adding HP to vehicles took away their durability advantage that was supposed to offset the one-shot issue and made them bad MCs.

There's also the difference between my 9 point Guardian dying in one shot and my 145 point Dreadnought dying in one shot. One matters and one does not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Traditio wrote:

Peregrine wrote:Because the whole point of vehicle vs. MC durability, in previous editions, was that vehicles could be killed in one shot but could also survive lots of shots without permanent damage, while MCs would fight at full effectiveness until their last wound was gone but would have a ticking clock of wounds remaining before they were dead. Adding HP to vehicles took away their durability advantage that was supposed to offset the one-shot issue and made them bad MCs.

And in 5th edition, vehicles were commonly admitted to be OP because too durable for their points cost. Perhaps hull points were a good thing and vehicles are just fine in terms of durability, and it's MCs that are too durable and should also be similarly nerfed.

Hull points are a good idea done badly.

pm713 wrote:There's also the difference between my 9 point Guardian dying in one shot and my 145 point Dreadnought dying in one shot. One matters and one does not.

It's a difference in kind, though. I can one shot your guardian with a single boltgun round. A dreadnought can take an infinite number of boltgun rounds to the face and still not go down.

To one shot a dreadnought, you have to use very specific kinds of weapons.

I mean, sure, you technically can kill a dreadnought with S4 weapons...if you somehow manage to be shooting against its rear armor facing (or if you are playing Necrons, because why the feth not, right?).

But there's simply no question that the 100 point dreadnought is way more durable than your 9 point guardian.

Sure, it's not immortal. Far from it. And I'm fine with that.

 Traditio wrote:

pm713 wrote:There's also the difference between my 9 point Guardian dying in one shot and my 145 point Dreadnought dying in one shot. One matters and one does not.

It's a difference in kind, though. I can one shot your guardian with a single boltgun round. A dreadnought can take an infinite number of boltgun rounds to the face and still not go down.

To one shot a dreadnought, you have to use very specific kinds of weapons.

I mean, sure, you technically can kill a dreadnought with S4 weapons...if you somehow manage to be shooting against its rear armor facing (or if you are playing Necrons, because why the feth not, right?).

But there's simply no question that the 100 point dreadnought is way more durable than your 9 point guardian.

Sure, it's not immortal. Far from it. And I'm fine with that.

It's also too easy to kill considering how fast some things are and the rear armour is terrible.

I like how the Space Marine player complains about Gauss.

pm713 wrote:It's also too easy to kill considering how fast some things are and the rear armour is terrible.

Again, this goes back to my previous point about balance being relative. Yes, given the fact that scatter bikes exist, dreadnoughts can't compete.

But if we remove the cheese from the game, dreadnoughts are fine.

Sure, they still have a rear AV of 10 and it's possible to outmaneuver them, say, with a bike or something.

But that's something that provides occasions for good in-game tactical decisions. You have a dreadnought and your opponent is fielding meltagun bikes? Then play accordingly.

[In fact, I have a suspicion that this is why "competitive" players insist on spamming win buttons. They don't want to actually have to (possibly because they can't) use good tactics. They want their armies to win their games for them instead of having to make good in-game decisions.]

I like how the Space Marine player complains about Gauss.

If you're alluding to grav, I think that grav is also pure silliness that shouldn't exist in the game.

 Traditio wrote:

pm713 wrote:It's also too easy to kill considering how fast some things are and the rear armour is terrible.

Again, this goes back to my previous point about balance being relative. Yes, given the fact that scatter bikes exist, dreadnoughts can't compete.

But if we remove the cheese from the game, dreadnoughts are fine.

Sure, they still have a rear AV of 10 and it's possible to outmaneuver them, say, with a bike or something.

But that's something that provides occasions for good in-game tactical decisions. You have a dreadnought and your opponent is fielding meltagun bikes? Then play accordingly.

I like how the Space Marine player complains about Gauss.

If you're alluding to grav, I think that grav is also pure silliness that shouldn't exist in the game.

I meant pretty much anything that's a Bike, Deepstriking, Jump Infantry or just has long range but okay then. I guess all those things are cheese.

No I meant how Space Marines get to ignore a key part of the Assault Phase and Morale for no reason. Grav is dumb too though.

As for your theory about competitive players I can tell you right now that cheese won't make up for how bad they are if they can't/won't use any tactic.

pm713 wrote:I meant pretty much anything that's a Bike, Deepstriking, Jump Infantry or just has long range but okay then.

Again, yes, walkers aren't immortal. They will go down, even against a balanced army list, if you make bad in game decisions.

But again, so what?

Your opponent is using bikes? Then position your stuff accordingly.

Your opponent is deep-striking? Then position your stuff accordingly.

Your opponent has jump troops? Position your stuff accordingly.

Your opponent has lascannons? Then position your stuff...

If my lascannons and missile launchers all have line of sight to your dreadnought, then that's your fault. You need to learn how to use the terrain to your advantage.

 Traditio wrote:

pm713 wrote:I meant pretty much anything that's a Bike, Deepstriking, Jump Infantry or just has long range but okay then.

Again, yes, walkers aren't immortal. They will go down, even against a balanced army list, if you make bad in game decisions.

But again, so what?

Your opponent is using bikes? Then position your stuff accordingly.

Your opponent is deep-striking? Then position your stuff accordingly.

Your opponent has jump troops? Position your stuff accordingly.

Your opponent has lascannons? Then position your stuff...

If my lascannons and missile launchers all have line of sight to your dreadnought, then that's your fault. You need to learn how to use the terrain to your advantage.

Ah L2P lovely.

Right I'll just position the terrain that I don't have that way then. You realise not everyone has all this LOS blocking terrain to hand? Setting that up will cut the game in half where I am.

pm713 wrote:Ah L2P lovely.

Right I'll just position the terrain that I don't have that way then. You realise not everyone has all this LOS blocking terrain to hand? Setting that up will cut the game in half where I am.

Get some red solo cups. Less than 5 USD and you'll have all the LOS blocking terrain you'll need.

 Traditio wrote:

pm713 wrote:Ah L2P lovely.

Right I'll just position the terrain that I don't have that way then. You realise not everyone has all this LOS blocking terrain to hand? Setting that up will cut the game in half where I am.

Get some red solo cups. Less than 5 USD and you'll have all the LOS blocking terrain you'll need.

Also probably not allowed in the store. Plus I'm not bringing those due to the fact I'm not completely changing how I transport things for cups.

No, Dreadnoughts are not fine even if you remove Scatterbikes. They are easily shut down by common anti-tank weapons if not killed outright from the front. Dreadnoughts can be stun-locked into making both their CCWs and guns completely worthless. Not to mention that they only can take three hits before being destroyed. What MC costs as much, only has 3 wounds and no saves at all.

And it's also incredibly easy to get rear shots on them since they are such slow walkers. 6" movements and you go forgo shooting for D6" additional movement? Whoopee.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
No, Dreadnoughts are not fine even if you remove Scatterbikes. They are easily shut down by common anti-tank weapons

Why is this a bad thing? Dreadnoughts are vehicles. They are supposed to be shut down by anti-tank weapons.

Dreadnoughts can be stun-locked into making both their CCWs and guns completely worthless.

You have to get a result of exactly 4 to get that to happen. No more, no less.

Not to mention that they only can take three hits before being destroyed. What MC costs as much, only has 3 wounds and no saves at all.

Again, why is this evidence that there's something wrong with walkers? Again, isn't it perhaps the case that MCs in general need to be nerfed because too durable?

And it's also incredibly easy to get rear shots on them since they are such slow walkers.

What can you think of besides deep-strikers, fast vehicles and bikes that can reliably get rear AV on a walker, assuming the person controlling that walker is even halfway decent?

You can also immobilise a Dreadnought with a single shot rendering it worthless. This also happens as it walks through fences.

Anything in a Transport can. Move 6" disembark 6" and kill.

Generally you don't get complaints about the survivability of MC's outside the problem ones. You do get complaints about vehicle weakness.

I think the overall issue is the vehicle rules are garbage and certain problematic MCs need to be bashed in the face with a nerfbat until they are effective and worthwhile but no longer op. I honestly think a vehicle fix should come first, because that would let everyone know how much of a fix the problem units need.

pm713 wrote:
You can also immobilise a Dreadnought with a single shot rendering it worthless.

That really depends upon how you have the dreadnought configured. If you're dropping a heavy flamer/multi-melta dreadnought in via drop pod, then by the time it gets immobilized (of which, again, there is, at best, a 1/6 chance of happening, presupposing an unsaved penetrating hit), it's already done its job.

If you've made a shooty dreadnought, so what if it gets immobilized? It should still be within range to shoot.

And again, positioning is everything.

If you drop a walker such that you turn its rear AV to one of my lascannons, then that's on you, buddy.

This also happens as it walks through fences.

Then don't walk it through fences.

Anything in a Transport can. Move 6" disembark 6" and kill.

Have difficulty planning ahead a turn?

What is your win-loss ratio when it comes to chess?

Generally you don't get complaints about the survivability of MC's outside the problem ones. You do get complaints about vehicle weakness.

If things like grav, scatter bikes, the tau, etc. didn't exist, you'd hear a lot more complaints about average MC durability.

In fact, Martel complains about tyrranid MC durability all the time.

And when you think about it, something like a 6 wound tyrannocite for 75 points is pretty ridiculous.

At any rate, PM, this is what I'm hearing from the "vehicles are garbage" crowd:

"My vehicles have weaknesses! They aren't completely invulnerable!"

To which I answer:

"Yes. That's a good thing."

 Traditio wrote:

pm713 wrote:
You can also immobilise a Dreadnought with a single shot rendering it worthless.

That really depends upon how you have the dreadnought configured. If you're dropping a heavy flamer/multi-melta dreadnought in via dro pod, then by the time it gets immobilized, it's already done its job.

If you've made a shooty dreadnought, so what if it gets immobilized? It should still be within range to shoot.

This also happens as it walks through fences.

Then don't walk it through fences.

Anything in a Transport can. Move 6" disembark 6" and kill.

Have difficulty planning ahead a turn?

What is your win-loss ratio when it comes to chess?

Generally you don't get complaints about the survivability of MC's outside the problem ones. You do get complaints about vehicle weakness.

If things like grav, scatter bikes, the tau, etc. didn't exist, you'd hear a lot more complaints about average MC durability.

In fact, Martel complains about tyrranid MC durability all the time.

And when you think about it, something like a 6 wound tyrannocite for 75 points is pretty ridiculous.

Or my cc dreadnought gets stuck halfway to a combat which is embarassing.

Don't walk through terrain. Never thought of that. I'll take the long way around the whole board instead. It'll make a great Turn 5 charge!

Surprisingly I don't play chess as a hobby seeing as I don't enjoy it that much.
Assuming competent players you can have multiple transports near the dreadnought to do that idea plus you have the idea of people making mistakes.

Is he complaining about their durability or about his heavy weapons? With Martel I always bet it's his stuff that's an issue.

Remember me saying that there are some problems MC's? I can also get a Wraithlord that'll die pretty damn fast to decent anti tank for a lot of points.

I'm hearing "Blah, blah I'm right you're wrong here as well."

 Traditio wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
No, Dreadnoughts are not fine even if you remove Scatterbikes. They are easily shut down by common anti-tank weapons

Why is this a bad thing? Dreadnoughts are vehicles. They are supposed to be shut down by anti-tank weapons.

No one is asking for immortal units. The problem is how easy it is to do. Just a few Lascannons can make Dreadnoughts useless. Hell, with some not so extraordinary rolling a single Lascannon can render them totally worthless by stun locking them, removing their weapons or killing them outrhight.

Dreadnoughts can be stun-locked into making both their CCWs and guns completely worthless.

You have to get a result of exactly 4 to get that to happen. No more, no less.

 Traditio wrote:

Happyjew wrote:Why remove the opinion of Eldar players?

Because they have the same bias towards the question as Tau players do. Of course an Eldar player is never going to want a riptide or a storm surge to turn into a walker. The day that happens is the same day that wraithlords and wraithknights turn into walkers.

I couldn't care less if Riptides were Walkers. Hell, they would be even easier for me to take out. Starcannons, Haywire, Starshot Missiles, Bright Lances, Assured Destruction with Meltaguns, Pulse Lasers. And let's not forget how easy it is to spam Scatter Lasers and D weapons.

 Traditio wrote:
And in 5th edition, vehicles were commonly admitted to be OP because too durable for their points cost.

No, spammable transports with guns were often considered to be overpowered (correctly or not). Tanks, dreads, etc, were fine.

 Traditio wrote:
What can you think of besides deep-strikers, fast vehicles and bikes that can reliably get rear AV on a walker, assuming the person controlling that walker is even halfway decent?

IOW, "other than fast units that are designed to get a superior position and exploit it what can get into rear arc?". Could you please stop dodging questions by ruling out so many units that you can win by default?

 Traditio wrote:
Get some red solo cups. Less than 5 USD and you'll have all the LOS blocking terrain you'll need.

You do realize that some people enjoy the aesthetics of the game and only use proper terrain, right? I'd think that this would be a fact that you'd understand very well, given your previous comments about how it's the "spectacle" of the game that matters.

 insaniak wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

Why are walkers rubbish?

Are they rubbish because of the predominance of high strength, low AP anti tank weapons?

No.

They are rubbish because of predominance of cheese, e.g., the predominance of high rate of fire, mid strength weapons.

Uh, no, they're rubbish because they can be killed with a single shot, which was bad enough, and then 6th Ed added in wounds without giving them a corresponding saving throw to balance it out.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this before scat bikes and D-strength D weapons? In fact IIRC for the beginning of 6th edition, Eldar were using a 4th edition codex, and walkers were still rubbish.

 Peregrine wrote:


No, spammable transports with guns were often considered to be overpowered (correctly or not). Tanks, dreads, etc, were fine.

I want to drive this home. There were few complaints about Leman Russes, or Hammerheads, or Predators being overpowered. The main battle tanks and equivalents were largely considered acceptable. It was Razorback, Chimera, and Ghost Ark spam that made people ornery. Cheap, decently gunned, mobile platforms to shuttle around scoring troops reliably while doing respectable damage.

But, then again, you'd know this Traditio if you had a grasp of what good game design and balance is.

 Traditio wrote:

pm713 wrote:
You can also immobilise a Dreadnought with a single shot rendering it worthless.

That really depends upon how you have the dreadnought configured. If you're dropping a heavy flamer/multi-melta dreadnought in via drop pod, then by the time it gets immobilized (of which, again, there is, at best, a 1/6 chance of happening, presupposing an unsaved penetrating hit), it's already done its job.

If you've made a shooty dreadnought, so what if it gets immobilized? It should still be within range to shoot.

And again, positioning is everything.

If you've made a shooty deadnought it can get immobilized (or stunned) and rooted in place, restricting its fire too 45* forward, and thus can be ignored by most units for the rest of the game. If it gets shaken or stunned it may as well not have shooty weapons; if it gets weapon destroyed it no longer has shooty weapons; and then of course it can get blown up. And if a single heavy flamer / melta deep striking has 'done its job'... I have no idea what kind of opponents you're facing but its been a long time since I've seen that be considered a threat.


All of these things MCs don't have to deal with. They fight at full effectiveness to their last wound with not even a 1/6 chance of being rendered useless; they have more wounds than a dread; and an armor or invulnerable save.

Generally you don't get complaints about the survivability of MC's outside the problem ones. You do get complaints about vehicle weakness.

If things like grav, scatter bikes, the tau, etc. didn't exist, you'd hear a lot more complaints about average MC durability.

In fact, Martel complains about tyrranid MC durability all the time.

What MC's are there in the game?
Daemon Princes.
Various Tyranid things.
Dreadknights.
Riptides, Ghostkeels and Stormsurges
Wraithlords and Wraithknights.

The 'not a problem' ones are the Tyranid ones that suffer from the same primary shortcoming as Dreads - combat MC's with 6" movement. T6 SV3 isn't terrible to deal with when you have 4 turns to do so. With shooting as powerful as it is, your durability is directly proportional to your ability to cross the table and get in to combat.



You're right that all balance is relative. But you seem to be choosing a completely arbitrary point to consider balanced, and judging from there. Why don't you say that Riptides are balanced and Dreads need to be bought up, rather than Dreads are balanced and Riptides need to be brought down?
Balance between two units also needs to be considered in comparison to everything else that is available in the game. Terminators seem overpowered compared to Boyz when the only weapon in consideration is a Slugga - but when Plasma guns and Ion Accelerators are considered then its a very different assessment. So if you want to consider that Dreads are balanced and Riptides need to be brought down, what you're really saying is EVERYTHING in the game needs to be brought down to whatever arbitrary level you decide. The thread title should be "Balancing the entire game", not "Balancing Riptides".

And you're right, it is difficult or impossible to balance the game one unit at a time when such huge power swings exist - when Dreads and Riptides, Assault marines and Grav Cents, Kroot and Scatterbikes all exist in the same game, its difficult to say what is the arbitrary "correct" level of balance. You might nerf riptides to the same level as dreads, but in doing so you take Tau out of contention everyone else who uses anything considered remotely 'good'. If you want to balance to that level.... you basically need to come up with an entirely redesigned game, because its impossible to assess how good a Riptide would be when we have no idea what kind of weaponry it would commonly face in this new game.



As for whether Riptides are 'balanced' in the current game... Riptides with proper marker support in a riptide wing are a force to be feared and can go toe-to-toe with the top lists from other factions. A single Riptide on its own with no markers is alright, and probably still the best choice for an Elites slot for Tau, but it's putting out equivalent firepower to units that cost significantly less. Its real asset is durability - the effectiveness of your guns is directly proportional to the amount of turns you get to fire them, and riptides can be confident to last well in to the game.
If you want to nerf riptides, the best bet would be
- a points increase or
- drop wounds by 1 or
- make its invulnerable save less attractive (make it take up a hardpoint? or novacharge only brings it to 3++?) or
- make it so you can't use the same Nova profile two turns in a row
and
- add some kind of penalty or tax to the riptide wing (or just get rid of it entirely)

 Traditio wrote:

If you've made a shooty dreadnought, so what if it gets immobilized? It should still be within range to shoot.

With a 45 degree fire arc, an immobilised dreadnought isn't shooting anything owned by a halfway competent opponent.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Traditio wrote:

At any rate, PM, this is what I'm hearing from the "vehicles are garbage" crowd:

"My vehicles have weaknesses! They aren't completely invulnerable!"

Then you're not unstanding what they're saying.

The issue isn't that Vehicles have weaknesses. They should. The issue is that Vehicles that are supposed to be durable and scary are instead glass cannons under the current rules.

Trasvi wrote:
<snip>
As for whether Riptides are 'balanced' in the current game... Riptides with proper marker support in a riptide wing are a force to be feared and can go toe-to-toe with the top lists from other factions. A single Riptide on its own with no markers is alright, and probably still the best choice for an Elites slot for Tau, but it's putting out equivalent firepower to units that cost significantly less. Its real asset is durability - the effectiveness of your guns is directly proportional to the amount of turns you get to fire them, and riptides can be confident to last well in to the game.
If you want to nerf riptides, the best bet would be
- a points increase or
- drop wounds by 1 or
- make its invulnerable save less attractive (make it take up a hardpoint? or novacharge only brings it to 3++?) or
- make it so you can't use the same Nova profile two turns in a row
and
- add some kind of penalty or tax to the riptide wing (or just get rid of it entirely)

First off, absolutely the Riptide Wing formation should die in every single fire, then the ashes should be dumped into Eta Carinae.

Second, this is pretty much what I've been saying for the whole blasted thread, belike: the entire point of the Riptide as a unit is to be durable, not to be ultra-killy. The problem stems from the combination of the following:

1) 72" gun - it can sit out of range of almost everything, needing only LOS.
2) Interceptor - It can shoot you before you're even really in play.
3) AP2 + Interceptor Markerlights + S8 - Power armor won't save you; Feel No Pain won't save you; cover probably won't save you. (The markerlights are, admittedly, a second unit.)
4) Don't need to nova-charge for that fire mode, don't really need to use the risky nova reactor at all when you have the IA.
5) When you do risk nova-charging, it's only for the shield (or maybe, maybe the jets to stay out of range).
6) And now you're in the corner, with T6/W5/2+/3++, out of range of almost everything, effectively immortal.
7) To add insult to injury, if you do somehow manage to get in melee with it, it still gets S6 AP2 attacks against you. And you might even be scared of it!

That's why my proposed nerfs do the following:

1) Knock the 72" gun down to 24". Now it has to get close, and Interceptor is a lot less scary.
2) Overcharge mode is now AP3 - though I'm rethinking this, and it should probably be AP4.
3) Shield nova-charge is gone.
4) It's Infantry - no more Smash, no more Fear. (I special-ruled MTC back in, because MTC makes sense on something like that.)

Where I goofed, I think:

1) Nova reactor isn't risky enough.
2) AP3 Overcharge mode is still a little too mean - should probably need to nova-charge if you want to delete MEQ squads.
3) Heavy Burst Cannon should probably just be Heavy 10 in both modes: don't need to nova to be somewhat effective, do need to nova to be scary by adding Rending and maybe Pinning.
4) Interceptor is still everywhere in the Tau book. There's too damn much of it. This isn't a Riptide-specific problem: Stormsurges are terrifying with it, and Broadsides can be obnoxious.
5) Maybe need to differentiate the main weapons a little more?
6) Maybe the nova-charged ion mode should be S10? Specifically a countermeasure for bike/wolf deathstars, or at least something to worry them a little, but is this too deadly to tanks and Daemon Princes?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:

<snip>

 Traditio wrote:

At any rate, PM, this is what I'm hearing from the "vehicles are garbage" crowd:

"My vehicles have weaknesses! They aren't completely invulnerable!"

Then you're not unstanding what they're saying.

The issue isn't that Vehicles have weaknesses. They should. The issue is that Vehicles that are supposed to be durable and scary are instead glass cannons under the current rules.

And this, about 3^^^3 times.

So Basically, let's strip Tau of any advantage they have in the game (range, and mid strength shooting) and leave them extremely vulnerable to what they can't do (close combat).

How about we nerf grav and remove AtsknF from Marines to make it even?

Its easy to see the hate Tau gets just because they are a Marine counter. More Marine players, more haters.

jade_angel wrote:

Trasvi wrote:
<snip>
As for whether Riptides are 'balanced' in the current game... Riptides with proper marker support in a riptide wing are a force to be feared and can go toe-to-toe with the top lists from other factions. A single Riptide on its own with no markers is alright, and probably still the best choice for an Elites slot for Tau, but it's putting out equivalent firepower to units that cost significantly less. Its real asset is durability - the effectiveness of your guns is directly proportional to the amount of turns you get to fire them, and riptides can be confident to last well in to the game.
If you want to nerf riptides, the best bet would be
- a points increase or
- drop wounds by 1 or
- make its invulnerable save less attractive (make it take up a hardpoint? or novacharge only brings it to 3++?) or
- make it so you can't use the same Nova profile two turns in a row
and
- add some kind of penalty or tax to the riptide wing (or just get rid of it entirely)

First off, absolutely the Riptide Wing formation should die in every single fire, then the ashes should be dumped into Eta Carinae.

Second, this is pretty much what I've been saying for the whole blasted thread, belike: the entire point of the Riptide as a unit is to be durable, not to be ultra-killy. The problem stems from the combination of the following:

1) 72" gun - it can sit out of range of almost everything, needing only LOS.
2) Interceptor - It can shoot you before you're even really in play.
3) AP2 + Interceptor Markerlights + S8 - Power armor won't save you; Feel No Pain won't save you; cover probably won't save you. (The markerlights are, admittedly, a second unit.)
4) Don't need to nova-charge for that fire mode, don't really need to use the risky nova reactor at all when you have the IA.
5) When you do risk nova-charging, it's only for the shield (or maybe, maybe the jets to stay out of range).
6) And now you're in the corner, with T6/W5/2+/3++, out of range of almost everything, effectively immortal.
7) To add insult to injury, if you do somehow manage to get in melee with it, it still gets S6 AP2 attacks against you. And you might even be scared of it!

That's why my proposed nerfs do the following:

1) Knock the 72" gun down to 24". Now it has to get close, and Interceptor is a lot less scary.
2) Overcharge mode is now AP3 - though I'm rethinking this, and it should probably be AP4.
3) Shield nova-charge is gone.
4) It's Infantry - no more Smash, no more Fear. (I special-ruled MTC back in, because MTC makes sense on something like that.)

Where I goofed, I think:

1) Nova reactor isn't risky enough.
2) AP3 Overcharge mode is still a little too mean - should probably need to nova-charge if you want to delete MEQ squads.
3) Heavy Burst Cannon should probably just be Heavy 10 in both modes: don't need to nova to be somewhat effective, do need to nova to be scary by adding Rending and maybe Pinning.
4) Interceptor is still everywhere in the Tau book. There's too damn much of it. This isn't a Riptide-specific problem: Stormsurges are terrifying with it, and Broadsides can be obnoxious.
5) Maybe need to differentiate the main weapons a little more?
6) Maybe the nova-charged ion mode should be S10? Specifically a countermeasure for bike/wolf deathstars, or at least something to worry them a little, but is this too deadly to tanks and Daemon Princes?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:

<snip>

 Traditio wrote:

At any rate, PM, this is what I'm hearing from the "vehicles are garbage" crowd:

"My vehicles have weaknesses! They aren't completely invulnerable!"

Then you're not unstanding what they're saying.

The issue isn't that Vehicles have weaknesses. They should. The issue is that Vehicles that are supposed to be durable and scary are instead glass cannons under the current rules.

And this, about 3^^^3 times.

Removing ATSKNF is too much. Get rid of the cc bit.

6) Maybe the nova-charged ion mode should be S10? Specifically a countermeasure for bike/wolf deathstars, or at least something to worry them a little, but is this too deadly to tanks and Daemon Princes?

When bike/wolf stars are charged up, Tau has no counter except jump around and try to stretch them out. Stormsurge already have a S10 template and bike/wolf stars already shrug it off like nothing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

1) Nova reactor isn't risky enough.

LOL, yeah because Tau players never get angry about it.

Really, guys what you want is to ban the riptide. Essentially this is what you are driving at. Make it so crappy that no one will take it.

Um, no.

I play Tau, and I use Riptides - though most of the time, only one.

That might be what some people want, but it's not what I'm going for.

Read my initial post. Seriously. That's where the actual suggestion is. Folks like Traditio call that suggestion asininely OP, you call it so crappy that nobody would use it?

I don't want to ban the Riptide. If I wanted that, I'd have just feckin' said so, belike.

Take a look at my proposal, and tell me what you do and don't like about it. Bear in mind the major role disagreement that's cropped up throughout the thread, here - I don't blame you for not slogging through the whole thing. Some people think the Riptide is meant to be a long-range artillery piece that drops AP2 pie-plates from afar, and complain that it's too durable for something that does that. Others - and I'm in this camp - think it's meant to be a close-support fire magnet that soaks up a ton of fire so the short-range shooters (that is, XV8s, XV25s and XV9s) can do their jobs.

I think that if you build a suit that can do both, you end up with a unit that has the problems I enumerated above, and that draws a crapton of salt. One or the other is fine - but I think the Stormsurge is the backfield pie-plate-puker, and it's not the unit I'm addressing in this post.

ETA: Once the ion weapon no longer has 72" range and the 3++ shield option doesn't exist, possibly the nova reactor is fine and doesn't need to be any more risky.

3+ armour. I'd be happier with 3+ armour. Perhaps make the generator 4+ to activate.

pm713 wrote:
3+ armour. I'd be happier with 3+ armour. Perhaps make the generator 4+ to activate.

Me too. Really the Riptide never should have had a 2+ armour since it "should" be lighter to allow the Jet-pack to function. This is the whole reason Broadside do not have Jet-packs.
3+ armour, 4+ Nova, Ion Accelerator only 36" range (at 10pts to swap, instead of only 5). These 3 easy changes make the Riptide a good choice, without being an OP choice.

At that point, I might also incorporate Stims into the cost of the Riptide, thereby making it cost more and prevent min-maxing Riptides for Riptide-Wings. But that might be a mute point since lowering the save AND making the Nova harder might actually force players to buy the Stims every time anyway.

--

I read it all. Your suggestions while well meant completely nerf Tau competitively.

Sorry, I'm not giving an inch on this. There are many problems in the game. You can't isolate one unit and say thats it. Collectively MCs > Vehicles > Walkers. The true issue lies 1) MC rules versus Walkers 2) in the stat profile of Dreadnaughts not the riptide. Tell all your friends to buy the new 13/13/12 dreadnaught and see what happens to a Tau player when you drop pod in.

In a friendly game I would never bring my competitive build, but big tourneys you have to.

jade_angel wrote:
Um, no.

I play Tau, and I use Riptides - though most of the time, only one.

That might be what some people want, but it's not what I'm going for.

Read my initial post. Seriously. That's where the actual suggestion is. Folks like Traditio call that suggestion asininely OP, you call it so crappy that nobody would use it?

I don't want to ban the Riptide. If I wanted that, I'd have just feckin' said so, belike.

Take a look at my proposal, and tell me what you do and don't like about it. Bear in mind the major role disagreement that's cropped up throughout the thread, here - I don't blame you for not slogging through the whole thing. Some people think the Riptide is meant to be a long-range artillery piece that drops AP2 pie-plates from afar, and complain that it's too durable for something that does that. Others - and I'm in this camp - think it's meant to be a close-support fire magnet that soaks up a ton of fire so the short-range shooters (that is, XV8s, XV25s and XV9s) can do their jobs.

I think that if you build a suit that can do both, you end up with a unit that has the problems I enumerated above, and that draws a crapton of salt. One or the other is fine - but I think the Stormsurge is the backfield pie-plate-puker, and it's not the unit I'm addressing in this post.

ETA: Once the ion weapon no longer has 72" range and the 3++ shield option doesn't exist, possibly the nova reactor is fine and doesn't need to be any more risky.

What 13/13/12 Dreadnought do I have? Answer: None.

So even though we have identified a problem unit we can't attempt to fix it?

I play Tau, and I use Riptides - though most of the time, only one.

The same people that advocate the "NERFS" would bring 4 Runepriests , 3 Librarians in a Conclave, Ezekiel, Azrael, and Thunderwolves.

Marines
1) Turn off Marine USR if the unit has mixed marines
2) Remove AtsknF from the game or make them pass leadership to turn it on.
3) Make Grav 12" range
4) Keep grenades to one per CC

 thejughead wrote:

I play Tau, and I use Riptides - though most of the time, only one.

The same people that advocate the "NERFS" would bring 4 Runepriests , 3 Librarians in a Conclave, Ezekiel, Azrael, and Thunderwolves.

Marines
1) Turn off Marine USR if the unit has mixed marines
2) Remove AtsknF from the game or make them pass leadership to turn it on.
3) Make Grav 12" range
4) Keep grenades to one per CC

That's just plain false although I'm not sure why you'd complain about Azrael.

How is 2) meant to work?

pm713 wrote:
What 13/13/12 Dreadnought do I have? Answer: None.

So even though we have identified a problem unit we can't attempt to fix it?

The new FW Leviathan.

 thejughead wrote:

pm713 wrote:
What 13/13/12 Dreadnought do I have? Answer: None.

So even though we have identified a problem unit we can't attempt to fix it?

The new FW Leviathan.

You will of course buy me and everyone else the book for the rules seeing as we have to use it now apparently.

 thejughead wrote:
I read it all. Your suggestions while well meant completely nerf Tau competitively.

Sorry, I'm not giving an inch on this. There are many problems in the game. You can't isolate one unit and say thats it. Collectively MCs > Vehicles > Walkers. The true issue lies 1) MC rules versus Walkers 2) in the stat profile of Dreadnaughts not the riptide. Tell all your friends to buy the new 13/13/12 dreadnaught and see what happens to a Tau player when you drop pod in.

In a friendly game I would never bring my competitive build, but big tourneys you have to.


<snip>

Wait, it does? You're talking about the Jet Pack Infantry version, not the Walker version, correct? That was mostly throwing spitwads at the wall, trying to satisfy the unsatisfiable - I should have made that clearer.

And yes, you are absolutely correct that there are many things wrong with 40k. This thread was *not* intended to be the omnibus "everything wrong with 40k, fixed by nerfing one unit" thread. I started it out talking specifically about how to correct the imbalances specific to the Riptide, not every problem in the game. There've been a hell of a lot of derails since then - which is why the initial post talked about not wanting to go down the "it should be a walker" rabbit-hole, and I screwed up by even beginning to entertain that line of thought. As for the issues with vehicles, yeah, no kidding - that's why I said that walkers bite, and not, as Traditio asserted, because I just want to auto-win. (FFS, if I wanted to auto-win, we all know how Scatbike/Spider/Wraithknight builds work, and I've got the models for it... But I don't, because it's an asshat move in most games and kinda boring, besides!)

I'd be willing to entertain a discussion on buffing vehicles or even revamping the whole system, but elsewhere. It's not the topic of the current thread, derails aside.

Which part of the current Riptide is critical to competitive play, in your estimation? The 72" S8 AP2 Large Blast in an Elite slot (instead of LoW)? Or is it the T6/W5/Sv2+ part? I kept the latter, BTW, including the ability to buy FNP. The only thing I nerfed durability-wise is the nova-charged shield - my thinking is that the Ghostkeel is the suit you want, if you want to be able to mostly ignore heavy weapons outright, while the Riptide is the one you want to walk through a hail of bolter fire.

I could be persuaded that I've got the intended use cases wrong, and that Tau need both a long-ranged artillery suit (Riptide) and a short-range linebreaker suit (Ghostkeel) available in the Elite slot. Though in that case, I would contend that the Riptide is too durable and probably too fast for an artillery suit.

The rules are posted for free!

pm713 wrote:

 thejughead wrote:

pm713 wrote:
What 13/13/12 Dreadnought do I have? Answer: None.

So even though we have identified a problem unit we can't attempt to fix it?

The new FW Leviathan.

You will of course buy me and everyone else the book for the rules seeing as we have to use it now apparently.

 thejughead wrote:
The rules are posted for free!

pm713 wrote:

 thejughead wrote:

pm713 wrote:
What 13/13/12 Dreadnought do I have? Answer: None.

So even though we have identified a problem unit we can't attempt to fix it?

The new FW Leviathan.

You will of course buy me and everyone else the book for the rules seeing as we have to use it now apparently.

Well that has undermined my point completely.

pm713 wrote:
Well that has undermined my point completely.

LOL, the Leviathan's 4++ and this rule alone make it crazy good:

Severing Cut: Each time a non-vehicle model suffers an unsaved wound from this weapon, roll a D6. On a 4+, the model suffers an additional D3 wounds which must be saved separately using the weapon’s pro le (note that these wounds do not themselves generate more additional wounds).

Dropping that into Tau lines would induce a panic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jade_angel wrote:

Which part of the current Riptide is critical to competitive play, in your estimation? The 72" S8 AP2 Large Blast in an Elite slot (instead of LoW)? Or is it the T6/W5/Sv2+ part? I kept the latter, BTW, including the ability to buy FNP. The only thing I nerfed durability-wise is the nova-charged shield - my thinking is that the Ghostkeel is the suit you want, if you want to be able to mostly ignore heavy weapons outright, while the Riptide is the one you want to walk through a hail of bolter fire.

Its all about T6/W5/Sv2+ ! The template you see less of unless its Marines. The BurstCannon is always preferred for RoF.

 thejughead wrote:
<snip>

jade_angel wrote:

Which part of the current Riptide is critical to competitive play, in your estimation? The 72" S8 AP2 Large Blast in an Elite slot (instead of LoW)? Or is it the T6/W5/Sv2+ part? I kept the latter, BTW, including the ability to buy FNP. The only thing I nerfed durability-wise is the nova-charged shield - my thinking is that the Ghostkeel is the suit you want, if you want to be able to mostly ignore heavy weapons outright, while the Riptide is the one you want to walk through a hail of bolter fire.

Its all about T6/W5/Sv2+ ! The template you see less of unless its Marines. The BurstCannon is always preferred for RoF.

Ok, that's what I kept, and I actually buffed the HBC. (Heavy 10/Heavy 15 now instead of 8/12, and lost Gets Hot when nova-charged). I did charge 10 points for the SMS, simply because of how much salt that draws - and because most people I know of are probably using the fusion blaster anyway, because it's a nice reserve capability.

Again, ignore the relatively stupid walker suggestion I made - that was to make a point, but the point was missed. The initial post's Jet Pack Infantry version is the fully serious suggestion.

My hope is this: All (non super heavy) Vehicles get 3+ armor in the next iteration of the rules. That will mitigate the saltiness in the OP post.

A single unit might be the cause of Marine players tears, but its not the pariah of the game.

I'll second the "vehicles get a 3+" suggestion. Outside of sending AV the way of target priority rules and giving everything a T/W/Sv setup, Bolt Action-style, I think that's the simplest patch for vehicles that will actually help.

I've been saying that most walkers are UP for a while now, and most tanks, much the same though somewhat less so.

 thejughead wrote:
I read it all. Your suggestions while well meant completely nerf Tau competitively.

Sorry, I'm not giving an inch on this. There are many problems in the game. You can't isolate one unit and say thats it. Collectively MCs > Vehicles > Walkers. The true issue lies 1) MC rules versus Walkers 2) in the stat profile of Dreadnaughts not the riptide. Tell all your friends to buy the new 13/13/12 dreadnaught and see what happens to a Tau player when you drop pod in.

In a friendly game I would never bring my competitive build, but big tourneys you have to.

jade_angel wrote:
Um, no.

I play Tau, and I use Riptides - though most of the time, only one.

That might be what some people want, but it's not what I'm going for.

Read my initial post. Seriously. That's where the actual suggestion is. Folks like Traditio call that suggestion asininely OP, you call it so crappy that nobody would use it?

I don't want to ban the Riptide. If I wanted that, I'd have just feckin' said so, belike.

Take a look at my proposal, and tell me what you do and don't like about it. Bear in mind the major role disagreement that's cropped up throughout the thread, here - I don't blame you for not slogging through the whole thing. Some people think the Riptide is meant to be a long-range artillery piece that drops AP2 pie-plates from afar, and complain that it's too durable for something that does that. Others - and I'm in this camp - think it's meant to be a close-support fire magnet that soaks up a ton of fire so the short-range shooters (that is, XV8s, XV25s and XV9s) can do their jobs.

I think that if you build a suit that can do both, you end up with a unit that has the problems I enumerated above, and that draws a crapton of salt. One or the other is fine - but I think the Stormsurge is the backfield pie-plate-puker, and it's not the unit I'm addressing in this post.

ETA: Once the ion weapon no longer has 72" range and the 3++ shield option doesn't exist, possibly the nova reactor is fine and doesn't need to be any more risky.

The Tau massacre the 13/13/12 dread because vehicles suck balls in 7th ed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thejughead wrote:
My hope is this: All (non super heavy) Vehicles get 3+ armor in the next iteration of the rules. That will mitigate the saltiness in the OP post.

A single unit might be the cause of Marine players tears, but its not the pariah of the game.

It's functionally immortal. That's a big problem for more than marines. Hell, in Tau vs Tau, you guys can't kill your own damn Riptides.

"Its all about T6/W5/Sv2+ !"

Yes, because that's WAY too good for the cost. And you know it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"LOL, the Leviathan's 4++ and this rule alone make it crazy good:

Severing Cut: Each time a non-vehicle model suffers an unsaved wound from this weapon, roll a D6. On a 4+, the model suffers an additional D3 wounds which must be saved separately using the weapon’s pro le (note that these wounds do not themselves generate more additional wounds).

Dropping that into Tau lines would induce a panic. "

OMG. A weapon that actually kinda pretends to hurt MCs! Whatever wil the immortal Riptide do? Keep being immortal, that's what. See, the unsaved wound part is where your panic falls apart. You can't clear wounds against the Riptide to begin with, so that text is never relevant.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tau have a lot of advantages that Tau players take for granted. They have non-useless troops that are cheaper than tac marines but cause twice as many wounds vs T6 MCs (very important) from a longer range.

And then there's just being shooty in a shooty edition.

Martel732 wrote:

"LOL, the Leviathan's 4++ and this rule alone make it crazy good:

Severing Cut: Each time a non-vehicle model suffers an unsaved wound from this weapon, roll a D6. On a 4+, the model suffers an additional D3 wounds which must be saved separately using the weapon’s pro le (note that these wounds do not themselves generate more additional wounds).

Dropping that into Tau lines would induce a panic. "

OMG. A weapon that actually kinda pretends to hurt MCs! Whatever wil the immortal Riptide do? Keep being immortal, that's what. See, the unsaved wound part is where your panic falls apart. You can't clear wounds against the Riptide to begin with, so that text is never relevant.

Don't you find that a bit disingenuous? It doesn't pretend to hurt mcs, it does. and 1/2 the time it hurts double. and its save is consistently better than the riptides at 4++, not "sometimes 3++ sometimes 5++"
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/PDF/Datasheets/LeviathanSiegeDreadnoughtRules.pdf

As far as any vehicle walker stuff.. its the IoM tax, you can bring legal battle brother super friends, the tau can bring.. more tau, neat. "Can't" add a cheap allied guard detachment for basilisks for cheap s9ap3 no LOS templates, cant bring librarian conclave, its your tax. And the xenos largely get MC, because their allies are very limited.

And firewarriors, yeah they have a neat gun, but bs3 t3 4+, I 2, LD 7 8 with sergeant, not exactly difficult to kill, route, pin, sweeping advance, psychically dominate, and their dedicated transport is the most expensive in the game i am aware of, for a 12-11-10 non-fast, transport. the gun is good, the troop is mediocre at best.

Tau troops are crap still unless you're farsight enclaves. Their guns are ok, but they're still on a T3 4+ save model. Not exactly hard to remove, but I assume you'll ignore that or dismiss it by claiming to be tabled by the end of turn 2.

It's still got a 4++ and has 4HP, making it somewhat durable, especially since S7 spam only hurts it on 6s, and melta is stopped by the ceramite plating. Plus, it wounds on S10 (base S8) at AP2, and can take a droppod. It's a decent unit, especially for a walker. Total weapons are 2x heavy flamers (dead fire warriors), and 2 of the following in any combo:

Heavy 18" 3 S9 AP1 melta
Heavy 6 24" S7 AP3 sunder
Power fist w/ severing cut and a meltagun
Powerfist w/ armorbane and a meltagun

 pumaman1 wrote:


Don't you find that a bit disingenuous? It doesn't pretend to hurt mcs, it does. and 1/2 the time it hurts double. and its save is consistently better than the riptides at 4++, not "sometimes 3++ sometimes 5++"

Don't forget that failed nova that gives it a 5++ instead removes a wound allowing only FNP as a way to prevent the wound IIRC.

Several points:

1. It occurs to me that one of JA's initial proposals would probably fix things. I was under the impression that the 72 inch gun has barrage. Given that it doesn't:

Switch out "MC" for "infantry," change the 2+ to a 3+ and remove the ability for the riptide to get a 3+ invuln (keep it at a 5+ which can't be improved), and you've got an OK unit.

The problem with this is that the model doesn't look like an infantry model. The model only really allows two options: 1. walker or 2. monstrous creature.

2. The people who complain about ATSFKNF not only likely don't know what it does, but they are also likely sore winners. And if you're a tau player complaining about the fact that marines don't get swept, shame on you. You are literally adding insult to injury at this point. What did you assault a marine unit with which both won the fight AND would have performed a sweeping advance, but for ATSKNF?

And you know it's not fearless, right? It won't prevent my units from running off the table. It won't prevent my units from getting pinned. All it gives me is a free regroup (which rarely comes into play for me) and immunity to sweeping advances...which I'd rather not even have. I'd much prefer to have a marine unit get swept so that I can shoot whatever it was that attacked them off the table on my turn.

3. Vehicles don't need an armor save. Spammable mid strength, high rate of fire weapons need to die in a fire.

And granted that vehicles have a save, it should be no better than a 4+. Krak grenades are AP 4.

Martel732 wrote:


The Tau massacre the 13/13/12 dread because vehicles suck balls in 7th ed.

False. Tau predominantly have problems with 13 AV and add a 4++ and it doubles the problem. If this were true Tau would counter Imperial Knights not the other way around.

It's functionally immortal. That's a big problem for more than marines. Hell, in Tau vs Tau, you guys can't kill your own damn Riptides.

False. Focus fire eliminates plenty of Riptides.

OMG. A weapon that actually kinda pretends to hurt MCs! Whatever wil the immortal Riptide do? Keep being immortal, that's what. See, the unsaved wound part is where your panic falls apart. You can't clear wounds against the Riptide to begin with, so that text is never relevant.

False. Did you even read the rules. AP2 cause severe problems for Riptides. Having to Nova a 3++ turns off rending which is a problem for the burst cannons.

Tau have a lot of advantages that Tau players take for granted. They have non-useless troops that are cheaper than tac marines but cause twice as many wounds vs T6 MCs (very important) from a longer range.

And then there's just being shooty in a shooty edition.

Negative. In the competitive scene no one uses Walking MCs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Traditio wrote:


2. The people who complain about ATSFKNF not only likely don't know what it does, but they are also likely sore winners. And if you're a tau player complaining about the fact that marines don't get swept, shame on you. You are literally adding insult to injury at this point. What did you assault a marine unit with which both won the fight AND would have performed a sweeping advance, but for ATSKNF?

And you know it's not fearless, right? It won't prevent my units from running off the table. It won't prevent my units from getting pinned. All it gives me is a free regroup (which rarely comes into play for me) and immunity to sweeping advances...which I'd rather not even have. I'd much prefer to have a marine unit get swept so that I can shoot whatever it was that attacked them off the table on my turn.

CSM Players would give their left arm for this rule. This entire thread is because you can't beat your local Tau players? Puuuuleeeze, last major tournaments have seen MEQ in the top 10. Tau power level is a tier below.

 Traditio wrote:

2. The people who complain about ATSFKNF not only likely don't know what it does, but they are also likely sore winners. And if you're a tau player complaining about the fact that marines don't get swept, shame on you. You are literally adding insult to injury at this point. What did you assault a marine unit with which both won the fight AND would have performed a sweeping advance, but for ATSKNF?

Yeah, because ONLY tau complain about ATSKNF. ONLY Tau care that they can't sweep marines, or make them consistently run off. Don't pretend otherwise, especially as ATSKNF is a very powerful rule. In case you forgot, it allows you to regroup and move, shoot and assault as normal in addition to ignoring the fear USR (which makes sense, but given how many marine armies there are makes fear nearly worthless before you factor in the prevalence of high LD, fearless, etc).

 Traditio wrote:

3. Vehicles don't need an armor save. Spammable mid strength, high rate of fire weapons need to die in a fire.

And granted that vehicles have a save, it should be no better than a 4+. Krak grenades are AP 4.

Vehicles need a save if they want to compete with MCs, especially as they already have a chart that cripples them anytime they get a pen inflicted. Plus, most of the good weapons being fired at vehicles ARE AP4 (auto cannons, HYMPs, MPs, grav, even your beloved MLs and Lascannons) Exception is eldar really with scatbikes. As an invul save? Maybe.

The flippant attitude regarding AtsknF takes this from "let's make the game better" to "let's make Marines better, especially against Tau because I enjoyed 5th Edition".

Wolfblade wrote:Yeah, because ONLY tau complain about ATSKNF. ONLY Tau care that they can't sweep marines

The person making the complaint was a Tau player. What did he try making a sweeping advance with?

If it's a riptide, I shall be filled with raeg.

Don't pretend otherwise, especially as ATSKNF is a very powerful rule.

It's an OK rule for which SM players pay a premium and which SM players have had for decades. Space marine players get ATSKNF, necron players get reanimation, eldar players get battle focus, etc. That's how it works.

In case you forgot, it allows you to regroup and move, shoot and assault as normal in addition to ignoring the fear USR (which makes sense, but given how many marine armies there are makes fear nearly worthless before you factor in the prevalence of high LD, fearless, etc).

Yes. For that rule even to come into play, you've had to have deal heavy casualties to my forces AND forced a retreat on your turn. As I said, the people who complain about this rule are sore winners.

Vehicles need a save if they want to compete with MCs

Again, why do vehicles need a buff? Why don't MCs need a nerf?

Plus, most of the good weapons being fired at vehicles ARE AP4 (auto cannons, HYMPs, MPs, grav, even your beloved MLs and Lascannons)

Missile launchers are AP3 (assuming krak) and lascannons are AP 2.

Vehicles shouldn't get a save against anti-tank weapons. This shouldn't even need to be said.

Exception is eldar really with scatbikes.

This. This is what's putting the screws to vehicles right now. Spammable mid strength weapons like scatter lasers and twin-linked devourers. Those things need to die.

 thejughead wrote:
The flippant attitude regarding AtsknF takes this from "let's make the game better" to "let's make Marines better, especially against Tau because I enjoyed 5th Edition".

ATSKNF doesn't matter because you just shoot all the marines to death. No morale checks necessary.

"
False. Focus fire eliminates plenty of Riptides. "

Except it doesn't. When you have to shoot 1800 pts to kill 200 pts, that's not a viable answer.

"AP2 cause severe problems for Riptides. Having to Nova a 3++ turns off rending which is a problem for the burst cannons. "

Riptides bounce AP 2 all day every day with the stim injector. It's cute that you think a wound leaking through after 800 pts o f stuff fires at you is a severe problem.

"Negative. In the competitive scene no one uses Walking MCs."

Except Riptides, right?

I also wouldn't say that IKs counter Tau. They are too fragile to be considered the counter to anything really. 6 HP for 350+ pts is a damn joke compared to Riptide.

 Traditio wrote:

Don't pretend otherwise, especially as ATSKNF is a very powerful rule.

It's an OK rule for which SM players pay a premium and which SM players have had for decades. Space marine players get ATSKNF, necron players get reanimation, eldar players get battle focus, etc. That's how it works.

In case you forgot, it allows you to regroup and move, shoot and assault as normal in addition to ignoring the fear USR (which makes sense, but given how many marine armies there are makes fear nearly worthless before you factor in the prevalence of high LD, fearless, etc).

Yes. For that rule even to come into play, you've had to have deal heavy casualties to my forces AND forced a retreat on your turn. As I said, the people who complain about this rule are sore winners.

so what special rule does the riptide have/the tau have that is like battle focus or ATSKNF or reanimation protocol? Supporting fire? wow, but that never comes into play because it's immortal across the board right? And are snap shots so the deadly template cannot fire so.. it doesn't have anything

And "heavy casualties" or 25% of units start of phase strength, so 2-3 models in most units. that's not really that crazy.

 pumaman1 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

"LOL, the Leviathan's 4++ and this rule alone make it crazy good:

Severing Cut: Each time a non-vehicle model suffers an unsaved wound from this weapon, roll a D6. On a 4+, the model suffers an additional D3 wounds which must be saved separately using the weapon’s pro le (note that these wounds do not themselves generate more additional wounds).

Dropping that into Tau lines would induce a panic. "

OMG. A weapon that actually kinda pretends to hurt MCs! Whatever wil the immortal Riptide do? Keep being immortal, that's what. See, the unsaved wound part is where your panic falls apart. You can't clear wounds against the Riptide to begin with, so that text is never relevant.

Don't you find that a bit disingenuous? It doesn't pretend to hurt mcs, it does. and 1/2 the time it hurts double. and its save is consistently better than the riptides at 4++, not "sometimes 3++ sometimes 5++"
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/PDF/Datasheets/LeviathanSiegeDreadnoughtRules.pdf

As far as any vehicle walker stuff.. its the IoM tax, you can bring legal battle brother super friends, the tau can bring.. more tau, neat. "Can't" add a cheap allied guard detachment for basilisks for cheap s9ap3 no LOS templates, cant bring librarian conclave, its your tax. And the xenos largely get MC, because their allies are very limited.

And firewarriors, yeah they have a neat gun, but bs3 t3 4+, I 2, LD 7 8 with sergeant, not exactly difficult to kill, route, pin, sweeping advance, psychically dominate, and their dedicated transport is the most expensive in the game i am aware of, for a 12-11-10 non-fast, transport. the gun is good, the troop is mediocre at best.

Firewarriors would be much worse off if IoM had ranged weapons worth a damn other than grav. But they don't.

Martel732 wrote:

 thejughead wrote:
The flippant attitude regarding AtsknF takes this from "let's make the game better" to "let's make Marines better, especially against Tau because I enjoyed 5th Edition".

ATSKNF doesn't matter because you just shoot all the marines to death. No morale checks necessary.

"
False. Focus fire eliminates plenty of Riptides. "

Except it doesn't. When you have to shoot 1800 pts to kill 200 pts, that's not a viable answer.

"AP2 cause severe problems for Riptides. Having to Nova a 3++ turns off rending which is a problem for the burst cannons. "

Riptides bounce AP 2 all day every day with the stim injector. It's cute that you think a wound leaking through after 800 pts o f stuff fires at you is a severe problem.

"Negative. In the competitive scene no one uses Walking MCs."

Except Riptides, right?

Riptides are JumpJet not infantry. Very susceptible to Psy Scream/Screetch D/Weapons that wound on 2+ and Str 6 shooting. Charge it and sweep it. Tool your Marines for the job.

"ATSKNF doesn't matter because you just shoot all the marines to death. No morale checks necessary. "

Man you love to live the lie. Tool you Marines for the job.

 Traditio wrote:
Again, why do vehicles need a buff? Why don't MCs need a nerf?

Because currently vehicles largely aren't worth their points.

With the addition of Hull Points to the game, damaging vehicles effectively follows the same process as everything else - roll to hit, roll to 'wound', remove a wound on a successful roll... except that everything else gets a saving throw, and vehicles don't. And then on top of losing a wound, you still have your Damage roll making the vehicle less effective after it takes damage. So vehicles went from having an alternate damage system that made them potentially durable or potentially die to one shot, to being ridiculously easy to kill. As it currently stands, most vehicles in the game can potentially be killed by a single round of fire from a Space Marine Combat Squad armed with nothing but bolters... and that's absurd.


Monstrous Creatures are supposed to be big and scary. Nerfing them down to the same level as vehicles are currently at would be disappointing, to say the least.

Vehicles shouldn't get a save against anti-tank weapons. This shouldn't even need to be said.

Why not? Infantry get a save against anti-infantry weapons.

At this point, this thread is a Tau Troll thread.

"Man you love to live the lie."

I've had it happen way too many times. It's not a lie.

It's basically impossible to get enough marines close enough to a Riptide with the right equipment without using invis/Wolfstar/etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thejughead wrote:
At this point, this thread is a Tau Troll thread.

Because you made it that way. We (except traditio) were discussing legitimate fixes to the Riptide.

"Weapons that wound on 2+ and Str 6 shooting."

2+ armor makes it immune to those things. Poison is worthless, even scatterlasers can't really hurt them. Math trumps your claims. I can work it out for you if you like. Very few weapons significantly threaten riptides, and even fewer are economical.

Martel732 wrote:
"Man you love to live the lie."

I've had it happen way too many times. It's not a lie.

It's basically impossible to get enough marines close enough to a Riptide with the right equipment without using invis/Wolfstar/etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thejughead wrote:
At this point, this thread is a Tau Troll thread.

Because you made it that way. We (except traditio) were discussing legitimate fixes to the Riptide.

"Weapons that wound on 2+ and Str 6 shooting."

2+ armor makes it immune to those things. Poison is worthless, even scatterlasers can't really hurt them. Math trumps your claims. I can work it out for you if you like. Very few weapons significantly threaten riptides, and even fewer are economical.

I suggest you and traditio discuss Marine tactics instead of whining about the Tau Riptide.

Here's one for you:

Whites Scars Gladius:
You get free dedicated vehicles. Equip each unit with Heavy weapons (Grav, Plasma, melt).

I'm not going to spell the tactics out for you. I will tell you this. My teammate for ATC destroyed a Tau player with exactly this. First turn. Riptide wing, drone net, and 1 Broadside unit was GONE. How do I know this? I was at the table right next to him.

The Space Marine codex and its supplement has the tools to deal with Tau as a whole much less one unit.

I'm rocking BA, not marines. He's marines. I'm well aware of how to beat Tau with vanilla marines. It has to do with units I don't have access to. And it has nothing to do with ATSKNF, might I add. BA are Traditio's perfect list. Nothing is any good lol.

Still doesn't change the fact that the Riptide is far, far too durable for its points.