In the spirit of the threads abounding regarding balancing Eldar units, here's one about the battlesuit everyone loves to hate: the XV104 Riptide.
I don't want it nerfed into the ground. I want it to be useful for its intended purpose, but not so stupidly OP as to automatically make you That Frelling Guy for taking one, or especially more than one. I know a lot of folks would prefer for it to be a walker, but I'm not addressing that particular issue this time - there have been plenty of threads about that already.
That said, I think I may have a different idea of what its role is than most: to me, the Riptide isn't intended to sit back and rain flaming death from outside the range of all but the longest guns. It's meant to provide heavy fire support up close and to act as a bullet sponge, soaking up fire so the squishier elements (Crisis Suits, Stealth Suits, Fire Warriors) don't die. With that in mind, here's yet another stab at fixing it:
XV104 Riptide - 180ppm
WS2 BS3 S5 T6 A3 W5 I2 Ld 9 Sv 2+/5++, Jet Pack Infantry (EDIT: Restored Shas'vre statline. No more AP2, no more need for A1)
Wargear: Heavy Burst Cannon, Twin-Linked Fusion Blaster, Riptide Shield Generator, Nova Reactor, Multi-Tracker, Blacksun Filter (EDIT: should have had the multi-tracker and blacksun filter from the get-go. I fouled that one up.)
Special Rules: Move Through Cover, Extremely Bulky, Nova Hazard
Nova Hazard: A squad of XV104 Riptides may never be joined by Independent Characters under any circumstances whatsoever. (Save a specific rule that overrides this. EDIT to reflect new FAQ/Errata for O'Vesa).
Options: May add up to two additional Riptide Shas'Vres - 180pts each
May take up to two shielded missile drones (stats as per codex) per Riptide: 25ppm
May replace the Twin-Linked Fusion Blaster with a Twin-Linked Plasma Rifle: free
May replace the Twin-Linked Fusion Blaster with a Twin-Linked Smart Missile System: 10pts
May replace the Heavy Burst Cannon with a Riptide Cyclic Ion Raker: 10 pts
May take up to two items from the Support Systems List: (Costs and restrictions as per Codex)
Heavy Burst Cannon: R30 S6 AP5, Heavy 10 --OR-- R30 S6 AP4, Heavy 15, Rending, Nova-Charge (EDIT: increase to S6, nova-charged profile always has AP4)
Riptide Cyclic Ion Raker: R24 S7 AP4, Heavy 6 (EDIT: slightly different from Ghostkeel version)
R24 S8 AP3, Heavy 1, Large Blast, Gets Hot (EDIT: gains AP3 when overcharged)
R24 S9 AP2, Ordnance 1, Large Blast, Gets Hot, Nova-Charge, Long Cycle Time
Long Cycle Time: This fire mode may never be used with Interceptor.
Riptide Shield Generator: A model with a Riptide Shield Generator has a 5+ invulnerable save.
Nova Reactor: At the beginning of the Movement Phase, a model with a Nova Reactor may choose to roll 1d6. On a roll of 1 or 2, it suffers a wound that ignores all armor and cover saves. Invulnerable saves and Feel No Pain may be used normally. On a roll of a 3 or higher, the model may select exactly one benefit from the choices below, which shall last until the beginning of the controlling player's next movement phase. (EDIT: nova reactor no longer destroys itself - not needed, most abusive options are gone)
Primary Weapon: The model may use the Nova-Charge profiles for its primary weapons
Ripple Fire: The model may fire its secondary weapon twice, counting as a single weapon for all purposes
Quick Escape: When making a Thrust Move, the model rolls 4d6 instead of the normal 2d6.
Change Summary from original version:
Reverted to Shas'vre statline - not an MC anymore, 3 S5 attacks scare... Guardsmen?
HBC reverted to S6. S5 was an overnerf.
RCIR Overcharge profile boosted to AP3.
Put the multi-tracker back in the Wargear listing. Oops, I goofed. This never should have been missing.
Put the Blacksun Filter back in the Wargear listing. Oops, I need more caffeine.
"R18 S9 AP2, Ordnance 1, Large Blast, Gets Hot, Nova-Charge, Long Cycle Time "
This can be R 24.
"Cyclic Ion Raker: R24 S7 AP4, Heavy 6 "
This can R 36 for anti-tank duty.
A1 is a nice change.
"Heavy Burst Cannon: R30 S5 AP5, Heavy 10 --OR-- R30 S5 AP5, Heavy 15, Rending, Nova-Charge "
This can be R 48, to encourage it over the ion weapon. It can also go to AP 4 on nova charge so you can kill Wulfen.
The CIR is AP4 because the version in the Codex currently is - it's a weapon upgrade for the Ghostkeel. And given what the Ghostkeel can do, *it* should not have an AP3 CIR. I suppose they could be two different weapons, though.
ETA: Also note it's Infantry, not an MC, so no more melee AP2, no more one-shot-at-S10, no more HoW. It's actually no better than a Wraithguard in CC now (other than better armor/wounds), and actually worse because WG are WS4/I4.
AP 3 is fine. AP 2 is the killer, because that makes lots of expensive stuff come off the board fast. AP 3? Marines are 14 ppm. Windriders 27 ppm. Immortals somewhere in between. AP 3 is fine. In fact, we need more AP 3 and less AP 2. But we need that AP 2 to be effective vs MCs as well.
The current heavy burst cannon getting hot on nova charge is so stupid. That just guarantees the ion gun as less risky.
Bharring wrote: Ive always thought Broadsides should be T5 3+, and Riptides T6 3+.
Its mostly the same tech, just bigger and tougher.
I see a Krak missile having a good chance of taking a chunk out of either, but not IDing the Broadside.
2+ armor is a lot less awesome if your killer gun only goes 24". Just ask the DK about getting close with 2+ armor. You can't blow up all your opponent's guns from a safe distance, either.
Bharring wrote: The more 2+ there is in the game, the more AP2 the game needs.
The more 2+5++ with great T and lots of W there is, the more spammable AP2 needs to be.
The Riptide feels heavily armored, but not as armored as a Terminator. Tougher, yes, better armored, no.
I don't disagree, but the Tau people would likely not swallow this. Just as most Eldar will not swallow windriders going to 4+. I just accept the worthlessness of terminators. Terminators are one of my favorite examples of fluff fail. Utter and complete fluff fail. They're bowling pins for Riptides.
T6 with 5W, 3+/5++ and the option for 5+ FNP is still really durable. Especially since most things that you need to kill it are AP2 anyway. Lowering the save from 2+ to 3+ opens a small window for small arms fire to get in a wound or 2. And I think most Tau players who know what Grav is would be fine with having a 3+ armour rather than a 2+. Just like most reasonable Eldar players would be ok with 4+ armour Windriders.
Most suits are 3+ and look like the same tech, Broadsides and Riptides should be as well. And definitely T5 for the Broadsides, maybe 3W.
The riptide would be twice as vulnerable to small arms fire. It means you can engage one with things not designed specifically to kill one twice as well.
I'd gladly have broadsides be 3+ if they were made T5 just so they couldn't be ID'd by missiles. Even better if they gave them an extra wound.
I don't have a good answer for riptides. I do like the idea of changing the weapons around a bit, which may help fix them. I have always been a fan of the Heavy Burst Cannon and rarely take the Ion Cannon option.
Good point on creating the need for spammable AP2. That's a problem. My thought was that dropping to 3+ makes it a little too vulnerable to radium weapons and massed light arms fire, but I could probably be persuaded otherwise.
My thinking is that the Ghostkeel, with its cover hax, is designed to soak up lascannons, krak missiles and other such long-ranged, heavy firepower - but with T5/3+, is more vulnerable to massed bolters and bolter-class weapons. On the other hand, the Riptide should be highly resistant to that kind of thing - but have more limited defenses against heavy weapons (which is why the 3++ is now gone). Though, again, I could be convinced otherwise.
Heavy Burst Cannon R36 S5 AP5 Heavy 10
R36 S5 AP4 Heavy 15, Rending, Nova-Charge
Riptide Cyclic Ion Raker R24 S7 AP4 Heavy 6
R24 S8 AP3 Heavy 1, Large Blast, Gets Hot (Overcharge)
R24 S9 AP2 Ordnance 1, Large Blast, Gets Hot, Nova-Charge, Long Cycle Time
Now the HBC has a bit better range and base AP4 when nova-charged, the CIR is slightly better than the Ghostkeel version, but ranges are still short enough to force the Riptide into plasma/grav/shuricannon range, and maybe even assault range.
Why WS1/A1 when these are all veteran xv8 pilots? Might as well follow the Shas'vre statline.
I fail to see the issue with the current HBC. Your burst tide is effectively a squad of 3 HB cents without psychic support. It is effectively a cold star suit without the ability to fly, and how often do you see those? Plus another s5 weapon for Tau seems malicious.
As for the ion gun, why not just use the hammerhead gun, with a different nova style. . This is a heavy combat mech, meant to have heavy guns. Not a slightly heavier ghostkeel without cloaking systems.
Rng 60" S7 ap3 heavy 3
Rng 60" s8 ap3 large blast heavy 1
Rng 60" S8 ap3 large blast, gets hot heavy d3 (roll for gets hot once, you already passed Nova)
Charging for the SMS is silly. It's not like Tau are lacking ignore cover S5AP5.
Losing MC is fine, but the Nova nerf seems unnecessary/heavy- handed. Might as well make it once per game ability at that point. And Nova Hazard once again just feels malicious. Can we give something similar to cents?
I do like the idea of a bunker with 3 riptides in it though.
StarHunter25 wrote: Why WS1/A1 when these are all veteran xv8 pilots? Might as well follow the Shas'vre statline.
I fail to see the issue with the current HBC. Your burst tide is effectively a squad of 3 HB cents without psychic support. It is effectively a cold star suit without the ability to fly, and how often do you see those? Plus another s5 weapon for Tau seems malicious.
As for the ion gun, why not just use the hammerhead gun, with a different nova style. . This is a heavy combat mech, meant to have heavy guns. Not a slightly heavier ghostkeel without cloaking systems.
Rng 60" S7 ap3 heavy 3
Rng 60" s8 ap3 large blast heavy 1
Rng 60" S8 ap3 large blast, gets hot heavy d3 (roll for gets hot once, you already passed Nova)
Charging for the SMS is silly. It's not like Tau are lacking ignore cover S5AP5.
Losing MC is fine, but the Nova nerf seems unnecessary/heavy- handed. Might as well make it once per game ability at that point. And Nova Hazard once again just feels malicious. Can we give something similar to cents?
I do like the idea of a bunker with 3 riptides in it though.
With the loss of MC, going to a shas'vre statline is probably fine: at that point it'd only be as effective in melee as a Crisis Shas'vre, which is scary to... well, Rhinos. So yeah, that's probably fine.
Ok, good thought on the HBC. I know massed S6/7 is generally an issue because it kills far too many things, but point, S5 probably isn't enough here with as much as Tau get. So, revise all those profiles above to read "S6" vice "S5".
As for the ion weapon, I specifically avoided the long-range versions because the combination of T6/2+ and better-than-heavy-bolter range is why people complain about Riptides being immortal: you can't get close enough for anything with enough volume, and half the time they even outrange lascannons and missile launchers.
Charging for the SMS is mostly because it draws so much hate, and because the fusion/plasma invites getting close, once again, which mitigates the "damn thing can't be killed" complaint.
Nova Hazard: my thought was that there might be abusive combinations possible if you could join with Commanders, Ethereals, etc. Maybe that's not necessary, but the last thing I want is to open Yet Another Frelling Abuse Vector. There are enough of those already. Also, the Nova Reactor's shield buff is gone, so maybe the disable bit isn't needed - however, you can now take invulnerable saves against nova failures, and it only dies on two consecutive fails, not a single fail. I'm divided on that, and I'd like to hear what other folks think.
I really don't think riptides need a nerf. Yes they are strong, but they need marker support to be effective and their offence is not that strong for their points cost.
What makes them over the top is the riptide wing. Being able to fire twice and reroll nova reactor is too strong. Strip this formation and they wouldn't be nearly as potent..
I should point out that even with the riptide wing, tau are still behind the other top tier armies. You can take nothing but riptide wings and marker platforms and you would still lose eldar / marines / demons.
You need to define what 'irreparably damaged' means in game terms, and also why is that a thing? Does the random dice roll that can hurt you that leads to your weapon randomly getting hot and also hurting you really need a third way to hurt you?
Losing MC is fine, but the 'tide should still have MtC, it's larger than most ruins. Traversing them shouldn't be an issue.
It does still have MtC, actually. The HBC lost Gets Hot. The IA/CIR still has it, because it's a feature of all ion weapons.
As far as the nova reactor goes, my original thought was "two consecutive failures, and the nova reactor never works again", to discourage abuse - but then I also diked out the 3++ option. So, yeah, maybe that can go.
jade_angel wrote: It does still have MtC, actually. The HBC lost Gets Hot. The IA/CIR still has it, because it's a feature of all ion weapons.
As far as the nova reactor goes, my original thought was "two consecutive failures, and the nova reactor never works again", to discourage abuse - but then I also diked out the 3++ option. So, yeah, maybe that can go.
Why can every other suit in the tau codex except for the riptide buy a 4++? If you remove the option for 3++ nova charge then you need to be able to buy a baseline upgrade to 4++.
lusciifi wrote: I really don't think riptides need a nerf. Yes they are strong, but they need marker support to be effective and their offence is not that strong for their points cost.
What makes them over the top is the riptide wing. Being able to fire twice and reroll nova reactor is too strong. Strip this formation and they wouldn't be nearly as potent..
I should point out that even with the riptide wing, tau are still behind the other top tier armies. You can take nothing but riptide wings and marker platforms and you would still lose eldar / marines / demons.
Yeah, they do. Their durability is completely out of line for a model of that cost. And the ion accelerator is one of the most broken things in the game, as it single-handedly makes all 2+ infantry useless.
jade_angel wrote: It does still have MtC, actually. The HBC lost Gets Hot. The IA/CIR still has it, because it's a feature of all ion weapons.
As far as the nova reactor goes, my original thought was "two consecutive failures, and the nova reactor never works again", to discourage abuse - but then I also diked out the 3++ option. So, yeah, maybe that can go.
Why can every other suit in the tau codex except for the riptide buy a 4++? If you remove the option for 3++ nova charge then you need to be able to buy a baseline upgrade to 4++.
No. It's too durable otherwise, and we end up in the exact same place. Units die. You are going to take losses. Learn to get used to it instead of being immortal out at 60". Those suits get 4++ because Tau OP. MCs shouldn't be getting iron halos. They have multiple wounds and T6+ already.
lusciifi wrote: I really don't think riptides need a nerf. Yes they are strong, but they need marker support to be effective and their offence is not that strong for their points cost.
What makes them over the top is the riptide wing. Being able to fire twice and reroll nova reactor is too strong. Strip this formation and they wouldn't be nearly as potent..
I should point out that even with the riptide wing, tau are still behind the other top tier armies. You can take nothing but riptide wings and marker platforms and you would still lose eldar / marines / demons.
Yeah, they do. Their durability is completely out of line for a model of that cost. And the ion accelerator is one of the most broken things in the game, as it single-handedly makes all 2+ infantry useless.
jade_angel wrote: It does still have MtC, actually. The HBC lost Gets Hot. The IA/CIR still has it, because it's a feature of all ion weapons.
As far as the nova reactor goes, my original thought was "two consecutive failures, and the nova reactor never works again", to discourage abuse - but then I also diked out the 3++ option. So, yeah, maybe that can go.
Why can every other suit in the tau codex except for the riptide buy a 4++? If you remove the option for 3++ nova charge then you need to be able to buy a baseline upgrade to 4++.
No. It's too durable otherwise, and we end up in the exact same place. Units die. You are going to take losses. Learn to get used to it instead of being immortal out at 60". Those suits get 4++ because Tau OP. MCs shouldn't be getting iron halos. They have multiple wounds and T6+ already.
And yet none of this is enough to let tau win tournaments. If you are going to nerf tau mc's then you need to look at quite a bit of broken units from other factions first.
You say the IA is the most broken weapon in the game and yet its terrible against most competitive lists. Terrible against knights/vehicles, terrible against bike/wolf-stars, terrible against gladius, terrible against demons.
You say its this unkillable behemoth and yet its nothing compared to what the other factions can bring. 3++ is nothing compaired to the 2++ REROLLABLE that demons can bring to the table.
On top of all of this, it cant (rightfuly so) stand toe to toe with melee focused units, meaning you are going to concede huge parts of the board to keep them safe.
Just one final point to consider. If the IA is so powerful and negates every 2+ unit in the game, then why do most tournament list take the HBC?
Other armies absolutely also have broken cheese; this thread is not about those armies. A fartload of threads have already addressed Eldar to a point. Wanna address Daemons or Marines? Fork another thread for those - Daemons especially, because they basically have "broken cheese" and "worthless garbage", with precious little in between.
Also: what sucks about the IA is the *combination* of range, AP2 large blast, Interceptor and being on a durable, mobile platform. Any of these alone is not broken. Together, it is. EWO+IA makes drop pods tricky and deep-striking jump packs almost useless. TWC can survive it, centstars can survive it. Nothing in the BA or GK arsenals really can, and even DA are in some trouble other than their powerful Lion's Blade.
jade_angel wrote: It does still have MtC, actually. The HBC lost Gets Hot. The IA/CIR still has it, because it's a feature of all ion weapons.
As far as the nova reactor goes, my original thought was "two consecutive failures, and the nova reactor never works again", to discourage abuse - but then I also diked out the 3++ option. So, yeah, maybe that can go.
Why can every other suit in the tau codex except for the riptide buy a 4++? If you remove the option for 3++ nova charge then you need to be able to buy a baseline upgrade to 4++.
They can because all of them are vulnerable to instant death (T4, or T5 for the Ghostkeel) and/or have no other invuln save (Stormsurge). The Riptide has T6, so no double-outs, has a 5++ base, and, to boot, can still get FNP, and has 2+ armor.
The shield generator is marginal on everything but Commanders and Stormsurges anyway. Commanders have all the business in the world having some survivability, as the big cheese. They can be as tough as a Chapter Master, they pay for it. (Stimiridium Commander == Iron Hands CM, Bike, Artificer Armor, Sons of Medusa Strike Force, give or take.) They can outshoot a Chapter Master, sure, but he can outpunch almost anything, so I'd call that mostly fair most of the time against most opponents.
If all these changes went though you would almost guaranteed lose your riptides to drop pod grav with no ability to counter play.
Even without nerfs EWO + IA riptides rarely make their points back for me. I understand AP2 is scary but the riptide is not as OP as people make it out to be.
lusciifi wrote: If all these changes went though you would almost guaranteed lose your riptides to drop pod grav with no ability to counter play.
Even without nerfs EWO + IA riptides rarely make their points back for me. I understand AP2 is scary but the riptide is not as OP as people make it out to be.
Except it is. You need to bring VERY specific units to have a hope against the Riptide. Interestingly, those units are the exact units you listed off as the reason why the Riptide "isn't that good". The reality is that the Riptide has forced every other unit out of competitive play. BA, CSM, and Orks have nothing. We just lose. We can't kill the Riptide, and we can't survive its fire.
"drop pod grav with no ability to counter play. "
You mean skyhammer .Because regular drop grav can't get the job done. I have that in the BA, and it sucks.
lusciifi wrote: If all these changes went though you would almost guaranteed lose your riptides to drop pod grav with no ability to counter play.
Even without nerfs EWO + IA riptides rarely make their points back for me. I understand AP2 is scary but the riptide is not as OP as people make it out to be.
Except it is. You need to bring VERY specific units to have a hope against the Riptide. Interestingly, those units are the exact units you listed off as the reason why the Riptide "isn't that good". The reality is that the Riptide has forced every other unit out of competitive play. BA, CSM, and Orks have nothing. We just lose. We can't kill the Riptide, and we can't survive its fire.
"drop pod grav with no ability to counter play. "
You mean skyhammer .Because regular drop grav can't get the job done. I have that in the BA, and it sucks.
Then suggest buffs to BA not nerfs to the riptide. I have not met an opponent in a tournament that has had issue killing my riptides yet.
And again, all of the lists I see use HBC in riptide wings over IA+EWO. Fact is, volume of fire outweighs a single pie plate against most strong lists.
Its a fallacy to suggest that orks, csm and BA suddenly become godtier if you nerf the riptide into the ground.
There is no reasonable buff to BA that lets them survive the ion accelerator. Of course, that used to be true of SW until TWC. Pepple keep asking about BA buffs, but I think the age of the meq is over, and BA is a list full of meqs. We have no cents, no TWC, no free transports to make everything better.
How are the Riptides dying? Because conventional Imperial heavy weapons are basically useless, as is melta.
Melta does get the job done, if you have enough of it. Trouble is, the only Imperial army that does have enough of it is Sisters, and they lack ways to get it there, along with their other acknowledged weaknesses. The only armies that can get enough melta close enough, in my experience, are Tau and Eldar; maybe Dark Eldar sometimes, but theirs is S6 (or not Melta, but against MCs, blasters are fine.)
The IA, by the way, isn't actually all that good against Rhino-spam lists, but it excels against drop pods or other deep strikers, especially with the Drone Net to allow Intercepting markerlights, too. (There are a few other inefficient ways to get Interceptor on markerlights, but the Drone Net is easily the most effective.)
In fact, against deep striking gaggles, it's pretty much unreasonable: "Oh hi. Die," unless the scatter is bad or you get bitten by Gets Hot.
My Riptides do die to being drowned in saves if I operate up close, though - which I usually do, because its job isn't so much to kill stuff, as it is to keep my Crisis/Stealth squads from having to soak up a zillion shots. Crisis Suits, after all, aren't all that tough: it's easy to spend 200 points on something only a little more durable than eight Marines. (That has hella firepower, granted - that's why they aren't broken. They hit like a pissed-off missile, but aren't terribly hard to kill.)
How are the Riptides dying? Because conventional Imperial heavy weapons are basically useless, as is melta.
Lets see..
1. Psychic shriek spam.
2. CSM cabal controlling my own units.
3. Deathstars, screamer/TWC/bikes, take your pick.
4. Grav spam
5. WK's, wraith guard, really anything with D
6. Anything with a lot of vehicles, especially IK.
You are still rocking a 5++/5+++ minimum. Go to 3++ and this power becomes worthless.
2. CSM cabal controlling my own units.
Ironically, short of Stormsurge D-missiles, Tau are pretty inept at killing 2+ armor MCs.
3. Deathstars, screamer/TWC/bikes, take your pick.
Deathstars are a viable counter. But BA have not deathstars.
4. Grav spam
Only grav cannons. Grav guns don't have the shots to matter. Even then, the most popular grav cannon deployment scheme is hard-countered by Tau EWO. I frankly am not sure how any grav-toting unit lives long enough to get within range without invisibility.
5. WK's, wraith guard, really anything with D
That's true. Str D is quite useful vs T6 MCs with FNP, as it ignores both of these features. The BA seem fresh out of D weapons. As do most imperial lists.
5++/5+++ still means you are taking an average of 1.5 wounds from psychic shriek and I've been hit with 4+ a turn.
Its not just grav cannons, grav guns on bikes are terrifying, especially with whit scars.
Riptides also don't do well against vehicle spam, heavy armor like the IK will get to the ripide by the end almost guaranteed, and it will take out the smaller units on its way there.
They're gak. I have them. They don't cause enough wounds vs Riptides and the like. If you really don't like them though, ignore cover pie plate them off the table from 60" away like a boss.
"Riptides also don't do well against vehicle spam"
Fortunately for you, vehicles are downright terrible.
"5++/5+++ still means you are taking an average of 1.5 wounds from psychic shriek and I've been hit with 4+ a turn. "
That's an insane amount of effort put in to kill a single MC. That's at least four pskyers all within shriek range, all with telepathy. Why are you letting them get so close?
One of the top players at our store who placed top 50 at last years LVO uses whitescars grav bikes almost exclusively. Start 24 away, scout 12, move 12, oh look you are in range.
My meta including tourny play, has quite a few people playing armored IG or renegades and I think about half of the imperial lists included an IK. They seam to do plenty well to me.
You cant just hide in a corner all game, you need to be grabbing mid field objectives, so yes the psykers can reach you. Ive also played against hemlock wings, good luck getting out of range of psychic flyers.
lusciifi wrote: One of the top players at our store who placed top 50 at last years LVO uses whitescars grav bikes almost exclusively. Start 24 away, scout 12, move 12, oh look you are in range.
My meta including tourny play, has quite a few people playing armored IG or renegades and I think about half of the imperial lists included an IK. They seam to do plenty well to me.
You cant just hide in a corner all game, you need to be grabbing mid field objectives, so yes the psykers can reach you. Ive also played against hemlock wings, good luck getting out of range of psychic flyers.
You can hide in the corner and win once you've killed 90% of the opponent's list. Trivially, might I add.
IKs are awful compared to WKs. They have a niche in being pretty resistant to most Tau weapons other than D-missiles, but Eldar eat them up so fast I can't see them as a good choice.
Getting in range isn't the issue. It's that the grav guns themselves can't generate enough wounds to threaten a 5++/5+++ W5 model with an option for 3++.
The riptide should have been a AV12/12/11 Walker with a jump pack.
Same goes for the Dreadknight and the Wraithknight (maybe the wraithknight can be 13/13/12 for being made out of wraithbone). CSM had to deal with the monstrosity that is the Forge Fiend and Maulerfiend, and those are more likely to be actual MCs than the Riptide and knights.
Bharring wrote: WK shouldnt get AV13. Not even the Rev. Titan gets that. The ONLY AV13 CWE can field is the Phantom Titan, which is over 2k points on its own.
I'd prefer it. By a lot. T8 3+/5+++ is more durable than your Titans. That's a problem.
That's fine that you don't see IK as a good choice but plenty of players around me make them work.
A single grav gun will do on average 1 wound so yes, a big squad of grav bikers scares me.
You cant hide in the corner all game, that's not how ITC or nova missions work. You will lose out points if you are not in the fray holding points all game. Also I cant remember the last time I tabled an opponent in a tounement setting.
Bharring wrote: WK shouldnt get AV13. Not even the Rev. Titan gets that. The ONLY AV13 CWE can field is the Phantom Titan, which is over 2k points on its own.
I'd prefer it. By a lot. T8 3+/5+++ is more durable than your Titans. That's a problem.
Ive played against both and I strongly disagree. Holofields make the eldar titans more durable then even their imperial counterparts. Saying a WK is even close to that level is hyperbole to the nth degree.
"A single grav gun will do on average 1 wound so yes, a big squad of grav bikers scares me. "
The real math is this:
It takes 20 BS 4 grav gun shots to kill a Stimtide. This goes to 27 shots with a toe in ruins. This bloats up to an incredible 40 shots with the 3++ shield up.
Biker squads by default can have two grav guns with a total of SIX shots. You need FIVE combi-gravs in the squad to make up the other 14 shots.
Martel732 wrote: "A single grav gun will do on average 1 wound so yes, a big squad of grav bikers scares me. "
The real math is this:
It takes 20 BS 4 grav gun shots to kill a Stimtide. This goes to 27 shots with a toe in ruins. This bloats up to an incredible 40 shots with the 3++ shield up.
Biker squads by default can have two grav guns with a total of SIX shots. You need FIVE combi-gravs in the squad to make up the other 14 shots.
Are you opponents perhaps cheating?
You know you can have more then one squad of bikes right? I don't claim to know every facet of the C:SM but I do know I've been tabled playing tau lists with riptide wings and stormsurges against what scar's biker lists.
How are the Riptides dying? Because conventional Imperial heavy weapons are basically useless, as is melta.
Lets see..
1. Psychic shriek spam.
2. CSM cabal controlling my own units.
3. Deathstars, screamer/TWC/bikes, take your pick.
4. Grav spam
5. WK's, wraith guard, really anything with D
6. Anything with a lot of vehicles, especially IK.
YOU DO UNDERSTAND THIS THIS HAS AN AP2 BATTLE CANNON.... right ? it should never be close to anything that can hurt it unless it wants to be? It also has 5 point access to EWO. I've never actually lost a riptide in game...Never. It is a indestructible mobile artillery piece with counter charge potential. Just this Saturday my solo riptide was the MVP of my game. Flying circus flew into my lines - long story short - it was my riptide vs fatey. Riptide shot him out of the sky - charged and 1 shot him with a smash attack. Hitting on a 3+ with ws2 is rare but seriously...I could punk a greater daemon in CC every turn if i got lucky - with very little chance of dying.
Martel732 wrote: "A single grav gun will do on average 1 wound so yes, a big squad of grav bikers scares me. "
The real math is this:
It takes 20 BS 4 grav gun shots to kill a Stimtide. This goes to 27 shots with a toe in ruins. This bloats up to an incredible 40 shots with the 3++ shield up.
Biker squads by default can have two grav guns with a total of SIX shots. You need FIVE combi-gravs in the squad to make up the other 14 shots.
Are you opponents perhaps cheating?
You know you can have more then one squad of bikes right? I don't claim to know every facet of the C:SM but I do know I've been tabled playing tau lists with riptide wings and stormsurges against what scar's biker lists.
They were probably using the inferior riptide option. The HBC. The ion accelerator just kites the bikes with 4d6 thrust move LOL. In gerneral - I'd consider losing to space marines with tau a great disgrace to the codex. The codex is literally designed to destroy space marines.
How are the Riptides dying? Because conventional Imperial heavy weapons are basically useless, as is melta.
Lets see..
1. Psychic shriek spam.
2. CSM cabal controlling my own units.
3. Deathstars, screamer/TWC/bikes, take your pick.
4. Grav spam
5. WK's, wraith guard, really anything with D
6. Anything with a lot of vehicles, especially IK.
YOU DO UNDERSTAND THIS THIS HAS AN AP2 BATTLE CANNON.... right ? it should never be close to anything that can hurt it unless it wants to be? It also has 5 point access to EWO. I've never actually lost a riptide in game...Never. It is a indestructible mobile artillery piece with counter charge potential. Just this Saturday my solo riptide was the MVP of my game. Flying circus flew into my lines - long story short - it was my riptide vs fatey. Riptide shot him out of the sky - charged and 1 shot him with a smash attack. Hitting on a 3+ with ws2 is rare but seriously...I could punk a greater daemon in CC every turn if i got lucky - with very little chance of dying.
you do understand how lucky you got, right? 1/6 chance to hit, 5/6 chance to wound 8/36 to get through the invuln (3++ reroll 1's) with only 3 shots for a total of 9% to hit once and thats assuming he didnt have any psychic powers buffing that durability. Then on top of all that 1/3 to fail the grounding test.
Yes a firewarrior can kill a termie per round in cc too, that dosnt make them op.
Martel732 wrote: "A single grav gun will do on average 1 wound so yes, a big squad of grav bikers scares me. "
The real math is this:
It takes 20 BS 4 grav gun shots to kill a Stimtide. This goes to 27 shots with a toe in ruins. This bloats up to an incredible 40 shots with the 3++ shield up.
Biker squads by default can have two grav guns with a total of SIX shots. You need FIVE combi-gravs in the squad to make up the other 14 shots.
Are you opponents perhaps cheating?
You know you can have more then one squad of bikes right? I don't claim to know every facet of the C:SM but I do know I've been tabled playing tau lists with riptide wings and stormsurges against what scar's biker lists.
They were probably using the inferior riptide option. The HBC. The ion accelerator just kites the bikes with 4d6 thrust move LOL. In gerneral - I'd consider losing to space marines with tau a great disgrace to the codex. The codex is literally designed to destroy space marines.
Either you are trolling you you just dont have much experiance playing high tier lists because tau does not not win against space marines on average at a tournament competitive level.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Unless your opponent has no idea what they are doing and bunches up their units the HBC does better then the IA against almost every target.
Martel732 wrote: "A single grav gun will do on average 1 wound so yes, a big squad of grav bikers scares me. "
The real math is this:
It takes 20 BS 4 grav gun shots to kill a Stimtide. This goes to 27 shots with a toe in ruins. This bloats up to an incredible 40 shots with the 3++ shield up.
Biker squads by default can have two grav guns with a total of SIX shots. You need FIVE combi-gravs in the squad to make up the other 14 shots.
Are you opponents perhaps cheating?
You know you can have more then one squad of bikes right? I don't claim to know every facet of the C:SM but I do know I've been tabled playing tau lists with riptide wings and stormsurges against what scar's biker lists.
Learn more about your opponent's codex. You'll do better.
Martel732 wrote: "A single grav gun will do on average 1 wound so yes, a big squad of grav bikers scares me. "
The real math is this:
It takes 20 BS 4 grav gun shots to kill a Stimtide. This goes to 27 shots with a toe in ruins. This bloats up to an incredible 40 shots with the 3++ shield up.
Biker squads by default can have two grav guns with a total of SIX shots. You need FIVE combi-gravs in the squad to make up the other 14 shots.
Are you opponents perhaps cheating?
You know you can have more then one squad of bikes right? I don't claim to know every facet of the C:SM but I do know I've been tabled playing tau lists with riptide wings and stormsurges against what scar's biker lists.
Learn more about your opponent's codex. You'll do better.
Are you really going to claim that tau is a higher tier codex then SM right now?
No, but you shouldn't be getting pushed around so easily, either. WS bikers are definitely a top tier build, but ignore cover IA should be able to do a tremendous amount of damage. If you are using the burst cannon, maybe mix it up. Personally, I don't fear the burst cannon at all, as you have vastly inferior firepower to a scatterbike squad. I'm used to be tabled by turn 3-4, but that's by Tau and Eldar going with balls-out builds.
How to test your build. Find a BA or CSM player. With your Tau, there should be no enemy models left by turn 4. If there are, you are killy enough.
Martel732 wrote: No, but you shouldn't be getting pushed around so easily, either. WS bikers are definitely a top tier build, but ignore cover IA should be able to do a tremendous amount of damage. If you are using the burst cannon, maybe mix it up. Personally, I don't fear the burst cannon at all, as you have vastly inferior firepower to a scatterbike squad. I'm used to be tabled by turn 3-4, but that's by Tau and Eldar going with balls-out builds.
If you go IA you get destroyed by demons, eldar, FMC, flyers and vehicles which accounts for most of the meta in my area. Literally the only thing you do better against is MEQ/TEQ spam and only if they chose to group up more then they should. But the gladius lists will still win by holding on to objectives with all of their ob-sec vehicles.
Im not saying tau is a lost cause or on the same tier as BA/orks, most of the tau players I have seen in tournaments including me when I chose to play tau end up in the middle of the field, I have yet to see a tau in the top 5.
I never said that tau does badly against BA, again I think BA could use some love
"If you go IA you get destroyed by demons, eldar, FMC, flyers and vehicles"
You know, you do have other units in your list. Better and cheaper options than conventional marines, even.You could go EWO with the IA and then go skyfire on the broadsides. You wouldn't crush pods as hard, but you delete one flyer a turn, even if they jink. I think the IA is so good at what it does, you have to use at least two. I don't see the burst cannon saving you from the other things you listed. I see HYMP and crisis suit weapons doing that.
The IA is even better vs the Gladius, because you can follow the wreck vehicle -> pie plate squad protocol. It's still uphill, because gladius is the best horde list EVAR.
That's a rock-paper-scissors problem. Gladius is exactly the kind of list that the IA sucks against, BTW. So is Nidzilla, but you don't see Nidzilla at very many tournaments, either.
I've found that Crisiswing lists shut down Gladius reasonably well, most of the time - but they kinda bite against scatbikes and Spiders, or against TWC.
That said, the problem with the IA is not that it dominates the tournament scene, but that in a great many non-tournament environments, it's the obviously ultimate choice.
jade_angel wrote: That's a rock-paper-scissors problem. Gladius is exactly the kind of list that the IA sucks against, BTW. So is Nidzilla, but you don't see Nidzilla at very many tournaments, either.
I've found that Crisiswing lists shut down Gladius reasonably well, most of the time - but they kinda bite against scatbikes and Spiders, or against TWC.
That said, the problem with the IA is not that it dominates the tournament scene, but that in a great many non-tournament environments, it's the obviously ultimate choice.
EDIT: The HBC is a pretty good AA weapon, though.
IA is decent vs gladius, but only decent. Which doesn't cut it. The main failing is that when you crack the AV 11 crackerbox with missile pods, you are nuking cheapo tac marines who maybe have a grav cannon. Not a very good money shot.
Not super-efficient, no, but critical all the same: they hold objectives, and do it well, and that one grav cannon, multiplied by six squads, starts to get scary.
That's the trick with Gladius - no one shot, no matter how deadly, takes very much out of its overall capability. Compare that to BA: scratch that squad of 10 Death Company, or that Libby Dread, and there goes a lot of oomph, in one fell swoop. Tau kinda have that problem too, or at least stompy-robot-fest does, but that's greatly mitigated by the fact that the stompy robots take a crapload of killing.
Eldar mix it up: the WK hangs around forever. The Scatbikes and Warp Spiders crumple, being no more resilient than Marines mostly - if you can ever get a clean shot at them, and if anything's left alive to shoot back. Different problems, and they all screw things up for everything but the nastiest tournament lists.
To bring things full circle, this thread was not an attempt to balance the entire game; it was an attempt to fix the most egregious abuses associated with a unit that I really like, but that pisses off my opponents every time I even imply that I might have considered bringing more than one. Obviously, other nerfs and other buffs are desperately needed.
For example, there are units for CWE that need a buff - yes, really, despite how good their codex is overall, a few units are weaksauce. They shouldn't be. Tau have some weaksauce, too. BA and GK need some reworking. Orks, CSM and DE need some major-league rethinking that may involve goring a few sacred cows. So yeah, this is one rework among many that are needed.
Martel732 wrote: "If you go IA you get destroyed by demons, eldar, FMC, flyers and vehicles"
You know, you do have other units in your list. Better and cheaper options than conventional marines, even.You could go EWO with the IA and then go skyfire on the broadsides. You wouldn't crush pods as hard, but you delete one flyer a turn, even if they jink.
Thats all well and good but it doesn't change the fact that the math supports the HBC being better against most targets.
Assuming BS4 and they are both nova charged, we can even assume the IA will never scatter.
Against AV14
HBC - .88HP
IA - .45HP
Against AV12
HBC - 1.33HP
IA - .74HP
Against AV10
HBC - 4HP
IA - .883HP
Against WK
HBC - .88W
IA - .37W
Against Demon Prince (t5, 4++)
HBC - 2.66W
IA - .833W
for units just assume the IA hits 4 models on average
Against TWC HBC - 1.77W
IA - .92W
Against TEQ (T4 2+/5++)
HBC - 1.77W
IA - 1.85W
Against MEQ (T4 3+)
HBC - 2.66W
IA - 2.77W
Against GEQ (T3 4+)
HBC - 6.67W
IA -2.77W
The IA is only slightly ahead on MEQ/TEQ and like i said, this is assuming the blast never scatters.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
jade_angel wrote: Not super-efficient, no, but critical all the same: they hold objectives, and do it well, and that one grav cannon, multiplied by six squads, starts to get scary.
That's the trick with Gladius - no one shot, no matter how deadly, takes very much out of its overall capability. Compare that to BA: scratch that squad of 10 Death Company, or that Libby Dread, and there goes a lot of oomph, in one fell swoop. Tau kinda have that problem too, or at least stompy-robot-fest does, but that's greatly mitigated by the fact that the stompy robots take a crapload of killing.
Eldar mix it up: the WK hangs around forever. The Scatbikes and Warp Spiders crumple, being no more resilient than Marines mostly - if you can ever get a clean shot at them, and if anything's left alive to shoot back. Different problems, and they all screw things up for everything but the nastiest tournament lists.
To bring things full circle, this thread was not an attempt to balance the entire game; it was an attempt to fix the most egregious abuses associated with a unit that I really like, but that pisses off my opponents every time I even imply that I might have considered bringing more than one. Obviously, other nerfs and other buffs are desperately needed.
For example, there are units for CWE that need a buff - yes, really, despite how good their codex is overall, a few units are weaksauce. They shouldn't be. Tau have some weaksauce, too. BA and GK need some reworking. Orks, CSM and DE need some major-league rethinking that may involve goring a few sacred cows. So yeah, this is one rework among many that are needed.
I understand what you are saying but I would rather GW address what I see as the real issue. The formations that put the riptide over the top. without the riptide wing. you are failing a nova charge on average every turn and you cant put out the alpha strike to end all alpha strikes.
Automatically Appended Next Post: If theres a stanalone ( sans formations) unit that needs a nerf in the tau codex I would say its the stormsurge, not the riptide
It's interesting how you were able to produce the IA vs HBC math, but had no clue how many grav shots it actually took to bring one of these things down. From that, I can see why you would want the HBC. However, it makes this thing no less unkillable.
Martel732 wrote: It's interesting how you were able to produce the IA vs HBC math, but had no clue how many grav shots it actually took to bring one of these things down. From that, I can see why you would want the HBC. However, it makes this thing no less unkillable.
White scars can reroll to hit/wound their primary target with the Hunting Force formation which is what my friend plays.
1Grav cannon = 3 shots * 8/9 (chance to hit) * 35/36 (chance to wound) * 4/6 (chance to save) * 4/6 (fnp) = 1.15 wounds
13 or 4-5 bikes worth of shots to kill a non nova-shielded riptide.
Martel732 wrote: It's interesting how you were able to produce the IA vs HBC math, but had no clue how many grav shots it actually took to bring one of these things down. From that, I can see why you would want the HBC. However, it makes this thing no less unkillable.
White scars can reroll to hit/wound their primary target with the Hunting Force formation which is what my friend plays.
1Grav cannon = 3 shots * 8/9 (chance to hit) * 35/36 (chance to wound) * 4/6 (chance to save) * 4/6 (fnp) = 1.15 wounds
13 or 4-5 bikes worth of shots to kill a non nova-shielded riptide.
That's still a LOT of grav that has to get within 18". I suppose he's using minimum squads, though, right?
Martel732 wrote: It's interesting how you were able to produce the IA vs HBC math, but had no clue how many grav shots it actually took to bring one of these things down. From that, I can see why you would want the HBC. However, it makes this thing no less unkillable.
White scars can reroll to hit/wound their primary target with the Hunting Force formation which is what my friend plays.
1Grav cannon = 3 shots * 8/9 (chance to hit) * 35/36 (chance to wound) * 4/6 (chance to save) * 4/6 (fnp) = 1.15 wounds
13 or 4-5 bikes worth of shots to kill a non nova-shielded riptide.
That's still a LOT of grav that has to get within 18". I suppose he's using minimum squads, though, right?
A few min squads and then his death-star with a lib conclave to deny a large chunk of the field. (Turns out that force weapons + hammerhand kill riptides pretty well).
Martel732 wrote: It's interesting how you were able to produce the IA vs HBC math, but had no clue how many grav shots it actually took to bring one of these things down. From that, I can see why you would want the HBC. However, it makes this thing no less unkillable.
White scars can reroll to hit/wound their primary target with the Hunting Force formation which is what my friend plays.
1Grav cannon = 3 shots * 8/9 (chance to hit) * 35/36 (chance to wound) * 4/6 (chance to save) * 4/6 (fnp) = 1.15 wounds
13 or 4-5 bikes worth of shots to kill a non nova-shielded riptide.
That's still a LOT of grav that has to get within 18". I suppose he's using minimum squads, though, right?
A few min squads and then his death-star with a lib conclave to deny a large chunk of the field. (Turns out that force weapons + hammerhand kill riptides pretty well).
Libby conclave took a nerfbat to the face, but invisibility is still really good to get basically auto-casted. Sounds like he's allying GK as well. Or is he just picking daemonology?
Martel732 wrote: It's interesting how you were able to produce the IA vs HBC math, but had no clue how many grav shots it actually took to bring one of these things down. From that, I can see why you would want the HBC. However, it makes this thing no less unkillable.
White scars can reroll to hit/wound their primary target with the Hunting Force formation which is what my friend plays.
1Grav cannon = 3 shots * 8/9 (chance to hit) * 35/36 (chance to wound) * 4/6 (chance to save) * 4/6 (fnp) = 1.15 wounds
13 or 4-5 bikes worth of shots to kill a non nova-shielded riptide.
That's still a LOT of grav that has to get within 18". I suppose he's using minimum squads, though, right?
A few min squads and then his death-star with a lib conclave to deny a large chunk of the field. (Turns out that force weapons + hammerhand kill riptides pretty well).
Libby conclave took a nerfbat to the face, but invisibility is still really good to get basically auto-casted.
If ITC and nova decide to use the GWfaq this is true. However there's quite a bit of pushback.
Because unlike the Riptide, the T-Fex: -- does not have an invul save, -- is not a Jet-pack MC, -- has mediocre guns at best, -- does not have access to FNP (outside of having another unit cast a psychic power that's better cast on other units) -- requires a Synapse unit nearby to babysit it.
Because unlike the Riptide, the T-Fex:
-- does not have an invul save,
-- is not a Jet-pack MC,
-- has mediocre guns at best,
-- does not have access to FNP (outside of having another unit cast a psychic power that's better cast on other units)
-- requires a Synapse unit nearby to babysit it.
--
The 'fex has access to a better and more reliable cover save than the Riptide's shield, can be deepstruck to limit or eliminate mobility troubles, has access to S10, Rending and Haywire weapons, has access to FnP and the ability to heal itself. It's also immune to fear effects unlike the Riptide, doesn't wound itself when trying to use it's abilities, doesn't wound itself with Gets Hot weaponry and is even competent in CC. If anything you guys should be trying to nerf it.
Honestly, the only thing that the TFex does well is root hordes out of cover while being almost immune to their return fire (unless they have a plasma gun...)
It's just kinda poorly considered. Its supposed star weapon, the Rupture Cannon, is a two-shot AP4 weapon on a BS3 platform. That doesn't scare vehicles much (not enough hull points, can't explode non-Open-Topped), and with AP4, it doesn't scare MCs or heavy infantry much either, with that little volume of fire. And the Fleshborer Hive is just sad. And, with S6/WS3/I3/A3, it's not particularly impressive in CC either (though not useless).
It's a good example of how T6/2+ is not automatically broken cheese, and a good example of how to make a unit that's tough as nails but near irrelevant.
Actually, this makes kind of an interesting case study:
Tyrannofex: mostly useless
Dreadknight: Tough and hard-hitting, but mostly manageable.
HBC Riptide: Dangerous, especially to MCs, light vehicles and heavy infantry, but probably manageable outside of Riptide Wing or large numbers - gets close enough that grav, plasma, melta, wraithcannons, etc, will get a shot at it.
IA Riptide: Incredibly annoying and hard to deal with for anything but the armies that find it mostly irrelevant. (Stays far enough away that you're really only going to hurt it with lascannons, battle cannons, etc, then it mostly ignores those.)
You know honestly it seams people are really bent out of shape because of the IA (which i don't take anyways).
How would people feel able swapping it over to the rail gun from the hammerhead.
For people that dont know the profile:
S10 AP1 single shot
S6 AP4 Large blast
Then give the riptide the option to nova charge and add armor bane to both profiles.
That's not terrible, actually, though the Hammerhead's railgun is a bit unimpressive as it is unless you take a full squadron. (Three of them, with BS5, enhanced by one being Longstrike, is actually strong, if expensive).
My problem with the IA is not that it can throw an AP2 pie-plate. It's that it can throw an AP2 pie-plate from across the table, and doesn't have to risk using the nova reactor to do it. The HBC is more powerful against most things, but, very importantly, it cannot do what it does with impunity. You have to nova-charge to get the most out of it, and you have to be fairly close, no less than 36", and often closer. That means you'll actually need all that durability to stay alive.
By the bye, this is why I've never been a fan of proposals that both shorten the Riptide's effective range and drop it to a 3+ armor save. The 2+ is fine, and probably even needed, if you're going to operate up close. It's not fine if you can sit back 48+ inches, however.
Riptide--------------270 points
Type; Vehicle, Walker, Super Heavy
WS 2, BS 4, S 8, AV: F 12, S 12, R 10, I 2, A 2, HP 6
Weapons: Heavy Burst Cannon, Riptide Shield System, Nova Reactor
Special Rules:
Riptide Shield System: The Riptide has a 5+ Cover Save
Nova Reactor: once per turn you may choose one of these effects
-Fire any weapons twice, but any rolls to hit of a '1' will inflict a glancing hit on the Riptide. Scatter results of a 10+ will result in a glancing hit on the Riptide
-Increase the Cover Save to 3+, but any save rolls of a '1' will inflict a glancing hit
-Make an additional move in the movement phase, but must roll a dice. On a '1' or '2' the Riptide suffers a glancing hit.
All the other rules and upgrades work as they do in the codex.
Riptide--------------270 points
Type; Vehicle, Walker, Super Heavy
WS 2, BS 4, S 8, AV: F 12, S 12, R 10, I 2, A 2, HP 6
Weapons: Heavy Burst Cannon, Riptide Shield System, Nova Reactor
Special Rules:
Riptide Shield System: The Riptide has a 5+ Cover Save
Nova Reactor: once per turn you may choose one of these effects
-Fire any weapons twice, but any rolls to hit of a '1' will inflict a glancing hit on the Riptide. Scatter results of a 10+ will result in a glancing hit on the Riptide
-Increase the Cover Save to 3+, but any save rolls of a '1' will inflict a glancing hit
-Make an additional move in the movement phase, but must roll a dice. On a '1' or '2' the Riptide suffers a glancing hit.
All the other rules and upgrades work as they do in the codex.
I dont mind making it a walker but its certainly not big enough to be a super heavy.
I also don't see a reason to have all of these separate rules for nova charge damage. Just roll a d6, on a 1-2 inflicts a glancing hit.
pm713 wrote: Why does a Riptide need a 2+? TMC's need to be a lot closer and all have 3+ or worse with one exception.
On the flipside, Tyranids have MCs in every force org slot (mostly, Tervigons are weird), almost everything in the entire codex wants to get close, either to assault or use short-range guns, and they are easily capable of target saturation. Tau can't really do that (formations like the Riptide Wing notwithstanding: I concur that it's a problem). They put this one big stompy thing in your face, plus a bunch of smaller stuff with scary guns that depends on markerlight synergy. Break the web of synergy and they suddenly do much less damage. Plus, once they're close, Tau basically have to do what they set out to do quickly, or risk falling to assault. Tyranids, on the other hand, will give you a good fight if you charge them, at the very least. Some 'nids are downright terrifying in melee, at least for the price.
From another perspective, getting close with a fire sink makes for a more dynamic game than hanging back and splatting things, but that may be a matter of preference.
That said, if the nova reactor didn't inflict an unsaveable wound on a 1-2 (but instead just does nothing), but the Riptide were reduced to T6/W4/3+, would it be overcosted at 180ppm base? (And then what if it were changed from MC to Infantry?)
pm713 wrote: Why does a Riptide need a 2+? TMC's need to be a lot closer and all have 3+ or worse with one exception.
On the flipside, Tyranids have MCs in every force org slot (mostly, Tervigons are weird), almost everything in the entire codex wants to get close, either to assault or use short-range guns, and they are easily capable of target saturation. Tau can't really do that (formations like the Riptide Wing notwithstanding: I concur that it's a problem). They put this one big stompy thing in your face, plus a bunch of smaller stuff with scary guns that depends on markerlight synergy. Break the web of synergy and they suddenly do much less damage. Plus, once they're close, Tau basically have to do what they set out to do quickly, or risk falling to assault. Tyranids, on the other hand, will give you a good fight if you charge them, at the very least. Some 'nids are downright terrifying in melee, at least for the price.
Breaking the web of synergy goes a lot better for Tau than Nids.
There are no Nid units that are good at melee for the price that I can think of.
pm713 wrote: Why does a Riptide need a 2+? TMC's need to be a lot closer and all have 3+ or worse with one exception.
On the flipside, Tyranids have MCs in every force org slot (mostly, Tervigons are weird), almost everything in the entire codex wants to get close, either to assault or use short-range guns, and they are easily capable of target saturation. Tau can't really do that (formations like the Riptide Wing notwithstanding: I concur that it's a problem). They put this one big stompy thing in your face, plus a bunch of smaller stuff with scary guns that depends on markerlight synergy. Break the web of synergy and they suddenly do much less damage. Plus, once they're close, Tau basically have to do what they set out to do quickly, or risk falling to assault. Tyranids, on the other hand, will give you a good fight if you charge them, at the very least. Some 'nids are downright terrifying in melee, at least for the price.
From another perspective, getting close with a fire sink makes for a more dynamic game than hanging back and splatting things, but that may be a matter of preference.
That said, if the nova reactor didn't inflict an unsaveable wound on a 1-2 (but instead just does nothing), but the Riptide were reduced to T6/W4/3+, would it be overcosted at 180ppm base? (And then what if it were changed from MC to Infantry?)
Why should it become infantry? The largest infantry I can think of is wraithguard, it would make no sense to make something as large as a riptide infantry.
I can see the argument for it becoming a walker but not infantry.
Lictors and Carnifexes aren't actually bad for what they're meant to do, and Hormagaunts are actually pretty good (weak, but cheap and fast, and can force a lot of saves). Sure, they're not going to single-handedly beat a death star, but then, that's the point of a death star.
But, I do see your point. What about T5/W4/Sv 3+? That's the same level of durability as the Ghostkeel, though, which is cheaper. (OTOH, the Ghostkeel's cover tricks are much reduced inside of 12", and do nothing in melee).
The main thing I would change, besides nerfing the non-Nova Ion Accelerator, would be the way the Nova Reactor works.
Currently, it's "Roll die, get power." Decision-wise, there are so very few occasions where you *don't* want to roll to see if you get a bonus, that the choice is fairly underwhelming.
Personally, I like the idea of the Nova Reactor being a surge of power to one system, at the cost of forfeiting the use of that system for a turn.
Nova Reactor: The Riptide may call upon the Nova Reactor to power up a system. The Riptide may not choose the same bonus for two consecutive turns.
Nova-Charge: The Riptide may use the Nova Charge profile for its main weapon this turn. The Riptide may *not* use its main weapon next turn.
Nova Shield: The Riptide's shield provides a 2+ Invulnerable Save for this turn. The Riptide may not claim any Invulnerable Save next turn.
Boost: The Riptide gains +3" to all of its movement this turn (including regular moves, Jet Thrust Moves, assault, pursuit, etc). The Riptide may not move next turn. Should it be forced to move (due to Tank Shock/Fleeing a close combat/etc), it is automatically destroyed.
Ripple Fire: The Riptide may fire its secondary weapons twice, and they gain +1 Strength. The Riptide may not fire its secondary weapons next turn.
jade_angel wrote: Lictors and Carnifexes aren't actually bad for what they're meant to do, and Hormagaunts are actually pretty good (weak, but cheap and fast, and can force a lot of saves). Sure, they're not going to single-handedly beat a death star, but then, that's the point of a death star.
But, I do see your point. What about T5/W4/Sv 3+? That's the same level of durability as the Ghostkeel, though, which is cheaper. (OTOH, the Ghostkeel's cover tricks are much reduced inside of 12", and do nothing in melee).
I dont agree with it becoming less durable then a commander in iridium armor. That's a bit absurd to me. It should be T6/3+ at a minimum.
The ghostkeel keeps a 4+ cover save minimum even within 12in and on top of that holophoton complete counters a single shooting attack.
jade_angel wrote: Lictors and Carnifexes aren't actually bad for what they're meant to do, and Hormagaunts are actually pretty good (weak, but cheap and fast, and can force a lot of saves). Sure, they're not going to single-handedly beat a death star, but then, that's the point of a death star.
But, I do see your point. What about T5/W4/Sv 3+? That's the same level of durability as the Ghostkeel, though, which is cheaper. (OTOH, the Ghostkeel's cover tricks are much reduced inside of 12", and do nothing in melee).
It can even stay T6/2+, but it needs to pay for that and the IA needs to changed.
Now, it has been pointed out that the HBC is a better weapon against most targets other than 3+ and 2+ expensive dudes. I personally don't see this weapon that often, because I think my Tau opponents are using HYMP and Stormsurge to do the work of the HBC, and relying on the IA exclusively vs elite infantry.
I still think it's incredibly dumb that the HBC has gets hot on the nova charge. This makes it 15 X more hazardous than the IA!
I don't mind taking huge casaulties vs Tau. I don't mind even BA vs Tau being an uphill battle in general. But I DO mind getting over to the Tau and then having my surviving CC elements punched out by this thing.
Honestly smash should lose AP unless you chose to make one attack at S10 AP1. MC's can be like walkers where you need specific CCW's to get an AP value.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Honestly gets hot isn't bad at all with a 2+/5+++
lusciifi wrote: Honestly smash should lose AP unless you chose to make one attack at S10 AP1. MC's can be like walkers where you need specific CCW's to get an AP value.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Honestly gets hot isn't bad at all with a 2+/5+++
lusciifi wrote: Honestly smash should lose AP unless you chose to make one attack at S10 AP1. MC's can be like walkers where you need specific CCW's to get an AP value.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Honestly gets hot isn't bad at all with a 2+/5+++
Conceptually it's still dumb.
And once in a while, stupid things happen.
I was playing a game versus Skitarii a few months back; I had a Riptide with HBC/TLFB spearheading an advance by Crisis Suits. It had taken I think one wound from a volley of plasma fire, and then the Ruststalkers charged me. I dumped the HBC into them, nova-charged, with the aid of a few markerlights slung in by two Pathfinder squads... And when the smoke cleared, I rolled seven ones, and failed five armor saves and four FNPs. Boom, self-destruct. Stupidly long odds, but incredibly infuriating on the rare occasions when that happens.
Then again, that particular model might be cursed. It's been chopped to bits by three Assault Marines before, run off the table after being tank-shocked by a Hellhound, and died in one shooting phase to a single squad of Kabalite Warriors. (Though that Hellhound then proceeded to soak up six melta shots that all hit, without losing a single hull point, thanks to stupid dice. So maybe it's just me that's cursed...)
Yep, agreed on that for sure... (Similar reasoning is why I'd never in a million years take a plasma cannon on a Stormraven, even though it's twin-linked, even against TEQ spam. Not that anyone does that anymore.)
You guys are erally overcomplicating a simple problem.
Try riptides with the following simple changes:
1-No riptide wings exist
2-The ion accelerator has no overcharge profile, only regular or NOVA changed.
3-Remember Ordnance rules actually effect the riptide.
That's it, that's all it really needs. once you take these simple rules, riptides sit properly in the "good unit" part of the power curve, without running into the "too good" area.
Martel732 wrote: IA is never overcharged as it is. The basic profile is way too good.
The Overcharged profile is the R72 S8 AP2 Heavy 1, Large Blast, Gets Hot version, not the nova-charged S9 Ordnance version. The latter is what nobody uses. The basic profile is "S7 AP2 Heavy 3", and I don't think I've ever seen that used to cause all that much havoc.
The Overcharged version is what gets used all the time to intercept deep strikers.
Martel732 wrote: IA is never overcharged as it is. The basic profile is way too good.
Unless it's facing gladius where ordinance and +1 str becomes actually quite awesome. You will almost always be hitting 2 razors with a single direct hit - rerolling the pen. Each with the potential to 1 shot because ap2. However...unlike some dakkanuaghts here...I've basically figured I'm better off firing my broadsides into the razors and 1 shotting the unit inside with my IA. Tau doesn't lose to gladius...tau doesn't care about gladius. Tau loses to super-friends death-stars unless they get lucky with a SS stomp. Then again...what shooting army doesn't lose to super friends death-stars?
Also...I've basically figured if you want str 7 shooting it's everywhere in the tau codex. It's AP2 that the codex actually limits in an affordable way- and riptides with marker support are actually the cheapest way to deal with heavily armored units. EWO combo with it is game breaking as it hard counters deep strike marines...basically the only viable source of deep-strike in the game.
oldzoggy wrote: balancing is simple -> Make them vehicles / walkers.
Give them 3HP AV 13/12/12 and you are done.
It's simple until the Tau players start in on the fluff reason why it shouldn't be that way.
Or, alternatively, everyone complains because you need S7 to hurt it now, while S3 can potentially hurt T6. In a lot of the threads where that idea's come up before, that complaint has come up.
But, on the gripping hand, AV13 does succeed quite handily in making it immune to light weapons but potentially insta-killed by heavy ones, so it mostly succeeds in the role of "draw lascannons and similar stuff away from the Crisis Suits". Would AV13/5++ be too much? (Oh, and there's the Stimulant Injector, too. Vehicles can't have FNP, so would that give IWND? Would you pay 35 points to have IWND on an Ironclad Dread?)
Martel732 wrote: Scatbikes will get on it's side and HP it out through the AV 12. AV 13/12/12 walker is actually a huge, huge nerf.
no kidding...and any penetrating hit means it's not shooting an ap2 pie plate. It would become practically unusable and you'd see a whole lot more farsite bombs...or SS spam. Not a great way yo deal with this. The best way to deal with this is a cost increase to around 275 points. Or a wound decrease. to 3 or 4.
EWO combo with it is game breaking as it hard counters deep strike marines...basically the only viable source of deep-strike in the game.
Khorne forbid we should have some change going on, maybe make the space marine player use a couple other formations that don't rely on deep strike?
I like martel's idea of bring the Cyclic Ion Raker of sorts to the riptide. I personally think it needs to be natively stronger because of the nova engine than the ghost keel, but that can be 6 more inches in range, or 1 improved AP so it still drops basic marines well. But that would make its weapons more consistent with range. It doesn't make much sense to run plasma/fusion with 18" range, when you can be at 36" or 72" when SMS has ignores cover at 30" no LOS.
But with that, i'd like the Ion-head adjusted to make ranged fire compensated for somehow, but on a vehicle platform which people agree is the weaker place.
PS i don't know why the entire this is in the quote box..
WS2 BS3 S5 T5 W3 I2 A3 Ld 9 Sv 3+/6++ (Nova 4++), Jet Pack Infantry, 210ppm
Weapons and options as mentioned in my initial post, except no stims anymore.
I think that's too much durability lost at the price, but my opinion seems to be in the minority.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
pumaman1 wrote: <kersnippity>
I like martel's idea of bring the Cyclic Ion Raker of sorts to the riptide. I personally think it needs to be natively stronger because of the nova engine than the ghost keel, but that can be 6 more inches in range, or 1 improved AP so it still drops basic marines well. But that would make its weapons more consistent with range. It doesn't make much sense to run plasma/fusion with 18" range, when you can be at 36" or 72" when SMS has ignores cover at 30" no LOS.
But with that, i'd like the Ion-head adjusted to make ranged fire compensated for somehow, but on a vehicle platform which people agree is the weaker place.
<snip>
I did propose a slightly modified CIR, actually. Range chopped to 24" (use the HBC if you want a bit more range), Overcharge is AP3, nova-charge is AP2, but base is still AP4. (But Heavy 6 like the Ghostkeel).
WS2 BS3 S5 T5 W3 I2 A3 Ld 9 Sv 3+/6++ (Nova 4++), Jet Pack Infantry, 210ppm
Weapons and options as mentioned in my initial post, except no stims anymore.
I think that's too much durability lost at the price, but my opinion seems to be in the minority.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
pumaman1 wrote: <kersnippity>
I like martel's idea of bring the Cyclic Ion Raker of sorts to the riptide. I personally think it needs to be natively stronger because of the nova engine than the ghost keel, but that can be 6 more inches in range, or 1 improved AP so it still drops basic marines well. But that would make its weapons more consistent with range. It doesn't make much sense to run plasma/fusion with 18" range, when you can be at 36" or 72" when SMS has ignores cover at 30" no LOS.
But with that, i'd like the Ion-head adjusted to make ranged fire compensated for somehow, but on a vehicle platform which people agree is the weaker place.
<snip>
I did propose a slightly modified CIR, actually. Range chopped to 24" (use the HBC if you want a bit more range), Overcharge is AP3, nova-charge is AP2, but base is still AP4. (But Heavy 6 like the Ghostkeel).
To your question, I also think that is too much durability lost. likely 1 vindicator/demolisher shot and ID riptide 5/6 times at too many increased points. if its 3w 3+ 6++/4++ with nova (did you make it so nova doesn't remove wounds?), it just wont make it a turn, and would make it a never take unit to me. that many points, i'd rather run multiple stealth teams. same base save essentially. and 3 wounds for 90 points, and infiltrate.
WS2 BS3 S5 T5 W3 I2 A3 Ld 9 Sv 3+/6++ (Nova 4++), Jet Pack Infantry, 210ppm
Weapons and options as mentioned in my initial post, except no stims anymore.
I think that's too much durability lost at the price, but my opinion seems to be in the minority.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
pumaman1 wrote: <kersnippity>
I like martel's idea of bring the Cyclic Ion Raker of sorts to the riptide. I personally think it needs to be natively stronger because of the nova engine than the ghost keel, but that can be 6 more inches in range, or 1 improved AP so it still drops basic marines well. But that would make its weapons more consistent with range. It doesn't make much sense to run plasma/fusion with 18" range, when you can be at 36" or 72" when SMS has ignores cover at 30" no LOS.
But with that, i'd like the Ion-head adjusted to make ranged fire compensated for somehow, but on a vehicle platform which people agree is the weaker place.
<snip>
I did propose a slightly modified CIR, actually. Range chopped to 24" (use the HBC if you want a bit more range), Overcharge is AP3, nova-charge is AP2, but base is still AP4. (But Heavy 6 like the Ghostkeel).
Too much nerf. Right now it has elite range, elite durability, elite mobility for an artiliery peice, and good damage output. Anything with elite range and durability that is also mobile is broken. Reduce it's range on the IA and remove it's jetpack and I think thats a good place to start. IA 36"" and only moves 6 inch per turn witohut nova reactor thrust move -1 W and I think we have a balanced unit.
That's close to what I did in my original post, though not quite. I dropped the IA to 24", but left the jet pack: my thought it's that it's a giant Crisis Suit, not a giant Broadside. It's not meant to be an artillery piece by my reckoning. But then, maybe adjusting it to be one, while leaving the Ghostkeel as the close-support heavyweight makes more sense.
I didn't reduce it to W4, but that's possibly doable. The Ghostkeel is only W4, and I don't think it's too squishy to do its job, so that's probably fine. But, the consensus seems to be that T6/2+ is too much and 180ppm is too cheap, but I think T5/3+ at 180ppm isn't enough (the Ghostkeel is considerably cheaper, FWIW).
Too much nerf. Right now it has elite range, elite durability, elite mobility for an artiliery peice, and good damage output. Anything with elite range and durability that is also mobile is broken. Reduce it's range on the IA and remove it's jetpack and I think thats a good place to start. IA 36"" and only moves 6 inch per turn witohut nova reactor thrust move -1 W and I think we have a balanced unit.
It cannot thrust move without being a jetback/jetbike. So it would have to keep its jetpack to have a thrust move in the assault phase. Further, its entire deal is its a large as can be made "crisis suit" by virtue of its experimental reactor. If you take away the jetpack, then you have the stormsurge, at armor 3+.
Honestly, just remove stims, just-like vectored-retro-thrusters, can't take on such a big thing, and its 1/3rd or more vulnerable, and the nova will hurt/kill it because it cannot be mitigated. Or players won't risk it at 1 or 2 wounds left.
MAYBE make armorbane special rule weapons hurt monstrous creatures d3, but that goes and hurts other factions more than it hurts the riptide. But would match the fluff of pask in a vanquisher tank dropping riptides by shooting the pilots out.
I think, broadly, that I'm OK with Armourbane, and maybe Ordnance and Melta dealing extra damage to things with a T value. (Multi-wound infantry, cavalry, beasts in addition to MC/GC - no, your Chapter Master really does not want to be hit with a Demolisher Cannon.)
I'd kinda want Tyranids to have some slightly more reliable way to at least stun tanks from a distance, but 'nids need some buffs anyway.
I just read "would you pay 35 points for IWND on a ironclad dread?" phrased in a way to imply its so ridiculously bad that nobody would ever dream of it, let alone put it in a codex.
grot riggers. that is all.
"marginally-better plasmagun" its double the range, 2 more strength and large blast. That's pretty significant.
I think the bottom line is that it shouldn't be more durable than a land raider or gorkanaut if its going to be cheaper points wise. As it stands its so cost efficient that I haven't seen a tau list in the past year without one or 2. Its so good that nobody even remembers that tau have tanks.
Melta doing extra damage to GMCs at melta range sounds like a good thing. I mean, if I stood a few feet from a riptide and shot a beam of melta into its chest where the pilot is located, I don't see how that wouldn't have the same effect as if I shot said melta into the cockpit of a land raider. Pretty sure its less metal between the tau and the exterior than a land raider, and im positive the metal isn't as strong as armoured ceramite.
edit: actually now that I think about it all vehicles should be able to shoot their guns at different targets. that's a pretty big problem between them and GMCs
jade_angel wrote: . Would AV13/5++ be too much? (Oh, and there's the Stimulant Injector, too. Vehicles can't have FNP, so would that give IWND? Would you pay 35 points to have IWND on an Ironclad Dread?)
O hell no. The whole idea was to nerf the beast and bring it back in line with all the other walkers as it should be in the first place. Not to make it one of best walkers in the game .
What do you count as "in line with other walkers"? AV11/3HP/open-topped/6++ like the Penitent Engine? AV12/3HP like the Dreadnought? AV13/3HP like the Ironclad Dread? I'll point out that all of those are cheaper.
AV10/2HP/open-topped/5++ like a War Walker? I'll point out that those are more in line with Crisis Suits (stronger/weaker, that's actually debatable).
Don Savik: I wasn't being sarcastic there. That was a serious question. Would 35 points for IWND on a 3HP walker be a fair price? It's certainly not too cheap - I'd argue it's probably too expensive. Why? Because IWND is simply not as strong as FNP, because you have to survive to use it, and can only regenerate 1 wound or HP, while FNP can, potentially, stop every single wound. (Yep, FNP is good. It's debatably too good, actually.) Are Ironclad Dreadnoughts broken? Are they broken when Iron Hands take them? (An Iron Hands ICDread has IWND, out of the box, after all.)
Also, to clarify, we're talking about the Riptide, not the Stormsurge, here. The Riptide is an MC, not a GC, and cannot fire its guns at multiple targets. If it takes a target lock and shielded missile drones, the drones can shoot one target while the suit shoots another, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that. It is a bit too good, which is the entire dang point of the thread.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Another thought here might be to delete it entirely. After all, if you have the Stormsurge as the sit-back-and-shoot suit, and the Ghostkeel as close-range fire support and fire magnet, what purpose does the Riptide serve?
I think this is where the disconnect is coming from. Folks hate having a T6/W5/2+/3++/FNP model sitting back 72" away, puking pie plates. You can't kill it, you can't escape it, you can't easily get close because it dances away. Got it. That's frustrating as all hell, I fully agree.
Re-read my original proposal. It gets rid of the 3++, and it also - importantly - gets rid of the ability to sit 72" away. Now yes, it still has the jet pack, but with a maximum range of 30", that's almost certainly less of a problem. It's also now Infantry, so it does not have Smash, and does not have AP2 melee attacks. Also doesn't have Hammer of Wrath or Fear, if that ever matters.
So the question I posed is this: Given the loss of the 3++, and the reduction of maximum range (and a nerf that makes the overcharged ion pie plate AP3 vice AP2), is T6/W5/2+/5++ still too much at 180ppm?
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: How about we just nerf the range of the Ion and make it a 10 point upgrade?
The issue is that it has great damage output and range. Let's hit the latter part.
jade_angel wrote:May replace the Heavy Burst Cannon with a Riptide Cyclic Ion Raker: 10 pts
May take up to two items from the Support Systems List: (Costs and restrictions as per Codex)
Heavy Burst Cannon: R30 S6 AP5, Heavy 10 --OR-- R30 S6 AP4, Heavy 15, Rending, Nova-Charge (EDIT: increase to S6, nova-charged profile always has AP4)
Riptide Cyclic Ion Raker: R24 S7 AP4, Heavy 6 (EDIT: slightly different from Ghostkeel version)
R24 S8 AP3, Heavy 1, Large Blast, Gets Hot (EDIT: gains AP3 when overcharged)
R24 S9 AP2, Ordnance 1, Large Blast, Gets Hot, Nova-Charge, Long Cycle Time
Long Cycle Time: This fire mode may never be used with Interceptor.
Doing precisely that was in the original proposal, though I did modify it to have AP3 on the Overcharged version per general consensus. The Ghostkeel's ion weapon (which is what I based this on) is still AP4 when Overcharged.
Martel732 wrote: I still don't think it should have AP2 without nova charge. Make them make some decisions with the nova charge, instead of perma-3++
That's also why I dropped the 3++ like a hot rock. The Riptide should be resistant to small arms in the extreme, but fairly vulnerable to anything with AP2. The nova-charged shield pretty much removes that weakness, thus, it needs to go.
I was being minimalist. Even if it had the 3++, still dropping the overcharge of the IA to AP 3 will force more decisions. Alternatively, you could make the NOVA charge shield 4++, like the Stormsurge.
All true. I think the combination of dropping to AP3, losing the 3++, dropping the range by a lot and changing MC to Infantry will make its high durability versus non-AP2 weaponry (and solid durability even against AP1/2) much more manageable.
jade_angel wrote: I think, broadly, that I'm OK with Armourbane, and maybe Ordnance and Melta dealing extra damage to things with a T value. .
All models where this is true should be vehicles instead of monsters really.
So....you want all monsters to become vehicles?
No I just want those who give you the feel of "why doesn't haywire or melta work against these bastards" and " poisoning that seems to bee a bit odd" to be vehicles.
Try to keep up? Well I bet you're just a swell guy to play 40k with.
Seriously why discuss the non overcharged weapons at all? I have personally never seen a tau not overcharge all their riptides as its a 1 in 6 chance to potentially take a wound that they get 2 saves against. The risk/reward is nonexistant. Even if you take a single wound on a 5 wound model, the fire power you dish out more than enough makes up for it.
I don't think anyone would complain about a 72" in. range plasma cannon with skyfire/interceptor. You can't convince me that its a mediocre gun.
Don Savik wrote: Try to keep up? Well I bet you're just a swell guy to play 40k with.
Seriously why discuss the non overcharged weapons at all? I have personally never seen a tau not overcharge all their riptides as its a 1 in 6 chance to potentially take a wound that they get 2 saves against. The risk/reward is nonexistant. Even if you take a single wound on a 5 wound model, the fire power you dish out more than enough makes up for it.
I don't think anyone would complain about a 72" in. range plasma cannon with skyfire/interceptor. You can't convince me that its a mediocre gun.
Umm. Are you sure you know what you're talking about? The nova succeeds on a 3+, and only FNP can be taken against it.
Don Savik wrote: Try to keep up? Well I bet you're just a swell guy to play 40k with.
Seriously why discuss the non overcharged weapons at all? I have personally never seen a tau not overcharge all their riptides as its a 1 in 6 chance to potentially take a wound that they get 2 saves against. The risk/reward is nonexistant. Even if you take a single wound on a 5 wound model, the fire power you dish out more than enough makes up for it.
I don't think anyone would complain about a 72" in. range plasma cannon with skyfire/interceptor. You can't convince me that its a mediocre gun.
Umm. Are you sure you know what you're talking about? The nova succeeds on a 3+, and only FNP can be taken against it.
I think he is talking about using the overcharge and not the nova profile for the Ion Accelerator. The Overcharge is Str 8 with gets hot which frees up their nova charge for stuff like 3+ invuln or 4d6 thrust move.
Don Savik wrote: Try to keep up? Well I bet you're just a swell guy to play 40k with.
Seriously why discuss the non overcharged weapons at all? I have personally never seen a tau not overcharge all their riptides as its a 1 in 6 chance to potentially take a wound that they get 2 saves against. The risk/reward is nonexistant. Even if you take a single wound on a 5 wound model, the fire power you dish out more than enough makes up for it.
I don't think anyone would complain about a 72" in. range plasma cannon with skyfire/interceptor. You can't convince me that its a mediocre gun.
Umm. Are you sure you know what you're talking about? The nova succeeds on a 3+, and only FNP can be taken against it.
I think he is talking about using the overcharge and not the nova profile for the Ion Accelerator. The Overcharge is Str 8 with gets hot which frees up their nova charge for stuff like 3+ invuln or 4d6 thrust move.
That makes a lot more sense then. That's what I get for posting so late
I don't think anyone would complain about a 72" in. range plasma cannon with skyfire/interceptor. You can't convince me that its a mediocre gun.
A large blast plasma cannon with intercept and the possibility to ignore cover and be fired at a high bs. Pfff when is that ever going to be useful.
This is balancing the riptide more or less in a vacuum, not with markerlight support, which exists in useful amount only on fragile platforms. BS3 is hardly high accuracy.
If you left the tau player with markerlights in turn 2, then you have no one to blame but yourself, or fantastically bad dice rolls.
And no riptides aren't fragile, but pathfinders and marker drones are. They are where markerlights in quantity come from. t3 5+ bs3 LD7(8 with 'ui) or t4 4+ bs2 ld7 respectively.
But if we get to pick and choose how we are balancing the "OP" units, we can theory craft an OP unit for BA in specific circumstances with certain units doing certain things. I know BA are bad, so we won't, but balance the riptide, not the other units.
And no riptides aren't fragile, but pathfinders and marker drones are. They are where markerlights in quantity come from. t3 5+ bs3 LD7(8 with 'ui) or t4 4+ bs2 ld7 respectively.
But if we get to pick and choose how we are balancing the "OP" units, we can theory craft an OP unit for BA in specific circumstances with certain units doing certain things. I know BA are bad, so we won't, but balance the riptide, not the other units.
The Riptide being functionally immortal is a serious problem that has nothing to do with the other units. Dialing up AP 2 large blast that travels 72" is a serious problem that has nothing to do with the other units. The other units just make it worse.
And no riptides aren't fragile, but pathfinders and marker drones are. They are where markerlights in quantity come from. t3 5+ bs3 LD7(8 with 'ui) or t4 4+ bs2 ld7 respectively.
But if we get to pick and choose how we are balancing the "OP" units, we can theory craft an OP unit for BA in specific circumstances with certain units doing certain things. I know BA are bad, so we won't, but balance the riptide, not the other units.
The Riptide being functionally immortal is a serious problem that has nothing to do with the other units. Dialing up AP 2 large blast that travels 72" is a serious problem that has nothing to do with the other units. The other units just make it worse.
Right, but that isn't what I am addressing with these comments. High BS at 72" isn't inherent to the riptide. In fact entirely average bs3 is inherent to it, so that 2/3rd the time it would scatter 3-6" off target and miss nearly/entirely the target. For the Functionally Immortal part, remove stimulant injectors as an option maybe reduce a wound, and now its a 4w creature, with 1/3rd less survivablity. Or leave it with those, and give it the slightly-upgraded/changed Ion raker, do make it an up close at risk unit.
BS 3 large blast is still pretty damn good. You have a 60% chance to get the template within 3" of where you put it. The ignore cover buff is way more damaging than the BS buff.
Make the failed nova charge change from a wound to just outright removing the model from the table; like the reactor going critical. I think doing that and not changing around the power of it would balance it out a bit, make people careful when it comes to charging up stuff.
Martel732 wrote: BS 3 large blast is still pretty damn good. You have a 60% chance to get the template within 3" of where you put it. The ignore cover buff is way more damaging than the BS buff.
yes, you have a 60% chance of hitting 1 model with the very edge of the template, from a 185 point minimum (225 for the version you're talking about with FNP and interceptor) super plasma cannon, that cannot fire its other weapons at that range, and needs LOS.
n0t_u wrote: Make the failed nova charge change from a wound to just outright removing the model from the table; like the reactor going critical. I think doing that and not changing around the power of it would balance it out a bit, make people careful when it comes to charging up stuff.
ok, then power of the machine spirit, you have to roll a d6, and on a 1 or 2 the vehicle explodes. makes sense? no.. it takes a wound to represent the reactor getting too warm, not exploding, like control rods in a nuclear reactor activated a little late doesn't cause a nuclear bomb, it causes too much heat. You already need to be careful because the nova reactor failing makes you lose the profile and take a wound, you don't get the shot but take a wound.
n0t_u wrote: Make the failed nova charge change from a wound to just outright removing the model from the table; like the reactor going critical. I think doing that and not changing around the power of it would balance it out a bit, make people careful when it comes to charging up stuff.
You know, I proposed a version like that a while back - a T5 version of the Riptide that takes an S10 AP1 wound on a nova failure. It was called an overnerf even by those folks who think the Riptide would be overpowered at 350 points.
(Incidentally, when a reactor "goes critical", it just turns on. You're looking for "prompt critical", and even that doesn't usually mean "kaboom".)
Martel732 wrote: BS 3 large blast is still pretty damn good. You have a 60% chance to get the template within 3" of where you put it. The ignore cover buff is way more damaging than the BS buff.
yes, you have a 60% chance of hitting 1 model with the very edge of the template, from a 185 point minimum (225 for the version you're talking about with FNP and interceptor) super plasma cannon, that cannot fire its other weapons at that range, and needs LOS.
n0t_u wrote: Make the failed nova charge change from a wound to just outright removing the model from the table; like the reactor going critical. I think doing that and not changing around the power of it would balance it out a bit, make people careful when it comes to charging up stuff.
ok, then power of the machine spirit, you have to roll a d6, and on a 1 or 2 the vehicle explodes. makes sense? no.. it takes a wound to represent the reactor getting too warm, not exploding, like control rods in a nuclear reactor activated a little late doesn't cause a nuclear bomb, it causes too much heat. You already need to be careful because the nova reactor failing makes you lose the profile and take a wound, you don't get the shot but take a wound.
I'd be fine with the odd machine spirit rebelling too really. And give them an even stronger shot if it fails and kills them or a blast around it at least. Honestly stuff like the wraithknight needs addressing more cause as it is as well the riptide needs some support to be worthy of even half the fear it seems to get online.
Martel732 wrote: BS 3 large blast is still pretty damn good. You have a 60% chance to get the template within 3" of where you put it. The ignore cover buff is way more damaging than the BS buff.
yes, you have a 60% chance of hitting 1 model with the very edge of the template, from a 185 point minimum (225 for the version you're talking about with FNP and interceptor) super plasma cannon, that cannot fire its other weapons at that range, and needs LOS.
n0t_u wrote: Make the failed nova charge change from a wound to just outright removing the model from the table; like the reactor going critical. I think doing that and not changing around the power of it would balance it out a bit, make people careful when it comes to charging up stuff.
ok, then power of the machine spirit, you have to roll a d6, and on a 1 or 2 the vehicle explodes. makes sense? no.. it takes a wound to represent the reactor getting too warm, not exploding, like control rods in a nuclear reactor activated a little late doesn't cause a nuclear bomb, it causes too much heat. You already need to be careful because the nova reactor failing makes you lose the profile and take a wound, you don't get the shot but take a wound.
A 3" deviance will let you hit a lot more than one model. 225 is far too cheap for what it brings to the table. You know what I can get for 225? Nothing REMOTELY that good.
A 5" template is 2.5" from center to end, so a 3" deviation is farther than the edge of the template.. so no, a 3" deviation will not reliably hit more than a few sparse models.
And for 1 shot per turn, 225 points is a bit to good. but there have been more reasonable suggestions, to keep it from never take status, and there have been "give it a 1/3rd chance of auto removing it from the table no saves, and more points"
pumaman1 wrote: A 5" template is 2.5" from center to end, so a 3" deviation is farther than the edge of the template.. so no, a 3" deviation will not reliably hit more than a few sparse models.
And for 1 shot per turn, 225 points is a bit to good. but there have been more reasonable suggestions, to keep it from never take status, and there have been "give it a 1/3rd chance of auto removing it from the table no saves, and more points"
I never suggested that. There are a lot of relatively minor changes that helps a lot. AP 2 -> AP 3 for the overcharged mode and range down to 36" would help a lot.
Fully agreed. As I've said a few times, it's the combination of 72" range and insane durability together that's broken, not as much either one on its own.
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Desubot wrote: personally would just say to keep the ion in line with the hammerhead one with ap3 on overcharge. ap2 for nova risk
maybe make the nova a d3 wound. or heck just make using the nova charge 1 wound per use.
and then increase the price of the IA and the options for interceptor.
im sure in these 5 pages it was already suggested though.
jade_angel wrote: Fully agreed. As I've said a few times, it's the combination of 72" range and insane durability together that's broken, not as much either one on its own.
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Desubot wrote: personally would just say to keep the ion in line with the hammerhead one with ap3 on overcharge. ap2 for nova risk
maybe make the nova a d3 wound. or heck just make using the nova charge 1 wound per use.
and then increase the price of the IA and the options for interceptor.
im sure in these 5 pages it was already suggested though.
That's fairly close to what I did - big range decrease for the IA (now a variant of the CIR), main profile is AP4, overcharge is AP3, nova-charge is AP2, slightly buffed the HBC but shortened its range.
I did leave the EWO, but it's a lot less dangerous with 24-30" range.
jade_angel wrote: That's fairly close to what I did - big range decrease for the IA (now a variant of the CIR), main profile is AP4, overcharge is AP3, nova-charge is AP2, slightly buffed the HBC but shortened its range.
I did leave the EWO, but it's a lot less dangerous with 24-30" range.
Fair enough though i dont recall the hammerhead variant of the Ion being ap4.
i think ap3 is fine in all honesty. 3 shots at str 7 is not that big a deal. i love the HBC and the way it looks so will always appreciate it being buffed a bit range is still a bit meh for me. maybe if the nova charged version had reduced range for an increase in performance. maybe even getting it to ST10 for the shorter range as a way of dealing with bike people. especially if the overcharge costs wounds to use instead of a risk of losing a wound. (it will still mince most troop anyway and anything to hurt heavy bike lists is a + in my books. i really hate that every fethin list is like 2 bike characters and bikes only. but thats a personal opinion)
i feel like EWO really needs to be very expensive or at least maybe even a signature system. its really good for what it is and its cost. and i feel interceptor shouldnt be nearly as proliferate as it is
I was going for the Ghostkeel version, not the Hammerhead version. The Hammerhead ion cannon still has 60" range, and a T6/W5/2+ beastie 60" away hucking AP3 pie-plates is only very slightly more manageable than the same beastie 72" away hucking AP2 pie-plates.
So, it's 6 shots at AP4, but only at 24". And the fact that it's got to be in range of your grav-cannons, plasma guns, meltas and every freakin' bolter in the army is why it needs such ludicrously high resistance to light weapons. But equally, it now goes from "effectively immortal, killing MEQ and TEQ squads with impunity" to "hard to kill, but now in range of almost everything including fast melee units. And much more scared of melee."
Y'know, making the nova-charge profile S10 is a thought, as an anti-deathstar/anti-bike measure. I pretty much never see Vindicators anymore, but does a Vindicator gun actually scare bike deathstars? (We can debate the relative survivability all day, but the fact that Riptides aren't subject to Crew Shaken/Stunned results makes all the difference in the world, IMHO.)
It just doesn't feel very consistent which is my only gripe.
iirc (as i dont have the ghost kell yet) the ion is about the same size and scope of the hammer head version.
the ghostkeel from what i can tell is a much shorter snub nosed version of it. which iirc matches up with the strength of the pathfinder ones
(edit the vindicator it self doesn't really scare deathstars as fore the most part they can just jink it off. the 3 one maybe as it ignores cover but its suuuuuper easy to stop that effect)
The Riptide ion accelerator is longer than the Hammerhead version. The Ghostkeel's cyclic ion raker is somewhat smaller than the Riptide or Hammerhead ion weapons, but much larger than the Pathfinder or Crisis Suit versions. The Ghostkeel itself is about the size of a Hive Tyrant - it's not small, though notably smaller than the Riptide.
My "fluff headcanon" on this one is that the Riptide's ion weapon is bigger because all the cooling systems have to be mounted inside the gun housing, and it has to dissipate more heat than the Ghostkeel does, due to the nova-charge. Put more power through the gun, it will get hotter, and the overcharge profile that doesn't need the nova reactor already has the Gets Hot rule. So, the suit-mounted version is big and bulky because of lots of cooling bits (note the Ghostkeel's gun is pretty big to start with), the tank-mounted version is big because it's designed for long range. And I figure, since the bigger suit can send more power through the gun, there's cause for its overcharge profile to be S8 AP3.
As for the non-overcharged profile, I didn't go to AP3 there, not because S7 AP3 Heavy 6 is OP, but because it's so obviously better than S6 AP5 Heavy 10 that it becomes a total no-brainer upgrade, and cheap no-brainer upgrades are generally a bad thing. However, at only AP4, the balance of range and volume versus strength and multiple fire mode options makes the ion weapon worth only a little more.
And also, because long range is the part about the Riptide that is generating most of the rage, so, fluffy or unfluffy, that's the part that really needs fixing.
Imho my own HC about the ion is that it was simpler to just use an existing weapon while doing the experimental suit aka the same weapon off the HH. as its suit mounted it doesn't gain the benefit of the advance targeting system (so bs3 instead of 4) but otherwise the gun is the same.
also personally never had any real complaints about the range, only the fact that its AP2 and eats terminators for days. and can whip them and any deepstriking unit out without care.
The ghost keel ion raker is heavy 6 s7ap4 24" or overcharged to heavy 1 s8 ap4 large blast gets hot. 24", which i think is a down grade from 6 shots to 1 large blast.
The Hammerhead's ion is 60" s7ap3 heavy 3 and overcharge to heacy 1 s8 large blast (again, a down grade in most circumstances to me, trade 3 accurate shots for 1 blast)
and the riptide is 72" s7ap2 heavy 3, overcharge for s8ap2 large blast gets hot, or nova for s9 ap2 large blast ordinance gets hot, so it still has a chance of not firing.
I would reasonably change the hammerhead and riptide non-nova profile in a heart beat. even a reduction 30/36" but ap4 i think is not reasonable for the riptide, as an elite killer. if its an GEQ killer, then its alot worse than equivalent firewarrior squad in damage per point
So based on updated changes, I'd never take one with the ion gun. It would be a slightly more mobile broadside for 3x the cost, as there would rarely be a circumstance where I'd use any nova profile but to overcharge the [nerfed] HBC. Against any loyalist SM I'd leave it at home, as I'm not handing my opponent a 200pt+ free turn 2 gravkill. I have enough mid strength ap5/4 firepower in my xv8's, drones and broadsides.(I play without non-suit infantry, CAD, no experience with dawn blade contingent)
Paying for SMS over fusion/plasma is still silly. Broadsides have to play 10 pts to upgrade from SMS to tl-plasma. Plus the thing can only fire 1 gun now (not a mc or xv8), so meh on ever taking that.
Nova Hazard still irks me. Librarians can join the massive centurion units with their point-click doomguns, buffing them considerably with psychic , while also adding better Ld, CC capability. I somewhat understand you not wanting buffmanders joining them again, but with the heavy nerfs to their performance it again seems malicious. If you're going to cut the legs off of the workhorse at least let the pony do its trick again.
And once again, since they are no longer MC, give them shas'vre ws2 and a2. if two s5 ws2 i2 cc attacks scare you, never fight space wolves.
How are the Riptides dying? Because conventional Imperial heavy weapons are basically useless, as is melta.
Lets see..
1. Psychic shriek spam.
2. CSM cabal controlling my own units.
3. Deathstars, screamer/TWC/bikes, take your pick.
4. Grav spam
5. WK's, wraith guard, really anything with D
6. Anything with a lot of vehicles, especially IK.
And this is the difference between casual an tourny players.
no sane person would field anything in that list in a casual pickup game
StarHunter25 wrote: So based on updated changes, I'd never take one with the ion gun. It would be a slightly more mobile broadside for 3x the cost, as there would rarely be a circumstance where I'd use any nova profile but to overcharge the [nerfed] HBC. Against any loyalist SM I'd leave it at home, as I'm not handing my opponent a 200pt+ free turn 2 gravkill. I have enough mid strength ap5/4 firepower in my xv8's, drones and broadsides.(I play without non-suit infantry, CAD, no experience with dawn blade contingent)
Paying for SMS over fusion/plasma is still silly. Broadsides have to play 10 pts to upgrade from SMS to tl-plasma. Plus the thing can only fire 1 gun now (not a mc or xv8), so meh on ever taking that.
Nova Hazard still irks me. Librarians can join the massive centurion units with their point-click doomguns, buffing them considerably with psychic , while also adding better Ld, CC capability. I somewhat understand you not wanting buffmanders joining them again, but with the heavy nerfs to their performance it again seems malicious. If you're going to cut the legs off of the workhorse at least let the pony do its trick again.
And once again, since they are no longer MC, give them shas'vre ws2 and a2. if two s5 ws2 i2 cc attacks scare you, never fight space wolves.
Ack, I completely forgot to include the multi-tracker. That was an unintentional oversight, not a deliberate nerf. Didn't even think about it since literally all other suits include one (including XV88, XV25 *and* the current XV104. The current by-the-book version can shoot three weapons, if it had three weapons to shoot.) That's a mistake, it should still have its multi-tracker.
I shortened the range on the HBC because "it sits back and kills things, and I can't kill it" pretty much is the crux of all the complaints I hear about it. Folks want it to be either long-ranged, squishy artillery or close-ranged durable fire support. I like the latter more, since for the former, we already have the Broadside, Stormsurge (yeah, not squishy) and Hammerhead, and to a lesser extent, the Gunrig, Skyray and missile-armed XV8 teams.
I put a point cost on the SMS simply because of how much hate it generates. Am I correct in inferring that the SMS doesn't actually piss people off as much as I'd been led to believe?
Regarding Nova Hazard: I see the complaint that "Cents can have ICs with them, so why not". But, Cents are closer to Broadsides, really. They're better, but closer to Broadsides than Riptides. And I agree that Tiggy-stars are ridiculous.
So, lemme pose this question: If the Riptide proposed in my initial post, with the latest revisions, could be joined by Commanders, Commander Shadowsun or an Ethereal, would that be overpowered or be a vector for some other kind of abuse? I don't see much besides "always twin-linked, Ignores Cover, Tank/Monster Hunter", which is very powerful but less so than it was in 6e (when Buffmander+Riptide was officially legal and you had 72" AP2 pieplates). On the other hand, you can now have squadrons of 3 Riptides. On the gripping hand, they now have to be close enough to pretty easily be picked off with grav-cannons.
I think it's probably a little too much. Buffmanders get insane amounts of hate at both of the places I usually play, to the point where they earn as many TFG points as Stormsurges and Riptide Wing. But, my meta is weird and fairly low-cheddar.
How are the Riptides dying? Because conventional Imperial heavy weapons are basically useless, as is melta.
Lets see..
1. Psychic shriek spam.
2. CSM cabal controlling my own units.
3. Deathstars, screamer/TWC/bikes, take your pick.
4. Grav spam
5. WK's, wraith guard, really anything with D
6. Anything with a lot of vehicles, especially IK.
And this is the difference between casual an tourny players.
no sane person would field anything in that list in a casual pickup game
How are the Riptides dying? Because conventional Imperial heavy weapons are basically useless, as is melta.
Lets see..
1. Psychic shriek spam.
2. CSM cabal controlling my own units.
3. Deathstars, screamer/TWC/bikes, take your pick.
4. Grav spam
5. WK's, wraith guard, really anything with D
6. Anything with a lot of vehicles, especially IK.
And this is the difference between casual an tourny players.
no sane person would field anything in that list in a casual pickup game
Believe it or not, pretty much all of the players in my local league bring things of this caliber on a weekly basis. I don't know if we are just more competitive then average but Its the only meta I know.
Personally I prefer playing against tournament quality, bring all the cheese you can manage lists, but I know not everyone is like that and I tone my lists down when I play the weaker codexes.
pm713 wrote: Sorry but why should no vehicle have an invul save? It hardly breaks the game when done properly.
because it would be overpowered since his basic marines can't kill it and its cheese/overpowered if he needs to change his list for any reason or need to buy new models.
Edit: Scratch that. There are four if we don't count upgrades I know of.
It's very rare. I bet you that if we don't count imperial knights and titans, the number of vehicles with invulns that you can think of will drastically decrease.
As a general rule, that has been and should just be a thing:
Edit: Scratch that. There are four if we don't count upgrades I know of.
It's very rare. I bet you that if we don't count imperial knights and titans, the number of vehicles with invulns that you can think of will drastically decrease.
As a general rule, that has been and should just be a thing:
Things with a T value get a save.
Things with an AV value don't get a save.
GW should just stick with that.
Actually Knights and Titans increases the number a fair bit. Completely forgot those had invuls.
The standard, Crisis-suit-pays-10-points burst cannon is R18 S5 AP5 Assault 4, for chaos' sake. It's a slightly faster firing heavy bolter, but with half the range and less AP. You're thinking of the heavy burst cannon, which is not what I listed. So, 4 BS3 shots at S5 AP5, 18" range, and another twin-linked rapid-fire S5 AP5 weapon with 30" range as a secondary.
Less firepower than a Crisis Suit with the typical kind of weaponry they carry.
Debatably less durable, too - T4/W2/3+ versus AV10/2HP. Do you have difficulty killing DE Venoms? If not, this thing would be a cake walk, especially considering it can't really use cover either. (No MTC. The Crisis Suit might take a wound with a 3+ armor save. The Walker-Riptide might get immobilized with no save and no Techmarines to repair it, either.)
jade_angel wrote: The standard, Crisis-suit-pays-10-points burst cannon is R18 S5 AP5 Assault 4, for chaos' sake. It's a slightly faster firing heavy bolter, but with half the range and less AP. You're thinking of the heavy burst cannon, which is not what I listed. So, 4 BS3 shots at S5 AP5, 18" range, and another twin-linked rapid-fire S5 AP5 weapon with 30" range as a secondary.
Less firepower than a Crisis Suit with the typical kind of weaponry they carry.
Oh, I see. In that case:
Keep "jet pack" in the statline, switch out the hull points value to "3" and change the points cost to 100 or so, REALLY jack up the price for the 72 inch gun, and we've got a balanced riptide.
Traditio wants everything in the game to die to a 5 man scout squad with shotguns, and for Tactical marines to be 6's across their staus with assault 20 str D boltguns. His posts are irrelevant.
I will not continue to entertain what pretty much everyone considers unreasonable suggestions.
However, consider that you're approaching this from a very different perspective than I am. You're OK with the super-powerful long-range artillery piece, as long as it goes splat when you finally get a shot at it, kinda like an IG Basilisk. But I don't think that's what a Riptide is intended to be! It's not a heavy gun platform. Tau have those: Stormsurge, Broadside, Hammerhead, Skyray. The Riptide is intended to be a close-range, highly durable fire support/linebreaker unit. Look at the fluff: it's not portrayed as a squishy thing that sits on the edge of the battlefield raining hell from on high, it's portrayed as the beastie that gets close to a fortress and soaks a few big-ass artillery hits so that the Fire Warriors and Crisis Suits behind it don't have to.
That's why I proposed nuking the 72" gun outright, replacing it with a less powerful, 24"-max-range gun, keeping the high-ROF but medium-powered gun (good for fire support up close) and keeping most of the durability, while giving it a weakness to big anti-tank weapons by removing the ability to gain a storm shield save.
I think it's unlikely in the extreme that we'll ever fully agree as long as we're thinking of such radically different roles.
lusciifi wrote: I would rather we not make an 85$ kit only worth 100points.
AV12, 3hp, 5++ same points cost.
1. No invulns for a bloody vehicle. I stand by this.
2. The reason why the riptide is a complete pain to deal with is that it's virtually immortal. If you take away its 2+ armor save and 5+ invuln and decrease its firepower, it's a lot more manageable. I'm not sure that an 180 point price tag would be appropriate, even with AV 12 and 3 HP.
It's virtually immortal when you're forced to shoot a pea or two at it here or there because everything's out of range, because it can sit back in the corner lobbing death, yes.
When it's forced to come up to at most 30" range, suddenly the whole damn army can range on it. Yep, it soaks up a lot of fire for a turn or maybe two - then dies. Which is kind of the point, in the way that that's kind of the point of a Land Raider.
(I freely admit that Land Raiders mostly fail at that job, but that's more or less what they're for: load something scary in it, drive it right into enemy lines, surviving almost everything until that Golden BB finally hits. Then, the scary thing gets out and does what you bought it for: killing the hells out of those heretics/xenos/traitors! )
jade_angel wrote: I will not continue to entertain what pretty much everyone considers unreasonable suggestions.
The "everyone" that you're talking about are the (presumably Tau) players posting in this thread.
The notion that the riptide should be a walker isn't something rejected by "pretty much everyone." It's an extremely common sentiment. If I made a poll, I can guarantee you at least a 30% vote in agreement with me.
Whether or not the riptide should keep the 5+ invuln, assuming that it's a walker, is a different story. I have no clue how that would fare in public opinion. I am, however, basing myself on what's usually the case for other, comparable models.
Ditto for the firepower thing.
I will admit that my fourth suggestion was unreasonable in conjunction with the other 3.
Basically, however, this is what it comes down to for me, and this is what you're seeing a lot of protest against:
Me: Riptides should be completely average/fair for their points cost. They should be exactly as good as and comparable to similar models. Taking a riptide, like taking anything else, should be a matter of personal taste/preference, which should be no better or worse than taking any other comparable model. It should be exactly as good as a dreadnought, adjusting, of course, for points cost differences.
Tau: NO! WE WANT OUR WIN BUTTON! DONT TAKE AWAY OUR WIN BUTTON! WE DON'T WANT TO PLAY FAIR! WE LIKE HAVING UNFAIR ADVANTAGES!
However, consider that you're approaching this from a very different perspective than I am. You're OK with the super-powerful long-range artillery piece, as long as it goes splat when you finally get a shot at it, kinda like an IG Basilisk.
In point of fact, that's what the riptide already is. If you don't think that it should be, fluffwise, then so be it. But understand that I am taking a very minimalist approach to this. Take what you have. Make it comparable to similar models. And price it appropriately.
lusciifi wrote: I would rather we not make an 85$ kit only worth 100points.
AV12, 3hp, 5++ same points cost.
1. No invulns for a bloody vehicle. I stand by this.
2. The reason why the riptide is a complete pain to deal with is that it's virtually immortal. If you take away its 2+ armor save and 5+ invuln and decrease its firepower, it's a lot more manageable. I'm not sure that an 180 point price tag would be appropriate, even with AV 12 and 3 HP.
How much better would it be than dreadnought?
Quantify that and multiply it by 100.
Why? You have yet to give a decent reason. All you said was that GW don't give vehicles saves which has been shown to be completely wrong.
pm713 wrote:Why? You have yet to give a decent reason. All you said was that GW don't give vehicles saves which has been shown to be completely wrong.
I said they generally don't. I fully understand that they occassionally give vehicles invulns. That said, they're in the minority, and the game would be better off if they didn't have them.
I mean, that's just the difference between T values and AV values.
AV values mean that you automatically become immune to a lot of things, but if your opponent breaches armor, then he breaches armor. Your AV value IS your save.
Ultimately, I don't feel particularly strongly about this. If riptides become walkers and keep the 5+ invuln, assuming they aren't able to get better than a 5+ invuln, then I suppose that's OK.
But again, I want riptides to pay for it. Riptides are 100 points without the 5+ invuln? Fine. Then they become 130 points with the 5+ invuln.
30 percent more durable = 30 percent more expensive.
Slightly off topic, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone make the suggestion that "walkers" be removed from the game entirely and units like Dreadnoughts become MCs and IKs become GCs. I've heard plenty of people, including myself, suggest a number of MCs (Riptide, DK, etc) become Walkers, but never the other way around. It would be an interesting thought experiment to see that play out.
On the Riptide, I think lowering the armour save to a 3+, then make Nova reactor a 4+ would pretty much solve it's durability problem. It makes it more vulnerable to small arms fire, thus encouraging more players to take Stims, which raises it's cost, thereby making it less spammable. At that point, Stims should probably come standard in it's profile for the points increase, that way taking 4+ Riptides is not so easy AND you don't have to make the notation in the systems list for different points cost for the Riptide.
Making Nova reactor harder to get off makes the Tau player's choice harder and may result in more wounds taken. Doing those 2 simple changes instantly puts the Riptide at a more acceptable power level.
pm713 wrote:Why? You have yet to give a decent reason. All you said was that GW don't give vehicles saves which has been shown to be completely wrong.
I said they generally don't. I fully understand that they occassionally give vehicles invulns. That said, they're in the minority, and the game would be better off if they didn't have them.
I mean, that's just the difference between T values and AV values.
AV values mean that you automatically become immune to a lot of things, but if your opponent breaches armor, then he breaches armor. Your AV value IS your save.
Ultimately, I don't feel particularly strongly about this. If riptides become walkers and keep the 5+ invuln, assuming they aren't able to get better than a 5+ invuln, then I suppose that's OK.
But again, I want riptides to pay for it. Riptides are 100 points without the 5+ invuln? They become 130 points with the 5+ invuln.
It's more than an occasion when it's more than all the vehicles of two armies. What you mean is "you don't like it therefore it's wrong". You haven't said why they shouldn't be here.
You know what else most armies don't have? ATSKNF. Are you going to say we should get rid of that?
If you take have an AV value you also become vulnerable to several things. The same can be said about T. If I manage to wound you've failed your save.
So ultimately you can't defend your point very well.
What people are considering unreasonable is the union of those suggestions, not any one of them in a vacuum.
You are being incredibly ungenerous, however, by suggesting that I just want to cheat, and that all Tau players just want to be cheesemonsters who cheat. You wouldn't care for it much if I accused you of the same, solely for playing Space Marines, would you? SM certainly have some nasty advantages right now that few others can match. I might recommend you dial back the "you are a cheating cheater who cheats, cheatingly" angle.
That aside, however.
If that's the intended role, then I'd make it look a whole hell of a lot different:
Then replace the nova reactor with the need to deploy Stormsurge-style anchors in order to fire the S9 Ordnance profile, except that they can never be retracted: when you use them, lose an HP and become immobilized.
And yes, BS2. It's a drone at this point, not a battlesuit. Markerlights, use them. AV12 front, because there's a little bit of reinforcement there, but not much.
But that's a totally different unit.
In my opinion, long-range arty isn't really what it "already is". The default weapon has 36" range. The 72" pie-plate-puker was poorly considered - heck, all three secondary weapons are no more than medium-range, there's basically no synergy there to speak of. They didn't think the consequences of that through all the way, and wound up with a monster that everyone hates.
The two new suits, the Stormsurge and Ghostkeel, are a bit better considered. The Stormsurge is the long-range arty type. It being a GC is too bloody much: that should be an open-topped walker, possibly a super-heavy. But it's designed around two different weapons, both of which have across-the-table range. The Ghostkeel, though, seems to know what it's meant to be doing: get close and hit things that need high S to take out - tanks, heavy infantry, etc. It can stand up to anti-tank guns, but does seem to wither pretty quickly once subjected to volume of fire.
So, I'd rather remake the Riptide into the other side of the Ghostkeel's coin: strong against massed fire, but with a bit of a glass jaw against grav, lascannons, plasma, etc. My suggestion might not be glass enough - I'll cheerfully concede that.
Galef wrote: Slightly off topic, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone make the suggestion that "walkers" be removed from the game entirely and units like Dreadnoughts become MCs and IKs become GCs.
I've heard plenty of people, including myself, suggest a number of MCs (Riptide, DK, etc) become Walkers, but never the other way around. It would be an interesting thought experiment to see that play out.
On the Riptide, I think lowering the armour save to a 3+, then make Nova reactor a 4+ would pretty much solve it's durability problem. It makes it more vulnerable to small arms fire, thus encouraging more players to take Stims, which raises it's cost, thereby making it less spammable. At that point, Stims should probably come standard in it's profile for the points increase, that way taking 4+ Riptides is not so easy AND you don't have to make the notation in the systems list for different points cost for the Riptide.
Making Nova reactor harder to get off makes the Tau player's choice harder and may result in more wounds taken.
Doing those 2 simple changes instantly puts the Riptide at a more acceptable power level.
--
I wish to point out that Galef plays with scatter bikes and wraithknights, and he plays in a highly competitive meta.
His opinion of what constitutes OP or balanced may be a bit skewed.
Galef wrote: Slightly off topic, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone make the suggestion that "walkers" be removed from the game entirely and units like Dreadnoughts become MCs and IKs become GCs.
I've heard plenty of people, including myself, suggest a number of MCs (Riptide, DK, etc) become Walkers, but never the other way around. It would be an interesting thought experiment to see that play out.
On the Riptide, I think lowering the armour save to a 3+, then make Nova reactor a 4+ would pretty much solve it's durability problem. It makes it more vulnerable to small arms fire, thus encouraging more players to take Stims, which raises it's cost, thereby making it less spammable. At that point, Stims should probably come standard in it's profile for the points increase, that way taking 4+ Riptides is not so easy AND you don't have to make the notation in the systems list for different points cost for the Riptide.
Making Nova reactor harder to get off makes the Tau player's choice harder and may result in more wounds taken.
Doing those 2 simple changes instantly puts the Riptide at a more acceptable power level.
--
I wish to point out that Galef plays with scatter bikes and wraithknights, and he plays in a highly competitive meta.
His opinion of what constitutes OP or balanced may be a bit skewed.
Galef wrote: Slightly off topic, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone make the suggestion that "walkers" be removed from the game entirely and units like Dreadnoughts become MCs and IKs become GCs.
I've heard plenty of people, including myself, suggest a number of MCs (Riptide, DK, etc) become Walkers, but never the other way around. It would be an interesting thought experiment to see that play out.
On the Riptide, I think lowering the armour save to a 3+, then make Nova reactor a 4+ would pretty much solve it's durability problem. It makes it more vulnerable to small arms fire, thus encouraging more players to take Stims, which raises it's cost, thereby making it less spammable. At that point, Stims should probably come standard in it's profile for the points increase, that way taking 4+ Riptides is not so easy AND you don't have to make the notation in the systems list for different points cost for the Riptide.
Making Nova reactor harder to get off makes the Tau player's choice harder and may result in more wounds taken.
Doing those 2 simple changes instantly puts the Riptide at a more acceptable power level.
--
I wish to point out that Galef plays with scatter bikes and wraithknights, and he plays in a highly competitive meta.
His opinion of what constitutes OP or balanced may be a bit skewed.
Galef wrote: Slightly off topic, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone make the suggestion that "walkers" be removed from the game entirely and units like Dreadnoughts become MCs and IKs become GCs. I've heard plenty of people, including myself, suggest a number of MCs (Riptide, DK, etc) become Walkers, but never the other way around. It would be an interesting thought experiment to see that play out.
On the Riptide, I think lowering the armour save to a 3+, then make Nova reactor a 4+ would pretty much solve it's durability problem. It makes it more vulnerable to small arms fire, thus encouraging more players to take Stims, which raises it's cost, thereby making it less spammable. At that point, Stims should probably come standard in it's profile for the points increase, that way taking 4+ Riptides is not so easy AND you don't have to make the notation in the systems list for different points cost for the Riptide.
Making Nova reactor harder to get off makes the Tau player's choice harder and may result in more wounds taken. Doing those 2 simple changes instantly puts the Riptide at a more acceptable power level.
--
I wish to point out that Galef plays with scatter bikes and wraithknights, and he plays in a highly competitive meta.
His opinion of what constitutes OP or balanced may be a bit skewed.
Just saying.
"His opinion is not as valid" is how I read that.
Actually, I read it more as my opinion has a bit more validity BECAUSE I play in a highly competitive meta. But then I read who posted it.
Personal attacks on my opinion not withstanding, my general views on ANY proposed balance change is not to over nerf or buff anything. Because at the end of the day you want to make 90% of the players happy and keep the game fun. If you over change a unit in either direction, you cannot achieve this median. There will always be top tier armies/units, the only way to change this is to make all 40K armies the same, and sorry but checkers already exist. The goal should be to make the divide between tiers closer, NOT to knock top tier choices down to bottom tier levels
That said I would not take my tournament list (5 riptide variants) to a causal game. The few times I've received bad looks, rolling eyes, and bad moods seem to always be Marine players. This wasn't the case before 2013 when everyone came to the table with smiles.
Other codices have dirtier combos and units that way outmatch the Riptide in OP. When are riptides not fun?....going second!
pm713 wrote:Galef's opinion is closer to valid than yours...
My opinion is that the game should be fair/balanced and that every option should be as equally playable as any other option.
And as I was pointing out, this will never EVER happen in a game as complex as 40K. The best we can hope for is to buff bottom tier units up to mid-tier levels and nerf top-tier choices down to mid-tier level. There will still be units that are "better" than others, but the divide between tiers can be lessened. Almost every suggested rules change I have ever read from you is a clear attempt to nerf top tier units to bottom tier levels. I think others will agree
This leaves us to 2 conclusions: Either you really don't want non-Marines to be any sort of competitive, Or you really don't have a good grasp on rule mechanics as they play in the overall game. If either conclusion is true, it becomes obvious whose opinion is more valid.
If you cannot appreciate how 2 simple changes to the Riptide can make it noticeably different and less brutal to play against, that's fine, just don't acknowledge the poster who suggested it. But claiming their opinion is not valid is not the best way to make your opinion any more valid. In fact, it tends to have the opposite effect.
That said I would not take my tournament list (5 riptide variants) to a causal game. The few times I've received bad looks, rolling eyes, and bad moods seem to always be Marine players. This wasn't the case before 2013 when everyone came to the table with smiles.
Other codices have dirtier combos and units that way outmatch the Riptide in OP. When are riptides not fun?....going second!
I disagree. What are these dirtier combos? What's dirtier than making lists autolose from 72" away? Yeah, there's invisible death stars. But most of them can't melt my entire list from 72" away. And Riptides don't NEED invisibility to be immortal.
jade_angel wrote: You are being incredibly ungenerous, however, by suggesting that I just want to cheat, and that all Tau players just want to be cheesemonsters who cheat.
Correction: I'm not making accusations of cheesemongery because the persons in question play Tau. I'm not even making such accusations because they play riptides. I'm making such accusations because, as is common practice, such people only wish to present the illusion of nerfing their stuff without actually wishing to nerf their stuff and make it actually fair.
Galef, to my mind, is infamous for this. Just look at his recommendations for the wraithknight. Review his posting history on the matter. Read our exchanges on the subject.
It all speaks for itself.
You wouldn't care for it much if I accused you of the same, solely for playing Space Marines, would you?
Yes. Fear my CAD. Fear my missile launchers. Fear my sternguard in rhinos. Fear the almighty Pedro Kantor!
That said I would not take my tournament list (5 riptide variants) to a causal game. The few times I've received bad looks, rolling eyes, and bad moods seem to always be Marine players. This wasn't the case before 2013 when everyone came to the table with smiles.
Other codices have dirtier combos and units that way outmatch the Riptide in OP. When are riptides not fun?....going second!
I disagree. What are these dirtier combos? What's dirtier than making lists autolose from 72" away? Yeah, there's invisible death stars. But most of them can't melt my entire list from 72" away. And Riptides don't NEED invisibility to be immortal.
Wraith Knights, Warp spiders, or Scat-bikes in high numbers.
Any of the high tier deamon lists mostly revolving around grimore of true names, screamer-star, khone-dogs, ect.
Khan scouting an entire army of bikes across the field.
Librarian conclave.
That said I would not take my tournament list (5 riptide variants) to a causal game. The few times I've received bad looks, rolling eyes, and bad moods seem to always be Marine players. This wasn't the case before 2013 when everyone came to the table with smiles.
Other codices have dirtier combos and units that way outmatch the Riptide in OP. When are riptides not fun?....going second!
I disagree. What are these dirtier combos? What's dirtier than making lists autolose from 72" away? Yeah, there's invisible death stars. But most of them can't melt my entire list from 72" away. And Riptides don't NEED invisibility to be immortal.
Wraith Knights, Warp spiders, or Scat-bikes in high numbers.
Any of the high tier deamon lists mostly revolving around grimore of true names, screamer-star, khone-dogs, ect.
Khan scouting an entire army of bikes across the field.
Librarian conclave.
You mean the nerfed conclave? Okay.
I'd actually rather face most of that than Riptides with BA. Especially Khan. Bring it on Motherfether.
That said I would not take my tournament list (5 riptide variants) to a causal game. The few times I've received bad looks, rolling eyes, and bad moods seem to always be Marine players. This wasn't the case before 2013 when everyone came to the table with smiles.
Other codices have dirtier combos and units that way outmatch the Riptide in OP. When are riptides not fun?....going second!
I disagree. What are these dirtier combos? What's dirtier than making lists autolose from 72" away? Yeah, there's invisible death stars. But most of them can't melt my entire list from 72" away. And Riptides don't NEED invisibility to be immortal.
Wraith Knights, Warp spiders, or Scat-bikes in high numbers.
Any of the high tier deamon lists mostly revolving around grimore of true names, screamer-star, khone-dogs, ect.
Khan scouting an entire army of bikes across the field.
Librarian conclave.
You mean the nerfed conclave? Okay.
I'd actually rather face most of that than Riptides with BA. Especially Khan. Bring it on Motherfether.
pm713 wrote: Question: Why a dreadnought? They don't seem like similar things so it's a strange comparison.
The dreadnought is the iconic 40k walker. All walkers should be priced relative to it.
To my mind, the riptide, in the crunch, should just be a more mobile, more shooty, less punchy, less durable version of a dreadnought.
Isn't the riptide about 2x the size of a dreadnought. I would rather it stay around the 200 points level. FYI If you use the vehicle design rules on this site a 12 12 10 5++ 3HP Jet pack walker with the standard riptide loadout (IA + SMS + nova charge) comes out to 165.
That said I would not take my tournament list (5 riptide variants) to a causal game. The few times I've received bad looks, rolling eyes, and bad moods seem to always be Marine players. This wasn't the case before 2013 when everyone came to the table with smiles.
Other codices have dirtier combos and units that way outmatch the Riptide in OP. When are riptides not fun?....going second!
I disagree. What are these dirtier combos? What's dirtier than making lists autolose from 72" away? Yeah, there's invisible death stars. But most of them can't melt my entire list from 72" away. And Riptides don't NEED invisibility to be immortal.
Wraith Knights, Warp spiders, or Scat-bikes in high numbers.
Any of the high tier deamon lists mostly revolving around grimore of true names, screamer-star, khone-dogs, ect.
Khan scouting an entire army of bikes across the field.
Librarian conclave.
You mean the nerfed conclave? Okay.
I'd actually rather face most of that than Riptides with BA. Especially Khan. Bring it on Motherfether.
I guess you can have that preference but every one of those lists places higher then tau with riptide spam in a tournament setting.
Conclave still works in every competitive setting I can think of.
Did anyone play spiders as more then one jump per turn, because to be honest I never saw one eldar player try to pull it and ITC specificly outlawed it way before the FAQ.
lusciifi wrote:Isn't the riptide about 2x the size of a dreadnought. I would rather it stay around the 200 points level. FYI If you use the vehicle design rules on this site a 12 12 10 5++ 3HP Jet pack walker with the standard riptide loadout (IA + SMS + nova charge) comes out to 165.
That sounds a lot more fair than what the riptide is currently, although the points costs may need to be adjusted.
Here's a quick point of reference:
If the riptide had that statline and those weapons, would it still be an auto-take? For you? For the competitive scene?
If the answer is "yes," then it still needs to be nerfed. Either by removing the invuln or by increasing the points cost.
If the answer is "no," then it's probably fine.
If you tell me that the riptide has become unplayable even in casual games, then we've nerfed it too much.
lusciifi wrote:Isn't the riptide about 2x the size of a dreadnought. I would rather it stay around the 200 points level. FYI If you use the vehicle design rules on this site a 12 12 10 5++ 3HP Jet pack walker with the standard riptide loadout (IA + SMS + nova charge) comes out to 165.
That sounds a lot more fair than what the riptide is currently, although the points costs may need to be adjusted.
Here's a quick point of reference:
If the riptide had that statline and those weapons, would it still be an auto-take? For you? For the competitive scene?
If the answer is "yes," then it still needs to be nerfed. Either by removing the invuln or by increasing the points cost.
If the answer is "no," then it's probably fine.
If you tell me that the riptide has become unplayable even in casual games, then we've nerfed it too much.
The problem is that there a lot of un-usable units in the tau codex as is.
Kroot, Vespids, Hammerheads, Sunshark/Razershark, Stealth suits without the formation, Ethereals.
They would probably still be an auto-pick but that dosn't make them too strong. It means the rest of the codex needs a buff.
You couldn't look at dark eldar and say "everyone is taking venoms, they must be OP".
lusciifi wrote:Isn't the riptide about 2x the size of a dreadnought. I would rather it stay around the 200 points level. FYI If you use the vehicle design rules on this site a 12 12 10 5++ 3HP Jet pack walker with the standard riptide loadout (IA + SMS + nova charge) comes out to 165.
That sounds a lot more fair than what the riptide is currently, although the points costs may need to be adjusted.
Here's a quick point of reference:
If the riptide had that statline and those weapons, would it still be an auto-take? For you? For the competitive scene?
If the answer is "yes," then it still needs to be nerfed. Either by removing the invuln or by increasing the points cost.
If the answer is "no," then it's probably fine.
If you tell me that the riptide has become unplayable even in casual games, then we've nerfed it too much.
The problem is that there a lot of un-usable units in the tau codex as is.
Kroot, Vespids, Hammerheads, Sunshark/Razershark, Stealth suits without the formation, Ethereals.
They would probably still be an auto-pick but that dosn't make them too strong. It means the rest of the codex needs a buff.
You couldn't look at dark eldar and say "everyone is taking venoms, they must be OP".
lusciifi wrote:Isn't the riptide about 2x the size of a dreadnought. I would rather it stay around the 200 points level. FYI If you use the vehicle design rules on this site a 12 12 10 5++ 3HP Jet pack walker with the standard riptide loadout (IA + SMS + nova charge) comes out to 165.
That sounds a lot more fair than what the riptide is currently, although the points costs may need to be adjusted.
Here's a quick point of reference:
If the riptide had that statline and those weapons, would it still be an auto-take? For you? For the competitive scene?
If the answer is "yes," then it still needs to be nerfed. Either by removing the invuln or by increasing the points cost.
If the answer is "no," then it's probably fine.
If you tell me that the riptide has become unplayable even in casual games, then we've nerfed it too much.
The problem is that there a lot of un-usable units in the tau codex as is.
Kroot, Vespids, Hammerheads, Sunshark/Razershark, Stealth suits without the formation, Ethereals.
They would probably still be an auto-pick but that dosn't make them too strong. It means the rest of the codex needs a buff.
You couldn't look at dark eldar and say "everyone is taking venoms, they must be OP".
Ok. Let's try it this way. If you had the choice between x points of space marine dreadnoughts (of whatever loadout) and x points of riptides, so amended, would you pick the dreadnoughts or the riptides?
If the riptide is an auto-pick over the dreadnought, the riptide needs to be nerfed. If the dreadnought is an auto-pick over the riptide, then the riptide needs to be buffed. If it's purely a matter of personal preference, the riptide, so amended, is fine.
lusciifi wrote:Isn't the riptide about 2x the size of a dreadnought. I would rather it stay around the 200 points level. FYI If you use the vehicle design rules on this site a 12 12 10 5++ 3HP Jet pack walker with the standard riptide loadout (IA + SMS + nova charge) comes out to 165.
That sounds a lot more fair than what the riptide is currently, although the points costs may need to be adjusted.
Here's a quick point of reference:
If the riptide had that statline and those weapons, would it still be an auto-take? For you? For the competitive scene?
If the answer is "yes," then it still needs to be nerfed. Either by removing the invuln or by increasing the points cost.
If the answer is "no," then it's probably fine.
If you tell me that the riptide has become unplayable even in casual games, then we've nerfed it too much.
The problem is that there a lot of un-usable units in the tau codex as is.
Kroot, Vespids, Hammerheads, Sunshark/Razershark, Stealth suits without the formation, Ethereals.
They would probably still be an auto-pick but that dosn't make them too strong. It means the rest of the codex needs a buff.
You couldn't look at dark eldar and say "everyone is taking venoms, they must be OP".
Ok. Let's try it this way. If you had the choice between x points of space marine dreadnoughts (of whatever loadout) and x points of riptides, so amended, would you pick the dreadnoughts or the riptides?
If the riptide is an auto-pick over the dreadnought, the riptide needs to be nerfed. If the dreadnought is an auto-pick over the riptide, then the riptide needs to be buffed. If it's purely a matter of personal preference, the riptide, so amended, is fine.
Surely the Dreadnought would have to be nerfed if it's the autotake.
lusciifi wrote:Isn't the riptide about 2x the size of a dreadnought. I would rather it stay around the 200 points level. FYI If you use the vehicle design rules on this site a 12 12 10 5++ 3HP Jet pack walker with the standard riptide loadout (IA + SMS + nova charge) comes out to 165.
That sounds a lot more fair than what the riptide is currently, although the points costs may need to be adjusted.
Here's a quick point of reference:
If the riptide had that statline and those weapons, would it still be an auto-take? For you? For the competitive scene?
If the answer is "yes," then it still needs to be nerfed. Either by removing the invuln or by increasing the points cost.
If the answer is "no," then it's probably fine.
If you tell me that the riptide has become unplayable even in casual games, then we've nerfed it too much.
The problem is that there a lot of un-usable units in the tau codex as is.
Kroot, Vespids, Hammerheads, Sunshark/Razershark, Stealth suits without the formation, Ethereals.
They would probably still be an auto-pick but that dosn't make them too strong. It means the rest of the codex needs a buff.
You couldn't look at dark eldar and say "everyone is taking venoms, they must be OP".
Ok. Let's try it this way. If you had the choice between x points of space marine dreadnoughts (of whatever loadout) and x points of riptides, so amended, would you pick the dreadnoughts or the riptides?
If the riptide is an auto-pick over the dreadnought, the riptide needs to be nerfed. If the dreadnought is an auto-pick over the riptide, then the riptide needs to be buffed. If it's purely a matter of personal preference, the riptide, so amended, is fine.
wait there are pyscher dreads right ? f yeah i'd take one of those over a rip any day . It gets tedious to have zero defense against psychic abilities every game with no way to change it
kambien wrote:wait there are pyscher dreads right ? f yeah i'd take one of those over a rip any day . It gets tedious to have zero defense against psychic abilities every game with no way to change it
At that point, you're comparing apples and oranges.
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
kambien wrote:wait there are pyscher dreads right ? f yeah i'd take one of those over a rip any day . It gets tedious to have zero defense against psychic abilities every game with no way to change it
At that point, you're comparing apples and oranges.
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
kambien wrote:wait there are pyscher dreads right ? f yeah i'd take one of those over a rip any day . It gets tedious to have zero defense against psychic abilities every game with no way to change it
At that point, you're comparing apples and oranges.
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
Why does it have to be balanced against a SM Dreadnought? Why not a wingless Hive Tyrant, or a Wraithlord?
Happyjew wrote:Why does it have to be balanced against a SM Dreadnought? Why not a wingless Hive Tyrant, or a Wraithlord?
A wingless hive tyrant and a wraithlord aren't walkers, for one thing.
And for another thing:
It shouldn't really matter. All walkers which fill a given combat role should be balanced against each other. The starting point isn't all that important.
I pick the dreadnought because it's the most iconic 40k walker and is in a relatively new, up to date codex.
Happyjew wrote:Why does it have to be balanced against a SM Dreadnought? Why not a wingless Hive Tyrant, or a Wraithlord?
A wingless hive tyrant and a wraithlord aren't walkers, for one thing.
Funny. Neither is the Riptide.
this guy gets it ^^^^^^^^^^
plus he forgets one VERY important thing. Tau weapons are longer ranged and higher str than imperial weapons ( except the plasma rifle , it was reduced STR to make it safer ) , but he didn't add that into to his comparison at all.
Ex hypothesi, the riptide has been amended to be a walker. Again, read the rest of the thread.
plus he forgets one VERY important thing. Tau weapons are longer ranged and higher str than imperial weapons ( except the plasma rifle , it was reduced STR to make it safer ) , but he didn't add that into to his comparison at all.
What's your point? If Tau weapons are longer ranged and higher strength, then they should cost more.
Ex hypothesi, the riptide has been amended to be a walker. Again, read the rest of the thread.
plus he forgets one VERY important thing. Tau weapons are longer ranged and higher str than imperial weapons ( except the plasma rifle , it was reduced STR to make it safer ) , but he didn't add that into to his comparison at all.
What's your point? If Tau weapons are longer ranged and higher strength, then they should cost more.
What's the problem?
But they don't costs more , its the function of the tau. Its thier schtick.
Martel732 wrote: Their schtick should cost more as it ends up being more effective on the table top.
ok lets reduce range and str to imperium equivalent and make them baseline bs 4 and up the shot count . sound good ?
See: this is exactly what makes me think that Tau players are WAACTFGs.
Basically, this is what you are saying:
"I want something for nothing. I want to have an advantage over my opponents that's not reflected in the points costs. I don't actually want a fair fight."
Ultimately, I don't care whether the riptide has long range, high strength weapons. I don't care if it's more or less accurate. I don't care if it shoots 1 shot or 6.
Regardless of what it does, I want it to have a POINTS COST that actually MATCHES what it DOES.
Traditio wrote: Ultimately, I don't care whether the riptide has long range, high strength weapons. I don't care if it's more or less accurate. I don't care if it shoots 1 shot or 6.
Regardless of what it does, I want it to have a POINTS COST that actually MATCHES what it DOES.
This isn't rocket science.
But let's consider a hypothetical situation:
Imagine a variant of the Assault Cannon that has 8 Shots instead of 4 and is available to Vanilla Space Marine Dreadnoughts. Yes, you can find a points cost that is appropriate for such a weapon, but should Vanilla Space Marine Dreadnoughts ever be able to fire 8x S6 AP4 Rending Shots from a single weapon?
My point is that the Points Cost of something isn't everything, and that everything about a unit (the unit as a whole as well as its component parts) should be considered and balanced.
Martel732 wrote: Their schtick should cost more as it ends up being more effective on the table top.
ok lets reduce range and str to imperium equivalent and make them baseline bs 4 and up the shot count . sound good ?
See: this is exactly what makes me think that Tau players are WAACTFGs.
Basically, this is what you are saying:
"I want something for nothing. I want to have an advantage over my opponents that's not reflected in the points costs. I don't actually want a fair fight."
Ultimately, I don't care whether the riptide has long range, high strength weapons. I don't care if it's more or less accurate. I don't care if it shoots 1 shot or 6.
Regardless of what it does, I want it to have a POINTS COST that actually MATCHES what it DOES.
This isn't rocket science.
No , that is asymmetrical armies, Tau shoot things. They can't assultt worth a damn , thier movement is slightly above par thanks to assault phase JSJ and thier are totally skipped on the psychic phase. If they don't have the BS advantage ( they don't they are average , marines have a better BS ) , more shots , more range , higher str , then how do you make them more shooty then the rest of the armies ?
That said I would not take my tournament list (5 riptide variants) to a causal game. The few times I've received bad looks, rolling eyes, and bad moods seem to always be Marine players. This wasn't the case before 2013 when everyone came to the table with smiles.
Other codices have dirtier combos and units that way outmatch the Riptide in OP. When are riptides not fun?....going second!
I disagree. What are these dirtier combos? What's dirtier than making lists autolose from 72" away? Yeah, there's invisible death stars. But most of them can't melt my entire list from 72" away. And Riptides don't NEED invisibility to be immortal.
OMG! All the tears T__T. How about unkillable screamer star, SW iron priests + BlackKnights + conclave, Skatharch WK, Imperial Knights, ...
It's your opinion on whether the riptide is op. Don't go to tournaments play narrative and discuss the type of game with your opponent.
Ex hypothesi, the riptide has been amended to be a walker. Again, read the rest of the thread.
plus he forgets one VERY important thing. Tau weapons are longer ranged and higher str than imperial weapons ( except the plasma rifle , it was reduced STR to make it safer ) , but he didn't add that into to his comparison at all.
What's your point? If Tau weapons are longer ranged and higher strength, then they should cost more.
What's the problem?
But they don't costs more , its the function of the tau. Its thier schtick.
We have Wraith Knights under 300 points. Fix that then I'll accept a points hike on a riptide.
Martel732 wrote: Their schtick should cost more as it ends up being more effective on the table top.
ok lets reduce range and str to imperium equivalent and make them baseline bs 4 and up the shot count . sound good ?
See: this is exactly what makes me think that Tau players are WAACTFGs.
Basically, this is what you are saying:
"I want something for nothing. I want to have an advantage over my opponents that's not reflected in the points costs. I don't actually want a fair fight."
Ultimately, I don't care whether the riptide has long range, high strength weapons. I don't care if it's more or less accurate. I don't care if it shoots 1 shot or 6.
Regardless of what it does, I want it to have a POINTS COST that actually MATCHES what it DOES.
This isn't rocket science.
Most armies have some advantage over their opponent. SM in particular.
Still can't melt my whole list from 72" away while laughing off every imperial weapon that can reach them. You really need to army swap sometime to see what it's like.
"Fix that then I'll accept a points hike on a riptide."
The Riptide is harder to kill and is not even a LoW! WK should be 400 base and Riptide, as is, should be around 300 with stimpack.
I'm asserting that A should cost more than B should cost more than C.
).
Yes, and I'm saying that it's not that simple.
The individual power of any given unit is not the sole determining factor for how effective it is on the tabletop... The rest of the army that the unit is intended to be a part of has an impact as well.
I'm asserting that A should cost more than B should cost more than C.
).
Yes, and I'm saying that it's not that simple.
The individual power of any given unit is not the sole determining factor for how effective it is on the tabletop... The rest of the army that the unit is intended to be a part of has an impact as well.
IoW:
"No, no, look, Traditio, I know that the Riptide is much, much better than a dreadnought. But you just aren't getting this. It says 'Tau' on the front cover of the codex. How are you not getting this?"
Is that what you're saying?
What's sad is that I can only imagine that this is what underlies the mentality of Tau players.
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kambien wrote:No , that is asymmetrical armies, Tau shoot things. They can't assultt worth a damn , thier movement is slightly above par thanks to assault phase JSJ and thier are totally skipped on the psychic phase. If they don't have the BS advantage ( they don't they are average , marines have a better BS ) , more shots , more range , higher str , then how do you make them more shooty then the rest of the armies ?
All of this is ultimately irrelevant to the point that I'm making.
So what if a riptide isn't a psyker.?Neither is one of my tactical marines.
What your "shtick" is is irrelevant. The fact remains that we are talking about a unit with a given set of stats, table-top capabilities, etc. It is comparable to a number of other, similar models. It should be priced comparably to those models.
Granted, the riptide shouldn't pay as much as a dreadnought for its close combat capabilities, but it should certainly pay more than a dreadnought for its shooting and mobility. All of that has to be taken into account.
And ultimately, we have to ask the question: all things considered, is a riptide better than, as good as, or inferior to a shooty dreadnought in its intended combat role? If better than, it should cost more. If worse than, it should cost less. If as good as, it should cost as much as.
kambien wrote:No , that is asymmetrical armies, Tau shoot things. They can't assultt worth a damn , thier movement is slightly above par thanks to assault phase JSJ and thier are totally skipped on the psychic phase. If they don't have the BS advantage ( they don't they are average , marines have a better BS ) , more shots , more range , higher str , then how do you make them more shooty then the rest of the armies ?
All of this is ultimately irrelevant to the point that I'm making./
No one knows what the point your making , yourself seems to be included
Traditio wrote: So what if a riptide isn't a psyker.?Neither is one of my tactical marines.
were you not talking about swapping the riptide out with a dread ? there are dread pyschers , i accept the deal !
Traditio wrote: What your "shtick" is is irrelevant. The fact remains that we are talking about a unit with a given set of stats, table-top capabilities, etc. It is comparable to a number of other, similar models. It should be priced comparably to those models.
No its VERY relevent because thats how the ENTIRE codex is built around . These things must be considered. The riptide was never comparable to the dread , they are not the same things in the same army.
Traditio wrote: Granted, the riptide shouldn't pay as much as a dreadnought for its close combat capabilities, but it should certainly pay more than a dreadnought for its shooting and mobility. All of that has to be taken into account.
Your like on the cusp of getting it , its so close but yet so far . So if the points in close combat don't apply to the tau , because thats not what its going to do , it gets stats in other places . Where do you suppose they should go ? Right , range , ranged weapons str , rate of fire , balaistic skill . Anything else is points not being able to be used.
Traditio wrote: And ultimately, we have to ask the question: all things considered, is a riptide better than, as good as, or inferior to a shooty dreadnought in its intended combat role? If better than, it should cost more. If worse than, it should cost less. If as good as, it should cost as much as.
They have never been comprable , they never will. Space marines are not a shooty codex. Just acuse you can slap some weapons on a dread doesn't make it comparable
How about this .
Space marine tacticals need to cost a extra 5 points a model because they have the option to take special weapons and spread these weapons out so they cannont all be taken out at once but firewarriors do not even get the option of taking any special weapons. Nerf marine tacticals.
Traditio, you just had a poll on this. Result was that more people than not thought the riptide was balanced, or at least fair. And dreadnoughts are more comparable to broadsides than riptides as dreadnought is about in between both sizes, but a shooty dread fills a role closer to a broadside than a riptide. Marines don't have anything to compare to a riptide really.
"No, no, look, Traditio, I know that the Riptide is much, much better than a dreadnought. But you just aren't getting this. It says 'Tau' on the front cover of the codex. How are you not getting this?"
Wolfblade wrote: Traditio, you just had a poll on this. Result was that more people than not tho7ght the riptide was balanced, or at least fair. And dreadnought are more compare to broadsides than riptides. A dreadnought is about in between both sizes, but a shooty dread fills a role closer to a broadside than a riptide. Marines don't have anything compare to a riptide really.
This^^^. The closest thing "Space Marines" have to a Riptide is a Grey Knight Dread Knight....which is an MC, btw.
The problem with comparing different units in other codices to each other is that they rarely EVER fill the exact same battlefield role. Take the above. Riptides and DKs are quite similar on paper. Same T, armour save, invul, etc. Both are about the same points all decked out (around 225). Yes the Riptide is tougher, having +1W and FNP, but the DK is more effective in CC than the Riptide is at shooting. Add to that the fact that a DK can be effective at shooting AND CC. The riptide never wants to be in CC.
So the point is that while those 2 units seem similar, they fill COMPLETELY different battle field roles. It makes perfect sense that the Riptide is more effective at shooting and durability, since it cannot compete with the DK for overall effectiveness in multiple phases and the DK cannot compare to the Riptide at shooting. The Riptide is specialized, the DK is a generalist.
This is why A cannot be compared to B to be compared to C. There are too many factors
The only time you can do this kind of comparing is between Space Marines and Dreadnought from different books, since they are essentially the same units. This is why GWFAQ'd the BA, SW & GK Dreads to have 4 atks, ust like the SM & DA ones.
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Side note, It would actually make sense to make a DK into a Walker since its tech is similar to a Dreadnaught. However the Riptide's tech is the same as the rest of the Tau suits, NONE of which are walkers. If you make the Riptide into a Walker, you'd need to do the same for StormSurges, Broadsides, GhostKeels, Crisis suits, etc. I don't know about you, but AV8, 2 HP Crisis suit sound like crap, even AV10 for the suits would make them worthless.
This is not true. I see Riptides charge crippled squads all the time.
The Riptide is far more effective on the battlefield than the DK. The DK quickly ends up within range of all kinds hurt, and doesn't last long usually. It's also only got access to one save.
I absolutely can compared units. In fact, GW made it trivial by using a D6 system. There aren't enough factors in 40K. Fixed that for you.
This is not true. I see Riptides charge crippled squads all the time.
The Riptide is far more effective on the battlefield than the DK. The DK quickly ends up within range of all kinds hurt, and doesn't last long usually. It's also only got access to one save.
I absolutely can compared units. In fact, GW made it trivial by using a D6 system. There aren't enough factors in 40K. Fixed that for you.
While I agree that the Riptide is better overall than a DK, my point was to illustrate using similarly costed, statlined units, that comparing points cost between units only works when they are identical in their battle field role, which the DK & Riptide are not. Tau are THE shooting army. They have no CC "desire". While it may be beneficial to get a Riptide into CC with a "crippled" squad, they just as well would prefer to wipe them out from range. GW simply over compensated with all the special rules
The Riptide is too durable for it's purpose is the main problem, It SHOULD be one of the most effective shooters in the game. That's what the Tau engineers created it for. The Riptide should be this: 220pts base, comes standard w/ Stims (hence the 40pt price hike) and only have a 3+ save (just like EVERY other Jet-pack Tau suit) and Nova Charge should only succeed on a 4+. Now massed fire has a chance against it and the Tau player might not even risk using the Nova Charge (which is supposed to be a "last resort" ability anyway)
For being THE shooting army, Eldar sure does a good imitation.
Yes, and that is another issue that has been discussed at length
I think the biggest issue with all these "OP" "undercosted" units is that GW is trying to make players able to play more models in smaller games. If WKs and Riptides cost too much, people would buy as many. If they toned down those units so that they are appropriate to their current points cost, it would be a better solution for them AND the players than just "Make them pay for it"
I'd agree with this. I still don't think it makes sense for them to be Walkers unless you make ALL suits Walkers, but I don't see the need to make them MCs. Broadsides are as big as Dreadnoughts, yet they aren't MCs. I wonder if it would be too weird to have the Riptide just be Jet-pack Infantry? Drop the MC status altogether
This is not true. I see Riptides charge crippled squads all the time.
The Riptide is far more effective on the battlefield than the DK. The DK quickly ends up within range of all kinds hurt, and doesn't last long usually. It's also only got access to one save.
I absolutely can compared units. In fact, GW made it trivial by using a D6 system. There aren't enough factors in 40K. Fixed that for you.
While I agree that the Riptide is better overall than a DK, my point was to illustrate using similarly costs, statlined units, that comparing points cost between units only works when they are identical in their battle field role, which the DK & Riptide are not. Tau are THE shooting army. They have no CC "desire". While it may be beneficial to get a Riptide into CC with a "crippled" squad, they just as well would prefer to wipe them out from range.
The Riptide is too durable for it's purpose is the main problem, It SHOULD be one of the most effective shooter in the game. That's what the Tau engineers created it for.
The Riptide should be this:
220pts base, comes standard w/ Stims (hence the 40pt price hike) and only have a 3+ save (just like EVERY other Jet-pack Tau suit) and Nova Charge should only succeed on a 4+.
--
That sounds pretty fair, losing a wound half the time on a nova, and a point of armor, and a nerf to stimms (even if it is only 5 points more).
For being THE shooting army, Eldar sure does a good imitation.
Yes, and that is another issue that has been discussed at length
I think the biggest issue with all these "OP" "undercosted" units is that GW is trying to make players able to play more models in smaller games. If WKs and Riptides cost too much, people would buy as many. If they toned down those units so that they are appropriate to their current points cost, it would be a better solution for them AND the players than just "Make them pay for it"
I'm fine with whatever. I'd just prefer to see fewer stompy robots.
I'm fine with whatever. I'd just prefer to see fewer stompy robots.
Agreed. The 40K arms race has gotten out of hand. If IK's, Riptides and similar units weren't a thing, I'd feel comfortable without a WK in my tournament lists
I'd agree with this. I still don't think it makes sense for them to be Walkers unless you make ALL suits Walkers, but I don't see the need to make them MCs. Broadsides are as big as Dreadnoughts, yet they aren't MCs. I wonder if it would be too weird to have the Riptide just be Jet-pack Infantry? Drop the MC status altogether
That's actually precisely what my initial proposal does - make the Riptide into a big-ass Jet Pack Infantry unit. (Incidentally, that's also what's with Nova Hazard: As an MC, ICs can't join it while as infantry they'd be able to.)
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Martel732 wrote: The sad part is that it actually takes a while to kill 3++ riptide with heavy wraithcannons.
True, but the D-sword deals with them pretty handily. Though, of course, that whole "sit back 48+ inches away and kill stuff" is a problem, then.
Did anyone play spiders as more then one jump per turn, because to be honest I never saw one eldar player try to pull it and ITC specificly outlawed it way before the FAQ.
I'll be honest. I did a couple times in paid events (my lgs doesn't use ITC). Then I just started keeping them near los-blocking terrain, so I'd only need to do one jump regardless. It was just too bonkers doing it more than once. I didn't even think about it until after one game my opponent was like "You know there's no restriction on how many times the spiders can jump, right? It doesn't say once per turn." It blew my mind that that wasn't a restriction, and I decided I would try doing it, but only when I was playing for money, but even then it made me feel scummy.
Martel732 wrote: Stripping them of MC status would fix a LOT of complaints.
MC only gives like 3 rules that matter (MTC, Smash, Relentless). Those aren't really breaking the bank here
Smash is the one that really bugs people, and I think to a lesser extent Fear and Hammer of Wrath: the problem is that those make a unit that's supposed to stink on ice in CC, halfway competent. It certainly means that bully units like Assault Marines have no business tangling with one. (Obviously they don't care about Fear, but some others like Orks and so forth do...) MTC and Relentless would wind up staying anyway, at least as I revised it. If you wanna make it into a giant Broadside instead of a giant Crisis Suit, then yeah, it'd probably lose those too.
And I agree about Smash. A few games ago I wound up charging my Riptide at a wounded Exocrine. I should have had a heck of a time doing any damage to it, but nope, got lucky, dealt three wounds and killed it. Without Smash, it would only have taken one, statistically, since I wouldn't be ignoring the 3+ armor save, and I probably would have been swept.
This thread is going in an odd direction honestly. Started as "nerf the riptide into a faster broadside", and turned into a shouting match about who is better at what. Throwing arbitrary point onto units might take a winning unit and turn it into mutilators. I'd happily take lower range on its guns, lose MC, but nerfing the guns on top of that, i dunno. Tau could turn into the next tyranids, aka 'Missilesides the army". No-one wants to be shoe-horned into taking a single unit in order to play at competitive levels.
StarHunter25 wrote: This thread is going in an odd direction honestly. Started as "nerf the riptide into a faster broadside", and turned into a shouting match about who is better at what. Throwing arbitrary point onto units might take a winning unit and turn it into mutilators. I'd happily take lower range on its guns, lose MC, but nerfing the guns on top of that, i dunno. Tau could turn into the next tyranids, aka 'Missilesides the army". No-one wants to be shoe-horned into taking a single unit in order to play at competitive levels.
Faster Broadside? Huh. I'm coming to realize that most people do think of it as a giant Broadside, while I've always thought of it as a giant Crisis Suit, which is more or less where my original changes were aimed. (But more durable and with less firepower relative to the same points spent on XV8s)
StarHunter25 wrote: This thread is going in an odd direction honestly. Started as "nerf the riptide into a faster broadside", and turned into a shouting match about who is better at what. Throwing arbitrary point onto units might take a winning unit and turn it into mutilators. I'd happily take lower range on its guns, lose MC, but nerfing the guns on top of that, i dunno. Tau could turn into the next tyranids, aka 'Missilesides the army". No-one wants to be shoe-horned into taking a single unit in order to play at competitive levels.
Faster Broadside? Huh. I'm coming to realize that most people do think of it as a giant Broadside, while I've always thought of it as a giant Crisis Suit, which is more or less where my original changes were aimed. (But more durable and with less firepower relative to the same points spent on XV8s)
Well it definitely has less firepower up close than equivalent crisis suits. 52 points for Crisis and 2 rapid fire plasma/fusion guns/CIBs. so you can get 3-4 depending on your riptide upgrades, and they are danger close, but doing far more damage to all the things in question of being OP against. You can even grab them with 2 missile pods and stay 36" away and you target the same amount of av14 (none riptide doesn't really target it either except for hail-mary), and slightly less terminators, but still just as functionally resilient against them.
StarHunter25 wrote: This thread is going in an odd direction honestly. Started as "nerf the riptide into a faster broadside", and turned into a shouting match about who is better at what. Throwing arbitrary point onto units might take a winning unit and turn it into mutilators. I'd happily take lower range on its guns, lose MC, but nerfing the guns on top of that, i dunno. Tau could turn into the next tyranids, aka 'Missilesides the army". No-one wants to be shoe-horned into taking a single unit in order to play at competitive levels.
Faster Broadside? Huh. I'm coming to realize that most people do think of it as a giant Broadside, while I've always thought of it as a giant Crisis Suit, which is more or less where my original changes were aimed. (But more durable and with less firepower relative to the same points spent on XV8s)
Well it definitely has less firepower up close than equivalent crisis suits. 52 points for Crisis and 2 rapid fire plasma/fusion guns/CIBs. so you can get 3-4 depending on your riptide upgrades, and they are danger close, but doing far more damage to all the things in question of being OP against. You can even grab them with 2 missile pods and stay 36" away and you target the same amount of av14 (none riptide doesn't really target it either except for hail-mary), and slightly less terminators, but still just as functionally resilient against them.
The Riptide could do a lot better against Terminators than Deathrain XV8s, at least with nova charge: either an AP2 large blast or (as amended) 15 Rending shots, and Rending actually is useful when you get that much of it. Obviously, Burning Eye and Helios configurations outclass it, but they're purpose-built TEQ annihilators, and they're much less resilient.
That's kinda exactly what I have in mind, BTW: the things that can sit back and rain missiles on you are actually scared of krak missiles and lascannons and a little worried about autocannons (missile XV8s). The Riptide can go up close and live. It doesn't hit as hard as the Crisis suits with short-range guns, but that's the trade. They get close and things die horribly, but they fold to serious retaliation; the Riptide lives for a while but doesn't crank out as much damage per turn - but still enough that you can't ignore it. It's the fire magnet to protect the heavy firepower.
Now, Riptide versus Ghostkeel in that role gets a little hinkier. They have mostly equal mobility, modulo the nova-charge. The Ghostkeel shrugs off AP2 single shots, but starts getting a bit more worried about volume of fire up close; the Riptide, as amended, shrugs off bolters and lasguns (though has to get close enough to be hit by them) but things with AP2 are actually scary since it can't just go "oh, I have a 3++ and only like, 2 shots are in range anyway".
Yeah jade, XV-8's are sort of jack-of-all-trade units. Their role is what you build them to be, that's kind of the TE's thing. Your riptide is more of a scrum/horde killer, with a slight lean toward killing hordes and light vehicles. Two roles already ABUNDANTLY filled by the rest of the army. If you honestly want it to be a big, durable xv-8, it needs that Swiss Armyknife feel. Example...
XV104 Riptide - 170ppm WS2 BS3 S5 T6 A3 W5 I2 Ld 9 Sv 2+/5++, Jet Pack Infantry Wargear: Riptide Shield Generator, Nova Reactor, Multi-Tracker, Blacksun Filter Special Rules: Move Through Cover, Extremely Bulky, Nova Hazard Nova Hazard: A squad of XV104 Riptides may never be joined by Independent Characters under any circumstances whatsoever. (Save a specific rule that overrides this. EDIT to reflect new FAQ/Errata for O'Vesa). Options: May add up to two additional Riptide Shas'Vres - 180pts each May take up to two shielded missile drones (stats as per codex) per Riptide: 25ppm Bonding Knife Ritual 1ppm Must select one weapon from the [Siege Weaponry] list, -Heavy Burst Cannon: R30 S6 AP5, Heavy 10 --OR-- R30 S6 AP4, Heavy 15, Rending, Nova-Charge 10 ppm -Riptide Ion Blaster: R24 S7 AP4 Heavy 3 Blast > R24 S8 AP3 Heavy 1 Large Blast, Gets Hot! > R18 S10 AP2 Heavy 1, Ordinance, Large Blast, Nova Charge 25ppm -Heavy Rail Repeater: R36 S8 AP1 Heavy 4 > R72 S8 AP1 Heavy 2, Armorbane, Nova Reactor 25 ppm -(heavy template name): R[template] S6 AP4 Assault 3 > R[Template] S6 AP3 , 6" Torrent, Assault 3, Nova Charge 15ppm Must select a secondary weapon - Twin-linked Burst Cannon free - Twin-linked Plasm Rifle 10mmp - Twin-linked Fusion Blaster 10ppm - Twin-linked Flamer free - Twin-linked Cyclic Ion Blaster 10ppm - Shield Overcharge Module 30ppm (adds old 3++ nova charge option)
May take up to two seeker missiles 8ppm
points were arbitrarily assigned mostly. That feels more like a "big scary xv8 that wants to be close"
Ok, I like that idea a fair bit. More options are a good thing in my opinion.
A few tweaks:
Heavy Rail Repeater: change the profile to:
R30 S8 AP1 Heavy 4
R60 S8 AP1 Ordnance 2, Armorbane, Nova-charge
And for the template weapon - Heavy Plasma Incinerator, maybe - change the profile to:
R-Template S6 AP4 Heavy 2
R-Template S6 AP3, 6" Torrent, Heavy 2, Pinning, Nova-charge
I like the rail weapon a lot, but I'd still like a reason for the Hammerhead to be around, so, a little clipping of range. Also, Ordnance on the nova profile - more reliable against tanks but also, you sacrifice the ability to fire your secondary weapon. Tradeoffs, y'know. For the template, three templates is pretty dang mean, so I figure, only two - but give the nova-charged version something extra. In this case, I picked Pinning, but that was a little arbitrary. Maybe Strikedown or Concussive, instead.
What I'd really like on the Heavy Rail Repeater is to make it Rapid-Fire 2 - that is, 2 shots at 30", 4 at 15". That's kind of a thing already - Hurricane Bolters - but we don't call it that, so...
Not sure about price on the Shield Overcharge Module. I like the idea - you can have the option but you have to pay for it - but I'm not sure how the community feels, there. I think the fact that the long-range gun needs nova-charge and is two shots instead of a blast is a good balancing factor, but let's see what folks think. (EDIT: Duh moment! You can have 3++ XOR 60" range - there's no way to have both in the same turn!)
Martel732 wrote: Stripping them of MC status would fix a LOT of complaints.
MC only gives like 3 rules that matter (MTC, Smash, Relentless). Those aren't really breaking the bank here
Well that and the fact that it has both armour and invuln saves
It can be down to its last wound and operates normally -unlike vehicles which can be useless after just taking one damage point.
The fact that the Riptide and The Wraith Knight are so OP is not just that GW want to sell big models - otherwise why make the Ork Equivalent so bad?
Martel732 wrote: Stripping them of MC status would fix a LOT of complaints.
MC only gives like 3 rules that matter (MTC, Smash, Relentless). Those aren't really breaking the bank here
Well that and the fact that it has both armour and invuln saves
It can be down to its last wound and operates normally -unlike vehicles which can be useless after just taking one damage point.
The fact that the Riptide and The Wraith Knight are so OP is not just that GW want to sell big models - otherwise why make the Ork Equivalent so bad?
raverrn wrote: Absolutely no mention of the Dreadnought's far superior CC ability and ability to deep strike with absolute safety: Sounds like a Traditio-thread.
Probably because the Dreadnought isn't that far superior in CC, and because Dreadnoughts can't Deep Strike. There's plenty of stuff to slam him with without making bad arguments.
Wolfblade wrote: Dreads have drop pods, and they do have more attacks at a better I and WS.
Which is not the same as Dreadnought being able to pinpoint Deep Strike on their own or having "far superior CC ability". It's better in CC, but still not very good, and it has to have another unit in order to Deep Strike, in which case we can start comparing Riptides with Markerlights.
No, the drop pod is an option for the dreadnought to take. If we start ignoring the options available to one unit arbitrarily, then we might as well not bother discussing anything related to balance. Taking markerlights means another FOC slot used. Taking a drop pod for a dread is literally just taking an upgrade/option for it in its unit entry.
And if the dread isn't very good in CC, what does that make the riptide? Terrible? Again, fewer attacks, lower I and WS, easier to hurt in CC (T6 vs AV12), and if the dread has even one powerfist, lower S. Is the riptide still very durable in CC, yes especially if it was able to novacharge, but the dread is immune to anything below S6. 4 S10 AP2 attacks at I/WS4 vs 3 S6 AP2 attacks at I/WS2.
Overall, no. You can't start comparing the riptide w/ markerlights vs a dread that took as droppod (which is available as an upgrade/option in its entry), unless the riptide had access to networked markerlights as an upgrade/option in its unit entry.
Or, if we can ignore the drop pod, I vote we ignore the stimms as it's a similarly priced option. (see? Just as silly.)
Dreads are pure gak compared to riptides because its so much easier to kill them or suppress them. Drop podding a dread doesn't help that problem at all.
Martel732 wrote: Dreads are pure gak compared to riptides because its so much easier to kill them or suppress them. Drop podding a dread doesn't help that problem at all.
Agreed, Riptides are waaayyyyyyy too powerful. Even Dreadnoughts fail to compare too them.
Probably because the Dreadnought isn't that far superior in CC, and because Dreadnoughts can't Deep Strike.
A dread with a powerfist is more effective in CC, and if they take a drop pod, they do have a far more accurate deepstrike. And really, the dread is just so much weaker because it's a walker and has no save. If it got comparable MC stats it'd be alright (i.e. T6 W4-5 with a 2+ save or something)
Probably because the Dreadnought isn't that far superior in CC, and because Dreadnoughts can't Deep Strike.
A dread with a powerfist is more effective in CC, and if they take a drop pod, they do have a far more accurate deepstrike. And really, the dread is just so much weaker because it's a walker and has no save. If it got comparable MC stats it'd be alright (i.e. T6 W4-5 with a 2+ save or something)
Plus, a dread is ~100 something points cheaper.
The dread's better in CC, but not "far superior". I'll concede that the Drop Pod is more or less just an upgrade since it doesn't take a slot, but the Riptide has EWO for a whopping 5 points.
Probably because the Dreadnought isn't that far superior in CC, and because Dreadnoughts can't Deep Strike.
A dread with a powerfist is more effective in CC, and if they take a drop pod, they do have a far more accurate deepstrike. And really, the dread is just so much weaker because it's a walker and has no save. If it got comparable MC stats it'd be alright (i.e. T6 W4-5 with a 2+ save or something)
Plus, a dread is ~100 something points cheaper.
The dread's better in CC, but not "far superior". I'll concede that the Drop Pod is more or less just an upgrade since it doesn't take a slot, but the Riptide has EWO for a whopping 5 points.
I'd say dread is far better in CC than the riptide. Not only can it kill more targets potentially in CC, but it's immune to any S5 or lower attacks, and is S10 with a powerfist, meaning anything less than T6 is being ID'd and T8 or less is being wounded on a 2+ (not that most targets that are T8+ would really care since they're probably GMCs or better in CC, like a greater daemon). Now, it is mostly a moot point because the riptide never wants to be in CC unless it's charging a really weak squad anyways. And the dread is still almost half the points of a riptide, so you'd expect the riptide to much stronger than a dread anyways.
And as I've said before (although not in this thread), the Riptide simply needs to get a points bump for it's upgrades, especially for the IA. Or a decent survivability nerf (i.e. 4+ nova success and 3+ armor)
Martel732 wrote: "so you'd expect the riptide to much stronger than a dread anyways. "
Dreadnought dies to 6.75 BS 4 lascannon shots.
Stimtide dies to *20* minimum, or a massive *40* with the 3++ turned on. Much stronger? That's fething IMMORTAL.
Yes, and that 3++ is ALWAYS on, it NEVER fails. It even turns on if the Tau player goes 2nd! Right? And changing that to a 4+ to pass (with a 1-3 removing a wound still) would NEVER change anything right? BA would still be completely unable to remove 3 wounds from a riptide assuming ti tries to nova every turn.
[/obvious sarcasm and hyperbole]
But really, lascannons are terrible weapons. GRav is much better at removing them. Or plasma if you can get into the rapidfire range.
Martel732 wrote: "so you'd expect the riptide to much stronger than a dread anyways. "
Dreadnought dies to 6.75 BS 4 lascannon shots.
Stimtide dies to *20* minimum, or a massive *40* with the 3++ turned on. Much stronger? That's fething IMMORTAL.
Yes, and that 3++ is ALWAYS on, it NEVER fails. It even turns on if the Tau player goes 2nd! Right? And changing that to a 4+ to pass (with a 1-3 removing a wound still) would NEVER change anything right? BA would still be completely unable to remove 3 wounds from a riptide assuming ti tries to nova every turn.
[/obvious sarcasm and hyperbole]
Actually, you probably can't do that with BA. You have to play BA to understand how bad the shooting is. Also, no assault unit one would typically field with BA can reliably beat Riptide in CC, either.
Even without Nova, 20 lascannon shots is obscene.
"GRav is much better at removing them. Or plasma if you can get into the rapidfire range."
This assumes the Tau haven't obliterated every source of grav/plasma before you get within range. And the math is the same for grav: 20/40 grav shots, and even MORE plasma, because you are wounding on a 3+. Really? 50 plasma shots?
If you dropped the nova to work only on a 4+, it'd only require 12.15 lascannon/grav shots, or 15.2 plasma shots. Again, assuming it tries to nova every turn. If you really decide to shoot at it when it has a 3++ it'd only need 30.5 plasma shots for the 3 wounds or 24.3 lascannon/grav wounds to remove 3 wounds.
(and obviously a decent price hike for Stimms and the IA are still needed as both of those are incredibly undercosted. Or change the range on the IA so it's not firing across the board. Perhaps even dropping a wound from the riptide and/or dropping the armor save to a 3+)
Wolfblade wrote: If you dropped the nova to work only on a 4+, it'd only require 12.15 lascannon/grav shots, or 15.2 plasma shots. Again, assuming it tries to nova every turn. If you really decide to shoot at it when it has a 3++ it'd only need 30.5 plasma shots for the 3 wounds or 24.3 lascannon/grav wounds to remove 3 wounds.
(and obviously a decent price hike for Stimms and the IA are still needed as both of those are incredibly undercosted. Perhaps even dropping a wound from the riptide and/or dropping the armor save to a 3+)
All those things change the math a lot. Which is all I'm looking for. My point is that this thing can in no way be compared to a dreadnought. If were balancing around a dreadnought, this thing would cost 350 minimum, because it takes 3.5 X as much damage to kill it. AND its offense is light years ahead of a dreadnought.
Wolfblade wrote: Right I agree, trying to balance it around a dreadnought is a dumb idea either way because a dread doesn't fill the same role as a riptide.
I disagree. Role is irrelevant. What is relevant is utility on the battlefield. That's all that ever matters for a point value. A Riptide has way more than double the utility of a dreadnought. It might be triple or even quadruple in practice. Dreads are practically worthless in the 7th ed meta because of hull points. For a Riptide to remain 225 or whatever, dreads would have to come in at 60-75 pts.
Which is why a riptide with IA/Stimms really shouldn't be 225, especially considering it goes from having an assaullt cannon x2 to having a super plasma gun/cannon for 5 points is incredibly cheap, and is probably explained by GW not doing any sort of balance testing.
And role does matter. You don't expect fire warriors to do the same job as a vindicator or broadsides/devastators.
Wolfblade wrote: Which is why a riptide with IA/Stimms really shouldn't be 225, especially considering it goes from having an assaullt cannon x2 to having a super plasma gun/cannon for 5 points is incredibly cheap, and is probably explained by GW not doing any sort of balance testing.
And role does matter. You don't expect fire warriors to do the same job as a vindicator or broadsides/devastators.
Role only matters from a design perspective. Every unit should cost proportional to its aggregate battlefield efficacy. In practice, I think fire warriors are FAR more valuable than tac marines because they can cause double the wounds to MCs and can HP out AV 11 from 30" out. That's a much more valuable set of abilities in 7th ed than some CC stats. Because CC is largely dead except for invisible death stars.
Except that fire warriors also die even quicker than SM with worse BS, and can't take any special weapon other than more S5 AP5 or a single missile pod, and a very expensive transport.
And yeah, everything should be balanced against how effective it is, but that's not the discussion that was here, which was balancing a riptide vs a dreadnought.
Wolfblade wrote: Except that fire warriors also die even quicker than SM with worse BS, and can't take any special weapon other than more S5 AP5 or a single missile pod, and a very expensive transport.
And yeah, everything should be balanced against how effective it is, but that's not the discussion that was here, which was balancing a riptide vs a dreadnought.
I was just using that as an example. In general, ranged >>>>>>>> CC in 7th ed. Tau should have a price hike on their most effective units just from the way 7th ed is written alone. As I said, dreadnoughts are 100 pts, but play like 60-70 because hull points.
"die even quicker than SM"
Not in practice, because SM don't have Tau level firepower. SM firepower is actually really crappy outside grav spam gimmicks. Special weapons are a good way to lose even more points when you marine gets dusted.
And yet, everyone else has gotten more effective and powerful once they got a decurion codex (an actual codex, not a supplement like IG or Orks got). I think SOME of Tau's units need to be rebalanced, like the stormsurge could probably get bumped up a bit, and the tau'nar is way way undercosted/OP for its current cost, and the riptide's upgrades definitely need a bump in points.
But what else is there that's top performing? Drones with the drone network formation? The OSC? Firestream Wing? Crisis suits? Broadsides? Outside of the Firestream, and maybe the OSC, everything isn't super OP
Not in practice, because SM don't have Tau level firepower. SM firepower is actually really crappy outside grav spam gimmicks. Special weapons are a good way to lose even more points when you marine gets dusted.
Except that marines don't really start worrying if a heavy flamer gets too close, or a heavy better hits them out of cover. Or a whirlwind fires the S5 AP4 large blast at them. You can't honestly tell me a fire warrior has more durability than a space marine. And yes, SM fire power is overall pretty lacking if you don't have grav. But SM aren't really a fighty army all that much anymore, at least not competitively. They have grav sure, but their main method of winning is simply by spam of obsec everything, and contesting almost every point.
They aren't more durable against incoming fire, but the incoming fire from marines is so crappy that it doesn't matter. They end being a more efficacious unit at the end of the day. You can't get a heavy flamer within 24" of Tau because interceptor and mass firepower in general.
Yes, I know marines are now a horde army. Totally fluffy, that. I hate the fluff and even I find that absurd.
Heavy flamer statline then, and I'm not just talking about marines. There are other armies to be balanced against (i.e. 'crons or eldar as part of the top 4)
And drop pods. If they have enough EWO to clear off everything you drop in, then they're not going to be shooting during their next shooting phase, and probably have an incredibly low model count.
Wolfblade wrote: Heavy flamer statline then, and I'm not just talking about marines. There are other armies to be balanced against (i.e. 'crons or eldar as part of the top 4)
And drop pods. If they have enough EWO to clear off everything you drop in, then they're not going to be shooting during their next shooting phase, and probably have an incredibly low model count.
They do it to me all the time. Come turn 2, I don't have enough BA left to punch out a fire warrior squad. Free transport marines obviously fare much better. Tau are just way too good at their schtick save against MC spam and invisible death stars.
Then I feel like that's a you/your group problem of not using enough cover or playing to the same level. Unless you're playing in a tourny, in which case not much you can do about that.
Wolfblade wrote: Then I feel like that's a you/your group problem of not using enough cover or playing to the same level. Unless you're playing in a tourny, in which case not much you can do about that.
Cover doesn't help vs wound spam. Also, if you are landing with pods, you frequently don't have cover. And Tau can take away cover.
By cover, I meant LoS blocking cover so you're not cleared off turn 1/2. Not to mention the new FAQ (or, eventually since it's still a draft) says that the drop pod doors can block LoS.
Either way, seems like your group might be WAAC players, especially if they're more or less going seal clubbing vs BA.
Wolfblade wrote: By cover, I meant LoS blocking cover so you're not cleared off turn 1/2. Not to mention the new FAQ (or, eventually since it's still a draft) says that the drop pod doors can block LoS.
Either way, seems like your group might be WAAC players, especially if they're more or less going seal clubbing vs BA.
Some do, some don't. Problem is, they don't have a choice really. We all bring lists and pull random opponents. So the Tau guy doesn't know if he's getting BA or Eldar. So he builds for Eldar. This is to prevent list tailoring.
Wolfblade wrote: By cover, I meant LoS blocking cover so you're not cleared off turn 1/2. Not to mention the new FAQ (or, eventually since it's still a draft) says that the drop pod doors can block LoS.
Either way, seems like your group might be WAAC players, especially if they're more or less going seal clubbing vs BA.
Quick history lesson. Martels group has tau players and they refuse to play on a board with LOS blocking terrain . Now you can see how the "riptide must die to drop pod meltas in 1 round of shooting" come from as well a the "Schrodinger Nova charge" where it has all benefits from nova at all times as well as every support system at once
Wolfblade wrote: By cover, I meant LoS blocking cover so you're not cleared off turn 1/2. Not to mention the new FAQ (or, eventually since it's still a draft) says that the drop pod doors can block LoS.
Either way, seems like your group might be WAAC players, especially if they're more or less going seal clubbing vs BA.
Quick history lesson. Martels group has tau players and they refuse to play on a board with LOS blocking terrain . Now you can see how the "riptide must die to drop pod meltas in 1 round of shooting" come from as well a the "Schrodinger Nova charge" where it has all benefits from nova at all times as well as every support system at once
LOS blocking terrain exists, but it's not plentiful enough to protect from mobile Tau firepower. I'm not sure what board WOULD protect from Tau, really. And LOS blocking terrain blocks MY LOS as well, so to shoot anything, i have to be exposed too. Losing proposition.
There is no Schrodinger nova charge. There's just 3++, EWO, and overcharge IA. Nothing else is necessary. I wish Riptide had to NOVA the gun to make it good. Or maybe gets hot! with a -2 penalty or something.
