Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

morgoth wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

GrafWattenburg wrote:

Wraithknights - Overrated. Except for when they get into combat with my knight I've rarely seen them make their points back.

What knight ?

My Imperial Knight Errant, should have specified that with all the knight-talk Maybe its just been the dice gods not being on my team, as I know I have a chance to stomp the Wraithknight or kill it with the D-weapon, i just haven't ever managed to. (Anecdotal and not really evidence of either unit's value, I know)

morgoth wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
Under most circumstances the riptide is one of the most durable options for its price range, due to its stats and great mobility.

Under Big Blind Bill's most (undefined) circumstances, the riptide is (now) one of the most durable options for its price range (and not the most durable anymore), due to its stats and (not so) great mobility.

As I said, stop being so pedantic. Look in a dictionary if you did not understand. 'One of the most durable' covers this situation perfectly. If you want to waste time thinking of and writing a thesis on the the analysis of warhammer durability, by all means go ahead, but it is unnecessary.

The (now) comment makes no sense. The riptide has always been durable for its price. This might be new information for you though. Did valiantly defending waveserpents narrow your vision?

I never said it was the most durable. I am not the original poster who claimed this. Please stop attacking the person and focus on the topic. Tilting at windmills.

Not the fastest mobility in the game for sure, but tactically powerful. Are you really claiming JSJ is not that great? Maybe your game boards do not have much LoS blocking terrain.

Well, the riptide being very durable for its price only holds true under the assumption of the ion accelerator.

HBC riptides tend to be self-destructive.

Off the record, you don't see how bringing up the HBC Riptide in these discussions is intellectually dishonest?

No, because the point of the matter is that the riptide itself is not game-braking (its a good unit, but a fair one), but the IA upgrade that is game-braking.

The HBCtide and IAtide are very different units in terms of abilities, uses, power level and fairness.

Piling the two as one unit is akin to piling the hades heldrake with the "my next goes everywhere" era baleflamer heldrake, one is powerful but fair, the other absurdly game-braking.



I don't like the notion that many people go by that "if the unit CAN be overpowered, it IS overpowered", often its not the unit itself that causes the problem, but a spesific option or combination of options avilable (and often unique) to it, and once said options are properly priced or brought into line the entire unit stabilizes on its own.

That's an extremely pedantic argument to make when the overpowered item in general is unit-specific (meaning it can ONLY be taken by that unit) and it only costs 5 points, thus no one in the history of the World has ever not taken it as an upgrade unless they were deliberately trying to not butt-feth their opponent.

But then you can apply that logic to anything else. Is the Wave Serpent overpowered, or is it just the serpent shield? Just because serpent shield comes stock on it doesn't mean that players are forced to use it, right? Pretty much any unit that's ever been considered overpowered or undercosted becomes less so when you separate the one overpowered quality from the rest of it.

Technically true, but still a silly and pedantic argument to make, especially in a discussion where the context of what people are talking about is obvious.

That said, the BBC Riptide still has jet-pack movement, T6 and a 2+ save, which does make it far more durable than its cost should allow.

I will say on the Leman Russ Vanquisher argument, having 3 small blasts is much more preferable than having one big one to me, because it really helps the odds of some of your shots getting on target. BS3 blasts are pretty bad as I mentioned in my original post (or at least pretty bad when the obvious intent of the weapon is to kill 2+ save infantry, which usually come in very small squads and are pretty clumped up when you try to shoot at them, at least in my experience).

Markerlights do turn it into an amazing weapon of death and mayhem, but if you include marker-lights you have to consider the other things you could be using them for. Example: for ~180 points you could get a squad of 3 dual plasma crisis suits. That is 6 shots at 24" that still wound on 2s and ignore armor against most things you would want to shoot the IA at. So 5 hits, that's about equivalent to what you can squeeze under a blast template best case scenario. It's matching the IA on killing potential without even being in rapid fire range.

That does bring up the subject of range. Since we are considering markerlights in this discussion (see my first post for why markerlights are necessary with the IA) then your IA range is effectively 36". Probably less since your markerlights are most likely farther back than your Riptide on any game turn that is not 1. That is a pretty dang big deal.

I'm not trying to say the IA is bad, although I probably gave that impression earlier. I was most likely over-reacting. Don't get that argument confused. I'm saying we have better weapon options for what the IA is designed to shoot at (which, honestly, is pretty insane to think about.) due to the limitations a BS3 platform puts on a weapon that wants to be shooting blast templates. Thus the only reason you're buying a Riptide as a platform is durability, or speed if you really use the "super thrust" nova reactor option (which I have and it is glorious, but maybe not the best choice a lot of the time, especially since it isn't super scoring).

In essence, you have a pretty awesome weapon on a pretty dang durable platform that utilizes it badly because of a bad BS. You also have fairly fragile support options to make it utilize the amazing weapon amazingly. I would really rather have a less durable platform that utilizes less awesome weapons better without support.

Then again, I play my Tau like old school Dark Eldar. 75+% of my army is 12-15" away from the opponent ASAP. It's amazingly fun and works reasonably well.

GrafWattenburg wrote:

morgoth wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

GrafWattenburg wrote:

Wraithknights - Overrated. Except for when they get into combat with my knight I've rarely seen them make their points back.

What knight ?

My Imperial Knight Errant, should have specified that with all the knight-talk Maybe its just been the dice gods not being on my team, as I know I have a chance to stomp the Wraithknight or kill it with the D-weapon, i just haven't ever managed to. (Anecdotal and not really evidence of either unit's value, I know)

Yes well, the Imperial Knight totally obliterates a Wraith Knight in combat.
From a mathematical standpoint, if you charge you kill him after he deals you 1.6 HP, if he charges you you still have 76% chance to ID him, and he will deal about 3.3HP to you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BoomWolf wrote:
No, because the point of the matter is that the riptide itself is not game-braking (its a good unit, but a fair one), but the IA upgrade that is game-braking

Yes, I can see how the game moves slower because of the amount of dakka it puts out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

The (now) comment makes no sense. The riptide has always been durable for its price. This might be new information for you though. Did valiantly defending waveserpents narrow your vision?

The (now) comment refers to the fact that this argument was started with "The riptide is the most durable thing ever at its points cost" which is a load of bs.

 dementedwombat wrote:
I will say on the Leman Russ Vanquisher argument, having 3 small blasts is much more preferable than having one big one to me, because it really helps the odds of some of your shots getting on target. BS3 blasts are pretty bad as I mentioned in my original post (or at least pretty bad when the obvious intent of the weapon is to kill 2+ save infantry, which usually come in very small squads and are pretty clumped up when you try to shoot at them, at least in my experience).

This has me confused.

I thought the IA could also be fired as 3 small blasts?

You're thinking of the Wraithknight's suncannon.

The Riptide's IA can fire 3 AP2 shots (non-blasts) or one AP2 large-blast.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
That's an extremely pedantic argument to make when the overpowered item in general is unit-specific (meaning it can ONLY be taken by that unit) and it only costs 5 points, thus no one in the history of the World has ever not taken it as an upgrade unless they were deliberately trying to not butt-feth their opponent.

But then you can apply that logic to anything else. Is the Wave Serpent overpowered, or is it just the serpent shield? Just because serpent shield comes stock on it doesn't mean that players are forced to use it, right? Pretty much any unit that's ever been considered overpowered or undercosted becomes less so when you separate the one overpowered quality from the rest of it.

Technically true, but still a silly and pedantic argument to make, especially in a discussion where the context of what people are talking about is obvious.

That said, the BBC Riptide still has jet-pack movement, T6 and a 2+ save, which does make it far more durable than its cost should allow.

Multiple times proved false.
An HBC riptide, when shooting to his maximum ability (attempting a NOVA each turn for overcharge, and shooting it) will deal an average of 4.66 wounds to itself during a game, meaning he is almost killing himself with mere average rolls.
It also means his NOVA is busy actually improving his gun, so you can't afford to use the defensive powers as much, else you are stuck with lackluster firepower, as unlike the IA-the HBC has massive difference in power between nova, and non-nova profiles.


As for the Serpent you brought here, you are obviously aware of the fallacy by the fact the shield is a mandatory built-in wargear, unlike the IA
Yes, NOT taking the IA is often self-gimping, but it just further proves the fact the IA upgrade is the flaw to begin with.
The wave serpent you cant NOT buy the shield, you want the transport-you get the shield.
And yes, the shield IS the problem with it. was it actually a point-blank gun as the fluff suggest (omeone brought up it probably was supposed to be range 6 rather than 60, but something derped in the way-its actually believable) than there was no issue with the WS at all.

Its nice to say "unit X is overpowered" and "army Y is too good", but if you fail to brake it down to the factors that make said unit X, or army Y, and pinpoint the factor that causes the actual problem, than you achieved nothing, and did no real step towards actually finding the point of balance. unfortunately with the way the common crowd fails to see that point, GW does not follow this simple doctrine either, and nerfs/buffs often hit the wrong place directly because of it.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Multiple times proved false.
An HBC riptide, when shooting to his maximum ability (attempting a NOVA each turn for overcharge, and shooting it) will deal an average of 4.66 wounds to itself during a game, meaning he is almost killing himself with mere average rolls.
It also means his NOVA is busy actually improving his gun, so you can't afford to use the defensive powers as much, else you are stuck with lackluster firepower, as unlike the IA-the HBC has massive difference in power between nova, and non-nova profiles.

Irrelevant.

As for the Serpent you brought here, you are obviously aware of the fallacy by the fact the shield is a mandatory built-in wargear, unlike the IA

Already addressed. The IA is 5 points and sacrifices nothing by taking it, it is functionally a built-in wargear, and arguing otherwise is pointless semantics.

The wave serpent you cant NOT buy the shield, you want the transport-you get the shield.

But you can choose to not use it, just like you choose to not take the 5 point upgrade.

And yes, the shield IS the problem with it. was it actually a point-blank gun as the fluff suggest (omeone brought up it probably was supposed to be range 6 rather than 60, but something derped in the way-its actually believable) than there was no issue with the WS at all.

Its nice to say "unit X is overpowered" and "army Y is too good", but if you fail to brake it down to the factors that make said unit X, or army Y, and pinpoint the factor that causes the actual problem, than you achieved nothing, and did no real step towards actually finding the point of balance.

Irrelevent because "X would be be balanced if not for Y" is an irrelevent point to bring up when the discussion is on the state of X. The discussion isn't "How do we balance Riptides", the discussion is "Are Riptides overpowered?". Pointing out that "heyyyy it's not the Riptide that's unbalanced, it's the 5-point near-mandatory upgrade that every single person takes that's the problem!" is a lazy distraction attempt, and contributes nothing to the discussion.

At best, the Wave Serpent is overpowered because of the serpent shield and the Riptide is (mostly) overpowered because of the Ion Accelerator. Asserting anything else is just splitting hairs.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
You're thinking of the Wraithknight's suncannon.

The Riptide's IA can fire 3 AP2 shots (non-blasts) or one AP2 large-blast.

Ah, fair enough. I must have misread that.

morgoth wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

The (now) comment makes no sense. The riptide has always been durable for its price. This might be new information for you though. Did valiantly defending waveserpents narrow your vision?

The (now) comment refers to the fact that this argument was started with "The riptide is the most durable thing ever at its points cost" which is a load of bs.

*Sigh* Do you really believe the things you type? Or do you simply enjoy watching people try to correct the rubbish you spew forth?

If I cared enough I could make a post with a poll, draw upon dakka's collective wisdom, and prove you wrong, the exact same way others have done about your ramblings about waveserpents.

However, you have been proven wrong time and time again in the past but through ignorance, pride or stupidity you can never admit it, or change your ideas. Instead it seems to be your continued mission to derail every thread you can with your rude manners and grating communication skills. Because of this there is no point even bothering to engage with you.

As it is apparent that you won't listen to reason, yet continue to hang around here, I believe it is time something should be done.

I propose the only responses to 'morgoth posts' should be to ignore them, or congratulate him on his continued dedication to trolling and waveserpents.

*Nice trolling morgoth*

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

morgoth wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

The (now) comment makes no sense. The riptide has always been durable for its price. This might be new information for you though. Did valiantly defending waveserpents narrow your vision?

The (now) comment refers to the fact that this argument was started with "The riptide is the most durable thing ever at its points cost" which is a load of bs.

*Sigh* Do you really believe the things you type? Or do you simply enjoy watching people try to correct the rubbish you spew forth?

If I cared enough I could make a post with a poll, draw upon dakka's collective wisdom, and prove you wrong, the exact same way others have done about your ramblings about waveserpents.

However, you have been proven wrong time and time again in the past but through ignorance, pride or stupidity you can never admit it, or change your ideas. Instead it seems to be your continued mission to derail every thread you can with your rude manners and grating communication skills. Because of this there is no point even bothering to engage with you.

As it is apparent that you won't listen to reason, yet continue to hang around here, I believe it is time something should be done.

I propose the only responses to 'morgoth posts' should be to ignore them, or congratulate him on his continued dedication to trolling and waveserpents.

*Nice trolling morgoth*

Eh, I for one don't really take anything he says seriously these days. He's good for a laugh though, if everyone knows that he's wrong then there's no real reason to get worked up about anything he says. Let fools be fools.

[quote=morgoth
How is it possible that an army designed to take on anything it comes up against, including a Riptide, cannot handle it ?

Oh. right. now you'd like that your 1500 point army deals as much damage in shooting as 1500 points of Riptides and you're disappointed (that's about what it takes to kill one Riptide with Riptides).

So basically, your TAC is not TAC enough and your opinion that your 1500 point TAC army should be able to one-phase a Riptide is wrong.

Unless you're one of the best pure shooting army with a pure shooting list, it's not going to happen.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
[quote=morgoth
How is it possible that an army designed to take on anything it comes up against, including a Riptide, cannot handle it ?

Oh. right. now you'd like that your 1500 point army deals as much damage in shooting as 1500 points of Riptides and you're disappointed (that's about what it takes to kill one Riptide with Riptides).

So basically, your TAC is not TAC enough and your opinion that your 1500 point TAC army should be able to one-phase a Riptide is wrong.

Unless you're one of the best pure shooting army with a pure shooting list, it's not going to happen.

... No. Again, you're putting words in my mouth that just aren't there. I have not once said that "I wish my army did as much damage in shooting as 1500 points of Riptides", although to be honest, 1500 points of any army should put out an equivalent amount of damage in its chosen phase as any other 1500 point army. That's called game balance. Trust me, between Exorcists and Melta-minions, my army does NOT lack killing power.

My 1500 point TAC list can take on anything. It struggles a little with fliers and requires some finesse to neutralise them, but it can and has dealt with them in the past.

Just like it has dealt with Riptides. The thing is, it takes the entire army to reliably put down the Riptide.

The Riptide has repeatedly proven itself to be the only thing encountered in regular games that can tank the hits from a tricked out Dominion squad and come back asking for more.

The fact that a single <200 point model requires an entire army (consisting of lots of Ignores cover BS4 melta and other S8 AP1 weapons, and nothing with less than massed S4) to take down makes that single model ridiculous, and there's no two ways about it.

Heaven forbid there's two of them.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Its nice to say "unit X is overpowered" and "army Y is too good", but if you fail to brake it down to the factors that make said unit X, or army Y, and pinpoint the factor that causes the actual problem, than you achieved nothing, and did no real step towards actually finding the point of balance. unfortunately with the way the common crowd fails to see that point, GW does not follow this simple doctrine either, and nerfs/buffs often hit the wrong place directly because of it.

Boom, it's "break", not "brake".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

morgoth wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

The (now) comment makes no sense. The riptide has always been durable for its price. This might be new information for you though. Did valiantly defending waveserpents narrow your vision?

The (now) comment refers to the fact that this argument was started with "The riptide is the most durable thing ever at its points cost" which is a load of bs.

*Sigh* Do you really believe the things you type? Or do you simply enjoy watching people try to correct the rubbish you spew forth?

If I cared enough I could make a post with a poll, draw upon dakka's collective wisdom, and prove you wrong, the exact same way others have done about your ramblings about waveserpents.

However, you have been proven wrong time and time again in the past but through ignorance, pride or stupidity you can never admit it, or change your ideas. Instead it seems to be your continued mission to derail every thread you can with your rude manners and grating communication skills. Because of this there is no point even bothering to engage with you.

As it is apparent that you won't listen to reason, yet continue to hang around here, I believe it is time something should be done.

I propose the only responses to 'morgoth posts' should be to ignore them, or congratulate him on his continued dedication to trolling and waveserpents.

*Nice trolling morgoth*

Can't attack the argument so you attack the poster ? You know that's against forum rules don't you ?

As is spam and being rude, which is you almost every single post.

@morgoth in the 10% chance you're not trolling, have you gone back and actually read the things you post? You post in an aggressive manner which immediately puts people on the offensive. You also seem to like being contrary for the sake of being contrary, have you noticed that in your last 100 post that no one has agreed with anything you've said?

Give it a break for everyone's sake.

Unit #1: (Underrated) Tyrannofex with Acid Spray, relatively cheap, extremely tanky and is great against Tau, Eldar and Necrons.

Unit #2: (Overrated) Mawlocs, far too random and inconsisten for 1 -2 str 6 ap 2 pie plates that may or may not hit every other turn.

Ever since a (I presume, based on flag) German merc owner thought they were based in munchen, along with Audi, I gave up on them. They never admit error it seems

Riptide is one of those awkward units. Rolling well on its nova, and knowing when to roll, is key.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Ever since a (I presume, based on flag) German merc owner thought they were based in munchen, along with Audi, I gave up on them. They never admit error it seems

Riptide is one of those awkward units. Rolling well on its nova, and knowing when to roll, is key.

1. You can mouseover the flags and discover that you should learn a bit more about flags.
2. I used München because I thought most people don't know what Bayern is. But hey, if you wanna talk about that for the next five years, have fun.

Oops , my bad. See, admitting an error.

Bavaria I think you mean. And you named a city, not (for example) ingolstadt.

It was just an example where your knowledge was faulty, and instead of backing down, you persisted. Like here.

It's a lesson, move on

Back to OP. I'll focus on CSM:

-Overrated: Obliterators. Don't get me wrong, they are really good. If I consider them overrated it's because they are not cheap, and HS has other interesting options. I don't consider them as an auto-include unit (not to mention taking 3 units), nor perfect. Sometimes I include a unit, but I don't build my strategy around these guys.

-Underrated: Rapaxes. Again, I'm trying to stick to the definition of underrated, meaning they are not brilliant, but many people would never even consider trying them, just ignoring their entrance on the FOC. Of course, when compared to bikes, they lose many battles: combi-bolter, +1T, etc. but jump units can move across some terrain bikes just can't. Maybe it's my meta, but I sometimes found myself in trouble while trying to move a unit of 8 bikes around, because of terrain. Also, they deepstrike. Sure, not the best unit in the codex to do so, but a cheap unit of 5 men + 2 meltas/plasmas can be scary/distracting.

I assume you meant Raptors not Rapaxes? If so, I agree and think they are only 1 notch below Bikes

Yes, I meant Raptors, in the spanish version of the codex they are still called Rapaxes. Don't really know why. I suspect lazyness is involved.

I suspect its related to spanish.

It definitely is

 Vaktathi wrote:

oz of the north wrote:


1) Thunderwolves- yes they are a fun gimmick, but in reality in a edition where assault is not favored they are just a giant target and if you play in a meta with lots of str. 10 they are pretty much useless. Also without allies they only can get a 6+ FnP with either a lucky roll or a wolf priest that is better used elsewhere

They're a unit with a 12" move, T5 W2, with 6 S5 rending attacks in almost any first round of combat, for less than the price of 3 basic putz marines, with the ability to kit them out individually to suit any need. They're incredibly tough, incredibly fast, and incredibly killy, for dirt cheap. What's not to like?

Also, how many armies are routinely bringing absurd amounts of S10, especially ranged AP3 or better S10? That's been toned way down, with the removal of the Medusa to FW only, the Broadside got nerfed, Fire Prisms can't link fire to get S10 anymore, Manticore's have seen a substantial drop in utility and a price increase (and aren't AP3 anyway) etc.

Besides, at least in my experience, what I find kills them best is just massed S7 fire like autocannons, strips wounds from them as easily as it does from basic marines, forget S10.

Yea Thunderwolves are great. Worth the 40pts for sure. If you charge them down the same flank your drop pods landed on, your opponent has a very difficult situation on his hands. Do I shoot the Thunderwolves while these Grey hunters continue to drop my men, or do I shoot the Grey Hunters and the Thunderwolves will make a huge mess of my battle line?

1. Overrated: objective secured. Who gives a damn about that when your enemy is dead?

2. Overrated: Riptide. Don't waste any fire on it. Kill their broadsides instead. Or easily sweeping advance it off the board with thunderwolf cavalry, high strength jump troops (assault marine PF sergeant will do the trick) or anything fast with high Str and ap2.

3. Overrated: daemon summoning lists. Not really a unit, but meh. They hit like a wet noodle. Just take the objectives and survive until the end of the game. Having the table covered in units doesn't necessarily win you the game. I beat one in just this fashion.

 Kavish wrote:

1. Overrated: objective secured. Who gives a damn about that when your enemy is dead?

I think it does have it's uses - certainly Objective Secured drop pods can be a pain - but in general I agree.

At the very least, it's a meagre bonus for troops, compared to when they were the only units that could score.