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I don't think the games designers (and I use that word in the loosest way possible) put that much, if any, thought into it.

I don't think they are motivated by fluff in any way.
One could argue how a Wraithknight is more "organic" (MC) and Riptide is more strictly "piloted" (thus Walker), in the same way that a Dreadknight should be a Walker and the Imperial Knight should be an MC.
So it is not how the model is "piloted".

The Dreadknight and Riptide are both MCs, and Forgefiends are Walkers. it isn't a consistent case of organic = MC and inorganic = Walker.
So the "origin" of the model is not the deciding factor.

So is it a case of "power-level", with the designers thinking that MCs are more powerful than Walkers?
The games designers have never given any indication that they are concerned with "power-level".....quite the contrary.

In the end I am left with the sinking feeling that the classifications of the various models are inspired by what day of the week it is or whether Sagittarius is in the house of Venus.
In either case I think it is clear that no rational examination and justification occurs in the design process of the Studio, making the question in the OP pointless.



...

Riptides are giant robotic suits, powered by circuitry and some form of electricity. Haywire grenades are specifically made to disrupt electronics and circuitry but do nothing against a riptide....GW logic.

They should really do away with all MCs which aren't true creatures. The wraithknight, riptide and dreadknight are all mechanical, and should all really be vehicles.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

They should really do away with all MCs which aren't true creatures. The wraithknight, riptide and dreadknight are all mechanical, and should all really be vehicles.

Don't forget the Wraithlord either!

Hunam0001 wrote:
It just seems like they have more in common with Dreadnoughts than a monstrous creature.

For that matter, the Wraithknight does too.

I can see Wraithlords as MCs because of the whole "union between soulstone and wraithbore" thing they got going on, but I just kinda feel like Wraithknights and Riptides are more like vehicles with a pilot and such.

Not sure what good irt does to ponder it. the Crisis suits aren't walkers either. Tau have never had Walkers and probably wouldn't.

Can you imagine the outrage if Crisis Suits were AV10 walkers? lol!

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Can you imagine the outrage if Crisis Suits were AV10 walkers? lol!

Ask Ork players with Killa Kans......

Killa Kans... so much promise.

I believe the best thought on walker vs monstrous creature was
A being operating controls that cause action (walker)
A being becoming the controls that cause action ( MC )

So who does that explain the Dreadknight? Oh how I hate those things, too.

kambien wrote:
I believe the best thought on walker vs monstrous creature was
A being operating controls that cause action (walker)
A being becoming the controls that cause action ( MC )

That's now it should be, but it isn't because at best the 40k game designers aren't on the same page, or at worst the idiots GW have writing for them are being told to make things more powerful in game so that they sell more.

kambien wrote:
I believe the best thought on walker vs monstrous creature was
A being operating controls that cause action (walker)
A being becoming the controls that cause action ( MC )

Except your basic Marine Dreadnaught is the latter but is classified as a walker.

Get rid of armour and give everything toughness, wounds and saves. If you want to represent degradation of function as damage increases just tie their attack power to their remaining wounds, half wounds, only half of ranged weapons work and attacks are halved (rounding up).

We might have to fiddle with dedicated anti-tank weapons (lance never wounds on worse than a 4+, anti-tank weapons do D3 or D6 wounds, instant death disappears), but that sort of tweaking is pretty easy.

With everything functioning more or less the same way nothing gains an advantage just because of whatever class it happens to be.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
Riptides are giant robotic suits, powered by circuitry and some form of electricity. Haywire grenades are specifically made to disrupt electronics and circuitry but do nothing against a riptide....GW logic.

They should really do away with all MCs which aren't true creatures. The wraithknight, riptide and dreadknight are all mechanical, and should all really be vehicles.

and on the flip side of that your giant robot gets royally boned by poison rounds.

I think the MC vs Walker thing comes down to lazy rules writing. GW has dragged old baggage into new additions and taped it together. vehicles are more fragile in 6th. so they wanted to make a tough unit with jetpack infantry rules, well if they just mashed MC+jetpack infantry together, easy.

The rules represent an abstract way to model things. As they keep adding units, the categories need to be split expanded and redefined. there should be walker, heavy walker and superheavy walker. each with different traits. wont happen though.

Well my two cents is a riptide is a bigger version of a battle suit so a bigger infantry model is a monstrous creature. I feel like dreadnoughts are very mechanical almost like a vehicle big bulky and stuff. The dread knight the only thing that it has in comparison with the wraith knight and the riptide is that it looks like a human unlike the other walkers. I'm not sure about fluff but if I had to guess that's what I think.

Well, I think that MCs are generally tougher than Dreads and related walkers.

The situation is a bit different for the Knight since it comes with a partial invulnerable save against shooting.

Steelmage99 wrote:
I don't think the games designers (and I use that word in the loosest way possible) put that much, if any, thought into it.

Oh they put a lot of thought into it. They knew if they made it a walker they wouldn't sell as much. Just look at the Grey Knight baby carrier MC. Look how much it sold because it was a MC and not a walker.

It all comes down to $$$.

I agree generally with what's being said in this thread, but I have to say I disagree with the notion Wraith units from Eldar should be walkers and not MCs. Fluff-wise, they are much more similar to a monstrous creature than a walker. Wraithbone is organic, "sung" into shape by the bonesingers. They also behave more as a monstrous creature, where it's not a dead body piloting a tank that has feet so much as it is a dead spirit inhabiting a fully functional body-suit.

From a gameplay perspective, I really think something needs to be done. AV in general is just awful this edition. Instant Death is too easy to achieve on vehicles and super difficult if not impossible barring ludicrously expensive real money models (super heavies) or extremely lucky dice rolls with a Force Weapon. If you're not AV14, or a flyer, or immune to the effects of Lance/Melta, your vehicle is probably dying the first time someone shoots it withtheir anti-tank weapons.

Because then Tau wouldn't be OP as gak and thus no one would buy them. And if no one bought them, GW would be out a lot of money for making such a large kit/kits that came with the Tau release wave.

Money grabbing, confused and bloated rules, lazy writers. The answer is probably a combination of those factors.

My 2 teef
The hull point rules should change to be more like wounds. Once all are gone then roll to see if it blows up. Then walkers would be more like MC's and GW could make these models walkers with out hamstringing them.
Anouther thought on the walker/ MC debate. Walkers arn't affected by poison MC's are so honestly that should in some way be a factor on what to classify a model. How does a poison dart hurt a Waithkinght, or Riptide???

I don't know the exact rules or what units are which, but i don't see why people are saying that Wraithknights, Dreadknights and Riptides should be walkers. To me MC seems to be for things which are in essence, a giant 'living' thing (Organic or Non-organic) while Walkers are clumsy, non-agile vehicles.

As far as I'm aware Wraithknights, Dreadknights and Riptides are all capable of interacting with things far more than things like a Dreadnought or a Killa Kan. Picking up things (they all have actual fingers which can be controlled), crouching, leaning etc are all things they can do, whereas a dreadnought is pretty limited to just things such as moving limbs up/down/forward/back. Basically, those count as MC because they are capable of interacting with things around them as a living thing would, whereas walkers like a Dreadnought are clumsy machines that are very limited in what they can do. Tyranids have MC instead of Walkers because that is what they actually are.

I don't know what other things count as a MC or Walker, though so I'm just basing it off of those things. I don't see why people are saying Riptides shouldn't be MC. They are quite literally a giant crisis suit.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

kambien wrote:
I believe the best thought on walker vs monstrous creature was
A being operating controls that cause action (walker)
A being becoming the controls that cause action ( MC )

Except your basic Marine Dreadnaught is the latter but is classified as a walker.

And tau suits are a bit like that too. The pilots even feel ghost pains when their suit is damaged.

ted234521 wrote:
Because then Tau wouldn't be OP as gak and thus no one would buy them. And if no one bought them, GW would be out a lot of money for making such a large kit/kits that came with the Tau release wave.

People bought Tau in 5th Ed just fine because a lot of people like the fluff of the armies and the look of them.

The thing that makes Tau really good is Markerlights, moreso than Riptides. You can build a decent Tau list without Riptides. It's just the Monstrous Creature status putting it a little over the top, too. If it was Armor 3+ instead of 2+, it would be fairly price appropriate.

 SRSFACE wrote:

ted234521 wrote:
Because then Tau wouldn't be OP as gak and thus no one would buy them. And if no one bought them, GW would be out a lot of money for making such a large kit/kits that came with the Tau release wave.

People bought Tau in 5th Ed just fine because a lot of people like the fluff of the armies and the look of them.

The thing that makes Tau really good is Markerlights, moreso than Riptides. You can build a decent Tau list without Riptides. It's just the Monstrous Creature status putting it a little over the top, too. If it was Armor 3+ instead of 2+, it would be fairly price appropriate.

The 2+/5++/5+++ combo is pretty ridiculous. If they made it 3+, or even just only a 6++ it would be much better. Realistically, they could just re-cost it.

The same this was aksed as to why the helldrake was a Flyer and not an FMC. They gave it all the FMC perks, but on an ungroundable chassis.

barnowl wrote:
The same this was aksed as to why the helldrake was a Flyer and not an FMC. They gave it all the FMC perks, but on an ungroundable chassis.

Helldrake is a daemonically possesed machine with turbines pushing it threw the air so unlike a FMC it does not need to keep flapping to stay aloft.
Honestly as said before all of this is at them wims of the current codex writer and whether they liked the army or were just assigned a book to write.

The Heldrake has Hover. The only way that chasis will hover is if it points it's ass straight at the ground and does short burns while using it's wings to try and stabilize itself.

SO yeah.... Take that into consideration on why it's a vehicle and not a FMC. It definately can "hover" like a FMC, it just can't be grounded.

I don't think fluff even enters the equation. Look at my chaos models. It doesn't get much more organic than the dino-bots and the helbrute (DV brute has toe nails!) yet they are not MC but walker.

I think for something like the riptide its very clear they wanted it to be durable. The MC rules give more leeway designing a durable unit because there's never the 'explode' result.However, I don't think fundamentally the rules favor one or the other. Explodes is just the ID for vehicles and poison=lance.

Its more so just how these things enter the game. Its very easy to explode something from range because of all the high S low AP weapons. You don't see very many (any?) shooting weapons with ID on them. Its not really the core rules that need fixing, Just the wanton distribution of S8-10 AP1-2 weapons ultra good T/W/Sv.

No one points at a daemon prince and says its brokenly durable because its a MC. If the number of super powerful guns on the table were reduced the walkers would enjoy the durability they deserve. At the same time the newer MCs need to have their stats reigned in and/or points adjusted.

Really is there even any reason to have Walkers right now? The majority of the problems I see with walkers would be solved easily if they just made them MC.

Really it makes sense to do that, since walkers don't operate in the same way normal vehicles do. Immobilizing a walker is generally far more devastating than it would be to a tank, especially to walkers like Helbrutes and Maulerfiends. Even something like the IG sentinel to me would make more sense as having a high T value and 2 W with a 3+ save as opposed to the open soup can it currently is.

Really I think the Walker rule is there as more of a stamp for something that GW put very little care into. It's an attempt to stick old rules into the modern mess we are dealing with. Knights get around the walker issue by being super heavy so you can't immobilize or remove their weapons. Really this is the huge flaw in the current system. My crisis suits have multiple wounds, yet will never get a weapon or arm blown off. A two wound attack bike or heavy weapon team doesn't lose any effectiveness even though one of the team members is painted across eight different bases.

To cut it short, Walkers should not exist.

If you look how vehicles worked in earlier editions, it's that they where fragile to hard counters (missile launchers, rail guns, bright lances, etc), but completely immune to anti-infantry weapons (bolters, shuri weaons of all types, shootas).

I remember this as being the reason that Dreadnoughts used to be feared in CC, as most infantry (other than specialized CC units) just weren't that good at punching tanks.

Maybe we just need more weapons that cause ID?

They would bring about a very hard counter to MCs, while being ineffective vs normal infantry, and vehicles.

As for crisis suits, I remember reading an interview they did with the designers when the Tau where first introduced; Crisis suits originally where treated as jet bikes. They went through a bunch of iterations before introducing jet packs as a way to make them feel mobile, without making them too fast, and they added the toughness bonus directly to their stats so they couldn't be killed instantly with plasma (this was back when the additional toughness from bikes didn't count for ID).