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"Once a Grey Knight is strapped into the command harness on the Dreadknight’s front, synaptic implants give him complete control of the machine’s limbs and weapon systems –Essentially transforming him into a metal giant." Grey Knights Codex entry for Dreadknight. A walker is controlled through mechanical controls and what not, and are less graceful and fluid. the dreadknight is not a clunk or slow as a dreadnought. it is more like an anime battle robot suit (read tau)

 GKTiberius wrote:
"Once a Grey Knight is strapped into the command harness on the Dreadknight’s front, synaptic implants give him complete control of the machine’s limbs and weapon systems –Essentially transforming him into a metal giant." Grey Knights Codex entry for Dreadknight. A walker is controlled through mechanical controls and what not, and are less graceful and fluid. the dreadknight is not a clunk or slow as a dreadnought. it is more like an anime battle robot suit (read tau)

Yaknow a dreadnought is basically a dude that is 100% connected to the machine to control

usually dudes that get gravely injured but given a second chance to serve.

 Desubot wrote:
Personally i think there should be no vehicles. but thats my personal opinion.

yeah... vehicles should straight up just have tough values on each facing, with a # of wounds, and should actually get fething armour saves while we are at it.

almost every edition has moved towards them being more MC like, additiong of HP's being the latest,

but really, they need to be treated as MC's so that walkers dont suck. they can still differentiate between "mechanical huge things" and organic huge things so that armourebane/poisen/tank-monster hunter/ect dont become superfluous.


so the answer to the OP question,

is they are MC's because of reasons,
they are walkers, also because of reasons.

any questions = heresy and will result in exterminatus with extreme prejudice!

 easysauce wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Personally i think there should be no vehicles. but thats my personal opinion.

yeah... vehicles should straight up just have tough values on each facing, with a # of wounds, and should actually get fething armour saves while we are at it.

almost every edition has moved towards them being more MC like, additiong of HP's being the latest,

but really, they need to be treated as MC's so that walkers dont suck. they can still differentiate between "mechanical huge things" and organic huge things so that armourebane/poisen/tank-monster hunter/ect dont become superfluous.


so the answer to the OP question,

is they are MC's because of reasons,
they are walkers, also because of reasons.

any questions = heresy and will result in exterminatus with extreme prejudice!

Heck we could have meltas do D3-6 damage and stuff too. things like that.

yeah, personally Im not a fan of D6 systems in general, ESP the new AP system, as it reduces the # of outcomes you can have, and things like armour modifiers allow for much more diversity and specialization for weapons then the AP system does.

d10 I think gets you to the point where you ahve enough options so that you can create enough "power levels" to make much more sense then with a d6, and while you can get more options with say 2d6, you cannot really roll a whole whack of 2d6's as you can with a bunch of d10's.

 Desubot wrote:

 GKTiberius wrote:
"Once a Grey Knight is strapped into the command harness on the Dreadknight’s front, synaptic implants give him complete control of the machine’s limbs and weapon systems –Essentially transforming him into a metal giant." Grey Knights Codex entry for Dreadknight. A walker is controlled through mechanical controls and what not, and are less graceful and fluid. the dreadknight is not a clunk or slow as a dreadnought. it is more like an anime battle robot suit (read tau)

Yaknow a dreadnought is basically a dude that is 100% connected to the machine to control

usually dudes that get gravely injured but given a second chance to serve.

Exactly, so why is a Dreadknight a MC? Because GKs are a very cheesy army which has to be one up on marines because they're super duper marines who are super kewl and do kewl things.

 Desubot wrote:

 GKTiberius wrote:
"Once a Grey Knight is strapped into the command harness on the Dreadknight’s front, synaptic implants give him complete control of the machine’s limbs and weapon systems –Essentially transforming him into a metal giant." Grey Knights Codex entry for Dreadknight. A walker is controlled through mechanical controls and what not, and are less graceful and fluid. the dreadknight is not a clunk or slow as a dreadnought. it is more like an anime battle robot suit (read tau)

Yaknow a dreadnought is basically a dude that is 100% connected to the machine to control

usually dudes that get gravely injured but given a second chance to serve.

So wouldn't it make a lot more sense for the Dreadnought to be a MC and the Riptide to be a walker? The washing machine is the Dreadnought's body. He isn't piloting it. Whereas a Riptide has a pilot inside it.

SGTPozy wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 GKTiberius wrote:
"Once a Grey Knight is strapped into the command harness on the Dreadknight’s front, synaptic implants give him complete control of the machine’s limbs and weapon systems –Essentially transforming him into a metal giant." Grey Knights Codex entry for Dreadknight. A walker is controlled through mechanical controls and what not, and are less graceful and fluid. the dreadknight is not a clunk or slow as a dreadnought. it is more like an anime battle robot suit (read tau)

Yaknow a dreadnought is basically a dude that is 100% connected to the machine to control

usually dudes that get gravely injured but given a second chance to serve.

Exactly, so why is a Dreadknight a MC? Because GKs are a very cheesy army which has to be one up on marines because they're super duper marines who are super kewl and do kewl things.

At the risk of incurring your further Butt-hurt wrath, I must whole heartedly disagree. GK is not cheesy or over powered. They ate a mid tier army at best right now (I'm not counting hybrid and ally armies. That is where the new strength in the game is at and really isn't what we are talking about). As far as the fluff the dreadnought pilots are severely injured and as such probably have some limitations. But also the nature and shape of the dreadnoughts prevent them from being super agile and MC like. Contemptor dreads were probably more graceful originally due to their design. But are so old that they probably don't work as well as they once did. Also in the fluff they are an elite force that is superior to normal a started as a necessity to combat daemons. But the only translation to the table top that this has is a difference in gear. If normal marines had access to ap3 force weapons they would be almost exactly the same. We pay for those swords and other gear in that strike squads are almost double the cost of tac squads, and we have access to very situational squad weapons where as tacs have aces to a greater degree of flexibility.

If you want to complain that is fine, but articulate what you don't like. Don't just catagorically dismiss the army out of hand. It sound to me like you may be regurgitating the same Internet tripe about gk without really looking at the army. I could be wrong. Maybe your meta has a super strong gk aspect and may be marine or Meq heavy. Or you may play daemons. Reguardless, every army has strong units and tactical strengths, and GK is by no means the most cheesy and no where near broken.

Can MCs be insta-killed ?

Yes. They can be. they only have Fear, Hammer of Wrath, Move Through Cover, Relentless and Smash

So the Dread-Knight and for that matter, the riptide and wraith-knight can be insta-killed ?


Also I think the dread-knight's classification also boils down to it being more nimble and agile than a walker should be.

It is supposed to be fighting other monstrous creatures in the form of Greater Daemons. It takes a great degree of agility to even match a Greater Daemon in combat, let alone beat one.

Dreadknights were fluffed up as tools for fighting Greater Daemons, they could not accomplish that very well with walker rules. They were also said to be a technology of unknown origin, so if you can excuse xenos-machines being MCs then you can just assume the GKs pilfered the technology from xenos.

The Dreadknight uses Tau tech (look at the feet), but IoM's tech is extremely inefficient so how can they match the Tau when all they are doing is copying?

The Dreadknight and Riptide can only be insta-killed by force weapons (something GKs spam).

Animus basically said that it was to make them cheesy as otherwise they wouldn't be super nooby against Greater Daemons... And 'Nids.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 GKTiberius wrote:

SGTPozy wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 GKTiberius wrote:
"Once a Grey Knight is strapped into the command harness on the Dreadknight’s front, synaptic implants give him complete control of the machine’s limbs and weapon systems –Essentially transforming him into a metal giant." Grey Knights Codex entry for Dreadknight. A walker is controlled through mechanical controls and what not, and are less graceful and fluid. the dreadknight is not a clunk or slow as a dreadnought. it is more like an anime battle robot suit (read tau)

Yaknow a dreadnought is basically a dude that is 100% connected to the machine to control

usually dudes that get gravely injured but given a second chance to serve.

Exactly, so why is a Dreadknight a MC? Because GKs are a very cheesy army which has to be one up on marines because they're super duper marines who are super kewl and do kewl things.

At the risk of incurring your further Butt-hurt wrath, I must whole heartedly disagree. GK is not cheesy or over powered. They ate a mid tier army at best right now (I'm not counting hybrid and ally armies. That is where the new strength in the game is at and really isn't what we are talking about). As far as the fluff the dreadnought pilots are severely injured and as such probably have some limitations. But also the nature and shape of the dreadnoughts prevent them from being super agile and MC like. Contemptor dreads were probably more graceful originally due to their design. But are so old that they probably don't work as well as they once did. Also in the fluff they are an elite force that is superior to normal a started as a necessity to combat daemons. But the only translation to the table top that this has is a difference in gear. If normal marines had access to ap3 force weapons they would be almost exactly the same. We pay for those swords and other gear in that strike squads are almost double the cost of tac squads, and we have access to very situational squad weapons where as tacs have aces to a greater degree of flexibility.

If you want to complain that is fine, but articulate what you don't like. Don't just catagorically dismiss the army out of hand. It sound to me like you may be regurgitating the same Internet tripe about gk without really looking at the army. I could be wrong. Maybe your meta has a super strong gk aspect and may be marine or Meq heavy. Or you may play daemons. Reguardless, every army has strong units and tactical strengths, and GK is by no means the most cheesy and no where near broken.

All I want to say is that I am the one who spreads the "internet tripe". Mwahahahaha!

No, they don't.

IoM tech is greater than the Tau, there is no reason they should steal anything.

Considering the imperium lost alot of its tech and doesn't make anymore? While the tau are still developing tech that is improving alot with each codex that comes out (progression of fluff ect)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another point, if imperial tech is better than tau how come theres so much hate to the stuff tau have access to? (massed ap2 and ignore cover). Sure space marines always have to be +1 to other books just look at grav guns and dreadknights but fluff wise tau have superior tech but would get an ass lovin if the imperium actually full on attacked them

They are still centuries from apporaching the mid level technology of the DAoT.

Regardless, currently they are not as advanced as the technology available to the Imperium. They are slightly above the general technology of the Astra Militarium currently, but the Grey Knights in particular are well ahead of them. The idea that they would need to steal technology for the feet of a walker from the Tau is silly.

 PhillyT wrote:
No, they don't.

IoM tech is greater than the Tau, there is no reason they should steal anything.

Considering that before GKs stole Tau tech, the IoM could only produce walkers and not MCs (and everyone knows that MC > walker) I can totally see how Imperial tech is superior <sarcasm>.

IoM tech WAS greater in their prime, but not in 40k. They are stagnant in technological development, so they have to resort to stealing tech. Tau and 'Nids are the only races who are advancing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 total0 wrote:
Considering the imperium lost alot of its tech and doesn't make anymore? While the tau are still developing tech that is improving alot with each codex that comes out (progression of fluff ect)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another point, if imperial tech is better than tau how come theres so much hate to the stuff tau have access to? (massed ap2 and ignore cover). Sure space marines always have to be +1 to other books just look at grav guns and dreadknights but fluff wise tau have superior tech but would get an ass lovin if the imperium actually full on attacked them

Exactly, our basic guns are better than their basic guns, so who wins? Tau.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PhillyT wrote:
They are still centuries from apporaching the mid level technology of the DAoT.

Regardless, currently they are not as advanced as the technology available to the Imperium. They are slightly above the general technology of the Astra Militarium currently, but the Grey Knights in particular are well ahead of them. The idea that they would need to steal technology for the feet of a walker from the Tau is silly.

Yes, but DAoT tech is generally lost, and this isn't during the DAoT, this is 40k, where the Tau supercede IoM tech. Why is it that Tau guns are better then?
GK are only better than space marines because of Matt Ward and you know it!

The Riptide isn't a walker (like the Dreadknight should be), it is a MC!

You're trying to connect crunch with fluff, as though the IoM has any understanding of what MC or walkers as rules sets are. The current crunch supports MC as superior in many ways (though not all ways) to vehicle rule sets. They are better in some ways (ignoring entire classes of weapons).

The Imperium isn't really stealing tech. They are against it. Tau fans need to get their stories straight. Some claim the Imperium is too stupid to reverse engineer tech. Others are claiming that they are intentionally stealing foot design.

The Imperium is still light years ahead of the Tau in walker/battle suit design. Power armor, terminator armor, dreadnaught armor, knights, and titans are all equal to or greater than the stealth, crisis, broadside, and riptide designs. They all feature different philosophic approaches, the IoM supporting durability over the Tau's choice of maneuverability.

And of course the Tau are presented as continuing to advance. If they didn't have that, the only other thing they have as a hook for players is that they accept opther aliens as second class citizens. It is those two concepts that make Tau Tau. That doesn't somehow make them better technologically. The Eldar and Necron are uncountable millennia ahead of them. DAoT is many multiples ahead, regardless of how much of it has been lost, that which remains is still significantly ahead. tech is

The Imperium is hypocritical. They say to kill all xenos, yet Jokaero are cool. They say to kill the mutant, but certain abhumans (ogryns and ratlings) are fine. They say not to use xeno tech, yet xeno inquisitors use it.

IoM players need to get their stories straight. They are not the best in 40k, progress the story forward a little bit and they will crumble due to Chaos, Tyranids, Orks and Necrons.

Light years measure distance, not time, so where are we measuring the tech from? I say from the west so the Tau win as they are further away.

Tau designs are more efficient and they make new tech to combat their enemies. HYMP were invented to tackle Orks and Tyranids etc.
Titans take stupendous amounts of resources to make (the Tau could probably make a maximum of two), yet the Tau designed the Tiger Shark to take them down which took a fraction of resources to create.
Now do you understand why Tau tech is superior? Those that adapt survive - natural selection.

That last paragraph... Is so stupid. What if space marines were presented as just being regular humans rather than super humans, would you like them then? What if the IoM was actually really small and Eldar hadn't been largely destroyed by Slaanesb, would you still like them?

Your final part, about how DAoT tech is superior to Eldar and Necron tech is largely my argument for Tau vs IoM. You say that Tau tech can't be better as they haven't been around as long, well then how can DAoT tech be better than Eldar/Necron tech when they are two of the oldest races?

Isn't that little rant a little bit off topic for this thread?

SGTPozy wrote:
The Imperium is hypocritical. They say to kill all xenos, yet Jokaero are cool. They say to kill the mutant, but certain abhumans (ogryns and ratlings) are fine. They say not to use xeno tech, yet xeno inquisitors use it.

IoM players need to get their stories straight. They are not the best in 40k, progress the story forward a little bit and they will crumble due to Chaos, Tyranids, Orks and Necrons.

Light years measure distance, not time, so where are we measuring the tech from? I say from the west so the Tau win as they are further away.

Tau designs are more efficient and they make new tech to combat their enemies. HYMP were invented to tackle Orks and Tyranids etc.
Titans take stupendous amounts of resources to make (the Tau could probably make a maximum of two), yet the Tau designed the Tiger Shark to take them down which took a fraction of resources to create.
Now do you understand why Tau tech is superior? Those that adapt survive - natural selection.

That last paragraph... Is so stupid. What if space marines were presented as just being regular humans rather than super humans, would you like them then? What if the IoM was actually really small and Eldar hadn't been largely destroyed by Slaanesb, would you still like them?

Your final part, about how DAoT tech is superior to Eldar and Necron tech is largely my argument for Tau vs IoM. You say that Tau tech can't be better as they haven't been around as long, well then how can DAoT tech be better than Eldar/Necron tech when they are two of the oldest races?

Oooo I'll jump in on this

Tau military tech is equal or better than Imperial guard (F astra milistupid), guard have a carapace the same as Tau, a metric ton more plasma/melta etc.
Guard tanks are more durable and run on any combustable material (think about that, that's massive tech right there), Tau have better AT and Skimmer tech (arguably better in most situations)
Guard has Nuetron lasers on ground based chassis, Tau have no equivilant, Tau have Heavy Rail tech on a flyer, Guard have no Equiv.
Guard have Lasguns, these alone are a higher tech than Pulse rifles, pulse rifles are a lot stronger but do not have the rugged nature or the adaptability of lasguns (hot shot, assault etc.), remember power does not equate better tech.

So just going through the basic stuff on the front line we can see that Tau and guard are roughly equal in terms of tech, now lets add the bigger stuff.

Battlesuits, guard have no... oh wait they do, not as good I admit but they have sentinals, which are basically the same thing just different rules, fast moving vehicles that take medium to heavy weapons,
Tau win this one though as I feel making a man fly with any degree of control is very difficult, but making a "walker" is also very difficult.
Riptides, guard have no equiv.... oh wait they do, super heavy vehicles, again these are comparable simply because the mindset is the same for there creation (ignore rules here), both are massive engines
of war designed to dominate there part of the battlefield through superior firepower, size and bulk are disregarded and the biggest guns are strapped to these machines. Guard win this one.

Flyers.
On the whole id say Tau win this, guard flyers are tough as usual but the tech doesn't seem to be as advanced in terms of missiles and avionics, while as far as im aware tau do not have a aircraft other than the manta that can do both space and atmospherical combat (again that tech alone would change the world these days), looking at the models and what little fluff there is on tau flyers seem to give them the edge.

BIG GUNSSSSSSSSSSS
Guard win this hands down, Tau have the Ion accelerator (massively advanced), Guard have Nuetron cannons and Meson beams, that's incredible from a theoretical standpoint, they also have access to
a bewildering array of super heavy weapons, as far as im aware Tau have the 1, the heavy railgun and fireing slugs along a magnatised rail isn't as advanced as the above, its pretty damn advanced, but not as difficult.

So in my opinion just covering a few things, we can see that Tau are more advanced in terms of armour and certain ground level weapons, but not advanced the further up the scale we go, if we start to add things like medical tech, genetic engineering, starships etc. Tau start to fall even further behind, so where this myth that Tau are more advanced than the imperium comes from I do not know, they will be more advanced, but its along way away

 total0 wrote:
Considering the imperium lost alot of its tech and doesn't make anymore? While the tau are still developing tech that is improving alot with each codex that comes out (progression of fluff ect)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another point, if imperial tech is better than tau how come theres so much hate to the stuff tau have access to? (massed ap2 and ignore cover). Sure space marines always have to be +1 to other books just look at grav guns and dreadknights but fluff wise tau have superior tech but would get an ass lovin if the imperium actually full on attacked them

The only reason they appear to have more advance tech is because they dont have the logistics issues the Imperium does. The tau are just a few star systems and worlds. The Imperium is close to a million worlds. There is no number on the amount of humans serving under-arms in the Astra Militarum or the Imperial Navy. It cannot afford to out-fit everyone with their best technology, which is hoarded jealously by the Adeptus Mechanicus. If the imperium was only a hand full of sectors like the Tau, their technology would seem far more advance because their resources wouldn't be stretched as thin.

I think the main issue here is when something is made a MC vs a Walker some rules are rather important:

Poison: DE's just love MC's.
Does it make sense that a Dreadknight can be poisoned?
I guess the pilot with his force-field can get nailed on occasion so sure.

Dreadnaught is a big metal life support unit with no bits hanging out so makes sense as a walker.

Eldar constructs are somewhat living things with soul-stones plugged in so could make the case as MC's.

Riptides and Tau suits in general... now it all falls apart for me.
No fleshy parts hanging out, completely mechanical.
We could say the "normal" suits work out to little more than a space marine's power armor.

I just have no reply for the Riptide other than cheese.

The Riptide itself appears to just be one big battlesuit-armor.

In the damocles anthology Straken had no problem taking out a riptide by stabbing his knife through a riptides neck and killing the wearer.

In the death watch RPG they also show that as far as crisis suits go, the head portion is just a helmate.

In a few of the novels, like Engine of Mork, they show stealth suits are simply just power-armor.

Pacific Rim

Big-ass suits of armour designed to shoot the Gak out of bio-hazardous critters that the Nids love so much

only, due to their expansionist attitude, the biohazardous critters are, in this case, Battle Tanks of the Militarum

And the lumbering Warmachines of the orks.

In fact, the Tau Codex mentions the Riptides devolopment stemmed from seeing the monstrous war-engines of their enemies like the Imperial Titans and Ork Gargants.

"To fight monsters, we need monsters"

Honestly, the biggest issue with all of this is the notion that fluff in someway is being reflected in the crunch. It simply isn't true. There is no reason to think that the foot design of the Dreadknight suddenly means it is a retro engineered design of the Tau. It is absurd.

Similarly, the idea that giving a model MC rules instead of vehicle rules is an intentional attempt to reflect either a higher level of function or technology. It isn't. It is a decision by individual game designers to add variety to the units. The Dreadknight was given walker states most likely to separate it from the dreadnought in terms of function and to give it the role of fighting greater demons, which vehicles really can't do.

Tau suits are MC because they are basically just adding new larger suits to prexisting crisis suits etc. Making it suddenly a vehicle would have mucked up the synergy of the army, which generally lacks large number of vehicle profiles. It was easier to do.

There is nothing to the notion that making them MC was done to reflect higher tech, because that isn't relevant. There is nothing in the MC rules that creates that idea that it is better than walkers. They are different. Triarch Tombstalkers are FAR ahead of any other "walker" type model technologically, and they have a vehicle profile.

Lets not get too far off the topic by trying to act as thoguh MC/wlaker choices are anything other than crunch decisions and a sign of GW inconsistency.

 Melissia wrote:
Isn't that little rant a little bit off topic for this thread?

naaaah

 PhillyT wrote:
Honestly, the biggest issue with all of this is the notion that fluff in someway is being reflected in the crunch. It simply isn't true. There is no reason to think that the foot design of the Dreadknight suddenly means it is a retro engineered design of the Tau. It is absurd.

Similarly, the idea that giving a model MC rules instead of vehicle rules is an intentional attempt to reflect either a higher level of function or technology. It isn't. It is a decision by individual game designers to add variety to the units. The Dreadknight was given walker states most likely to separate it from the dreadnought in terms of function and to give it the role of fighting greater demons, which vehicles really can't do.

Tau suits are MC because they are basically just adding new larger suits to prexisting crisis suits etc. Making it suddenly a vehicle would have mucked up the synergy of the army, which generally lacks large number of vehicle profiles. It was easier to do.

There is nothing to the notion that making them MC was done to reflect higher tech, because that isn't relevant. There is nothing in the MC rules that creates that idea that it is better than walkers. They are different. Triarch Tombstalkers are FAR ahead of any other "walker" type model technologically, and they have a vehicle profile.

Lets not get too far off the topic by trying to act as thoguh MC/wlaker choices are anything other than crunch decisions and a sign of GW inconsistency.

I agree, tis why I ignored rules and basically tried to imagine the design thought behind certain things.

Like the Riptide, it IS the Tau super heavy, it has the same concept (assuming it was all real of course) behind it.
Same with Sentinals and Battlesuits, up armoured platforms to carry the medium to heavy weapons and protect the occupant as much as possible, highly mobile and able to match infantry on infantry warzones.