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tag8833 wrote:

 Zagman wrote:
And as I've said I've been debating another 5pt increase for the HYMP Setup, or more likely a 5pt upgrade for the SMS upgrade. Probably a 5pt Upgrade for the SMS is going to be what i choose.

I'd say that is a decent call. SMS is a large part of what make broadsides good. You have definitely nerfed them to the point of being reasonable from a purely theory hammer approach. Have to try it in game to see.

 Zagman wrote:
If you'd take the time to look at the other Erratas and the general errata you'd see that. The goal of a balance errata is to take things that are too good and bring them down and take things that aren't good enough and bring them in line with a desired balance point.

I read them. I think generally you are doing an excellent job. I am mainly disagreeing around the margins.

 Zagman wrote:
Playing Orks and Tyranids you will overvalue targets vulnerable to ranged S8+ AP3- etc for an example.

My proposal was to make seeker missiles S8 AP1 vs Ground targets and S8 AP4 against Air targets. I was trying to generally buff the skyray as an anti-vehicle platform while making it slightly less effective against FMC's. It would have been far better against Orks as a result. Tau are still a super awesome counter to Tyranids.

 Zagman wrote:
there is no way to balance 40k that won't have some aspect of RPS, but the goal is to make everything relatively balanced, for its ability to contribute to the game in a meaningful way.

I agree. There will always be some RPS. That doesn't mean there couldn't be a little less. For instance, Skyrays are an extreme RPS unit. Seems like it could be adjusted to contribute more regularly without being so extremely scissors.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Zagman wrote:

I well aware that you really really hate Riptides. This is a question of balance. "can not die to a reasonable amount of fire" is misleading. Riptides can and do die, 9 Lascannon hits will kill them if they don't hurt themselves first. And the Riptides is point for point less durable than the IoM Dreadknight.

That is true on paper, but not on the tabletop. A Riptide has excellent range and mobility. It can Take advantage of cover in a way that a Dreadknight can't. It also has the 3++ nova ability which is generally what makes it so effective (Durable) in CC. Dread Knights are definitely durable, but because they must move towards the opponent for optimum effectiveness, they also expose themselves to many more threats.

As you said if you were redesigning a Riptide it would be far different than what it is. I wonder if you would consider taking away the 3++ ability? That would lower the absurd survivability but without touching the armor save, wounds, or Toughness. It also wouldn't reduce the damage output which you feel is statistically low for its points. It might be a reasonable compromise.


ETA: I agree 100% with all of your changes to necrons. I might tweak MSS back to something that is useful (If you fail it, you lose 1/2 of your attacks), Up the cost of Destroyers by 2 PPM, and Drop the cost of Night Scythes by 10 points, but overall, I think you nailed it.

I agree, the HYMP is less problematic then the generally undercosted SMS.

Thanks for reading them and thank you. it definitely takes work and I agree, we are agrueing around the margins. But, that said, it takes time away from completing the remaining Codices as well.

The SkyRay is meant to be a hard counter AA unit that has the dual purpose of being useful against ground targets. It doesn't ened to be better against ground targets, but it does need to fulfill its role of being hard counter AA. Against literally any other army the SkyRay feels much more balanced, but current Nids relying on FMCs get hit hard.

I'm trying to make it less RPS, but some changes are just too big and it starts a slipperly slope. Trust, me if it was my job and GW paid me to rewrite 40k there would be much more changes. This Errata is meant to play the game on a more even footing.

The 3++ Nova Ability should rarely be used. Even using it in CC it still risks a wound 33% of the time. Outside of specific circumstances RippleFire or the Main Weapon were the better options as is Thrust late game. The Riptide is not that much more mobile, and when played well aren't really sitting far back avoiding the table. Durability for cost is just that durability for cost. You can just as easily field a Dreadknight with Heavy Psycannon as a shooting platform and it will perform just as well as a HBC Riptide for a lower price tag and have a host of other benefits. Just because the Dreadknigth is best charging the lines and painging a massive target on itself, does not mean that it should have a durability for cost discount.
3++ isn't a problem when the Riptide needs to use its Nova for other things, and it still is a large risk, only is successful 66% of the time, and deals 2 wounds per six turns tot he Riptide when used regularly. I was a very competitive Riptide user and I can pretty much count how many times I used the Shield in competitive play. Only in very specific certain death circumstances to try and tarpit, otherwise it was the least effecient of the options available.

Thanks for your Necron Feedback, there hasn't been enough. I probably won't tweak MSS, truthfully I hate their horiribly broken previous incarnation haha! Destroyers probably do need that bump, as do the Night Scythes... but those units are pretty close already.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bharring wrote:Smash is also a big part of the Riptide to me. Shoot the choppy and chop the shooty doesn't work well when the shooty also out-chops you!

(I play a lot of infantry, usually combined arms, and my SM are PA spam. Ignoring their armor with the Riptide always felt odd.)

I'm not saying change that facet - a proper fix would require too much of a change. Just pointing out some of the frustration.

I agree Smash is a bit problematic. IMO Riptide would have been just fine being "Infantry" with rules prohibiting transport. But, alas GW love MCs right now.

I considered tweaking Smash to be AP3, halve attacks rounded down for +2 S at AP2, or a single attack at S10 AP2. But, that doesn't help out marines at all! At least MCs would have reason to purchase those AP2 melee weapons now.

Martel732 wrote:"That is true on paper, but not on the tabletop"

DKs die like slime to my BA, but Riptides are extremely difficult to engage effectively. I agree with this statement 100%. Imperial long range weapons are mostly poor and overcosted, making the Riptide a terrible matchup.

"9 Lascannon hits"

That's a lot of lascannon hits for a marine army. That's like 3 turns of shooting only that target with all my lascannons. Assuming they don't start dying. Which they probably will. Now consider triple Riptide. That requires *27* lascannon hits.

It is a lot of lascannons, but less than you'd need vs a Leman Russ or even an IonHead which puts out around 200% firepower/cost compared to the Riptide. Sure, DKs die vs your BA becasue they close on you and you don't have to close on them. They serve themselves up, it'd be the same durability if you closed on the Riptide, or DSed on top of it, etc.

But I have to pay points and take huge risks to close on the Riptide. The Riptide gets a movement phase as well, and is never going to serve itself up. I'll be lucky to have anything left to fire at it by the time I get there. It's so much easier to just stand there and watch the DKs feed themselves into my lines. It's so much different that I don't think that the DK and the Riptide are really comparable with pure math. The Riptide's job description just gives it so much in-game durability. It concerns me if you haven't noticed this in games.

If I could set up next the Tau, maybe. But drop pods are a very, very flawed solution because you can't guarantee getting shots on your targets, and you can't even be sure you are facing a list you want to drop against.

"I agree Smash is a bit problematic. "

You think? MCs should have to pay for all the goodies they get. And most vehicles should be getting discounts for the miserable rules they currently have.

Martel732 wrote:
But I have to pay points and take huge risks to close on the Riptide. The Riptide gets a movement phase as well, and is never going to serve itself up. I'll be lucky to have anything left to fire at it by the time I get there. It's so much easier to just stand there and watch the DKs feed themselves into my lines. It's so much different that I don't think that the DK and the Riptide are really comparable with pure math. The Riptide's job description just gives it so much in-game durability. It concerns me if you haven't noticed this in games.

If I could set up next the Tau, maybe. But drop pods are a very, very flawed solution because you can't guarantee getting shots on your targets, and you can't even be sure you are facing a list you want to drop against.

"I agree Smash is a bit problematic. "

You think? MCs should have to pay for all the goodies they get. And most vehicles should be getting discounts for the miserable rules they currently have.

I am well aware of this fact. But, what you seem to not be grasping is just because with the Army you play, BA, you have easy ways to kill DKs, does not mean we balance that durability differently. For many armies the DK closing does not do a lot for their ability to kill it. Necron for example. You act as if the Riptide is impossible to kill, but I can list many cheaper units that are just as difficult to kill at range and require having "to pay points and take huge risks to close on" and take out. You do this to drop on a Leman Russ squadron, on AV13, etc. You'd do this to take out the much higher cost effective threat the IonHead, etc.

The HBC Ritpide was balanced, the IA Riptide has been heavily balanced towards that point. Upgrades like the ECPA, EWO, and Stims cost more. All of those things balance the Riptide. Markerlights being tweaked means that it is much harder for an IA Riptide to ignore moderate cover and have high balistic skill. All of these things put together are significant stepts to balance the Riptide.

MCs do need to be balanced. You may have noticed that I've taken steps to help balance all problematic MCs and have given either cost reductions or tweaks to vehicles to help close that gap. 220pts for two TriLasPreds is 5pts more costly than an IA Riptide and if they can fire for two turns will average killing one. That is a very cost effective SMequivalent answer to the Riptide Now. 260pts is 10 Devastators with 8 Lascannons, which is another Point effective method for killing a Riptide if you can keep them safe. And this is before factoring in that the Riptide slowly kills itself. By the end of Turn three it deals 1 wound to itself with Nova, if its an HBC Riptide it deals almost another wound to itself due to Gets Hot.

Why add Deep Strike to Vespids? They're Jump Infantry so they have that already, no? Unless you had meant to make them Beasts, maybe? (I'm not sure if that'd be useful, but...)

I think the Riptide changes are reasonable, except that maybe the ECPA should be as much as 65 points, and should also reduce you to I1. I play Tau, and I think even with those downsides I'd still usually take it...

Oh, right - two other things I'd cover, in the spirit of errata: Clarify whether or not Multi-trackers (or MC status) allow the firing of multiple weapons in Overwatch, and clarify whether O'Vesa can join a squad that includes no other MCs. That's fuzzy since an IC cannot join MCs, but what if the IC is, themselves, an MC? O'Vesa is the only one I know of...

jade_angel wrote:
Why add Deep Strike to Vespids? They're Jump Infantry so they have that already, no? Unless you had meant to make them Beasts, maybe? (I'm not sure if that'd be useful, but...)

I think the Riptide changes are reasonable, except that maybe the ECPA should be as much as 65 points, and should also reduce you to I1. I play Tau, and I think even with those downsides I'd still usually take it...

Oh, right - two other things I'd cover, in the spirit of errata: Clarify whether or not Multi-trackers (or MC status) allow the firing of multiple weapons in Overwatch, and clarify whether O'Vesa can join a squad that includes no other MCs. That's fuzzy since an IC cannot join MCs, but what if the IC is, themselves, an MC? O'Vesa is the only one I know of...

You are right, they do have deep strike by default. My mistake. Its just redundant.

I don't know about 65pts for the ECPA, but 45-50pts is pretty reasonable. 30 was too low, only 16.7% of the base cost, but 45pts pushes that to 25% which IMO is about right.

I could clarify those things, though I thought they had pretty much been sorted out. Two weapons in Overwatch and O'Vesa cannot join a unit with ICs.

What's not clear about O'Vesa is if he can join any unit at all, since if you did, you'd have a squad containing an MC (O'Vesa) and an IC (O'Vesa), which is normally an illegal unit (but the BRB doesn't clear up what happens when they're the same model). Actually, I've had three different opponents tell me that because of that very conflict, it's legal to put O'Vesa in a list, but the model can never be placed on the table (since the conflict arises on a single model, but that model is in a current, legal, un-banned Codex or supplement.)

Yes, that seems like a really perverse interpretation of that rule, but I've had it argued by three people... My own interpretation is that O'Vesa can join squads normally, but no other ICs can, and if there's already another IC there, O'Vesa cant. Which I think is what you're saying if I read you aright.

Maybe this should be reexamined in light of the new marine formation.

jade_angel wrote:What's not clear about O'Vesa is if he can join any unit at all, since if you did, you'd have a squad containing an MC (O'Vesa) and an IC (O'Vesa), which is normally an illegal unit (but the BRB doesn't clear up what happens when they're the same model). Actually, I've had three different opponents tell me that because of that very conflict, it's legal to put O'Vesa in a list, but the model can never be placed on the table (since the conflict arises on a single model, but that model is in a current, legal, un-banned Codex or supplement.)

Yes, that seems like a really perverse interpretation of that rule, but I've had it argued by three people... My own interpretation is that O'Vesa can join squads normally, but no other ICs can, and if there's already another IC there, O'Vesa cant. Which I think is what you're saying if I read you aright.

Yes, O'Vesa can join a unit but that unit cannot have another IC in it. I once argued that if you joined O'Vesa last you'd be ok, but that was overwhelmingly vetoed and I don't beleive any tournament was allowing it. Still, a clarification couldn't hurt.

Martel732 wrote:Maybe this should be reexamined in light of the new marine formation.

The new marine formation.... yeah, GW is doing absolutely nothing about incentivizing me to stay in the game. Formations with large amounts of "free" points or ones that have absolutly broken rules ie "Relentless spammable Grav Devs" are a nightmare to balance. It is becoming increasingly clear how unblanced Formationhammer 40k is headed. And they were doing well enough with the first half dozen or so codices in 7th...

The free points bug me more than a little.

As for that new formation, ugh... I'm not sure what I think. Honestly, the Assaults being able to charge right away isn't too bad, as long as they can't alpha-strike into a gunline and roll the whole thing up in a turn like was apparently possible in 4th (I didn't play then, but I've heard some stories...) The devs, OTOH? Ow. Just ow. Even without Relentless they'd be bad enough - sure, the gravs would be short-range, but that'd still be 3 shots per dude, at full BS, with Shred, wounding on no worse than a 4+ against any target you'd care to use grav-cannons against. Relentless with multi-meltas might actually make them worth taking, and wouldn't be horrible with any of the others, but for grav, that's just disgustingly meevil.

As might be obvious I kinda have mixed feelings about grav-cannons at all. On tacticals, sure. Give me a heavy weapon that I can fire at full BS on the move? (With crappy range but what do tac marines care? They're 12" away as often as not anyway, with meltas and double-tap) Awesome. On devs? 20 shots? Yipes.

But yeah. I'm very interested to see where all the formation stuff stabilizes. I mean, it will, at some point, but it may be ugly in the meantime. Oh, the formation will stay borken, but if there's a good enough hard counter that's easy enough to field, nobody will bring the formation, and it'll be kinda-sorta fixed-ish.

 Zagman wrote:

jade_angel wrote:What's not clear about O'Vesa is if he can join any unit at all, since if you did, you'd have a squad containing an MC (O'Vesa) and an IC (O'Vesa), which is normally an illegal unit (but the BRB doesn't clear up what happens when they're the same model). Actually, I've had three different opponents tell me that because of that very conflict, it's legal to put O'Vesa in a list, but the model can never be placed on the table (since the conflict arises on a single model, but that model is in a current, legal, un-banned Codex or supplement.)

Yes, that seems like a really perverse interpretation of that rule, but I've had it argued by three people... My own interpretation is that O'Vesa can join squads normally, but no other ICs can, and if there's already another IC there, O'Vesa cant. Which I think is what you're saying if I read you aright.

Yes, O'Vesa can join a unit but that unit cannot have another IC in it. I once argued that if you joined O'Vesa last you'd be ok, but that was overwhelmingly vetoed and I don't beleive any tournament was allowing it. Still, a clarification couldn't hurt.

Martel732 wrote:Maybe this should be reexamined in light of the new marine formation.

The new marine formation.... yeah, GW is doing absolutely nothing about incentivizing me to stay in the game. Formations with large amounts of "free" points or ones that have absolutly broken rules ie "Relentless spammable Grav Devs" are a nightmare to balance. It is becoming increasingly clear how unblanced Formationhammer 40k is headed. And they were doing well enough with the first half dozen or so codices in 7th...

The casualties caused by a Riptide are now nothing compared to relentless grav devs. Granted, the grav devs are much, much easier to kill, but it's now to the point where that doesn't matter. The alpha strike is too crippling for too many lists. When marines were shooting back lascannons from devs, they were the underdogs. But now, just stick a fork in me. This is stupid.

I'd say welcome to my world as an Eldar player, but you're a BA player, so you're still boned. And I'm an SM player too.

I'm sure you don't believe me when I say I feel your pain. Apparently GW just thinks I should auto-win against you. Even with my Marines.

Bharring wrote:
I'd say welcome to my world as an Eldar player, but you're a BA player, so you're still boned. And I'm an SM player too.

I'm sure you don't believe me when I say I feel your pain. Apparently GW just thinks I should auto-win against you. Even with my Marines.

GW rule writing has always been terrible and balance has suffered.... but a lot of it was due to codices being editions out of date when editions changed. Now, the sheer variance we have in a single edition between BA/Orks and Eldar/Necron/SM in 7th is utterly ridiculous. Wildly varying formation bonuses that started small and reasonable and have become vastly more powerful coupled with stacking formation bonuses for "Decurian" Detachments is crazy.

Will GW every realize that they are a gaming company, and not a model company.... when you charge a premium for an abundance of rules to use your models you are selling a game.

Bharring wrote:
I'd say welcome to my world as an Eldar player, but you're a BA player, so you're still boned. And I'm an SM player too.

I'm sure you don't believe me when I say I feel your pain. Apparently GW just thinks I should auto-win against you. Even with my Marines.

I believe you. I'm sure it gets boring. 3rd ed BA got boring.

I'm fortunate to have a beer n pretzels meta, and be a beer n pretzels player. The stupid gak matters less this way.

I argue a lot on the forums to ensure I'm not the TFG who brings that gak. To see if anyone can convince me my Footdar are broken. So that I can stop fielding it if they are.

Better balance would be awesome, but I'm fortunate enough that its not strictly necessary to have fun.

Again, it's hard for me to label someone as TFG when they use perfectly legal options. The difference is that when someone spams void rays in Starcraft, I can go marine/medivac/thor, but in 40K, I can't adapt and the BA codex has no counters anyway.

jade_angel wrote:
Honestly, the Assaults being able to charge right away isn't too bad, as long as they can't alpha-strike into a gunline and roll the whole thing up in a turn like was apparently possible in 4th (I didn't play then, but I've heard some stories...)

The thing that bothers me the most with assaulting after deepstrike is that GW consciously went through EVERYTHING and tried to make sure that deepstrike and turn 1 assaults just didn't happen (barring a few specific cases, which usually require your opponent to deploy right up against their deployment zone line). Then they turn around and say "well, now that we've removed it from the game, let's add it back in, but just for one faction, and make it be behind a paywall".

Just... wut

 Cytharai wrote:

jade_angel wrote:
Honestly, the Assaults being able to charge right away isn't too bad, as long as they can't alpha-strike into a gunline and roll the whole thing up in a turn like was apparently possible in 4th (I didn't play then, but I've heard some stories...)

The thing that bothers me the most with assaulting after deepstrike is that GW consciously went through EVERYTHING and tried to make sure that deepstrike and turn 1 assaults just didn't happen (barring a few specific cases, which usually require your opponent to deploy right up against their deployment zone line). Then they turn around and say "well, now that we've removed it from the game, let's add it back in, but just for one faction, and make it be behind a paywall".

Just... wut

Didn't think of it that way... I mean, the whole hobby is kinda pay-to-play, but pay-to-win does seem a little... ugly.

What bothered me about assaults out of deep strike is that it was possible to rain small units down and then tie up a shooting army's forces completely, or nearly so, which this formation mostly doesn't do (though I suppose it is still four combat squads, so...)

While skyhammer does make some of this moot, I would like to try and make a few notes here on the riptide;

- I'd still take the IA over the HBC every day of the week and twice on Sundays, even at your increased points cost, without hesitation.
- Yes, the HBC 'Tide is balanced, no argument from me there.
- The Riptide takes up an elite slot, where you have stealths (providing little that crisis don't already offer), or Crisis, which can be moved to troops via FE.
- Hammerheads are in HS, where you buy your skyrays and broadsides from, so there is at least some competition there (unless you're getting your 'tides and 'sides from a firebase, 'cause who doesn't like tank hunters and PE:Marines for free on the best units in the dex?)
- Hammerheads rely on cover saves from concealment, riptides just need a toe on a piece of area terrain or simply get their 5++
- Ionheads can't fire at all if they jink, riptides never have to worry about it.
- Leman Russ Battlecannons / Soul Grinder's Phlegm don't have easy access to ignores cover built into their codex.
- Facing off against someone with the ability to simply say S8, AP3, wounding on 2's, no saves on a large blast with marines is brutal. Eldar and Crisis can at least get out of LOS with JSJ shenanigans, but T4 3+ infantry are just instantly obliterated. Even worse if you happen to be SM against a firebase.

I think that is the main issue (well, it's my main issue anyway), with the IAtide. Yes, you've changed scour and you've increased the IA cost, but having marines anywhere on the board outside of a transport is instant death for them against Tau with very little recourse and no way to retaliate.

 Drasius wrote:
While skyhammer does make some of this moot, I would like to try and make a few notes here on the riptide;

- I'd still take the IA over the HBC every day of the week and twice on Sundays, even at your increased points cost, without hesitation.
- Yes, the HBC 'Tide is balanced, no argument from me there.
- The Riptide takes up an elite slot, where you have stealths (providing little that crisis don't already offer), or Crisis, which can be moved to troops via FE.
- Hammerheads are in HS, where you buy your skyrays and broadsides from, so there is at least some competition there (unless you're getting your 'tides and 'sides from a firebase, 'cause who doesn't like tank hunters and PE:Marines for free on the best units in the dex?)
- Hammerheads rely on cover saves from concealment, riptides just need a toe on a piece of area terrain or simply get their 5++
- Ionheads can't fire at all if they jink, riptides never have to worry about it.
- Leman Russ Battlecannons / Soul Grinder's Phlegm don't have easy access to ignores cover built into their codex.
- Facing off against someone with the ability to simply say S8, AP3, wounding on 2's, no saves on a large blast with marines is brutal. Eldar and Crisis can at least get out of LOS with JSJ shenanigans, but T4 3+ infantry are just instantly obliterated. Even worse if you happen to be SM against a firebase.

I think that is the main issue (well, it's my main issue anyway), with the IAtide. Yes, you've changed scour and you've increased the IA cost, but having marines anywhere on the board outside of a transport is instant death for them against Tau with very little recourse and no way to retaliate.

Ionheads actually can snap-fire their S7/AP3 3-shot mode if they Jink, but I'll concede that's not especially efficient.

I have a possible set of suggestions for the IA and HBC:

Heavy Burst Cannon: S6 AP4 Heavy 10 (Standard)
S6 AP4 Heavy 16, Rending, Nova-Charge (Nova)

Ion Accelerator: S7 AP3 Heavy 3 (Standard)
S10 AP2 Ordnance 1, Nova-Charge, Explosive Feedback, Large Blast

Explosive Feedback: Any time a weapon with this special rule is fired using the profile to which the special rule applies, the firing model takes D3 hits at S10 with no armor or cover saves allowed. Invulnerable saves and Feel No Pain may be used normally. The affected model may not charge, fire Overwatch or make attacks in close combat on any turn in which it suffers an unsaved wound from this effect.

I find your ideas interesting. You nerf pretty much every formation, yet reduce the cost on units such as Praetorians who don't need it. I don't agree with those proposals. Also, Shieldvanes do not need to be 4 points. *cough*Windriders*cough* Otherwise, C'Tans being 220 is nice.

FYI, there is a sibling Eldar thread. With windrider nerfs. This thread is supposed to be balanced against its sibling threads.

Bharring wrote:
FYI, there is a sibling Eldar thread. With windrider nerfs. This thread is supposed to be balanced against its sibling threads.

I had not seen that, so if Windriders get nerfed, I'd be a bit more okay with the 3+ being a tad more expensive.