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 thejughead wrote:


It doesn't need balancing. You need to have a conversation with the Tau player to lower their count. If I'm playing for fun and I bring more than 2 then shame one me.

It does need balancing for any army not generally considered top tier, i.e. Eldar, Marines, Necrons, and of course, Tau. Now, you actually bring a decent notion here; maybe the solution is simply limit how many Riptides can be taken in an army.

If the case is for fun then take more points than the Tau player. That is how you balance the riptide. This is not the impression I get from this thread. Its more of how can we tone it down so I can beat it in a tournament. Correct me if I'm wrong?

Letting the enemy player take more points because of Riptides is literally an admission the Riptide is costed too little for its ability, which is the working definition of overpowered. Its a discussion about how to balance it. That's it. Balance. With that, of course, the aim is to tone it down, but for all types of play. Which is the aim of balance.

Its a folly trying to redesign units from a codex.

Why? Because you said so? There are plenty of groups who play with custom rules. Just because you never will doesn't mean people shouldn't discuss this, even if it may be ultimately academic.

You seem to forget this is the proposed rules forum, where people propose new rules or modify existing ones. The idea here is to provide feedback and develop the solution based on the aim. Here, its starts with the reasonable, fair, logical assumption that Riptides are overpowered. The aim therefore is to fix that. How it gets fixed is only limited by your imagination. If you don't want to fix it, then don't bother discussing or at least present a solid case why its perfectly fine the way it is. At least then everyone else can carry on with their discussions if they disagree with you.

I would never agree to it being a vehicle, because that not what was intended in the codex.

Okay, great, then propose something else. That is far from the only solution presented here.

Letting the enemy player take more points because of Riptides is literally an admission the Riptide is costed too little for its ability, which is the working definition of overpowered.

No, its an admission of what type of game you want to play. I can't compete against the ability of Gladius to score on progressive missions. Is a rhino and Marines OP? No.

Here's what I would suggest, and I emphasize only for narrative:

Ask the tau player to:

1) require them to invest 1 infantry marker light per 100 points of the force.
2) require them to have 500 points in vehicle/infantry for every Riptide.
3) use a blast profile on the Ion

You admitted the unit itself is not OP, its someone spamming them that is OP.

Again, this isn't a solution for all. I will give you an example.

If I take 60 fire warriors against an army made up of only Harlequins, its not a fun game for the Harlequin player unless there is tons of LoS blocking terrain on the table.

Speaking of terrain, why don't you try 4th edition rules for LoS. I wish we would go back to that. (Yes not all Tau players like to play on Planet Bowlingball)

 thejughead wrote:


No, its an admission of what type of game you want to play. I can't compete against the ability of Gladius to score on progressive missions. Is a rhino and Marines OP? No.

...Which makes it overpowered if its too good in all but the hardest games. And what you're missing isn't that Rhinos and Marines are OP but the combined abilities of putting a dozen Razorbacks and scoring units all over the board backed up by strong support. There isn't one thing to point to in a Gladius that makes it OP, in that instance its the synergy created by the formation.

The Riptide starts overpowered to most low and mid-tier codices, and only got significant buffs through formations and army support.

Here's what I would suggest, and I emphasize only for narrative:

Ask the tau player to:

1) require them to invest 1 infantry marker light per 100 points of the force.
2) require them to have 500 points in vehicle/infantry for every Riptide.
3) use a blast profile on the Ion

Great, and I'm sure there might be some Tau players who do so. The point of this thread is to address the Riptide so you don't have to force Tau players into playing an army composition they may not enjoy. Further, it doesn't help bring those vehicle up any more, which keeps them the lame ducks they are and forcing players to take weak units to get access to strong ones isn't exactly the pinnacle of good game design.

You admitted the unit itself is not OP, its someone spamming them that is OP.

If you read my whole quote, and other replies, I specifically said it wasn't necessarily overpowered when compared to other top codices, and then went to to say it was overpowered to anything that wasn't in that list. I would prefer is you didn't pull my words out of context.

Again, this isn't a solution for all. I will give you an example.

If I take 60 fire warriors against an army made up of only Harlequins, its not a fun game for the Harlequin player unless there is tons of LoS blocking terrain on the table.

Speaking of terrain, why don't you try 4th edition rules for LoS. I wish we would go back to that. (Yes not all Tau players like to play on Planet Bowlingball)

Yes, a lot of tables are pretty sparse, but terrain isn't the universal solution that I see repeated over and over again. Terrain is a two way street (but not literally, you know, it could be a dirt road, or a river I guess), in that a Tau player could use that terrain to their advantage as well, especially given their mobility compared to several armies. It would help mitigate the range issue, certainly, but Tau also has far readier access to ignore cover weaponry, potentially giving them the edge on a dense board.

I would hardly call ignore cover strength 5 AP5 an OP advantage.

 thejughead wrote:
I would hardly call ignore cover strength 5 AP5 an OP advantage.

If only there was a reliable way for any Tau weapon to ignore cover...

From experience, having more terrain doesn't really help that much vs Tau. They can move their big guns to get the shots.

"How can this be?"

Marines are still expensive at the model level, and you have to load up on expensive war gear to have any hope of hurting a competent opponent. A plasma gun pushes a marine to a 29 pt model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I would happily trade the 2+ armor for 3+ but give the Riptide a scanner that beats invisibility Since a high tech scanner would be a good way around invisibility anyway.

 Blacksails wrote:

 thejughead wrote:
I would hardly call ignore cover strength 5 AP5 an OP advantage.

If only there was a reliable way for any Tau weapon to ignore cover...

On a T4/T3/AV10 platform. I'm not really sure what to tell you if you cant induce a leadership check on marker light infantry.

 thejughead wrote:


On a T4/T3/AV10 platform. I'm not really sure what to tell you if you cant induce a leadership check on marker light infantry.

I'm not really sure what to tell you if you don't understand that there's a reason Tau are rightfully considered a top tier codex and regularly do quite well. I mean, of course, everyone might not have realized they can totally easily ignore the big suits shooting solid firepower, or easily remove all the support units, all the while keeping their own army alive from the reverse Tau firepower.

Seriously man, this isn't a tactics thread. You can justify it all you want, but Tau are top tier, and its for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is that the Riptide is, to varying extents based on the enemy, overpowered. Further, it only gets better with strong formations and supported by army wide rules and markerlight support.

We all know you can ignore the suits, or remove the support. But if it was that easy and effective, you'd think Tau would be bottom of the pile, no?

If you want to start a Tau tactics, go ahead. But this thread works on the assumption that the riptide is too powerful for its points, and should either be re-costed or re-tooled, or a combination of the two.

SO as it's on topic, and ignored,i will repost

Tau Riptide. Ws 2 BS 3 S5 T6 W5 LD9 3+ 150 points, TL SMS/PR/FB standard

50 points- offensive weapons suite: The riptide can take 2 main weapons, of either the IA with only normal and overcharge profile, and the HBC (the formerly nova profile becomes an "overcharge" to keep its gets hot profile) , keeps assault thrust (but cannot 4d6 thrust since not nova)

60 Points- Balanced suite: Riptide gains the riptide shield generator, and can take 1 main weapon. Gains the ability to nova charge. , keeps assault thrust

70 points- Defensive suite: Riptide armor improves to 2+ gains the riptide shield generator, access to nova charge, a 2nd SMS/PR/FB, and stimulant injectors, loses assault thrust from the 2+ armor (broadside style)

how about that? actually on topic!

If you want a killy riptide, you can still have it, but its closer to a glass hammer, fairly easy to take down.

if you like the classic riptide, its there, still in generally a more vulnerable platform, no stimms, so 1/3rd more vulnerable, and a few more points

if you want the tank it all beast (the one most complained about on this post), you can, but you have acceptable, but inferior weapons, and it does pay for the survivability. Granted its still jet-pack MC in this imagining, so its not worthless (just nearly) in CC,

Edited to make HBC consistent, not losing its heavy 12 rending gets hot profile. making it O/C instead of Nova

That seems like a decent fix. I'd be willing to let the offensive one ignore invis as well. Because feth invis.

Honestly wouldn't mind the 3+ being a standard for tau.

they shouldn't really have heavy armor unless they specifically build into it. so i wouldn't mind the 2+ being a purchasable equipment.

and you can balance it out a bit by increasing the price for specific sized things like broadsides or riptides.

also indeed feth invisibility. its a complete cancer spell.

 Desubot wrote:
Honestly wouldn't mind the 3+ being a standard for tau.

they shouldn't really have heavy armor unless they specifically build into it. so i wouldn't mind the 2+ being a purchasable equipment.

and you can balance it out a bit by increasing the price for specific sized things like broadsides or riptides.

Broadsides are already priced "correctly" because they are not natively relentless (1 formation, 1 unit of them gets it), have no assault thrust move, can be ID'd by s8, are on dreadnought size bases, and can only take 1 support system (so only skyfire, or only EWO, or only 4+ invul etc)

Agreed. Broadsides are brutal, but fair. Just like centurions are brutal but fair before you attach libby conclave and Draigo.

Well you wouldnt just make it a 3+ without adjust everything across the board now would we.

Ok, so, I've been doing a bit of math crunching based on my intended battlefield role for the Riptide - that is, close-support linebreaker, not back-line artillery (that's the Stormsurge, and that's for another thread). It should be fairly weak (though not hilariously so) against anti-tank shooting, but highly resistant to lighter weapons (or in this context, pretty weak to AP1/2, pretty strong versus AP4 or worse. AP3, is, of course, one of the points at issue, so...)

Here's what I've got, assuming I didn't screw up the math somewhere.

To deal one wound to the existing Riptide, with T6/2+/5++/FNP, assuming no 3++ nova-charge (because my initial proposal deleted that), you need, numbers rounded up: (Note, statistical averages, usual statistics caveats apply)

54 bolter hits
27 pulse rifle or heavy bolter hits
18 scatter laser or splinter weapon hits
14 autocannon or missile pod hits
11 krak missile or 2+ poisoned hits
4 plasma gun hits
3 meltagun, lascannon or railgun hits

If the armor save were changed to a 3+, you'd need:

27 bolter hits
18 pulse rifle or heavy bolter hits
9 scatter laser or splinter weapon hits
7 autocannon or missile pod hits
6 2+ poisoned hits
3 krak missile or better hits

Change the armor save to a 3+, but bring back the 3++ nova-charge option that becomes:

As above, but 6 krak missile or better hits.

As for grav: you need about 3 grav hits to cause a wound to the 2+/5++/FNP version. That rises to slightly less than 4 grav hits against the 3+/5++/FNP version. But note, shielded missile drones give the unit a majority 4+ armor save, so you'd need about 5 grav hits versus either version, if the suits don't outnumber the drones, going up to 9 grav hits if the 3++ comes back.

My conclusion: as long as FNP and the 5++ stay, it's sufficiently durable against close-in firepower with a 3+ save. The 3++ should stay gone. This picture probably looks a bit different if you wan the Riptide to be an artillery suit - there, -1T and -1W are probably warranted, but give back the 3++.

Does that sound reasonable?

Thanks for the numbers. I'm assuming those are purely hits, as in after the roll to hit. If that's the case, depending on the army, you'd need a significantly larger amount of initial shots to meet those hit requirements, further driving the point home.

Dumping FnP and going to a 3+ I feel is sensible. Based on your numbers, that's still very durable, and its mobility and firepower remain unchanged, so its still an effective weapon.

Note the second set of numbers still has FNP: 3+ saves fail twice as often as 2+. And yes, those are hits - you'll need more shots, to be sure, since even BS10 can miss.

I would still want the 72" gun cut down in range, though. My reason is that even with a 3+, it's still borderline immortal from 48-72" away unless you brought a lot of lascannons or similar, which, given the state of one-shot weapons in 7e, you probably didn't. But, if you nerf the durability enough that it's reasonable as a long-range artillery unit, then it's too squishy to get close and cover Crisis or Stealth teams - you'd have to go down to T5/W4/3+/5++ at most for me to be comfortable with the long-range bombardment option.

Maybe that's just my meta: it would be notably more vulnerable to poison shots or drop-plasma, with just the 3++ removed and armor dropped to 3+.

 Blacksails wrote:

 thejughead wrote:


On a T4/T3/AV10 platform. I'm not really sure what to tell you if you cant induce a leadership check on marker light infantry.

I'm not really sure what to tell you if you don't understand that there's a reason Tau are rightfully considered a top tier codex and regularly do quite well. I mean, of course, everyone might not have realized they can totally easily ignore the big suits shooting solid firepower, or easily remove all the support units, all the while keeping their own army alive from the reverse Tau firepower.

Seriously man, this isn't a tactics thread. You can justify it all you want, but Tau are top tier, and its for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is that the Riptide is, to varying extents based on the enemy, overpowered. Further, it only gets better with strong formations and supported by army wide rules and markerlight support.

We all know you can ignore the suits, or remove the support. But if it was that easy and effective, you'd think Tau would be bottom of the pile, no?

If you want to start a Tau tactics, go ahead. But this thread works on the assumption that the riptide is too powerful for its points, and should either be re-costed or re-tooled, or a combination of the two.

le sigh....have fun writing rules no Tau player will accept. To each his own.

 thejughead wrote:

le sigh....have fun writing rules no Tau player will accept. To each his own.

Thanks for the valuable contribution to the thread.

 Blacksails wrote:

 thejughead wrote:

le sigh....have fun writing rules no Tau player will accept. To each his own.

Thanks for the valuable contribution to the thread.

Sorry, I don't have enough salt for you.

So in short, this thread is about how to bei sure that Tau never win a tournament again because some people can't beat ohne unit out of it...
And I have seen people kill an entire riptide wing before the end of turn 3 with neither eldar, SM, Tau or necrons.

Jorim wrote:
So in short, this thread is about how to bei sure that Tau never win a tournament again because some people can't beat ohne unit out of it...
And I have seen people kill an entire riptide wing before the end of turn 3 with neither eldar, SM, Tau or necrons.

How? I find that really hard to swallow. The math on these things is crazy.

Well its a good thing we don't take advice on how to balance things by some guy with an anecdote about how this one time, he totally killed a bunch of things and its was totally awesome and relevant to the discussion.

No, or at least not originally, before it got derailed into several rounds of weird crap about turning the Riptide into a Sentinel, or disputes about dreadnoughts, etc.

The original purpose was to speculate about how to make the Riptide not generate endless salt, while still being useful for its intended purpose. A lot of the arglebargle is because people can't agree what that purpose is. Its current durability stats are somewhere between mostly fine and slightly too strong, if it's meant as a close-support fire magnet suit. It's way too durable - but possibly not killy enough - if it's meant to be a long-range artillery piece like a Basilisk. And it's hard to make one suit able to do both of these things usefully without being either too weak, or too strong, in one of them.

As a further wrinkle, there are two other units that I'm not really addressing, that fill these roles: the Stormsurge is pretty much precisely an artillery suit with some additional medium-range firepower. The Ghostkeel is pretty much exactly a close-support suit that can laugh off antitank weapons.

Martel732 wrote:

Jorim wrote:
So in short, this thread is about how to bei sure that Tau never win a tournament again because some people can't beat ohne unit out of it...
And I have seen people kill an entire riptide wing before the end of turn 3 with neither eldar, SM, Tau or necrons.

How? I find that really hard to swallow. The math on these things is crazy.

They die really fast to psi- powers.

jade_angel wrote:


As a further wrinkle, there are two other units that I'm not really addressing, that fill these roles: the Stormsurge is pretty much precisely an artillery suit with some additional medium-range firepower. The Ghostkeel is pretty much exactly a close-support suit that can laugh off antitank weapons.

I can't say I'm shocked GW took the notion of the Riptide and cranked it up to 11. Kind of makes you wonder what else they might do now, eh?

You are correct though, defining the roles of the suits a little further while making them a little more appealing to play against would go a long way. Making the Riptide into a cross between the Ghostkeel and Stormsurge in terms of range and firepower is reasonable, with the durability being also somewhere in the middle.

But at the end of the day, all vehicles and MCs need an overhaul anyways. Some people in these discussions immediately point to another OP unit and ask what we're gonna do about that one, to which the correct response is "when we get around to it". Gotta start somewhere.

Jorim wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Jorim wrote:
So in short, this thread is about how to bei sure that Tau never win a tournament again because some people can't beat ohne unit out of it...
And I have seen people kill an entire riptide wing before the end of turn 3 with neither eldar, SM, Tau or necrons.

How? I find that really hard to swallow. The math on these things is crazy.

They die really fast to psi- powers.

Not really. They just happened to that one particular game.

 Blacksails wrote:

jade_angel wrote:


As a further wrinkle, there are two other units that I'm not really addressing, that fill these roles: the Stormsurge is pretty much precisely an artillery suit with some additional medium-range firepower. The Ghostkeel is pretty much exactly a close-support suit that can laugh off antitank weapons.

I can't say I'm shocked GW took the notion of the Riptide and cranked it up to 11. Kind of makes you wonder what else they might do now, eh?

You are correct though, defining the roles of the suits a little further while making them a little more appealing to play against would go a long way. Making the Riptide into a cross between the Ghostkeel and Stormsurge in terms of range and firepower is reasonable, with the durability being also somewhere in the middle.

But at the end of the day, all vehicles and MCs need an overhaul anyways. Some people in these discussions immediately point to another OP unit and ask what we're gonna do about that one, to which the correct response is "when we get around to it". Gotta start somewhere.

I would offer "turn the Wraithknight up to 11", except that already exists: the Revenant Titan. (Admittedly, it's not unreasonable in Apocalypse, but that's Apocalypse.)

I'd argue the whole system needs a bit of an overhaul. If I were in charge of writing 8e, I'd take some of the ideas mooted around here - especially Lanrak's combat resolution standardization - and start with that, and retool basically everything, soup-to-nuts, with that in mind.

I'm really not sure how "let's cook up ideas for balancing Unit X" turns into "Unit X is the only unbalanced thing in the game" or "you just have a grudge against Faction Y" - it's kinda baffling, ne?