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

I don't know nothing about Tau. I don't play anymore, so not familiar with the rules anymore. I have been reading a lot on these forums about Tau this or Tau that, Tau Riptide this, Tau Riptide that. I am surprised it's a Monstrous Creature. Is this because vehicles are not that great anymore in 6th?

So if the Riptide was a vehicle instead of a MC, would it still be as popular? Do you think GW made it a MC so it would actually sell because they realized they made a mistake with vehicles? I just find it weird how a mechanical instrument is not a vehicle and has health points or hit points like a normal MC. Do those other mini robots, (sorry forget the name) are the vehicles or do they have Health points/hitpoints, don't mean hull points.

So for Tau players, would you field the Riptide if it wasn't an MC?

The Crisis suits? they always have been infantry.

The word you are looking for is Wounds. And, yes, Crisis Suits have Wounds, because there is a little blue fish-cow guy sitting inside of it.

Ahhh Wounds. No I feel like an idot. LOL.

 Psienesis wrote:
The word you are looking for is Wounds. And, yes, Crisis Suits have Wounds, because there is a little blue fish-cow guy sitting inside of it.

There is a little puny human in a sentinal.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
The word you are looking for is Wounds. And, yes, Crisis Suits have Wounds, because there is a little blue fish-cow guy sitting inside of it.

There is a little puny human in a sentinal.

Sshhhh.

Stop using logic.

There is, but for some reason, GW decided to make Crisis Suits infantry and Sentinels vehicles. I'd rather see Sentinels as a "mechanized infantry" unit myself, but, I am not GW.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
The word you are looking for is Wounds. And, yes, Crisis Suits have Wounds, because there is a little blue fish-cow guy sitting inside of it.

There is a little puny human in a sentinal.

A sentinel is not a powered exoskeleton.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_exoskeleton#Current_exoskeletons

Although...is a mecha an exoskeleton, or is it a vehicle? Crisis suits are closer to mechas I think, due to their size and the fact that it's piloted.

Its the difference between a suit of armor that is worn and a vehicle which you pilot.

A Riptide is really just an upscaled battlesuit.

A Dreadknight is Terminator armor with a large exoskeleton.

Thus they make more sense as a Monstrous Creature than a walker.

Frankly I think Dreadnoughts should be shifted over to being MCs. Reserve being a Walker for things that are much less agile, like Sentinels and War Walkers.

Tau vehicles have a distinctive look.
Tau suits have a distinctive suit.
Broadsides are not vehicles even though there more heavily armoured crises without jump packs.
Wh yshould the riptide be a vehicle when a) it has the distinctive look of a battle suit, and b) like the broadside is a sup uped crises

 Grey Templar wrote:
Its the difference between a suit of armor that is worn and a vehicle which you pilot.

A Riptide is really just an upscaled battlesuit.

At what point they stop being a "suit"? Riptide - and even regular Crisis suits - have their pilots sitting in their chests, not really unlike Sentinels or War Walkers. They don't "wear" them any more than tank driver wears a tank.

I remember reading an article back on the GW website way back when Tau first came out about how they had a heck of a time figuring out how to handle battlesuits. One thing they tried doing was making them vehicles with like 11/10/10 for crisis suits, and 12/11/10 for broadsides. They said that broke the game in half because you couldn't put enough anti tank fire on the board to deal with them, and stealth suits always ruined the system because they'd have to be like an AV 9 vehicle or something. Also if they handled it like Terminator armor and just had a t3 1 wound tau with a 3 or a 2+ armor save it broke the game in the opposite direction since the suits were absurdly easy to kill.

Not really relevant to the current discussion that much, but I would guess a similar process went into evaluating this decision, although you never know.

To me, there is absolutely no reasonable line of distinction between MC and walkers anymore.

Riptides and Wraithknights have guy in there. That guy is actually behind as much armor plating as a tank crew. It is definitely more plating then that over half dead guy in a dread.

Dreadknights are the same basic design as war walkers and penitent engines. The knight is a MC, yet the others are vehicle.

Dreadlords and Canoptect Spiders are crewless engines. Talos and Cronos are meldings of flesh and engine. All are MC. All the deamon engines, crewless meldings of flesh, deamonic matter and machine are vehicles.

Really, it seems to be done on a basis of "whatever the designer", just another example of the rather closed of and unprofessional design philosophy of GW.


As for the OPs actual question:

I'm not very familiar with tau and get that this is not the greatest answer, but how popular are Forgefiends? Because they are the closest thing I can think of and we don't really see them often, do we?

It would entirely depend on the stats and points cost. People would still take Walkers if they were reasonably priced for 6th.

I am sure they wouldn't be taken as often.

I took a Defiler (just for kicks) in my last game.
1 shot'ed.
200pts.
Gone.

Will i want to take it again? Nope.

Zanderchief wrote:
I am sure they wouldn't be taken as often.

I took a Defiler (just for kicks) in my last game.
1 shot'ed.
200pts.
Gone.

Will i want to take it again? Nope.

Now thats just bad luck, but i can see your point, you can't one shot a MC, at least not easily. Ive had some success with a Defiler simply for the reason that it tends to be a huge bullet sponge, if i put it in cover people are going to have a heck of a time shooting at it, and they are not shooting my other units on the board (plus lucky it will not dies will really piss off your opponent)

As for the topic at hand, I think MCs are the natural progression of what walkers should have been, so that they are differentiated from vehicles, since the concept of anti-tank has changed a great deal in this edition. People want hardy units in their awesome sauce 1ft tall mecha walkers so the rules are going to reflect that. So thats a sales standpoint. I would also like to think the difference that makes a warithknight or Riptide different from a Sentinel or a war walker is the fact that both had advanced AI/Wraith control systems that can be extremely agile, dodge shots, do self repairs, and generally accomplish a lot more than a vehicle that is essentially a metallic frame that moves with very little control or articulation. Case in point, the Dreadknight is the most advanced piece of tech the Imperium can muster in this department, so it is a MC, since it is able to mimic the body movements of its pilot and they have minute control over its movements. This is not the case with a Sentinel or Dreadnought, which is not very fast, are very top heavy, and i imagine do not move very well beyond smashing into everything it touches. The war walker eludes me, as it may be a throwback, or they just figured that since it has walker in its name they better stick to it, or maybe because it does not have a wraith pilot.

It depends on how its operated on whether or not its a walker or an exoskeletal suit.

Walkers are piloted by a dude sitting in a cockpit manning controls, think the cockpit from Mechwarrior games and thats basically what it is. Hes not linked with it any more than our current day F15 pilots are to the jet, everything is done manually.

Exosuits act as an extension of limbs. When the pilot moves, it moves, and he has no controls or buttons to hit because it reacts directly to him. This allows much much faster and precise reaction times because the pilot simply acts as though he werent in a suit, whereas a walker has to hit the right buttons and pull the right levers.

If it were a walker, i dont think anyone would care long as it wasnt AV12 (in equivalence to current durability, it should be AV14/13/11 or something ridiculous like that) because it sits on your side of the table anyway.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
It depends on how its operated on whether or not its a walker or an exoskeletal suit.

Walkers are piloted by a dude sitting in a cockpit manning controls, think the cockpit from Mechwarrior games and thats basically what it is. Hes not linked with it any more than our current day F15 pilots are to the jet, everything is done manually.

Exosuits act as an extension of limbs. When the pilot moves, it moves, and he has no controls or buttons to hit because it reacts directly to him. This allows much much faster and precise reaction times because the pilot simply acts as though he werent in a suit, whereas a walker has to hit the right buttons and pull the right levers.

If it were a walker, i dont think anyone would care long as it wasnt AV12 (in equivalence to current durability, it should be AV14/13/11 or something ridiculous like that) because it sits on your side of the table anyway.

Now that i think about it, im almost wondering if walkers are being phased out with some of these models because determining side armor would be a HUGE pain with some of them. yeah you can draw the X, but since its extremely posable the lines will get blurred often. Plus Riptides have big shields, it could be running, it could be crouching, etc.

Just look at how popular hammerheads and skyrays are. They're like worse, but cheaper riptides. But they're vehicles, and riptides aren't. Everybody takes a couple of riptides. Haven't seen many hammerheads.

That's the difference between vehicles and monstrous creatures. Well, that and that monstrous creatures get an armor save, and an invul save, and can't be one-shotted by a single meltagun.

A monstrous creature should be just that, not a piloted suit. How can the daemon engines be walkers yet the riptide and DK be MCs..

 Ailaros wrote:
Just look at how popular hammerheads and skyrays are. They're like worse, but cheaper riptides. But they're vehicles, and riptides aren't. Everybody takes a couple of riptides. Haven't seen many hammerheads.

That's the difference between vehicles and monstrous creatures. Well, that and that monstrous creatures get an armor save, and an invul save, and can't be one-shotted by a single meltagun.

Big advantage of a tank is supposed to be that you can't be hurt from small arms fire. However, high-T creature with 2+ save defeats this, because for practical purposes it's just as invulnerable against small arms fire than a tank. If one wants to distinguish between vehicles and monstrous creatures, then at very least 2+ save monstrous creatures shouldn't exist. Wraithlord, for example, has just 3+ save and 3 wounds.

Backfire wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
Just look at how popular hammerheads and skyrays are. They're like worse, but cheaper riptides. But they're vehicles, and riptides aren't. Everybody takes a couple of riptides. Haven't seen many hammerheads.

That's the difference between vehicles and monstrous creatures. Well, that and that monstrous creatures get an armor save, and an invul save, and can't be one-shotted by a single meltagun.

Big advantage of a tank is supposed to be that you can't be hurt from small arms fire. However, high-T creature with 2+ save defeats this, because for practical purposes it's just as invulnerable against small arms fire than a tank. If one wants to distinguish between vehicles and monstrous creatures, then at very least 2+ save monstrous creatures shouldn't exist. Wraithlord, for example, has just 3+ save and 3 wounds.

You sir, make my armored shell Tyranids sad.

Well, and with the wraithknight, they're immune to small arms fire just like a vehicle. A vehicle with a 3+ save and practically a baneblade amount of hull points. That can't be one-shotted.

Though I'd also agree on the other side of it as well. To bring things back to Tau, a MC with T6 with a 2+ takes an average of 73 guard lasgun shots to cause a single wound. That's practically immune in my book...

 Ailaros wrote:
Well, and with the wraithknight, they're immune to small arms fire just like a vehicle. A vehicle with a 3+ save and practically a baneblade amount of hull points. That can't be one-shotted.

Though I'd also agree on the other side of it as well. To bring things back to Tau, a MC with T6 with a 2+ takes an average of 73 guard lasgun shots to cause a single wound. That's practically immune in my book...

Don't forget the FNP they can buy. Because feth small arms fire.

I put it you that it is the fact that Dreadknights, Riptides and Wraithknights have 12 inch movement, can dish out tons of damage, 6 T6 Wounds with a 2+ and some sort of invulnerable, all for much cheaper than the non-mecha Monstrous Creatures that makes them popular, rather than any inherent strengths of being an MC vs. being a Walker.

Wraithknight obviously is immune to small fire, since S5 is the weakest that can hurt it and most armies dont have it on troops except a few throughout the units (excluding Tau obviously), but i wouldnt say other MCs of T6 or so are immune. Bad dice are bad dice. The sheer fact that it can happen however unlikely is better than not at all like the heavier tanks have. Resilient and immune are way different.

I have taken out 5 terminators with a group of 10 grots and a runtherder. Ungodly unlikely, but it happened (and the look on his face was priceless lol). While not the same situation, still a good example of how bad dice can be. Those terminators would still be alive if grot guns couldnt even attempt to hurt them no matter how unlikely.
(Also had a game in Warmachine where it was decided on one last blow to my Warlock. The model swinging was throwing 4 dice and only needed a total of 5 taking the 3 lowest, he rolled 4 1s and i won afterwords)

 Zande4 wrote:
A monstrous creature should be just that, not a piloted suit. How can the daemon engines be walkers yet the riptide and DK be MCs..

mmm id love my FF's to be T6 with 6 wounds rather than the weaker walker stats it has, sure i could only equip it with 2 weapons but thats not sooo bad if it had a larger survivability.

if the riptide was statted as the FF/MF etc then no, i dont think it would be as popular.

My opinion is that it would still be popular, but not as popular. Being a MC is definitely an advantage, for sure.

Imo the game isn't done yet.

A walker is a gun platform. A CHEAP gun platform. All the s7 nonsense doesn't really hurt it.


And the forge fiend is good for exactly that. 5+ invulnerable and it can get Hp back.

The riptide went wrong when they gave it a way to shoot more then two weapons

For the most part we have a riptide that is a vehicle, it is called a hammerhead with ion cannon. Granted the difference between ap 2 and 3 is pretty big but for the most part the weapons are pretty much the same and both are most likely to be taking a sms as a secondary weapon. There are people who take the ion heads as it is a bit cheaper, 125pts vs 185pts. but the riptide is more reliable than the hammerhead. What this means is the riptide will likely take about the same amount of fire to take it down every time, while the hammerhead can be one shot (especially on the first turn before jink). Whats more being a MC the riptide can reliably grab linebreaker at the end of game or jump next to an objective to deny it from your opponent.