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As is plainly obvious, there are some key offenders in the pricing department when it comes to MCs: Nemesis Dreadknights and the Riptide are both significantly undercosted for what they can do on the tabletop. The Wraithknight is an even bigger offender, being ludicrously undercosted for a Gargantuan Creature. What's worse is that these units aren't even flesh-and-blood like proper Monstrous Creatures; they're piloted mech suits! Fortunately, this game me an idea: what if we turned these units into walkers? It would certainly solve the problem of these units being ridiculously durable for their points cost.

Here are my initial ideas:

Nemesis Dreadknight: 150 points
WS5 BS4 S6 I4 A3 AV12/12/10 4HP
Keeps its 5++, psychic powers, and teleporter.

Riptide: 200 points
WS2 BS3 S6 I2 A3 AV12/11/10 4HP
Keeps its 5++ and Nova Reactor. Failing a Nova Charge means an automatic glance. Stimulant Injector gives IWND. Can still move in assault phase and boost with Nova Charge.

Wraithknight: 395 points, Superheavy Walker
WS4 BS4 S10 I5 A4 AV13/13/12 6HP
Comes stock with two D-weapons. Must pay to upgrade to Suncannon/Ghostglaive and Scattershield.

Hopefully these rules will go some way toward addressing the points and durability imbalance for these three units. Any comments or feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: At the advice of Lythrandire Biehrellian, adjusted the armour values of the units.
Edit: Reduced cost of Dreadknight from 175 points.
Edit: Increased armour of Dradknight from 12/11/10

Your conversions are close,

The dreadknight and riptide are both 12/11/10 or 11/11/11 (I prefer the first one personally)

The wraithknight is 13/13/12

Otherwise, totally right on the costs here

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Your conversions are close,

The dreadknight and riptide are both 12/11/10 or 11/11/11 (I prefer the first one personally)

The wraithknight is 13/13/12

Otherwise, totally right on the costs here

Thanks. I honestly didn't know there was a formula; I just estimated how durable they should be in comparison to their current stats.

I agree that the Dreadknight and Riptide should be 12/11/10. The Wraithknight can go 13/13/12 to balance out the fact it doesn't have the Imperial Knight's shield.

Huge nerfs to the DK and Riptide (might as well stick a power sword in the GKs because they would be done if this happened) as they now have to contend with every issue that plagues walkers/vehicles while it also greatly reduces their durability (especially to small arms fire). Now I get that having the MC rule for giant power armor isn't exactly monstrous or a creature but the issue is not so much how good MCs are but how horribly bad the vehicle rules are when compared to infantry. The lack of armor saves on vehicles and how numbers work just makes vehicles bad at being durable platforms. Rather see walkers made better as they are across the board bad. They generally have both the limited mobility of foot slogging infantry and the durability issues of a vehicle wrapped into a wonderful crew shaken, immobilized, and exploded package.

Just to put a bit of context so it doesn't seem like I'm being selfishly protective over DKs or Riptides. While I play Tau, I do not use Riptides at all because I don't like how they exist in contrast to the fluff of Tau combat doctrine. That being said I don't want to see RIptides turned into another clunky platform that gets shaken and now is stuck snap shooting just like the poor hammerheads. Gork and Mork have mercy if the DK became a glorified Dreadnought as that is the one thing keeping stand alone GKs alive and not relegated to just being codex "Draigo allied detachment". I don't see how a core GK army could function without Dreadknights as they currently are.

If you want to kill Grey Knights as a codex outside of Draigo being taken for Centstar, go ahead and nerf the Dreadknight.

Just increase the points for these faux walkers. Maybe 35-45pts?

Vankraken wrote:Huge nerfs to the DK and Riptide (might as well stick a power sword in the GKs because they would be done if this happened) as they now have to contend with every issue that plagues walkers/vehicles while it also greatly reduces their durability (especially to small arms fire). Now I get that having the MC rule for giant power armor isn't exactly monstrous or a creature but the issue is not so much how good MCs are but how horribly bad the vehicle rules are when compared to infantry. The lack of armor saves on vehicles and how numbers work just makes vehicles bad at being durable platforms. Rather see walkers made better as they are across the board bad. They generally have both the limited mobility of foot slogging infantry and the durability issues of a vehicle wrapped into a wonderful crew shaken, immobilized, and exploded package.

Just to put a bit of context so it doesn't seem like I'm being selfishly protective over DKs or Riptides. While I play Tau, I do not use Riptides at all because I don't like how they exist in contrast to the fluff of Tau combat doctrine. That being said I don't want to see RIptides turned into another clunky platform that gets shaken and now is stuck snap shooting just like the poor hammerheads. Gork and Mork have mercy if the DK became a glorified Dreadnought as that is the one thing keeping stand alone GKs alive and not relegated to just being codex "Draigo allied detachment". I don't see how a core GK army could function without Dreadknights as they currently are.

Quickjager wrote:If you want to kill Grey Knights as a codex outside of Draigo being taken for Centstar, go ahead and nerf the Dreadknight.

I'm not entirely sure how making a Dreadknight immune to most small arms fire (needing S6 at least to be effective) counts as a nerf to durability. Those same S6 weapons were previously wounding these units on a 4+, and now they need a 6+ to glance. The ability to be instakilled compensates for their immunity to all but dedicated weapons.

I'm only reclassifying these units, not nerfing them wholesale. The Dreadknight can keep its personal teleporter and the Riptide can move in the Assault Phase. In addition, I explicitly stated that both units keep their invulnerable saves. The increased points is to again compensate for their immunity to small arms; upgrades would cost the same wiht the exception of the Riptide's Ion Accelerator (15 points).

The issue between monstrous creatures and vehicles is vehicles are immune to most small arms weapons (st5 or lower, and/or ap3 or worse) but have the chance of taking more damage than monstrous creatures from heavy weapons.

The conversion for monstrous creatures and vehicles is something I was able to put together using the vehicle design rules in my signature. The wraithlord used to be a dreadnaught, they converted it to a monster, so I knew there had to be a correlating factor for survivability. I found it

I frankly find it hilarious that you genuinely think Dreadknights are underpriced, especially in a game in which Grav exists. They're good, nothing more, nothing less. When they were more expensive in the previous book, they were bad enough that no one ever ran them. They got a little bit better because of the improved Heavy Psycannon profile and slightly reduced price (after equipping it with wargear).

Your proposed rules would make it terrible. Frankly, walkers almost universally suck, so trying to rewrite a bunch of MC's into being walkers is not the way to go. Really they should just make Dreadnoughts and the like MCs, ditch the walker rules, and be done with it.

 DarkLink wrote:
I frankly find it hilarious that you genuinely think Dreadknights are underpriced, especially in a game in which Grav exists. They're good, nothing more, nothing less. When they were more expensive in the previous book, they were bad enough that no one ever ran them. They got a little bit better because of the improved Heavy Psycannon profile and slightly reduced price (after equipping it with wargear).

Your proposed rules would make it terrible. Frankly, walkers almost universally suck, so trying to rewrite a bunch of MC's into being walkers is not the way to go. Really they should just make Dreadnoughts and the like MCs, ditch the walker rules, and be done with it.

That's funny, because I do in fact think that 130 points for a S6 T6 Monstrous Creature with a 2+/5++ is undercosted. With wargear upgrades, it comes out to about the cost of a flyrant, and we all know how undercosted those are. I am willing to make it 150 points base, but no cheaper.

Grav was made as a means of countering these undercosted units. Believe it or not, making these units walkers increases their curability against grav as you need two sixes to kill them, which is only really practical if you have a grav cannon and amp.

 DarkLink wrote:
I frankly find it hilarious that you genuinely think Dreadknights are underpriced, especially in a game in which Grav exists. They're good, nothing more, nothing less. When they were more expensive in the previous book, they were bad enough that no one ever ran them. They got a little bit better because of the improved Heavy Psycannon profile and slightly reduced price (after equipping it with wargear).

Your proposed rules would make it terrible. Frankly, walkers almost universally suck, so trying to rewrite a bunch of MC's into being walkers is not the way to go. Really they should just make Dreadnoughts and the like MCs, ditch the walker rules, and be done with it.

Grav.does.not.exist.in.every.army.

Now that's out the way, any other reasons why they are not op?

 TheNewBlood wrote:
I'm not entirely sure how making a Dreadknight immune to most small arms fire (needing S6 at least to be effective) counts as a nerf to durability. Those same S6 weapons were previously wounding these units on a 4+, and now they need a 6+ to glance. The ability to be instakilled compensates for their immunity to all but dedicated weapons.

Smaller arms being anything less than AP2. Things like scat lasers will rip apart a AV12 walker a lot faster than if it was a T6 2+ save MC. Even auto cannon class weapons and krak missiles will kill it twice as fast. A Tau pulse rifle firing at a Dreadknight would take about 70 hits to kill a Dreadknight between its T6, 2+ armor, and 4 wounds. At that point if your drawing so many shots that your still getting your points worth out of the DK. Being a walker it would have to contend with the vehicle damage chart which will cripple its capabilities. Making it a walker would just doom it to suffer the same fate as every other non super heavy walker that comes along and gets either glanced to death, vehicle damage charted into uselessness, or melta gunneded into oblivion. Need to fix the walker rules (and vehicle rules in general) before looking at changing the pseudo MCs into into something that is fundamentally broken.

Higher points on the riptide or DK are absolutely fine (I wouldn't go too much higher on the DK unless the rest of the codex got some needed improvements).

 Formosa wrote:


Grav.does.not.exist.in.every.army.

"Yeah they do, you can take allied C:SM " - a few people on Dakka this week.

I like the WK debuff.

You want to make the Dreadknight a less armored, MORE EXPENSIVE, dreadnought. You know, the walker no one will take outside of SW and BA specific ones.

Walkers suck in their current state. If you have an issue with them try nerfing them while leaving them as MC. As it is, Dreadknights are in fact balanced. Last codex they cost a bit more and guess what, no one took them.

If you don't understand that walkers SUCK then I can't help you.

I propose that Helbrutes and Fiends become mc instead of walkers. In the case of the mauler fiend, Its a beast and MC.

Vankraken wrote:

 TheNewBlood wrote:
I'm not entirely sure how making a Dreadknight immune to most small arms fire (needing S6 at least to be effective) counts as a nerf to durability. Those same S6 weapons were previously wounding these units on a 4+, and now they need a 6+ to glance. The ability to be instakilled compensates for their immunity to all but dedicated weapons.

Smaller arms being anything less than AP2. Things like scat lasers will rip apart a AV12 walker a lot faster than if it was a T6 2+ save MC. Even auto cannon class weapons and krak missiles will kill it twice as fast. A Tau pulse rifle firing at a Dreadknight would take about 70 hits to kill a Dreadknight between its T6, 2+ armor, and 4 wounds. At that point if your drawing so many shots that your still getting your points worth out of the DK. Being a walker it would have to contend with the vehicle damage chart which will cripple its capabilities. Making it a walker would just doom it to suffer the same fate as every other non super heavy walker that comes along and gets either glanced to death, vehicle damage charted into uselessness, or melta gunneded into oblivion. Need to fix the walker rules (and vehicle rules in general) before looking at changing the pseudo MCs into into something that is fundamentally broken.

Higher points on the riptide or DK are absolutely fine (I wouldn't go too much higher on the DK unless the rest of the codex got some needed improvements).

The spammability of scat lasers is another problem entirely. Your calculations also assume no cover or equivalent save. I specifically stated that both the Dreaknight and Riptide keep their invulnerable saves. Furthermore, both models can increase their invulnerable saves.

Quickjager wrote:You want to make the Dreadknight a less armored, MORE EXPENSIVE, dreadnought. You know, the walker no one will take outside of SW and BA specific ones.

Walkers suck in their current state. If you have an issue with them try nerfing them while leaving them as MC. As it is, Dreadknights are in fact balanced. Last codex they cost a bit more and guess what, no one took them.

If you don't understand that walkers SUCK then I can't help you.

Most walkers are bad because they have limited mobility and no save outside of cover, in addition to being crippled by the vehicle damage table. I have allowed for both the Dreadknight and the Riptide to retain their saves and their extra mobility at the price of being more expensive.

Yea and they can lose their weapons, end up being immobilized or shaken.

They suck. If you want to do that you need to make them superheavies without the explosion.

Also, we PAY for that teleporter pack, it was already balanced around it.

The old price for the teleporter was obscene, but that was because they made you pay full price for jump, which includes points for deepstrike even though the dreadknight already had it.

In regards to av survivability, what I did above with the av-sv/toughness is also able to be done in reverse.

Dreadnaughts would be toughness 6, 3+
Ironclads toughness 7, 3+
Killa kanz toughness 5 3+

That is just a change in survivability mechanic, they still wouldn't gain smash or move through cover with that change, but only tracked/hovering vehicles would have to worry about armor penetration and the vehicle damage chart.

 Quickjager wrote:
Yea and they can lose their weapons, end up being immobilized or shaken.

They suck. If you want to do that you need to make them superheavies without the explosion.

Also, we PAY for that teleporter pack, it was already balanced around it.

Welcome to the world the rest of us live in. I don't think the Dreadknight and Riptide should be the special snowflake units that they are.

I'd be alright with these changes, provided that they all take damage on the super-heavy chart. If not, I think I'd want both the NDK and the Riptide to be somewhat better armored. Yes, I know, the tradeoff here is that the walker versions are much harder to kill with infantry weapons: in fact, they're immune to lasguns outright and bolters/shuricats/devourers are only dangerous in the rear arc. (But there, they are a lot more dangerous than they are against T6/2+) That said, losing either one instantly to a single dude with a melta is at least as annoying as losing a much cheaper Dreadnought or Helbrute to the same.

Another issue with that version of the Riptide is that Gets Hot on the nova-charged HBC is far more dangerous on the walker version. You get a 2+ and possibly FNP against it on the existing version; I hardly ever take a wound from Gets Hot. With the walker variant, you get a 4+ against it and no FNP; IWND only helps if you manage not to croak, and you have 4HP versus 5W. Maybe if there was a special rule that gave a 2+ save against that, or if the HBC were modified to just not have Gets Hot in nova-charged mode. As proposed, the walker version would pretty much never be used with the HBC, at least not without the Farsight Enclave ECPA or Commander Shadowsun and her Command-Link Drone. (And I'll point out, the ECPA is a legendarily unpopular upgrade. Take it, and you're automatically That Frelling Guy, at least at the places I play.)

That's part of a larger gripe I have with vehicle durability in general - I don't think 40k has ever gotten vehicle durability right. You either get "invincible unless one-shotted" as in 5th, "sanded to death when they aren't one-shotted" as in 6th, or "sometimes one-shotted, and still sanded to death" as now. I had a few ideas on that, but those are for elsewhere...

ETA: Yes, I know, several folks here have never seen an HBC Riptide because IA+EWO == anything entering from reserves auto-dies. It's not that simple (Gets Hot has prevented me from firing more than a few times, and scatter is still a thing, as is cover. Can't really do Interceptor with markerlights...), but that's frustrating as all hezmana. I agree the IA is OP, but a nerf that makes the IA mandatory so you don't kill yourself or sit there being useless makes the problem worse, not better. (without the nova-charge, the HBC is pretty marginal; S6 AP4 Heavy 8 at BS3 is good, but not amazing. Make it Heavy 12 and Rending, and now it's a bit scary.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
The old price for the teleporter was obscene, but that was because they made you pay full price for jump, which includes points for deepstrike even though the dreadknight already had it.

In regards to av survivability, what I did above with the av-sv/toughness is also able to be done in reverse.

Dreadnaughts would be toughness 6, 3+
Ironclads toughness 7, 3+
Killa kanz toughness 5 3+

That is just a change in survivability mechanic, they still wouldn't gain smash or move through cover with that change, but only tracked/hovering vehicles would have to worry about armor penetration and the vehicle damage chart.

I'm curious how T6/2+ (RT/NDK) translates to 12/11/10, but 12/12/10 (DN) translates to T6/3+? Am I missing something here? Also, the usual consensus is that a Talos (T7/3+/FNP) is less durable than a Riptide - but you're assigning T7/3+ as an equivalence to 13/13/10. Is the difference just wound/hull point totals?

Going on my own observations, I think maybe 12/12/10, 4HP, 5++ would be a reasonable translation for at least the Riptide, maybe about the same for the NDK (though the NDK has one less wound, but equally, is less likely to self-destruct).

I suspect I'm confused and misunderstanding something.

Martel732 wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
Yea and they can lose their weapons, end up being immobilized or shaken.

They suck. If you want to do that you need to make them superheavies without the explosion.

Also, we PAY for that teleporter pack, it was already balanced around it.

Welcome to the world the rest of us live in. I don't think the Dreadknight and Riptide should be the special snowflake units that they are.

I couldn't give less of a damn what world you live in Martel, I won't let people say nerf the only unit in my codex that allows it to stand-alone.

I get the feeling that Martel is getting a little worked up over how BA < Everything Else this edition.

 Quickjager wrote:
If you want to kill Grey Knights as a codex outside of Draigo being taken for Centstar, go ahead and nerf the Dreadknight.

Yeah, aside from the terrible deathstars, they don't have much going for them. A skilled player can just dance around any TDA army.

BA and Orks both need some help in 7th; so do Dark Eldar (and no, I'm not counting Eldar/Harlequin allies, because if we're doing that, we can solve BA problems with Vanilla/Dark Angel allies), but that's not really the point of this thread, ne?

In my experience, dreadknights are good but not really broken. My dark eldar hate them because teleporters + heavy flamers are nasty against an open-topped army, but the knights seem to die just fine. Those same dark eldar can poison the snot out of them or even deal with them using blasters and disintegrators. My eldar can take them down with weight of fire or even trade pretty well in a wraith lord duel. My harlequins don't have a lot of options that don't work well against dreadknights.

They hit hard and can do invul/cover saves well, but they drop if you shoot them or even stab them with the right thing.

Making them vehicles seems like it would represent a pretty significant nerf to them. Sure, those small arms and poison I just mentioned wouldn't work against them, but a single anti-vehicle shot can destroy them, or if not destroy them, cripple them to the point of being useless. Especially with that side armor 11 making them so vulnerable to strength 6 and 7 spam. Losing access to cover saves (mostly) is mitigated by their invuln save, but meh. If you're going to make them walkers, especially walkers with side armor 11 and rear armor 10, you should probably lower their cost a fair bit. Heck, they wont' even be AP2 if they lose their sword, right?

jade_angel wrote:
I'd be alright with these changes, provided that they all take damage on the super-heavy chart. If not, I think I'd want both the NDK and the Riptide to be somewhat better armored. Yes, I know, the tradeoff here is that the walker versions are much harder to kill with infantry weapons: in fact, they're immune to lasguns outright and bolters/shuricats/devourers are only dangerous in the rear arc. (But there, they are a lot more dangerous than they are against T6/2+) That said, losing either one instantly to a single dude with a melta is at least as annoying as losing a much cheaper Dreadnought or Helbrute to the same.

Another issue with that version of the Riptide is that Gets Hot on the nova-charged HBC is far more dangerous on the walker version. You get a 2+ and possibly FNP against it on the existing version; I hardly ever take a wound from Gets Hot. With the walker variant, you get a 4+ against it and no FNP; IWND only helps if you manage not to croak, and you have 4HP versus 5W. Maybe if there was a special rule that gave a 2+ save against that, or if the HBC were modified to just not have Gets Hot in nova-charged mode. As proposed, the walker version would pretty much never be used with the HBC, at least not without the Farsight Enclave ECPA or Commander Shadowsun and her Command-Link Drone. (And I'll point out, the ECPA is a legendarily unpopular upgrade. Take it, and you're automatically That Frelling Guy, at least at the places I play.)

That's part of a larger gripe I have with vehicle durability in general - I don't think 40k has ever gotten vehicle durability right. You either get "invincible unless one-shotted" as in 5th, "sanded to death when they aren't one-shotted" as in 6th, or "sometimes one-shotted, and still sanded to death" as now. I had a few ideas on that, but those are for elsewhere...

ETA: Yes, I know, several folks here have never seen an HBC Riptide because IA+EWO == anything entering from reserves auto-dies. It's not that simple (Gets Hot has prevented me from firing more than a few times, and scatter is still a thing, as is cover. Can't really do Interceptor with markerlights...), but that's frustrating as all hezmana. I agree the IA is OP, but a nerf that makes the IA mandatory so you don't kill yourself or sit there being useless makes the problem worse, not better. (without the nova-charge, the HBC is pretty marginal; S6 AP4 Heavy 8 at BS3 is good, but not amazing. Make it Heavy 12 and Rending, and now it's a bit scary.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
The old price for the teleporter was obscene, but that was because they made you pay full price for jump, which includes points for deepstrike even though the dreadknight already had it.

In regards to av survivability, what I did above with the av-sv/toughness is also able to be done in reverse.

Dreadnaughts would be toughness 6, 3+
Ironclads toughness 7, 3+
Killa kanz toughness 5 3+

That is just a change in survivability mechanic, they still wouldn't gain smash or move through cover with that change, but only tracked/hovering vehicles would have to worry about armor penetration and the vehicle damage chart.

I'm curious how T6/2+ (RT/NDK) translates to 12/11/10, but 12/12/10 (DN) translates to T6/3+? Am I missing something here? Also, the usual consensus is that a Talos (T7/3+/FNP) is less durable than a Riptide - but you're assigning T7/3+ as an equivalence to 13/13/10. Is the difference just wound/hull point totals?

Going on my own observations, I think maybe 12/12/10, 4HP, 5++ would be a reasonable translation for at least the Riptide, maybe about the same for the NDK (though the NDK has one less wound, but equally, is less likely to self-destruct).

I suspect I'm confused and misunderstanding something.

Didn't realise it was av13 front and side, and I misread my chart when I did the math there (kids with their not sleeping when normal people do) it should be

Dreadnaught toughness 7, 4+
Iron clad is toughness 8, but its save maths out between 4+ and 5+ (I'd say 4+)
Killa kan is either toughness 5, 2+ or toughness 6, 3+

(My mistake was not charging the monstrous creature wounds for the bonus points spent by walkers for having above average survivability in melee by using their front armor instead of the rear. My apologies)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The reason for the riptide having the option of 12-11-10 is because that is the same amount of points as 11-11-11 in my system, you can choose which you think fits better.

 Quickjager wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
Yea and they can lose their weapons, end up being immobilized or shaken.

They suck. If you want to do that you need to make them superheavies without the explosion.

Also, we PAY for that teleporter pack, it was already balanced around it.

Welcome to the world the rest of us live in. I don't think the Dreadknight and Riptide should be the special snowflake units that they are.

I couldn't give less of a damn what world you live in Martel, I won't let people say nerf the only unit in my codex that allows it to stand-alone.

Vehicles and walkers are so bad it hurts. For those lists without MCs in them, some kind of parity would be nice.

I'd agree on that one. Vehicles have the "amazing or garbage" problem - they either do nothing, or they never, ever die.

I also understand that TDA is basically garbage now, and that's hurting the GK really bad. However, 2+ armor MCs and the WK have shifted the amount of firepower needed to get anything done to unhealthy levels.

After further consideration, I have decided to raise the Dreadknight's side armour to 12 to address some complaints about it having decreased durability for what it supposed to be an aggressive unit. As the Riptide is more of a shooty support unit, it will keep its side armour of 11.