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Alright, there are a few units that seem to constantly attract complaints, mostly for being too strong. Here's a few stabs at bringing them back in line.

Ok, the consensus is that I got these entirely wrong. Fair enough, point well taken, and the suggestions are rescinded.

For the record, I do play both Tau and Eldar, and am generally a fan of all the units presented here (except the Stormsurge, which I haven't actually used yet, because holy crap that's an expensive model, and its mere existence seems to make everyone rage). I'm just tired of being told that Tau and Eldar are so strong that every other army is a dumpster-fire by comparison, and that both should just be banned outright, especially when almost all the rage is directed at 2-3 units from each codex. These were kinda overkill, in a major way, though I'll mention a few things - the Wraithguard change was essentially reverting to what they were in the previous codex (with the slight buff of +1 on the vehicle damage chart on a 6 to pen). The hope was to make the Wraithknight into a miniature Revenant Titan, but my critical mistake there was not asking what folks think of the Revenant Titan - too powerful at 900 points? Too weak? Strong but squishy?

<kasnip>

theres a difference between a nerf and a complete utter destruction.

All of these changes are terrible. Improve costs while also cutting the effectiveness by a TON? Really?

Even the change to the WK is way, way too far. There is no limit to any super in the game other than points limitation, so why would they be limited? Points is the only thing i agree with, if not more.

You literally killed the riptide. Someone must have a sour taste for them. Lord of War option AND nerfbat galore. Every single thing you mentioned is way too far on its own, but stacked up? You dont nerf something to uselessness when it needs a nerf (not denying it does), you subtly change things.

Removing Stomp from the Stormsurge makes no sense when its legs are far, far larger than most tanks. It can clearly raise its legs high enough to stomp and it definitely has a lot of weight behind it. Stormsurge is not even a "problem unit" to begin with. Makes way more sense for it to have stomp than a Stompa does.

Why is the Riptide still an MC? and why is it a LoW? It belongs in Heavy Support.

Why not just make it a 13/13/11 Walker that can Jetpack jump?

Wraithguard and Wraithknight are op? Seriously?

What's wrong with you, folks?

Riptide? Omfg, guys, are we really playing same game?

The usual complaint in response to making the Riptide a walker is that makes it impossible to kill in close combat. Of course, that could be worked around by making the nova reactor extraordinarily dangerous - like, say, fail on a 1 and take a penetrating hit at AP1; fail on a 2 and take a pen at AP-.

However, I'll stand by the change to the ion accelerator - it's basically the Ghostkeel's cyclic ion raker, which is a solid weapon, plus a nova-charge profile which is still pretty good. Though maybe the nova profile should stay S9 (or even go to S10?), if the others are losing AP2 - which they should because that's far and away the biggest complaint. However, firing 6 autocannon shots at 24" is still pretty dangerous - it'll wreck most vehicles or force saves on infantry or MCs. The HBC is still there if you need more range and/or volume. (I did slightly buff the nova profile - lost Gets Hot and gained Pinning).

You're right, I almost certainly did nerf the Riptide way too far. In part that's because I like the unit quite a bit, but am tired of it being banned for being OP! Most of the complaints center around being too available (hence LoW), too cheap, too durable (Hence T5/W4), too effective in CC or having too much long-range AP2. Probably raised the cost too much on the Wraithknight - I was trying to pattern this version after the Revenant Titan and Imperial Knight, but it's hard to make that work right.

I wouldn't have been inclined to remove Stomp, except for how much it gets complained about. Maybe it's Stomp itself that needs the fix here - for example, change it to "vehicles: take a glance on 2-5, take a pen at AP1 on 6; Infantry/etc: as is for 2-5, take an S10 AP1 Ignores Cover wound on a 6".

Windriders: Maybe too much nerfbat here too, inspired by the complaining. Maybe bring them back to their original cost, change the armor save to 4+, and leave the weapon option nerf?

jade_angel wrote:
The usual complaint in response to making the Riptide a walker is that makes it impossible to kill in close combat.

I have killed a Riptide in Close Combat with a naked dreadnaught. I'm sure that same dreadnaught could tear a Front Armour 13 walker a new one easily.

True enough - Dreads, Penitent Engines, Helbrutes and the like would kill it quite dead indeed. It's vanguard vets, assault marines and their ilk that would have problems.

What about 11/11/11, but takes damage on the super-heavy chart so it doesn't auto-die to a single lascannon shot?

For the Wraithguard, what about making them S&P instead? And tack on some 'Treats Battle brothers as AoC' or something?

jade_angel wrote:
True enough - Dreads, Penitent Engines, Helbrutes and the like would kill it quite dead indeed. It's vanguard vets, assault marines and their ilk that would have problems.

What about 11/11/11, but takes damage on the super-heavy chart so it doesn't auto-die to a single lascannon shot?

Why would it be 11/11/11? It is walking armour, its front armour is 13.

people complain about stomp in any form. Its deadly as hell, but it should be. Something that damn huge should make even EW people become a pancake (remove from play bypasses EW). Its a super, they arent suppose to be "fair" theyre suppose to be deadly as hell, but a hefty investment in a single model that really hurts when it dies. WK is the only one that severely compromises that ideal, since its so damn cheap for being way tougher than a Stormsurge or pfft i'd almost say its as hard to kill as a fethin Biotitan lol. Almost, not quite.

Riptide is competent enough in melee to just not be an auto win. I still avoid combat with it like the plague except to smash a random vehicle thats near me or a lone termie i didnt kill. 7/10 of the time it gets in combat for me, it dies. Primarily because of how Sweeping Advance works...you scratch my paint and i ran away...oh you caught me...damn...
The IA does need a nerf, though not that far. The range is fine but its the same size as the Ion Cannon on the Hammerhead, so it should have an identical profile with the AP2 Nova test profile. The main problem is it removes the Nova Test danger, because it doesnt need it. HBC Riptides are definitely NOT broken because they effectively make themselves 3 wounds instead of 5 on average. IA doesnt have that risk...at all... and it should have it.

Bharring wrote:
For the Wraithguard, what about making them S&P instead? And tack on some 'Treats Battle brothers as AoC' or something?

I could see that. I personally favor reverting the weapons to their 6e profiles, though, and here's why: it used to be that Fire Dragons were the superior choice versus vehicles, while Wraithguard were superior against MCs. Now, Wraithguard are mostly just better always - Fire Dragons only have the advantages of price, melta bombs and battle focus (which sounds like a lot, but isn't as much as it seems, since D is effective against literally everything - it's even really dangerous to flyers/FMCs while snap-shooting, since one hit is all you'll need.)

But, treating Battle Brothers as Allies of Convenience makes some sense - that way they can't just deep strike in using an Archon/Haemonculus to guide them. I don't mind seeing them riding in Raiders, but as shooting units, a Wave Serpent does just fine. (And I think those are about correctly powered now. Yes, they're true tanks, but they're priced like true tanks, too.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Incidentally - regarding the nova test danger on the IA: that's why I wanted to leave it as a cyclic ion raker with an AP2 nova profile. That way, if you want to splat a unit if deep-striking vanguard vets, say, you need to use the nova-charge. Otherwise, well, you can wreck vehicles and do pretty well against most other things, rather like the Ghostkeel, but with more resistance to Ignores Cover weapons, but less resistance to AP1/2.

jade_angel wrote:

Bharring wrote:
For the Wraithguard, what about making them S&P instead? And tack on some 'Treats Battle brothers as AoC' or something?

I could see that. I personally favor reverting the weapons to their 6e profiles, though, and here's why: it used to be that Fire Dragons were the superior choice versus vehicles, while Wraithguard were superior against MCs. Now, Wraithguard are mostly just better always - Fire Dragons only have the advantages of price, melta bombs and battle focus (which sounds like a lot, but isn't as much as it seems, since D is effective against literally everything - it's even really dangerous to flyers/FMCs while snap-shooting, since one hit is all you'll need.)

But, treating Battle Brothers as Allies of Convenience makes some sense - that way they can't just deep strike in using an Archon/Haemonculus to guide them. I don't mind seeing them riding in Raiders, but as shooting units, a Wave Serpent does just fine. (And I think those are about correctly powered now. Yes, they're true tanks, but they're priced like true tanks, too.)

SaP makes loads of sense, but AoC doesn't. A WWP is a thing Craftworlders should have without allies. Its not like Dark Eldar are really an issue anyway.

Outside DE allies, a big drawback of Wraithguard is that they are slow, but they hit like a truck when they get into range. DE allies make that drawback moot.

DE as a force don't need a nerf, but Wraithguard + DE does.

I approve of the changes to Eldar here, maybe lower the cost of the Windriders back to their current and raise the save to a 4+. Personally I'd also change the Scatter Laser to S5 as well. For the Wraithknight I'd change the Suncannon S8 from it's current S6, gives people a reason not to take the D Cannons and still be dangerous. I'd also make it so that you can you exchange just the Suncannon for a single D cannon for 50pts and the same with the Scattershield.

Is their a reason that the Riptides armour gets worse in close combat? At present that makes absolutely no sense at all.

You sure spend a lot of words on saying "nova charge: on a 1 or a 2 the model is removed as a casualty". Why even pretend that you're trying to make legitimate units instead of removing the Riptide from the game?

 Imateria wrote:

Is their a reason that the Riptides armour gets worse in close combat? At present that makes absolutely no sense at all.

Basically he wants the Riptide to no longer exist. Hence the 1000 nerfs that affect literally every aspect of the unit including ones its already lousy at (melee).

If ANY unit were to have a lower armor save in melee, it would be anything with Slow and Purposeful. Vehicles are hit in the rear because its assumed their sluggish reaction lets you hit a weak point easier. MCs, Walkers (that arent immobilized), or just random units are too fast to let you be THAT accurate to hit the tiny gap between heavy armor plates just right to bypass the armor.

Kinda like how peregrine summed it up. Just remove it from the game rather than try to make a legitimate unit.

Even if you left it as is and moved it to LoW it would be suffering and probably vanish. Why? Tournaments dont allow multiple LoW options typically, even in formations. Its nowhere near LoW level of powerful.

Lousy at CC is relative.

Can it kill its points worth of Thunderwolves? Probably not.

But how do bully units like ASM fare against it?

What makes it lousy at CC is that it wipes the floor with most units at shooting. Not any particular vulnerability to CC. Which isn't what I'd call lousy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The nerfs do seem a bit stiff.

Loss of Smash seems right. But its WS is how the rest is signified.

The d3 wounds on failed Novas are a bit much. Leave it at 1, assuming it has gone down to W4. It also doesn't need the VP rule, assuming its now a LoW for increased points.

 Peregrine wrote:
You sure spend a lot of words on saying "nova charge: on a 1 or a 2 the model is removed as a casualty". Why even pretend that you're trying to make legitimate units instead of removing the Riptide from the game?

How about we just remove anything taller than a dreadnought while we're at it?

 WarbossDakka wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
You sure spend a lot of words on saying "nova charge: on a 1 or a 2 the model is removed as a casualty". Why even pretend that you're trying to make legitimate units instead of removing the Riptide from the game?

How about we just remove anything taller than a dreadnought while we're at it?

And anything with a base bigger than 50mm

Bharring wrote:


The d3 wounds on failed Novas are a bit much.

Its not just d3 wounds. Its d3 strength 10 wounds on a unit that is now only toughness 5... In other words D3 chances at instant death with only a 5++ save to prevent it since you don't get FnP from instant kill attacks. Assuming you only roll 1 for the d3 roll, that's still a 55.56% chance of killing the riptide outright!


A 250 point lord of war with 4 toughness 5 wounds, who's main weapons are AP 4 base (unless you crazily risk instant death that awards opponents additional VP's on the Nova charge), who dies to a stiff breeze in combat?! You're kidding right? I don't know anyone who wouldn't agree the riptide is overpowered, but these changes would make it the worst unit in the game by a long margin. Surely, you can't be serious... Please, no Airplane! references.

Ok, yeah, I did overkill the heck out of that nerf. Might even say I doubled it out...

So, what's more reasonable here? My problem with dropping the save to a 3+ is that if you're operating up close, you're too likely to fail your saves against the pile of bolter/lasgun-class hits you'll be taking. But, with a 2+, it's too hard to kill at a distance. As a thought, that's mitigated a lot if you're forced to stay within 36".

So, leave the nova reactor as it presently stands, remove Gets Hot from the HBC, change the ion accelerator to the cyclic ion raker, but with an S9 AP2 Ordnance 1 large blast if nova-charged... Reduce it to T5, like the Ghostkeel, perhaps?

I am not going to stand here say that the riptide is not good. Its awesome and nice unit, one of more appealing units of the tau army(who doesnt want a big ass suit jumping arround, same reason as people still love land raiders, helldrakes and what not.) Its base costs are already 180 and with decent upgrades it goes fast to the 210+. So you are going to make it unrationally more expensive and make it do a lot less and given worse rules.

For me this change doesn't make sense. By even looking at your rules it looks like you just thought: what is the riptide good at? Nerf him completely into the ground.
I can't find any logic on what you base your nerfs.

Just wondering if you are a tau player?

Riptide needs to be as it is on the Codex, with IA costing more and EWO costing more. Maybe FnP too.

Also R-Wing should stay in Apoc.

The problem with the Riptide is that the Nova should do a few wounds making it easier to kill, but the IA completely mitigates the need to Nova.

The nerfs to the Eldar jetbikes took things way too far. I think for starters just drop them back down to only getting 1 special weapon per 3 bikes and see how that goes. They will never see use in our fast attack slot and losing the 3+ save on top of a points hike makes them laughable. I still hold to the 1 special per 3 of the 6th edition codex and no one I fight complains that my jetbikes are OP. Maybe drop the RoF on the scatter laser to 3 shots instead of 4 aswell. It then has the range over the shuriken but nothing else. The bike isn't the issue after all, the spammable long range S6 is.

Wraithknight nerfs are too much aswell. Just do a points hike and leave it be. Not sure what the sweet spot would be but leaving his stats alone and just upping point cost would be fine I think. 100 points for 2 wraithcannons is a joke btw, they're good but not that good.

Wraithguard are broken thanks to DE, not necessarily due to their own rules. D is scary for sure but unless it's on the scythe it's only 5 shots and easily kited once you pop the transport. The scythes as you suggest nerfing them would never be taken, especially at their current point cost.

I don't mean to say that Eldar don't have some nasty things, undercosted knight and too many heavy weapons on bikes is certainly something that should be addressed but I think they can be handled gently to find balance. Eldar still do need firepower after all cause they don't have the durability that other armies have.

Step one would be to make sure all armies are in 7th edition (and to redo the early 7th edition books to match the post-necron books, DE, BA, Orks all need new 7th books) then to evaluate what is OP based on that. Quite frankly if you ask a CSM player what is OP and needs a nerf he's liable to tell you every army in the game is OP and undercosted. Especially comparing himself to his SM brothers. Lets all be on the same page (power philosophy within our codex) before we start suggesting nerfing units down to the dirt.

Ok, more reasonably here - I think Inevitable_Faith has it about right on the jetbikes. I never got too many complaints about them in 6e, except for the assault-phase move. I've heard a few suggestions about the scatter laser itself - I like the notion of dropping it down to S5. That would make the starcannon and shuriken cannon more attractive options on the platforms that can choose between them.

As for the Wraithknight - I tried to make it into a mini-Revenant Titan, because of all the gripes about it being a GC. Then again, I didn't ask what the general opinion of the Revenant Titan is, and whether folks think it's worth 900 points. Mea maxima culpa.

The scythe suggestion, by the way, was pretty much the same profile they had in 6e, plus a slight buff. That said, I rarely used the D-scythe in 6e, so you probably have a good point about that being too weak. I still prefer the Wraithcannon at S10 instead of D, though, because of the internal balance issue. Previously, Fire Dragons were better against vehicles, Wraithguard were better against MCs. Now, Wraithguard are mostly better all the time, although more expensive. Since both units are vying for an Elite slot, I'd rather have it be a hard choice, rather than "one is just plain always better, if you can afford it at all".

jade_angel wrote:
Ok, more reasonably here - I think Inevitable_Faith has it about right on the jetbikes. I never got too many complaints about them in 6e, except for the assault-phase move. I've heard a few suggestions about the scatter laser itself - I like the notion of dropping it down to S5. That would make the starcannon and shuriken cannon more attractive options on the platforms that can choose between them.

As for the Wraithknight - I tried to make it into a mini-Revenant Titan, because of all the gripes about it being a GC. Then again, I didn't ask what the general opinion of the Revenant Titan is, and whether folks think it's worth 900 points. Mea maxima culpa.

The scythe suggestion, by the way, was pretty much the same profile they had in 6e, plus a slight buff. That said, I rarely used the D-scythe in 6e, so you probably have a good point about that being too weak. I still prefer the Wraithcannon at S10 instead of D, though, because of the internal balance issue. Previously, Fire Dragons were better against vehicles, Wraithguard were better against MCs. Now, Wraithguard are mostly better all the time, although more expensive. Since both units are vying for an Elite slot, I'd rather have it be a hard choice, rather than "one is just plain always better, if you can afford it at all".

S5 scatter laser also sounds reasonable. Still glances rhinos to death but that's about it.

As for the revenant Titan I can't say much about it as I've never used one. My gripes concerning turning a Wraithknight into a vehicle is that it would then have all the rules associated with vehicles that make vehicles so much worse than MC currently. Now that is a problem with vehicle vs MC rules now. Sadly due to the vehicle damage table and being able to be glanced to death with no saves normally allowed (barring cover and even MC have an easier time getting cover saves) vehicles are so much more fragile and prone to becoming useless even if they don't get destroyed. Now would it be reasonable to make the WK a MC instead of a GC? Perhaps, maybe up the scattershield to a 4++ instead of a 5++ to compensate vs anything AP3 or better and leave his points cost alone then. Ultimately though if you wanted to put WK as a vehicle I'd be ok with it if the Riptide, Ghostkeel, Stormsurge and Dreadknight all become vehicles as well. I find the Riptide with a 2+ and JSJ is downright obnoxious to kill and has more firepower (Wraithcannons hit very hard but they are on a BS4 platform and only two shots, hurts MC and vehicles but infantry laugh at them) with more versatility than a WK, and coupled with some markerlights Riptides can have amazing BS and ignores cover, two things the WK can't get short of maybe guide cast on one.

I totally understand where you're coming from concerning fire dragons and wraithguard. Perhaps WG change to S10 AP1 and modify the distort rule to instead cause 2 wounds on a to wound roll of 6? That would up their danger against MC while toning them down against vehicles. With assured destruction Fire dragons would then still be kings of anti-vehicle. As for the scythe from 6E I never used it, I felt it was way too expensive for what it offered. Maybe S6 AP2 with the distort rule I mentioned above causing 2 wounds on a 6? But ultimately it still comes down to they need to lose their DE super-friends before we could start to try and internally balance them.

I can appreciate the discussion about how to balance units, it's especially fun for those who enjoy theorycrafting and a good discussion. Unfortunately were also stuck with GW running around saying "My house my rules" to everyone. As long as GW holds those cards they're going to make anything they want to sell lots of either a super-amazing unit or force it onto a formation as a tax. They care less about balance than they do about sales figures unfortunately and it's sadly us poor players who have to bear the brunt of the pain from that. As both an Eldar and TAu player I'm sure you can appreciate the frustration at the blatant racism you must receive (mostly over the internet) that "your army is an OP hunk of cheese and so you are automatically some tryhard WAAC neckbeard gakhead for playing that army". It gets kind of disheartening after a while to be hated for nothing that's your own fault, we didn't write the codex after all.

As a superheavy walker (like the Imperial Knight), the Revenant (and proposed Wraithknight) wouldn't be subject to one-shot destruction except by D weapons. Also, it'd still have the Eldar Titan holo-field, which forces opponents to roll a d6 for each successful hit, with a 4+ still counting as a hit. This works even in melee, as a sort of super-invuln save (because it can stop a D hit before it ever rolls to damage), and it stacks with an actual invuln or cover save. (Which the WK would still have from its scattershield, and the RT doesn't have, barring psyker shenanigans). 12/1/2/10 is the same armor setup as the Revenant, by the way, but that has 9HP and the new "true Titan" rules that give some resistance to Haywire and to melee attacks. (But in exchange the WK would stay better in close combat as it currently is)

I thought about respinning the various Tau suits to be walkers, too, but every time that idea gets mooted, it seems to get shot down as either too weak, too strong or both at once. Both at once sounds weird, but then again "can't scratch it in melee because AV13" and "dies in one hit to a brightlance, when you get unlucky" already apply to the Ironclad Dreadnought. Superheavy walker status mitigates a lot of this, but hauls in all the superheavy ick, like shooting at multiple targets, Stomp and so forth. I figured the WK was a prime target for that treatment because 1, it's a GC already, 2, the Revenant Titan exists, and it's more or less a bigger Wraithknight (that's a whole lot worse in CC) and 3, the Imperial Knight already exists and is a decent point of comparison.

That said, while there hasn't been a superheavy walker with less than 6HP so far, why couldn't there be? The Stormsurge would probably be fine as a SHW. Folks have already said that the Orkanaughts should be SHWs, and I mostly agree. What about the Riptide and Ghostkeel? Would the 12" move and multitargeting be gamebreaking (they also lose Overwatch, unless you special-rule it back in)? Stomp is mean, but like most Tau things, they stink on ice in CC, and you could always special-rule it out.

As for the Wraithguard weapons, I started with the 6e profiles for them, right down to the Distort rule, but buffed Distort so that a 6 to pen gets +1 on the damage chart (because otherwise "6 to pen always pens" is pointless on an S10 gun). I think that's still sensible, though maybe 2W is better than ID. ID feels awfully cheap if an expensive monster or special character gets gibbed that way, after all.

Ah ok now I see where your design philosophy came from, that really does put things into perspective.

I'm aware of the big Tau MC debate, that's been going on since the Riptide hit shelves. It's a shame cause it leaves dreadnaughts in an awkward place and it's served to further drive a wedge between the vehicle and MC rules being so asymmetrical.

For WG weapons having ID I figured that might be a bit much. This is simply my opinion but I feel that ID should be a special rule reserved for special characters or HQ's who buy an artifact from their codex. For example, last night I used Illic Nightspear in my match (for the first time since I just finished painting him, I was very happy with his performance btw). He helped pop a few good targets but the icing on the cake was rolling a 6 and getting that ID snipe off on a hive tyrant camping an objective I had no units nearby to contest with. It was one of those exciting "dice gods loved me" moments on a single shot weapon. Those are the moments I feel ID should be saved for, having entire units of troopers walking around with ID weapons feels a bit cheeky to me, even if they need a 6 to get it. Having said that WG with S10 AP1 is mostly ID against the majority of things anyways.

They had ID-on-6 in 6e, and I had them turn in some seriously mean results in a few games, like vaporizing a Tyrannofex or a Bloodthirster in one shot, or toasting a Hive Tyrant on Overwatch. That said, ID Just Bugs Me in a lot of ways - it really sucks to put all those points into one shiny guy just to have him get zorched by one little dweeby shot. Ranged ID is doubly frustrating. (Though I'll admit that Railgunning a Malanthrope from across the table is oddly satisfying, because it instantly throws that whole flank into disarray, but I digress)

So yeah, 6 to wound is 2W is more reasonable, with the same benefits I stated for vehicles.

I think we may be on to something. Should just petition GW to let us write the rules from now on lol

But on a serious note how do you think the game would fare if the proposed rules for a codex were given to the community and then the community through discussion and online polls votes how the unit is adjusted before final printing? Do you think the internet could collaborate sufficiently to write solid rules?