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 Wolfblade wrote:
Dreads have drop pods, and they do have more attacks at a better I and WS.

Which is not the same as Dreadnought being able to pinpoint Deep Strike on their own or having "far superior CC ability". It's better in CC, but still not very good, and it has to have another unit in order to Deep Strike, in which case we can start comparing Riptides with Markerlights.

No, the drop pod is an option for the dreadnought to take. If we start ignoring the options available to one unit arbitrarily, then we might as well not bother discussing anything related to balance. Taking markerlights means another FOC slot used. Taking a drop pod for a dread is literally just taking an upgrade/option for it in its unit entry.

And if the dread isn't very good in CC, what does that make the riptide? Terrible? Again, fewer attacks, lower I and WS, easier to hurt in CC (T6 vs AV12), and if the dread has even one powerfist, lower S. Is the riptide still very durable in CC, yes especially if it was able to novacharge, but the dread is immune to anything below S6. 4 S10 AP2 attacks at I/WS4 vs 3 S6 AP2 attacks at I/WS2.

Overall, no. You can't start comparing the riptide w/ markerlights vs a dread that took as droppod (which is available as an upgrade/option in its entry), unless the riptide had access to networked markerlights as an upgrade/option in its unit entry.

Or, if we can ignore the drop pod, I vote we ignore the stimms as it's a similarly priced option. (see? Just as silly.)

Dreads are pure gak compared to riptides because its so much easier to kill them or suppress them. Drop podding a dread doesn't help that problem at all.

Martel732 wrote:
Dreads are pure gak compared to riptides because its so much easier to kill them or suppress them. Drop podding a dread doesn't help that problem at all.

Agreed, Riptides are waaayyyyyyy too powerful. Even Dreadnoughts fail to compare too them.

" Even Dreadnoughts fail to compare too them."

Dreadnoughts are terrible. What are you talking about "compare to them".

Right, overall a dread is way easier to kill. I simply wanted to dispute:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Probably because the Dreadnought isn't that far superior in CC, and because Dreadnoughts can't Deep Strike.

A dread with a powerfist is more effective in CC, and if they take a drop pod, they do have a far more accurate deepstrike. And really, the dread is just so much weaker because it's a walker and has no save. If it got comparable MC stats it'd be alright (i.e. T6 W4-5 with a 2+ save or something)

Plus, a dread is ~100 something points cheaper.

 Wolfblade wrote:
Right, overall a dread is way easier to kill. I simply wanted to dispute:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Probably because the Dreadnought isn't that far superior in CC, and because Dreadnoughts can't Deep Strike.

A dread with a powerfist is more effective in CC, and if they take a drop pod, they do have a far more accurate deepstrike. And really, the dread is just so much weaker because it's a walker and has no save. If it got comparable MC stats it'd be alright (i.e. T6 W4-5 with a 2+ save or something)

Plus, a dread is ~100 something points cheaper.

The dread's better in CC, but not "far superior". I'll concede that the Drop Pod is more or less just an upgrade since it doesn't take a slot, but the Riptide has EWO for a whopping 5 points.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:
Right, overall a dread is way easier to kill. I simply wanted to dispute:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Probably because the Dreadnought isn't that far superior in CC, and because Dreadnoughts can't Deep Strike.

A dread with a powerfist is more effective in CC, and if they take a drop pod, they do have a far more accurate deepstrike. And really, the dread is just so much weaker because it's a walker and has no save. If it got comparable MC stats it'd be alright (i.e. T6 W4-5 with a 2+ save or something)

Plus, a dread is ~100 something points cheaper.

The dread's better in CC, but not "far superior". I'll concede that the Drop Pod is more or less just an upgrade since it doesn't take a slot, but the Riptide has EWO for a whopping 5 points.

I'd say dread is far better in CC than the riptide. Not only can it kill more targets potentially in CC, but it's immune to any S5 or lower attacks, and is S10 with a powerfist, meaning anything less than T6 is being ID'd and T8 or less is being wounded on a 2+ (not that most targets that are T8+ would really care since they're probably GMCs or better in CC, like a greater daemon). Now, it is mostly a moot point because the riptide never wants to be in CC unless it's charging a really weak squad anyways. And the dread is still almost half the points of a riptide, so you'd expect the riptide to much stronger than a dread anyways.

And as I've said before (although not in this thread), the Riptide simply needs to get a points bump for it's upgrades, especially for the IA. Or a decent survivability nerf (i.e. 4+ nova success and 3+ armor)

"so you'd expect the riptide to much stronger than a dread anyways. "

Dreadnought dies to 6.75 BS 4 lascannon shots.

Stimtide dies to *20* minimum, or a massive *40* with the 3++ turned on. Much stronger? That's fething IMMORTAL.

Martel732 wrote:
"so you'd expect the riptide to much stronger than a dread anyways. "

Dreadnought dies to 6.75 BS 4 lascannon shots.

Stimtide dies to *20* minimum, or a massive *40* with the 3++ turned on. Much stronger? That's fething IMMORTAL.

Yes, and that 3++ is ALWAYS on, it NEVER fails. It even turns on if the Tau player goes 2nd! Right? And changing that to a 4+ to pass (with a 1-3 removing a wound still) would NEVER change anything right? BA would still be completely unable to remove 3 wounds from a riptide assuming ti tries to nova every turn.

[/obvious sarcasm and hyperbole]

But really, lascannons are terrible weapons. GRav is much better at removing them. Or plasma if you can get into the rapidfire range.

 Wolfblade wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"so you'd expect the riptide to much stronger than a dread anyways. "

Dreadnought dies to 6.75 BS 4 lascannon shots.

Stimtide dies to *20* minimum, or a massive *40* with the 3++ turned on. Much stronger? That's fething IMMORTAL.

Yes, and that 3++ is ALWAYS on, it NEVER fails. It even turns on if the Tau player goes 2nd! Right? And changing that to a 4+ to pass (with a 1-3 removing a wound still) would NEVER change anything right? BA would still be completely unable to remove 3 wounds from a riptide assuming ti tries to nova every turn.

[/obvious sarcasm and hyperbole]

Actually, you probably can't do that with BA. You have to play BA to understand how bad the shooting is. Also, no assault unit one would typically field with BA can reliably beat Riptide in CC, either.

Even without Nova, 20 lascannon shots is obscene.

"GRav is much better at removing them. Or plasma if you can get into the rapidfire range."

This assumes the Tau haven't obliterated every source of grav/plasma before you get within range. And the math is the same for grav: 20/40 grav shots, and even MORE plasma, because you are wounding on a 3+. Really? 50 plasma shots?

If you dropped the nova to work only on a 4+, it'd only require 12.15 lascannon/grav shots, or 15.2 plasma shots. Again, assuming it tries to nova every turn. If you really decide to shoot at it when it has a 3++ it'd only need 30.5 plasma shots for the 3 wounds or 24.3 lascannon/grav wounds to remove 3 wounds.

(and obviously a decent price hike for Stimms and the IA are still needed as both of those are incredibly undercosted. Or change the range on the IA so it's not firing across the board. Perhaps even dropping a wound from the riptide and/or dropping the armor save to a 3+)

 Wolfblade wrote:
If you dropped the nova to work only on a 4+, it'd only require 12.15 lascannon/grav shots, or 15.2 plasma shots. Again, assuming it tries to nova every turn. If you really decide to shoot at it when it has a 3++ it'd only need 30.5 plasma shots for the 3 wounds or 24.3 lascannon/grav wounds to remove 3 wounds.

(and obviously a decent price hike for Stimms and the IA are still needed as both of those are incredibly undercosted. Perhaps even dropping a wound from the riptide and/or dropping the armor save to a 3+)

All those things change the math a lot. Which is all I'm looking for. My point is that this thing can in no way be compared to a dreadnought. If were balancing around a dreadnought, this thing would cost 350 minimum, because it takes 3.5 X as much damage to kill it. AND its offense is light years ahead of a dreadnought.

Right I agree, trying to balance it around a dreadnought is a dumb idea either way because a dread doesn't fill the same role as a riptide.

 Wolfblade wrote:
Right I agree, trying to balance it around a dreadnought is a dumb idea either way because a dread doesn't fill the same role as a riptide.

I disagree. Role is irrelevant. What is relevant is utility on the battlefield. That's all that ever matters for a point value. A Riptide has way more than double the utility of a dreadnought. It might be triple or even quadruple in practice. Dreads are practically worthless in the 7th ed meta because of hull points. For a Riptide to remain 225 or whatever, dreads would have to come in at 60-75 pts.

Which is why a riptide with IA/Stimms really shouldn't be 225, especially considering it goes from having an assaullt cannon x2 to having a super plasma gun/cannon for 5 points is incredibly cheap, and is probably explained by GW not doing any sort of balance testing.

And role does matter. You don't expect fire warriors to do the same job as a vindicator or broadsides/devastators.

 Wolfblade wrote:
Which is why a riptide with IA/Stimms really shouldn't be 225, especially considering it goes from having an assaullt cannon x2 to having a super plasma gun/cannon for 5 points is incredibly cheap, and is probably explained by GW not doing any sort of balance testing.

And role does matter. You don't expect fire warriors to do the same job as a vindicator or broadsides/devastators.

Role only matters from a design perspective. Every unit should cost proportional to its aggregate battlefield efficacy. In practice, I think fire warriors are FAR more valuable than tac marines because they can cause double the wounds to MCs and can HP out AV 11 from 30" out. That's a much more valuable set of abilities in 7th ed than some CC stats. Because CC is largely dead except for invisible death stars.

Except that fire warriors also die even quicker than SM with worse BS, and can't take any special weapon other than more S5 AP5 or a single missile pod, and a very expensive transport.

And yeah, everything should be balanced against how effective it is, but that's not the discussion that was here, which was balancing a riptide vs a dreadnought.

 Wolfblade wrote:
Except that fire warriors also die even quicker than SM with worse BS, and can't take any special weapon other than more S5 AP5 or a single missile pod, and a very expensive transport.

And yeah, everything should be balanced against how effective it is, but that's not the discussion that was here, which was balancing a riptide vs a dreadnought.

I was just using that as an example. In general, ranged >>>>>>>> CC in 7th ed. Tau should have a price hike on their most effective units just from the way 7th ed is written alone. As I said, dreadnoughts are 100 pts, but play like 60-70 because hull points.

"die even quicker than SM"

Not in practice, because SM don't have Tau level firepower. SM firepower is actually really crappy outside grav spam gimmicks. Special weapons are a good way to lose even more points when you marine gets dusted.

And yet, everyone else has gotten more effective and powerful once they got a decurion codex (an actual codex, not a supplement like IG or Orks got). I think SOME of Tau's units need to be rebalanced, like the stormsurge could probably get bumped up a bit, and the tau'nar is way way undercosted/OP for its current cost, and the riptide's upgrades definitely need a bump in points.

But what else is there that's top performing? Drones with the drone network formation? The OSC? Firestream Wing? Crisis suits? Broadsides? Outside of the Firestream, and maybe the OSC, everything isn't super OP

Martel732 wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:


"die even quicker than SM"

Not in practice, because SM don't have Tau level firepower. SM firepower is actually really crappy outside grav spam gimmicks. Special weapons are a good way to lose even more points when you marine gets dusted.

Except that marines don't really start worrying if a heavy flamer gets too close, or a heavy better hits them out of cover. Or a whirlwind fires the S5 AP4 large blast at them. You can't honestly tell me a fire warrior has more durability than a space marine. And yes, SM fire power is overall pretty lacking if you don't have grav. But SM aren't really a fighty army all that much anymore, at least not competitively. They have grav sure, but their main method of winning is simply by spam of obsec everything, and contesting almost every point.

They aren't more durable against incoming fire, but the incoming fire from marines is so crappy that it doesn't matter. They end being a more efficacious unit at the end of the day. You can't get a heavy flamer within 24" of Tau because interceptor and mass firepower in general.

Yes, I know marines are now a horde army. Totally fluffy, that. I hate the fluff and even I find that absurd.

Heavy flamer statline then, and I'm not just talking about marines. There are other armies to be balanced against (i.e. 'crons or eldar as part of the top 4)

And drop pods. If they have enough EWO to clear off everything you drop in, then they're not going to be shooting during their next shooting phase, and probably have an incredibly low model count.

 Wolfblade wrote:
Heavy flamer statline then, and I'm not just talking about marines. There are other armies to be balanced against (i.e. 'crons or eldar as part of the top 4)

And drop pods. If they have enough EWO to clear off everything you drop in, then they're not going to be shooting during their next shooting phase, and probably have an incredibly low model count.

They do it to me all the time. Come turn 2, I don't have enough BA left to punch out a fire warrior squad. Free transport marines obviously fare much better. Tau are just way too good at their schtick save against MC spam and invisible death stars.

Then I feel like that's a you/your group problem of not using enough cover or playing to the same level. Unless you're playing in a tourny, in which case not much you can do about that.

 Wolfblade wrote:
Then I feel like that's a you/your group problem of not using enough cover or playing to the same level. Unless you're playing in a tourny, in which case not much you can do about that.

Cover doesn't help vs wound spam. Also, if you are landing with pods, you frequently don't have cover. And Tau can take away cover.

By cover, I meant LoS blocking cover so you're not cleared off turn 1/2. Not to mention the new FAQ (or, eventually since it's still a draft) says that the drop pod doors can block LoS.

Either way, seems like your group might be WAAC players, especially if they're more or less going seal clubbing vs BA.

 Wolfblade wrote:
By cover, I meant LoS blocking cover so you're not cleared off turn 1/2. Not to mention the new FAQ (or, eventually since it's still a draft) says that the drop pod doors can block LoS.

Either way, seems like your group might be WAAC players, especially if they're more or less going seal clubbing vs BA.

Some do, some don't. Problem is, they don't have a choice really. We all bring lists and pull random opponents. So the Tau guy doesn't know if he's getting BA or Eldar. So he builds for Eldar. This is to prevent list tailoring.

 Wolfblade wrote:
By cover, I meant LoS blocking cover so you're not cleared off turn 1/2. Not to mention the new FAQ (or, eventually since it's still a draft) says that the drop pod doors can block LoS.

Either way, seems like your group might be WAAC players, especially if they're more or less going seal clubbing vs BA.

Quick history lesson. Martels group has tau players and they refuse to play on a board with LOS blocking terrain . Now you can see how the "riptide must die to drop pod meltas in 1 round of shooting" come from as well a the "Schrodinger Nova charge" where it has all benefits from nova at all times as well as every support system at once

kambien wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:
By cover, I meant LoS blocking cover so you're not cleared off turn 1/2. Not to mention the new FAQ (or, eventually since it's still a draft) says that the drop pod doors can block LoS.

Either way, seems like your group might be WAAC players, especially if they're more or less going seal clubbing vs BA.

Quick history lesson. Martels group has tau players and they refuse to play on a board with LOS blocking terrain . Now you can see how the "riptide must die to drop pod meltas in 1 round of shooting" come from as well a the "Schrodinger Nova charge" where it has all benefits from nova at all times as well as every support system at once

LOS blocking terrain exists, but it's not plentiful enough to protect from mobile Tau firepower. I'm not sure what board WOULD protect from Tau, really. And LOS blocking terrain blocks MY LOS as well, so to shoot anything, i have to be exposed too. Losing proposition.

There is no Schrodinger nova charge. There's just 3++, EWO, and overcharge IA. Nothing else is necessary. I wish Riptide had to NOVA the gun to make it good. Or maybe gets hot! with a -2 penalty or something.

Well, since I know how this goes ("Woe is the BA, completely helpless blah blah blah") I'm gonna drop it seeing as how we're wildly off topic now.

4+ nova charge, 3+ armor, perhaps -1 wound if the riptide is kept at the same 225 point cost.