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I wish fire warriors were better so people would quit complaining about riptides. In a world with skyhammer and scatterbikes, I get sick of hearing about riptides.

Gravturions... Are they still a thing? I've been so out of the meta lately...

I don't think riptides are remotely fair as they are currenfly implemented. I csn see most disagree. Interesting.

Against BA? Yeah, the current Tau dex is completely OTT.

They are functionally immortal against way more than ba. And they make all 2+ infantry completely unfieldable. How can a gladius player say riptides are fair when they are only surviving the onslaught because of free metal boxes?

Bump the points big time OR make them lords of war, limit 1.

While we're balancing gak, take away all D strength ANYTHING that isn't on a gargantuan creature or super heavy.

Main problem being the IA. It essentially negates the need for Nova charging the main weapon in favour of the invulnerable save, if at all. Riptide Wing just makes it obnoxious to face, nevermind the fact you're facing three.

I don't view the T6/2+ and FnP combo as unfair because the Tyranid Tyrannofex with Catalyst is essentially the same, but no one complains about that Tyranid model.

It's unfair because they don't to buy a psyker to get the fnp. Plus the tyrannodexes gun sucks in comparison.

The answer is more complicated than just "yes/no". I voted no, but only because it's possible to spam them. They are a strong unit, but they're not invincible by any means, and there is a very real chance that they harm themselves over the course of the game too. One Riptide ( in a game up to 1000 points) is surely not broken. Two is bringing the big guns when the game is 1500 or less. Three should only be reserved for competitive play, unless you're looking at a large game.

As for why is Spam bad? Well, it breaks the game down into a less enjoyable question. "Can I answer this threat?". If you have a hard time against 1 Riptide, you'll have an extremely hard time against 3. If you easily deal with 1 Riptide, chances are you'll easily deal with 3. I prefer my games to have more involved questions than that.

However, if we're talking about competitive environments, then hell yeah the Riptide is balanced, but only because that level of the game is so broken.

Tfex is way slower too. The only 2+ sv Nids have and needs baby sitting if you want it to run or assault.

[edit]

Never voted.

 Real News wrote:
I wish fire warriors were better so people would quit complaining about riptides. In a world with skyhammer and scatterbikes, I get sick of hearing about riptides.

I mean, if you want to we can talk about how bs it is that your run of the mill troop choice has str 5...

 Real News wrote:
I wish fire warriors were better so people would quit complaining about riptides. In a world with skyhammer and scatterbikes, I get sick of hearing about riptides.

Ironically, the Riptide is one of the few units that scatterbikes are basically helpless against. If that's not a red flag, I don't know what is. 3+ to hit, 4 to wound, 2+/5+++, means each shot generates slighty less than .04 wounds. At that rate, you need 125 BS 4 scatterlaser shots to kill one! You only need to fire 54 shots into the side of an IK to kill it!

 Frozocrone wrote:
I don't view the T6/2+ and FnP combo as unfair because the Tyranid Tyrannofex with Catalyst is essentially the same, but no one complains about that Tyranid model.

I'm not saying that you're 100% wrong, but you're certainly not right either. The Tyrannofex's gun is shorter range, no Rending, lower strength. That means it can't engage the same range of targets. Plus, it doesn't have an Invulnerable save. Plus, the FNP from Catalyst is only if you get Catalyst as one of your random powers, and you're able to get it off on a psychic test. AND the Riptide has a Jetpack, while the Tyrannofex just walks. Double-AND, the Riptide is in an army that can easily increase it's BS so that the shots it does have either have a much better chance to hit, or Ignores Cover, OR BOTH.

So, yeah, there's a pretty big differential between the two, and a pretty big reason why no one will complain about the Tyrannofex.


EDIT: Oh yeah, and the Riptide doesn't test for Instinctive Behaviour.

I recently played a 1500pts game against 3 of them and a FW Riptide (the one that can fly every other turn). I'd consider them closer to balanced than not. Going for Nova changes really make the difference here. Over the course of the game the Tau player did 5 wounds to 3 of his own Riptides with failed Nova.

Stims are worth taking, but they thankfully make the Riptide less spammable.
In my game the worse thing they did was kill a 400pt unit of mine the deep struck next to them before I even got to do anything with the unit. And that was with only 1 Riptide.

If you really need some kind of nerf to the Riptide, it should be to make it have a 3+ arrmour, just like 90% of all other suits that, presumably, are made of the same material. That leaves only the Broadside to have a 2+, which makes sense as it's the only suit that isn't Jetpack.
A 3+ armour makes the Riptide slightly more vulnerable to small arms, just enough that more players will buy Stim Injectors (I know a few players that don't take this because of the expense and it takes up a system). If all Riptides now have Stims, they are less spammable, but the 3+ armour makes them less "invisible" to small arms.

" Going for Nova changes really make the difference here. Over the course of the game the Tau player did 5 wounds to 3 of his own Riptides with failed Nova. "

I have played against Tau a lot, and this has NEVER made a big difference. They just can't cause enough wounds to matter, because I can't cause any wounds on my own.

"In my game the worse thing they did was kill a 400pt unit of mine the deep struck next to them before I even got to do anything with the unit. "

They wiped out a 1/3 of your list with one shot, but that's okay, because 15W of MCs caused 5 wounds to themselves? If BA ever get something good again, I don't want to hear a word.

What do you use against them?

 Frozocrone wrote:
Main problem being the IA. It essentially negates the need for Nova charging the main weapon in favour of the invulnerable save, if at all. Riptide Wing just makes it obnoxious to face, nevermind the fact you're facing three.

I don't view the T6/2+ and FnP combo as unfair because the Tyranid Tyrannofex with Catalyst is essentially the same, but no one complains about that Tyranid model.

That's because a Tyrannofex is terrible for its price and has bad shooting so I can ignore it. I can't ignore a riptide.

Riptides are far from the most broken thing in the game. However, they are not good for how the game should be in its ideal state (something close to, say, how 4th edition was) .

Monstrous Creatures should not have invulnerable saves, save for in extraordinary circumstances. They should not have Feel No Pain, again save for in extraordinary circumstances (FNP, in fact, probably should not as be easily accessible as it is). The layered defenses make it too difficult to kill with weapons that just rely on the basic stat line of Strength and AP, which is what most weapons should rely on in a balanced game.

The number and quality of shots that the Riptide produces is also excessive, although that could be balanced in other ways by, for example, making a successful Nova Charge cost a wound.

Riptides alone don't make the game unpleasant, but I would not like to play against more than one or two in a casual game. In a tournament game they're a different matter, but, then,40K tournaments are such a bizarre setting that they're not a really a game at all.

Looking at them in isolation without comparing them to other units in other armies they are pretty damn awesome to the point where its an auto include in any list.

I say they are not balanced but fair is a different issue because that must be assessed in the context of the rest of GW's Arms Race releases.

In the context of competitive meta they are 100% fair. But if you're running more than 1 in a friendly game then you're power gaming.

Riptides really could use some tweaking.

Drop a wound off, remove access to FNP (seriously...it's a giant robot, stimulant injectors make no sense on something like this), and move it to Heavy Support. Same thing with the FW variants.

That would curb most of their issues of being both stupidly hard to kill and having no internal competition.

They would be fine for about 60+ points more. As it is now they're more undercosted than TFCs or wyverns could ever imagine being.

Who are the 38 people that said yes so far? REALLY?

 nurgle86 wrote:
Who are the 38 people that said yes so far? REALLY?

I said yes. With the game as it is, Riptides are perfectly fair.

Traditio will once again be in the majority of the minority. He'll disregards the yes votes and hang his hats on the other result.

I'm guessing he'll move into the thread in which he asked this question and use this as evidence to carry on his side of the argument.

I'll ask again: Traditio what makes you think there is any deliberate balance within w40k?

 Traditio wrote:

 Selym wrote:
Compared to Grav, WK, Scatterbikes and weird psyker silliness, yes.

Are those things balanced?

If those things are not balanced, then how is it relevant to compare Riptides to other imbalanced things?

Because they exist in their current state. If they exist as they are, they are relevant to compare against. Even OP things are balanced within the OP tier to some extent, for the most part.

How did this poll come about? Did you see someone say Riptides are balanced and it smashed your senses to bits so you had to see if the majority of people disagreed with that one person like you do? I swear, these polls are made for the most petty of reasons. "You wot m8? That ain't right and I'm gonna git people to tell ya so!"

Edit: Oh my, I totally called it.

 Verviedi wrote:

 nurgle86 wrote:
Who are the 38 people that said yes so far? REALLY?

I said yes. With the game as it is, Riptides are perfectly fair.

I also voted yes. Compared to my Eldar, Necrons, and SM, riptides aren't a big deal anymore. Against my weaker armies, sure, but my CSM fall over against a wet noodle (seriously, those models are unbalanced).

I can build an eldar army that doesn't care about riptides overly much. With SM and Necrons, its even easier.
With the wing, they get out of control. The formation makes them a lot better and harder to deal with...my eldar start to suffer unless I list tailor, though my marines are still fine.

 Selym wrote:
What do you use against them?

Eldar. He told me to bring an unfriendly list, so I had an Invisible D-glaive WK and some Scatter bikes. The 400pt unit I lost was Wraithguard with a WWP Archon. I dropped down out of LOS from the other Riptide that had intercept, but that Str 8 AP2 blast hit me dead on, wounded all 7 models, and I failed my first 2++ invul on the Archon, thus ended up removing the unit before they god vaporize that Riptide. I still managed to win, but only through a combination of rolling Invis, and him failing too many Nova charges.

And before someone chimes in with "well if it takes Eldar to beat them, then blah, blah", I have also played Daemons against a similar list Tetrad + Tallyband vs 5 Riptides. That game was incredibly close and I only lost due to bad dice rolls in CC. If my Khorne and Tzeentch Princes had rolled close to average on their to hits and wounds, each of the Riptides they assaulted would have died.

In the context of "Riptide-wing" formation, no Riptides are not balanced, but it would not take a big change to make them so (like the aforementioned 3+ armour to give other armies a chance to kill it)

-

Considering that Tradito thinks even Aun'va is broken (one of the worst special characters in the game) I doubt the result of the poll with sway Tradito at all.

It makes me laugh when I read someone saying that they hate Riptides because they are so well rounded! It's as if not having significant flaws is now what "overpowered" means. Use to be that "well rounded" meant "baseline", the median in which everything else was compared.

I voted that tge Riptide is balanced. It's about as easy to kill as it is at killing, Riptides haven't been an issue since the more well rounded Eldar Scatter Bikes and the truly well rounded WraithKnights hit the seen.

SJ

I think it should cost a bit more.