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 General Annoyance wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Not because of the armor but because you want this thing to be the fastest walker in the game, the shootiest walker in the game (Besides TITANS) and you want it to have the thickest armor in the game.

I like how you're making this pointlessly personal; I think it should be that way because that's how it's been depicted in the lore. 13/11/11 or 13/12/10, something in that ball park sounds about right. Does it have to have the most firepower? No, not really, just a good amount of it - I'd expect a Morkanaut to outclass it in firepower perhaps, although I am unsure of its game stats.

Also I would notion that the Dreadknight is probably faster due to its teleporter, and possibly should hit harder, but whatever.

I know this is going to blow your mind so standby. I am not taking this personal in the slightest. I am merely pointing out that you are flip flopping frequently in this thread about Fluff and how it is involved in the actual game play.

Fluff doesn't come into play in regards to actual game play. Fluff is for Black library to have fun with and write some epic books for us to read....that is it. Yes you have agreed with me already that the riptide should face a significant increase in price. But from other comments you have made you want it almost as well armored as a Morkanaught which has significantly less Dakka and mobility then the Riptide. Again that is absolutely fine. But if your going to try and price this thing correctly then it should be around 350-400pts. And I know for a fact that nobody would take a riptide as a Walker vehicle for 350-400pts. As it stands in the game the riptide ISNT a jack of all trades, its a master of all trades and for that moniker it should have to pay a significant price.

Eldar have their ridiculous Wraith Knights which are in the same category as Riptides (that being stupid) and they are HORRIBLY priced. So anyway, if you want to keep using fluff to justify in game things then that's fine, but remember, this game will continue to be horribly imbalanced if the people who set the prices for those units are fanboys who think Wraithknights should be <300 and Riptides are perfectly fine at 180pts.

I don't care how crazy the rules for something are as long as they pay for it.

SemperMortis wrote:
I know this is going to blow your mind so standby.

I'm ready! Let's hear it:

I am not taking this personal in the slightest. I am merely pointing out that you are flip flopping frequently in this thread about Fluff and how it is involved in the actual game play.

Flip flopping between what exactly?

As I have previously said:

 General Annoyance wrote:
However, appreciating that the TT game of 40k is often very inaccurate regarding the power of units in the lore, I would accept that a compromise would perhaps be necessary for the Riptide to continue to see the tabletop. Would still be unhappy, but accepting for the sake of a prospect of fair and fun play.

and

 General Annoyance wrote:
40k is a mess as a ruleset, honestly, and I won't claim to have the right answer to this problem. I'm here mainly to point out the purpose of the Riptide in the lore for more qualified people to translate.

Considering this thread should be about the role of the Riptide in the 40k Universe, and how that might tie into the game, I think I've been pretty consistent.

Fluff is for Black library to have fun with and write some epic books for us to read....that is it.

So in your eyes, 40k background should in no way tie into the game that uses units from that background.

If you have such little regard for the lore of 40k, I have to ask - why are you bothering with a broken and unbalanced mess of a ruleset?

Yes you have agreed with me already that the riptide should face a significant increase in price. But from other comments you have made you want it almost as well armuored as a Morkanaut which has significantly less Dakka and mobility then the Riptide. Again that is absolutely fine.

I don't think it's fine - a Morkanaut lacking firepower anywhere near to a Riptide troubles me.

However, mobility is a less justified argument, as A. it is of Ork design, and B. it is also a transport, something that the Riptide is not.

So anyway, if you want to keep using fluff to justify in game things then that's fine, but remember, this game will continue to be horribly imbalanced if the people who set the prices for those units are fanboys who think Wraithknights should be <300 and Riptides are perfectly fine at 180pts.

We should be at least trying to justify the game lore wise, since that's what it's based on.

If I had a pound for everytime "fanboy" was used in an argument as well...

I think those people need to get their glasses on straight. Wraithknights and Riptides are powerful - deal with it. However, their pricing is not accurate for the sense of a fair or fun game. Whether that bump up to 350+ points will mean people won't take it is another question that I can't answer.

Again, I don't feel qualified to comment on the rules as a whole anymore while speaking for everyone else. Lore however, is less easy to argue over or dispute.

As a Tau player some of the suggested "balance" changes in this thread make me curl up and die inside a little. Personally I play in a less competitive, non-tournament. I've found that even one riptide can be overbearing against some people. It's significantly undercosted and needs to be balanced. I stress balanced, not completely kneecapped and left to die alone in a ditch on the side of a road like some of the suggestions on here.

The riptide holds a unique strategic niche in the Tau codex of being an aggressive midfield "tank"/fire magnet. It's job is to aggressively posture, do noticeable damage in the first turn while loudly screaming "I'M A BIG SCARY MONSTEROUS CREATURE. SHOOT ME!! SHOOOOOOT ME!" Meanwhile the rest of your army runs around winning you the game while it gets shot instead of them. So to surmmerize, it needs to do enough damage your opponent will shoot at it and it needs to not die immediately to said shooting.

A 12/12/12 walker is not this. A 12/12/12 walker dies horribly to a handful lascannons. God forbid it sees anything remotely resembling dedicated firepower like a squad of melta-guns or grav cannons. A 12/12/12 walker is significantly less survivable than my 12/11/10 95 point devilfish with a disruption pod. Do any of you seriously rely on having your dreadnoughts being the primary fire magnet for your army? No, no you don't. You drop pod them directly into enemy lines with heavy back-up and that usually isn't enough to keep them safe.

A riptide as 12/12/12 walker with an exactly the same everything else the same is way worse. It would likely see very little play outside of the most casual of lists. For 60 points less you could just get a hammerhead with Ion Cannon, which has basically the exact same offensive power (except its AP 3 instead of 2). It's also more durable at 13/12/10 with a jink save. The only downsides being it's slightly less maneuverable, having to not shoot if it wants to go 12"+flat out as opposed to having a natural 2d6 assault and requiring greatly reduced firepower for the jink save (but that can be greatly mitigated with cover).

So to summarize, making a riptide a vehicle completely neuters what I perceive to be its niche in the tau codex. That being said riptides are way too good at what they do. So how do we balance them.

Step 1) Competely erase the riptide wing from existance. First and foremost they're aggressively unfluffy. Riptides are immensely rare. A wing would basically only be assembled when assaulting a captain city not these skirmishes we have. Secondly for a riptide to be balanced it needs strengths and weaknesses. One weakness is riptides should inherently be a support unit. By which I mean it's a tank/fire magnet not a DPS model. It needs to do enough damage to be threatening, but it should be doing less damage than a similar amount points of crisis suits or broadsides. An army of only riptides shouldn't be able to table anything. Yet with the sweet sweet power of a handful of marker drones and an extra wave of shooting they can. This is unacceptable. Another weakness is that nova charging is inherintly risky and thus effectively makes a riptide a 3.5W not 5W model. But with this formation all the risk associated with nova charging them is gone, being a massive survivability buff to an already strong model.

Step 2) Disallow the buying of FNP. The model should be hard to kill not borderline impossible. This also increases the risk of nova charging to be an actual risk, not something you should mathematically do every turn.

Step 3) Remove the overheated profile (but not the nova charge) of the Ion Accelerator. Seriously the 3 shot Str7 Ap2 shot profile gets used basically never. If you want that sweet sweet AP2 pie plate you'll have to nova charge for it. Also, you forfeit your movement to shoot it, cause it's ordinance. Since your not nova charging your 3++ your survivabilty drops a ton. This also greatly reduces the power of its interceptor as if you haven't gotten first turn you won't be able to pie plate drop-pods.

Note: Heavy Burst Cannon is fine outside of the riptide wing. 8 shots -> 4 hits -> roughly 1-2 dead marines. Want to threaten actual damage? Gotta nova charge and risk a wound, and again you're much more vulnerable to AP2 damage.

Step 4) Increase points cost as necessary (20-40?). It'll still probably be undercosted still but not hilariously so. It now has clear weaknesses in significantly reduced firepower unless it's nova charging for it. But if it's nova charging for firepower it's not nova charging the 3++ it'll only have a 5++ and no FNP it'll die to an average of 6 Lascannon/Melta/Grav wounds (since nova charging will likely do a wound). Roughly as hard to kill as a landraider. More easily hurt by lascannons but more consistent in that it won't randomly die to a single melta shot.



Side note: As for the walker vs MC debate I always viewed it as dreadnoughts were more like AT-ST or AT-ATs. Big dumb and clumsy while Tau riptides functioned more like gundams in their ability to move around since they're basically extra large crisis suits. I can see why others would disagree though.

I'll buy the clumsy argument, but not the disparity in durability.

Not to mention the whole vibe of "I don't have to endure the same hardships as you do with your dreadnoughts and other walkers, you peasants".

The agility argument can be easily countered by making a Riptide walker more agile and mobile than other walkers with just a few touches here and there. First and foremost, I suggested 12/12/12 precisely to highlight that... in theory it should be 12/12/11 at best, but let's give it 12 for the back armour too to represent how agile it is at reacting to unavoidable enemy shots by facing them with its most resistent parts. Then GW hires a game designer with an actually functional brain and as a result the Movement stat is brought back, and while normal walkers move 6'', the Riptide moves 8'', or 9'', or whatever, to highlight how fast it is.

I still believe every piloted vehicle in the game should be a walker vehicle, and all the arguments about how agile and fast some of these things are can be easily integrated into a walker vehicle profile with the proper stat changes and special rules. In the end it's just a matter of people wanting shinier and better toys than the rest. If next edition brutally nerfs monstruous creatures (i.e. "each wound you suffer reduces your WS, BS and I in one point, as soon as you lose half your wounds you lose half your attacks", etc) and overpowers walker vehicles, we'll soon have a pletora of Tau & Eldar players loudly arguing why their Riptides, Wraithknights and other stuff should have always been walkers.

6 pages in, and nobody said it...

In the current state of the game, the riptide is completely fine! It is durable and fulfills the linebreaker role well, but its damage output is not that great (without marker lights, it's actually quite bad). It is easily killed by grav and any decent CC unit. Interceptor does not save you from strong alpha strikes (unless your opponent puts his guys outside of cover in a nice tight bunch and you don't scatter - do the math).

The real problem is the riptide wing, which smooths out all the weaknesses (BS3, unreliable nova charge, mediocre damage output) without adding any penalties. Yes, the riptide wing is utter cheese and should be reserved for competitive tournaments only, but in normal games against newer codices riptides are completely fine.

edit:/ People also often overlook the greatest weakness of Tau: Psychic powers. Last week I played in a tournament and my opponent put Terrify and Dominate on my 3 riptide unit, meaning I had to take a ton of LD checks on 8. I eventually failed one and couldn't shoot with a third of my army, losing me the game.

 Korinov wrote:
The agility argument can be easily countered by making a Riptide walker more agile and mobile than other walkers with just a few touches here and there. First and foremost, I suggested 12/12/12 precisely to highlight that... in theory it should be 12/12/11 at best, but let's give it 12 for the back armour too to represent how agile it is at reacting to unavoidable enemy shots by facing them with its most resistent parts. Then GW hires a game designer with an actually functional brain and as a result the Movement stat is brought back, and while normal walkers move 6'', the Riptide moves 8'', or 9'', or whatever, to highlight how fast it is.

so we are supposed to wait around for gw to implement a new stat , across the entire 40k universe , in the middle of a edition , to make your suggestion work ?

 Korinov wrote:
I still believe every piloted vehicle in the game should be a walker vehicle, and all the arguments about how agile and fast some of these things are can be easily integrated into a walker vehicle profile with the proper stat changes and special rules. In the end it's just a matter of people wanting shinier and better toys than the rest. If next edition brutally nerfs monstruous creatures (i.e. "each wound you suffer reduces your WS, BS and I in one point, as soon as you lose half your wounds you lose half your attacks", etc) and overpowers walker vehicles, we'll soon have a pletora of Tau & Eldar players loudly arguing why their Riptides, Wraithknights and other stuff should have always been walkers.

How do you interpet the word "Pilot" ? Do you use the same definition for the "pilot" operating controls , levers/knobs/joystick ect , as to one that is controlling one through a neural link so they just have to react like it is their own body ? How about the dreadknight , where the "Pilot" is just a space marine strapped into a harness and the construct mimics every action of the marine as if it was his own body so he's not truly "controlling" the construct.

Its not actually a easy question to answer because of the sci-fi + fiction going on here and we don't have a reference in real life , we would like to think we do , but we really don't.

Do we need to make all necrons walkers now ? They are all constructs too.

 Gamgee wrote:
It doesn't need a nerf it's fine where it is. In the new faq it was clarified that you can only shoot one gun if it uses the ordinance profile of the Ion Accelerator. People should have been doing this. Instead they were nova charging moving and shooting both its main weapon and secondary guns.

Don't get this confused for its overcharged profile which is only heavy and the one I preferred to use myself since I can fire both guns and move.

Hah.

Ushtarador wrote:
6 pages in, and nobody said it...

In the current state of the game, the riptide is completely fine! It is durable and fulfills the linebreaker role well, but its damage output is not that great (without marker lights, it's actually quite bad). It is easily killed by grav and any decent CC unit. Interceptor does not save you from strong alpha strikes (unless your opponent puts his guys outside of cover in a nice tight bunch and you don't scatter - do the math).

The real problem is the riptide wing, which smooths out all the weaknesses (BS3, unreliable nova charge, mediocre damage output) without adding any penalties. Yes, the riptide wing is utter cheese and should be reserved for competitive tournaments only, but in normal games against newer codices riptides are completely fine.

Not really. Even without RW, it's too durable.

Martel732 wrote:


Not really. Even without RW, it's too durable.

It's exactly as durable as it's supposed to be. It's also the only unit in the Tau codex that can actually tarpit non-dedicated CC units.

 Korinov wrote:
Not to mention the whole vibe of "I don't have to endure the same hardships as you do with your dreadnoughts and other walkers, you peasants".

That's not what I'm trying to say at all. What I'm saying is that dreadnoughts are not linebreakers. That is not their purpose or niche in your codex. You don't buy drop pods for linebreakers, you walk linebreakers through hails of enemy fire and expect them to live. Your linebreaker is a landraider. Yes landraiders are comparatively overcosted and have all around inferior rules to riptides in almost every way, stay with me it's the closest comparison your codex has that I know of.

The entire point of a landraider is to safely transport troops across the midfield into enemy backlines. Theoretically if I thought the landraider was too overpowered (I don't), I wouldn't balance it by turning it into a 12/12/12 vehicle. That would completely destroy the entire point of the models existance. Similarly a riptides entire point of existance is to safely take fire for other tau units. You competely destroy the entire point of its existance by turning it into a 12/12/12. To balance it out you make it's weaknesses more exploitable you don't just utterly hamstring its strengths.

Assume a landraider was say 100 points. How do we balance that without just changing it to 13/11/10 like other imperial tanks of that point cost? Maybe it can only go 6" no flat out so your paying a primium for your survivabilty with almost no mobility. Maybe you heavily reduce the potential occupants of the vehicle. If it can only carry TAC squads and scouts it wouldn't be nearly so good. Maybe you chop off the vast majority of its guns. Maybe you drop only the rear armor to 10, so it is much weaker to deepstrikers and assault units while still being able to shrug off lots of fire. What you don't do is drop it to 12/12/12 because you're annoyed by how hard it is to kill, so now it dies to everything and there's no reason to ever even consider taking it over a rhino or razorback.

This is what I was aiming for with my recommendations. I tried to bring its durability down to the ball park of a landraider. Obviously it'll be more durable with its 3++ up. But if it's doing that its shooting power drops to lower than a landraider and it lacks the ability to transport deadly assault contents. The riptide is more consistently tanky against melta-guns, but more vulnerable to grav and lascannons. It's significantly more vulnerable to <7 Str weapons (unlike a landraider that is just immune to them), but those weapons are extremely ineffective.

The agility argument can be easily countered by making a Riptide walker more agile and mobile than other walkers with just a few touches here and there.

. I don't see the difference between a riptide and walkers being how fast they get from point A to point B. In my opinion a riptide has much more fine motor skills, more flexibility, more dexterity not necessarily more speed. I can plausible picture a riptide doing a front flip (or at least a better one than I can personally). A wraithnight could probably also do a front flip/somersault. An imperial walker cannot do a front flip. This is also the difference between random wraith constructs and eldar war walkers. A riptide moves like a very large person not like a tank that happens to have legs instead of wheels. By this definition a storm surge should probably be a walker. But again this is all very speculative personal opinion and probably comes with a fair bit of tau bias so I can respect the walker argument.

If next edition brutally nerfs monstruous creatures (i.e. "each wound you suffer reduces your WS, BS and I in one point, as soon as you lose half your wounds you lose half your attacks", etc) and overpowers walker vehicles, we'll soon have a pletora of Tau & Eldar players loudly arguing why their Riptides, Wraithknights and other stuff should have always been walkers.

This amuses me because it's a much better balance change than your 12/12/12 vehicle recommendation and you suggested it sarcastically as a terrible over-nerf. Riptides are already extremely markerlight dependent, making them more so as they get injured is lowering their offensive capabilities while maintaining what makes them unique (their defensive stats). The drop in WS, I, and attacks also makes them much more vulnerable to losing in CC and getting swept by random units. This also keeps their unique niche (surviving lots of bullets) while giving them interesting counter play (weakening them slightly and then abusing their terrible leadership with an assault).

Martel732 wrote:
I'll buy the clumsy argument, but not the disparity in durability.

It's a massive robot who's entire reason for existance is to be shot at by every gun (from small arms to anti -tank) that can see it and still not die? It has literally the best armor and defensive systems that the highly advanced tau can produce. Kinda like how a landraider is extremely hard to kill outside of extremely niche, highly specialized weapons (melta-guns). Admittedly it's too hard to kill right now with stims and permanent 3++ in a riptide wing as it shrugs off even weapons dedicated to killing it. With only a 5++ and no stims they're not that exceptionally hard to put down. I mean they're still hard to put down, but they're a far cry from immortal.

Ushtarador wrote:
6 pages in, and nobody said it...

In the current state of the game, the riptide is completely fine! It is durable and fulfills the linebreaker role well, but its damage output is not that great (without marker lights, it's actually quite bad). It is easily killed by grav and any decent CC unit. Interceptor does not save you from strong alpha strikes (unless your opponent puts his guys outside of cover in a nice tight bunch and you don't scatter - do the math).

The real problem is the riptide wing, which smooths out all the weaknesses (BS3, unreliable nova charge, mediocre damage output) without adding any penalties. Yes, the riptide wing is utter cheese and should be reserved for competitive tournaments only, but in normal games against newer codices riptides are completely fine.

edit:/ People also often overlook the greatest weakness of Tau: Psychic powers. Last week I played in a tournament and my opponent put Terrify and Dominate on my 3 riptide unit, meaning I had to take a ton of LD checks on 8. I eventually failed one and couldn't shoot with a third of my army, losing me the game.

nope.

For my orks a "Decent CC unit" is our regular Boys squad, who probably are better then a lot of dedicated CC units. But lets get into this. Lets assume that the Riptide Bought the upgrades to give itself FNP and no other upgrades whatsoever. Lets assume that my Ork boyz took a pair of trukkz to get into CC with this beast because realistically that is the only way orks can close with Tau, Spam vehicles and hope you don't get any unlucky rolls. So 60pts for the two trukks leaves me with 155pts for 2 squads of Ork boyz against your Riptide. Two Nobz with Big Choppas = 42 leave me with 113pts for boyz. which is just enough for 19 boyz so 10 boyz with a Nob in 1 squad and 9 in the other with a Nob. Lets assume both of these units somehow get up the field without exploding, lets also assume that when they disembark some kind of magic happens where the Tau gunline doesn't obliterate the front rank of Boyz. So 19 boyz and 2 Nobz with BCs get into CC with your Riptide. 19 Boyz = 76 Attacks hitting on 3s which = 51 hits, wounding on 6s = 9 wounds or so, against a 2+ save with a 5+ FNP that equals about 1 wound. The 2 nobz with 8 attacks at S7 swing next, They hit with 6 attacks and wound with 4. Against that 2+ thats maybe 1 more wound if they are lucky. Riptide swings back and kills 1-2 boyz, Combat is Tied. YAY ORKS!.
The next phase those Nobz will be swinging with 6 attacks at S6 instead of 7 and those boyz lose a lot of attacks, going from 76 down to about 51. Still hitting on 3s and wounding on 6s though.

So in about 3-4 rounds of CC yeah, orks will win, if EVERYTHING fails for the Tau player and he somehow forgets to shoot the Trukkz bum rushing up the field.


So in actuality what your saying is Riptides suck against AP2 close combat attacks, anything else has a pretty good chance of doing diddly squat. If I switched out the Nobz in each of those units for PK Nobz then the orks might win on the 1st round of combat, of course that is still not factoring in Trukkz being exposed to possibly 2 full turns of Shooting, it also ignores the likelihood of the Tau player Nova charging his Invul save to 3++ which would make him rather harder to kill, nor does it include overwatch, which against Tau can be murderous.

Nothing like getting lit up with 2-3 marker lights during overwatch and watching that Riptide hit you with BS3-4 Heavy Burst Cannon shots.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The only time a Riptide is "Fine" is against SM armies who are bringing Gladius or tons of Grav Cents or against Eldar. Against almost everyone else its utter cheese.

1.) codex balance should be better at large, the wide variety in army viability is not ok, but needs a total re-write from BRB through codecies.

2.) saying that orks have a hard time versus the riptide/tau is like saying the kid with 1 leg stumpy arms and stage 4 cancer has a hard time versus a healthy experienced navy seal. Orks have a hard time versus mid-tier codices and up. You have my sympathy, your faction should be better. But it's not fair to say "my cripple can't reasonably beat your seal, therefore seal OP" when they would struggle versus essentially the same points in guardsmen with a priest as well

Make all the riptide weapon's ranges 24" max.

NOW it's a linebreaker. ; )

 amanita wrote:
Make all the riptide weapon's ranges 24" max.

NOW it's a linebreaker. ; )

If you up the HBC's number of shots by a few, deal.

 pumaman1 wrote:

 amanita wrote:
Make all the riptide weapon's ranges 24" max.

NOW it's a linebreaker. ; )

If you up the HBC's number of shots by a few, deal.

That is fine with me. And when you DS your suicide squad near it, I'll still kill it. Oh, you don't want me to kill your unit? Fine. Put it somewhere that it isn't a threat to mine and I'll leave it alone.

 pumaman1 wrote:
1.) codex balance should be better at large, the wide variety in army viability is not ok, but needs a total re-write from BRB through codecies.

2.) saying that orks have a hard time versus the riptide/tau is like saying the kid with 1 leg stumpy arms and stage 4 cancer has a hard time versus a healthy experienced navy seal. Orks have a hard time versus mid-tier codices and up. You have my sympathy, your faction should be better. But it's not fair to say "my cripple can't reasonably beat your seal, therefore seal OP" when they would struggle versus essentially the same points in guardsmen with a priest as well

That is a very accurate statement in regards to the power level of orks Vs. most armies But it doesn't invalidate my point. Change orks to every other codex and its the same. The only armies that have no problem with Riptides are Eldar/SM. And really the only one that can feth up the riptide with more then 1-2 builds is Eldar.

SM have Grav Cannons, thats about it. Almost anything else isn't nearly as effective against a riptide as any other army has access to.

Eldar have a plethora of ways to feth up a riptide. WraithKnight, Wraithguard, Scatbikes, RELIABLE psychic shenanigans.

Every other codex relies on spamming the hell out of the riptide to kill it. And that is ok because thats pretty much what it was designed for, the problem is that it is to cheap for how much it does.

Ushtarador wrote:

Martel732 wrote:


Not really. Even without RW, it's too durable.

It's exactly as durable as it's supposed to be. It's also the only unit in the Tau codex that can actually tarpit non-dedicated CC units.

Broadsides.

 Gamgee wrote:
It doesn't need a nerf it's fine where it is. In the new faq it was clarified that you can only shoot one gun if it uses the ordinance profile of the Ion Accelerator. People should have been doing this. Instead they were nova charging moving and shooting both its main weapon and secondary guns.

Don't get this confused for its overcharged profile which is only heavy and the one I preferred to use myself since I can fire both guns and move.

Who Nova charged the Ion Accelerator? All that gets you is +1 Strength and Ordnance compared to the normal overcharged shot. The problem is that the IA can drop a large blast without using the Nova reactor. Get rid of that and cut the range of the IA and you've gone a long way to fixing it.

SemperMortis wrote:
nope.

For my orks a "Decent CC unit" is our regular Boys squad, who probably are better then a lot of dedicated CC units...

It's really odd, everyone always says tau should crush orks. Yet I have a 0% win rate against all three different ork players I've gone against. I mean I bring minimal cheese but orks scare me significantly more than any other codex. *shrug*

More relevantly ontopic. I'm not incredibly familiar with the ork codex or points costs. But all of my ork opponents brought at least 1 powerclaw per squad, which is high Str and Ap2. From my personal experience those do a fine job cutting through the riptide. Maybe that's not competitive at all or is points inefficient but it seemed strong to me. Again I'm not immensely familiar with the ork codex. This is just from what I've been on the receiving end of.

Also if you lock a riptide in combat with a squad of 19 boys, you've killed the riptide for all intensive purposes even if it's not removed from the table. It's never going to kill off that squad before the game ends. They can't break if the Sargent equivalent is alive right? The riptide is never going to kill him off.

Martel732 wrote:

Ushtarador wrote:

Martel732 wrote:


Not really. Even without RW, it's too durable.

It's exactly as durable as it's supposed to be. It's also the only unit in the Tau codex that can actually tarpit non-dedicated CC units.

Broadsides.

Eh. Kinda? Being T4 means most other infinitry models can reasonably wound them enough to force a fair amount of saves. Their horrible CC stats mean they'll often take a wound and get swept in short order. A riptides T6 means most non-dedicated assault units cannot expect really wound it.

The only units I consistently throw into CC are the riptide and Farsight/iridium commander. Although from my understanding the storm surge is fairly strong in CC also. I'm not even comfortable throwing my ghostkeel into CC. It just gets wounded too easily at T5 with a 3+.

materpillar wrote:

That's not what I'm trying to say at all. What I'm saying is that dreadnoughts are not linebreakers. That is not their purpose or niche in your codex. You don't buy drop pods for linebreakers, you walk linebreakers through hails of enemy fire and expect them to live. Your linebreaker is a landraider. Yes landraiders are comparatively overcosted and have all around inferior rules to riptides in almost every way, stay with me it's the closest comparison your codex has that I know of.

My codex is CSM so I don't know nuzzin' about those drop pods you're talking about.

Dreadnought are (in theory) a versatile unit which should be able to fulfill a wide range of roles depending on which equipment is given. A Chaos Dreadnought with a lascannon and a missile launcher certainly is no linebreaker, but one with two power fists (with two attached heavy flamers) is. Then you have the Ironclad Dreadnought from the SM codex which is, for all intents and purposes, a linebreaker through and through.

The entire point of a landraider is to safely transport troops across the midfield into enemy backlines. Theoretically if I thought the landraider was too overpowered (I don't), I wouldn't balance it by turning it into a 12/12/12 vehicle. That would completely destroy the entire point of the models existance. Similarly a riptides entire point of existance is to safely take fire for other tau units. You competely destroy the entire point of its existance by turning it into a 12/12/12. To balance it out you make it's weaknesses more exploitable you don't just utterly hamstring its strengths.

Assume a landraider was say 100 points. How do we balance that without just changing it to 13/11/10 like other imperial tanks of that point cost? Maybe it can only go 6" no flat out so your paying a primium for your survivabilty with almost no mobility. Maybe you heavily reduce the potential occupants of the vehicle. If it can only carry TAC squads and scouts it wouldn't be nearly so good. Maybe you chop off the vast majority of its guns. Maybe you drop only the rear armor to 10, so it is much weaker to deepstrikers and assault units while still being able to shrug off lots of fire. What you don't do is drop it to 12/12/12 because you're annoyed by how hard it is to kill, so now it dies to everything and there's no reason to ever even consider taking it over a rhino or razorback.

This is what I was aiming for with my recommendations. I tried to bring its durability down to the ball park of a landraider. Obviously it'll be more durable with its 3++ up. But if it's doing that its shooting power drops to lower than a landraider and it lacks the ability to transport deadly assault contents. The riptide is more consistently tanky against melta-guns, but more vulnerable to grav and lascannons. It's significantly more vulnerable to <7 Str weapons (unlike a landraider that is just immune to them), but those weapons are extremely ineffective.

The Riptide is vulnerable against grav, yeah, because as I've already said grav is basically a kills-it-all aberration (and the very few things that grav doesn't kill can usually be dealt with boltguns and flamers, so please spesss mehreen cheesemongers don't go that route). Against lascannons? How many lascannon shots does a Riptide need to suffer in order to get killed? Because Ironclad Dreads, Decimators and the like can blow up after suffering a single lascannon shot.

So in short, my clumsy but sturdy robots get blown up to smithereens as soon as anything AP2 touches them, while your super-duper agile & fast robot needs to have its five wounds stripped for it to die.

materpillar wrote:
As a Tau player some of the suggested "balance" changes in this thread make me curl up and die inside a little. Personally I play in a less competitive, non-tournament. I've found that even one riptide can be overbearing against some people. It's significantly undercosted and needs to be balanced. I stress balanced, not completely kneecapped and left to die alone in a ditch on the side of a road like some of the suggestions on here.

The riptide holds a unique strategic niche in the Tau codex of being an aggressive midfield "tank"/fire magnet. It's job is to aggressively posture, do noticeable damage in the first turn while loudly screaming "I'M A BIG SCARY MONSTEROUS CREATURE. SHOOT ME!! SHOOOOOOT ME!" Meanwhile the rest of your army runs around winning you the game while it gets shot instead of them. So to surmmerize, it needs to do enough damage your opponent will shoot at it and it needs to not die immediately to said shooting.

A 12/12/12 walker is not this. A 12/12/12 walker dies horribly to a handful lascannons. God forbid it sees anything remotely resembling dedicated firepower like a squad of melta-guns or grav cannons. A 12/12/12 walker is significantly less survivable than my 12/11/10 95 point devilfish with a disruption pod. Do any of you seriously rely on having your dreadnoughts being the primary fire magnet for your army? No, no you don't. You drop pod them directly into enemy lines with heavy back-up and that usually isn't enough to keep them safe.

A riptide as 12/12/12 walker with an exactly the same everything else the same is way worse. It would likely see very little play outside of the most casual of lists. For 60 points less you could just get a hammerhead with Ion Cannon, which has basically the exact same offensive power (except its AP 3 instead of 2). It's also more durable at 13/12/10 with a jink save. The only downsides being it's slightly less maneuverable, having to not shoot if it wants to go 12"+flat out as opposed to having a natural 2d6 assault and requiring greatly reduced firepower for the jink save (but that can be greatly mitigated with cover).

So to summarize, making a riptide a vehicle completely neuters what I perceive to be its niche in the tau codex. That being said riptides are way too good at what they do. So how do we balance them.

Step 1) Competely erase the riptide wing from existance. First and foremost they're aggressively unfluffy. Riptides are immensely rare. A wing would basically only be assembled when assaulting a captain city not these skirmishes we have. Secondly for a riptide to be balanced it needs strengths and weaknesses. One weakness is riptides should inherently be a support unit. By which I mean it's a tank/fire magnet not a DPS model. It needs to do enough damage to be threatening, but it should be doing less damage than a similar amount points of crisis suits or broadsides. An army of only riptides shouldn't be able to table anything. Yet with the sweet sweet power of a handful of marker drones and an extra wave of shooting they can. This is unacceptable. Another weakness is that nova charging is inherintly risky and thus effectively makes a riptide a 3.5W not 5W model. But with this formation all the risk associated with nova charging them is gone, being a massive survivability buff to an already strong model.

Step 2) Disallow the buying of FNP. The model should be hard to kill not borderline impossible. This also increases the risk of nova charging to be an actual risk, not something you should mathematically do every turn.

Step 3) Remove the overheated profile (but not the nova charge) of the Ion Accelerator. Seriously the 3 shot Str7 Ap2 shot profile gets used basically never. If you want that sweet sweet AP2 pie plate you'll have to nova charge for it. Also, you forfeit your movement to shoot it, cause it's ordinance. Since your not nova charging your 3++ your survivabilty drops a ton. This also greatly reduces the power of its interceptor as if you haven't gotten first turn you won't be able to pie plate drop-pods.

Note: Heavy Burst Cannon is fine outside of the riptide wing. 8 shots -> 4 hits -> roughly 1-2 dead marines. Want to threaten actual damage? Gotta nova charge and risk a wound, and again you're much more vulnerable to AP2 damage.

Step 4) Increase points cost as necessary (20-40?). It'll still probably be undercosted still but not hilariously so. It now has clear weaknesses in significantly reduced firepower unless it's nova charging for it. But if it's nova charging for firepower it's not nova charging the 3++ it'll only have a 5++ and no FNP it'll die to an average of 6 Lascannon/Melta/Grav wounds (since nova charging will likely do a wound). Roughly as hard to kill as a landraider. More easily hurt by lascannons but more consistent in that it won't randomly die to a single melta shot.



Side note: As for the walker vs MC debate I always viewed it as dreadnoughts were more like AT-ST or AT-ATs. Big dumb and clumsy while Tau riptides functioned more like gundams in their ability to move around since they're basically extra large crisis suits. I can see why others would disagree though.

Translation:
"Waaaaaaa, big meanies my supa unit is totally fine, you just need to man up and accept your all doing it wrong"

Nope, the Riptide would be fine as an AV 12/12/12 Walker with 5HP, Jump packs and a 5++ invun. You just want your super unit to stay un-touched and guess what? We dont. Have you ever faced a Riptide with, say, Guard? That thing is cheaper than a Russ with the (read, needed) upgrades and yet it can out pace the Russ, out gun it and if it comes to a stand up fight the Riptide will win. You say it is dependant on Markerlights? Well, sois the rest of the Tau army and that does not stop them from curbstomping everything they face. Hell, Markerlights a half a dozen to a penny in an average Tau army.
12/12/12 will force Tau players to actually think about how they use the Riptide, as opposed to its current brainless curbstomping of everything it faces.

materpillar wrote:


, you've killed the riptide for all intensive purposes

These purposes are INTENSE! You cannot believe how INTENSE they are!

The phrase is "for all intents and purposes." for the intent and purpose of taking the riptide out of the game, you would be correct, its 3 attacks at ws 2 Int 2, or 1 S10 attack still at ws 2, its more likely to be swept than sweep.

 pumaman1 wrote:

materpillar wrote:


, you've killed the riptide for all intensive purposes

These purposes are INTENSE! You cannot believe how INTENSE they are!

I don't think that was necessary, considering you knew what he was saying.

Seems on one side we have people arguing that Tau players are "fanboys who don't want their toys taken away" and the other saying "it's all fine".

I'm failing to see decent reasoning in either of those parties. Perhaps we can start to draw a line in the middle on how we can suggest to improve the Riptide, rather than leaning too far to the left or right.

 General Annoyance wrote:


I don't think that was necessary, considering you knew what he was saying.

Seems on one side we have people arguing that Tau players are "fanboys who don't want their toys taken away" and the other saying "it's all fine".

I'm failing to see decent reasoning in either of those parties. Perhaps we can start to draw a line in the middle on how we can suggest to improve the Riptide, rather than leaning too far to the left or right.

Never miss an opportunity to improve your literacy.

To meet in the middle, Pro-Tau have to agree that a points increase, support system limitation, firepower decrease is acceptable, survivability decrease is acceptable, or some combination of the prior.
Anti-Tau would need to agree that the riptide as-is is NOT immortal, should still be good when it's done (just not as overwhelmingly so), this isn't the time for revenge, and external codex balance may make it so that your codex doesn't quite compete still (sorry CSM, Orks).

The problem, from my perspective, is rarely are offers from either side not stated with some hyperbole, OR affects someones favorite facet of the riptide more than they want. Some players would give up the weaponry to have a 2+/3++/5+++ monster that can score, others would turn it into a glass cannon as long as we can keep S8/9 AP2 large blasts with interceptor. So a compromise to the 1 players neuters exactly what they want the riptide to be.

Immortal or functionally immortal? If I have shoot an entire army at it for two turns to kill it, that's as functionally immortal as an invis deathstar.

The problems is that long range AP 2 weapons suck in 7th ed. If lascannons and bright lances caused multiple wounds as they should and denied FNP, the Riptide would be a LOT more manageable. I could pick out the one that failed the reactor roll and blast it. By forcing everyone to rely on short range AP 2 to gain enough ROF, I have to commit before I see who fails the reactor roll. And then, after I fail to kill it, it assaults me and kills all my guys. Because MCs OP.

Case in point ^^

Thats was a serious question. Because currently, it's functionally immortal against 95% of the game.

A couple months ago, I played a duel, one FSE Riptide vs a Swarmlord. I got 2 turns of shooting out of it before I got a lousy thrust move, it was able to get within assault range and kill it in a single round of combat. Anything with instant death or a ranged force weapon, and Riptides are certainly manageable. Oh, and that joke codex, the Tyranids; well Paroxysm was a bane of my existence playing against them.