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[MOD EDIT - RULE #1 - Alpharius]

Hydras will be valuable if Death from the Skies becomes the main rules. Mark my words.

From a BA perspective, these lists have a lot of similarities. There are some key differences.

1) Large AP 2 pieplates from Tau have easy access to ignore cover and can't be suppressed and are almost impossible to get off the board.

2) Foreboding and misfortune can give IG Tau-level overwatch shenanigans and better psychic defense. Fun fact: misfortuned Wraithknights die to FRFSF easily, but Riptides survive it! Also, misfortuned flyrants die to prescienced FRFSF blobs. In fact, there is no Tyranid bug that can survive it.

3) Tau have access to strength D in the form of the Stormsurge

4) IG flyers are much more dangerous to my lists that are using Stormravens

5) Lack of interceptor makes drop pods much easier to use against IG

6) IG are MUCH better at bubblewrapping. This can sometimes make broadsides and markerlights easy targets for fragnoughts. Forcing interceptor fire vs fragnoughts is a big win for BA. Especially now that the Lost Brotherhood rape train starts 6" closer.

Overall, IG are easier, but not nearly as easy as MoO makes them out to be. IG are still better at playing 7th ed 40K than BA, even after Angel's blade. Power armor assault lists are still dumpster fires.

In a head to head comparison, the Riptide should EASILY be double the points of a Leman Russ. But Russes are acknowledged by most to be utter trash in 7th, so that's not a fair benchmark. In the current meta, I wouldn't pay more than 125 for a base Leman Russ. Maybe less. AV14 is that worthless now.

 pumaman1 wrote:

No violin was meant to be played, it is a strategy to negate your fear of fusion suits, in order to not peril, i have to deep strike far away. I am not whining, its a good stategy.

It's a strategy, certainly. Bubblewrapping vehicles has been one for a long while.

But guess what? You can always take the time to shoot the things away before dropping in Fusion suits.

If you never had 50 person fearless squad survive 3+ turns, i don't believe you.

Where's the Fearless coming from? Because that isn't a standard feature on Guardsmen. And you specifically had stated Conscripts, which are not the same thing as a 50 person Combined Squad.

So which of the two is it?

You lambasted Master of Ordinance for changing the circumstances of the scenario but now you've added more variables.

it would take 180 firewarrior shots to attempt to kill them in 1 turn, in rapid fire range (ie chargeable) thats 7.5 max squads of firewarriors.

Rapid Fire range isn't the only way for Fire Warriors to be putting additional shots out though, is it? Is this 180 shots before or after Markerlights have boosted your BS and/or stripped Cover?

Taking your example of them needing to be in Rapid Fire range...
Fire Warrior Squads with an Ethereal nearby invoking "Storm of Fire"(+1 shot at half range) and a Fireblade in each squad that allows for Volley Fire(additional shot while remaining stationary) mean that each of those Fire Warriors can be putting out 4 shots each.
That means 45 Fire Warriors can put out those 180 shots. That's 4 full squads and a single minimum squad of Fire Warriors.
That is also not taking into account any Gun Drones that could potentially be attached to the squads adding their Pulse Carbine shots to the weight of fire as well.

heavy rail rifles can only glance armor 14 in a 1/6 chance on the to wound roll, so the 3 shots fire, 2 shots hit after TL, you have a 1/3 chance of losing 1 hp with no other ill effects.

If only there were a formation or items which granted rules like Tank Hunter for suits...

Further, the argument was bodies are no way to insulate/defend against wounds, and missile-sides deal far more wounds to bodies/troops than rail-sides. Also, if they move they snap-shoot, so you can neuter them pretty easily. and 1 las cannon ID's them at t4. something you can but on most vehicles.

Why are the Broadsides moving?
And really? You're talking about them snapshooting as a way to "neuter" them, when you can bring their BS back up to their pre-Snap Shooting level or even go higher with Markerlights?

Hell, there's even a formation which makes it easier for you in the form of the "Ranged Support Cadre" making it so that Broadsides from the formation can double the value of Markerlight counters from their formation's Pathfinders.

and guardsmen can withstand s3 a- hits from WS2 firewarriors, your point about melee? in fact the only non WS2 units in the codex, are HQ, vespid (which are a never take) and kroot, who are all of ws3 scary.

Sure Guardsmen can withstand those hits, but the point you're missing is that saying "Melee is what Guard should be doing to beat Tau" is ridiculous.

Protect your company command squad? how hard is it to hide them out of LOS, making them impossible to assign wounds to per BRB besides SMS.. which is onyl on vehicles, riptide, and broadsides, which are across the board as your complaint, so out of range.

Okay, do you not understand the difference between "protecting a Company Command Squad" and "protecting the formation specific Company Command Squad"?

Because that seems to be something you are absolutely failing to grasp.
Well that and the fact that the range on Orders(without Warlord Traits that up that range) means that they are extremely susceptible to blasts/templates laid down onto the vehicles as well.

I thought this was a thread about riptides?

Although some of the rage against Tau here seems incredibly misplaced. Either your opponents are cheating you, or you haven't actually played against Tau since 5th edition. What's more, people are suggesting how to counter specific Tau tactics (eg, a 1500pt army with 4 riptides can't do much damage to 4 Leman Russ), and the replies are about how a completely different Tau army that magically contains a zillion of every single Tau unit and formation can overpower that.

Seriously, who even brings up Railsides? I haven't seen them in a game since missilesides became available. They're objectively worse against every single target in the game apart from the 1/6 chance to glance AV14... and if your opponent is using 200 points of Broadsides plus 80 points of markerlights plus 100+ points of Tank Hunter Commander to do 1 HP to an AV14 vehicle, you've won the game already.


Yes, guard probably can't take out Tau in melee. Although a fearless blob can do wonders in tying up Tau for the rest of the game. But guard can often compete with Tau in shooting:
Tau shooting is often shorter range than Guard shooting. Ion Accelerators are long range; HYMPs are 36"; and most of the rest of Tau shooting requires closer range than that. You can use that to your advantage.
Tau rely heavily on markerlights, and all markerlight platforms are squishy, relatively static and short ranged. A turn or two of Wyvern shooting can take out the markerlight support or firewarriors.
Tau don't like Battle Cannons or Lascannons. Yes, riptides are fairly impervious to that kind of damage; but Crisis suits and Broadsides do not want to be hit by these, and they outrange any of the guns Tau can use to hurt the platforms carrying them.

I'm not saying it won't be an uphill battle: in these days of 7th Edition the guard codex is showing its age. But you're not actually facing up against someone who has brought 9 broadsides AND 5 riptides, so its disingenuous to talk as if you need to take them all on at once.

Trasvi wrote:
I thought this was a thread about riptides?

Although some of the rage against Tau here seems incredibly misplaced. Either your opponents are cheating you, or you haven't actually played against Tau since 5th edition. What's more, people are suggesting how to counter specific Tau tactics (eg, a 1500pt army with 4 riptides can't do much damage to 4 Leman Russ), and the replies are about how a completely different Tau army that magically contains a zillion of every single Tau unit and formation can overpower that.

Seriously, who even brings up Railsides? I haven't seen them in a game since missilesides became available. They're objectively worse against every single target in the game apart from the 1/6 chance to glance AV14... and if your opponent is using 200 points of Broadsides plus 80 points of markerlights plus 100+ points of Tank Hunter Commander to do 1 HP to an AV14 vehicle, you've won the game already.


Yes, guard probably can't take out Tau in melee. Although a fearless blob can do wonders in tying up Tau for the rest of the game. But guard can often compete with Tau in shooting:
Tau shooting is often shorter range than Guard shooting. Ion Accelerators are long range; HYMPs are 36"; and most of the rest of Tau shooting requires closer range than that. You can use that to your advantage.
Tau rely heavily on markerlights, and all markerlight platforms are squishy, relatively static and short ranged. A turn or two of Wyvern shooting can take out the markerlight support or firewarriors.
Tau don't like Battle Cannons or Lascannons. Yes, riptides are fairly impervious to that kind of damage; but Crisis suits and Broadsides do not want to be hit by these, and they outrange any of the guns Tau can use to hurt the platforms carrying them.

I'm not saying it won't be an uphill battle: in these days of 7th Edition the guard codex is showing its age. But you're not actually facing up against someone who has brought 9 broadsides AND 5 riptides, so its disingenuous to talk as if you need to take them all on at once.

people got off topic quite a bit, my original point in bringing up the 4 Riptides in a list was how easy it is to field them in numbers without having to rely on a formation. Realistically you don't need 4 but in a 1,500 game you can easily bring that many. Switching back to a normal game mode, in a 1,500 game a Tau player can easily bring 2 Riptides along with some missilesides and the supporting staff with markerlights and have almost zero skill in playing the game and they stand a good chance to win. That is how easy Tau are to play and how OP the units are.

 Kanluwen wrote:

jade_angel wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

AV14,

AV14? You do know that JSJ Fusion blaster crisis suits and Railgun Broadsides are a thing?

A list with an Armoured battlegroup,

Will die to Railsides, skirmishing JSJ Fusion Blaster crisis suits and Stormsurges (do not forget that all damage from the 'D' table spills over across the squadron).

Ok, you've got two things wrong here. One, Broadsides with S10 railguns are not a thing anymore. Not in the 7e codex, and not in the 6e codex either. Broadside rail weapons are S8 AP1, no armourbane, lance, melta, haywire, D, etc. They're nearly useless against AV14.

Second, the results from single D hits do not spill over across a squadron - all the damage from a single D hit is resolved against a model, not a unit. A D blast can score multiple hits, but where is *that* coming from?

Tau mostly do IG's schtick better, that I'll agree with, but if you routinely play against Tau players who are using their Broadsides with S10 railguns and D blasts, then they're doing it wrong. (I'd go so far as to say cheating.)

I think you're clumping together two concepts...

Stormsurges have a Strength D in the form of the Pulse Blastcannon. Yes, it's at ranges of 10" but it is still a Strength D.

It's not blast or spreading, as mentioned, but it is still not the same as Broadsides with S10 Railguns.

Oh, I know that Stormsurges have D. What I was refuting was the idea of "all damage from the 'D' table spills over across the squadron", which it does not from single D hits. That's where I got blasts from: a single D weapon shot could kill multiple tanks if it were a blast, and therefore hit more than one, but Tau don't have any of those outside of the Ta'unar, or possibly allied psykers fishing for Vortex of Doom.

Whas I should have said, to be more precise, was that if opponents are killing multiple tanks with single non-blast D shots, they're doing it wrong (and if they're firing D blasts, they're doing something *very* squirrelly). (In the interest of forestalling a pedantic exception, yes, it's possible in theory for a D shot to explode a tank and that explosion to glance the last HP off others, but how often does that come up, outside of superheavies with unusually strong explosions?)

fearless blobs goes back to my reference of throwing in a priest in with the blob, as has been my assertion from the first. 150 points in conscripts and 25 point un-HQ that has his war hymns that you can sing and maybe re-roll saves etc, but he gives fearless, has a 4++ and can be in the back of the blob "safe"

 pumaman1 wrote:
fearless blobs goes back to my reference of throwing in a priest in with the blob, as has been my assertion from the first. 150 points in conscripts and 25 point un-HQ that has his war hymns that you can sing and maybe re-roll saves etc, but he gives fearless, has a 4++ and can be in the back of the blob "safe"

Priests do not give Fearless, if you want to get technical about it.
Ministorum Priests have the following special rules:

Independent Character, Zealot.

Zealot does grant the same effects as Fearless, but Fearless on them means you can never Go to Ground or choose to fail a Morale check due to "Our Weapons are Useless"...and since you're rocking a 5+ save for armor who cares about that?

Pulse Rifles negate that armor. Hell, Pulse Carbines negate that armor and Pulse Carbines are a flat 2 shots at 18" range.

War Hymns: A Ministorum Priest can take a Leadership test at the beginning of each Fight sub-phase in which he is locked in combat. If the test is successful, choose one of the following war hymns to immediately take effect.

Additionally, nothing about what you said works. The Priest has to be locked in combat to use his War Hymns.

What if we just lowed it down to 3 or 4 wounds?

 mew28 wrote:
What if we just lowed it down to 3 or 4 wounds?

IMO the purpose of the riptide is to be tanky. Lowering it to 4 wounds could MAYBE work. At 3 wounds, it would be entirely common for the Riptide to do all 3 of those wounds to itself.
Plus for the size of the damn thing, 5 wounds is entirely appropriate. Any less than 4 and its stats would not fit the model.

 mew28 wrote:
What if we just lowed it down to 3 or 4 wounds?

Hell my group has been playing it at 6. Damn misprints...
5 is perfectly reasonable considering its size. Maybe it could cost slightly more, but we shouldn't take wounds from it.

Trasvi wrote:

 mew28 wrote:
What if we just lowed it down to 3 or 4 wounds?

IMO the purpose of the riptide is to be tanky. Lowering it to 4 wounds could MAYBE work. At 3 wounds, it would be entirely common for the Riptide to do all 3 of those wounds to itself.
Plus for the size of the damn thing, 5 wounds is entirely appropriate. Any less than 4 and its stats would not fit the model.

By that same logic it should be classified as a WALKER. Because of its size and the fact that its Tanky..... Or the fact that its a piloted warsuit that looks like a fething Gundam Wing knock off.

If its supposed to be tanky then take away its ridiculous firepower. There you have a tanky unit.

SemperMortis wrote:

Trasvi wrote:

 mew28 wrote:
What if we just lowed it down to 3 or 4 wounds?

IMO the purpose of the riptide is to be tanky. Lowering it to 4 wounds could MAYBE work. At 3 wounds, it would be entirely common for the Riptide to do all 3 of those wounds to itself.
Plus for the size of the damn thing, 5 wounds is entirely appropriate. Any less than 4 and its stats would not fit the model.

By that same logic it should be classified as a WALKER. Because of its size and the fact that its Tanky..... Or the fact that its a piloted warsuit that looks like a fething Gundam Wing knock off.

The Tau already have that unit: the Ion Cannon Hammerhead at 125 points. It would be even worse as a walker...

If its supposed to be tanky then take away its ridiculous firepower. There you have a tanky unit.

Where does this notion that the riptide has 'ridiculous' firepower come from? At 200+ points, It has 1 S8 AP2 large blast and 4 S5AP5 shots. That isn't particularly overwhelming. Again, the Ionhead has equivalent firepower for 100 pts less.

"1 S8 AP2 large blast "

That's pretty ridiculous.

Its a good weapon to be sure. But it's not ridiculous.
There are models with S10 AP1 large blasts.
There are dozens of models with S8 AP3 blasts - which, given the dearth of Sv2 squads seen on the table, is functionally the same as AP2 in most situations. A Leman Russ Battle Tank doesn't have ridiculous firepower.
There are models like the Forgefiend or that Leman Russ variant that can put out 3-5 small blast AP2s.

Broadsides or Scatterbikes put out ridiculous firepower. The Riptide has firepower matched by models 100pts less.

Most models with S10 AP1 Large Blasts also cost 3-4x as much as a Riptide does, or have an incredibly short range (in comparison to the Riptide) on a less durable platform.

A Leman Russ is slow and not overly survivable. A Forgefiend is slow and has an even shorter range with about the same (if not slightly better) overall durability as a Leman Russ (because of the innate 5++ and IWND). They are not even in the same league as a Riptide because of this.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Most models with S10 AP1 Large Blasts also cost 3-4x as much as a Riptide does, or have an incredibly short range (in comparison to the Riptide) on a less durable platform.

A Leman Russ is slow and not overly survivable. A Forgefiend is slow and has an even shorter range with about the same (if not slightly better) overall durability as a Leman Russ (because of the innate 5++ and IWND). They are not even in the same league as a Riptide because of this.

I'm commenting solely on the firepower.
S8 AP3 large blasts are quite common and, as far as I know, aren't considered 'ridiculous' by anyone.
The riptide has firepower comparable to a tank such as the Ionhead or Leman Russ.
In terms of firepower per point per model, the riptide doesn't pack that many guns (outside of the stupid riptide wing).

Yes, the Riptide does have higher durability... which you think it would, as its paying about 100pts for durability on top of the Ionhead firepower.

It also has great mobility far beyond the Russ and Forgefiend and more useful than that of the Ionhead (given that it can JSJ).

It seems you missed the point of the comment by Semper you quoted: they were saying that if its role is to be a tanky unit then its firepower is ridiculous (at its current points cost).

100pts on top of the Ionhead is not a fair cost considering it can not only tank hits better on an individual basis with its 2+/5++ (who are we kidding, it's almost always a 3++) and usual 5+++, it also requires 2 more instances of damage to destroy.

It also can't suffer things like Crew Shaken/Stunned, Immobilised, Weapon Destroyed and Explodes! The Ionhead can.

It can also JSJ, which on average allows it to move faster than an Ionhead while still shooting at full effectiveness in a turn AND allows it to jump in and around cover if need be (assuming you're playing on a board with large enough terrain to allow blocking LoS of something as large as a Riptide. Not the most common thing but it does happen).

Trasvi wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Most models with S10 AP1 Large Blasts also cost 3-4x as much as a Riptide does, or have an incredibly short range (in comparison to the Riptide) on a less durable platform.

A Leman Russ is slow and not overly survivable. A Forgefiend is slow and has an even shorter range with about the same (if not slightly better) overall durability as a Leman Russ (because of the innate 5++ and IWND). They are not even in the same league as a Riptide because of this.

I'm commenting solely on the firepower.
S8 AP3 large blasts are quite common and, as far as I know, aren't considered 'ridiculous' by anyone.
The riptide has firepower comparable to a tank such as the Ionhead or Leman Russ.
In terms of firepower per point per model, the riptide doesn't pack that many guns (outside of the stupid riptide wing).

Yes, the Riptide does have higher durability... which you think it would, as its paying about 100pts for durability on top of the Ionhead firepower.

In practice, it should cost even more. The Riptide is more durable than a Warhound titan against the field of heavy weapons in the game. What price for immortality?

Trasvi wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Trasvi wrote:

 mew28 wrote:
What if we just lowed it down to 3 or 4 wounds?

IMO the purpose of the riptide is to be tanky. Lowering it to 4 wounds could MAYBE work. At 3 wounds, it would be entirely common for the Riptide to do all 3 of those wounds to itself.
Plus for the size of the damn thing, 5 wounds is entirely appropriate. Any less than 4 and its stats would not fit the model.

By that same logic it should be classified as a WALKER. Because of its size and the fact that its Tanky..... Or the fact that its a piloted warsuit that looks like a fething Gundam Wing knock off.

The Tau already have that unit: the Ion Cannon Hammerhead at 125 points. It would be even worse as a walker...

If its supposed to be tanky then take away its ridiculous firepower. There you have a tanky unit.

Where does this notion that the riptide has 'ridiculous' firepower come from? At 200+ points, It has 1 S8 AP2 large blast and 4 S5AP5 shots. That isn't particularly overwhelming. Again, the Ionhead has equivalent firepower for 100 pts less.

It comes from the stats and abilities of the Tau army.
Take guard for example. They have similar blast weapons yes? But there are some major differences between the two.

1) Cover saves. This is the biggest. Against IG, you can still expect 4+/5+ saves since cover saves are a thing. Not so against the tide, any unit in the army can expect no saves what so ever since marker lights exist. So here we see a 50%-33% increase in damage done per model.

2) Rounds spent firing. The Riptide is incredibly fast and able to move to new locations to gain firing lanes within the same round pretty easily thanks to its movement rules. It can then dance safely back, or in extreme situations, use the nova reactor to move somewhere in a pinch. The riptide, playing from both ends of the table, rarely has nothing to fire at until turns 4/5+, where everything is in CC or dead. It can rely on 1-3 turns of firing pretty easily.
For the Russ, this is only true against larger armies. It's easy to be out of sight or not provide optimal targets for 1-2 turns to a leman russ tank since it's incredibly slow. So, this is roughly a 33% increase in firepower, since it will get 1 more round of good shooting on overage over a russ (compare number of models hit over the course of a game between the two, and tau will have effectively 33% more hits due to mobility).

3) Toughness. The riptide rarely dies before round 3 unless cents are used. This means it nearly always gets to fire for the optimal rounds you need it to, rounds 1-3. Even then, its incredibly hard to catch and kill compared to IG tanks for a variety of reasons. You can count on at least 3 rounds of firepower, and the more you take the more reliable this is.

For LR, they can die easily in rounds 1-3. All it takes is an open spot for a tactical squad or someone to hit the back line, some WG or FD, a crisis suit squad, scat bikes on the rear, melee units, a haywire grenade squad (though this has been nerfed) necron warriors rapid firing enough. They just aren't as tough, it's rare to get 3 rounds of uninterrupted firepower from all the tanks. This is hard to quantify, but its substantial. A cent squad porting in, for example, could easily remove 2 tanks, but won't remove 2 Riptides. And you don't need grav to delete one.

4) Formations. The riptide can be in a formation that allows it to fire twice in rounds 1-2, where it does the most damage. This is huge, a massive increase in firepower that people undervalue since everyone looks at 6 rounds instead of when shooting is really critical.
Imagine 3 Riptides versus 4 LRs.
Round 1, 2 of the LRs are able to draw LoS, the others move. 2 Pie plates land.
3 Riptides move and fire the plates, 3 pie plates land. Everyone gets cover saves since the ML are out of range (I know there are ways to get them there, let's assume though).

Round 2, 4 LR fire, 6 total pie plates.
Riptides fire and unleash their bonus. 6 Pie plates land, making 9 total, 6 of which ignored cover.

At this point, the tide is so far up on attrition its crazy. And this is the time you have before melee units are reaching combat. They have done so much more damage, not only 50% more pie plates, but having 2/3 of them ignore cover.

It would really be nice if the tau had to nova charge the ion accelerator to get ap2.

Agreed. As is, I have a lot of games where I remove 40 models by turn two using 3 tides in a wing, and that's on the low side (That's an average of 4.2-3 models per pie plate, pretty doable).

I've had games where its closer to 60 due to good scat rolls if the enemy doesn't take enough invul saves. Against horde armies it's a lot higher. Removing 1/3-1/2 of a greenskin force by turn two is absurd, and that's not including the other units.

Martel732 wrote:
It would really be nice if the tau had to nova charge the ion accelerator to get ap2.

As we've discussed in one of many other "boo riptide" threads, I agree that it would make sense to switch the ion cannon of the riptide and hammerhead, leaving the "heavy" tank the heavier firepower. Maybe the riptide still keeps its s9ap2 ordinance nova charge, since it needs to nova (1/3rd chance of fail) and gets hot (1/6 chance of fail) and scatter (2/3rd chance of scatter, and on average 4 inches w/o maker help ie, miss target unit). Nova profile is mostly a hail-mary move. But having the tank have native s7 ap2, and the riptide s7 ap3 would be more logical to me. And then it still has a s8ap3 large blast gets hot template.

 pumaman1 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It would really be nice if the tau had to nova charge the ion accelerator to get ap2.

As we've discussed in one of many other "boo riptide" threads, I agree that it would make sense to switch the ion cannon of the riptide and hammerhead, leaving the "heavy" tank the heavier firepower. Maybe the riptide still keeps its s9ap2 ordinance nova charge, since it needs to nova (1/3rd chance of fail) and gets hot (1/6 chance of fail) and scatter (2/3rd chance of scatter, and on average 4 inches w/o maker help ie, miss target unit). Nova profile is mostly a hail-mary move. But having the tank have native s7 ap2, and the riptide s7 ap3 would be more logical to me. And then it still has a s8ap3 large blast gets hot template.

Get rid of the large blast for the Riptide unless it NOVAs. Having a large blast without having to NOVA basically means you never have to NOVA for your gun, which plays into the "Riptide basically always has 3++" argument. At max it can have a small blast overcharged shot, still at AP3.

Also cut the range of the Ion Accelerator, so that it will become a serious tactical choice to use NOVA to get the large blast as doing so will mean you cannot move due to it being Ordnance.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 pumaman1 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It would really be nice if the tau had to nova charge the ion accelerator to get ap2.

As we've discussed in one of many other "boo riptide" threads, I agree that it would make sense to switch the ion cannon of the riptide and hammerhead, leaving the "heavy" tank the heavier firepower. Maybe the riptide still keeps its s9ap2 ordinance nova charge, since it needs to nova (1/3rd chance of fail) and gets hot (1/6 chance of fail) and scatter (2/3rd chance of scatter, and on average 4 inches w/o maker help ie, miss target unit). Nova profile is mostly a hail-mary move. But having the tank have native s7 ap2, and the riptide s7 ap3 would be more logical to me. And then it still has a s8ap3 large blast gets hot template.

Get rid of the large blast for the Riptide unless it NOVAs. Having a large blast without having to NOVA basically means you never have to NOVA for your gun, which plays into the "Riptide basically always has 3++" argument. At max it can have a small blast overcharged shot, still at AP3.

Also cut the range of the Ion Accelerator, so that it will become a serious tactical choice to use NOVA to get the large blast as doing so will mean you cannot move due to it being Ordnance.

No, as per above, there are already many points of failure to getting the shot, and several times it can wound itself (blah blah saves, don't care, shot still doesn't go off.) And if its switched to hammer head's gun, its shorter range than current. If nova wasn't ordinance, but primary weapon maybe, but definitely not shorter, weaker, smaller, all at the same time. That is called overkill.

If you get rid of the formation I'd be fine with that. As it is, I fail 1 maybe 2 nova charges all game with 3 riptides.

The ordinance rule sucks, and the fewer things that have it the better.

Trasvi wrote:

There are dozens of models with S8 AP3 blasts - which, given the dearth of Sv2 squads seen on the table, is functionally the same as AP2 in most situations. A Leman Russ Battle Tank doesn't have ridiculous firepower.

A Leman Russ is also far slower and no where near as durable as a Riptide, is vulnerable to CC, has less 'wounds', will suffer major penalties if the enemy rolls above the needed 'too wound' number, has no saves of any kind unless you have invested in camo gear (15 points for a 6+ cover save, woo) and/or hidden it within cover. It also gets even easier to 'wound' if you flank it.

How on earth can you possibly compare a weak, overpriced, unit like the Leman Russ to a monster like the Riptide?

 master of ordinance wrote:

Trasvi wrote:

There are dozens of models with S8 AP3 blasts - which, given the dearth of Sv2 squads seen on the table, is functionally the same as AP2 in most situations. A Leman Russ Battle Tank doesn't have ridiculous firepower.

A Leman Russ is also far slower and no where near as durable as a Riptide, is vulnerable to CC, has less 'wounds', will suffer major penalties if the enemy rolls above the needed 'too wound' number, has no saves of any kind unless you have invested in camo gear (15 points for a 6+ cover save, woo) and/or hidden it within cover. It also gets even easier to 'wound' if you flank it.

How on earth can you possibly compare a weak, overpriced, unit like the Leman Russ to a monster like the Riptide?

He's comparing the gun.

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

Trasvi wrote:

There are dozens of models with S8 AP3 blasts - which, given the dearth of Sv2 squads seen on the table, is functionally the same as AP2 in most situations. A Leman Russ Battle Tank doesn't have ridiculous firepower.

A Leman Russ is also far slower and no where near as durable as a Riptide, is vulnerable to CC, has less 'wounds', will suffer major penalties if the enemy rolls above the needed 'too wound' number, has no saves of any kind unless you have invested in camo gear (15 points for a 6+ cover save, woo) and/or hidden it within cover. It also gets even easier to 'wound' if you flank it.

How on earth can you possibly compare a weak, overpriced, unit like the Leman Russ to a monster like the Riptide?

He's comparing the gun.

But that is not a fair comparison. To get a true reflection of the capabilities of the gun you must also compare the platform it is mounted on. A death ray weapon on a weak and immobile mounting is far less of a threat than a geberic cannon mounted on a tough and fast vehicle.