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What are people's opinions on Ripper Swarms? I've literally NEVER seen anybody field them ever, but on paper they look quite good.

9 Ripper swarms is 27 T3 wounds and 36 S3 attacks, for only 90 points. Take spinefists on them and they are 135 points and get 36 TL-S3 shots. Seems like a pretty good bargain to me.

Insta squished on S6+
Not scoring (Check page 90 of the rulebook)
Slow
Die outside of synapse.
WS/BS2. They aren't hitting anything...
Costs a lot to give them poison/furious charge.
They can deepsrike... but so?
They can take spinefists... which the Twin-linked basically make them BS3... and at S3... it isn't doing anything.

For 140 points you get 20 gargoyles with adrenaline glands in a codex where you ALWAYS only have mandatory choises.

Swarm rule as well: they die twice as fast to templates if not IDing them. Owning swarms might work if you're Parasite-ing it up but that's a specific list building with gargs and lots of gribblies to charge up/comedown.

wisdomseyes1 wrote:Insta squished on S6+
Not scoring (Check page 90 of the rulebook)
Slow
Die outside of synapse.
WS/BS2. They aren't hitting anything...
Costs a lot to give them poison/furious charge.
They can deepsrike... but so?
They can take spinefists... which the Twin-linked basically make them BS3... and at S3... it isn't doing anything.

This. I'd much rather take a huge unit of Termagaunts with adrenal glands and toxin sacs. I only take Ripper Swarms if I'm running my entire army and need to fill in points.

I actually think ripper swarms are quite good. They're like cannon fodder for the cannon fodder. As the OP pointed out they're cheap and for a relatively cheap price you can give them spinefists to make them reasonable shooty or toxin sacs to allow them to take on wraithlords and the like, that's always funny.

Of course they do have disadvantages, they die to templates very easily (but then don't most tyranids?) and, the biggest disadvantage imo, they can't take objectives, so that's one less troops choice you can be using to take objectives, and nids have a lot of other good choices in troops.

So, they're certainly not a neccessity, but they can work quite effectively.

Eldar Own wrote:I actually think ripper swarms are quite good. They're like cannon fodder for the cannon fodder. As the OP pointed out they're cheap and for a relatively cheap price you can give them spinefists to make them reasonable shooty or toxin sacs to allow them to take on wraithlords and the like, that's always funny.

Of course they do have disadvantages, they die to templates very easily (but then don't most tyranids?) and, the biggest disadvantage imo, they can't take objectives, so that's one less troops choice you can be using to take objectives, and nids have a lot of other good choices in troops.

So, they're certainly not a neccessity, but they can work quite effectively.

And... if there are any S6 weapons in your opponents army... you just spent 10 points on a gant... + upgrades. And all armies have something S6+


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Andilus Greatsword wrote:This. I'd much rather take a huge unit of Termagaunts with adrenal glands and toxin sacs. I only take Ripper Swarms if I'm running my entire army and need to fill in points.

Not the best tactical decision.

Personalie I would give em wings to make sky slashers swarms and then fly them ahead to charge and tie up the gun in close combat whilst others (e.g Geanstealers) get there. They might also do some damage with toxin sacks and 5 attacks on the charge each. So imo I would use them as suicide squads.

Rippers can be useful and very fun t play, but they have there place. I love running parasite against T3 armies, IG and Tau being the easiest. Run him with Gargoyles and you can generate a LOT of ripper bases. They are good free sandbags. They did receive a boost in 6th as they are now scoring units. Its the same concept as a tervigon with gaunts. throw free wounds onto the table and overrun your opponent.

Either wings or burrowing are interesting options for these guys. The Spine fist make them slightly more effective (shoot plus charge) but they've worked best for me while supporting my warriors.

Have the ripper swarms DS into a forward position and flush out units from cover or lock down fire support.

Their real weakness isn't how long they live (they basically are on a timer once deployed), but whether or not they get a charge in. As easily counterable as they are, that charge hurts, and with them being fairly durable in melee, can buy other parts of your army enough time to slam in and bail them out to do it all again.

Plus having the PoM ushering in a swarm with gargoyles or shrikes(?) in tow is rather memorable. It's a fluffy list and one that is used wisely with the right support is just plain awesome fun to play. Just don't expect to win often.

Backlash wrote:
Rippers can be useful and very fun t play, but they have there place. I love running parasite against T3 armies, IG and Tau being the easiest. Run him with Gargoyles and you can generate a LOT of ripper bases. They are good free sandbags. They did receive a boost in 6th as they are now scoring units. Its the same concept as a tervigon with gaunts. throw free wounds onto the table and overrun your opponent.

Swarms are still not scoring. And they just die out side of synapse.

I know it's not really related, and should probably go into the Proposed Rules section, but I just wanted to bring up an idea of what might be a good use for Sky-Slasher Swarms.

I was thinking that they could make them some sort of anti-flyer. Something along the lines of Necron Scarabs, except for flyers. Either with the Entropic thing, or something similar. You could even have it so they lose wounds off of the base or something whenever they strip off armor, and then the flyer crashes or something.

For a fluff justification, it could be something along the lines of taking off integral pieces or clogging systems with corpses or what have you. The only question would be how the tiny little things actually CATCH the flyers, but that's a "later on problem".

Swarms feel a little stronger under 6th than 5th. Still not a competitive unit by any means as far as I have been able to determine, but they have some fun potential (and can really tar-pit certain units).

Outside of pure fun or thematic games, I would only put them on the tabletop after they've been spawned by the Parasite (which as Backlash notes, is a wonderful "champion" for a unit of Gargoyles).

I haven't used Rippers before but I've been wanting too. If I did I would probably run them with tunnel and toxin sacs. Wounding on a 4+ makes them dangerous to anything outside of a vehicle and being able to DS counters their really poor speed. I'd have to run them alongside a Trygon Prime or Flyrant to keep them from dying before they can do anything. With that said, they still aren't that great.

If you compare them to Necron Scarabs, Rippers look like absolute garbage. For 5 more points base, Scarabs are beasts (move 12" and ignore terrain) and they can destroy tanks and MC's alike with entropic strike. The way I would run rippers they would be 16 points per model, 1 more than scarabs, and still not nearly as good.

 Syrell wrote:
I know it's not really related, and should probably go into the Proposed Rules section, but I just wanted to bring up an idea of what might be a good use for Sky-Slasher Swarms.

I was thinking that they could make them some sort of anti-flyer. Something along the lines of Necron Scarabs, except for flyers. Either with the Entropic thing, or something similar. You could even have it so they lose wounds off of the base or something whenever they strip off armor, and then the flyer crashes or something.

For a fluff justification, it could be something along the lines of taking off integral pieces or clogging systems with corpses or what have you. The only question would be how the tiny little things actually CATCH the flyers, but that's a "later on problem".

Same way geese "catch" 747's. They would just get flown into and sucked in to the engines or what not. But unlike geese that accidentally get in the flight path, Rippers would intend too.