Rippers or Nah?

[oatmello]

Good morning/afternoon/evening hive, I would like to know the relevance of running rippers or not in 8th edition. With their amount of wounds and low cost seem appealing, but I don't know all of the uses they have.

Question 1) I understand that they're good objective grabbers, but kind of numbers should they be fielded in to do so?

Question 2) Is there any specific loadout that they should have, or is not worth the points?

Question 3) Is there any way they could be used to screen other units? because they're pretty small

Question 4) Is there any other uses they have? (besides the swarm rule with walkers)

I will post more questions as they come to me.

[gigasnail]

No loadout necessary. You deep strike them onto objectives, and use them to speed bump or screen out other deep strike units if you go first.

[necronartum]

1. For objective grabbing I use 2-3 units of 3 Rippers. For harassment of backfield or lone units or combat supports - 2 units of 5.

2. Barebones only. I personally never spend points on throwaway units.

3. No. AFAIK - your own units don't provide cover to other units now. So they could be 20ft tall and still not able to screen anything from shooting. Nearly everything else is better in combat than they are, so they should never be in front of anything expect MAYBE gunbeasts. But even then, if whatever is behind your lines can't kill Rippers then your gunbeasts won't be worried about them.

4. See question 1.

Hope that helps. Happy hunting!

[gigasnail]

Anything that obscures you obscures you, but, you do t get a cover save unless you're in terrain.


Rippers won't help with that in most cases.

[kenha37]

You get the cover save from ruins if 50% of the model is obscured by the ruins but only if its ruins, no model obscuring other models.
It's not really relevant for infantry as its on a model-by-model basis, but a large monster can position itself for a cover save.

[gigasnail]

No. You get the cover save if the model is in ruins, and obscured by anything.

You dont get a cover save if the model is not in ruins, even if you can only see a sliver of it.

[kenha37]

Up until now I've been reading the ruins rules as two different sentences making the 50% rule separate.

It's probably just me hoping that some of the terrain rules stayed from 7th as non-LOS stopping terrain really doesn't affect the game much anymore.

[able]

Deep strike screens are their other major use on the field, and getting more command points by being troops are their other role off it. In both there is no point in spending any more points on them than you have to, so 33pts on a unit is all you want. They are utterly disposable.

They have been one of my star performers in many of my games, so I would say they are very relevant.


Probably worth pointing out that if you are just wanting a throw-away unit to sit on an objective in your own backfield or screen, a single biovore is probably better if you have the heavy support slots. If it needs to be a troop choice, a 10 gant squad is probably better if it doesn't need to deep strike, simply because they can cover more area and are slightly more survivable (particularly in cover or against multiwound stuff. Rippers are not infantry, so do not benefit from cover easily). They can daisy chain to synapse much further, and out of synapse a single lascannon cannot take out the whole unit (against rippers it can, by killing one swarm, and then a 5+ on morale). If they do end up in a fight, they also have much more chance of actually doing some damage.

[N.I.B.]

I like Rippers, mostly because they have a defined role in our faction - deepstriking objective grabbers and a Troop slot. They do a fine job of this since they're easy to hide, and cheap. They can't climb levels, but can be deployed up levels if the ruin is in your deployment zone.

[mattblowers]

I don't see what people like about them. Except for back field objective holders, they don't really do anything for me. They give up kill points too easily in ITC format and they are really easy for your opponent to screen out from deep striking in. I like mawlocs because they can't be screened out. I have 50+ rippers. I want them to be good, but I can't make them work.

[Darksilver]

I see them being really good once the codex drops. Easy brigade filler for those extra command points to use on stratagems as well as just being deep strike denial or objective place holders.

[mattblowers]

Sept 12, 2017 15:02:36 GMT Darksilver said:

I see them being really good once the codex drops. Easy brigade filler for those extra command points to use on stratagems as well as just being deep strike denial or objective place holders.

Problem is that we don't have cheap HQs, so we cheap troops don't help much. Give us a cheap HQ or at least 9 wound tryants.

[kazetanade]

Sept 12, 2017 16:17:20 GMT mattblowers said:

Sept 12, 2017 15:02:36 GMT Darksilver said:

I see them being really good once the codex drops. Easy brigade filler for those extra command points to use on stratagems as well as just being deep strike denial or objective place holders.

Problem is that we don't have cheap HQs, so we cheap troops don't help much. Give us a cheap HQ or at least 9 wound tryants.

90 point malan is pretty cheap. Most factions dont have 35 point company commanders.

[mattblowers]

Sept 12, 2017 17:14:16 GMT kazetanade said:

90 point malan is pretty cheap. Most factions dont have 35 point company commanders.

Hordes are tough to play when you HQs are expensive, nearly every faction has much cheaper HQs than ours. 75 points or cheaper seems like a good price for cheap HQs. Company Commanders and Commisars are maybe too cheap. Let us take a single warrior as a character for a cheap babysitter.

[kazetanade]

I do agree the Prime should be sitting at the 50-70 range, not the 145 range. I never understand why do they do that to him. TRT has almost always been criminally overcosted too.

At 75-90 difference i wouldn't say malan is expensive though. Everything else could stand to be far cheaper.