Hello all!

I've bought some Forge World Tyranid rippers, to spice up the "Extraction"-scenario a little.
But, I can't seem to find any RPG rules for these buggers. Does anyone have a clue on this?

I am thankful for all contributions to solve this! (I'd also like to hear if anyone else have used them).

As NO ONE has answered me on this, I'm left to dabble in this on my own...

These are the stats I've come up with for the Tyranid Ripper (Swarm):

WS: 25 BS: - S: 30 T: 30 Ag: 40 Int: 05 Per: 30 WP: 25 Fel: -

I don't have a clue when it comes to how many wounds the swarm should have
and the actual tactics in the RPG version. Anyone?

dracopticon said:

A single actual ripper should have minimal wounds, no more than 5.

A ripper swarm can have as much magnitude as you want it to have.... from 10 to 10,000 - literally.

Tactics is consuming everything standing in its way but they can be directed by synapse creatures. Also you need special rules for them dying off without a synapse creature nearby.

I would rather suppose an AG of 25. In 40K rippers have Initiative 2 only. For damage I would suggest 1d10 (non-primitive), Pen 3. Armour 2 (chitin) on each location.

Oh and the horde must have Overwhelming as trait. Take hormagaunt as base template and make it weaker in about every way.

It should make for a very interesting fight - they kill-team cannot defeat a ripper horde of 1,000. So what they must do is dance around the horde and try to pick off the Synapse Creatures at the same time so that when the last falls, the whole horde will die off and the battle is won.

Alex

Here's another idea - keep the magintude number on average levels (say 10-30, obviously each representing tens of crits), but add the following custom trait:

Swarm : Reduce all magnitude damage per hit by 1. Melee attacks do not cause additional magnitude damage for higher DoS.

Haven't tested this, but should provide some fun (though probably not on its own).

Thank you both! Very good answers. Right now I'm in a hurry. Will answer asap!

Erik.

The single most useful answer here I think is:
"Oh and the horde must have Overwhelming as trait. Take hormagaunt as base template and make it weaker in about every way."

I will. But a horde of 10.000?? That would take a couple of real time days to kill. Not exactly smooth going? But then again, I haven't
actually GM:ed any real DW scenario yet.

Btw, what are the most important rules to learn when plannign to GM a DW scenario? I think I'll make this into a separate thread.

dracopticon said:

Give it mag 5,000. It should be impossible to kill. The thing is that the rippers will simply die if there are no synapse creatures nearby. So the trick for the kill-team is to stay away from the mass of rippers (or they'll eat them) while killing off the synapse creatures (like Tyranid Warriors, etc). Decrease magnitude of the ripper horde by 100 to 500 (depending on your mood and the creature) for every synapse creature killed.

The rippers can't live on their own:

wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ripper

"However they are completely mindless and will perish if they lose a synaptic link with the Hive Mind."

Alex

Make something that can kill an unarmed guardsman if there's a group of three. Then send in hundreds. Death by a thousand cuts.

Ugolino said:

Ok I think I get the picture. Massive crawling and biting.

I'd avoid the Magnitude 100+ and go with several smaller Hordes that each represent a wave of the swarm. It'll keep things more manageable.

HappyDaze said:

Yep, that sounds reasonable. Don't want bogging down in the starting scenario.

I would use them more like a 'sands from a hourglass running out thing' as the time in the mission is nearly gone the kill-team pretty much get chased by a creeping carpet of them. With mag damage if they are out of synapse instead of just flat out dieing. Let them know its not a fight they can win and that they should be trying to get to the extraction point.

When they added the bit about dying outside of synapse.. that was the single most annoying part of the new Tyranid codex for me, even more than Maugan Ra defeating a Tyranid invasion single-handedly (i'm not joking! I'd quite like to know how he did it) as rippers function normally as lemmings of a sort, they eat then they jump into digestion pools to die. They are used to defoliate entire worlds. So if they must be herded by synapse creatures it makes them far more unweildy and inefficient. What would have better explained the 40k game mechanic of losing wounds outside of synapse would be that outside synapse range keeping them as an organised directed swarm individual rippers would follow this basic instinct and split off from the rest to chomp on shrubbery and head for a swim in the nearest digestion pool. Unless during the late stages of tyrannoforming there is some extended synapse to control all the rippers efficiently without needing a prodigious amount of synapse creatures for ripper-herding.

Here's a nasty idea for a problem for players,. have a ripper eat some vital piece of equipment, like a teleport homer and merge back into the swarm. (in the first 40k rulebook they had a scenario like this where the trooper carrying the homer was eaten by a tyrannosaurus). Now the players have a needle in a very toothy haystack to deal with or they must continue on without it.

Battybattybats said:

Sorry that I haven't answered this excellent reply! I solved the encounter with the Rippers by using them in tandem with a group of Tyranid Warriors, which came up behind the players when they had problems with the Ripper swarm(s). It was quite horrifying for the players to get swamped by the smaller ones and then try to get out of hand-to-hand combat with the warriors. Sweatty for them! It was one of the more memorable moments of the Extraction scenario. Thanks for your reply once again!

They are covered in Mark of the Xenos page 48. I would also suggest checking out the Endless Horde rules in Chapter of MotX. Essentially you set the Magnitude of the Horde and it is depleted as normal and at the beginning of the next round it is restored to full Magnitude.

Black_Kestrel said:

Replenished each round?? Oh holy macarony! That means they are essentially unbeatable?

dracopticon said:

Ideal for those missions where killing everything that moves isn't the goal, or even possible. It's ideal for timed defensive missions against Tyranids or Orks, for example, where surviving long enough for the transport to reach you is the highest priority.

Or zombies, of course. Infinite zombie hordes shambling in while you wait for evac.... that needs to happen in games.

Siranui said:

Apply the Relentless Horde Trait from Mark of the Xenos for extra zombie fun, as that way they'll be slow but nigh-impossible to stop with shooting as well...

...And dish out a corruption point every time a player takes more than 5 wounds of damage from the horde...

Siranui said:

Wait, wait... A corruption point? From the zombies then, eh? My god what a complete shock it would be to my players, marines against the undead. But then again, not impossible if they are Nurgle-induced. Like in the Horus Heresy-story. Very hard-to-kill creepy-crawly zombies. Nice!