In fairness, we do have the Interceptor and Bomber that are supposed to fill that range. The obvious problem is that Ordnance is so awful it isn't even funny, outside of maybe 1 ship, and Interceptors relied on arc dodging to stay alive long enough to deliver range 1 death, and in a meta filled with turrets...

I just love the fact that they're pillaging characters from all of the IP like X-Wing Alliance instead of making up their own (inferior?) stuff.

They also clarified Precision shots, unless that happened a while ago? e.g. the whole "40 Guardsmen all allocating their wounds to whoever they like" debacle.

Fluffwise I would lean against it gaining Skyfire - I see Flyers having that rule due to being able to dogfight/grapple with other Flyers in a sky-based duel. A suit that just happens to jump longer distances doesn't seem able to participate in such combats to any meaningful degree - I don't really see how jumping really far makes you a better shot while in the air than when you're stood still on the ground, unless you're actively chasing the enemy aircraft. It just seems very counterintuitive to me. I appreciate that's not really the best way to resolve a rules discussion, but hey.

Given the types of army that's going to be running these (i.e. someone who already has R'Varna/Riptides on the table) then I'm afraid I don't buy the "these guys die faster" concept. If you're facing 5+ Riptide equivalents, you aren't going to target the easiest to kill first, you're going to target the ones that can hurt your army the most - be it Tanks, Hordes, Flyers, whatever. I view the 5++/4++ issue being borderline irrelevant given that everyone still plays with ruins that give you a 4+ cover save on demand - and as usual with JSJ Tau are the people who can abuse that fact.

I also dislike the fact that they can insta-kill any HP4 or less vehicle whenever they like with a single markerlight hit to get them to BS5 and the appropriate overcharge - it seems that hiding in boxes was one of your only realistic defences against the vanilla 'Tide, who had to close to 18" to Ripple fire Fusions, or try for a single S9 Ordnance hit that could at least scatter. 4-6 shots that hit on 2+ and strip HPs on 2+ is a whole different story.

Finally, I don't see "is it overpowered compared to the other Riptides?" as being a very helpful argument. We already know that the Vanilla 'Tide is broken to hell, so what's the point in comparing them? The unit is either balanced or it's not. I lean towards "Not" myself - but frankly I haven't played much 40k since every player in my area started bringing Knights.

But the current unit cannot have Eldrad and Baron attached and take the shooting of an entire Serpent Spam army and stay alive long enough to multiassault the shit out of it.

So take a bottom tier army, and nerf it even further. Niiiice. Great job with that!

The problem with Melta as an answer to Knights is that it's actually rather hard to build an "all comers" list that features enough Melta to do so while not sacrificing efficiency vs other armies. To get reliable Melta onto a Knight requires either a 10 man squad FULL of Melta (Dragons, Sternguard) so that you get the hits through the shield, or several squads with significant Melta threat (3+ guns) working in tandem. Both have problems, with the first leading to very easy target priority for the enemy, and the latter having to be able to pin down something that moves 12" per turn and can easily obliterate a squad in the open, leaving you with only one squad to threaten, which then bounces off the shield.

Alright, to use your specific example, why does it affect them at the end of the movement phase? It's not like a skimmer has to actually land every dozen meters or so. But I'm sure you get the point I as actually making.

What's hard about the Serpent? You only have two options - either a fairly even 90 degree split based on going from the tip of the points to the right angle end of the opposite wing, or you go from the tip of the points to the edge of the rear hatch on the opposite side, which results in something like a 45 degree front and rear arc, with near 180 degree side arcs. Both have pros and cons - the latter giving better shield coverage, but restricting your ability to shoot the chin cannon and forcefield pretty fiercely. So long as you're consistent, and agree from the start of the game, neither is unfair in any way.

Depends on the terrain, because GW isn't granular in how different unit types treat different obstacles. For example a 20m deep lake would certainly slow down infantry who can swim, but would be completely impassable to bikes, walkers, Knights and so on. On the other hand, something like razorgrass would potentially be very dangerous to infantry, but completely ignorable by vehicles. Waist high walls could effectively stymie a Rhino, but be irrelevant to a Wave Serpent or Jetbike.

In the absence of such individual case-by-case rules, you've gotta just have a couple of catch-all ways to deal with "terrain" in general, which leads to nonsensical situations when applied to real games.