Cost
Helldrake: 170 points
Riptides with Ion: 185 points
Winner: Helldrake, but 15 point difference is tiny

Slot
Helldrake: Best Fast Attack option in the Codex, limited to Fast Attack
Riptide: Competes with Crisis suits, but Crisis suits can be taken as a HQ choice.
Winner: Riptide

Offence:
Helldrake: Str 7 Ap 3 D3+1 hits, Str 6 ap 3 ignores cover torrent flamer, 2/3 chance of Turn 2 arrival, may be delayed.
Riptide: 72" Str 8/9 Ap 2 Heavy 3/Large Blast/Ordnance template and 30" Str 5 ap 5 Assault 4/24" Str 6 Ap 2. Small chance of not shooting. Shoots from turn 1.
Winner: Riptide- Kills horde, MEQ, TEQ, Vehicles, Monstrous Creatures. Helldrake: Kills MEQ and Light Vehicles.

Defence.
Helldrake: Av 12/12/10, 5++, 3HP Flyer
Riptides: T6 W5 2+ 5++ (3++)
Winner: Riptide - cannot be Weapon Destroyed, Exploded, Intercepted, and shoots from turn one till it collapses.

Assault:
Helldrake: N/A, Cannot be assaulted.
Riptide: WS2 Str6 I2 A3 LD9 Ap 2. Not fantastic in combat but can assault as a last resort. Can be tarpitted, but with pie plate and large blast templates, something has gone terribly wrong.
Winner: Riptide.

Mobility
Helldrake: 18-36", Flyer movement or Hover movement.
Riptide: 6", D6 Run, 2/4D6 JSJ.
Winner: Tie. Helldrake Flyer movement means it will not be able to shoot at some things all the time, but is able to reach hard to get to units. Riptide can JSJ, but uses its nova charge to do so.

Utility:
Helldrake: Cannot contest or claim Linebreaker.
Riptide: Can contest and claim Linebreaker.
Winner: Riptide.

Using the Helldrake as the standard for competitiveness (or as everyone imagines it to be) for 15 points more, the Riptide is better in every way. 3x Riptide is an extremely nasty build. Tau may just become competitive on this basis alone, since they have access to options which make Flyer spam lists/ FMC lists / Helldrakes a liability. The only thing they aren't extremely effective against is MC spam, and even then I'd wager they outshoot the opposing MCs.

Can anyone point out weaknesses I may have missed? BS3 is a thing, but how crippling is it?

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Assault:
Helldrake: N/A, Should not be assaulted.
Riptide: WS2 Str6 I2 A3 LD9 Ap 2. Not fantastic in combat but can assault as a last resort. Can be tarpitted, but with pie plate and large blast templates, something has gone terribly wrong.
Winner: Riptide.

FTFY in orange.

I dont think defence is anyway near in the riptides favour, you have to snapfire to hit the helldrake, and 5++ on top is pretty good.

With lots of -1 T stuff around (enfeeble and rad grenades, rad grenade lauchers) making that bad body T5 and all of a sudden, who care how many wounds it has, also it can be hit at normal BS and can be shot back T1, I dont see it surviving very long, especially if you dont get the 3++ shield up.

I just played a game using 3 riptides. There good but heldrakes definitely are better.

Defence.
Helldrake: Av 12/12/10, 5++, 3HP Flyer
Riptides: T6 W5 2+ 5++ (3++)
Winner: Riptide - cannot be Weapon Destroyed, Exploded, Intercepted, and shoots from turn one till it collapses.

Assault:
Helldrake: N/A, Cannot be assaulted.
Riptide: WS2 Str6 I2 A3 LD9 Ap 2. Not fantastic in combat but can assault as a last resort. Can be tarpitted, but with pie plate and large blast templates, something has gone terribly wrong.
Winner: Riptide.

Mobility
Helldrake: 18-36", Flyer movement or Hover movement.
Riptide: 6", D6 Run, 2/4D6 JSJ.
Winner: Tie. Helldrake Flyer movement means it will not be able to shoot at some things all the time, but is able to reach hard to get to units. Riptide can JSJ, but uses its nova charge to do so.

All three of these points are clearly in favor of a helldrake. The entire discussion is kind of silly though as the only thing they share is that they are arguably the best units in their respective codex.

You forgot poison weapons completely when talking about survivability. Not to even mention the entire skyfire issue which means that the most spammable lascannons require ~6 shots to hit for the hellturkey where it will hit the riptide at least 3 times as often.

Neither want to be in assault and the hellturkey is unassailable while zooming about. The only time this is an advantage to the riptide is when a low rear AV vehicle wanders near it.

You forget 360 arc for the hellturkey torrent flamer. That thing almost never has problems firing. The only problem is experience thinking ahead to where you want to be.

Both are great units though that pack a huge punch. I like the riptide more though as the riptide model is just so much better looking than the dinobot hellturkey model.

You can't poison a drake

Drake wins

I believe that the hell drake is physically stronger but the riptide is tactically stronger. With a 72'' gun and jsj you can easily play keep away from most threats. freedom of mobility and freedom of fire means that you can trick your opponent into making bad plays. The hell drake is much more straight forward as it flies over where it can do the most damage and that is about it.

Saw this mentioned elsewhere, although I don't have a copy of the new codex to check it....

"Drones taken as upgrades for a unit act as additional squad members in all regards"
Is it true that if the Riptide loses a drone, it's forced to take a morale test due to 25% casualties?

FA slots can contest objectives yes?

turn drake to Hover mode....

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Offence:
Helldrake: Str 7 Ap 3 D3+1 hits, Str 6 ap 3 ignores cover torrent flamer, 2/3 chance of Turn 2 arrival, may be delayed.
Riptide: 72" Str 8/9 Ap 2 Heavy 3/Large Blast/Ordnance template and 30" Str 5 ap 5 Assault 4/24" Str 6 Ap 2. Small chance of not shooting. Shoots from turn 1.
Winner: Riptide- Kills horde, MEQ, TEQ, Vehicles, Monstrous Creatures. Helldrake: Kills MEQ and Light Vehicles.

It's the first I've seen the Riptide stats, and whilst nice, I'd still think the Helldrake is at least as good, if not better. St 6, AP3, ignores cover and a template you can place exactly was pretty game changing in a way I'm not seeing with the Riptide (although that might change once I've played against one).




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ausYenLoWang wrote:
FA slots can contest objectives yes?

turn drake to Hover mode....

Only in The Souring mission - otherswise it's a vehicle and can't contest regarless of hovering or zooming I'm afraid.

Dundas wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Offence:
Helldrake: Str 7 Ap 3 D3+1 hits, Str 6 ap 3 ignores cover torrent flamer, 2/3 chance of Turn 2 arrival, may be delayed.
Riptide: 72" Str 8/9 Ap 2 Heavy 3/Large Blast/Ordnance template and 30" Str 5 ap 5 Assault 4/24" Str 6 Ap 2. Small chance of not shooting. Shoots from turn 1.
Winner: Riptide- Kills horde, MEQ, TEQ, Vehicles, Monstrous Creatures. Helldrake: Kills MEQ and Light Vehicles.

It's the first I've seen the Riptide stats, and whilst nice, I'd still think the Helldrake is at least as good, if not better. St 6, AP3, ignores cover and a template you can place exactly was pretty game changing in a way I'm not seeing with the Riptide (although that might change once I've played against one).




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ausYenLoWang wrote:
FA slots can contest objectives yes?

turn drake to Hover mode....

Only in The Souring mission - otherswise it's a vehicle and can't contest regarless of hovering or zooming I'm afraid.

Very true - i stand corrected...

This analysis is flawed. If the Helldrake cannot be assaulted, then it wins the 'assault' round. If the Helldrake is the 'best option in Fast Attack', while the Riptide competes with Crisis Suits, then the Helldrake wins that also.

I'd agree with the poster above that the comparison is a touch pointless as well. It isn't as though you can easily take both in the same army - barring Allies, but that is quite a complex comparison to then be running, determined by the purpose of the wider list.

This discussion has alot of flaws. Most people wont run a riptide for 180pts, it will most likely be more like 200-240. To run at 180pts would be leaving off a lot of attractive wargear such as FNP, SKyfire/Intercept, Shield missile drones and more. Comparable to running a DK without a Greatsword or Personal Teleporter.
If anything on a points scale, model type (MC) and for its stats i would compare it to a Dread Knight. Very different roles but similar in many aspects (fire magnets, biggest MC's in their respective codex, both used a MC/TEQ killers.) But thats just my opinion.

Also the ignore cover save comparison is limited. Tau have a pretty reliable way of striping cover saves, in which case the Riptides large blast can do damage on par with the heldrakes flamer.

 Ascalam wrote:
You can't poison a drake

Drake wins

I totally had a mental image of Marbo sneaking up on a giant robot (Riptide) and killing it with his knife...

 xttz wrote:
Saw this mentioned elsewhere, although I don't have a copy of the new codex to check it....

"Drones taken as upgrades for a unit act as additional squad members in all regards"
Is it true that if the Riptide loses a drone, it's forced to take a morale test due to 25% casualties?

Yup, so the thing can potentially run off of your table edge.

Also, the Riptide can be Pinned, which is quite amusing.

Iranna.

 Charles Rampant wrote:
This analysis is flawed. If the Helldrake cannot be assaulted, then it wins the 'assault' round. If the Helldrake is the 'best option in Fast Attack', while the Riptide competes with Crisis Suits, then the Helldrake wins that also.

Well, if he goes into Hover Mode (which people will do to keep him on the board to make another Flamer attack instead of losing a turn of doing that), then he's a fast skimmer which can be assaulted. Not sure if he gets any extra rules for assault, but if he's just a regular fast skimmer he can't attack back.

Well, the look of the Riptide is actually growing on me whereas the Heldrake still looks terrible....

 Wilytank wrote:

 Charles Rampant wrote:
This analysis is flawed. If the Helldrake cannot be assaulted, then it wins the 'assault' round. If the Helldrake is the 'best option in Fast Attack', while the Riptide competes with Crisis Suits, then the Helldrake wins that also.

Well, if he goes into Hover Mode (which people will do to keep him on the board to make another Flamer attack instead of losing a turn of doing that), then he's a fast skimmer which can be assaulted. Not sure if he gets any extra rules for assault, but if he's just a regular fast skimmer he can't attack back.

It will be very rare that someone will drop the Heldrake into hover mode unless its close to the end game and it just needs one more flamer shot to kill something.

Well, I can't remove the Helldrake from play with JoTWW

Can we weigh in on appearance as a factor? I don't play Tau and want multiple Riptide models. I have a CSM army and have no interest in the Drakes. Riptide wins!!

tuiman wrote:I dont think defence is anyway near in the riptides favour, you have to snapfire to hit the helldrake, and 5++ on top is pretty good.

With lots of -1 T stuff around (enfeeble and rad grenades, rad grenade lauchers) making that bad body T5 and all of a sudden, who care how many wounds it has, also it can be hit at normal BS and can be shot back T1, I dont see it surviving very long, especially if you dont get the 3++ shield up.

This would be true but there is something in the game called 'Skyfire' and 'Interceptor', and you can take it on Lascannons/Quad Guns to shoot flyers with full BS. and with Tau Allied skyfire, which means the Helldrake can get one-shotted before it even does any damage- it's only an armour 12 flyer after all.

Rad Grenades are CC only, Rad Grenade Launchers are 12". T5 would be crippling if it didn't have a 2+ armour save.

Let me remind you the Riptide has a 72" range and a potential 4D6 jetpack move. It will always outrange you. Bolters are 24". When three 72" plasma pie plates are dropping on you every turn, you will not reach rapid fire range unless you pod in. If you pod in, you have one turn of shooting before you die.

Ozomoto wrote:I just played a game using 3 riptides. There good but heldrakes definitely are better.

Yes, anecdotal evidence is great isn't it? Foundation of modern science.

Defence.
Helldrake: Av 12/12/10, 5++, 3HP Flyer
Riptides: T6 W5 2+ 5++ (3++)
Winner: Riptide - cannot be Weapon Destroyed, Exploded, Intercepted, and shoots from turn one till it collapses.

Assault:
Helldrake: N/A, Cannot be assaulted.
Riptide: WS2 Str6 I2 A3 LD9 Ap 2. Not fantastic in combat but can assault as a last resort. Can be tarpitted, but with pie plate and large blast templates, something has gone terribly wrong.
Winner: Riptide.

Mobility
Helldrake: 18-36", Flyer movement or Hover movement.
Riptide: 6", D6 Run, 2/4D6 JSJ.
Winner: Tie. Helldrake Flyer movement means it will not be able to shoot at some things all the time, but is able to reach hard to get

All three of these points are clearly in favor of a helldrake. The entire discussion is kind of silly though as the only thing they share is that they are arguably the best units in their respective codex.

You forgot poison weapons completely when talking about survivability. Not to even mention the entire skyfire issue which means that the most spammable lascannons require ~6 shots to hit for the hellturkey where it will hit the riptide at least 3 times as often.

Neither want to be in assault and the hellturkey is unassailable while zooming about. The only time this is an advantage to the riptide is when a low rear AV vehicle wanders near it.

You forget 360 arc for the hellturkey torrent flamer. That thing almost never has problems firing. The only problem is experience thinking ahead to where you want to be.

Both are great units though that pack a huge punch. I like the riptide more though as the riptide model is just so much better looking than the dinobot hellturkey model.

The reason for this discussion is everyone is HELLDRAKE OMG OP CHANGING META. The comparison, thus, is necessary, because the Riptide is far, far deadlier since there are no easy solutions to killing it. Riptide wins in defence, because you cannot intercept or weapon destroy it, and it shoots from turn 1-5 without flying off the board etc.

See poison comparison below. Assault Riptide wins, because the Helldrake is a flyer and cannot assault things , the Riptide can if absolutely necessary charge to stop a DP rampaging through your lines or to tie up a single IC, or small units. Riptide is better. I am well aware of how a Helldrake shoots, and it has a 12" range. It will not be able to shoot certain things on the third turn or fourth unless you hover, because you can move away from the Helldrake.

Ascalam wrote:You can't poison a drake

Drake wins

Splinter Cannon: 36" Range. Does 0.05 wounds to a Riptide per shot. Ion Cannon: 72" Str 7 Ap 2 Heavy 3, or Str 8 Ap 2 Blast, or Str 9 Ap 2 Ordnance blast. Does 0.67 glances/pens and 0.87 wounds to Venoms/Dark Eldar underneath.

You need an excess of twenty shots to do a single wound to the Riptide. You need to do a hundred shots to kill it. It needs two shots to kill you. Nope, Dark Eldar. Anyone else has poison in large quantities? Didn't think so.

lambsandlions wrote:I believe that the hell drake is physically stronger but the riptide is tactically stronger. With a 72'' gun and jsj you can easily play keep away from most threats. freedom of mobility and freedom of fire means that you can trick your opponent into making bad plays. The hell drake is much more straight forward as it flies over where it can do the most damage and that is about it.

Seeing the Helldrake is Str 7 and the Riptide is Str 6, you are technically correct. I'm glad you also grasp the tactical differences which make the Riptide at least 3x better.

xttz wrote:Saw this mentioned elsewhere, although I don't have a copy of the new codex to check it....

"Drones taken as upgrades for a unit act as additional squad members in all regards"
Is it true that if the Riptide loses a drone, it's forced to take a morale test due to 25% casualties?

This is true, and another reason never to take shield drones on a Riptide.

Charles Rampant wrote:This analysis is flawed. If the Helldrake cannot be assaulted, then it wins the 'assault' round. If the Helldrake is the 'best option in Fast Attack', while the Riptide competes with Crisis Suits, then the Helldrake wins that also.

I'd agree with the poster above that the comparison is a touch pointless as well. It isn't as though you can easily take both in the same army - barring Allies, but that is quite a complex comparison to then be running, determined by the purpose of the wider list.

Addressed above. Not being able to assault at all is worse than being able to be assaulted, because it isn't exactly a slouch in CC for Tau, with its 3 Str 6 AP 2 attacks.

Messy0 wrote:This discussion has alot of flaws. Most people wont run a riptide for 180pts, it will most likely be more like 200-240. To run at 180pts would be leaving off a lot of attractive wargear such as FNP, SKyfire/Intercept, Shield missile drones and more. Comparable to running a DK without a Greatsword or Personal Teleporter.
If anything on a points scale, model type (MC) and for its stats i would compare it to a Dread Knight. Very different roles but similar in many aspects (fire magnets, biggest MC's in their respective codex, both used a MC/TEQ killers.) But thats just my opinion.

Also the ignore cover save comparison is limited. Tau have a pretty reliable way of striping cover saves, in which case the Riptides large blast can do damage on par with the heldrakes flamer.

There is absolutely no reason to take additional drones, or FNP when you can spend the points elsewhere, it's already unkillable just as it is. As a skyfire vechicle it is incredibly mediocre, you have Broadsides for that. 185 points is the absolute maximum you should spend because unlike a Dreadknight, it is optimised with just the Ion upgrade.

Noirsable wrote:

 Ascalam wrote:
You can't poison a drake

Drake wins

I totally had a mental image of Marbo sneaking up on a giant robot (Riptide) and killing it with his knife...

Marbo could tie up one Riptide for two assault phases, tops? before he gets ID'd by an AP 2 blow.

Iranna wrote:

 xttz wrote:
Saw this mentioned elsewhere, although I don't have a copy of the new codex to check it....

"Drones taken as upgrades for a unit act as additional squad members in all regards"
Is it true that if the Riptide loses a drone, it's forced to take a morale test due to 25% casualties?

Yup, so the thing can potentially run off of your table edge.

Also, the Riptide can be Pinned, which is quite amusing.

Iranna.

So don't take drones. Not like it needs protection or additional firepower.

anonymou5 wrote:Well, I can't remove the Helldrake from play with JoTWW

Rune Priest: 24" Jaws of the World Wolf.
Riptide: 72" Str 8 Ap 2 (No runic armour for you) insta-death pie plate.

You're not going to get the shot off, unless you Pod in. If you fail Psychic, or he Denies, or Passes his Psychic test on a 50% chance, you kill one Riptide. And the other two pie plate you to death. Naked Rune Priest + Drop Pod = 135 points.

I can't see any easy options against the Riptide aside from Drop Pod Combi-Plasma Sternguard with a Null Zone libby (295 points) and you only get one shot at it and kill one Riptide.

to the above, you have to remember its 3x str6 ap2 attacks are at I 2.... so pretty much most chumps swing first...weight of hits is going to bring it down.... id compare it to a Hive Tyrant without a lashwhip... sure this shoots better, but a 72" gun wont help you if the board has a reasonable amount of terrain..... because lets be honest if this is un-killable... nids would be unstoppable

What chumps are going to make it into combat after three turns of triple pie plate shooting, pray tell?

rip tide is easy to kill....

well as easy as any other mostrous creature, IE dreadknight or nids or something....

high str low ap guns or force weapons FTW


every codex will have a helldrake/riptide/dreadknight/ect now I think,

tau are the (first perhaps of many?) balancer against the flyer heavy lists, now the meta will change because flyer spam actually has a rock to its scissors finally.

Easy there tough guy. Comparing stats is one thing. Getting it on the table in an actual game is completely different. People crapped on the heldrake til it hit the table. Lets calm down and see what it plays like before freaking out.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
What chumps are going to make it into combat after three turns of triple pie plate shooting, pray tell?

if your running 3 of these puppies in a list you will have very happy opponents.... cos you will sink a lot of points into them.... and no pathfinders....

and just remember 30% chance to fail charging to fire those pie plates and the penalty is one of your 5 wounds.... no saves of any kind allowed.....

easysauce wrote:
rip tide is easy to kill....

well as easy as any other mostrous creature, IE dreadknight or nids or something....

high str low ap guns or force weapons FTW

Brb getting my plasma gun that can shoot around cover.

"No solution to T6 2+ MC" is hardly the analysis I'd give. There are plenty of weapons that can handle it. This is just a knee jerk reaction to the increasing prevalence of MC's in army's that traditionally didn't have it. Don't like it, change your meta, include more force weapons or some such in your list, or just tarpit it.

Besides, now that the Tau vehicles got worse, you're going to need a target for your anti-tank weapons. The Riptide's not a very easy unit to hide.

Also, if the guy is taking 3 riptides, that's 600-ish points that prevent him from taking decent quantities of crisis suits. And, if the riptide is overcharging his reactor every turn to keep up a 3++ save, he's going to kill himself, much less lose firepower.

This guys tough, not THAT tough. Poisoned gants, enfeebled and smash, or just ignore and Dakka all work. If I see one, I do the same as versus all tau. Kill the troops and bunker down while every non scoring unit rushes him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This guys tough, not THAT tough. Poisoned gants, enfeebled and smash, or just ignore and Dakka all work. If I see one, I do the same as versus all tau. Kill the troops and bunker down while every non scoring unit rushes him.

easysauce wrote:rip tide is easy to kill....

well as easy as any other mostrous creature, IE dreadknight or nids or something....

high str low ap guns or force weapons FTW


every codex will have a helldrake/riptide/dreadknight/ect now I think,

tau are the (first perhaps of many?) balancer against the flyer heavy lists, now the meta will change because flyer spam actually has a rock to its scissors finally.

Sure, walk your 24" plasma weapons at me as I shoot you from 72" away and jump backwards 2-4D6 every turn.
Yes, Deepstrike your terminators next to me so I can interceptor and drop a plasma pie plate on them.

How are your force weapons ever going to make it into combat, pray tell? How are you short-range hightstr AP2 weapons going to reach it?

if your running 3 of these puppies in a list you will have very happy opponents.... cos you will sink a lot of points into them.... and no pathfinders....

and just remember 30% chance to fail charging to fire those pie plates and the penalty is one of your 5 wounds.... no saves of any kind allowed.....

rip tide is easy to kill....

well as easy as any other mostrous creature, IE dreadknight or nids or something....

high str low ap guns or force weapons FTW

3 Riptides is 555 points exactly, 1/3 of your list at 1500 and 1/4 at 2000, which is exactly how many points Elites should take up.

Pathfinders are FA, you can take them regardless. You don't Nova charge the pie plate unless shooting at vehicles, you simply overcharge which is a 1/36 chance.
You don't Nova charge every turn either, only the turn when the enemy has covered enough distance to shoot at you. Nids don't get a 3++ invuln, and neither do Dreadknights. Neither can sit 72" away and shoot you. Lascannons have a range of 48", mind.

You think Monstrous Creatures are easy to kill because Dreadknights and TMCs have short ranged weapons which have to walk up to you to do dmg. The Riptide outranges your longest range weapon by 24".

Xyrael wrote:"No solution to T6 2+ MC" is hardly the analysis I'd give. There are plenty of weapons that can handle it. This is just a knee jerk reaction to the increasing prevalence of MC's in army's that traditionally didn't have it. Don't like it, change your meta, include more force weapons or some such in your list, or just tarpit it.

Besides, now that the Tau vehicles got worse, you're going to need a target for your anti-tank weapons. The Riptide's not a very easy unit to hide.

Also, if the guy is taking 3 riptides, that's 600-ish points that prevent him from taking decent quantities of crisis suits. And, if the riptide is overcharging his reactor every turn to keep up a 3++ save, he's going to kill himself, much less lose firepower.

How do you target something that outranges your short-ranged plasma by 3x and can move 6" +2-4d6" and shoot? Your weapons don't have infinite range.
How do you get your librarian into assault with it?
How do you tarpit something you will never catch in assault with horde?

3 Riptides is 555 points. You can take Crisis suits in your HQ unit in large quantities, and in any case Crisis suits are rubbish compared to Riptides.

Like I pointed out, you only need to charge when you're in danger, and most of the time you outrange everything that is shooting at you.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Wilytank wrote:

 Charles Rampant wrote:
This analysis is flawed. If the Helldrake cannot be assaulted, then it wins the 'assault' round. If the Helldrake is the 'best option in Fast Attack', while the Riptide competes with Crisis Suits, then the Helldrake wins that also.

Well, if he goes into Hover Mode (which people will do to keep him on the board to make another Flamer attack instead of losing a turn of doing that), then he's a fast skimmer which can be assaulted. Not sure if he gets any extra rules for assault, but if he's just a regular fast skimmer he can't attack back.

It will be very rare that someone will drop the Heldrake into hover mode unless its close to the end game and it just needs one more flamer shot to kill something.

Or remove the most threatening thing (i.e. my Long Fangs) before going back into zoom next turn. Every game I've played against drakes, there were always two of them. I did at best a penetrating Stunned (which was subsequentially ignored due to Daemon Possession).

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

anonymou5 wrote:Well, I can't remove the Helldrake from play with JoTWW

Rune Priest: 24" Jaws of the World Wolf.
Riptide: 72" Str 8 Ap 2 (No runic armour for you) insta-death pie plate.

You're not going to get the shot off, unless you Pod in. If you fail Psychic, or he Denies, or Passes his Psychic test on a 50% chance, you kill one Riptide. And the other two pie plate you to death. Naked Rune Priest + Drop Pod = 135 points.

He probably will be Podding in and if luck is on the side of the honorable (or rather the Tau player is pressed for room), he can line up two or even all three that way. Works better against Nids' Tervigons though.

And why can't Dark Eldar handle it with poison? The only weapon you mention is the Splinter Cannon, but that isn't the only poison gun they have. A bunch of Reaver Jetbikes with TL Splinter Rifles are much more capable at bringing down MCs.

You misquoted me. I never said such a thing!

 jifel wrote:
This guys tough, not THAT tough. Poisoned gants, enfeebled and smash, or just ignore and Dakka all work. If I see one, I do the same as versus all tau. Kill the troops and bunker down while every non scoring unit rushes him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This guys tough, not THAT tough. Poisoned gants, enfeebled and smash, or just ignore and Dakka all work. If I see one, I do the same as versus all tau. Kill the troops and bunker down while every non scoring unit rushes him.

Poisoned Gants are not going to get anywhere near it. You can't ignore it, because it's dropping 3x pie plate on you every turn. The only thing that stands a chance is Winged Hive Tyrant assaulting it, but congrats you're tying up a 185 point unit with a 260 point unit and nerfing your own firepower the rest of the game.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wilytank wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Wilytank wrote:

 Charles Rampant wrote:
This analysis is flawed. If the Helldrake cannot be assaulted, then it wins the 'assault' round. If the Helldrake is the 'best option in Fast Attack', while the Riptide competes with Crisis Suits, then the Helldrake wins that also.

Well, if he goes into Hover Mode (which people will do to keep him on the board to make another Flamer attack instead of losing a turn of doing that), then he's a fast skimmer which can be assaulted. Not sure if he gets any extra rules for assault, but if he's just a regular fast skimmer he can't attack back.

It will be very rare that someone will drop the Heldrake into hover mode unless its close to the end game and it just needs one more flamer shot to kill something.

Or remove the most threatening thing (i.e. my Long Fangs) before going back into zoom next turn. Every game I've played against drakes, there were always two of them. I did at best a penetrating Stunned (which was subsequentially ignored due to Daemon Possession).

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

anonymou5 wrote:Well, I can't remove the Helldrake from play with JoTWW

Rune Priest: 24" Jaws of the World Wolf.
Riptide: 72" Str 8 Ap 2 (No runic armour for you) insta-death pie plate.

You're not going to get the shot off, unless you Pod in. If you fail Psychic, or he Denies, or Passes his Psychic test on a 50% chance, you kill one Riptide. And the other two pie plate you to death. Naked Rune Priest + Drop Pod = 135 points.

He probably will be Podding in and if luck is on the side of the honorable (or rather the Tau player is pressed for room), he can line up two or even all three that way. Works better against Nids' Tervigons though.

And why can't Dark Eldar handle it with poison? The only weapon you mention is the Splinter Cannon, but that isn't the only poison gun they have. A bunch of Reaver Jetbikes with TL Splinter Rifles are much more capable at bringing down MCs.

Guess who can take Interceptor on every unit now?

I highly doubt the Tau player is going to line them up neatly so you can JOTWW all three if he's decent. In any case, you lose the librarian and anything with him for half a chance of killing a single 185 point unit.

Dark Eldar can't kill it with poison because of 2+. It takes statistically 100 splinter shots to kill it, and a Splinter weaponry has far less range than the Riptide- even night shields are useless. A strong Dark Eldar list can put out maybe 60-80 poisoned shots on the first turn, and then they die horribly to massed plasma.

You are seriously overestimating the power of this thing.

Yeah it's tough, really tough, but take off the red-tinted glasses and see that it can still die like any other MC. It takes a bit more firepower to take it down thanks to the annoying JSJ, but it can still die. Remember, boards have terrain. On a flat board with no cover, this thing is nearly unkillable. But if you bring one of the boards my FLGS plays with, good luck getting LOS until they are inside 24".

I'm smelling so much bias, but that's a different story. On paper, this thing is AWESOME. But in practicality, you have to remember most scenarios aren't going to give you the best possible outcome and things like cover, LOS, and dice rolling need to be taken into account.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Cost

Defence.
Helldrake: Av 12/12/10, 5++, 3HP, Flyer (6's to hit), It Will Not Die (Regens a HP on a 5+ at the end of the turn), rest of the codex is an utter b**ch to deal with (4++ and FnP spam).
Riptides: T6 W5 2+ 5++ (3++)
Winner: Helldrake - it's going to take more than half you army to reliably gun down, and the rest of the codex will beat the snot out of you as you do so.

I'm really not seeing why the Riptide is scarier than the Dreadknight. At least the Dreadknight doesn't have 1/3 a chance to fail upping its save and hurting itself. JSJ'ing away is fine and all, but it doesn't change the fact that no matter where the Riptide is on the board it will never be unable to be shot at by a lascannon because it's just so big.

My strategy for taking it down will probably involve forcing the Tau player to roll his dice to up his save to 3++. When he fails and wounds himself, I'll focus that Riptide down. When he succeeds, I'll shoot something else. It's not like the Tau are going to have a lot of other targets to shoot lascannons at if they're taking 3 Riptides.

Mate, you keep banging on about the 72" thing. How big is your board? Unless you flee the entire length of the table, you don't have that much to escape from enemy weapons.

I can see any CSM army with some thought behind it beating the balls out of the riptide.
This army has the following options:

-Bring so much 4++ save that the Tau guns are made pointless
-Spam cultists/csm/autocannons and pour out so many shots it's statistically impossible to survive
-Send in a Daemon Prince (assuming it's not shot down)
-Use Abby in melee (Raider it's ass to oblivion)
-Take the Riptide's size into account and snipe with Lascannons (Cheap Predator Annihilator ftw!)
-Ally with orks for additional cannon fodder
-Use PM's to tarpit the Riptide.
-Spam Heldrakes and ignore the Riptide
-Pieplate the rest of the army with Vindicators/Defilers/Missile Launchers/Havoc Launchers. You can't hold objectives without troops.

The problem is you're assuming all your solutions for short range MCs like Tervigons, Carnifexes, and Dreadknights work because they have to move into rapid-fire range of your Plasma et.al. to do damage.

This is a standard 6'4' Tournament table and terrain, from Adepticon 2012.


Two Riptides go in one corner, the other one in the other.

Your Lascannons have to deploy on the front line if they want to shoot one corner, and will be completely outranged by the other. Your Devastators will be dead by turn three, because 3 Pie Plates> Lascannons against a 3++ invuln. And Riptides can move and shoot, while you cannot reposition or have to snap shot.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

Xyrael wrote:
I'm really not seeing why the Riptide is scarier than the Dreadknight. At least the Dreadknight doesn't have 1/3 a chance to fail upping its save and hurting itself. JSJ'ing away is fine and all, but it doesn't change the fact that no matter where the Riptide is on the board it will never be unable to be shot at by a lascannon because it's just so big.

My strategy for taking it down will probably involve forcing the Tau player to roll his dice to up his save to 3++. When he fails and wounds himself, I'll focus that Riptide down. When he succeeds, I'll shoot something else. It's not like the Tau are going to have a lot of other targets to shoot lascannons at if they're taking 3 Riptides.

This is a good strategy, but how many Lascannons do you field?

It takes an MEQ Lascannon 15 shots on average to kill a non-nova'd Riptide, and since you cannot mitigate its firepower by stunning it, it will shoot back.

That Chaos list is kind of feeble. I doubt any assault option aside from the DP will make it remotely close to combat, and the Riptide outshoots everything else the CSM can throw at it.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Selym wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Cost

Defence.
Helldrake: Av 12/12/10, 5++, 3HP, Flyer (6's to hit), It Will Not Die (Regens a HP on a 5+ at the end of the turn), rest of the codex is an utter b**ch to deal with (4++ and FnP spam).
Riptides: T6 W5 2+ 5++ (3++)
Winner: Helldrake - it's going to take more than half you army to reliably gun down, and the rest of the codex will beat the snot out of you as you do so.

What utter rot. Any suitably equipped with AA army (Sabre defence, Contemptor Mortis, Hyperios Launchers) doesn't fear Heldrakes. There are easy solutions to Helldrakes.

There aren't any easy solutions to Range 72" MCs with 2+ 3++ that can JSJ.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I'm not saying that it's impossible to kill, I'm saying it's the next Helldrake-level uber cheese unit that people should and will spam in threes.

No combination of Crisis suits for 555 points puts out as much fire or has equal durability as three Riptides.

I'm not hugely worried in my meta because I play on tables the size of postage stamps, but 6'4' could be real trouble.

I agree with most of what Asmodai here is preaching.

The thing that is irrelevant though is whether the Riptide is 'better' than the Heldrake or not. They belong to different armies so unless you're thinking which army to ally with then the question is pointless.

The important thing to understand here though is that just like the Heldrake, the Riptide is the best unit in its own army codex, and that it will be taken in threes by practically every semi or fully competitive player all over the world. It'll take some people a bit more time to understand but in the end everyone's spamming these things.

Asmodai has gone through pretty much all the pros and cons of this thing except that the Riptide's ion weapon with great AP really benefits from friendly marker lights that remove the cover saves from the Riptide's targets. When you factor that stuff in the output becomes more fearsome.

I also agree that 555 points (tbh they will cost a bit more than 555 since you'll buy FNP and interceptor for each one) isn't a big investment at all in 1850 points when you consider what you get. I think three Riptides, especially if they're getting cover saves from something, are pretty much impossible to be shot down in a competitive game. By impossible I mean horribly points inefficient, so just by making the decision to shoot them you're already losing the game.

How I've adjusted my competitive Necron army is dropped all Stormteks and the foot lord and lead the army with a single Destroyer Lord and bumped the assault element to 16 Wraiths. I still get 5 flyers and 3 Barges and plenty of boys with these in 1.85K. I wouldn't be surprised if one or two Riptides survive every game but I'm still confident the game is winnable by a good enough margin.

lol really?

something with the same stat line as a dreadknight but +1 wound is now unkillable?

cover??? really, on a rip tide? good luck with that.

yes its a great unit, but op? not even close

yes... if you can only think of walking 24" plasma gunners up to it, you are SOL.. because thats a horrible strategy for anything, let alone the rip tide. Assuming hat gian model will always be behind cover is also just more debbie downer talk

last I checked, lascannons are still going to cover the whole board, and really? you wonder how in the heck im going to get a force weapon into CC with a rip tide? its not that hard... transports, jet packs, deep strike, and so on and so on.

for example... 3 riptides = 555
3 dreadknigghts, 2 with jump packs, = 540pts

the rips will get one turn to somehow do 12 2+/5++ wounds, magically somewhow with their "invicible pie plates that nothing can survive"

turn 2 two rips will die to the DK, turn three the last one dies with two dread knights left over.

same thing with any FMC, FPC or anything with mobility and hitting power (which is plenty)

Its not hard to get cover even for a model that big, you only need to cover 25%. If you can't cover 25% of that thing you need more terrain.

My Dreadknights are always getting cover saves.


of course with a 5+ invuln unless there are Ruins on the table your cover will likely be the same as the invuln anyway.

What about the simple terminators with storm shields and thunder hammers, or just hordes of orks? You aint going to kill that many ork boys at 180pts for 30, or what about pycannons, or a vanguard veteran squad, or draigo or even better lysander with his storms shield buddies? running 3, leaves you with little pts for anti air or any other shizzle in 1500pts? And because tournament boards are so small you are going to get assaulted by so many things that don't care if you kill 20 of them per turn.

The Riptide isn't meant to kill TH/SS terminators, nothing with AP2 weapons should try to kill TH/SS terminators. TH/SS is the counter to AP2 weaponry.

You kill them with volume of fire, shoot your Firewarriors at them.

But how many fire warriors and markerlights you going to have if you spent at least 600 pts on mc? you gonna need large volumes of fire to deal with that. Having3 uber unit is asking for some on to be that 1 person that is really good them units and wipe them out with ease, having 1 or 2 yes, but 3 is just silly!

Or what about landraiders, if you meet a landraider its gonna be in ur face unless you have a hammerhead, which is unlikely, ur gonna be trying with a str 9 ordance which is unlikely to hurt it, while it either hurts you with lascannons or lets out a nice assault unit.

12 Fire Warriors using a single Markerlight to go the BS4 will kill 1 terminator at long range a round. You should have 2 turns of shooting at long range and 2 at short range. Thats 6 dead TH/SS terminators from a single fire warrior squad before they get butchered in melee. Assuming the Terminators are gunning for the fire warriors, which is unlikely.

Thats only 120ish points depending on exact upgrades to kill 240 points of Terminators.

The Riptide can use its fast movement to avoid melee threats and focus on its targets.



And you will be taking Hammerheads. From the look of it the competitive layout will be 1 squad of Broadsides with Skyfire upgrade and a couple Hammerheads for long range anti-tank. The broadsides can still take out medium and light vehicles as well.

And what game do you play where terminators are not going to deepstrike? and if they don't you are not going to get 4 turns of shooting at them, at max your 30 inches away, if I run that's only 3 turns till I get to you. And if I use a landraider, which you will have little to counter i can easily catch you!

 samuele999 wrote:
And what game do you play where terminators are not going to deepstrike? and if they don't you are not going to get 4 turns of shooting at them, at max your 30 inches away, if I run that's only 3 turns till I get to you. And if I use a landraider, which you will have little to counter i can easily catch you!

Deep Striking is a bad idea most of the time. A unit with a footprint that big and that vulnerable to torrents of fire is going to be toast.

Deep Strike is not the amazing tactical tool that GW and many newbs think it is, its an occasionally useful ability.

So much bickering and theory hammer in this thread. I dont find the comparison between the riptide and heldrake informative at all. Taking 3 riptides is a huge amount of points for only 3 models, I dont think it will be nearly as hard to kill as some people say.

If there is a lot of terrain on the board then the riptide will be hampered somewhat where it can move. People assuming its going to get cover saves must be assuming whatever is shooting at it is not moving.

JWhex wrote:
So much bickering and theory hammer in this thread. I dont find the comparison between the riptide and heldrake informative at all. Taking 3 riptides is a huge amount of points for only 3 models, I dont think it will be nearly as hard to kill as some people say.

If there is a lot of terrain on the board then the riptide will be hampered somewhat where it can move. People assuming its going to get cover saves must be assuming whatever is shooting at it is not moving.

The Riptide has a Jetpack move, of course we will assume its going to get cover saves. Jump, Shoot, Jump. Its what Tau do.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:Riptide T6

I can kill it with lasguns.

That is all that matters.

It WILL happen

yeah, but its even more unlikely than killing the Dreadknight. It can get FnP on top of the good save.

It's a close call now, but I think the Riptide will end up victorious in the long term. The Heldrake's big advantage is that it's a flier and hence most things have to snap-fire at it. But as more and more armies get updated, we'll see more and more fliers which is more stuff in the sky that can take down the Heldrake.

A Dreadknight kills a Riptide. A Dreadknight can not kill a heldrake.

Heldrake wins.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

 jifel wrote:
This guys tough, not THAT tough. Poisoned gants, enfeebled and smash, or just ignore and Dakka all work. If I see one, I do the same as versus all tau. Kill the troops and bunker down while every non scoring unit rushes him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This guys tough, not THAT tough. Poisoned gants, enfeebled and smash, or just ignore and Dakka all work. If I see one, I do the same as versus all tau. Kill the troops and bunker down while every non scoring unit rushes him.

Poisoned Gants are not going to get anywhere near it. You can't ignore it, because it's dropping 3x pie plate on you every turn. The only thing that stands a chance is Winged Hive Tyrant assaulting it, but congrats you're tying up a 185 point unit with a 260 point unit and nerfing your own firepower the rest of the game.

Ymgarl Genestealers could do well, or the Doom. Let's make that bad boy take two 3d6 leadership checks, then take some Ymgarls to the chin. Hes tied up in assault for at least one turn, at which point it's a third Ld check before he gets to even shoot the doom.

But, I think I could ignore it. I have plenty of gants, and I can kill his troops well enough.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Your Lascannons have to deploy on the front line if they want to shoot one corner, and will be completely outranged by the other. Your Devastators will be dead by turn three, because 3 Pie Plates> Lascannons against a 3++ invuln. And Riptides can move and shoot, while you cannot reposition or have to snap shot.

It's either the pie plates or the 3++, not both in one turn. This makes a significant difference.

 Grey Templar wrote:

JWhex wrote:
So much bickering and theory hammer in this thread. I dont find the comparison between the riptide and heldrake informative at all. Taking 3 riptides is a huge amount of points for only 3 models, I dont think it will be nearly as hard to kill as some people say.

If there is a lot of terrain on the board then the riptide will be hampered somewhat where it can move. People assuming its going to get cover saves must be assuming whatever is shooting at it is not moving.

The Riptide has a Jetpack move, of course we will assume its going to get cover saves. Jump, Shoot, Jump. Its what Tau do.

*that awkward moment when snake eyes are staring at you when you JSJ*

You know, even with 4d6 roll, there's still *that chance* that you land on the cover you plan to hide behind. With the base of this thing the size that it is, that's all the more likely.

The Heldrake is still inevitably more survivable than the Riptide. People have ways to get weapons with instant death on the board, ala psykers, or necrons can tarpit you with scarabs and take away your armor save, in which case you're almost naked. Heldrake can't be assaulted by scarabs, can't have a force weapon ID, and has a 5++ with basically FnP in "It Will not Die!", which is still cheaper than if you got your riptide with FnP.

Therion wrote:I agree with most of what Asmodai here is preaching.

The thing that is irrelevant though is whether the Riptide is 'better' than the Heldrake or not. They belong to different armies so unless you're thinking which army to ally with then the question is pointless.

The important thing to understand here though is that just like the Heldrake, the Riptide is the best unit in its own army codex, and that it will be taken in threes by practically every semi or fully competitive player all over the world. It'll take some people a bit more time to understand but in the end everyone's spamming these things.

Asmodai has gone through pretty much all the pros and cons of this thing except that the Riptide's ion weapon with great AP really benefits from friendly marker lights that remove the cover saves from the Riptide's targets. When you factor that stuff in the output becomes more fearsome.

I also agree that 555 points (tbh they will cost a bit more than 555 since you'll buy FNP and interceptor for each one) isn't a big investment at all in 1850 points when you consider what you get. I think three Riptides, especially if they're getting cover saves from something, are pretty much impossible to be shot down in a competitive game. By impossible I mean horribly points inefficient, so just by making the decision to shoot them you're already losing the game.

How I've adjusted my competitive Necron army is dropped all Stormteks and the foot lord and lead the army with a single Destroyer Lord and bumped the assault element to 16 Wraiths. I still get 5 flyers and 3 Barges and plenty of boys with these in 1.85K. I wouldn't be surprised if one or two Riptides survive every game but I'm still confident the game is winnable by a good enough margin.

Thank you Therion, it's nice to have somebody who actually understands how 40k works when played competitively. I wasn't sure how markerlights worked but I know they can remove your cover save entirely for two markerlights; this is brutal.

I'm not sure about FNP because it's 35 points, but interceptor is a no brainer for 5 points. Any Drop Pod armies/Deep Strikers would be utterly shafted by Intercepting Riptides dropping AP2 pie plate. Question being, can you Nova/overcharge in your opponent's turn?

Points inefficiency, exactly the concept that these people fail to grasp. Shooting the Riptide is already fail that will cost games.

I don't feel Necrons matches up well against the new tau (Skyfire aplenty, ID on your Wraiths from pie-plate Riptides, Annihilation Barges utterly outranged by everything in the codex) as missile/ rail broadsides utterly shaft your flyers and the ABs can't really hurt armour 13 or Riptides reliably.

easysauce wrote:lol really?

something with the same stat line as a dreadknight but +1 wound is now unkillable?

cover??? really, on a rip tide? good luck with that.

yes its a great unit, but op? not even close

yes... if you can only think of walking 24" plasma gunners up to it, you are SOL.. because thats a horrible strategy for anything, let alone the rip tide. Assuming hat gian model will always be behind cover is also just more debbie downer talk

last I checked, lascannons are still going to cover the whole board, and really? you wonder how in the heck im going to get a force weapon into CC with a rip tide? its not that hard... transports, jet packs, deep strike, and so on and so on.

for example... 3 riptides = 555
3 dreadknigghts, 2 with jump packs, = 540pts

the rips will get one turn to somehow do 12 2+/5++ wounds, magically somewhow with their "invicible pie plates that nothing can survive"

turn 2 two rips will die to the DK, turn three the last one dies with two dread knights left over.

same thing with any FMC, FPC or anything with mobility and hitting power (which is plenty)

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Dark Eldar can't kill it with poison because of 2+.

Put a six man squad of terminators in the same firing line and see how long they fare against massed twin linked s4 fire.

 Grey Templar wrote:
yeah, but its even more unlikely than killing the Dreadknight. It can get FnP on top of the good save.

But I can kill it.

All I need to do is roll +4 to hit, 6's to wound, and 1's to fail, and then fail a +5? Then do that 5 times?

That's what FRFSRF is for!

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
I don't feel Necrons matches up well against the new tau (Skyfire aplenty, ID on your Wraiths from pie-plate Riptides, Annihilation Barges utterly outranged by everything in the codex) as missile/ rail broadsides utterly shaft your flyers and the ABs can't really hurt armour 13 or Riptides reliably.

I see where you're coming from, but I think they match well enough. It's a reasonably close game but at this point, before seeing fine tuned 1850p Tau take on all comers lists that can win reliably against everyone, and having played against them, I wouldn't call Tau even a soft counter against Necrons, just a good matchup which they should be.

Regarding what you said, we're currently in the phase where noone is actually making refined tournament lists and are instead just throwing wild claims what the Tau will have: "They got a million Crisis suits and HQ suits with missiles and skyfire and fusion blasters galore and three Riptides and 30 marker lights and a massive amount of scoring units and a million Missilesides with missile drones and did I forget everything in the army has skyfire and interceptor aaarrggh!".

Yeah. It remains to be seen how much skyfire lists will actually end up having. Currently it looks like 2, max 3 units will have skyfire, unless you know what you're playing against and are just tooling up. How is that any different than Necrons playing against armies with many opposing flyers? It isn't. Flyers that are underpriced by arguably as much as 40 or 50 points each just don't care. The so called ID on Wraiths from nova charged pie plates is an absolute joke of course. Tons of weapons in the game can do this, but a 35 point lightning fast model that gets into close combat during turn 2 with a 3+ invulnerable save isn't really worried about instant death once in a blue moon. They'll spread out coherency, take their licks, and hit home. Wraiths are underpriced by a large margin as it is.

Annihilation Barges won't lack range during the game. Seriously, that just doesn't happen when you just deploy them centrally near the edge of your zone and move from there when necessary. They won't be able to pick the best target every turn but they'll shoot every turn regardless, and if you haven't played against competitive Necrons before and like mathhammer, check how many missile pods you need to average the same amount of hits as for example 9 TL Tesla Destructors (the standard amount). That's ~50 S7 hits and an undefined amount of S5 arc hits. We're not even counting the S6 Tesla Cannons from the same vehicles. This is from an army that brings 30-40 T4 (or T6) wounds with 3+ invulnerable saves to close combat turn 2. There's a lot of ways to win, either by focusing on the scoring units in Tau list or by taking out all the Crisis teams/skyfiring models (it's like killing Marines) and other support first and letting the Riptides shoot their template untill the Wraiths can mob them. It depends on the terrain, the mission, who gets first turn and the what the Tau army actually has, but I see it as a good game, nothing worse than that.

A much better question is: How are Tau going to kill Riptides? Assuming lists are similar on both sides all they'll do is tickle eachother for 6 turns and the one with some Kroot or FW alive at the end of the game wins, and there's a good chance neither player will have anything scoring alive.

It's like the Three Billy Goats Gruff in here. Well my turn to cross the bridge.

Anyways this thing is not the end all, Tau got a decent unit and now the younglings are getting all uppity. It CAN and WILL die. I'm guessing also you still scatter, secondly have fun with Drop Pods.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
yeah, but its even more unlikely than killing the Dreadknight. It can get FnP on top of the good save.

But I can kill it.

All I need to do is roll +4 to hit, 6's to wound, and 1's to fail, and then fail a +5? Then do that 5 times?

That's what FRFSRF is for!

Indeed, show them silly Tau what real marker lights do!

 Grey Templar wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
yeah, but its even more unlikely than killing the Dreadknight. It can get FnP on top of the good save.

But I can kill it.

All I need to do is roll +4 to hit, 6's to wound, and 1's to fail, and then fail a +5? Then do that 5 times?

That's what FRFSRF is for!

Indeed, show them silly Tau what real marker lights do!

50 man blob, 150 shots, 75 hits, 13 wounds, 2 failed saves, maybe one passes FNP.

So the solution is simple. 5 blobs.

Give it two months and the new riptide will be that giant wraitbone construct.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

jifel wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

 jifel wrote:
This guys tough, not THAT tough. Poisoned gants, enfeebled and smash, or just ignore and Dakka all work. If I see one, I do the same as versus all tau. Kill the troops and bunker down while every non scoring unit rushes him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This guys tough, not THAT tough. Poisoned gants, enfeebled and smash, or just ignore and Dakka all work. If I see one, I do the same as versus all tau. Kill the troops and bunker down while every non scoring unit rushes him.

Poisoned Gants are not going to get anywhere near it. You can't ignore it, because it's dropping 3x pie plate on you every turn. The only thing that stands a chance is Winged Hive Tyrant assaulting it, but congrats you're tying up a 185 point unit with a 260 point unit and nerfing your own firepower the rest of the game.

Ymgarl Genestealers could do well, or the Doom. Let's make that bad boy take two 3d6 leadership checks, then take some Ymgarls to the chin. Hes tied up in assault for at least one turn, at which point it's a third Ld check before he gets to even shoot the doom.

But, I think I could ignore it. I have plenty of gants, and I can kill his troops well enough.

Doom of Malantai comes down... and gets annihilated by interceptor from all the Tau units. Oh, you didn't even get to my shooting phase. How many wounds was it you had before Spirit Leech?

Ymargl could pop out and... oh wait. BS 2 Overwatch from three supporting units. How many Ymargls did you put in that unit again?

You won't have plenty of gants for long with the amount of pie-plate and submunitions rounds dropping on them.

You know, it's a lot harder than you think to kill the Doom... Lets see what you could intercept me with. Note that I'm not quite familiar with the book yet, but Broadsides can get interceptor or sky fire yes? If you have interceptor ,my Flyrants will have fun. But they'll probably have sky fire, so maybe you have one crisis team, and the Riptide in range? Dooms got good odds of living. Then, one 3d6 ld check. What's the Riptides Ld anyway? But, Psychic shriek then hits him for a second check. If you're using that full 72" range you won't have too many units nearby within 6" for extra over watch. If they are, then they're also in Doom range, so thanks! And I always bring two Ymgarl squads. Lets say the Riptide over watches, he'll probably kill one, MAYBE 2. At this point he's down a few wounds, then takes some gene stealers and dies in 1-2 rounds.

The while point you've been making is that the Riptide can hide really far back to shoot, but if he does there'll be nothing near enough to help him overwatch. And even if I don't touch him, I bet that I can spawn more gants than a few blasts can kill. Spread out in terrain, boom.

Sure, maybe you'll get lucky and kill the Doom. But you won't always. Sometimes I'll kill it the Riptide. Either way, it's not broken, or even close to it. Then again, the Heldrake isn't either in my mind.

just to be clear, your gonna take interceptor and shoot that, then no shooting in your next turn?

your also gonna run that thing via JSJ from your starting area into mine to avoid what comes down board at you.... that might not be a good idea.... run from the pan straight into the fire..

this thing is twice the height of an XV88 and its mass is all at the top, cover saves wont be toooo likely here those legs are NOT 25% of the mass of the unit...

give it a game or 2 you'll see just how stupid taking 3 is and we wont here this preaching of the new messiah.

so to drop your plates you need to pass a gets hot (1/6 of failing, you dont have TL) then you need a 2/6 to get your direct hit, if you miss you need to roll under 3 on 2d6 the average is 7 so you'll scatter on average 4" and if you opponent is competent then odds are youll hit a couple of thing just not as much as you hope.....

IF you do Nova charge the shots thats a 2/6 of failing the nova-charge and taking a wound AND not being able to give yourself a 3++ , then you need to pass a 1/6 gets hot.... (sounds ALMOST like a Zoanthrope) before you get to fire and face the same scatter dramas just with the advantage of a little more blast area to help you hit what you originally shot at.

time to wake up and smell the roses... this thing is good but it is not the second coming. it will die just like every other unit of its type.

'Splinter Cannon: 36" Range. Does 0.05 wounds to a Riptide per shot. Ion Cannon: 72" Str 7 Ap 2 Heavy 3, or Str 8 Ap 2 Blast, or Str 9 Ap 2 Ordnance blast. Does 0.67 glances/pens and 0.87 wounds to Venoms/Dark Eldar underneath.

You need an excess of twenty shots to do a single wound to the Riptide. You need to do a hundred shots to kill it. It needs two shots to kill you. Nope, Dark Eldar. Anyone else has poison in large quantities? Didn't think so. '

You're missing a few things.

DE vehicles tend towards invulnerable saves, and blasts don't always land where you want them to.

It would take a fair few shots to land a wound on the Riptide with poison. This is quite true. We'll assume your figure of 20 shots per wound is accurate (closer to 18 i think, but hey..)

It isn't hard to get that many shots off. Venoms crank out 12 shots a turn. I can run silly amounts of venoms for cheap, and you can only target one per turn

That discounts the raiders full of splinter-toting warriors, who can crank out in excess of 40 splinter shots a turn, and i usually take mine with Splinter racks, so the percentage of hits will be a lot higher.

Then add in the raiders full of wracks who can zoom towards you and whack you with poisoned sickles.

Also DE aren't exactly short of AP 2 weaponry, and aren't shy in using it. Every raider is packing an AP2 weapon

Now granted the whole army isn't going to be aiming just for the riptide, badass as it is, because it can only target one vehicle at a time, and that vehicle will likely shrug a hit 1/3 of the time. Sacrificing a few raiders or venoms is no big deal.

The Riptide will feth over whatever it shoots. Fair enough. But can it feth EVERYTHING over simultaneously. Can it, for example feth over 2-3 raiders full of wracks zooming after it at the same time at different vectors, then dropping poisoned troops to mess it up ? How many can it kill in CC at a time?

If it really is as studly as you make it out to be it will have a single turn of being splintered and darklighted to death, and then the DE will go back to business as usual.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, as you asked:

Nurgle daemons are poison-heavy IIRC, and rather sturdy.

Eldar Pathfinder Sniper-spam would eat the thing alive.

Realistically, Combi Plas heavy sternguard in drop dops will be the thing to kill riptides, which may include lysander for better hits.

Quick Mathhammer:
20 RF from 10 Combi-plas sternguard

20(Shots) * 0.667(chance to hit) * 0.667(chance to wound) * 0.667(chance to not save w/ no nova) = ~5 wounds in one shooting phase, which is enough to bring down a dangerous unit that can hurt a large part of your army.

Only caveat is the cost, which for 10 combi-plas sterns is pretty expensive, 335 points for 10 men w/ combi-plas & DP to be exact.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
5 w/ combi-plas nets about 3 unsaved wounds, which at 185 points + DP is pretty cheap. This combined with a few other things shooting can kill a riptide turn one if you go first. If they survive the counter shooting, then you get to bury the soft Tau Backfield in Kraken bolts

Personally, i'm looking forward to turning the Riptide into a glass sculpture with Hexrifles and carting it home to Commoragh

 Ascalam wrote:
The Riptide will feth over whatever it shoots. Fair enough. But can it feth EVERYTHING over simultaneously. Can it, for example feth over 2-3 raiders full of wracks zooming after it at the same time at different vectors, then dropping poisoned troops to mess it up ? How many can it kill in CC at a time?

Ding ding ding.

It's an expensive unit that can kill something dead. That goes for a lot of stuff in this game. There's going to be more than 1 unit in the enemy army, and no smart general is just going to present the Riptide with an unobstructed view of his best unit.

I think the biggest shock here is GW finally put a big killy monstrous creature in the game that's worth the points you pay for it.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Ascalam wrote:
The Riptide will feth over whatever it shoots. Fair enough. But can it feth EVERYTHING over simultaneously. Can it, for example feth over 2-3 raiders full of wracks zooming after it at the same time at different vectors, then dropping poisoned troops to mess it up ? How many can it kill in CC at a time?

Ding ding ding.

It's an expensive unit that can kill something dead. That goes for a lot of stuff in this game. There's going to be more than 1 unit in the enemy army, and no smart general is just going to present the Riptide with an unobstructed view of his best unit.

I think the biggest shock here is GW finally put a big killy monstrous creature in the game that's worth the points you pay for it.

You mean, besides the Dreadknight?

I think you're seriously over riptide with ion accelerator when comparing it to the baleflamer. First, after you've successfully passed your nova reactor roll, you have to roll to scatter the pie plate then you roll to wound, then you're opponent (may) get cover. Yes, markerlights can increase BS and remove cover saves, but I doubt you're going to be able to paint enough units with enough markerlights to do that for the 3 riptides you seem to be recommending. Additionally, a smart opponent will understand you're reliance on markerlights, and start removing them.

Now let's look at the baleflamer on the heldrake. the player places the template on you, rolls to wound, and you get an invul save if you have one.

Yes, tau can take all kinds of skyfire and interceptor. but most suits with both support systems only have one weapon, and unless you got markerlights to hit the flyer, it will be shooting it's one weapon at BS3.

The riptide is good, but once markerlights have been reduced, it's not so scary.

 samuele999 wrote:
But how many fire warriors and markerlights you going to have if you spent at least 600 pts on mc? you gonna need large volumes of fire to deal with that. Having3 uber unit is asking for some on to be that 1 person that is really good them units and wipe them out with ease, having 1 or 2 yes, but 3 is just silly!

Or what about landraiders, if you meet a landraider its gonna be in ur face unless you have a hammerhead, which is unlikely, ur gonna be trying with a str 9 ordance which is unlikely to hurt it, while it either hurts you with lascannons or lets out a nice assault unit.

like Abaddon

So 1 pieplate per Riptide is gonna kill off everything? I've been trying doomsdayarks and they have always come up short since pieplates tend to scatter. Yes they hut when they get a perfect hit but more often than not they just do nothign or very little. I can agree it's not easy to kill but it's possible.

Hmm... The way this is looking, I could spam cultists for meatshields (as you do), stick Abaddon in a LR with a terminator escort, run up and start bashing.

For 230 points less, I could deep strike him in, a lucky roll could see Abby landing too close to the Tau for them to dare fire any blast weapons (such as the Riptide's), fire some combi-bolter goodness at them troops, and in the next turn (should Tzeentch smile upon me) charge the Riptide, and smash to pieces with powerfists/axes.

 Iranna wrote:

 xttz wrote:
Saw this mentioned elsewhere, although I don't have a copy of the new codex to check it....

"Drones taken as upgrades for a unit act as additional squad members in all regards"
Is it true that if the Riptide loses a drone, it's forced to take a morale test due to 25% casualties?

Yup, so the thing can potentially run off of your table edge.

Also, the Riptide can be Pinned, which is quite amusing.

Iranna.

If it can take three drones thats very amusing, kill the three drones, riptide flees and can only rally on snake eyes

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:

 Iranna wrote:

 xttz wrote:
Saw this mentioned elsewhere, although I don't have a copy of the new codex to check it....

"Drones taken as upgrades for a unit act as additional squad members in all regards"
Is it true that if the Riptide loses a drone, it's forced to take a morale test due to 25% casualties?

Yup, so the thing can potentially run off of your table edge.

Also, the Riptide can be Pinned, which is quite amusing.

Iranna.

If it can take three drones thats very amusing, kill the three drones, riptide flees and can only rally on snake eyes

Unless they're hiding behind the Riptide, then you'd have to flank it...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just had a thought.
Can the Riptide be Instant Death'd? If so, I'd bring a chaos sorceror and some TS's.

 Selym wrote:

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:

 Iranna wrote:

 xttz wrote:
Saw this mentioned elsewhere, although I don't have a copy of the new codex to check it....

"Drones taken as upgrades for a unit act as additional squad members in all regards"
Is it true that if the Riptide loses a drone, it's forced to take a morale test due to 25% casualties?

Yup, so the thing can potentially run off of your table edge.

Also, the Riptide can be Pinned, which is quite amusing.

Iranna.

If it can take three drones thats very amusing, kill the three drones, riptide flees and can only rally on snake eyes

Unless they're hiding behind the Riptide, then you'd have to flank it...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just had a thought.
Can the Riptide be Instant Death'd? If so, I'd bring a chaos sorceror and some TS's.

it sure can be...

Fenric wrote:
So 1 pieplate per Riptide is gonna kill off everything? I've been trying doomsdayarks and they have always come up short since pieplates tend to scatter. Yes they hut when they get a perfect hit but more often than not they just do nothign or very little. I can agree it's not easy to kill but it's possible.

Tau do have Markerlights to increase BS. Once you get to BS5 the pie will hit what it aimed at most of the time.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Fenric wrote:
So 1 pieplate per Riptide is gonna kill off everything? I've been trying doomsdayarks and they have always come up short since pieplates tend to scatter. Yes they hut when they get a perfect hit but more often than not they just do nothign or very little. I can agree it's not easy to kill but it's possible.

Tau do have Markerlights to increase BS. Once you get to BS5 the pie will hit what it aimed at most of the time.

But now you're counting on an external factor. It takes 2 marker lights to increase BS to 5 and 2 more to remove cover. When comparing it to the heldrake, it needs nothing but it's baleflamer. Even if it loses that, it can still vector strike. Not saying the riptide can't be scary, but really, it's no heldrake.

 IndigoJack wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

Fenric wrote:
So 1 pieplate per Riptide is gonna kill off everything? I've been trying doomsdayarks and they have always come up short since pieplates tend to scatter. Yes they hut when they get a perfect hit but more often than not they just do nothign or very little. I can agree it's not easy to kill but it's possible.

Tau do have Markerlights to increase BS. Once you get to BS5 the pie will hit what it aimed at most of the time.

But now you're counting on an external factor. It takes 2 marker lights to increase BS to 5 and 2 more to remove cover. When comparing it to the heldrake, it needs nothing but it's baleflamer. Even if it loses that, it can still vector strike. Not saying the riptide can't be scary, but really, it's no heldrake.

Not to mention that the Heldrake can't be subjected to psychic powers, LD tests, stuck in melee, be reliably shot at...
Personally I'd choose the Heldrake over the Riptide when looking for a power build, it just works better.

It was mentioned way earlier but Jaws eats the riptied for breakfest. You are one LD 10 test and a 6+ deny the witch role away from ahving a 2/3rds chance of it disappearing. I see a lot of SW's in pods these days. guaranteed he'll get a chance to kill your rip tied or really any Tau thing he wants with Jaws.

1/2, as an MC it is at -1 when taking the test.

 ausYenLoWang wrote:
just to be clear, your gonna take interceptor and shoot that, then no shooting in your next turn?

your also gonna run that thing via JSJ from your starting area into mine to avoid what comes down board at you.... that might not be a good idea.... run from the pan straight into the fire..

this thing is twice the height of an XV88 and its mass is all at the top, cover saves wont be toooo likely here those legs are NOT 25% of the mass of the unit...

give it a game or 2 you'll see just how stupid taking 3 is and we wont here this preaching of the new messiah.

so to drop your plates you need to pass a gets hot (1/6 of failing, you dont have TL) then you need a 2/6 to get your direct hit, if you miss you need to roll under 3 on 2d6 the average is 7 so you'll scatter on average 4" and if you opponent is competent then odds are youll hit a couple of thing just not as much as you hope.....

IF you do Nova charge the shots thats a 2/6 of failing the nova-charge and taking a wound AND not being able to give yourself a 3++ , then you need to pass a 1/6 gets hot.... (sounds ALMOST like a Zoanthrope) before you get to fire and face the same scatter dramas just with the advantage of a little more blast area to help you hit what you originally shot at.

time to wake up and smell the roses... this thing is good but it is not the second coming. it will die just like every other unit of its type.

Regarding the shooting of the pie plates. Tau Markerlights can now boost a units BS above 5. So it only takes 3 ML hits to get to BS6, at that BS you can reroll the gets hot roll to bring it to a 1/36 chance of failing. Obviously less scatter or just boost till there is no scatter also. Now, idk about boosting 3 separate riptides that much with marklights, I am uncertain how many markerlights I can get into a 1850 list with 3 riptides, let alone shooting at 3 separate targets. But with 1 or 2 I'm sure its MORE than possible to boost your riptides plus other units as you see fit. This is of course all assuming you are using Markerlights(you should be, it is Codex:Markerlights!) and this isn't a straight comparison anymore, since he has support but, tau are all about synergy.

Wilytank wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Dark Eldar can't kill it with poison because of 2+.

Put a six man squad of terminators in the same firing line and see how long they fare against massed twin linked s4 fire.

Trust me, a six man squad of terminators will take a lot longer to kill a Riptide than it will take a Riptide to kill them.

MrMoustaffa wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
yeah, but its even more unlikely than killing the Dreadknight. It can get FnP on top of the good save.

But I can kill it.

All I need to do is roll +4 to hit, 6's to wound, and 1's to fail, and then fail a +5? Then do that 5 times?

That's what FRFSRF is for!

You just need five more blobs for that strategy to work!

Therion wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
I don't feel Necrons matches up well against the new tau (Skyfire aplenty, ID on your Wraiths from pie-plate Riptides, Annihilation Barges utterly outranged by everything in the codex) as missile/ rail broadsides utterly shaft your flyers and the ABs can't really hurt armour 13 or Riptides reliably.

I see where you're coming from, but I think they match well enough. It's a reasonably close game but at this point, before seeing fine tuned 1850p Tau take on all comers lists that can win reliably against everyone, and having played against them, I wouldn't call Tau even a soft counter against Necrons, just a good matchup which they should be.

Regarding what you said, we're currently in the phase where noone is actually making refined tournament lists and are instead just throwing wild claims what the Tau will have: "They got a million Crisis suits and HQ suits with missiles and skyfire and fusion blasters galore and three Riptides and 30 marker lights and a massive amount of scoring units and a million Missilesides with missile drones and did I forget everything in the army has skyfire and interceptor aaarrggh!".

Yeah. It remains to be seen how much skyfire lists will actually end up having. Currently it looks like 2, max 3 units will have skyfire, unless you know what you're playing against and are just tooling up. How is that any different than Necrons playing against armies with many opposing flyers? It isn't. Flyers that are underpriced by arguably as much as 40 or 50 points each just don't care. The so called ID on Wraiths from nova charged pie plates is an absolute joke of course. Tons of weapons in the game can do this, but a 35 point lightning fast model that gets into close combat during turn 2 with a 3+ invulnerable save isn't really worried about instant death once in a blue moon. They'll spread out coherency, take their licks, and hit home. Wraiths are underpriced by a large margin as it is.

Annihilation Barges won't lack range during the game. Seriously, that just doesn't happen when you just deploy them centrally near the edge of your zone and move from there when necessary. They won't be able to pick the best target every turn but they'll shoot every turn regardless, and if you haven't played against competitive Necrons before and like mathhammer, check how many missile pods you need to average the same amount of hits as for example 9 TL Tesla Destructors (the standard amount). That's ~50 S7 hits and an undefined amount of S5 arc hits. We're not even counting the S6 Tesla Cannons from the same vehicles. This is from an army that brings 30-40 T4 (or T6) wounds with 3+ invulnerable saves to close combat turn 2. There's a lot of ways to win, either by focusing on the scoring units in Tau list or by taking out all the Crisis teams/skyfiring models (it's like killing Marines) and other support first and letting the Riptides shoot their template untill the Wraiths can mob them. It depends on the terrain, the mission, who gets first turn and the what the Tau army actually has, but I see it as a good game, nothing worse than that.

A much better question is: How are Tau going to kill Riptides? Assuming lists are similar on both sides all they'll do is tickle eachother for 6 turns and the one with some Kroot or FW alive at the end of the game wins, and there's a good chance neither player will have anything scoring alive.

In the Wraithwing, Anni barges get popped first by Longstrike and Co. The lethality of Tau AA comes from the commander with them giving them Tank Hunter, effectively doubling their chances of killing vehicles. Broadsides can only get Skyfire, not interceptor, but commanders can have both. Probably 1-2 units of Skyfire, The problem is the rest of the army killing your wraiths, and let's be honest with 3 insta death pie plates every turn + Kroot alpha strike you're going have to be rolling extremely hot. Tau on Tau will just come down to rolls, I guess, can't be helped really.

Grey elder wrote:It's like the Three Billy Goats Gruff in here. Well my turn to cross the bridge.

Anyways this thing is not the end all, Tau got a decent unit and now the younglings are getting all uppity. It CAN and WILL die. I'm guessing also you still scatter, secondly have fun with Drop Pods.

I will have fun with drop pods as their contents come out and get burned by three interceptor Str 8 ap 2 pie-plates. After all the Sternguard are dead, what do the two scout squads left do?

You know, it's a lot harder than you think to kill the Doom... Lets see what you could intercept me with. Note that I'm not quite familiar with the book yet, but Broadsides can get interceptor or sky fire yes? If you have interceptor ,my Flyrants will have fun. But they'll probably have sky fire, so maybe you have one crisis team, and the Riptide in range? Dooms got good odds of living. Then, one 3d6 ld check. What's the Riptides Ld anyway? But, Psychic shriek then hits him for a second check. If you're using that full 72" range you won't have too many units nearby within 6" for extra over watch. If they are, then they're also in Doom range, so thanks! And I always bring two Ymgarl squads. Lets say the Riptide over watches, he'll probably kill one, MAYBE 2. At this point he's down a few wounds, then takes some gene stealers and dies in 1-2 rounds.

The while point you've been making is that the Riptide can hide really far back to shoot, but if he does there'll be nothing near enough to help him overwatch. And even if I don't touch him, I bet that I can spawn more gants than a few blasts can kill. Spread out in terrain, boom.

Sure, maybe you'll get lucky and kill the Doom. But you won't always. Sometimes I'll kill it the Riptide. Either way, it's not broken, or even close to it. Then again, the Heldrake isn't either in my mind.

The Riptide can take a 5++ or 3++ save against the doom which I will be charging since I know you're coming down in turn 2+. It takes one shot from any of my three riptides to insta-kill it in any of my shooting phases, I'm not hugely bothered by it. It's also relatively easy to place them in corners where there is 0 scenery to pop out from, and 72" does mean I won't have to move all game.

Nice use of the elites section, btw. You have no AT shooting over Str 6.

ausYenLoWang wrote:just to be clear, your gonna take interceptor and shoot that, then no shooting in your next turn?

your also gonna run that thing via JSJ from your starting area into mine to avoid what comes down board at you.... that might not be a good idea.... run from the pan straight into the fire..

this thing is twice the height of an XV88 and its mass is all at the top, cover saves wont be toooo likely here those legs are NOT 25% of the mass of the unit...

give it a game or 2 you'll see just how stupid taking 3 is and we wont here this preaching of the new messiah.

so to drop your plates you need to pass a gets hot (1/6 of failing, you dont have TL) then you need a 2/6 to get your direct hit, if you miss you need to roll under 3 on 2d6 the average is 7 so you'll scatter on average 4" and if you opponent is competent then odds are youll hit a couple of thing just not as much as you hope.....

IF you do Nova charge the shots thats a 2/6 of failing the nova-charge and taking a wound AND not being able to give yourself a 3++ , then you need to pass a 1/6 gets hot.... (sounds ALMOST like a Zoanthrope) before you get to fire and face the same scatter dramas just with the advantage of a little more blast area to help you hit what you originally shot at.

time to wake up and smell the roses... this thing is good but it is not the second coming. it will die just like every other unit of its type.

Except that it isn't another unit of its type, because no one has ever faced three units of 2+ 3++ T6 5W which has interceptor and fires large plasma blast templates every turn at 72".

BS can be increased to mitigate the plasma reactor to a 1/36 chance of failing. Nova charge will only happen in the case where it needs to move or take fire, and since it has a 72" range, it probably won't need to til turn 3 or 4.

If you can't tell a gamechanging unit when you see one... do you even list?

You're missing a few things.

DE vehicles tend towards invulnerable saves, and blasts don't always land where you want them to.

It would take a fair few shots to land a wound on the Riptide with poison. This is quite true. We'll assume your figure of 20 shots per wound is accurate (closer to 18 i think, but hey..)

It isn't hard to get that many shots off. Venoms crank out 12 shots a turn. I can run silly amounts of venoms for cheap, and you can only target one per turn

That discounts the raiders full of splinter-toting warriors, who can crank out in excess of 40 splinter shots a turn, and i usually take mine with Splinter racks, so the percentage of hits will be a lot higher.

Then add in the raiders full of wracks who can zoom towards you and whack you with poisoned sickles.

Also DE aren't exactly short of AP 2 weaponry, and aren't shy in using it. Every raider is packing an AP2 weapon

Now granted the whole army isn't going to be aiming just for the riptide, badass as it is, because it can only target one vehicle at a time, and that vehicle will likely shrug a hit 1/3 of the time. Sacrificing a few raiders or venoms is no big deal.

The Riptide will feth over whatever it shoots. Fair enough. But can it feth EVERYTHING over simultaneously. Can it, for example feth over 2-3 raiders full of wracks zooming after it at the same time at different vectors, then dropping poisoned troops to mess it up ? How many can it kill in CC at a time?

If it really is as studly as you make it out to be it will have a single turn of being splintered and darklighted to death, and then the DE will go back to business as usual.

DE vehicles have no invulnerable saves that I can think of- you have cover saves, which get stripped by two markerlights.

DE are completely please don't bypass the language filter like this. Reds8n against the new tau, because you get no cover saves and I infiltrate four units of Kroot shooting 24 Str 7 shots in addition to Riptides, Broadsides and Hammerheads on the first turn. Night shields don't work. Jink doesn't work. Pray you get first turn, because otherwise I can see my lists tabling/crippling Raider/Venom spam in turn one.

Heck, I'll even move my Riptides up to the 24" line so you can try shooting at them.

Nurgle daemons are poison-heavy IIRC, and rather sturdy.

Eldar Pathfinder Sniper-spam would eat the thing alive.

Nurgle Daemons are screwed against Tau, because markerlights. T3, and no more gtg in ruins for a 2+. Whats that? You can't shoot back. Deep strike them? What a lovely formation you're standing in for me to shoot! Try to run? Oh, no, slow and purposeful. How do you propose to catch something that moves 2-4D6 faster than you?

Eldar Pathfinder-spam. That is such a competitive build which has won so many tournaments.

ace101 wrote:Realistically, Combi Plas heavy sternguard in drop dops will be the thing to kill riptides, which may include lysander for better hits.

Quick Mathhammer:
20 RF from 10 Combi-plas sternguard

20(Shots) * 0.667(chance to hit) * 0.667(chance to wound) * 0.667(chance to not save w/ no nova) = ~5 wounds in one shooting phase, which is enough to bring down a dangerous unit that can hurt a large part of your army.

Only caveat is the cost, which for 10 combi-plas sterns is pretty expensive, 335 points for 10 men w/ combi-plas & DP to be exact.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
5 w/ combi-plas nets about 3 unsaved wounds, which at 185 points + DP is pretty cheap. This combined with a few other things shooting can kill a riptide turn one if you go first. If they survive the counter shooting, then you get to bury the soft Tau Backfield in Kraken bolts

You're assuming the Sternguard even get to shoot. I shoot you first with three large blast plasma templates, and them we check to see how many sternguard are still standing.

Mathhammer: .22 Chance of scattering off + .87 chance of wounding each Sternguard, and as I doubt you'll be disembarking into cover thats 2.4 wounds on each Sternguard from three intercepting Riptides.

Also, congrats on using a 335 point unit to get a tiny chance of shooting my 185 point Riptide.

Ascalam wrote:Personally, i'm looking forward to turning the Riptide into a glass sculpture with Hexrifles and carting it home to Commoragh

I'd be surprised if you get your Hexrifle out of its case, to be honest, two markelights ignore your jink saves and then suddenly, paper planes.

-Loki- wrote:

 Ascalam wrote:
The Riptide will feth over whatever it shoots. Fair enough. But can it feth EVERYTHING over simultaneously. Can it, for example feth over 2-3 raiders full of wracks zooming after it at the same time at different vectors, then dropping poisoned troops to mess it up ? How many can it kill in CC at a time?

Ding ding ding.

It's an expensive unit that can kill something dead. That goes for a lot of stuff in this game. There's going to be more than 1 unit in the enemy army, and no smart general is just going to present the Riptide with an unobstructed view of his best unit.

I think the biggest shock here is GW finally put a big killy monstrous creature in the game that's worth the points you pay for it.

No, it's an incredibly cheap unit for its points cost. Flying Hive Tyrants, Bloodthirsters, Tervigons, the list goes on...

You mean, besides the Dreadknight?

No, Dreadknights are precisely what he was referring to in terms of not worth the points you pay for it. Funnily enough, it's one of the few things that may work against Rips, if you shunt a Greatsword GK or three in. But that's... 850 points?

IndigoJack wrote:I think you're seriously over riptide with ion accelerator when comparing it to the baleflamer. First, after you've successfully passed your nova reactor roll, you have to roll to scatter the pie plate then you roll to wound, then you're opponent (may) get cover. Yes, markerlights can increase BS and remove cover saves, but I doubt you're going to be able to paint enough units with enough markerlights to do that for the 3 riptides you seem to be recommending. Additionally, a smart opponent will understand you're reliance on markerlights, and start removing them.

Now let's look at the baleflamer on the heldrake. the player places the template on you, rolls to wound, and you get an invul save if you have one.

Yes, tau can take all kinds of skyfire and interceptor. but most suits with both support systems only have one weapon, and unless you got markerlights to hit the flyer, it will be shooting it's one weapon at BS3.

The riptide is good, but once markerlights have been reduced, it's not so scary.

The codex is reliant on markerlights, so this is true of any Tau army.

Let's compare Helldrake vs Riptide shooting again:
Helldrake: 2/3 chance of coming in on Turn 2. May come in as late as Turn 4.
Riptide: Shoots from turn one and never stops.

Helldrake: Units within 12". Has to physically fly there.
Riptide: 72" range means not much is shooting back. JSJ means I will always be getting the angle on you .

Helldrake: Can get shot down before shooting even once.
Riptide: Nigh-impossible to kill before it shoots.

Helldrake: Good against small units of MEQ, Light Vehicles.
Riptides: Good against Hordes, MEQ, TEQ, Light Vehicles, Heavy Vehicles, Deep Strikers, Drop Podders, and can take upgrades to kill Flyers. (but shouldn't.)
Price differential: 20 points. (Interceptor is a must.)

Fenric wrote:So 1 pieplate per Riptide is gonna kill off everything? I've been trying doomsdayarks and they have always come up short since pieplates tend to scatter. Yes they hut when they get a perfect hit but more often than not they just do nothign or very little. I can agree it's not easy to kill but it's possible.

Necrons have no way of increasing BS. Tau can increase your BS to the point where it is impossible to scatter. Doomsday Arks are AV13 vehicles= squishy as. Also ABs are much better at 90 points, so no point taking them.

Selym wrote:Hmm... The way this is looking, I could spam cultists for meatshields (as you do), stick Abaddon in a LR with a terminator escort, run up and start bashing.

For 230 points less, I could deep strike him in, a lucky roll could see Abby landing too close to the Tau for them to dare fire any blast weapons (such as the Riptide's), fire some combi-bolter goodness at them troops, and in the next turn (should Tzeentch smile upon me) charge the Riptide, and smash to pieces with powerfists/axes.

Abaddon and friends' land raider gets blown up on turn one by Longstrike. (BS5, STR 10, Tank Hunter)
Abaddon loses all friends when he deepstrikes to three plasma pie-plates. In his turn. Abaddon stands alone against the entire Tau army shooting.
Abaddon should stay on the shelf where he belongs.

If it can take three drones thats very amusing, kill the three drones, riptide flees and can only rally on snake eyes

Unless they're hiding behind the Riptide, then you'd have to flank it...

Are you comparing an apple to an orange here, I mean really?

As an actual tau player who did NOT shelf the tau in 5th, the codex has a lot of very subtle nerfs. Nerfts that are going to result in markerlights being in a much higher demand than ever before.

Why is this pertinent?

Because of the riptides BS. Its 3. Until you have actually played with an army that has bs3, its almost.... inconceivable how bad it is (ok, orks understand).

A lot of players will say "but wait, you have markerlights".
Sure you do, and you need them now more than ever with the changes in seekers, loss of targeting arrays and lowered quantity of railguns in the lists.

Now, what I not sure of yet, is just how busy the elite slot will be...we have a lot of good stuff in there, and hq is pretty crowded as well ...in fact, so is heavy...they are all crowded (except troops).

Finally, comparing a flying beast that can't be harmed by small arms fire with an auto hit template that does not give cover or saves to 3+ to a big long ranged BS3 Goliath?

Thats not apples and oranges, that's apples and bazookas.

Kind of interesting, subject however...and fascinating to ponder...but to argue? maybe we should try to count the stars...

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Wilytank wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Dark Eldar can't kill it with poison because of 2+.

Put a six man squad of terminators in the same firing line and see how long they fare against massed twin linked s4 fire.

Trust me, a six man squad of terminators will take a lot longer to kill a Riptide than it will take a Riptide to kill them.

Not in range of the Riptide, in ranged of massed shooting from S4 AP - shooting.

You puff up the Riptide like it'll kill everything. When we argue back, you say "but markerlights mean itll kill everything!" you know, markerlights aren't hard to kill! Pathfinders die easy, so do fitewarriors if you add them there. Drones in your suits? That's an elite slot, boom you have less riptides now. Biovores do nasty nasty things to Pathfinders, so will Ymgarls, and ifyou keep your entire army within 6" for overwatch, then templates will murder you. or the Doom, because the guys pretty darn tough to kill. Now, if I see Riptides, I send my best units after the markerlight carriers, and I'll murder them. Then, your Riptide will be bouncing off my cover saves, if hes still alive.

'DE vehicles have no invulnerable saves that I can think of- you have cover saves, which get stripped by two markerlights.

DE are completely please don't bypass the language filter like this.Reds8n against the new tau, because you get no cover saves and I infiltrate four units of Kroot shooting 24 Str 7 shots in addition to Riptides, Broadsides and Hammerheads on the first turn. Night shields don't work. Jink doesn't work. Pray you get first turn, because otherwise I can see my lists tabling/crippling Raider/Venom spam in turn one.

Heck, I'll even move my Riptides up to the 24" line so you can try shooting at them.
'


Flickerfields, my man... Markerlights do feth all to remove them

Every DE vehicle can take them, except Vect's Pimp-ride.

Add in that every standard mission has Night Fight rules, which gimp your range to 36'' on turn one half the time (and which DE ignore )



If you've never run across them it's safe to say you know jack-all about DE and what they can do

Also, don't you have to hit with those markerlights before you can strip cover saves?

Please feel free to move them up to the 24'' line It means they die sooner.

I played a game against three of them last night, rocking their Inv saves and hammering at me with everything they had. They were all dead by turn three. They aren't near as badass as you seem to think.

Your infiltrating Kroot can hand out some shots, true enough. They'd better hope they did some damage though, as the return fire from the rest of the army will cut them down like chaff and they are fething awful in CC. The guy i played last night brought three units, and made with the shooty action with them too. They didn't last long either...


'Ascalam wrote:
Personally, i'm looking forward to turning the Riptide into a glass sculpture with Hexrifles and carting it home to Commoragh


I'd be surprised if you get your Hexrifle out of its case, to be honest, two markelights ignore your jink saves and then suddenly, paper planes. '

See above, re Flickerfields. Also having snipers shooting out of a nice solid Bastion or FOR works quite well. Snipers are also good for called-shotting your drones off, or if you aren't running drones, sniping the Bot itself.

'Nurgle Daemons are screwed against Tau, because markerlights. T3, and no more gtg in ruins for a 2+. Whats that? You can't shoot back. Deep strike them? What a lovely formation you're standing in for me to shoot! Try to run? Oh, no, slow and purposeful. How do you propose to catch something that moves 2-4D6 faster than you?

Eldar Pathfinder-spam. That is such a competitive build which has won so many tournaments. '

Be where the enemy proposes to go, of course Tactical placement. Also, Nurgle isn't just T3 daemons. Try killing off a T 10 GUO that deepstruck into the middle of your lines

Pathfinder spam may not be the list of choice for tournament players. What has that to do with their effectiveness in fething over Riptides? When you're quite done strawmanning...





'
Put a six man squad of terminators in the same firing line and see how long they fare against massed twin linked s4 fire.


Trust me, a six man squad of terminators will take a lot longer to kill a Riptide than it will take a Riptide to kill them. '

You don't seem to ge this one. What he's saying is the Riptide is approx as hard to kill with 4+ poison as it is to kill a unit of termies with S 4 weapons. 2+ save, 4+ to wound...

All in all, not THAT hard.


If you have that much of a hard-on for the big bots go for it. I found them to be approx as tough to kill as a Dead-Knight. Takes a little work, but not really that tough.

Next game i'm going to try my Orks out on the new Tau and see how well they handle 360 + Orks barrelling upfield at full tilt. Somehow i doubt three riptides and a few units of Kroot can handle that many bodies before someone gets into CC

So I was wondering how a riptide would fair aginast DE because poison seems like it would do really well against it. Now assuming the shots are at bs4 it would an average of 90 shots (135 if riptide has fnp) to take down the riptide. 90 shots is a little hard to do so I thought what about dark lances. It takes only 13.5 dark lance shots (20.25 if the riptide has fnp). This seems much more likely to happen as many people take 3 ravagers and blasterborns in venoms. But the only problem is that it does take a lot of focus to take down a riptide and tau has a TON of weapons that bust through DE's av11 frames. So killing one riptide would be an easy job, killing more than one would be a little more difficult. But that is the problem with almost all units, you can focus one down with your whole army just find, its not unkillable, but the more you need to focus on one unite the more the rest of the army can go unchecked. Personally if I had to choose to shoot 13.5 lances at a riptide or at some crisis suits I would go with the suits.

As for "riptide is just as easy to kill as 5 terminators" I have to disagree. For starters first off riptide has a 72'' gun so your ability to shoot at it is hampered, Between that range and jsj the riptide can hide pretty well. Also terminators die one at a time and once you kill 3 those 2 terminators don't seem that scary. You can easily stop caring about them once you neutered them. Riptide you must kill completely. Again he is not unkillable but he is tough as nails.

 lambsandlions wrote:
So I was wondering how a riptide would fair aginast DE because poison seems like it would do really well against it. Now assuming the shots are at bs4 it would an average of 90 shots (135 if riptide has fnp) to take down the riptide. 90 shots is a little hard to do so I thought what about dark lances. It takes only 13.5 dark lance shots (20.25 if the riptide has fnp). This seems much more likely to happen as many people take 3 ravagers and blasterborns in venoms. But the only problem is that it does take a lot of focus to take down a riptide and tau has a TON of weapons that bust through DE's av11 frames. So killing one riptide would be an easy job, killing more than one would be a little more difficult. But that is the problem with almost all units, you can focus one down with your whole army just find, its not unkillable, but the more you need to focus on one unite the more the rest of the army can go unchecked. Personally if I had to choose to shoot 13.5 lances at a riptide or at some crisis suits I would go with the suits.

And keep the rest of your skimmers nice and spread out so the riptide's blast has a 2/3 chance of trashing one venom. Then kill more stuff the next turn

 Ascalam wrote:
'DE vehicles have no invulnerable saves that I can think of- you have cover saves, which get stripped by two markerlights.
Add in that every standard mission has Night Fight rules, which gimp your range to 36'' on turn one half the time (and which DE ignore )

And all Tau battlesuits ignore night fighting too.

Flickerfields, my man... Markerlights do feth all to remove them

Every DE vehicle can take them, except Vect's Pimp-ride.

Wow, a 5+ invulnerable save. Unfortunately, every single Tau unit excels at killing AV 10 and AV 11. I doubt that half of your flimsy skimmers would survive a single shooting phase.

I played a game against three of them last night, rocking their Inv saves and hammering at me with everything they had. They were all dead by turn three.

I'm sorry, but I don't quite believe you on this one.

Be where the enemy proposes to go, of course Tactical placement. Also, Nurgle isn't just T3 daemons. Try killing off a T 10 GUO that deepstruck into the middle of your lines

I don't think that the Tau, being one of the most maneuverable armies in the game, will have much trouble with Nurgle Daemons out-maneuvering them. As for the GUO, it will not be able to do anything the turn it comes in, then it is limited to 6 inches of movement after that. I don't see how the riptide could not just run away, being a whole lot faster than it.

Sure, the riptide is not unkillable, but it takes a lot to kill, and is very maneuverable, so that there is little chance of it getting caught up in combat. It is unlike any other monsterous creature in the game, so it needs to be approached in different ways.

Believe what you like, or not. Doesn't change anything

It's not like they have 10 Wounds and a 1+ Inv save, They can die, and they did.

I don't have the new Tau dex, so i'll take it on faith that all suits ignore night fighting. I'll assume that the same doesn't apply to EVERY unit though. All tanks? All infantry?

You'd be surprised how often that 5+ inv save saves a vehicle. Remember that it takes several hits to kill a vehicle unless you luck out and explode it.

*shrug* I've not had a chance to try out my Daemons on the new Tau yet. I'll post a batrep when i eventually get around to it. You may be right, but i'll not know until i give it a go

davethepak wrote:Are you comparing an apple to an orange here, I mean really?

As an actual tau player who did NOT shelf the tau in 5th, the codex has a lot of very subtle nerfs. Nerfts that are going to result in markerlights being in a much higher demand than ever before.

Why is this pertinent?

Because of the riptides BS. Its 3. Until you have actually played with an army that has bs3, its almost.... inconceivable how bad it is (ok, orks understand).

A lot of players will say "but wait, you have markerlights".
Sure you do, and you need them now more than ever with the changes in seekers, loss of targeting arrays and lowered quantity of railguns in the lists.

Now, what I not sure of yet, is just how busy the elite slot will be...we have a lot of good stuff in there, and hq is pretty crowded as well ...in fact, so is heavy...they are all crowded (except troops).

Finally, comparing a flying beast that can't be harmed by small arms fire with an auto hit template that does not give cover or saves to 3+ to a big long ranged BS3 Goliath?

Thats not apples and oranges, that's apples and bazookas.

Kind of interesting, subject however...and fascinating to ponder...but to argue? maybe we should try to count the stars...

I am comparing the two because Helldrakes are held up as the meta-changing unit to beat.

Elite slot is simple: 3 Riptides.

HQ slot is crowded no doubt, but one commander with the Engram chip is probably the best. Maybe a Hammerhead Ethereal to bolster your leadership, but it sounds like a terrible idea.

BS 3 isn't huge when firing templates, which is what it should be doing most of the time. Keep your markerlights limited to the units the Riptide is shooting at, and you'll find there plenty to go round.

Did you even read any of my arguments?

Wilytank wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Wilytank wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Dark Eldar can't kill it with poison because of 2+.

Put a six man squad of terminators in the same firing line and see how long they fare against massed twin linked s4 fire.

Trust me, a six man squad of terminators will take a lot longer to kill a Riptide than it will take a Riptide to kill them.

Not in range of the Riptide, in ranged of massed shooting from S4 AP - shooting.

I am aware that T4 terminators die rather quickly to volume, but seeing as they don't have a 72" range... I fail to see the argument here.

jifel wrote:You puff up the Riptide like it'll kill everything. When we argue back, you say "but markerlights mean itll kill everything!" you know, markerlights aren't hard to kill! Pathfinders die easy, so do fitewarriors if you add them there. Drones in your suits? That's an elite slot, boom you have less riptides now. Biovores do nasty nasty things to Pathfinders, so will Ymgarls, and ifyou keep your entire army within 6" for overwatch, then templates will murder you. or the Doom, because the guys pretty darn tough to kill. Now, if I see Riptides, I send my best units after the markerlight carriers, and I'll murder them. Then, your Riptide will be bouncing off my cover saves, if hes still alive.

Doom is a T4 model with a 3++ save. It is not 'hard to kill'. It is annoying, yes, and if you're unprepared it can wreck your line, but it's a medium-threat at best.

Tyranids is a tough matchup for anyone, no doubt, but they have serious problems effectively killing Riptides.

Flickerfields, my man... Markerlights do feth all to remove them

Every DE vehicle can take them, except Vect's Pimp-ride.

Add in that every standard mission has Night Fight rules, which gimp your range to 36'' on turn one half the time (and which DE ignore )

Whoops, forgot about those, since they're pretty much indistinguishable from a jink save. Go on, how many 5++ saves can you make on 2hp vehicles? Heard of this 3pt piece of wargear called... Blacksun...filters?

If you've never run across them it's safe to say you know jack-all about DE and what they can do

Also, don't you have to hit with those markerlights before you can strip cover saves?

Please feel free to move them up to the 24'' line It means they die sooner.

A good friend runs a wych cult army which has thrown up some surprises in the past, but by and large I'm not impressed by the way they fold completely after one or two great turns of shooting.

I think a lack of DE tournament winning lists is testament to their mediocrity in 6th. DE, that is.

I played a game against three of them last night, rocking their Inv saves and hammering at me with everything they had. They were all dead by turn three. They aren't near as badass as you seem to think.

Your infiltrating Kroot can hand out some shots, true enough. They'd better hope they did some damage though, as the return fire from the rest of the army will cut them down like chaff and they are fething awful in CC. The guy i played last night brought three units, and made with the shooty action with them too. They didn't last long either...

I'd say their on par with DE warriors in CC, to be frank. Anyway, if the alpha strike failed to cripple you you must have been either rolling hot on the jink or he terribly on the pen. Let's have the battle report? If he managed to lose all three by turn three he must have put them in the front line or something daft like that. This equivalent to me saying I just played a game where I intercepted three Helldrakes on turn two and destroyed them! Helldrakes are rubbish!

'Ascalam wrote:
Personally, i'm looking forward to turning the Riptide into a glass sculpture with Hexrifles and carting it home to Commoragh


I'd be surprised if you get your Hexrifle out of its case, to be honest, two markelights ignore your jink saves and then suddenly, paper planes. '

See above, re Flickerfields. Also having snipers shooting out of a nice solid Bastion or FOR works quite well. Snipers are also good for called-shotting your drones off, or if you aren't running drones, sniping the Bot itself.

Snipers are unplayable nonsense.

'Be where the enemy proposes to go, of course Tactical placement. Also, Nurgle isn't just T3 daemons. Try killing off a T 10 GUO that deepstruck into the middle of your lines

Pathfinder spam may not be the list of choice for tournament players. What has that to do with their effectiveness in fething over Riptides? When you're quite done strawmanning...

Why would you even bother wasting firepower on the T10 GUO until everything else is dead?

You create a straw man ( pathfinders being great at killing Riptides... which they are mediocre, and outranged) I point out nobody takes pathfinders en masse, and then you accuse me of straw-manning? What?
'
Put a six man squad of terminators in the same firing line and see how long they fare against massed twin linked s4 fire.

You don't seem to ge this one. What he's saying is the Riptide is approx as hard to kill with 4+ poison as it is to kill a unit of termies with S 4 weapons. 2+ save, 4+ to wound...

All in all, not THAT hard.

He phrased it in the most obtuse way possible to seem like the termies were shooting the riptide. Volume of fire kills 2+ save models, wow, news!

If you have that much of a hard-on for the big bots go for it. I found them to be approx as tough to kill as a Dead-Knight. Takes a little work, but not really that tough.

Next game i'm going to try my Orks out on the new Tau and see how well they handle 360 + Orks barrelling upfield at full tilt. Somehow i doubt three riptides and a few units of Kroot can handle that many bodies before someone gets into CC

I'm only contemplating a Tau army at this point, I'm just pointing out how good they are for their points cost compared to the Helldrake. You have yet to raise a valid-counter argument besides 'I kill a lot of short-ranged 200 point Dreadknights with massed short ranged poisoned fire and so it must be just as easy to kill Riptides!' News: Massed poisoned fire kills MCs.

lambsandlions wrote:So I was wondering how a riptide would fair aginast DE because poison seems like it would do really well against it. Now assuming the shots are at bs4 it would an average of 90 shots (135 if riptide has fnp) to take down the riptide. 90 shots is a little hard to do so I thought what about dark lances. It takes only 13.5 dark lance shots (20.25 if the riptide has fnp). This seems much more likely to happen as many people take 3 ravagers and blasterborns in venoms. But the only problem is that it does take a lot of focus to take down a riptide and tau has a TON of weapons that bust through DE's av11 frames. So killing one riptide would be an easy job, killing more than one would be a little more difficult. But that is the problem with almost all units, you can focus one down with your whole army just find, its not unkillable, but the more you need to focus on one unite the more the rest of the army can go unchecked. Personally if I had to choose to shoot 13.5 lances at a riptide or at some crisis suits I would go with the suits.

In theory, they should go down like a sack of flying potatoes. Ascalon here of course has the magical ability to roll 5+ flickerfield saves so no DE vehicle should ever die to Tau shooting, ever.

motyak wrote:

 lambsandlions wrote:
So I was wondering how a riptide would fair aginast DE because poison seems like it would do really well against it. Now assuming the shots are at bs4 it would an average of 90 shots (135 if riptide has fnp) to take down the riptide. 90 shots is a little hard to do so I thought what about dark lances. It takes only 13.5 dark lance shots (20.25 if the riptide has fnp). This seems much more likely to happen as many people take 3 ravagers and blasterborns in venoms. But the only problem is that it does take a lot of focus to take down a riptide and tau has a TON of weapons that bust through DE's av11 frames. So killing one riptide would be an easy job, killing more than one would be a little more difficult. But that is the problem with almost all units, you can focus one down with your whole army just find, its not unkillable, but the more you need to focus on one unite the more the rest of the army can go unchecked. Personally if I had to choose to shoot 13.5 lances at a riptide or at some crisis suits I would go with the suits.

And keep the rest of your skimmers nice and spread out so the riptide's blast has a 2/3 chance of trashing one venom. Then kill more stuff the next turn

So the entirety of your army's shooting kills a single Riptide?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I don't think people are getting the point of this thread. This isn't 'Best Ways to Kill Riptides', this is Riptides are as strong or if not stronger than the current meta-breakin unit, Helldrakes, which are only strong because people don't build for skyfire in their lists.

To be fair, Wych Cult DE were not so hot in 5th, and worse in 6th. I run a Coven/Kabal mix

I do ok on my 5++ saves. Raiders and Ravagers are 3 HP vehicles, not two. Venoms are 2, but are small enough that it's not terribly hard to hide them completely from enemy fire on turn one, which is a lot more difficult with raiders. I'm not claiming that they block every single shot, but they do give my paper planes a bit of survivability. Add that to the fact that i can take a LOT of Venoms and Raiders in a 2000+ list, and odds are that enough of them will survive to do a fair bit of damage. DE vehicles are expendable. You WILL lose them by the end of the game, regardless.

I've found sniper units of Eldar Pathfinders to work extremely well for me. If they don't work for you, then fair enough. Hexrifle sniper teams of Haemonculi and Acothysts can pull off the odd awesome shot too

Kabalite warriors aren't so hot in CC either, true enough, but at least they have an armour save and will likely swing first, unless they finally gave Kroot an Armour save and a decent I. I used to play Tau a few years back, and was underwhelmed, so if they are better this edition, more power to them

'I'd say their on par with DE warriors in CC, to be frank. Anyway, if the alpha strike failed to cripple you you must have been either rolling hot on the jink or he terribly on the pen. Let's have the battle report? If he managed to lose all three by turn three he must have put them in the front line or something daft like that. This equivalent to me saying I just played a game where I intercepted three Helldrakes on turn two and destroyed them! Helldrakes are rubbish! '

I'll see about a battle report when i get some time to write one. A fair chunk of my vehicles were well-hidden behind some decent LOS blocking ruins (as we prefer to play our tables with a fair amount of buildings and walls to break up the fire lanes), and those that were caught out in the open did get a bit sodded up. His Riptides were set up with one forward in the midfield and one in either corner backfield.

The backfield ones died to three Razorwings with disintegrators and splinter cannons, plus three Ravagers with Disintegrators who closed the gap on turn one with enhanced Aethersails. They were damaged, but lived long enough to volleyfire some AP 2 fun.

The midfield one rolled badly on its move and was caught in melee on turn three by an Incubi squad led by Urien Rakath, and killed by his Ichor Gauntlet after a couple of wounds from the Incubi.

If i can get a few hours i'm not busy in, i'll get together with the guy i played against and put all this down in a proper Batrep.

For the record, the Tau player won the game, but it was close fought

I think whether or not the riptide makes a ripple in the meta is how much prevalence tau has in the meta. Helldrake is such a force because CSM is fine without it, they are still strong marines and marines are generally good no matter what type they are. The helldrake just pushed them over the edge making them arguably the strongest of the marines. Tau may have a shiny new toy in the riptide and it may be a tough nut to crack but the rest of the army has some flaws (troops too weak, in ability to get forward objectives, relatively large number of kill points) so tau may not make a shift so obvious. Whats more the helldrake is so radically different from other threats, you can't just shoot at it like a normal unit and that is why a shift in the meta was called for. I just don't believe that the riptide will cause a shift like the helldrake. Or at least I do not see the riptide doing it alone, monstrous creatures are getting pretty good right now (see tyranids and demons) so I could see a meta with monsters and lists adjusting to combat them.

 Harriticus wrote:
Well, the look of the Riptide is actually growing on me whereas the Heldrake still looks terrible....

Doesn't take a lot of work to fix though imo:

http://eternalhunt.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/hellrazor-31.jpg

i think there a rather a few differences between the riptide and the Heldrake that make them totally different threats:

first off there is my get out clasue "it entirely depends upon what armies are fighting each other and what specific units are in those armies"

a few things to consider:

1) El Drake is an av12 flyer that can cause hell if players do not take advantage of the AA options that are out there, faliure to acknowledge this threat usually results in defeat.

2) drakes have a habit of appearing in pairs, moreover most take both with the flamer (i take a autocannon one and a flamer one, I find it works better for me ), this is trouble for infantry on foot but mech units laugh them off as you have to bust the transports to flame the contents. Though if you are lucky it can happen , however in my experience everyone will hit the flamer drake first (usually it dies lol) and then get a shock when autodrake flaps around killing vehicles etc and making a mess that they did not expect.

3) in my area the drakes have not changed the meta that much, in fact the flamer is more of a liability a lot of the time, after the initial 'wtf' folks adapted and my atutodrake has killed far more than the flamerdrake...

4) the riptide is not a flying MC so can be hit with normal BS, flying MCs seem to cause trouble for some of my fellow gamers- especially the lord of change simply due to his flying ability . The riptide might have a 2+ but as some have pointed out, they will die sometimes...

5) on a 6"x4" board you cannot stay of of range of everything, however the undeniable adavantage of these suits in being able to bugger off out retaliation range of those plasmaguns etc that will no doubt be aimed at it...

6) we also seem to be forgetting here the fact of what else is in the Tau army with 3 of these boys jumping around... that is the big factor that seems to be glossed over by some.


Overall in my humble opinion you could compare the riptide to the Heldrake with respect to its potential effectiveness in its force slot. However that being said with chaos, in the Fast attack area i very rarely see the other options used as they are not as effective. Whereas with Tau you have the trusty crisis suits to compete with, which opens up a lot of options as the crisis suits haven't changed that much and still seem to be very effective.

Just my humble views

Ascalam - part of what is so frustrating about your posts is your absolute-goods when talking about Tau (Longstrike kills a LR dead turn 1 - no, on less than 50% of the time he will do that, because 50% is the odds you have on causing an Explode from his one shot, assuming it hits and penetrates. I know this full well having run a vindicare which is a more reliable tank buster than 'strike, but still hits the hard wall of the damage table) and absolute negatives otherwise.

Simultaneously ALL of your RT can shoot the podded doom, despite 2 of them being in one corner and 1 in the other. Apparently neither terrain nor the s'pod itself are blocking LOS anywhere. WHich is unlikely. In the extreme, especially if the nid player has any sense. You;re also again banking on all 3 shots hitting, with no ML support so not even considering the gets hot droppnig 1/6th of the plates you are ignoring the 2/3rds of the time you scatter off (as doom is quite a small model, as most people have him) AND that you *arent* getting volume of fire, just one or 2 hits in. Oh, and simultaneously you are novachartging without failure, every time.

You then have to pass 2 3D6 Ld checks or start taking a bucket of wounds.

Given your startling lack of knowledge concerning DE I do have to wonder how real your playing experience is. Yes, they have 72" range. So did broadsides, and people managed to kill them.

Are they a game changer? To some extent *yes*, but this is to be expected? Are they as all around amazing as you consistently claim, with little to no realistic backing up of your argument? No.

Wilytank wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:


I will have fun with drop pods as their contents come out and get burned by three interceptor Str 8 ap 2 pie-plates. After all the Sternguard are dead, what do the two scout squads left do?

Not sure how that works - unless the drop pod scatters in an unlucky way, then the troops getting out should be able to move close enough to the riptide that you wouldn't be able to place a large blast template without it overlapping a friendly model - iirc interceptor shots only take effect at the end of the movement phase?

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
Well, the look of the Riptide is actually growing on me whereas the Heldrake still looks terrible....

Doesn't take a lot of work to fix though imo:

http://eternalhunt.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/hellrazor-31.jpg

How does that look good...

Heldrake without the two tiny legs at the back looks amazing at least my point of view.

Riptide looks amazing as well

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Ascalam - part of what is so frustrating about your posts is your absolute-goods when talking about Tau (Longstrike kills a LR dead turn 1 - no, on less than 50% of the time he will do that, because 50% is the odds you have on causing an Explode from his one shot, assuming it hits and penetrates. I know this full well having run a vindicare which is a more reliable tank buster than 'strike, but still hits the hard wall of the damage table) and absolute negatives otherwise.

Simultaneously ALL of your RT can shoot the podded doom, despite 2 of them being in one corner and 1 in the other. Apparently neither terrain nor the s'pod itself are blocking LOS anywhere. WHich is unlikely. In the extreme, especially if the nid player has any sense. You;re also again banking on all 3 shots hitting, with no ML support so not even considering the gets hot droppnig 1/6th of the plates you are ignoring the 2/3rds of the time you scatter off (as doom is quite a small model, as most people have him) AND that you *arent* getting volume of fire, just one or 2 hits in. Oh, and simultaneously you are novachartging without failure, every time.

You then have to pass 2 3D6 Ld checks or start taking a bucket of wounds.

Given your startling lack of knowledge concerning DE I do have to wonder how real your playing experience is. Yes, they have 72" range. So did broadsides, and people managed to kill them.

Are they a game changer? To some extent *yes*, but this is to be expected? Are they as all around amazing as you consistently claim, with little to no realistic backing up of your argument? No.

Nos, think you may mean Asmodai Asmodian there, not me

I'm the DE side of the discussion

Riptide is good, but it's not "The new helldrake" because the helldrake is a completely different unit, with a different role.

Ascalam - oops, apologies. What you get for not enough sleep

Dundas - good point. You can, with a 6" move plus half drop pods width, get VERY close to a rip tide, and then he cant place blasts at all.

Apparently this flawless plan is, well, flawed

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Are they a game changer? To some extent *yes*, but this is to be expected? Are they as all around amazing as you consistently claim, with little to no realistic backing up of your argument? No.

Very good post, Nos.

As a Daemon player, I can't say I find the Riptide very threatening. 72" range isn't going stop me from engaging it by turn 2 or 3. Screening units might, but then I'm stuck in with them and the Riptides have no good targets. So they might avoid me for a few turns, but that's OK because I can work on the rest of the army (which is probably more threatening) first. Fire Warriors, Kroot, Pathfinders, Crisis Suits, anything with a Markerlight...these are the units I'm actually worried about. The more points an opponent plunks down on Riptides means less scoring units, less volume-of-fire, less models for me to kill. So I say bring on the Gundams.

The title (and premise) of the OP are very revealing. For those who still don't understand why we're comparing a Flyer to a MC here: there are people who believe 3 Heldrakes combined with any damn thing makes a competitive army. These are probably the same people who thought 9 Night Scythes made for a competitive army. So, despite the Heldrake and Riptide having next-to-nothing in common, we get a thread directly comparing/contrasting the two phrased as if we should all immediately see the parallels between them. The only parallel being: "these are good units, max out on them and they will win the game for you." That thinking will work some of the time. Depending on your meta and your quality of opponents, it could even work most the time. But ultimately it's a pretty short-sighted view of things.

Taking 3 Riptides will not win you every match-up (neither will 3 Drakes or 9 Scythes), but it will leave you with a third or more of your army tied up in 3 models that will reduce your overall shooting/scoring, models which several armies can easily kill or tie up, and which most every army can safely ignore. Spending all those points on Riptides is taking a calculated risk in a codex that doesn't need to take many risks at all. It is much like having a toolbox and filling it with nothing but hammers: you'll do really well so long as nails continue to present themselves. Tau are very well-rounded and have really great options across the FOC, the Riptide among them...but again, it's options -- plural. Reducing what can be a diverse, combined arms force to one threat profile is only going to make things easier on your opponent.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Ascalam - oops, apologies. What you get for not enough sleep

Dundas - good point. You can, with a 6" move plus half drop pods width, get VERY close to a rip tide, and then he cant place blasts at all.

Apparently this flawless plan is, well, flawed

Excecpt that he can just interceptor with the regular plasma, and your Sternguard still die. And then they get assaulted in his turn and they die.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Ascalam - oops, apologies. What you get for not enough sleep

Dundas - good point. You can, with a 6" move plus half drop pods width, get VERY close to a rip tide, and then he cant place blasts at all.

Apparently this flawless plan is, well, flawed

isnt the mesurement "technically" taken from any part of the bodywork... which involves those tedious fins that stick out a large part of an inch as well.... placing your drop pod with one pointing the correct direction actually gives you overall nearly 7" of movement....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Ascalam - oops, apologies. What you get for not enough sleep

Dundas - good point. You can, with a 6" move plus half drop pods width, get VERY close to a rip tide, and then he cant place blasts at all.

Apparently this flawless plan is, well, flawed

Excecpt that he can just interceptor with the regular plasma, and your Sternguard still die. And then they get assaulted in his turn and they die.

and SUUURE you can, and by the theory of you have 3 rioptides i think we will take 5 drop pods and stuff 3 of them on you.... escalating numbers....... 1 riptide = 3 normal shots 1 maybe 2 of which will hit before it gets shot back....

Also a question CAN you use interceptor with a template?
the answer is YES.

BUT then cannot use that weapon in its next turn....

This is why I run Zoans. Utility.

So lets say I take my normal elite choices, Doom in a spod and 2x2 Zoans in a spod. Now lets look at the options for dealing with riptide.

Physic Shriek. There will be 6 3d6 leadership checks. Yes some can (and probably will) die to interceptor. Still I like my odds there.

Dominate. LD 9 makes it not as good but still not bad paired with everything else.

Terrify. Man I sure am happy those big ass fish are in the back corners...so close to the table edge.

Puppet Master. Enough said.

Now I don't have the codex in front of me but how long do you have to charge your gun before it can be shot again? Is it next turn or YOUR next turn?

Combine that with all the other Biomancy powers you are rolling and it gets scary quick. All it takes is 1 TL Dev shot if you've been double enfeeble for ID or a smash attack from 1 enfeeble.

Hellturkey is still (IMO) better at it's job than a Riptide is at it's.

 Makutsu wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
Well, the look of the Riptide is actually growing on me whereas the Heldrake still looks terrible....

Doesn't take a lot of work to fix though imo:

http://eternalhunt.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/hellrazor-31.jpg

How does that look good...

Heldrake without the two tiny legs at the back looks amazing at least my point of view.

Riptide looks amazing as well

I don't like the Riptide but imo Helldrake is much worse it fits neither CSM nor 40k in general. Would look ok as some mechanical dwarf dragon in whfb maybe but not as a flyer for crazy cosmic madmen from hell.

The conversion I posted is imo 100x better, looks like a mix of a demonic mechanical flying creature with a jet, Helldrake looks like toy dragon - my mother would like it and that's not the point of CSM.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

I don't think people are getting the point of this thread. This isn't 'Best Ways to Kill Riptides', this is Riptides are as strong or if not stronger than the current meta-breakin unit, Helldrakes, which are only strong because people don't build for skyfire in their lists.

Ok, I have to say, from this perspective I can partially agree.

As someone who has played with and against GK (DK) and a tau player as well, I have to say that I think riptides are being a bit .... overestimated in their effectiveness.

Now, before anyone hits quote and starts to reply with some big disagreement...hear me out on this one.

Regardless of if I am right or not (lets put a beer on it, and drink as friends later) I do believe this as well ; The PERCEPTION is that riptides are a big deal, and since the 'meta' is more about what people think, than rather what is, I think it will be a meta changer.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Ascalam - oops, apologies. What you get for not enough sleep

Dundas - good point. You can, with a 6" move plus half drop pods width, get VERY close to a rip tide, and then he cant place blasts at all.

Apparently this flawless plan is, well, flawed

Excecpt that he can just interceptor with the regular plasma, and your Sternguard still die. And then they get assaulted in his turn and they die.

The regular plasma is what, assault 4 with BS3? It'll probably kill 2 on average. It'd then be better jumping away and letting other things finish of the marines rather than getting into assault - in CC it's only going to kill 1-2 marines a turn with it's low WS and attacks.

I'm not actually arguing that the drop pod is the best way to take out riptides (although I think played right, especailly with SWs, it could potenially be effective) just that it's not the auto kill you make it out to be.

I played against a riptide last night and found it pretty underwhelming. 3 chaos spawn with mark of nurgle were a good counter to it. The riptide is far less manouvarable than I thought it would be. Between terrain, units , needing to keep LOS to be able to shoot something useful and the fact that it's on a big base means that there's only so much space on the Board that it can usefully jump to. I'd imagine 3 of them would be tripping over each other.

Beasts can chase it down pretty quickly, and once it's in combat, it's easy to tarpit. My 108 point unit of spawn kept it busy for 4 turns of assault and finally ended up killing it with some lucky rolls; force enough 2+ saves and it will die same as a squad of termies. I'd imagine any unit with cheap cavalry, beasts, bikes or jump infantry can probably chase down a riptide and get it into in combat where it will either die to them, or get tied up long enough for something more killy to get stuck in and finish it off.

davethepak wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

I don't think people are getting the point of this thread. This isn't 'Best Ways to Kill Riptides', this is Riptides are as strong or if not stronger than the current meta-breakin unit, Helldrakes, which are only strong because people don't build for skyfire in their lists.

Ok, I have to say, from this perspective I can partially agree.

As someone who has played with and against GK (DK) and a tau player as well, I have to say that I think riptides are being a bit .... overestimated in their effectiveness.

Now, before anyone hits quote and starts to reply with some big disagreement...hear me out on this one.

Regardless of if I am right or not (lets put a beer on it, and drink as friends later) I do believe this as well ; The PERCEPTION is that riptides are a big deal, and since the 'meta' is more about what people think, than rather what is, I think it will be a meta changer.

True enough. Every time a new codex is released, people everywhere will look at it's centrepeice unit and have a kneejerk reaction of "OMG WTF OP!!! It's unkillable! Nothing can stop it from raeping my army!!".

And then, five weeks later, we figure out how to kill it, and everything goes back to normal.

Someone has probably already answered this, but:

How is it that a unit that can get curbstomped by any attacks that ignore toughness or cause instant death can be "the new heldrake"?

BlaxicanX wrote:
Someone has probably already answered this, but:

How is it that a unit that can get curbstomped by any attacks that ignore toughness or cause instant death can be "the new heldrake"?

Because people think that 2+ with a 3++ is unkillable.

We've killed TH/SS termies before, and they could fight back in melee.

 reaverX wrote:
This is why I run Zoans. Utility.

So lets say I take my normal elite choices, Doom in a spod and 2x2 Zoans in a spod. Now lets look at the options for dealing with riptide.

Physic Shriek. There will be 6 3d6 leadership checks. Yes some can (and probably will) die to interceptor. Still I like my odds there.

Dominate. LD 9 makes it not as good but still not bad paired with everything else.

Terrify. Man I sure am happy those big ass fish are in the back corners...so close to the table edge.

Puppet Master. Enough said.

Now I don't have the codex in front of me but how long do you have to charge your gun before it can be shot again? Is it next turn or YOUR next turn?

Combine that with all the other Biomancy powers you are rolling and it gets scary quick. All it takes is 1 TL Dev shot if you've been double enfeeble for ID or a smash attack from 1 enfeeble.

The only way to educate people on a Tyranid psychic choir is to give them a good old hammering with it. People just don't understand until they're on the receiving end.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Excecpt that he can just interceptor with the regular plasma, and your Sternguard still die. And then they get assaulted in his turn and they die.

How many shots is the regular plasma? How many are you likely to kill? 4 shots at S6 has an expected value of 1.8 kills, not even enough to cause a Ld check, and less if ive managed to get into cover.

Yet another flawed argument, not based on any realistic assesment. Just a bald assertion that they will still die. And assault your riptide? Genius. Marines stay in combat, killing you slowly while you hit once, killing one (possibly) and, more importantly, the cheap sternguard has caused way more disruption than their points cost. If your rip tide breaks (not being fearless) you are either caught and kiiled, or 3D6 takes you off the board edge which every single time you mention this you have claimed they are snug on the board edge. If the marines break you may catch them, in which case no biggie, or they fall back and you have a 50% chance of it being your turn next to shoot them, otherwiser they shoot you again.

Your analysis and arguments are heavily flawed, as they are too all-goods for Tau and all-bads for everyone else. Ttry this: proxy 3, and give it a go against doom, 2x2 zoans and 3 spods, with hive commander meanig most are coming in turn 2. See if your badly crafted theory holds up.

In real, actual play I have seen them cause disruption, but properly planned for (which includes terrain set up, for non-tournies) they arent a big deal. 72" range is nasty, but broadsides had / have (cant recall) that, and you can still get to them.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Dark Eldar can't kill it with poison because of 2+. It takes statistically 100 splinter shots to kill it, and a Splinter weaponry has far less range than the Riptide- even night shields are useless. A strong Dark Eldar list can put out maybe 60-80 poisoned shots on the first turn, and then they die horribly to massed plasma.

It takes 90 shots to put it down from 5 wounds to 0. I have said before I think it is better taking out the rest of the tau army and leaving the riptides for last. Getting them in combat is an ideal situation.

What you can do with splinter shots, is finish them off easily. They have to activate their 3++ every turn, and if they fail they take a wound and are stuck with a 5++. When they are stuck with the 5++ you blast them with dark lances. If you fail to kill them you can splinter them to death.

A lot of discussion here, and to be honest there is a bit of …specific set ups here that people are comparing….kind of like an “any given day” kind of thing. (I had a drone kill a 300 point character once - once).

Again, I think that the meta will be changing because of the riptide, and the tau – because the meta is based upon psychology and the perception of the players – correct or not.

Even the fact that some feel it is, means it is a game changer (along with the belief that somehow EVERY tau list will now be amazing at taking out flyers, which is just as much an error of believing that EVERY space marine list is missile spam).

The real question is, after it has been out there for six months and we see what is what.

I will happily let any tau player proxy riptides – so we can see for ourselves - I encourage everyone to do the same before they run out and buy them.

Can anyone see a flaw with this logic:

Take a Riptide with at least one drone, turning it into a squad.
Take Shadowsun, and join into that squad.

You now have an infiltrating Riptide with +3 to cover saves and majority unit toughness of 6. Unleash some close-range firepower on turn 1 then jump back 3D6 inches behind cover with Shadowsun's Warlord trait.

 xttz wrote:
Can anyone see a flaw with this logic:

Take a Riptide with at least one drone, turning it into a squad.
Take Shadowsun, and join into that squad.

You now have an infiltrating Riptide with +3 to cover saves and majority unit toughness of 6. Unleash some close-range firepower on turn 1 then jump back 3D6 inches behind cover with Shadowsun's Warlord trait.

Is shadowsun fearless?
If not, screwage continues.

 -Loki- wrote:

 reaverX wrote:
This is why I run Zoans. Utility.

So lets say I take my normal elite choices, Doom in a spod and 2x2 Zoans in a spod. Now lets look at the options for dealing with riptide.

Physic Shriek. There will be 6 3d6 leadership checks. Yes some can (and probably will) die to interceptor. Still I like my odds there.

Dominate. LD 9 makes it not as good but still not bad paired with everything else.

Terrify. Man I sure am happy those big ass fish are in the back corners...so close to the table edge.

Puppet Master. Enough said.

Now I don't have the codex in front of me but how long do you have to charge your gun before it can be shot again? Is it next turn or YOUR next turn?

Combine that with all the other Biomancy powers you are rolling and it gets scary quick. All it takes is 1 TL Dev shot if you've been double enfeeble for ID or a smash attack from 1 enfeeble.

The only way to educate people on a Tyranid psychic choir is to give them a good old hammering with it. People just don't understand until they're on the receiving end.

Ain't that the truth. I play at a kinda small store and after our first tourny with 6th ed rules, Eldrad/Farseer and Rune priests suddenly came out of the woodwork as allies. Though having your LR drop 4 templates on your own guys will leave a sour taste in anyones mouth.

I don't they'll praticularly concern my GK and Ultramarine combo.

Start 2 DKs out of LOS so they can jump in and take out anything too threatening and most of the time they've got a fairly good chance if not succeeding at least making back some of their points and causing enough disruption to make it worth it.

And then there is everything else of course.

 Selym wrote:

 xttz wrote:
Can anyone see a flaw with this logic:

Take a Riptide with at least one drone, turning it into a squad.
Take Shadowsun, and join into that squad.

You now have an infiltrating Riptide with +3 to cover saves and majority unit toughness of 6. Unleash some close-range firepower on turn 1 then jump back 3D6 inches behind cover with Shadowsun's Warlord trait.

Is shadowsun fearless?
If not, screwage continues.

A real op combo for sure

 xttz wrote:
Can anyone see a flaw with this logic:

Take a Riptide with at least one drone, turning it into a squad.
Take Shadowsun, and join into that squad.

You now have an infiltrating Riptide with +3 to cover saves and majority unit toughness of 6. Unleash some close-range firepower on turn 1 then jump back 3D6 inches behind cover with Shadowsun's Warlord trait.

Yes, the fact you dont even need the drone.

ICs cannot join units that only EVER consist of one model; by being able to take a drone or two they can be joined by ICs even if they dont take the drones

 xttz wrote:
Can anyone see a flaw with this logic:

Take a Riptide with at least one drone, turning it into a squad.
Take Shadowsun, and join into that squad.

You now have an infiltrating Riptide with +3 to cover saves and majority unit toughness of 6. Unleash some close-range firepower on turn 1 then jump back 3D6 inches behind cover with Shadowsun's Warlord trait.

You don't even need to take the drone. Mearely it being an option allows Shadowsun to join.

Riptide can be equipped with Velocity Tracking and Early Warning array to give it intercept and skyfire, 72" S8 AP2 Heavy 3 is going to hurt any mischevious flyer, and with the Nova reactor set to the shield it has 2+/3++ saves.

You can load out XV88s for intercept and skyfire for extra hurt.

And here is where we see the death of flyer spam, let us all rejoice.

So happy that I am able to take my Tau out of retirement again. The 6th Edition FAQ just screwed them and the new stuff is so good.

MrGrimDark wrote:
Riptide can be equipped with Velocity Tracking and Early Warning array to give it intercept and skyfire, 72" S8 AP2 Heavy 3 is going to hurt any mischevious flyer, and with the Nova reactor set to the shield it has 2+/3++ saves.

You can load out XV88s for intercept and skyfire for extra hurt.

And here is where we see the death of flyer spam, let us all rejoice.

So happy that I am able to take my Tau out of retirement again. The 6th Edition FAQ just screwed them and the new stuff is so good.

While all this is true, this might cost some points, so the rest of your army may be lacking. Just be glad you can swat flyers while my LRR parks beside and flames you to death while getting hammered by terminators.

MrGrimDark wrote:
Riptide can be equipped with Velocity Tracking and Early Warning array to give it intercept and skyfire, 72" S8 AP2 Heavy 3 is going to hurt any mischevious flyer, and with the Nova reactor set to the shield it has 2+/3++ saves.

You can load out XV88s for intercept and skyfire for extra hurt.

And here is where we see the death of flyer spam, let us all rejoice.

So happy that I am able to take my Tau out of retirement again. The 6th Edition FAQ just screwed them and the new stuff is so good.

no you cant... Xv88 can take skyfire OR intercept.. not both

Maybe he meant the XV8?

While all this is true, this might cost some points, so the rest of your army may be lacking. Just be glad you can swat flyers while my LRR parks beside and flames you to death while getting hammered by terminators.

It does but that can also shoot at ground targets and by focussing the Nova reactor to weapons a S9 AP1 Ordnance blast is going to make Terminators have a bad time and an Onager gauntlet or a hammerhead will see off the LRR. Thought the XV88 could take two support systems? not really read the codex in detail.

 Infreak wrote:
Maybe he meant the XV8?

id agree except the loadout of an XV8 with 2 of its 4 option taken by the above options, means 1 TL missile pod... XV88 is actually dangerous anti flyer in missileside config

A bit of topic now but for everybody who thinks to spam riptides I am sure that after six months GW is gouing to make riptides useless as it did with fliers.
btw What should be the nickname for the riptide?

MrGrimDark - a hammerhead that hits AND penetrates *still* only has a 50% chance to destroy the LRR per turn.

The damage table has always and will always be the issue - S10 gets you the penetrate easier than usual, and AP1 helps make the shot count, but the damage chart still hurts you half the time. You're needing a pair of hammerheads, with markerlight suppotr to either strip cover or raise BS (as either of these being low hurts your odds of even getting to the damage chart) to have an evens chance of significantly damaing a LRR in one turn. ANd one turn is all it really needs to deliver, as an 18" move is pretty useful.

 xttz wrote:
Can anyone see a flaw with this logic:

Take a Riptide with at least one drone, turning it into a squad.
Take Shadowsun, and join into that squad.

You now have an infiltrating Riptide with +3 to cover saves and majority unit toughness of 6. Unleash some close-range firepower on turn 1 then jump back 3D6 inches behind cover with Shadowsun's Warlord trait.

I'm not a tau expert, but I suspect there are better uses for Shadowsuns traits. Given how mobile the riptide is I'm not sure infiltrating it is hugely helpful, and it gets a 3++ invulnerable anyway which avoids you having to struggle to find it cover (not easy given it's size).

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Poisoned Gants are not going to get anywhere near it. You can't ignore it, because it's dropping 3x pie plate on you every turn. The only thing that stands a chance is Winged Hive Tyrant assaulting it, but congrats you're tying up a 185 point unit with a 260 point unit and nerfing your own firepower the rest of the game.

I think your overestimating the value of 3 pie plates. 3 STR 8 AP3 large blasts for ~600 points is good, but its not jaw-dropping great. Its about on par with LRBTs in that capacity -- and we don't see those flooding the table.

What makes the riptide cool is its flexability. Its can fill a lot of roles when required.

 labmouse42 wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Poisoned Gants are not going to get anywhere near it. You can't ignore it, because it's dropping 3x pie plate on you every turn. The only thing that stands a chance is Winged Hive Tyrant assaulting it, but congrats you're tying up a 185 point unit with a 260 point unit and nerfing your own firepower the rest of the game.

I think your overestimating the value of 3 pie plates. 3 STR 8 AP3 large blasts for ~600 points is good, but its not jaw-dropping great. Its about on par with LRBTs in that capacity -- and we don't see those flooding the table.

What makes the riptide cool is its flexability. Its can fill a lot of roles when required.

When taking 3 you don't need to dump points into FNP for survive-ability. Keeping them at 190 points per with interceptor. Thats 570 points for 3 STR8/9 AP2 pie plates. Plus all the survive-ability already discussed and versatility/flexibility.

omgidfk wrote:
When taking 3 you don't need to dump points into FNP for survive-ability. Keeping them at 190 points per with interceptor. Thats 570 points for 3 STR8/9 AP2 pie plates. Plus all the survive-ability already discussed and versatility/flexibility.

The pie really are not that hot.
Against most players your going to be hitting many targets under it. If they are getting a 4+ cover save, your going to be killing just a few models at best. I ran 3 LRBTs for a while at the start of 6th and dropped them fairly quickly, as I found the pie plates to be underwhelming.

Don't get me wrong, there will be that occasional time when someone has assaulted a vehicle and you are able to nail tons under the plate because they are all bunched up, or when SNP units deep strike, but its not very common. Decent players will generally prevent you from getting that opportunity.

omgidfk wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Poisoned Gants are not going to get anywhere near it. You can't ignore it, because it's dropping 3x pie plate on you every turn. The only thing that stands a chance is Winged Hive Tyrant assaulting it, but congrats you're tying up a 185 point unit with a 260 point unit and nerfing your own firepower the rest of the game.

I think your overestimating the value of 3 pie plates. 3 STR 8 AP3 large blasts for ~600 points is good, but its not jaw-dropping great. Its about on par with LRBTs in that capacity -- and we don't see those flooding the table.

What makes the riptide cool is its flexability. Its can fill a lot of roles when required.

When taking 3 you don't need to dump points into FNP for survive-ability. Keeping them at 190 points per with interceptor. Thats 570 points for 3 STR8/9 AP2 pie plates. Plus all the survive-ability already discussed and versatility/flexibility.

Of course when you use interceptor to get at enemy drop pods and the like, you are unable to fire markerlights at the troop as well, so you'll still be shooting BS3 pieplates at them.

Gosh, I can't believe how obtuse some Marine players are here about their precious drop-podding Sternguard, who cost 2x a Riptide. If I had a drop pod army and was facing 3x Interceptor Riptides + whatever else interceptor Tau are packing, would be terrified. Considering a large proportion of your army is in those three initial drop pods as opposed to 570 points of models who have a good chance of surviving your initial shooting phase AND SHOOT YOU FIRST, it's pretty clear podding/dsing anything is a bad idead against 3x Riptides.







Automatically Appended Next Post:
I just played a couple of games with a Soulgrinder which has BS3 Pieplates, and I wasn't much impressed.

Good thing Tau can increase BS...

I just read through this whole thread and have one question:

What does the Riptide do once the markerlight units die?

BS3 isn't that bad, especially if you are using templates.

The point I was trying to make is that certain individuals seem to be assuming that the Riptide will be able to annihilate anything because markerlights can increase BS and (more importantly) remove cover saves, which increases the Riptide's destructive potential.

However, not only does this require one to devote multiple markerlights to just supporting a single Riptide, but it also means that if those markerlight units are destroyed, the Riptide will lose its ability to increase its BS and ignore cover saves.

I'm personally reserving judgement as to whether or not the Riptide is bad, good, or great. I just felt that this particular point needed to be brought up.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:Gosh, I can't believe how obtuse some Marine players are here about their precious drop-podding Sternguard, who cost 2x a Riptide. If I had a drop pod army and was facing 3x Interceptor Riptides + whatever else interceptor Tau are packing, would be terrified. Considering a large proportion of your army is in those three initial drop pods as opposed to 570 points of models who have a good chance of surviving your initial shooting phase AND SHOOT YOU FIRST, it's pretty clear podding/dsing anything is a bad idead against 3x Riptides.

Sigh

Again, you are assuming you can ALWAYS shoot ALL 3 riptides at the contents of the drop pods. That isnt going to happen in actual play. Youarent getting better than BS3 on the turn i drop because you dont have interceptor marker lights on that riptide

Your continued "I wil only consider unlikely extremes" is pointless to a rational, reasoned discussion of the merits and weaknesses of the riptide. According to you it has none, which is frankly crap as far as statements go.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
I just played a couple of games with a Soulgrinder which has BS3 Pieplates, and I wasn't much impressed.

Good thing Tau can increase BS...

Not on interceptor they cant. And what happens when I kill your markerlights? What happens when my 2 LR hit your lines because you still only have a 50% chance to kill a LR *after* you penetrate? What happens when your precious MC gets TS by a 35point rhino, fails a morale check and falls back off the board?

Is the Riptide strong? YES. It is *strong*. Is it as insanely broken as you are attempting to claim throughout this thread? No.

Your premise has been disproven, over and over. Give it up

Please bring two LR, Drop Pods and Rhinos against my Tau force. I guarantee you won't cross the no-man's land. Face it, Codex Marines are boned against Tau.

Has anyone actually used the Riptide against a C:SM force yet?

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Please bring two LR, Drop Pods and Rhinos against my Tau force. I guarantee you won't cross the no-man's land. Face it, Codex Marines are boned against Tau.

You claim that EVERYONE is boned against Tau

Why should C:SM be any different

The Riptide is pretty good, and with some Markerlight support it's even better.

Tau in general got a nice boost, and with Markerlight support they are even better

Doesn't make them an Instawin against any other army

Question: How many ACTUAL games have you played with/against the new Tau?

Also which deployment layouts, and with how much cover?

You seem to be assuming that you can turtle them in every game in a corner 72'' away from any foe, with perfect fire lanes to the entire enemy force, and yet simultaneously outmaneuver the ENTIRE enemy force if any of them get close in.

This would only be possible if you are playing an Apoc game on the planet Billiard Ball against an enemy that refuses to get any of his forces in close and accept a few losses to feth you over. Most deployment maps will put the enemy a lot closer, and LOS blocking scenery will be on the board

RIptides are good but i'm not sure they are Heldrake level. You can hide from a Riptide by abusing terrain, you can nab cover saves against it (they can be taken away, but we are comparing in a vacuum from what I can tell). If it does use its ability it has a 33% chance of wounding itself, which is actually a fair issue, in my playtesting i've found myself getting wounded quite often and sometimes it happens when I really need the special abilities.

I do think it is a very good unit though and it is very, very durable.

Asmodais answer to anything is:

But then they get shot, but then the get instadeathed but then this but then that.

Have to question whether this man has ever played a 40K game in his life. In a perfect world scenario any unit is super duper kick ass.

I mean, I think in some ways his assessment is pretty good. I do see how you could compare the two and that the Riptide could definitely be a lynchpin, but they are also very, very different and thus hard to compare. Both offer amazing tactical advantages and both are very, very hardy. I also think that both can have armies built around them with great success. I still fear the Heldrake more though. The biggest factor is not being able to hide from them. In my experience, no matter where you go, the Heldrake can find you and kill you.

"But my army's better because it has machine guns and missiles!" - this thread.

I'll happily fight a Tau army with three Riptides with my armoured company.

Eldar trickery.

Jus' sayin'...

Just a question: Shouldn't y'all be talking about this after you've fielded or fought against a Riptide?

It just seems rather silly to me to have people saying, "SQUAD OF RIPTIDE AND SHADOWSUN IS INVINCIBLE!" when you haven't even played with it.

1068SCP wrote:
Just a question: Shouldn't y'all be talking about this after you've fielded or fought against a Riptide?

It just seems rather silly to me to have people saying, "SQUAD OF RIPTIDE AND SHADOWSUN IS INVINCIBLE!" when you haven't even played with it.

This.

Just assuming you can tell how it works w/o playing it is meaningless.
Nobody can predict how other gamers will react to it in a real-game situation until you've tried it. Just saying that "It takes X shots for you to kill a Riptide, and it can kill that unit in one shot" is assuming quite a lot of factors.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Please bring two LR, Drop Pods and Rhinos against my Tau force. I guarantee you won't cross the no-man's land. Face it, Codex Marines are boned against Tau.

Yes, I wil take your obviously educated and well thought out position....wait, no, thats not what you have demonstrated thus far

Every criticism of your stance has either been ignored or "refuted" by going "nah uh!" . Neither of which are constructive, mature and rational responses to a discussion thread

You havea sset position, and no amount of reasoned discussion will remove you from it. Your amount of sheer blind faith is impressive

I haven't seen the statline of the Riptide yet, but either way you can't Jaws a Heldrake, and I'm guessing that the Riptide doesn't have the highest initiative in the world.

I've used the Riptide 3 times now, it is good, very good. But i'd rather have a Helturkey, lol. Can't underestimate the effectiveness of Vectoring one unit then flaming another, that sort of versatility is unparalleled.

WOW!!!

just read this entire thread to amuse myself for a while and thought i'd put some of my thoughts in....

i fail to see how the riptides can be anything like as dangerous as the OP suggests... if they are all next to each other, all have interceptor, are in visable range of broadsides with interceptor and visable to a battlesuit commander then they MIGHT intercept a unit of marines to death and then (after losing a 200ish point unit) the marine player enjoys about 750-1kpts of the tau army not firing for a turn (because you cant intercept and fire the weapon again next turn)

it is really not hard to claim cover, and the CHEAPEST ways tau can remove it get expensive pretty quick..... in addition to which, riptides only move 6" so actually hiding from them is damned easy.

if it tries to nova charge every turn you should only need to do 2 wounds to kill it (similar to the steam tank in fantasy i can see taking a few wounds stopping people from trying to use the nova...)

i think the riptide is a damned cool model, and fills a role that the tau need (hard to kill, good at shooting) but it is competing for slots against stealth suits (2+ save most of the time anyway and a much more annoying threat - only T3 but easier to hide) and crisis suits (much more versatile in terms of options)

even a single flying greater daemon, winged hive tyrant or dreadknight scares me more than a trio of riptides

They move 6" + 2D6" thrust move.

Even at the best (18'' move) they can't dodge forever, and odds are they'll move less than that

There's no need for ad hominem attacks if you can't substantiate a response.

But just so you know, I've been playing 40k for 14 years since Codex DA in 3rd Edition, and am currently going 23 games undefeated with the new Ravenwing. The only draw was due to the
store closing early and not finishing the last turn.If you somehow doubt my tactical acumen, you're very much welcome to come down to London to have a go if you think you're 'ard enough.

The terrain I play on is rather sparse and there is usually not very many places to hide, this probably influences my response. But if you look at tournament arrangements, there rarely is that much cover
anyway (25%) of the boards is recommended. Also, 2/3 of the deployments favour Tau, as diagonal deployment and long board edge deployment play to their strengths.

It's pretty plain that your solutions are bad against 3 Riptides. So far DE poison spam is probably the strongest counter, but if you focus the Riptides as Ascalom has found out
your army dies to other things.

As a pretty astute player has pointed out, by attacking the Riptides you lose the game, because you're wasting firepower which could kill far less resilient things.

In any case, you can bubble wrap the Riptides effectively with screens of cheap Kroot. Think less of using the Riptides in isolation but rather having three resilient firing platforms
with versatile firepower which cannot be stunned, shaken, or otherwise stopped.

Jaws is limited to a 24" range, psychic test, Deny the Witch, and only has a 1/2 chance of removing the Riptide.

Even then, there still are two Riptides to deal with... and your Rune Priest has just put himself in a position to be shot by the entire Tau army.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
But just so you know, I've been playing 40k for 14 years since Codex DA in 3rd Edition, and am currently going 23 games undefeated with the new Ravenwing. The only draw was due to the
store closing early and not finishing the last turn.If you somehow doubt my tactical acumen, you're very much welcome to come down to London to have a go if you think you're 'ard enough.

The duration you've played the game is pretty much irrelevant. I've played 16 years at this point, and in that time I've seen people who've been playing for 2 weeks table people playing for 10+ years. Skill is not at all correlated with how long you've played the game. Once you know the rules inside and out, 3-4 games and you are pretty much the best you are ever going to get. I just went 3-0 at a small local tournament with my nids last month, and I'd played 2 games of 6th before that. Your record of 23-0 speaks more of your opponents being crap then you being some manner of gaming savant as well.

The terrain I play on is rather sparse and there is usually not very many places to hide, this probably influences my response. But if you look at tournament arrangements, there rarely is that much cover
anyway (25%) of the boards is recommended. Also, 2/3 of the deployments favour Tau, as diagonal deployment and long board edge deployment play to their strengths.

Well, that's a problem. I believe the rulebook states D3 pieces per 2'x2' square.

It's pretty plain that your solutions are bad against 3 Riptides. So far DE poison spam is probably the strongest counter, but if you focus the Riptides as Ascalom has found out
your army dies to other things.

Anything you would use to kill terminators, dreadknights or heavy monstrous creatures will work against a Riptide. Plasma, outflankers, deep-strikers, fast movers, staying out of LOS, shielding with cannon fodder...etc. There's a multitude of ways to lessen their impact.

As a pretty astute player has pointed out, by attacking the Riptides you lose the game, because you're wasting firepower which could kill far less resilient things.

Every weapon has an optimal target. I wouldn't use bolters against a Riptide, but I wouldn't waste multi-meltas/plasma against firewarriors/kroot either.

In any case, you can bubble wrap the Riptides effectively with screens of cheap Kroot. Think less of using the Riptides in isolation but rather having three resilient firing platforms
with versatile firepower which cannot be stunned, shaken, or otherwise stopped.

Jaws is limited to a 24" range, psychic test, Deny the Witch, and only has a 1/2 chance of removing the Riptide.

Even then, there still are two Riptides to deal with... and your Rune Priest has just put himself in a position to be shot by the entire Tau army.

Of course, for the cost of your 3 Riptides, you get 6 rune priests....so there's that.

A Riptide isn't anything special, it's basically a Dreadknight with a long ranged weaker demolisher cannon on it. The only thing it really has going for it is that it's long ranged, and it's fairly tough to kill. The firepower is nothing impressive for 185+ points. If you seriously fear these things will unbalance the game, well, you are a pretty poor player.

Actually the bulk of my army was intact, though a fair few vehicles had lost hull points. The units that killed the Riptides mostly survived the battle.

He won on objectives IIRC, with the battle ending turn 5. If i'd had another turn he'd have lost by one objective, but he had one tenacious fething fire warrior camping it and refusing to die...

I'll not deny though that if i'd ignored at least one Riptide to frag a few other units, i'd likely have hat a win, for the cost of probably one unit. I'll remember that for next time.

Long Board Edges only has a 24'' no-mans land between the two sides. Not hard to close the gap on that. A Fast Skimmer army could do it in one turn. Corners is more of a git, but not insurmountable.

Most tournaments i've been to actually favour terrain that blocks LOS, at least a bit, A bare table with a few scattered tufts of grass favours shooting armies that don't need cover (IG, SM and Tau). A board that actually provides enough cover will allow shorter ranged armies to play a bit better to their strengths (DE, Eldar) while a heavy cover battlefield favors Close-in armies like Orks and Daemons.

The duration you've played the game is pretty much irrelevant. I've played 16 years at this point, and in that time I've seen people who've been playing for 2 weeks table people playing for 10+ years. Skill is not at all correlated with how long you've played the game. Once you know the rules inside and out, 3-4 games and you are pretty much the best you are ever going to get. I just went 3-0 at a small local tournament with my nids last month, and I'd played 2 games of 6th before that. Your record of 23-0 speaks more of your opponents being crap then you being some manner of gaming savant as well.

I never claimed to be as such, and since you don't know the first thing about the opponents I've played, I would refrain from making judgements. But since you insist on making a blanket statement
based on zero evidence, I can't stop you from putting your foot in, can I? Then again, according to you all it takes is a knowledge of the rules and 2-3 games, and magically every player becomes a potential GT winner.

The reason I replied with my 40k history is because certain players were casting aspersions on whether I actually play the game, which I most certainly do, and frequently.

The terrain I play on is rather sparse and there is usually not very many places to hide, this probably influences my response. But if you look at tournament arrangements, there rarely is that much cover
anyway (25%) of the boards is recommended. Also, 2/3 of the deployments favour Tau, as diagonal deployment and long board edge deployment play to their strengths.

Well, that's a problem. I believe the rulebook states D3 pieces per 2'x2' square.

Anything you would use to kill terminators, dreadknights or heavy monstrous creatures will work against a Riptide. Plasma, outflankers, deep-strikers, fast movers, staying out of LOS, shielding with cannon fodder...etc. There's a multitude of ways to lessen their impact.

You're confusing 'lessening their impact' and 'ways to kill Riptides,' Part of the point of this post was to point out things that work against Terminators don't work against Rips because of their superior range and maneuverability. Things that lessen their impact obviously work, like spreading out because this is effective against all blast weapons, but things like gtg in cover but are less effective, because Tau can JSJ and remove your cover save. Also, because of Interceptor deep strikers and out-flankers are far less effective.

Every weapon has an optimal target. I wouldn't use bolters against a Riptide, but I wouldn't waste multi-meltas/plasma against firewarriors/kroot either.

Congratulations on pointing out the obvious. You clearly failed to grasp even the basic premise of the point.

Of course, for the cost of your 3 Riptides, you get 6 rune priests....so there's that.

In normal games you only ever get four, and if you do you're left with a top-heavy, sub-optimal SW army. Let's stop pretending that JOTWW is a catch all solution to Riptides because a) It's limited to SW B) It's not very long ranged or even a guaranteed kill.

A Riptide isn't anything special, it's basically a Dreadknight with a long ranged weaker demolisher cannon on it. The only thing it really has going for it is that it's long ranged, and it's fairly tough to kill. The firepower is nothing impressive for 185+ points. If you seriously fear these things will unbalance the game, well, you are a pretty poor player.

This is the kind of myopic reductionism I started this post to combat. The Riptide is much tougher than a Dreadknight (2+ 3++), and its firepower is average-good for 190 points, and it has more flexibility and movement. You have not substantiated your argument with a single useful rebuttal.

Ad Hominem attacks are the last refuge of those who lack content. (if you don't know what Ad Hominem means, google it.) Please make up your mind if it's me who's a bad player or my opponents.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ascalam wrote:
Actually the bulk of my army was intact, though a fair few vehicles had lost hull points. The units that killed the Riptides mostly survived the battle.

He won on objectives IIRC, with the battle ending turn 5. If i'd had another turn he'd have lost by one objective, but he had one tenacious fething fire warrior camping it and refusing to die...

I'll not deny though that if i'd ignored at least one Riptide to frag a few other units, i'd likely have hat a win, for the cost of probably one unit. I'll remember that for next time.

Long Board Edges only has a 24'' no-mans land between the two sides. Not hard to close the gap on that. A Fast Skimmer army could do it in one turn. Corners is more of a git, but not insurmountable.

Most tournaments i've been to actually favour terrain that blocks LOS, at least a bit, A bare table with a few scattered tufts of grass favours shooting armies that don't need cover (IG, SM and Tau). A board that actually provides enough cover will allow shorter ranged armies to play a bit better to their strengths (DE, Eldar) while a heavy cover battlefield favors Close-in armies like Orks and Daemons.

Not all armies are quite as fast as Dark Eldar or as good against Monstrous Creatures.

You're assuming that the 3++ goes off every time and that you can also use the Nova Reactor to boost the shooting? Of course it's going to seem unstoppable with those assumptions. The fact that you don't play with enough terrain further skews the results in favour of the Riptide. You're coming across as incredibly arrogant to me, but it might just be the Internet.

Your posting style is extremely frustrating and hostile, and carries a subtext of "if you don't agree with me, you are stupid", so hopefully this doesn't get turned into a flame war.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

The duration you've played the game is pretty much irrelevant. I've played 16 years at this point, and in that time I've seen people who've been playing for 2 weeks table people playing for 10+ years. Skill is not at all correlated with how long you've played the game. Once you know the rules inside and out, 3-4 games and you are pretty much the best you are ever going to get. I just went 3-0 at a small local tournament with my nids last month, and I'd played 2 games of 6th before that. Your record of 23-0 speaks more of your opponents being crap then you being some manner of gaming savant as well.

I never claimed to be as such, and since you don't know the first thing about the opponents I've played, I would refrain from making judgements. But since you insist on making a blanket statement
based on zero evidence, I can't stop you from putting your foot in, can I? Then again, according to you all it takes is a knowledge of the rules and 2-3 games, and magically every player becomes a potential GT winner.

You never claimed such....well, there are 4 explanations in my mind to a 23-0 record;

1. You are a vastly better player then your opponents (whom are of "average" LFGS level), making you some one in a hundred gaming genius.
2. Your opponents are poor.
3. You are lying about your record (it's the internet, why not?)
4. You cheat....a lot.

Giving you the benefit of the doubt that you aren't a cheater or a liar, or you are flaunting your records to just be a braggart...that leaves mediocre opponents, as if they were on your level the dice would have handed you at least 1 loss in the course of 23+ games. My experience with LFGS play is crap opponents overall. Maybe 1 out of 30 is decent, but they are rare, and much like myself have gotten tired of stomping the poor players on "friendly" gaming nights and retired to play at home with friends in a less serious atmosphere or against opponents they know will give them a challenge. So most likely you are fairly good, and your opponents really aren't in your league, similar to myself. If you want actual interweb credibility, you will have to post some major tournament wins like a few of the players around these forums. You won't get much credibility just throwing up a win/loss record where you cannot verify the quality of your opponents, or even if you are lying or not.

Anything you would use to kill terminators, dreadknights or heavy monstrous creatures will work against a Riptide. Plasma, outflankers, deep-strikers, fast movers, staying out of LOS, shielding with cannon fodder...etc. There's a multitude of ways to lessen their impact.

You're confusing 'lessening their impact' and 'ways to kill Riptides,' Part of the point of this post was to point out things that work against Terminators don't work against Rips because of their superior range and maneuverability. Things that lessen their impact obviously work, like spreading out because this is effective against all blast weapons, but things like gtg in cover but are less effective, because Tau can JSJ and remove your cover save. Also, because of Interceptor deep strikers and out-flankers are far less effective.

Ways to lessen the impact of a unit;
#1 Kill it.
#2 Hide from or kite it.
...etc

Killing it is a way to lessen it's impact on a game. Granted, it's fairly difficult to kill, but counting it's nova reactor working every turn is silly. Odds are one of the three is going to fail that 3+ throw, so it will attract the available firepower. Also your argument of "It will always be out of range" is a bit of an exaggeration as well. In a standard setup, the furthest you could deploy away from a unit I was trying to get close is 32.5" (12" up, 48" across the board, ~3.5" wide base), in vanguard strike it's ~48" (I think...I mapped it out, but it's late and my math might be sketchy), and playing length wise, you are looking ~44.5". That's 1 turn of movement for a unit with 48" range at WORST. You are rarely out of range with a 48" weapon on a 6x4 board in my experience, so a 72" range is largely unnecessary, and does little to protect you from 48" range weapons as there just isn't the room get to that max range. It's also difficult to argue that the Riptide will always be out of LOS due to JSJ, then state that it will always have a good target to fire at.

Every weapon has an optimal target. I wouldn't use bolters against a Riptide, but I wouldn't waste multi-meltas/plasma against firewarriors/kroot either.

Congratulations on pointing out the obvious. You clearly failed to grasp even the basic premise of the point.

I'm not 100% clear what your point was really. Was it that any firepower directed at it at all is a complete waste because it would almost certainly have a more optimal target elsewhere? There's other ways to deal with other units, but the Riptide will require a fair amount of firepower to bring down. So if you want it dead, and you will want to kill it quite often, then you will have to free up the available firepower by engaging other units with other tools.

Of course, for the cost of your 3 Riptides, you get 6 rune priests....so there's that.

In normal games you only ever get four, and if you do you're left with a top-heavy, sub-optimal SW army. Let's stop pretending that JOTWW is a catch all solution to Riptides because a) It's limited to SW B) It's not very long ranged or even a guaranteed kill.

I think you missed MY point here. Riptides aren't free, and for what you are paying for them some times it's worth throwing away a smaller unit for a chance to take it out. Losing a 100 point rune priest for a 50% chance to drop a Riptide is a pretty decent gamble actually. Of course no one would field 6 rune priests, hell, more then 1 would be rare in a competitive list.

A Riptide isn't anything special, it's basically a Dreadknight with a long ranged weaker demolisher cannon on it. The only thing it really has going for it is that it's long ranged, and it's fairly tough to kill. The firepower is nothing impressive for 185+ points. If you seriously fear these things will unbalance the game, well, you are a pretty poor player.

This is the kind of myopic reductionism I started this post to combat. The Riptide is much tougher than a Dreadknight (2+ 3++), and its firepower is average-good for 190 points, and it has more flexibility and movement. You have not substantiated your argument with a single useful rebuttal.

Ad Hominem attacks are the last refuge of those who lack content. (if you don't know what Ad Hominem means, google it.) Please make up your mind if it's me who's a bad player or my opponents.

I really don't know how else to phrase it. It doesn't really do anything we aren't accustom to dealing with. We all have experience dealing with T6 multi wound 2+ save creatures with Dreadknights, Tyranno-fexes and Mephiston kicking around. The only real challenge it provides is that it likes to sit back instead of coming forward like the others, but we also have experience dealing with units like to sit back because of heavy artillery or back field leman russes or whatnot.

What I really don't get is your overall point. Are you trying to claim that Riptides are our new overlords and we should all bow to our soon to be tournament dominating Tau masters? Because I don't think that's what you really mean, and I don't think that's true anyways, since Tau are largely a middle of the road army from what I can see. Sure Riptides are a good, maybe even a great unit, but they won't change the way we think about the game or cause people to run back to the drawing board to start their tournament lists from scratch like Helldrakes did. Helldrakes have a lot more reach with their firepower (since LOS and cover are largely irrelevant due to it's speed and weapon), not to mention their firepower is a fair bit more impressive and very alpha strike style. Riptides are just another long range template heavy weapon in many regards. In terms of staying power that really depends on the amount of anti-aircraft the opponent has, but overall neither is very easy to get rid of, but you have a lot more options when dealing with a Riptide.

In the end, I'm keeping my eye on the battle report forum and looking for some local Tau players to play against to see how it fares on the board, but I don't really expect it to be a dominating presence.

 ausYenLoWang wrote:
FA slots can contest objectives yes?

turn drake to Hover mode....

Vehicles cannot contest, period Contesting has to be a denial unit, which is essentially infantry and MCs, not vehicles. (Pg 123 core rule book).

nosferatu1001 wrote:
They move 6" + 2D6" thrust move.

The average roll of a 2D6 is 7. So, 6+7= 13" average movement. Running is another D6, average of 3.5, for an average total movement of 16.5".
Not fast enough to outrun any fast attack options, or charging units with fleet who run before charging. Add in the fact that the Tau player will probably prefer to shoot than run, and you're back down to 13" movement. Not fast enough to out run anything in a single turn, and ranged weapons will still have their fun.

Jus' saying...

 liquidjoshi wrote:
"But my army's better because it has machine guns and missiles!" - this thread.

I'll happily fight a Tau army with three Riptides with my armoured company.

My army is better because it farts out beetles and grubs!

have you ever noticed, if you take the wings off of a heldrake and look at it from behind, it looks more like an angry daemon lobster.....

nosferatu1001 wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:Gosh, I can't believe how obtuse some Marine players are here about their precious drop-podding Sternguard, who cost 2x a Riptide. If I had a drop pod army and was facing 3x Interceptor Riptides + whatever else interceptor Tau are packing, would be terrified. Considering a large proportion of your army is in those three initial drop pods as opposed to 570 points of models who have a good chance of surviving your initial shooting phase AND SHOOT YOU FIRST, it's pretty clear podding/dsing anything is a bad idead against 3x Riptides.

Sigh

Again, you are assuming you can ALWAYS shoot ALL 3 riptides at the contents of the drop pods. That isnt going to happen in actual play. Youarent getting better than BS3 on the turn i drop because you dont have interceptor marker lights on that riptide

Your continued "I wil only consider unlikely extremes" is pointless to a rational, reasoned discussion of the merits and weaknesses of the riptide. According to you it has none, which is frankly crap as far as statements go.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
I just played a couple of games with a Soulgrinder which has BS3 Pieplates, and I wasn't much impressed.

Good thing Tau can increase BS...

Not on interceptor they cant. And what happens when I kill your markerlights? What happens when my 2 LR hit your lines because you still only have a 50% chance to kill a LR *after* you penetrate? What happens when your precious MC gets TS by a 35point rhino, fails a morale check and falls back off the board?

Is the Riptide strong? YES. It is *strong*. Is it as insanely broken as you are attempting to claim throughout this thread? No.

Your premise has been disproven, over and over. Give it up

This whole thread is hilarious. It's like arguing with a child who starts to kick and scream "three pie plates!" with their fingers in their ears, oblivious to what anyone has to say.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:"Footslogging, TH/SS are dead. Deepstriking, TH/SS are dead. Land-Raidering, TH/SS are dead. Storm-Ravening, TH/SS are dead. "

Im glad you sorted the tactics out here.

For people who believe that triple Riptides are going to win your games for you, bear in mind these points:

1) Most games are objective-based. While any KP game will favour the riptide, you're spending 555+ points on three models who cannot capture objectives, and will rarely contest ans they need to stay far away from the enemy to be effective.

2) Terrain. You can't see everything. Units can/will hide from you.

3) There are weapons, psychic powers and tactics that can cause the Riptide to fail morale, and fall back 3D6". You often say you'll camp on the back of the game board so that you can snipe. If the Riptide falls back even once, it's dead.

4) Using interceptor gives you *some* chance of killing a unit before it can do anything, when it appears. But you have a fair chance of failing to eradicate it, and cannot shoot in your turn to get better targets.

5) Overcharging has a chance of FAILURE. You can hurt yourself quite badly if you over-rely on it.

6) You're spending a large chunk of points on something that's effectiveness can be negated somewhat.

 xttz wrote:
Saw this mentioned elsewhere, although I don't have a copy of the new codex to check it....

"Drones taken as upgrades for a unit act as additional squad members in all regards"
Is it true that if the Riptide loses a drone, it's forced to take a morale test due to 25% casualties?

yep
on the plus side, means it is no longer a single model unit. means you can join characters to it. Shadowsun for Shrouding and 4D6 jetpack anyone?

CalasTyphon216 wrote:

 xttz wrote:
Saw this mentioned elsewhere, although I don't have a copy of the new codex to check it....

"Drones taken as upgrades for a unit act as additional squad members in all regards"
Is it true that if the Riptide loses a drone, it's forced to take a morale test due to 25% casualties?

yep
on the plus side, means it is no longer a single model unit. means you can join characters to it. Shadowsun for Shrouding and 4D6 jetpack anyone?

It's at this point that I stop caring about shooting the Riptide, and just focus on annihilating the rest of the army

There really seems to be two camps here, those that think the riptide is unstoppable and those that think the riptide is a joke. Having actually played a few games with it I can say it is very good but it is not without its flaws. First and foremost it is very survivable. It can take a lot of hits and still say standing. Some of you may be thinking that it is as easy to deal with as 5 terminators, in some respects this is true but t6 means mass infantry fire doesn't hurt the riptide nearly as much as terminators and because it is a single model templates are less effective. This means the things that you want to use to take it out are your anti-tank guns with high damage and ap1/2, other wise you waste too much fire on it. For example, many players are saying DE they will kill the riptide with poison shots, a little math hammer shows us it will take 90 bs4 poison 4+ shots to take it down (135 if he has fnp) so realistically that is out of the question, on the other hand it only takes 13.5 bs4 s8 ap2 lance shots to kill it (20.25 if it has fnp). So the riptide is vulnerable to mass hits from anti-tank guns but some armies anti-tank is not the best and as a result those armies will suffer.

Another one of the riptides weaknesses is assault. If you can catch it you are good. But it is actually really hard to catch with its jump pack and if you get too close it can last ditch effort nova charge for a get away. Realistically you need jump troops, beasts or something else that can move 12+'' a turn. Normal 6" movement is just not going to work (try to think about how many times you caught a crisis suit in combat with a normal 6'' movement). Range is also an issue with a 72'' gun. So units like wraiths are very good against the riptide, while units like terminators are not. But be careful chasing after a riptide. It will take a few turns to get to and if the player is smart they will lead you to an area where you are exposed to fire and/or far away from the rest of the tau army, meaning your dedicated assault units might not see assault again. So although assault is the best way to deal with the riptide it can be a bit risky.

So now lets look at its weapon. The ion accelerator is probably going to be the weapon of choice and it will almost always be over charged. So we are looking at a 72'' 3 s7 ap2 shots or a s8 ap2 large blast that can potentially ignore cover. Does this scare you? It really depends on your army, against an army like tyranids the blast doesn't really scare them because they have many high toughness multiple wound models and cheap infantry, the 3 s7 shots are troublesome but relatively weak compared to a crisis team. Against an army like GKs with small units of high costing models the gun is a lot more scary. Over all for damage to point cost crisis suits and broadsides are probably better, but it has survivability that other units don't have. So for some armies ignoring the riptide(s) is not a bad idea. Or at least ignoring it until you deal with weaker threats because personally I think I am winning if go after my riptide rather than my crisis team.

Because of the riptides great mobility and survivability I think its main job is going to be line breaker and objective denial. This is very similar to GUO who uses his bulk to sit on a backfield objective and keep the enemy from scoring it. And I think this is something tau desperately needs. I see it as an auto include in a tau list as a 1 or 2 (as its weapons are not strong enough for 3) I do not see a meta shifting around it like the hell drake though. If the meta shifts because of tau I think it will be more do to broadsides or anti-air in general more than because of the riptide.

Necron Dlord with sempiternal weave, MSS and rez orb in a challenge? Jump infantry, S7 ignore armor, rerolls all around along with forcing a 3d6 Lds to hit seem like a pretty good deal to me. 4+ Ever living never hurts either.

Shortened and restructured for ease of replying:

 lambsandlions wrote:

1)Another one of the riptides weaknesses is assault. If you can catch it you are good. But it is [hard] to catch with its jump pack and if you get too close it [can] nova charge for a get away. Realistically you need jump troops, beasts or something else that can move 12+'' a turn. Normal 6" movement is just not going to work.

2)Range is also an issue with a 72'' gun. So units like wraiths are very good against the riptide, while units like terminators are not. But be careful chasing after a riptide. It will take a few turns to get to and if the player is smart they will lead you to an area where you are exposed to fire and/or far away from the rest of the tau army, meaning your dedicated assault units might not see assault again. So although assault is the best way to deal with the riptide it can be a bit risky.

3)So now lets look at its weapon. The ion accelerator is probably going to be the weapon of choice and it will almost always be over charged. So we are looking at a 72'' 3 s7 ap2 shots or a s8 ap2 large blast that can potentially ignore cover. [Scary]? It really depends on your army, against an army like tyranids the blast doesn't really scare them because they have many high toughness multiple wound models and cheap infantry, the 3 s7 shots are troublesome but relatively weak compared to a crisis team. Against an army like GKs with small units of high costing models the gun is a lot more scary. Over all for damage to point cost crisis suits and broadsides are probably better, but it has survivability that other units don't have. So for some armies ignoring the riptide(s) is not a bad idea. Or at least ignoring it until you deal with weaker threats because [I think] I am winning if go after my riptide rather than my crisis team.

4)Because of the riptides great mobility and survivability I think its main job is going to be line breaker and objective denial. And I think this is something tau desperately needs. I see it as an auto include in a tau list as a 1 or 2 (as its weapons are not strong enough for 3) I do not see a meta shifting around it like the hell drake though. If the meta shifts because of tau I think it will be more do to broadsides or anti-air in general more than because of the riptide.

1) I agree with you here. The assault option requires fast, hard-hitting units to deal with. Possible options include chaos raptors/spawn/bikers/daemon princes etc. Jump infantry could do quite well in trying to reach the Riptide. One thing that could be really effective is using C:SM or BA Vanguard Veterans. Deepstrike them, then use "Heroic Intervention" to get straight into melee.

2)If by " wraiths are very good against the riptide, while units like terminators are not" you mean that any foot slogging termies are going to have a hard time, then I agree. 72" will hit almost anything in sight on a 6x4 board.

3)Exactly. Armies that invest heavily in 2+ or 3+ saves, or elitist units are going to be the most heavily hit by the Riptide. But horde armies have the expendability and massed attacks/firepower to deal with hard threats like the Riptide.
One thing I must say, however, is that Chaos Daemons are going to have fun with Tau. They have fast units, who are excellent in melee, can all Deepstrike, and spam 5++ saves. Things like Fateweaver combos could prove devastating to Tau, even with the Riptide.

4) I can see the Riptide sitting on the rearguard objectives, but linebreaker? I dispute that, personally. It might be tough, but the further forward you go, the closer you are to the enemy. It will be easier to get assaulted, and the blast shots risk scattering onto yourself far more than if you take advantage of the 72" range.

I've dropped 2 riptides by turn 3 using the chaos codex and hel turkeys. The " which is better argument " really is they come out to a tie. I can blow riptides off the board and tau can kill my hel turkeys, oh well. I play a nurgle army and drop tau about the same every time because tactics count for something even though dice are random. My flyers are used to distract and remove infantry types with the flamers and deal with light vehicles and other flyers. Between my obliterators and my havocs and my plague marines riptides lasted on a few games to turn 4, yes they are dangerous,but, not superman. Nor are helturkeys the end all of the chaos codex, I'd rather they made blight drones a choice for a flyer in the chaos codex my self. I've used a sorcerer to enfeebled a riptide and pie plated him to dead with a vindicator.... Not un-killable at that point. I've had my turkeys popped coming in from reserve from a double force org ADL with quad guns. Poof no turkeys. They are more even due to what they are designed to do. You take a riptide to pop a tank like a landraider or battle wagon, flyers and kill infantry. You take a heldrake to kill infantry, flyers and lite vehicles. Really they do there jobs well. If your going to compare them to each other base it on their roles on the field, they weren't designed to do the same thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

some random necron guy wrote:
Necron Dlord with sempiternal weave, MSS and rez orb in a challenge? Jump infantry, S7 ignore armor, rerolls all around along with forcing a 3d6 Lds to hit seem like a pretty good deal to me. 4+ Ever living never hurts either.

Don't forget nightscythe for transport with some lych guard

Seriously?

This thing is one outflanking Dominion or Deep Striking Seraphim squad away from the scrap heap. Drop-Pod combi-melta could do it, too (or combi-plasma for that matter).

Hey, I know! Lets just Veil in a unit of Lychguard with shields and a duelling lord, just for laughs, shall we?

Ooh, ooh, I know! Lets break out the Tri-las Predators and Leman Russ Battle Tanks!

 Selym wrote:

4) I can see the Riptide sitting on the rearguard objectives, but linebreaker? I dispute that, personally. It might be tough, but the further forward you go, the closer you are to the enemy. It will be easier to get assaulted, and the blast shots risk scattering onto yourself far more than if you take advantage of the 72" range.

You use the riptides 72'' range to take shots at things as you advance it up the flanks. If your opponent sends a melee unit against it you should be far enough away to negate that unit for a few turns before it can try to get back into the fight. If they ignore it you get to the back field and try to clear the objective in your opponent's deployment zone. Chances are if your opponent has a unit in the deployment zone it is not going to do any damage to the riptide in melee so you can sit right next to it and get line braker and deny an objective.


Another thing for those who are saying how easy it is for their codex to deal with the riptide. Are you already taking that unit? Saying "I can take X, Y and Z to kill the iiptide" is not the same as actually taking those units and if you take a unit you normally would not because of the riptide then it has done its job and warped the meta.

 lambsandlions wrote:

 Selym wrote:

4) I can see the Riptide sitting on the rearguard objectives, but linebreaker? I dispute that, personally. It might be tough, but the further forward you go, the closer you are to the enemy. It will be easier to get assaulted, and the blast shots risk scattering onto yourself far more than if you take advantage of the 72" range.

You use the riptides 72'' range to take shots at things as you advance it up the flanks. If your opponent sends a melee unit against it you should be far enough away to negate that unit for a few turns before it can try to get back into the fight. If they ignore it you get to the back field and try to clear the objective in your opponent's deployment zone. Chances are if your opponent has a unit in the deployment zone it is not going to do any damage to the riptide in melee so you can sit right next to it and get line braker and deny an objective.


Another thing for those who are saying how easy it is for their codex to deal with the riptide. Are you already taking that unit? Saying "I can take X, Y and Z to kill the iiptide" is not the same as actually taking those units and if you take a unit you normally would not because of the riptide then it has done its job and warped the meta.

I see your point about the Riptide advancing. But, IMO, the overall effectiveness of sitting back vs moving up is going to be dictated by the tactics of each individual Tau player, and their opponent.

As for saying "X" unit can deal with the Riptide, you are right on there. My suggestion of using Vanguard Veterans is pretty pointless for any SM army that doesn't field those.
Personally, I'd focus first on the markerlights, and then troops/vehicles according to their threat to my army, before targeting the Riptide.

nosferatu1001 wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:Gosh, I can't believe how obtuse some Marine players are here about their precious drop-podding Sternguard, who cost 2x a Riptide. If I had a drop pod army and was facing 3x Interceptor Riptides + whatever else interceptor Tau are packing, would be terrified. Considering a large proportion of your army is in those three initial drop pods as opposed to 570 points of models who have a good chance of surviving your initial shooting phase AND SHOOT YOU FIRST, it's pretty clear podding/dsing anything is a bad idead against 3x Riptides.

Sigh

Again, you are assuming you can ALWAYS shoot ALL 3 riptides at the contents of the drop pods. That isnt going to happen in actual play. Youarent getting better than BS3 on the turn i drop because you dont have interceptor marker lights on that riptide

Your continued "I wil only consider unlikely extremes" is pointless to a rational, reasoned discussion of the merits and weaknesses of the riptide. According to you it has none, which is frankly crap as far as statements go.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
I just played a couple of games with a Soulgrinder which has BS3 Pieplates, and I wasn't much impressed.

Good thing Tau can increase BS...

Not on interceptor they cant. And what happens when I kill your markerlights? What happens when my 2 LR hit your lines because you still only have a 50% chance to kill a LR *after* you penetrate? What happens when your precious MC gets TS by a 35point rhino, fails a morale check and falls back off the board?

Is the Riptide strong? YES. It is *strong*. Is it as insanely broken as you are attempting to claim throughout this thread? No.

Your premise has been disproven, over and over. Give it up

But you can have interceptor marker lights on your commanders drones. Shoot them first then line up the rip tides to fire. With a commander rocking 2 maker drones and a drone controler and intercept thats 2 BS5 marker lights on interceptor duty. Bobs's your uncle you have a BS 5 riptide or a deep strikng squad wit no cover save.

As for this thread, it seems to be ocusing on Riptides in 3's. Some things are meant to me spamed. 3 hell Drakes is awesome. Tau has always been about synergy, perhaps 3 riptides are not optimal. 2 with a squad of supporting intercepting crisis with marker drones would raise he effectivness of the whole army. This game is never a vacuum and that goes double for Tau.

Blood Angel Librarian with Fear of the Darkness in a drop pod should do the trick...

The codex has a saying
"The mind that direct the sword is more dangerous then the blade"
I say we apply that to every game.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
The codex has a saying
"The mind that direct the sword is more dangerous then the blade"
I say we apply that to every game.

Perfect

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:There's no need for ad hominem attacks if you can't substantiate a response.

Good job many, many substantive responses have been given, which you failed to counter in any effective, meaningful way.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:But just so you know, I've been playing 40k for 14 years since Codex DA in 3rd Edition, and am currently going 23 games undefeated with the new Ravenwing. The only draw was due to the
store closing early and not finishing the last turn.If you somehow doubt my tactical acumen, you're very much welcome to come down to London to have a go if you think you're 'ard enough.

Lol, internet "tough guys" crack me up.

You only play at stores? The average playing level at a store is not that high, from my experience. What is your ranking score in UK? Major tournament wins or places? Anything a little bit more externally verifiable than your appeal to authority fallacy, to sit amongst the other fallacies you are committing?

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:The terrain I play on is rather sparse and there is usually not very many places to hide, this probably influences my response. But if you look at tournament arrangements, there rarely is that much cover
anyway (25%) of the boards is recommended. Also, 2/3 of the deployments favour Tau, as diagonal deployment and long board edge deployment play to their strengths.

Nope, if you look at tournament arrangements terrrain is quite good. I take it from your use of adepticon you dont have a UK tournament you can point to for terrain levels? Even our local 50 player tournament we fil the boards at least 25% coverage, with a mix of LOS and non-LOS blocking terrain.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:It's pretty plain that your solutions are bad against 3 Riptides. So far DE poison spam is probably the strongest counter, but if you focus the Riptides as Ascalom has found out
your army dies to other things.

Its pretty plain that you have made a lot of assertions, and when challenged have responded with MORE assertions

Never the bad, only ever the good. ALWAYS able to JSJ out of los (never rolling poorly on 2D6", despite it only averaging 7"), yet ALWAYS able to have all 3 able to intercept. ALWAYS able to novacharge, AND simultaneously gain a 3++, which is not just unlikely but actually against the rules!

Amusing.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:As a pretty astute player has pointed out, by attacking the Riptides you lose the game, because you're wasting firepower which could kill far less resilient things.

It depends what you attack it with. Attacking it with a runepriest in pod (remember, you said two were together) gives a 25% chance roughly to kill both, and 50% to kill one. For a cheap pod and GH unit. 24" range is pretty good, because if you havent got both together, then one is more central and more easily shot....

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:In any case, you can bubble wrap the Riptides effectively with screens of cheap Kroot. Think less of using the Riptides in isolation but rather having three resilient firing platforms
with versatile firepower which cannot be stunned, shaken, or otherwise stopped.

Wel, they can be pinned. Amazing how many rules you conveniently forget. they can also be forced to take a morale check or fall back. Another thing you dont consider - always the good! never the bad!

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Jaws is limited to a 24" range, psychic test, Deny the Witch, and only has a 1/2 chance of removing the Riptide.

Except that if youre bubble wrapping then there are other units to aim Jaws at, killing the bubble wrap witht he units shooting while denying the tide a chance to DtW. Oh, and remember two are together - you've said so yourself, more than once this thread. Or are they now NOT together? Which is it?

Never the bad! Always the good!

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:Even then, there still are two Riptides to deal with... and your Rune Priest has just put himself in a position to be shot by the entire Tau army.

And? I've sacrificed a 280pt demon prince to kill a manticore - because that was the tactically astute thing to do (as in, won me the game)

Your also still somehow assuming its only one riptide. It isnt, it is at least one - roughly 25% chance of two, with some careful positioning of a RP or two

(this also ignores - rp on bikes, which can turbo to get out of LOS, just to counter your "but but but interceptor! with all 3! always!")

So, any chance of you providing a balanced reasoned, non-fallacious response? Something that shows an ounce of thought of the drawbacks, or that actually addresses the points raised so far?

I think Asmodai is making the mistake of coming on too strongly. This often turns people off!

LValx wrote:
I think Asmodai is making the mistake of coming on too strongly. This often turns people off!

Thats one of the mistakes.

Consistently refusing to even acknowledge that things may not go perfectly for the Riptide isnt helping. Everytime it needs it it has a 3++, AND all 3 can intercept, AND all 3 can always JSJ perfectly, AND...AND....AND....
Its a bemusing way to try to discuss a point, as it lacks the discourse element.

 samuele999 wrote:
What about the simple terminators with storm shields and thunder hammers, or just hordes of orks? You aint going to kill that many ork boys at 180pts for 30, or what about pycannons, or a vanguard veteran squad, or draigo or even better lysander with his storms shield buddies? running 3, leaves you with little pts for anti air or any other shizzle in 1500pts? And because tournament boards are so small you are going to get assaulted by so many things that don't care if you kill 20 of them per turn.

Just seeing the amount of love for the Riptides (like some people do not want to even think or say it can be stopped) I was thinking of what I might normally have on the table at any given time. IG - Marbo which might sneak up and drop his own pie plate, or snipe, Basilisk with better range, a Str 10 pie plate, a handful of Lascannons, and some deep striking of my own. Maybe even orbital bombardment each turn. (After all the model is cheap) Sure they can be targets, all of them, which means nothing is shooting at my Lemun Russ, which hey could have melta templates too, or whatever gun I am using on which ever one I want to use, my flyer on top of that with guns a blazing.
Chaos, well, any number of things follow that Helldrake (which I have ye to get) like Obllits, and tanks, and deep striking Termies.
C:SM or well any Space Marine, Drop Pods, Orbital Strikes (not that I use that but it's there) Deep strikes, my tanks with guns a blazing.

Something will reach it, something will get shots off. And a lot of the time, it's something cheaper than the unit it's shooting at. I am not an anyway saying these are the best methods to combat the Riptide, but I can get my army across the board fast, I've proven it, just to prove it. I can get there, I an get shots off.

So no better and no worse than anything else out there. It's just different. Not unstoppable or the auto win at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nosferatu1001 wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Please bring two LR, Drop Pods and Rhinos against my Tau force. I guarantee you won't cross the no-man's land. Face it, Codex Marines are boned against Tau.

Yes, I wil take your obviously educated and well thought out position....wait, no, thats not what you have demonstrated thus far

Every criticism of your stance has either been ignored or "refuted" by going "nah uh!" . Neither of which are constructive, mature and rational responses to a discussion thread

You havea sset position, and no amount of reasoned discussion will remove you from it. Your amount of sheer blind faith is impressive

Reminds me of Family Guy...I want to just say, "You are wrong, Tau Suck, because 'Road House!"

It seems some people here lack the socialisation to respond to a debate about toy robots without introducing a personal element; Not once in this thread have I insulted or denigrated someone
aside from their logical failings. If this is incitement for you to start personal attacks, please restrain yourself by clicking the ignore button in the right corner.

Nevertheless, I shall respond in kind. *cracks knuckles*

If you stop frothing at the mouth for a second and go back and read the original post, not once do I claim a Riptide is an insta-win unit or any inflated claims you have ascribed to my
stance. All I've put up was a simple point-by-point comparison of the Helldrake (perceived to be the most gamebreaking unit) to the Riptide, with some questions on how to deal with it.

As the argument developed, I realised that drop-podding veterans or Sternguard or RPs is not a brilliant idea because it has interceptor, shoots you first, and puts a bulk of points in a position
of certain death in the next turn while having an uncertain likelihood of killing the Riptide. I also realised that normal solutions against MCs, who have all been short-ranged so far, fail against the superior range and movement of the Riptide in the hands of a savvy player. Also, I realised that attacking the Riptide itself may be a game-losing prospect because you're diverting your firepower from units that actually need to get killed, like their fragile troops choices. Likewise, I recognised that maybe BS3 Large Blast scatter isn't all that reliable, but in combination with markerlights can be deadly.

However, the majority of the responses have either failed to grasp these basic concepts or simply rehash old chestnuts (Jaws it! Everyone plays/or has drop podding SW Rune Priest allies!)
and as repetition of my argument against the same responses has jarred some, let us all take a pause to realise there are no easy solutions to stopping a Riptide, much less three unlike back-field camping vehicles. Of course it's killable, I've never claimed otherwise. It's just disproportionately durable/shooty than anything that has precedented it. For once, GW has suceeded in creating an entirely unique new unit that isn't easy mode like the Helldrake. It actually requires placement, thought, and co-ordination with other elements in the force to be effective. Good game design or just bad Helldrake design? You be the judge.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:You're assuming that the 3++ goes off every time and that you can also use the Nova Reactor to boost the shooting? Of course it's going to seem unstoppable with those assumptions. The fact that you don't play with enough terrain further skews the results in favour of the Riptide. You're coming across as incredibly arrogant to me, but it might just be the Internet.

What's the point in assuming it fails every time and your plasma cannon always gets hot? We plan for potentials, not failures. Also, you can overcharge without Nova-charging. This may seem a little confusing to people who haven't read the codex, but it's a common misconception. I'm not entirely sure what is 'enough terrain' but you can have a look at my first battle-report to see the boards I play on and come to your own conclusions. Again, if it's too personal for you, you don't have to read the post or reply to it.

Carnage43 wrote:Your posting style is extremely frustrating and hostile, and carries a subtext of "if you don't agree with me, you are stupid", so hopefully this doesn't get turned into a flame war.

Read what you like into my posting style, you always have the option of not reading it and not replying. Mind, you introduced the personal element by insulting all my opponents as A) Bad Players and B) myself as a Bad Player in your very first reply, so don't chuck the petrol can into the fire and then claim to 'hope this doesn't turn into a flame war.'

You never claimed such....well, there are 4 explanations in my mind to a 23-0 record;

1. You are a vastly better player then your opponents (whom are of "average" LFGS level), making you some one in a hundred gaming genius.
2. Your opponents are poor.
3. You are lying about your record (it's the internet, why not?)
4. You cheat....a lot.

Giving you the benefit of the doubt that you aren't a cheater or a liar, or you are flaunting your records to just be a braggart...that leaves mediocre opponents, as if they were on your level the dice would have handed you at least 1 loss in the course of 23+ games. My experience with LFGS play is crap opponents overall. Maybe 1 out of 30 is decent, but they are rare, and much like myself have gotten tired of stomping the poor players on "friendly" gaming nights and retired to play at home with friends in a less serious atmosphere or against opponents they know will give them a challenge. So most likely you are fairly good, and your opponents really aren't in your league, similar to myself. If you want actual interweb credibility, you will have to post some major tournament wins like a few of the players around these forums. You won't get much credibility just throwing up a win/loss record where you cannot verify the quality of your opponents, or even if you are lying or not.

Well all these are possibilities, and thank you for not implying I'm a huge liar and cheat and braggart right off the bat (subtext?) All this is irrelevant to the discussion, of course. Let's leave the personal out of it, and keep to the topic.

Ways to lessen the impact of a unit;
#1 Kill it.
#2 Hide from or kite it.
...etc

Killing it is a way to lessen it's impact on a game. Granted, it's fairly difficult to kill, but counting it's nova reactor working every turn is silly. Odds are one of the three is going to fail that 3+ throw, so it will attract the available firepower. Also your argument of "It will always be out of range" is a bit of an exaggeration as well. In a standard setup, the furthest you could deploy away from a unit I was trying to get close is 32.5" (12" up, 48" across the board, ~3.5" wide base), in vanguard strike it's ~48" (I think...I mapped it out, but it's late and my math might be sketchy), and playing length wise, you are looking ~44.5". That's 1 turn of movement for a unit with 48" range at WORST. You are rarely out of range with a 48" weapon on a 6x4 board in my experience, so a 72" range is largely unnecessary, and does little to protect you from 48" range weapons as there just isn't the room get to that max range. It's also difficult to argue that the Riptide will always be out of LOS due to JSJ, then state that it will always have a good target to fire at.

Not once did I argue it will always be out of LOS, or any sort of JSJ shenanigans. I only argued that it would be hard to catch with its 2/4D6 reposition. The only time I argued it will always have a unit to fire at is when people argue drop-podding sternguard or the Doom of Malan'tai, both of which have extremely short ranges. Again, units with 48" range are usually cover dependent, and will hence deploy at the back or such. In any case, you find a way to deploy out of it... unless you're going first, in which you can mitigate equal range by shooting them first.

I'm not 100% clear what your point was really. Was it that any firepower directed at it at all is a complete waste because it would almost certainly have a more optimal target elsewhere? There's other ways to deal with other units, but the Riptide will require a fair amount of firepower to bring down. So if you want it dead, and you will want to kill it quite often, then you will have to free up the available firepower by engaging other units with other tools.

The point was, sometimes the decision to even attack the Riptide is the wrong decision. See Therion's post. In any case, having a unit which people don't even shoot at because it's too survivable is a double edged sword. Sure, it gets to do its thing, but then your other units are bearing the brunt of the shooting.

I think you missed MY point here. Riptides aren't free, and for what you are paying for them some times it's worth throwing away a smaller unit for a chance to take it out. Losing a 100 point rune priest for a 50% chance to drop a Riptide is a pretty decent gamble actually. Of course no one would field 6 rune priests, hell, more then 1 would be rare in a competitive list.

If you realise this, then why even bring up 6 RPs? It's a 135 point RP, which includes the Drop Pod... and a free FB if you get intercepted, which you probably will being a single model against three intercepting Riptides. Adding the cost of the Grey Hunters inside... it comes out worse for the SW.

I really don't know how else to phrase it. It doesn't really do anything we aren't accustom to dealing with. We all have experience dealing with T6 multi wound 2+ save creatures with Dreadknights, Tyranno-fexes and Mephiston kicking around. The only real challenge it provides is that it likes to sit back instead of coming forward like the others, but we also have experience dealing with units like to sit back because of heavy artillery or back field leman russes or whatnot.

What I really don't get is your overall point. Are you trying to claim that Riptides are our new overlords and we should all bow to our soon to be tournament dominating Tau masters? Because I don't think that's what you really mean, and I don't think that's true anyways, since Tau are largely a middle of the road army from what I can see. Sure Riptides are a good, maybe even a great unit, but they won't change the way we think about the game or cause people to run back to the drawing board to start their tournament lists from scratch like Helldrakes did. Helldrakes have a lot more reach with their firepower (since LOS and cover are largely irrelevant due to it's speed and weapon), not to mention their firepower is a fair bit more impressive and very alpha strike style. Riptides are just another long range template heavy weapon in many regards. In terms of staying power that really depends on the amount of anti-aircraft the opponent has, but overall neither is very easy to get rid of, but you have a lot more options when dealing with a Riptide.

In the end, I'm keeping my eye on the battle report forum and looking for some local Tau players to play against to see how it fares on the board, but I don't really expect it to be a dominating presence.

There, a civil response wasn't so difficult now, was it? The point is it's not a shortranged MC which is usually dealt with by volume of plasma fire, or a sit-back and shoot LRBT because it moves and can't get one-shotted by melta. Helldrakes changed the meta because they were an entirely new unit type, i.e. Flyer. I'm saying the Riptide may be as such, I.E shooty long-ranged jump MC. I've covered the differences in Helldrake firepower and Riptide firepower in my first post; This is the entirety of my argument here, that the Riptide seems better on paper because it shoots from turn 1, can't get glanced, is more versatile, works against DS and TEQ, etc. etc. Helldrakes are more of a turn 2 Beta-Strike- all flyers are. Alpha-strike really should refer only to first turn pwnage.
Wouldn't a comparison be more useful than making blanket statements about the people I play with?

Again, you are assuming you can ALWAYS shoot ALL 3 riptides at the contents of the drop pods. That isnt going to happen in actual play. Youarent getting better than BS3 on the turn i drop because you dont have interceptor marker lights on that riptide

Your continued "I wil only consider unlikely extremes" is pointless to a rational, reasoned discussion of the merits and weaknesses of the riptide. According to you it has none, which is frankly crap as far as statements go.

I honestly don't see how drop-podding sternguard can hope to hide from the Riptides they're trying to shoot at close range. I have listed plenty of weaknesses of the Riptides, such as flying MCs and Fortune-Councils/Beastpacks.

Not on interceptor they cant. And what happens when I kill your markerlights? What happens when my 2 LR hit your lines because you still only have a 50% chance to kill a LR *after* you penetrate? What happens when your precious MC gets TS by a 35point rhino, fails a morale check and falls back off the board?

Is the Riptide strong? YES. It is *strong*. Is it as insanely broken as you are attempting to claim throughout this thread? No.

Your premise has been disproven, over and over. Give it up

When have I claimed its insanely broken? How is this magic rhino going to get across the board to TS my riptide? Have you never used LRs against Str 10 Railguns before? All these non-solutions really perplex me. Nothing has been disproven yet, there have only been arguments.

This whole thread is hilarious. It's like arguing with a child who starts to kick and scream "three pie plates!" with their fingers in their ears, oblivious to what anyone has to say.

This whole business of arguing about toy soldiers is hilarious, but it's not stopping us from going on Dakka, is it?

Im glad you sorted the tactics out here.

Someone has to! TH/SS are not the answer. They are to DKs and things that assault your lines (and even then, not very good ones) but not Riptides.

Selym wrote:For people who believe that triple Riptides are going to win your games for you, bear in mind these points:

1) Most games are objective-based. While any KP game will favour the riptide, you're spending 555+ points on three models who cannot capture objectives, and will rarely contest ans they need to stay far away from the enemy to be effective.

2) Terrain. You can't see everything. Units can/will hide from you.

3) There are weapons, psychic powers and tactics that can cause the Riptide to fail morale, and fall back 3D6". You often say you'll camp on the back of the game board so that you can snipe. If the Riptide falls back even once, it's dead.

4) Using interceptor gives you *some* chance of killing a unit before it can do anything, when it appears. But you have a fair chance of failing to eradicate it, and cannot shoot in your turn to get better targets.

5) Overcharging has a chance of FAILURE. You can hurt yourself quite badly if you over-rely on it.

6) You're spending a large chunk of points on something that's effectiveness can be negated somewhat.

1) Not entirely necessarily, See replies from others. In any case, they can be extremely hard to dislodge as a contester when it comes to it.

2) Yes, and? Not everything can be hidden, and hiding in general is a defensive move. Defensive moves don't win games. Offence does.

3) They are generally quite short-ranged (24") and mounted on things weak against insta-death plasma (Librarians?) and there's a simple solution for this... don't place them so near the board edge.

4) So, you'd rather shoot something that's shot you first? Situational, of course. But in general, I'd rather be able to shoot first like Han. (Boo! Hiss!)

5) Don't confuse overcharging with Nova charging. Overcharging is like firing a Plasma cannon/gun. People do it all the time but no one says BUT PLASMA WEAPONS GET HOT! WHAT IF THEY GET HOT!

6) By what, pray tell? How do you negate the effectiveness of a Riptide short of killing it? (I.e. Shaken or stunned, not cover and invuln saves)

Hoopified wrote:I've dropped 2 riptides by turn 3 using the chaos codex and hel turkeys. The " which is better argument " really is they come out to a tie. I can blow riptides off the board and tau can kill my hel turkeys, oh well. I play a nurgle army and drop tau about the same every time because tactics count for something even though dice are random. My flyers are used to distract and remove infantry types with the flamers and deal with light vehicles and other flyers. Between my obliterators and my havocs and my plague marines riptides lasted on a few games to turn 4, yes they are dangerous,but, not superman. Nor are helturkeys the end all of the chaos codex, I'd rather they made blight drones a choice for a flyer in the chaos codex my self. I've used a sorcerer to enfeebled a riptide and pie plated him to dead with a vindicator.... Not un-killable at that point. I've had my turkeys popped coming in from reserve from a double force org ADL with quad guns. Poof no turkeys. They are more even due to what they are designed to do. You take a riptide to pop a tank like a landraider or battle wagon, flyers and kill infantry. You take a heldrake to kill infantry, flyers and lite vehicles. Really they do there jobs well. If your going to compare them to each other base it on their roles on the field, they weren't designed to do the same thing.

This is... unintelligble. But it's nice to see you're in favour of a tie. Let's see: Tactics DO count for something, yes! I'm not sure how you distract with Flyers, aside from their large flying bases and dazzling paintjob, but yes, you've grasped the basics of using a Helldrake... but not the enter key. I'd say Superman is far more dangerous than Riptides, so we are in agreement here, since he can fly at the speed of light and punch aliens. Blight drones are nice too, but we don't want Nurgle to be the end all of the Chaos codex, do we? I've used three enfeebles and a Rad grenade to ID a Daemon Prince with boltgun to dead myself too! Short range weapons and maledictions work so well against things that don't have a 60" range. I've had my turkeys popped coming out from the oven after a 24 hour brine, it was so Thanksgiving. They were so delicious! Poof, no turkeys. You do not take a riptide to pop a tank like a Land Raider or a battle wagon, you take Longstrike for that. Gosh, I forgot what Helldrakes were for! Thanks for reminding me again. I'd really wait for the fourth quarter performance report to make a call on that one. Well, arguably there are no 'designs' in 40k, only models which remove other models in slightly different ways. But thank you for your insight.

some random necron guy wrote:
Necron Dlord with sempiternal weave, MSS and rez orb in a challenge? Jump infantry, S7 ignore armor, rerolls all around along with forcing a 3d6 Lds to hit seem like a pretty good deal to me. 4+ Ever living never hurts either.

Yes, DLords are great! Thanks for reminding us.

Don't forget nightscythe for transport with some lych guard

However, Lych Guard aren't. Bad random necron!

Furyou Miko wrote:Seriously?

This thing is one outflanking Dominion or Deep Striking Seraphim squad away from the scrap heap. Drop-Pod combi-melta could do it, too (or combi-plasma for that matter).

Hey, I know! Lets just Veil in a unit of Lychguard with shields and a duelling lord, just for laughs, shall we?

Ooh, ooh, I know! Lets break out the Tri-las Predators and Leman Russ Battle Tanks!

As much as I love my girls I would never deep-strike my Seraphim next to it. See arguments on Drop-podding effectiveness against interceptor plasma.

Again, this would necessitate taking Lychguard, and I assure you laughs will be had.

Gosh, LRBTs are so good at hunting MCs! Not.