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List has been updated to reflect tactica discussion in here.
Basically, taking the Riptide Wing as my primary detachment, and using the exponential benefits granted by each Riptide to hopefully make a serious impact.
Unit #3: Riptide, HBC, Fusion Blasters Riptide, HBC, Fusion Blasters
Tertiary Detachment, Drone Net Formation:
Unit #1: 4x Marker Drones
Unit #2: 4x Marker Drones
Unit #3: 4x Marker Drones
Unit #4: 4x Marker Drones
Pretty simple list, split fire on everything works to let the first squad of Riptides fire on up to 3 different units at BS4, basically counting as an auto-markerlight on each so that as many follow up Riptides as you like are shooting at BS5 without ever needing to overkill on a unit, so there's a lot of flexibility on how to use this to your advantage.
With Nova Re-rolls only 1 in 9 Riptide will fail a turn on average, this means on Hailfire turn I can plausibly expect 160x S6 HITS (so thats after factoring in Nova rolls and rolls to hit at BOTH BS's), and around 50 possible SMS shots as a bonus although I can't be bothered to do the math there.
The bread and butter of the list isn't Hailfire at all however, its the fact that the 9x 36" range HBC's + reliable 4D6 Jump Jets, on a Riptide Body, will cause havoc in a lot of ways.
Fusion Rifles are pretty useless outside of melta range and outside of vehicles/MC's,but they are there in case something like a DS Obelisk comes down, hell the Fusion Blasters just being there will probably discourage one from coming down in range in the first place which is a win in itself and well worth the 0 pts. SMS's do synergies better with the rest of the army and I'm considering them, but I don't think either way is the wrong way there is advantages and disadvantages to both, I'm just going to play the list and see what I feel I'd rather, so the secondary weapon is subject to change.
Points about the army, both positive and negative
- Between 9 rolls of 4d6 a turn, it's inevitable that I'm going to get a trashy Thrust roll at least once at some stage of every match. Hopefully it's just not on the critical unit at a critical stage of every single game (as I'm absolutely sure that it no doubt will be! ~_~). - Also, even with 4d6 Jet packs, you can only move maximum distance of the minimum Riptides roll, a poor roll there could cost me 3 Riptides at once to an assault, I can play more cautiously with this squad however - on the pplus side wound allocation shenanigans with a 3 man 5W 2+ MC unit that can grab a 3++ invul save on one if the need to be as well, to tank wounds while the other two nova their HBC's safely is kinda coo
I'm screwing around with this on TTS before I buy the models, but it feels really strong for such a simplistic and cheesy list, and I understand the sacrifices I make by not taking Stormsurges, but the benefits added by the formation really seem to be the perfect compliment to Riptides few weaknesses, directly mitigating their low BS, and indirectly, their uselessness if caught in CC, by well, making them RELIABLY so much harder to catch in CC.
Basically it reminds me of 5th ed Dark Eldar close to their initial release, when they actually had a lot of relative firepower and mobility, but had to make smart, range and position aware plays, and of course a bit of luck to make use of it, and this is exactly what I'm looking for.
Please let me know what you think, and if there is any critical holes in this army that just makes it an auto-lose fold, I haven't exactly looked at it against the entire meta of the game right here.
This message was edited 17 times. Last update was at 2016/04/22 06:49:09
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
2016/04/19 08:14:07
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
Why dont you put them all in 1 riptide wing, that way each unit is BS 4, or BS 5 if shooting another targets target? You just need to drop 2 velocity trackers for the 6 target locks
2016/04/19 08:15:05
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
KillswitchUK wrote: Why dont you put them all in 1 riptide wing, that way each unit is BS 4, or BS 5 if shooting another targets target? You just need to drop 2 velocity trackers for the 6 target locks
They are all 1 Riptide wing :S and thats exactly what will happen, and they already have target locks?
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
2016/04/19 08:22:44
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
Biggest issue I think with mass riptides is being bogged down in assault by a deathstar which is not only durable, but has invisibility.
I would perhaps consider dropping 1 of the velocity tracker riptides and another velocity tracker upgrade, for a Drone Network Formation of 16 markerlights. This will give you a couple of markerlights to increase your capability against them.
2016/04/19 08:54:22
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
What I learned playing Knights is that once you have only two Knights on the board, you lose the ability to score adequately. I see this problem here. The game isn't won by just killing stuff. You have to score. And an army that you can't table with mobile MSU will outscore you. In my opinion.
2016/04/19 09:26:43
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
KillswitchUK wrote:Biggest issue I think with mass riptides is being bogged down in assault by a deathstar which is not only durable, but has invisibility.
I would perhaps consider dropping 1 of the velocity tracker riptides and another velocity tracker upgrade, for a Drone Network Formation of 16 markerlights. This will give you a couple of markerlights to increase your capability against them.
Oh wow You are absolutely right, invisible deathstars are gonna be a nightmare, specially a grav star. This might be excellent advice. I'm going to look into that heavily. How much return against a invistar am I likely to get from the marker formation? Is this going to be the best investment of points to deal with it? What else does Tau have to handle invis?
X078 wrote:Some thoughts:
Having FNP on 1 riptide in each team, preferably the one that goes first and tanks the first wounds until you switch him for one in the back.
Also a missile drone per Team or one team with many missile drones could help when facing grav spam.
great suggestion on the FnP - its a small thing but its exactly the sort of optimising im looking for, I'll definitely work this in
What are the missile drones for, extra wounds?
Kholzerino wrote: What I learned playing Knights is that once you have only two Knights on the board, you lose the ability to score adequately. I see this problem here. The game isn't won by just killing stuff. You have to score. And an army that you can't table with mobile MSU will outscore you. In my opinion.
good points, although I'm used to running minimum scoring, and the same thing could be said about plenty of deathstar builds... I'm comfortable with 3 units, although I do appreciate the feedback because that is a VERY valid point you raise
And to all of you, basically getting a lot of suggestions to replace Velocity tracker - I'm feeling like this might be good advice as the first thing to drop, I guess I don't really need dedicated AA with this many shots, especially since flyers aren't exactly the biggest threat to them
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/04/19 09:27:43
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
2016/04/19 09:41:18
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
Missile drones have lesser armour save than riptides and so any grav will wound on their 4+ invuln instead of the riptides 2+, if i remember correctly.
2016/04/19 09:45:11
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
Issue is, for anti- grav you're going to have to invest in 4 Missile drones per unit, which doesnt return much investment imo! If you want to counter the grav, simply shoot the hell out of them first, sit in ruins turn 1 with potential night-fight, or activate your 3++ on 1 tide and sit him at the front.
As for the dron enetwork, that is the best solution to counter an invis star. I'd say the best way of dealing with the stars is bouncing around the board staying away. The biggest issue your list has is it lacks a speed bump, such as kroot. It also relies upon LD9 vs psychic heavy lists. What happens if you get terrified (-1ld) and runn 3 riptides off the board?
I Suggest you drop 2 riptides and invest in an Ethereal with some kroot and a drone network formation. Up to you though
2016/04/19 10:02:20
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
Hey! I know we had a heated disagreement a while back, but I figure that's just cause we're both competitive players. Just wanted to say I like your list!
I do like offering something rather than just that, but I wouldn't really suggest any changes considering what you want to do. Just watch out for necrons, and psyker heavy lists, it could get ugly.
2016/04/19 10:11:01
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
slip wrote: Hey! I know we had a heated disagreement a while back, but I figure that's just cause we're both competitive players. Just wanted to say I like your list!
I do like offering something rather than just that, but I wouldn't really suggest any changes considering what you want to do. Just watch out for necrons, and psyker heavy lists, it could get ugly.
no worries, i felt like a bit of a jerk the next day when I re-read my post, didn't want to be as condescending as i was and it was unnecessary and I apologize. That Nid stuff is to me undoubtably my element and I know it like it was my own child, is all!
However, that being said Tau is NOT my element, and all the advice I've been getting in here is awesome stuff. I especially love that you guys are all recognizing the exactly the playstyle I'm going for and not telling me "take stormsurges bro" or something like that instead, all the advice has been great.
Yeah, 9 Riptides definitely does seem to have a few holes, and most of it seems to come from the Psychic phase. I do like Killswitches suggestion of how to deal with deathstars, melt them before they can get to me! lol. Yeah I feel like some match-ups I might just have to go balls to the wall and aim for a massive Hailfire turn asap and hopefully chew down some numbers on a Cent squad, luckily I CAN throw out a lot of dice! However I'm thinking I'm gunna find a way to work in the markerlight drone formation as well. For some reason I think grav bikes are gonna be worse than Cent's, somehow.
Hey slips, care to elaborate on Cron's, what is it specifically that makes them scary? an Obelisk will definitely put in work against this list I guess, might double down on a few more Fusion Blasters to at least cover my bases if the need be. Is that what you were getting at or is it something else I'm worried about? Or just the nature of crons in general?
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2016/04/19 10:48:44
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
2016/04/19 11:41:37
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
Grav bikers is a thing of the past, and is rarely even seen since warp spider eldar just runs rings around them. I wouldnt even consider worrying about them when building a list.
2016/04/19 17:33:49
Subject: Re:[1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
no worries, i felt like a bit of a jerk the next day when I re-read my post, didn't want to be as condescending as i was and it was unnecessary and I apologize. That Nid stuff is to me undoubtably my element and I know it like it was my own child, is all!
Hey, as far as I'm concerned, we were both just trying to help another player. Due to our disagreement, they probably learned a ton!
Hey slips, care to elaborate on Cron's, what is it specifically that makes them scary? an Obelisk will definitely put in work against this list I guess, might double down on a few more Fusion Blasters to at least cover my bases if the need be. Is that what you were getting at or is it something else I'm worried about? Or just the nature of crons in general?
You nailed the obelisk on the head. The other problem I was thinking about that pretty much every Cron takes at least one maybe two of are Wraiths. They are very fast, get a 3++, and if they get a charge off will tie up your riptides and destroy them. iirc riptides don't have fearless, so losing a combat is a disaster. (3 riptides getting run down is not a pretty sight, and they'll be hitting on 5+ in general and have poor LD to boot.) (Poor as in if they lose combat by 1 they an almost 50-50 chance to break. 9 is not bad for shooting. I2 is not great for fighting or running from combat either.) Crons in general will stand up better than probably any other army to shooting. Whether they'll actually stand up to your shooting or just stand up slightly better than others is down to their army composition of course, but they get some nasty tricks in that regard. You're right to suspect the nature of the necrons in general. The riptide's biggest weakness is getting tar pitted, and the crons are basically an entire tarpit army. (When I say biggest weakness, it could be considered CC, but you'd need at least a competent unit to finish the job. S3 vs T6 doesn't work. If say a unit of conscripts with a commissar gets into combat with the riptide, they're probably tied up vs an obsec unit for the rest of the game for a fraction of the points without really needing to punch in CC. In ideal theoretical conditions. You know what I mean.) Your HBC shots unfortunately will not instakill, so the cron will get all his annoying reanimation tricks. (S7 right? I believe your nova might make this better, but I'm gonna get into your nova powers later so just roll with me here.) Apparently there are Crons out there who roll flayed ones, and they may come in handy here. (Infiltrate, fear.) You won't have to worry about necron flyers or deepstrikes though! That'll be nice.
I didn't mention Eldar, but I should. I don't think you'll have so much trouble against a wraithknight (although WKs are jump GMC, so they'll have a surprising amount of speed and will wipe a unit of riptides in one turn in CC so avoid that. Heavy wraithcannons will also peg a riptide a turn on average so when I say I don't think you'll have much trouble I mean you can actually kill one, but it can wreck your day if not properly respected), but some psykers and some wraithguard in wave serpents could be scary. One round of shooting could wipe out a whole squad of riptides, so they are priority #1. Another army to worry about is Grey Knights. Specifically, the Dreadknight can deploy on the board behind BLOS terrain and shunt on his first turn 30". Now they can't assault when they do this, but every GK army will also have an amazing psyker phase immediately after this, specifically buffing inv, giving +2 S, activating force weapons for insta death (very nasty vs riptides), or throwing down a S D vortex of doom. This leaves you in a tough spot, with the DKs behind you (there'll be at least two, probably more if it's a competitive list. The GK players here on dakkadakka figured out how to fit 6 into a 1850 point list lol.) and the rest of the army in front of you, you won't be able to dance around and avoid CC. They may still choose to deepstrike too. If they shunt their NDK and interceptors literally an inch away, turn one, why wouldn't he deep strike some reserves? If you shot at them, the NDKs would hit you. You'd probably hit them anyway. Then force instant kill weapons and +2 S hitting before the riptides do. You seem to have a slight weakness vs AV14 (Nova ion cannons would help. You got 3 fusion rifles, but you have to get too close for comfort to use them, remember your gak CC ability and poor LD. Getting close sucks! After that your best bet is to try and use your smash attacks in CC. Not a good place to be!) So watch out for land raiders, leman russes, stompas, etc. You might actually have trouble vs other Tau lists. Tau do have a lot of long range S7 shooting, marker lights, and if the other Tau player gets first turn could really put a damper on your plans. More rarely and kinda sadly in the scheme of it another counter is actually probably the humble infantry horde AM with max heavy/special weapons squads and an ADL. Their command squad can issue an order allowing a unit that has gone to ground to get back up and act normally before the shooting phase, meaning his MLs, lascannons, plasma guns etc will benefit from a 2++ essentially but will shoot normally. Really the ADL will be a pain in the ass for you in general, but AM really get the value out of it. If the AM infantry horde doesn't have an ADL than lol, you'll roll them no sweat. Also watch out for renegades lists if you see any. Master of the Horde makes your shooting work against you as any unit destroyed comes back on the table at full strength in better position. Few obvious more popular ones after that, SW TWCstar w/ SS and Chaos Daemon lists. You'll want to avoid psykers rolling on Telepathy (Dat invisibility, and the primaris power psychic shriek is WC1 and could probably merc a riptide in one shot.) and unfortunately the new Geo power will allow a unit to surf a piece of terrain 24" in the psyker phase and declare an assault the same turn. Ouch. Divination with it's misfortune/prescience combo would not be a lot of fun either, turning even the humble lasgun into a riptide killer. Are they stuck in 3 units of 3 or can they move as 9 individual units? I'm pretty sure it's the first but I made the mistake recently of assuming a gallant lance formation had to maintain consistency. If so, beam and blast weapons are that much more effective. (3 hits rather than 1. Bumps them up from useless to useable.) I see people rolling on strategic traits vs you a lot. Inflitrate, bonus to seize initative, you having to take 3 pinning tests (this could be devastating, potentially removing your entire 1st turn, and giving your opponent 2 consecutive turns worst case scenario!), night fight, stealth/move through cover. Yeah, Strategic would be the way to go. Rather then try to remember which units have it in every list I'm just going to say it here instead, anything with rending is not your friend. Warp spiders and wraiths come to mind immediately, but you know what I mean.
(Note- I do not think it is a forgone conclusion if you face some of these lists. Just preparing you for the possibilities. Some of these are in fact incredibly nitpicky! I was just gonna do crons, they were the first to mind, but then I started thinking about the other races and welp I wrote a damn dissertation by mistake. Being prepared is half the battle! I don't think there's really anything here you can't take on with proper target priority. Conversely I think you'll walk over any alpha strike lists, they'll probably just deploy rather than face your interceptors and that's one of the most popular builds in the game. You'll also turn flyers into a joke. CC horde armies too. (You are a tyranids player, is that why you made this list?? haha) IK are a draw. Most of them will be useless, but the crusader with the gatling gun and the gauntlet that has an autokill shooting attack vs MCs are what you wanna watch out for. It hurts me greatly to admit this, but I don't know gak about skitari and adeptus mechanicus. Probably didn't even spell them right. CSM's sicarans and oblits are the only real threat they have, and it's not that scary. SOB will have a hard time getting close to use their relatively ineffective meltas. White Scars, Ravenwing, and SW are probably the scary SM chapters to look out for.)
In general you will get some sick buffs to your shooting for extra dakka, movement to keep you out of CC/capture objectives, or a good inv save but you will have to choose one and a savvy opponent will react accordingly. If you use one squads nova's buffs for it's shooting or movement, your opponent will focus fire on that unit in his turn. (And probably his whole army too, you only have 9 models!) Thus the effect on other squads deciding to use the nova to buff their save isn't to tank enemy damage, but discourage enemy from shooting at that unit altogether in favour of another, unless you decide to buff all three and not have the buffed shooting. To sum, if you decide to drop shields for shooting, it may benefit you to drop all your shields for shooting rather than one unit alone. The savvy opponent was going to focus fire anyway. This is all depending on board and enemy position/range of course. You mentioned using one unit as markerlights, which benefits your other riptides greatly but reveals another minor weakness. You'll only get your bonus to shooting vs 3 units tops. Could be a problem vs a MSU style army. (Do bikes get jinks vs riptides? I think so but may be wrong. T5 to prevent instakill and 3++ could be tough.) (I'm using ork bikes here cuz... well... I'm an ork. SM bikers don't get as good a jink iirc but can get invisibility, and eldar MSU 3 jetbike squads will probably require overkill, resulting in wasted firepower. ) As arule of thumb, I'd assume you're gonna take the save buff on every unit every turn, save for your hailfire turn and when conditions permit otherwise. You don't have the model count to play loose with your durability. If you wanted to play dangerously, you can utilize the same strategy you mentioned for distributing the wounds among a squad to rotate the shield on to the most injured unit and not using the nova shield on your least damaged unit, drawing fire to them. This is playing with fire though, some bad luck and 13-30% of your army is toast. Save that strategy for a balanced army, or when you're losing on objectives after turn 3. (Use turn 1 and 2 to eliminate credible threats and you'll have free reign.) A shooting heavy army will take gross advantage and you should just go all shields. A CC army or unit you'd mostly want thrust, but you do already have a jump pack, so if they're slow you can go shooty. I mentioned this section talking about Necrons. The shield vs shooting theoryhammer is based on playing a competition level shooting army. (Mostly min/max S 7+ BS4 AP2) The crons qualify as this (Then the wraiths to boot) I don't know if you can charge up your shooting enough to win a war of attrition with them. You'd gonna want to thrust away from the wraiths, and you're gonna want the save if you're getting charged or shot at.
A big part of your game will be deciding when to use your hailfire. Obviously the most effective time to use it is turn one, that's when the enemy has the most models on the table, (Unless they're high and want to get intercepted.) maximizing your potential damage. Many armies though are optimized for a turn two assault. There's a lot of those you won't have to worry about (looking at you deep strike) but speedy or infiltrate lists will be a bigger threat. Do you sacrifice turn one movement for maximum damage potential if it means being charged turn 2? You'll have to make that choice in a game by game basis. You might be able to have your cake and eat it too in a vanguard style deployment, or if they lack infiltrate, scout, or bikes.
One other thing to worry about, as others have mentioned, is that your list is entirely focused on tabling the enemy. You'll have real problems securing forward objectives, especially if it means moving closer to the enemy. Being caught in CC as mentioned is going to be a nightmare, and could cost you the game. You mentioned this is the same issue with deathstars, but honestly I think a fast and/or invisible CC deathstar could potentially table you.
If you're looking to expand to 1850, I'd grab some shielded missile drones and stimulant injectors, combined with the 3++ makes you very survivable. I was going do some maths to show you, but I just found some! So I can be lazy.
Courtesy of greysplinter
-BS4 Bolters — Requires an average of 81 shots to cause a single unsaved wound (or over 500 shots to kill a single Riptide and its Drones)
-BS4 Plasma Gun — Requires an average of 10 shots to cause a single unsaved wounds (or over 60 shots to kill a single Riptide and it Drones)
-BS4 Grav Cannon/Amp — Requires an average of 7 shots to cause a single unsaved wound (or over 40 shots to kill a single Riptide and its Drones)
-BS4 Splinter Weapons — Requires an average of 27 shots to cause a single unsaved wound (or over 150 shots to kill a single Riptide and its drones).
-BS4 Shuriken Weapons — Requires an average of 40 shots to cause a single unsaved wound (or over 250 shots to kill a single Riptide and its drones).
(Grav would hurt slightly, but they'd be some sort of... suicide squad to try and deepstrike, and you could target them at range if they deploy.)
Besides that, markerdrones so you can ignore biker jinks would be good. (They give a BS bonus or ignore cover right? I'm not just halluncinating that in the fever dream that is this post?) (I know I dissed ignore cover in that other thread, and have before in other threads here too, but the bikerstar is your hard counter so it may be worthwhile here.)
Holy gak, I only intended this to be a couple lines but I got carried away in a series of wild tangents. Anybody who's read this far, congrats, and feel free to correct my errors where ever they may be. It sorta ended up a stream of conciousness rather than a well researched piece. I think it's very comprehensive in scope and could double as an anti-riptide tactica for almost any list. (Not necessarily surefire anti riptide for every list, but best chances.) Let us know how it goes! Maybe post a batrep. Maybe include a picture of your opponent's face when you plop down 9 riptides. I except crushing depression or explosive rage. Should be fun! I think you were exactly right comparing this list to 5th ed DE. The phrase glass cannon comes to mind. If you start taking casualties it will seriously affect your abilities and staying power.
(I specifically did not go into ork tactica. I gotta keep some of my cards after all. )
E:Numerous edits for readability, typos, and clarification.
This message was edited 30 times. Last update was at 2016/04/20 00:58:48
2016/04/20 05:06:04
Subject: Re:[1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
Hey slips, care to elaborate on Cron's, what is it specifically that makes them scary? an Obelisk will definitely put in work against this list I guess, might double down on a few more Fusion Blasters to at least cover my bases if the need be. Is that what you were getting at or is it something else I'm worried about? Or just the nature of crons in general?
You nailed the obelisk on the head. The other problem I was thinking about that pretty much every Cron takes at least one maybe two of are Wraiths. They are very fast, get a 3++, and if they get a charge off will tie up your riptides and destroy them. iirc riptides don't have fearless, so losing a combat is a disaster. (3 riptides getting run down is not a pretty sight, and they'll be hitting on 5+ in general and have poor LD to boot.) (Poor as in if they lose combat by 1 they an almost 50-50 chance to break. 9 is not bad for shooting. I2 is not great for fighting or running from combat either.) Crons in general will stand up better than probably any other army to shooting. Whether they'll actually stand up to your shooting or just stand up slightly better than others is down to their army composition of course, but they get some nasty tricks in that regard. You're right to suspect the nature of the necrons in general. The riptide's biggest weakness is getting tar pitted, and the crons are basically an entire tarpit army. (When I say biggest weakness, it could be considered CC, but you'd need at least a competent unit to finish the job. S3 vs T6 doesn't work. If say a unit of conscripts with a commissar gets into combat with the riptide, they're probably tied up vs an obsec unit for the rest of the game for a fraction of the points without really needing to punch in CC. In ideal theoretical conditions. You know what I mean.) Your HBC shots unfortunately will not instakill, so the cron will get all his annoying reanimation tricks. (S7 right? I believe your nova might make this better, but I'm gonna get into your nova powers later so just roll with me here.) Apparently there are Crons out there who roll flayed ones, and they may come in handy here. (Infiltrate, fear.) You won't have to worry about necron flyers or deepstrikes though! That'll be nice.
I didn't mention Eldar, but I should. I don't think you'll have so much trouble against a wraithknight (although WKs are jump GMC, so they'll have a surprising amount of speed and will wipe a unit of riptides in one turn in CC so avoid that. Heavy wraithcannons will also peg a riptide a turn on average so when I say I don't think you'll have much trouble I mean you can actually kill one, but it can wreck your day if not properly respected), but some psykers and some wraithguard in wave serpents could be scary. One round of shooting could wipe out a whole squad of riptides, so they are priority #1. Another army to worry about is Grey Knights. Specifically, the Dreadknight can deploy on the board behind BLOS terrain and shunt on his first turn 30". Now they can't assault when they do this, but every GK army will also have an amazing psyker phase immediately after this, specifically buffing inv, giving +2 S, activating force weapons for insta death (very nasty vs riptides), or throwing down a S D vortex of doom. This leaves you in a tough spot, with the DKs behind you (there'll be at least two, probably more if it's a competitive list. The GK players here on dakkadakka figured out how to fit 6 into a 1850 point list lol.) and the rest of the army in front of you, you won't be able to dance around and avoid CC. They may still choose to deepstrike too. If they shunt their NDK and interceptors literally an inch away, turn one, why wouldn't he deep strike some reserves? If you shot at them, the NDKs would hit you. You'd probably hit them anyway. Then force instant kill weapons and +2 S hitting before the riptides do. You seem to have a slight weakness vs AV14 (Nova ion cannons would help. You got 3 fusion rifles, but you have to get too close for comfort to use them, remember your gak CC ability and poor LD. Getting close sucks! After that your best bet is to try and use your smash attacks in CC. Not a good place to be!) So watch out for land raiders, leman russes, stompas, etc. You might actually have trouble vs other Tau lists. Tau do have a lot of long range S7 shooting, marker lights, and if the other Tau player gets first turn could really put a damper on your plans. More rarely and kinda sadly in the scheme of it another counter is actually probably the humble infantry horde AM with max heavy/special weapons squads and an ADL. Their command squad can issue an order allowing a unit that has gone to ground to get back up and act normally before the shooting phase, meaning his MLs, lascannons, plasma guns etc will benefit from a 2++ essentially but will shoot normally. Really the ADL will be a pain in the ass for you in general, but AM really get the value out of it. If the AM infantry horde doesn't have an ADL than lol, you'll roll them no sweat. Also watch out for renegades lists if you see any. Master of the Horde makes your shooting work against you as any unit destroyed comes back on the table at full strength in better position. Few obvious more popular ones after that, SW TWCstar w/ SS and Chaos Daemon lists. You'll want to avoid psykers rolling on Telepathy (Dat invisibility, and the primaris power psychic shriek is WC1 and could probably merc a riptide in one shot.) and unfortunately the new Geo power will allow a unit to surf a piece of terrain 24" in the psyker phase and declare an assault the same turn. Ouch. Divination with it's misfortune/prescience combo would not be a lot of fun either, turning even the humble lasgun into a riptide killer. Are they stuck in 3 units of 3 or can they move as 9 individual units? I'm pretty sure it's the first but I made the mistake recently of assuming a gallant lance formation had to maintain consistency. If so, beam and blast weapons are that much more effective. (3 hits rather than 1. Bumps them up from useless to useable.) I see people rolling on strategic traits vs you a lot. Inflitrate, bonus to seize initative, you having to take 3 pinning tests (this could be devastating, potentially removing your entire 1st turn, and giving your opponent 2 consecutive turns worst case scenario!), night fight, stealth/move through cover. Yeah, Strategic would be the way to go. Rather then try to remember which units have it in every list I'm just going to say it here instead, anything with rending is not your friend. Warp spiders and wraiths come to mind immediately, but you know what I mean.
(Note- I do not think it is a forgone conclusion if you face some of these lists. Just preparing you for the possibilities. Some of these are in fact incredibly nitpicky! I was just gonna do crons, they were the first to mind, but then I started thinking about the other races and welp I wrote a damn dissertation by mistake. Being prepared is half the battle! I don't think there's really anything here you can't manage. Conversely I think you'll walk over any alpha strike lists, they'll probably just deploy rather than face your interceptors and that's one of the most popular builds in the game. You'll also turn flyers into a joke. CC horde armies too. (You are a tyranids player, is that why you made this list?? haha) IK are a draw. Most of them will be useless, but the crusader with the gatling gun and the gauntlet that has an autokill shooting attack vs MCs are what you wanna watch out for. It hurts me greatly to admit this, but I don't know gak about skitari and adeptus mechanicus. Probably didn't even spell them right. CSM's sicarans and oblits are the only real threat they have, and it's not that scary. SOB will have a hard time getting close to use their relatively ineffective meltas. White Scars, Ravenwing, and SW are probably the scary SM chapters to look out for.)
In general you will get some sick buffs to your shooting for extra dakka, movement to keep you out of CC/capture objectives, or a good inv save but you will have to choose one and a savvy opponent will react accordingly. If you use one squads nova's buffs for it's shooting or movement, your opponent will focus fire on that unit in his turn. (And probably his whole army too, you only have 9 models!) Thus the effect on other squads deciding to use the nova to buff their save isn't to tank enemy damage, but discourage enemy from shooting at that unit altogether in favour of another, unless you decide to buff all three and not have the buffed shooting. To sum, if you decide to drop shields for shooting, it may benefit you to drop all your shields for shooting rather than one unit alone. The savvy opponent was going to focus fire anyway. This is all depending on board and enemy position/range of course. You mentioned using one unit as markerlights, which benefits your other riptides greatly but reveals another minor weakness. You'll only get your bonus to shooting vs 3 units tops. Could be a problem vs a MSU style army. (Do bikes get jinks vs riptides? I think so but may be wrong. T5 to prevent instakill and 3++ could be tough.) (I'm using ork bikes here cuz... well... I'm an ork. SM bikers don't get as good a jink iirc but can get invisibility, and eldar MSU 3 jetbike squads will probably require overkill, resulting in wasted firepower. ) As arule of thumb, I'd assume you're gonna take the save buff on every unit every turn, save for your hailfire turn and when conditions permit otherwise. You don't have the model count to play loose with your durability. If you wanted to play dangerously, you can utilize the same strategy you mentioned for distributing the wounds among a squad to rotate the shield on to the most injured unit and not using the nova shield on your least damaged unit, drawing fire to them. This is playing with fire though, some bad luck and 13-30% of your army is toast. Save that strategy for a balanced army, or when you're losing on objectives after turn 3. (Use turn 1 and 2 to eliminate credible threats and you'll have free reign.) A shooting heavy army will take gross advantage and you should just go all shields. A CC army or unit you'd mostly want thrust, but you do already have a jump pack, so if they're slow you can go shooty. I mentioned this section talking about Necrons. The shield vs shooting theoryhammer is based on playing a competition level shooting army. (Mostly min/max S 7+ BS4 AP2) The crons qualify as this (Then the wraiths to boot) I don't know if you can charge up your shooting enough to win a war of attrition with them. You'd gonna want to thrust away from the wraiths, and you're gonna want the save if you're getting charged or shot at.
A big part of your game will be deciding when to use your hailfire. Obviously the most effective time to use it is turn one, that's when the enemy has the most models on the table, (Unless they're high and want to get intercepted.) maximizing your potential damage. Many armies though are optimized for a turn two assault. There's a lot of those you won't have to worry about (looking at you deep strike) but speedy or infiltrate lists will be a bigger threat. Do you sacrifice turn one movement for maximum damage potential if it means being charged turn 2? You'll have to make that choice in a game by game basis. You might be able to have your cake and eat it too in a vanguard style deployment, or if they lack infiltrate, scout, or bikes.
One other thing to worry about, as others have mentioned, is that your list is entirely focused on tabling the enemy. You'll have real problems securing forward objectives, especially if it means moving closer to the enemy. Being caught in CC as mentioned is going to be a nightmare, and could cost you the game. You mentioned this is the same issue with deathstars, but honestly I think a fast and/or invisible CC deathstar could potentially table you.
If you're looking to expand to 1850, I'd grab some shielded missile drones and stimulant injectors, combined with the 3++ makes you very survivable. I was going do some maths to show you, but I just found some! So I can be lazy.
Courtesy of greysplinter
-BS4 Bolters — Requires an average of 81 shots to cause a single unsaved wound (or over 500 shots to kill a single Riptide and its Drones)
-BS4 Plasma Gun — Requires an average of 10 shots to cause a single unsaved wounds (or over 60 shots to kill a single Riptide and it Drones)
-BS4 Grav Cannon/Amp — Requires an average of 7 shots to cause a single unsaved wound (or over 40 shots to kill a single Riptide and its Drones)
-BS4 Splinter Weapons — Requires an average of 27 shots to cause a single unsaved wound (or over 150 shots to kill a single Riptide and its drones).
-BS4 Shuriken Weapons — Requires an average of 40 shots to cause a single unsaved wound (or over 250 shots to kill a single Riptide and its drones).
(Grav would hurt slightly, but they'd be some sort of... suicide squad to try and deepstrike, and you could target them at range if they deploy.)
Besides that, markerdrones so you can ignore biker jinks would be good. (They give a BS bonus or ignore cover right? I'm not just halluncinating that in the fever dream that is this post?) (I know I dissed ignore cover in that other thread, and have before in other threads here too, but the bikerstar is your hard counter so it may be worthwhile here.)
Holy gak, I only intended this to be a couple lines but I got carried away in a series of wild tangents. Anybody who's read this far, congrats, and feel free to correct my errors where ever they may be. It sorta ended up a stream of conciousness rather than a well researched piece. I think it's very comprehensive in scope and could double as an anti-riptide tactica for almost any list. (Not necessarily surefire anti riptide for every list, but best chances.) Let us know how it goes! Maybe post a batrep. Maybe include a picture of your opponent's face when you plop down 9 riptides. I except crushing depression or explosive rage. Should be fun! I think you were exactly right comparing this list to 5th ed DE. The phrase glass cannon comes to mind. If you start taking casualties it will seriously affect your abilities and staying power.
(I specifically did not go into ork tactica. I gotta keep some of my cards after all. )
E:Numerous edits for readability, typos, and clarification.
Very informative stuff! The length is fine, in fact its great, all that info.
(and yes thats whats marker drones do, every hit can be used for a point of BS for a unit, every 2 hits can be used to ignore cover.) (and bikes do most definitely get Jink on Riptides if I don't Light em up - White Scars get a 3++ jink - and glad you agree Bikes are going to be the bane of this list, that was my impression as well)
I am most definitely looking to expand to 1850, 1750 was just my baseline for the core of the army, but I would like to go 1850 because thats our standard (just no higher than that though).
So on to tactica - while the two armys (5E DE / 9Tide) may handle similarly and approach combat the same, at least 5th ed dark eldar had an absolute crap ton of scoring to make up for it, and it's units, while you did play to the ranges to keep them alive as much as possible, it wasn't over if you lost one, in fact you were expected to. That's almost the opposite here.
With this in mind, I did have a little bit of a thought - I COULD just take multiple Riptide Wing formations, and have as many individual Tide units as possible - they'd miss out on +1 BS for 3 man squads, but the +1 BS would still be in effect for 2 out of every 3 Riptides. And this would stop me from effectively losing 3 Riptides for the entire game just because a single unit of Necron Warriors or something silly like that got a charge off, as you said. This also gives me a crapton of really fast scoring units, and once again draws even more parallels to 5thed DE (one of my favourite armies to ever play, but DE in 7th just are not up to scratch unfortunately and their playstyle has shifted). And as a small bonus on top I'd completely save all the points on Target Locks that I was taking for split fire. The downsides is however, that it takes a lot of efficiency away from Markerlights. It does not however make them useless, and Markerlights + an Ion Accelerator might put a quick end to a bikestar lacking invis, but I don't even know if it's worth taking even one for that. The other downside is no more wound allocation to a FNP 3++ guy while the other 2 Nova out their HBC's... but I do feel as though these are necessary sacrifices to make, because looking at it the other way sacrificing such scoring potential just for a point of BS and some shenanigans, just feels like going for the gimmick over the professionalism
Assuming I'm taking the Markerlight formation, My options are
That last one obviously wins out in terms of numbers alone easily, and the first option looks to be the worst to me. The last DOES make the large sacrifice of EWO, but it also gets the MASSIVE benefit the other two don't - NINE scoring individual Riptide units instead of just the six, as the other two have to double up into 2 man units once or twice respectively, which also comes with all the downsides to that. The real question is going to be - how important is EWO. Remembering that EWO or not, the optimal play against a Deepstrike list is going to be safely keeping 3++ Nova up against a DS list until they come down, and during the next turn using Boosted jets to BAIL up outta there, the second one looks pretty balanced, but the thing is at least one Riptide is going to fail a Nova pretty much every turn - thats the very same Riptide thats going to get eaten alive by the deepstrike... HOWEVER after that they will literally never get into melta range again and I feel like this list counters deepstrike style armies pretty hard even without EWO just by its general playstyle (this Tau is a pretty far shot from turtle Tau) so I'm thinking sacrificing a single Riptide is worth it - I mean, I'd have one less Riptide in the 8 man list to begin with anyway, and it sort of lets me force positioning from my opponents anyway because I know which Riptide failed his nova at the start of my movement phase I can move to one side of the field and force a wasted deepstrike or a split army, and another option I have, by that same coin, if I'm waiting around for a deepstrike force, I could really bubble wrap the guy who fails with 8 other big Riptide bases no problem to stop him getting hit by melta... I mean obviously EWO will make some matches braindead easy but I think I have all the right tools to deal with those matches to begin with anyway.
I'm pretty heavily sold on running 3x barebones Riptide Wing formation + 1x barebones markerlight formation to help alleviate some weaknesses... its going to be a ton of a fun, and a stupidly easy army to model... keeping the wounds cheap and max firepower, this also opens up a world of strategical possibilities, including things like split Hailfire turns while leapfrogging, or pincer movement and forcing them to break off towards one side of an army rather than another, then in my turn Hailfiring the ones with the range advantage while still being able to boost jet out with the ones hes bearing on without wasting their Hailfire... and thats just a small amount of the depth this list will have, this feels like it will be an amazing amount of fun with a serious amount of versatility to what the army can do.
I also have 5 points left over after all that, so I think I might spend it on a single Ion Accelerator, just for coverage... might be good to have the option to hit something with a BS5 cover ignoring S9 AP2 Large Blast some turns, but let me know what you think here as its possible the HBC is just going to be flat better most the time... I alsogave all the Riptides Fusion Blasters, because with markerlights the SMS is kinda redundant (and was never really much damage to begin with) and I think just having the toolkit on hand to be able deal with something like that deepstriking Obby you mentioned, is much more important.
I was wondering about how useful 16 markerlight drones will actually be... but then I realised, 8 markerlight hits a turn (BS3) is still equivalent to granting +BS1 to nearly my entire army, or granting Ignores Cover for nearly half my entire army (which synergises very well with split Hailfire turns) or any combination in between, so its very flexible... also, them just being bodies on the field gives my Riptides more sustainability, most people will go for the Markerlights first, they add a bunch of to my toolkit.
Also, I feel like 9x invidual Riptides now just turned its hardest match up (invis deathstars) into one of its easier ones... split your Tides up, focus the rest of his army while he chases whatever else, they can kite any melee star all day, and if they happen to get caught or something, its fine its just a single Riptide... then when scoring time comes you have a shitton of Tides and he has a star.
Anyway, I too seem to have gone off on a massive tangent, but I'm pretty excited about this list. Let me know what you think.
P.S. what are some armies capable of building infiltration lists? (outside of everyone who can make use of Master of Ambush trait roll)
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2016/04/20 05:12:42
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
2016/04/20 13:07:31
Subject: Re:[1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
You're right on with the naked nine. (Hmm. Tarantino's next movie?) Boyz before toyz. The only problem is that is if you're making an ITC list they restrict formations to 2 duplicates max. You can make 2 formations work and you'd gain some benefits so It's not a total loss. One unit of three riptides, one unit of two, four units of one. (For ITC, maelstrom and eternal war you could just break them back down to nine individual riptide, but I think you might like this.) You still end up with six scoring units, pretty good. The three man formation can be your tank formation buffing their shields and playing wound allocation games vs shooting and heavy fire support for elite units. All three would benefit from one markerlight correct, where as each individual riptide would only benefit the once? This arrangement does allow you a way to more efficiently make use of your BS bonuses for high priority targets. Unit of two off tank, same deal, but the second highest target priority. These guys will be better at holding ITC objectives, though not in the face of on incoming enemy assault due to the CC and LD as discussed. You don't score your objectives until the beginning of your next turn. So a turn one capture doesn't count til turn 2 for example. More models on the objective, the more likely you score. Just don't waste a glorious last stand on turn one or two lol. That's what you do in turn 4+ point grab mode. Then you have the four solos. They can still operate the leapfrog, pincer, and that last one you described is basically a denied flank maneuver I believe. Also, being solo you have a much better ability to hide units behind BLOS terrain or ruins, so these can be your mobile thrusting riptides. It's easy to micro manage movement of one riptide compared a 3 model squad is too big a target to hide. Get them to a firing lane using their mobility, once they are in a position to open up while the opponent's dakka is out of range/BLOS use the nova buff for your shooting for extra dakka. These mobile riptides can also be your pseudo markerlights from the earlier list as well. Resolve the firing of the drones and solos, then the big squads for maximum force multiplier. That drone formation, is it drone net? (Rereading your post, it looks like you are taking this formation, I'm gonna leave the next part in anyway for other readers.) cuz it should be for. +1 BS for the drones meaning 8 markers vs 5 on up to four targets, which is on average four ignore cover vs say msu scat bikes, Or ignore cover x2, +2 BS x2 for focusing on the primary and secondary threat targets. You get the +1 free bs from the solo riptide for ignore cover, +3 BS (Which means free to hit re rolls on 6+, officially the wtf rank of shooting. That also means gets hot will have even less chance of hurting you. 1 in 36 then the armour save.) combined with your squad of three buffing it's shooting to really let a bikestar have it. 36 shots, 31 hits, 5 rends, (Bikers) for orks = 18(36) unsaved wounds(UW), for eldar = 22(44) UW, SM = 7(14) UW, vs TWC= 7(14/2W per model= 7 models!) (Cents) =9 UW (Wraithknight) = one dead ass knight.
The number in the second bracket is the number of unsaved wounds in a turn you get average paint rolls with hailfire declared, not including the firing of the solo riptide, which I was gonna include but come on, I don't see no lists of with those amounts of bikes in whole damn thing as is. This is your primary threat strategy. If your primary threat is in a transport, pop with solo riptides then turn the dakka up real high.
I mean, you could still kite them. Might be a case where that's preferable, but just blasting them off the table is good too.
So still versatile I'd say. Has it's perks in shooting, just not total independence.
The SMS is bad. There, I said it. Okay not bad, just much more limited then what you'd think. 4 shots. 4+ to wound. Won't AP anyone's bikes. Maybe good for infantry in cover. Infantry with armour 5 in ruins is it really. A waste. Well, it had to happen. The marker drones fulfill your ignore cover needs. The SMS is good against uuuuh. Guard and kroot? I guess orks with a KFF, but trust me on this, your list has nothing to fear from footslogging orks, SMS or no. Any boss worth their salt would be giving them 5+ FNP instead anyway. Take fusion guns for your solos. Their thrust move more reliably saves them from danger, so you can actually hit and thrust away with it. For the 3 model squad, maybe consider 3 plasma guns? 6 TL S 6 AP 2 will melt elite infantry and light vehicles. Equal S to the HBC with better AP so they're not being wasted targeting what the big gun is targeting. More effective than the SMS at killing bikes that are markerlight ignore cover, which is who that unit should be shooting out anyway. The extra range (Gotta get in 9 for that one fusion to be effective.) will serve the larger clumsy unit well.
Maybe give the two model squad Ion Blasters and -fine- the SMS. Gives you more versatility to drop some plates, and the two of them together with benefit from one set of marker lights. Mostly you'll be loving them vs TEQs and artillery. (Lots, most even, artillery pieces have a greater range than the riptide's HBC 36". You'd have to advance up the board to target basilisks/hyrdas/whirlwinds/etc. and exposing you to that CC that we h8 2 c. (Oh god I'm losing it, time to wrap it up.) Or better, Ion and fusion for AV14 popping. (Ion does have ordinance,) (You are running some solo
If you are going to be giving some upgrades, I'd seriously consider the Counterfire Defense System, if not for all the riptides (Okay not Ion ones if you do go that way.) at least for the unit of 3. Consider the following, that marklight/hailfire combo was turn one. You totally annihilate the primary threat. Secondary threat though is alpha striking or turbo boosting or whatever, coming in hot and can still do more than enough damage to your Riptides in CC to take them off the table. You have the drones bubblewrapping the 3 model squad to eat a potential charge, or maybe one of the solo riptides. your 3 model squad of riptides has supporting fire and is within 6". (Now, does the +1 BS Formation targetting bonus apply in overwatch? I'm gonna assume no but it's not definitive on my end.) The riptides still have nova HBCs from the hailfire first turn. 39 more S6 rending shots but with BS2 vs BS1, 50% more hits. (6.5 hits vs 13, 1 rend vs 2. 1UW+1R MEQs vs about 3UW+2R. MEQS Average model base size, 1", lets say average model coherency is 1" for easy maths, and average unit model width is 3. (Conservative estimate. I've seen models marching in a line like god damn sand people all the time.) (Star wars sand people not whatever Donald Trump thinks Sand People are.) Anyway, all those estimates mean you're going to add -4" to his required assault distance, (-30% chance of success) not including whatever the solo riptide pitched in too. (potentially -6", -50% chance of success) 5+ UW on the overwatch can seriously hurt a unit to boot. It would cause a morale check on a 20 man tac squad. I dunno actually now. Sounded good in my head at first but looking at the math, -3W for 15 points in one turn might not be a bad trade, in the worst situation you can find your army in seems like a dutch boy sticking his finger in a damn. Won't save them from assault specialists or tarpits, and that's going to be who's gunning for them.
Or if that isn't your deal, maybe yeah some EWOs to handle the Alpha strike gak looking to come up and shake your hand. Here's the thing, and it's the reason I din't like the first 2 lists in your last post, if it's not enough to disable the intercepting unit, is it worth taking at all? After all, its not really a free shot, you take it from your next turn. I was gonna say if it was really scary it be worth it to make it jink. But with your best guns vs what's the scariest flier to your list, 3 TLLC vendetta? I'd rather be able to focus fire on my own turn when I can light things up with the markerlight. Yeah, I think I'd skip EWOs.)
I'd say velocity tracker but eh... Turn 1 wipe out primary threat, Turn 2 Secondary. The flier will come on turn 2 or 3, get maybe one round of shooting before you feel confident in your board control and could just send it some lead from a solo riptide. S6 is a little weak for those AV12 fliers anyway. If it's being a pest, nova dakka it. Seems like that should work for any problem you run into.
Infiltrate lists you see sometimes with Necrons. I know Flayed Ones get it. (Flayed ones also get shred. One of the active necron army lists getting reviewed has 32 of them.) Sometimes there's SM assault scouts. Uuh, some stupid walkers that AM and eldar get. (Sorry walker fans.) The big ones I guess would be the Imperial assassins. Eversor and Culexus would be bad news. There's a few different bikes that get scout, (Necron wraiths get scout i think. Or was it deepstrike?) which can be a free 12" move after deployment before your turn. Jump packs get guys in the mix fast, and you see a lot of SM with those, then things like interceptors, or rokkit boyz.(I sure am going to take those. Yep any day.) Wraithknight and NDK has jump packs though and that's worrisome. Bikes got the speed, skimmer transports. No more EWO so deepstrike and outflank are back on the table. All these things are Beta strike strategies of course, so once you come up with a good counter beta strike strategy you should be covered. I think double buff Primary threat targeting focus fire from earlier should do it, or the movements you described (Frog, Pincer, denied flank etc.) would be most effective vs Beta strikes.
Where once you were untouchable, sadly, now you do have to consider alpha strike. I think it's a good trade, don't get me wrong. Freedom, force multipliers, golden.Just be sure to bubblewrap your riptides with your drones, and get your shield up when you suspect pods/NSF DS are going to be coming down. This does mean you shouldn't expect your drones to survive the game, so the effectiveness of your shooting will drop after each turn. I think that's another point for hailfire on turn 1, you'll probably get first blood! But yeah, this slightly reduced preparation vs alpha strike was the compromise made to give you the near immunity from death/stars. The right answer depends on your local meta I guess. Something to consider though, the SM deathstars might see a total reinvention with the Geo psyker powers. Alpha strikes immune to intercept, scatter, and assault after. Big gak. Could have big ramifications on this list. Drone bubblewrap is a must. Probably get more use out of the nova thrust.
As an aside, I'm not the only one who thinks nova ripplefire is totally useless right?
Oh, and I did make one mistake in my last post, (Well, one more that I noticed, ha.) I warned you about Strategic Traits giving your opponent night fighting and night vision.Well it turns out riptides have Blacksun Filter, so night fighting has no effect.
Lastly, I mentioned double buff focus fire earlier with your 3 model squad shooting, that's a strategy for a death/biker/cent/wraithstar beta strike type situation. Nova or even non nova Ion can deal with bikers in a pinch too. Nova ion also hits opponent's >36" range units. Vs CC Horde, walk backwards with Nova Ion/HBC. Vs Psykers, if they're invisible, Nova Ion them, if not nova HBC but you need to take them out before they get you, being conservative will only benefit the psyker, so psykers are a double buff hit deal. FMCs/MCs get priority double buff shooting. The nova HBC should take down flyers easily enough. Vs mechanized lists, I'd go shields. I'm thinking AM pask punisher sorta deal. You'd want to take them down fast but you have decent defences against even that level of shooting. LOW/GMC WK worth 2 points by himself in ITC and the could be half the bonus points you need in ITC. However, it;s capped at one per turn. I'd just take the one and wipe it before it does any real damage. CC alpha strike go Shields before the strike, mind your deployment, (3 man squad surrounded by two man and solos, themselves surrounded by the drones. Stay in this position if you have to, so deploy in a way that you can still make shots if something deploys on the board.) let him have first turn if possible, nova thrust out after strike. Unless he can accurately drop in enough squads to somehow push models through 3 layers of bubblewrap to get to the three man squad, and I doubt it's even physically possible. You can get out at worst down a couple drone squads and a solo riptide. Basing their entire list on that one trick and getting that level of return would be a disaster. Heck, it's the one time Tau sucking in CC might pay off. If those units get wiped, all the alpha strike would be exposed to the entire firepower of the list on the next turn, and with no support. And they paid extra for the privilege! Basically, I think you'll be fine vs alpha and now you're more balanced against many other lists.
After going through all the maths and tactical possibilities, I think mixed sized units might be better than nine independent ones, if even just the potential damage output of 3x double buff should swing it. Throw in the ions and yeah, I think it's a tops list. Good job.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2016/04/20 13:32:17
2016/04/20 15:23:02
Subject: Re:[1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
You're right on with the naked nine. (Hmm. Tarantino's next movie?) Boyz before toyz. The only problem is that is if you're making an ITC list they restrict formations to 2 duplicates max. You can make 2 formations work and you'd gain some benefits so It's not a total loss. One unit of three riptides, one unit of two, four units of one. (For ITC, maelstrom and eternal war you could just break them back down to nine individual riptide, but I think you might like this.) You still end up with six scoring units, pretty good. The three man formation can be your tank formation buffing their shields and playing wound allocation games vs shooting and heavy fire support for elite units. All three would benefit from one markerlight correct, where as each individual riptide would only benefit the once? This arrangement does allow you a way to more efficiently make use of your BS bonuses for high priority targets. Unit of two off tank, same deal, but the second highest target priority. These guys will be better at holding ITC objectives, though not in the face of on incoming enemy assault due to the CC and LD as discussed. You don't score your objectives until the beginning of your next turn. So a turn one capture doesn't count til turn 2 for example. More models on the objective, the more likely you score. Just don't waste a glorious last stand on turn one or two lol. That's what you do in turn 4+ point grab mode. Then you have the four solos. They can still operate the leapfrog, pincer, and that last one you described is basically a denied flank maneuver I believe. Also, being solo you have a much better ability to hide units behind BLOS terrain or ruins, so these can be your mobile thrusting riptides. It's easy to micro manage movement of one riptide compared a 3 model squad is too big a target to hide. Get them to a firing lane using their mobility, once they are in a position to open up while the opponent's dakka is out of range/BLOS use the nova buff for your shooting for extra dakka. These mobile riptides can also be your pseudo markerlights from the earlier list as well. Resolve the firing of the drones and solos, then the big squads for maximum force multiplier. That drone formation, is it drone net? (Rereading your post, it looks like you are taking this formation, I'm gonna leave the next part in anyway for other readers.) cuz it should be for. +1 BS for the drones meaning 8 markers vs 5 on up to four targets, which is on average four ignore cover vs say msu scat bikes, Or ignore cover x2, +2 BS x2 for focusing on the primary and secondary threat targets. You get the +1 free bs from the solo riptide for ignore cover, +3 BS (Which means free to hit re rolls on 6+, officially the wtf rank of shooting. That also means gets hot will have even less chance of hurting you. 1 in 36 then the armour save.) combined with your squad of three buffing it's shooting to really let a bikestar have it. 36 shots, 31 hits, 5 rends, (Bikers) for orks = 18(36) unsaved wounds(UW), for eldar = 22(44) UW, SM = 7(14) UW, vs TWC= 7(14/2W per model= 7 models!) (Cents) =9 UW (Wraithknight) = one dead ass knight.
The number in the second bracket is the number of unsaved wounds in a turn you get average paint rolls with hailfire declared, not including the firing of the solo riptide, which I was gonna include but come on, I don't see no lists of with those amounts of bikes in whole damn thing as is. This is your primary threat strategy. If your primary threat is in a transport, pop with solo riptides then turn the dakka up real high.
I mean, you could still kite them. Might be a case where that's preferable, but just blasting them off the table is good too.
So still versatile I'd say. Has it's perks in shooting, just not total independence.
The SMS is bad. There, I said it. Okay not bad, just much more limited then what you'd think. 4 shots. 4+ to wound. Won't AP anyone's bikes. Maybe good for infantry in cover. Infantry with armour 5 in ruins is it really. A waste. Well, it had to happen. The marker drones fulfill your ignore cover needs. The SMS is good against uuuuh. Guard and kroot? I guess orks with a KFF, but trust me on this, your list has nothing to fear from footslogging orks, SMS or no. Any boss worth their salt would be giving them 5+ FNP instead anyway. Take fusion guns for your solos. Their thrust move more reliably saves them from danger, so you can actually hit and thrust away with it. For the 3 model squad, maybe consider 3 plasma guns? 6 TL S 6 AP 2 will melt elite infantry and light vehicles. Equal S to the HBC with better AP so they're not being wasted targeting what the big gun is targeting. More effective than the SMS at killing bikes that are markerlight ignore cover, which is who that unit should be shooting out anyway. The extra range (Gotta get in 9 for that one fusion to be effective.) will serve the larger clumsy unit well.
Maybe give the two model squad Ion Blasters and -fine- the SMS. Gives you more versatility to drop some plates, and the two of them together with benefit from one set of marker lights. Mostly you'll be loving them vs TEQs and artillery. (Lots, most even, artillery pieces have a greater range than the riptide's HBC 36". You'd have to advance up the board to target basilisks/hyrdas/whirlwinds/etc. and exposing you to that CC that we h8 2 c. (Oh god I'm losing it, time to wrap it up.) Or better, Ion and fusion for AV14 popping. (Ion does have ordinance,) (You are running some solo
If you are going to be giving some upgrades, I'd seriously consider the Counterfire Defense System, if not for all the riptides (Okay not Ion ones if you do go that way.) at least for the unit of 3. Consider the following, that marklight/hailfire combo was turn one. You totally annihilate the primary threat. Secondary threat though is alpha striking or turbo boosting or whatever, coming in hot and can still do more than enough damage to your Riptides in CC to take them off the table. You have the drones bubblewrapping the 3 model squad to eat a potential charge, or maybe one of the solo riptides. your 3 model squad of riptides has supporting fire and is within 6". (Now, does the +1 BS Formation targetting bonus apply in overwatch? I'm gonna assume no but it's not definitive on my end.) The riptides still have nova HBCs from the hailfire first turn. 39 more S6 rending shots but with BS2 vs BS1, 50% more hits. (6.5 hits vs 13, 1 rend vs 2. 1UW+1R MEQs vs about 3UW+2R. MEQS Average model base size, 1", lets say average model coherency is 1" for easy maths, and average unit model width is 3. (Conservative estimate. I've seen models marching in a line like god damn sand people all the time.) (Star wars sand people not whatever Donald Trump thinks Sand People are.) Anyway, all those estimates mean you're going to add -4" to his required assault distance, (-30% chance of success) not including whatever the solo riptide pitched in too. (potentially -6", -50% chance of success) 5+ UW on the overwatch can seriously hurt a unit to boot. It would cause a morale check on a 20 man tac squad. I dunno actually now. Sounded good in my head at first but looking at the math, -3W for 15 points in one turn might not be a bad trade, in the worst situation you can find your army in seems like a dutch boy sticking his finger in a damn. Won't save them from assault specialists or tarpits, and that's going to be who's gunning for them.
Or if that isn't your deal, maybe yeah some EWOs to handle the Alpha strike gak looking to come up and shake your hand. Here's the thing, and it's the reason I din't like the first 2 lists in your last post, if it's not enough to disable the intercepting unit, is it worth taking at all? After all, its not really a free shot, you take it from your next turn. I was gonna say if it was really scary it be worth it to make it jink. But with your best guns vs what's the scariest flier to your list, 3 TLLC vendetta? I'd rather be able to focus fire on my own turn when I can light things up with the markerlight. Yeah, I think I'd skip EWOs.)
I'd say velocity tracker but eh... Turn 1 wipe out primary threat, Turn 2 Secondary. The flier will come on turn 2 or 3, get maybe one round of shooting before you feel confident in your board control and could just send it some lead from a solo riptide. S6 is a little weak for those AV12 fliers anyway. If it's being a pest, nova dakka it. Seems like that should work for any problem you run into.
Infiltrate lists you see sometimes with Necrons. I know Flayed Ones get it. (Flayed ones also get shred. One of the active necron army lists getting reviewed has 32 of them.) Sometimes there's SM assault scouts. Uuh, some stupid walkers that AM and eldar get. (Sorry walker fans.) The big ones I guess would be the Imperial assassins. Eversor and Culexus would be bad news. There's a few different bikes that get scout, (Necron wraiths get scout i think. Or was it deepstrike?) which can be a free 12" move after deployment before your turn. Jump packs get guys in the mix fast, and you see a lot of SM with those, then things like interceptors, or rokkit boyz.(I sure am going to take those. Yep any day.) Wraithknight and NDK has jump packs though and that's worrisome. Bikes got the speed, skimmer transports. No more EWO so deepstrike and outflank are back on the table. All these things are Beta strike strategies of course, so once you come up with a good counter beta strike strategy you should be covered. I think double buff Primary threat targeting focus fire from earlier should do it, or the movements you described (Frog, Pincer, denied flank etc.) would be most effective vs Beta strikes.
Where once you were untouchable, sadly, now you do have to consider alpha strike. I think it's a good trade, don't get me wrong. Freedom, force multipliers, golden.Just be sure to bubblewrap your riptides with your drones, and get your shield up when you suspect pods/NSF DS are going to be coming down. This does mean you shouldn't expect your drones to survive the game, so the effectiveness of your shooting will drop after each turn. I think that's another point for hailfire on turn 1, you'll probably get first blood! But yeah, this slightly reduced preparation vs alpha strike was the compromise made to give you the near immunity from death/stars. The right answer depends on your local meta I guess. Something to consider though, the SM deathstars might see a total reinvention with the Geo psyker powers. Alpha strikes immune to intercept, scatter, and assault after. Big gak. Could have big ramifications on this list. Drone bubblewrap is a must. Probably get more use out of the nova thrust.
As an aside, I'm not the only one who thinks nova ripplefire is totally useless right?
Oh, and I did make one mistake in my last post, (Well, one more that I noticed, ha.) I warned you about Strategic Traits giving your opponent night fighting and night vision.Well it turns out riptides have Blacksun Filter, so night fighting has no effect.
Lastly, I mentioned double buff focus fire earlier with your 3 model squad shooting, that's a strategy for a death/biker/cent/wraithstar beta strike type situation. Nova or even non nova Ion can deal with bikers in a pinch too. Nova ion also hits opponent's >36" range units. Vs CC Horde, walk backwards with Nova Ion/HBC. Vs Psykers, if they're invisible, Nova Ion them, if not nova HBC but you need to take them out before they get you, being conservative will only benefit the psyker, so psykers are a double buff hit deal. FMCs/MCs get priority double buff shooting. The nova HBC should take down flyers easily enough. Vs mechanized lists, I'd go shields. I'm thinking AM pask punisher sorta deal. You'd want to take them down fast but you have decent defences against even that level of shooting. LOW/GMC WK worth 2 points by himself in ITC and the could be half the bonus points you need in ITC. However, it;s capped at one per turn. I'd just take the one and wipe it before it does any real damage. CC alpha strike go Shields before the strike, mind your deployment, (3 man squad surrounded by two man and solos, themselves surrounded by the drones. Stay in this position if you have to, so deploy in a way that you can still make shots if something deploys on the board.) let him have first turn if possible, nova thrust out after strike. Unless he can accurately drop in enough squads to somehow push models through 3 layers of bubblewrap to get to the three man squad, and I doubt it's even physically possible. You can get out at worst down a couple drone squads and a solo riptide. Basing their entire list on that one trick and getting that level of return would be a disaster. Heck, it's the one time Tau sucking in CC might pay off. If those units get wiped, all the alpha strike would be exposed to the entire firepower of the list on the next turn, and with no support. And they paid extra for the privilege! Basically, I think you'll be fine vs alpha and now you're more balanced against many other lists.
After going through all the maths and tactical possibilities, I think mixed sized units might be better than nine independent ones, if even just the potential damage output of 3x double buff should swing it. Throw in the ions and yeah, I think it's a tops list. Good job.
First off, let me just say, you are an amazing poster, and I can't believe we didn't get on at first. This is tactica that has taken me over an hour to chew through the reading of, cross referencing things, double checking math, and theoretically playing out situations, and it all not only checks out but is also extremely optimized! and from someone that you know first hand doesn't just take things at face value, I gotta say I'm impressed. In my defense, I think that Nid tactica you posted was a lot emptier and and the amazing advice you are giving here is brilliant
first things first - DAMN, I thought ITC rules were more or less free for all on formations, guess I found the limit there. I think I would still personally prefer 9 individual units, but the fact is that is not a thing, so I have to roll with the punches. My fairly fresh-faced Tau friend is trying to encourage me towards Dawn Blade Jet Pack spam (crysuits and a non-Nova re-rolling Tide) + 2x Riptide Wing, and getting annoyed that I don't see the merit in what he's suggesting, but I don't think he quite understands that his recommendations would be completely defeating the purpose of the build, and would sacrifice a lot of coherency, and would not be as competitive at all, and may as well completely re-write the list. The idea here is clearly reliable 4D6 boost jets to cover a lot of things, only throwing that at the safest times to take HBC Nova + Hailfire, and a bunch of units literally playing at half that on every roll is quickly going to fall behind and get chewed out while trying to play the rest of the list as such. I understand bad rolls are inevitable and will cost me Riptide here and there, but thats what 40k is about, and bad rolls alone are much better than bad rolls + a bunch of units that can't keep up even with good rolls, so it is just counter productive. But I think he's been brainwashed by the Greater Good and isn't seeing past what he thinks Tau is meant to try to do. I think as you said, 3x3 Tide in a unit gets much better returns off the markers, and plays allocation and 3++ shenanigans - so its not completely wasted. But as we said before, it only takes that single 3 man Tide squad to get tackled by something dumb, and I'm now playing 1300 pts vs 1850 pts for the rest of the game, so thats going to be a hard game. However, with 4 other solo Riptide units kicking about, maybe I won't need to be as risky with a 3 man unit just to claim an objective or whatever (like I would have to be if all I had was 3x3man units), I can do that with the #soloboys instead, while still taking advantage of markers at once. So you may be right, this may turn out to be better after all.
However, the 2 man unit that is also forced on me, is where I'm stuck at trying to make worthwhile. Because fact is, taking ANY upgrades means dropping a Riptide. No way around that, 9Tide + markers is 1844 points barebones. So the question is always going to be - is it worth dropping a Riptide for? I could afford a single Ion Cannon but that would belong on a solo Tide, not mixed in with another HBC tide in one one unit. So I could drop a Tide to take 2x Ion Cannons - but now I no longer need to take a 2 man unit to begin with, so whats the point? Basically, I can't possibly envision a way that a single 2 man unit of HBC Tides is better than just doing whatever they do and more with 2 invidual units. I could drop that second tacked-on Tide entirely and spend the free'd up points on upgrades, and take like 12 more Drones or something, but I'm not convinced 12 drones is better than another BS4 Hailfiring Riptide at all, whether hes forced into a 2 man squad or not. Might just have to roll with the punches and accept one squad is forced to be 2 man, and that of 6 marker hits a turn, the optimal is going to be 4 per unit (BS5 + ignores cover) which leaves 2 more left over and a 2 man squad makes use of them more efficiently than a 1 man squad. Also, the optimal target for the 3 man squad might not be in cover at all meaning I have a bunch of spare drones or something, I dunno I'm just trying to find ways to mitigate the damage here, but I guess it's not TERRIBLE, I can see the use for one unit of 3 but I think individual units would likely be better for all the remainders, but I might just have to accept thats simply not an option and the rest of the benefits of running nothing but Riptide Wing formations make up for it, and the fact that there is at least some mechanics in place that still somewhat benefit a 2 man squad as well, and just being a bit more careful with 2 man unit so to not unnecessary whelp it.
Just to be clear, I don't want to take the SMS. They were pretty crappy to begin with, I just knew that 30" S5 shots would synergise with my ranges and get fired more often than 18" blasters, however I think its quality of over quantity here as I'd trade all the stupid SMS shots in the world for the option to deal with the Obelisk that deep strikes in to deny my kiting space, or to pop an empty LR of an objective later on, or whatever else you can envision, so yeah I'm definitely going with Fusion Blasters, on all of them.
I'm not at all concerned with alpha or beta strike, I think the strengths of this list directly counter the gameplan that both lists play to - which is, to take slow cheap close range units and drop em in your face and shoot first. Fine, I'll give em that and not intercept em on the way down, but basically, I can safely keep up 3++ until they come down against most armies of this sort (anything else trying to bumrush me before they hit the field is going to be detached from the rest of its force and easily taken apart) so that invul severely mitigates the alpha/beta strike grav/melta/whatever strike, and after that - thats it! That's their one turn all game! They are going to be the most easily kitable army from that point onwards, there is simply no way that they ever get a second turn of that gak unlike they do against most armies, and nor is the alpha/beta going to hit me even half as hard as it does most. I'm confident I don't need EWO or counterfire to deal with them at all, and while the numbers definitely justify the points - I am certain I will win this match up every time without it. I think you more or less touched on this yourself and convinced yourself of it too by the end of what you were saying lol, just wanted to say that I agree.
You are also totally right about the actual benefit of Tau sucking in CC here, it's not like turtle Tau where the quicker they kill models the quicker they kill the next models due to some crazy big multiassault because your gunline ran out space, no if they manage to catch something, honestly thats fine thats all they get lol and the sooner they get out of CC the sooner that one thing that proved to be threat gets chewed out by shooting, hoping they do kill it in a single phase, lol. You also absolutely right bout Ripplefire - its trash, and you are also right about the amazing potential damage output of a 3 man Riptide unit supported with markers, thats hitting on 4+'s vs an INVISIBLE UNIT (snapshotting 16 drones is getting you at least 2 marker lights), I'm curious about the +1 BS from his fire team / co-ordinated attack rules on Invis units, but I'm assuming if that worked it would specify like Markerlights do. Still, 36x S6 shots shots, doubled with hailfire, hitting at BS3, is crapton more than most armies can do vs an invis Star, especially at such a safe range. That alone might make it better than 9 invidual Riptides, with this amount of firepower chewing down the size of the game 6 super mobile scoring units is still a lot, or at the very least enough to compete.
This message was edited 13 times. Last update was at 2016/04/20 23:41:30
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
2016/04/21 00:58:41
Subject: Re:[1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
Haha, thanks! I'll turn you against biovores one day, when you least expect it. The main thing is these are suggestions built on two totally different parameters. I could go over the theoryhammer aspect of it if you're interested, but the advice I gave to that other poster was more cash investment return, which my thoughts on the theory influenced but was not the primary factor. It was also a much, uh... briefer overview. We may just ultimately agree to disagree and I can live with that. I do a lot of numerical analysis for my IRL job, so just so applying the same techniques to 40k is a neat excersize, taking both out of their box.
Yeah, the 2 man squad is the real tax you have to take here. I mentioned it briefly, but their best role is secondary threat management. You have the 4 squads markerlights, you can divide the buffs to another threat and your two man squad would be 200% better at utilizing the buffs than a single tide, but not as much as the 300% the three man is offering you. It would be useful for those secondary targets, I'm thinking devastator squads, long fangs, immortals, oblits, warp spiders, not the star of the list but things that could whittle you down over time while you are dealing with the star. Damage output is much more important in ITC which has much emphasis on engaging the opponent's forces. Denying objectives in a capped vp really sets your opponent back. Think of the scoring format with caps as more of "How many points can I not lose?" rather than the maelstrom form of: "How many points can I score?". That questioned is answered in ITC, it's no longer relevant after a point. (The point being the cap.) In maelstrom, the sheer volume of objectives requires a different style of gameplay. That sort of thing. You could also play wound allocation games.
Now I know you're thinking it's not as effective as the three model squad in this, but you'd be surprised. Buried in the BRB on wound allocation is says "randomly determine a model in the unit – that model is treated as being the closest model to the attack and remains so until either the attack ends or the model is slain." So whichever model you're allocating wounds to, it can only be one. (This is always really funny to bust out vs a superfriends player that didn't look too closely at the book.) On a per attack basis, the 2 man squad is every bit as effective.
I didn't really tie my last post all together, I was pretty over it by the time I got as far as I did haha. Essentially it was the riptide vs 180 points of upgrades issue, including select equipment tactica. Ultimately, none of the options are really worth it after analysis. The reason why the two man squad sticks out so much is because it doesn't adhere to the min/max paradigm of ITC list creation, and according to MSU theory it would be just as effective as a squad of one. So I'll go over my view of their relevance in this particular case.
First, MSU is much more tailored for competing in Maelstrom games than ITC games. Maelstroms have 6 objectives, ITC has 2-4. Bonus vps are much more important in ITC, and tends toward killing stuff than moving around the table. Maelstrom games spread over the entire board, ITC focuses on a few key points. Maelstrom doesn't cap vps per turn, you can score as many as you like. ITC caps at 2 objective vps per turn. Now on the other hand, what a small unit contributes to an ITC list falls more in line for risk vs reward theory. The larger unit provides a great risk and greater reward. Gameplay-wise this means you play it more cautiously to minimize the risk while benefiting from exponential benefit, which even if not optimized is still exponential! That's a big deal when it comes to the maths aspect of it. Think of it as x^2. Anyway, I went off on a tangent again. The solo has the lowest risk for a lower reward, but gameplay-wise this means you can take big risks with them, the risk is not exponentially magnified and the reward, while lower will also be low variance - a relatively sure thing. The two model squad does fulfill a niche for you here: average risk vs average reward, this adds to versatility. In ITC which can be predicted easier and better game planned for due to the static intergame nature of ITC lists esp wrt tournaments, versatility contributes competitively more than Maelstrom.
With regards to min/max, we're focusing on micro min/maxing vs macro min/maxing, which I'd argue is more important in the grand scheme, especially wrt competitive lists. Boyz before toyz is ultimately a min/max theory at it's core. When in doubt, maximize the amount of models or speaking mathematically, the potential. Upgrades exist ultimately to reduce variance, which cuts both ways, negative and positive variance. Going x+1 when subjecting it to potentials (Or limits if we want to be technical.) synergizes with the x^2 concept earlier.
Model vs Equipment boils down to this: The equipment is represented by the exponential factor. All "buffs" are. This represents force multiplies on an exponential scale. (Which are the cost effective upgrades.) In this case, the equipment itself has an exponentially small representation in this total number. Think of it as ^2+0.01. The models as explained expand the base output which is the core of the force modifier. 1 really represents 1 unit in this case, that unit being equal to 180 points.
Presented formulaically, it is: x+180^2 or x^(2+0.18) The amount added to the exponent to represent the equipment may seem shocking, but remember, they're relative to the force multipliers from say the markerlights, coordinated firepower, and hailfire. That's also assuming every point is spent on effective force multiplying equipment, but we both now that going to cap off at half that probably. Calculating values with these perimeters for those concepts is rather nebulous and tedious so I'm going to skip it but I think we can agree that their multipler is nowhere near equivalent to those others.
Also, the previous commentary vs Alpha/Beta was included as it had been omitted from my initial analysis due to the multimuple inceptor counter. Like I said, shouldn't really be a problem for you.
So that's my argument for taking 9 vs 8 riptides. Take the one ion cannon on a solo. It will still add versatility to your list for the reasons listed previously.
Well, I think we pretty much wrote the book on riptides. Not many people go this in depth, or even want to. It's been fun!
E: Oh one last thing, I don't disagree with you, the fusion blaster is the best secondary weapon of the options availble, but lemme ask you: What is your HBC going do to do when you're firing at an AV13-14 within 9"? The only answer I see is "Waste it" and then I'd ask "Which is more important to your list?". It's the philosophical difference between the two builds. The HBC has to shoot at what the fusion is shooting at, the plasma is shooting at what the HBC is shooting at. That's synergy. You could always take the split fire upgrade, but it's not really worth it. The secondary weapon should be viewed as just a bonus not a focus. Like, part of that bonus even is the chance of losing it on Weapon Destroyer results instead of the HBC. I do understand why you have to take some fusion, you don't have a lot of other options for dealing with AV14. I'd say just because there's only one option, doesn't make it a good one! My playstyle is not your playstyle though, and it is your list after all.
E2: It's like coaches in the NFL. There a bunch of wildly different philosophies, but no one school wins the superbowl every year.
This message was edited 23 times. Last update was at 2016/04/21 03:36:45
2016/04/21 07:54:10
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
You can discuss mathematics all day but the age of the deathstar is here which effectiviely ignores all that shooting. You need a roadblock of kroot/drones and you need markerlights. Just my blunt tldr version
2016/04/21 08:12:16
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
KillswitchUK wrote: You can discuss mathematics all day but the age of the deathstar is here which effectiviely ignores all that shooting. You need a roadblock of kroot/drones and you need markerlights. Just my blunt tldr version
enough dice a A wound WILL eventually get through, and thats something this list does better than almost any. Also, they are almost undoubtedly the hardest model in the game to catch in CC out of units that shoot every turn, and there is 6 units of that.
And there is 16 markerlights too which is nice. I have no illusions that they will be some deathstar killer but I don't think it's a poor match up man!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/04/21 08:48:10
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
2016/04/21 10:31:59
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
This list could beat a death star on points in an ITC game.
Remember, there is no sudden death victory for tabling an opponent in ITC. A tabled opponent with enough points will still win the game. The upper tier level tiggy/draigo lists would not have the scoring capability to compete.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/04/21 10:34:31
2016/04/21 10:41:52
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
was gonna type a really lengthy response, but i think you should consider what targets you're going to shoot at, and whether you will kill it, over kill it, or waste shots. Waste shots is ok as long as its dead or dying.
The IAC + SMS is my preferred loadout on most of my riptides. The hailfire of 6 str 7 ap 2 shots per riptide is deadly to anything AV12/T8 or below, and the huge volume of SMS missiles,
I'd personally for for the IAC on as many as possible as with such a low model count, you really want to be taking the 3++ invul on any riptides taking hits. which will mean the HBC is just a heavy 8 str 6 ap 4 gun, which is pretty pants.
I'd take SMS on a good number at least. They are amazing against warp spiders, reroll jinking bikes, and the argument for marker lights is a little theoretical for me. Relying on them for your ignore cover will just see a bike army kill your drones, rerollable 2+ jinks/invuls( ravenwing or seer council or conclaves on bikes), and flicker jumping warp spiders, who will incidentally, eat riptides alive if present in bulk.
Feel free to have a few alternative loadouts, but I can see this list really struggling against:
Gladius - obsec will outscore you and you'll waste so much firepower trying to completely kill off units without much ap2.
Knights 3 knights will hurt this a lot. Mainly because you cant really hurt them, and once they get close its over, The shooting phase will be a lot of dice doing no damage. Amusingly from two massive shooting armies.
Seer council on bikes. They'll throw out so many shrieks they will run off the map and once you lose one riptide, they rest are taking leadership tests.
An assault army with that geomorphing power.
Any army with 2 aspect hosts or more of warp spiders. They're too mobile and without the 3++ or the ability to intercept when not in LOS (and lack of IAC for pieplate intercepts), One squad of 5 reliably takes off 3 wounds against riptides without 3++ they have battle focus and can probably avoid most of your shooting
grav cents with a tanking/psychic character in there. Again, lack of ap2 vs what grav does to riptides. A couple of plasma templates for the intercept will remove this threat though.
I'd have be everyone with SMS and IAC, a few with skyfire, everyone with intercept and the rest with a scattering of FNP or precision shot. Most of the threats above revolve around AV13, hard to shoot units, or an IC/C giving a unit a significant boost. You get chunky Ap2 shooting, templates for value on intercepts, str 9 ordnance nova for the really tough nuts to crack, and still, with riptide hailfire, you'll have a total of 54 str 7 ap2 plasma shots, (although I agree with dropping one for a drone net formation. so 1x1x1 + 2x2x1. with the 2's having the FNP's. and the 1x1x1 being the skyfire team. deploy aggressively, sitting at the back of the board is tempting but will fail you.
Your first 2 turns are crucial and if they have a method of closing you down rapidly, sacrifice some of them to buy the others some time, to grab/hold objectives. and decide early on your win condition, killing their objective scoring units, or shooting them off the table.
Big guns aren't scary to riptides. Even with the worst luck possible (always hits, never saves) they need to shoot it continuously for 5 turns to kill one. and you have 9. Even D weapons have to 6 out if you've got your 3++ up, to get one. And with that much Ap2, a WK will die pretty fast.
What will get you is saturated fire from really nifty guns (grav, monofilament, rapid plasma), and all those guys come on packages that either need AP2 to reliable shooting from range to prevent them (and psychics).
FWIW:
my tau list is as follows:
buffmander + broadsides (2), strike dudes and 2x pathfinders cad + stormsurge, riptide wing, all EWO plasma, SMS and skyfire. Stormsurge,
and...
callidus and culexus.
Culexus for defensive psychic bubble or force them to reserve their psychic star, which means either reserve another unit to "eat" the -3 reserve from the callidus, (or risk it coming on t3)who can deploy an ap2 flamer 1" from them (roadblocking gladius - fearless so autopasses tank shock which prevents disembark) and means you have a 30% chance to seize, making their deployment pretty hard. D missiles to remove the 0-1 LOW and then go to town on the rest. I'd happily remove the SS for another riptide wing (i know points != but its close).
edit: can you give a rough idea of the tournament you're going to? titans allowed? netlisting 40+ warpspiders? ETC/ITC?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/04/21 10:43:05
2016/04/21 11:05:04
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
Trazer985 wrote: was gonna type a really lengthy response, but i think you should consider what targets you're going to shoot at, and whether you will kill it, over kill it, or waste shots. Waste shots is ok as long as its dead or dying.
The IAC + SMS is my preferred loadout on most of my riptides. The hailfire of 6 str 7 ap 2 shots per riptide is deadly to anything AV12/T8 or below, and the huge volume of SMS missiles,
I'd personally for for the IAC on as many as possible as with such a low model count, you really want to be taking the 3++ invul on any riptides taking hits. which will mean the HBC is just a heavy 8 str 6 ap 4 gun, which is pretty pants.
I'd take SMS on a good number at least. They are amazing against warp spiders, reroll jinking bikes, and the argument for marker lights is a little theoretical for me. Relying on them for your ignore cover will just see a bike army kill your drones, rerollable 2+ jinks/invuls( ravenwing or seer council or conclaves on bikes), and flicker jumping warp spiders, who will incidentally, eat riptides alive if present in bulk.
Feel free to have a few alternative loadouts, but I can see this list really struggling against:
Gladius - obsec will outscore you and you'll waste so much firepower trying to completely kill off units without much ap2.
Knights 3 knights will hurt this a lot. Mainly because you cant really hurt them, and once they get close its over, The shooting phase will be a lot of dice doing no damage. Amusingly from two massive shooting armies.
Seer council on bikes. They'll throw out so many shrieks they will run off the map and once you lose one riptide, they rest are taking leadership tests.
An assault army with that geomorphing power.
Any army with 2 aspect hosts or more of warp spiders. They're too mobile and without the 3++ or the ability to intercept when not in LOS (and lack of IAC for pieplate intercepts), One squad of 5 reliably takes off 3 wounds against riptides without 3++ they have battle focus and can probably avoid most of your shooting
grav cents with a tanking/psychic character in there. Again, lack of ap2 vs what grav does to riptides. A couple of plasma templates for the intercept will remove this threat though.
I'd have be everyone with SMS and IAC, a few with skyfire, everyone with intercept and the rest with a scattering of FNP or precision shot. Most of the threats above revolve around AV13, hard to shoot units, or an IC/C giving a unit a significant boost. You get chunky Ap2 shooting, templates for value on intercepts, str 9 ordnance nova for the really tough nuts to crack, and still, with riptide hailfire, you'll have a total of 54 str 7 ap2 plasma shots, (although I agree with dropping one for a drone net formation. so 1x1x1 + 2x2x1. with the 2's having the FNP's. and the 1x1x1 being the skyfire team. deploy aggressively, sitting at the back of the board is tempting but will fail you.
Your first 2 turns are crucial and if they have a method of closing you down rapidly, sacrifice some of them to buy the others some time, to grab/hold objectives. and decide early on your win condition, killing their objective scoring units, or shooting them off the table.
Big guns aren't scary to riptides. Even with the worst luck possible (always hits, never saves) they need to shoot it continuously for 5 turns to kill one. and you have 9. Even D weapons have to 6 out if you've got your 3++ up, to get one. And with that much Ap2, a WK will die pretty fast.
What will get you is saturated fire from really nifty guns (grav, monofilament, rapid plasma), and all those guys come on packages that either need AP2 to reliable shooting from range to prevent them (and psychics).
FWIW:
my tau list is as follows:
buffmander + broadsides (2), strike dudes and 2x pathfinders cad + stormsurge, riptide wing, all EWO plasma, SMS and skyfire. Stormsurge,
and...
callidus and culexus.
Culexus for defensive psychic bubble or force them to reserve their psychic star, which means either reserve another unit to "eat" the -3 reserve from the callidus, (or risk it coming on t3)who can deploy an ap2 flamer 1" from them (roadblocking gladius - fearless so autopasses tank shock which prevents disembark) and means you have a 30% chance to seize, making their deployment pretty hard. D missiles to remove the 0-1 LOW and then go to town on the rest. I'd happily remove the SS for another riptide wing (i know points != but its close).
edit: can you give a rough idea of the tournament you're going to? titans allowed? netlisting 40+ warpspiders? ETC/ITC?
This is some really good stuff, I just want to quickly throw in a couple points for consideration. Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.
SMS doesn't AP the 3+ warp spiders, I don't think they're that great here. (3+ or 3++ works out to the same # of wounds) Jinking bikes are hard countered by the markerlight's ignore cover. Jinks count as a cover save and markerlights only have to roll to hit to paint a target, no saves. SMS doesn't AP bikes either.
Knights are capped to a max of one in ITC and are nerfed heavily both in opponent's bonuses vs it for LOW and the strength D modification. (No 6's on D chart, no riptide instaskill.)
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/04/21 11:05:21
2016/04/21 11:16:40
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
It's not their armour that makes them hard to kill, its their LOS jump. The missiles ignore this, and are guaranteed to keep them out of range of you (30" range, vs their 18" max move and 12" range), if they flicker they cant warp jump. and you can also pie plate them if they deep strike.
Good news about knights, thats one less problem for you and also about D's. I'm concerned about relying on a) ridiculously soft units with low BS being your only source of ignore cover. The cover saves themselves aren't the problem as such, its when they start rerolling them with shroud or similar that they become an issue. Any 3+ or worse save that isn't rerolled is going to crumple under numbers, and especially if there's an invis out there, that will soak up most of your marker lights.
Ultimately, I've made my points, you've understood them and its you that has to play it. If you'd like to name units that you are likely to encounter that the HBC /plasma rifles outperform the IAC/SMS on then one of us is going to learn something new, which is the point of this forum
2016/04/21 13:33:19
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
Trazer985 wrote: was gonna type a really lengthy response, but i think you should consider what targets you're going to shoot at, and whether you will kill it, over kill it, or waste shots. Waste shots is ok as long as its dead or dying.
The IAC + SMS is my preferred loadout on most of my riptides. The hailfire of 6 str 7 ap 2 shots per riptide is deadly to anything AV12/T8 or below, and the huge volume of SMS missiles,
I'd personally for for the IAC on as many as possible as with such a low model count, you really want to be taking the 3++ invul on any riptides taking hits. which will mean the HBC is just a heavy 8 str 6 ap 4 gun, which is pretty pants.
I'd take SMS on a good number at least. They are amazing against warp spiders, reroll jinking bikes, and the argument for marker lights is a little theoretical for me. Relying on them for your ignore cover will just see a bike army kill your drones, rerollable 2+ jinks/invuls( ravenwing or seer council or conclaves on bikes), and flicker jumping warp spiders, who will incidentally, eat riptides alive if present in bulk.
Feel free to have a few alternative loadouts, but I can see this list really struggling against:
Gladius - obsec will outscore you and you'll waste so much firepower trying to completely kill off units without much ap2.
Knights 3 knights will hurt this a lot. Mainly because you cant really hurt them, and once they get close its over, The shooting phase will be a lot of dice doing no damage. Amusingly from two massive shooting armies.
Seer council on bikes. They'll throw out so many shrieks they will run off the map and once you lose one riptide, they rest are taking leadership tests.
An assault army with that geomorphing power.
Any army with 2 aspect hosts or more of warp spiders. They're too mobile and without the 3++ or the ability to intercept when not in LOS (and lack of IAC for pieplate intercepts), One squad of 5 reliably takes off 3 wounds against riptides without 3++ they have battle focus and can probably avoid most of your shooting
grav cents with a tanking/psychic character in there. Again, lack of ap2 vs what grav does to riptides. A couple of plasma templates for the intercept will remove this threat though.
I'd have be everyone with SMS and IAC, a few with skyfire, everyone with intercept and the rest with a scattering of FNP or precision shot. Most of the threats above revolve around AV13, hard to shoot units, or an IC/C giving a unit a significant boost. You get chunky Ap2 shooting, templates for value on intercepts, str 9 ordnance nova for the really tough nuts to crack, and still, with riptide hailfire, you'll have a total of 54 str 7 ap2 plasma shots, (although I agree with dropping one for a drone net formation. so 1x1x1 + 2x2x1. with the 2's having the FNP's. and the 1x1x1 being the skyfire team. deploy aggressively, sitting at the back of the board is tempting but will fail you.
Your first 2 turns are crucial and if they have a method of closing you down rapidly, sacrifice some of them to buy the others some time, to grab/hold objectives. and decide early on your win condition, killing their objective scoring units, or shooting them off the table.
Big guns aren't scary to riptides. Even with the worst luck possible (always hits, never saves) they need to shoot it continuously for 5 turns to kill one. and you have 9. Even D weapons have to 6 out if you've got your 3++ up, to get one. And with that much Ap2, a WK will die pretty fast.
What will get you is saturated fire from really nifty guns (grav, monofilament, rapid plasma), and all those guys come on packages that either need AP2 to reliable shooting from range to prevent them (and psychics).
FWIW:
my tau list is as follows:
buffmander + broadsides (2), strike dudes and 2x pathfinders cad + stormsurge, riptide wing, all EWO plasma, SMS and skyfire. Stormsurge,
and...
callidus and culexus.
Culexus for defensive psychic bubble or force them to reserve their psychic star, which means either reserve another unit to "eat" the -3 reserve from the callidus, (or risk it coming on t3)who can deploy an ap2 flamer 1" from them (roadblocking gladius - fearless so autopasses tank shock which prevents disembark) and means you have a 30% chance to seize, making their deployment pretty hard. D missiles to remove the 0-1 LOW and then go to town on the rest. I'd happily remove the SS for another riptide wing (i know points != but its close).
edit: can you give a rough idea of the tournament you're going to? titans allowed? netlisting 40+ warpspiders? ETC/ITC?
Hmmm this is definitely well thought out advice, so I'm not trying to argue you I just want to ask a couple of questions to get a better idea of what you are coming from...
you really think IACs are better than HBCs? I mean, you're looking at quadruple the amount of shots, all those HBC shots are rending as well, so theres nothing they can't put the hurt on, hell the entire army can put 10 glances and 10 pens on an Obelisk in one round of shooting. They also put strip 28 AP2 Hull Points on AV13 in a single turn (19 of which are pens), which was part of the reason you recommended IACs - in comparison, the entire army worth of IACs only strip 6 Hull Points from AV13 and theseare all glances. So this is a role HBC's actually do much better, other than range ofc, and against AV14, its no comparison, like 19 HP half of which are Pens, compared to like, 1 glance all up from the IACs, so I don't see why I would want to go with iAC for this reason other than the range, right? And I guess the fact that I don't need to Nova them? I guess thats pretty big.
Also, just to clarify on these maths, on Hailfire turn, I wouldn't be having 54 iAC shots - that would require 9 Riptides, which would in turn require no Markerlights, which results in less hits than just dropping a Riptide, so the numbers you are realistically looking at, is like 45 plasma shots. Not saying this is or isnt a deal breaker, just clearing up the maths so that we are all working on the same page here.
Now, Hailfire. A large part of the benefit to this army that come with the tideWing formation is Hailfire turn, in fact you are obviously making sacrifices elsewhere in the list to be able to take advantage of this amazing ability, and IMO spending points on EWO, an ability that doesn't synergise at all well with Hailfire, doesn't seem like the best use of points. If your opponent goes first and deepstrikes in on say turn two, to get any returns from EWO investment you have to sacrifice your ability to Hailfire until literally your third turn - sure it might be worth it but EWO is a lot less valuable for the points here than it is usually I think. Gets Hot on IACs also has negative synergy with Hailfire too, you are rolling double your number of overheats, so again these aren't deal breakers but worth remembering, I guess EWO is worth taking if we do drop the 9th Riptide for IACs... but are IACs and EWO worth dropping the 9th Riptide for to begin with? I'm not even convinced IACs are better then HBCs here even if they were free. EWO is definitely nice for Centurion Gate however.
On the plus side, IACs dont need to roll Nova on guns to be at their most effectiveness, so thats definitely a plus with how the list is meant to play.
As for the things you listed that I will struggle against, I think Slip already covered that this list kinda hard counters regular bikes, especially since I'll still be taking the one IAC for coverage, and knights are gonna be fine too at least, not really any worse off with HBC's than I would be with IACs I think
An assault army with Geomorph power is likely going to hurt this list a lot, if it works like I think it works. Turn 1 assaults right? Yeah thats gonna hurt. And thats a pretty big argument for playing 8 Riptides and taking Counterfire measures, but not sure that even that would be enough to save me in this match up. Also not sure what units are going to be coming through the Worldscape , we'll have to see how the meta evolves with this, but I imagine its likely going to be SS assault Terms, if so HBC largely outperform IACs here. I don't know that even smarter markerlight overwatch positioning and a whole army of Counterfire Riptides firing nova'd HBCs (assuming I'm lucky enough to get the first turn) will be enough to turn this match up around. That geokinesis gak looks amazing OP in general if they roll it though. Just a question, can a psyker manifest a power higher than its mastery level in 7th? This isn't a conflict I've ever seen come up.
I'm also KINDA worried about Jetbike spam but not freaking yet. I realise that planting themselves on me, then threatening about 19" average of assault range, is very risky for units with 20" average movement to try kite and shoot, especially since they can positioning themselves to force me to run in literally any direction including directly through them if the board edge is behind me, meaning I'd have to run in the shooting phase (and still might get caught!), and if they have enough bikes I might have to run them all, ESPECIALLY if I'm clumping to hope for supporting fire bonuses, and.... however this is all theorycrafting and a few MSU jetbike units, even up to 6 units of them, won't do gak outside of get wrecked by cover ignoring HBC's and Fusion Blasters, tearing them right up, save Hailfire turn for it and one HBC alone will do just under 7 wounds to a Jetbike unit even after 3++ saves if I a couple of markers on BS5, if they have a 2+ cover save for a reason a couple of markers take that away and rends still means I do over 5 wounds, and then they still gotta make it through Supporting Fire overwatch if they want a charge.... Invis jetbikestar might be harder to deal with, but it also threatens a lot less, and I think I have all the right tools to deal with it.... especially since the time it spends chewing down 1 riptide is free time I get to force him to waste another turn of free shooting turbo boosting back up. Yeah I really don't think these MU's will be too bad.
Also. Culexes is an amazing suggestions. I'm going to strongly consider that.
EDIT: Can't take Culexes without breaching past 3 maximum detachments that ITC allows, and I'm not sure I'm willing to drop a markerlight squadron for him, in fact I'm sure thats not a great idea
I'll be playing under ITC rules for the most part, and all the lists that generally come with that. Also be taking it to non-ITC tournaments too though, although thats a secondary concern.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Can I get a clarification on something guys - what happens when a Riptide unit of 3 fails its Nova, but the other 2 succeed and elect to boost. Jetpacks usually roll once per the UNIT, so how do I roll once per unit if its different dice per model?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Trazer985 wrote: It's not their armour that makes them hard to kill, its their LOS jump. The missiles ignore this, and are guaranteed to keep them out of range of you (30" range, vs their 18" max move and 12" range), if they flicker they cant warp jump. and you can also pie plate them if they deep strike.
Good news about knights, thats one less problem for you and also about D's. I'm concerned about relying on a) ridiculously soft units with low BS being your only source of ignore cover. The cover saves themselves aren't the problem as such, its when they start rerolling them with shroud or similar that they become an issue. Any 3+ or worse save that isn't rerolled is going to crumple under numbers, and especially if there's an invis out there, that will soak up most of your marker lights.
Ultimately, I've made my points, you've understood them and its you that has to play it. If you'd like to name units that you are likely to encounter that the HBC /plasma rifles outperform the IAC/SMS on then one of us is going to learn something new, which is the point of this forum
actually its ME that has to play it lol, slip is just giving extremely helpful advice in here, I don't think he'll be purchasing 9 riptides though soon (or maybe im wrong!)
ill be playing the markers extremely cautiously including not even using them, until he commits up the field with his deathstar.
My math has HBCs out performing IACs on practically everything except for large units that get like 5 or more hits with an Overcharge IAC, and that math is assuming the large blasts never miss, and are even allowed to shoot (snapshots). In fact I'm honestly wondering what IAC's DO hit harder on, I feel like their strength is actually their range and the fact that they don't need Nova! because I think that in this list they underperform as far as damage goes against practically everything in the game as far as I can tell
Culexus for defensive psychic bubble or force them to reserve their psychic star, which means either reserve another unit to "eat" the -3 reserve from the callidus, (or risk it coming on t3)who can deploy an ap2 flamer 1" from them (roadblocking gladius - fearless so autopasses tank shock which prevents disembark) and means you have a 30% chance to seize, making their deployment pretty hard. D missiles to remove the 0-1 LOW and then go to town on the rest. I'd happily remove the SS for another riptide wing (i know points != but its close).
can I get some Culexus tactica here - you would deploy Culexus right up in their grills with infiltrate, to threaten -3 on perils results as well as his AP2 template? Would you even do this if they had the first turn, I imagine not right?
Also, how does reserving ANOTHER unit stop him from doing this? I'm afraid I don't understand, could you give me a quick rundown on this unit? Thanks!
This message was edited 7 times. Last update was at 2016/04/21 15:32:19
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
2016/04/21 14:50:02
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
are you comparing nova HBC to normal IAC? because then you need to factor in not being able to 3++ or ripple fire, as well as one of them failing nova charge (3+/3+ is 90%).
lets say you've pushed it up to bs 5 and ignore cover with markers:
against a WK: HBC 12 shots, 10 hits, 1-1.5 rending wound.
IAC- 3 shots str 7. 3 hits, 1 wound. Minor win for HBC
Against tac marines: 12 shots, 10 hits, 8-9 wounds, of which 1-2 rend, so 2 dead, and 7 3+'s mean another 2 die. 4 total
IAC: 3 hits and 3 would wound, but 2 would die. (6 dice needing a single one to screw things up). with template however, this gets differently. And quite hard to do maths because of spread of squad. I'm confident that you can put the template over 3 of them at least, maybe even 5. 1/3 chance to "hit" and then to roll a 5 or less on 2d6, is 25%, to scatter less than 2" you're looking at 75%. So 3 seems a happy enough expectation (but a wild scatter will give you zero).
However, and this is the really big however for me, is what the pie plate and the str 8 does for this unit. Turn 1, you dont seize the initiative. Grav cents in a pod, skyhammer, or deep striking wraithguard. You're using unboosted shots, with maybe character in there as a wound sponge at the front (hunters eye b**stards)
Now we compare not just the outcome, but the fact that your opponent may not even be willing to try.
Also, t4 FNP is becoming more common now. That x2 means they cant get their FNP saves
Add on top of this, the Ap2 vs vehicles of the plasma and the increased chance of stunned, immobilised, weapon destroyed or explodes results makes this a much better tank stopper than the HBC.
2016/04/21 15:35:13
Subject: [1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
Trazer985 wrote: are you comparing nova HBC to normal IAC? because then you need to factor in not being able to 3++ or ripple fire, as well as one of them failing nova charge (3+/3+ is 90%).
I'm guessing you have just skimmed this thread, and I can't blame you because its long as feth, because I've said both these things multiple times
lets say you've pushed it up to bs 5 and ignore cover with markers:
against a WK: HBC 12 shots, 10 hits, 1-1.5 rending wound.
IAC- 3 shots str 7. 3 hits, 1 wound. Minor win for HBC
Against tac marines: 12 shots, 10 hits, 8-9 wounds, of which 1-2 rend, so 2 dead, and 7 3+'s mean another 2 die. 4 total
IAC: 3 hits and 3 would wound, but 2 would die. (6 dice needing a single one to screw things up). [with template however, this gets differently. And quite hard to do maths because of spread of squad. I'm confident that you can put the template over 3 of them at least, maybe even 5. 1/3 chance to "hit" and then to roll a 5 or less on 2d6, is 25%, to scatter less than 2" you're looking at 75%. So 3 seems a happy enough expectation (but a wild scatter will give you zero).
ok, so thats 2 more units where HBC outperforms IAC...
However, and this is the really big however for me, is what the pie plate and the str 8 does for this unit. Turn 1, you dont seize the initiative. Grav cents in a pod, skyhammer, or deep striking wraithguard. You're using unboosted shots, with maybe character in there as a wound sponge at the front (hunters eye b**stards)
Now we compare not just the outcome, but the fact that your opponent may not even be willing to try.
This is all very true. Have you got a link to a GOOD alpha strike army anywhere? I'd like to have a lot at some things while I consider the merit of what you are saying and the sacrifices I'm making and what it will actually net me, I'd like to make sure im referencing the best list of this type, or at least the standard.
Also, t4 FNP is becoming more common now. That x2 means they cant get their FNP saves
whats some common T4 FNP these days?
Add on top of this, the Ap2 vs vehicles of the plasma and the increased chance of stunned, immobilised, weapon destroyed or explodes results makes this a much better tank stopper than the HBC.
Ok, I don't know if you saw where I did the maths, but assuming you are in range for everything, HBC actually wildly outperforms IAC against vehicles. Looking at the firepower army wide, against AV13 which you said was the most important HBC's deal 28 HP, 19 AP2 pens and 9 glances, IACs do just 6 glances. Against AV12 HBC's just do a flat 28 AP2 Pens, IACs do 6 pens and 6 glances. This is definitely not a better tank stopper at all.
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
2016/04/21 21:25:04
Subject: Re:[1750] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!)
Trazer's local meta could favour the Ion depending on who he's playing If that's the case then the boarder maths might not add up as favourably as the individual maths. Vs certain armies like AM It stacks up well vs the HBC, even perform adequately against their artillery vehicles like the hydra or the basilisk. (Do to range.)
As an aside, the theoretical geo alpha strike team is so game breaking in tournament meta there's a very good chance ITC will nerf it.
If one fails a nova charge while the other two thrust I would interpret it as the unit failing due to the single roll they make for thrust. Might want to ask in proposed rules.
Also wanted to mention ineffective markerlight use. Once high BS adds the reroll to hit, you get diminishing returns on bonus BS. The combination of rolling a 1/6 + any specific number is 1/36 as opposed to just 1/6. With the addition of coordinated fire, the most efficient # of lights is 4, the average one of your drone units should do. Good synergy!
As for buying nine riptides, almost I feel like I'm obliged to by this point. I hope I don't see this incarnation on the table. I'm a CC guy at heart though, even if it's been nerfed this edition. Super friends and deathstars are still CC lists at heart, I'd probably go that way for competition. (Also probably easier on my wallet.) My ork list is as competitive as can be as a bikerstar/MSU way that can throw people off, so it's a lot of fun that way. (I think I coulda taken the first riptide list, but now not so much. Shoulda kept my mouth shut. ) Winning hard games is the most fun I have, so an underwhelming faction is okay for casual play. My next army is probably going to be a renegade knight. I kinda want to take one with my boyz.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/04/21 21:25:56
2016/04/21 22:38:28
Subject: [1850] - Tau - Riptide Wing (9x Riptides!) [UPDATED]
I just thought I would add that you might have problems with AV 14? I run an invisible Spartan (AV14 5 HP) with Be'Lakor hiding behind it. I do think being able to raise your bs with marker lights will help (and is pretty cinematic), but you still will need more fusion rifles I think.
I also run a Sicaran that eats riptides for breakfast but thats a different story.
Slip the renegade knight is awesome! I am currently converting my Kytan to hold a second gatling gun
Should be fun! I think you were exactly right comparing this list to 5th ed 
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The main thing is these are suggestions built on two totally different parameters. I could go over the theoryhammer aspect of it if you're interested, but the advice I gave to that other poster was more cash investment return, which my thoughts on the theory influenced but was not the primary factor. It was also a much, uh... briefer overview. We may just ultimately agree to disagree and I can live with that. I do a lot of numerical analysis for my 