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My FLGS runs a monthly 1000 points tournament on 4x4 tables. Recently my friendly rival there has acquired 3x riptides, I'm finding this very difficult to handle with my three armies: DA, IG, and GK. The problem is that riptides are versatile TAC units while units that I might field to counter them tend to be more specialized. It's a catch-22. I'll provide an example list he'll run to make things more concrete but the key list theme is the 3x Riptides.

HQ: Cadre Fireblade + 2 Marker Drones
2x FW squads one with a markerlight
~20 Kroot which he usually outflanks
3x Riptides 2x HBC 1xPlamsa/Ion thingy. One has plasma, one has smart missles, and one has fusion. Usually he has the BS5 overwatch gear as well.

The only list I've had success with is fielding 2 units of 5x BK's in a test game but this is was a tough fight and I question whether this list is really versatile enough to handle the full field.

So what would you do? Codex's not in my collection are still interesting, though a few like DE would have no problem here. To my knowledge our local meta has no DE or Eldar. (Besides my rival that is)

Hmmm... Interesting list. But the big thing is to always play the mission. As big and nasty as those guys are, they cannot score a single objective... ever. If all else fails, nuke his troops and do your best to keep yours alive.

As for more hard counters, you can just try to tie it up in melee somehow, preferably with something fast moving. Ravenwing units come to mind here, as they can Hit and Run on your opponent's turn. It has low WS and a low number of attacks, so you can tarpit it VERY well with Guardsmen. And don't forget your Krak grenades and Melta Bombs.

Also, anything that is an Initiative Check completely destroys them, so you might look at a GK Libby (even though he's a bit pricey at 1000). Jaws is also huge now that Jet Packs do not prevent it from working.

But once again, stick to the mission. He has 30-40 T3 scoring models that will die to a stiff breeze.

PS: I think the overwatch gear only gives you BS2.

Yeah, sounds like 3 fairly fragile and static troop choices for you to go off on. He's put way too many points into big shineys. 2 Riptides is the most I'd go in a single FOC and no way would I spend more than half my points on them.

With 2 HBCs and one Ion i can see what he's trying to accomplish with those. Especially if over charged with some rending those HBCs will do some decent damage!

But to beat em? Tie em up in melee with something fast and cheap or just somewhat ignore them. Play for the objectives and wipe out his Troops.

Oh and his equipment definitely makes his overwatch BS2 not 5. Hope hes not cheating. Also it does not go over to any drones he may have with it.

On a side note, call him a cheeze monster while your playing him lol i wish he wasnt going 3 rips because id honestly like to see him wipe the floor with you and everyone with an awesome TAC list. Im a huge tau fan!

Anyways! Good luck with your tournament!

Yea I went for the troop destroying tactic last round with him. He's a great player and will aggressively GTG to keep his guys allive, an added benefit of outflanking the kroot is they aren't around to be shot. There is one flaw with the scoring denying tactic. Last tournament he tabled everyone he played.

He knows when to run and when to press with the riptides.

On the equipment, yes I meant to write that he's hitting on 5's not BS5

In fact I fielded a Hellhound and a LR Exterminator precisely to blow up his troops. Only problem is I just couldn't do enough damage to his riptides, though he did roll well on the saves.

Actually one idea did occur to me, against IG it's typically proper for him to press. CC is his best anti Vehicle AV12+. Demolition Plasma Vets might be the solution to this.

I'm not sure how I'd handle this as guard, but with necrons I'd simply bring in a couple of troop choices in nightscythes and laugh and laugh. (and not disembark the troops on them onto the board until turn 5) The rest of my army would likely be composed of cheap but effective AV 13 vehicles like annihilation barges and ghost arks. I'd also recommend trying a small deathmark squad (or 2 or 3) with a despair-tek bouncing them up right next to those tau for some cheap and effective early wounding.

Anyone putting over 500+ points into 3 models in a 1000 point list deserves to see whatever troop choices + HQ he does bring blown off the map.

Guard have lots of cheap fliers right? if any of them are transports you can probably do the same thing. Perhaps bring along a bastion to keep what is on the board safe until you can tear it up with some valkryies, vendettas or similar?

Grey knights on the other hand are even more mobile than the riptides. Interceptors will shunt right up nicely, shoot first (and may get some lucky wounds in that way) and if even a few of them survive the retaliatory fire will easily put a instant-death force wound on them in the ensuing melee round. Trick would be to spread them out and use cover if available to minimize that one turn of shooting that the tau player will get.

Keep in mind it's only a 4x4 so it gets crowded, it's tough to find space for a lot of fliers. Also the riptide HBC are not bad against fliers due to volume of fire.

The bastion would just get massacred from smash attacks.

Tarpiting with IG blobs isn't a bad idea, only problem is that Cadre fire blade unit puts out 36 Str 5 Ap5 shots at 15". That tears apart infantry.

Hehe if your foe is going to kindly walk their riptides up into assault range of your bastion I'd suggest simply obliging them and assaulting them with something that can either tarpit them forever and/or simply kill them effectively? Depends a lot on your chosen list, but I suspect if your opponent is relying on the melee prowess of the riptides for heavy vehicle/building cracking they probably aren't using them to their full advantage.

Also I'm not sure how much terrain you are playing with, but were you aware that fliers functionally ignore just about all instances of that sort of thing? if you cannot literally put the flier onto a given piece of terrain, the 'wobbly model' rule lets you pretend it's there and be placed nearby.

How about three Dreadknights to counter them?
IG could handle such a list with lots of heavy weapons and infantry.

Using DA

Libby

da vet squad 5 combi meltas in drop pod

2 10 man tac squads, plasma cannon each

Pred with autocannon lascannon sponsons

pred autocannon lascannon sponsons

whirlwind

aegis with lascannon

Leaves 70pts.

Vets in pod should be able to take 1 riptide down to half wounds at least (depending on cover placement if he goes first or not etc), whirlwind with barrage and ap4 will love his troops (can be presciened from libby as well), icarus lascannon to have a pop at his riptides and the preds to have a go at whats left, you should be able to take one down first turn (NF dependant) and hurt 1 a turn for each turn after while the whirlwind goes after the troops

Some cheese of your own?
Librarian, 65
Command with Dakka Banner, 165
Techmarine, PFG, 80
Landraider Crusader, MM, Re-Roll Dangerous Terrain, 265
Landraider Crusader, MM, Re-Roll Dangerous Terrain, 265
Tac Marines, 70
Tac Marines, w/ ML 85

Bugger the scoring game, here's 2 AV14 4++ vehicles only 3 units can maybe damage, spitting out 48 Bolter shots a turn.

A few Ideas:

-When playing IG: Use Leman variants and spam guardsmen. A friend uses x3 Leman russ variants in 1000pts. which raises hell for anyone he is facing. Take at least one Leman Russ Eradicator to negate his gone to ground save and then a Demolisher and then a Punisher or Executioner with Pask would be great against those Riptides. Tau outside of a few things struggle against armor 14, especially without any Stealth Suits with Fusion Blasters.

-With GK: My twin has found good success running Dreadknights and beating down the Riptide in Combat. He also uses the Gatling Psylencer to great effect, he runs x2 @ 1000pts. If not that, spamming Psycannons does not seem you could go wrong there.

-With DA, Black Knights with plasma and then take more plasma. The more plasma in your list will decimate those riptides and against anything else, get your bikes into combat for the win.

You play on a 4x4? Ewwww, that changes the game drastically. That means even his HBC riptides technically have "table range" since theyre never in the furthest back corner of the table anyway (yes i know 4x4 is 48", but even the 72" guns arent against the back wall theyre usually up 12-18")

Outta ally in some SW and JOTWW his 50% of his army choices.

This is why we need more DE players guys.

Take one for the team, start an awesome looking army and mess with the local meta.

Well the riptides are MC + their CC is more or less just a few attacks that might hit on a 4-5+ with their WS2.

As a Tau myself i will prolly use Crisis suits against his riptdies and a bunch of markerlights to make sure his troops never get their cover saves.

But as for everyone else: AV13-14, Close combat, poison, snipers, etc etc. problem is getting close enough to make the Riptides sweat.

AV13 i wouldnt say is a threat to Tau at all. Yes we have little S8+ but we have a TON of S7 to glace the crap outta it.

If i ran strict tau and had missilesides (working on the numbers to do that) and my necron friend ran his barges up the field i would go OOOO 32 S7 shots in yo FACE!!! *glance glance glance glance* Gotcha!
Even if i had 3 Riptides and no missile sides i still wouldnt care because i'd have 1-2 HBC jumping around pumping 12 S6 Rending shots into it. I could probably get its rear with that too, but its an autoglance if i get the Rending and a pen on a D2-D3 result (not that unlikely with so many shots).

AV14 we lack the numbers to glance it to death and our only punches are unpopulare (hammerhead) or need the stars to align to work (HBC Rending shots or S9 IA gun rolling a 6)

If you're going for something weird take two units of Assault Marines. They're quick enough to catch the Riptide, and if they're a significant threat to his Fire Warriors and Kroot. Pretty much he's going to try and kill those two units before anything else on the board if he knows what's good for him, and if he doesn't tarpit him and then Bolterwalk your guys across the board.

Long time Tau player here. Kill his troops so he can't claim, tie up the riptide or poor a lot of small arms fire into it. It only has 5 wounds and 2+ and maybe fnp he will roll 1's. Watched a game the other night at GW. GW store owner drooped a Riptide w/ IG infantry,took 2 rounds but he dropped him and the Tau player was totally demoralized and fell apart. Noticed too Tau player took an Ethereal and bunched his troops all up w/ maybe a 1/2" spread between model. Could have taken a lot of damage if the IG player would have had any pie plates. Keep that in mind. Best of luck!!

Primaris Psycher with the Telepathy base power Shriek+Psycher battle Squad.

Drop the Riptide's leadership to 1 with the PBS. Hit with Shriek. Riptide takes 3d6-1 wounds with no armor saves. Repeat as needed.
Total points: 180.

As a bonus, then you can long range nuke with the PBS afterwards.

First, your friend is a dick for taking 3 MC's in 1000 points, let alone three that destroy things at range.

If you want to kill them, your best bet would be TH/SS from your DA, your IG can put out lots of plasma, and your GK can load up on the psycannons/dreadknights. Simply turbo a dreadnight or two over turn 1, use flamers to mop up his troops, charge into combat and force sword down the riptides.

Plasma Vets from your DA in a drop pod might be able to torrent one down turn 1.
If it was codexmarines, i'd say throw in a libby with null zone to really seal the deal.
Throw some plasma cannons around, and then you should be on semi-even footing. I've had to get good at killing MC's at 1k....most of the nid players here run 4 at 1k

Pask in a punisher would be great against rip tides. Remember, he rerolls fail to wound against MCs and he is BS4.

I think AV 14 Lemann russes. Like the post above me said, Pask in a punisher would be good, + an exterminator, both with 3 heavy bolters and a stubber.

Thats like more than half your points, with the rest go no frills IG platoon.

CCS
PCS+ chimera 2 melta or plasma guns
1 20 or 30 man blob
3 las cannon HW Squads


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Otherwise the Dark angel 2 LRC with dakka flag and 4++ would do well agianst it too.

My reactions to many of the great suggestions:


MarkMark: Vets and Preds DA
I thought about Veteran suicide squads but they won't even kill one Riptide alone and they cost more. You'll easily lose them to the torrect of firewarriors returning fire.

Predators are interesting due to AV13 will need to ponder this, though I think the upgrade to the turrent lascannon might be worth it here. I think this list will get charged by the Riptides though since it has nothing CC to hold them off.

Blaggard's Dual LR Devastation list
A good list but this would get slaughetered. Bolters simply don't do enough damage to T6 2+ saves and remember they can smash attack those LR to pieces.

gmaleron (and others anti infranty suggestions.)
I actually used a very similar IG list in our last tourney, including the eradicator and demolisher. Instead of the 3rd LR I had a Hellhound and a bunch of plasma vets and CCS in chimera's. Unlucky I fried 50% within turn 1 and scored no wounds, Hellhound was glanced to death from one round of HBC fire and he made a 9" charge on the LR. Yes this is not representative.

GK Psycannons are too short range, he'll pick me off for a turn or two before I can return fire.

My best success has been with BK's to be honest

Red Viper
I'm tempted to borrow my friends DE to shake things up.

Ratbarf
Hmm assault marines with a powerfist, bizzare in DA but I think this is promising on 4x4. I don't see myself investing in this though just to handle the riptide list. Maybe worth looking a BA though.

TheCustomLine/FirstOfOne
Hmm I didn't realize Pask rerolls wounds, will have to ponder that one. But I don't think 29x S5 shots is worth the cost against T6 2+. Even with reroll wounds. About 20 hits, 10-12 wounds, 2-3 get through. I think Plasma Vets fair better. Still I think this worth further exploration.

A few suggested more DK, maybe it's time for me to buy a second. Although in talking to my friend he felt that he would be able to gun 2 down in one turn of shooting, need to run some numbers here.

 jadedknight wrote:
My FLGS runs a monthly 1000 points tournament on 4x4 tables. Recently my friendly rival there has acquired 3x riptides. The problem is that riptides are versatile TAC units while units that I might field to counter them tend to be more specialized. It's a catch-22. I'll provide an example list he'll run to make things more concrete but the key list theme is the 3x Riptides.

HQ: Cadre Fireblade + 2 Marker Drones
2x FW squads one with a markerlight
~20 Kroot which he usually outflanks
3x Riptides 2x HBC 1xPlamsa/Ion thingy. One has plasma, one has smart missles, and one has fusion. Usually he has the BS5 overwatch gear as well.

The only list I've had success with is fielding 2 units of 5x BK's in a test game but this is was a tough fight and I question whether this list is really versatile enough to handle the full field.

So what would you do? Codex's not in my collection are still interesting, though a few like DE would have no problem here. To my knowledge our local meta has no DE or Eldar. (Besides my rival that is)

CSM with 3 maulerfiends with magmacutters and some nurgle spawn. Small squad of csm in a rhino with dirgecaster if maulerfiends cannot take dirge. Cultist squad
3 Maulerfiends with magma cuters
5 nurgle spawn
cultist squad in reserve
simple chaos lord with burning brand, with cultists(TDA optional)
5 man csm squad /w flamer /w a rhino with dirge caster
still ~150 points left for something. (dread with scorge and plasma, more spawn, trim elsewhere for a helturkey, another cultist squad to score)

You race the rhino(empty), spawn and the maulerfiends forward. AV12 and the 5++ should allow you to close in on the 3 tides on a 4x4 board. You assault and he cant overwatch because of the empty rhino he probably ignored. The spawn tarpit 1-2 of the tides while the maulerfiends gang smash the other. If the maulerfiends get into combat with the firewarriors, all the better.
As I understand it the riptide has to smash to hurt the maulerfiends, so he wont be too much of a threat with few attacks.
After the tides are dead you use the maulerfiend(s) left alive to mop up the fire warriors and kroot, also your Chaos Lord with brand can bbq firewarriors.

Now this list isnt balanced either, but even against most other lists it is gonna be fun to play.

 jadedknight wrote:
I'm finding this very difficult to handle with my three armies: DA, IG, and GK.

I would assume the best way to go against this would be 3 shunting dreadknights with cortez and henchman in transports in reserve.

How about a few big squads of stormtroopers deep striking? Maybe 2-3 squads of 10 with flamers, deep strike them to flamer FWs or force the riptides to move. That way you can cause a disruption while the rest of your team races up the board to try to tie up the riptides as well.

Not sure how it would work as I've never run anything but meltacide STs but I think anything that can get in combat fast to limit the long range fire might work

Do you play forgeworld models? Those are perfectly legal actually. Have a Lucious drop pod, stuff a CC dreadnaught into it, first turn drop two pods right next to two riptides, and have your dreadnaughts immediately charge the two riptides.

In a CC fight with CC dreadnaughts, I would give the odds to the dreadnaughts coming out ahead. Even if you don't immediately take it down in turn 1, they will be stuck in combat and can't shoot.

Turn 2, your third Lucious drop pod drops next to his last Riptide, rinse repeat.

End of turn 2, he could potentially be looking at 3 dead Riptides and have 3 cc dreadnaughts amongst his army. He will likely concede. Cheese vs cheese...

Use the Dreadnaught with av 13 front armor (Ironsledge?) or a Furiso dreadnaught. Out of his 3 riptides, probably only the one with the fushion blastor might present some trouble. But it still depends on whether he makes his overwatch, and at BS2, that's still a 5 to hit, and he only has 2 shots (twinlinked).

You could do the same with normal drop pods and sternguard, but I am not so sure if one combat squad of 5 sternguard can take out a Riptide in one phase of shooting. But I guess if you don't want to use forgeworld models, then this could be a more conventional method. Load 3 pods with 5 sternguard each with a combi plasma. First turn, 2 pods down, out come 10 sternguard. His 2 riptides will then eat 10 rapid fired plasma shots with no armor save each. Turn 2, the third pod comes down on his third riptide.

He could bubble wrap, but since he is so light on troops, its unlikely he can bubble wrap all 3 riptides, plus the range of plasma rapid fire is 12 inches. So, it would be a big challenge to bubble wrap out to 12 inches from the 3 riptides.

A friend of mine has demonstrated the lethality of a DK with the torrent flamer and personal teleporter.

Turn 1 jump forwards and roast all his troops, turn 2 assault the riptides and murder em.

Bloodthirster will kill 'em all in 3 or 4 turns.

 juraigamer wrote:
First, your friend is a dick for taking 3 MC's in 1000 points, let alone three that destroy things at range.

If you want to kill them, your best bet would be TH/SS from your DA, your IG can put out lots of plasma, and your GK can load up on the psycannons/dreadknights. Simply turbo a dreadnight or two over turn 1, use flamers to mop up his troops, charge into combat and force sword down the riptides.

Just had a 1k ourselves a while back in my area, and the 'dick list' that was brought by 4 players was:

4-5 Tervigons
1 Doom of Mal(in the 4 Tervi lists)
Termagaunts

Thank goodness I had Runes of Warding and Wraithguard. :-)