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With several weeks of play with the new codex I was wondering what the general consensus on the model is? Is it a must have for Tau players or can you be competitive without it? Another way to look at it is would you rather have 3 Crisis Suits or 1 Riptide?

Thoughts please.

I'd rather have a Riptide than Crisis. However, I believe both have a place and wouldn't scoff at anyone who chose not to take the Riptide. The durability is what I love.

Good point. I should have added that the Riptide is ungodly expensive so I'm trying to work around the model.

 mcyeatman wrote:
Good point. I should have added that the Riptide is ungodly expensive so I'm trying to work around the model.

dollar wise?

points wise it isnt bad for what it does in fact i think its under costed....not by much but by enough....

If your using tau as an allied detachment I'd advise on the riptide but for a primary detachment I'd say it depends on your list synergy

 mcyeatman wrote:
With several weeks of play with the new codex I was wondering what the general consensus on the model is? Is it a must have for Tau players or can you be competitive without it? Another way to look at it is would you rather have 3 Crisis Suits or 1 Riptide?

Thoughts please.

As with pretty much the entirety of the Tau codex, the Elites slot is internally balanced. When selecting Elites choices, you need to choose between Riptides (excellent durability, unique but not particularly efficient firepower), Crisis Suits (very very efficient firepower but pretty bad durability, especially considering extreme vulnerability to Instant Death), and Stealth Suits (mixed durability, inefficient firepower, access to special deployment tricks). I think there are reasons to choose any of these options.

Theorius wrote:

 mcyeatman wrote:
Good point. I should have added that the Riptide is ungodly expensive so I'm trying to work around the model.

dollar wise?

points wise it isnt bad for what it does in fact i think its under costed....not by much but by enough....

$

Im now in the belief that you should always have one, if anything its a huge bullet magnet, if not for its own nice abilities. I own one and will probably own only one. I would be tempted to only run them if i had more, due to their awesomeness. But i really think the tau codex is used best when you are able to be flexible and remain tactically viable. Leaving those 2 spots open in elites allows me to run fusion teams, plasma teams, or stealth teams

Pretty much mandatory to have at least one. It's your only access to interceptor pie plates, which are a very useful thing to have when you play an army that really doesn't like people deep striking in next to you. Also, unless you spend your heavy slots on ion cannon Hammerheads its your only decent pie plate of any kind, and a pie plate that wounds on a 2+ with no armor or cover saves is the best way of removing enemy objective campers from the table.

It's a great kit, great model, and fun to play with. However you can work around it, it's far from what I would consider a must take since there is enough in the codex to work around it.

For 190 points it's a great buy to get a unit that can drop a large blast just about anywhere on the board and kill or maim any unit and get a shot in on a reserve unit before they get a chance to even shoot.

At my FLGS, there is a player who played with zero riptides right after the codex came out, and then played with one riptide the week after, and then played with two the week after that.

If I know anything about extrapolating information from incomplete data sets, and I don't, it's that within the next two years, he will bring an army that contains nothing but 100 riptides.

There has also been a similar pattern amongst other Tau players at my store, but those have been following much more of a N/2 or N/3 pattern.

From a strictly competitive aspect, It's hard not to want to run 3 of these things. They're great and hilariously hard to kill and even rather killy in CC by Tau standards (which can actually matter very much in a Tau list) even if rather paltry by normal MC standards.

That said, other units aren't awful by any means in the same slot, the Riptide is just really easy to use.

Personally, I've been stuck to my triple 2x2 Fusion units. Then again, my Meta is Space Marines, Orks Nob Bikers, and Tyranid MC gangs, for the most part...

 Ailaros wrote:
If I know anything about extrapolating information from incomplete data sets, and I don't, it's that within the next two years, he will bring an army that contains nothing but 100 riptides.

LOL'd hard.

Also, be sure to avoid any initiative tests. I layed JoWW on one and those 5 wounds didnt matter at all, off the board turn two doing scant damage.

I use two Riptides in the current list. works well. As has been said n like three other threads though I am fairly certain you don't NEED them.

Theyre damn cool though. Hard not to put one in there when they are just so cool.

I'm curious as to the Riptide in target priority. I had my first game against Tau, and I pretty much ignored it until I'd dealt with troops (which were minimal thanks to a beautiful T1 alpha strike from my Manticore) and worked on marker light sources. Then came the Riptide and any suits. Even so, I felt that broadsides and crisis suits were higher priority simply due to the fact that they're easier to kill and thus I can cripple my opponent's fire power faster.

Do people think that was correct? The game was quite a blood bath on both sides, but the Riptide seemed a rather inefficient way to blow up a chimera - so I let it be.

Yeah, my opponents ignore Riptides. They are so durable, it makes them very, very tough to remove at range. I'd always go for the softer target, especially since suits and whatnot will generally pack more firepower as well.


I do disagree with some of what Peregrine said. Interceptor on them really doesn't matter much. I ran it for a while and it really isn't particularly good. I also wouldnt jump to the pie plate, Dakka folks love it but if your opponents are good, they'll be able to mitigate it.

And your army shouldn't be weak or worried about deepstriking armies, i've played a few and it's a hilariously bad match-up for the deep-striking armies.

I'm definitely coming around to them. Proxied one last week, and was impressed enough to keep it around.

Depending on the rest of your list, one is most likely worth taking. Two can also work well, but stretching to three can leave holes in your capabilities. I feel 1-2 Riptides and 1-2 Crisis will be pretty standard. More Crisis for mobile armies, more Riptides for static ones.

One nice thing about the Riptide pieplate is that it is a good counter to the coming Broadside spam. S8 AP2 puts paid to those masses of cover ignoring S7 shots, particularly with mobile markerlight support.

I recently ran three at an 1850 3 round tournament where I placed 1st. My primary two lists both include three. They are tough to kill, versatile, and can deliver a beating both in the shooting and (surprisingly) in the combat phase as well. Are they worth getting? ABSOLUTELY!! Are they required for a Tau list to be competitive or effective? NOT AT ALL. As mentioned in previous posts, any of the elite choices for tau can be used effectively and competitively.

LValx wrote:
Yeah, my opponents ignore Riptides. They are so durable, it makes them very, very tough to remove at range. I'd always go for the softer target, especially since suits and whatnot will generally pack more firepower as well.
Interceptor on them really doesn't matter much. I ran it for a while and it really isn't particularly good. I also wouldnt jump to the pie plate, Dakka folks love it but if your opponents are good, they'll be able to mitigate it.

See that's what I thought. Especially as my opponent put it right at the back, the only way to kill it was my Vendettas as there was no way my plasma/melta vets in chimerae were getting there any time soon; but they just went after softer targets initially.

I fell into the trap of "oh noes interceptor" and traded out my GHs' drop pods for rhinos. I completely forgot that I could easily position them in cover as marker lights wouldn't be in effect at interceptor and spreading the GHs/WG out would have drastically reduced the damage. However the one pod I did bring had 4 combi-melta WG who got annihilated by interceptor from missilesides.

Although in the end mech wolves as allies for mech guard has fantastic synergy so I'm not sure it mattered all that much, but I'll have to rethink my suicide melta-WG for my next tournament.

 Griddlelol wrote:

LValx wrote:
Yeah, my opponents ignore Riptides. They are so durable, it makes them very, very tough to remove at range. I'd always go for the softer target, especially since suits and whatnot will generally pack more firepower as well.
Interceptor on them really doesn't matter much. I ran it for a while and it really isn't particularly good. I also wouldnt jump to the pie plate, Dakka folks love it but if your opponents are good, they'll be able to mitigate it.

See that's what I thought. Especially as my opponent put it right at the back, the only way to kill it was my Vendettas as there was no way my plasma/melta vets in chimerae were getting there any time soon; but they just went after softer targets initially.

I fell into the trap of "oh noes interceptor" and traded out my GHs' drop pods for rhinos. I completely forgot that I could easily position them in cover as marker lights wouldn't be in effect at interceptor and spreading the GHs/WG out would have drastically reduced the damage. However the one pod I did bring had 4 combi-melta WG who got annihilated by interceptor from missilesides.

Although in the end mech wolves as allies for mech guard has fantastic synergy so I'm not sure it mattered all that much, but I'll have to rethink my suicide melta-WG for my next tournament.

One of my biggest reasons for disliking Interceptor is that you can't use MLs to buff for it. That isn't to say it's useless, but i've been less than impressed and it is an upgrade. Points tend to be tight and i'd rather spend points on things I feel that I really need, rather than minor versatility. I will say that intercepting Fusion is very annoying to things like Doom of Malantai (who can really do a number on Tau without Ethereal support).

IMO the best part of a Riptide is w/o a doubt the durability. I have yet to kill one during shooting and only have been able to catch them in assault. Decent to very good range + JSJ and 5W, 2+ give you the ability to really absorb firepower. Riptides definitely put out less firepower than Crisis Suits or Broadsides but they will stay alive for most of, if not the entire game. Only Lascannons seem to really scare them and most opponents can't pack a ton of Lascannons without making themselves weak against other sorts of lists (hordes).

They are like Helldrakes.
If you take them, they are effective, but they are not required.

Yeah I agree, lascannons are pretty much the only way to deal with them, short of getting a good deep strike with plasma.
However I disagree with them being like Heldrakes. Heldrakes are a meta-changing unit, the riptide just felt like a strong unit that fulfils a niche in the Tau codex - durable blast templates. I don't think I'd drastically change my list next time I see a Riptide, however I've given up on Long Fangs and any sort of foot slogging MEQ entirely in a TAC list.

I find it hilarious though that they are not fearless. You need to be careful because a clever multi assault can send one off the board or more likely see it swept due to i2. This is another reason never to take the drones as well.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
They are like Helldrakes.
If you take them, they are effective, but they are not required.

Take the Drake out of codex: Heldrake and you no longer have a very viable book, take the Riptide out of Codex: Tau and you'll have plenty of good options left.

LValx wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
They are like Helldrakes.
If you take them, they are effective, but they are not required.

Take the Drake out of codex: Heldrake and you no longer have a very viable book, take the Riptide out of Codex: Tau and you'll have plenty of good options left.

This is cute but very inaccurate. The hell turkey is an easy button for sure but it is not required to run a competitive chaos list.

 Red Corsair wrote:

LValx wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
They are like Helldrakes.
If you take them, they are effective, but they are not required.

Take the Drake out of codex: Heldrake and you no longer have a very viable book, take the Riptide out of Codex: Tau and you'll have plenty of good options left.

This is cute but very inaccurate. The hell turkey is an easy button for sure but it is not required to run a competitive chaos list.

We agree to disagree.

I have yet to see a CSM list that did well in anything note-worthy that wasn't packing at least 1 Heldrake.

IMO, it is the best single unit in the game, so of course it's an autoinclude and I think any CSM army choosing not to field any is gimping itself.

LValx wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

LValx wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
They are like Helldrakes.
If you take them, they are effective, but they are not required.

Take the Drake out of codex: Heldrake and you no longer have a very viable book, take the Riptide out of Codex: Tau and you'll have plenty of good options left.

This is cute but very inaccurate. The hell turkey is an easy button for sure but it is not required to run a competitive chaos list.

We agree to disagree.

I have yet to see a CSM list that did well in anything note-worthy that wasn't packing at least 1 Heldrake.

IMO, it is the best single unit in the game, so of course it's an autoinclude and I think any CSM army choosing not to field any is gimping itself.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I don't consider any flier to be the best unit in the game purely based on the inherent weaknesses all fliers have in any of the missions. I also don't agree with the flawed logic that because you haven't seen it, it must not exist. I have yet to even see SOB in 6th personally, yet I won't pass judgement and say they aren't competitive because of that occurrence or lack there of.

Take for example a noise marine cult with demon allies, there is no reason for heldrakes in the lists I have made as HD are ironically trash for AA and AT and every unit in the list is suited for combat or AI making HD actually a pointless as they cannot burn infantry thats in combat.

 Red Corsair wrote:
I have yet to even see SOB in 6th personally, yet I won't pass judgement and say they aren't competitive because of that occurrence or lack there of.

Interestingly enough, the true best unit in the game is a Sisters one-- St. Celestine! She is just crazy these days!

Off Topic, sorry

How the bloody hell are these elites choices and not HS?! From the looks of the site, Tau don't have that many HS choices, yet a gigantic power suit isn't one of them? How does that make any sense?