Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Recently in my FLGS, there've been a few WAAC players fielding double (sometimes triple) Riptides with a full 9x complement of Broadsides and a smattering of Firewarriors, Pathfinders, and Crisis-suit Commanders. I have no problems with every unit except the Riptide. I've toyed with various list combinations, but each time can't seem to kill them reliably. They are effectively 8-wounds with their Missile-Shield drones with a high toughness and good saves. The only luck I've had was with my GK Librarian and Warp Rift (Riptides are I2). With Firewarriors bubble-wrapping them, charging is impossible and charging the Firewarriors is just painful with Supporting Fire.. What are some of the best ways you guys have to get rid of them? Artillery? Massed small arms? Lascannons and meltas?

I run Sisters, Exorcists and rending Rets have very few problems with them.

They're bringing missile drones? That's actually a pretty bad idea.

I'm actually a Tau player. I never take the drones, because one dead drone forces a morale check. Try deliberately lining up shots to hit a drone, then see if they run off the board.

Admittedly that's not the best idea. I would say that poisoned weapons are what scares my riptide the most. I'm dreading going up against dark eldar next week because masses of 4+ poisoned shooting are going to kill it eventually. I might actually use my nova reactor for the invulnerable save for once.

Remember, Riptides are not fearless, kill two drones, and they have a chance to run right off the board.

What army are you using?

I'm rotating between Grey Knights and Chaos, which have both lost horrendously to them. I'm going to try overwhelming him with 7 flyers with my Elysian Droptroop list tomorrow.

Glad to know that the Shielded Missile Drones cause morale checks - the player stringently insisted it was a piece of wargear.

I wonder how those lists will fare against a D scythe heavy eldar list. Bubblewrap and cover is no good vs. AP2 templates, and you can take two per missileside.

Warlock bike squads with a hemlock fighter can also run most of them off the board with -3 LD+terror psychic powers, assuming they didn't kit out for anti air.

Night spinners also hit the suits at S8 and are AP 1 on a 6 to wound, making it an instant death hit.

Lots of ID in an eldar list which makes the suits cry.

 Enigwolf wrote:

Glad to know that the Shielded Missile Drones cause morale checks - the player stringently insisted it was a piece of wargear.

Complete BS. Then again what do you expect from a guy who runs 3 riptides... he's obviously compensating for something

Tau Codex page 33: "Drones taken as upgrades for a unit act as additional squad members in all regards"

It makes my tau heart very sad that they do count (since their only purpose is to get blown up), but they do count. I would have liked to see them not count for morale and automatically pass look out sir rolls, but that's asking too much

Durandal wrote:
I wonder how those lists will fare against a D scythe heavy eldar list. Bubblewrap and cover is no good vs. AP2 templates, and you can take two per missileside.

Warlock bike squads with a hemlock fighter can also run most of them off the board with -3 LD+terror psychic powers, assuming they didn't kit out for anti air.

Night spinners also hit the suits at S8 and are AP 1 on a 6 to wound, making it an instant death hit.

Lots of ID in an eldar list which makes the suits cry.

He did kit them (and the Broadsides) out for anti-air. Made minced meat of both 2x Stormravens in one game and 3x Helldrakes in another. He tabled the Eldar player by simply deploying as far away as possible from the Eldar player as possible. A single round of shooting wiped half his army off the board.

So the sensing I'm getting with this is instant-death weapons and psychic powers. Ugh.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dementedwombat wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:

Glad to know that the Shielded Missile Drones cause morale checks - the player stringently insisted it was a piece of wargear.

Complete BS. Tau Codex page 33: "Drones taken as upgrades for a unit act as additional squad members in all regards"

Thank you. I knew something wasn't right when he counted it as wargear, yet could fire as though it were another squad member.

Jaws of the world wolf is funny against them, especially if you can drop pod the rune priest and draw the line through all 3.

Good for the lolz,

BronzeJon wrote:
Jaws of the world wolf is funny against them, especially if you can drop pod the rune priest and draw the line through all 3.

Good for the lolz,

you'd have to video that bat rep just to watch the tau player cry

My Plasn is Plasma SPAM

sirlynchmob wrote:

BronzeJon wrote:
Jaws of the world wolf is funny against them, especially if you can drop pod the rune priest and draw the line through all 3.

Good for the lolz,

you'd have to video that bat rep just to watch the tau player cry

These were my thoughts too. It's just making me want to field a Space Wolf allied army even more.

Easiest way to handle Riptides is to get them in CC with a blob. They can take out ~2 per turn. Not that scary.

 chrisrawr wrote:
Easiest way to handle Riptides is to get them in CC with a blob. They can take out ~2 per turn. Not that scary.

if you can get to them. I played a ork horde army against 2 rip tides, and never got within charging distance of anyone. once you get within 30" of them you die quickly. His first round of shooting took out a unit of 9 lootas, a unit of 20 boys, and 8 boys out of a another unit.

They get to move, shoot, then move again.

I find that rip tides actually don't do that much damage, they're mainly a distraction while the broadsides and suits take you apart. I've had luck ignoring them and taking out the broadsides and pathfinders.

Blob of cultists with a dark apostle, dead in a turn. Helldrake, flyrant, mawlock, termies, plague marines and just sponge your way over to it. Or run up a tank to it (with a dirge caster) and assault with zerkers


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or of course just let the dam thing cook itself with its own weapons. Plasma burned riptide is a good smell if you play DE...

BaconUprising wrote:
run up a tank to it (with a dirge caster) and assault with zerkers

I think that dirge casters are currently in the top 3 on my "never want to see on the table across from me" list along with masses of poisoned weapons and helldrakes. I hate having to pop transports. My Tau can do it pretty well, but that doesn't mean I like it, and it only takes one close combat model actually surviving past overwatch to completely burst my soap bubble army (my entire gunline once folded to 2 broodlords with one wound left each. it wasn't pretty).

I played against triptide at 1200... Seemed terrifying to me...
We were doing a special event that meant I had one army from every codex I have access to (14), and he writes one list. All lists had to be TAC.
First few games I concentrated on the Riptides, and lost a bit (won every game though, cos this guy can't roll for his life, and I've been playing for about 10 years longer than him). However, I quickly found the best idea for most lists is just to ignore them. They can't do a lot compared to other stuff in the army. They have lower firepower than, say, 3 missilesides with missile drones, but are more survivable. Therefore, logically it makes more sense to shoot (in this example) the broadsides, because you are removing more firepower with each shot.
Tl;dr - Ignore them. Kill everything else (but kill anything with markerlights FIRST: ignores cover is a b****)

NinjaStars wrote:I find that rip tides actually don't do that much damage, they're mainly a distraction while the broadsides and suits take you apart. I've had luck ignoring them and taking out the broadsides and pathfinders.

Both of them do their fair share of destruction. Broadsides shred any vehicles, ground or flyer, while the Riptides annihilate infantry.

BaconUprising wrote:Blob of cultists with a dark apostle, dead in a turn. Helldrake, flyrant, mawlock, termies, plague marines and just sponge your way over to it. Or run up a tank to it (with a dirge caster) and assault with zerkers

All of those have been tried, for this result:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 chrisrawr wrote:
Easiest way to handle Riptides is to get them in CC with a blob. They can take out ~2 per turn. Not that scary.

if you can get to them. I played a ork horde army against 2 rip tides, and never got within charging distance of anyone. once you get within 30" of them you die quickly. His first round of shooting took out a unit of 9 lootas, a unit of 20 boys, and 8 boys out of a another unit.

They get to move, shoot, then move again.

Effectively, you will be very hard pressed to catch them in CC because they can JSJ. And do so with huge, painful blast template weapons. The only thing I can see remotely making it across the board is a Deathwing army with massed TH/SS. Again, without any allies, both my GK and Chaos list have no way to deal with them. :( My main issue is surviving past Turn 1 and Turn 2 to even get into assault. It's not a matter of even being able to win right now, it's a matter of not being tabled.

Dark elder poisoned weapons eat riptides.

lynxstrife wrote:
Dark elder poisoned weapons eat riptides.

Our Dark Eldar player never got in range. =/ He didn't survive Turn 1 shooting, to boot. Although this might be because we were playing short table edges.

 Enigwolf wrote:

lynxstrife wrote:
Dark elder poisoned weapons eat riptides.

Our Dark Eldar player never got in range. =/ He didn't survive Turn 1 shooting, to boot. Although this might be because we were playing short table edges.

Then your Dark Eldar player was in a word Crap. If you had any cover on the board and he new what he was doing then every unit would be in it. DE weapons butcher tau like a shattershard hitting a Taudar

I'd be worried about him cheating. If he's willing to be beardy enough to bring 3 riptides and try to cheat by not counting drones as members of a unit, who knows what else the guy is trying to pull. I think though, like a few have said, try to ignore the riptides and concentrate on higher firepower and objective capturing units.

j.d.hart wrote:
I'd be worried about him cheating. If he's willing to be beardy enough to bring 3 riptides and try to cheat by not counting drones as members of a unit, who knows what else the guy is trying to pull. I think though, like a few have said, try to ignore the riptides and concentrate on higher firepower and objective capturing units.

Exactly my suspicions. I've since borrowed my friend's Tau codex so I can read up on it before I bring my Elysians in for a match.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BaconUprising wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:

lynxstrife wrote:
Dark elder poisoned weapons eat riptides.

Our Dark Eldar player never got in range. =/ He didn't survive Turn 1 shooting, to boot. Although this might be because we were playing short table edges.

Then your Dark Eldar player was in a word Crap. If you had any cover on the board and he new what he was doing then every unit would be in it. DE weapons butcher tau like a shattershard hitting a Taudar

We have no real "hard cover" or "blocking terrain" on our tables. The majority of them are the GW ruins, which have a ton of windows in them. His Pathfinders as such have an easy time stripping cover, and then he has SMS which ignores cover and LOS...

Only time I ever dropped a Riptide was when I got into melee with a Deathwing squad, but I haven't played against them a lot, so there may be better/more efficient ways.

 Enigwolf wrote:
We have no real "hard cover" or "blocking terrain" on our tables. The majority of them are the GW ruins, which have a ton of windows in them. His Pathfinders as such have an easy time stripping cover, and then he has SMS which ignores cover and LOS...

Just because you can see the model doesn't mean they don't get a cover save. You need to see 75% of the model to deny it a cover save (and large ornamental parts like banners and wings don't count). Make sure that you're rolling cover when you're entitled to.

I've been pulling out my Catacomb Command Barges with fully kitted Overlords out of mothballs recently. Tau has too much long range shooters for me to dare slogging across the map. They can Mind Shackle the Riptide and tear hammerheads to pieces, all while distracting the army from anything else I've got trundling over.
That said, the Riptides do often need to be saved for last. They lose nothing as far as lethality for each wound you cause; so, if it takes 3 turns to kill it, his army hasn't lost any strength for the first 2. Hence my target priorities (as far as the heavy hitters go) are broadsides (easy prey for Tesla Destructors), hammerheads (if I got any warsythes or scarabes close to them), and then riptides unless there's a tasty blob of crisis suits hiding out.

Corollax wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:
We have no real "hard cover" or "blocking terrain" on our tables. The majority of them are the GW ruins, which have a ton of windows in them. His Pathfinders as such have an easy time stripping cover, and then he has SMS which ignores cover and LOS...

Just because you can see the model doesn't mean they don't get a cover save. You need to see 75% of the model to deny it a cover save (and large ornamental parts like banners and wings don't count). Make sure that you're rolling cover when you're entitled to.

Yeah if you were playing it like that then its no wonder the DE player was beaten quickly. Unless you are terrible with them lots of your units should reach the enemy intact albeit less a transport or 2

I don't play GK so I do not know much about them but I do know a good amount of CSM.

First of all whilst not many people would pick them, I feel Forgefiends with Hades Autocannons are good against Tau, just because the amount of shots and the Str of the weapons are great against certain units that the Tau contain. furthermore pie plates such as plasma cannons should eat up the Broadsides if you equip them with Havocs or Autocannons if you want to put further damage on the Riptides, unless of course you want to make sure those heavy armoured units in the Tau line are gone in which case use lascannons on Havocs why? because AP2 and Str 9 never hurt... also Plague marines are very nice with 2 plasma guns for each squad. I would advise not to take Helldrakes or at least one if you want, I know this mat sound like utter madness but when you think about it if you use minimal flyers then he has bought points for Skyfire which are wasted. On the topic of allies I would suggest using a Basilisk Squadron because Barrage seems to be a good way with handeling Tau in this Edition, however if you like the more daemonic side of Allies I would suggest using Fateweaver with Grimore of True names then DS him in... This way he will be paying attention with his guns at a 2+ re-roll 1's Character that also fly's meaning that other units will be free of harm waiting to gun the so called "greater good" down...

Just my opinion though, but hope this helps .

He's got 1500 points wrapped up in the missilesides and Riptides alone, so there cannot be much left in the rest of the list.

The only thing that can hurt AV14 in the list is the Ion Cannon on the Riptides. Without marker lights, and if he overcharges all three and fires at the same target, he will do perhaps one hull point a turn.

For Marines, if you take a flavor of Land Raider, you can ignore the missiles and really only have to worry about the riptides. Pull a refused flank, and head up one side.