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.

So I know people call the riptide an OP unit especially when three are fielded at once. My question is would 1 riptide make people rage? I am not wanting an OP unit I honestly just like the mechanism units...the whole reason I went tau is because mechanism anime is a long time guilty pleasure. I am starting to play games and don't want to alienate anyone...I would buy the riptide for the sake of having one. But with my time and budget I can't be buying just for collecting, since I want to start building upwards of a 1500 point army.


So 1 riptide not broken?

Buy whatever you want and play whatever you want.

Don't get too worked up about what other people think of your army.

One riptide should not be a problem. More than one is cheese.
Go ahead and buy one if you like it.

I play alot of friendly games, and i can say pretty safely that a single riptide really does not make a huge difference.
Go with units you like.

Most of my armies are a mix of competitive and sub par units.
One tends to make up for another and give a good balance.

Ok great! I was just worried about losing people to play against. Not as much fun having a big army but no one to play against!

I find one to be the "sweet spot" you still have your elites slots open for crisis suits and you have more flexibility. Once you start spamming riptides it just makes you look bad. On the other hand they aren't "that" bad when compared to things like Waveserpent spam or Jetseers. A few snipers can take out riptides with some work, and most of the time they end up wounding themselves with the nova reactor, or if you're like me, they miss half the time anyways.

Buy what you want. Have fun with it. Explain to your opponent you are not a person who needs to win with plastic toy soldiers and just like the model, and want to play with it and have fun.

If you made an Over Powered list, your opponent may explain to you why it could be cheesy or OP so you may tweak your list next time.

Also just because you curb stomp over someone in one game doesn't mean you got an all powerful list. Just like if you loose once, your list is garbage, You need to try it out a few times before you know something is broken good or broken bad.

Your money, your minis, do what you want. After a game, ask your opponent if he feels you were cheesy/OP and try and change it a bit to play him again next time.

A single riptide isn't a problem at all. Hell, even two riptides aren't necessarily a problem. It's just when you build you list around fielding as much of a unit that is considered broken, then it becomes cheesy power-playing.

Remember, there'll always be people considering your army or your list over-powered, so don't always take their complaints too seriously. I've heard people complain before about how sisters, orcs and tyranids were overpowered (not the same person, of course ), and these aren't exactly the strongest races around. Coincidentally, all complaints took place shortly after losing horribly to said armies

It's just when you start hearing multiple people complain about your list, when you need to start thinking about whether or not you're exploiting a certain OP unit.

TL/DR: there's absolutely nothing wrong with fielding a riptide

 generalchaos34 wrote:
I find one to be the "sweet spot" you still have your elites slots open for crisis suits and you have more flexibility. Once you start spamming riptides it just makes you look bad. On the other hand they aren't "that" bad when compared to things like Waveserpent spam or Jetseers. A few snipers can take out riptides with some work, and most of the time they end up wounding themselves with the nova reactor, or if you're like me, they miss half the time anyways.

Well the plan is 1 riptide and 2 squads of crisis suits..maybe ocassionally a stealth team. But in just want to field every bit of mecha I can!

Shaso_Keo wrote:

 generalchaos34 wrote:
I find one to be the "sweet spot" you still have your elites slots open for crisis suits and you have more flexibility. Once you start spamming riptides it just makes you look bad. On the other hand they aren't "that" bad when compared to things like Waveserpent spam or Jetseers. A few snipers can take out riptides with some work, and most of the time they end up wounding themselves with the nova reactor, or if you're like me, they miss half the time anyways.

Well the plan is 1 riptide and 2 squads of crisis suits..maybe ocassionally a stealth team. But in just want to field every bit of mecha I can!

That's what I always run. 1 riptide, 2 crisis teams. And now that I finally took the Forge World plunge a XV9 Hazard team (they replaced my broadside team. They never sat well with me. Too static. I want my giant robots bouncing all over the board).

 dementedwombat wrote:

Shaso_Keo wrote:

 generalchaos34 wrote:
I find one to be the "sweet spot" you still have your elites slots open for crisis suits and you have more flexibility. Once you start spamming riptides it just makes you look bad. On the other hand they aren't "that" bad when compared to things like Waveserpent spam or Jetseers. A few snipers can take out riptides with some work, and most of the time they end up wounding themselves with the nova reactor, or if you're like me, they miss half the time anyways.

Well the plan is 1 riptide and 2 squads of crisis suits..maybe ocassionally a stealth team. But in just want to field every bit of mecha I can!

That's what I always run. 1 riptide, 2 crisis teams. And now that I finally took the Forge World plunge a XV9 Hazard team (they replaced my broadside team. They never sat well with me. Too static. I want my giant robots bouncing all over the board).

Hazard team? Is there a way to find out the basic rules for those units without buying....whatever a fest codec equivalent is? Still very much a noon, but that sounds more like my style.

Triple Riptide, 3 HYMP + EWO Broadsides, 1 Longstrike Hammerhead with disruption pod, 1 Buffmander, 1 Shadowsun outflanking with 3 Grav Centurions

make your opponents cry

Ummm...you didn't hear this from me...but the Tau 40k list for the Battlescribe roster editor has all the stats in it including the Forgeworld units...

I did legit buy the book though. I can scrape up a picture to prove it if anybody cares enough to ask me to.

Also I run shadowsun and an Ethereal as my 2 HQ choices. Shadowsun plays so nice with the Hazard team it's not even funny. a 7 model squad with majority toughness 5. All of them have a 3+ armor save, two of them have a 3++ invulnerable save, and Shadowsun gives the whole monstrosity Stealth and Shrouded. Plus they move 3d6 in the assault phase and can hit and run with I4 if you buy that wargear for one of the squad members.

If you had 3 riptides, I would gladly play against you. Just expect to get hit with black knight spam. Nothing is untouchable