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 Big Blind Bill wrote:
Do riptides really put out that much damage? They should only be getting around 2-3 kills a turn, especially if you turn off their markerlight support. Ignoring them is an option unless they are sitting on an objective.
If the riptide is getting more kills than this then your squads are not spread out enough.

The Riptide is throwing out a 5" templates at S8 AP2 out to 72"... how is the Riptide only getting 2-3 kills a turn? The low BS of a Riptide becomes an asset in this circumstance as it can (and usually does!) deviate onto even MORE models in other units that are not the target of the original attack.

Kill the markerlights, broadsides, crisis suits and fire warriors first. They in my experience deal most of the damage in a tau army. They are also the units who will be holding most of the objectives. Once they are gone the riptide can be dealt with at your leisure.

This is sound advice, except what are the Tau doing to you in return? Kill the Markerlights should be the #1 objective of any player facing the Tau. The bad news is that it's one Marker light in a unit of 12 Fire Warriors, or 6 Marker Lights in a unit of Pathfinders, or a full unit of Drones with Markerlights... in my 1500 point list, I have 12+ Markerlights. In it's current incarnation, I have 15 or 18? I'd have to go check. Because of the long range on the Markerlights (36"), you won't have enough firepower to remove enough of them in one turn until you get close, and the basic Tau Pulse Rifle has a range of 30"... except for that one unit of Fire Warriors where it's 36". The Broadsides have the range of the table as well- and they don't need line of sight to hit you with missiles. If they have Rail Guns, they'll just sit in the back of the deployment zone and pop anything in LOS. Crisis Suits? Slippery bastards that have fantastic maneuverability. Weight of Firepower will take them down, but the amount of fire power required means you are not shooting at Markerlights, Broadsides, or Fire Warriors.

Ignoring a Riptide until end game, like turn 4-5 means the Tau player will have placed 4-5 large templates on your army. If the Riptide player hasn't removed 2-3 squads of MEQ's by then, he is playing the Riptide wrong (or the MEQ player is being ultra conservative by staying out of LoS or in cover- but there are work arounds for that too.

I think a drop pod list would do fine against tau, as they lack mobility in large numbers, especially with objective secured units. Drop those pods on the objectives and watch the tau struggle to keep up with your VPs.

Best advice right there. Smart placement of objectives within cover and drop podding onto/nearby those objectives and playing the VP game. When you make the Tau come to you, they usually don't fare that well.

Let the sternguard use their kraken shots against the firewarriors to mow them down fast. And any melta squads to shooting their T8 suits.

You only get 1 shot/round with the Kraken Bolters, and you will be in range of the Pulse Rifles. Assuming 10 shots with the Kraken Bolts, 6.67 hits, 5.00 wounds with no saves. Return fire: 3.5 hits (assuming no Markerlights), 2.8 wounds, all saves. Now, that's just the return fire from the unit the Sternguard shot at. As a Tau player, I won't let the Sternguard live past the next shooting round simply because I can't let a unit like that get close to me. But hey, at least your 240 point unit was able to kill about 50 points of Fire Warriors before it was wiped out... You wanna kill Fire Warriors? A Whirlwind, or a a Devastator Squad with 4 ML's would be far more effective then the Sternguard (and cheaper too).

The best shooting option for killing riptides in the book is grav bikes imo. Slightly more than 100 points gets you 3 bikes with 2 grav guns and a combi grav.

I'd also add Centurians with Gravcannons. The problem is getting into that 24" range... and that the Riptide has 6 wounds...

Have you considered an LRC btw? When I play my DW against tau my 2 landraiders are the difference between victory or slaughter. Tau cannot deal with them at range (besides 1 hammerhead shot a turn, which is statistically not too bad), and they will grant whatever squad inside (like a cc equipped DC squad) total immunity to the riptide. It also has the great effect of providing a mobile wall for other units to advance behind (say.....a unit of grav gun bikes?).

My meta uses a lot of Land Raiders and Necron Monoliths, and while I don't prepare for multiple Land Raiders, I always have a Heavy Railgun armed Broadside or Commander Longstrike sitting in his Hammerhead taking pot shots at such targets. The other thing to think about is this: Space Marines have Drop Pods and like to use a suicide Drop Pod squad with Melta's or Plasma to take out big stuff. Well, Tau can do it too, in the form of a couple Crisis Suits armed with Fusion Blasters. For a little over 100 points, I can get two Crisis Suits with a total of 4 Fusion Blasters that can Deep Strike and pull off the suicide tactic just as well as any MEQ army.

I have struggled against a "Wall of Armor" before- three Necron Monoliths line abreast with a couple Night Sythes, a unit of Destroyers, and a unit of Wraiths marching up the table at me. I lost that game, but it was more because Longstrike couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with his cannon and I kept rolling 1's and 2's with my Fusion Blasters against the Monoliths.

There is a lot of sound advice in this thread, and it does work against a Tau player, but just realize that a Tau player worth his salt is never going to just let you walk all over him like that. I know what the weaknesses of my army are, and I'm going to use sound strategy in my deployment and targeting of threats along with good tactics to minimize those weaknesses and eliminate those threats to prevent you from exploiting my weaknesses.

/edit Longstrike, Farstrike, whatever that awesome 45 point upgrade is to a Hammerhead is named and I always take him...

How about a Spartan with ceremite transporting a squad of DC or th/ss termies and mephiston? Dante hiding behind as it advances. T1 turbo boost 18", turn 2 move 6", disembark 6", charge. Mephy charges one squad, th/ss charge a riptide, dante charges another squad/riptide.
Another method would be to put dante in an assault squad, and charge straight towards the riptide, unless the opponent focuses all their firepower on the squad, Dante will make it across the board for a T2 charge. If he does the riptide is dead.
Lastly a typhon with ceremite. Forget the gun and go hell for leather towards the riptide. Thunderblitz it for a 1/3 chance of an auto remove. Plus Thunderblitzing whatever else is in its turbo boost path. You now have a st10 ap1 ignores cover pie plate maker in your opponents deployment zone with incredible Thunderblitzing rules if you don't want to use the gun.

I don't own Forgeworld, but I do have a LRC.

Martel732 wrote:
I don't own Forgeworld, but I do have a LRC.

Not quite the same, especially with lack of ceremite. May still work though.

Poly Ranger wrote:
How about a Spartan with ceremite transporting a squad of DC or th/ss termies and mephiston? Dante hiding behind as it advances. T1 turbo boost 18", turn 2 move 6", disembark 6", charge. Mephy charges one squad, th/ss charge a riptide, dante charges another squad/riptide.
Another method would be to put dante in an assault squad, and charge straight towards the riptide, unless the opponent focuses all their firepower on the squad, Dante will make it across the board for a T2 charge. If he does the riptide is dead.
Lastly a typhon with ceremite. Forget the gun and go hell for leather towards the riptide. Thunderblitz it for a 1/3 chance of an auto remove. Plus Thunderblitzing whatever else is in its turbo boost path. You now have a st10 ap1 ignores cover pie plate maker in your opponents deployment zone with incredible Thunderblitzing rules if you don't want to use the gun.

I think this general concept is how you deal with riptides. Find some way to assault them. That's what ive found always works the best, either with massed jump infantry or heavily armored transports.

The spartan is so good in BA.

The Riptide is throwing out a 5" templates at S8 AP2 out to 72"... how is the Riptide only getting 2-3 kills a turn? The low BS of a Riptide becomes an asset in this circumstance as it can (and usually does!) deviate onto even MORE models in other units that are not the target of the original attack.

If the Riptide player hasn't removed 2-3 squads of MEQ's by then, he is playing the Riptide wrong

Seriously? Do you opponents know their models can stand 2 inches apart? Or have they just swapped over from WFB and are still using movement trays?

I'm really hurt that Martel didn't ask me.

As a Blood Angels player who also plays Tau let me say that drop pod lists are the best plan against them. One of the few times I lost with my Tau was to a SM drop pod list with some flaming death from Mr Salamander Vulcan Hes'tan himself. Here is the trick:

You want a Tactical squad with triple flamers to take out pathfinders in a drop pod
You want something to take out the riptide. 10 Sternguard all with combi-plasma's will do. Once again in a drop pod.
You want a small assault squad with triple melta for hammerheads/skyrays in a drop pod.
You want some AP2 to take out Boradsides and also some some arms fire to take out their drones. If you can get it in a drop pod then bonus points.
You then use the rest of you fast attack slots to take empty pods so you can get all your meaty goodness in first turn.

Jobs a good one.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Marine units are too expensive to throw them away like that.

This is what I have found as well. I don't understand how these lists are not being blown apart in piecemeal. In fact, that is my exact battle plan against SW drop. The first ones drop in, shoot me. Then my army kills them. The next wave comes in, shoots me, then my army kills them. Repeat until they are out of pods. It sounds like everything is predicated on Xenos or whomever not being able to maul 30 meqs in one round of point blank shooting. Or in my case, BA shooting followed by a visit from the DC.

Not piecemeal if you buy those empty pods from the fast attack slot. They help to bump all the meat into first turn. Trust me, 5 pods means you get 3 units right in you opponents face first turn. Also make it count by hurting him where it hurts. Kill those pathfinders with flamer goodness and kill that riptide and blow up that hammerhead with Longstrike in it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
7th edition landraiders are much better than before, now that it can hold an objective (and normally keep objective secured stuff away with its size too) they are more worth those 250 points than ever before.

To be honest I consider them to be a counter to most tau lists.

If you haven't tried it since last edition, then I would recommend giving it a second chance.

High armour AV14 is a bit of a nuisance for Tau. When I'm building my Tau list I try and fit in some crisis suits with dual fusion blasters because I am pretty much counting on that being my AV14 counter. If I really need to I can also nova charge the ion accelerator on my Riptide.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot I take Longstrike and his hammerhead in my list as well. So I generally have 3 sources to have a go at any AV14.

Martel732 wrote:

SGTPozy wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

SGTPozy wrote:
"Storm shields might let me get one unit through, but they won't help against the pulse rifles."

By that logic why even take Storm Shields since ethey will do to bolters...

My assumption is that the Tau player is not brain dead. They will pie plate the units with no storm shields and then shoot the storm shield guys with pulse rifles. Because doing it the other way around is stupid.

My point still stands; why take them when a marine player will pie plate the units without storm shields and shoot their bolters at the storm shield guys?

That's why I don't use storm shields.

That's why I don't not use Storm Shields. No squads with just the 5++ for the AP2 artillery to pie plate.

Though I play Deathwing so I can put Storm Shield guys in front of the guns.

Fragile wrote:

 Wolfedi wrote:
This pretty much sums it up.

It really doesn't. Riptides are pretty easy to handle.

QFT.

I think a lot of people are still suffering from PTSD after they faced a buffmander dual riptide star. That, I can understand the hate against.

Normal riptides are now good, but nothing to get upset over.

Personally I'd rather see a riptide than a squad of missilesides. The riptide is tougher to kill, but the missilesides damage output is much better vs almost all targets.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

Fragile wrote:

 Wolfedi wrote:
This pretty much sums it up.

It really doesn't. Riptides are pretty easy to handle.

QFT.

I think a lot of people are still suffering from PTSD after they faced a buffmander dual riptide star. That, I can understand the hate against.

Normal riptides are now good, but nothing to get upset over.

Personally I'd rather see a riptide than a squad of missilesides. The riptide is tougher to kill, but the missilesides damage output is much better vs almost all targets.

I'd like to see the data on total damage caused by both, because missilesides are much easier to get off the board.

Martel732 wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

Fragile wrote:

 Wolfedi wrote:
This pretty much sums it up.

It really doesn't. Riptides are pretty easy to handle.

QFT.

I think a lot of people are still suffering from PTSD after they faced a buffmander dual riptide star. That, I can understand the hate against.

Normal riptides are now good, but nothing to get upset over.

Personally I'd rather see a riptide than a squad of missilesides. The riptide is tougher to kill, but the missilesides damage output is much better vs almost all targets.

I'd like to see the data on total damage caused by both, because missilesides are much easier to get off the board.

Its difficult to measure the exact damage of the riptide due to it using a plate weapon.

Personally I find the missilesides are better vs MEQ if they are in cover, and about the same if the riptide ignores it. Riptide would still probably win out vs TEQ, though the amount of saves the missilesides do cause is still quite considerable.
Against 4+ saves there is no contest, the missilesides will absolutely destroy the riptide.

One thing to note is that the missilesides can still get a buffmander with them. 12 str 7, twinlinked cover-ignoring, tankhunting missiles, which can possibly be fired at different targets is a scary thing. Even wave serpents have to get out of range or be eaten up n 1 turn of shooting.

They are much less maneuverable of course and easier to take out.

Still, with my armies they give me more trouble than the riptide. A few turns of those guys shooting is normally more game changing than a whole game of riptide fire.

That's why I try not to let them shoot more than once or twice. Most people in my meta put FNP in the Riptide, so there is little value in shooting at it I guess, as the worst it ever is is 5++/5+++. Is it fair to say the Riptide is more frustrating than the missilesides?

Shooting it even with heavy weapons is often not worth the effort, and there are usually better targets, and the thing is usually sitting behind ruins.

I'd say give psychic powers a go if nothing else is working for you, and aim for psychic shriek, terrify and invisibility

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
Shooting it even with heavy weapons is often not worth the effort, and there are usually better targets, and the thing is usually sitting behind ruins.

I'd say give psychic powers a go if nothing else is working for you, and aim for psychic shriek, terrify and invisibility

BA get none of those. There is, however, fear the darkness.

Lot of people are saying drop pod/deep striking stuff, but a lot of players take interceptors with riptides or broadsides or both.

And getting large blast str 8 ap2 dropped on deep striking units before they can even draw can be pretty unpleasant.

In order for pods to work you need threat overload. My SM pod list drops 4 Ironclad dreads with heavy flamers on turn 1. From here I either roast any bubble wrap, or smoke up and prepare for a turn 2 assault. The second wave of reserves includes tactical pods for objectives, storm talons and legion of the damned For fire support and anti tank.

Allied Vanquisher with beast hunter shells.

Seriously.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

Fragile wrote:

 Wolfedi wrote:
This pretty much sums it up.

It really doesn't. Riptides are pretty easy to handle.

QFT.

I think a lot of people are still suffering from PTSD after they faced a buffmander dual riptide star. That, I can understand the hate against.

Normal riptides are now good, but nothing to get upset over.

Personally I'd rather see a riptide than a squad of missilesides. The riptide is tougher to kill, but the missilesides damage output is much better vs almost all targets.

This^

Sometime I run two squads of missilesides in my 2000 point list and the damage output they do is very good. Only weakness is they can't deal with AV14, so that's why I have a Hammerhead with Longstrike in the 3rd Heavy slot and I take Fusion Crisis Suits and an Ion Accelerator Riptide.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
When playing against Tau you need to analyse what in his list is causing the damage and take it out. Missilesides do cause a lot of damage and they are worth taking out. Even without Pathfinder support those twin linked weapons are still hitting an awful lot of times and the high strength of the weapons means they wound relatively easy on most things.

Martel732 wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
Shooting it even with heavy weapons is often not worth the effort, and there are usually better targets, and the thing is usually sitting behind ruins.

I'd say give psychic powers a go if nothing else is working for you, and aim for psychic shriek, terrify and invisibility

BA get none of those. There is, however, fear the darkness.

I thought BA didn't get pyromancy, but got divination instead.

Do BA not get telepathy?

 Crazyterran wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
Shooting it even with heavy weapons is often not worth the effort, and there are usually better targets, and the thing is usually sitting behind ruins.

I'd say give psychic powers a go if nothing else is working for you, and aim for psychic shriek, terrify and invisibility

BA get none of those. There is, however, fear the darkness.

I thought BA didn't get pyromancy, but got divination instead.

Do BA not get telepathy?

No telepathy.