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 Grey Templar wrote:
yeah, but its even more unlikely than killing the Dreadknight. It can get FnP on top of the good save.

But I can kill it.

All I need to do is roll +4 to hit, 6's to wound, and 1's to fail, and then fail a +5? Then do that 5 times?

That's what FRFSRF is for!

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
I don't feel Necrons matches up well against the new tau (Skyfire aplenty, ID on your Wraiths from pie-plate Riptides, Annihilation Barges utterly outranged by everything in the codex) as missile/ rail broadsides utterly shaft your flyers and the ABs can't really hurt armour 13 or Riptides reliably.

I see where you're coming from, but I think they match well enough. It's a reasonably close game but at this point, before seeing fine tuned 1850p Tau take on all comers lists that can win reliably against everyone, and having played against them, I wouldn't call Tau even a soft counter against Necrons, just a good matchup which they should be.

Regarding what you said, we're currently in the phase where noone is actually making refined tournament lists and are instead just throwing wild claims what the Tau will have: "They got a million Crisis suits and HQ suits with missiles and skyfire and fusion blasters galore and three Riptides and 30 marker lights and a massive amount of scoring units and a million Missilesides with missile drones and did I forget everything in the army has skyfire and interceptor aaarrggh!".

Yeah. It remains to be seen how much skyfire lists will actually end up having. Currently it looks like 2, max 3 units will have skyfire, unless you know what you're playing against and are just tooling up. How is that any different than Necrons playing against armies with many opposing flyers? It isn't. Flyers that are underpriced by arguably as much as 40 or 50 points each just don't care. The so called ID on Wraiths from nova charged pie plates is an absolute joke of course. Tons of weapons in the game can do this, but a 35 point lightning fast model that gets into close combat during turn 2 with a 3+ invulnerable save isn't really worried about instant death once in a blue moon. They'll spread out coherency, take their licks, and hit home. Wraiths are underpriced by a large margin as it is.

Annihilation Barges won't lack range during the game. Seriously, that just doesn't happen when you just deploy them centrally near the edge of your zone and move from there when necessary. They won't be able to pick the best target every turn but they'll shoot every turn regardless, and if you haven't played against competitive Necrons before and like mathhammer, check how many missile pods you need to average the same amount of hits as for example 9 TL Tesla Destructors (the standard amount). That's ~50 S7 hits and an undefined amount of S5 arc hits. We're not even counting the S6 Tesla Cannons from the same vehicles. This is from an army that brings 30-40 T4 (or T6) wounds with 3+ invulnerable saves to close combat turn 2. There's a lot of ways to win, either by focusing on the scoring units in Tau list or by taking out all the Crisis teams/skyfiring models (it's like killing Marines) and other support first and letting the Riptides shoot their template untill the Wraiths can mob them. It depends on the terrain, the mission, who gets first turn and the what the Tau army actually has, but I see it as a good game, nothing worse than that.

A much better question is: How are Tau going to kill Riptides? Assuming lists are similar on both sides all they'll do is tickle eachother for 6 turns and the one with some Kroot or FW alive at the end of the game wins, and there's a good chance neither player will have anything scoring alive.

It's like the Three Billy Goats Gruff in here. Well my turn to cross the bridge.

Anyways this thing is not the end all, Tau got a decent unit and now the younglings are getting all uppity. It CAN and WILL die. I'm guessing also you still scatter, secondly have fun with Drop Pods.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
yeah, but its even more unlikely than killing the Dreadknight. It can get FnP on top of the good save.

But I can kill it.

All I need to do is roll +4 to hit, 6's to wound, and 1's to fail, and then fail a +5? Then do that 5 times?

That's what FRFSRF is for!

Indeed, show them silly Tau what real marker lights do!

 Grey Templar wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
yeah, but its even more unlikely than killing the Dreadknight. It can get FnP on top of the good save.

But I can kill it.

All I need to do is roll +4 to hit, 6's to wound, and 1's to fail, and then fail a +5? Then do that 5 times?

That's what FRFSRF is for!

Indeed, show them silly Tau what real marker lights do!

50 man blob, 150 shots, 75 hits, 13 wounds, 2 failed saves, maybe one passes FNP.

So the solution is simple. 5 blobs.

Give it two months and the new riptide will be that giant wraitbone construct.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

jifel wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

 jifel wrote:
This guys tough, not THAT tough. Poisoned gants, enfeebled and smash, or just ignore and Dakka all work. If I see one, I do the same as versus all tau. Kill the troops and bunker down while every non scoring unit rushes him.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This guys tough, not THAT tough. Poisoned gants, enfeebled and smash, or just ignore and Dakka all work. If I see one, I do the same as versus all tau. Kill the troops and bunker down while every non scoring unit rushes him.

Poisoned Gants are not going to get anywhere near it. You can't ignore it, because it's dropping 3x pie plate on you every turn. The only thing that stands a chance is Winged Hive Tyrant assaulting it, but congrats you're tying up a 185 point unit with a 260 point unit and nerfing your own firepower the rest of the game.

Ymgarl Genestealers could do well, or the Doom. Let's make that bad boy take two 3d6 leadership checks, then take some Ymgarls to the chin. Hes tied up in assault for at least one turn, at which point it's a third Ld check before he gets to even shoot the doom.

But, I think I could ignore it. I have plenty of gants, and I can kill his troops well enough.

Doom of Malantai comes down... and gets annihilated by interceptor from all the Tau units. Oh, you didn't even get to my shooting phase. How many wounds was it you had before Spirit Leech?

Ymargl could pop out and... oh wait. BS 2 Overwatch from three supporting units. How many Ymargls did you put in that unit again?

You won't have plenty of gants for long with the amount of pie-plate and submunitions rounds dropping on them.

You know, it's a lot harder than you think to kill the Doom... Lets see what you could intercept me with. Note that I'm not quite familiar with the book yet, but Broadsides can get interceptor or sky fire yes? If you have interceptor ,my Flyrants will have fun. But they'll probably have sky fire, so maybe you have one crisis team, and the Riptide in range? Dooms got good odds of living. Then, one 3d6 ld check. What's the Riptides Ld anyway? But, Psychic shriek then hits him for a second check. If you're using that full 72" range you won't have too many units nearby within 6" for extra over watch. If they are, then they're also in Doom range, so thanks! And I always bring two Ymgarl squads. Lets say the Riptide over watches, he'll probably kill one, MAYBE 2. At this point he's down a few wounds, then takes some gene stealers and dies in 1-2 rounds.

The while point you've been making is that the Riptide can hide really far back to shoot, but if he does there'll be nothing near enough to help him overwatch. And even if I don't touch him, I bet that I can spawn more gants than a few blasts can kill. Spread out in terrain, boom.

Sure, maybe you'll get lucky and kill the Doom. But you won't always. Sometimes I'll kill it the Riptide. Either way, it's not broken, or even close to it. Then again, the Heldrake isn't either in my mind.

just to be clear, your gonna take interceptor and shoot that, then no shooting in your next turn?

your also gonna run that thing via JSJ from your starting area into mine to avoid what comes down board at you.... that might not be a good idea.... run from the pan straight into the fire..

this thing is twice the height of an XV88 and its mass is all at the top, cover saves wont be toooo likely here those legs are NOT 25% of the mass of the unit...

give it a game or 2 you'll see just how stupid taking 3 is and we wont here this preaching of the new messiah.

so to drop your plates you need to pass a gets hot (1/6 of failing, you dont have TL) then you need a 2/6 to get your direct hit, if you miss you need to roll under 3 on 2d6 the average is 7 so you'll scatter on average 4" and if you opponent is competent then odds are youll hit a couple of thing just not as much as you hope.....

IF you do Nova charge the shots thats a 2/6 of failing the nova-charge and taking a wound AND not being able to give yourself a 3++ , then you need to pass a 1/6 gets hot.... (sounds ALMOST like a Zoanthrope) before you get to fire and face the same scatter dramas just with the advantage of a little more blast area to help you hit what you originally shot at.

time to wake up and smell the roses... this thing is good but it is not the second coming. it will die just like every other unit of its type.

'Splinter Cannon: 36" Range. Does 0.05 wounds to a Riptide per shot. Ion Cannon: 72" Str 7 Ap 2 Heavy 3, or Str 8 Ap 2 Blast, or Str 9 Ap 2 Ordnance blast. Does 0.67 glances/pens and 0.87 wounds to Venoms/Dark Eldar underneath.

You need an excess of twenty shots to do a single wound to the Riptide. You need to do a hundred shots to kill it. It needs two shots to kill you. Nope, Dark Eldar. Anyone else has poison in large quantities? Didn't think so. '

You're missing a few things.

DE vehicles tend towards invulnerable saves, and blasts don't always land where you want them to.

It would take a fair few shots to land a wound on the Riptide with poison. This is quite true. We'll assume your figure of 20 shots per wound is accurate (closer to 18 i think, but hey..)

It isn't hard to get that many shots off. Venoms crank out 12 shots a turn. I can run silly amounts of venoms for cheap, and you can only target one per turn

That discounts the raiders full of splinter-toting warriors, who can crank out in excess of 40 splinter shots a turn, and i usually take mine with Splinter racks, so the percentage of hits will be a lot higher.

Then add in the raiders full of wracks who can zoom towards you and whack you with poisoned sickles.

Also DE aren't exactly short of AP 2 weaponry, and aren't shy in using it. Every raider is packing an AP2 weapon

Now granted the whole army isn't going to be aiming just for the riptide, badass as it is, because it can only target one vehicle at a time, and that vehicle will likely shrug a hit 1/3 of the time. Sacrificing a few raiders or venoms is no big deal.

The Riptide will feth over whatever it shoots. Fair enough. But can it feth EVERYTHING over simultaneously. Can it, for example feth over 2-3 raiders full of wracks zooming after it at the same time at different vectors, then dropping poisoned troops to mess it up ? How many can it kill in CC at a time?

If it really is as studly as you make it out to be it will have a single turn of being splintered and darklighted to death, and then the DE will go back to business as usual.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, as you asked:

Nurgle daemons are poison-heavy IIRC, and rather sturdy.

Eldar Pathfinder Sniper-spam would eat the thing alive.

Realistically, Combi Plas heavy sternguard in drop dops will be the thing to kill riptides, which may include lysander for better hits.

Quick Mathhammer:
20 RF from 10 Combi-plas sternguard

20(Shots) * 0.667(chance to hit) * 0.667(chance to wound) * 0.667(chance to not save w/ no nova) = ~5 wounds in one shooting phase, which is enough to bring down a dangerous unit that can hurt a large part of your army.

Only caveat is the cost, which for 10 combi-plas sterns is pretty expensive, 335 points for 10 men w/ combi-plas & DP to be exact.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
5 w/ combi-plas nets about 3 unsaved wounds, which at 185 points + DP is pretty cheap. This combined with a few other things shooting can kill a riptide turn one if you go first. If they survive the counter shooting, then you get to bury the soft Tau Backfield in Kraken bolts

Personally, i'm looking forward to turning the Riptide into a glass sculpture with Hexrifles and carting it home to Commoragh

 Ascalam wrote:
The Riptide will feth over whatever it shoots. Fair enough. But can it feth EVERYTHING over simultaneously. Can it, for example feth over 2-3 raiders full of wracks zooming after it at the same time at different vectors, then dropping poisoned troops to mess it up ? How many can it kill in CC at a time?

Ding ding ding.

It's an expensive unit that can kill something dead. That goes for a lot of stuff in this game. There's going to be more than 1 unit in the enemy army, and no smart general is just going to present the Riptide with an unobstructed view of his best unit.

I think the biggest shock here is GW finally put a big killy monstrous creature in the game that's worth the points you pay for it.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Ascalam wrote:
The Riptide will feth over whatever it shoots. Fair enough. But can it feth EVERYTHING over simultaneously. Can it, for example feth over 2-3 raiders full of wracks zooming after it at the same time at different vectors, then dropping poisoned troops to mess it up ? How many can it kill in CC at a time?

Ding ding ding.

It's an expensive unit that can kill something dead. That goes for a lot of stuff in this game. There's going to be more than 1 unit in the enemy army, and no smart general is just going to present the Riptide with an unobstructed view of his best unit.

I think the biggest shock here is GW finally put a big killy monstrous creature in the game that's worth the points you pay for it.

You mean, besides the Dreadknight?

I think you're seriously over riptide with ion accelerator when comparing it to the baleflamer. First, after you've successfully passed your nova reactor roll, you have to roll to scatter the pie plate then you roll to wound, then you're opponent (may) get cover. Yes, markerlights can increase BS and remove cover saves, but I doubt you're going to be able to paint enough units with enough markerlights to do that for the 3 riptides you seem to be recommending. Additionally, a smart opponent will understand you're reliance on markerlights, and start removing them.

Now let's look at the baleflamer on the heldrake. the player places the template on you, rolls to wound, and you get an invul save if you have one.

Yes, tau can take all kinds of skyfire and interceptor. but most suits with both support systems only have one weapon, and unless you got markerlights to hit the flyer, it will be shooting it's one weapon at BS3.

The riptide is good, but once markerlights have been reduced, it's not so scary.

 samuele999 wrote:
But how many fire warriors and markerlights you going to have if you spent at least 600 pts on mc? you gonna need large volumes of fire to deal with that. Having3 uber unit is asking for some on to be that 1 person that is really good them units and wipe them out with ease, having 1 or 2 yes, but 3 is just silly!

Or what about landraiders, if you meet a landraider its gonna be in ur face unless you have a hammerhead, which is unlikely, ur gonna be trying with a str 9 ordance which is unlikely to hurt it, while it either hurts you with lascannons or lets out a nice assault unit.

like Abaddon

So 1 pieplate per Riptide is gonna kill off everything? I've been trying doomsdayarks and they have always come up short since pieplates tend to scatter. Yes they hut when they get a perfect hit but more often than not they just do nothign or very little. I can agree it's not easy to kill but it's possible.

Hmm... The way this is looking, I could spam cultists for meatshields (as you do), stick Abaddon in a LR with a terminator escort, run up and start bashing.

For 230 points less, I could deep strike him in, a lucky roll could see Abby landing too close to the Tau for them to dare fire any blast weapons (such as the Riptide's), fire some combi-bolter goodness at them troops, and in the next turn (should Tzeentch smile upon me) charge the Riptide, and smash to pieces with powerfists/axes.

 Iranna wrote:

 xttz wrote:
Saw this mentioned elsewhere, although I don't have a copy of the new codex to check it....

"Drones taken as upgrades for a unit act as additional squad members in all regards"
Is it true that if the Riptide loses a drone, it's forced to take a morale test due to 25% casualties?

Yup, so the thing can potentially run off of your table edge.

Also, the Riptide can be Pinned, which is quite amusing.

Iranna.

If it can take three drones thats very amusing, kill the three drones, riptide flees and can only rally on snake eyes

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:

 Iranna wrote:

 xttz wrote:
Saw this mentioned elsewhere, although I don't have a copy of the new codex to check it....

"Drones taken as upgrades for a unit act as additional squad members in all regards"
Is it true that if the Riptide loses a drone, it's forced to take a morale test due to 25% casualties?

Yup, so the thing can potentially run off of your table edge.

Also, the Riptide can be Pinned, which is quite amusing.

Iranna.

If it can take three drones thats very amusing, kill the three drones, riptide flees and can only rally on snake eyes

Unless they're hiding behind the Riptide, then you'd have to flank it...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just had a thought.
Can the Riptide be Instant Death'd? If so, I'd bring a chaos sorceror and some TS's.

 Selym wrote:

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:

 Iranna wrote:

 xttz wrote:
Saw this mentioned elsewhere, although I don't have a copy of the new codex to check it....

"Drones taken as upgrades for a unit act as additional squad members in all regards"
Is it true that if the Riptide loses a drone, it's forced to take a morale test due to 25% casualties?

Yup, so the thing can potentially run off of your table edge.

Also, the Riptide can be Pinned, which is quite amusing.

Iranna.

If it can take three drones thats very amusing, kill the three drones, riptide flees and can only rally on snake eyes

Unless they're hiding behind the Riptide, then you'd have to flank it...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just had a thought.
Can the Riptide be Instant Death'd? If so, I'd bring a chaos sorceror and some TS's.

it sure can be...

Fenric wrote:
So 1 pieplate per Riptide is gonna kill off everything? I've been trying doomsdayarks and they have always come up short since pieplates tend to scatter. Yes they hut when they get a perfect hit but more often than not they just do nothign or very little. I can agree it's not easy to kill but it's possible.

Tau do have Markerlights to increase BS. Once you get to BS5 the pie will hit what it aimed at most of the time.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Fenric wrote:
So 1 pieplate per Riptide is gonna kill off everything? I've been trying doomsdayarks and they have always come up short since pieplates tend to scatter. Yes they hut when they get a perfect hit but more often than not they just do nothign or very little. I can agree it's not easy to kill but it's possible.

Tau do have Markerlights to increase BS. Once you get to BS5 the pie will hit what it aimed at most of the time.

But now you're counting on an external factor. It takes 2 marker lights to increase BS to 5 and 2 more to remove cover. When comparing it to the heldrake, it needs nothing but it's baleflamer. Even if it loses that, it can still vector strike. Not saying the riptide can't be scary, but really, it's no heldrake.

 IndigoJack wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

Fenric wrote:
So 1 pieplate per Riptide is gonna kill off everything? I've been trying doomsdayarks and they have always come up short since pieplates tend to scatter. Yes they hut when they get a perfect hit but more often than not they just do nothign or very little. I can agree it's not easy to kill but it's possible.

Tau do have Markerlights to increase BS. Once you get to BS5 the pie will hit what it aimed at most of the time.

But now you're counting on an external factor. It takes 2 marker lights to increase BS to 5 and 2 more to remove cover. When comparing it to the heldrake, it needs nothing but it's baleflamer. Even if it loses that, it can still vector strike. Not saying the riptide can't be scary, but really, it's no heldrake.

Not to mention that the Heldrake can't be subjected to psychic powers, LD tests, stuck in melee, be reliably shot at...
Personally I'd choose the Heldrake over the Riptide when looking for a power build, it just works better.

It was mentioned way earlier but Jaws eats the riptied for breakfest. You are one LD 10 test and a 6+ deny the witch role away from ahving a 2/3rds chance of it disappearing. I see a lot of SW's in pods these days. guaranteed he'll get a chance to kill your rip tied or really any Tau thing he wants with Jaws.

1/2, as an MC it is at -1 when taking the test.

 ausYenLoWang wrote:
just to be clear, your gonna take interceptor and shoot that, then no shooting in your next turn?

your also gonna run that thing via JSJ from your starting area into mine to avoid what comes down board at you.... that might not be a good idea.... run from the pan straight into the fire..

this thing is twice the height of an XV88 and its mass is all at the top, cover saves wont be toooo likely here those legs are NOT 25% of the mass of the unit...

give it a game or 2 you'll see just how stupid taking 3 is and we wont here this preaching of the new messiah.

so to drop your plates you need to pass a gets hot (1/6 of failing, you dont have TL) then you need a 2/6 to get your direct hit, if you miss you need to roll under 3 on 2d6 the average is 7 so you'll scatter on average 4" and if you opponent is competent then odds are youll hit a couple of thing just not as much as you hope.....

IF you do Nova charge the shots thats a 2/6 of failing the nova-charge and taking a wound AND not being able to give yourself a 3++ , then you need to pass a 1/6 gets hot.... (sounds ALMOST like a Zoanthrope) before you get to fire and face the same scatter dramas just with the advantage of a little more blast area to help you hit what you originally shot at.

time to wake up and smell the roses... this thing is good but it is not the second coming. it will die just like every other unit of its type.

Regarding the shooting of the pie plates. Tau Markerlights can now boost a units BS above 5. So it only takes 3 ML hits to get to BS6, at that BS you can reroll the gets hot roll to bring it to a 1/36 chance of failing. Obviously less scatter or just boost till there is no scatter also. Now, idk about boosting 3 separate riptides that much with marklights, I am uncertain how many markerlights I can get into a 1850 list with 3 riptides, let alone shooting at 3 separate targets. But with 1 or 2 I'm sure its MORE than possible to boost your riptides plus other units as you see fit. This is of course all assuming you are using Markerlights(you should be, it is Codex:Markerlights!) and this isn't a straight comparison anymore, since he has support but, tau are all about synergy.

Wilytank wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Dark Eldar can't kill it with poison because of 2+.

Put a six man squad of terminators in the same firing line and see how long they fare against massed twin linked s4 fire.

Trust me, a six man squad of terminators will take a lot longer to kill a Riptide than it will take a Riptide to kill them.

MrMoustaffa wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
yeah, but its even more unlikely than killing the Dreadknight. It can get FnP on top of the good save.

But I can kill it.

All I need to do is roll +4 to hit, 6's to wound, and 1's to fail, and then fail a +5? Then do that 5 times?

That's what FRFSRF is for!

You just need five more blobs for that strategy to work!

Therion wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
I don't feel Necrons matches up well against the new tau (Skyfire aplenty, ID on your Wraiths from pie-plate Riptides, Annihilation Barges utterly outranged by everything in the codex) as missile/ rail broadsides utterly shaft your flyers and the ABs can't really hurt armour 13 or Riptides reliably.

I see where you're coming from, but I think they match well enough. It's a reasonably close game but at this point, before seeing fine tuned 1850p Tau take on all comers lists that can win reliably against everyone, and having played against them, I wouldn't call Tau even a soft counter against Necrons, just a good matchup which they should be.

Regarding what you said, we're currently in the phase where noone is actually making refined tournament lists and are instead just throwing wild claims what the Tau will have: "They got a million Crisis suits and HQ suits with missiles and skyfire and fusion blasters galore and three Riptides and 30 marker lights and a massive amount of scoring units and a million Missilesides with missile drones and did I forget everything in the army has skyfire and interceptor aaarrggh!".

Yeah. It remains to be seen how much skyfire lists will actually end up having. Currently it looks like 2, max 3 units will have skyfire, unless you know what you're playing against and are just tooling up. How is that any different than Necrons playing against armies with many opposing flyers? It isn't. Flyers that are underpriced by arguably as much as 40 or 50 points each just don't care. The so called ID on Wraiths from nova charged pie plates is an absolute joke of course. Tons of weapons in the game can do this, but a 35 point lightning fast model that gets into close combat during turn 2 with a 3+ invulnerable save isn't really worried about instant death once in a blue moon. They'll spread out coherency, take their licks, and hit home. Wraiths are underpriced by a large margin as it is.

Annihilation Barges won't lack range during the game. Seriously, that just doesn't happen when you just deploy them centrally near the edge of your zone and move from there when necessary. They won't be able to pick the best target every turn but they'll shoot every turn regardless, and if you haven't played against competitive Necrons before and like mathhammer, check how many missile pods you need to average the same amount of hits as for example 9 TL Tesla Destructors (the standard amount). That's ~50 S7 hits and an undefined amount of S5 arc hits. We're not even counting the S6 Tesla Cannons from the same vehicles. This is from an army that brings 30-40 T4 (or T6) wounds with 3+ invulnerable saves to close combat turn 2. There's a lot of ways to win, either by focusing on the scoring units in Tau list or by taking out all the Crisis teams/skyfiring models (it's like killing Marines) and other support first and letting the Riptides shoot their template untill the Wraiths can mob them. It depends on the terrain, the mission, who gets first turn and the what the Tau army actually has, but I see it as a good game, nothing worse than that.

A much better question is: How are Tau going to kill Riptides? Assuming lists are similar on both sides all they'll do is tickle eachother for 6 turns and the one with some Kroot or FW alive at the end of the game wins, and there's a good chance neither player will have anything scoring alive.

In the Wraithwing, Anni barges get popped first by Longstrike and Co. The lethality of Tau AA comes from the commander with them giving them Tank Hunter, effectively doubling their chances of killing vehicles. Broadsides can only get Skyfire, not interceptor, but commanders can have both. Probably 1-2 units of Skyfire, The problem is the rest of the army killing your wraiths, and let's be honest with 3 insta death pie plates every turn + Kroot alpha strike you're going have to be rolling extremely hot. Tau on Tau will just come down to rolls, I guess, can't be helped really.

Grey elder wrote:It's like the Three Billy Goats Gruff in here. Well my turn to cross the bridge.

Anyways this thing is not the end all, Tau got a decent unit and now the younglings are getting all uppity. It CAN and WILL die. I'm guessing also you still scatter, secondly have fun with Drop Pods.

I will have fun with drop pods as their contents come out and get burned by three interceptor Str 8 ap 2 pie-plates. After all the Sternguard are dead, what do the two scout squads left do?

You know, it's a lot harder than you think to kill the Doom... Lets see what you could intercept me with. Note that I'm not quite familiar with the book yet, but Broadsides can get interceptor or sky fire yes? If you have interceptor ,my Flyrants will have fun. But they'll probably have sky fire, so maybe you have one crisis team, and the Riptide in range? Dooms got good odds of living. Then, one 3d6 ld check. What's the Riptides Ld anyway? But, Psychic shriek then hits him for a second check. If you're using that full 72" range you won't have too many units nearby within 6" for extra over watch. If they are, then they're also in Doom range, so thanks! And I always bring two Ymgarl squads. Lets say the Riptide over watches, he'll probably kill one, MAYBE 2. At this point he's down a few wounds, then takes some gene stealers and dies in 1-2 rounds.

The while point you've been making is that the Riptide can hide really far back to shoot, but if he does there'll be nothing near enough to help him overwatch. And even if I don't touch him, I bet that I can spawn more gants than a few blasts can kill. Spread out in terrain, boom.

Sure, maybe you'll get lucky and kill the Doom. But you won't always. Sometimes I'll kill it the Riptide. Either way, it's not broken, or even close to it. Then again, the Heldrake isn't either in my mind.

The Riptide can take a 5++ or 3++ save against the doom which I will be charging since I know you're coming down in turn 2+. It takes one shot from any of my three riptides to insta-kill it in any of my shooting phases, I'm not hugely bothered by it. It's also relatively easy to place them in corners where there is 0 scenery to pop out from, and 72" does mean I won't have to move all game.

Nice use of the elites section, btw. You have no AT shooting over Str 6.

ausYenLoWang wrote:just to be clear, your gonna take interceptor and shoot that, then no shooting in your next turn?

your also gonna run that thing via JSJ from your starting area into mine to avoid what comes down board at you.... that might not be a good idea.... run from the pan straight into the fire..

this thing is twice the height of an XV88 and its mass is all at the top, cover saves wont be toooo likely here those legs are NOT 25% of the mass of the unit...

give it a game or 2 you'll see just how stupid taking 3 is and we wont here this preaching of the new messiah.

so to drop your plates you need to pass a gets hot (1/6 of failing, you dont have TL) then you need a 2/6 to get your direct hit, if you miss you need to roll under 3 on 2d6 the average is 7 so you'll scatter on average 4" and if you opponent is competent then odds are youll hit a couple of thing just not as much as you hope.....

IF you do Nova charge the shots thats a 2/6 of failing the nova-charge and taking a wound AND not being able to give yourself a 3++ , then you need to pass a 1/6 gets hot.... (sounds ALMOST like a Zoanthrope) before you get to fire and face the same scatter dramas just with the advantage of a little more blast area to help you hit what you originally shot at.

time to wake up and smell the roses... this thing is good but it is not the second coming. it will die just like every other unit of its type.

Except that it isn't another unit of its type, because no one has ever faced three units of 2+ 3++ T6 5W which has interceptor and fires large plasma blast templates every turn at 72".

BS can be increased to mitigate the plasma reactor to a 1/36 chance of failing. Nova charge will only happen in the case where it needs to move or take fire, and since it has a 72" range, it probably won't need to til turn 3 or 4.

If you can't tell a gamechanging unit when you see one... do you even list?

You're missing a few things.

DE vehicles tend towards invulnerable saves, and blasts don't always land where you want them to.

It would take a fair few shots to land a wound on the Riptide with poison. This is quite true. We'll assume your figure of 20 shots per wound is accurate (closer to 18 i think, but hey..)

It isn't hard to get that many shots off. Venoms crank out 12 shots a turn. I can run silly amounts of venoms for cheap, and you can only target one per turn

That discounts the raiders full of splinter-toting warriors, who can crank out in excess of 40 splinter shots a turn, and i usually take mine with Splinter racks, so the percentage of hits will be a lot higher.

Then add in the raiders full of wracks who can zoom towards you and whack you with poisoned sickles.

Also DE aren't exactly short of AP 2 weaponry, and aren't shy in using it. Every raider is packing an AP2 weapon

Now granted the whole army isn't going to be aiming just for the riptide, badass as it is, because it can only target one vehicle at a time, and that vehicle will likely shrug a hit 1/3 of the time. Sacrificing a few raiders or venoms is no big deal.

The Riptide will feth over whatever it shoots. Fair enough. But can it feth EVERYTHING over simultaneously. Can it, for example feth over 2-3 raiders full of wracks zooming after it at the same time at different vectors, then dropping poisoned troops to mess it up ? How many can it kill in CC at a time?

If it really is as studly as you make it out to be it will have a single turn of being splintered and darklighted to death, and then the DE will go back to business as usual.

DE vehicles have no invulnerable saves that I can think of- you have cover saves, which get stripped by two markerlights.

DE are completely please don't bypass the language filter like this. Reds8n against the new tau, because you get no cover saves and I infiltrate four units of Kroot shooting 24 Str 7 shots in addition to Riptides, Broadsides and Hammerheads on the first turn. Night shields don't work. Jink doesn't work. Pray you get first turn, because otherwise I can see my lists tabling/crippling Raider/Venom spam in turn one.

Heck, I'll even move my Riptides up to the 24" line so you can try shooting at them.

Nurgle daemons are poison-heavy IIRC, and rather sturdy.

Eldar Pathfinder Sniper-spam would eat the thing alive.

Nurgle Daemons are screwed against Tau, because markerlights. T3, and no more gtg in ruins for a 2+. Whats that? You can't shoot back. Deep strike them? What a lovely formation you're standing in for me to shoot! Try to run? Oh, no, slow and purposeful. How do you propose to catch something that moves 2-4D6 faster than you?

Eldar Pathfinder-spam. That is such a competitive build which has won so many tournaments.

ace101 wrote:Realistically, Combi Plas heavy sternguard in drop dops will be the thing to kill riptides, which may include lysander for better hits.

Quick Mathhammer:
20 RF from 10 Combi-plas sternguard

20(Shots) * 0.667(chance to hit) * 0.667(chance to wound) * 0.667(chance to not save w/ no nova) = ~5 wounds in one shooting phase, which is enough to bring down a dangerous unit that can hurt a large part of your army.

Only caveat is the cost, which for 10 combi-plas sterns is pretty expensive, 335 points for 10 men w/ combi-plas & DP to be exact.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
5 w/ combi-plas nets about 3 unsaved wounds, which at 185 points + DP is pretty cheap. This combined with a few other things shooting can kill a riptide turn one if you go first. If they survive the counter shooting, then you get to bury the soft Tau Backfield in Kraken bolts

You're assuming the Sternguard even get to shoot. I shoot you first with three large blast plasma templates, and them we check to see how many sternguard are still standing.

Mathhammer: .22 Chance of scattering off + .87 chance of wounding each Sternguard, and as I doubt you'll be disembarking into cover thats 2.4 wounds on each Sternguard from three intercepting Riptides.

Also, congrats on using a 335 point unit to get a tiny chance of shooting my 185 point Riptide.

Ascalam wrote:Personally, i'm looking forward to turning the Riptide into a glass sculpture with Hexrifles and carting it home to Commoragh

I'd be surprised if you get your Hexrifle out of its case, to be honest, two markelights ignore your jink saves and then suddenly, paper planes.

-Loki- wrote:

 Ascalam wrote:
The Riptide will feth over whatever it shoots. Fair enough. But can it feth EVERYTHING over simultaneously. Can it, for example feth over 2-3 raiders full of wracks zooming after it at the same time at different vectors, then dropping poisoned troops to mess it up ? How many can it kill in CC at a time?

Ding ding ding.

It's an expensive unit that can kill something dead. That goes for a lot of stuff in this game. There's going to be more than 1 unit in the enemy army, and no smart general is just going to present the Riptide with an unobstructed view of his best unit.

I think the biggest shock here is GW finally put a big killy monstrous creature in the game that's worth the points you pay for it.

No, it's an incredibly cheap unit for its points cost. Flying Hive Tyrants, Bloodthirsters, Tervigons, the list goes on...

You mean, besides the Dreadknight?

No, Dreadknights are precisely what he was referring to in terms of not worth the points you pay for it. Funnily enough, it's one of the few things that may work against Rips, if you shunt a Greatsword GK or three in. But that's... 850 points?

IndigoJack wrote:I think you're seriously over riptide with ion accelerator when comparing it to the baleflamer. First, after you've successfully passed your nova reactor roll, you have to roll to scatter the pie plate then you roll to wound, then you're opponent (may) get cover. Yes, markerlights can increase BS and remove cover saves, but I doubt you're going to be able to paint enough units with enough markerlights to do that for the 3 riptides you seem to be recommending. Additionally, a smart opponent will understand you're reliance on markerlights, and start removing them.

Now let's look at the baleflamer on the heldrake. the player places the template on you, rolls to wound, and you get an invul save if you have one.

Yes, tau can take all kinds of skyfire and interceptor. but most suits with both support systems only have one weapon, and unless you got markerlights to hit the flyer, it will be shooting it's one weapon at BS3.

The riptide is good, but once markerlights have been reduced, it's not so scary.

The codex is reliant on markerlights, so this is true of any Tau army.

Let's compare Helldrake vs Riptide shooting again:
Helldrake: 2/3 chance of coming in on Turn 2. May come in as late as Turn 4.
Riptide: Shoots from turn one and never stops.

Helldrake: Units within 12". Has to physically fly there.
Riptide: 72" range means not much is shooting back. JSJ means I will always be getting the angle on you .

Helldrake: Can get shot down before shooting even once.
Riptide: Nigh-impossible to kill before it shoots.

Helldrake: Good against small units of MEQ, Light Vehicles.
Riptides: Good against Hordes, MEQ, TEQ, Light Vehicles, Heavy Vehicles, Deep Strikers, Drop Podders, and can take upgrades to kill Flyers. (but shouldn't.)
Price differential: 20 points. (Interceptor is a must.)

Fenric wrote:So 1 pieplate per Riptide is gonna kill off everything? I've been trying doomsdayarks and they have always come up short since pieplates tend to scatter. Yes they hut when they get a perfect hit but more often than not they just do nothign or very little. I can agree it's not easy to kill but it's possible.

Necrons have no way of increasing BS. Tau can increase your BS to the point where it is impossible to scatter. Doomsday Arks are AV13 vehicles= squishy as. Also ABs are much better at 90 points, so no point taking them.

Selym wrote:Hmm... The way this is looking, I could spam cultists for meatshields (as you do), stick Abaddon in a LR with a terminator escort, run up and start bashing.

For 230 points less, I could deep strike him in, a lucky roll could see Abby landing too close to the Tau for them to dare fire any blast weapons (such as the Riptide's), fire some combi-bolter goodness at them troops, and in the next turn (should Tzeentch smile upon me) charge the Riptide, and smash to pieces with powerfists/axes.

Abaddon and friends' land raider gets blown up on turn one by Longstrike. (BS5, STR 10, Tank Hunter)
Abaddon loses all friends when he deepstrikes to three plasma pie-plates. In his turn. Abaddon stands alone against the entire Tau army shooting.
Abaddon should stay on the shelf where he belongs.

If it can take three drones thats very amusing, kill the three drones, riptide flees and can only rally on snake eyes

Unless they're hiding behind the Riptide, then you'd have to flank it...

Are you comparing an apple to an orange here, I mean really?

As an actual tau player who did NOT shelf the tau in 5th, the codex has a lot of very subtle nerfs. Nerfts that are going to result in markerlights being in a much higher demand than ever before.

Why is this pertinent?

Because of the riptides BS. Its 3. Until you have actually played with an army that has bs3, its almost.... inconceivable how bad it is (ok, orks understand).

A lot of players will say "but wait, you have markerlights".
Sure you do, and you need them now more than ever with the changes in seekers, loss of targeting arrays and lowered quantity of railguns in the lists.

Now, what I not sure of yet, is just how busy the elite slot will be...we have a lot of good stuff in there, and hq is pretty crowded as well ...in fact, so is heavy...they are all crowded (except troops).

Finally, comparing a flying beast that can't be harmed by small arms fire with an auto hit template that does not give cover or saves to 3+ to a big long ranged BS3 Goliath?

Thats not apples and oranges, that's apples and bazookas.

Kind of interesting, subject however...and fascinating to ponder...but to argue? maybe we should try to count the stars...

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Wilytank wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Dark Eldar can't kill it with poison because of 2+.

Put a six man squad of terminators in the same firing line and see how long they fare against massed twin linked s4 fire.

Trust me, a six man squad of terminators will take a lot longer to kill a Riptide than it will take a Riptide to kill them.

Not in range of the Riptide, in ranged of massed shooting from S4 AP - shooting.

You puff up the Riptide like it'll kill everything. When we argue back, you say "but markerlights mean itll kill everything!" you know, markerlights aren't hard to kill! Pathfinders die easy, so do fitewarriors if you add them there. Drones in your suits? That's an elite slot, boom you have less riptides now. Biovores do nasty nasty things to Pathfinders, so will Ymgarls, and ifyou keep your entire army within 6" for overwatch, then templates will murder you. or the Doom, because the guys pretty darn tough to kill. Now, if I see Riptides, I send my best units after the markerlight carriers, and I'll murder them. Then, your Riptide will be bouncing off my cover saves, if hes still alive.