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'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.
'


Flickerfields, my man... Markerlights do feth all to remove them

Every DE vehicle can take them, except Vect's Pimp-ride.

Add in that every standard mission has Night Fight rules, which gimp your range to 36'' on turn one half the time (and which DE ignore )



If you've never run across them it's safe to say you know jack-all about DE and what they can do

Also, don't you have to hit with those markerlights before you can strip cover saves?

Please feel free to move them up to the 24'' line It means they die sooner.

I played a game against three of them last night, rocking their Inv saves and hammering at me with everything they had. They were all dead by turn three. They aren't near as badass as you seem to think.

Your infiltrating Kroot can hand out some shots, true enough. They'd better hope they did some damage though, as the return fire from the rest of the army will cut them down like chaff and they are fething awful in CC. The guy i played last night brought three units, and made with the shooty action with them too. They didn't last long either...


'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. '

See above, re Flickerfields. Also having snipers shooting out of a nice solid Bastion or FOR works quite well. Snipers are also good for called-shotting your drones off, or if you aren't running drones, sniping the Bot itself.

'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. '

Be where the enemy proposes to go, of course Tactical placement. Also, Nurgle isn't just T3 daemons. Try killing off a T 10 GUO that deepstruck into the middle of your lines

Pathfinder spam may not be the list of choice for tournament players. What has that to do with their effectiveness in fething over Riptides? When you're quite done strawmanning...





'
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. '

You don't seem to ge this one. What he's saying is the Riptide is approx as hard to kill with 4+ poison as it is to kill a unit of termies with S 4 weapons. 2+ save, 4+ to wound...

All in all, not THAT hard.


If you have that much of a hard-on for the big bots go for it. I found them to be approx as tough to kill as a Dead-Knight. Takes a little work, but not really that tough.

Next game i'm going to try my Orks out on the new Tau and see how well they handle 360 + Orks barrelling upfield at full tilt. Somehow i doubt three riptides and a few units of Kroot can handle that many bodies before someone gets into CC

So I was wondering how a riptide would fair aginast DE because poison seems like it would do really well against it. Now assuming the shots are at bs4 it would an average of 90 shots (135 if riptide has fnp) to take down the riptide. 90 shots is a little hard to do so I thought what about dark lances. It takes only 13.5 dark lance shots (20.25 if the riptide has fnp). This seems much more likely to happen as many people take 3 ravagers and blasterborns in venoms. But the only problem is that it does take a lot of focus to take down a riptide and tau has a TON of weapons that bust through DE's av11 frames. So killing one riptide would be an easy job, killing more than one would be a little more difficult. But that is the problem with almost all units, you can focus one down with your whole army just find, its not unkillable, but the more you need to focus on one unite the more the rest of the army can go unchecked. Personally if I had to choose to shoot 13.5 lances at a riptide or at some crisis suits I would go with the suits.

As for "riptide is just as easy to kill as 5 terminators" I have to disagree. For starters first off riptide has a 72'' gun so your ability to shoot at it is hampered, Between that range and jsj the riptide can hide pretty well. Also terminators die one at a time and once you kill 3 those 2 terminators don't seem that scary. You can easily stop caring about them once you neutered them. Riptide you must kill completely. Again he is not unkillable but he is tough as nails.

 lambsandlions wrote:
So I was wondering how a riptide would fair aginast DE because poison seems like it would do really well against it. Now assuming the shots are at bs4 it would an average of 90 shots (135 if riptide has fnp) to take down the riptide. 90 shots is a little hard to do so I thought what about dark lances. It takes only 13.5 dark lance shots (20.25 if the riptide has fnp). This seems much more likely to happen as many people take 3 ravagers and blasterborns in venoms. But the only problem is that it does take a lot of focus to take down a riptide and tau has a TON of weapons that bust through DE's av11 frames. So killing one riptide would be an easy job, killing more than one would be a little more difficult. But that is the problem with almost all units, you can focus one down with your whole army just find, its not unkillable, but the more you need to focus on one unite the more the rest of the army can go unchecked. Personally if I had to choose to shoot 13.5 lances at a riptide or at some crisis suits I would go with the suits.

And keep the rest of your skimmers nice and spread out so the riptide's blast has a 2/3 chance of trashing one venom. Then kill more stuff the next turn

 Ascalam wrote:
'DE vehicles have no invulnerable saves that I can think of- you have cover saves, which get stripped by two markerlights.
Add in that every standard mission has Night Fight rules, which gimp your range to 36'' on turn one half the time (and which DE ignore )

And all Tau battlesuits ignore night fighting too.

Flickerfields, my man... Markerlights do feth all to remove them

Every DE vehicle can take them, except Vect's Pimp-ride.

Wow, a 5+ invulnerable save. Unfortunately, every single Tau unit excels at killing AV 10 and AV 11. I doubt that half of your flimsy skimmers would survive a single shooting phase.

I played a game against three of them last night, rocking their Inv saves and hammering at me with everything they had. They were all dead by turn three.

I'm sorry, but I don't quite believe you on this one.

Be where the enemy proposes to go, of course Tactical placement. Also, Nurgle isn't just T3 daemons. Try killing off a T 10 GUO that deepstruck into the middle of your lines

I don't think that the Tau, being one of the most maneuverable armies in the game, will have much trouble with Nurgle Daemons out-maneuvering them. As for the GUO, it will not be able to do anything the turn it comes in, then it is limited to 6 inches of movement after that. I don't see how the riptide could not just run away, being a whole lot faster than it.

Sure, the riptide is not unkillable, but it takes a lot to kill, and is very maneuverable, so that there is little chance of it getting caught up in combat. It is unlike any other monsterous creature in the game, so it needs to be approached in different ways.

Believe what you like, or not. Doesn't change anything

It's not like they have 10 Wounds and a 1+ Inv save, They can die, and they did.

I don't have the new Tau dex, so i'll take it on faith that all suits ignore night fighting. I'll assume that the same doesn't apply to EVERY unit though. All tanks? All infantry?

You'd be surprised how often that 5+ inv save saves a vehicle. Remember that it takes several hits to kill a vehicle unless you luck out and explode it.

*shrug* I've not had a chance to try out my Daemons on the new Tau yet. I'll post a batrep when i eventually get around to it. You may be right, but i'll not know until i give it a go

davethepak wrote: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...

I am comparing the two because Helldrakes are held up as the meta-changing unit to beat.

Elite slot is simple: 3 Riptides.

HQ slot is crowded no doubt, but one commander with the Engram chip is probably the best. Maybe a Hammerhead Ethereal to bolster your leadership, but it sounds like a terrible idea.

BS 3 isn't huge when firing templates, which is what it should be doing most of the time. Keep your markerlights limited to the units the Riptide is shooting at, and you'll find there plenty to go round.

Did you even read any of my arguments?

Wilytank wrote:

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.

I am aware that T4 terminators die rather quickly to volume, but seeing as they don't have a 72" range... I fail to see the argument here.

jifel wrote: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.

Doom is a T4 model with a 3++ save. It is not 'hard to kill'. It is annoying, yes, and if you're unprepared it can wreck your line, but it's a medium-threat at best.

Tyranids is a tough matchup for anyone, no doubt, but they have serious problems effectively killing Riptides.

Flickerfields, my man... Markerlights do feth all to remove them

Every DE vehicle can take them, except Vect's Pimp-ride.

Add in that every standard mission has Night Fight rules, which gimp your range to 36'' on turn one half the time (and which DE ignore )

Whoops, forgot about those, since they're pretty much indistinguishable from a jink save. Go on, how many 5++ saves can you make on 2hp vehicles? Heard of this 3pt piece of wargear called... Blacksun...filters?

If you've never run across them it's safe to say you know jack-all about DE and what they can do

Also, don't you have to hit with those markerlights before you can strip cover saves?

Please feel free to move them up to the 24'' line It means they die sooner.

A good friend runs a wych cult army which has thrown up some surprises in the past, but by and large I'm not impressed by the way they fold completely after one or two great turns of shooting.

I think a lack of DE tournament winning lists is testament to their mediocrity in 6th. DE, that is.

I played a game against three of them last night, rocking their Inv saves and hammering at me with everything they had. They were all dead by turn three. They aren't near as badass as you seem to think.

Your infiltrating Kroot can hand out some shots, true enough. They'd better hope they did some damage though, as the return fire from the rest of the army will cut them down like chaff and they are fething awful in CC. The guy i played last night brought three units, and made with the shooty action with them too. They didn't last long either...

I'd say their on par with DE warriors in CC, to be frank. Anyway, if the alpha strike failed to cripple you you must have been either rolling hot on the jink or he terribly on the pen. Let's have the battle report? If he managed to lose all three by turn three he must have put them in the front line or something daft like that. This equivalent to me saying I just played a game where I intercepted three Helldrakes on turn two and destroyed them! Helldrakes are rubbish!

'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. '

See above, re Flickerfields. Also having snipers shooting out of a nice solid Bastion or FOR works quite well. Snipers are also good for called-shotting your drones off, or if you aren't running drones, sniping the Bot itself.

Snipers are unplayable nonsense.

'Be where the enemy proposes to go, of course Tactical placement. Also, Nurgle isn't just T3 daemons. Try killing off a T 10 GUO that deepstruck into the middle of your lines

Pathfinder spam may not be the list of choice for tournament players. What has that to do with their effectiveness in fething over Riptides? When you're quite done strawmanning...

Why would you even bother wasting firepower on the T10 GUO until everything else is dead?

You create a straw man ( pathfinders being great at killing Riptides... which they are mediocre, and outranged) I point out nobody takes pathfinders en masse, and then you accuse me of straw-manning? What?
'
Put a six man squad of terminators in the same firing line and see how long they fare against massed twin linked s4 fire.

You don't seem to ge this one. What he's saying is the Riptide is approx as hard to kill with 4+ poison as it is to kill a unit of termies with S 4 weapons. 2+ save, 4+ to wound...

All in all, not THAT hard.

He phrased it in the most obtuse way possible to seem like the termies were shooting the riptide. Volume of fire kills 2+ save models, wow, news!

If you have that much of a hard-on for the big bots go for it. I found them to be approx as tough to kill as a Dead-Knight. Takes a little work, but not really that tough.

Next game i'm going to try my Orks out on the new Tau and see how well they handle 360 + Orks barrelling upfield at full tilt. Somehow i doubt three riptides and a few units of Kroot can handle that many bodies before someone gets into CC

I'm only contemplating a Tau army at this point, I'm just pointing out how good they are for their points cost compared to the Helldrake. You have yet to raise a valid-counter argument besides 'I kill a lot of short-ranged 200 point Dreadknights with massed short ranged poisoned fire and so it must be just as easy to kill Riptides!' News: Massed poisoned fire kills MCs.

lambsandlions wrote:So I was wondering how a riptide would fair aginast DE because poison seems like it would do really well against it. Now assuming the shots are at bs4 it would an average of 90 shots (135 if riptide has fnp) to take down the riptide. 90 shots is a little hard to do so I thought what about dark lances. It takes only 13.5 dark lance shots (20.25 if the riptide has fnp). This seems much more likely to happen as many people take 3 ravagers and blasterborns in venoms. But the only problem is that it does take a lot of focus to take down a riptide and tau has a TON of weapons that bust through DE's av11 frames. So killing one riptide would be an easy job, killing more than one would be a little more difficult. But that is the problem with almost all units, you can focus one down with your whole army just find, its not unkillable, but the more you need to focus on one unite the more the rest of the army can go unchecked. Personally if I had to choose to shoot 13.5 lances at a riptide or at some crisis suits I would go with the suits.

In theory, they should go down like a sack of flying potatoes. Ascalon here of course has the magical ability to roll 5+ flickerfield saves so no DE vehicle should ever die to Tau shooting, ever.

motyak wrote:

 lambsandlions wrote:
So I was wondering how a riptide would fair aginast DE because poison seems like it would do really well against it. Now assuming the shots are at bs4 it would an average of 90 shots (135 if riptide has fnp) to take down the riptide. 90 shots is a little hard to do so I thought what about dark lances. It takes only 13.5 dark lance shots (20.25 if the riptide has fnp). This seems much more likely to happen as many people take 3 ravagers and blasterborns in venoms. But the only problem is that it does take a lot of focus to take down a riptide and tau has a TON of weapons that bust through DE's av11 frames. So killing one riptide would be an easy job, killing more than one would be a little more difficult. But that is the problem with almost all units, you can focus one down with your whole army just find, its not unkillable, but the more you need to focus on one unite the more the rest of the army can go unchecked. Personally if I had to choose to shoot 13.5 lances at a riptide or at some crisis suits I would go with the suits.

And keep the rest of your skimmers nice and spread out so the riptide's blast has a 2/3 chance of trashing one venom. Then kill more stuff the next turn

So the entirety of your army's shooting kills a single Riptide?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I don't think people are getting the point of this thread. This isn't 'Best Ways to Kill Riptides', this is Riptides are as strong or if not stronger than the current meta-breakin unit, Helldrakes, which are only strong because people don't build for skyfire in their lists.

To be fair, Wych Cult DE were not so hot in 5th, and worse in 6th. I run a Coven/Kabal mix

I do ok on my 5++ saves. Raiders and Ravagers are 3 HP vehicles, not two. Venoms are 2, but are small enough that it's not terribly hard to hide them completely from enemy fire on turn one, which is a lot more difficult with raiders. I'm not claiming that they block every single shot, but they do give my paper planes a bit of survivability. Add that to the fact that i can take a LOT of Venoms and Raiders in a 2000+ list, and odds are that enough of them will survive to do a fair bit of damage. DE vehicles are expendable. You WILL lose them by the end of the game, regardless.

I've found sniper units of Eldar Pathfinders to work extremely well for me. If they don't work for you, then fair enough. Hexrifle sniper teams of Haemonculi and Acothysts can pull off the odd awesome shot too

Kabalite warriors aren't so hot in CC either, true enough, but at least they have an armour save and will likely swing first, unless they finally gave Kroot an Armour save and a decent I. I used to play Tau a few years back, and was underwhelmed, so if they are better this edition, more power to them

'I'd say their on par with DE warriors in CC, to be frank. Anyway, if the alpha strike failed to cripple you you must have been either rolling hot on the jink or he terribly on the pen. Let's have the battle report? If he managed to lose all three by turn three he must have put them in the front line or something daft like that. This equivalent to me saying I just played a game where I intercepted three Helldrakes on turn two and destroyed them! Helldrakes are rubbish! '

I'll see about a battle report when i get some time to write one. A fair chunk of my vehicles were well-hidden behind some decent LOS blocking ruins (as we prefer to play our tables with a fair amount of buildings and walls to break up the fire lanes), and those that were caught out in the open did get a bit sodded up. His Riptides were set up with one forward in the midfield and one in either corner backfield.

The backfield ones died to three Razorwings with disintegrators and splinter cannons, plus three Ravagers with Disintegrators who closed the gap on turn one with enhanced Aethersails. They were damaged, but lived long enough to volleyfire some AP 2 fun.

The midfield one rolled badly on its move and was caught in melee on turn three by an Incubi squad led by Urien Rakath, and killed by his Ichor Gauntlet after a couple of wounds from the Incubi.

If i can get a few hours i'm not busy in, i'll get together with the guy i played against and put all this down in a proper Batrep.

For the record, the Tau player won the game, but it was close fought

I think whether or not the riptide makes a ripple in the meta is how much prevalence tau has in the meta. Helldrake is such a force because CSM is fine without it, they are still strong marines and marines are generally good no matter what type they are. The helldrake just pushed them over the edge making them arguably the strongest of the marines. Tau may have a shiny new toy in the riptide and it may be a tough nut to crack but the rest of the army has some flaws (troops too weak, in ability to get forward objectives, relatively large number of kill points) so tau may not make a shift so obvious. Whats more the helldrake is so radically different from other threats, you can't just shoot at it like a normal unit and that is why a shift in the meta was called for. I just don't believe that the riptide will cause a shift like the helldrake. Or at least I do not see the riptide doing it alone, monstrous creatures are getting pretty good right now (see tyranids and demons) so I could see a meta with monsters and lists adjusting to combat them.

 Harriticus wrote:
Well, the look of the Riptide is actually growing on me whereas the Heldrake still looks terrible....

Doesn't take a lot of work to fix though imo:

http://eternalhunt.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/hellrazor-31.jpg

i think there a rather a few differences between the riptide and the Heldrake that make them totally different threats:

first off there is my get out clasue "it entirely depends upon what armies are fighting each other and what specific units are in those armies"

a few things to consider:

1) El Drake is an av12 flyer that can cause hell if players do not take advantage of the AA options that are out there, faliure to acknowledge this threat usually results in defeat.

2) drakes have a habit of appearing in pairs, moreover most take both with the flamer (i take a autocannon one and a flamer one, I find it works better for me ), this is trouble for infantry on foot but mech units laugh them off as you have to bust the transports to flame the contents. Though if you are lucky it can happen , however in my experience everyone will hit the flamer drake first (usually it dies lol) and then get a shock when autodrake flaps around killing vehicles etc and making a mess that they did not expect.

3) in my area the drakes have not changed the meta that much, in fact the flamer is more of a liability a lot of the time, after the initial 'wtf' folks adapted and my atutodrake has killed far more than the flamerdrake...

4) the riptide is not a flying MC so can be hit with normal BS, flying MCs seem to cause trouble for some of my fellow gamers- especially the lord of change simply due to his flying ability . The riptide might have a 2+ but as some have pointed out, they will die sometimes...

5) on a 6"x4" board you cannot stay of of range of everything, however the undeniable adavantage of these suits in being able to bugger off out retaliation range of those plasmaguns etc that will no doubt be aimed at it...

6) we also seem to be forgetting here the fact of what else is in the Tau army with 3 of these boys jumping around... that is the big factor that seems to be glossed over by some.


Overall in my humble opinion you could compare the riptide to the Heldrake with respect to its potential effectiveness in its force slot. However that being said with chaos, in the Fast attack area i very rarely see the other options used as they are not as effective. Whereas with Tau you have the trusty crisis suits to compete with, which opens up a lot of options as the crisis suits haven't changed that much and still seem to be very effective.

Just my humble views

Ascalam - part of what is so frustrating about your posts is your absolute-goods when talking about Tau (Longstrike kills a LR dead turn 1 - no, on less than 50% of the time he will do that, because 50% is the odds you have on causing an Explode from his one shot, assuming it hits and penetrates. I know this full well having run a vindicare which is a more reliable tank buster than 'strike, but still hits the hard wall of the damage table) and absolute negatives otherwise.

Simultaneously ALL of your RT can shoot the podded doom, despite 2 of them being in one corner and 1 in the other. Apparently neither terrain nor the s'pod itself are blocking LOS anywhere. WHich is unlikely. In the extreme, especially if the nid player has any sense. You;re also again banking on all 3 shots hitting, with no ML support so not even considering the gets hot droppnig 1/6th of the plates you are ignoring the 2/3rds of the time you scatter off (as doom is quite a small model, as most people have him) AND that you *arent* getting volume of fire, just one or 2 hits in. Oh, and simultaneously you are novachartging without failure, every time.

You then have to pass 2 3D6 Ld checks or start taking a bucket of wounds.

Given your startling lack of knowledge concerning DE I do have to wonder how real your playing experience is. Yes, they have 72" range. So did broadsides, and people managed to kill them.

Are they a game changer? To some extent *yes*, but this is to be expected? Are they as all around amazing as you consistently claim, with little to no realistic backing up of your argument? No.

Wilytank wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:


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?

Not sure how that works - unless the drop pod scatters in an unlucky way, then the troops getting out should be able to move close enough to the riptide that you wouldn't be able to place a large blast template without it overlapping a friendly model - iirc interceptor shots only take effect at the end of the movement phase?

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
Well, the look of the Riptide is actually growing on me whereas the Heldrake still looks terrible....

Doesn't take a lot of work to fix though imo:

http://eternalhunt.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/hellrazor-31.jpg

How does that look good...

Heldrake without the two tiny legs at the back looks amazing at least my point of view.

Riptide looks amazing as well

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Ascalam - part of what is so frustrating about your posts is your absolute-goods when talking about Tau (Longstrike kills a LR dead turn 1 - no, on less than 50% of the time he will do that, because 50% is the odds you have on causing an Explode from his one shot, assuming it hits and penetrates. I know this full well having run a vindicare which is a more reliable tank buster than 'strike, but still hits the hard wall of the damage table) and absolute negatives otherwise.

Simultaneously ALL of your RT can shoot the podded doom, despite 2 of them being in one corner and 1 in the other. Apparently neither terrain nor the s'pod itself are blocking LOS anywhere. WHich is unlikely. In the extreme, especially if the nid player has any sense. You;re also again banking on all 3 shots hitting, with no ML support so not even considering the gets hot droppnig 1/6th of the plates you are ignoring the 2/3rds of the time you scatter off (as doom is quite a small model, as most people have him) AND that you *arent* getting volume of fire, just one or 2 hits in. Oh, and simultaneously you are novachartging without failure, every time.

You then have to pass 2 3D6 Ld checks or start taking a bucket of wounds.

Given your startling lack of knowledge concerning DE I do have to wonder how real your playing experience is. Yes, they have 72" range. So did broadsides, and people managed to kill them.

Are they a game changer? To some extent *yes*, but this is to be expected? Are they as all around amazing as you consistently claim, with little to no realistic backing up of your argument? No.

Nos, think you may mean Asmodai Asmodian there, not me

I'm the DE side of the discussion

Riptide is good, but it's not "The new helldrake" because the helldrake is a completely different unit, with a different role.

Ascalam - oops, apologies. What you get for not enough sleep

Dundas - good point. You can, with a 6" move plus half drop pods width, get VERY close to a rip tide, and then he cant place blasts at all.

Apparently this flawless plan is, well, flawed

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Are they a game changer? To some extent *yes*, but this is to be expected? Are they as all around amazing as you consistently claim, with little to no realistic backing up of your argument? No.

Very good post, Nos.

As a Daemon player, I can't say I find the Riptide very threatening. 72" range isn't going stop me from engaging it by turn 2 or 3. Screening units might, but then I'm stuck in with them and the Riptides have no good targets. So they might avoid me for a few turns, but that's OK because I can work on the rest of the army (which is probably more threatening) first. Fire Warriors, Kroot, Pathfinders, Crisis Suits, anything with a Markerlight...these are the units I'm actually worried about. The more points an opponent plunks down on Riptides means less scoring units, less volume-of-fire, less models for me to kill. So I say bring on the Gundams.

The title (and premise) of the OP are very revealing. For those who still don't understand why we're comparing a Flyer to a MC here: there are people who believe 3 Heldrakes combined with any damn thing makes a competitive army. These are probably the same people who thought 9 Night Scythes made for a competitive army. So, despite the Heldrake and Riptide having next-to-nothing in common, we get a thread directly comparing/contrasting the two phrased as if we should all immediately see the parallels between them. The only parallel being: "these are good units, max out on them and they will win the game for you." That thinking will work some of the time. Depending on your meta and your quality of opponents, it could even work most the time. But ultimately it's a pretty short-sighted view of things.

Taking 3 Riptides will not win you every match-up (neither will 3 Drakes or 9 Scythes), but it will leave you with a third or more of your army tied up in 3 models that will reduce your overall shooting/scoring, models which several armies can easily kill or tie up, and which most every army can safely ignore. Spending all those points on Riptides is taking a calculated risk in a codex that doesn't need to take many risks at all. It is much like having a toolbox and filling it with nothing but hammers: you'll do really well so long as nails continue to present themselves. Tau are very well-rounded and have really great options across the FOC, the Riptide among them...but again, it's options -- plural. Reducing what can be a diverse, combined arms force to one threat profile is only going to make things easier on your opponent.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Ascalam - oops, apologies. What you get for not enough sleep

Dundas - good point. You can, with a 6" move plus half drop pods width, get VERY close to a rip tide, and then he cant place blasts at all.

Apparently this flawless plan is, well, flawed

Excecpt that he can just interceptor with the regular plasma, and your Sternguard still die. And then they get assaulted in his turn and they die.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Ascalam - oops, apologies. What you get for not enough sleep

Dundas - good point. You can, with a 6" move plus half drop pods width, get VERY close to a rip tide, and then he cant place blasts at all.

Apparently this flawless plan is, well, flawed

isnt the mesurement "technically" taken from any part of the bodywork... which involves those tedious fins that stick out a large part of an inch as well.... placing your drop pod with one pointing the correct direction actually gives you overall nearly 7" of movement....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Ascalam - oops, apologies. What you get for not enough sleep

Dundas - good point. You can, with a 6" move plus half drop pods width, get VERY close to a rip tide, and then he cant place blasts at all.

Apparently this flawless plan is, well, flawed

Excecpt that he can just interceptor with the regular plasma, and your Sternguard still die. And then they get assaulted in his turn and they die.

and SUUURE you can, and by the theory of you have 3 rioptides i think we will take 5 drop pods and stuff 3 of them on you.... escalating numbers....... 1 riptide = 3 normal shots 1 maybe 2 of which will hit before it gets shot back....

Also a question CAN you use interceptor with a template?
the answer is YES.

BUT then cannot use that weapon in its next turn....

This is why I run Zoans. Utility.

So lets say I take my normal elite choices, Doom in a spod and 2x2 Zoans in a spod. Now lets look at the options for dealing with riptide.

Physic Shriek. There will be 6 3d6 leadership checks. Yes some can (and probably will) die to interceptor. Still I like my odds there.

Dominate. LD 9 makes it not as good but still not bad paired with everything else.

Terrify. Man I sure am happy those big ass fish are in the back corners...so close to the table edge.

Puppet Master. Enough said.

Now I don't have the codex in front of me but how long do you have to charge your gun before it can be shot again? Is it next turn or YOUR next turn?

Combine that with all the other Biomancy powers you are rolling and it gets scary quick. All it takes is 1 TL Dev shot if you've been double enfeeble for ID or a smash attack from 1 enfeeble.

Hellturkey is still (IMO) better at it's job than a Riptide is at it's.

 Makutsu wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
Well, the look of the Riptide is actually growing on me whereas the Heldrake still looks terrible....

Doesn't take a lot of work to fix though imo:

http://eternalhunt.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/hellrazor-31.jpg

How does that look good...

Heldrake without the two tiny legs at the back looks amazing at least my point of view.

Riptide looks amazing as well

I don't like the Riptide but imo Helldrake is much worse it fits neither CSM nor 40k in general. Would look ok as some mechanical dwarf dragon in whfb maybe but not as a flyer for crazy cosmic madmen from hell.

The conversion I posted is imo 100x better, looks like a mix of a demonic mechanical flying creature with a jet, Helldrake looks like toy dragon - my mother would like it and that's not the point of CSM.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

I don't think people are getting the point of this thread. This isn't 'Best Ways to Kill Riptides', this is Riptides are as strong or if not stronger than the current meta-breakin unit, Helldrakes, which are only strong because people don't build for skyfire in their lists.

Ok, I have to say, from this perspective I can partially agree.

As someone who has played with and against GK (DK) and a tau player as well, I have to say that I think riptides are being a bit .... overestimated in their effectiveness.

Now, before anyone hits quote and starts to reply with some big disagreement...hear me out on this one.

Regardless of if I am right or not (lets put a beer on it, and drink as friends later) I do believe this as well ; The PERCEPTION is that riptides are a big deal, and since the 'meta' is more about what people think, than rather what is, I think it will be a meta changer.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Ascalam - oops, apologies. What you get for not enough sleep

Dundas - good point. You can, with a 6" move plus half drop pods width, get VERY close to a rip tide, and then he cant place blasts at all.

Apparently this flawless plan is, well, flawed

Excecpt that he can just interceptor with the regular plasma, and your Sternguard still die. And then they get assaulted in his turn and they die.

The regular plasma is what, assault 4 with BS3? It'll probably kill 2 on average. It'd then be better jumping away and letting other things finish of the marines rather than getting into assault - in CC it's only going to kill 1-2 marines a turn with it's low WS and attacks.

I'm not actually arguing that the drop pod is the best way to take out riptides (although I think played right, especailly with SWs, it could potenially be effective) just that it's not the auto kill you make it out to be.

I played against a riptide last night and found it pretty underwhelming. 3 chaos spawn with mark of nurgle were a good counter to it. The riptide is far less manouvarable than I thought it would be. Between terrain, units , needing to keep LOS to be able to shoot something useful and the fact that it's on a big base means that there's only so much space on the Board that it can usefully jump to. I'd imagine 3 of them would be tripping over each other.

Beasts can chase it down pretty quickly, and once it's in combat, it's easy to tarpit. My 108 point unit of spawn kept it busy for 4 turns of assault and finally ended up killing it with some lucky rolls; force enough 2+ saves and it will die same as a squad of termies. I'd imagine any unit with cheap cavalry, beasts, bikes or jump infantry can probably chase down a riptide and get it into in combat where it will either die to them, or get tied up long enough for something more killy to get stuck in and finish it off.

davethepak wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

I don't think people are getting the point of this thread. This isn't 'Best Ways to Kill Riptides', this is Riptides are as strong or if not stronger than the current meta-breakin unit, Helldrakes, which are only strong because people don't build for skyfire in their lists.

Ok, I have to say, from this perspective I can partially agree.

As someone who has played with and against GK (DK) and a tau player as well, I have to say that I think riptides are being a bit .... overestimated in their effectiveness.

Now, before anyone hits quote and starts to reply with some big disagreement...hear me out on this one.

Regardless of if I am right or not (lets put a beer on it, and drink as friends later) I do believe this as well ; The PERCEPTION is that riptides are a big deal, and since the 'meta' is more about what people think, than rather what is, I think it will be a meta changer.

True enough. Every time a new codex is released, people everywhere will look at it's centrepeice unit and have a kneejerk reaction of "OMG WTF OP!!! It's unkillable! Nothing can stop it from raeping my army!!".

And then, five weeks later, we figure out how to kill it, and everything goes back to normal.

Someone has probably already answered this, but:

How is it that a unit that can get curbstomped by any attacks that ignore toughness or cause instant death can be "the new heldrake"?

BlaxicanX wrote:
Someone has probably already answered this, but:

How is it that a unit that can get curbstomped by any attacks that ignore toughness or cause instant death can be "the new heldrake"?

Because people think that 2+ with a 3++ is unkillable.

We've killed TH/SS termies before, and they could fight back in melee.

 reaverX wrote:
This is why I run Zoans. Utility.

So lets say I take my normal elite choices, Doom in a spod and 2x2 Zoans in a spod. Now lets look at the options for dealing with riptide.

Physic Shriek. There will be 6 3d6 leadership checks. Yes some can (and probably will) die to interceptor. Still I like my odds there.

Dominate. LD 9 makes it not as good but still not bad paired with everything else.

Terrify. Man I sure am happy those big ass fish are in the back corners...so close to the table edge.

Puppet Master. Enough said.

Now I don't have the codex in front of me but how long do you have to charge your gun before it can be shot again? Is it next turn or YOUR next turn?

Combine that with all the other Biomancy powers you are rolling and it gets scary quick. All it takes is 1 TL Dev shot if you've been double enfeeble for ID or a smash attack from 1 enfeeble.

The only way to educate people on a Tyranid psychic choir is to give them a good old hammering with it. People just don't understand until they're on the receiving end.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Excecpt that he can just interceptor with the regular plasma, and your Sternguard still die. And then they get assaulted in his turn and they die.

How many shots is the regular plasma? How many are you likely to kill? 4 shots at S6 has an expected value of 1.8 kills, not even enough to cause a Ld check, and less if ive managed to get into cover.

Yet another flawed argument, not based on any realistic assesment. Just a bald assertion that they will still die. And assault your riptide? Genius. Marines stay in combat, killing you slowly while you hit once, killing one (possibly) and, more importantly, the cheap sternguard has caused way more disruption than their points cost. If your rip tide breaks (not being fearless) you are either caught and kiiled, or 3D6 takes you off the board edge which every single time you mention this you have claimed they are snug on the board edge. If the marines break you may catch them, in which case no biggie, or they fall back and you have a 50% chance of it being your turn next to shoot them, otherwiser they shoot you again.

Your analysis and arguments are heavily flawed, as they are too all-goods for Tau and all-bads for everyone else. Ttry this: proxy 3, and give it a go against doom, 2x2 zoans and 3 spods, with hive commander meanig most are coming in turn 2. See if your badly crafted theory holds up.

In real, actual play I have seen them cause disruption, but properly planned for (which includes terrain set up, for non-tournies) they arent a big deal. 72" range is nasty, but broadsides had / have (cant recall) that, and you can still get to them.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Dark Eldar can't kill it with poison because of 2+. It takes statistically 100 splinter shots to kill it, and a Splinter weaponry has far less range than the Riptide- even night shields are useless. A strong Dark Eldar list can put out maybe 60-80 poisoned shots on the first turn, and then they die horribly to massed plasma.

It takes 90 shots to put it down from 5 wounds to 0. I have said before I think it is better taking out the rest of the tau army and leaving the riptides for last. Getting them in combat is an ideal situation.

What you can do with splinter shots, is finish them off easily. They have to activate their 3++ every turn, and if they fail they take a wound and are stuck with a 5++. When they are stuck with the 5++ you blast them with dark lances. If you fail to kill them you can splinter them to death.

A lot of discussion here, and to be honest there is a bit of …specific set ups here that people are comparing….kind of like an “any given day” kind of thing. (I had a drone kill a 300 point character once - once).

Again, I think that the meta will be changing because of the riptide, and the tau – because the meta is based upon psychology and the perception of the players – correct or not.

Even the fact that some feel it is, means it is a game changer (along with the belief that somehow EVERY tau list will now be amazing at taking out flyers, which is just as much an error of believing that EVERY space marine list is missile spam).

The real question is, after it has been out there for six months and we see what is what.

I will happily let any tau player proxy riptides – so we can see for ourselves - I encourage everyone to do the same before they run out and buy them.