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OK, has anyone come up against this new "centrepiece of your Tau army?"

I put 1850 points of sisters into one the other day and almost managed to kill one (so a ton of str 8 ap 1 shots and bolters). Just wondering how people plan on dealing with 3 of these.

The best plan I can come up with so far is to tie it up in CC if you can catch it and hope for the best. Terminators seem like a good choice as well provided the thing stays still long enough. MY opponent used the overcharge to keep the invul at 3+ and never failed to get it.

Any input is appreciated.

Ignore it, unless the opportunity presents itself to engage it in CC?

A list with 3 riptides that are kitted out has made some pretty substantial cuts to it's troop choices or other options in order to afford such.

Play the mission, not the opposing players army. Wipe out his fire warriors/kroot and claim the objectives late, doing what you can to deny LOS in the mean time.

That said, riptides have a definite weakness vs. units with good invulnerable saves which are good in CC, models with an AV of 13+, and/or units which are toughness 5 or higher that have multiple wounds; especially ones who move as jetbikes or have jump packs..

I'm not sure what options sisters have that specifically fit the above, but I'm sure there is something.

Personally as a Tau myself i prefer teams of Crisis suits instead of the new flavor of the Riptide.

Guess it depends on its loadout and its usage of the nova whenever i shoot at it or not, if it goes for the 3++ and have FNP i might aswell ignore it to kill what little else he got left.

Well mate your opponent always getting his 3++ and passing the lions share of them isn't something that should happen everyday, he could just of easily killed himself doing it. Its an exceptionally good unit but mass firepower will take it down, also they clock in at 210 for their best load out which is a serious investment that as Neo said will effect the rest of his list

Riptides have higher surviablilty vs damage output than crisis suits(especilly if they have the 3++ up). So kill the crisis suits first.

Think about it this way. If a guard player had 2 LRBTs in the corner of his lines plicking away, a squadron of devil dogs racing toward you, and a battery of medusas in the center of his lines what are you going to kill? The Riptides are the LRBT. They put out some nice pie damage but essntially they are the AV14 front. The rest of the Tau army is much more like AV12 front and exposed AV10 sides. Kill them first and see where you are after that.

I take one out every time with JoWW but that's it. Other than that ignoring it, its never done very much damage

Fire dragons seem to be working for me at the moment, or wraithguard.
Killed 2 in a few games now, but im yet to face a list with 3.

Exalbaru wrote:I take one out every time with JoWW but that's it. Other than that ignoring it, its never done very much damage

Jackal wrote:Fire dragons seem to be working for me at the moment, or wraithguard.
Killed 2 in a few games now, but im yet to face a list with 3.

What load outs did the Riptides have? With the IA and 72" range my riptides never leave the back board edge of corners, how dod you get your JoWW, wraithguard and Firedragons in range. Just so i know how to avoid it

They are actually quite frankly scary. i found that leman russ vanquishers with plasma cannons and las cannons like to ruin its day though the sisters dont have any of that. Perhaps take some guard as allies??

 madmanjohn92 wrote:
They are actually quite frankly scary. i found that leman russ vanquishers with plasma cannons and las cannons like to ruin its day though the sisters dont have any of that. Perhaps take some guard as allies??

If you don't mind forgeworld rules, the best bet would seem to be taking an allied Armoured Company list from IA1 Second Edtion and taking a command vanquisher with beast killer shells.
I'm quite tempted to get one just for the purpose of dealing with riptides.

Actually IG can handle Riptides better than just about anyone... Psychic Battle Squad and Snipers/Barrage/Making a scary face... All these work wonders when a Riptide's LD is reduced to 2.

I dont use jaws, that was the guy above me

All depends on how i switch my army about.
My usual army is an eldar spirit army, so 2 units of 10 wraithguard, 3 units of 5 wraithguard in serpents and wraithlord x3.

^ That was simply a case of not being able to get away on a board because of 48" apart.
Its easy enough to spread units to start covering parts of the table.

Dragons were more the same.
He could move out the way of them, but he'd only be moving closer to another unit that would open fire anyway.

No matter what list i play, i tend to be pretty heavy on AP1-2.

Also, keep in mind that saying 72" is never a possible distance.
You will never be that far away from an enemy model unless you tabled them.
Granted, this gives you a constant range of everything, but enemies have more than 1 unit, and they move.

Best bet for eldar is pin them in place with a small jetbike unit then either throw jain zar at them or line up ready to fire.

SaganGree wrote:
Actually IG can handle Riptides better than just about anyone... Psychic Battle Squad and Snipers/Barrage/Making a scary face... All these work wonders when a Riptide's LD is reduced to 2.

yep definatly or to really annoy it use a primaris pysker to cast the power that it cant shoot at a nice big pile of squishy guard without taking a leadership test.

the exact answer is pretty army dependant. I find most Tau players only go for the 3++ if they know they are about to have a uge amount of ap2 wounds come there way so mostly your dealing with 2+/5+. so really you just need to get into combat with things that can kill terminators or you just need to throw mass small arms or AP2 shooting into it.

Tarpit with 30 Grots + 3 RH/GP ..and watch it die in two turns ..


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Same as I do with all MC critters out there ..just Tarpit and watch it die of poison ..

Considering each Riptide has the same price as a fully kitted out 12 man-2 markerdrone Firewarrior squad, anyone fielding 3 is doing it for the novelty. More often than not it means they have no way of actually capping objectives, so barring a killpoint game you've got them axed.

Now the more common scenario is that the riptide will be kitted out as a distractionfex to draw your attention by being just killy enough not to ignore but too tough to kill easily, while the crisis suits gut you and the firewarriors take all your objectives. As far as how to stop that, hit it with some ID weapons like a force weapon on a libby dread, Jaws, etc, or else lots of plasma weapons. Hell the Riptide seems to be designed to be easily countered by plasma, plasma wounds it on a 3+ and ignores its 2+ save...in essence then it seems that the easiest way to counter it is to counter any TEQ squad: Plasma.

I just tie it up in CC, it's terrible in CC, so even my cheapest assault based units can just rush in and hold it up all game ;D

Its a mc, so poison?

They key to beating the Riptide is putting wounds on it early in the game. The really nasty things it can do are dependent on using the Nova Reactor. Making your opponent make a tough decision to ripple fire the SMS or Nova Charge the HBC is key to reducing its effectiveness. If you can get 2-3 wounds off in the first two turns you'll find that it really is not as dangerous as your opponent will be leery to use the Nova Reactor.

 Messy0 wrote:

Exalbaru wrote:I take one out every time with JoWW but that's it. Other than that ignoring it, its never done very much damage

Jackal wrote:Fire dragons seem to be working for me at the moment, or wraithguard.
Killed 2 in a few games now, but im yet to face a list with 3.

What load outs did the Riptides have? With the IA and 72" range my riptides never leave the back board edge of corners, how dod you get your JoWW, wraithguard and Firedragons in range. Just so i know how to avoid it

One time was with a drop pod. My list for this sat has two DPing RPs with JoWW and WG body guards. pretty devastating. Second was deployment on long table edge and first time either of us had used new tau. Only had to move 2 turns and then fire the 24" line.