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You have to Nova charge it to get a lot of shots out of it.

The Nova charge has a chance of wounding you... Then AFTER the Nova has a chance of damaging you, you roll 12 times and any 1's "get's hot".

Ion Accelerator is 1 roll for nova, and 1 for gets hot.... but 12?

I like the look of the gun, but cant see ever nova charging it.

You could always insist that your Tau only fight in Sub-Zero conditions. At least Gets Hot always allows armor saves now...

Due to rending the Nova-charged Burstcannon has the best chance to pen AV14 of all the weapons available to the riptide and if the shots get hot you still have armor and fnp.

 Shadox wrote:
Due to rending the Nova-charged Burstcannon has the best chance to pen AV14 of all the weapons available to the riptide because of rending and if the shots get hot you still have armor and fnp.

True... But I know the luck i have with plasma cannons and 1 die...let alone 12

If youbare relying on the nova burst cannon tnen you twin it up with a support commander to give it twin linked shots and remove cover. Otherwise do what everyone else does and use the ion cannon

It is a risk, but you only need one if you feel you need it at all. Usually the 2-4 meltas i bring (TL on 2 riptides and 2 singles on crisis team) are all i need for vehicles, but im not in an AV14 spamming meta (more like 12 with occational 13/14).

The IA is a craptacular heavy vehicle killer. One shot, yea its S9 Ordnance but 1) theres this crap about not being able to fire the off weapon if you do this (if youre even in range i mean) and 2) its still ONE SHOT and remember Gets Hot! on a pi plate means the shot is lost before it even fires. Thats why BS6 is so important or a buffmander because now you can reroll it due to a rule that gives "twinlink" status. I never fire my IA at any vehicle tougher than AV12 unless i have to, and i usually avoid AV12 if i see a ball of troops with any form of armor save (4+ or better) because it will ravage them.

HBC is crazy for stripping hull points. it doesnt even need to pen to kill a landraider, it needs a further Rending bonus of 2 to glance and with that many shots you are going to glance a lot. Slap a buffmander in there and then just have him move to something else once the big AV14 thing is dead, 12 TL Ignore cover shots with tankhunter will wreck vehicles.
Im more worried about the Nova than the Gets Hot! - ive never failed a gets hot save with my riptide, but ive botched the nova several times. Unlike the IA, the HBC becomes almost useless if it didnt novacharge, which also means the other options will never be a good idea to take (i take double offhand weapon often with my IA riptides)

In all situations except against termies, the HBC will be more deadly but it has a much greater risk (even more without a buffmander). High risk, high reward, or high penalty. Gotta love gambling!

I use the burst cannon in my army for anti-air. I run an Eldar army with Tau allies and the Riptide with Heavy Burst Cannon is invaluable. The Nova Charge Gets Hots aren't really that bad when you combine it with Pathfinders to up the BS to a level where you can re-roll the 1's, FnP, and your 2+ armor save. I had one game where my Riptide literally took out 3 Necron Annihilation Barges, 2 Lord Barges, and a Nightscythe. The whole game I only failed my Nova Charge twice and the 8 shots I still got did some nasty damage to my opponent regardless. The Ion Cannon is good but I think it's more specific to certain situations and army builds. In my army I swear by the Heavy Burst Cannon.

The Riptide HBC is awesome and I love it, especially out of the Farsight Enclave and giving it a Earth Caste Pilot. This lets me re-roll any 1's I may roll. When using the regular one remeber that you have a 2+ armor save and you can give it feel no pain for additional survivability. So far I have not lost a single wound to gets hot on the Riptide.

FNP is allowed on the nova charge wound, since it says no "saves" and FNP is literally not a save.

Problem is its 35pts....ouch lol and the riptide is already hard as hell to take down unless you get in melee with it.

Well you guys swayed me to give it a shot.

I'm still leary, just because I have had a Dark Angel army before and was known to kill more of my own special weapons than the enemy did... I know it was chance.... but my "chance" with gets hot always seemed to end in a dead model. lol

Use it with Shadowsun if you want to be super-safe. She's got that drone thing that let's you re-roll 1s, no?

 Steel-W0LF wrote:
You have to Nova charge it to get a lot of shots out of it.

The Nova charge has a chance of wounding you... Then AFTER the Nova has a chance of damaging you, you roll 12 times and any 1's "get's hot".

Ion Accelerator is 1 roll for nova, and 1 for gets hot.... but 12?

I like the look of the gun, but cant see ever nova charging it.

Translation: I want all the power of the charged up weapon, but none of the risk...

Run the enclave, get the earth caste pilot upgrade. He lets you reroll ones to hit and the nova charge roll.

The reason the accelerator only has 1 roll for gets hot is because if you roll that one your shooting that turn will only be a fusion blaster or plasma (whatever you put on him).

Forgeworld sensor towers let you reroll ones. Allying in anyone with divination could get you rerolls as well. 3 marker lights will boost the BS enough to re roll ones as well.

A unit like the riptide should never be increasingly powerful by itself imo, it should have to have synergy with other units to get the most out of it.

Unless you go the farsight path, and then you get that 1 riptide with the ECPA, and that thing combines like nuts with a HBC riptide.

That, and an SMS will make him the ultimate 30" shredder, by simply throwing insane number of shots at whatever you want. you will threat pretty much any unit in the game with it.

It will cost you an arm and a leg to field it, but its really a one-man army, that can have a decent fighting chance against anything that can be possibly thrown at it.

It's really not that expensive for what you get. 220 Points for 4 strength 5 shots and 8-12 strength 6 shots per turn, 2+, 5++, FNP, EWO, T6, 5W (if you kit it out that way). There is no unit that compares. The Wraithknight is really only a little better in CC and reliably better at killing high toughness, 8+, multi-wound MCs. And the Wraithknight starts out more expensive than a Riptide kitted out.

Zweischneid wrote:Use it with Shadowsun if you want to be super-safe. She's got that drone thing that let's you re-roll 1s, no?

At first i was about to mention majority toughness issue but then i remembered she is T3 her drone is T4. Majority toughness has a 3way competition so the highest wins, T6.

You do have a 2+ armor save, and can get FnP, to help with any gets hot rolls.


Or you can just run the Farsight one that rerolls 1s to hit.

Afterall, you probably want a mixture of HBC and Ion Accelerator. Just make the HBC the Farsight Enclave guy.

 Vineheart01 wrote:

Zweischneid wrote:Use it with Shadowsun if you want to be super-safe. She's got that drone thing that let's you re-roll 1s, no?

At first i was about to mention majority toughness issue but then i remembered she is T3 her drone is T4. Majority toughness has a 3way competition so the highest wins, T6.

Doesn't even have to be in the same unit, just within 12" of the drone.

If allies are not a problem, run a farseer and guide him, he can re-roll those ones.

My biggest problem with the HBC isn't the mild risk of loosing a wound or two a game, but that it really requires the nova reactor to be an effective weapon.

I'd rather use the reactor for the invulnerable save or the super thrust move.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:

 Steel-W0LF wrote:
You have to Nova charge it to get a lot of shots out of it.

The Nova charge has a chance of wounding you... Then AFTER the Nova has a chance of damaging you, you roll 12 times and any 1's "get's hot".

Ion Accelerator is 1 roll for nova, and 1 for gets hot.... but 12?

I like the look of the gun, but cant see ever nova charging it.

Translation: I want all the power of the charged up weapon, but none of the risk...

Lets compare its killing strength to the sun cannon? It causes more hits from 3 blasts, has better ap, 1 worse strength, and in order to get it to a comparable number of wounds with worse AP you have to risk nova, and gets hot.


If its not apparent. My nids are not fans of the sun cannon.

I'll try the HBC though since everyone seems to think its OK. I'll just keep a fire extinguisher handy.

However the Wraithknight with suncannon is way more expensive than the Riptide.

This thread is really wanting to make me revise my standard riptide loadout. I took the burst cannon the first game I ever played with the codex and never took it again because it didn't do anything for me all game (I vividly remembering staring the Doom in the face with interceptor and just knowing the burst cannon wouldn't get the job done). I'm thinking that might have been my lack of experience with the codex.

Riptide with heavy burst cannon and broadsides with railguns....that is so incredibly jank but I'm dying to try it next time I get a chance.

 dementedwombat wrote:
This thread is really wanting to make me revise my standard riptide loadout. I took the burst cannon the first game I ever played with the codex and never took it again because it didn't do anything for me all game (I vividly remembering staring the Doom in the face with interceptor and just knowing the burst cannon wouldn't get the job done). I'm thinking that might have been my lack of experience with the codex.

Riptide with heavy burst cannon and broadsides with railguns....that is so incredibly jank but I'm dying to try it next time I get a chance.

My first Riptide is Ion, but while I'm waiting for my second one to come in, I've been flopping back and forth on whether or not I want to make a HBC or another iontide.

But the idea of running one alongside Railsides does catch my interest... this deserves serious contemplation.

 dementedwombat wrote:
This thread is really wanting to make me revise my standard riptide loadout. I took the burst cannon the first game I ever played with the codex and never took it again because it didn't do anything for me all game (I vividly remembering staring the Doom in the face with interceptor and just knowing the burst cannon wouldn't get the job done). I'm thinking that might have been my lack of experience with the codex.

Riptide with heavy burst cannon and broadsides with railguns....that is so incredibly jank but I'm dying to try it next time I get a chance.

I ran an IA first because i saw the HBC as pointless, but i soon realized it was because i usually think a gun sucks if its not high AP or dirt cheap. I never realized how effective it is at stripping hull points.

Technically the HBC should deal with the Doom, since it wounds on 2s, but it is multiple 3+ instead of a single 3+ so i guess its all luck. Usually i deal with things like that by double-charging my Melta and waiting for it to show up - interceptor with dual meltas

Yep, the ripple fire melta has killed many dooms in my day... so much so that I think I'll be sticking with melta secondary no matter what I put primary. If I huddle my riptide up with my gunline then it really makes the doom think twice about taking that tempting target. That strategy works for a lot of deep strike stuff actually, it makes a very effective "no fly zone".

The main problem I see with the burst cannon is that it engages the same kind of targets that you'd shoot with your infantry. But whenever I think that I keep wondering why I love missile pods on my broadside so much, because they're pretty much the same weapon from a strength/ap perspective.

I think it's the options that make it special. being able to get skyfire or interceptor on that weapon is what makes it worth taking (or interceptor and a poor man's version of skyfire by means of twin linked).

Well lets say you turn your riptide into HBC instead of IA.

The Novacharged HBC can glance all AVs except AV12 It will always pen av12 if you damage it. It is one point in strength weaker than the HYMP, is extremly Nova Charge dependent, and has a lot of gets hot. When Nova Charged, it will spit out the same amount shots than 3 HYMP, but without the nova change, it loses most of it's power and fires less than the 3 HYMP. Both weapons have the same range.

Against Armor, the HBC is less efficient until you hit AV13.

Against t6 3+ MCs, The HBC is less efficient

Against T8 3+ MCs, the HBC and HYMP are actually equals due to rending.

However, the Riptide is a hell of a lot more survivable than the Broadsides and is much more maneuverable

:/ I think I just sold myself on a Second Ion Cannon though.

If you only have 1 riptide the HBC shouldnt be an option (as a Tau only army i mean, in allies its fine since he'll have a buffmander most likely dedicated to him and hes probably on AA duty anyway). The IA is much more reliable in the general course of the game. If that HBC fails his nova charge 2-3 times in the game (which is possible) he isnt doing much, while the IA kills almost the same stuff just as easily without the nova charge. Its just not as good against fliers or higher than AV12 vehicles. Also, even if the HBC fails its nova it still does something atleast, but the IA will have Gets Hot! regardless and if you roll a 1 you dont get the shot at all, and thats just for using the pi plate not the nova charge.

Comparing the HBC to Missilesides is a bit odd. Not just because of the different FOC slot but they behave totally different. HBC Riptide will be up in your face going NENERNENER CANT TOUCH ME while broadsides will be sitting in the back going "Dont you dare come ova here! I mean it! DONT DO IT!"
Broadsides do-not-move-at-all because they usually end up in the open and vulnerable to lascannons n the such, or dont get the marker support to up their snapfire. Riptide with either weapon is never in the same 8" square for more than 2 turns lol.

If you have only 1 riptide, HBC is the RIGHT choice, just make it a farsight one with ECPA.

Once you pack an ECPA, not only will you get an average of less then a single nova fail for a game, making the nova profile gun pretty much standard, you will also get to reroll to-hit of 1, making you slightly more accurate, and further reduce the risk of getting hot.

That wargear was built for that gun.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
If you only have 1 riptide the HBC shouldnt be an option.

Why I am taking x3 Riptides, x2 with ion accelerators and x1 with the HBC and ECPA