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My friend faced this list yesterday with his Necrons and was beaten rather easily.

In my opinion this list just oozes with cheese, but I want to prove to him it's beatable

1500 points

3 riptides
2 broadsides
hammerhead
2 6 man squads of fire warriors
3 pathfinders teams 1 marker light, 3 rail rifles
an ethereal

My friend (having very little idea on how to beat this mass army) decided to try and go into combat with everything and went prettymuch all out melee.
I wasn't there, and certainly don't agree with his tactic because of tau being able to overwatch, but, this is what he fielded.

12 wraiths
destroyer lord
obyron and zanrekh
5 lychguard
and 20 warriors

I have a Chaos & Tyranid army.
My friend has Necrons, Orks and Space Marines.
One of us has the secret to beating that cheesy riptide list.

1) Necron players - How could the Necrons have beaten that list?
2) Anyone else, what tactic would you employ to beating it? (What army, what kind of list, what tactics?)

I'm not asking you to write a list, just want to discuss if it's possible.

Destrocourt certainly is a good pick against the Riptides as they wound on 2s and deny it its armor save - along with having 5 shots per turn. Best get them on a Ghost Ark for additional protection. Spamming Tesla Destructors is another good way of dealing with them as they wound on 3s and you get a good volume of shots in, but unfortunately, the Riptide still got its armor save.

Scarabs can permanently remove its armor save, pair with Obyron to get them nearby, but alas, due to its mobility, it could just hop away.

All in all, pulling off a 3 Riptide list in friendlies is a pretty good indicator for someone you don't want to prioritize playing with

For necrons wouldn't a squad of deathmarks take out a riptide with relative ease? If you mark one of them you will be wounding it on a 2+ with rapid firing snipers.

Kill the 12 scoring models and win the game because you hold objectives and they don't.

valdes312 wrote:
For necrons wouldn't a squad of deathmarks take out a riptide with relative ease? If you mark one of them you will be wounding it on a 2+ with rapid firing snipers.

Yes, it's a very good way to take a Riptide out, but the problem is that it gets destroyed in the next enemy turn and he still has 2 fully functional Riptides whereas you just lost an entire unit worth more than a Riptide in points.

I have to go with Peregrine on this one. The Tau list is really going to struggle on any objectives. I play Orks a lot and at 1500 points, I can really flood the board with boyz. My full target would be those Firewarriors. I'd try to trap the Riptides in hth with boy coverage and just ignore everything else. Spaced out, 90 boyz can cover a great deal of space and make a jump happy Riptide list really hard to stay out of combat.

Tell the Tau player to use tons of Kroot for his core

 Peregrine wrote:
Kill the 12 scoring models and win the game because you hold objectives and they don't.

All well and good but it depends on the game type, that suggestion is assuming you're playing a game with multiple objectives.

The opponent could easily get first blood, line breaker, slay the warlord and contest two of the objectives with what he has remaining.

Edit: I've just asked him and he said he was playing Big Guns Never Tire.

I dont see how this list is cheese.......

Tau are pretty much the hard counter to Necrons, Necrons lack long ramge shooting so a good gunline Tau can just murder Necrons by shooting at them

 ascended_mike wrote:


Edit: I've just asked him and he said he was playing Big Guns Never Tire.

Just to be sure: keep in mind that the scenario that's being played is supposed to be randomized. You can't just cherry-pick the scenario you prefer the most.

3 Riptides are good, no doubt, but this is actually kind of a weak Tau list. It doesn't have the high volume of fire the truly scary Tau lists have, and it doesn't have enough marker lights to truly make those Riptides dangerous.

I think a bog standard Necron Wraithwing list wouldn't have too much trouble with this. It's Fire Warriors/Kroot en mass who really make short work of Wraiths. The Riptides can kill the ABs, but not effectively, and once the Wraiths kill the Riptides, what's going to chase down the Warriors popping up on objectives?

As for what I would do? At 1500, Fateweaver kills his scoring and his Broadsides, DPs/Daemonettes kill his Riptides, and I sit on objectives. He's not running Skyrays or mass Fire Warriors/Kroot, so this isn't a Tau list that would give me any trouble really.

 ascended_mike wrote:
1500 points

3 riptides
2 broadsides
hammerhead
2 6 man squads of fire warriors
3 pathfinders teams 1 marker light, 3 rail rifles
an ethereal

Shoot the troops. Killing 12 fire warriors should be fairly easy -- even if they start in reserve.
At that point the Tau player is hoping to table you. He cannot pick up the relic. He cannot take a single objective.
All you have to do is hold one objective and you win.

Edit : If you just want to beat the Tau out of your friend, then you just get a few wave serpents off ebay, buy some guardians and then call it a day.
Tau have a real hard time against Eldar armies.

What if you are marines? properly equipped he has the firepower to evicerate drop podded marines unless you are bringing 9 or more in total. A gun line wont work due to the riptides being monstrous creatures(unlike the AV model they should be) and not really caring if they take a few wounds while they wipe a couple squad or vehicles a turn even if in cover.

Tyranids: Biovores kill troops immediately, Tervigons spawn, you basically auto win 5/6 games here... If you feel the need to kill the Riptides, drop 3 Zoeys or the Doom nearby. Deploy them right by a unit so he can't Intercept templates.

Riptides hate being in assault with 20 fearless gaunts. They are splating 1-2 a combat round....

Col. Dash wrote:
What if you are marines? properly equipped he has the firepower to evicerate drop podded marines unless you are bringing 9 or more in total. A gun line wont work due to the riptides being monstrous creatures(unlike the AV model they should be) and not really caring if they take a few wounds while they wipe a couple squad or vehicles a turn even if in cover.

Riptides can't use the pie plate intercept if you deploy right on top of his friends. Then he's only intercepting with the regular IA and whatever his second gun is, at BS3. Angle the Drop Pod so it provides cover...50% hits, 83% wounds, 33% saved. That's not that bad actually. People over estimate the damage of Riptide intercept, or do not know how to deter it. Plus, that means he's not shooting at you on his turn, where he can have marker lights to help. Broadside intercept is worse, there you're probably going to lose the majority of a squad, but again, he's not shooting in his phase.

Drop in, use auto correct + 6 inch disembark to be right on top of him. Eat some fire. Shoot whatever you brought. Eat some fire (not that much in this list, actually), then multi assault. I have killed so many Riptides with multi assault.

In my particular case, his ally is GK and he castles the riptides and broadsides with Cortez and a storm squad with their Warp Quake ability scattered around. Landing close is next to impossible.

valdes312 wrote:
For necrons wouldn't a squad of deathmarks take out a riptide with relative ease? If you mark one of them you will be wounding it on a 2+ with rapid firing snipers.

As a hardcore Necron player let me tell you how much I hate Tau So let's say you manage to deepstrike with in 12" of one of the riptides. Let's say you have 7 DM and they manage to cause 5 armor saving wounds and 2 invul wounds from the the sniper rounds. You might get 1 or two wounds on him. Might. Oh but wait - I gave my riptides EW and VT so I can shoot at your DMs after they land. And he Broadsides have EW as well. Kiss the DMs good bye before they ever get to shoot. That's usually how it goes for me. They target the DMs and my Doomscythes as soon as they show up. Trying to fly outside of a 36" shooting range with a not-so-nimble flyer can be tricky.

I've only ever beaten Tau once and that was because I was the only dude in the league who had flyers so he didn't bother with EW or VT on anything. Was still really hard and it came down to the wire but Tau will 90% of the time shred Necrons...

But with only 12 warriors total, like Peregrine said, kill them and hope it's not a KP game

3 Riptides are not cheesy at all, in fact at 1500, they are borderline unplayable. A riptide is an anchor unit, you pay a premium for defense and survivability. It only gets the one pie plate a turn which can terrorize meqs/teqs, but lacks the kill count to seriously threaten hordes. About the only thing it can beat in close combat are non-walker vehicles and naked tactical marines. Termies will take it's lunch money, and guardsmen are far too numerous, without the character rule, power fists are truly hidden to them.

As was mentioned before, good tau lists include lots of mid strength fire and many troops, I usually run 2x 20 man kroot at a minimum, and a couple of fire warrior squads on top of that. A single riptide adds some quality AP 2 fire and midfield presence. But it needs to be supported by other assets that the tau can bring to the table.

Good Tau lists always contain 3 Riptides, along with enough Kroot to make up for taking objectives etc.

Resort to mass AV14 or just hit with mass drops to overwhelm Intercept units? In my case 4 units with intercept, 3 with real damage potential, one that gets to shoot over and over and over again.

Its a shame they allow defenders to pick what they are shooting at at the end of the movement phase instead of true overwatch where they get the option of shooting when it drops or hold and hope for a better target. Would definately allow for more tactics and make drop pods more viable.

 Thaylen wrote:
3 Riptides are not cheesy at all, in fact at 1500, they are borderline unplayable. A riptide is an anchor unit, you pay a premium for defense and survivability. It only gets the one pie plate a turn which can terrorize meqs/teqs, but lacks the kill count to seriously threaten hordes. About the only thing it can beat in close combat are non-walker vehicles and naked tactical marines. Termies will take it's lunch money, and guardsmen are far too numerous, without the character rule, power fists are truly hidden to them.

As was mentioned before, good tau lists include lots of mid strength fire and many troops, I usually run 2x 20 man kroot at a minimum, and a couple of fire warrior squads on top of that. A single riptide adds some quality AP 2 fire and midfield presence. But it needs to be supported by other assets that the tau can bring to the table.

Are you trying to say that riptides are easily taken care of and easily outclassed? When do riptides ever fear terminators?

I don't see what's bad about that list. The Tau player has one markerlight in the entire army, and way too many points invested in AP2/1 weaponry that isn't getting very effective shooting.

What I would suggest is just ignoring the Riptides entirely. You can kill the Hammerhead, you can kill the broadsides, and the rest is just really vulnerable T3 infantry that will die to a harsh breeze. If you decimate the body of his army then he's forced to move those Riptides closer than he wants in the hopes he can deny an objective.

I appreciate all your responses guys, Thank you.
Let's keep this productive though and not argue among ourselves.
Riptides are almost certainly difficult to deal with, when you have three of them bouncing around blowing stuff up. It all depends on your tactic for countering them.

I intend on fielding nids against this army soon. Hive Flyrants, Gargoyles, Tervigons, Gants and Doom/ZOans and maybe a couple of Genestealers to encourage him to keep his units close together for overwatch.

I intend to give him too many things to shoot at, but, that tactic is no good to my necron playing friend.

What would MEQ do against this list?

I don't see what the Necron problem with the Riptides would be. They still get cover saves because the opponent has no markers and they still get back up. It makes the Riptide shooting very ineffective, to me at least.

MEQ shouldn't have a difficult time since they can have cheap transports, combat squad for multiple small units, drop pods, and so on to beat the tau on objectives and to just put out a lot of bodies to deal with the threats.

 labmouse42 wrote:
Riptides hate being in assault with 20 fearless gaunts. They are splating 1-2 a combat round....

And actually has a chance of losing combat and getting swept, and good odds of losing if they have toxin sacs.


Rune Priests have the Riptide's number too.

I haven't faced a TripleRip list but in case I do, how would Splinter heavy DE fare?

A lot of Splinter Rack Raiders would punch through the armor making those 3 the pseudo-equivalent to 3 6-man Terminator units, yes?

With Eldar I would focus the D weapons at it (heheh I said "the D"). The AP2 with a chance of knocking all wounds out in 1 shot. MSU Spiders are always a good bet and Rips can't escape Spiders as easily as other guys.

 RancidHate wrote:
I haven't faced a TripleRip list but in case I do, how would Splinter heavy DE fare?

A lot of Splinter Rack Raiders would punch through the armor making those 3 the pseudo-equivalent to 3 6-man Terminator units, yes?

With Eldar I would focus the D weapons at it (heheh I said "the D"). The AP2 with a chance of knocking all wounds out in 1 shot. MSU Spiders are always a good bet and Rips can't escape Spiders as easily as other guys.

Venom Spam absolutely thrashes them. Each riptide is as hard to kill as a squad of terminators, so not very hard.

herpguy wrote:
Are you trying to say that riptides are easily taken care of and easily outclassed? When do riptides ever fear terminators?

When they're touting force weapons. A budy of mine lost his riptide turn 2 to an assault from a force weapon wielding dude.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I don't see what the Necron problem with the Riptides would be. They still get cover saves because the opponent has no markers and they still get back up. It makes the Riptide shooting very ineffective, to me at least.

Actually it is a little more than just the riptides for my list but the blast it puts out is a pain and when they have EW+VT they can take down a flyer (usually an important one) each turn - and right now I'm running AirCron. After the NOVA Open this weekend I'll probably shelve my crons and start playing Tau

herpguy wrote:

 Thaylen wrote:
3 Riptides are not cheesy at all, in fact at 1500, they are borderline unplayable. A riptide is an anchor unit, you pay a premium for defense and survivability. It only gets the one pie plate a turn which can terrorize meqs/teqs, but lacks the kill count to seriously threaten hordes. About the only thing it can beat in close combat are non-walker vehicles and naked tactical marines. Termies will take it's lunch money, and guardsmen are far too numerous, without the character rule, power fists are truly hidden to them.

As was mentioned before, good tau lists include lots of mid strength fire and many troops, I usually run 2x 20 man kroot at a minimum, and a couple of fire warrior squads on top of that. A single riptide adds some quality AP 2 fire and midfield presence. But it needs to be supported by other assets that the tau can bring to the table.

Are you trying to say that riptides are easily taken care of and easily outclassed? When do riptides ever fear terminators?

I'm not saying that they are easily outclassed, its just peoples perception that the things are invincible. You pay a lot of points for survivability and a moderate amount of quality AP2 and some passable CC capability. But termies provide a reasonable do-not go zone. Hell a fist/warscythe//insert moderate Strength AP2 melee weapon here will push a riptide away from. Now if your opponents don't bring Ap melee weapons of any kind or any amount of plasma, then yes you can run roughshod over them. But against most lists, an opponent will have some answer to a riptide. The riptides weapons are specialized for killing vehicles, power armor and terminators. You probably won't make its points back against anything else.

All of this said, I have won several games utilizing the riptides strengths (abusing the fact that it is T6 2+ against squads w/o AP2), It can make grabs at objectives and provides a durable melta platform. Keep in mind that most of my opponents don't play MEQ (my common enemies are DE Venom, Chaos (cultist spam), IG AV14+Blobs, and Taudar)