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So with the Tau+Tau options out there, you can effectively get an HQ Riptide (O'Vessa), 3 Elite Riptides and ally Tau for a buff commander and another Riptide (for a total of 5). Fill the rest of the army with some Crisis Suits and Kroot and there you go. Will this list just be over the top and thrash things thereby killing people's souls? or will it be ineffective and just fail hard? See spoiler for a sample list...


Pros: The list at its heart has a buff commander handing out re-rolls, ignores cover and MC/Tank Hunter with a bunch of other cute little things. 2 Riptides effectively shooting at 2 different targets with this set-up is pretty brutal so that makes a nice little core of the army. Throw in some Marker Light support somewhere and it gets better and helps out the rest of the Riptides.

Cons: limited amount of points for support units/scoring-however, this can be overcome by moving stuff around in an army list.



So how you guys deal with a list with 5 Riptides and what do you guys think about such a list? keep in mind that you can probably keep one Suit for the troop requirement and spam other cheaper troops to flush out the scoring department.

It's too much. Riptides are great but without the other supporting elements of the Tau army their weaknesses will start to show against a lot of opponents.

Despite what a lot of people say I know from experience that a high volume of low strength shots will take them out. It's easy enough to kill one with focused fire and once you lose one you're out nearly 1/5 of your army.

Without Marker lights they're not that accurate with their pie plate shot, and they stink in close combat against anything with decent combat skill.

You're over 1850 to get everything into your list and you have next to no scoring and you have no room for Markerlights.

The trick that I have learned to beating Tau is to ignore the Riptide because they're really not the most dangerous thing (markerlights, missile suits and misslesides are target priority 1, 2 and 3 in that order more or less)

I'm so glad there's a "feth Tau" option for this poll. It is my reaction to most things involving Tau.

It has its weaknesses.

As pointed out before, it is putting out all the flashy 'big boom' units without any system to support them. Their shots will be less accurate, and you'll be extremely hard pressed in most missions to succeed.

The only reason 3 is good is because you can properly support them and you still have other options. 4 or 5 riptides removes that.
Also 5 models in that high of a point list isn't hard to.deal with if its all they have to shoot at, which there won't be much more than them.

Didn't the guy who won NOVA have 5 Riptides? I know he had at least 4.

I'm guessing that O'vesha and the buff commander would join the Ion Accelerator with a Target lock, correct?
I would probably make the last allied Riptide a HBC since Mid S/high AP shots in large volumes are better off with less support.
That'd give you two twin-linked S8 AP2 templates that ignore cover, and the possibility for a lot of rending shots.
I'd probably cut the skyfire from the suits, since the Riptides would probably be better off taking down flyers as it is.

It definately looks feasible. Your one support unit would have two Riptides tanking wounds with one being an IC to allocate to the shield drone. Definately looks fun, but you'd probably induce a lot of hate.

For friendly games at least it's easy setup. It'd take about a minute to deploy.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Didn't the guy who won NOVA have 5 Riptides? I know he had at least 4.

I'm pretty sure he had 4, along with a few others in the top 10.

Tau players, please stop trying to defend your codex as not overpowered. Tau (along with Eldar) players are not suddenly winning every tournament because they all simultaneously had a brain blast.

It definitely seems that the ability to hand out "Ignores Cover" and a mix of Tank/MC Hunter to a unit that can lay down some AP1/AP2 high S weapons makes Tau borderline over the top. This combo seems to be the deciding factor in winning games for the people that take the combo.

Aside from the core super buffed unit, you don't get too much utility out of anything else absent marker light support so having some more marker lights really goes a long way to bring up the rest of the army to speed. So if built properly, an army with a lot of Riptides can pose a serious threat and headache as they are relatively durable and mobile so they can deny KP and contest objectives pretty reliably.

With that said, this is an extreme type of army that I hope nobody brings! Its kind of like taking a massive amount of Land Raiders or something and hoping nobody can handle it.

Exactly. People can say 5 riptides isn't flexible all they want, but I don't know what the heck I would do if I faced 5 riptides. Sure, people can say they could spam grav guns to kill them, but if you're making a list specifically to be able to beat one then that really doesn't mean you countered it.

5 st 9 ap 2 large blasts hitting every turn, with marker support even if only on the first turn or so (in worst case scenario when pathfinders get focused immediately) will wreck ANY army, I don't care what you're using.

herpguy wrote:
Exactly. People can say 5 riptides isn't flexible all they want, but I don't know what the heck I would do if I faced 5 riptides. Sure, people can say they could spam grav guns to kill them, but if you're making a list specifically to be able to beat one then that really doesn't mean you countered it.

5 st 9 ap 2 large blasts hitting every turn, with marker support even if only on the first turn or so (in worst case scenario when pathfinders get focused immediately) will wreck ANY army, I don't care what you're using.

2 Riptides of the 4 or 5 total also have tank hunters / monster hunters, split fire, re-roll nova reactors, re-roll hits & overheats, and ignore cover, all with zero markerlight support.

Pretty obscene list. My version goes absolute minimum troops and has 4 Skyrays instead.

I think 4 is the limit without sacrificing too much. This is pretty much shown by the list that won the Nova Invitational.

Lucarikx

 Therion wrote:

herpguy wrote:
Exactly. People can say 5 riptides isn't flexible all they want, but I don't know what the heck I would do if I faced 5 riptides. Sure, people can say they could spam grav guns to kill them, but if you're making a list specifically to be able to beat one then that really doesn't mean you countered it.

5 st 9 ap 2 large blasts hitting every turn, with marker support even if only on the first turn or so (in worst case scenario when pathfinders get focused immediately) will wreck ANY army, I don't care what you're using.

2 Riptides of the 4 or 5 total also have tank hunters / monster hunters, split fire, re-roll nova reactors, re-roll hits & overheats, and ignore cover, all with zero markerlight support.

Oh wow I didn't know they could do all that without marker support. I usually just watch in horror as my army is destroyed and unable to bring down one and wondering why it's not a vehicle when daemon engines are.

The poll is missing the option of E: Broken and will alienate player from getting a friendly game in again and will score very low in comp score due to being a cheese dick.

 Therion wrote:

2 Riptides of the 4 or 5 total also have tank hunters / monster hunters, split fire, re-roll nova reactors, re-roll hits & overheats, and ignore cover, all with zero markerlight support.

I believe your not going to get 2 riptides rerolls on those nova reactors. (assume you're talking about Earth Caste Pilot Array). RAW and going off the updated EBook for farsight enclaves, O'vesa's ECPA counts towards the 1 per army limit.

Instead you should be buying the Talisman for one of your riptides anyways. because seriously, 4 D6 deny the witch is the only thing between you, and being JOWW'd off the table.

Still. Very powerful.

Comment for point values 1750-2000...... When you dump alot of points into your big money units, you leave less for cannon fodder. Thus your money units become the cannon fodder. It is generally not a great idea all lists need cannon fodder. Losing just 2 Riptides would become a game changer. I'm not even sure if Tau-Farsight ally lsit could pull this off at 1750, I guess if you went bare bones on HQ and Troops, however that only makes my point more relevent.

However if your playing 2500 or more then sure 5 riptides are solid

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:
Comment for point values 1750-2000...... When you dump alot of points into your big money units, you leave less for cannon fodder. Thus your money units become the cannon fodder. It is generally not a great idea all lists need cannon fodder. Losing just 2 Riptides would become a game changer. I'm not even sure if Tau-Farsight ally lsit could pull this off at 1750, I guess if you went bare bones on HQ and Troops, however that only makes my point more relevent.

However if your playing 2500 or more then sure 5 riptides are solid

How is it not a great idea if the NOVA winner had a list with 4 riptides, among a few others in the top ten?

I already think Tau are extremely boring to play against, and I would definitely not be happy to waste 2 hours of my life playing against 4 riptides.

herpguy wrote:


How is it not a great idea if the NOVA winner had a list with 4 riptides, among a few others in the top ten?

I already think Tau are extremely boring to play against, and I would definitely not be happy to waste 2 hours of my life playing against 4 riptides.

Because Jesse and Justin's lists both needed all their spare points for multiple small units. The idea was to keep them in reserve till last second and hope your riptides shot enough enemy off the board so that they don't have enough units to target your final scoring units. Your riptides then break off last second and contest objectives. Its also worth noting that in several cases it came down to sheer luck that those guys advanced.

They each had around 7 scoring units that were as sturdy as a wet paper bag. 5 riptides is good but its not the most reliable way to table an opponent without markerlight support. You will need scoring units.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Didn't the guy who won NOVA have 5 Riptides? I know he had at least 4.

Justin Cook had 4, and Jessie Newton who was in the finals at the invitational also ran 4 (pretty much the list with some minor changes). They were the only two people to run more then 3 riptides as far as I know.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Russian Roulette wrote:

herpguy wrote:


How is it not a great idea if the NOVA winner had a list with 4 riptides, among a few others in the top ten?

I already think Tau are extremely boring to play against, and I would definitely not be happy to waste 2 hours of my life playing against 4 riptides.

Because Jesse and Justin's lists both needed all their spare points for multiple small units. The idea was to keep them in reserve till last second and hope your riptides shot enough enemy off the board so that they don't have enough units to target your final scoring units. Your riptides then break off last second and contest objectives. Its also worth noting that in several cases it came down to sheer luck that those guys advanced.

They each had around 7 scoring units that were as sturdy as a wet paper bag. 5 riptides is good but its not the most reliable way to table an opponent without markerlight support. You will need scoring units.

Actually when we were testing the lists before nova, they were starting the large suit units on the table.

Also riptides without buffcomander support, don't actually kill that much.

Yeah I was just referring to the single suits and 10 man kroot squads.

Here's an interesting thought though:

Why not spam 5 barebones single suits and then attempt risky deepstrikes for intentional mishaps to stay in reserve. Granted its playing with fire. But if you're taking 5 riptides you already are.

I personally think theres no point in adding in that last riptide. The O'vesa star is the only one doing the real work. The other 2 rely on markerlights or just exist as bullet magnets/contesting units

Russian Roulette wrote:
Yeah I was just referring to the single suits and 10 man kroot squads.

Here's an interesting thought though:

Why not spam 5 barebones single suits and then attempt risky deepstrikes for intentional mishaps to stay in reserve. Granted its playing with fire. But if you're taking 5 riptides you already are.

I personally think theres no point in adding in that last riptide. The O'vesa star is the only one doing the real work. The other 2 rely on markerlights or just exist as bullet magnets/contesting units

Because there is a 2/3rd chance that could blow up in your face. Imo its to risky.