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I've been toying around with armybuilder, and put together what looks like a pretty decent list! Would this be competitive in a tournament?

HQ: Ethereal (50pts)

Troops:
Firewarriors x9 (81 pts)
Firewarriors x6 (54 pts)
Kroot x10 (60 pts)

Elite:
Riptide (225 pts)
Ion Accelerator
EWO
Stim

Riptide (225 pts)
Ion Accelerator
EWO
Stim

Riptide (220 pts)
Heavy Burst Cannon
Stim
Velocity Tracker

Heavy Support:
Hammerhead (190 pts)
Submunition
Dpod
Longstrike
SMS

Broadside team (109 pts)
Broadside
HYMP
Velocity Tracker
Missile drone x2

Broadside team (109 pts)
Broadside
HYMP
Velocity Tracker
Missile drone x2

Fast Attack:
Sunshark Bomber (175 pts)
D-pod


My thinking on this list is I'm going to hide my firewarriors until turn 4, when they come out to start taking objectives. Infiltrate the kroot in order to try and take one of their objectives from them. Riptides zip around the table, pie plating anything that looks dangerous, with the broadsides/heavy BC riptide/interceptor drones taking out any flyers, and longstrike popping any AV14.

I like the Riptide Loadouts, but you are sorely lacking in Force Multipliers. Riptides alone do not independently possess that high of a damage output, the ability to boost BS with MLs, Ignore Cover with MLs, Twinlink, Monster/Tank Hunter, and ignore cover with a Buffmander, ECPA for FE, TwinLink with a Farseer etc all have a huge impact on how well those units perform.

Alone, they are still solid units, but they will not carry an army. You may very well find your self underwhelmed with how they perform on the table. I usually advocate Stims on Riptides like this, but for your list I'm going to say drop them. If you only had two, yes Stims are huge as they become as durable as three. But with three Riptides smart opponents will just ignore them anyway, or wait to engage them in CC and sweep them.

Your scoring block is light, you need at least one more troop at this level.

Most would say the Sunshark isn't worth it, but it can do well and is good AA since it gets to drop off its drones before enemy interceptor can engage it. I think you would be better off with a Skyray, but the Sunshark isn't terrible and will work.

You have a significant amount of AA, VT HBC Riptide, 2 VT Broadsides, and the Sunshark. I don't think you need all three, I'd consider changing the support system on the Broadsides as HYMP and SMS being TwinLinked are still effective AA in a pinch. Pick up a couple of MLs if you can, maybe a small MarkerDrone Squad or squad of Pathfinders.


I'd drop the Stims, pick up more scoring units. Drop the VTs on the Broadsides for EWOs or nothing and pick up some more Markerlights either in drones or Pathfinders.

Hope you find my advice useful.

Really? I would think dropping two S9 pie plates per turn would be devastating to just about any army. It's just surprising to me that 3 Riptides are something that someone can just ignore.

Tanniith wrote:
Really? I would think dropping two S9 pie plates per turn would be devastating to just about any army. It's just surprising to me that 3 Riptides are something that someone can just ignore.

To get S9 you need to pass your Nova Reactor or take a wound. so 1/3 deal a wound to yourself, 2/3 goes off. Then you need to make your gets hot whether you make your NOVA or not, so 1/6 fails here too. So, to get a S9 Ordinance off you have only a 55% chance. Then you need to hit, becasue a miss at BS3 isn't good. So only ~25% are hitting where you want them to. Many armies can effectively ignore this.

Riptides are often overrated by both the owner and the opponent.

Riptides do well when they are targeted because they are difficult to bring down. However for the reasons mentioned by Zagman, I've seen riptides only do significant damage on average 2 turns per game - the rest of the time they fail to hit anything significant or fail gets hot rolls.

An army using just one riptide will be successful as it has many points left over for high damage units while the lone riptide soaks up enemy fire. An army with 2 riptide needs really put their opponent in a place where they are stuck making difficult target priority choices (spreading the damage evenly between the two riptides).

3 riptides just means you'll have 700 pts tied up to 3 pie plates that fail to do much half the time. I'd rather have 3 fully suited up crisis teams with some drones and a good sized pathfinder squad for the same points.