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Hey all,
Had my first game against a riptide Tau army and immediately began looking for a fix. I have a 2500 point tourney coming up, my first, and know someone will be bringing 4 in one army, which is just wrong. The only thing I could see so far was dropping either Azrael or belial fronm my army and using Ezekial. Psychich screram, mind worm and whatever else seem like possible fixers. Any thoughts of what else I can bring from DA as those plama blasts and interceptor will ruin my deathwing ravenwing army. Thanks and Happy holidays.

For the record, I'm not a DA player, but I've been doing a lot of DA homework as I add them as allies to my BA.

With the availability of speed and plasma in spades, I feel the DA have a lot to offer in the way of killing elite units such as Riptides and their like. 2 units of Ravenwing Black Knights with a Power Field Generator Librarian (on a bike) in the middle of each could actually chase down and put the hurt on some riptides, though, as with most units going up against Tau, their turns on the board will be numbered.

The Land Speeder Vengeance is a perfect glass hammer unit to zip into range and lay down some hurt on a Riptide before being blown to bits.

There's always the Land Raider, which is a tough nut for most Tau shooting, though I rarely ever run one, so I'll let someone else talk about that....

The problem with Tau is even after they put 4 riptides on the table, they're still able to field broadsides and all kinds of other nastiness. I'm not sure there's a great marine army out there for dealing with Tau, though I honestly haven't ran up against them enough to make accurate claims. I'm just going on my limited experience and what i've heard/read online.

I will say that in my last game against Tau (with a super elite, very low model count BA+DA list) I basically just ignored the Broadsides and Riptide and annihilated his troops. I got tabled, but it was tied with me very close to winning on turn 5, and it was the later rounds where his superior shooting wore me down. If my Stormraven had come on before turn 4 (ugh) and Corbulo had tanked anywhere near what his math says he should (he went down from the first 10 dice in the wounds pool...extremely bad luck there) the game could have went very differently.

All in all, I feel that facing Tau will always be an uphill climb...just build lists that don't rely on cover saves and play to the mission as much as possible.

4 Riptides is a lot of firepower to ignore. I hope to bring Azrae; with 2 6 man bike squads with Attack bikes and Landspeeders then 2 10 man DW Terminator squads with Belial bringing one in and the other homing in on a bikers teleport homer likely if no great spots show for deep striking. The second one will also likely be broken down into 2 5 man combat squads. This much deep stirking also bothers me though as the Interceptor rule, which Riptides get for like 5 points will clean me. Large blast AP 2 is bad news for clustered Terms. I will also be bringing a unit of 9 Company Veterans decked out for shooting to house Azrael and plan on Podding them in. Not sure what else to do as I couldn't see how to get Ezekiel upfield into his short range necessary. May just hope not to face him at tourney.

At 2500 points you've got the room for multiple Ravenwing command squads (same as BK but slightly cheaper) You can have up to 4 in double FOC with Sammy and 3 Libby's. You'll be top heavy so you'll need to fill out with cheap tac squads in rhinos.

I dunno man, DA is a tough dex to compete in this meta with. Good luck; you'll need it.

Honestly, I got most of the army cheap as they were mainly Dark Vengeance stuff. - was exclusively Fantasy so have some idea on strategy I hope to convert over. I mainly pla Wood Elves as well so used to being the underdog. I hope to roll up a flank if I go first with the Alpha strike from Deathwing and Pod. If I got second I am not sure yet exactly how that will go. Depends on whether it is a shooty or melee army. Should be a learning experience.

Can you ally in some space marines?

For my army personally I run 3 grav cents in a land raider crusader, of course scout helps. Generally With all the grav I spam I can kill 2 riptides reliably a turn.

The tourney says no allies and all the missions are objective seizing. Hopefully I can make due.

Whirlwinds can obliterate markerlight sources, without which riptides barely pose a threat.

In a pinch, you may want to assault. They are MC's yes, but outright terrible in combat. They can jump away from terminators, but ravenwing has a decent chance to catch them. You just need to force them to fail morale and then sweeping advance. But tying them up and protecting your bikes from shooting is also nice.

You can use krak grenades from your regular dudes over your base attacks to get better chances of scoring a wound. The most damage they can do is a single model per turn, but their shooting is far more dangerous.

You can DWA on turn 2, give your bike a chance to get in close, so that your termies can deep strike very aggressively. He'll have to run the risk of having his pie-plates scatter on his own units.
Also remember that whatever weapon he uses as interceptor, he can't use during his player turn.
As brought up above I would pour as much firepower into his markerlight units and troop choices as possible to neuter his winning potential. Belial and a HF DW unit can work some wonders.
With Azrael (or the Sammael/Belial combo) and 2500pts you can bring LOTS of scoring powerfull units. If you're allowed dual FOC I would definitely consider multiple libbies on bikes for extra support.

If you want to play dirty, you can always take 3 land raiders, have them advance in a spearhead formation (V shape) where one takes the front, and two others are on his sides but hafway backwards.

This will create a gap to hide a PFG libby in, with impossible LoS from nearly every direction. so he's safe, and land raiders with invuls are nigh-invincible.

Top tier? no.
Hilarious? hell yea.

Lol must find 2 more land raiders and a helmet for when opponent starts throwing models at me. Wonder if I could get Invisibilty for the Libby as well lol.

Something I also wondered was if Azreal is with the Knights in a LRC does it get his 4+ Invul as it is part of his unit?

Ishamael wrote:
Lol must find 2 more land raiders and a helmet for when opponent starts throwing models at me. Wonder if I could get Invisibilty for the Libby as well lol.

Something I also wondered was if Azreal is with the Knights in a LRC does it get his 4+ Invul as it is part of his unit?

The LR doesn't get the 4++ if Azreal embarked.

I'll second this:

 Krellnus wrote:
Whirlwinds can obliterate markerlight sources, without which riptides barely pose a threat.

With that many Riptides, your first target really should be those guys.

I am now leaning towards 25 DW Terminators, 2 RAS squads with 6 bikes each, Attack Bike with MM and Land Speeder Typhoon. TH on upgraded vet sgts. CML and AC on DWTs. 5 dw knights as my anvil combat monster. Azrael and Belial are my current HQ choices. Comes out at 2.5k.
Hope to wipe out most of the troops and markerights on twin linked dw assault turn. Even then, str 9 AP 2 large blasts kill a lot of guys. TH will hopefully make them lose combat and run, if I can catch them. Will see. Tourney is jan 18th I am gearing for.

Knights are incredibly effective.

The best 'tailored' Riptide killer the dex has to offer is a full Black Knight unit with a Chaplain toting a PF.

Lower T (with grenade launcher), light it with plasma, then charge for HoW, rerolling to hit, and 4+ to wound with rending. H&R to do it again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 phoenix darkus wrote:
Belial and a HF DW unit can work some wonders.

Also...
THIS.
I can't count how many times a twin-linked, reliable/accurate deep striking HF has proved its worth.
You can just delete pathfinders, Harkervets, scouts, etc. on turn one if that's what you're into.

Assault a Riptide at every opportunity. They're pitiful at CC.

If this cannot be done, assault nearby enemy Tau units. They're usually close together (for shared overwatch) and if you're in CC, you're not getting shot.

When assaulting, make use of LoS. True, Tau share overwatch. But if the assisting units can't see you, they still can't shoot you.

Shooting a riptide is an ok-but-not-great method of laying them out. Between their 5++ that can be a 3++ along with the FNP that most Tau players slap on them, and the big guns they carry, they're going to win a shooting fight. Your best bet is to corner them, forcing the Nova reactor to be burned on a 4d6 jump, THEN shoot/assault with backline units.

Don't bother bringing AV13. An Earth Caste Array Riptide will kill it on front armor without breaking a sweat if toting the HBC. With markerlight support, he can do this to a land raider too. PF gen helps. Deathwing vehicle, not so much. They'll HP you out, not fish for an explode.

The only worry I had around HF was after turn one. I guess the unit can still likely catch something after turn 1 but I will definitely consider throwing at least one in the unit I DS with Belial. I was leaning towards cml and ac though for range and pen.

Ishamael wrote:
Lol must find 2 more land raiders and a helmet for when opponent starts throwing models at me. Wonder if I could get Invisibilty for the Libby as well lol.

Something I also wondered was if Azreal is with the Knights in a LRC does it get his 4+ Invul as it is part of his unit?

I quoted this beautiful statement.

Look I don't know how many models you've got to work with, but if you're playing a 2.5k game and came to us asking for options, I presume a lot.

I would run triple LRC with a PACS toting the banner in the middle one. Libby with PFG on bike x2 ride behind, sideways if necessary to throw 4++ on raiders. Put Knights inside each flank raider and shove them up the board. Use insane volume of fire to wipe his scoring units, forcing the riptides to try to fusion the raider. Likely, they'll fail and be forced to charge. If, between shooting and assault they bust you out, you can counter charge with the knights and essentially you traded a raider for a riptide.

What I just described is about 1600 points. That's your core. Fill the list out with some Power armor in rhinos to up your body count and scoring. You'll be safe from helldrakes and the like. You can reserve them so they'll be immune from long ranged AT early. Keep them behind LOS whenever possible, or at least hull down. Then, after your core has taken the middle of the board and controls the initiative, you can move out the marines to score late.

It's anti-meta as a whole too so it's not like you're specifically tooling up against riptide spam.

I mainly have what I described above with a few extras but am building up. If I ever find someone I hate and the tourney has a big prize I would run that least. Man, that is just mean.

 Voidwraith wrote:
For the record, I'm not a DA player, but I've been doing a lot of DA homework as I add them as allies to my BA.

The Land Speeder Vengeance is a perfect glass hammer unit to zip into range and lay down some hurt on a Riptide before being blown to bits.

*Cough*.

Here we are again saying the LSV isn't drop-dead terrible, except this time the thread title doesn't give you the "I don't care about effectiveness you d-bag" hidey hole.

The LSV is garbage. For the reasons in my posts in the above thread alone it is relatively a joke, but as a general unit it sucks because:

A) In order to be even decent, it has to have a babysitting Libby and ablative wounds for prescience re-rolls (which you neglect to mention) this is way too much investment, in structure, points and HQ choice usage for a naff, easy to kill unit.
B) With a PFG or not, it dies easily to light and heavy AT, as well as small arms fire. It has a life expentancy of about one turn if it poses any threat at all.
C) The range on the gun is abysmal, meaning you have to stay in the midfield, so even if small arms or even the weakest, naffest AT can't kill it the first thing to charge it will.
D) For 150 I can get a 4 Lascannon Devastator unit, or for 140 a Tri-Las Predator. Both offer greater or at worst similar AP2 fire at 48'' behind easy cover, wounds and an AV of 13.
E) Free kill point for your opponent in Big Guns Never Tire, or a quick and easy first blood VP in any game.

For killing Riptides the most efficient choice the DA have is probably Black Knights and/or Company Veterans with Combi-Weapons or a Command Squad with special weapon spam in a drop pod. Its about concentrating as much fire as possible and crippling a Riptide at worst before finishing it off with your reserve fire.

As supporting AP2 fire Lascannon Devastators, Tri-Las Predators and Melta RAS, or allied elements (preferably IG or SM so you have flyers that don't suck) work best because they're safe, reliable and versatile in a TAC list, also fulfilling AT duties simultaneously. Plus, they don't hand over VP's for little effort.

Mr. Omega, I stand behind what I said about what one can expect out of the LSV, both it's pros and cons, and also what I can expect out of you, which you did not fail to deliver.

In an effort to NOT go back and forth the way we did in the other thread, I'll just concede to you that yes, 160pts is probably a lot of points to put into a unit that will definitely die, no matter what the offensive output potential. You're the smartest man alive for assessing that land-speeders are fragile and should get some sort of medal for pointing out how stupid I was for suggesting a glass cannon to help take out a problem unit.

I'm an even bigger idiot if I think the above statement will keep you from responding....

In an effort to add something constructive to the thread rather than just defend myself against Mr.Omega, I agree with Krellnus, take out the Markerlights if possible.

I was planning on running 2 untis of bikes with attack bikes and two LS with Typhoon Missile Launchers. at 75 points each and all those other sppedy bikes running around I am hoping yhey can poke some holes in important stuff from range. Are the 150 points better spent on more Terms or Bikes?

 Voidwraith wrote:
Mr. Omega, I stand behind what I said about what one can expect out of the LSV, both it's pros and cons, and also what I can expect out of you, which you did not fail to deliver.

In an effort to NOT go back and forth the way we did in the other thread, I'll just concede to you that yes, 160pts is probably a lot of points to put into a unit that will definitely die, no matter what the offensive output potential. You're the smartest man alive for assessing that land-speeders are fragile and should get some sort of medal for pointing out how stupid I was for suggesting a glass cannon to help take out a problem unit.

I'm an even bigger idiot if I think the above statement will keep you from responding....

In an effort to add something constructive to the thread rather than just defend myself against Mr.Omega, I agree with Krellnus, take out the Markerlights if possible.

Only a fool would fail to make the connection that 2-3 turns of long range medium firepower is better than one turn of unreliable, short ranged, more expensive and marginally better firepower.

In short, the Glass Cannon tactic here is pointless, regardless of play style. Long range gives you sufficient reach even in a Ravenwing list.

I have not just assessed that the LSV is made of soggy tissue paper, I have also strongly suggested repeatedly that the increased reliability, safety and increased armour is a far better alternative, especially in the current meta. Falsely denigrating my argument down to an isolated observation (without regard for its attached comment and point) to call it stupid is both fallacial and extremely weak.

Understand this; this is not me retaliating for your juvenile insults and fallacial emotional redirection, you post bad advice and you can expect it to be subject to all criticism in this part of the forum.

Land speeder vengeance is terrible. There should be no discussion about this. Never take one for a competitive game ever. In fact, never take one for a friendly game either, the model is hideous.

Back to the original question. The best option for DA would by far be the Black knights, in both shooting and melee. They have the speed to keep up with the riptide as well as the high str and low ap weapons to deal with it.
- You could try and couple a vindicator pie plate along with their -1T grenade to ID it.

There are few other things that would be viable imo.

Deathwing knights/ Hammernators would destroy it in cc, but the problem is getting them there. For that you would probably need a landraider. Then you realise you will be spending 550+ points trying to counter something that only costs 200+ #

Devastators supported by a pfg librarian with prescience would probably be the 2nd best bet.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ishamael wrote:
I was planning on running 2 untis of bikes with attack bikes and two LS with Typhoon Missile Launchers. at 75 points each and all those other sppedy bikes running around I am hoping yhey can poke some holes in important stuff from range. Are the 150 points better spent on more Terms or Bikes?

Just to make sure you know, the attack bikes operate completely separate from the unit. Sorry if you already know this, but your post made it unclear.

Speeders are perfectly viable, but the decision ultimately comes down to the rest of your army. Overall if you have enough bikes to start having footprint issues, then go with the speeders.

If you want your army to be competitive, I'd stay away from terminators. they are overcosted and out of place in the current meta.

Thanks for the update. I only have enough bikes and speeders to run the two units. I am using the Terms cause I got them cheap and being my first tourney, and only about my 5th game of 40k, I wanted to try out the DW assault. If it sucks as much as some think it will I can always start getting more bikes and armour. I thought dropping fearless Terminator units near objectives or near the flanks of weaker enemy units would be a reasonable strat. Belial with a unit of 10 Termies and a HF precision striking in seems awesome as well. I may be proven completely wrong. Thanks for the advice.

One unit to rule them all....one unit to break the Riptide....

Black Knights w/6 strong and a Libby

Nough said

Mr. Raynor

Take 3 or 4 ravenwing command squads

Sammy
Liby on bike pfg
Techy on bike pfg
Techy on bike pfg
4 rw command sqauds
Banner of fortitude

That's a good core and with rads will wound tides on 2+

knights are an easy conversion, get 2 plasma pistols and carve the boltguns out of a regular biker with a knife and place the pistols in their place, one instant talon. and uses up those useless pistols.

knights are our best unit as they can take literally anything. you are faster than riptides , and plasma + rending hammers means you can hurt him in cc and shooting.

run azereal as your bikes advance on the riptides use the homers to drop terminators nearby to cap points and provide additional fire on his you know whats.

since tau hate cc get azzy in a raider with a bunch of veterans with power mauls and unload them on whatever you dam well please, 4 attacks each, 4++ invuns, and if you picked correctly furious charge, find that guy who said greenwing dark angles cant do cc and punch him. I killed 10 man chaos terminator squads with a similar squad and I didn't even give them power weapons. power mauls are your best tool as you will strike at S7 flattening even riptides through volume of wounds

Gentlemen, let's stick to technical arguments and avoid ad hominem hassles.

Thank you.