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Assume we're facing a Riptide with shield drones.
Drones are placed in front of the Riptide to take the initial shots.

We're trying to kill the Riptide with our big guns.

Now here's my idea:

We place on of our own (infantry) units between our big guns and the Riptide, granting it a 5+ cover save.
But wait... our own small infantry isn't large enough to cover 25% of the Riptide and thus only grants the cover save to its drones!
We focus fire at the models without cover (i.e. the Riptide), completely ignoring the drones.

Am I missing something obvious here?

I think you're missing the bit where your opponent looks at you funny, then packs up his army and plays someone else.

Just firing between the intervening models is enough to grant it one negating this plan.

I do realise this is a bit cheesy and I'm certainly not advocating this in a game amongst friends (although they might get a laugh out of it.)

But I'm sure we've all met "that guy", who's only gaming skill is owning that bloody model and spends most of the game arguing about 1/16 of an inch and have felt the need to out-cheese the cheeser sometimes.

Admittedly it will be highly circumstancial trick to pull off.

You could possibly set that up where the intervening unit would only intervene with the drones but not the shooter and Riptide. Would be hard to set up though on my initial thoughts on it. Maybe extreme angle shots or something.

I don't normally see Riptides with Drones as the added risk of a morale check for killing one isn't seen as a good trade off for the ablative ++ wounds.

Most people don't Run Riptides with the Shielded Missile drones for the reason Eldarain mentioned. The lose of just one drone is enough to cause a leadership check, and you could risk your riptide running off the board.

So its actually BETTER for you to try to shoot at the squishier drones to try to force moral.

I've seen people do this kind of tactic effectively using Rhinos. Not specifically against Riptides (for the leadership reasons mentioned) but against special weapons or characters:

x x x X x x <-- enemy unit. Big X are important enemies x x X x x -----+ +------ | | | | <---rhinos -----+ +----- ooo ooo <--- your unit ooo

Move the rhinos in to place in the movement phase, shoot your models at the important targets when necessary, and then flat-out with the rhinos to close the gap.

I think Rhino-sniping was a major reason why casualty removal in 5th edition was so laissez faire. I will confess to not being glad it's back.

Pyrian wrote:
I think Rhino-sniping was a major reason why casualty removal in 5th edition was so laissez faire. I will confess to not being glad it's back.

What do you mean?

As diagrammed above it still works perfectly well.

Rhino sniping works but I guess you run the risk of not having opponents who want to play with you because this tactic might rub some people the wrong way.

There are tonnes of terrible tactics in this game - and rhino sniping isn't a particularly egregious one, nor is it easy to prove what you're doing.
If people stopped playing me because I'm doing that, I don't think I've actually lost anything.

 Steel-W0LF wrote:

Pyrian wrote:
I think Rhino-sniping was a major reason why casualty removal in 5th edition was so laissez faire. I will confess to not being glad it's back.

What do you mean?

As diagrammed above it still works perfectly well.

He means that Rhino (and Range) Sniping was so awful in 4th they made the wound allocation rules far more relaxed for fifth which removed both. But now they're back, and that's not a good thing.

Chrysis wrote:

 Steel-W0LF wrote:

Pyrian wrote:
I think Rhino-sniping was a major reason why casualty removal in 5th edition was so laissez faire. I will confess to not being glad it's back.

What do you mean?

As diagrammed above it still works perfectly well.

He means that Rhino (and Range) Sniping was so awful in 4th they made the wound allocation rules far more relaxed for fifth which removed both. But now they're back, and that's not a good thing.

Apologies I totally misread his post.

For some reason I read his last sentence as "I will confess to being glad its not back..." Which is not what he said at all.

In this situation I have just one question:
Why would you want to shoot at something other then the drones?
Most Tau players consider the drones to be a liability because they lead to moral tests.

 Cryptonomicon wrote:
I do realise this is a bit cheesy and I'm certainly not advocating this in a game amongst friends (although they might get a laugh out of it.)

You know what else is a bit cheesy? Fielding Riptides.

 PrinceRaven wrote:

 Cryptonomicon wrote:
I do realise this is a bit cheesy and I'm certainly not advocating this in a game amongst friends (although they might get a laugh out of it.)

You know what else is a bit cheesy? Fielding Riptides.

Lol, Riptides are pretty insignificant of all the Tau cheese.

They are under-priced for how effective they are, and the only tactic one needs to know to use them is 'turn up,' so it is not surprising they are the most complained about unit the Tau can field.

 Eldarain wrote:
Just firing between the intervening models is enough to grant it one negating this plan.

People seem to have missed this guy's correct assertion of the rules.

Fragile wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:

 Cryptonomicon wrote:
I do realise this is a bit cheesy and I'm certainly not advocating this in a game amongst friends (although they might get a laugh out of it.)

You know what else is a bit cheesy? Fielding Riptides.

Lol, Riptides are pretty insignificant of all the Tau cheese.

I'd rather face Pathfinders and Stealth Suits than Pathfinders and Riptides.

DarknessEternal wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
Just firing between the intervening models is enough to grant it one negating this plan.

People seem to have missed this guy's correct assertion of the rules.

I assume he is playing by the 25% cover intervening models house-rule, judging by the original post.

Except a unit cannot gain cover from itself. shooting at a riptide through its attached gun drones can never grant the unit cover because they are ONE unit. you are not firing through a separate unit of gun drones. you are shooting one unit of "drones and riptide". if there was a seperate unit of say, gun drones in front, sure. that would grant cover. but the riptide/drones are out of luck.

Ralis wrote:Most people don't Run Riptides with the Shielded Missile drones for the reason Eldarain mentioned. The lose of just one drone is enough to cause a leadership check, and you could risk your riptide running off the board.

Do you take morale tests for losing drones in the 6th ed codex? Fairly sure they didn't count in the last codex...

Stearic wrote:Except a unit cannot gain cover from itself. shooting at a riptide through its attached gun drones can never grant the unit cover because they are ONE unit. .

That wasn't what was being suggested. The original suggestion had an intervening unit.

 insaniak wrote:

Ralis wrote:Most people don't Run Riptides with the Shielded Missile drones for the reason Eldarain mentioned. The lose of just one drone is enough to cause a leadership check, and you could risk your riptide running off the board.

Do you take morale tests for losing drones in the 6th ed codex? Fairly sure they didn't count in the last codex...

Do now, seems they now care about drones as people ....

I don't think it's so much "care about" as "would rather not be next thank you".

 insaniak wrote:

Ralis wrote:Most people don't Run Riptides with the Shielded Missile drones for the reason Eldarain mentioned. The lose of just one drone is enough to cause a leadership check, and you could risk your riptide running off the board.

Do you take morale tests for losing drones in the 6th ed codex? Fairly sure they didn't count in the last codex....

Yes and they did.

I would seriously not worry if your Tau opponent brought the shielded missile drones. They still only have 4+ armor and if they're in front shoot bolters/heavy bolters at them to kill the drones. Once you bolter down the shielded drones, then proceed to lascannon/plasma/melta/grav the riptide down. It's only got 5 wounds, and it will likely do at least one to itself through nova charges during the course of the game.

They absolutely did coun t in the fourth ed codex. They do now

 Stearic wrote:
Except a unit cannot gain cover from itself. shooting at a riptide through its attached gun drones can never grant the unit cover because they are ONE unit. you are not firing through a separate unit of gun drones. you are shooting one unit of "drones and riptide". if there was a seperate unit of say, gun drones in front, sure. that would grant cover. but the riptide/drones are out of luck.

You missed the point. There are 3 units in the discussion. The "big guns", the infantry models, and the riptide unit. The other people in the topic are making the point that even if the riptide is not 25% covered, the "big guns" unit is shooting through intervening models (the infantry unit) and therefore granting that entire enemy unit (riptide) cover.

 insaniak wrote:

Ralis wrote:Most people don't Run Riptides with the Shielded Missile drones for the reason Eldarain mentioned. The lose of just one drone is enough to cause a leadership check, and you could risk your riptide running off the board.

Do you take morale tests for losing drones in the 6th ed codex? Fairly sure they didn't count in the last codex...

Quoting straight from the Tau codex here:

"Drones taken as upgrades for a unit act as additional squad members in all regards."

So yes, if you have a Riptide and 2 drones, then killing one is the same as killing 33% of the unit in terms of model count, and thus a leadership test is taken. Hence why most people don't take the shielded drones.

The question surely has to be why would you bother? If your opponent is dumb enough to put the drones at the front just laugh and shoot it with Autocannon equivalent fire and laugh astthe Riptide runs off the board...