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I have only faced a Riptide twice with my chaos. The first time, my Land Raider took two wounds from it, and then Kharn charged in and pulped it in a single turn.

The second one had the player hanging back with it, so I went for his markelights and battlesuit commander instead. I took some losses, but once the support was gone and some shooter units were tangled with my survivors, the Riptide alone did not have the means to clear all objectives. I won both games.

But yeah, if there'd been a second tide I'd have been boned.

niv-mizzet wrote:
and is surprisingly good in melee, considering how crappy weapon skill DOESN'T ACTUALLY MAKE YOU VERY BAD AT MELEE, and it gets all the MC melee goodness.

I hope you're talking about just the riptide here, because everything else in the Tau codex is crap at close combat, and obviously so. Like I don't even see how you could begin to argue otherwise and keep a straight face.

The riptide is the only thing that stands out, with high S, high T, high wound count, 3 attacks (pretty low for a single-model CC unit though, isn't it?), a 2+ save and MC status...and even then, that unit was obviously intended to be used for its shooting, and if you toss it into melee instead of taking advantage of that you're being a dumbass and throwing points away, just like with any other Tau unit. With the riptide in particular, yeah, the low WS doesn't mean much because it's an MC, but it's the only Tau unit that has that going for it. And like I said, getting caught in CC is still the worst thing you could let happen to a riptide.

 Perfect Organism wrote:
Riptides are only Initiative 2, so they are terribly vulnerable to Blind. Unfortunately, even a blind riptide is quite nasty with an Ion Accelerator as they still have a good chance of hitting something. Still, the Slaanesh primaris power should be good for slowing them down until you can take them out.

Blacksun Filters make them immune to blind.

Outshooting them is going to be tricky, but you can't just rely on any old unit to handle them in an assault either. You either need something that can kill them in one turn (almost impossible) or survive a smash attack long enough to bring them down.

A daemon prince with a toughness buff could do the job easily enough, but there's no reliable way to get one. Best you can do is two rolls on biomancy and one on the chaos boon table. Multiple DPs or one with the Black Mace might be able to kill a riptide before it gets a chance to strike back, but that's a huge points-sink.

A character in a unit might have a better time. A sorcerer with the MoN on a bike armed with a force axe would probably be the optimal build; can't be ID'd by smash attacks and can take out the RT with one hit. Other marks or joining with a jump pack unit are also viable, since you should be able to absorb any damage with your unit. A lord with a power fist might be able to do the job too, but it will take longer and cost more casualties.

The best way to kill a Riptide is kill his other stuff. Failing that, focused fire from an army should be able to deal with it, but that's a lot of shooting to sink a single 185-200 point model.

 Sidstyler wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:
and is surprisingly good in melee, considering how crappy weapon skill DOESN'T ACTUALLY MAKE YOU VERY BAD AT MELEE, and it gets all the MC melee goodness.

I hope you're talking about just the riptide here, because everything else in the Tau codex is crap at close combat, and obviously so. Like I don't even see how you could begin to argue otherwise and keep a straight face.

The riptide is the only thing that stands out, with high S, high T, high wound count, 3 attacks (pretty low for a single-model CC unit though, isn't it?), a 2+ save and MC status...and even then, that unit was obviously intended to be used for its shooting, and if you toss it into melee instead of taking advantage of that you're being a dumbass and throwing points away, just like with any other Tau unit. With the riptide in particular, yeah, the low WS doesn't mean much because it's an MC, but it's the only Tau unit that has that going for it. And like I said, getting caught in CC is still the worst thing you could let happen to a riptide.

Your not understanding one of its biggest uses then. On the last turn of the game (turn 5) you charge it into a scoring squad. Most scoring units don't have enough attacks/high enough strength to kill it so you can deny the objective.

I still contend that getting stuck in CC isn't really ideal as you'd want to maximize its shooting as much as possible, and it's probably only a good idea to charge in a desperate act to deny an objective. Being too tough for most scoring units to kill doesn't somehow make it "good" at assault, just resilient enough to not die like a bitch outright like most other Tau units would when charging/getting charged, even by those weaker units.

In fact, Riptides are a legit target for BA vanguard. If they aren't bubblewrapped. And survive the interceptor. And if I ever actually used them. But, yeah, I want Riptides in CC where they have to smash me one or two guys at a time.

 Sidstyler wrote:
I still contend that getting stuck in CC isn't really ideal as you'd want to maximize its shooting as much as possible, and it's probably only a good idea to charge in a desperate act to deny an objective. Being too tough for most scoring units to kill doesn't somehow make it "good" at assault, just resilient enough to not die like a bitch outright like most other Tau units would when charging/getting charged, even by those weaker units.

How about a big blob of Plague Marines? Having Plague Knives would let them wound the Riptide on 4's...sure it's not great but if you can divert the attention away from the Riptide with threats/sacrificial units behind their lines, you could get the Plagues close? Big squad with a couple of plasmaguns, hoping to take a few wounds off before charging and then hitting with a bunch of attacks. Sure when the Riptide strikes back you will likely lose 2 PMs per turn, but the champ with a fist can be kept out of base contact and move into contact at his Init Step and put another wound on it?

They're vulnerable to mellee. Another problem is how you get there. Ideally, Sorc/Lord + Spawns. Also, Why not try out puppet mastery on him and kill his own broadsides with a blast. Just note that a single riptide is not frightening. That's riptide + buffmander and markers that's gona take your lunch money.

 koooaei wrote:
They're vulnerable to mellee. Another problem is how you get there. Ideally, Sorc/Lord + Spawns. Also, Why not try out puppet mastery on him and kill his own broadsides with a blast. Just note that a single riptide is not frightening. That's riptide + buffmander and markers that's gona take your lunch money.

Suppose even Hallucination can do a job of neutering the Riptide or supports for a turn to give you a chance to get closer with more units. Perhaps Be'lakor and unmarker Telepathy Sorcerer on Bike? Gives you a shot at multiple puppetmaster/halucination per turn.

Multiple flying daemon princes seem to work for people in my area, especially with any kind of cover boosting. Getting shrouded and flying means that markerlights have less of an effect on you (they have to increase BS/down you and then ignore your cover...it's hard to get that many markelight hits from snapshots). A single daemon prince, properly kitted out, can kill a riptide...but 2 can be more versatile and kill the riptide faster and more reliably. Overkill perhaps, but the quicker you kill it the less of a threat it is.

my best friend plays a foot slogging demons/marines list. He takes heavy casualties but normally bee lines his Blood Thirsters or anything else AP1/2 to my riptides and tear it down limb from limb. Instant death will of course kill one. keep fliers away because in my experience they almost always have either skyfire or interceptor. (nothing like dropping a unit on your enemies turn)

If I was killing them 3 units of obliterators all firing lascanons at him at the same time might tear one down.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
or that fancy psyker power to control the riptide yourself and fire it at Tau stuff

You have several choices here; in my order of preference.

1. Ignore it. It'll jump around, and cause a bit of mayhem. However your goal is to focus on the mission and win that way. Make sure you take troops that can hold an objective and think about how to keep them alive until the end of the game.

2. Bait it. What do you have that would scare the troops of a Tau army? That'll likely be what he sends the RT at first. Put this unit in such a position that it causes a bit of pressure on his regular Tau while staying away from your objectives. Make sure you pick something that can weather a few rounds of fire from it. Heck take two and put them on opposite sides of the board from each other while catching his army in a pincer movement. Once the RT kills one then he'll have to cross the board to get to the other which is time wasted. Make sure you talk about how good said unit is against his troops before deployment occurs.... (mind games are perfectly acceptable).

I play DE. I've used a Talos/Cronos and Reavers to bait RT's. My goal with those units isn't to keep them alive. It's to keep them alive long enough to make sure that the RT's don't screw up my real goals which is to win. Forget that you spent 150+ points on that sacrificial unit. Forget that it "didn't earn it's points" back. The unit is there to accomplish a single goal: keep the RT off of your back. If it does that then the points lost when it dies simply doesn't matter.

3. Lock it up. Use something that can lock a RT up in CC for a few rounds. Again, you aren't trying to survive the combat you are just trying to keep it out of the picture.

4. Amp up the firepower. This is my least favorite approach. Usually if I'm taking the units necessary to actually drop a RT fairly early in the game then I'm hurting myself in other ways.

Note that you can combine some of these. For example, you might ignore it while having a "bait" unit tear up other parts of his army. You don't expect a lot out of the bait unit, maybe it drops a unit of FW or whatever, but you do expect him to waste an unreasonable amount of time trying to kill/dislodge it. For example, a flying daemon prince or blood thirster. Heck, take Abaddon and deep strike him with a few terminators. Sure those could attack the RT directly; but if you can put one of those amongst his troops then the RT will come to you... and if the RT is going after the daemon prince then it's not going after your scoring units. Even a good group of bikers might work. Fast moving, can mow down some firewarriors... Take enough that it would take the RT a few rounds to kill them.

Point is: focus on the mission and what it takes to either distract or destroy any units that stand between you and accomplishing it. If it's objective based, then you want troops to hold while everything else is there to keep his guys away from your troops. If it's relic then you want the ability to get to it first - fast moving units combined with something to buff your ability to go first. If it's KP then you want to focus on removing the squishier units, saving the big thing for the end.

Be careful with Daemon Princes... they can/will Nova for a 3++ save and then Smash you for S10. Bye-Bye Daemon Prince.

Your best bet is to bog them down with fearless chaff like a fat unit of Spawn or Zambeez. Just be careful throwing "hurt balls" like Abaddon and what not on him. He may end up absorbing wounds and tying up a lot more points than he's worth himself and then allowing the rest of his army to heavy lift on yours.

Also, they may have Hit and Run... yea, it's not effective, but it would be painful to charge one, have it absorb the damage, and then break away to leave hanging with your ... ... out to get shot off.

There's no good way to saturate them otherwise in the Chaos book from my perspective. You can try to plasma them down, but that may not be effective enough.

Riptides are situational for Chaos. It's really kinda lame that Daemon Princes are T5, otherwise they'd be a good fight for them. Iron Armed Princes I would throw at them, but most likely he's going to be pushing 300pts+ meaning not a fair trade if they get locked up for a reasonable amount of time. I'd go for tarpitting.

 TheKbob wrote:
Be careful with Daemon Princes... they can/will Nova for a 3++ save and then Smash you for S10. Bye-Bye Daemon Prince.

Your best bet is to bog them down with fearless chaff like a fat unit of Spawn or Zambeez. Just be careful throwing "hurt balls" like Abaddon and what not on him. He may end up absorbing wounds and tying up a lot more points than he's worth himself and then allowing the rest of his army to heavy lift on yours.

Also, they may have Hit and Run... yea, it's not effective, but it would be painful to charge one, have it absorb the damage, and then break away to leave hanging with your ... ... out to get shot off.

There's no good way to saturate them otherwise in the Chaos book from my perspective. You can try to plasma them down, but that may not be effective enough.

Riptides are situational for Chaos. It's really kinda lame that Daemon Princes are T5, otherwise they'd be a good fight for them. Iron Armed Princes I would throw at them, but most likely he's going to be pushing 300pts+ meaning not a fair trade if they get locked up for a reasonable amount of time. I'd go for tarpitting.

Hmm I kinda like the idea of MoN Spawn tbh...I love fielding them and 5 of them are cheap/fast and tough enough to maybe get into combat with the Riptide relatively in tact. Even if it's only to allow a beatstick Lord to join the combat afterwards without having to worry about overwatch. I suppose the ideal would be to focus on the supporting fire chain by creating a threat (or multiple small ones) at one end and hopefully keep them busy enough that the Spawn dont have to eat overwatch from a bunch of units. Like I said earlier, I don't field Heldrakes (and from what I read they dont last long against Tau anyway) so perhaps a good idea is to run 3 x 5 Spawn units all MoN and run at Tau to create multiple tough threats they have to spread their markerlights on?

One of the Spawn units could have a MoN Biker Lord in it along with a Biomancy Sorcerer casting Iron Arm on himself and Endurance on the squad which would at least provide the Spawn with a FNP that cannot be taken away...and a couple of lucky IWND rolls can help them stay alive until they reach the Riptide?

I'm going the ABG route, with command vanquisher, commisar vanq and a demolisher. As it is renegades using the renegade vehicle crew mixed in with the enforcer set, plus the icons - lovely chaos banner there - to get the right feel.

2 S8 Ap2 ID blasts, twin linked if youre within 36" of me per turn, means he is novacharging to always get the 3++. Meanwhile my jugger lord is on the way to kill his army, the heldrake can kill others, etc. Multiple fast threats.

Hel, the above plus 2 maulerfiends will put the hurt on, as they have to choose what to kill - a tau army cant quite kill all of that in 1 turn....

 Sidstyler wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:
and is surprisingly good in melee, considering how crappy weapon skill DOESN'T ACTUALLY MAKE YOU VERY BAD AT MELEE, and it gets all the MC melee goodness.

I hope you're talking about just the riptide here, because everything else in the Tau codex is crap at close combat, and obviously so. Like I don't even see how you could begin to argue otherwise and keep a straight face.

The riptide is the only thing that stands out, with high S, high T, high wound count, 3 attacks (pretty low for a single-model CC unit though, isn't it?), a 2+ save and MC status...and even then, that unit was obviously intended to be used for its shooting, and if you toss it into melee instead of taking advantage of that you're being a dumbass and throwing points away, just like with any other Tau unit. With the riptide in particular, yeah, the low WS doesn't mean much because it's an MC, but it's the only Tau unit that has that going for it. And like I said, getting caught in CC is still the worst thing you could let happen to a riptide.

Well yes I am talking about the riptide, considering I mentioned the monstrous creature status in the line that you quoted.

Also I have lost melee combats with white scar bikers charging against tau fire warriors, because I am apparently an expert at rolling dice...poorly. But seriously, the 5+ section of the WS chart may as well not exist. It literally ONLY comes up once every 10 games for us. It's hard to see low WS as a downside on all Tau when it makes you hit 95% of the game on a 4...and my assault marines hit 85% of the game on a 4.

I mention the melee being surprisingly boss for a highly mobile nigh invincible all-rounded shooting unit because...well, anyone with any sense of game balance whatsoever would see where I'm going with this. Even when "caught" in CC, it's not even necessarily game over for the riptide. (Which given all the other abilities, it really should be.) The thing is just a monster unit that's incredibly undercosted. A full charge from 15 Blood Angel Death Company with 75 furious charge attacks, and a reclusiarch with his own 5 attacks, and letting the entire squad reroll to hit AND to wound, does not kill a FNP-equipped riptide on average. Bear in mind that that assault WILL kill over TEN thunderhammer terminators on average. Even the almighty strength D needs at least two hits on average to take one down, and it might even take 3!!! This on a model whose "weak point" is supposedly melee and only costs about the same as a Blood angel assault squad. Less if you drop the FNP.

It's very telling that virtually every "solution" to battling against a riptide that gets thrown out costs more than the riptide and usually doesn't even necessarily kill it, as much as just keep it busy. Many of the "solutions" rely on the Tau player being a subpar player, or at least being subpar at target priority and discerning the opponent's plan through his tactics.

I wouldn't mind the tide being such a ridiculous unit if it was actually costed appropriately. That's the biggest thing that bugs me about them. The fact that some supposedly thinking human being somewhere actually looked at the thing and approved the tiny cost they wanted to give it. It would be like Magic the gathering reprinting Time Walk in blue, and not giving the other colors jack.

If I knew a tau opponent was bringing a riptide to the table, I'd expect to lose just due to the amazing point efficiency advantage he's gaining. Best thing I can really do as BA is drop pod in librarians or furi librarians with fear of the darkness and hope his luck fails.

If I knew an opponent was bringing multiple riptides, I'd tell him he no longer has any right to refuse playing against escalation, stronghold assault, forgeworld, 30k, or anything else.

niv-mizzet wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:
and is surprisingly good in melee, considering how crappy weapon skill DOESN'T ACTUALLY MAKE YOU VERY BAD AT MELEE, and it gets all the MC melee goodness.

I hope you're talking about just the riptide here, because everything else in the Tau codex is crap at close combat, and obviously so. Like I don't even see how you could begin to argue otherwise and keep a straight face.

The riptide is the only thing that stands out, with high S, high T, high wound count, 3 attacks (pretty low for a single-model CC unit though, isn't it?), a 2+ save and MC status...and even then, that unit was obviously intended to be used for its shooting, and if you toss it into melee instead of taking advantage of that you're being a dumbass and throwing points away, just like with any other Tau unit. With the riptide in particular, yeah, the low WS doesn't mean much because it's an MC, but it's the only Tau unit that has that going for it. And like I said, getting caught in CC is still the worst thing you could let happen to a riptide.

Well yes I am talking about the riptide, considering I mentioned the monstrous creature status in the line that you quoted.

Also I have lost melee combats with white scar bikers charging against tau fire warriors, because I am apparently an expert at rolling dice...poorly. But seriously, the 5+ section of the WS chart may as well not exist. It literally ONLY comes up once every 10 games for us. It's hard to see low WS as a downside on all Tau when it makes you hit 95% of the game on a 4...and my assault marines hit 85% of the game on a 4.

I mention the melee being surprisingly boss for a highly mobile nigh invincible all-rounded shooting unit because...well, anyone with any sense of game balance whatsoever would see where I'm going with this. Even when "caught" in CC, it's not even necessarily game over for the riptide. (Which given all the other abilities, it really should be.) The thing is just a monster unit that's incredibly undercosted. A full charge from 15 Blood Angel Death Company with 75 furious charge attacks, and a reclusiarch with his own 5 attacks, and letting the entire squad reroll to hit AND to wound, does not kill a FNP-equipped riptide on average. Bear in mind that that assault WILL kill over TEN thunderhammer terminators on average. Even the almighty strength D needs at least two hits on average to take one down, and it might even take 3!!! This on a model whose "weak point" is supposedly melee and only costs about the same as a Blood angel assault squad. Less if you drop the FNP.

It's very telling that virtually every "solution" to battling against a riptide that gets thrown out costs more than the riptide and usually doesn't even necessarily kill it, as much as just keep it busy. Many of the "solutions" rely on the Tau player being a subpar player, or at least being subpar at target priority and discerning the opponent's plan through his tactics.

I wouldn't mind the tide being such a ridiculous unit if it was actually costed appropriately. That's the biggest thing that bugs me about them. The fact that some supposedly thinking human being somewhere actually looked at the thing and approved the tiny cost they wanted to give it. It would be like Magic the gathering reprinting Time Walk in blue, and not giving the other colors jack.

If I knew a tau opponent was bringing a riptide to the table, I'd expect to lose just due to the amazing point efficiency advantage he's gaining. Best thing I can really do as BA is drop pod in librarians or furi librarians with fear of the darkness and hope his luck fails.

If I knew an opponent was bringing multiple riptides, I'd tell him he no longer has any right to refuse playing against escalation, stronghold assault, forgeworld, 30k, or anything

From your perspective what do you think a Riptide is worth in pts to a Tau player...I.e what would be the point where they would acrually consider it too expensive for its worth? 400pts? I wonder if it could give some of the 500+pt primarchs a go...

The Riptide has a niche ability to absolutely annihilate heavy infantry. Against cheap light infantry, they lose a lot of efficacy and against MCs, the accelerator is not particularly good, either.

I find the Riptide extremely difficult to price accordingly. The answer is probably somewhat higher than it currently is, but not as high as some marine players may want. Unfortunately, marine players just need to get used to the butthurt and realize that 3+ armor is just a very bad place to be right now.

Valaskjalf wrote:
Ok so does chaos have any viable way of dealing with them?

Nobody does, really. The Riptide is just grossly under-priced.

Riptide doesn't stand a chance against angron. Just throwing that out there. I have had riptide excel in close combat simply by being a monstrous creature. But it's not where you want it

Well I suppose I will just have to suck it up...unluckily for me the guy Im playing is a bit of a cheeseball and I know he has one Riptide, but only because hes saving up for another.

I guess I'll just have to go in with low expectations and keep a straight face when I get kicked. Then again...will definitely try Be'Lakor / Great Unclean One combo just for interest sake.

Oblits are great, but they are not a riptide.

Love that Unclean One model, have fun with that!

Valaskjalf wrote:
Well I suppose I will just have to suck it up...unluckily for me the guy Im playing is a bit of a cheeseball and I know he has one Riptide, but only because hes saving up for another.

I guess I'll just have to go in with low expectations and keep a straight face when I get kicked. Then again...will definitely try Be'Lakor / Great Unclean One combo just for interest sake.

Guo will never get near it. Never ever at 6" a turn

Oh yeah, Psychic Shriek can do a number on Riptides. It's Primaris and available to a lot of units, including FMCs.

 Squigsquasher wrote:
There's always the good ol' Heldrake. There's practically nothing the Feathered Fiend can't blast apart with Autocannon fire/burn to a crisp/tear to shreds with iron claws.

Forgefiends and Defilers would probably be good choices for gunning the thing down. Same with Predators, which are cheap and versatile enough that they'll be useful for more than just 'Tide hunting.

With heldrakes and deifilers being AP3 at best, they would barely touch the riptides 6 wounds and 2+
The plasma forgefiend has it a little better, but the 3++ makes it tough.

What you need to take out spammed riptides is AP2 and ID.

 ausYenLoWang wrote:

Valaskjalf wrote:
Well I suppose I will just have to suck it up...unluckily for me the guy Im playing is a bit of a cheeseball and I know he has one Riptide, but only because hes saving up for another.

I guess I'll just have to go in with low expectations and keep a straight face when I get kicked. Then again...will definitely try Be'Lakor / Great Unclean One combo just for interest sake.

Guo will never get near it. Never ever at 6" a turn

Yeah I suppose not, but perhaps deepstriking him closeby could pose a threat big enough that the rest of my guys can advance. Mostly use him as a big, fat, expensive decoy...what's the worst that can happen? I can lose, which from the looks of it is probably what the consensus is anyway. Or maybe drop him in amongst all his markerlight chucking drones/pathfinders. Like I said, I know the GUO probably won't get into combat with him, but the Riptide has to change course because he doesn't want to risk it either.

Chaos spawn with the mark of nurgle are great for tying things up in cc. And with 3W each and T6, a riptide will struggle to get through them in cc.

Ok, again as a Tau player, the worst thing you can do to my Riptide (assuming it's an Iontide) is to:

A) Remove supporting units. Kill the Markerlights. It's only BS3 without them - nova charging for the ordnance blast makes it roughly equivalent in firepower to a Russ - i.e, not accurate enough alone to be worth worrying about. You should be able to play around a lone, unsupported Riptide without too much trouble. Buffmanders and Markerlights should be your targets, not the 'Tide itself.

B) Tie Her up. A cc tarpit (Cultist horde? The Nurgle Beasts should work well actually.) Will stop me from shooting for a turn or two.

C) Distraction Carnifex. Make something big and shiny pop up over there, away from the objective. Take the objective while his stuff is shooting the big shiny thing. over there. Force them to fight it away from the objective. Win.

D) Instant Death is... instant. Have to kill it? Bring alone something that only needs to get through my 3++ once. Beasthunter shells are fan-fething-tastic for this, if you're willing. otherwise...

E) Force my Nova. Make me take those tests. One in every six fail - that's one per game if you're forcing me to pop my 3++ every turn. If it fails, guess what? You get a bonus round of firing on me without that 3++. Bring the Lascannons and cover the Preds.

F) IGNORE ME! Well, if you decided to follow option A, then that's what you're doing. Just remember that the best it can do is deny, so keep your troops safe, and keep your objective out of reach.

Things to remember about the Riptide:

1) It's damn fast. 6" move. It can run. It can then thrust 2D6". If it Nova'd jets, then that 2D6" becomes 4D6" That's potentially 36" of movement in one turn - though mine would average 13" (6" move, +12" thrust move). That speed, as well as the long range on its Ion means it won' be out of a fight for long.

2) Tau have no Psychic defence. Unless they bring FSE's Talisman, they deny on a 6. Puppet master the 'Tide, Terrify it. Belakor, if you can get him close enough (Ties in nicely with C (Distraction Carnifex)), it really puts the hurt on Tau. Heck, Just Belakor does really.

3) The Nova is only good once a turn. Jets, gun, guns (Ripple Fire) or shield. So that's a positive... kinda. If it shields it's gun isn't too good (unsupported), and if it charges the gun, then it's relying on high T and a 5++. It's like fighting Sundowner on Metal Gear Rising - avoid it when the shield is up, and pound on it when the shield's down. (Or just follow A (remove the support) and you're golden-ish).

4) It's not a character. Don't have my rulebook to hand, but you might be able to get away with a hidden P-fist in this case. He will Nova for the shield, but that's fine. You can do decent damage with a fist (hitting on 3s, wounding on 2s) vs a 'Tide. Just have to get there first. Outside of Close Combat, only a Nova Ion shot can hurt a Land Raider. Yes, I know, it's silly. But hey, the Riptide is gonna ballpark 220 points at least...

5) Throw Abbadon at it. Or try Black Legion, particularly the Relics. I'm not familliar with it, but I believe there's some form of instant death relic that's pretty damn decent. The Black Hand or somesuch... again, I will confess ignorance here and hope someone that knows the supplement can come and help.

6) "My Leadership? Terrible, why do you ask little Shas'La?" "Because those Khorne Berserkers? They just multicharged us and butchered the squad. We're all that's left... Shall I roll my LD2 now, Shas'Vre?"
You see where this is going? If you can land a multicharge against the 'Tide and another unit (anything that isn't Farsight,basically), you (probably) will feth up the other unit before they swing. The 'Tide will swing for one or two guys. It then checks LD at a massive disadvantage, hopefully breaks, Sweeping advance. If you don't catch it, try to walk it off the table. At Init 4 vs Init 2, you should make the sweep.

6) Most of the time, it won't be alone. If your opponent fields the Riptide as a Lonestar, your job will be significantly easier. If it comes with Farsight, a Commander with MSSS, VTs, etc, expect it to be nigh uncatchable - in this case, A (remove support) might not work. In this case, you'll have to try C (Distraction Carnifex), tarpitting (B) or simply playing the objective. On the plus side, that's 400 or so points that can't score...
Just a heads up, that unit will probably be pumping out TL'd Ignores Cover blasts, able to soak a massive amount of damage, slice you up at init 5 (Farsight) with AP2 Armourbane, With Majority T6 (6 for the 'Tide, 5 on an Iridium Commander, 4 on Farsight.) On the plus side, none of that has EW, and the best save is the Nova 3++, followed by a Shield Gen 4++. Besthunter Shells are looking really good right now...

7) Have fun. Yeah, its a cop out piece of advice, but if you're not having fun, then why play? Call it or play through to the end, but no matter which way you go, shake his hand and thank him for the game after. You're more likely to get a free beer that way

Well. That was a little longer than intended. Hope some of that is helpful.

Valaskjalf wrote:


From your perspective what do you think a Riptide is worth in pts to a Tau player...I.e what would be the point where they would acrually consider it too expensive for its worth? 400pts? I wonder if it could give some of the 500+pt primarchs a go...

A little bit of a tough call, given that some loadouts are better than others. My preferred one when I tried them out right after the 'dex came out was Ion, smart missiles, and EWO for 190. I rarely nova-charged unless I needed the IA to break armor 13 or 14, (remember, ordnance gives 2d6 take the highest to pen armor, so that's 2 chances at a pen on a land raider!) so I didn't bother with FNP. If I ran a list without much anti-air, I'd slap skyfire on one or two to make it 210.

For that 190 loadout, which can survive about as much firepower as a small super-heavy, such as an imperial knight, and has extreme adaptability, being able to hurt literally anything that I need it to, including instadeathing most characters and ignoring 90% of FNP rolls, can defend itself from deepstrike/outflank heavy weapon teams, all while being highly mobile...I'd say right around 285. 320 if you gave it FNP upgrade.

The ion accelerator is a very significant adaptability upgrade from the HBC. If I were to run an HBC tide, I'd probably want FNP on it so I can risk the 12 shot more often, and maybe grab either counterfire or EWO for 5 points, it comes up now to 220. In all honesty, I consider this strictly worse than my preferred loadout above, because you lose the ability to even have a chance to deal with av 13 and 14, except for fishing for rending, and TEQ's and MEQ's are no longer scared, as well as any t4 FNP or multi-wound model. So with the loss of that amazing versatility, but still being tough as nails, I'd place this one at about 270, or 235 without the FNP upgrade.

The results of that math are that I think the base superman body with HBC plus a free sub weapon should be base 230, with the upgrades costed as they are currently. Early warning should PROBABLY cost a little more than 5 points now that I think about it, but I'll leave that unchanged for now. The Ion accelerator offers an amazing increase in possible shot targets and damage output, though, and the upgrade to that should be 50 points, not a dinky little 5. I find large blasts to be quite reliable, especially when it's a versatile one like this one. Just pick a section of the table where 2-3 units are kind of close to each other, and boom, it's almost a guaranteed hit on SOMETHING. They only really drop in usefulness near the end of a game where the enemy army is MOSTLY DEAD, and I'll take that downside any day.

So in short: +100 for ion tides, +50 for HBC tides is what I would think is "around the right area" that people would actually contemplate not using them, but still have them be acceptable battle participants comparable to other choices. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a triptide list playtest this and still win.