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Hey guys can 5 Riptides at 1850 be competitive? What do you think?

HQ - Commander Farsight
Commander O'Vesa

Troops - 3x Crisis Suits
Troops - Crisis Suit
Troops - Crisis Suit
Troops - Crisis Suit

Elites - XV104 Riptide w/Heavy Burst Cannon, Smart Missile Systems, Velocity Tracker, Target Lock, Talisman of the Arthas Moloch
Elites - XV104 Riptide w/Ion Accelerator, Smart Missile Systems, Target Lock, Early Warning Override
Elites - XV104 Riptide w/Ion Accelerator, Smart Missile Systems, Target Lock, Early Warning Override

Heavy Support - Skyray Gunship w/Smart Missile Systems
Heavy Support - Skyray Gunship w/Smart Missile Systems

HQ - Tau Commander w/Multispectrum Sensor Suite, Command and Control Node, Puretide Engram Neurochip, Vectored Retro Thrusters

Troops - 6x Fire Warriors

Elites - XV104 Riptide w/Ion Accelerator, Smart Missile Systems, Target Lock, Early Warning Override

A bunch of quick nigh invincible models that can shoot across the board? Yeah loading up on several is decently powerful.

Not a lot of friend-making potential, so you may want to keep that to "competitive zones" of play.

Your only weakness is going second and getting your O'vesa star JoTWW off the table, which I hope happens lol. This list is hard as nails for sure. Grav-stars will eat your lunch as well, but as far as Tau + Tau lists go this is pretty serious business.

This is a list call the "O'Vesa Star" as made famous by Justin Cook.

It's a GT winner, it's good.

Try to get some sort of missile pods on the crisis suits, IMO. JSJ to hug cover.

As much as I hate to say this since I LOVE Ovesa Star and I feel good about my awesome invincible giant robots... A list like that will get sh*t on by haters and you WILL get a lot of loses simply because a) people are ready for it now b) Look at your troops, just look at it.

Like everyone else said, against a bad opponent you will just UNDRESS him completely, then get called a cheese monkey; but against an opponent who's ready for you (JotWW, Grav-spam etc.) you will get laughed at when you lose and get no credit if you win.

Madness? This is Dakka!

Five Riptides isn't mad, but it is grossly unfair and unfun. For tournament go ahead otherwise stick to less broken units.

I can't wait till JotWW is out of the game.

Madness? Nah, just more cheese.

Don't get me wrong I love the Tau - but this type of list isn't exactly unique. There's no doubt that sticking multiple Riptides in your list is bringing a lot of power to the board and with how tough they are and what guns they bring they're an obvious choice for competition. It IS hard to beat, so I'm wondering - what advice were you looking for here? You know you're short on troops but you probably want to keep most of the elements in that list because that's what make it effective (like I would suggest getting rid of the tanks but they provide you solid Anti-Air and secondary Anti-Vehicle platforms) So you could use more troops... is that a squad of three crisis suits AND three separate suits or what? Also since these Riptide blobs will be heavy targets for CC savvy armies it might also be a good idea to throw a VRT on one of the suits in Farsights unit (using his initiative to Hit & Run)

Man its not even the five riptides that are bugging me here. Its that Tau *also* get fast, tough, one man scoring units. Any army getting this much bs for so cheap deserves to have to put gakky firewarriors on the table

I have to agree with wings of purity - if you win, people will just (rightly) say it because of your list / funds / cheese. If you lose to the few builds that can easily beat riptides, then you'll get none of that sympathy.

It's a very good list, but not a very friendly one. Take it in a tournament, but be prepared to meet a lot of bored people having to face their third Riptide list of the day...

Why target locks? your riptides are not fielded in units, they are alone. Target lock benefits you in absolutely no way. Did you intend to put velocity trackers, or possibly targeting arrays on them? I am also confused by you putting two support systems and a special issue wargear item on a single riptide. The codex says they can only take two items, the farsight codex only allows you to replace one of those two items with a special issue item. I don't think your list is legal for that reason. Other than this I think it is an okay list, I would try and get weapons on the suits though, at least flamers.

Yes. Yes it's competitive. The Riptide is a competitive unit in a powerful army.
It's unlikely five of them will somehow negate this.
No, no it won't endear you to players. Winners maybe, players not at all.

Was there something in particular that you wanted to know beyond that?

I just finished a 6 round tournament over the easter holidays with this list:

Farsight Enclaves Primary
HQ
Farsight - 165
Shas'vre O'Vesa, Ion, Fusion, EWO, Stims, 2xShielded Missile Drones, Earth Caste Array - 305

TROOPS
3 Crisis, 3xTwin Linked Flamers, 3xFlamers, 3xBonding Knife - 114
10 Kroot - 60
10 Kroot - 60
10 Kroot - 60

ELITES
Riptide, Ion, Fusion, EWO - 190
Riptide, Ion, Fusion, EWO - 190
Riptide, Ion, Fusion, EWO, Target Lock - 195

Tau Empire Allies
HQ
Crisis Commander, Puretide Engram Neurochip, XV8-02 'Iridium' Crisis Battlesuit, Vectored-Retro Thrusters, Multi-Spectrum Sensor Suite, Command and Control Node, Stims - 180

TROOPS
10 Kroot, 1 hound - 65
10 Kroot - 60

ELITES
Riptide, SMS, Target Lock, Velocity Tracker - 205

1849

And didn't fare all that well my list ran into Seercouncil, Beaststar and Screamerstars and against those lists you just don't have enough firepower to even threaten them a little bit and you have to play for denial/draw kinda play where you hope to tie something up with stubborn. But against non invul rerollable lists I actually fared quite well, so it's not like it's a bad list. Although - don't go up against JotWW!

But it was damn funny when I was insanely hung over to be able to just deploy 6 models and then hang back and relax while my Nid opponent deployed their horde

Martel732 wrote:
I can't wait till JotWW is out of the game.

i cant wait till riptides are out of the game or a 50pt increase.

A 50 point increase is still too cheap for Riptide.

The list got a major weakness though - you will quickly run out of people to play with.

The Riptide deserves a lot less hate than it gets. People need to stop complaining about it, as its just a very points efficient model. Just like Grey Hunters, Beastpacks, and Inquisitors are. Name one other model in the Tau book that can drop a AP2 pie plate. The thing is..... there isn't. Its our only source of Large Blast AP2, which all armies have. You won't run out of people to play with, because people run Serpent Spam and don't run out of people to play with, people played Grey Knights in 5th and still had people to play with, and people play Knights and find people to play with.

As for the list itself, it's a cute idea. Too bad only 2 Riptides are gonna be buffed, and you only get 1 unit with Ignores Cover, so Seerstar is still gonna crush you. Riptides dissolve like wet paper when they get into combat with anything that can reliably kill a Space Marine. It looks scary until you realize every model you remove is basically 10 percent of your army.....

Lucarikx

 Lucarikx wrote:
The Riptide deserves a lot less hate than it gets. People need to stop complaining about it, as its just a very points efficient model. Just like Grey Hunters, Beastpacks, and Inquisitors are. Name one other model in the Tau book that can drop a AP2 pie plate. The thing is..... there isn't. Its our only source of Large Blast AP2, which all armies have. You won't run out of people to play with, because people run Serpent Spam and don't run out of people to play with, people played Grey Knights in 5th and still had people to play with, and people play Knights and find people to play with.

As for the list itself, it's a cute idea. Too bad only 2 Riptides are gonna be buffed, and you only get 1 unit with Ignores Cover, so Seerstar is still gonna crush you. Riptides dissolve like wet paper when they get into combat with anything that can reliably kill a Space Marine. It looks scary until you realize every model you remove is basically 10 percent of your army.....

Lucarikx

That's your justification for why Riptides deserves less hate, because it's the only AP2 large blast in the Tau codex? How many other codexes have multiple units that can throw out an AP2 large blast?

IG: Demolisher Cannon
Marine varieties (to include CSM): Vindicators
Orks, none I can think of
Eldar-none
Dark Eldar-none
Tyranids-none
Sisters-no blast weapons in the entire list, let alone an AP2 one

Puscifer wrote:
A 50 point increase is still too cheap for Riptide.

I'm sorry but that is ridiculous.
Riptide is 235pts for a Toughness 6, 4 wound MC with a 2+/5++?

Compare the Riptide to a Talos, a Daemon Prince, a Hive Tyrant, Wraithlord, WraithKnight etc etc. The one thing that all of these
MC have in common is that when it comes to offensive power they are generally more flexible and typically put out as much or more damage than a Riptide
and particularly in the case of the Eldar and Dark Eldar Variants they are about as durable. All for less or equal points. (granted the Wraithknight is a poor example in this case but whatever)

Now granted, the Ion accelerator is powerful, and the backup weapons are dependable. But it in NO WAY eclipses the abilities of these other MC. I don't know if people are just seeing a lot
of Riptides and feel the need to vent, but I mean come on. Half of the difficulty in fighting the damn things is getting over the weird mentality everyone has built up around them.

As a serious response to the OP, yes the list is totally competitive so long as people aren't ready for it. You get someone who is prepared for what you are bringing then you will find that the army
is a one trick pony that can't do a particularly good trick. This however is pretty much the case for all lists like this including Cron Air, Nidzilla, Mech Guard. You get the idea.

In summary, if you want to run that list then just do it.

Cranky and Crotchety
-Hxwlf

tremere47 wrote:

 Lucarikx wrote:
The Riptide deserves a lot less hate than it gets. People need to stop complaining about it, as its just a very points efficient model. Just like Grey Hunters, Beastpacks, and Inquisitors are. Name one other model in the Tau book that can drop a AP2 pie plate. The thing is..... there isn't. Its our only source of Large Blast AP2, which all armies have. You won't run out of people to play with, because people run Serpent Spam and don't run out of people to play with, people played Grey Knights in 5th and still had people to play with, and people play Knights and find people to play with.

As for the list itself, it's a cute idea. Too bad only 2 Riptides are gonna be buffed, and you only get 1 unit with Ignores Cover, so Seerstar is still gonna crush you. Riptides dissolve like wet paper when they get into combat with anything that can reliably kill a Space Marine. It looks scary until you realize every model you remove is basically 10 percent of your army.....

Lucarikx

That's your justification for why Riptides deserves less hate, because it's the only AP2 large blast in the Tau codex? How many other codexes have multiple units that can throw out an AP2 large blast?

IG: Demolisher Cannon
Marine varieties (to include CSM): Vindicators
Orks, none I can think of
Eldar-none
Dark Eldar-none
Tyranids-none
Sisters-no blast weapons in the entire list, let alone an AP2 one

Its only one justification. What is it with people and Riptides? There are efficient models in the game, and it happens to be one of them. It is the only shooting dedicated MC in the game. Wraithknights don't count because they are pretty decent in CC, 'Fexes can be built for assault, DP are CC monsters. It has 1 role to fill, kill expensive units. 10 Scouts get in combat with it and it's as good as dead.

Lucarikx

'Points-efficient' is a very nice way of saying 'under costed'

So were Grey Hunters. And Wave Serpents. And Vendettas. People got over those, why not Riptides? The problem in 40k right now is 2++ rerollables, not that Riptides are a good unit.

Lucarikx

Too many riptides. Not enough support units. The army is strong, but it isn't balanced enough to be a top-tier build.