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So I had the pleasure of playing an 1850 point game (Tau vs. GK/Inquisition) with my favourite opponent on Sunday. Before we made our lists that week he asked, very politely, if Forgeworld was okay to bring. We agreed that it was fine and the fateful day approached.

My list was 3 melee Henchman squads with Inquisitor support in Chimeras, Coteaz firebase with PC servitors, 2 Psybolt Dreads, 4 MSU scoring Psybacks, a Vindicare, and a squad of Daemonhosts (had 70 points and figured they'd be interesting).
His list was 3 devilfish with Firewarriors, Longstrike, 3 broadsides with all missiles and 6 missile drones, a T5 commander with markerlight drones, and a R'Varna.

Now I've faced his regular Riptide before, so I wasn't terribly worried (it's a nasty model, but certainly killable with massed fire) but this fellow was in a league of his own: T7, 6 wounds, 2+/4++, and shielded missile drones for defense made for a tough nut to crack.

Essentially his 260 point model took out both Dreads, 3 Psybacks, and Coteaz Firebase without breaking a sweat. Large Blast that hits 3x at S8 is pretty brutal, and overcharging the reactor for 4 shots (Coteaz had 30 wounds on his unit after one volley) was rather unpleasant to say the least. He kept it back behind cover for part of the game and then realized that was just silly as it walked out into the middle of the board with impunity! Got two Vortex of Doom psychic powers to land on it (SD AP1 blast) but his invuln shrugged them off easily.

Given the high toughness, high wounds, defensive drones, armour/invuln saves, and intimidatingly powerful guns (all for the low, low price of a Teleporter Dreadknight with an Incinerator and Sword), what are the recommendations for dealing with one? I know he'll bring it again (who wouldn't?!) but I'd like to maybe scratch the paint next time around...

My thoughts are just massed fire to hope to fail saves (although wounding T7 is rough and that leaves a lot of Tau shooting from the rest of his army) or find some way to get into assault with it (although it's still a T7 MC). Any thoughts from the bright bulbs at Dakka? Thanks!

DoW

I have some past experience with the R'Varna as well, and I really, really, really feel your pain. In one game, 'That Guy' brought 3 of them. It was the most one sided match I had ever played. Another time it was one R'Varna and 2 normal riptides. Still pretty nasty...

From past experience with the *cough* overpowered *cough* Riptide R'Varna.. I will tell you how I always deal with it. Keep in mind that this is a personal stratagem and your mileage may vary. I do it every time I face one or more of those beastly and gribbly rape-trains.

Remember that if he ripple fires the main weapon, he may not fire it in the next turn. And it is much less brutal against either av14 (6to glance) or regular sized infantry models (1 hit per model I believe. Also, I don't think it has split fire. And it so my BS3, so deploy accordingly. He's spent a lot of points on it, so AP2 it to death (those plasma cannons, preferable with ignores cover).

Worth checking the rules on ForgeWorld site. Most people play them wrong.

Riptides were bad enough, GW needs to fix those ugly monstrosities. 2+ on a T6 5W model is redic when you consider the firepower it brings for less points than a Land Raider.

It's 260 base, so with Drones it'll be more. Also, if it has 2 Drones it will be majority toughness 6.

It does not have a 4++ (that got removed, along with AP3).

It does not have a jetpack, so no assault move shenanigans.

It cannot take EWO (so the rule about not being able to fire in the subsequent turn is either redundant, or FW just don't know the rules of the game they're making units for).


It's not all that great anymore, on the whole, but it has the potential to really dominate against certain builds.

Make sure he be using the current experimentals.

Spread out to minimize the blasts.

Tau do great agaisnt slower crawl and turrteling armies.

Try some shunting tactics that force them to deal with the immediate threat and over load him.
Also they have nearly no psychic defense so consider some fun telepathy like terrify it off the board or dominate/hallucinate or something that can force snaps.

Note that that "teleporter dreadknight with incinerator and sword" will absolutely wreck the R'varna.
Also, as other people said, it only works well against certain targets. Space marines are pretty resilient to it's attacks.
Also, it's slow, so again that teleported dreadknight will mess it up.

All good suggestions, thank you!

We did realize we were playing with the old rules (not the updated PDF from January 2014) so that would have made quite a difference. We also missed the parts about not being able to fire in the subsequent shooting phase after using Volley Fire, that if you fail your Nova Reactor roll you don't get to use the special ability, and the majority Toughness 6 bit. Definitely a reading comprehension fail on my part!

I think Shunting a Dreadknight or two might be a really effective way to put the fear of the Greater Good into it. MC or no, it's not going to like a bunch of S10 AP2 choppy goodness. I was definitely rolling around with 9 chunks of AV11-12 on the board so that made for quite the shooting gallery, especially since I wasn't very tactical about spacing my tanks ("But the dreadnoughts get cover behind rhinos!" R'Varna don't care... KABOOM!).

Thanks again.

DoW

What initiative bases psychic powers are there now? Jaws Of The World Wolf used to be viscious...

 Thud wrote:
It cannot take EWO (so the rule about not being able to fire in the subsequent turn is either redundant, or FW just don't know the rules of the game they're making units for).

It can't fire in YOUR next turn. Overloading the guns lets you fire twice in one turn and then nothing the next turn, instead of one normal shot each turn. You don't get any additional shots over the length of a full game, but it lets you drop maximum firepower on something when you need it dead right now or expect your R'Varna to be dead next turn.

Kholzerino wrote:
What initiative bases psychic powers are there now? Jaws Of The World Wolf used to be viscious...

I don't actually recall any off the top of my head... I thought Jaws was the last one to be removed ?

Maybe I'm completely wrong though

Its gone.

There isnt much in the way of psychic powers besides the basics.

Edit: NVM i just recalled they do have BSF so no blind :(

 Peregrine wrote:

 Thud wrote:
It cannot take EWO (so the rule about not being able to fire in the subsequent turn is either redundant, or FW just don't know the rules of the game they're making units for).

It can't fire in YOUR next turn. Overloading the guns lets you fire twice in one turn and then nothing the next turn, instead of one normal shot each turn. You don't get any additional shots over the length of a full game, but it lets you drop maximum firepower on something when you need it dead right now or expect your R'Varna to be dead next turn.

That's not what the rules say. If you volley fire, "the R'varna may not fire its weapons at all in the subsequent turn." Which would be your opponent's turn.

Since the R'varna cannot fire in the opponent's turn anyway (no access to EWO, unable to fire overwatch) it's fairly likely the RAI is for it to be unable to fire in its next turn. But, again, that's not what the rules say.

Thud is correct, the part about "cant fire next turn" means effectivly nothing as it ticks in the opponent's turn, where there is no way for him to shoot anyway.

So yea, you get 2/3 chance to get double firepower, and 1/3 chance to hurt yourself instead.

Still, the v2 is far, far more fair than the v1. the v1 was outright insane, the v2 is good, but wont squash a well-rounded army-and its still experimental, so when the REAL rules will come out (eventually) it will probably change even more.


Anyway, to answer it you need AV 13/14 or TeQ units to take the hits (nothing TOO bulky to not bring forth the multihits), and high S low AP guns to kill it (preferably on said AV 13/14 or TeQ) to blow it up (lascannons do wonders), or quickly moving MC beaters (shuntknight works wonders, hammernators arn't too bad, anything that charges fast and got AP2 at decent strength)

I though all references to Turns where game turns unless specified.


Edit: VVV BOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 Desubot wrote:
I though all references to Turns where game turns unless specified.

No, unfortunately it's the opposite as per the BRB:

"Whenever a rule refers to ‘a turn’ it always means ‘player turn’ unless it specifically refers to a ‘game turn’."

So sadly it looks like the damn thing can theoretically fire twice every turn. It even says that the rules only stay in effect until the start of the controlling player's next movement phase. So even if it did prevent it from firing the next player turn, it seems that the effect would end during the movement phase?

DoW

Landraider crusaiders with psi-bolts x2, Bastion, and stormraven with psi bolts.
1 TEQ squad, 2 MEQ squads in raiders and geared for combat, and a shooty squad in the bastion.
If well geared, it should hit around 1850.

Keep the SR out of broadside range until you can kill broadsides. Then unload the terminators on his big guy.
With the whole army ignoring almost all of his shooting; time is on your side.

I am going to echo the shunting and DS tactics against Tau. Get in their backyard and make them uncomfortable. I play a pure GK army with the majority of my stuff being able to shunt or DS into battle.

You can also take my other solution: Bring a giant robot yourself, make friends with an Imperial Knight. It adds a lot to what GK lack and I hate admitting that.