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I feel like with all the practice games I've done with Triptide my IA Riptide is not carrying his weight. Hardly ever even using his reactor to make his IA better. Either ripple firing his secondary or giving him 3++.

Planning on turning my Triptide list to just 3x HBC. I feel like I'll get a lot more out of them that way. What do you guys think? Anyone feel the same? If you like or prefer more IA tides... why? Can't seen to justify them anymore myself.

I'm not a Tau player (daemons and nids), but the HBC is always scarier to me. I still feel like I'd want one Iontide in a triptide list though just to make deepstrike heavy armies think twice.

I run 2 IA and 1 HBC w/ ECPA in my triptide list. I also run a huge missile pod crisis squad (with 2 commanders) so I already have enough S6-7 in my list. The IA riptides pull their weight when I fight marines and tau. I have been tempted to drop 1 for another HBC tho. I don't think I would ever take 3 HBC personally.

IA doesn't need as much markerlight support, HBC variants do, especially if overcharging.

ECPA really helps the HBC variant though - and it makes for a decent AA with Velocity Tracker.

IA > HBC. I did the math in my Tau codex review article in my sig.

IA is insanely good value for just 5 points over the HBC.

Also it sounds like you're nova charging commonly? Don't. Don't kill your riptide FOR your opponent. Make him kill it. You should only nova-charge in dire situations for the riptide, like when it needs to 4d6 thrust away from something that will certainly kill it and you can't stop otherwise. Or if double shooting the sub weapon is a game winning move, or you absolutely NEED an av 14 enemy vehicle penned by the s9 ordinance blast

Especially playing triptides, never go for 3++. If I play against multiple tides and they all throw up 3++, I'll just go for the one that failed and wounded himself pointlessly.

IA's are just more versatile, and will generally have a good place to shoot in any game, especially considering the range=board attribute.

IA is more "stable" than the HBC, but the HBC can cause a lot more damage in the end.

If the HBC wasnt so crucially dependent on nova charges it probably would be taken more. Thats why the Farsight version is pretty popular because of the ECPA you can give a riptide to reroll 1s and a failed nova charge.

Right now my issue with the HBC isnt its top end potential (i view it as one of the strongest since its 12 shots that can take out AV14 if needed theyre that strong) its the low end potential. Without nova charge i feel its pretty piss poor except against 4+ armies. I always feel like when i fail that nova, even if i save the wound from a FNP roll, he's useless that turn. I tend to bring a ton of missilepods though, so could also be because i already have a ton of AP4 lol.

IA with nova charge needs a 5+ to pen AV14, with 2 dice to attempt so from Ordnance. Thats pretty bad to me since its only 1 pen anyway.
HBC with nova needs a 6 and then a 2/3 on a D3 to glance/pen, but has 12 attempts. Ive never caused any damage chart issues with it, even in 6th ed, but ive glanced high armor vehicles to death a LOT.

It just falls back to if i fail that nova, hes freakin pointless.....

I think you should get more Missile pods and stop faffing about with Non-ECPA Burstides.

if your meta isn't heavy with marines/gk, it's probably better to get HBC.

Cant forget the day a full squad of wyches (old DE codex) charged my firewarriors... the Riptide with HBC alone managed to kill half of them (of course there were pathfinders nearby) ^^

I don't see very many people pointing out that the IA Riptide has Gets Hot on any of it's blasts; over or nova charged. A single roll of 1 and all it has its its secondary gun which is even worse than a HBC going from 12 shots + rending to just 8 shots.

Let's assume that we give our Riptide variants enough bonus to BS so they can reroll 1's to get them out of "Get's hot" ranges. I'd still rather get "Get's hot" and reroll and take saves on those failed rerolls on my 12 shots + rending than having to fail a single shot large blast. I fail the single IAs shot and that's it... it's worse than a HBC failing it's Nova. And remember the regular overcharged IA non Nova charged has "Get's hot" too. If it was the Nova version of the shot only I'd be all on board but it's not...

Unless I'm missing something and the actual mode of fire that is most often chosen with the IA tide is the 3x S7 AP2 shots. Then I take back what I said above.


What do you guys think?

Still having a hard time making the IA tide work... do you guys shoot it 3x S7 AP2 shots regularly? around once a game I fail the gets hot role and all the Riptide is is some crappy secondary fire weapons....

If I fail my Nova with a Burst-Tide I have 8 S6 shots still at least.

Not understanding how the IA tide is better to take as the double in a Triptide list >___< Can anyone enlighten me?

The blast. AP2 large blasts aren't that common

Only time ive ever fired my IA normally (S7 3shots) instead of the Blast is when im basically focus-firing due to the range it offers to snipe out some gits in a rooftop. I never fire it at a flier unless i managed to land a ML or two first and i got rear armor/doublepen range with my fusion.

As Vector Strike said, AP2 large blasts are rare. AP3 is the most common high power blast you see, and even then its the minority of large blasts (outside IG)

 Vector Strike wrote:
The blast. AP2 large blasts aren't that common

Also: ignores cover from markerlights. High Strength + Large Blast + AP2 + Ignores Cover + Long Range is a combination of traits that rarely meet all at once. The IA brings unique capabilities to a tau army - the HBC's capabilities can be replicated by HYMP Broadsides and Sky Rays. Plus, there's no particular reason you need to use your nova charge with the IA (the nova profile isn't that much better), so your Riptide won't be bleeding wounds.

Or conversly, you can use the fact that you don't need to nova to kill things to become dead 'ard. 5 wounds at 2+/3++/5+++ can be rather annoying to remove, especially when it's got the aforementioned high strength, armour ignoring, cover ignoring large blast.

Having said that, if you don't face terminators/sang guard/broadsides/oblits/phoenix lords/mega nobs/TFC's/marines/fragons/crisis/jetbikes/[insert any other 2+ or 3+ guys] regularly, then the HBC is a better choice.

As most have stated the IA riptide is better because it doesn't need to overcharge every round. HBC is basically useless without the overcharge. Both are capable of high end damage though. IA can crush a group of vehicles with it's large blast but the HBC has much better single target vehicle results. If I was to run 3 riptides. Id run 2 IA and 1 HBC.

The riptide's 3++ is almost never taken. Either the Iontide doesnt even nova charge at all, or it does it for Ripple Fire since odds are the Riptide dies from failed 2+ not weapons penning his armor (least for me). Casual wound here and there from AP2 weapons yes but i rarely see enough guns last long enough to kill him with AP2 value.

Think i've used the 3++ once. And that was a game against Wraithknight spam so i needed to guard against that potential instaspork shot.

Ok... I get it now. I just ran 2x IA Riptides + 1x Burst instead of my standard 2x Bursts and 1x IA Riptide and it definitely carries itself more without relying on the Nova charge. I actually rarely charged up my IA Riptide. Thanks for the input guys!

My conclusions are now that the IA Riptide is more versatile because of the AP2 capabilities and Ordnance if there is more than 1 vehicle bunched up (possibility of hitting more than 1) But the HBC is still superior IMHO vs single targets... like Single MC, FMCs, Vehicles etc. Shooting the 3x S7 AP2 at single targets just doesn't cut it for me. Or 1x Ordnance S9... still rather have the HBC Nova'd or not. (On AV12 or under) In single target instances.


Now... Lets say you were to run 4 Tides, would you guys still do 1x HBC ECPA Riptide and 3x IA Riptides or move towards an even split? Just curious.

The main reason that the IA is superior to the HBC by far is that the HBC riptide kills itself.

Between NOVA and gets hot rolls, an HBC riptide without the ECPA is expected to take about 3.33 wounds from his own actions during a game. as he HAS to overcharge every single turn in order to be effective.


The IA riptide however, puts out nearly the same level of destruction, while never employing NOVA once during the game, making the end result far harder to remove.
Couple it with far longer range and you get a unit that costs marginally more for nearly the same output-but taking about triple the effort to actually kill.

Yep, without ECPA I wouldn't consider the HBC... so just one.

3x IA Riptides 1x ECPA HBC Riptide but four Riptides starts to cut into the firepower of the army. 190 points for one S8 AP2 blast and four S5 AP5 shots is very, very steep when multiplied by three.

Thing was though is 1 or 2 of my Riptides generally help speedbump melee centric armies come turn 2 or 3.

What else do you fill up in Tau that makes the army "killier?" Broadsides are great but usually are target #1 on the table. I like giving my enemy a lot of really hard to take out targets. While Broadsides are no slouch with 2+, most armies can wipe them if they really want to. Riptide... not so much.

If you want a speedbump go piranhas. They arent that killy most of the time but for 200pts you get 5 AV11/10/10 vehicles that are JUST durable enough to either force multiple wasted charges or dedicated anti-tank weapons (wasting turns or wasting high point shots, win win) to get by then on top of that you have the 10 drones they dumped off behind them. The drones can seriously lay down some dakka too, even just 1 ML makes them a real threat.

And yes, they all form 1 unit. Drone detachment rules state vehicle squadrons that detach drones form a single unit. Which only applies to Piranha afaik

I bring 5 piranha literally every game and they severely piss my opponents off. They cant get to my broadsides or my crisis suits for 3-4 turns because of the piranha/drone speedbumps.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
If you want a speedbump go piranhas. They arent that killy most of the time but for 200pts you get 5 AV11/10/10 vehicles that are JUST durable enough to either force multiple wasted charges or dedicated anti-tank weapons (wasting turns or wasting high point shots, win win) to get by then on top of that you have the 10 drones they dumped off behind them. The drones can seriously lay down some dakka too, even just 1 ML makes them a real threat.

And yes, they all form 1 unit. Drone detachment rules state vehicle squadrons that detach drones form a single unit. Which only applies to Piranha afaik

I bring 5 piranha literally every game and they severely piss my opponents off. They cant get to my broadsides or my crisis suits for 3-4 turns because of the piranha/drone speedbumps.

So you use the Piranhas to speed bump huh? 5 Piranhas in 1 unit? So when they spit out the drones thats a 10 drone unit speed bump. The thing I liked about my list is the MP suits with tank Buffmander with 8 ablative ML drone wounds and 3 Riptides were on the field turn 1. That's all my opponent really has to shoot at until my DS suits come in and kroot. For BAO missions, not giving up First Blood really helps a lot if you can secure primary.

What is your thought on having only 3 Piranhas in a unit? Is that too easy to give up? I ask because I don't have any experience with them and for them to be good tarpits I'd want them on the board turn 1. Or do you have to go 5 Piranhas to really achieve what your trying to suggest?

Thanks for the feedback

I've always just maxed it out because theyre cheap. I could see issues with lower numbers but i might be overthinking it. Though in my experience when i start to lose piranha its usually 2-3 a turn, and depending on the location the remaining 2-3 is still enough to be a pain in the butt.

The biggest thing i see with less piranha is thats less drones too. 4-6 drones isnt much of a speedbump or a threat except in a chokepoint.