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 Jancoran wrote:

 Grizzyzz wrote:
Short range? The heavy burst is 36" that is plenty of range to hit basically anything that you want. If you play vanguard or dawn of war deployment, you can essentially position yourself to hit about everything on the board. I have yet to have any issue with my riptide wing even hail firing on turn 1 effectively. It is not the 72" (or 60" ?) of the Ion Accelerator, but if your shooting that far, your secondary is near worthless anyway as well.

Additionally, the problem comes with the current meta and cost. More than half of the game is survival now. Especially at tournaments, and the riptide is one of the best survivors in our codex. I can bring a 8 man squad of firewarriors and devilfish, or a tricked out pathfinder crew for out flanking. or a 4 man crisis squad with double plasmas, and while they each have their place, none of them can withstand the same punishment as a riptide for equal cost. You said it yourself earlier, its not always about the one turn firepower, its about the firepower you can put out throughout the 5 turns. And nothing in our codex short of ghostkeel and the stormsurge is able to do that, and on top of that, be versatile enough to make last minute strides to objectives or suddenly change roles (via nova charge). Riptide was made too good in my opinion. (complete seperate topic, but is one of the core issues with the tau codex, that I think needs changed).

Survival is a thing. I agree. Another thing that is a thing is acceptable losses and saturation. also still a thing. D Weapons? Also a thing.

I have pretty clearly acknowledged several times that the Riptide Wing is good. So i dont THINK we're even arguing that point here. I don't need to be told why its good when I already said it was. Lol.

I'm just telling you that there are other options I prefer more. And now i see people jetting around with four of the things. Its interesting.

The counter is fast melee....as it ever is with the Tau Empire. You gotta take your round of lumps going in and then make hay. The formula is unchanged and so my personal style is to take some of that away from the enemy as an option. I do that by varying my attack and having better answers to more things by being positionally dominant instead of GREAT answers to a few things and being a sitting target.

Dark eldar kind of illustrate my point. Riptide Wings can go down in an awful hurry to them and they really arent a "power Codex" but they do provide a somewhat perfect counter. Speed, melee you can protect on the way in, and lots of Instant Death attacks. The sheer volume of dice allows for a fair chance at it. Even if they lose every round of combat to a Riptide (unlikely), its going nowhere the rest of the game and firing at no one, its super ripple fire potentially wasted on the hull of a Raider or Tantalus if it got it off at all.

Just an example of the type of army i would want to have a slightly different option when facing than just spamming Riptides. Again understanding that spamming Riptides is a very strong play. i have agreed already.

Riptide wing is probably the best non-flyer thing in the army against fast melee, re-rollable boost and high volume of fire. The argument of the fast melee threat seems to actually be just more justification for taking this formation, not against. Dark Eldar is one of the armies I'd want possibly more Riptides than anything.

ShredderShards wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

 Grizzyzz wrote:
Short range? The heavy burst is 36" that is plenty of range to hit basically anything that you want. If you play vanguard or dawn of war deployment, you can essentially position yourself to hit about everything on the board. I have yet to have any issue with my riptide wing even hail firing on turn 1 effectively. It is not the 72" (or 60" ?) of the Ion Accelerator, but if your shooting that far, your secondary is near worthless anyway as well.

Additionally, the problem comes with the current meta and cost. More than half of the game is survival now. Especially at tournaments, and the riptide is one of the best survivors in our codex. I can bring a 8 man squad of firewarriors and devilfish, or a tricked out pathfinder crew for out flanking. or a 4 man crisis squad with double plasmas, and while they each have their place, none of them can withstand the same punishment as a riptide for equal cost. You said it yourself earlier, its not always about the one turn firepower, its about the firepower you can put out throughout the 5 turns. And nothing in our codex short of ghostkeel and the stormsurge is able to do that, and on top of that, be versatile enough to make last minute strides to objectives or suddenly change roles (via nova charge). Riptide was made too good in my opinion. (complete seperate topic, but is one of the core issues with the tau codex, that I think needs changed).

Survival is a thing. I agree. Another thing that is a thing is acceptable losses and saturation. also still a thing. D Weapons? Also a thing.

I have pretty clearly acknowledged several times that the Riptide Wing is good. So i dont THINK we're even arguing that point here. I don't need to be told why its good when I already said it was. Lol.

I'm just telling you that there are other options I prefer more. And now i see people jetting around with four of the things. Its interesting.

The counter is fast melee....as it ever is with the Tau Empire. You gotta take your round of lumps going in and then make hay. The formula is unchanged and so my personal style is to take some of that away from the enemy as an option. I do that by varying my attack and having better answers to more things by being positionally dominant instead of GREAT answers to a few things and being a sitting target.

Dark eldar kind of illustrate my point. Riptide Wings can go down in an awful hurry to them and they really arent a "power Codex" but they do provide a somewhat perfect counter. Speed, melee you can protect on the way in, and lots of Instant Death attacks. The sheer volume of dice allows for a fair chance at it. Even if they lose every round of combat to a Riptide (unlikely), its going nowhere the rest of the game and firing at no one, its super ripple fire potentially wasted on the hull of a Raider or Tantalus if it got it off at all.

Just an example of the type of army i would want to have a slightly different option when facing than just spamming Riptides. Again understanding that spamming Riptides is a very strong play. i have agreed already.

Riptide wing is probably the best non-flyer thing in the army against fast melee, re-rollable boost and high volume of fire. The argument of the fast melee threat seems to actually be just more justification for taking this formation, not against. Dark Eldar is one of the armies I'd want possibly more Riptides than anything.

That is your prerogative. the three Riptide Wing forces which have felt the sting of my Dark Eldar would disagree however, unanimously. Mostly because they werent on the table after the fifth round, in all three cases.

It's one thing to imagine, but its another to see it in play. the Dark eldar can literally be on top of the Riptides in one turn and charging them in the second. By turn three the Talos have arrived. By round four, the game is in hand and we are playing it out.

Once you do that to someone, you have no wish to have it done to you. So you learn from it and plan accordingly so that you are taking advantage of the Riptides without over committing to both their strengths and their weakness. I love the Riptide Wing but I don't feel compelled to use it.

 Jancoran wrote:


That is your prerogative. the three Riptide Wing forces which have felt the sting of my Dark Eldar would disagree however, unanimously. Mostly because they werent on the table after the fifth round, in all three cases.

It's one thing to imagine, but its another to see it in play. the Dark eldar can literally be on top of the Riptides in one turn and charging them in the second. By turn three the Talos have arrived. By round four, the game is in hand and we are playing it out.

Once you do that to someone, you have no wish to have it done to you. So you learn from it and plan accordingly so that you are taking advantage of the Riptides without over committing to both their strengths and their weakness. I love the Riptide Wing but I don't feel compelled to use it.

What was his list? How was he charging you turn 2?

Charging Riptides turn 2 is the easy part. Several armies can do it now. The hard part is making sure you have enough girth to handle the firepower incoming when you do it.
I did it with Aethersails.

 Jancoran wrote:
Charging Riptides turn 2 is the easy part. Several armies can do it now. The hard part is making sure you have enough girth to handle the firepower incoming when you do it.
I did it with Aethersails.

It's really hard to envision what you are saying. Are you going to share the list?

So another army that I deal with in terms of quick melee is demon armies right now. Two of my friends play with mass fleshhound armies, that scout and move 12" so they are in yuor face turn 1. You have to prioritize and take out as many as possible because you will be in melee turn 2.

So far I am 1-1 and my loss was him having <5 hounds and a juggernaut left, and me having more than half my army. (maelstrom point victory).

I like DE, people whine alot, but they are a good army. But I have found them one of the easiest for Tau to deal with. Even prior to the update. my 2cents

 Grizzyzz wrote:
So another army that I deal with in terms of quick melee is demon armies right now. Two of my friends play with mass fleshhound armies, that scout and move 12" so they are in yuor face turn 1. You have to prioritize and take out as many as possible because you will be in melee turn 2.

So far I am 1-1 and my loss was him having <5 hounds and a juggernaut left, and me having more than half my army. (maelstrom point victory).

I like DE, people whine alot, but they are a good army. But I have found them one of the easiest for Tau to deal with. Even prior to the update. my 2cents

Given how easily my vanilla marines (no formations) crushed my housemate's DE, I find it very hard to imagine they can go toe-to-toe with Riptide Wings.

And my housemate is a *far* better player than I.

zerosignal wrote:

 Grizzyzz wrote:
So another army that I deal with in terms of quick melee is demon armies right now. Two of my friends play with mass fleshhound armies, that scout and move 12" so they are in yuor face turn 1. You have to prioritize and take out as many as possible because you will be in melee turn 2.

So far I am 1-1 and my loss was him having <5 hounds and a juggernaut left, and me having more than half my army. (maelstrom point victory).

I like DE, people whine alot, but they are a good army. But I have found them one of the easiest for Tau to deal with. Even prior to the update. my 2cents

Given how easily my vanilla marines (no formations) crushed my housemate's DE, I find it very hard to imagine they can go toe-to-toe with Riptide Wings.

And my housemate is a *far* better player than I.

I'm almost certain they are not as well, I just can't see it... however I'm willing to play it out and see for myself, maybe I'm wrong. Jancoran seems to be all talk no walk, but if someone else gives me a melee army list from DE that they think can take on Riptides I'm going to give it a go, might have to proxy a model or two but I'll make a batrep of it and we'll all see how it plays

Most people, including me, will tell you that Tau are basically a hard counter to DE. You have an excellent answer for everything they can field. Massed S7 with interceptor or ignores cover pop Raiders and flyers with ease. Your basic troops mulch DE's on the way into combat. Without mobility, DE have nothing, and you deny their mobility better than any army in the game.

The only thing you have to watch out for is Haemonculus Covens. Taloses can be fairly tough to off, especially in a Corpsethief, but they're so slow that you should be able to kite them without issue. Grotesques, on the other hand, can hurt. You may off the Raiders, but having a few rampage-ready combat beasts dumped at your front door can be a big problem. Again, though, they're painfully slow without a transport. Feed them some bubble wrap, and kite as necessary.

I think dark eldar could tackle tau with two grotesquerie formations in raiders with A ethers ails backed up by the CTC. But this heavily relies on going first or have a table with line of sight blocking terrain.

Excluding horrendous Tau rolling, Tau would crush any DE list, that do not have allies.

zerosignal wrote:

Given how easily my vanilla marines (no formations) crushed my housemate's DE, I find it very hard to imagine they can go toe-to-toe with Riptide Wings.

And my housemate is a *far* better player than I.

You move to the Riptide Wing in Turn one. You let them blast away at the Raiders, jinking like crazy but ultimately they die. You throw your leader with cool saves up there to ablate what you can (knowing he will die but doing the whole selective Look out Sir thing). Then you assault. And instant death is cool. I'm not sure what part of it is challenging you. One failed save and poof, dead Riptide.

Typically they like to shoot the Talos, which I understand since they can scout, move and run for a pretty good jump up the field round one and they spread out so much that you kind of hedge them in.

I have faced the Riptide Wing three times and it was a massacre. I took it in the face for a turn but then mostly am protected from shooting. I will say that my timing was fairly good as far as when I managed to kill them off. It mattered.

Its basically just four units of grotesques, Urien, Haemonculous, unit of Talos and raiders. Pretty much it. Been focusing on other armies but that's what it be. 29 models of fun. My Tau have been consuming me lately as i am very much enjoying the Infiltration Cadre.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ShredderShards wrote:

I'm almost certain they are not as well, I just can't see it... however I'm willing to play it out and see for myself, maybe I'm wrong. Jancoran seems to be all talk no walk..

I'm pretty sure a forum isn't where I'll do my "walking". But a lot of Batreps and commentary can be found on my blog. So feel free to explore it.

If you want to try it out, whip open the old Haemonculous Coven book and have some fun. I like the book a fair amount. it has gaping holes in it you can run trucks through, but it has the tools to handle some nasty stuff also. Kind of a dichotomy.

 Jancoran wrote:

zerosignal wrote:

Given how easily my vanilla marines (no formations) crushed my housemate's DE, I find it very hard to imagine they can go toe-to-toe with Riptide Wings.

And my housemate is a *far* better player than I.

You move to the Riptide Wing in Turn one. You let them blast away at the Raiders, jinking like crazy but ultimately they die. You throw your leader with cool saves up there to ablate what you can (knowing he will die but doing the whole selective Look out Sir thing). Then you assault. And instant death is cool. I'm not sure what part of it is challenging you. One failed save and poof, dead Riptide.

Typically they like to shoot the Talos, which I understand since they can scout, move and run for a pretty good jump up the field round one and they spread out so much that you kind of hedge them in.

I have faced the Riptide Wing three times and it was a massacre. I took it in the face for a turn but then mostly am protected from shooting. I will say that my timing was fairly good as far as when I managed to kill them off. It mattered.

Its basically just four units of grotesques, Urien, Haemonculous, unit of Talos and raiders. Pretty much it. Been focusing on other armies but that's what it be. 29 models of fun. My Tau have been consuming me lately as i am very much enjoying the Infiltration Cadre.

So basically this?


HQ

Urien
Haemonculi


Elite:
4x Grotesque, Raider w/DL
4x Grotesque, Raider w/DL
5x Grotesque, Raider w/DL
5x Grotesque, Raider w/DL


Corpsethief Claw

5x Talos w/ Ichor Injectors



1750 points, 29 models






is that pretty much it? I'll take it for a whirl and we will see how we do, however just like almost every other tourney we play at 1850 points, so I've changed the list to have 6x 3 Grot's in Raiders instead of 4x4, thats a couple more Grots all up and now in 6 units making it even harder to bring them all down before CC, seems like a definite improvement against Riptide Wings. I'll come back and share my opinions with everyone in here once we get this game in.

You need Aethersails as i mentioned. Also need TL Haywire Blasters. And orb of despair.

Oh. and they need to be in the Grotesquerie Formation.

And my list was 2K. So there's that

 Jancoran wrote:

ShredderShards wrote:

I'm almost certain they are not as well, I just can't see it... however I'm willing to play it out and see for myself, maybe I'm wrong. Jancoran seems to be all talk no walk..

I'm pretty sure a forum isn't where I'll do my "walking". But a lot of Batreps and commentary can be found on my blog. So feel free to explore it.

If you want to try it out, whip open the old Haemonculous Coven book and have some fun. I like the book a fair amount. it has gaping holes in it you can run trucks through, but it has the tools to handle some nasty stuff also. Kind of a dichotomy.

well, you kept ignoring everytime you were asked for a list, so it seems like you were unable to support your claims. In fact, I had to make the list myself based off the loose description you finally ended up giving in a post to someone else.



Anyway, now your here - I feel like this list autoloses to Riptides if they get first turn. Would you say this is correct, if so I will give Dark Eldar the first turn for free when we play. If not, we will roll for it as per normal, but I feel if I get turn 1 its gunna be pretty hard for him to win...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jancoran wrote:
You need Aethersails as i mentioned. Also need TL Haywire Blasters. And orb of despair.

Oh. and they need to be in the Grotesquerie Formation.

And my list was 2K. So there's that

well, I did ask you to provide the list you were basing your opinions off multiple times, so there's that. Forgive me if I got it wrong.


Mind converting the list to 1850 for me, so that I don't get it wrong again?

ShredderShards wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

ShredderShards wrote:

I'm almost certain they are not as well, I just can't see it... however I'm willing to play it out and see for myself, maybe I'm wrong. Jancoran seems to be all talk no walk..

I'm pretty sure a forum isn't where I'll do my "walking". But a lot of Batreps and commentary can be found on my blog. So feel free to explore it.

If you want to try it out, whip open the old Haemonculous Coven book and have some fun. I like the book a fair amount. it has gaping holes in it you can run trucks through, but it has the tools to handle some nasty stuff also. Kind of a dichotomy.

well, you kept ignoring everytime you were asked for a list, so it seems like you were unable to support your claims. In fact, I had to make the list myself based off the loose description you finally ended up giving in a post to someone else.



Anyway, now your here - I feel like this list autoloses to Riptides if they get first turn. Would you say this is correct, if so I will give Dark Eldar the first turn for free when we play. If not, we will roll for it as per normal, but I feel if I get turn 1 its gunna be pretty hard for him to win...

Naw. I went first in two games, second in one. In the game i went second, I just hung back for a turn and outflanked the Talos. So i executed the move up pretty much the same except for the outflank and the timing. Sometimes the best shot you take is the one you don't take.

 Jancoran wrote:

ShredderShards wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

ShredderShards wrote:

I'm almost certain they are not as well, I just can't see it... however I'm willing to play it out and see for myself, maybe I'm wrong. Jancoran seems to be all talk no walk..

I'm pretty sure a forum isn't where I'll do my "walking". But a lot of Batreps and commentary can be found on my blog. So feel free to explore it.

If you want to try it out, whip open the old Haemonculous Coven book and have some fun. I like the book a fair amount. it has gaping holes in it you can run trucks through, but it has the tools to handle some nasty stuff also. Kind of a dichotomy.

well, you kept ignoring everytime you were asked for a list, so it seems like you were unable to support your claims. In fact, I had to make the list myself based off the loose description you finally ended up giving in a post to someone else.



Anyway, now your here - I feel like this list autoloses to Riptides if they get first turn. Would you say this is correct, if so I will give Dark Eldar the first turn for free when we play. If not, we will roll for it as per normal, but I feel if I get turn 1 its gunna be pretty hard for him to win...

Naw. I went first in two games, second in one. In the game i went second, I just hung back for a turn and outflanked the Talos. So i executed the move up pretty much the same except for the outflank and the timing. Sometimes the best shot you take is the one you don't take.

no worries, we will roll for it as per usual then, hopefully this isn't as bad as I think it will be! We do have heavy terrain at least... but Raiders are big models!

mind shaving your list down to 1850 pts for me so that I can start getting this prepared?

ShredderShards wrote:

well, you kept ignoring everytime you were asked for a list,

well, I did ask you to provide the list you were basing your opinions off multiple times...

I dont think I espoused an opinion. I related an experience. Three in fact. And i used them to explain why I don't use the Riptide Wing. You're fixating on the Dark eldar list i used instead of the lesson learned.

This is Dakkadakka. not a friendly neighborhood game store where we're trading ideas. I have learned through painful experience that this forum is the LAST place i want to try and prove anything to anyone. So i will share my ideas if you really care, and you can test them if you want to. But its not really the focus of what I was saying.

I guess at 1850 you could do it, but you lose a couple of things that are kind of important (Urien in particular). I'll PM you the list so I dont have to sit and trim all the darn points out to make it dakkdakka legal.

Sent.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
EDIT: Revised list sent. Messed up on one part. oops. Kinda a big part. Lol

 Jancoran wrote:

ShredderShards wrote:

well, you kept ignoring everytime you were asked for a list,

well, I did ask you to provide the list you were basing your opinions off multiple times...

I dont think I espoused an opinion. I related an experience. Three in fact. And i used them to explain why I don't use the Riptide Wing. You're fixating on the Dark eldar list i used instead of the lesson learned.

This is Dakkadakka. not a friendly neighborhood game store where we're trading ideas. I have learned through painful experience that this forum is the LAST place i want to try and prove anything to anyone. So i will share my ideas if you really care, and you can test them if you want to. But its not really the focus of what I was saying.

I guess at 1850 you could do it, but you lose a couple of things that are kind of important (Urien in particular). I'll PM you the list so I dont have to sit and trim all the darn points out to make it dakkdakka legal.

Sent.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
EDIT: Revised list sent. Messed up on one part. oops. Kinda a big part. Lol

No worries. I just can't envision what you are saying, but then again I haven't specifically played against that style of DE build. So instead of me saying you are wrong, and you saying you are right, I figured I'll take it to the battlefield and see if it's actually as bad a match up as I think it is. It's not to prove anything because my recount is just as anecdotal as anyone else's, its just to up my knowledge and at the same time add another opinion from someone who can also say they've played the match-up. Plus, it'll be fun to play anyway.


Thanks for the list! Any specific tips for how to deploy this DE army, just to make sure we're giving them the fairest swack possible?

ShredderShards wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

ShredderShards wrote:

well, you kept ignoring everytime you were asked for a list,

well, I did ask you to provide the list you were basing your opinions off multiple times...

I dont think I espoused an opinion. I related an experience. Three in fact. And i used them to explain why I don't use the Riptide Wing. You're fixating on the Dark eldar list i used instead of the lesson learned.

This is Dakkadakka. not a friendly neighborhood game store where we're trading ideas. I have learned through painful experience that this forum is the LAST place i want to try and prove anything to anyone. So i will share my ideas if you really care, and you can test them if you want to. But its not really the focus of what I was saying.

I guess at 1850 you could do it, but you lose a couple of things that are kind of important (Urien in particular). I'll PM you the list so I dont have to sit and trim all the darn points out to make it dakkdakka legal.

Sent.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
EDIT: Revised list sent. Messed up on one part. oops. Kinda a big part. Lol

No worries. I just can't envision what you are saying, but then again I haven't specifically played against that style of DE build. So instead of me saying you are wrong, and you saying you are right, I figured I'll take it to the battlefield and see if it's actually as bad a match up as I think it is. It's not to prove anything because my recount is just as anecdotal as anyone else's, its just to up my knowledge and at the same time add another opinion from someone who can also say they've played the match-up. Plus, it'll be fun to play anyway.


Thanks for the list! Any specific tips for how to deploy this DE army, just to make sure we're giving them the fairest swack possible?

Well unfortunately Urien adds a lot to the list and for it to work you kind of have to exclude him at 1850 to cover more bases, but a few things I found important:

1. The Dark Lances are ornamentation. Dont bother firing them unless they have ABSOLUTELY no one they can be protecting or objectives they can be taking. The list does have a weak spot which is AV 12 or better armor. That is why the Lances and also the scissorhands are there. Both are there to help with armor as is the Talos Haywire blasters. But again, shooting should be the absolute last resort.

2. Be aware of the Power From Pain Chart. Without Urien in the list, you have to watch it carefully. Being Fearless is kind of a big deal, so premeasure and if possible and prudent to do so, go first but play it like you're going second. If you can hide and do nothing turn one, its not a terrible idea.

3. Multicharge fearlessly. Rampage replaces the attacks you would normally lose so absolutely be willing to go for multicharges. That is really the key I found against the Riptide wing. I could jump out and multicharge without loss of attacks. They were already going to suyppot fire me to death anyways, so I lost nothing by multicharging Tau in particular.

4. When going first, scout the Talos and use them to form a box with your Raiders on the approach. You definitely want to give the enemy nowhere to run to and no way to get free to objectives. When going second outflanking the Talos can be pretty useful. Depends on how they deploy of course so thats a total judgement call but its easy to forget that those beasts can do it.

I head for the heart of the enemy with the 36" move the Aethersails allow. You want to be right in the middle with options to move either direction if need be. So straight to the center of the enemy. No hesitation. Jinking of course. No sense firing weapons when you can jink.

The army isnt complicated. you have ave one that just SMASHES things on impact and ties everything up and blockades it. Then the Talos Wave coming behind it to catch the breakthroughs while the surviving Raiders skitter about to objectives if they can. No finesse to it.

So this is my problem with that list..

Lets say you go turn 1.. and move right up into the Tau players face. Do they not usually run any markerlights? They move 6" away from you. they use markerlights to remove cover, and then even basic firewarriors can glance and pen raiders.

I realize you probably have around 6 raiders maybe at 2k points.. but I am afraid that with the tremendous firepower of Tau that your AV10 won't be enough. If it were me I would ignore all your grotesques and pop all your raiders turn 1. because now your dudes are stuck moving 6" a turn and could be easily kited. through move+JSJ..

Idk DE need some 7th edition help.. I am unable to see how this list is unbeatable for a tau player with or without a riptide wing.

 Grizzyzz wrote:
So this is my problem with that list..

Lets say you go turn 1.. and move right up into the Tau players face. Do they not usually run any markerlights? They move 6" away from you. they use markerlights to remove cover, and then even basic firewarriors can glance and pen raiders.

I realize you probably have around 6 raiders maybe at 2k points.. but I am afraid that with the tremendous firepower of Tau that your AV10 won't be enough. If it were me I would ignore all your grotesques and pop all your raiders turn 1. because now your dudes are stuck moving 6" a turn and could be easily kited. through move+JSJ..

Idk DE need some 7th edition help.. I am unable to see how this list is unbeatable for a tau player with or without a riptide wing.

I'm not sure i said it WAS unbeatable. I said it was what I used to beat them three times (yes out of three). But I dd not say unbeatable. I know of no list that is.

But to your points, competitive Tau lists don't have prolific Fire Warriors. Sometimes not more than 10. Most of the resources are spent buffing the Riptides with Drone Nets and adding in a Crisis Bomb that costs 600 points at times or perhaps adding a second Riptide Wing even, or adding more Riptides TO the Rptide Wing. In any event, the Riptide Wings I fought were three Riptides and Crisis type ones using Farsight Enclave Obsec Suits and so on.

First turn of the Tau vs Dark Eldar BatRep is up!


http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/690101.page#8638905



Please do share your thoughts and opinions, any predictions on how it's going to turn out? Is it going like you expected it would? To Jancoran, is this usually how the board looks after turn 1? Hit me with the responses guys.

That's way more Riptides than I have ever seen fielded. Lol.

The Positioning of the Grotesques is bad here. Hard to tell what actually happened from the description but just going off this final pic here, I would say the Grotesques were badly positioned after being blown out.

Also, I know i spoke to you about boxing them in and you split the Raiders it looks like to me. The four raiders should have sped towards the 5 Riptides and allowed the Talos to form a flank, so that to escape the Riptides have to go towards the talos (the box comment I was talking about).

As it is this looks like a disaster about to happen for the Dark eldar. Lol.


You can kind of see this coming once they failed to focus on the larger group of Riptides. Im guesstimating but it looks range-wise lik the right most Riptides would not all jhave had range on the Grotesques had they been more cautious as to their vector.

Anywho, I do not foresee Dark Eldar victory here unless the distances i am looking at on this are not correct.

this is all made worse by the fact that they could have actually stayed 43" away at the start of the game and allowed a turn to pass by. It actually would have helped them I think with the Power From Pain table.

So yeah. These guys are in trouble but at least the grotesques can reach the Riptides from there. but the game is over at this point. Too many mistakes.

Also how did these riptides miraculously kep formation with their random jumps?

 Jancoran wrote:
That's way more Riptides than I have ever seen fielded. Lol.

Which should be to your benefit if Riptides worse against this list as you said. On top of that, hard to judge the validity of Riptides if I only field 3, no matter what happens how much of the outcome do we attribute to Riptides if they are only 600 pts of 1850? Remember, this battle has been done up to test Dark Eldar vs Riptides, to test your theories that Riptides were not as good as other options here.

The Positioning of the Grotesques is bad here. Hard to tell what actually happened from the description but just going off this final pic here, I would say the Grotesques were badly positioned after being blown out.

Also, I know i spoke to you about boxing them in and you split the Raiders it looks like to me. The four raiders should have sped towards the 5 Riptides and allowed the Talos to form a flank, so that to escape the Riptides have to go towards the talos (the box comment I was talking about).

even with the 18" of movement past the deployment zone that only SOME of the talos were lucky enough to get, that still would have put them exactly where the Riptides are now, meaning the Riptides could have just bailed to the right, and meaning that the Talos's threaten absolutely nothing all game, will take multiple turns to make it into combat as even just as an executioner to whatever the Grots caught IF it still happened be alive, which would basically mean you had 700 wasted points of Talos in your army.


Also, the way the Raiders were deployed, there was no way to commit them all to one side and avoid fire from the other Riptides. If there was, THIS would have been a mistake from the Riptide players deploying, hardly something you can rely on. You can say "oh well then you should have deploy them all to the one side", and had you had done that, the Riptides would have deployed reactively to that too, and your assault ranges on a core of the army would have been cut drastically short.

Anywho, I do not foresee Dark Eldar victory here unless the distances i am looking at on this are not correct.

The distances that you are looking at on that are not correct, I just drew it up by hand to give a rough overview of where everything is to help readers visualize a bit better.

this is all made worse by the fact that they could have actually stayed 43" away at the start of the game and allowed a turn to pass by. It actually would have helped them I think with the Power From Pain table.

you wouldn't have been able to keep away from all of them, every turn you spend keeping away is a turn of free fire for at least some of the riptides, until you come up close and they take the Hailfire turn.

On top of that, they did exactly what you've been saying they should, got up in the face as soon as possible.

Assuming that wasn't the case though, what would fearless have done for them here? This doesn't seem at all relevant, in any way shape or form.

Also how did these riptides miraculously keep formation with their random jumps?

you make one JSJ roll per Jetpack unit, not per model.







No matter how you slice it, this seemed like the best way to do it. I feel like this is just a bad MU, you couldn't threaten everything with the Grots and the Riptides mobility is a direct counter to your army.

I've run a grotesquerie against Riptides several times before and they were rough games. I was able to win, but it was before the riptide wing formation came out, so I don't think it would do as well anymore. I also never got an instant death attack on a riptide because that requires me getting the 6 to wound and them getting the 1 to save. Usually it was the aberration with the scissorhand that was getting damage in (which doesn't have instant death) and I was just hoping to win the combat by enough to sweep them.

A single Riptide will reliably kill both raiders that the grotesque are in if he hailfires and ripple fires SMS. The other two can each reliably kill 2 grotesque each and that's without any markerlight support at all. If they get a couple markerlights on the grotesque they should each be able to wipe a unit or get them low enough that the overwatch would finish them off.

Shredder shards, the Talos are ONE unit. They should be moving AS ONE. I am not sure what you are saying here? Almost sounds like you are traeting them as two units?

And there was a way to commit them to one side. the 43" mark would have been easy to reach for the Raiders. Essentially you would just spend the turn repositioning your start point, out of 43" range and then launch. So you could have and should have done that (I dont know if you're playing yourself here or not, but since we're having the discussion I think it worth pointing out). this also again would have helped you on the Power From Pain Chart. You take an awful risk here by allowing NONfearless Grotesques tofacethe whirlwind. The Ion Accelerator would be the only shot at that point and thats IF it could draw the line and thats only against one target with no markerlight support. So a LOT of this could have been fixed at deployment, really. So again, the splitting up of the Raiders is not the way to do this. I'm not getting on your case, i am just expanding for you on how better to use the Dark Eldar list for future reference. I've used this essential list a lot (I varied it somewhat for objective snaking in more ITC driven missions but this really is about it).

I disagree on your point about Fearless. You cant know what will happen in the future but what you DO know is that just getting blown OUT could force morale and that is bad.

I would try this again. but it will be interesting to see how your battle progresses.

The artistry of any battle plan is in the adjustments and in this case you really REALLY needed to consolidate over to the strong side. More terrain to interpose, more distance to frustrate the range 30" missiles and so on. You have 72" of width to work with here so use it all.

As a reminder, the discussion at hand was whether I should take my two Riptides and add one, to form a Riptide Wing. I had said that doing so was a 200 point expenditure that really tied my hands on other units I would want. I used my own experience playing Dark Eldar to illustrate the devastation i brought against other Riptide wings.

9 Riptides is probably an extreme level that most any list could struggle against (and they certainly would if they are short range and not punchy) but in order to see that clearly i think the Dark eldar in this case did themselves no favors by not attacking the strongside. Thats just my observation from having played it.

What was the mission? Just Kill Points? Or what?

 Jancoran wrote:
Shredder shards, the Talos are ONE unit. They should be moving AS ONE. I am not sure what you are saying here? Almost sounds like you are traeting them as two units?

We are. Are they not? The way you formatted your list made it read like they were 2 different units. Re-reading the formation, it seems that isn't possible. We'll give you them the benefit of the doubt and consolidate the 3 in with the smaller unit that rolled 6 on its run roll when we pick back up.

And there was a way to commit them to one side. the 43" mark would have been easy to reach for the Raiders. Essentially you would just spend the turn repositioning your start point, out of 43" range and then launch. So you could have and should have done that (I dont know if you're playing yourself here or not, but since we're having the discussion I think it worth pointing out). this also again would have helped you on the Power From Pain Chart. You take an awful risk here by allowing NONfearless Grotesques tofacethe whirlwind. The Ion Accelerator would be the only shot at that point and thats IF it could draw the line and thats only against one target with no markerlight support. So a LOT of this could have been fixed at deployment, really. So again, the splitting up of the Raiders is not the way to do this. I'm not getting on your case, i am just expanding for you on how better to use the Dark Eldar list for future reference. I've used this essential list a lot (I varied it somewhat for objective snaking in more ITC driven missions but this really is about it).

Cool, then it's free shots against the Talos's until you decide to commit, and you throw away the one advantage you have, which is how many things you could threaten in a turn when everything was still on the deployment zone. You wait one turn, and everything spreads. This would be a terrible way to play the army.

I disagree on your point about Fearless. You cant know what will happen in the future but what you DO know is that just getting blown OUT could force morale and that is bad.

I can tell you absolutely and factually, that not having fearless has had absolutely NO impact on the current state of the game. I know this, because I played it. Will it have an impact on the future of the game? I'm going to say "almost undoubtably not" because from this point onwards they have had Fearless regardless of whether or they wasted their first turn advantage.

Also, you specifically said NOT to do what you are saying I did wrong now.



It feels very much to me that no matter how we had played this, you were going to complain "you did it wrong". Because thats exactly what you are doing. If you had done it your way you would be assaulting 4 not 5 riptides next turn at best. Although more that likely not even that.

The artistry of any battle plan is in the adjustments and in this case you really REALLY needed to consolidate over to the strong side. More terrain to interpose, more distance to frustrate the range 30" missiles and so on. You have 72" of width to work with here so use it all.

No idea what this means. Are you saying if we play again, play longways? I think you'll find that is heavily to the benefit of the Riptides than your own army, but we can do this.

As a reminder, the discussion at hand was whether I should take my two Riptides and add one, to form a Riptide Wing. I had said that doing so was a 200 point expenditure that really tied my hands on other units I would want. I used my own experience playing Dark Eldar to illustrate the devastation i brought against other Riptide wings.

9 Riptides is probably an extreme level that most any list could struggle against (and they certainly would if they are short range and not punchy) but in order to see that clearly i think the Dark eldar in this case did themselves no favors by not attacking the strongside. Thats just my observation from having played it.

So more Riptides is a stronger list than 2 Riptides and 2 Storm Surges? Well, I guess that settles it then. You were wrong about how to play this army.

What was the mission? Just Kill Points? Or what?

ITC mission 6, as stated in the opening paragraph.

I would try this again. but it will be interesting to see how your battle progresses.

We played it out. Tau won extremely decisively. Even the Grots that did make it to CC had very little impact, doing a grand total of about 5 wounds spread between the 5 different Riptides the two Grot units managed to tackle. The ones to the left actually lost combat quite heavily to the 3 man Riptides, losing 2 just to Overwatch alone.


I think you have been playing against some really poor Tau opposition used to just grabbing their corner and keeping it, or you have been getting insanely lucky, to have a positive result against Riptides. There is absolutely no reason this should work, and playing it as smart as possible irregardless to your complaints, it's turning out much like how we all expected.



However, we might play again, and do it exactly your way, no matter how much it seems counter productive. We will hide the Raiders in a corner together, wait a turn before committing them while pushing Talos's up the field, then drop all 4 on the strongest "clump" of the army that we can find.

Will playing it like that be satisfactory? I feel like no matter what happens you are going to have some reason how we played it wrong here, but the way this went kind of confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt to me that Riptides are very much a counter to what you are doing, and your reasoning for not taking 3 of them has proved illogical here. I feel if anything is getting your win against 2x Stormsurge Tau that you are used to playing, its the fact that he has ~800 points in 2 easily tied up and killed units, rather than the 3 individual Riptide units.


Tau could have actually played this even better as well. I just don't think it was going to happen for DE here.

I just played my Tau in a local tournament, and came in 2nd place (out of only 6 players unfortunately). My list was the following:
Detachment 1: Combined Arms Detachment
HQ:
Commander: 2x Missile Pod, Target Lock, Drone Controller, Iridium Suit, 2x Marker Drone
Elites:
XV104 Riptide: Ion Accelerator, TL Smart Missile System, EWO, Stim Injector
Troops:
Breacher Team: 7 men, Shas'ui upgrade, Guardian Drone, dedicated Devilfish w/Sensor Spines and D-pod
Kroot Squad: 10 men, Sniper Rounds
Heavy Support:
Sky Ray: TL Smart Missile System, D-pod, Blacksun Filter
Lord of War:
KV128 Stormsurge: Pulse Driver Cannon, TL Frag Projector, Advanced Targeting System, EWO, Shield Generator
Detachment 2: Optimized Stealth Cadre
XV95 Ghostkeel: Cyclic Ion Raker, TL Fusion Blaster, EWO, Stim Injector
Stealth Team: Shas'vre upgrade, Fusion Blaster and ML+Target Lock on Shas'vre
Stealth Team: Shas'vre upgrade, Fusion Blaster and ML+Target Lock on Shas'vre
Detachment 3: Drone-Net VX1-0
4 units of 4 Marker Drones

My opponents were Ad Mech War Convocation, Blood Angels with Iron Hands, and Ultramarines. The War Convocation had 2 Knights and no drop pod taxis. I beat it fairly handily. My Stormsurge planted his heels and just went to town, although his D-missile strike kind of fizzled. and only took 5 hull points off of a Knights, which was then finished by other units. My Riptide failed 4/5 of his nova charges, although he saved one with FnP. He was on his last wound at the end of the game, having taken just one from enemy fire. The Kroot were the real heroes, as they passed three or four morale checks after taking casualties but held their ground like proud soldiers of the Greater Good. They did the most scoring, as they had infiltrated into the center control zone (in some ruins).

The BA/IH list had 11 drop pods and 7 Dreadnoughts, including 3 Fragiosos, 2 Ironclads, the one from the Shield of Baal: Deathstorm box, and a Rifleman (who did not start in a pod). It was a Baal Strike force with an IH CAD. I played the Stormsurge more aggressively in this game and did not plant his feet. This turned out to be a good tactical decision, as he did some work with his Stomps. He was locked in combat for three turns and just did not die. He used Smash attacks to kill an Ironclad in addition to stomping all over some Marines. He also stomped a Drop Pod, although that was earlier in the game. Most of the rest of my army was killed. The only units I had left at the end of the game were the Stormsurge, the Commander, one of the Drone Net drones, and the Sky Ray. Since one of the objectives was Kill Points, I actually managed to tie the game. My opponent controlled the objectives better thanks to ObSec drop pods (that were full of IH tacticals). It was a fun game, especially with Tau stuff actually winning some close combat.

The third opponent was probably the hardest. His Ultramarine list had a CAD (with Tigurius, a 4 man Grav Cent squad, a 5-man Sternguard squad with 5 meltaguns in a pod and two drop pod tactical squads with melta/combimelta), a 3-man Librarius Conclave (that he put with the CentStar), and a Skyhammer Annihilation Force (one dev squad of 4 Multimeltas, one of 4 Gravcannons, and 2 5 man assault squads with melta bombs). He used a lot of the new Psychic powers as well, including Shifting Worldscape. Interceptor was my friend in this game, as I managed to neutralize some of the more dangerous stuff before it could do anything. My Stormsurge survived far longer than it statistically should have, as I just kept making saves. It also helped that he split fired his CentStar partly into the Ghostkeel and then I popped the Holophotons, causing the entire unit to snap fire and costing my opponent that turn's shooting (although he still managed to put one wound on the Stormsurge). In the end I lost the Stormsurge to overwatch from two MM devs (it was on its last wound and my opponent finally got lucky). I ended up finishing this game in a tie as well, as although I had controlled the two Meat Grinder objectives for almost the entire game, I only managed to cap one Crusader objective at the end. It was a fun battle for sure!

My takeaway:
-How you play the Stormsurge should very much depend on the opposing army. In the first game it paid off to plant anchors and use the extra shooting, whereas in the other two games I played it aggressively and used the almighty stomps to good effect (his Interceptor really helped in the third game). And always take a shield generator, as it's too easy to get killed without it.

-The Optimized Stealth Cadre is just absurdly good. Yes, the Stealth teams are kind of a tax, but even they can get some teeth if they stick close to the 'keel. Ignores cover is awesome, especially if your opponent is counting on Stealth/Shrouded! +1 BS means you can use your markerlights elsewhere.

-Drone net is pretty solid. BS3 drones get a lot more markerlight hits and are much better than Pathfinders. Plus the markerlights get Interceptor, which really boosts the power of EWO.

-Take Early Warning Override on everything if possible. That ability is just nasty, as it can allow you to kill stuff before it has a chance to hurt you.

-If you know the game you're going to play has a lot of objectives, definitely consider taking a CAD instead of a Hunter Contingent/Dawn Blade. ObSec can win you games if you need to control objectives. This outweighs the benefits of the HC, especially if you use ITC rules with no special ability sharing.

ShredderShards wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Shredder shards, the Talos are ONE unit. They should be moving AS ONE. I am not sure what you are saying here? Almost sounds like you are traeting them as two units?

We are. Are they not? The way you formatted your list made it read like they were 2 different units. Re-reading the formation, it seems that isn't possible. We'll give you them the benefit of the doubt and consolidate the 3 in with the smaller unit that rolled 6 on its run roll when we pick back up.

And there was a way to commit them to one side. the 43" mark would have been easy to reach for the Raiders. Essentially you would just spend the turn repositioning your start point, out of 43" range and then launch. So you could have and should have done that (I dont know if you're playing yourself here or not, but since we're having the discussion I think it worth pointing out). this also again would have helped you on the Power From Pain Chart. You take an awful risk here by allowing NONfearless Grotesques tofacethe whirlwind. The Ion Accelerator would be the only shot at that point and thats IF it could draw the line and thats only against one target with no markerlight support. So a LOT of this could have been fixed at deployment, really. So again, the splitting up of the Raiders is not the way to do this. I'm not getting on your case, i am just expanding for you on how better to use the Dark Eldar list for future reference. I've used this essential list a lot (I varied it somewhat for objective snaking in more ITC driven missions but this really is about it).

Cool, then it's free shots against the Talos's until you decide to commit, and you throw away the one advantage you have, which is how many things you could threaten in a turn when everything was still on the deployment zone. You wait one turn, and everything spreads. This would be a terrible way to play the army.

I disagree on your point about Fearless. You cant know what will happen in the future but what you DO know is that just getting blown OUT could force morale and that is bad.

I can tell you absolutely and factually, that not having fearless has had absolutely NO impact on the current state of the game. I know this, because I played it. Will it have an impact on the future of the game? I'm going to say "almost undoubtably not" because from this point onwards they have had Fearless regardless of whether or they wasted their first turn advantage.

Also, you specifically said NOT to do what you are saying I did wrong now.



It feels very much to me that no matter how we had played this, you were going to complain "you did it wrong". Because thats exactly what you are doing. If you had done it your way you would be assaulting 4 not 5 riptides next turn at best. Although more that likely not even that.

The artistry of any battle plan is in the adjustments and in this case you really REALLY needed to consolidate over to the strong side. More terrain to interpose, more distance to frustrate the range 30" missiles and so on. You have 72" of width to work with here so use it all.

No idea what this means. Are you saying if we play again, play longways? I think you'll find that is heavily to the benefit of the Riptides than your own army, but we can do this.

As a reminder, the discussion at hand was whether I should take my two Riptides and add one, to form a Riptide Wing. I had said that doing so was a 200 point expenditure that really tied my hands on other units I would want. I used my own experience playing Dark Eldar to illustrate the devastation i brought against other Riptide wings.

9 Riptides is probably an extreme level that most any list could struggle against (and they certainly would if they are short range and not punchy) but in order to see that clearly i think the Dark eldar in this case did themselves no favors by not attacking the strongside. Thats just my observation from having played it.

So more Riptides is a stronger list than 2 Riptides and 2 Storm Surges? Well, I guess that settles it then. You were wrong about how to play this army.

What was the mission? Just Kill Points? Or what?

ITC mission 6, as stated in the opening paragraph.

I would try this again. but it will be interesting to see how your battle progresses.

We played it out. Tau won extremely decisively. Even the Grots that did make it to CC had very little impact, doing a grand total of about 5 wounds spread between the 5 different Riptides the two Grot units managed to tackle. The ones to the left actually lost combat quite heavily to the 3 man Riptides, losing 2 just to Overwatch alone.


I think you have been playing against some really poor Tau opposition used to just grabbing their corner and keeping it, or you have been getting insanely lucky, to have a positive result against Riptides. There is absolutely no reason this should work, and playing it as smart as possible irregardless to your complaints, it's turning out much like how we all expected.



However, we might play again, and do it exactly your way, no matter how much it seems counter productive. We will hide the Raiders in a corner together, wait a turn before committing them while pushing Talos's up the field, then drop all 4 on the strongest "clump" of the army that we can find.

Will playing it like that be satisfactory? I feel like no matter what happens you are going to have some reason how we played it wrong here, but the way this went kind of confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt to me that Riptides are very much a counter to what you are doing, and your reasoning for not taking 3 of them has proved illogical here. I feel if anything is getting your win against 2x Stormsurge Tau that you are used to playing, its the fact that he has ~800 points in 2 easily tied up and killed units, rather than the 3 individual Riptide units.


Tau could have actually played this even better as well. I just don't think it was going to happen for DE here.

You did misplay it. I am not going after you. I'm just telling you. It's not a personal thing to me. it's not my game. But you were trying to get the most out of it so i am telling you how.

"Giving up" a round isnt really giving up anything. The speed of the list is more than enough to have allowed it given what I see here. Again, without the tape measure in my hand i cant really know so if you didnt want input I apolozize for offering. It apeared you did. Oh well.

Onward and upward.