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 Jancoran wrote:

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.

Well, I'm confident I didn't misplay it, and I've gave solid reasoning as to why. Your reasoning thus far has not made a lot of sense towards defending your argument, and has really just contradicted yourself heavily. And it seems there is really not a lot of logic to your perspective.





"Riptides are worse than other stuff because of reasons" ----------> "That list fields way too many Riptides its much harder to deal with"

"You need to be as aggressive as possible with Dark Eldar in the opening turns" ----------> "Dark Eldar lost cause they misplayed by not turtling up in one corner of the board for a turn waiting for an ability that would have literally had zero impact on the outcome of the game"

"its not at all situational and doesn't require first turn to win" --------> "DE lost because they didn't land the 1/3 chance of playing the board longways"



And that's just a couple of examples.




I think you need to stop with the nonsensical excuses and consider the very real possibility that it isn't everyone else who is wrong here.

Do your thing man. It's cool. Have a day. Bring that list sometime and we'll play. If you own nine Riptides.

I do think that a double riptide wing is too unbalanced FWIW. If you face things that can kill Riptides, you're done. If you don't, sad times for the other army. Call me crazy, but I'd rather not play games that are predetermined at the start of a 2 hour affair by an excess amount of spam.

DE support with Talos can work though. That CTC formation is brutal and will murder any amount of Riptides that it touches. It's also durable enough to get there.

I should post a more realistic, less crayon-like representation of this that shows ranges. I'll see what I can do.




And then the Scout move.



And then Flat out movements




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dark Eldar Turn one is complete

but dude, you didn't camp up in the corner for a turn, you've drastically misplayed? seriously, don't complain about us not doing it and saying its a game-changingly bad play, if you aren't going to do it yourself. Just proves that you were reaching for excuses, if it wasn't already obvious.

What I see in that graphic is basically an ideal set-up for DE where they go first and have an impressive amount of conveniently-located LOS-blocking terrain to maneuver around. Assuming the Tau player doesn't even bother repositioning, an army-wide Hailfire is going to seriously ruin DE's day. By my count, I get a wrecked Raider and ~3 dead Grotesques per HBC Riptide. Maybe use that third HBC Riptide in the middle to clean things up a bit where you rolled poorly.

That leaves the entire right Wing to take on the Taloses. So...2 IA blasts, 32 SMS shots, and 72 HBC shots, assuming your nova reactors go off. We'll be generous and say that's good for a dead Talos, even though it's more like 5-6 wounds. Nova reactors don't always go off, and IAs suck sometimes, etc.

In other words, I count 4 Taloses with possibly a Grotesque or two and an entirely intact Tau army on the table at the end of turn 1. Maybe a riptide or two gets tied up in combat the next turn or something, but I don't think it takes a lot to see where the game is going. Can't we all just agree this is an atrocious match-up for the DE? If only they had a 280 point Pathfinder unit in reserves to come save the day.

I think it's time to move on from this Jancoran. The DE had massive advantage in ShredderShards BR and it wasn't enough. You complained about deployment and other minor irrelevant things in the first battle report given you to, but this deployment looks borderline doctored. Why did the Tau player separate his army and basically trap his 2 man Riptide unit behind Terrain that he now has to move around to escape, but convieniently leaving just enough space to give room for DE to come in and get LoS blocked from the entire rest of the army? isnt that like, the number one spot you should be denying from your opponent to position themselves in, I mean even if you didn't want to put Riptides there you have 16 marker drones? And why did the army split the Wings up in deployment, meaning the entire army is much less likely to ever ever see the +1 BS bonus for successive fire? Also means that if one half of the army has to use their nova for jump jets, the other half of the army using Hailfire is wasted potential. Why did he place the 2 man unit right next to the 3 man unit and separate it entirely from the rest of the army, putting 5 Riptides that are now unable to split to avoid assaults, in one nice little package for DE to safely assault?


None of this makes sense and it is either not accidental, or proves the caliber of the opponents you are playing against already. And of course Dark Eldar has first turn once again, because this battle is as close as you can get to an auto-loss if Tau goes first.You are still probably going to lose anyway, but its so unrealistically tilted to give you the win that to me the outcome of your match here doesn't count for anything anyway. You've been thoroughly proved wrong, just accept it and move on its like 3 pages deep of now guys.

This is a pretty typical tournament set up. Los blocker mid board plus more or less domino terrain. I put stuff more or less where he did. Skipped the craters but add em if you think it matters.

I did this to more accurately show the distances. His did not. This is before he or I have fired a shot so maybe the same outcome, maybe not.

It illustrated a lot smarter use of the force and it illustrates the point I was making, which really wasnt about Dark Eldar at all. It was about why I do or Don't go hog wild with Riptides. THIS is what Dark Eldar can do.

When you see the accurate dimensions of the models and their movement, its a lot easier to see. You can do with it what you like. Makes no difference, but it was the excuse I needed to update Java and VASSAL. It's good for just one thing: a better representation of what to do with the force.

One side note. The building was also inconvenient for the Talos. It slowed them down. In his representation he didnt even have a true los blocker which is absurd. That wont happen at the BAO I am guessing. I'LL find out soon. Im ranked top 10(currently) on the ITC site for Tau Empire. I'll report what the boards are like on my blog afterwards.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SHUPPET wrote:
I think it's time to move on from this Jancoran. The DE had massive advantage in ShredderShards BR and it wasn't enough. You complained about deployment and other minor irrelevant things in the first battle report given you to, but this deployment looks borderline doctored. Why did the Tau player separate his army and basically trap his 2 man Riptide unit behind Terrain that he now has to move around to escape, but convieniently leaving just enough space to give room for DE to come in and get LoS blocked from the entire rest of the army? isnt that like, the number one spot you should be denying from your opponent to position themselves in, I mean even if you didn't want to put Riptides there you have 16 marker drones? And why did the army split the Wings up in deployment, meaning the entire army is much less likely to ever ever see the +1 BS bonus for successive fire? Also means that if one half of the army has to use their nova for jump jets, the other half of the army using Hailfire is wasted potential. Why did he place the 2 man unit right next to the 3 man unit and separate it entirely from the rest of the army, putting 5 Riptides that are now unable to split to avoid assaults, in one nice little package for DE to safely assault?


None of this makes sense and it is either not accidental, or proves the caliber of the opponents you are playing against already. And of course Dark Eldar has first turn once again, because this battle is as close as you can get to an auto-loss if Tau goes first.You are still probably going to lose anyway, but its so unrealistically tilted to give you the win that to me the outcome of your match here doesn't count for anything anyway. You've been thoroughly proved wrong, just accept it and move on its like 3 pages deep of now guys.

This was how he had his guys. I just copied it. Put two buildings on each side, los in the middle and deployed split up just like HE HAD THEM. So whatevs.

 Jancoran wrote:



This was how he had his guys. I just copied it. Put two buildings on each side, los in the middle and deployed split up just like HE HAD THEM. So whatevs.

Yes, because I would have deployed my guys EXACTLY THE SAME, on a completely different battlefield, against an opponent who deployed differently. Right.

Regardless, thats not even how I had them at all. To copy it so inaccurately, you had to deliberately change the 2 man unit to the left side to complete destroy army synergy, and instead of splitting the army to mess with target priority (which was the entire point of my deployment - in MY scenario) you've clustered the only multi-model Riptide units on the one side of the field, completely separated from the rest of the army. -
On top of that, I positioned my guys to have room to escape in different directions. You've positioned the 2 man unit so that no matter which way they try to Jump, they have to waste about half their move trying to navigate that terrain that you have intentionally boxed them in behind.

On top of that, I specifically said I played reactive to the terrain and my opponents deployment. If you had deployed like that on THAT battlefield, I would have played reactive to that as well. There's nothing wrong with the field itself. Just the way that you've used it to deliberately stack the cards against Tau without playing relative to the map as Tau. It's just mis-representative of actual play.

On top of that, I also said Tau could have played it better, which would mean not spreading the army so far, just lightly spread along the middle of the DZ so units are still in range to shoot key targets but bail to either side.

Also, why aren't you walling up for a turn to grab Fearless, since you complained that was such a critical mistake? I'd love to see how that actually would turn out for you.

You keep ignoring all the counters to everything you say, and just twisting logic hard to suit you. I agree with what others said, yourself included a few posts ago, lets just drop it, you were mistaken and thats all there is to it.

ShredderShards wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:



This was how he had his guys. I just copied it. Put two buildings on each side, los in the middle and deployed split up just like HE HAD THEM. So whatevs.

Yes, because I would have deployed my guys EXACTLY THE SAME, on a completely different battlefield, against an opponent who deployed differently. Right.

Regardless, thats not even how I had them at all. To copy it so inaccurately, you had to deliberately change the 2 man unit to the left side to complete destroy army synergy, and instead of splitting the army to mess with target priority (which was the entire point of my deployment - in MY scenario) you've clustered the only multi-model Riptide units on the one side of the field, completely separated from the rest of the army. -
On top of that, I positioned my guys to have room to escape in different directions. You've positioned the 2 man unit so that no matter which way they try to Jump, they have to waste about half their move trying to navigate that terrain that you have intentionally boxed them in behind.

On top of that, I specifically said I played reactive to the terrain and my opponents deployment. If you had deployed like that on THAT battlefield, I would have played reactive to that as well. There's nothing wrong with the field itself. Just the way that you've used it to deliberately stack the cards against Tau without playing relative to the map as Tau. It's just mis-representative of actual play.

On top of that, I also said Tau could have played it better, which would mean not spreading the army so far, just lightly spread along the middle of the DZ so units are still in range to shoot key targets but bail to either side.

Also, why aren't you walling up for a turn to grab Fearless, since you complained that was such a critical mistake? I'd love to see how that actually would turn out for you.

You keep ignoring all the counters to everything you say, and just twisting logic hard to suit you. I agree with what others said, yourself included a few posts ago, lets just drop it, you were mistaken and thats all there is to it.

The key word you ignored is "given". I said "GIVEN" what I could tell from your drawing, that's what i would have done. Once I had a real map in front of me to work from and could actually calculate roughly your starting positions and the actualized distances, i decided that there wasn't a need to wait because with a proper LOS blocker in the middle, it would make just as much sense to do it this way. Your drawing led me to one conclusion but after seeing it in a bit better scale, I was of a different mind.

As you say, GIVEN this terrain which is petty typical, you might have deployed differently. Maybe. I'm not saying different. I just showed what my first turn would look like and that was it. i didn't postulate further. So this is entirely for illustrative purposes. Your dimensions on the Riptides were so far off that I think you probably WOULD have to reconisder th exact positioning.

So deploy them differently. It doesnt matter. the essence of what I said is still true. I will say this though. The slight changes I made were because of the size of your models being so far wrong on the drawing. But it was somewhatto your advantage. The two Riptides on the left actually kind of stop me from waiting a turn. It occurred to me that you would probably want to have a chance to menace me should you go first and kind of force my hand with the left most riptides and it fit btter given the actual sizes of the models. But honestly, put em wherever you like. if you had put more on one side or the other i probably would just reverse this so it doesnt much matter, but sure. You absolutely might have done something different.

This absurd nine Riptide Example isn't going to talk me into taking a THIRD Riptide; which was...again...what this was all about.

This is for illustration purposes only. You are getting all worked up. Do it your way. But this is basically the idea right here. It's to show you what I was talking about, and if you read any more into it, you're just being salty at that point.

The Wolfstars and some other forces like White Scars (all ones I mentioned earlier) have convinced me that I need to be cautious of letting them have too much in one bite.

The distances are actual in this case. It definitely changd things to see that aspect. I respect your right to do it whatever way you want. Do it.

Here's a bit closer deployment to what you shoed but as you can see, you are awfully close together. Nonetheless, here's aln alternative image for an alternative outcome if you did change it more to that.




YET ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE:

 Jancoran wrote:

This absurd nine Riptide Example isn't going to talk me into taking a THIRD Riptide; which was...again...what this was all about.

Nope. No it wasn't. I've seen you around here, trying to convince you of anything logical is not an endeavor I'm willing to undertake. The point of this was to test your theoretical statements in play, to dispel any misinformation that may be left otherwise floating around. This has been done quite sufficiently.

 Jancoran wrote:
This is for illustration purposes only. You are getting all worked up. Do it your way. But this is basically the idea right here. It's to show you what I was talking about, and if you read any more into it, you're just being salty at that point.

No, no I'm not. I've calmly and rationally pointed towards the holes in the statements you've made, and now I'm agreeing with the consensus that pages later, we should move on from this. Not because I'm salty, but because discussion of this example has well and truly run its course, so please let's move on so everyone doesn't have to hear anymore about it.

As you can see, Riptides take up a lot of space which your drawings simply dont account for.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ShredderShards wrote:

Nope. No it wasn't. I've seen you around here, trying to convince you of anything logical is not an endeavor I'm willing to undertake. The point of this was to test your theoretical statements in play, to dispel any misinformation that may be left otherwise floating around. This has been done quite sufficiently.

... I've calmly and rationally pointed towards the holes in the statements you've made, and now I'm agreeing with the consensus that pages later, we should move on from this. Not because I'm salty, but because discussion of this example has well and truly run its course, so please let's move on so everyone doesn't have to hear anymore about it.

I am sure that sort of thing flies elsewhere, but I've provided examples of the method. You can see in all of them the box, the inevitable movement decisions the Riptides have to make and the threat is real. There will be losses for the Dark Eldar, as there should be against such a huge threat. But this is only turn one and nary a shot fired! Already you worry and toss and turn about it because you know you're going to lose some Riptides here and it's not going to be the easy victory YOU playing YOURSELF anticipate (the fun part of this is that you thought that would provide you a meaningful answer). I'm unwilling to go further into the game here or guess what will happen in THIS game but it just really illustrates the means by which I might reasonably make even this list work for its supper. I can say that the previous meetings against the Riptide Wing were quite successful. Against nine? Much tougher.

As a Tau General, i take these kinds of armies more seriously than you do and I accord more respect to it than you do. That is why I do well. I don't try to find the way in which the enemy would fail. I try to find the way in which the enemy will succeed. If you don't allow for that in your thinking, you will find yourself elsewhere while the top table is going on. If you do accord it the respect it deserves, then I think you should do less seeking for moral high ground and more acknowledgement of the possibilities. Negative thinking isn't winning thinking.

You really had a golden opportunity to let that one go, man. Instead, the fight mechanism kicked in again, and we got to hear for the umpteenth time how skilled of a Tau general you are. Tau vs Haemoculus Covens is a match I've played many, many times, and it always ends in varying degrees of awfulness for DE. That was before Tau took steroids with their new book and got a ton of new toys to play with, too. It's a shame you get so caught up in these arguments, because you do often have a unique and valuable perspective on the game and how it is played. I don't think anyone doubts you're at least decent at the game, but if you're going to try and assert authority through that route, you probably should provide stronger evidence than a top 10 ITC rating for Tau (which, as far as I can tell, requires simply showing up to more than 1 event - which you have, as I recall) and that atrocious Eldar list you apparently dominated with Pathfinders awhile back. That's not convincing anyone. Seriously, man, we're all glad you love Stealth Suits and Vespids and heinously expensive Pathfinder units, but give it a rest so we can move on to something else.

...such as the viability of all-Riptide armies. I floated the idea awhile ago, and the consensus seemed to be that the list is going to be a rock to someone else's scissors...or their paper. I can definitely see how you would have issues taking down IK- or Wraithknight-heavy lists, and that seems to be a large percentage of the top-tier competitive population these days. Do you think you could manage enough collateral damage to pull out wins vs these armies?

 Jancoran wrote:

This absurd nine Riptide Example

9 riptides isn't at all absurd. It's actually extremely strong.

MilkmanAl wrote:
[...]That's not convincing anyone.[...]

Yeah. I just want to add some emphasis to this.





The need to toot your own horn and whatever accomplishments you think you have that I do not care about, in lieu of actually being able to reason your way through a tactica discussion, just detracts from your argument rather than adds to it, at least where I'm from.

So if you guys are done arguing, I would really appreciate some help with Tactics for my Tau. I traded my IG for a Tau army before the new book was released and it will be a bit before I can purchase new models. Thus I have no Stormsruges or Ghostkeels(I don't want them anyway, the Stormsurgeses. Ghostkeels seem cool). So I'm left with my lists to play with 2 Riptides, 3 plasma suits, 2 fusion suits, and a forgeworld guy with plasma.

I have plenty of marker drones, firewarriors, no kroot(I hate kroot) 15 Stealth suits, 3 hammerheads and 3 devilfish. Any suggestions on how to kit my guys, especially for internet Grey Knights lists with 2 Dreadknights and all 2+ armorI've been fighting?

Moving on from this argument but on a related note, I've been looking at 9 Riptides for a while myself.

Does anyone have any opinion on how to do them? ITC rules, so only 3 detachments.



Personally I don't like clustering Riptides into multiple units so I'm playing with taking 3 Wings as my entire detachments. As far as upgrades go, I was looking at taking 1x shield drone on each, for a total of 9 drones and 9 Riptides, to lessen the blow of grav, because nothing else seems too remarkable. Counterfire is sick but at the end of the day it even if you overwatch down half the squad, if they make it to combat your Riptide is out of the game anyway, so it seems kinda situational. The problem is, Shield drones slow down the boost move which is so key to the army.

EWO seems nice but situational, might use it to fill up any extra points though. Taking FNP is pointless unless you can grab it on everyone, because they are likely just going to focus the ones who don't have it.

A big part of me is thinking of just taking 10 Riptides instead (1x 2man unit), putting EWO on 4 of them, VT on 1 of them, and Split Fire on the one unit of 2. 1850 points, bam. Who needs markers

*EDIT* Should note, this is a tactics thread.. below is the tactics I would use in this situation against DE

 Jancoran wrote:

Spoiler:

Dark Eldar Turn one is complete

So this is what I would do as the tau player here.

Assumptions... left two riptides A, B are single.. then C3 (unit of 3) then D, E, F2 ....ABC is one wing.. DEF is the second. Also rip squads have target locks.

Movement:
Move A and B down and right so that they can still have visual of those two left raiders. Move left markerlights up and screen in front of the riptides to cut off that charge vector. Move C back and flatten. Move markers up in front of them to screen. Hailfire wing DEF. move right two squads of markers forward to screen.

Shooting:
Markers on left each hit raiders, all the right markers target the Talos. Rip A and B fire into left raiders.. should be two easy kills. Possible explode, but who knows, dudes drop out (now stuck moving 6"). C3 Target the two center raiders and the talos.. should be another two down raiders, again leaving the guys walking.
DEF shooting 1: D fires ion over at the center units that were left out of the raiders. E fires at the talos. F2 fires at the talos... and repeat for second wave.

Assaulting:
ABC assault jump right towards the right and the hailfired wing. left and center marker drones assault jump to screen ABC from any potential charges. Assault jump the right marker squads into full screen position of the talos.


That's it. Right here, the game is pretty much over. the raider units are for the most part ignorable, as they can be kited until the talos is done (if they are not already wiped). That one wing hailfire put out 144 rending rounds (assuming nova went off.. more then likely) Very little can survive that.







Automatically Appended Next Post:

ArmchairArbiter wrote:
So if you guys are done arguing, I would really appreciate some help with Tactics for my Tau. I traded my IG for a Tau army before the new book was released and it will be a bit before I can purchase new models. Thus I have no Stormsruges or Ghostkeels(I don't want them anyway, the SG's). So I'm left with my lists to play with 2 Riptides, 3 plasma suits, 2 fusion suits, and a forgeworld guy with plasma.

I have plenty of marker drones, firewarriors, no kroot(I hate kroot), 3 hammerheads and 3 devilfish. Any suggestions on how to kit my guys, especially for internet Grey Knights lists with 2 Dreadknights and all 2+ armorI've been fighting?

So you can field some decent lists. Personally I would look at the Hunter contingent given the models you have available. I love fielding plasma crisis teams, they are super effective. Fusion suits are also great at taking on TEQ and Armor threats. I don't know your meta.. I don't want to give advice for "take x to beat y army"... necessarily.. but that does not mean you can't be prepared for it.

I would run this at the least.

1 x3 crisis, dual plasma
2 x1 crisis, dual fusion
2 x1 riptides, Ion, Fusion, Stims, EWO

That can be your core to work around, you can make it work in Hunter Contingent/Dawn Blade, or CAD detachments. Fill in firewarriors as needed to get your shot count up. If you want to play a little more diverse.. take out the fusion crisis teams, and run 2 hammerheads instead (not as good always.. also more points.. but not spammy).

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

This absurd nine Riptide Example

9 riptides isn't at all absurd. It's actually extremely strong.

I don't doubt that it's decent, but you need some form of marker light support. I absolutely do not think that 9 riptides in 3 riptide wings is a top tier build. It can curb stomp some weaker armies, but without marker light support you really are just up a creek. Try it against a Ravenwing army and let me know how many minutes you last.

 luke1705 wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

This absurd nine Riptide Example

9 riptides isn't at all absurd. It's actually extremely strong.

I don't doubt that it's decent, but you need some form of marker light support. I absolutely do not think that 9 riptides in 3 riptide wings is a top tier build. It can curb stomp some weaker armies, but without marker light support you really are just up a creek. Try it against a Ravenwing army and let me know how many minutes you last.

true, my other build looks like ShreddersShards's, 16 marker lights... but I don't like clumping up multiple Riptides into one unit. I think 10 Riptides at least has the weight of fire to maybe deal with Ravenwing, if not might just have to accept that the build needs to have some losing match-ups to be able to have many other awesome match ups, because 6 riptides in just 2 units or whatever is a massive liability.

 Grizzyzz wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

ArmchairArbiter wrote:
So if you guys are done arguing, I would really appreciate some help with Tactics for my Tau. I traded my IG for a Tau army before the new book was released and it will be a bit before I can purchase new models. Thus I have no Stormsruges or Ghostkeels(I don't want them anyway, the SG's). So I'm left with my lists to play with 2 Riptides, 3 plasma suits, 2 fusion suits, and a forgeworld guy with plasma.

I have plenty of marker drones, firewarriors, no kroot(I hate kroot), 3 hammerheads and 3 devilfish. Any suggestions on how to kit my guys, especially for internet Grey Knights lists with 2 Dreadknights and all 2+ armorI've been fighting?

So you can field some decent lists. Personally I would look at the Hunter contingent given the models you have available. I love fielding plasma crisis teams, they are super effective. Fusion suits are also great at taking on TEQ and Armor threats. I don't know your meta.. I don't want to give advice for "take x to beat y army"... necessarily.. but that does not mean you can't be prepared for it.

I would run this at the least.

1 x3 crisis, dual plasma
2 x1 crisis, dual fusion
2 x1 riptides, Ion, Fusion, Stims, EWO

That can be your core to work around, you can make it work in Hunter Contingent/Dawn Blade, or CAD detachments. Fill in firewarriors as needed to get your shot count up. If you want to play a little more diverse.. take out the fusion crisis teams, and run 2 hammerheads instead (not as good always.. also more points.. but not spammy).

So I'm confused on one note on your point. Aren't those all in the same slot for the CAD/Hunter Contingent/DBC and I can only take 1-3 units? That would be 5 individual units wouldn't it?

 SHUPPET wrote:

 luke1705 wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

This absurd nine Riptide Example

9 riptides isn't at all absurd. It's actually extremely strong.

I don't doubt that it's decent, but you need some form of marker light support. I absolutely do not think that 9 riptides in 3 riptide wings is a top tier build. It can curb stomp some weaker armies, but without marker light support you really are just up a creek. Try it against a Ravenwing army and let me know how many minutes you last.

true, my other build looks like ShreddersShards's, 16 marker lights... but I don't like clumping up multiple Riptides into one unit. I think 10 Riptides at least has the weight of fire to maybe deal with Ravenwing, if not might just have to accept that the build needs to have some losing match-ups to be able to have many other awesome match ups, because 6 riptides in just 2 units or whatever is a massive liability.

A guy ran 10 riptides at Adepticon and didn't do well. Problem is objectives, and GMCs. Wraithknights just dont care about riptide weapons unfortunately.

As for running a wing.. if your going to run riptides in a wing, its beneficial to run x3 x1 x1.. I would run 2 wings of that in 10 riptides (if that is what i wanted)... why? Because the unit of 3 has +1 BS for fireteam, and can still split fire via target locks. Remember you don't really need markerlights for +BS because you can cross fire your riptides at larger units to up their BS through the formation.

Ravenwing would be one of the papers to your rock lists.. that is just how it is.

MilkmanAl wrote:
You really had a golden opportunity to let that one go, man. Instead, the fight mechanism kicked in again, and we got to hear for the umpteenth time how skilled of a Tau general you are.
... and that atrocious Eldar list you apparently dominated with Pathfinders awhile back. That's not convincing anyone. Seriously, man, we're all glad you love Stealth Suits and Vespids and heinously expensive Pathfinder units, but give it a rest so we can move on to something else.

...Do you think you could manage enough collateral damage to pull out wins vs these armies?

Shoot. I missed my golden opportunity? Dang it.

What I did was give THREE visual presentations to the correct way to take the Riptide on, given three different variantion on his deployment. Thats what *I* did. what he did is use crayons, out of proportion representations of the models and an improbably unlikely setup and then claimed victory by playing himself. hehehe.

That I dont let people with stinking thinking come at me unchallenged is not strange. Anyone whose response to a legitimate threat is "psh" is asking for it. The level of disrespect Dakkadakka people show towards one another's ideas is amusing but ultimately it isn't helpful or instructional.

We saw in Lictorshame and in other metabreaker type of lists that they can win major events and I am QUITE certain none of those Generals much cared whether you thought it would work or not. They had already seen the potential in their practice games and they decided to go for it. Yay them. For once someone having the courage to tell online personalities where to stick it.

As for taking on top tier armies, Dark Eldar are distressed. i have repeatedly in this thread suggested that the outcome might very well be as poor for the Dark eldar as he says, I didn't close my mind off to that possibility at all. But he has to be intellectually honest about it by allowing for the Dark Eldar player in his scenario not to be a moron. Lol. I showed what one would do if one was not a moron and moved the Dark Eldar. Same board, three different Tau setups.

But ironically...again... this wasn't about Dark Eldar. This was about me explaining how i had demolished three Riptide Wing forces I faced using Dark Eldar, which became a cautionary tale for ME as a Tau General not to necessarily over commit to more Riptides. He took this reasoning and carried it out to the nth degree to...apparently..."prove" that what happened, didn't happen using a list that was in no way similar? I guess? Lol. And so I engaged in it in good faith, told him how to make the Dark Eldar ist, how to use it. And that is how we ended up here. He turned a simple point into a sidebar discussion about Dark Eldar vs. NINE Riptides, which wasn't the point of the statement I originally made in any way shape or form. We call that moving goalposts in a discussion.

Anyways, I had fun playing with the mapping software and finally figuring out how to post stuff like this so if nothing else i can now better explain a point visually for those who need it. There's a win.

ArmchairArbiter wrote:

Spoiler:

 Grizzyzz wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

ArmchairArbiter wrote:
So if you guys are done arguing, I would really appreciate some help with Tactics for my Tau. I traded my IG for a Tau army before the new book was released and it will be a bit before I can purchase new models. Thus I have no Stormsruges or Ghostkeels(I don't want them anyway, the SG's). So I'm left with my lists to play with 2 Riptides, 3 plasma suits, 2 fusion suits, and a forgeworld guy with plasma.

I have plenty of marker drones, firewarriors, no kroot(I hate kroot), 3 hammerheads and 3 devilfish. Any suggestions on how to kit my guys, especially for internet Grey Knights lists with 2 Dreadknights and all 2+ armorI've been fighting?

So you can field some decent lists. Personally I would look at the Hunter contingent given the models you have available. I love fielding plasma crisis teams, they are super effective. Fusion suits are also great at taking on TEQ and Armor threats. I don't know your meta.. I don't want to give advice for "take x to beat y army"... necessarily.. but that does not mean you can't be prepared for it.

I would run this at the least.

1 x3 crisis, dual plasma
2 x1 crisis, dual fusion
2 x1 riptides, Ion, Fusion, Stims, EWO

That can be your core to work around, you can make it work in Hunter Contingent/Dawn Blade, or CAD detachments. Fill in firewarriors as needed to get your shot count up. If you want to play a little more diverse.. take out the fusion crisis teams, and run 2 hammerheads instead (not as good always.. also more points.. but not spammy).

So I'm confused on one note on your point. Aren't those all in the same slot for the CAD/Hunter Contingent/DBC and I can only take 1-3 units? That would be 5 individual units wouldn't it?

Fair question. So say you were doing a CAD. You can run it as an Farsight Enclaves Detachment and take your crisis suits as troops.

If you were specifically running the Hunter Contingent given your models I would run..
Crisis Plasma Team
Ion Riptide
Ion Riptide

But that can be added or subtracted based on your point size. I ALWAYS run a squad of dual plasma crisis suits, they are just too good. =D

 Grizzyzz wrote:

ArmchairArbiter wrote:

Spoiler:

 Grizzyzz wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

ArmchairArbiter wrote:
So if you guys are done arguing, I would really appreciate some help with Tactics for my Tau. I traded my IG for a Tau army before the new book was released and it will be a bit before I can purchase new models. Thus I have no Stormsruges or Ghostkeels(I don't want them anyway, the SG's). So I'm left with my lists to play with 2 Riptides, 3 plasma suits, 2 fusion suits, and a forgeworld guy with plasma.

I have plenty of marker drones, firewarriors, no kroot(I hate kroot), 3 hammerheads and 3 devilfish. Any suggestions on how to kit my guys, especially for internet Grey Knights lists with 2 Dreadknights and all 2+ armorI've been fighting?

So you can field some decent lists. Personally I would look at the Hunter contingent given the models you have available. I love fielding plasma crisis teams, they are super effective. Fusion suits are also great at taking on TEQ and Armor threats. I don't know your meta.. I don't want to give advice for "take x to beat y army"... necessarily.. but that does not mean you can't be prepared for it.

I would run this at the least.

1 x3 crisis, dual plasma
2 x1 crisis, dual fusion
2 x1 riptides, Ion, Fusion, Stims, EWO

That can be your core to work around, you can make it work in Hunter Contingent/Dawn Blade, or CAD detachments. Fill in firewarriors as needed to get your shot count up. If you want to play a little more diverse.. take out the fusion crisis teams, and run 2 hammerheads instead (not as good always.. also more points.. but not spammy).

So I'm confused on one note on your point. Aren't those all in the same slot for the CAD/Hunter Contingent/DBC and I can only take 1-3 units? That would be 5 individual units wouldn't it?

Fair question. So say you were doing a CAD. You can run it as an Farsight Enclaves Detachment and take your crisis suits as troops.

If you were specifically running the Hunter Contingent given your models I would run..
Crisis Plasma Team
Ion Riptide
Ion Riptide

But that can be added or subtracted based on your point size. I ALWAYS run a squad of dual plasma crisis suits, they are just too good. =D

Got it, thanks a bunch. I'm of the same mindset. I love plasma! I plan on buying a third Riptide so I can do a Riptide Wing and then just run crises & stealth suits without the limitation concern from Riptides. I was going to use the new Breacher teams in devilfish but... they seem a bit cost restrictive.

 Jancoran wrote:
..About your not wanting to run a third riptide for a wing ..

So I been thinking of how to explain why i think it would benefit you to run this. I don't know your list off hand but I imagine your running 2 solo Ions with Stims? I am just going to assume that right now

So right now your sitting at 440 points. Let's drop the Stims, and add a third riptide. 555 points (assuming Ion again), only 115 points more then what you were already paying, and what did you gain? Reroll Nova, Cascading fire, Hailfire.

For no tax and 115 extra points you gained some amazing abilities, that I think makes those 115 points back easily.

Me personally I run Heavy Burst Cannons, but that is my taste. Either way, your sitting pretty with a scary unit. So you have this scary unit throwing pie plates for days and meanwhile you have all your outflanking business grabbing backfield objectives and being ignored because the focus is on this center highly offensive unit.

If the opponent rushes them with all these powerful CC units, or focuses all their good shooting on them, that is good for the rest of your army, because your pathfinders can't hold up to the beating that these boys can.

I think right now, if your running 2 riptides, its silly not to run 3 in a wing for the extra buffs they get.

Anyway my 2cents.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ArmchairArbiter wrote:

Got it, thanks a bunch. I'm of the same mindset. I love plasma! I plan on buying a third Riptide so I can do a Riptide Wing and then just run crises & stealth suits without the limitation concern from Riptides. I was going to use the new Breacher teams in devilfish but... they seem a bit cost restrictive.

Breachers are great, the problem is their movement. Running them in devilfish is required. Unfortunately that means that your looking at a ~200 point unit minimum. When I run them I like teams of 8 (just my preference). The Hunter Cadre run+shoot is nice cause it helps get them into that 6/3 profile range. Just make sure they have support nearby. They are still fire warriors and ap4 is not great for survival!

I know you don't want ghostkeel, but they are pretty amazing too. And the ghostkeel wing can add some really nice army survival through their stealth bubbles.

 Jancoran wrote:

MilkmanAl wrote:
You really had a golden opportunity to let that one go, man. Instead, the fight mechanism kicked in again, and we got to hear for the umpteenth time how skilled of a Tau general you are.
... and that atrocious Eldar list you apparently dominated with Pathfinders awhile back. That's not convincing anyone. Seriously, man, we're all glad you love Stealth Suits and Vespids and heinously expensive Pathfinder units, but give it a rest so we can move on to something else.

...Do you think you could manage enough collateral damage to pull out wins vs these armies?

Shoot. I missed my golden opportunity? Dang it.

What I did was give THREE visual presentations to the correct way to take the Riptide on, given three different variantion on his deployment. Thats what *I* did. what he did is use crayons, out of proportion representations of the models and an improbably unlikely setup and then claimed victory by playing himself. hehehe.

That I dont let people with stinking thinking come at me unchallenged is not strange. Anyone whose response to a legitimate threat is "psh" is asking for it. The level of disrespect Dakkadakka people show towards one another's ideas is amusing but ultimately it isn't helpful or instructional.

We saw in Lictorshame and in other metabreaker type of lists that they can win major events and I am QUITE certain none of those Generals much cared whether you thought it would work or not. They had already seen the potential in their practice games and they decided to go for it. Yay them. For once someone having the courage to tell online personalities where to stick it.

As for taking on top tier armies, Dark Eldar are distressed. i have repeatedly in this thread suggested that the outcome might very well be as poor for the Dark eldar as he says, I didn't close my mind off to that possibility at all. But he has to be intellectually honest about it by allowing for the Dark Eldar player in his scenario not to be a moron. Lol. I showed what one would do if one was not a moron and moved the Dark Eldar. Same board, three different Tau setups.

But ironically...again... this wasn't about Dark Eldar. This was about me explaining how i had demolished three Riptide Wing forces I faced using Dark Eldar, which became a cautionary tale for ME as a Tau General not to necessarily over commit to more Riptides. He took this reasoning and carried it out to the nth degree to...apparently..."prove" that what happened, didn't happen using a list that was in no way similar? I guess? Lol. And so I engaged in it in good faith, told him how to make the Dark Eldar ist, how to use it. And that is how we ended up here. He turned a simple point into a sidebar discussion about Dark Eldar vs. NINE Riptides, which wasn't the point of the statement I originally made in any way shape or form. We call that moving goalposts in a discussion.

Anyways, I had fun playing with the mapping software and finally figuring out how to post stuff like this so if nothing else i can now better explain a point visually for those who need it. There's a win.

Wow dude you need to stop.

I didn't "disrespect your ideas" in any way, I countered it with logical reasoning and explained why I disagreed. If you find this disrespectful, you need to move out of your safespace, or not bother posting opinions if you can't handle any counter responses.

Yes, my diagram was massively out of proportion - its ridiculous that you are still whining about this. I literally spent over an hour just making those 2 pics as a visual representation, and said multiple times they are not made accurately. Most Battle reports do not even go to the extent of effort that I did for this, you have absolutely no reason to complain here, I now regret making the pictures up to begin with.

The only thing "improbable" you've been able to point at with my set-up was the number of Riptides, yet since then there has been multiple people discussing 9 Riptide builds and even someone who took 10 Riptides at Adepticon. So once again, you are indisputably wrong. Also, the entire test of this army was the strength of Riptide Wings against your list that supposedly eats them for breakfast, which it quite resoundingly did not.

No, I didn't play by myself - I played with a very real opponent, using a combination of both our collections, and some size equivalent proxys models to play out this battle. We went to a lot of effort to make it as such, this is no problem because we had fun playing out the match and intend to do it for further conflicts relevant opinions relevant to our armies - however, next time we would appreciate a scenario a little less stupidly one-sided.

The only one moving the goalposts is you, multiple times, on practically every statement you've made, and this has been absolutely cemented with each further response.

And for someone talking about people disrespecting other peoples skill and opinions, you are being awful liberal with the use of the word moron to describe the dark eldar player who's plays you disagree with, especially when a.) its you who was wrong b.) the person you are debating has been polite and calm about the whole thing.


After my last post I'd told myself I wasn't going to reply to you anymore, but seriously this post was just too provocative to ignore. Just do everyone a favour, and please just drop it, nobody wants to continue this idiotic "debate" that no longer even counts as one at this point and I don't want to continue being made a part of it. You are the equivalent of a lawyer still yammering on to jury, after the defendant has already been tried, found guilty, and executed. The verdict is already out on this one. Lets just move on for everyone's sake. Please.

I'm on board with what you guys are saying about the all-Riptide force. These days, a Marker Drone Net just makes too much sense to not take, especially when you have a unit of models each dumping out 16 shots (HBC+SMS) per turn. That's basically mandatory, in my eyes. I also agree with Grizzy that you should maximize the amount of 3-man units to take advantage of Fire Team since, as above, +1 BS makes a hell of a difference for the shot volume you have.

On the flipside, I think the HBC is a bit over-valued on this board. While it's no doubt an excellent weapon in the grand scheme of things, I find that it actually have a fairly narrow therapeutic range, to borrow a pharmaceutical term. That is, you tend to either overkill the living sh*t out of something or struggle to do anything against it. Take the Knights and Wraithlords I mentioned earlier for example. You're basically just praying for rends against them. On the other hand, the MSU that seem to be everywhere these days will be pushing daisies before you're half done rolling dice.

The huge drawback to HBCs, in my opinion, is that they obligate you to use your nova on the main gun. 8 S6 AP4 shots from a 180pt model isn't scaring anyone, considering you can more or less get that from a Crisis suit these days. Statistically speaking, 3++ is better than 5++/5+++, so you can end up saving yourself a lot of points on stims by using your nova that way. When you Hailfire, it's also nice to have your SMS/fusion go ballistic, though you can certainly argue that 8 extra HBC shots is comparable to 8 extra SMS shots.

IA have the nice benefit of being nova-independent, so those Tides are more mobile, more durable, or more killy, depending on what you need. Rends are nice, but accept no substitute for the IA blast when you're trying to gun down Ravenwing, Centurions, or Thunderwolves (the latter to a lesser extent due to the prevalence of stormshields, but meh).

I'd probably roll with something like this:
Riptide Wing
3 Riptides – HBC, SMS, 3 EWO, 2 TL, 1 VT – 585
3 Riptides – 1 HBC, 2 IA, SMS, EWO, 2 TL – 575
2 Riptide – IA, SMS, EWO, 1 TL - 385

Drone Net -
4x4 Marker Drones – 224
1769

What to do with the extra 80 pts? I'm not really sure. Maybe an inquisitor or some extra stims or VTs or something. Take off some upgrades for a Culexus? Go wild.

Alternatively, it might be worth taking the army ShredderShard used above in one Wing with 3x3 upgradeless HBC Riptides that all get Fire Team. That would be pretty intense, but speaking of overkilling things, without TL...damn. You're going to be dumping a ridiculous amount of fire into things.

MilkmanAl wrote:
I'm on board with what you guys are saying about the all-Riptide force. These days, a Marker Drone Net just makes too much sense to not take, especially when you have a unit of models each dumping out 16 shots (HBC+SMS) per turn. That's basically mandatory, in my eyes. I also agree with Grizzy that you should maximize the amount of 3-man units to take advantage of Fire Team since, as above, +1 BS makes a hell of a difference for the shot volume you have.

On the flipside, I think the HBC is a bit over-valued on this board. While it's no doubt an excellent weapon in the grand scheme of things, I find that it actually have a fairly narrow therapeutic range, to borrow a pharmaceutical term. That is, you tend to either overkill the living sh*t out of something or struggle to do anything against it. Take the Knights and Wraithlords I mentioned earlier for example. You're basically just praying for rends against them. On the other hand, the MSU that seem to be everywhere these days will be pushing daisies before you're half done rolling dice.

The huge drawback to HBCs, in my opinion, is that they obligate you to use your nova on the main gun. 8 S6 AP4 shots from a 180pt model isn't scaring anyone, considering you can more or less get that from a Crisis suit these days. Statistically speaking, 3++ is better than 5++/5+++, so you can end up saving yourself a lot of points on stims by using your nova that way. When you Hailfire, it's also nice to have your SMS/fusion go ballistic, though you can certainly argue that 8 extra HBC shots is comparable to 8 extra SMS shots.

IA have the nice benefit of being nova-independent, so those Tides are more mobile, more durable, or more killy, depending on what you need. Rends are nice, but accept no substitute for the IA blast when you're trying to gun down Ravenwing, Centurions, or Thunderwolves (the latter to a lesser extent due to the prevalence of stormshields, but meh).

I'd probably roll with something like this:
Riptide Wing
3 Riptides – HBC, SMS, 3 EWO, 2 TL, 1 VT – 585
3 Riptides – 1 HBC, 2 IA, SMS, EWO, 2 TL – 575
2 Riptide – IA, SMS, EWO, 1 TL - 385

Drone Net -
4x4 Marker Drones – 224
1769

What to do with the extra 80 pts? I'm not really sure. Maybe an inquisitor or some extra stims or VTs or something. Take off some upgrades for a Culexus? Go wild.

Alternatively, it might be worth taking the army ShredderShard used above in one Wing with 3x3 upgradeless HBC Riptides that all get Fire Team. That would be pretty intense, but speaking of overkilling things, without TL...damn. You're going to be dumping a ridiculous amount of fire into things.

you have no scoring like that though, i think its maybe worth losing some +1 BS for Fire Team, in return for 3 extra scoring units. In fact, the fact is there is so much fast tackle in current 40k, and your opponent IS often enough going to be able to tarpit one or two the units of their choice. A bunch of big units is a big liability. But maybe you are right. I am in no way sold on my way of building the list, I actually copied it myself.

One thing I will say is that I dont think Wraithknights are that hard to bring down, and HBCs deal with them better than the alternative do anyway. Theres a lot of Rend potential with Hailfire and the like.

MilkmanAl wrote:

Spoiler:

I'm on board with what you guys are saying about the all-Riptide force. These days, a Marker Drone Net just makes too much sense to not take, especially when you have a unit of models each dumping out 16 shots (HBC+SMS) per turn. That's basically mandatory, in my eyes. I also agree with Grizzy that you should maximize the amount of 3-man units to take advantage of Fire Team since, as above, +1 BS makes a hell of a difference for the shot volume you have.

On the flipside, I think the HBC is a bit over-valued on this board. While it's no doubt an excellent weapon in the grand scheme of things, I find that it actually have a fairly narrow therapeutic range, to borrow a pharmaceutical term. That is, you tend to either overkill the living sh*t out of something or struggle to do anything against it. Take the Knights and Wraithlords I mentioned earlier for example. You're basically just praying for rends against them. On the other hand, the MSU that seem to be everywhere these days will be pushing daisies before you're half done rolling dice.

The huge drawback to HBCs, in my opinion, is that they obligate you to use your nova on the main gun. 8 S6 AP4 shots from a 180pt model isn't scaring anyone, considering you can more or less get that from a Crisis suit these days. Statistically speaking, 3++ is better than 5++/5+++, so you can end up saving yourself a lot of points on stims by using your nova that way. When you Hailfire, it's also nice to have your SMS/fusion go ballistic, though you can certainly argue that 8 extra HBC shots is comparable to 8 extra SMS shots.

IA have the nice benefit of being nova-independent, so those Tides are more mobile, more durable, or more killy, depending on what you need. Rends are nice, but accept no substitute for the IA blast when you're trying to gun down Ravenwing, Centurions, or Thunderwolves (the latter to a lesser extent due to the prevalence of stormshields, but meh).

I'd probably roll with something like this:
Riptide Wing
3 Riptides – HBC, SMS, 3 EWO, 2 TL, 1 VT – 585
3 Riptides – 1 HBC, 2 IA, SMS, EWO, 2 TL – 575
2 Riptide – IA, SMS, EWO, 1 TL - 385

Drone Net -
4x4 Marker Drones – 224
1769

What to do with the extra 80 pts? I'm not really sure. Maybe an inquisitor or some extra stims or VTs or something. Take off some upgrades for a Culexus? Go wild.

Alternatively, it might be worth taking the army ShredderShard used above in one Wing with 3x3 upgradeless HBC Riptides that all get Fire Team. That would be pretty intense, but speaking of overkilling things, without TL...damn. You're going to be dumping a ridiculous amount of fire into things.

Given that list. I would run inquisitor and skullz. That way you limit the scout moves and infiltrate on yourself. Also..if your run 2+ riptides in a unit, you are taking TLs. That is not a question. Remember 1 riptide in a unit cannot have it to work.

On the HBCs... I think Ion is the exact same, I am either barely doing damage, or i just wiped out an entire squad. Believe it or not, and math does show, the HBC nova'd does more damage against AV targets then the Ion does (of any profile).

What is crazy I just though i should say. I was doing math against fleshhounds, because I run a wing of 3 HBCs myself, and was trying to figure out which is better nova the HBC or the SMS. And turns out the HBC, because of the s6. wounding a MEQ unit on 2s is hugeee . Plus your nova'd HBC works in overwatch where you ripplefire does not. So you get those extra shots in.

i said it before, but that was a few pages back my wing is as follows: 3x heavy burst cannons, SMS, counter fire, early warning. Its cheap, throws dice, and is brutal in overwatch too.

 Grizzyzz wrote:


i said it before, but that was a few pages back my wing is as follows: 3x heavy burst cannons, SMS, counter fire, early warning. Its cheap, throws dice, and is brutal in overwatch too.

hey man, how useful do you find the counterfire? Has it ever saved a Riptide from assault? How often does it make enough of an impact to stop a Riptide getting tarpitted? I'm considering it too just wondering how practical it is, or is it just something you take because its cheap as chips and nice when it works?