Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

SemperMortis wrote:

You are right. Your handful of games are not anecdotal at all. Statistically you are unlikely to kill a riptide with a single round of shooting from a Dev squad armed with Grav cannons.


Couple things.
1: I don't play SMs I play Orks, I have zero answers to a riptide.
2: I never said you have to kill your opponents ENTIRE ARMY TURN 1. What I did point out was that your own example of how you kill a Riptide Turn 2 with your deep striking Dev squad won't work statistically.
3: Your plan literally doesn't work for MOST armies.

Sure my games are anecdotal, I don't claim otherwise. However I will claim that statistics around units operating in isolation is far from the whole picture. If an army has multiple Riptides, and one of them doesn't manage to get it's shield up, that's the one you go for, and back up your attack with something else in the 1500+ points you have left over.

1. For an argument involving Grav Devs, it doesn't matter that you play Orks.
2. Devs may not statistically do it themselves, but on the table they sometimes will (because dice) and if they don't, they should have backup anyways (because use-of-brain). Your statistical point is moot.
3. I focus primarily on my army, because that's what I know and play best. Obviously most armies don't have Drop Pods and Grav Cannons, so they would have to use different tools. If Orks truly do not have any tools, then I'm sorry. But I'll also say that I've seen a lot of people claim that they don't have the tools when they actually have perfectly viable answers. They just want someone else's tools instead of their own.

 _ghost_ wrote:
Riptides? i thought you were reffering to tons of firewarriors?!

Martel it is getting confusing.

eihter you are exaggerating by so many times it gets ridiculous or.. you are one of the most bad players that i have ever heard of.

in both ways... ts very exhausting talking with you about tau

Then stop.

"and one of them doesn't manage to get it's shield up, that's the one you go for,"

Obviously. But 5++/5+++ is still pretty tough.

 Insectum7 wrote:
To take on Riptides, Step 1: Hurt the Riptides while attempting to mitigate their response effectiveness.

Step 2: Continue hurting the Riptides while mitigating their response effectiveness.

Step 3: Same as above, muster everything you have to continue hurting the Riptides until they are dead, or victory is achieved.

I truly hope that this is a joke, but I have a sinking feeling that people believe it to be true.
Step one should never to be to target the Riptide. Step one should be to kill the markerlights. With them gone, the BS10 Ignores Cover Pieplates of doom disappear.

 Insectum7 wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

You are right. Your handful of games are not anecdotal at all. Statistically you are unlikely to kill a riptide with a single round of shooting from a Dev squad armed with Grav cannons.


Couple things.
1: I don't play SMs I play Orks, I have zero answers to a riptide.
2: I never said you have to kill your opponents ENTIRE ARMY TURN 1. What I did point out was that your own example of how you kill a Riptide Turn 2 with your deep striking Dev squad won't work statistically.
3: Your plan literally doesn't work for MOST armies.

Sure my games are anecdotal, I don't claim otherwise. However I will claim that statistics around units operating in isolation is far from the whole picture. If an army has multiple Riptides, and one of them doesn't manage to get it's shield up, that's the one you go for, and back up your attack with something else in the 1500+ points you have left over.

1. For an argument involving Grav Devs, it doesn't matter that you play Orks.
2. Devs may not statistically do it themselves, but on the table they sometimes will (because dice) and if they don't, they should have backup anyways (because use-of-brain). Your statistical point is moot.
3. I focus primarily on my army, because that's what I know and play best. Obviously most armies don't have Drop Pods and Grav Cannons, so they would have to use different tools. If Orks truly do not have any tools, then I'm sorry. But I'll also say that I've seen a lot of people claim that they don't have the tools when they actually have perfectly viable answers. They just want someone else's tools instead of their own.

The one with out the shield up is the one I did the math on that you won't statistically kill.

So how many back up plans are you supposed to have? It isn't hard for a riptide to kill that unit. Bikers might not be close enough. You can ignore Sternguard for a round before you need to kill them.

 _ghost_ wrote:
Riptides? i thought you were reffering to tons of firewarriors?!

Martel it is getting confusing.

eihter you are exaggerating by so many times it gets ridiculous or.. you are one of the most bad players that i have ever heard of.

in both ways... ts very exhausting talking with you about tau

Ironically he is right about that, but I guess its hard to see that with those fish eyes

2 Tactical Marines versus 6 Firewarriors. Tacs get 2 attacks on the charge (Photon Grenades) hitting on 3s and wounding on 3s. so lets say 1 wound, Tau get a 4+ so thats a 50/50 to not even suffer a single wound.

6 Firewarriors get 6 attacks hitting on 4s (3 hits) wounding on 5s (1 wound) against a 3+ armor save = 1/3rd chance to inflict a wound. So yeah...I would say that on average SMs don't have much chance in CC when they finally get there.

Against a riptide? Well your just pissing into the wind if you think 2 Marines will win that fight. On average the Riptide won't suffer any damage and will kill at least 1 marine a turn S6 AP2.

 carldooley wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
To take on Riptides, Step 1: Hurt the Riptides while attempting to mitigate their response effectiveness.

Step 2: Continue hurting the Riptides while mitigating their response effectiveness.

Step 3: Same as above, muster everything you have to continue hurting the Riptides until they are dead, or victory is achieved.

I truly hope that this is a joke, but I have a sinking feeling that people believe it to be true.
Step one should never to be to target the Riptide. Step one should be to kill the markerlights. With them gone, the BS10 Ignores Cover Pieplates of doom disappear.

To be fair, even removing the Markerlights now isn't a great answer. It makes it so you won't see BS10 certainly, but...

A Fireteam of three Riptides is +1 BS(4).
A Fireteam of three Riptides, firing as part of a Coordinated Firepower Attack is at an additional +1BS(5).

So either way , there is still ways for Riptides to not be as affected by the loss of their Markerlights.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 carldooley wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
To take on Riptides, Step 1: Hurt the Riptides while attempting to mitigate their response effectiveness.

Step 2: Continue hurting the Riptides while mitigating their response effectiveness.

Step 3: Same as above, muster everything you have to continue hurting the Riptides until they are dead, or victory is achieved.

I truly hope that this is a joke, but I have a sinking feeling that people believe it to be true.
Step one should never to be to target the Riptide. Step one should be to kill the markerlights. With them gone, the BS10 Ignores Cover Pieplates of doom disappear.

To be fair, even removing the Markerlights now isn't a great answer. It makes it so you won't see BS10 certainly, but...

A Fireteam of three Riptides is +1 BS(4).
A Fireteam of three Riptides, firing as part of a Coordinated Firepower Attack is at an additional +1BS(5).

So either way , there is still ways for Riptides to not be as affected by the loss of their Markerlights.

People seem to be forgetting that Markerlights aren't used primarily for increasing BS they are used for deleting Cover saves. Nothing like watching your handful of units without T-shirts with decent weapons getting dakka'd off the table because they ignore armor and cover save and double out your T value........

SemperMortis wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 carldooley wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
To take on Riptides, Step 1: Hurt the Riptides while attempting to mitigate their response effectiveness.

Step 2: Continue hurting the Riptides while mitigating their response effectiveness.

Step 3: Same as above, muster everything you have to continue hurting the Riptides until they are dead, or victory is achieved.

I truly hope that this is a joke, but I have a sinking feeling that people believe it to be true.
Step one should never to be to target the Riptide. Step one should be to kill the markerlights. With them gone, the BS10 Ignores Cover Pieplates of doom disappear.

To be fair, even removing the Markerlights now isn't a great answer. It makes it so you won't see BS10 certainly, but...

A Fireteam of three Riptides is +1 BS(4).
A Fireteam of three Riptides, firing as part of a Coordinated Firepower Attack is at an additional +1BS(5).

So either way , there is still ways for Riptides to not be as affected by the loss of their Markerlights.

People seem to be forgetting that Markerlights aren't used primarily for increasing BS they are used for deleting Cover saves. Nothing like watching your handful of units without T-shirts with decent weapons getting dakka'd off the table because they ignore armor and cover save and double out your T value........

That's true, but Carl specifically brought up the BS10 bit so that was the part I really wanted to address.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

So how many back up plans are you supposed to have?

1850 - (cost of DropGravDevs) worth of backup plans. Units used in isolation are wasted units.

pumaman1 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
And in the meantime im just sat here wishing that my Guard actually had something like droppods in the first place.

Valkyries/vendettas and grav-chute insertion? Oh you mean good? sorry, not until IG are first codex for 8th ed and get ork nerf treatment.

Yup, could do that. The only slight problem being that Grav Chute insertion is about twice as risky as regular DS

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
And in the meantime im just sat here wishing that my Guard actually had something like droppods in the first place.

Well D99 and Scions exist for deep striking purposes. Scions need a huge reworking though.

Don't know much of D99 so I cannot tell you if they're effective.

No idea what a D99 is, but I do agree that Scions are largely worthless.

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
And in the meantime im just sat here wishing that my Guard actually had something like droppods in the first place.

On the other hand, the Riptide pie plates mean a lot less to guard inherently.

Martel, you are the one advocating blobs for Guard. Do you know what blast templates do to blobs?

"Do you know what blast templates do to blobs? "

Not much when they have a 4++ and are spaced out properly. I'm not the only one advocating this, but you are mysteriously absent on those threads. Start winning with tanks or be silent about them.

These people are talking about deep striking marines with 35 pt guns within 12" of these things. Very, very different. Let's say the blast template covers and wounds seven guardsmen. You just lost the point value of a GUN we are giving a marine in this discussion. Now imagine pie plating that marine's squad full of these guns.

 master of ordinance wrote:

No idea what a D99 is, but I do agree that Scions are largely worthless.

D99 is the Elysian list from Imperial Armour 4. It has some pretty significant downsides to it though(I don't have the book; skimmed it awhile ago. I'll let someone else do the specifics) in regards to the list beyond its organization from what i recall.

Grav chute works okay with special weapon teams and storm troopers. It's not great admittedly, but it's not worthless, either.

These people are talking about deep striking marines with 35 pt guns within 12" of these things. Very, very different. Let's say the blast template covers and wounds seven guardsmen. You just lost the point value of a GUN we are giving a marine in this discussion. Now imagine pie plating that marine's squad full of these guns.

>not buying drop pod to get within 12"
>putting his marines in perfect pie plate formation
>not putting his marines within 1" of enemy models so they can't be target of pie plates

There's only so many ways you can arrange small squads of marines.

Yes, SOMETIMES you can get the whole squad within 1". But not usually.

The real marine counter to Tau is Gladius, not skyhammer. Don't bother killing much, just score all the points and spam more stuff than can be killed, even by Tau.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

So how many back up plans are you supposed to have?

1850 - (cost of DropGravDevs) worth of backup plans. Units used in isolation are wasted units.

To be fair, with the shield up, and if they know you have grav devs, they will bring the shield up, you need to put in 945 points worth of grav cents to kill ONE tide.
ONE. (Technically it's like 2.5 will do it but still). In formation the Tide will usually have it's shields up.

with the shield not up, it takes 630 points, which is a lot better, though still difficult to land 2 pods and all those marines within 12" of the same tide.

That's not including the fact that you will be relatively squished together since you can't run and want to be within 12" of the tide when you land. The tides, popping their formation, will fire 4 times at your relatively bunched up marines and do quite a bit of damage.
So you've killed ~250 points and they've killed 600. You're now down on attrition and given them 28ppm that have the same defenses as 5ppm against them, relatively bunched up, for them to fire at.

I play Tau and marines, I don't know anyone who uses grav devs. They are awful, grav is only good on a relentless platform, which is why you see them on bikes and cents, and not much else. Do you not play vanilla marines? Why wouldn't you take cents over dev?
50 Firewarriors is crazy town. The dice must be against you, FW are simply not that great to be spammed to that extent.
A fire warriror does the following assuming MEQ, Squads of 10 (just easier honestly)
1/2*2/3*1/3 = 2/18, or 1/9. It takes 5 of them rapid firing to get one guy. A squad of them can expect to kill 2 marines.

With MLs
5/6*2/3*1/3 = 10/54 or 5/27. It takes 3 of them rapid firing to get one guy. A squad will kill 3-4, and you've spent two lights to do this.

A typical Tau army will get 2-3 turns of firing on a basic solider. Most MLs aren't wasted on warriors, so figure 3 dead marines per squad (1 shot won't be at rapid fire range).

Take that to 50, and a full army rapid firing kills 1.5 squads with ML support, 1 squad without. That's...something? I mean, marines aren't much better if you break it down by ppm but the marines want to reach the front lines. Granted, I assume a rhino and the marines are more expensive than the warriors due to the bells and whistles, but you can get 30-40 marines for the 50 FW and get there okay. Not great, but you can reach it. FnP helps a lot.

Cents are a whole other story. Cents can pop tides really well, but not devs. I'm surprised someone is claiming their few games trumps the math that heavily, and claiming math is a moot point because dice.
By that logic, a tactical squad can kill tides every turn no problem. Just roll them dice or send more dudes in

50 fire warriors was an exxageration demonstrating how many more tau there will be by the time the marines get there.

FW in general just aren't scary for marines. They do good work against hordes with bad saves, which is something the suits can struggle against, but against marines?

I'm more worried about the tides and such.

Well i think they're pretty scary.

If that's your experience that's fair, I'm not going to challenge that.
I'm just pointing out that adding hyperbole to an argument doesn't do anything in this type of thing. I don't see the point, it just raises hackles and weakens your position.

It's also difficult to point out that one person is wrong for using an anecdote to argue against math, and then to turn around and do the same in a different position. I mean, I get it, I roll WAY under average on armor saves and my marines feel super weak because of it, but I can't bring that to an argument here.

If I say "A cent pops 2 riptides a turn" and the math shows 1.87 tides dead, that's fine. Maybe I roll a little hot or remember the good times, but I'm not crazy. But if I say "I can kill a wraithknight with 4 lascannons" well...that's how you get mutilator threads.

Mutilators: the definitive counter to the Tau Riptide

It's starting!

I said pretty scary. Not horrifying.

Ok, let's just say we are playing a 1850 game. And your opponent brings a tau army with riptides. He might bring a riptide wing, which means he won't have enough points to bring a hunter contingent, which means, his riptides are only BS3 unless the riptides fire at the same unit as the previous riptide. So kill off the markerlights. You have never see how many times a riptide blast scatters away making the 200 point model waste a turn or 2. Also, if you bring marines, why not take the white scars artifact that ignores cover on your bikes with grav? Take a captain on a bike with them to soak up some damage and also a apothecary to give him feel no pain and as a ablative wound.

Khorne daemonkin with 2 bloodthirsters also give tau some pause also, especially now that there can be renegade knights in a chaos army. This means that they have to wonder what to shoot at. The knight? The bloodthirsters? And they normally reach within 2 turns. I doubt the tau has enough firepower to take them all down, especially when the khorne hounds are also rushing forward. Oh and Kharne can destroy riptides easily, especially if they are a unit of riptides.

Orks have the weakest codex so its not really fair to compare them. But if you play, bring on a whole lot of boys with a nob with a powerclaw. Sure they will get shot to ribbons, but they will reach the tau lines turn 2. Even with overwatch, tau aren't that scary when you have already destroyed their markerlights. A riptide can kill 3 orks at best in CC, and that is if they are extremely lucky. The orks will do more and sweep the riptide. Also remember that enemy units can only ever overwatch ONCE. If you have 3-4 squad of orks with power klaw, you can then dictate which unit to destroy first.

Lastly, if you are playing against tau in a kill everything game, then you are definitely playing to your disadvantage. Tau are meant to destroy as many as they can in the first few turns before they get overwhelmed. And if you are playing with maelstrom, that makes them worse as they will struggle to cap points because, firstly, riptides are no objective secured, and secondly, shooting the devs may not be in the tau player's best interest, and therefore, they might live longer than you expect and do much more.

Orks have the weakest codex so its not really fair to compare them. But if you play, bring on a whole lot of boys with a nob with a powerclaw. Sure they will get shot to ribbons, but they will reach the tau lines turn 2. Even with overwatch, tau aren't that scary when you have already destroyed their markerlights. A riptide can kill 3 orks at best in CC, and that is if they are extremely lucky. The orks will do more and sweep the riptide. Also remember that enemy units can only ever overwatch ONCE. If you have 3-4 squad of orks with power klaw, you can then dictate which unit to destroy first.

29 boyz and a Nob with PK = 215pts about the same price as the Riptide.

Turn 1 orks lose 7ish boyz to the riptide, move 6 run 4 = 10 inches closer to the riptide

TUrn 2: Orks lose 6ish boyz to the riptide, move 6 run 3 = 9 inches closer to the riptide

Turn 3: Orks lose another 5ish boyz to the riptide, take a morale test, fail lose another 2 boyz, Call A Waaagh, move 6, run 4 and assault 7, lets say by a miracle they get the charge off. Riptide fires another round of over watch at BS3 because of nearby Pathfinders/Firewarriors/drones whatever. Kills another boy.

So boyz are now down to 8 boyz and a Nob. Riptide swings first kills 1 boy, 7 boyz swing back 28 attacks, 18ish hits 3 wounds against 2+ armor and 5+ FNP = ZERO Wounds. Nob swings with his 4 Attacks, hits with 3 wounds with all 3 and against a 3++ and 5+++ = 1 Wound. Drawn combat.

So from that point onward the riptide is useless because its going to get stuck in CC for the rest of the game but hey thats fine.

Also thats not taking into account the fact that the riptide IS FASTER THEN BOYZ so it can run away easily, its also not taking into account a number of other things like playing an actual game.

Just out of curiosity how exactly are the Orks killing all the markerlights? I am seriously asking because I have yet to find a way to do that effectively with orks.

SemperMortis wrote:
Riptide fires another round of over watch at BS3 because of nearby Pathfinders/Firewarriors/drones whatever.

**EXPLETIVES DELETED BY ORDER OF THE INQUISITION**

 carldooley wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Riptide fires another round of over watch at BS3 because of nearby Pathfinders/Firewarriors/drones whatever.

**EXPLETIVES DELETED BY ORDER OF THE INQUISITION**

Well remember, riptides are Always within 6" of markerlight units to provide overarching no exceptions.

 pumaman1 wrote:

 carldooley wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Riptide fires another round of over watch at BS3 because of nearby Pathfinders/Firewarriors/drones whatever.

**EXPLETIVES DELETED BY ORDER OF THE INQUISITION**

Well remember, riptides are Always within 6" of markerlight units to provide overarching no exceptions.

The problem was that he was saying why a unit that costs as much as a riptide would lose when that riptide is supported by MORE points of Tau support. Sorry, but I don't support my models in this way on account that I don't want a disordered charge potentially locking down multiple units in combat, where they very rarely survive until the next turn.

More, it isn't a fair comparison when you compare 2 units then assume that one is getting additional support from another unit.

SemperMortis wrote:

Orks have the weakest codex so its not really fair to compare them. But if you play, bring on a whole lot of boys with a nob with a powerclaw. Sure they will get shot to ribbons, but they will reach the tau lines turn 2. Even with overwatch, tau aren't that scary when you have already destroyed their markerlights. A riptide can kill 3 orks at best in CC, and that is if they are extremely lucky. The orks will do more and sweep the riptide. Also remember that enemy units can only ever overwatch ONCE. If you have 3-4 squad of orks with power klaw, you can then dictate which unit to destroy first.

29 boyz and a Nob with PK = 215pts about the same price as the Riptide.

Turn 1 orks lose 7ish boyz to the riptide, move 6 run 4 = 10 inches closer to the riptide

TUrn 2: Orks lose 6ish boyz to the riptide, move 6 run 3 = 9 inches closer to the riptide

Turn 3: Orks lose another 5ish boyz to the riptide, take a morale test, fail lose another 2 boyz, Call A Waaagh, move 6, run 4 and assault 7, lets say by a miracle they get the charge off. Riptide fires another round of over watch at BS3 because of nearby Pathfinders/Firewarriors/drones whatever. Kills another boy.

So boyz are now down to 8 boyz and a Nob. Riptide swings first kills 1 boy, 7 boyz swing back 28 attacks, 18ish hits 3 wounds against 2+ armor and 5+ FNP = ZERO Wounds. Nob swings with his 4 Attacks, hits with 3 wounds with all 3 and against a 3++ and 5+++ = 1 Wound. Drawn combat.

So from that point onward the riptide is useless because its going to get stuck in CC for the rest of the game but hey thats fine.

Also thats not taking into account the fact that the riptide IS FASTER THEN BOYZ so it can run away easily, its also not taking into account a number of other things like playing an actual game.

Just out of curiosity how exactly are the Orks killing all the markerlights? I am seriously asking because I have yet to find a way to do that effectively with orks.

That is a good question. Maybe even more orks in trukks perhaps? Depending on what kind of markerlights the tau player is using? If they are pathfinders, they squish pretty easily. If they are drones, well, they are with a commander, thus charging them makes alot of sense. Most of the markelight units have low Ld as well, so one dead model may change the course of the game. Also, like you said, its not taking into account a number of other things, like failed nova charges, missing the pie plates, and if there are other tau that can overwatch this unit, then that means there are another 3 to 4 units of orks that are unmolested charging into the riptide. But hey, at least now they successfully stopped a riptide from shooting for 3 other rounds, which means the orks are just as OP as the riptide, right?

bleak wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Orks have the weakest codex so its not really fair to compare them. But if you play, bring on a whole lot of boys with a nob with a powerclaw. Sure they will get shot to ribbons, but they will reach the tau lines turn 2. Even with overwatch, tau aren't that scary when you have already destroyed their markerlights. A riptide can kill 3 orks at best in CC, and that is if they are extremely lucky. The orks will do more and sweep the riptide. Also remember that enemy units can only ever overwatch ONCE. If you have 3-4 squad of orks with power klaw, you can then dictate which unit to destroy first.

29 boyz and a Nob with PK = 215pts about the same price as the Riptide.

Turn 1 orks lose 7ish boyz to the riptide, move 6 run 4 = 10 inches closer to the riptide

TUrn 2: Orks lose 6ish boyz to the riptide, move 6 run 3 = 9 inches closer to the riptide

Turn 3: Orks lose another 5ish boyz to the riptide, take a morale test, fail lose another 2 boyz, Call A Waaagh, move 6, run 4 and assault 7, lets say by a miracle they get the charge off. Riptide fires another round of over watch at BS3 because of nearby Pathfinders/Firewarriors/drones whatever. Kills another boy.

So boyz are now down to 8 boyz and a Nob. Riptide swings first kills 1 boy, 7 boyz swing back 28 attacks, 18ish hits 3 wounds against 2+ armor and 5+ FNP = ZERO Wounds. Nob swings with his 4 Attacks, hits with 3 wounds with all 3 and against a 3++ and 5+++ = 1 Wound. Drawn combat.

So from that point onward the riptide is useless because its going to get stuck in CC for the rest of the game but hey thats fine.

Also thats not taking into account the fact that the riptide IS FASTER THEN BOYZ so it can run away easily, its also not taking into account a number of other things like playing an actual game.

Just out of curiosity how exactly are the Orks killing all the markerlights? I am seriously asking because I have yet to find a way to do that effectively with orks.

That is a good question. Maybe even more orks in trukks perhaps? Depending on what kind of markerlights the tau player is using? If they are pathfinders, they squish pretty easily. If they are drones, well, they are with a commander, thus charging them makes alot of sense. Most of the markelight units have low Ld as well, so one dead model may change the course of the game. Also, like you said, its not taking into account a number of other things, like failed nova charges, missing the pie plates, and if there are other tau that can overwatch this unit, then that means there are another 3 to 4 units of orks that are unmolested charging into the riptide. But hey, at least now they successfully stopped a riptide from shooting for 3 other rounds, which means the orks are just as OP as the riptide, right?

Lets do a switch game sometime, next time your near me in CT lets play. Take whatever ork units you want, i'll roflstomp you with Tau so quick you won't even get to turn 3.