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Hey, Im having issues facing Tau and wanted to know how imperium deals with triple riptides lists. How do you chew through all the drones and 3++? And what units work well?

What's it getting the 3++ from?

That being said, having only played against Riptides a couple times, I think your best bet is volume of light-to-medium fire. The best way to get around invulns is to force a ton of saves.
Plasma and Autocannons are probably your best bet to get the best possible damage-to-volume-of-fire ratio, though "Imperium" is really broad and I could narrow it down more if I knew your armies.

Waaaghpower wrote:
What's it getting the 3++ from?

That being said, having only played against Riptides a couple times, I think your best bet is volume of light-to-medium fire. The best way to get around invulns is to force a ton of saves.
Plasma and Autocannons are probably your best bet to get the best possible damage-to-volume-of-fire ratio, though "Imperium" is really broad and I could narrow it down more if I knew your armies.

Use the Nova Reactor, taking the 3++ effect is the usual way for Tau to do considering the current firepower in the game.

Riptide with 3++ boost is a real tough nut to crack. But it may not be invicible. Shoot all the drones near it first, than follow by massed high RoF AP-1 multi-dmg weapon at it and it will eventually fall, I don't know if Tau had some kind of trickery to make a severely wounded Riptide to act as normal or not. If it doesn't have that, you can leave a cripled one and move to the next one.

One possibility since we're talking all of Imperium here is to take a Librarian on a Bike, preferably White Scars, and suicide charge right up to the Riptides to cast Null Zone. With a Command Point you've got about a 7/10ths chance of success, and you shouldn't have any trouble getting in range because an advancing Bike moves 22", plus a 6" bubble on the power means you can hit anything you need to within 28".

Run forward, (possibly with other squads as a vanguard now that bikes are cheaper,) pop Null Zone, and shred through the now-defenseless Riptide.

And use wyverns to get rid of those pesky drones. Also, if you take the shadow sword, you will force the riptides to use their 3++ on all three of them, so they won’t be pouring out that many shots.
Shadow sword + wyverns + null zone librarian should work.

I personally hate playing against Tau with a passion (despite knowing all the ins and outs of the army) ! But at a tourney you don’t have much of a choice, so might as well prepare

I mean... there’s the castellen guard cheese. It’s cheesier than three riptides, but riptides are kind of a poorly designed unit. Things that tough should not easily achieve three plus invuls. It’s the same thing that makes the castellen such a broken unit. It can achieve three plus invuls with effective self healing tools.

Kill the drones and shoot at the other two riptides without a 3++. Optimum gun for this imo is storm cannon array leviathan or battle cannons. Helverins are pretty boss at taking them on too.

 grouchoben wrote:
Kill the drones and shoot at the other two riptides without a 3++. Optimum gun for this imo is storm cannon array leviathan or battle cannons. Helverins are pretty boss at taking them on too.

Every riptide will have a 3++. It’s not a strategem it’s an inbuilt ability. They trade a wound for it. Not there’s a strategem that allows them to buff their shields and weapons, but any tau player worth their salt is gone buff their shields if there’s even a remote chance of taking fire. They also have a healing strategem so that they can shrug off the wounds they inflict on themselves. The investment a player has to put into killing a riptide is vastly vastly disproportional to their cost and the damage they will output against your army. A three plus invul is a big deal on any model and becomes increasingly powerful the tougher a model gets. I mean list the top most competitive or broken units in the game and for most of them part of it will involve a three plus invul. Shield captains, smash captains, knights all get it

This is why I shy away from high AP weapons. AP-1 spam burns down 3++ fine.

The only dangerous riptide is the one using the stratagem, the other 2 are putting out really low damage for 280 point models.

I would ignore the riptides and kill the rest of the army.

Agreed! If your opponent is taking a mortal wound on each of his rips for the 3++ rather than the gun buff that's good news for you. That's reducing his burstcannon shots by 12, assuming they use the strat on the third, or 18 if they didn't.

Martel732 wrote:
This is why I shy away from high AP weapons. AP-1 spam burns down 3++ fine.

There is a real narrow margin of cost effective ap 1 weapons to shoot at a toughness 7 model, and I think it might just be deathwatch in imperium

stratigo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
This is why I shy away from high AP weapons. AP-1 spam burns down 3++ fine.

There is a real narrow margin of cost effective ap 1 weapons to shoot at a toughness 7 model, and I think it might just be deathwatch in imperium

Armigers say hi.

Pask in an Executioner (triple plasma, lascannon) + a Cadian Tank Commander Executioner should deal on average 12.692 damage per turn to a 3++ riptide, assuming you fire Pask first, then use Overlapping Fields of Fire to make the other tank commander hit on a 2+, and that both of them didn't move so they can re-roll one's to hit. Together they total 429 points.

https://www.mathhammer8thed.com/ used for mathhammering

You could also use some Cadian Mortars to put down the shield drones before you open fire with the tanks.

An Armiger would do an average of 2.667 damage per salvo, so you'd need 5 Armigers to bring one down, which costs like 850 points.

edit - There's a mistake in my calculations... the mathhammer link i was using I entered in roll 2D6 pick the highest for the tanks on the turret weapon number of shots, but the rule is you can re-roll, which would give a lower average number of shots. So you'd have to roll a bit better than average to kill the riptide with Pask + an Executioner TC.

 Horst wrote:
Pask in an Executioner (triple plasma, lascannon) + a Cadian Tank Commander Executioner should deal on average 12.692 damage per turn to a 3++ riptide, assuming you fire Pask first, then use Overlapping Fields of Fire to make the other tank commander hit on a 2+, and that both of them didn't move so they can re-roll one's to hit. Together they total 429 points.

https://www.mathhammer8thed.com/ used for mathhammering

You could also use some Cadian Mortars to put down the shield drones before you open fire with the tanks.

An Armiger would do an average of 2.667 damage per salvo, so you'd need 5 Armigers to bring one down, which costs like 850 points.

Holy emperor, and that's "overcosted unplayable Leman Russes" vrs "overpowered cheese that is knights"

Ice_can wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Pask in an Executioner (triple plasma, lascannon) + a Cadian Tank Commander Executioner should deal on average 12.692 damage per turn to a 3++ riptide, assuming you fire Pask first, then use Overlapping Fields of Fire to make the other tank commander hit on a 2+, and that both of them didn't move so they can re-roll one's to hit. Together they total 429 points.

https://www.mathhammer8thed.com/ used for mathhammering

You could also use some Cadian Mortars to put down the shield drones before you open fire with the tanks.

An Armiger would do an average of 2.667 damage per salvo, so you'd need 5 Armigers to bring one down, which costs like 850 points.

Holy emperor, and that's "overcosted unplayable Leman Russes" vrs "overpowered cheese that is knights"

Nah, it's Pask and Tank Commanders. I thought that people liked them. Regular leman russes are pretty bad though for the cost... consider that 2 executioners with the same loadout as above cost only 55 points less, but would only deal an average of 7.44 wounds. The regular russes cost 87% of the Pask+TC russes, but deal ~59% of the damage. Without orders and better BS, they're not great.

 Horst wrote:
Pask in an Executioner (triple plasma, lascannon) + a Cadian Tank Commander Executioner should deal on average 12.692 damage per turn to a 3++ riptide, assuming you fire Pask first, then use Overlapping Fields of Fire to make the other tank commander hit on a 2+, and that both of them didn't move so they can re-roll one's to hit. Together they total 429 points.

https://www.mathhammer8thed.com/ used for mathhammering

You could also use some Cadian Mortars to put down the shield drones before you open fire with the tanks.

An Armiger would do an average of 2.667 damage per salvo, so you'd need 5 Armigers to bring one down, which costs like 850 points.

edit - There's a mistake in my calculations... the mathhammer link i was using I entered in roll 2D6 pick the highest for the tanks on the turret weapon number of shots, but the rule is you can re-roll, which would give a lower average number of shots. So you'd have to roll a bit better than average to kill the riptide with Pask + an Executioner TC.

Riptides actually have 14 wounds, but yes it will work since they auto suffer those additional MWs.

 Horst wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Pask in an Executioner (triple plasma, lascannon) + a Cadian Tank Commander Executioner should deal on average 12.692 damage per turn to a 3++ riptide, assuming you fire Pask first, then use Overlapping Fields of Fire to make the other tank commander hit on a 2+, and that both of them didn't move so they can re-roll one's to hit. Together they total 429 points.

https://www.mathhammer8thed.com/ used for mathhammering

You could also use some Cadian Mortars to put down the shield drones before you open fire with the tanks.

An Armiger would do an average of 2.667 damage per salvo, so you'd need 5 Armigers to bring one down, which costs like 850 points.

Holy emperor, and that's "overcosted unplayable Leman Russes" vrs "overpowered cheese that is knights"

Nah, it's Pask and Tank Commanders. I thought that people liked them. Regular leman russes are pretty bad though for the cost... consider that 2 executioners with the same loadout as above cost only 55 points less, but would only deal an average of 7.44 wounds. The regular russes cost 87% of the Pask+TC russes, but deal ~59% of the damage. Without orders and better BS, they're not great.

Sorry it was sarcasm at the way some dakka posters defende guard as underpowered/barely playabe and knights are the ultimate cheese(worse then Yannari) yet your showing that guard are more likely to one round a riptide with less points than helverins.

Spoletta wrote:
The only dangerous riptide is the one using the stratagem, the other 2 are putting out really low damage for 280 point models.

I would ignore the riptides and kill the rest of the army.

Unless you have lots of riptide threatening units he can hide the ones without 3´´ out of LOS from those using it to deal with full effect gun while one goes for gun and 3++ upgrades.

stratigo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
This is why I shy away from high AP weapons. AP-1 spam burns down 3++ fine.

There is a real narrow margin of cost effective ap 1 weapons to shoot at a toughness 7 model, and I think it might just be deathwatch in imperium

I've beaten my last 3 tau opponents with deredeo, double stalker, and valhallan regular russes. Stalkers are $$ vs tau. And just got cheaper.

 Horst wrote:
Pask in an Executioner (triple plasma, lascannon) + a Cadian Tank Commander Executioner should deal on average 12.692 damage per turn to a 3++ riptide, assuming you fire Pask first, then use Overlapping Fields of Fire to make the other tank commander hit on a 2+, and that both of them didn't move so they can re-roll one's to hit. Together they total 429 points.

https://www.mathhammer8thed.com/ used for mathhammering

You could also use some Cadian Mortars to put down the shield drones before you open fire with the tanks.

An Armiger would do an average of 2.667 damage per salvo, so you'd need 5 Armigers to bring one down, which costs like 850 points.

edit - There's a mistake in my calculations... the mathhammer link i was using I entered in roll 2D6 pick the highest for the tanks on the turret weapon number of shots, but the rule is you can re-roll, which would give a lower average number of shots. So you'd have to roll a bit better than average to kill the riptide with Pask + an Executioner TC.

Now math the reverse

Also there is going to usually be many many drones hanging about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ice_can wrote:

 Horst wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Pask in an Executioner (triple plasma, lascannon) + a Cadian Tank Commander Executioner should deal on average 12.692 damage per turn to a 3++ riptide, assuming you fire Pask first, then use Overlapping Fields of Fire to make the other tank commander hit on a 2+, and that both of them didn't move so they can re-roll one's to hit. Together they total 429 points.

https://www.mathhammer8thed.com/ used for mathhammering

You could also use some Cadian Mortars to put down the shield drones before you open fire with the tanks.

An Armiger would do an average of 2.667 damage per salvo, so you'd need 5 Armigers to bring one down, which costs like 850 points.

Holy emperor, and that's "overcosted unplayable Leman Russes" vrs "overpowered cheese that is knights"

Nah, it's Pask and Tank Commanders. I thought that people liked them. Regular leman russes are pretty bad though for the cost... consider that 2 executioners with the same loadout as above cost only 55 points less, but would only deal an average of 7.44 wounds. The regular russes cost 87% of the Pask+TC russes, but deal ~59% of the damage. Without orders and better BS, they're not great.

Sorry it was sarcasm at the way some dakka posters defende guard as underpowered/barely playabe and knights are the ultimate cheese(worse then Yannari) yet your showing that guard are more likely to one round a riptide with less points than helverins.

People holding helverins up as super amazing are weird. I mean the super castellan can probly take the riptides

stratigo wrote:

Now math the reverse

Also there is going to usually be many many drones hanging about.

So I honestly don't know what the common riptide loadout is, so I assumed that it had an Ion Accelerator and Smart Missile System.

I also assumed that the Tau would hit a Russ with a Markerlight.

3 riptides unloading on a leman russ will do 11.764 damage, killing it. So whoever goes first will probably win this fight, but the Riptides do cost more by quite a bit. Drones I'm assuming you could clear out before firing the big guns.

stratigo wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 Horst wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Pask in an Executioner (triple plasma, lascannon) + a Cadian Tank Commander Executioner should deal on average 12.692 damage per turn to a 3++ riptide, assuming you fire Pask first, then use Overlapping Fields of Fire to make the other tank commander hit on a 2+, and that both of them didn't move so they can re-roll one's to hit. Together they total 429 points.

https://www.mathhammer8thed.com/ used for mathhammering

You could also use some Cadian Mortars to put down the shield drones before you open fire with the tanks.

An Armiger would do an average of 2.667 damage per salvo, so you'd need 5 Armigers to bring one down, which costs like 850 points.

Holy emperor, and that's "overcosted unplayable Leman Russes" vrs "overpowered cheese that is knights"

Nah, it's Pask and Tank Commanders. I thought that people liked them. Regular leman russes are pretty bad though for the cost... consider that 2 executioners with the same loadout as above cost only 55 points less, but would only deal an average of 7.44 wounds. The regular russes cost 87% of the Pask+TC russes, but deal ~59% of the damage. Without orders and better BS, they're not great.

Sorry it was sarcasm at the way some dakka posters defende guard as underpowered/barely playabe and knights are the ultimate cheese(worse then Yannari) yet your showing that guard are more likely to one round a riptide with less points than helverins.

People holding helverins up as super amazing are weird. I mean the super castellan can probly take the riptides

Your moving those goalposts fast there, a 700 point (It's real points cost) model really shouldn't have trouble with killing a 300 point model.

Niether drones or markerlights are free either

HBC SMS is the more general default riptide loadout.

A riptide alone is 2.6 wounds HBC, .67 SMS wounds for a total of 3.3 wounds from 300 points.

2 Catachan bc commander russes do 5.6 wounds BC and .46 heavy bolter wounds for 6 wounds. From 340 points.