Hey slips, care to elaborate on Cron's, what is it specifically that makes them scary? an Obelisk will definitely put in work against this list I guess, might double down on a few more Fusion Blasters to at least cover my bases if the need be. Is that what you were getting at or is it something else I'm worried about? Or just the nature of crons in general?

You nailed the obelisk on the head. The other problem I was thinking about that pretty much every Cron takes at least one maybe two of are Wraiths. They are very fast, get a 3++, and if they get a charge off will tie up your riptides and destroy them. iirc riptides don't have fearless, so losing a combat is a disaster. (3 riptides getting run down is not a pretty sight, and they'll be hitting on 5+ in general and have poor LD to boot.) (Poor as in if they lose combat by 1 they an almost 50-50 chance to break. 9 is not bad for shooting. I2 is not great for fighting or running from combat either.) Crons in general will stand up better than probably any other army to shooting. Whether they'll actually stand up to your shooting or just stand up slightly better than others is down to their army composition of course, but they get some nasty tricks in that regard. You're right to suspect the nature of the necrons in general. The riptide's biggest weakness is getting tar pitted, and the crons are basically an entire tarpit army. (When I say biggest weakness, it could be considered CC, but you'd need at least a competent unit to finish the job. S3 vs T6 doesn't work. If say a unit of conscripts with a commissar gets into combat with the riptide, they're probably tied up vs an obsec unit for the rest of the game for a fraction of the points without really needing to punch in CC. In ideal theoretical conditions. You know what I mean.) Your HBC shots unfortunately will not instakill, so the cron will get all his annoying reanimation tricks. (S7 right? I believe your nova might make this better, but I'm gonna get into your nova powers later so just roll with me here.) Apparently there are Crons out there who roll flayed ones, and they may come in handy here. (Infiltrate, fear.) You won't have to worry about necron flyers or deepstrikes though! That'll be nice.

I didn't mention Eldar, but I should. I don't think you'll have so much trouble against a wraithknight (although WKs are jump GMC, so they'll have a surprising amount of speed and will wipe a unit of riptides in one turn in CC so avoid that. Heavy wraithcannons will also peg a riptide a turn on average so when I say I don't think you'll have much trouble I mean you can actually kill one, but it can wreck your day if not properly respected), but some psykers and some wraithguard in wave serpents could be scary. One round of shooting could wipe out a whole squad of riptides, so they are priority #1. Another army to worry about is Grey Knights. Specifically, the Dreadknight can deploy on the board behind BLOS terrain and shunt on his first turn 30". Now they can't assault when they do this, but every GK army will also have an amazing psyker phase immediately after this, specifically buffing inv, giving +2 S, activating force weapons for insta death (very nasty vs riptides), or throwing down a S D vortex of doom. This leaves you in a tough spot, with the DKs behind you (there'll be at least two, probably more if it's a competitive list. The GK players here on dakkadakka figured out how to fit 6 into a 1850 point list lol.) and the rest of the army in front of you, you won't be able to dance around and avoid CC. They may still choose to deepstrike too. If they shunt their NDK and interceptors literally an inch away, turn one, why wouldn't he deep strike some reserves? If you shot at them, the NDKs would hit you. You'd probably hit them anyway. Then force instant kill weapons and +2 S hitting before the riptides do. You seem to have a slight weakness vs AV14 (Nova ion cannons would help. You got 3 fusion rifles, but you have to get too close for comfort to use them, remember your gak CC ability and poor LD. Getting close sucks! After that your best bet is to try and use your smash attacks in CC. Not a good place to be!) So watch out for land raiders, leman russes, stompas, etc. You might actually have trouble vs other Tau lists. Tau do have a lot of long range S7 shooting, marker lights, and if the other Tau player gets first turn could really put a damper on your plans. More rarely and kinda sadly in the scheme of it another counter is actually probably the humble infantry horde AM with max heavy/special weapons squads and an ADL. Their command squad can issue an order allowing a unit that has gone to ground to get back up and act normally before the shooting phase, meaning his MLs, lascannons, plasma guns etc will benefit from a 2++ essentially but will shoot normally. Really the ADL will be a pain in the ass for you in general, but AM really get the value out of it. If the AM infantry horde doesn't have an ADL than lol, you'll roll them no sweat. Also watch out for renegades lists if you see any. Master of the Horde makes your shooting work against you as any unit destroyed comes back on the table at full strength in better position. Few obvious more popular ones after that, SW TWCstar w/ SS and Chaos Daemon lists. You'll want to avoid psykers rolling on Telepathy (Dat invisibility, and the primaris power psychic shriek is WC1 and could probably merc a riptide in one shot.) and unfortunately the new Geo power will allow a unit to surf a piece of terrain 24" in the psyker phase and declare an assault the same turn. Ouch. Divination with it's misfortune/prescience combo would not be a lot of fun either, turning even the humble lasgun into a riptide killer. Are they stuck in 3 units of 3 or can they move as 9 individual units? I'm pretty sure it's the first but I made the mistake recently of assuming a gallant lance formation had to maintain consistency. If so, beam and blast weapons are that much more effective. (3 hits rather than 1. Bumps them up from useless to useable.) I see people rolling on strategic traits vs you a lot. Inflitrate, bonus to seize initative, you having to take 3 pinning tests (this could be devastating, potentially removing your entire 1st turn, and giving your opponent 2 consecutive turns worst case scenario!), night fight, stealth/move through cover. Yeah, Strategic would be the way to go. Rather then try to remember which units have it in every list I'm just going to say it here instead, anything with rending is not your friend. Warp spiders and wraiths come to mind immediately, but you know what I mean.

(Note- I do not think it is a forgone conclusion if you face some of these lists. Just preparing you for the possibilities. Some of these are in fact incredibly nitpicky! I was just gonna do crons, they were the first to mind, but then I started thinking about the other races and welp I wrote a damn dissertation by mistake. Being prepared is half the battle! I don't think there's really anything here you can't manage. Conversely I think you'll walk over any alpha strike lists, they'll probably just deploy rather than face your interceptors and that's one of the most popular builds in the game. You'll also turn flyers into a joke. CC horde armies too. (You are a tyranids player, is that why you made this list?? haha) IK are a draw. Most of them will be useless, but the crusader with the gatling gun and the gauntlet that has an autokill shooting attack vs MCs are what you wanna watch out for. It hurts me greatly to admit this, but I don't know gak about skitari and adeptus mechanicus. Probably didn't even spell them right. CSM's sicarans and oblits are the only real threat they have, and it's not that scary. SOB will have a hard time getting close to use their relatively ineffective meltas. White Scars, Ravenwing, and SW are probably the scary SM chapters to look out for.)

In general you will get some sick buffs to your shooting for extra dakka, movement to keep you out of CC/capture objectives, or a good inv save but you will have to choose one and a savvy opponent will react accordingly. If you use one squads nova's buffs for it's shooting or movement, your opponent will focus fire on that unit in his turn. (And probably his whole army too, you only have 9 models!) Thus the effect on other squads deciding to use the nova to buff their save isn't to tank enemy damage, but discourage enemy from shooting at that unit altogether in favour of another, unless you decide to buff all three and not have the buffed shooting. To sum, if you decide to drop shields for shooting, it may benefit you to drop all your shields for shooting rather than one unit alone. The savvy opponent was going to focus fire anyway. This is all depending on board and enemy position/range of course. You mentioned using one unit as markerlights, which benefits your other riptides greatly but reveals another minor weakness. You'll only get your bonus to shooting vs 3 units tops. Could be a problem vs a MSU style army. (Do bikes get jinks vs riptides? I think so but may be wrong. T5 to prevent instakill and 3++ could be tough.) (I'm using ork bikes here cuz... well... I'm an ork. SM bikers don't get as good a jink iirc but can get invisibility, and eldar MSU 3 jetbike squads will probably require overkill, resulting in wasted firepower. ) As arule of thumb, I'd assume you're gonna take the save buff on every unit every turn, save for your hailfire turn and when conditions permit otherwise. You don't have the model count to play loose with your durability. If you wanted to play dangerously, you can utilize the same strategy you mentioned for distributing the wounds among a squad to rotate the shield on to the most injured unit and not using the nova shield on your least damaged unit, drawing fire to them. This is playing with fire though, some bad luck and 13-30% of your army is toast. Save that strategy for a balanced army, or when you're losing on objectives after turn 3. (Use turn 1 and 2 to eliminate credible threats and you'll have free reign.) A shooting heavy army will take gross advantage and you should just go all shields. A CC army or unit you'd mostly want thrust, but you do already have a jump pack, so if they're slow you can go shooty. I mentioned this section talking about Necrons. The shield vs shooting theoryhammer is based on playing a competition level shooting army. (Mostly min/max S 7+ BS4 AP2) The crons qualify as this (Then the wraiths to boot) I don't know if you can charge up your shooting enough to win a war of attrition with them. You'd gonna want to thrust away from the wraiths, and you're gonna want the save if you're getting charged or shot at.

A big part of your game will be deciding when to use your hailfire. Obviously the most effective time to use it is turn one, that's when the enemy has the most models on the table, (Unless they're high and want to get intercepted.) maximizing your potential damage. Many armies though are optimized for a turn two assault. There's a lot of those you won't have to worry about (looking at you deep strike) but speedy or infiltrate lists will be a bigger threat. Do you sacrifice turn one movement for maximum damage potential if it means being charged turn 2? You'll have to make that choice in a game by game basis. You might be able to have your cake and eat it too in a vanguard style deployment, or if they lack infiltrate, scout, or bikes.

One other thing to worry about, as others have mentioned, is that your list is entirely focused on tabling the enemy. You'll have real problems securing forward objectives, especially if it means moving closer to the enemy. Being caught in CC as mentioned is going to be a nightmare, and could cost you the game. You mentioned this is the same issue with deathstars, but honestly I think a fast and/or invisible CC deathstar could potentially table you.

If you're looking to expand to 1850, I'd grab some shielded missile drones and stimulant injectors, combined with the 3++ makes you very survivable. I was going do some maths to show you, but I just found some! So I can be lazy.

Courtesy of greysplinter

-BS4 Bolters — Requires an average of 81 shots to cause a single unsaved wound (or over 500 shots to kill a single Riptide and its Drones)

-BS4 Plasma Gun — Requires an average of 10 shots to cause a single unsaved wounds (or over 60 shots to kill a single Riptide and it Drones)

-BS4 Grav Cannon/Amp — Requires an average of 7 shots to cause a single unsaved wound (or over 40 shots to kill a single Riptide and its Drones)

-BS4 Splinter Weapons — Requires an average of 27 shots to cause a single unsaved wound (or over 150 shots to kill a single Riptide and its drones).

-BS4 Shuriken Weapons — Requires an average of 40 shots to cause a single unsaved wound (or over 250 shots to kill a single Riptide and its drones).

(Grav would hurt slightly, but they'd be some sort of... suicide squad to try and deepstrike, and you could target them at range if they deploy.)

Besides that, markerdrones so you can ignore biker jinks would be good. (They give a BS bonus or ignore cover right? I'm not just halluncinating that in the fever dream that is this post?) (I know I dissed ignore cover in that other thread, and have before in other threads here too, but the bikerstar is your hard counter so it may be worthwhile here.)

Holy gak, I only intended this to be a couple lines but I got carried away in a series of wild tangents. Anybody who's read this far, congrats, and feel free to correct my errors where ever they may be. It sorta ended up a stream of conciousness rather than a well researched piece. I think it's very comprehensive in scope and could double as an anti-riptide tactica for almost any list. (Not necessarily surefire anti riptide for every list, but best chances.) Let us know how it goes! Maybe post a batrep. Maybe include a picture of your opponent's face when you plop down 9 riptides. I except crushing depression or explosive rage. Should be fun! I think you were exactly right comparing this list to 5th ed DE. The phrase glass cannon comes to mind. If you start taking casualties it will seriously affect your abilities and staying power.

(I specifically did not go into ork tactica. I gotta keep some of my cards after all. )

E:Numerous edits for readability, typos, and clarification.

You're right on with the naked nine. (Hmm. Tarantino's next movie?) Boyz before toyz. The only problem is that is if you're making an ITC list they restrict formations to 2 duplicates max. You can make 2 formations work and you'd gain some benefits so It's not a total loss. One unit of three riptides, one unit of two, four units of one. (For ITC, maelstrom and eternal war you could just break them back down to nine individual riptide, but I think you might like this.) You still end up with six scoring units, pretty good. The three man formation can be your tank formation buffing their shields and playing wound allocation games vs shooting and heavy fire support for elite units. All three would benefit from one markerlight correct, where as each individual riptide would only benefit the once? This arrangement does allow you a way to more efficiently make use of your BS bonuses for high priority targets. Unit of two off tank, same deal, but the second highest target priority. These guys will be better at holding ITC objectives, though not in the face of on incoming enemy assault due to the CC and LD as discussed. You don't score your objectives until the beginning of your next turn. So a turn one capture doesn't count til turn 2 for example. More models on the objective, the more likely you score. Just don't waste a glorious last stand on turn one or two lol. That's what you do in turn 4+ point grab mode. Then you have the four solos. They can still operate the leapfrog, pincer, and that last one you described is basically a denied flank maneuver I believe. Also, being solo you have a much better ability to hide units behind BLOS terrain or ruins, so these can be your mobile thrusting riptides. It's easy to micro manage movement of one riptide compared a 3 model squad is too big a target to hide. Get them to a firing lane using their mobility, once they are in a position to open up while the opponent's dakka is out of range/BLOS use the nova buff for your shooting for extra dakka. These mobile riptides can also be your pseudo markerlights from the earlier list as well. Resolve the firing of the drones and solos, then the big squads for maximum force multiplier. That drone formation, is it drone net? (Rereading your post, it looks like you are taking this formation, I'm gonna leave the next part in anyway for other readers.) cuz it should be for. +1 BS for the drones meaning 8 markers vs 5 on up to four targets, which is on average four ignore cover vs say msu scat bikes, Or ignore cover x2, +2 BS x2 for focusing on the primary and secondary threat targets. You get the +1 free bs from the solo riptide for ignore cover, +3 BS (Which means free to hit re rolls on 6+, officially the wtf rank of shooting. That also means gets hot will have even less chance of hurting you. 1 in 36 then the armour save.) combined with your squad of three buffing it's shooting to really let a bikestar have it. 36 shots, 31 hits, 5 rends, (Bikers) for orks = 18(36) unsaved wounds(UW), for eldar = 22(44) UW, SM = 7(14) UW, vs TWC= 7(14/2W per model= 7 models!) (Cents) =9 UW (Wraithknight) = one dead ass knight.

The number in the second bracket is the number of unsaved wounds in a turn you get average paint rolls with hailfire declared, not including the firing of the solo riptide, which I was gonna include but come on, I don't see no lists of with those amounts of bikes in whole damn thing as is. This is your primary threat strategy. If your primary threat is in a transport, pop with solo riptides then turn the dakka up real high.

I mean, you could still kite them. Might be a case where that's preferable, but just blasting them off the table is good too.

So still versatile I'd say. Has it's perks in shooting, just not total independence.

The SMS is bad. There, I said it. Okay not bad, just much more limited then what you'd think. 4 shots. 4+ to wound. Won't AP anyone's bikes. Maybe good for infantry in cover. Infantry with armour 5 in ruins is it really. A waste. Well, it had to happen. The marker drones fulfill your ignore cover needs. The SMS is good against uuuuh. Guard and kroot? I guess orks with a KFF, but trust me on this, your list has nothing to fear from footslogging orks, SMS or no. Any boss worth their salt would be giving them 5+ FNP instead anyway. Take fusion guns for your solos. Their thrust move more reliably saves them from danger, so you can actually hit and thrust away with it. For the 3 model squad, maybe consider 3 plasma guns? 6 TL S 6 AP 2 will melt elite infantry and light vehicles. Equal S to the HBC with better AP so they're not being wasted targeting what the big gun is targeting. More effective than the SMS at killing bikes that are markerlight ignore cover, which is who that unit should be shooting out anyway. The extra range (Gotta get in 9 for that one fusion to be effective.) will serve the larger clumsy unit well.

Maybe give the two model squad Ion Blasters and -fine- the SMS. Gives you more versatility to drop some plates, and the two of them together with benefit from one set of marker lights. Mostly you'll be loving them vs TEQs and artillery. (Lots, most even, artillery pieces have a greater range than the riptide's HBC 36". You'd have to advance up the board to target basilisks/hyrdas/whirlwinds/etc. and exposing you to that CC that we h8 2 c. (Oh god I'm losing it, time to wrap it up.) Or better, Ion and fusion for AV14 popping. (Ion does have ordinance,) (You are running some solo

If you are going to be giving some upgrades, I'd seriously consider the Counterfire Defense System, if not for all the riptides (Okay not Ion ones if you do go that way.) at least for the unit of 3. Consider the following, that marklight/hailfire combo was turn one. You totally annihilate the primary threat. Secondary threat though is alpha striking or turbo boosting or whatever, coming in hot and can still do more than enough damage to your Riptides in CC to take them off the table. You have the drones bubblewrapping the 3 model squad to eat a potential charge, or maybe one of the solo riptides. your 3 model squad of riptides has supporting fire and is within 6". (Now, does the +1 BS Formation targetting bonus apply in overwatch? I'm gonna assume no but it's not definitive on my end.) The riptides still have nova HBCs from the hailfire first turn. 39 more S6 rending shots but with BS2 vs BS1, 50% more hits. (6.5 hits vs 13, 1 rend vs 2. 1UW+1R MEQs vs about 3UW+2R. MEQS Average model base size, 1", lets say average model coherency is 1" for easy maths, and average unit model width is 3. (Conservative estimate. I've seen models marching in a line like god damn sand people all the time.) (Star wars sand people not whatever Donald Trump thinks Sand People are.) Anyway, all those estimates mean you're going to add -4" to his required assault distance, (-30% chance of success) not including whatever the solo riptide pitched in too. (potentially -6", -50% chance of success) 5+ UW on the overwatch can seriously hurt a unit to boot. It would cause a morale check on a 20 man tac squad. I dunno actually now. Sounded good in my head at first but looking at the math, -3W for 15 points in one turn might not be a bad trade, in the worst situation you can find your army in seems like a dutch boy sticking his finger in a damn. Won't save them from assault specialists or tarpits, and that's going to be who's gunning for them.

Or if that isn't your deal, maybe yeah some EWOs to handle the Alpha strike gak looking to come up and shake your hand. Here's the thing, and it's the reason I din't like the first 2 lists in your last post, if it's not enough to disable the intercepting unit, is it worth taking at all? After all, its not really a free shot, you take it from your next turn. I was gonna say if it was really scary it be worth it to make it jink. But with your best guns vs what's the scariest flier to your list, 3 TL LC vendetta? I'd rather be able to focus fire on my own turn when I can light things up with the markerlight. Yeah, I think I'd skip EWOs.)

I'd say velocity tracker but eh... Turn 1 wipe out primary threat, Turn 2 Secondary. The flier will come on turn 2 or 3, get maybe one round of shooting before you feel confident in your board control and could just send it some lead from a solo riptide. S6 is a little weak for those AV12 fliers anyway. If it's being a pest, nova dakka it. Seems like that should work for any problem you run into.

Infiltrate lists you see sometimes with Necrons. I know Flayed Ones get it. (Flayed ones also get shred. One of the active necron army lists getting reviewed has 32 of them.) Sometimes there's SM assault scouts. Uuh, some stupid walkers that AM and eldar get. (Sorry walker fans.) The big ones I guess would be the Imperial assassins. Eversor and Culexus would be bad news. There's a few different bikes that get scout, (Necron wraiths get scout i think. Or was it deepstrike?) which can be a free 12" move after deployment before your turn. Jump packs get guys in the mix fast, and you see a lot of SM with those, then things like interceptors, or rokkit boyz.(I sure am going to take those. Yep any day.) Wraithknight and NDK has jump packs though and that's worrisome. Bikes got the speed, skimmer transports. No more EWO so deepstrike and outflank are back on the table. All these things are Beta strike strategies of course, so once you come up with a good counter beta strike strategy you should be covered. I think double buff Primary threat targeting focus fire from earlier should do it, or the movements you described (Frog, Pincer, denied flank etc.) would be most effective vs Beta strikes.

Where once you were untouchable, sadly, now you do have to consider alpha strike. I think it's a good trade, don't get me wrong. Freedom, force multipliers, golden.Just be sure to bubblewrap your riptides with your drones, and get your shield up when you suspect pods/NSF DS are going to be coming down. This does mean you shouldn't expect your drones to survive the game, so the effectiveness of your shooting will drop after each turn. I think that's another point for hailfire on turn 1, you'll probably get first blood! But yeah, this slightly reduced preparation vs alpha strike was the compromise made to give you the near immunity from death/stars. The right answer depends on your local meta I guess. Something to consider though, the SM deathstars might see a total reinvention with the Geo psyker powers. Alpha strikes immune to intercept, scatter, and assault after. Big gak. Could have big ramifications on this list. Drone bubblewrap is a must. Probably get more use out of the nova thrust.

As an aside, I'm not the only one who thinks nova ripplefire is totally useless right?

Oh, and I did make one mistake in my last post, (Well, one more that I noticed, ha.) I warned you about Strategic Traits giving your opponent night fighting and night vision.Well it turns out riptides have Blacksun Filter, so night fighting has no effect.

Lastly, I mentioned double buff focus fire earlier with your 3 model squad shooting, that's a strategy for a death/biker/cent/wraithstar beta strike type situation. Nova or even non nova Ion can deal with bikers in a pinch too. Nova ion also hits opponent's >36" range units. Vs CC Horde, walk backwards with Nova Ion/HBC. Vs Psykers, if they're invisible, Nova Ion them, if not nova HBC but you need to take them out before they get you, being conservative will only benefit the psyker, so psykers are a double buff hit deal. FMCs/MCs get priority double buff shooting. The nova HBC should take down flyers easily enough. Vs mechanized lists, I'd go shields. I'm thinking AM pask punisher sorta deal. You'd want to take them down fast but you have decent defences against even that level of shooting. LOW/GMC WK worth 2 points by himself in ITC and the could be half the bonus points you need in ITC. However, it;s capped at one per turn. I'd just take the one and wipe it before it does any real damage. CC alpha strike go Shields before the strike, mind your deployment, (3 man squad surrounded by two man and solos, themselves surrounded by the drones. Stay in this position if you have to, so deploy in a way that you can still make shots if something deploys on the board.) let him have first turn if possible, nova thrust out after strike. Unless he can accurately drop in enough squads to somehow push models through 3 layers of bubblewrap to get to the three man squad, and I doubt it's even physically possible. You can get out at worst down a couple drone squads and a solo riptide. Basing their entire list on that one trick and getting that level of return would be a disaster. Heck, it's the one time Tau sucking in CC might pay off. If those units get wiped, all the alpha strike would be exposed to the entire firepower of the list on the next turn, and with no support. And they paid extra for the privilege! Basically, I think you'll be fine vs alpha and now you're more balanced against many other lists.

After going through all the maths and tactical possibilities, I think mixed sized units might be better than nine independent ones, if even just the potential damage output of 3x double buff should swing it. Throw in the ions and yeah, I think it's a tops list. Good job.