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How to cope with 5 Riptide Tau


hallodx

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I fight three to four riptide lists on a regular basis. They are underwhelming. 

 

I learned early on that a Riptide, much like a Knight Titan, is simply a fire magnet. It can survive the attention of units with point values much higher than it, but does not output damage equivalent to its cost. When I play against Tau-tide I simply ignore the damn things, drive my landraider towards the Tau heavy support and kill those, then move on to troops. 

 

Rip tides are meant to take attention away from the rest of the army, the more tides he has, the fewer things you need to kill. Remember: a mob of cultists can kill a riptide through sheer volume of attacks. Likewise a Helbrute or a unit of chosen will annihilate it, given enough time. However, it is simply not worth assaulting with a deathstar because of its durability. You will waste at least two if not three turns trying to kill this thing while it - potentially - kills off an expensive model each phase. AV 14 and AV 13 are your friends when combating Tides. 

 

A question for the thread: Do you drive flat out towards the tau line or do you attempt to weaken them with shooting first before assaulting them?

How about a White Scar list with Korsarro and Libby with axe in a command squad with some axes and shield instead of grav guns to kill the riptides in CC and then have some scouts in stormspeeders to lock up the other riptides in CC until the command squad can get to them. Them have some more bike squads and the stormspeeders take care of the pathfinders.

 

Korsarro

libby,lvl1,bike,axe

commandsquad,bikes,apothecary,2shields,2axes

 

3xscouts,landspeederstorm

3x5manbikes, max grav

 

3x dev centurions,omniscope and grav

 

this gets you to 1440pts

Cultists would get nowhere near a riptide before it shot and then their strength 3 would need a 6 just to wound.  Not counting its 2+.  Their best attempt would be to lock it in combat and get slowly killed off.  And at 180 points they are  better than almost anything space marines have.  

 

I do neither against Tau.  I prefer to drop pod in and punch things with Melta and plasma weapons.  Either kill the things quick or dont even bother.  It sucks because even when you score a wound its not like a vehicle where it can get crew shaken for a turn of peace and quite.  THEY JUST KEEP COMING!!

Do you play Maelstorm missions?    If you do, then it's a whole new kind of a ball a game! 

 

Otherwise, jinking/assaulting white scars or drop podded tacticals (yes tacticals) that combat squad on arrival.  You drop 4 pods and he has 12 units to shoot at .

yeah with the Maelstorm missions drop pod objective secured is the best way to go.  If you combat squad the tacs you can have 18 objective secures at 1050 pts. Then you can have the rest be  something dedicated to either locking up or killing Riptides. 

Top ways to kill them i can think of off the top of my head TH/SS termies, grav centurions, rad grenades and any str 10, rad grenades enfeeble and a lascannon, mind forged stave, biomancy force axe, grav command squads in a pod, misfortune and a psylencer, invisible deathstar. all i can think of at the moment.

Killing them isnt so much the problem that I have found its more of the getting close enough to kill them.  That jump move is so damn annoying! Plus that 72" range is about the most annoying thing ever.  Deepstriking several land speeders with meltas is a nice touch.  Or sterngaurd with combi melta/plasma is really handy.  Lascannons just arent effective enough unless you have a ton of them.  If you think it would take a single lascannon all 5 turns to kill a riptide if it never misses.  That means at least a 5 man tactical squad is doing nothing all game while the Riptide is certainly killing things. 

a riptides damage output is very high, it can rapidly add up 200 points in kills over a game, but after 2-3 it falls into the trap all spam falls into, some lists will just troll it super hard. like a eldar serpent list would roll it by killing every non tide then focusing down ones that have taken damage.

The real question is whether or not playing with/against multiple Riptides is fun.

 

Casually, and competitively. Do you enjoy games where 3+ Riptides get pulled out? Or do you groan? When you get matched up against Tau next round, do you go "I hope this guy doesn't spam Riptides, but he probably will have at least 2..."?

 

That, to me, is where GW has failed even more than making things like Wave Serpents and Riptides too cost-effective. Though you can partially lay the blame with abusive players too, but if GW decided to actively focus on fine-tuning game balance instead of adopting their current stance, even the min/maxers would not be able to do that much harm compared to now.

 

Casually, and competitively. Do you enjoy games where 3+ Riptides get pulled out? Or do you groan? When you get matched up against Tau next round, do you go "I hope this guy doesn't spam Riptides, but he probably will have at least 2..."?

 

 

Not very enjoyable at all. I'm seriously considering forfeiting the game if I run into a real power list like this in the upcoming tourney, unless it's in the hand of a real rookie. 

Sure I've got a snowballs chance in hell in case my dice are extremely hot and his are cold, but most of the time you'll get wiped in turn 4 or 5. There's just no way around that damage output and scoring ability. 

 

Instead of getting into a foul mood I can just let him get his victory points and spend the rest of the time chilling and checking out the neat armies on display. It's not like the guy I'm up against care about anything than winning anyway. 

 

I don't believe in comp scores, they always get twisted and rarely fix balances between codexes, but I wish more tourneys could run themed missions or have tiered army list brackets so I don't have to play these guys. 

I like playing against them.  Just means that a 5 man squad of plasma sterngaurd is being drop podded in next to each lol

because your list will always have enough sternguard for each riptide. and assuming none of them die to interceptor, which at least 2-3 will (4-5 shots with interceptor for 5 points baby!!!). Is 10 shots, 6.66 hits, 4.44 wounds and with a 5++ save thats 3 wounds dealt. grav does 3.7 wounds but those both fall short of killing a tide especially if he has the 3++ charge going or fnp... or both lel. And the kicker is stern guard cost more then a tide with interceptor and the ion cannon. math wise its 17 bs 4 plasma shots to kill a tide with just a 5++

 

edit: the math is horibad to kill tides, 3 grav centurions with prescience will just barely kill a riptide with fnp and a 5++

 

I like playing against them.  Just means that a 5 man squad of plasma sterngaurd is being drop podded in next to each lol

because your list will always have enough sternguard for each riptide. and assuming none of them die to interceptor, which at least 2-3 will (4-5 shots with interceptor for 5 points baby!!!). Is 10 shots, 6.66 hits, 4.44 wounds and with a 5++ save thats 3 wounds dealt. grav does 3.7 wounds but those both fall short of killing a tide especially if he has the 3++ charge going or fnp... or both lel. And the kicker is stern guard cost more then a tide with interceptor and the ion cannon. math wise its 17 bs 4 plasma shots to kill a tide with just a 5++

 

edit: the math is horibad to kill tides, 3 grav centurions with prescience will just barely kill a riptide with fnp and a 5++

 

Riptides are barely less by I think 15 pts. maybe.  I am fine with it having just three wounds.  And the interceptor doesnt really bother me because I play on terrain heavy boards usually  so the 6" movement gets them into some sort of cover.  Its obviously gimmicky but sometimes it works sometimes not.  I just don't really like centurians.  The no invul seems a bit meeeeh to me. PLus I play Ultras so tons of tacticals is kinda a given. 

The other blatant option is terminators with stormshields.  

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