Look for XV104 Riptide Formation in the Support section.

Gotta admit I'm a big fan of this idea and of making the Tau army competitive in general. I've not had much to criticise but I'll add this one here and see what people thing. XV104 Riptides - A great unit but in the opinion of more than me too good/available for the points.

It's hasn't been a big issue in lists that only include 1 unit (as most of the bat reps seem to...) but the question is always what will happen at a tournament. Well here's the sad answer from the recent Heavy Bolter Tournament in Western Australia.

Matt-Shadowlord
4 Crisis Suits, Shas'El + 2 Gundrones + cadre fireblade 300
8 Firewarriors + Shas'O + gundrones 350
5 Hammerheads (railgun+skyray) 375
4 Tetras 1 piranna 150
4 Tetras 1 piranna 150
Riptides 3 drones 400
Riptides 2 Drones 375
Riptides 1 Drone 350
Orca Dropship
Protector Class II cruiser
2 Sunshark Bombers

It never crossed my mind that people would run 3 units of the things at 300pts... Now I'm starting to understand what the naysayers are arguing about. That much armor/DC/Macro for just over 1000pts really does seem nuts. Needless to mention the only other Tau player ran 2 units of them...

Now I haven't bent over a dozen players so that I can prove my point decisively but any sort of Auto-Include or obvious cut/paste inclusion units should be a warning sign. Can anyone argue that triple riptides is any more reasonable than triple deathstars for DKOK...

Oh did I mention that this army won all of it's game and the tournament... Sadly the 2 riptides list only won 2/3 of it's games. I can guess how he might improve his list for next time...

At 400pts I would still consider that unit solid value. At 0-1 per 3000pts I would still consider them an auto-include. Running that list above I would feel the need for a shower at the end of the game and I wouldn't expect to be invited back.

P.S not that I would ever use fluff as a justification for a game balance issue but I do find it interesting how the "Experimental" unit outnumbers everything else in the list....

Thanks for the feedback, Beefcake.
I'll interpret your criticism as constructively as possible, which means you will get some comparison to other units and numbers later. They are a developmental unit, so subject to change and likely to get a price bump.

I'll post that info later. In the mean time, to answer the anecdotal part of the post:



I took the army, after practicing with it a lot recently. I found it more difficult to win with this army than any other I've taken to an epic tournament, which showed up in the score lines which were quite a bit lower than my usual results. I think they were very useful, but not the sort of win button you're describing.

I'll post a more detailed response later, and thanks again for the feedback.

I can't imagine how you could have any real dramas with 12 Macro shots backed up with markerlights, Lance weapons to deal with anything Macro can't kill and even some pinpoint TK weapons for icing. But its good to know that you had more trouble with this list than with the DKOK that you took to Cancon

But seriously though I am trolling to a degree. I think there is an issue here and I'm sure that it will be adressed as part of this process. There is a danger in allowing developmental lists into tournaments and I think you just illustrated it.

Hopefully this will all get sorted during testing, it's not a fatal issue, and the rest of the list is great.

I took some time to get the stats of similar sorts of small warengines for comparison. Nothing provides an exact comparison between lists, but this should at least show the sort of ball park these units are in and what their peers look like.

As you will see, most are considerably more capable in combat (all 4 versions of knights), or better at long range firepower (especially Castellans), similar resilience (through Knight SHields, reinforced armour or through void shields) or fearless (common in warhounds and up).

The fearless aspect is a big missing link, and why the way riptides tend to die is by getting hacked down or shot while broken -that's entirely on purpose and similar to their performance in 40K.


[] XV104 Riptide War Engine 25cm 3+ 5+ 4+ (Support Formation)
Ion Accelerator 45cm MW3+
2x Heavy Burst Cannon 30cm AP4+/AT5+
Tau Deflector field. Walker. Damage Capacity 2. Thick Rear Armour. Tau Jet Packs
Critical Hit: The Experimental Nova Reactor overloads, destroying the Riptide and doing a hit to any unit within 5cm on a 6+.

Compare to

[] Knights Errant (Core formation) 300pts
WE 25cm 5+ Reinforced 4+ 5+
Thermal Cannon 30cm MW4+ , FwA
and (15cm) Small Arms , Macroweapon
Power Gauntlet (bc) Assault Weapons , EA(+1) Titan Killer
Shock Lance (15cm) Small Arms , EA(+1) First Strike
Damage Capacity 2, Reinforced Armour, Knight Shield (4+ save vs macro, lance, titan) Walker Critical Hit Effect: Destroyed

[] Knight Paladin (Core formation) 300pts
WE 25cm Reinforced 5+ 4+ 5+
Battle Cannon 75cm AP4+/AT4+
Chainsword (bc) Assault Weapons, EA(+1), Macroweapon
Shock Lance (15cm) Small Arms , EA(+1) , First Strike
Damage Capacity 2, Knight Shield, Reinforced Armour, Walker, Critical Hit

Effect: Destroyed.

[] Knight Lancers (Support formation) 300pts
WE 30cm 5+ 5+ 5+
Battle Cannon 75cm AP4+/AT4+
Power Lance (15cm) Small Arms, EA(+1), First Strike, Macroweapon
Damage Capacity 2, Knight Shield, Reinforced Armour, Scout, Walker.
Critical Hit Effect: Destroyed.

[] Knight Castellan (Support Formation) 375pts
WE 20cm Reinforced 4+ 5+ 4+
Knight Quake Cannon 90cm Macroweapon W3+
or 90cm 2BP
Multi-barrelled Autocannon 45cm 3× AP5+/AT6+
Damage Capacity 2, Knight Shield, Reinforced Armour, Walker.
Critical Hit Effect: Destroyed

[] Warhound Class Titan 275
WE 30cm 5+ 4+ 4+
Vulcan Megabolter 45cm 4× AP3+/AT5+
Plasma Blastgun 45cm 2× Macroweapon 2+ Slw
Damage Capacity 3 Fearless Reinforced Armour 2 Void Shields Walker


[] Warhound Class Titan Adeptus Mechanicus 300
WE 30cm 5+ 4+ 4+
Turbo-Laser Destructor 60cm 4× AP5+/AT3+
Plasma Blastgun 45cm 2× Macroweapon 2+ Slw
Damage Capacity 3 Fearless Reinforced Armour 2 Void Shields Walker

Here are a few quotes from this thread from people who've used them, just to add a contrasting opinion.









However, even after posting the above and showing the comparisons I think they are due a price bump. (I also think Knight Castellan's are due a bump, or much better yet a decrease from 90cm range on macro, but that's outside my remit ) It won't be in the region of what I Beefcake's suggesting, but a bit of an increase to make lists that try to max them out bleed for it in other areas.

I hope that explanation is helpful.

Heheh fair point, but I actually meant any list I've taken to any tournament, ever. When you want to win with xenos, you grab Eldar, right? This was my lowest score and closest games I've had at any Epic tournament, and the players here are good but it was still only a local



Great, and your opinion won't be ignored. Glad you like the list in general -it's shaping up to be fun.

It IS fun; played it again a couple weeks ago, to a neat win over Steel Legion (o:
No riptides yet though.

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I have faced Riptides a couple of times and I did't find them to be OP. Sure my opponent didn't bring three formations but still.
As I understand Matt is a very good player/builder so just because he won a tournament with this list doesn't mean that it is broken.
Just my opinion...

They don't look too far out to me, though I'd say they are definitely competitive compared to an equivalent cost unit: broadsides. Helpful also that you can put the shas'o there.

Maybe they could suffer a small points bump, but at 350 they start to become an expensive unit. Maybe pairs would be better rather than going any higher than that.

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Hey Guys

So Castle Assault in Newcastle was run this weekend and i managed to get 5 game sin with the Viorla

Vior'la tau fire warrior cadre - 6 fire warriors, devilfish, cadre fireblade, 2 path finders, 1 devilfish, 1 skyray - 450 points

Crisis battlesuit cadre - 4 suits plus a shaso, 2 gun drones, cadre fireblade - 375 points

Armour group- 6x railhead, 1 skyray - 425 points

XV104 Riptide Formation - Shas'el plus 3 riptides, 2 shield missile drones - 375 points

XV104 Riptide Formation - Shas'el plus 3 riptides, 2 shield missile drones - 375 points

Recon Group - 3 tetra, 2 piranha - 150 points

Recon Group - 3 tetra, 2 piranha - 150 points

Barracuda squadron - 150 points

Sun Shark Bomber - 200 points

Orca Assault Dropship - 150 points

Protector class ll Battleship - 200 points


That was the list that I took.

Game 1 - VS World Eaters - win 3-0 (BTS, T&H, Blitz)

This was a match up that was in my favour. The world eaters arrived on the board in turn 3 which allowed me to set up over watch, markerlights supporting fire etc for their arrival. No really highlights or points from this match except for a bloodthirster being slain by Riptides and the killing blow from a drone in CC/FF.

Game 2 - vs Steel Legion win (T&H, DTF)

This Game was close as I made some bad positioning errors e.g. placing riptides in range of shadowswords. However I was able to kill critical Targets and break formations which allowed me to claim all the Objectives. This Match showed how vital the Sun Shark Bombers are. I feel this unit is fantastic as it allows the Tau player to smash large formations early and can put them on the back foot. This was shown when i was able to hit the guard infantry unit which crippled them for the rest of the game. The Riptides also showed how damaging they can be against Mixed units and can soak a fair bit of damage as well.

Game 3 - VS NIDS (This player ended up winning) - Loss 2-0 - TSNP DTF

So this was one list that i was super worried about playing against A) I was playing everyones best mate in Jim and B) the hoard engagement style of bugs was going to clash horribly with my shooting style based army. The Game started with my air craft and space ship taking out a formation of gaunts and a harradrin. This was repeated in turn 2. Throughout the turns 1 and 2 i was able to break several units and apply a fair bit of table pressure. where I feel I came undone was not due to the army but was me making poor decisions. I got distracted by the arrival of his tunnelers and no going after his BTS which was holding his Blitz. I had crisis in an orca plus plenty of air support but was worried if that failed i would lose the game so tried to play safe and push it till turn 4. I failed with some shooting rolls and lost some units to engagements. This game really showed the effectiveness of the Riptides and Sunsharks again. The BP shots are priceless and the threat range of the riptides allowed me to advance and punish any bugs that came close.

Game 4 - Emperors Children (Runner up) -Loss 2-0 BTS and T&H

This game was the most enjoyable game for me. The back and forth of the game was fantastic. Deciding Factors in the game were losing initiative turn 1 and 3 and failing to rally at critical times. Turn 1 started with terminators teleporting in and engaging riptides and killing them. They were swiftly killed by my BTS firewarriors but as a result they wandered into the drop pod landing site and were destroyed shortly after. I was able to break his units consistently and was able to pick off units where possible. Turn 2 was great for me as I was able to bring the game to a point where turn 3 was extremely close after my bad start to turn 1. However like i said my Sup com failed to rally, plus other units failing to shed BM's or rally meant i was unable to push enough of his units of Objectives and stall or win the game. But was still a fantastic game.

Game 5 - Spacewolves -Loss 2-1 BTS and T&H T&H

So dice aye....... sure are fickle Cads some times haha

This was a game where I feel i made some ballsy decisions like baiting out terminators with riptides but was unable to capitalize on them due to poor rolls. Turn 1 saw my sunsharks die to AA, riptides to terminators. I was able to break his reaver titan after stripping shields and taking a wound off with hammerheads. I then sent in the spaceship who managed to get 2 hits but only scored 2 further wounds after the D3 rolls. I did score a crit but that was repaired
The game turned into my recon squad skirting around to capture his objectives and the rest of my army trying valiantly to hold off the wolves advance. Unfortunately like i said dice can be a bitch and i was unable to kill enough with shooting and failure to rally meant i was forced of my objectives and my BTS went down.


After all these games it is clear that the Riptides are extremely useful, can pack a huge punch and can take a decent punch as well. However they are high threat targets and are still able to be killed with effective strikes as was seen in my games (yes some was my fault not the units). In my opinion i think limiting them to 0-2 in the list and maybe small price bump, e.g. 25points, would be fine. None of my opponents had any major concerns with the so called riptides

I think the real work horses in this list are the fire blades and Sunsharks. Fire blades give pause to some armies engaging certain units and allow them to fight back. But the sunsharks are by far my favorite unit. They always earn their points back, can hamper your opponents movements and provide the vital BP shots needed to counter horde inf armies early on.

All in all i think with more practice, mainly for me in closing out turn 3, could have seen some of those loses turn into wins

Also apologies for no official Battle reports I forgot for game 1 and 2 and by 3 4 and 5 the effects of the bar downstairs prevented me from completing anything coherent. Will attempt to get one in shortly.

Cheers
Caz

Was wondering whether the perceived under-costing of the Riptide formations might be in part due to the presence of the flexible addition of the Shielded Missile Drones?

Pretty much everybody, at this stage, seems to add one or a few. Keeping upgrades is always a challenge when people are trying to keep up the activation count. An extra few hits of resilience to the formation to avoid breaking, soaking blast-markers when avoiding suppression and hiding the AVs behind war-engines or hiding a pair 10 cm away out of sight to stop them being targeted so easily?

My next plan for counts as Starship Troopers is to max out on Riptides. No missile drones since drone technology was post-Heinlein. Will see how that goes: 2 Crisis Cadres, 6 Riptide formations, Orca and some fighter support.

So this is my first attempt at a Battle report. Apologies in advance if it is poor and also sorry for no photos for some reason they did not save properly

AMTL vs Viorla Tau 3000 points

Lists

AMTL
REAVER TITAN #1 [775] 2 Gatling Blaster, Plasma Destructor, Carapace Multi-Lasers, Veteran Princeps
REAVER TITAN #2 [750] 2 Gatling Blaster, Veteran Princeps, Volcano Cannon, Legate
REAVER TITAN #3 [750] 2 Gatling Blaster, Carapace Multi-Lasers, Plasma Destructor
WARHOUND TITAN [275] Plasma Blastgun, Vulcan Megabolter
CRUSADER SCOUT MANIPLE [150] 4 Crusader Robots
CRUSADER SCOUT MANIPLE [150] 4 Crusader Robots
THUNDERBOLT SQUADRON [150] 2 Thunderbolts

Viorla

Vior'la tau fire warrior cadre - 6 fire warriors, devilfish, cadre fireblade, 2 path finders, 1 devilfish, 1 skyray - 450 points

Crisis battlesuit cadre - 4 suits plus a shaso, 2 gun drones, cadre fireblade - 375 points

Armour group- 6x railhead, 1 skyray - 425 points

XV104 Riptide Formation - Shas'el plus 3 riptides, 2 shield missile drones - 375 points

XV104 Riptide Formation - Shas'el plus 3 riptides, 2 shield missile drones - 375 points

Recon Group - 3 tetra, 2 piranha - 150 points

Recon Group - 3 tetra, 2 piranha - 150 points

Barracuda squadron - 150 points

Sun Shark Bomber - 200 points

Orca Assault Dropship - 150 points

Protector class ll Battleship - 200 points

Viorla won roll off for table sides and deployment – normal deployment was chosen

Violra also won initiative for turn 1

Vi – Sunsharks fail to activate
AMTL – Thunderbolts on CAP
Vi – Barracudas on CAP
AMTL – Double move Reaver 3 up and unload on the Crisis suits Killing 2 drones and 1 suit and breaking them.
Vi – Recon 1 move up and markerlight/fire upon reaver 3 stripping 2 shields
AMTL – Reaver 2 moves up and finishes off the Crisis suits and the tau sup comm (what a bummer)

Vi – Orca moves on to snipe a further shield off reaver 3 with seeker missile
AMTL – Robots 1 double move up
Vi – Recon squad 2 moves up and marker lights robots 1 and shoots with seekers but fail to kill
AMTL – Robots 2 double move up the field
Vi – Firewarriors activate to sustain fire with seeker missiles on reaver 3 stripping remaining shield and doing 2 wounds but both were saved
AMTL – Warhound doubles and shoots at recon 2 killing 2 tetras and breaking the unit
VI – Railheads single move and fire at reaver 3 causing 5 wounds – 4 unsaved and causing 1 critical and breaking the titan
AMTL – Reaver 1 double and shoots everything at Railheads killing 3 railheads and skyray and breaks the unit (Last activation)

Vi – Riptides 1 single move and fire at warhound stripping shields and causing 2 wounds breaking the titan
Vi – Riptides 2 single move and fire at robots 1 killing 2 and breaking them

End Phase
All planes leave and stand down
Vi – Railheads fail to rally
AMTL – Warhound rallies, Reaver 3 rallies and repairs critical (FK YOU TECHPRIESTS)


Violra win initiative roll for turn 2

Vi – Sunsharks ground assault on warhound gaining some lucky rolls to kill it off and also applied a BM to nearby reaver with BP shot
AMTL – Reaver 2 single moves and shoots at riptides 1 killing a riptide
Vi – Spaceship fires 2 pinpoint at reaver 2 in an attempt to kill it but fails amazingly and only achieves to remove the shield it regained in end phase
AMTL – Reaver 3 marshals recovering a shield and removing a BM thus negating the space ship completely
Vi – Recon group 1 moves to markerlight reaver 1 and shoots doing no damage
AMTL – Thunderbolts ground assault Recon group 1 killing 1 piranha and 1 tetra and breaks them.
Vi – Barracudas fail to activate to cheers from the AMTL player “where is your sup comm haha”
AMTL – Reaver 1 fires on riptides 1 killing the two drones.
Vi – Firewarriors fail to activate and shoot at Reaver 2 with -1 penalty for no seeker missile hits
AMTL – Robots 2 fail to activate and single move away (last activation)
Vi – Riptides 1 marshall off all BMs and move up the board
Vi – Riptides 2 double move and shoot Robots 1 destroying the rest of the unit
Vi – Orca snipes a shield off reaver 2

End Phase
Vi – Recon group 1 fails to rally, Hammerheads fail to rally, Firewarriors rally of Bm, Recon group 2 rallies
AMTL – Reaver 3 rallies off all BMS, Reaver 2 rallies off BMs, Robots 2 Rally


AMTL win initiative roll for turn 3

AMTL – Reaver 3 moves and shoots at Riptides 2 killing 2 drones and a riptide breaking the unit
Vi – Barracudas fire on Robots 2 killing a robot
AMTL – Reaver 1 fires on riptides 1 killing another and breaking the unit
VI – Sunshark Bombers shoot at robots 2 casuing no damage but breaking the units
AMTL – moves and fires at Firewarriors killing 2 devilfish, 1 skyray and 2 infanrty units
AMTL- retain with thunderbolts to fire on firewarriors killing a further firewarrior and breaking the unit.
Vi – Recon group manage to break from cover to produce a game winning move with a triple move up the field to capture the Blitz and nearby objective (love the scouts)
Nothing else managed to activate for the Viorla with the AMTL out of activations.

End of Game
Viorla – T&H and Blitz victory points – 837.5 points killed
AMTL – no victory points – 887 points killed

Notes – I feel that I played the right way in most parts but failed to inflict enough damage in turn 2 with all the plasma destructors down. Poor deployment allowed my Crisis to be killed early but that did allow me to all but kill a reaver. The riptides showed the can soak up shots but I was never able to get them into a safe spot for them to shoot so tried to use them to go for objectives. In the end they proved to be a big enough distraction for the AMTL to waste crucial activations to kill/break them which allowed the recon group to get to the objectives.
Overall this was probably not the best game for stats and information to help approve the list but I do feel that for riptides (which seems to be everyone’s bug bear) that they again seem very close to spot on for their points and abilities and smart players using them or playing against them will be able to use or kill them well.

Thanks for sharing your battlereport.



Btw there is no to hit penalty when choosing to shoot during a hold action. -1 only applies to double or marshal action shooting.

Edit: Perhaps I missunderstood, was the reaver in cover? Then -1 would of course apply.

no i may just have played that rule wrong

I was under the impression if you failed to activate you shot at minus 1

Thanks for clearing that up though and in this instance didnt make any difference

I think they are really good points.
Maybe a formation with a built in 5+ Inv save doesn't really need the presence of shield drones as well?

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