Tactics to beat the 4 riptide list

[Stone Edwards]

So it seems like this is one of the latest crazy rule breaking lists to beat and I didn't see something similar discussing it. Guessing after NOVA this will probably be popping up everywhere so figuring out hard counters would probably be a good idea.

I'm an Eldar myself and really serpent spam is one of the only ideas I can come up with and even that doesn't seem all that great. Either main riptide weapon seems like it would take care of wave serpents fairly easily, especially if it's coming from a unit with an attached commander (re-roll hits, tank hunter, ignores cover). Even if they survive our normal WS config (TL-SC) would need quite a few hits to take out just one riptide. I suppose 4-5 WSs focusing on one could reliably take one out each turn but that would probably leave them all without a shield next turn and easy targets.

Everything else that I can think is either melee or has a short range, both of which are far from ideal since you'll probably get destroyed long before you make it close enough. Wraithknights with wraith cannons are probably the best choice but are expensive and you're either using tons of points or relying on roll 6s to wound.

That's all I've got so far and I'm hopefully missing something that will help. Obviously taking Tau allies would help but I'm trying to avoid that. Anyways what have others come up with for their respective armies?

Edit: oops forgot to give a sample list. Here is one very similar to the one that almost won Nova:

The List to Beat

Hq Farsight
O’vesa
3 crisis suits, bonding knifex3, missile podx3
10 kroot w hound
1 crisis suit, flamer, bonding knife
1 crisis suit, missile pod, bonding knife
1 crisis suit, missile pod, bonding knife
1 crisis suit, missile pod, bonding knife
Riptide, ion accelerator, twin linked smart missile system, early warning override
Riptide, ion accelerator, twin linked smart missile system, early warning override, positional relay
Riptide, heavy burst cannon, twin linked smart missile system, velocity tracker, target lock, 2 shielded missile drones, talisman of arthas moloch
Skyray, smart missile system, blacksun filter
Allied detachment (codex tau)
Commander, command and control node, multispectrum sensor suite, iridium armor, puretide chip, onager gauntlet, vectored retrothrusters, neuroweb system jammer
10 kroot w hound

O'vesa is the IC riptide from the farsight enclaves supplement

[Bigred]

Stone, can you post up a specific Tau list to your OP and let the community take off its gloves and get to work.

-L

[Stone Edwards]

Stone, can you post up a specific Tau list to your OP and let the community take off its gloves and get to work.

-L

Sorry about that totally forgot! Edited in.

[DarkLink]

For one, utilize lots of LOS blocking terrain. Frontline Gaming just wrote an article on that at duelcon.

And is this Eldar specific (Daemons murder Tau)? Wraithknights would work pretty well. Forgeworld Hornets with Pulse Lasers, too. But eldar don't really do long range high ap spam. You can just go wwith weight of fire. Some War Walkers and Serpents would work.

[Stone Edwards]

For one, utilize lots of LOS blocking terrain. Frontline Gaming just wrote an article on that at duelcon.

And is this Eldar specific (Daemons murder Tau)? Wraithknights would work pretty well. Forgeworld Hornets with Pulse Lasers, too. But eldar don't really do long range high ap spam. You can just go wwith weight of fire. Some War Walkers and Serpents would work.

Nah my post was Eldar specific but that's because that's my main army. Interested in any army really.

[Maelstorm]

Psyker Power: Fear of the Darkness (-2 Leadership). Make them run away without firing a shot.

Blood Angles can have 5 psykers in an 1,850 list: 2x HQ Librarians (in drop pods), 3x Elite Librarian Dreadnoughts (AV13). As a bonus, the 3 Libby Dreadnoughts can insta-death anything with a Toughness value using their Libby Force weapon. Add Wings of Sanguinious (12" Jump Pack) to the Libby Dreads to get them across the board quickly. Librarian Dreadnoughts with Wings also get Hammer of Wrath attacks (per the BA FAQ).

Riptides, Crisis suits, etc. all run off the table quickly or get cornered and insta-killed.

Include 3 Drop pods in your list to get the first 2 Librarians in position on turn 1.

[Sly]

First of all, the Tau list is very low in firepower. It gets around that, a bit, by having the firepower that it does have, on very resilient platforms (Riptides, a Riptide/Crisis unit, Skyray). But the usual strength of a Tau list, that it blows you off the map in two turns if you don't counter with a lot of damage early, is just not there. It is vulnerable to an army that can close fast and beat it at short range. Granted, that can merely mean that it's vulnerable to Daemons or Drop Pods while beating up on Eldar.

For Eldar, I think that shuriken weapons are the way to go. The list doesn't have the weight of anti-infantry firepower to down lots of infantry fast, so if you can bring a lot of bodies close you should be able to start dumping pseudo-rending firepower into them. If you control the center of the board, there isn't enough room on the board edges for them to avoid shooting, even if it will be hard to concentrate the infantry firepower on a single Riptide at a time.

Another option is to note that, other than O'vesa's squad, their entire Troops have only 30 wounds in total, and 4 Wave Serpents can probably splatter the Kroot squads in one turn. That leaves any S8 weapons to remove just 4 Crisis suits, and he's down to one tough scoring unit. At that point, it would be very hard for him to win on objectives.

[DarkLink]

Land Raiders are also pretty awesome against most Tau, not that it helps you much.

[Stone Edwards]

First of all, the Tau list is very low in firepower. It gets around that, a bit, by having the firepower that it does have, on very resilient platforms (Riptides, a Riptide/Crisis unit, Skyray). But the usual strength of a Tau list, that it blows you off the map in two turns if you don't counter with a lot of damage early, is just not there. It is vulnerable to an army that can close fast and beat it at short range. Granted, that can merely mean that it's vulnerable to Daemons or Drop Pods while beating up on Eldar.

For Eldar, I think that shuriken weapons are the way to go. The list doesn't have the weight of anti-infantry firepower to down lots of infantry fast, so if you can bring a lot of bodies close you should be able to start dumping pseudo-rending firepower into them. If you control the center of the board, there isn't enough room on the board edges for them to avoid shooting, even if it will be hard to concentrate the infantry firepower on a single Riptide at a time.

Another option is to note that, other than O'vesa's squad, their entire Troops have only 30 wounds in total, and 4 Wave Serpents can probably splatter the Kroot squads in one turn. That leaves any S8 weapons to remove just 4 Crisis suits, and he's down to one tough scoring unit. At that point, it would be very hard for him to win on objectives.

So a couple issues with all this. As I said don't want to focus just on eldar, but just a quick note on the wave serpents. A WS that fires its SC and gets 7 shots with the shield (unlikely) should on average do about 1.3 wounds to a riptide and less than 1 if it has FnP. Conversely the O'vesa unit (2 riptides 1 commander) should average 1.25 glances (half that many pens) with the ion accelerator or 2.75 glances with the burst cannon. So on average that unit should be able to kill one WS a turn without considering the other riptides where as if VERY lucky a list with 5 WS could kill one of the lone rip tides a turn.

The other points are applicable to other armies but still have issues. Deep-striking anything against this list is just suicidal, remember they most likely all have interceptor and they can all either put out 12 str 5 shots that re-roll or put out a str 8 (most likely 9 though) ap 2 large blast. On that note it also seems like quite a bit of anti-infantry fire to me, I think that would decimate most armies' infantry fairly quickly although horde armies would probably have a chance.

As far as the troops go I think the idea is to hold just about all of them in reserve which leaves just the riptides as the targets the first turn or 2. Please note that O'Vesa is in a unit with the commander and another riptide, not joining a unit of crisis suits.

Land raiders certainly are a good option though, and going along that line a chaos list with berserkers or something in a LR might be good since you could avoid over watch. Obviously Daemons are decent, flying circus I have heard works well and of course the screamerstar is great. The problem with psykers is that talisman though, 4d6 and take the highest for deny the witch. Not a guarantee of denying but decent chances.

Edit: Just to be clear my above math for the O'vesa unit is from the commander giving the 2 riptides twin-linked everything, tank hunter, and ignores cover.

[Sly]

Wave Serpents don't kill Riptides, Eldar kill Riptides.

If the Tau player is reserving his Troops, then pretty much all of the firepower that he has is used to kill Wave Serpents, but what will kill Dire Avengers who are shooting at the Riptides, then? The Riptide list will easily beat Wave Serpents in a stand-off fight, but they don't have the firepower to shoot both Serpents and Eldar infantry at the same time... and bringing in their own infantry to counter the Eldar infantry just gives the Wave Serpents targets that they can actually kill.

An Eldar list that can't put out AP2 shots is going to struggle with this, but given the Eldar shuriken weapons and Fire Dragons, the only reason that Eldar would struggle to kill 2+ save units is that they are staying at long range and shooting with nothing but Wave Serpents. That's a solid strategy against other Mechanized lists, but a Riptide list is both resilient against shooting, and lacks the CC threat to punish Eldar for going into assault range. A Riptide can't assault the Eldar troops if it doesn't shoot at them, and if it's shooting at them then the Wave Serpents stay safe.

TLR version... get into Rapid Fire range and feed the Riptides shurikens. 2 Wave Serpents with 10 DA in each will average 6 wounds on Riptides in one turn (assuming a 6" move). That's the way to handle 2+ armor units, not with long-range Serpent sniping.

As for suicidal deepstriking... the large blast is not a major issue because coming out of Drop Pods you get to spread out. Getting 3 models hit by a blast shot at BS3 with Gets Hot is not a major threat. Neither is 12 SMS shots if they go that way... 12 SMS shots kill what, 2 Marines? So where is the threat? Remember that when firing Interceptor they won't have Markerlights, and they can't use the commander's suite to twin-link the large blasts. So it's either 2 dead Marines from the SMS, or risk the BS3 Gets Hot pie plates that will probably kill 2-3 Marines each on an accurate hit.