

We’re done with the Troops and the HQs. We’ve talked about some different kinds of support. So now let’s go on to the sections of the Tau codex that are really where the meat is at: the firepower. And, as part of that, it’s only appropriate that we start with the new Riptide battlesuit, everyone’s favorite guy to hate. The Riptide is actually a bit unusual for a Tau suit- while its guns are certainly nothing to scoff at, and indeed they can cause quite a bit of damage, for its total cost, its damage output is actually not all that impressive. Sure, the twin-linked secondary is nice and the main gun has pretty good stats, but really its firepower is about on par with a Leman Russ or the likes.

What makes the Riptide dangerous- and unique in the Tau battlesuit armory- is that it is incredibly resilient for its cost in addition to being a good shooting platform; it is resistant to almost all kinds of firepower as well as many of the usual tactics that are used to disable such platforms and it has excellent versatility outside of its main role.



The Basics

The Riptide is a very, very big guy who likes to shoot things. Probably most of you knew that part already, but I just thought I’d throw it out there.

The Riptide starts with a pretty standard Monstrous Creature statline- S6/T6/W5, with WS/I2 and A3- but is the benificiary of a couple nice bonuses in the form of 2+ armor and a 5++ shield, making it an extremely rough customer to bring down with most weapons. Add in Jet Pack status, making it extremely maneuverable, and Ld9 (thanks to being a veteran guy rather than a total derp) and the usual Tau BS3 and you have a pretty solid package to start with. As with all Tau units, it has the Supporting Fire rule, making charges of any kind rather dangerous.

It also gets a main gun and a secondary weapon system, while we’ll talk about in options section below, and a Nova Reactor, allowing it a 3+ chance to gain one of several bonuses; the two most common are by far going to be Ripple Fire (shoot the secondary gun twice) and Nova Shield (3++ save), but the option to get a 4d6″ jetpack scoot is far from useless and the Nova Charge profile on the main gun will vary in value a lot, but is nice to have available. Remember that the effects of the Reactor will last until your next turn, so you can benefit from many of them on the enemy turn. However, failing your Nova roll does an autowound to you (bar FNP), so it’s definitely something that should be done with a degree of caution; generals that simply Nova every turn will find their Riptides dying a lot sooner than they might otherwise.

One of the nice secondary benefits of the Riptide is its Monstrous Creature status, allowing it to perform reasonably in melee combat despite some weak stats and crush enemy tanks with ease. In a pinch, a Riptide can assault something preemptively, keeping more fragile units out of the fight, and in some circumstances can even come out victorious- remember, however, that it is NOT Fearless and thus is very vulnerable to being Swept if it loses a combat. This also carries over to the shooting phase, where the loss of a Drone or a wound from a Pinning weapon can potentially incapacitate it for a turn. On the flip side, Going to Ground in area terrain will net you that 3+ cover save, which can shrug off a hail of low-AP firepower in a pinch.

The maneuverability from being Jump Infantry is also key, allowing it to move to superior firing positions, avoid assaults when they are undesirable, and move in to contest objectives or score Linebreaker, which its tremendous resilience helps out with. The latter two can be very key for Tau, as they often lack the aggressive and resilient units necessary to otherwise perform those tasks.

Options

Like all battlesuits, the Riptide comes with an absolute plethora of options from the armory, but before we get to that we need to talk about its main and secondary weapon systems. With two guns available for the main and three for the backup, the Riptide has a variety of different possible loadouts right from the start, and all of them available either for free or for a nominal price. None of them are completely useless, but some options definitely stand out stronger than others do.

The main gun is the worst offender here- the Heavy Burst Cannon, while far from bad, is pretty much entirely worse than the Ion Accelerator. The HBC gets tons of S6 shots, but without activating Nova Charge its profile is a tad underwhelming, and its general role (anti-light infantry) is easily filled elsewhere in the codex- or simply by the more versatile Ion. The Accelerator, on the other hand, not only has great basic stats, it also comes with three distinct fire modes; all are AP2, letting it murder infantry and tanks alike. The basic mode is S7 with three shots, the Overheat mode is S8 and large blast (as well as Gets Hot), and the Nova Charge mode is S9 Ordnance and large blast. The basic mode is great for bringing down other MCs, light tanks, or for use on Overwatch; the Overheat mode is your go-to shot, killing scads of infantry while retaining the ability to hurt most tanks and other targets; the Nova Charge mode is the most niche, since it prevents you from firing other weapons that turn, but when facing down AV13/14, sometimes it will see use. With such a large array of firing modes for every situation, the Ion Accelerator is easily your best choice for a Riptide.

The underslung (or over-shoulder, depending on how you modeled your Riptide) weapon gets a bit more variety. All three are free to swap between and twin-linked and all three are good weapon systems with different purposes. Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster, and Smart Missiles are all available; I tend to default to the SMS, since it’s generally such a strong gun and will rarely be wasted. The fact that it is the longest-range of the weapons certainly doesn’t hurt, either. However, the Fusion can give you a good option if your list lacks good ways to deal with heavy tanks, a duty Riptides often get tasked with, and more low-AP shots are never a bad thing. (Fusion is especially nice when paired with a Velocity Tracker, creating a “no fly” zone in the middle of the field.) Plasma is probably the weakest of the three options- it lacks the specificity of targets that the other two guns have, instead merely becoming yet one more AP2 hit on whatever your target is, and rarely will you get that second shot out of it.

In addition, the Riptide also can take two support systems, though it does not have access to the Signature Systems unless you are playing a Farsight Enclave. Of these, the Early Warning Override is basically a no-brainer; for 5pts, you can prevent Deep Strikers from having any realistic chance of arriving near unhindered, and those not falling out of a Pod are likely to see the whole unit vanish in a puff of smoke. Very rarely will you see an Iontide that doesn’t run the EWO. Following a close second are the Stimulant Injectors, which give Feel No Pain to the model; while more expensive (35pts) than normal, the usefulness against failed Nova attempts as well as the various heavy weapons that are most armies’ only hope of hurting a Riptide make them a rather strong choice. I have gone back and forth on use of them, but I think if you are running a HBC version it is mandatory, since you need to be Novaing every turn.

Less common but still worth considering is the Velocity Tracker; in combination with the Override, it gives you a platform with multiple high-strength guns that can shoot down enemy airplanes and is largely immune to the firepower they bring to the table. With your Riptides pushing forward into midfield, enemy flyers will be hard-pressed to not simply die on arrival, and even Heldrakes and Vendettas will need to think twice about making attack runs with Rippy guarding the center. For lists that aren’t running Skyrays or other AA options, a Riptide for this duty is well worth considering. (Fusion, as mentioned earlier, is your go-to gun in this setup.)

With such good choices for your two slots already available, most Riptides will be hard-pressed to pick from any of the other choices, but it’s worth pointing out that they do exist; the Advanced Targeting System is great for a HBC Riptide, as it’s likely to see multiple precision shots per shooting phase. Counterfire Defense System has some value on the same, doubling your chances with that bucketful of Overwatch dice you’re throwing down. A Positional Relay can be a sneaky trick for bringing some Kroot in from the board edge you want, as the Riptide can easily maneuver to where it needs to be early in the game sequence.

A Riptide can also purchase up to two Shielded Missile Drones, which are pretty much exactly what they say on the cover- they combine the gear of a Shield Drone and a Missile Drone, but benefit from T6 because sometimes Games Workshop remembers the rules like that. AT 25pts each they are rather spendy and can cause some really awkward morale checks for the unit (since, as noted, you’re not Fearless), but they aren’t a terrible choice if you have points laying around. The main discouragement is BS2 combined with a 4+ save, giving you neither enough resilience nor enough firepower to really be attractive at that price, so usually they will get left behind and the only effect will be the fact that the option existing allows Independent Characters to join the Riptide (which, admittedly, is huge.)

Overall, you’re likely to see to basic Riptide setups when you play- Ion/SMS/Override/Stims or Ion/Fusion/Override/Velocity, depending on the needs of the list. Other configurations certainly exist and can be decent, but these are the ones that are likely to make appearances at the top tables of tournaments (triply!)

Roles and Strategies

A Riptide’s main job in a Tau list is murdering infantry at long range. The important part here is actually the “long range” part, because bar the Riptide, Tau don’t actually have a lot of weapons that can shoot past 36″; Riptides allow the army to project threat essentially across the entire board as needed while not giving up any efficiency. No matter the kind of location, Riptides can be assured of causing major damage or outright destroying squads of infantry on the table.

However, there is a caveat to this: they need support. On its own, the Riptide is actually really just a somewhat-above-average unit with good resilience, but once you add in Markerlights, Prescience, and other accuracy buffs or ways to ignore cover it becomes increasingly deadly. With BS3 natively and Gets Hot on the main gun, these are extremely important to have- without them, the Riptide’s effectiveness will halve or more. So, when looking at a Riptide, you cannot simply count its ~200pt cost, but need to factor in the cost of whatever support elements it will require as well; with Tau’s multitude of Markerlight sources and allies with Divination, it isn’t hard to find a candidate. A Support Commander with the Multispectrum Sensor and C&C Node can also perform this.

That point, in fact, is worth noting: since the Riptide can buy drones, it is not “a unit that always consists of a single model” and thus is legit for ICs to join with, which opens up a lot of possibilities. From the Support Commander or Shadowsun joining to Farseers, Tigurius, etc, etc, a Riptide has no lack of buddies to join up with it and confer all sorts of benefits. One of the tricksiest of methods- although admittedly one that relies on guessing at how the rules work- is to attach a character with no armor save (Ethereal, Farseer without a bike) to the Riptide in order to benefit from the fact that you use the highest value in case of a tie when wounding a model. 6+ to wound against both Bolters and Grav Guns can be very rough for some armies to deal with.

A Riptide’s main advantage is its ability to stay alive and shooting through most or all of the games- many armies will have to focus the entirety of their firepower on a Riptide for a turn just to bring it down, leaving the rest of your guns free to shoot unhindered. And, in truth, this is what you want the enemy to be doing- Riptides are far tougher than any of the other elements of a list, so by forcing the enemy to make them a target, you significantly decrease the efficiency of their firepower. Good opponents are unlikely to completely ignore other units, of course, but insomuch as you can force them to dedicate guns to the Riptide, you’re protecting your other units.

Armies

With the potential for damage that a Riptide can put out, lists that don’t want one will be few and far between; it’s become something of a staple of Tau lists these days. Tau allied with Eldar or Space Marines will do best with them, since these armies can provide Divination buffs to it and otherwise shore up its weaknesses, while those working with other armies will have somewhat less reason to do so. Foot, hybrid, and mechanized armies can all make good use of a Riptide thanks to its excellent protections, although in general the mech lists will probably be best-suited to keeping it alive (for whatever that may be worth.)

When looking at including a Riptide, I always assume that it will want 3+ Markerlights and/or one reroll from some sort of buff- if you have less than this, you’ll probably find yourself feeling lacking in damage output, especially as the enemy targets your sources of support (which is rather likely to happen.) Five MLs (and reroll + Ignore Cover) is what I try to aim for, but supplying that much support to every Riptide is often cost-prohibitive.

You can reasonably expect 1-2 Riptides in most Tau armies you face; more than that is crowding out other options either by lack of slots or lack of points. Triple- and quadruple-Riptide lists, while possible, are something of an oddity; despite the win at NOVA, I’m still somewhat skeptical of the overall concept, having not seen it in action myself, and I would hardly recommend it for a starting point for an army.

Counters

What’s this?

What’s this?

What’s this, what’s this, what’s this?

Yeah, this new section will be included in the future bits of the Tau review because it seems a lot of folks are struggling with beating Tau armies- and while certainly strong, they are by no means unbeatable. So from here on out I’ll be including a set of thoughts on how best to deal with the various units in their arsenal; obviously, these can’t be universal because different types of armies will have different options and different problems, but I think there’s some useful general information that can be put out there.

So, simple terms: the best way to stop a Riptide is to stop the army behind the Riptide. Just as with a Paladin unit or Land Raider or other big points investment with high resilience, Riptides are best dealt with by cutting away their support; without it, they are a lot less scary and more vulnerable to various kinds of shenanigans. Sometimes this can be easier than others- a Support Commander or Farseer attached to the Riptide can be rather obnoxious to get rid of- but where possible, this is where you want to aim. Shutting down psychic powers, killing off Markerlights, etc, will quickly downgrade the Riptide’s damage output, as already discussed. However, beyond that, a Riptide is usually not the only Tau unit on the field- Broadsides, Crisis, Fire Warriors, etc, all make common appearances as well and even just limited amounts of shooting can do a lot of potential damage to them. Forcing morale checks is pretty much always bad times for the Tau, and between drones and T3 models, it’s not hard to do this to most units.

Beyond this, the usual advice of “play to the mission” and “position your models carefully” applies. While a large blast can pretty consistently get 3-5 models under it no matter what you do, avoiding letting it get whole units is key to keeping alive as long as possible. Low-value infantry, like Cultists, can also be inconvenient, as most of the benefits of its weaponry are wasted against them, and while they remain on an objective, they can be a major threat to the Tau plan. Outranging the rest of the Tau list can also be an option, especially Markerlights themselves, which can only shoot 36″; if you can cut their firepower down to only the Riptides, suddenly the army looks a lot less threatening, and with most armies’ guns going to 48″, this is certainly possible to do.

Melee combat, despite the Riptide being an MC, can also work- Krak Grenades can do some damage, poisoned weapons and Power Fists will give them fits, and even large tarpit units can lock a Riptide down for the entirety of a game. Riptides are not characters, so they aren’t able to single out special weapons, and WS2 makes it easy to hit them. While basic 5man infantry squads might not bring them down the way they can many other Tau units, even just the addition of a single Power Fist can be enough to swing the tide- and one bad Morale roll can end things instantly. Rending in particular will see a lot of value against them, as most things only wound them on 6s anyways, and anything with an invulnerable save can make shrugging off their low number of hits per turn rather likely.

Final Thoughts

While the Riptide is certainly a very strong contender in the current meta and one we are unlikely to see the end of anytime soon, plenty of tools exist deal with them (Jaws of the World Wolf, Plasma, Grav, Lascannons, Power Axes, etc) and they suffer from weaknesses of their own. Properly supported, a Riptide can decimate the enemy in short order and survive to notch up several VP; without this support, however, it is just as vulnerable as any other unit. The Riptide’s strength comes in no small part from being part of a codex that has lots of interlocking options for building lists- as we’ve seen before, a single powerful unit in isolation does not a strong army make.