Meat for Meta: Riptides and the Nature of Fads

As for the answer to the second question, its a bit more complicated. What was shocking to find at the Golden Throne was just how many damn Riptides there were. And with Riptides there were of course Tau, SO MANY Tau! I don't know the official breakdown, but I would say at least 1/3 of the players had Tau in one form or another. Of all those Tau players I think maybe one didn't have Riptides? Yeah you heard it right, Riptide(s), because most players couldn't just have one Riptide they had at least two.

Fads aren't anything new with Warhammer 40k, last year it was Heldrakes now it is Riptides. Still, in an even larger tournament like Adepticon there wasn't that many Heldrakes and they had been out longer than Riptides were for the Golden Throne GT.

There must be more to this story. First, it is a little known secret, but Tau are the second best-selling range after Space Marines. So, adding the first (good-looking) giant model to Tau meant instant sales. The other factor is of course playability, Riptides are aces when it comes to rules. They an all comers unit able to kill flyers, tanks, and infantry with ease. They are also hard to kill. All these things logically make a perfect recipe for faddom.

I still had this nagging feeling there was more. It has everything to do with what the Riptide does for Tau. It gives them something that can survive combat, and is easily force multiplied by Markerlights and allied Psykers. Then I started to think about a similar phenomena, back when there was the Imperial Guard Leaf Blower years ago, one unit was in every list: Manticore. It did vaguely the same things the Riptide does now.

This lead me to really what I am getting at, the fad isn't the model, and it was never a fad to begin with. It is the type of player.

For simplicity sake let us call him the Gun-line player. This player I would guess makes up about 1/3 of all 40k players. They are the type of player that owns either Imperial Guard or Tau. The Gun-line player rises up to play these two armies in great numbers. The pattern is deeper and is something inherit in how Games Workshop designs their game. GW at some point has to release new Tau or IG, and at which point the best of the Gun-Line players make the most broken form of the list, quickly annoys the hell out of everyone else. Once the Gun-line  list to end all all army lists is "discovered" the other Gun-line players quickly fall in and copy it.

Slowly new armies are released the Gun-line eventually meets it match, but the cycle continues. As someone who isn't a Gun-line player I just don't get the appeal, it feels like playing only one-quarter of the game. This doesn't mean Gun-line players are terrible people, there is just something in their psyche where they get their jollies off by playing such armies.

The moral of this tale though is simple, next time you see a Riptide or two across the tournament table just remember don't hate the model, just hate the player.

Well, don't hate the player just roll your eyes very disapprovingly.