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Heavy Support

1K views 12 replies 9 participants last post by  Da Springy Nids 
#1 ·
I was recently looking at a discussion about the hammerhead and railguns, it got me thinking.

For my Heavy support choices I plan on having:

Hammerhead gunship with smart missiles and railgun
Broadside team, one (maybe 2) with plasma rifles
Hammerhead with ion cannon and missiles

Is the ion cannon worth getting? Is a team of 3 broadsides necessary? Know that I want some diversity in my army, and my most common opponents will be Eldar, Space Marines, Necrons, and Imperial Guard.
 
#5 ·
#6 ·
I play a lot of Tau armor and have never found smart missle system to be that useful. Sure the no line of sight thing is cool, but it really doesnt come up that often, its the same strength as the burst cannons, but with 2 less shots, normally your not going to be near enough to use them either. Hammerhead Rail guns are cool only against armies with very few 4+ saves, or lots of really mobile armor.

I use Ionheads very frequently, mostly because they have AP 3. I use them inconjunction with my pathfinders. I dont normally use them as anti-light tank, they can do it. I use ion heads in 40k in flash to save points.

Ionhead: Necrons(!), Anything with Power Armor, Eldar (sometimes).

Railhead: Nids, Guard, Dark Eldar, Eldar, Orks, other Tau

Most of the time I use 3 broadsides (or only 1 if I dont have the points), one with a shield gen, and two with target locks. I dont use plasma rifles or multitracker. I use them as turrets primarly. That works out pretty well. It can be a little risky, because if you lose one they have to take morale test and they can only move and shoot. But there more accurate and can produce a greater volume of fire power than the hammerhead. Normally I place my 'heads in cover first, let my opponet play his armor (if any) then, place my Broadsides accordingly.

Armor Tactics (for beginners)

Place your 'head behind cover during set up, since it can move 12" and shoot (if you are not useing multitrackers stop playing Tau), your just as efficient moving as you are sitting still. You can move far enough so it should not hurt you.

ALWAYS move more than six, its a Skimmer, your opponet can only get glancing hits.

Skimmers can pop up can shoot over terrain, for some reasons nobody remebers this. Be careful though, you will probably lose a 'head doing this

markerlights IGNORE(!!) cover saves. Now those pesky lictors/jungle fighters/rangers are dont get there nice little benefit. Plus Ion cannons hitting on a 2+ is a good thing.

Fish of Fury is fun, but in doesnt always kill everything. Use it as a clean up tactic, unless your sure. Try to get the nose of your fish about 6 inches away from the target, that way the enemy cannot charge next turn (unless they can move more than 12")
 
#7 ·
Shas'O Briguy said:
I was recently looking at a discussion about the hammerhead and railguns, it got me thinking.

For my Heavy support choices I plan on having:

Hammerhead gunship with smart missiles and railgun
Broadside team, one (maybe 2) with plasma rifles
Hammerhead with ion cannon and missiles

Is the ion cannon worth getting? Is a team of 3 broadsides necessary? Know that I want some diversity in my army, and my most common opponents will be Eldar, Space Marines, Necrons, and Imperial Guard.
Sounds like a very good heavy support section. (No krootox, you must be mad...) I would maybe give the ionhead burst cannons
 
#8 ·
"Skimmers can pop up can shoot over terrain, for some reasons nobody remebers this. Be careful though, you will probably lose a 'head doing this"

Where's it say that? I assume you mean ALL terain? I also assume it's like searchlights, in that it can be shot by anything in range the next turn?

"Fish of Fury is fun, but in doesnt always kill everything. Use it as a clean up tactic, unless your sure. Try to get the nose of your fish about 6 inches away from the target, that way the enemy cannot charge next turn (unless they can move more than 12")"
If you do FoF and kill everything it's no longer a FoF.
 
#9 ·
psteve said:
If you do FoF and kill everything it's no longer a FoF.
What do you mean?

And yes skimmers can "pop" up above the terrain and shoot at anything in range (being in area terrain still applies though). A searchlight is a good comparison, if to do this, everything may draw line of sight. Unfortunetly, I dont know where it is in the new rule book, dont own a copy.
 
#10 ·
psteve said:
If you do FoF and kill everything it's no longer a FoF.
psteve is my new hero!

Badger, the Fish of Fury is a tactic that relies on using the Devilfish chassis to block assault to a unit of Firewarriors that just dismounted within rapid-fire range. If all you're doing is unloading your Firewarriors to rapid-fire and kill of the last few stragglers and don't care about being assaulted (because there won't be anyone left) then you're executing a Rapid-Fire Firewarrior Drop, not a Fish of Fury.

Every time your Firewarriors jump out of their transport, it's not automatically a FoF. It's really a nit-picky bit of semantics (and a pet peeve of mine), but it's only a FoF if you're actually using the Devilfish Chassis to block return assaults.
 
#12 ·
T0nkaTruckDriver said:
psteve is my new hero!

Badger, the Fish of Fury is a tactic that relies on using the Devilfish chassis to block assault to a unit of Firewarriors that just dismounted within rapid-fire range. If all you're doing is unloading your Firewarriors to rapid-fire and kill of the last few stragglers and don't care about being assaulted (because there won't be anyone left) then you're executing a Rapid-Fire Firewarrior Drop, not a Fish of Fury.

Every time your Firewarriors jump out of their transport, it's not automatically a FoF. It's really a nit-picky bit of semantics (and a pet peeve of mine), but it's only a FoF if you're actually using the Devilfish Chassis to block return assaults.

Ahhhh.... That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification. Just assumed it was the same no matter how it turned out.

So skimmers can no longer pop up? Hmmm.... Well I'll bring that up next time when we play. All the guys that said it was okay are 5+ year vetereans, one of the even plays eldar. I'll look into it. I apologize for the bad information.
 
#13 ·
I dont play Tau, but i've got some input on the pop-up attacks. They are from rouge trader/2nd ed days. A skimmer (grav tank) could hide behind cover, pop up, shoot and then drop down again.

All in your movement phase, the only things that could shoot at it were those on overwatch.

Overwatch was when you declared that a squad was going to give up its entire turn tor the possibility of shooting during your opponants movement phase.
 
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