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I'm under the impression that the Skyray is a waste of points next to a Hammerhead. Thoughts?

depends. It's less likely to hurt heavy armor, and doesn't have sub-munitions for anti-infantry, and has limited ammo, but on the other hand it doesn't actually need to see it's target either so it has higher survivability over the hammerhead.

It can engaged up to two different targets with networked markerlights. It isn't directly as powerful as a Hammerhead, but indirectly more powerful in providing support to the rest of the army. It combines well with other units, plus the whole indirect fire thing can be damnably nasty.

Hmmm... didn't think of the indirect fire angle... pretty sneaky...

Nurglitch wrote:It can engaged up to two different targets with networked markerlights. It isn't directly as powerful as a Hammerhead, but indirectly more powerful in providing support to the rest of the army. It combines well with other units, plus the whole indirect fire thing can be damnably nasty.

This is probably the best use of a skyray - 2 more markerlights. Unfortunatly due to its limited ammo it is hard to want to take more than 1 expecially since it is compeating against hammerheads and broadsides for those HS slots. I think it has a place in a mech tau list where everything is very fast, but (at least in my list) i leave it at home and bring more Str 10.

Yeah the Skyray is a nice idea but with limited ammo it just can't compete with the HH or broadsides, I'd love to see it moved to the fast attack section or given unlimited seekers either would make it a competitive choice.

How many shots does a railhead get in a battle realistically? Five-six depending on random game length if my experience is anything to go by, so 6 missiles isn't really all that bad. The ability to front load the damage is a pretty neat trick too.

Against biker units (attack bikes and nobz in particular) the skyray does well at cutting them down early in the game.

I wouldn't advocate it's use without without also having a couple of pathfinder units in the army though.

Instead of thinking of the skyray as a down-gunned railhead think of it as an upgunned ionhead. St8 ap3 is othwise lacking in the tau arsenal.

Wow that was rambling even for me. I think my coffee has worn off.

Take some Seeker Missiles on your Devilfish. If you have three Devilfish (two Firewarrior Devilfish, one Pathfinder Devilfish) then you can have six extra shots.

Nurglitch wrote:Take some Seeker Missiles on your Devilfish. If you have three Devilfish (two Firewarrior Devilfish, one Pathfinder Devilfish) then you can have six extra shots.

Thats definitely one half of it. But those 2 markerlights, as overpriced as they are, are like crack for suit based tau.

Sweet sweet crack.