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hello...I need to buy some Heavy Support for my tau...I kinda want to buy sniper squads, but i am not sure on their capabilities. if possible...could i have the pros vs cons of each of the Tau's Heavy Support? thanks alot

Heavy Support-

Hammerhead- Main gun comes with either an Ion Cannon, which is three shots Str 7 on one gun, or the Railgun, which is one shot, but is either a Strength 10 shot or a reduce strength large blast template. It's a vehicle, AV 13 front, comes with good BS, and in some ways is more durable than taking the Broadsides. However, Railgun is not twin-linked and it is an expensive option.

Skyray- Max of six shots from main weapon and two of networked markerlights. It's a suboptimal choice compared to the Hammerhead.

Broadsides- Twin-linked railgun, good armor, two wounds each. Can be taken in teams (I believe up to 3), and decent gear options. Low mobility and no anti-infantry rounds means its best suited to shoot down tanks and MCs.

Sniper Drone Team- Markerlight, Stealth Field, and AP 3 weaponry. Beyond that, it is a suboptimal choice for a Heavy Support as the Tau army thrives on the long range weapons the Heavy Support gives it from other units.

Sniper drones blow, compared to everything else you get.

You need broadsides. Hammerheads do not provide accurate railgun shooting (1 TL BS3 shot is more accurate than 1 BS 4 normal). Hammerheads are nice for the blast, you don't have many blast templates in your codex (3, I believe). What points level are you playing at?

WarOne has the pros and cons down.

Well Heavy support are one of Tau's 2 best slots (the other being elite) so you want to get the most out of the units.

Unfortunately sniper teams aren't very good. S6 is bad for Tau. We have a lot of S5 and crisis suits can get S6 weapons that are more likely to hit and are more mobile.

The main 2 choices taken are Hamerheads or broadsides

Broadsides-
Pros: Lots of railguns- broadside units can take more railguns than hammerheads. Broadside weapons are twinlinked so are more likely to hit.

Cons: More fragile, It's a lot easier to kill broadsides than hammer heads, a lot of armies can easily drop a large blast ontop of them and they are dead. Slow- Broadsides must take 1 battle suit system you can either give them shield generators or stabillisation systems however they are still either slow or fragile. In an army that needs to move away from combat having a slow and purposeful unit isn't great. They are well know to be powerful and will often be the first target- it's hard to get the most out of them.

Hammerheads
Pros: Hard to kill (should always have disruption pods), and can move and fire. Should take a railgun as its one of the best weapons in the game. Ion cannons are only S7 which we can get from MP. If given full upgrades can fire multiple weapons and move around the table. They can fire submunition or single shot, this makes them useful against most enemy units. Unlike broadsides they are still useful once all vehicles are gone. Not as expensive as broadsides.

Cons: Only one shot each. The BS is higher but they still miss a lot. They aren't TL either so Broadsides do more damager per turn.

Personally I recommend hammerheads as in my experience your opponent will target your broadsides early on or will stay out of LOS so they have to move (slowly) to be able to fire.

Broadsides with shield drones make me cry

Still, I need to check the rules on them. A single shield drone taking 3 earthshaker wounds while the broadsides take none seems awkward.

For drones, wound allocation rules are normal. Except for independent characters with drone wargear, if I remember correctly they treat their owner as an upgrade character.

The hammerhead for me has been... underwhelming. It always seems to miss. 66% chance of hitting after all.

Whereas my unit of 3 broadsides, seem to always hit. Though 3 broadsides with Advanced Stabillisation Systems (No drones) is 255 pts and a fully pimped out hammerhead is like 195. The railgun shots are too invaluable to have in my experience. S10 and AP1. So good

Broadsides are great
Having one hammerhead just for its submunition blast is generally what I've seen a lot of tau players do, and then the rest of the two slots is broadsides

shield drones do nothing if the unit gets a blast template dropped on it, you get as many hits as models so each one takes a hit. If you want to give broadsides protective gear use shield generators.

In my 2000 point I use 3 Railheads and they are usually sufficient to destroy vehicles. IMO Most vehicles shouldn't be the target of railguns. I use my hammerheads for destroying av 12+ or against infantry. We have a lot of high strength weapons which can take out low Av vehicles but won't do much to infantry (5 S7 shots will at best kill only 5 models where a submunition shot will kill a lot more).

Gavo wrote:Sniper drones blow, compared to everything else you get.

You need broadsides. Hammerheads do not provide accurate railgun shooting (1 TL BS3 shot is more accurate than 1 BS 4 normal). Hammerheads are nice for the blast, you don't have many blast templates in your codex (3, I believe). What points level are you playing at?

WarOne has the pros and cons down.

i am playing at like 750...but i am trying to get my army up to 1250