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So I know they don't have access to any in the dex

I was just wondering if this was because they are against it fluff wise or if they
just don't have any...

any help would be nice.

I dont think so. They dont want to wipe out races, but to join them. Killing them all with orbital bombartment should come close to wiping out.

Ordnance is mostly the theme of the IG.
Eldar, necrons, nids &Co seem to prefer other means to hit multiple targets at once.
Orks loot just everything and ordnance is noisy enough to make orks happy.
But I'd guess Tau prefer line of sight and multiple shots over ordnance. Plus ordnance isn't fitting their mobility theme.

I can't think of any reference to Tau ordnance. Fluff wise and gameplay wise they seem to be more about precision, strength and rate of fire rather than just blowing crap up. They only have 2 weapons in the whole army that even uses a blast, Rail submunition and the AFP.

To answer the question, no I don't think they have any because they wouldn't really use it. No sense inventing a weapon they wouldn't want to use. I'm sure they're familiar with the concept though, they have fought IG plenty of times, so it's not like they haven't thought of it before.

K cool I will use this as evidence in an argument against my friend. tyvm

Ordnance is a general term for artillery.

The railgun large blast is a form of ordnance.

The larger Tau fliers have larger railguns and presumably can shoot larger or heavier large shots.

Tau seem to prefers bombing with aircraft to firing artillery.

Isn't the Ion Cannon ordnance?

It is in the sense of being a mounted gun. It isn't in the sense of having an area effect.

Yes the Tau use ordnance. Think Skyrays, or Missile pods, they count as ordnance. The solid shot of a railgun can also be argued to be an ordnance weapon. (Though not in ingame rules)

Though if you consider ordnance only to be chemically propelled explosives fired out of a cannon, then no, the Tau do not.

Skyray would be in the sense of a missile platform firing at long range.

but other then that, no Tau don't have any.

Do the Tau have any guns at all?

Not yet rules wise.

I see the Hammerhead Railgun's blast shot has about an effect similar to a larger missile launcher. That's to say that it can skrew up and hit something on the way to the target and only fragments of the blast hit a few things (demonstrated by coversaves); while ordnance come straight down from the heavens with nothing to stop its path but its juicy targets, and the ground.

Depends on how you define ordnance. They have missiles. Lots and lots of missiles. Seeker missiles, missile pods, and Apocalypse reloaded has a pair of two area affect warheads. Basically they use missiles.

Kilkrazy wrote:Ordnance is a general term for artillery.

The railgun large blast is a form of ordnance.

The larger Tau fliers have larger railguns and presumably can shoot larger or heavier large shots.

Railguns have splash? I didn't know that. I thought that Tau use Sky Ray Gunships for ordinance.

Brother Coa wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Ordnance is a general term for artillery.

The railgun large blast is a form of ordnance.

The larger Tau fliers have larger railguns and presumably can shoot larger or heavier large shots.

Railguns have splash? I didn't know that. I thought that Tau use Sky Ray Gunships for ordinance.

Hammerhead railguns have two types of amunition. Solid shot ( the Str.10 AP1 kind ) and something called submunition which caused a large str.6 blast.
Battlesuits cannot carry the second kind of amunition.

It's a little strange that direct energy weapon have splash like that of artillery. But this is 40k after all...

A railgun isn't a directed energy weapon.

I have seen it. It's an electrical gun that fires conductive projectile along a pair of metal rails using the same principles as the homopolar motor.
So in 40k it can even launch artillery shells at those speeds.
Thanks for the info.

Well we can probably do it as well...
It's just that the guns and the energy required to shoot them is massive.

Wikipedia on railguns as weapons. The biggest issue, aside from power, is that firing it quickly destroys the rails, on account of the heat of friction and the ionization of any air in the barrel oxidizing their surface, which reduces their conductivity and weakens their structural integrity.

Those problems are easily solved by handwavium as with much in 40K.

The core point is that the Tau railgun is ordnance in the sense of being mounted. It is ordnance in the sense of firing a large blast. It would be ordnance in the rules definition if GW added an Ordnance shot in the next codex.

Ordnance:
as in big guns, the tau have it.
as in bombs, yes the tau have it.
as in orbital destruction... i don't know but i bet they have it.
as in battle cannons, basilisks, demolisher cannons, and the such no they don'y, and they don't need it because of the advanced weaponry of the tau. Enough precise shots are better than a big blast.