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What do you guys think of them?

Weak and pointless. Their guns are pathetic (especially at BS 3, with the bomber's ion rifles firing at BS 1 until they disembark and die) and AV 11/10/10 is a joke. Meanwhile Tau have awesome AA guns in multiple FOC slots, so there's no need to take flyers to kill enemy flyers.

 Peregrine wrote:
Weak and pointless. Their guns are pathetic (especially at BS 3, with the bomber's ion rifles firing at BS 1 until they disembark and die) and AV 11/10/10 is a joke. Meanwhile Tau have awesome AA guns in multiple FOC slots, so there's no need to take flyers to kill enemy flyers.

The book explicitly says the drones are turrets when mounted on the Flyer. They are not passengers, they fire at BS3.

thejughead wrote:
The book explicitly says the drones are turrets when mounted on the Flyer. They are not passengers, they fire at BS3.

*shrug*

Either way the bomber is still garbage. 2-4 STR 7 shots and a pulse rifle bomb is a complete waste of points.

It's too early to say it's garbage, give it three months and see how it pans out......

Lovepug13 wrote:
It's too early to say it's garbage, give it three months and see how it pans out......

How is it too early? Just compare it to the other flyers in the game, it has pathetic firepower and even more pathetic durability. The only reason to ever consider it would be if you didn't have any other AA units and desperately needed to counter enemy flyers, but that's a redundant role when pretty much all of our heavy weapons can have at-will skyfire.

Is it cheap?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Is it cheap?

Relatively - you're looking at around 150 points basic, up to about 180-odd tooled up. But it's not worth those points in my opinion.
It's also competing in the Fast Attack slot with Pathfinders, Vespids, Drone Teams and Piranhas.

The new Tau flyers suffer from a familiar problem - while they can be useful in the right circumstances, the jobs they're designed for can be performed much better by other units, and usually for cheaper.
A basic Fire Warrior team will put out roughly the same damage as a Sun Shark, while being cheaper, scoring and more resilient (yes, really!! The AV11 is laughable). The Razorshark doesn't carry that much firepower for a Tau unit, and other units take out armoured targets better - even against Flyers, as you can take kit to grant yourself Skyfire and/or increase your BS on Snap Shots using Markerlights.

The only edge they do have - their speed - will put them far out of range for support from the rest of the army.

 Peregrine wrote:

Lovepug13 wrote:
It's too early to say it's garbage, give it three months and see how it pans out......

How is it too early? Just compare it to the other flyers in the game, it has pathetic firepower and even more pathetic durability. The only reason to ever consider it would be if you didn't have any other AA units and desperately needed to counter enemy flyers, but that's a redundant role when pretty much all of our heavy weapons can have at-will skyfire.

You're making the mistake of comparing units that shouldn't necesarily be compared. Different fliers SHOULD serve different roles, especially considering the strength of tau AA. If the unit obviously shouldn't be used to tackle other fliers then find a different use for it. This what balance and tactics are about.

I think Tau's air is going to benefit from air supremacy simply by being the only flying units on the field. They'll either draw fire that could be going elsewhere while putting out a decent amount of damage, or they'll be ignored and put out a decent amount of damage. Regardless, they'll be the only fliers on the field at the end of the game.

Exactly, imagine if both their fliers AND their anti air had been amazing then the balance would be broken

 CaptainHonkey wrote:
What do you guys think of them?

Decent, not overpowered. The Decoy Launcher upgrade is mandatory and provides a lot of survivability, and both the Fighter and Bomber are excellent air-to-air killers. I lean towards the Bomber as the better overall choice but I think the Fighter certainly has potential against certain ground units. They are however in a very competitive slot (every slot except Troops is very competitive for Tau), so I'm not sure whether they will be fielded in huge numbers, especially since Tau don't need air-to-air from Flyers when they can take many other options doing the same thing. All in all, while certainly viable I don't expect the Tau flyers to be seen in every army.

What will the fighter be better at doing than the bomber?

 Las wrote:
You're making the mistake of comparing units that shouldn't necesarily be compared. Different fliers SHOULD serve different roles, especially considering the strength of tau AA. If the unit obviously shouldn't be used to tackle other fliers then find a different use for it. This what balance and tactics are about.

No, you're missing the point of what I said.

Against ground targets Tau flyers are garbage. You're paying Riptide-level points for much less firepower on a much less durable unit.

Against air targets Tau flyers are redundant. You'd use them if you had no other choice, but you have much better options available.

There's just no role that the Tau flyers perform better than the alternatives, so there's no reason to take them.

FoWPlayerDeathOfUS.TDs wrote:
What will the fighter be better at doing than the bomber?

That's where I'm at. I really think the Sun Shark has this one... right now the best flyer is the Barracuda, but after that Sun Shark and then the Razorshark


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Right now it gets 4-6 TL 7/4 shots (2-4 on a turret), a Networked Markerlight, and 2 single shot 8/3 missiles... plus a decent middle strength bomb a turn for at least a little while. Not too shabby for a 4+ cover save at 180 points

Tau flyers are, imho, clearly less powerfull than others armies' ones.
Sun Shark and Razorshark are roughly equivalent in terms of what they can do (both seem to be more anti-ground targets flyers), none is a air-superiority fighter... There's a lot of better options in the Tau Codex either for anti-air or for ground shooting... So I'll leave those flyers at the airport and go for some more Drones / Pathfinders / Vespids squads...

Well each army needs a weakness, in this case its own flyers and cc :/ Thats the way armies work. Personally I think they look awesome and can at least do something on the field

If you compare the Tau Flyers to the only "real 6th Edition" flyers (CSM was too early to be rooted in 6th flyer-balance wise), that means the Dark Angels ones, they're clearly not bad
Slightly less durable, but much more firepower and with turret-mounted guns (and real missiles, not stupid S6 lumps of metal with no explosive charge)

Anyone thinking of remoras?

 chrisrawr wrote:
I think Tau's air is going to benefit from air supremacy simply by being the only flying units on the field. They'll either draw fire that could be going elsewhere while putting out a decent amount of damage, or they'll be ignored and put out a decent amount of damage. Regardless, they'll be the only fliers on the field at the end of the game.

That's a pretty bold statement. Go ahead and draft some competitive 1850p lists and you'll find that stacking skyfire and AA in general isn't as cheap as you'd think and that you still have to keep your army a TAC list to have a snowball's chance in hell at tournaments since the opponents vary. The obvious air army is Necrons and while dealing with 6-7 flyers + other crap you'll still have to keep your Broadsides and Riptides safe from assault from 16-18 Wraiths and the Lords in the same time. Everything in that game happens so fast there's a clear threat the Tau get tabled in 4 turns just like many other armies. Looking at a 300 point unit of Broadsides with a gazillion missiles and somehow thinking it means flyers are now unusable is ridiculous at best. Other flyers kill other flyers in one turn of shooting too, so what you do is you just take more of them.

 chrisrawr wrote:
I think Tau's air is going to benefit from air supremacy simply by being the only flying units on the field. They'll either draw fire that could be going elsewhere while putting out a decent amount of damage, or they'll be ignored and put out a decent amount of damage. Regardless, they'll be the only fliers on the field at the end of the game.

Not at AV11/10/10 they won't. They can be taken down by an Ork Boyz squad. Anything with S4 can reliably take them down, especially when you have 30+ unit of model with an S4 shot. Heck, a Cultist squad with 3 Heavy Stubbers could take it down. It isn't resilient enough. Its just not worth the 150-80 points to even be used as a distraction, especially if the opponent can basically kill it at will.

 McNinja wrote:

 chrisrawr wrote:
I think Tau's air is going to benefit from air supremacy simply by being the only flying units on the field. They'll either draw fire that could be going elsewhere while putting out a decent amount of damage, or they'll be ignored and put out a decent amount of damage. Regardless, they'll be the only fliers on the field at the end of the game.

Not at AV11/10/10 they won't. They can be taken down by an Ork Boyz squad. Anything with S4 can reliably take them down, especially when you have 30+ unit of model with an S4 shot. Heck, a Cultist squad with 3 Heavy Stubbers could take it down. It isn't resilient enough. Its just not worth the 150-80 points to even be used as a distraction, especially if the opponent can basically kill it at will.

I think you greatly overestimate the ability of strength 4 weapons against flyers. A strength 4 weapon will glance an AV10 flyer 1/36 of the time. Hardly something to get worked up about-- three Heavy Stubbers will deliver 1/4 of a glance on average, and that's before we take potential saves into account!

 Kingsley wrote:

 McNinja wrote:

 chrisrawr wrote:
I think Tau's air is going to benefit from air supremacy simply by being the only flying units on the field. They'll either draw fire that could be going elsewhere while putting out a decent amount of damage, or they'll be ignored and put out a decent amount of damage. Regardless, they'll be the only fliers on the field at the end of the game.

Not at AV11/10/10 they won't. They can be taken down by an Ork Boyz squad. Anything with S4 can reliably take them down, especially when you have 30+ unit of model with an S4 shot. Heck, a Cultist squad with 3 Heavy Stubbers could take it down. It isn't resilient enough. Its just not worth the 150-80 points to even be used as a distraction, especially if the opponent can basically kill it at will.

I think you greatly overestimate the ability of strength 4 weapons against flyers. A strength 4 weapon will glance an AV10 flyer 1/36 of the time. Hardly something to get worked up about-- three Heavy Stubbers will deliver 1/4 of a glance on average, and that's before we take potential saves into account!

True, I forgot about jink, but if the flyer happens to be within 12" of 10 Space Marines, that's still potential to lose your flyer to Bolters. Heck, within 12" of a full Tau FW unit with Volley Fire and that's even worse.

quick question, do the tau have any reserve manipulation?

are they able to keep their fliers in reserves to try and knock out enemy fliers with their better ground AA options?

They are rubbish imo, a complete waste of points.

They bring nothing new to the table, and what they do bring can be done better by other units in the army.

recently played a 2000 pt game against SM where I put a flyer out, It was eventually downed but It did well worth its points in making the other player nervous in where he advanced his troops.
that and it was able to get behind and pop most stuff that was thrown within range....while my ground forces did the rest...

overall I like using a flyer in my list and I will continue to do so.

Both Tau flyers are good in the air-air role, primarily because their guns are on turrets, are S7, and they both throw a good number of shots. I don't really care what a flyer's frontal AV is if I'm always going to be shooting it in the back anyways. Lighter flyers will get massacred with the amount of S7 shots they can throw around. About the only one that's not easily threatened is the Stormraven.

Against ground units... they put out a lot of pain, but only against infantry or lighter vehicles. Being able to drop large blasts on blobs behind Aegis, from a direction that they don't get cover from (sides, or close enough in that it doesn't cover enough of the model to grant cover) will go a long way to clearing out light infantry that relies on those kinds of cover saves.

They can be effective against light-med mech on the ground as well, especially since they've obviously got the speed to get side / rear shots easily, and again can get LOS over Aegis to deny cover. In addition, against ground targets you'll be able to count on more Markerlight support for better effect.

In all, they're pretty balanced. I think a lot of folks assume that if it's not an autotake over a Vendetta or Helldrake or if it can't autokill an entire Cron Air list by itself it's totally useless and not worth taking. Sometimes that attitude blinds people to the possibilities a unit has.

I'm going to get the bomber seems alright for the points most armies I play won't cause any threat to it as they don't have skyfire or an aegis line to stop it the drones blast + the big bomb all At the same time could be rather nasty and those two seekers will rather tasty aswell against anything flying


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I'm going to get the bomber seems alright for the points most armies I play won't cause any threat to it as they don't have skyfire or an aegis line to stop it the drones blast + the big bomb all At the same time could be rather nasty and those two seekers will rather tasty aswell against anything flying

i spent 2 days debating which flyer to make when i came to the decision making part of the assembly...

bothered the hell out of me....in the end i went for the fighter...more potential DPS output and I gotta love that quad ion gun on a 360 degree swivel...in my last game I was able to down a flyer a rhino and a dreadnought with its drop pod due to that beautiful weapon....

dont get me wrong there are lots and lots of stuff I LOVE about the bomber...quad ion gun was too tempting to pass up...

Sure, massed S4 will down it. But if they're using massed S4 on your flyer, that means they're not using it on your FW or broadsides, which is probably going to be a mistake in the long run. Massed low-power weaponry can down a flyer, but it's also the main thing needed to take out tau troops, elites, heavy support... And sure some armies have stupid amounts of S4 firepower. But the majority don't, meaning they'll either be wasting their firepower on your flyer or they'll have to use other methods instead.