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So like many people, i'm starting up a Tau army due to their new codex and sexy models. I'm having trouble deciding what Heavy support to field in my larger list.

One Hammerhead gunship costs about the same points as two broadsides- but has a better tankbuster weapon.
Two broadsides dish out more firepower per turn, and I have melta weapons to deal with any particularly difficult armour

What would Dakka suggest i do-2 hammerheads, or 2 teams of 2 broadsides?

Depends on how tank heavy your meta is. By tank, i mean MBT, things you actually need the rail cannon for. Transports, IFVs, Trukks, the Broadsides are great. LRBT, LR, you need a hammerhead. I have traditionally used one broadside team 3x, 1 Hammerhead, and a full squad of sniper drones, but that was because I used to play Farsight, and he used to have unit restrictions.

I find missile sides to be far more versatile, They can pop light and medium armor and down infantry with ease as well.

If your meta has AV14 though the railhead is probably the way to go.

Then again, you can always do both, but if you take a railhead buy the submunition.

I don't honestly see much point in Hammerhead. If you expect facing lots of AV13/14, then your one or two Railgun shots probably won't do much against it anyway, so why bother at all?

If you're taking a rail head, Longstrike is as much as an auto upgrade as you can get. bs5 s10 ap1 w/ tankhunter. For other tank hunting I'd look more towards your fusion gun options rather than heavy support

 MechaBeast wrote:
If you're taking a rail head, Longstrike is as much as an auto upgrade as you can get. bs5 s10 ap1 w/ tankhunter. For other tank hunting I'd look more towards your fusion gun options rather than heavy support

This.

Longstrike is always a must have if you take a railhead. I have been playing one hammerhead with Longstrike, and two missle-sides and they balance each other really well. But since you want one or the other and you already have melta to deal with things then missle-sides are the way to go.

To be honest since they new codex ive tended to run 3 submunition railheads as my heavy support at 1750 (or sometimes even 1500) with proper pathfinder support its very difficult to miss with them and they really do outperform broadsides imo

I'm a big believer in the Missilefists. If you need to crack a Land Raider, send a Riptide. Either you red it out with the heavy burst cannon, crack it with the overcharged accelerator, fusion blaster it open, or just kick the thing two or three times at S10.