How many Seeker Missiles can a stationary Skyray fire (Missile type and non-flyers)

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**Drunkspleen**

Since the Tau codex release I've said a few times that Skyrays can fire all their seeker missiles in a single turn, I've had a number of people agree with me and never really had it be disputed.

When looking at the new apocalypse rules I noticed that the "Skysweep Missile Defence" formation has a special rule allowing the Skyrays in the formation, under certain circumstances, to "fire any number of missiles in each shooting phase".

I found this a bit odd, because I was sure the restriction of "2 missiles per turn" was written in a way to apply to flyers, but looking at the rules for them again, I'm not so sure?

The rule "A maximum of two missiles can be fired per Shooting phase, and they count towards the number of weapons fired that turn" seems entirely general enough to apply to any vehicle type, even though it's located in the Flyer section.

So have I been incorrect here the whole time, can a Skyray normally fire no more than 2 seeker missiles a turn?

**Krellnus**

Sky Rays are not flyers, therefore they may fire as many missiles per turn, up to the maximum they carry (6).

I believe the formation meant to say, fire at full BS in each shooting phase, since they can't be fast vehicles anymore.

**Drunkspleen**

Obviously I'm looking for something with a bit more meat to it than that, like I say, I used to agree with you, but looking now I can find no reason the rules restricting how many missiles a model may fire should apply only to flyers.

Can you support the claim that they apply only to flyers with quotes from the rules?

**Krellnus**

Sure, what heading is the restriction for flyers firing missiles under?

**dementedwombat**

Sounds like a copy/paste job out of the last apoc rulebook to me, back when skyrays couldn't fire their own missiles without a marker light counter.

**Krellnus**

Well, that would make sense I suppose. We all know how GW is when it comes to proof reading.

**Peregrine**

My guess is whoever made the formation had no clue how the rules work. Which wouldn't be surprising, the original version of the formation had a "bonus" that you could fire seeker missiles using markerlights from any model in the formation when you could already do that without a special formation.

Or you could just play it RAW, where "any number of missiles" does not include "up to the total number of missiles carried by the model", and fire 9999999999999999 missiles at each target.

**Drunkspleen**

Krellnus wrote:
Sure, what heading is the restriction for flyers firing missiles under?

There is no specific restriction for flyers firing missiles as far as I can see, there is a more general restriction stating a maximum of two missiles can be fired per shooting phase under the Missile sub-heading of the Special Weapon Systems section.

**Krellnus**

It seems pretty specific to me

Its under the Special Weapons Systems subheading of the Flyers subsection of the Vehicle Section. So straight away its pretty clear that what it says only applies to flyers, that is, flyers have access to a Special Weapon called a missile and that it has the following properties.

Furthermore, here is the paragraph in full regarding missiles.

page 81 LRB wrote:Many Flyers are armed with a special kind of weapon called a missle, clearly denoted by their name: Bloodstrike Missiles, Implosion Missiles, and so on are good examples.

Missiles are one use only, but most Flyers carry two or more to mantain a steady weight of fire throughout the game. A maximum of two missiles can be fired per Shooting phase, and they count towards the number of weapons fired that turn.

The fact that the clarification of how many missiles may be fired is right after a sentence talking about flyers, in a paragraph talking about flyers, in a subsection about flyer weapons in a section of flyers seems to make it pretty clear to me that the limit applies only to flyers.

Furthermore, I would posit, that for vehicles, the weapon type: missile exists only for flyers.

Now, of course, if we look at the Barracuda, which can take up to four seeker missiles, I would 100% say that it could only fire up to two per turn.

**Peregrine**

Also, note that the Tau codex says that seeker missiles fired using a markerlight counter do not count towards the limit of two missiles per FLYER.

Now, of course, if we look at the Barracuda, which can take up to four seeker missiles, I would 100% say that it could only fire up to two per turn.

Unless of course it uses a markerlight counter to fire one or more of them.

**Krellnus**

Of course.

**yakface**

Drunkspleen wrote:
Since the Tau codex release I've said a few times that Skyrays can fire all their seeker missiles in a single turn, I've had a number of people agree with me and never really had it be disputed.

When looking at the new apocalypse rules I noticed that the "Skysweep Missile Defence" formation has a special rule allowing the Skyrays in the formation, under certain circumstances, to "fire any number of missiles in each shooting phase".

I found this a bit odd, because I was sure the restriction of "2 missiles per turn" was written in a way to apply to flyers, but looking at the rules for them again, I'm not so sure?

The rule "A maximum of two missiles can be fired per Shooting phase, and they count towards the number of weapons fired that turn" seems entirely general enough to apply to any vehicle type, even though it's located in the Flyer section.

So have I been incorrect here the whole time, can a Skyray normally fire no more than 2 seeker missiles a turn?

Its a cock-up in the Apocalypse book, pure and simple. Either the author didn't realize what the rules are for Missiles on a non-flyer (unlimited) or they meant to write the rule so that Sky Rays in the formation can fire any number of Seekers at the vehicle's full ballistic skill (regardless of how fast they moved).

Personally, I think the latter is how you should play the formation (as its pretty sucky otherwise, IMHO).

**Drunkspleen**

I can see your point now Krellnus, thanks for laying it all out clearly.

It's a really lazily made rule IMO, especially the whole "just guess what's a missile based on it's name" part of it.

**Krellnus**

Drunkspleen wrote:
I can see your point now Krellnus, thanks for laying it all out clearly.

It's a really lazily made rule IMO, especially the whole "just guess what's a missile based on it's name" part of it.

No worries, I agree that the rule is pretty lazily made and that it should have been fire them all at full BS no matter how far they move, or maybe they should have let them intercept fliers with their missiles, that would have been pretty cool too.