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So after getting blasted at Nova by daemon flying circuses (hoards of 2++ puppies running around) I'm looking to join the bandwagon of the boring and startup/finish a Tau army. I never saw so much Tau, Daemons and Eldar in my life. So of the models I've collected over the past couple of years of playing I own a sky ray gunship. I didn't think much of them even when the new codex came out but obvioulsy I'm wrong because I saw a lot of them at Nova. My current configuration is to give it smart missiles and a disruption pod. Looking at the rules it appears you can only fire one missile at a time. Is that correct? I'm looking at page 68 where it talks about the uses for markerlights.

So I guess I'm interested in knowing what their best use is - what types of targets should be a priority, etc. pros and cons of a sky ray.

You can fire their full payload all in one go if you so choose. It's only if you choose to use markerlights to enhance them further with ignore cover, LOS and the such. So for someone fielding 2 sky rays they can rain hell down on you with 12, 72" Str8 AP3 shots at BS4 that don't care about night fighting rules. All but assuring first blood for the tau player. After that they can just durdle about the battlefield with their SMS just being annoying, wanting your opponent to waste shots and/or assaults on them.

okdoke, plus they can still use the networked marker light to benefit other units shooting too, right?

Yep, just make sure you field enough markerlights for them to blow their load T1, then move them around the board as a support harassment unit with their networked markerlights. Tough part is having enough markerlights for their entire payload. A Skyray needs 6 markerlights to be fully effective. Most of the time you don't even need disruption pods on them, just deploy them out of LOS if possible fire their T1 payload, then move them around hoping your opponent shoots at them.

 necron99 wrote:
okdoke, plus they can still use the networked marker light to benefit other units shooting too, right?

Yes, they can use them to buff their own shooting. And if they run out of missiles, they can use them to buff the shooting of other units. Just remember that the Markerlight is a weapon and the Sky Ray is not a Fast vehicle - so you must remain immobile to fire both Networked Markerlights.

Otherwise, the Sky Ray is not the most complex unit in the game: its sole purpose is to blast flying things from the sky with a massive volley of seeker missiles. Don"t even try to reserve those beauties: once an enemy flyer/FMC shows up, turn your Sky Ray towards it (But don't move for Christ's sake!) and let those missiles fly! All of them! Afer that, use the two networked markerlights to put markerlight tokens of flying stuff and "chain" pathfinder markerlights (so use the Sky Ray's markerlight tokens to improve the Pathfinder's markerlighting) to give any of your units quasi-skyfire (use the "chained" pathfinder markerlight tokens to improve the BS of the firing unit so you can hit the flyer/FMC with normal/close-to-normal BS).

Yeah, they follow the same rules for vehicles, so they can fire everything if they dont move.

Not only do they become mobile tough marker platforms when the missiles are gone, but the are the only good source of skyfire markerlights in the game, and that aint nothin

 gameandwatch wrote:
Yeah, they follow the same rules for vehicles, so they can fire everything if they dont move.

Not only do they become mobile tough marker platforms when the missiles are gone, but the are the only good source of skyfire markerlights in the game, and that aint nothin

Also a decent unit to block movement and give cover saves to your troops as needed. If you know you're going up against a flier, just flat out the skyray all day err day to get that juicy 3+ cover until they come out. Then get your tear cup as you FIRE EVERYTHING at the flier when it's your turn.

actually i would argue piranhas are a good missile platform.

Kinda playing on rules here but the typical piranha playstyle is to dump drones, move 12" and turbo 18" the first turn. Give them each a missile for 8pts, and turn 1 use your markerlights to light something up. The vehicle is not shooting, nothing says it cannot turbo boost or that it is now considered to be shooting - just that it has to be the same target as the vehicle's normal shooting.

Not guaranteed to nail that big thing you want since pathfinders are only going to reach 42" beyond your deployment zone (counting scout movements) without firing snaps, but least for me every thing i would want to fire that thing at rarely has enough terrain to completely hide behind at the start.
However it lacks the anti air since it has no skyfire lol

 Vineheart01 wrote:
actually i would argue piranhas are a good missile platform.

Kinda playing on rules here but the typical piranha playstyle is to dump drones, move 12" and turbo 18" the first turn. Give them each a missile for 8pts, and turn 1 use your markerlights to light something up. The vehicle is not shooting, nothing says it cannot turbo boost or that it is now considered to be shooting - just that it has to be the same target as the vehicle's normal shooting.

Not guaranteed to nail that big thing you want since pathfinders are only going to reach 42" beyond your deployment zone (counting scout movements) without firing snaps, but least for me every thing i would want to fire that thing at rarely has enough terrain to completely hide behind at the start.
However it lacks the anti air since it has no skyfire lol

That would be kind of expensive. 48pts a piranha (with just seeker missile). 3 piranha would be 144pts. Skyray is 115pts, 130pts with DP.

I guess if you didn't have heavy slots left this would be a good option. And of course, not a real AA. :C

You also have to think about what else youre getting. 5 piranhas w/ a seeker missile is 240pts. Thats 10 Gun Drones (they form their own squadron as a vehicle squadron detachment not per vehicle) to get in the way of everything and 5 AV11 fast skimmer vehicles that actually arent that bad at dealing with infantry. Both of these units that come along with the 5 seeker missiles are very good at taking out infantry and/or stalling your opponent for 2-3+ turns (unless he got crazy lucky). Thats 2-3 turns hes not walking towards your big stuff

They can hold 2 missiles each but i highly doubt you'd be able to fire them before getting popped, as they are going to be attacked whether theyre causing damage or not because they. are. in. the. damn. WAY!

 Vineheart01 wrote:
You also have to think about what else youre getting. 5 piranhas w/ a seeker missile is 240pts. Thats 10 Gun Drones (they form their own squadron as a vehicle squadron detachment not per vehicle) to get in the way of everything and 5 AV11 fast skimmer vehicles that actually arent that bad at dealing with infantry. Both of these units that come along with the 5 seeker missiles are very good at taking out infantry and/or stalling your opponent for 2-3+ turns (unless he got crazy lucky). Thats 2-3 turns hes not walking towards your big stuff

They can hold 2 missiles each but i highly doubt you'd be able to fire them before getting popped, as they are going to be attacked whether theyre causing damage or not because they. are. in. the. damn. WAY!

I forgot that piranhas could take two seeker missiles.

But we're talking in the realm of just skyray for AA purposes, and the piranha won't be too good for that job. Although, they have very trolltastic uses. 10 essentially FREE gun drones on a commander with drone controller? Yes please.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
The vehicle is not shooting, nothing says it cannot turbo boost or that it is now considered to be shooting - just that it has to be the same target as the vehicle's normal shooting.

The vehicle is shooting. From the markerlight rules "... the unit immediately fires a single seeker missile ..." Markerlight tokens are also used "Immediately before a unit from Codex: Tau Empire shoots at a target ..."

Firing a Seeker Missile with a markerlight is absolutely shooting, and would be disallowed by / would disallow turbo-boosting.

 Zagman wrote:
Yep, just make sure you field enough markerlights for them to blow their load T1, then move them around the board as a support harassment unit with their networked markerlights. Tough part is having enough markerlights for their entire payload. A Skyray needs 6 markerlights to be fully effective. Most of the time you don't even need disruption pods on them, just deploy them out of LOS if possible fire their T1 payload, then move them around hoping your opponent shoots at them.

Please don't follow this rule at all. You don't use marker lights to fire the seeker missiles, you just buff the BS of the skyray to 5/6 as needed and if you get two marker light hits and your target is in cover, strip the cover save and just fire everything at BS4. Using marker lights to fire seeker missile is very situational and should not be deemed the 1st option.

Chrysis wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
The vehicle is not shooting, nothing says it cannot turbo boost or that it is now considered to be shooting - just that it has to be the same target as the vehicle's normal shooting.

The vehicle is shooting. From the markerlight rules "... the unit immediately fires a single seeker missile ..." Markerlight tokens are also used "Immediately before a unit from Codex: Tau Empire shoots at a target ..."

Firing a Seeker Missile with a markerlight is absolutely shooting, and would be disallowed by / would disallow turbo-boosting.

Thats something i hope they address in the FAQ if it ever comes out. I see the other guys point of view maybe because im an old school tau player, but also because it says it does not count toward the total weapons that can be shot. Plus there would not be much reason for alot of units that can take seekers to do so unless it dosent count toward their shots or it would not interfere with their movement.

Actually rereading how its worded it sounds like the unit with the Seekermissiles is the one triggering the shot, not the unit with the markerlight like it used to be.

Aight nerts to that piranha idea. Though the same tactic can be done with missilesides since they rarely have anything the first turn to shoot at anyway.

Not sure why they gave seekermissiles these weird rules. They werent even used that much in the old dex when they didnt have these odd restrictions lol.

In the old codex, piranha with seekers for an alpha strike was a very viable tactic. Turbo up the sideline, fire marker lights from other units and watch S8 no cover save light up side armor. new marker light rules pretty much make firing seekers using markerlights very situational at best. Actually I can't remember the last time I did it.

Theres a wording problem when it comes to using the seekermissiles normally though.

A seeker missile fired normally is simply Heavy 1, One Use Only (pg66)
It does not have all the goodies everyone thinks it does.

However, on the markerlight part it clearly says before listing all the goodies for seeker missiles "--A seeker missile fired in this way:"

Unless you use a markerlight, it will not ignore cover, it will require line of sight, it will be BS whatever the unit is, it will count towards maximum number of weapons fired at full BS for vehicles that moved, BUT it will still be the same target as the rest of the guns....atleast that much is constant lol.

That being said, the deploying the skyray out of sight and markerlight launching all his missiles turn 1 IS a good idea vs buffing the BS of the skyray.
Other units can still use it normally and get a benefit out of it by situation. Im tempted to start taking them on the Missilesides for that 1-2 turns they cant shoot anything else, i'll fire a 72" rocket and keep the markerlights for the riptides/crisis suits. S8 AP3 is nothing to shake a stick at, its just the weird limitations and way its used that makes it kinda lame.
Or, the before mentioned Piranhas. Fast vehicles can fire 2 guns at normal BS when moving cruising speed....thats about as good if not better than Deffkoptas are at popping early vehicles like transports lol

I realize this post is a little old but...

When I fire from a Sky ray let's say I want to implore the on board marker lights: can I fire them and then based on the number of hits fire 1-2 missiles that make use of the marker light or do I need to declare "I'm firing my marker lights and two missiles at that unfortunate Storm Talon"? Then depending on how many marker lights hit from the sky ray I then get to decide if they apply to the missiles I declared I'm firing.

1 team of rail broadsides with plasma and shield drones, 2 skyrays maybe with disruption pods. That's my standard heavy support slots.

The skyrays can sit and turn one, after making use of 3 markerlights, preform a 6 missile alpha strike on any MC aside form a dreadknight or riptide and kill it. After that it provides markerlight support and smart missile system support against infantry. Works every time, and with disruption pods and it hiding behind a ruin, most don't even shoot it.