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Hi all, just started playing WH40k again and I decided I'll come back fresh and start a tau army

I've been reading through the Tau codex and heard the weaker Railgun Broadsides gave birth to a Missileside setup for the broadsides (which I think is awesome)

I know the rule of thumb is TAC, but one of the reasons why I really didn't want to Hammerhead is because I honestly think they're the ugliest things ever. Yeah, I know that sounds really silly but i seriously do think that and it put me off taking any hammerheads.

Anyways, in total I got 666 Points for 9 broadsides (696 if you upgrade each group) and I was wondering if this was viable in anyway? I know that Missilesides lack a bit of range compared to railguns but I thought it would be awesome to field 9 broadsides

High-yield Missile Pod Broadsides are pretty nice. They've got four twin-linked BS3 S7 AP4 shots. Effectively, each one's an IG Hydra that trades its heavy bolter for a smart missile system. While they don't get skyfire naturally, they can spend 20 points to get a velocity tracker. It's not a bad trade.

While they're more durable to some weaponry (Serpent Shields, Tesla Destructors, Autocannons), they drop rather quickly against lascannons and lances. Their leadership also leaves much to be desired.

Unfortunately, all of their weaponry is heavy, so they have to snap-fire or remain stationary. As a result, their 36" range can be inadequate in some circumstances.

They're not a bad unit, but I wouldn't want to rely on them entirely. An HBC Riptide with buff Commander escort is more durable and more mobile, but has a higher price tag in points, FOC slots, and money.

Try each and see how you like them.

If you bring answers to threats that normally would be dealt with by railheads, skyrays, sniper dro........nvm then by all means broadside it up

Seems fairly simple to do by taking double multi crisis suits for your anti tank. broadsides alone should be good for flyers.

A 9sides list is not as good as it used to be, but is still good. All of that HYMP+SMS will create a nice little bubble of death 3' around them. They have their weaknesses, sure, but most are easily mitigated. Keep em in cover to get a save against low AP. Bonding/a vre helps, but bonding will save them if they don't break and run off the board 1st round. They also will snap fire after rallying. If the 'vre is alive, the leadership is nice, and you can rally on full LD bonded or not. Obviously one costs more, but hey, you also get prescision shots.

For 9 broadsides, consider running an ethereal and bubbling up. The ethereal can join one squad, and bubble the other 2 so they use the LD 10 and re roll all checks! You can also use the ethereal to give a 6+ feel no pain save to the sides for a nice little bonus.

Velocity trackers make for fine AA, but they are quite expensive. I like the early warning override to deal with drop pods, outflankers and fliers. Sure, your snap shooting at fliers but that much TL dakka has a good chance of doing something.

Satisfy your heavy AT, scoring and generic dakka duties with the rest of your army, throw in some markerlights to make the broadsides even more awesome and call it a day.

Psh, you want nine broadsides?

Buy nine, max Shield drones, get a skyshield, place it in the front center of your deployment zone. Give them all early warning override.

Have fun as you now have shielded missile drones soaking wounds for your broadsides as they cascade fire.

For extra hilarity, put the riptide on the skyshield right behind them. Can see the entire table and now a 4++. Hide an ethereal behind him.

Have fun!

unless you are a god at kitbashing, you do realize that is $450USD for those models right?

Thats the sole reason i dont run 9 of them lol. God theyre expensive.

Also the shield drone idea is dumb. Drones dont get the armor of the unit theyre attached to anymore - you actually want missiledrones and hide them BEHIND the broadsides because theyre easy to pick off (4+ or 4++ doesnt matter still easy to pick off) and all you gotta do is hack a couple and bam, leadership check. Without an ethereal around, forcing leaderships on broadsides is not pleasant.

If at the very least Shield Drones got the 2+ armor, then they would be viable. Aside from an Ethereal buying drones, nothing that can take drones should ever, ever have shield drones in this codex. Ethereal purely because the weapons that hardcore wipe him out can be LOS'd to a 4++ model.

 TheKbob wrote:
Psh, you want nine broadsides?

Buy nine, max Shield drones, get a skyshield, place it in the front center of your deployment zone. Give them all early warning override.

Have fun as you now have shielded missile drones soaking wounds for your broadsides as they cascade fire.

For extra hilarity, put the riptide on the skyshield right behind them. Can see the entire table and now a 4++. Hide an ethereal behind him.

Have fun!

Why would you buy shield drones and then put them on spomething that gives you a 4++ anyways. At least buy missile drones.....

 TheKbob wrote:
Psh, you want nine broadsides?

Buy nine, max Shield drones, get a skyshield, place it in the front center of your deployment zone. Give them all early warning override.

Have fun as you now have shielded missile drones soaking wounds for your broadsides as they cascade fire.

For extra hilarity, put the riptide on the skyshield right behind them. Can see the entire table and now a 4++. Hide an ethereal behind him.

Have fun!

It is people like you who give Tau a bad name...

Coyote81 wrote:
Why would you buy shield drones and then put them on spomething that gives you a 4++ anyways. At least buy missile drones.....

I meant missile. Derp on my part.

IHateNids wrote:It is people like you who give Tau a bad name...

No, you're thinking of the Buff Commander and the guy who invented the O'Vesa Star...

 TheKbob wrote:

IHateNids wrote:It is people like you who give Tau a bad name...

No, you're thinking of the Buff Commander and the guy who invented the O'Vesa Star...

Dare I say I haven't heard of the O'Vesa Star. Could you enlighten me?

 IHateNids wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:

IHateNids wrote:It is people like you who give Tau a bad name...

No, you're thinking of the Buff Commander and the guy who invented the O'Vesa Star...

Dare I say I haven't heard of the O'Vesa Star. Could you enlighten me?

hahaha thats me! Ovesa star is basically ovesa, who's a special character IC riptide attached to a burst cannon tide with 2 shielded missile drones (so 4 shielded missile drones total) and then farsight and an allied buff commander from codex tau attached to that. Its 22 majority t6 wounds with 3 independant characters for max lookout sir wound allocation shenanigans. The burst tide also gets target lock and skyfire along with the talisman for 4d6 deny the witch. I mean its ONLY 922 points the way i ran it at nova...

I recently tried out 3 missilesides with zephyrs grace from an ethereal and some ml's from skyrays to buff their bs while on the move, pretty effective. Cant say I'd run 9 though, probably just a 3 man. Not that you cant, just that you run out of marker support if you just run rays like i do. I guess if i was running tau with forgeworld I'd throw some tetras in there and run 2 rays/2 units of sides with some tetra support. Thatd probably be sufficient.

I own 8 of them and I swear by them. They are magnificient for what they do. I don't take all 8 of them in games though I usually take one or two squads (3 guys in each squad, all with drones) and give them early warning overide. Just pure nasty.

Thanatos how can a character join a monstrous creature? I know the Riptide charactor can but how can the buff commander and oshava?

 Fishboy wrote:
Thanatos how can a character join a monstrous creature? I know the Riptide charactor can but how can the buff commander and oshava?

Are Riptides units that always consist of a single model?

Is there any restriction in the BRB on an IC joining a Monstrous Creature?




Anyway, Broadsides can be mobile.

Take Ethereal. Zephyr's Grace to Snap Shot after running.

Shoot at something with two Markerlights.

You now have a 6" + d6" +36/30" bubble of death. On a good day that is 48" hitting with 75% of your firepower. Even without the Ethereal, move and just spend one or two Markerlights. Broadsides don't have to be as static as people think and the extra 6" is huge to their threat range.

@thanatos67 I'm building up to your Nova list. I was at Nova this year with my cron air and got my but kicked twice by 2++ korn dogs and 4 FMCs. The group I play with are VERY competitive which is good as it forces me to be a better player (I've only being playing regularly now for 1.5 years) but what I've figured out so far after playing Tau for a month is that it doesn't matter what you've got if you don't know what your doing with your army you will lose - period. I'm a prime example of that. In one of my first games with my riptides a SM player tank shocked all three of them with rhinos and they ran off the board. I spent too much time shooting at the front armor on his vindies :(

So, yeah, my advice would be to only buy three broadsides tops - that's still $150! Spend the other $300 on other pieces of the army like a sky ray or maybe a riptide I find I learn best by making really stupid mistakes and then tweaking my tactics and my list. It took me a year to get my necron mojo on doing that but I only play once a week. If I could ditch the wife and kids and quit my job I would probably have a better chance at the tournament scene

 Fishboy wrote:
Thanatos how can a character join a monstrous creature? I know the Riptide charactor can but how can the buff commander and oshava?

The only restrictions an IC has to joining a unit are 1) must be in the movement phase 2) cannot be a vehicle or 3) cannot be a unit that ALWAYS composes of a single model unless its another IC. Riptides are a unit of 1-3 models, so rule dodge successful.

My heavy support is as follows:

3 Hammerheads
3 rail broadsides with plasma and seeker missile and drones
3 rail broadsides with plasma and seeker missile and drones and 2 skyrays

I don't take anything else. This is mostly because of how I run the rest of my force, if your army needs tons of str 7, then 9 broadsides with missiles works for you.

 necron99 wrote:
@thanatos67 I'm building up to your Nova list. I was at Nova this year with my cron air and got my but kicked twice by 2++ korn dogs and 4 FMCs. The group I play with are VERY competitive which is good as it forces me to be a better player (I've only being playing regularly now for 1.5 years) but what I've figured out so far after playing Tau for a month is that it doesn't matter what you've got if you don't know what your doing with your army you will lose - period. I'm a prime example of that. In one of my first games with my riptides a SM player tank shocked all three of them with rhinos and they ran off the board. I spent too much time shooting at the front armor on his vindies :(

So, yeah, my advice would be to only buy three broadsides tops - that's still $150! Spend the other $300 on other pieces of the army like a sky ray or maybe a riptide I find I learn best by making really stupid mistakes and then tweaking my tactics and my list. It took me a year to get my necron mojo on doing that but I only play once a week. If I could ditch the wife and kids and quit my job I would probably have a better chance at the tournament scene

You can do it man, most of the tournament guys I know are married, myself included! I did play a lot more practice games before though. Also, having a good group to practice with really helps. Me and the NOVA ren man Matt Defranza are on the same store team, live close to each other, and talk strategy frequently. We have a battle report video up in the battle report forum here on dakka if you want to see a rundown of how I take on a seer council or vice versa.

Back on the broadside topic: another way to run them, and this is a bit more static but also likely more durable, is in a bastion. You cant put drones in a bastion because only infantry can embark, but the av14 shelter can provide solid protection for your broadsides. I also like the skyshield suggestion mentioned earlier.

 juraigamer wrote:
My heavy support is as follows:

3 Hammerheads
3 rail broadsides with plasma and seeker missile and drones
3 rail broadsides with plasma and seeker missile and drones and 2 skyrays

I don't take anything else. This is mostly because of how I run the rest of my force, if your army needs tons of str 7, then 9 broadsides with missiles works for you.

Why railsides? theyre terrible now. +1 Str and AP1 is better than S7 AP4 yes but not when its 1v4 shots. The only upside is it has a chance to paste T4 models, but most units with that have enough where 3-6 S8 shots will take awhile to get to anything (except foot nobz)

Killing my target is more important them spamming str 7 shots when I have killing that stuff covered by the rest of the army. They also make sure I'm always firing my broadsides, not wasting turns cause nothing's in range. Also the rails work better vs enemy MC and such. The instant death thing rarely comes into play. Ignore cover ap 1 all day.

 Vineheart01 wrote:

 Fishboy wrote:
Thanatos how can a character join a monstrous creature? I know the Riptide charactor can but how can the buff commander and oshava?

The only restrictions an IC has to joining a unit are 1) must be in the movement phase 2) cannot be a vehicle or 3) cannot be a unit that ALWAYS composes of a single model unless its another IC. Riptides are a unit of 1-3 models, so rule dodge successful.

Riptides are 1-3? I thought they were a single model entry

Drones count as models in all rules and situations. The only difference between drones and regular units is a unit composed of drones alone cannot score or deny, aside from that treat them like normal jetpack infantry.

Riptides can take 2 shielded missile drones. Noone ever does because they are complete crap lol. If they either had the armor save of the riptide or had a better BS it might be viable.....might...

1 tide and 2 drones he means, it's legal if a bit gamey, sorta like 5th ed wound shenanigans, legal but frowned on in a friendly, tourny however... Do what you want

Ic's can join if there are drones with the riptide.it got faqed if I remember correctly.

 Commander_Nightflier wrote:
Ic's can join if there are drones with the riptide.it got faqed if I remember correctly.

Pretty sure there's no FAQ, and the argument that holds water doesn't require you to actually take the drones. Just the fact they CAN be taken is enough to adhere to the letter of the law. I do feel like this is all a bit Enron though.

EDIT: Disregard

thanatos67 wrote:

 necron99 wrote:
@thanatos67 I'm building up to your Nova list. I was at Nova this year with my cron air and got my but kicked twice by 2++ korn dogs and 4 FMCs. The group I play with are VERY competitive which is good as it forces me to be a better player (I've only being playing regularly now for 1.5 years) but what I've figured out so far after playing Tau for a month is that it doesn't matter what you've got if you don't know what your doing with your army you will lose - period. I'm a prime example of that. In one of my first games with my riptides a SM player tank shocked all three of them with rhinos and they ran off the board. I spent too much time shooting at the front armor on his vindies :(

So, yeah, my advice would be to only buy three broadsides tops - that's still $150! Spend the other $300 on other pieces of the army like a sky ray or maybe a riptide I find I learn best by making really stupid mistakes and then tweaking my tactics and my list. It took me a year to get my necron mojo on doing that but I only play once a week. If I could ditch the wife and kids and quit my job I would probably have a better chance at the tournament scene

You can do it man, most of the tournament guys I know are married, myself included! I did play a lot more practice games before though. Also, having a good group to practice with really helps. Me and the NOVA ren man Matt Defranza are on the same store team, live close to each other, and talk strategy frequently. We have a battle report video up in the battle report forum here on dakka if you want to see a rundown of how I take on a seer council or vice versa.

Back on the broadside topic: another way to run them, and this is a bit more static but also likely more durable, is in a bastion. You cant put drones in a bastion because only infantry can embark, but the av14 shelter can provide solid protection for your broadsides. I also like the skyshield suggestion mentioned earlier.

I ran the broadsides in bastion setup at the recent Feast of Blades. Didn't lose a broadside all tournament.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Drones count as models in all rules and situations. The only difference between drones and regular units is a unit composed of drones alone cannot score or deny, aside from that treat them like normal jetpack infantry.

Riptides can take 2 shielded missile drones. Noone ever does because they are complete crap lol. If they either had the armor save of the riptide or had a better BS it might be viable.....might...

Actually, taking a shielded missile drone now gives your broadside a much better chance of living through grav-rifle volleys, seeing as they only would on 4+ (majority armor save is now 4+)

 Vineheart01 wrote:


Why railsides? theyre terrible now. +1 Str and AP1 is better than S7 AP4 yes but not when its 1v4 shots. The only upside is it has a chance to paste T4 models, but most units with that have enough where 3-6 S8 shots will take awhile to get to anything (except foot nobz)

I see this kind of comment bouncing around in the conventional wisdom echo-chamber a lot. It boils down to:

"Railsides are bad because reasons."

Railsides are not bad. Pound for pound they may be less math-hammer effective than HYMPs, until you're playing on an actual 6' table and not a 2x2' square crammed into a GWS store.

Now, I'm not saying a lot of people on these forums seem not to own the codices they're commenting on, or indeed play many if any games of 40k, but...actually I guess that's what I'm saying.

TLHRR is a good gun. It has almost twice the range of the HYMPs, which means that it can threaten a -huge- swath of the board. I kill Monstrous Creatures with them all the time. I kill tanks with them all the time. I do a lot of this outside the 36" that renders the HYMP not only less effective, but completely ineffective. You can't kill what you can't reach.

Also, HYMPs look stupid. Just saying.

i will agree the fist-bump rocket packs look dumb lol. Im in the process of converting mine into a BFG.

CDRAlbrecht wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:


Why railsides? theyre terrible now. +1 Str and AP1 is better than S7 AP4 yes but not when its 1v4 shots. The only upside is it has a chance to paste T4 models, but most units with that have enough where 3-6 S8 shots will take awhile to get to anything (except foot nobz)

I see this kind of comment bouncing around in the conventional wisdom echo-chamber a lot. It boils down to:

"Railsides are bad because reasons."

Railsides are not bad. Pound for pound they may be less math-hammer effective than HYMPs, until you're playing on an actual 6' table and not a 2x2' square crammed into a GWS store.

Now, I'm not saying a lot of people on these forums seem not to own the codices they're commenting on, or indeed play many if any games of 40k, but...actually I guess that's what I'm saying.

TLHRR is a good gun. It has almost twice the range of the HYMPs, which means that it can threaten a -huge- swath of the board. I kill Monstrous Creatures with them all the time. I kill tanks with them all the time. I do a lot of this outside the 36" that renders the HYMP not only less effective, but completely ineffective. You can't kill what you can't reach.

Also, HYMPs look stupid. Just saying.

3 TLHRR can be a seriously dangerous to tanks, as it only takes one pen to have a good chance of killing a tank