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Hello everyone, with the recent purchase of some Tau and the decision to go with a Farsight Enclave list I am debating either running a few teams of x2 Broadsides or Hammerheads instead of the standard "Tri-Riptide" look that seems to be so popular amongst Tau players. Now I have broken them down like this:

Hammerhead:

-Strength 10 Rail Shot = dead armor
-Can take Submunition Rounds to handle Infantry
-13 front armor vehicle
-skimmer with jink save, mobile

Broadsides:

-x2 TL-S8 AP1 shots
-2+ Armor Save and multiple wounds
-Can get "Skyfire" Option
-Stationary

Just wanted to see what you guys thought would be a better option in regards to filling the roll of anti-armor for a battlesuit heavy army. This thread however is open to debate amongst anyone who feels one way or another about this particular topic. Thanks for reading and replying guys!

Railsides are pretty lousy against armor now. In exchange for only glancing AV13 instead of being able to pen on a 6, you gain 3 more shots per broadside. Only drawback is less range, but almost every situation the only things out of range after moving 1 turn are things they cant hurt anyway (AV13/14 rearfield tanks)

Railheads may only be 1 shot and isnt twinlinked, but it will obliterate whatever it lands on and for a 5pt upgrade you can make it hunt infantry too when/if theres no armor to shoot.

If you do take hammerheads, take more than one even if you take longstrike. So many times I have seen even longstrike just either miss, or fail to pen or even glance AV14. If you at least take 2 hammerheads, you double your chances of hitting something.

 gmaleron wrote:
Hello everyone, with the recent purchase of some Tau and the decision to go with a Farsight Enclave list I am debating either running a few teams of x2 Broadsides or Hammerheads instead of the standard "Tri-Riptide" look that seems to be so popular amongst Tau players. Now I have broken them down like this:

Hammerhead:

-Strength 10 Rail Shot = dead armor
-Can take Submunition Rounds to handle Infantry
-13 front armor vehicle
-skimmer with jink save, mobile

Broadsides:

-x2 TL-S8 AP1 shots
-2+ Armor Save and multiple wounds
-Can get "Skyfire" Option
-Stationary

Just wanted to see what you guys thought would be a better option in regards to filling the roll of anti-armor for a battlesuit heavy army. This thread however is open to debate amongst anyone who feels one way or another about this particular topic. Thanks for reading and replying guys!

When you say open to debate do you mean I can give suggestions at our "better" anti-AV units/models? Because I honestly don't like either of those options for popping AV. (I'm assuming were talking about mostly capabilities to take out high AV) Also note that I'm all about efficient and reliable models. I like having a consistent army that performs the way I want it to when I need it to. With that said....

Hammerheads are expensive for their reliability. If you miss then that's all that 125 point model is going to do this turn. If you hit with it, great! But don't buy into the "group think" that anything it hits will just MELT. This so so far from the truth when your taking a stock Hammerhead. To pen an AV14 you still need 4+... otherwise your just glancing it slowly. Not that reliable even if it does hit :/ Do the math. It's like a .66 chance you'll hit (without ML support) and then it's 11% chance you DESTROY it. I'm assuming your using some ML's to remove the vehicles cover, otherwise it's even worse!

The railgun Broadsides are definitely more reliable. Efficient? Not so much when your taking them to deal with AV14. With 2x Broadsides your doing about .5 HP off a turn on average. Kinda bad... Against AV13 about 1 HP off a turn with a 25% chance of popping it. Not bad, but still bad...lol (Again ignoring cover saves, if they get saves it's much much worse now)

Enter the Dual TL Fusion Blaster Deepstriking Crisis Suit. 1HP off a turn with a 40~% chance of destroying a target. 1TLFB +FB ~ DS within melta range which isn't too hard without really unlucky rolls and whatever your aiming at will almost definitely disintegrate. Or run it on the board already if they are bringing a LR that had some strong melee units in it. They will be driving it and turbo boosting it forward for you so just stay out of LOS until it's close enough. Make them think twice about coming close. Give them more options/threats and they'll start messing up.

My .02. GL!

I assume you mean a single FB a few then a twinlinked one? You can only take 3 hard points on a suit. Twinlinking uses 2 hard points.

wighti wrote:
I assume you mean a single FB a few then a twinlinked one? You can only take 3 hard points on a suit. Twinlinking uses 2 hard points.

My bad! Yes, that! ^ fixed

Usually i have a crisis bomb consisting of 2 duoplasmas and one with fusions/targetlocks. This team almost always has a buffmander with them, making them twinlinked/ignore cover by default and tank hunter. Little expensive, but the unit does not need marker support and if you put the iridium combo on the commander they are very resilient. Duo meltas, assuming you didnt scatter outside doublepen range (9" for us), with tankhunter will basically autokill armor.

Hammerheads only have the advantage of positioning over meltas. A melta outside 9" is pretty crap against high AV, hammerhead still has a shot. But like syypher said its a lot of stock into a single shot. 125pts naked (146 before i even think about it, adding sub rounds bsfilter and d-pods) for a shot that only has a 50% chance to pop AV14 and no recovery if it fails. It really should have been twinlinked on its own for that cost. Longstrike buffs make it more viable but then its preeeeetty expensive (170pts before d-pods which are basically auto-take for any vehicle)

I prefer to use my railsides (plus plasma) for both anti air and anti elite. If you need anti-heavy tank, hammerheads are great. Upgrade with submunitions when possible.

For other anti tank woes, fusion guns are best. From battlesuits, riptides and even stealth suits. Sadly, tau's long range vs av 14 sucks right now.