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Thoughts on Broadsides in 7th?

They round out with SMS+HYMP for 65pts. For a full squad with target locks + 6x missile drones for ablative wounds your spending about 270pts for this unit. It doesn't seem that tough to put down, at least in my experience.

After the drones are gone weight of fire just seems to take them out fast. Feels like they are such a fire magnet that they end up not pulling their weight that much during a game and surely with the changes in 7th we could possibly have a better option that we might be overlooking...

One other thing is they are so static. Since most their good guns are Heavy, after turn 1, they are generally standing and shooting. This makes it very easy for an enemy to out deploy, or pick the unit apart at their choosing since it's "slow." Unless you want to be snap firing every turn.

Alternatives for roughly 270pts:
-2x Railgun + Sub-munition Hammerheads: I believe these guys will have more survivability with the new vehicle damage chart and are AV13 which is tough to crack. Dishes out 2x Large Blast S6AP4s and adds the versatility of possible effective but not so efficient S10 AP1s at range. This option covers infantry as well as the anti-AV role.

-IA/Burst-Tide: This is a Riptide... it does things Riptides do. They did take a bit of a hit due to smash but it's still a Riptide. It has lots of shots and is very durable for a shooting platform, but also has great mobility.

-3 squadrons of 2 Burst Piranhas: Got your anti-tank covered already? Here's 36 S5 shots to your face infantry, bikers, terminators.

-Or maybe just filling out on more and larger Farsight crisis squads instead of a bunch of 1 ofs here and there. Ex. Flesh out your dual fusion blaster single suits to be squads of 2 instead. Maybe include a squad of 3x dual Burst Cannon suits. etc. etc.


Just a thought... I could be crazy but hopefully this isn't the case. So far I'm leaning towards the more durable dual Hammerheads with submunitions, riptide, or fleshing out my deep striking crisis suit squads.

What do you guys think?

if your opponent is a big reserves guy, equip EWOs. you fire on your opponent's turn, move on yours. if your opponent doesn't use reserves, still move on your turn and snapfire in your shooting phase.

HYMP broadsides are absurdly good for their price, so the question is: do you prefer a boring and incredibly powerful unit, or a less powerful yet more fun unit?

Because broadsides with HYMP are pretty much the definition of "too good, too boring"

Hopefully our next codex will have broadsides price increase by 5, plasma reduced to free and HRR buffed so its actually worth taking (tank hunter? lance? SOMETHING to let it punch through tanks like it should.)

 syypher wrote:
Thoughts on Broadsides in 7th?

They round out with SMS+HYMP for 65pts. For a full squad with target locks + 6x missile drones for ablative wounds your spending about 270pts for this unit. It doesn't seem that tough to put down, at least in my experience.

After the drones are gone weight of fire just seems to take them out fast. Feels like they are such a fire magnet that they end up not pulling their weight that much during a game and surely with the changes in 7th we could possibly have a better option that we might be overlooking...

One other thing is they are so static. Since most their good guns are Heavy, after turn 1, they are generally standing and shooting. This makes it very easy for an enemy to out deploy, or pick the unit apart at their choosing since it's "slow." Unless you want to be snap firing every turn.

Alternatives for roughly 270pts:
-2x Railgun + Sub-munition Hammerheads: I believe these guys will have more survivability with the new vehicle damage chart and are AV13 which is tough to crack. Dishes out 2x Large Blast S6AP4s and adds the versatility of possible effective but not so efficient S10 AP1s at range. This option covers infantry as well as the anti-AV role.

-IA/Burst-Tide: This is a Riptide... it does things Riptides do. They did take a bit of a hit due to smash but it's still a Riptide. It has lots of shots and is very durable for a shooting platform, but also has great mobility.

-3 squadrons of 2 Burst Piranhas: Got your anti-tank covered already? Here's 36 S5 shots to your face infantry, bikers, terminators.

-Or maybe just filling out on more and larger Farsight crisis squads instead of a bunch of 1 ofs here and there. Ex. Flesh out your dual fusion blaster single suits to be squads of 2 instead. Maybe include a squad of 3x dual Burst Cannon suits. etc. etc.


Just a thought... I could be crazy but hopefully this isn't the case. So far I'm leaning towards the more durable dual Hammerheads with submunitions, riptide, or fleshing out my deep striking crisis suit squads.

What do you guys think?

I replaced my Broadsides with Riptides. As it was, even before the new codex, I only ever used 2 singular Broadsides with a pair of Shield Drones, and I used them for a very specific tactical reason, not as much for damage output.

So I don't think you're crazy. My only question really is, whats the tactic you're trying to employ. Broadsides DO work better in some limited situations, so it depends on the plan. But for the most part, I have long been a minimal user of them. I own plenty but... Never really deployed more than 2. I tried three for a bit, all mono with Drones, but went back to two.

LOL maybe it is their boringness that makes me not like them...

Do you guys tend to run them in squads of 3? 2? 1? Do you pump up their shield or missile drones to give them ablative wounds or keep them just stock?

Firebase support cadre. One imperial bunker. Win.

Don't spend 270 on your broadsides. Put EWO and nothing else on them.

Then you can run Farsight suits and jump shoot jump with everything else. Outflank your Kroot. Nova-Jump your riptides. Lots of other units to move around in a fun way.

I just run the firebase support cadre too, and I don't put a bunch of drones or anything on them. From my experience, they've gone full out beast mode in just about every game I use them. It was rare that they didn't leave a crater where their target use to be after each round of shooting. Their ability to shut down drop pod shennanigans and flier spam made them all the more versatile.

Where do I go find the firebase support cadre? I keep hearing about it. I don't know what to do or what book it's in..

It's a digital download. So iTunes. Or google it.

Yes broadsides are very static and can't hop around claiming objectives, but their biggest use is map control. Your opponents will avoid them like the plague allowing your other stuff to control mid.

One of the main appeals of the firebase support cadre to me is that it doesn't take up my precious heavy support slots. I'm a heavy slot fanatic and getting to run 2 full units of broadsides, 2 sky rays, and 1 hammerhead just makes me too happy on the battlefield. Outstanding rules of the formation aside, I think it's too good to pass up and well worth the cost of the dataslate.

My army would walk up to their bunker in Raiders and venoms and Jink to the extent I can. Round two, bunkers die. Round three, Broadsides die. Theres a lot of cost involved in that tactic but theres also a ton of points you're killing. So all in all: totally worth it! That army is brutal though and if Tau get first turn with it, its gnarly. Null deploying makes sense if you can manipulate it.

I hate tau, but let me give my opinion on something. No drones. Please, no drones. Every tau player I've fought, I think I touched their actual broadsides maybe once. I always just kill the drones and let them run off the table.

 krodarklorr wrote:
I hate tau, but let me give my opinion on something. No drones. Please, no drones. Every tau player I've fought, I think I touched their actual broadsides maybe once. I always just kill the drones and let them run off the table.

That's what I've learned through trial and error... Now I don't take drones with them hahah


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lessthanjeff wrote:
One of the main appeals of the firebase support cadre to me is that it doesn't take up my precious heavy support slots. I'm a heavy slot fanatic and getting to run 2 full units of broadsides, 2 sky rays, and 1 hammerhead just makes me too happy on the battlefield. Outstanding rules of the formation aside, I think it's too good to pass up and well worth the cost of the dataslate.

I LOVE this too. That's why I take double CAD. 1 being Tau and 1 being Farsight. That way I can take my Crisis Suits as scoring, and still get a buff commander. Sticking with the limit of only building my list from 2 sources (because thats how the tournaments are locally run here) I can't take the Firebase Support Cadre if I want a buffcommander + scoring suits as FSE + Tau uses up my 2 sources already.

 Jancoran wrote:
My army would walk up to their bunker in Raiders and venoms and Jink to the extent I can. Round two, bunkers die. Round three, Broadsides die. Theres a lot of cost involved in that tactic but theres also a ton of points you're killing. So all in all: totally worth it! That army is brutal though and if Tau get first turn with it, its gnarly. Null deploying makes sense if you can manipulate it.

That's very funny. Literally every unit in my army can kill a venom or a raider without blinking. The broadsides don't even need to use their HYMP. The SMS is twin linked, ignores cover, doesn't require line of sight, and the entire support cadre has Tank Hunter. And most of the contents are so insanely squishy. This is not going to go your way.

Kholzerino wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
My army would walk up to their bunker in Raiders and venoms and Jink to the extent I can. Round two, bunkers die. Round three, Broadsides die. Theres a lot of cost involved in that tactic but theres also a ton of points you're killing. So all in all: totally worth it! That army is brutal though and if Tau get first turn with it, its gnarly. Null deploying makes sense if you can manipulate it.

That's very funny. Literally every unit in my army can kill a venom or a raider without blinking. The broadsides don't even need to use their HYMP. The SMS is twin linked, ignores cover, doesn't require line of sight, and the entire support cadre has Tank Hunter. And most of the contents are so insanely squishy. This is not going to go your way.

Yes but what you're probably missing here is that losing the Raiders is expected and part of the plan. So. there is that. =). No one rushes Raiders and expects them to live to next round. Added bonus if they do.