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Hey Dakka~

With the plethora of Grav, Shriek, DE lances, Eldar rending guns, S8 guns, Lascannons, Melta Imperial Knights, etc. I've been really thinking of putting Broadsides to the shelf.

The standard points with all around Interceptor or Target Lock for a unit of 3 comes out to 210. I'm not saying they are a bad deal. They have a really good amount of firepower for what they cost, but on a much more "fragile" base @ Toughness 4. For 20 points less, I can get an IA Riptide with Interceptor. Much more durability, but also substantially less firepower. (I've done the math hammer, IA and HBC Riptides put no where near as much damage out as a unit of 3 Broadsides counting Nova Reactor failures etc. considering all 3 continue to survive) Placing them in ruins for a 4+ cover just doesn't seem to cut it when an S8 just pops them or they just get weight of fired down. Drones as ablative wounds also don't help that much as it just forces the Broadsides to take LD on their not so stellar LD sooner.

So with all that said, do I drop my firepower down so I can shoot for more turns in the game due to a more durable platform? Or do I hope the Broadsides don't get wiped out and keep up with the superior firepower? Leaning towards the Riptide... sell me on Broadsides if you can... (Most of the builds I see that are placing high in national tournaments don't have any Broadsides at all)

Imperial Bunker and some drones inside (I think you ca put +5 and still shoot with them all) to eat up the falling debris if the bunker is penned.

I believe you can put Broadsides in the bigger bunker but one of your best bets is also the landing pad if you're looking at taking fortifications to keep them safe. Gives them a 4+ invulnerable save and a high platform from which to shoot from. broadsides do put out a lot of firepower but as you mentioned them being T4 does hurt, taking drones with them is a good way to minimize damage to the Broadsides itself as you can position them between Broadsides to give yourself a lot of spacing to negata damage of Large Blast Templates ect.

 gmaleron wrote:
I believe you can put Broadsides in the bigger bunker but one of your best bets is also the landing pad if you're looking at taking fortifications to keep them safe. Gives them a 4+ invulnerable save and a high platform from which to shoot from. broadsides do put out a lot of firepower but as you mentioned them being T4 does hurt, taking drones with them is a good way to minimize damage to the Broadsides itself as you can position them between Broadsides to give yourself a lot of spacing to negata damage of Large Blast Templates ect.

the problem of the Imperial Bastion (the larger bunker you're talking about, right?) is that its fire points do not share line of sight. Imperial Bunker (the smaller one) has 2 wide firepoints (allowing 8 models to fire through them) and both share the same line of sight.

The bunker option is okay. It's relatively cheap (cheaper than outfitting them with drones actually), you can squeeze a cheap buffmander w/ MSSS in there if you really want to go wild and you can (and should) pop a comms relay on top to guide your crisis in on time.

That being said, Broadsides in general have always underwhelmed me. They're a huge fire magnet (or points sink, as above), and they're virtually immobile in a meta that prizes mobility above all else. They're not bad, they just don't effect the game in EVERY game. And I want to fill my army with things that regardless of mission, deployment type and opponent, effect the game every time. If Broadsides get stuck in Vanguard or Hammer and Anvil deployment in the back, bunker or no, their effect will often be minimal.

Regardless of the way you go, remember that it looks like Tau is getting a new codex.

Riptides might be nerfed like crazy, and Broadsides might be buffed up. You might want to save the cash and wait it out a few months til the rumors start leaking.

But can they benefit from markers if they're inside a building?

 koooaei wrote:
But can they benefit from markers if they're inside a building?

Of course. Fire points give line of sight to the outside. If you can trace a line of sight from the fire point to the enemy, it's ok.