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Ok, so I recently bought a Dictator from Khurasan miniatures. Saw one on the internet and had to buy one for my growing Tau army. The problem is the gun.
As you can see from the image attached, the gun mounted on this machine couldn't really pass off as any other Tau weaponry. Sure - I could remove the guns from their pivots and replace them with Rail or Ion cannons, but the model just fits so well as a whole. I have also been toying with the idea of tau artillery recently, but I do not know how to go about this (i've never made up rules for a model before, and wouldn't even BEGIN to know how to balance it).

What I'm looking for are balanced ways to have Tau artillery - Any suggestions at all would be great! (I'm sure I can come up with some fluff for the thing)

One. that looks a little bit like a necron but i think its fine for tau...
maybe try Artillery support drone.
WS BS [F S R] I A
2 3 11 10 10 2 1
Unit type-infantry
Special rules-slow and purpesful, supporting fire.
Weapons-Twin linked markerlight. and a custom weapon. i am brainstorming rules for the new weapon tonight

I'd be inclined to call the weapon a twin-linked ion cannon.

An alternative version might have that be some kind of plasma cannon or fusion cannon, though I think large blasts would be incredibly nasty and small blasts mostly useless, so I'm not sure here.

Question: how big is the model?

Otherwise, I would go with something like:

Artillery Drone / Heavy Support / 90 points
Monstrous Creature (Drone)
BS 3 / WS 3 / S 5 / T 6 / W 4 / I 4 / A 1 / Ld 9 / Sv 4+

Wargear:
- Photomagnetic Arc Discharger (R 120" / S 8 / AP 5 / Heavy 7, Ignores Cover, No-LoS, Twin-Linked)
- Blacksun Filter

Options:
- Add up to three adittional Artillery Drones +90 points/model
- Add up to six Shielded Missile Drones (see Riptide entry) +25 points/model

Cheers for the replies, liking your idea ATM AtoMaki... The model is about the size of a Hammerhead, and I was thinking that it could be used as an alternative to them on a world where hovers aren't really an option...

In keeping with the "sea life" names - maybe King Crab?

Something crab related defo... I'll search around

Edit: I quite like the name "Spider Crab"... Thanks for the idea Jade


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok, some basic fluff for this vehicle. One of the planets the Tau are fighting on has an unusual radiation, making hovers almost completely useless. After many crashes of Piranhas and Hammerheads, the T'au council decided to verify use of the "Spider Crab" experimental artillery. Capable of firing high splash-damage shots over extreme distances, it annihilated entire squads of Orcs from a defended position. Testing continues...