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So this has been bothering me quite a bit, the tau love mobile warfare but the smallest transport aircraft they have is the orca which carries 24 FW, a full drone squad and 6 crisis suits. You'd think they would have something that could just carry squads and maybe a squad of crisis suits would you not?

 RileyJessup wrote:
So this has been bothering me quite a bit, the tau love mobile warfare but the smallest transport aircraft they have is the orca which carries 24 FW, a full drone squad and 6 crisis suits. You'd think they would have something that could just carry squads and maybe a squad of crisis suits would you not?

with their jet packs and hover tanks they may have less of a perceived need for it. but yeah it does seem an odd lack, If I was tasked with proposing a new unit for the Tau a flier transport'd be it capable of carrying a firewarrior team, lightly armed and armored basicly to fliers what a rhino is to tanks

Because Tau aren't stupid like humans.

Devilfish carries a squad.

They aren't as well-versed in the "arts" of warfare as humanity or any of the other races (whom have ALL been doing it for soooooo much longer).

Fast transport fliers will come when they git gud. They have to catch up to 38,000+ years experience that the others each have.

 chromedog wrote:
Devilfish carries a squad.

They aren't as well-versed in the "arts" of warfare as humanity or any of the other races (whom have ALL been doing it for soooooo much longer).

Fast transport fliers will come when they git gud. They have to catch up to 38,000+ years experience that the others each have.

mankind began using flier transports when fliers where only a few decades old

As Chromedog stated, the Devilfish carries a squad, and can fly just fine, when it's not hugging the ground as a tank.

I could see the Tau having a flyer dedicated to this in the form of a stealth craft to position units like pathfinders and breachers on occasions that call for stealth. Considering that they already have a lot of their elites as flying and deep striking and a DF can do most of their base troop insertions, I'd think such a craft would be rare.

Another option would be that they could drop drone squads only and act as a stealthy C&C unit for drones.

The Tau use Stealth Teams and Crisis Suits for spec ops drops, they don't need Valkyries. Devilfish are fast enough to redeploy troops for everything else.

The real question is why the Skyray can't carry troops; all its missiles are externally mounted and what exactly is taking up the belly of the tank? At least the Hammerhead can argue it need room for power generation/ammunition.

Spitballing - the interior of the Sky Ray is taken up by enormous radar-equivalents, tracking systems, and computers. Have to shoot down high-flying hypersonic aircraft somehow.

 Verviedi wrote:
Spitballing - the interior of the Sky Ray is taken up by enormous radar-equivalents, tracking systems, and computers. Have to shoot down high-flying hypersonic aircraft somehow.

Seems legit.

Personally I don't think every faction needs to have equivalents of things in everyone else's army- the game would become a bit more bland if everyone had access to everything. Fluffwise, Tau fight much differently than the Imperium. Imperial armies (at least the Astra Militarum) fights huge wars of attrition, winning by drowning their enemies in bodies. Tau prefer fast, efficient precision strikes, minimizing friendly casualties whenever possible. Putting troops in a flimsy flying bullseye might not be the safest way to get them to the front, when you can instead put them in a fairly heavily-armored Devilfish that is probably capable of really hauling ass over open terrain when it needs to. When air transport is required by the Tau, they have Orcas and Mantas to handle that.

GW doesnt have a model for one. Moment they make one they appear in the universe in large numbers as if they where plucked there by some omnipotent being, only to serve in a great pantomime with pretty colors and big explosions.

And it will have always been there all of a sudden. Like the Stormraven when it was "Yeah only the Blood Angels and their successors have these and they are very rare...oh and the Silver Mary Sues they have them too cause.... Mary Sues." And then it became "Screw it everyone has them and always have had them, for thousands of years in fact."

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
And it will have always been there all of a sudden. Like the Stormraven when it was "Yeah only the Blood Angels and their successors have these and they are very rare...oh and the Silver Mary Sues they have them too cause.... Mary Sues." And then it became "Screw it everyone has them and always have had them, for thousands of years in fact."

That's a funny way to spell Land Raider Crusader.

Or Predator Annihilator. Tech-Heresy Best Heresy.

 John Prins wrote:
The real question is why the Skyray can't carry troops; all its missiles are externally mounted and what exactly is taking up the belly of the tank?

The interior is taken up by the decent rules for the Sky Ray that GW refuses to release. After so many editions of being utter trash both competitively and fluff-wise that's a lot of rule fixes to carry around!

Anyway, the answer is, as has been said, the Devilfish. Its 40k rules don't really represent the fact that it's much closer to a Valkyrie than a Chimera in function, capable of sustained high speed across any terrain and gunship-style tactics but limited to low-level operations. The Orca is the next step up, a proper orbital dropship with the payload capacity to deploy an entire company-size force in a single trip.

 RileyJessup wrote:
So this has been bothering me quite a bit, the tau love mobile warfare but the smallest transport aircraft they have is the orca which carries 24 FW, a full drone squad and 6 crisis suits. You'd think they would have something that could just carry squads and maybe a squad of crisis suits would you not?

GW hasn't got around designing model for it.

My question would ve why would they need a valk equivalent when they have manata's and devilfish chassis. A manata which seems to be the standard tau dropship can carry 4 devilfish chassis and drop them anywhere.
Also I can't see why the earth cast won't have found someway to rearrange the loading spaces to enable ghostkeels and riptides to be carried so who needs a valk equivelent when you can drop riptides out of a supersonic orbital drop ship thats good enough for starr ship to star ship combat duty. Which is also another use of battlesuits. So if it works in zero gravity and they train for it why shouldn't the same tactics be valid for ground insertion.

 John Prins wrote:

The real question is why the Skyray can't carry troops; all its missiles are externally mounted and what exactly is taking up the belly of the tank? At least the Hammerhead can argue it need room for power generation/ammunition.

Most likely targeting systems.
Driver up front and probably 2 or 3 warriors in back with all the computers.

It's like strapping a missile system to a Bradley. You'd need to fill the tank with all kinds of targeting computers and communication arrays.

BrianDavion wrote:

 chromedog wrote:
Devilfish carries a squad.

They aren't as well-versed in the "arts" of warfare as humanity or any of the other races (whom have ALL been doing it for soooooo much longer).

Fast transport fliers will come when they git gud. They have to catch up to 38,000+ years experience that the others each have.

mankind began using flier transports when fliers where only a few decades old

At that point in Tau evolution, Air Caste could fly.

What was the point of a flier for infantry when the infantry flew?

For the same reason why the Tau don't have any sort of real artillery/indirect fire weaponry. GW forgot that the principles of warfare are kinda universal and that if one sapient species developed a tactic/weapon that worked well in warfare, odds are pretty good other sapient species would eventually stumble upon it as well.

But yeah, the Devilfish is by far the closest equivalent, effectively acting as a hybrid of the Valkyrie and the Chimera, though lacking the firepower the other two boast.

Earth Caste: "Look I made a fast flyer that can carry a full squad!"

Fire Caste: "Why?"

Earth Caste: "So you can get closer to the enemy."

Fire Caste: "...Are you not familiar with how tau combat works?"

 ChargerIIC wrote:
Earth Caste: "Look I made a fast flyer that can carry a full squad!"

Fire Caste: "Why?"

Earth Caste: "So you can get closer to the enemy."

Fire Caste: "...Are you not familiar with how tau combat works?"

Earth Caste: "...So you can get further away from the enemy?"

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:
Earth Caste: "Look I made a fast flyer that can carry a full squad!"

Fire Caste: "Why?"

Earth Caste: "So you can get closer to the enemy."

Fire Caste: "...Are you not familiar with how tau combat works?"

Earth Caste: "...So you can get further away from the enemy?"

That's what this game needs. Something Fire warriors can scramble into jump 36" when melee units close, and then hop out to shoot from max range again.

 RileyJessup wrote:
So this has been bothering me quite a bit, the tau love mobile warfare but the smallest transport aircraft they have is the orca which carries 24 FW, a full drone squad and 6 crisis suits. You'd think they would have something that could just carry squads and maybe a squad of crisis suits would you not?

From where do you draw the conclusion that Tau loves mobile warfare? The only two known tactics of combat doctrine are Kau'yon & Mont'ka. Neither one are mobile - one is sit-and-wait and the other is full on get-in-enemy's-face.

Manta is perfectly-sized carrier for deploying all the components required for their combat doctrine in one go. Sounds pretty efficient to me. Do you mean you just want a flyer transport for Tau?

They love mobile warfare as opposed to taking and holding ground. This is referenced in various codexes. Tau focus more on destroying enemy forces rather than trying to garrison taken ground.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 GI_Redshirt wrote:
For the same reason why the Tau don't have any sort of real artillery/indirect fire weaponry. GW forgot that the principles of warfare are kinda universal and that if one sapient species developed a tactic/weapon that worked well in warfare, odds are pretty good other sapient species would eventually stumble upon it as well.

But yeah, the Devilfish is by far the closest equivalent, effectively acting as a hybrid of the Valkyrie and the Chimera, though lacking the firepower the other two boast.

Artillery isn't actually that efficient a weapon though and has a pretty restricted.range. Tau use long range guided and smart munitions instead to fill the role.of.long.range fire support. Focus os more on making sure.that a munition hits a targ3t rath3r than blanketing a.target area in flying bits of.metal.

 Flinty wrote:
They love mobile warfare as opposed to taking and holding ground. This is referenced in various codexes. Tau focus more on destroying enemy forces rather than trying to garrison taken ground.

But mobile warfare is not the opposite of take & hold. Tau combat doctrine is all about decimating their foe SWIFTLY and DECISIVELY - maybe youre confusing being mobile and being swift. Not liking drawn out battle doesn't equate to preferring a mobile warfare. Mobile warfare is more like dogfights and hit & run style combat style.

 skchsan wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
They love mobile warfare as opposed to taking and holding ground. This is referenced in various codexes. Tau focus more on destroying enemy forces rather than trying to garrison taken ground.

But mobile warfare is not the opposite of take & hold. Tau combat doctrine is all about decimating their foe SWIFTLY and DECISIVELY - maybe youre confusing being mobile and being swift. Not liking drawn out battle doesn't equate to preferring a mobile warfare. Mobile warfare is more like dogfights and hit & run style combat style.

You read any of the Tauros Campaign? It describes Tau hit and hunt tactics a bit. They did a lot of that, drawing Imps into the desert, attacking their supply lines and conducting night raids so the humans couldn't sleep soundly.