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To say that the Sunshark or Razorshark don't add anything is like saying gun drones are worthless because you can already get Firewarriors.

If you don't want to make your Riptides, Broadsides and Battlesuits your AA, you can take a Shark. If you don't want to spam SMS systems, but want to hit enemies out of your troops line of site, you can take a Shark. If you want multiple S7 hits to the rear armor of enemy vehicles, you can take a Shark.

Tau suits are very flexible. There is no role you can't fill with them in some combination. The flyers and others are just there so you don't have to take a particular suit type.

Durandal wrote:
If you don't want to make your Riptides, Broadsides and Battlesuits your AA, you can take a Shark.

But this is a bad assumption. There's no reason not to take those AA options (or the Sky Ray), so what you're really saying is "if you want to make a bad list you can take a bad unit". Outside of deliberately taking sub-optimal choices the Tau flyers have no reason to exist.

Outside wanting to bring it just because you want it, why would you take a super fragile and noticeably expensive unit to fill the unit of a normally ~50-100pts more expensive but WAY more versatile and durable unit? Unless you want 3 units of sniper drones, FOC use isnt the answer since everything in the Heavy that people actually use is for air (skyrays or missilesides).

I find it amusing that the bomber is a better 'fighter', and the fighter is a better.. err.. what was I saying?

 Skabfang wrote:
I find it amusing that the bomber is a better 'fighter', and the fighter is a better.. err.. what was I saying?

That's what happens when you spend about 5 minutes writing the rules for your units, and have no reason to make two separate units beyond an obsessive need to sell multi-unit kits and pretend that they're a good deal.

Pretty much the same reason for the "new" multi-part devilfish/skyray/hammerhead box. Same body they just moved the what 5 pieces that normally werent there depending on which one you bought, increased the price by way more than those 5 pieces would cost, and call it a deal?

Skyrays and hammerheads at least you can properly use the same model for both, just swap the gun out. Cant do that with devilfish as the little "turret" thing in front has a gun attached to it instead of a camera. Well, guess you could, but would probably look funny magnetizing it lol

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Outside wanting to bring it just because you want it, why would you take a super fragile and noticeably expensive unit to fill the unit of a normally ~50-100pts more expensive but WAY more versatile and durable unit? Unless you want 3 units of sniper drones, FOC use isnt the answer since everything in the Heavy that people actually use is for air (skyrays or missilesides).

Now that's inaccurate. not every missileside is set up as AA, and hammerheads also see the fields.

missilesides are by default good for air. High volume + twinlinked = they dont need skyfire. Waste of points to put it on them since its so expensive to put it on that many models, and you might not even need it anyway.

And yes hammerheads do see play. Though theyre probably at the top of the list of "Units that work but otherwise suck" in most people's eyes. I love my ionheads, dont get me wrong, but i loathe the railhead lol. Really should be twinlinked for that cost on a single damn shot, or tank hunter (i am not buying longstrike for that thing, too expensive)

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Pretty much the same reason for the "new" multi-part devilfish/skyray/hammerhead box. Same body they just moved the what 5 pieces that normally werent there depending on which one you bought, increased the price by way more than those 5 pieces would cost, and call it a deal?

Not really the same at all. The "new" Hammerhead is just GW recognizing that since the Sky Ray kit requires all the Hammerhead sprues the only people buying Hammerhead boxes were clueless newbies who didn't know that the Sky Ray was the exact same kit plus the Sky Ray sprue for the same price. Repackaging it just got rid of the redundant kit.

The flyer kit, on the other hand, had no reason to be a dual kit other than GW attempting to make it look like a better deal by saying "look, you can make either of two useless flyers instead of just one". And so we get two units with weak rules and no role in the army, a fighter with a stupid turret that can't shoot directly forward because it has to use the bomber parts, etc.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
missilesides are by default good for air. High volume + twinlinked = they dont need skyfire. Waste of points to put it on them since its so expensive to put it on that many models, and you might not even need it anyway.

And yes hammerheads do see play. Though theyre probably at the top of the list of "Units that work but otherwise suck" in most people's eyes. I love my ionheads, dont get me wrong, but i loathe the railhead lol. Really should be twinlinked for that cost on a single damn shot, or tank hunter (i am not buying longstrike for that thing, too expensive)

I love the hammerhead more than I love the sky ray. Sky ray is a one trick pony good at shooting down fmc's and that's it, we'll maybe the occasional biker squad. but the hh is multipurpose! av 14? No problem, rail gun, after crippling you opponents vheicles, use the template to gun down survivors. Long strike has never let me down. He becomes a tough fire magnet alongside my riptides, and every turn they are shooting long strike is a turn my suits are not taking fire and getting into position.

The only thing Hammerheads are not effective against are daemons and eldar.

 Peregrine wrote:
There's no reason not to take those AA options (or the Sky Ray), so what you're really saying is "if you want to make a bad list you can take a bad unit".

unless you want the Riptide/Missilesides to decimate enemy infantry instead, which means that an enemy flyer is then either running rampage or making you waste absurd numbers of shots to take it out

 IHateNids wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
There's no reason not to take those AA options (or the Sky Ray), so what you're really saying is "if you want to make a bad list you can take a bad unit".

unless you want the Riptide/Missilesides to decimate enemy infantry instead, which means that an enemy flyer is then either running rampage or making you waste absurd numbers of shots to take it out

That is what having a balanced list is all about; you should have all of your tau army capable of hitting ground targets, then 25-50% at least capable of hitting flyers.

but for some reason, Airborne hitting both reasonably well is a lot worse than Grounded hitting both reasonably well.

It may just be me, but I actually quite like the Tau Flyers