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So hammerheads, devilfish,skyray, baracuda, remora, piranha, orca, tigershark.

All of these can jink yes? And all of them can jink on 3+ besides remora which is 2+ if I rember correctly. So then why don't I ever see a stealth cadres with jinking ships. Maybe its the local meta but I have never seen anyone do it on dakka lists either. With markerlights you would figure jinking on a hammerhead/ skyray would be commonplace. Am I reading these wrong and skimmers cant jink or is this just a unused tactic?

TheBoy wrote:
So hammerheads, devilfish,skyray, baracuda, remora, piranha, orca, tigershark.

All of these can jink yes? And all of them can jink on 3+ besides remora which is 2+ if I rember correctly. So then why don't I ever see a stealth cadres with jinking ships. Maybe its the local meta but I have never seen anyone do it on dakka lists either. With markerlights you would figure jinking on a hammerhead/ skyray would be commonplace. Am I reading these wrong and skimmers cant jink or is this just a unused tactic?

Skimmers most certainly can jink. But, it's still very detrimental to their shooting and so it is not a common tactic. After all, markers are often used on other units. And why would they have 1 3+, Disruption pods? I don't recall many Tau vehicles being taken at all honestly, and when they are they're usually bare bones.

There's a guy in my area who runs a tau flying circus. It involves a couple devilfish and firewarriors for troops but also a razorshark, two barracudas and two remoras.

This list is very jink heavy, and with five flyers he is all over the board. He also sits two hammerhead and some pathfinders behind an aegis.

So i've seen it, and apart of from the aegis gunline, it is a very mobile army, which was cool to see with Tau. I had a very close and very exciting game againts him with my Black Templar and Blood Angel allies.

Because a lot of Tau players don't play Tau to play Tau, they play Tau because they bough a half dozen Riptides to win all the games.

Tau vehicles should be jinking, a lot. AV13 tank with 3+ cover that can still put out a S10AP1 shot at BS6 ignores cover with support? Yes please!

It's much better with the Pirhana, as it really increases their survivability.

Remora are twin-linked for the burst gun, and their markerlights are networked, so they CAN up their own BS, but it's not very likely.

Hmm well I feel like a jinking devil fish with drones is a cheaper alternative to taking a void shield with 3 layers. They both can only take 3 hits but one has a 3+ to stop a wound the other is able to regenerate each lost layer at the end of your turn if it is alive. I'd trust a devilfish to keep my ethereal alive more than a void shield.

For the points of a kitted riptide 225 that is 22 pathfinder marker lights or 16 marker drones. Run shadowsun and drones with a drone controlled commander hit on twos reroll ones 2+ cover save. Or if you go with pathfinders its two marker drones from the commander and make the pathfinders hit on twos that way. It may seem like overkill on a squad but when you need to buff 2-3 jinked vehicles back to bs 3 or higher it may just be the right amount.

The orca can zoom across the board hover over you jink for its 6hp then drop 4 squads of fire warriors with ethereal on you. While avoiding almost all titan fire. Better yet use gun drones and just drop waves. Turn one sky shielded orca detach all drones from vehicles have them embark in orca zoom it into enemy's territory next turn deploy 8 gun drones as 4 squads. Melta piranha fleets and a orca sound terrifying.

Yes sir, skimmers can jink. But majority of the time I opt not to jink with my hammerheads for 3 reasons.

One, some people get thrown off when you tell them your hammer head is AV 13 in the front and AV 12 on the sides. So a lot of the time people that would have shot at my hammerhead are now a little demoralized.

The second is because Tau have an amazing device called disruptor pods which give +1 to any cover save you can take with that model. Thus making any cover you get better and no cover a 6+.

and the third is because I want my hammer head to be able to fire all (or at least its main gun) at full BS and a turn without a hammerheads fire power supporting your cadre isn't a good deal.

Tigersharks and Orcas cannot jink, as they're Super-Heavy Flyers. They can buy a Disruption Pod for a 6+, I think (or even more if you manage to cover 25% of it)

All skimmers can jink (unless immobilized, as per the latest faq), but in Tau Army the only ones that really should do it are Devilfishes (because their armory sucks and they're primary ferries, not attack vehicles) and BC Piranhas (as they're good for grabbing objectives; Fusion ones should be more strategically used to reach backsides). You want to leave as much ML as possible to ignore cover and increase BS to 5, so jinking isn't optimal (will require at least 4 ML just to get BS5 instead of normally 1-2). Sky Rays can jink, as the ML rules for Seeker missiles let them fire at BS5 anyway (a bit of contention on that, though). Hammerheads and Barracudas should try to not jink, if possible. Remoras at least got their own ML, and with Shrouded is a good option to jink.

maceria wrote:
Tau vehicles should be jinking, a lot. AV13 tank with 3+ cover that can still put out a S10AP1 shot at BS6 ignores cover with support? Yes please!

And spend 7 markerlights for 1 unit? no, thank you.

 Vector Strike wrote:
Tigersharks and Orcas cannot jink, as they're Super-Heavy Flyers. They can buy a Disruption Pod for a 6+, I think (or even more if you manage to cover 25% of it)

All skimmers can jink (unless immobilized, as per the latest faq), but in Tau Army the only ones that really should do it are Devilfishes (because their armory sucks and they're primary ferries, not attack vehicles) and BC Piranhas (as they're good for grabbing objectives; Fusion ones should be more strategically used to reach backsides). You want to leave as much ML as possible to ignore cover and increase BS to 5, so jinking isn't optimal (will require at least 4 ML just to get BS5 instead of normally 1-2). Sky Rays can jink, as the ML rules for Seeker missiles let them fire at BS5 anyway (a bit of contention on that, though). Hammerheads and Barracudas should try to not jink, if possible. Remoras at least got their own ML, and with Shrouded is a good option to jink.

What Recent FAQ?!

 DaKKaLAnce wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:
Tigersharks and Orcas cannot jink, as they're Super-Heavy Flyers. They can buy a Disruption Pod for a 6+, I think (or even more if you manage to cover 25% of it)

All skimmers can jink (unless immobilized, as per the latest faq), but in Tau Army the only ones that really should do it are Devilfishes (because their armory sucks and they're primary ferries, not attack vehicles) and BC Piranhas (as they're good for grabbing objectives; Fusion ones should be more strategically used to reach backsides). You want to leave as much ML as possible to ignore cover and increase BS to 5, so jinking isn't optimal (will require at least 4 ML just to get BS5 instead of normally 1-2). Sky Rays can jink, as the ML rules for Seeker missiles let them fire at BS5 anyway (a bit of contention on that, though). Hammerheads and Barracudas should try to not jink, if possible. Remoras at least got their own ML, and with Shrouded is a good option to jink.

What Recent FAQ?!

Its not recent. The BRB got this FAQ in January. Check the GW site.

 CrownAxe wrote:

Its not recent. The BRB got this FAQ in January. Check the GW site.

In GW terms, 6 months ago is pretty recent

Oddly enough the most recent FAQ for the BRB is October 2014 on the black library site. I do remember the FAQ coming last February because I was at Templecon last Feb and won a game because I jinked as an immobilized vehicle, and then the FAQ came out and my opponent (a friend of mine) busted me about it the following week.

Have our FAQs disappeared!?

http://www.blacklibrary.com/faqs-and-errata.html

go behind an aegis line (or sutiable ruin ) with a hammerhead and disruption pods for a nice 3+ without jinking.

 Gangrel767 wrote:
Oddly enough the most recent FAQ for the BRB is October 2014 on the black library site. I do remember the FAQ coming last February because I was at Templecon last Feb and won a game because I jinked as an immobilized vehicle, and then the FAQ came out and my opponent (a friend of mine) busted me about it the following week.

Have our FAQs disappeared!?

http://www.blacklibrary.com/faqs-and-errata.html

No they are on the GW site.

peirceg wrote:
go behind an aegis line (or sutiable ruin ) with a hammerhead and disruption pods for a nice 3+ without jinking.

I would have thought that a tau skimmer would be too tall to benefit from ADL cover save. You still have to be obscured by at least 25% right? Are people elevating them on hills, or am I just mistaken and you are able to get cover naturally?

Sorry I'm still a bit hazy on the cover rules in general.

No you are correct vehicles have to be at least 25% obscured. SO idk if an aegis would do it. maybe if you played the HH without it prop base.

The answer is their vehicles suck, besides tetras which do jink often

Tau vehicles don't suck... Also why would you use tetras?

Because they are a wotthy marker platform?

Tau vehicles as a whole are unimpressive at best, going one by one:

Devilfish - worst transport in the game, hands down.
Piranha - good cheap roadblock, nothing else.
Skyray - decent AA or alpha striker, but that's it.
Hammerhead - good on paper, can't really do much reliably. (trust me, I run 2 in every list just because I love the model. It's usually not worth the points)

Going forge world you got:
Tetra - a competitor for best marker unit.
Alternate hammerhead - some niche guns, but nothing great, and mostly bad.
Heavy Piranha - so cost ineffective it's a joke.


Looking at aircraft :
Sunshark - nothing of value. Useless bomb,medicore AA drones and that's it.
Razorshark - good at getting flak shots, but too expensive and not deadly enough.
Forge world barracuda - good firepower, but supersonic and fixed guns makes aiming a problem.

Supers:
Orca - interesting transport, but that's it.
Tigershark - strap two barracuda and a drone squad and overpay.
Railshark - 500 points "titan hunter" that won't even kill a knight during a full game assuming he even gets a clean gak from turn 2 to 6
Manta - lets not got here.

The tau AV collection looks cool, but isn't very useful in game.

What makes the devilfish the worst transport in the game?
It's a skimmer so it can skip right over tricky terrain. It can get extra cover, its faster than most transports and it has higher armor than most transports. In a game of obsec transports, the devilfish is much better than a rhino.

Seriously, compare a devilfish to a rhino and I think you will see that the rhino is subpar. I lost a game of maelstrom to a tau player because he was able to use the troop dedicated transport devilfish zip around and sit on objectives. and because they get jink and had disruption pods he was looking at 3+ cover saves when I tried to shoot it down. I'd like to see a rhino pull that off. it wouldnt. I lost the game by 3 VP, 13 to 16 and the difference in points was solely based on those devilfish.

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Gangrel767 wrote:
Oddly enough the most recent FAQ for the BRB is October 2014 on the black library site. I do remember the FAQ coming last February because I was at Templecon last Feb and won a game because I jinked as an immobilized vehicle, and then the FAQ came out and my opponent (a friend of mine) busted me about it the following week.

Have our FAQs disappeared!?

http://www.blacklibrary.com/faqs-and-errata.html

No they are on the GW site.

Thank you. I thought I was going crazy

Obviously boomwolf has a very bias Opinion on tau. almost all of his reviews of the tau are so off its clear he has some hate towards them. Guessing he played them wrong.

Devilfish are actually not too bad for transports. Decent armour and can get some nice little upgrades. all the other vehicle's are ok, but skyray is the best choice. Great support. Hammerhead...Well the rail gun is a bit sad in my experience, but all 1 shot wonders seem to disappoint me. That's why the ion cannon is a good choice , as it makes it more flexible.

As for the supers...its Apoc , so more than likely you will have more than 1 of the fliers(except the manta for obvious reasons) so having all those flying D weapons isn't such a bad investment since most of the time you will have a lot of points to spend per team.

A pair of Rhinos are cheaper than a Devilfish.

Bharring wrote:
A pair of Rhinos are cheaper than a Devilfish.

Cheaper yes. That's the only thing they have on the devilfish. But I'd still say two rhinos are easier to kill than one devilfish. Also you could give up an extra killpoint by having two rhinos over one devilfish.

I feel the skyray is over rated it gets one good salvo then you paid 125 for two markers on a av13 skimmer.
What's peoples opinions on drone turrets? The fortification seems interesting a unit within 2" rerolls ones and I think it works with vehicles so twin linked longstrike anyone? On top of the twin linked marker lights for 30points apop they seem viable to me anyways.

On a side note hovering orcas are terrifying when they close in. As long as you roll a 2+ you pen landraiders on a 6 its gone thunderblitz son

Bharring wrote:
A pair of Rhinos are cheaper than a Devilfish.

And a Devilfish is more durable than two Rhinos.

The devilfish is a good transport and priced accordingly in an army that has noting worth transporting.

 DaKKaLAnce wrote:
Obviously boomwolf has a very bias Opinion on tau. almost all of his reviews of the tau are so off its clear he has some hate towards them. Guessing he played them wrong.

Hate tau? Im a pure tau player. And an enthusiast calculator and tester. I ran the numbers on prettynmufh every unit in every setup and ran field tests of most during the past few years (started late fifth)
I just know from math and experience that our AV units are just not up to par, and that the army is carried by the crisis /broadside/riptide trinity having overpowered setups (dakkaside, IA interceptor, etc), good HQs and some decent core units (FW, PF, drones)

There are a handful of useful AV units. Tetras are great, skyways are decent and some HH bulds are good against the right opponent, but nothing spectacular.nothing you can really build around as your main force.just some support pieces and some situational units.

The air units are especially lacking,with only the cudda being somewhat viable and the sharks just poor.

As for the devilfish. For 80 points a practically unarmed and not too quick transport that has nothing worth transporting and no fire points (so it can't even serve as a bunker) is bad.bsd enough to be called the worst in the game. Being moderately tough is not enough to grace it.
And yes,for a transport what it can carry counts as part of its value.neither FW nor PF gain much by getting a ride.

As an imperial player, I would happily take a devilfish if I could put my units inside. It's flaws are that the units it can transport aren't good enough to warrant an 80 point transport.

The other vehicles seem quite undergunned for their price, but I guess they pay for being skimmers with a decent AV.

So not sure if it matters to anyone but cant you put a sniper drone squad in a devilfish according to raw? Take a ethereal one marksman and 5 sniper drones. That's 15 bs5 sniper rounds at 24". Take some warriors in fish and follow with vespids and that's a pretty mobile gun line.

TheBoy wrote:
So not sure if it matters to anyone but cant you put a sniper drone squad in a devilfish according to raw? Take a ethereal one marksman and 5 sniper drones. That's 15 bs5 sniper rounds at 24". Take some warriors in fish and follow with vespids and that's a pretty mobile gun line.

Yeah, but it's expensive for what it does, I think.

Every time I wanted to start a Tau army and build massed S5 fire, I ended up realizing that I was paying a lot for a fairly fragile gunline that might roll an impressive number of dice, but between BS3 and the lack of AP wasn't really going to do that much.