Tau thought experiment - Making Broadsides and Seeker Missiles Work

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**Daedalus81**

This is a thought experiment based around the flaws in the Broadside and trying to find a path that makes them more useful. The key flaw that I am identifying is that their secondary weapons are all much shorter ranged, which inflates their cost and reduces their utility.

Markerlights: 3
Marker Drones: 18
Shield Drones: 4
Gun Drones: 18
Seeker Missiles : 23

With 11 drops first turn is unlikely so plan accordingly.

Broadsides go near the line mid-field. In front of them are the fire warriors, ethereal, and fireblade. Perhaps a unit of fire warriors a bit further back to keep them spread out, but in the bubble. Behind them are the tactical drones - 4 shields to assign wounds to when fire comes there way. Shadowsun is nearby as well.

Opponent gets first turn. Any first turn charges should see several units firing at it so a lone unit or two will risk a lot of pain. Fire warriors are LD9 from Ethereal so weathering fire and passing LD shouldn't be an issue.

Piranhas / Sky Rays dump their drones, which move towards broadsides. Piranhas / Sky Rays do not move and are setup within 6" of Shadowsun.

There should be enough marker lights to easily get the Seeker Missile bonus. Shadowsun calls a Kauyon. 12 missiles hit on 3+ rerollable - that is a dead predator on average. 11 more seeker missiles on a 4+ rerollable is another severely crippled vehicle. Or you could just kill Magnus outright. Broadsides with 6 rerollable shots can outright kill another Rhino equivalent with just HRR.

Ethereal uses Storm of Fire since the Fire Warriors may not all be in range of Shadowsun. They proceed to double table or triple tap anyone too close. So up to 72 S5 shots from drones, up to 96 S5 shots from Fire Warriors, and 28 S5 from Burst Cannons

On turn 2 the Sky Rays move forward to get in the way. The piranhas are fast enough to start maneuvering to key areas and lighting them up. Shadowsun calls a Kauyon again...

So, the broadsides are nearly untargetable for a couple of turns due to waves of drones surrounding them. Targeting drones has little effect since the goal is to just have enough to launch the seeker missiles. Everything else is gravy. Ethereal will guarantee the same effect as 1ML on everything. Broadsides and seeker missiles during the first two turns with Kauyon are capable of removing 4 or 5 vehicles with ease.

Did I miss something or get anything wrong? Obviously it's all hypothetical and charges are a threat, but anyone charging with insufficient mass will get obliterated when the ball of death lights them up.

**Vector Strike**

If you want to use seeker missiles, look no further to Hammerheads with Longstrike buffing them. They'll fire seekers at BS2+ if they stay put, re-rolling 1s (as the target will have 1 ML anyway).

The second best platforms are Tiger-Shark Fighter-Bombers; they'll do the same, but at BS3+ even being forced to move (2+ if you have 5 ML on the target)

Everything else in the game will fire at most at BS3+ if they stay put or 4+ if moving (2+ or 3+ if 5 ML). Piranhas aren't a good platform for seekers, in my view. I'd only put a seeker on HRR broadsides, not on HYMP ones (unless they have EWO and your meta is filled with TEQs).

If you want to spam seekers, get more Sky Rays and leave the piranhas to grab further objectives or harass backlines

**Talamare**

Turn 1 Assault
Assault with something unimportant like a Rhino
Entire Army has to choose to kill it, or let it succeed

If Entire Army chooses to kill it... NOTHING CAN OVERWATCH AGAIN
If it Succeeds, then it opens the door to allowing other things to Assault.

If even a single decent melee unit starts fighting, Welcome to the Blender
Since neither Fire Warriors nor Broadsides can Fly away. They are basically all dead.

Also, I say Entire Army can choose to KILL it, but that's a straight up lie
12 * 1/6 * 1/6 + 12 * 1/6 * 2/3 * 3.5 = 5
200 * 1/6 * 1/3 * 1/3 = 3.70

Even if you had 6 Broadsides and 100 Firewarriors, you would only average about 9 damage.

Don't put Broadsides in the Mid Field, keep them deep in your lines as far as possible from Charges.
Use EWO to ward off Deep Strikers. That's the only those short range guns are useful for.

**Bobug**

Its a cool.idea but terribly cost ineffective and I just dont think it would work in practice. As already said pirahna and skyrays are terrible seeker missile platforms (skyrays are just awful). I think seeker only have much utility on broadsides and hammerheads as a random fire and forgot mortal wound to up damage when needed

**Arandmoor**

Vector Strike wrote:

If you want to spam seekers, get more Sky Rays and leave the piranhas to grab further objectives or harass backlines

Why would anyone take a skyray? It's the most useless piece of junk model in the game. I wouldn't pay half it's price for one.

OMO, Skyrays need a re-loadable seeker missile launcher it can fire every single turn (a heavy 4 seeker missile launcher or something). Not just six whole missiles.

**Daedalus81**

Talamare wrote:
Turn 1 Assault
Assault with something unimportant like a Rhino
Entire Army has to choose to kill it, or let it succeed

If Entire Army chooses to kill it... NOTHING CAN OVERWATCH AGAIN
If it Succeeds, then it opens the door to allowing other things to Assault.

If even a single decent melee unit starts fighting, Welcome to the Blender
Since neither Fire Warriors nor Broadsides can Fly away. They are basically all dead.

A rhino cannot cross that divide in one turn. Positioning is key to avoid other units getting looped in.

Also, I say Entire Army can choose to KILL it, but that's a straight up lie
12 * 1/6 * 1/6 + 12 * 1/6 * 2/3 * 3.5 = 5
200 * 1/6 * 1/3 * 1/3 = 3.70

Instead of target lock the broadsides can take CDS.
The goal is basically to keep enough wrapped and out of combat turn 1 to unleash the missiles and kauyon to land big hits with broadsides.

Don't put Broadsides in the Mid Field, keep them deep in your lines as far as possible from Charges.
Use EWO to ward off Deep Strikers. That's the only those short range guns are useful for.

That's the natural inclination and this certainly doesn't require them to be near the front.

**Vector Strike**

Arandmoor wrote:
Vector Strike wrote:

If you want to spam seekers, get more Sky Rays and leave the piranhas to grab further objectives or harass backlines

Why would anyone take a skyray? It's the most useless piece of junk model in the game. I wouldn't pay half it's price for one.

OMO, Skyrays need a re-loadable seeker missile launcher it can fire every single turn (a heavy 4 seeker missile launcher or something). Not just six whole missiles.

Well, if you want to spam seekers like OP wants...

**Daedalus81**

Arandmoor wrote:
Vector Strike wrote:

If you want to spam seekers, get more Sky Rays and leave the piranhas to grab further objectives or harass backlines

Why would anyone take a skyray? It's the most useless piece of junk model in the game. I wouldn't pay half it's price for one.

OMO, Skyrays need a re-loadable seeker missile launcher it can fire every single turn (a heavy 4 seeker missile launcher or something). Not just six whole missiles.

It's an alpha strike unit. What else can reliably land 6 mortal wounds at 72"?

**Arandmoor**

Vector Strike wrote:
Arandmoor wrote:
Vector Strike wrote:

If you want to spam seekers, get more Sky Rays and leave the piranhas to grab further objectives or harass backlines

Why would anyone take a skyray? It's the most useless piece of junk model in the game. I wouldn't pay half it's price for one.

OMO, Skyrays need a re-loadable seeker missile launcher it can fire every single turn (a heavy 4 seeker missile launcher or something). Not just six whole missiles.

Well, if you want to spam seekers like OP wants...

They're just not a good way to do that. Once their seekers have been fired, you might as well destroy the model because it's essentially worthless past that point. At best it's a pair of burst cannons and a markerlight on a devilfish that can't carry troops.

Either that or the "skyray" needs to become a "skyray array" upgrade for hammerheads and devilfish that would allow any of them to carry 6 missiles in addition to their normal loadout.

People are QQing about broadsides and crisis suits. Those have got nothing on this piece of crap. They're a straight-up bargain by comparison.

Only take a skyray if your plan is to lose.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Daedalus81 wrote:

It's an alpha strike unit. What else can reliably land 6 mortal wounds at 72"?

Who cares if it can launch 6 mortal wound attacks turn 1 when it can't do anything else constructive for the other 4-5 turns of the game?

**Talamare**

Daedalus81 wrote:

A rhino cannot cross that divide in one turn. Positioning is key to avoid other units getting looped in.

Also, I say Entire Army can choose to KILL it, but that's a straight up lie
12 * 1/6 * 1/6 + 12 * 1/6 * 2/3 * 3.5 = 5
200 * 1/6 * 1/3 * 1/3 = 3.70

Instead of target lock the broadsides can take CDS.
The goal is basically to keep enough wrapped and out of combat turn 1 to unleash the missiles and kauyon to land big hits with broadsides.

That's the natural inclination and this certainly doesn't require them to be near the front.

Depends on where you meant by Mid Field, and on the map in question.
Spearhead, Frontline, Search and Destroy have the 2 armies meeting only 18" apart.
Making it very possible for the 12" of a Rhino to be in safe charging ranges.
Tho, fine. I'll apologize on that aspect.