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So I was hoping for something different in a Tau flyer than what was released. I do like the ones that were made but I've had this one floating in my head for a while and I want to play in the sand box as it were. I'm aiming for more of an air superiority fighter, with air and ground attack capability, that flies in a squadron up to four (hopefully seating two craft to one GW flight stand.) I want it to be fragile but evasive like a WWII Japanese Zero with high-tech stealth. I want to really avoid a gunship feel, or at least limit it to a reasonable weapon load out unlike most 40k flyers. I also want it to have a lot of customization while not deviating too far from a baseline. So for now here is version 0.0001. So rough draft its practically a scribble on a cave wall.

[EDIT=v0.001]
Swordfish Superiority Fighter.......Vehicle(Flyer)......180 Points
Unit Composition: Two Swordfish Superiority Fighters
BS 3...................................Armor 9/9/9....................................HP 2(ARMOR VALUE IS UNDER CONSIDERATION)
Wargear: Fusion Blaster, Twinlinked Burst Cannons,
..................Seeker Missile, Disruption Pod
Special Rules: Vector Dancer, Afterburners

Options:
May take up to two additional Swordfish............................................+90pts/ea(NEW)
Any Model, Each Individually
May replace Twinlinked Burst Cannons for Two Missile Drones......+10 pts
May replace Twinlinked Burst cannons with Two Marker Drones.....+10 pts(NEW)
May take Decoy Launchers.........................................................................+5 pts
One model in the unit may be upgraded to an 'Ace' ...........................+20 pts(CHANGED)

'Ace' (Air caste Shas'vre equivalent): Becomes a Character enabling 'Look Out Sir!',
Counts all weapons as twinlinked, Gains 'Experimental Vehicle Shields': 5+ Invulnerable(UNDER CONSIDERATION)

Well there it is. Any thoughts/tweaks/ideas/ANY-FREAKING-THING you can add would be helpful. For the model I will be going with a pretty common conversion that I've been seeing around and thought of myself. For reference I am using a pic from the gallery posted by Achillies who had the best pic I could use. Rate and comment on it for him and check it out HERE

'Ace' is WAY too cheap for what it does. Should be +20 or even +25.

Is armor 9 even legit? This thing could be glanced to death by lasguns. That's saying something. Doesn't even have a decent weapon.

I get that Tau need better flyers, but I don't think this is it. They're like overpriced Piranha's who are going to die if they get within 12" of IG squads. Lord help them if they ran up against Shoota Boys, because those guns could actually have a chance of penetrating.

I'd really like to see this thing operate similar to a RL UAV. Fit it out with a load of markerlights, like a flying Tetra. Or at least give it an option to take that as equipment.

@raverrn: Ace IS too cheap. Totally buy that. Would you change how it works to fit the price? Break it down into two abilities/wargear at 10pts each? 20 pts seems good, 25 too high. All gun ranges are short except for seeker missile and missile drones depending on mechanics for drones. Really just twinlinking a Fusion blaster at BS 3, maybe BS 4 with a marker. Just feels marginally better, am I wrong?

@Xyrael: Yeah the AV 9 is funky. It's partly based on my belief that RL aircraft are relatively fragile/get serious damage from some man portable weapons like 50 cals. and what not. And yes the weapon is not great, was thinking of making a 'improved' fusion blaster. What do you think of a 24" S8 AP2 Melta Lance? Sounds crazy I know. Understand that this wasn't me trying to build a better flyer by any means, just a different one not broken enough that friends wouldn't let me use it. Actually aiming a little low here. I had been considering a markerlight as well so with your vote I'll tab in the sponsons may carry Marker drones.

I don't try working out the math on dice probabilities but as a rough goal I'd like to get this up to a AV9, Flyer, with a 3+/2+ Cover save, at 2 HP, flying in squad of four. I feel like while yes they would then be super evasive, even saturation fire from an IG squad would only drop one of as many as four of these per turn. How crazy am I here?