Comments on: Tau XV88 Broadside Suits: Are Heavy Rail Rifles Useful?

By: GW's Second Advent Calendar - Tau Fire Support Cadre

GW's Second Advent Calendar - Tau Fire Support Cadre — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 19:56:49 +0000

[…] To start with, the digital Dataslate for the Tau Fire Support Cadre obviously fits the special Christmas box Games Workshop has on offer. The Dataslate offers unique rules for a Detachment made from 1 Riptide Battlesuit and 6 Broadside Battlesuits. […]

By: Spjungen

Spjungen — Fri, 31 May 2013 10:50:00 +0000

The new broadside paradigm truly was a castration in my mind, and the closest gaming equivalent of dirty cocktease I think we will ever see in this game…to put it bluntly, the broadside model is actually rapeable in how incredibly awesome it looks.

HOWEVER…
It is simply insubstantial. As I mentioned in my review of this codex, it’s a bigger model that does LESS…the name of the game used to be to find a balcony or high ledge somewhere, stick three of these there and just snipe tanks. Now that the model is dreadnought-sized you can no longer do that, but what REALLY kills instead of complementing its larger size with better weaponry and survivability its weaponry is in fact WEAKER.

These guys should’ve been toughness 5, to begin with. Secondly, the rail rifle should’ve been armorbane…that or at least let it roll an extra D3 so that it can ALMOST compete with the railgun…that or the unit should’ve had tank hunters by default (yes, I KNOW about the microchip, but that’s needed with shadowsun’s outflanking search-and-destroy deathstar), OR, they should’ve come hard-wired with skyfire; these guys, plain and simple, should’ve been a reliable long-range tank/flyer-hunting unit in their own right. As it stands, they’re an overpriced unit that needs a tremendous amount of support (either a commander with the support goodies or tons of markerlights) to work properly. Each one of them should be able to kill a vehicle with one round of shooting…because they can’t do that, and have no 2+ armor drones or high toughness to make them more survivable, they simply fail in my book.

The venerable hammerhead on the other hand is now the only source of S10 we have in the book, and it’s as good as ever at doing what it does best; one-shotting most things below armor 13, especially with longstrike in there (who is a MUST-have). I plan on running three now in most of my lists, with longstrike in one of them, and no broadsides.
Plus, the model still looks as good as it ever has and is still the “come at me brah” mainstay of tau, although the riptide (which I LOVE) is quite menacing and intimidating.

Those are my thoughts…the inability to use an INCREDIBLY well-designed new model because its performance is mediocre truly is disappointing…if I ever did take broadsides as they are now it’d be with missiles, as I find that loadout more deadly simply as a high-strength volume of fire choice for use against general massed targets (whether it be lots of orks, lots of marines, etc).

By: Astronate

Astronate — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:54:00 +0000

We’re playing in a game where the best anti-aircraft is stock-standard S7…. Get three Broadsides, 2 x HRR and one with TLHY Missile launcher OR vice versa, add the intercept and skyfire options and you’ve got yourself a until your opponent is going to be afraid of getting off a reserve roll before it’s been dealt with.

Sure, unsupported it’s not as good, but who takes unsupported Broadsides? The Tau strength is their versatility and adaptability to any style of war. Keep you Broadsides as your anti-flyer/light-to-med vehicle and you’re already controlling a massive portion of your opponent’s strategems

By: Fio'el

Fio'el — Sat, 11 May 2013 05:34:00 +0000

My personal feeling is that Broadsides with Heavy Rail Rifles have been replaced by the Ion Accelerator upgrade for the Riptide. It packs a slightly less powerful punch without the overcharge but makes up for it with the old range that hits the whole table, relentless, J-S-J, deepstrike capable (or infiltrate with Shadowsun), and has 3 shots. That’s all before comparing the nova reactor. HRR follows the same usefulness as its previous incarnation: taking out heavily armored targets (especially tanks and transports). The Ion Accelerator with a Nova Charge can easily pop any AV12 transport and can usually take out an AV13 pretty quickly if you are using your army to the fullest potential. This leaves the highest armored targets open for your Hammerhead to punch through.

Summary for those of you who don’t want to read:

Broadsides are now best used as high shot count units to provide zone protection against infantry or fliers. Riptides and Railheads are best used to eliminate heavily armored enemies.

*Note: attaching a commander with a PEN to a Riptide (legal until FAQ forbids it) will allow the riptide to tear through enemy tanks and monstrous creatures.

By: palakir

palakir — Thu, 09 May 2013 15:54:00 +0000

When it comes to the gaming side, I just can’t find a reason to take the Heavy Rail Rifle over the HYMP, but my only broadside team will still be with Heavy Rail Rifle. Just for the reason that they look badass with this huge weapon.

By: kaptinscuzgob

kaptinscuzgob — Thu, 09 May 2013 11:14:00 +0000

just a suggestion to boost the use of rail rifles, but i agree he would be better with crisis suits
if you want to spend even more points, you could give him the sensor suite so the broadsides can ignore those cover saves that skimmers and fliers get

my friend has them set up this way: 2 rail broadsides with velocity trackers, and the commander joins them with the puretide chip and sensor suite. and then he has the commander manning a quad-gun. the commander uses the quad-gun to intercept, and then in the tau shooting phase uses the MSS to help the broadsides. it knocks most flyers out of the air pretty easily.

By: Zweischneid

Zweischneid — Thu, 09 May 2013 11:05:00 +0000

That would work.

Seems like a huge waste of a commander though. Over 100 points and HQ slot gone for a few re-rolls. And the commander is stuck with a foot-slogging, non-relentless back-field unit.

If I have that commander with a Puretide chip, he’d probably make a lot more milage in a Crisis team with some Fusion Blasters, etc.., no?

By: kaptinscuzgob

kaptinscuzgob — Thu, 09 May 2013 10:01:00 +0000

if youre going to use rail rifles on your broadsides, i really would recommend having a commander with the puretide chip join them, so they can get tankhunters and re-roll their armour penetration rolls.