Editing Markerlight (section)

==Tell Me More==
Markerlights hits are put on enemy units by Tau units that are equipped with markerlights, who 'fire' them using their Ballistic Skill as if they were lethal weapons (which, as every Tau player with a serviceable IQ should know, they totally are, indirectly speaking). They're functionally laser designators, and each hit puts a markerlight counter on the target. Markerlight counters can be removed to do one of the following:

* Improve one of your units' (which is firing at the markerlighted unit) BS by one (with no cap as of 6th Edition). So basically, your standard Fire Warriors can potentially become as accurate as the [[awesome|FUCKING AVATAR OF KHAINE]].
* Ignore the cover save of the markerlighted unit (by spending two markers) so that [[RIP AND TEAR|FUCKING UNIT OF CAMO-COVERED BASILISKS BEHIND THAT DAMN AEGIS CAN'T HIDE ANY MOAR]]! Ahem...back to [[derp|the Greater Good]].
* Fire a seeker missile from a vehicle with BS5, Ignores Cover and Homing (no line of sight required), and it doesn't count toward the amount of weapons that vehicle can fire per turn. The rest of the weapons on the vehicle have to fire at the same target, however. This one is awesome when that 8-point [[Devilfish]] seeker missile blows up a 250-point Defiler - yes, I have seen it happen.

And due to the fact that the markerlight does not inflict wounds on its target, the target does not get to save against the markerlight hit—no Cover Save, no Invulnerable Save, no Armour Save. This might not seem all that great until you realise that when you hit on a BS3 and your opponent has an Invulnerable Save of 4++, that's half your squad hitting, and half of those hits doing damage, on average. With markerlights you can, and will, make all of those shots hit before any further saves are made, effectively doubling the danger that one Fire Warrior squad poses to any enemy squad.

The only few exceptions of this are Eldar Super Heavy and their "reroll to hit with 4+" holofields. <s>Luckily, you aren't going to face this bullshit unless you're stupid enough to play a sorry excuse of a game, which current Apocalypse is.</s> Escalation says hello.

And that's not even the full extent of it!

Suffice to say, this is [[awesome]] and a component of what makes the [[Tau]] fun to play, since the markerlight support is so versatile and useful. Hell, entire combat styles can be built around the strategy of mass-markerlights and using Skyrays as artillery pieces, which, frankly, is sweet. There's also a lot of ways to get markerlights on the tabletop, from the heavily-armored [[Skyray Missile Gunship|Skyray]], to the mobile [[Tetra]] skimmer and stealthy [[Remora]] drones, to the lowly Pathfinder. Markerlights of any stripe act as a force-multiplier for the Tau, so if you play Tau, you want to keep them close enough to target the enemy but with enough breathing room to pull back when targeted in turn. Contrarily, if you are playing against Tau, you want to kill those damn little target-painting blue commies as quickly as possible and make the entire Tau strategy fall apart. Just make sure it is not [[Not as planned|another damn lure]].

For the Tau players, remember that almost all sources of markerlights (except the commander bomb and [[Skyray Missile Gunship|Skyray]] with its AV13 front armor) are really squishy and will go down like a sack of wet shit if targeted properly. If you are going to use them as a [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|distraction]] then make sure they're in thick cover.