Editing Battlefleet Gothic Armada (section)

===Tau===
Do you like winning? Just pay to win!

Best guns in the game with the longest ranges. BET YOU DIDN’T SEE THAT ONE COMING.

Surprisingly, the Tau in fluff have an absolutely terrible navy. Their guns are more powerful for their size than Imperial weapons of the same size, but Imperial weapons fire shells the size of some Tau warships and come in dozens or hundreds of weapons batteries which each hold fifty or so of these weapons so...as you can imagine, in the fluff, the Tau die horribly in naval engagements which is the main reason the Damocles Gulf crusade was such a curbstomp.

In this game, though, the Tau actually are dangerous.

But seriously the sheer amount of firepower Tau can send downrange is frightening. Due to the way their ships are designed, with a more wavy, flatter, organic thing going on than the Imperium’s METAL BAWKSES, Tau ships can generally bring ALL of their guns to bear on a target in their front or side firing arcs. Combine this with minimum ranges of 9000 for railguns (micro-weapons) and 6000 for ion cannon (lances) that can be increased to 12000 and 9000 respectively and it’s possible to wipe out enemy ships in a single round of shooting from outside their detection range. On top of that their torpedoes lock-on and track their targets. Launch a probe across the table, or send some sacrificial escorts, to identify enemy ships, fire ze missiles, and watch as your opponent’s ships explode out of nowhere.

In terms of ships the Tau tend to be fairly offensively minded, with many ships combining lots-o-gunz, launch bays and torps on a single frame, but besides that aren’t really noticeably different from the other races, with two major exceptions: Firstly, two of their escorts, the Warden class and the Nicassar Dhows, can’t be bought at the load out screen. Certain ships equipped with “Gravatic Hooks” will automatically bring two Wardens with them (or two Dhows with an upgrade), allegedly for free but not really since any ship with Gravatic Hooks costs 75% more then another ship of the same weight class. The second is that Tau don’t have a Battlecruiser section on their ships lists. Instead they have an Auxiliary section, which includes two Demiurg ships and the Kroot Warsphere. The Warsphere is derpy as hell, as it can’t change direction like a normal ship and instead has to use its entire boost gage to come to a new heading. It is also quite short-ranged (compared to everything else), which paired with it's glacial slow movement meant it would never fire on anything Chaos or Eldar. That being said it is tough as fuck and cheap as dirt, and with a right upgrades it could be a perfect spotter for scenarios in which you can afford to play defensively (leave it at home for extraction and convoy missions). The two Demiurg ships are different weight classes but otherwise play the same: Big beefy bastards riddled with micro-weapons at the front and lances on the sides. They also have a front mounted mining beam which functions almost identically to Eldar pulsars with one twist: it gains charges when the ship is in an asteroid field or there are wrecked ships nearby and fires a number of times equal to the charges it has. Its short ranged but devastating, and is capable of crippling even a battleship with full shields and health if you hit it will all the shots.

Downsides? Tau ships are universally as slow as molasses flowing uphill. Seriously get out and walk. It will be faster. Normal Tau ships also can’t use lightning strikes (although Auxiliary ships can). These two factors make them horrible at anything that isn’t a stand-up fight. Data recovery missions or planetary strike missions as the attacker are basically a write off. Their ships also have generally about the same HP as Eldar ships, which makes them vulnerable to similar things (bombers, torps etc). This, combined with slow movement, also means they are particularly at risk of being rammed, to the delight of Ork players everywhere.

However there is something you can do to go sanic fast, the Air Caste favor increases your line ships speed by 50 points, to put that in in perspective that makes your 150 speed line ships (not counting auxiliaries that can't take favors anyway) and turns them into 200 speed. Chaos line ships have a speed of 188, so yeah, fuck your augur disruptor vision game.