Editing Skyray Missile Gunship (section)

==But Then, Hammerheads==
"But wait!" yells the concerned non-Tau player, perplexed by this article, "This unit sounds awesome. Why isn't it used that much?"

The answer is simple: [[Railgun|Railguns]].

The Tau [[Hammerhead Gunship]] and Broadside [[Battlesuit]] are both heavy support choices, both have AP1 Railguns (the Hammerhead with S10 and one shot or a Broadsides squad with S8 and three shots,) and Railguns will ''never'' disappoint as an antivehicle option - whereas the Skyray's missiles are S8 AP3 - great for busting open enemy Crisis Suits (lol) and the errant [[Carnifex]], but horrible against the big scary AV14 Armor that tends to hit the table when fighting [[Space Marines]], [[Chaos Space Marines]], or the [[Imperial Guard]]. The Skyray's deficiencies are especially notable on more conventional Tau army lists; whereas one can take a Hammerhead on virtually any mission without becoming a liability, a Skyray can be mighty difficult to justify when its lowered performance against [[Predator Tank]]s and [[Leman Russ Battle Tank]]s causes glancing hits as opposed to penetrating ones (though the Skyray ''is'' just as durable as more conventional tanks, if not more so).

Even though the Skyray can provide multiple support strikes in the same turn, it's simply just not as good as other choices. Heck, even the Hammerhead can double as an anti-infantry weapon too, since it has submunition rounds that also ignore cover and cover a wider area. No matter how boss the Skyray is (and it's very, ''very'' good), it will never be able to hold a candle to the undiluted armor-rape that are Broadside/Hammerhead Railguns. On top of that, the Skyray isn't even that much cheaper than other options; even if it were considerably cheaper, it still wouldn't really justify taking up precious heavy support slots.

Further, as good as the Seeker Missiles are for wiping out things like heavy infantry or light to even medium vehicles, they lose again to the Hammerhead. While most people grab Hammerheads for the delicious S10 railgun, they are also capable of mounting an Ion Cannon that offers S7, AP3, Heavy 3 that could probably bust a Sentinel squadron wide open, or S8, AP3, Blast when Overcharged to instagib a squad of Marines. And while the Skyray can provide six Seeker Missiles a turn, the ammunition is limited compared to the constant shooting the Ion Cannon offers.

Even if a player really wants to include seeker missiles, the Skyray does not own a monopoly on them. Though it brings more of them to the table than any other one source, many other kinds of Tau vehicles can mount a pair of seeker missiles each, including the [[Devilfish]], [[Piranha|Piranhas]], [[Razorshark Strike Fighter|Razorsharks]], and hell, even Hammerheads can mount a couple or Broadsides can mount one each, giving you railguns ''and'' seeker missiles in the same package and without taking up extra unit slots. The Skyray is certainly helpful in getting them, but by no means critical.

Also there's the fact that it used to cost more base than a Hammerhead, only had 6 shots (that could be fired all in one turn for some douchey and ''hilarious'' extermination of that precious little Carnifex over there) and thus become a floating, overpriced smart missile system, and of course in 5th edition's focus on mechanized play players would do better to take the seeker missiles on all their vehicles, thus spreading them out and reducing the chances of a single shot taking out all your HK knock offs. The weakening of vehicles in 6th has not been kind to it either, especially now with the emphasis on fliers and the Broadside's superior ability to take them on (since you can get a Broadside with Skyfire for 20 points less at minimum that can fire the same number of shots over the course of a game and isn't beholden to the luck of your markerlight rolls, or for 50 points more than a bog standard Skyray you can get ''two'' Broadsides with Skyfire and the ability to spit out twice as many shots as a Skyray over the course of a game).