Markerlight

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Laser pointers with attitude, and a key component of Tau strategies. Not to be confused with the angry flashlight.

Markerlights are dropped on enemy units by Tau units that have a weapon of the same name. It's functionally a laser designator and it 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 Ed.) So basically your guardsmen standard fire warriors can become as accurate as the FUCKING AVATAR OF KHAINE
• Ignore the cover save of the markerlighted unit (by spending two markers.) so that FUCKING UNIT OF CAMO COVERED BASILISKS BEHIND THAT DAMN AEGIS CAN'T HIDE ANY MORE Ahem.... Back to the greater good
• Fire a Seeker Missile from a vehicle with BS 5, Ignores Cover and line of sight, and it doesn't take up the amount of weapons that vehicle can fire. The 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 kills 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 BS 3 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. 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.

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, 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 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 another damn lure.

For the tau players remember that almost all sources of markerlights (except the commander bomb and 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 then make sure they're in thick cover.

Platforms: How you're going to light up your armies life

Yeah we told why and how Markerlights are the goddamned center of your strategy, now it's time for how you're going to get them out on to the battlefield to light up your life.

Troops: Fire warriors do have access to Markerlights, or more accurately one markerlight a squad. By Upgrading one Shas'la to a Shas'ui (squad commander) he is allowed to take a markerlight and Target-lock package deal, in total costing 34 points (6 for Warrior, 10 for Shas'ui, 15 for Markerlight and target-lock). While this is just one markerlight per squad it's the target-lock you want to look at. Make a leadership test (8 for Shas'ui) and your Shas'ui can fire at another unit on the table, seperate from his units current target, effectively chaining his Markerlight for another squad to fire at, or to launch a desperate Seeker Missile. Not the most reliable tactic but it's important to remember, especially for low point battles (500 or less)

Elites: Crisis suits don't have access to Markerlights of their own, but they do have a chance to take up to 2 drones each, meaning a 3 "man" squad of Crisis suits can have up to 6 Markerlights, firing at BS 2, (BS 3 if you take a drone controller, and to be honest there are better ways to use that item), this choice is helped by the low cost for Crisis suits (22 points each) meaning you just got a 146 (66 for suits, 72 for Drones, 8 for Controller) deep-striking blob of Markerlights ready to drop where you want it. Alternatively there are Stealth Teams whose commanders gain access to the Markerlight, Traget-lock combination the Fire Warrior Shas'ui can get, the only difference is that you can have 2 per Stealth team and a higher degree of survivabilty, having not tested this out yet, I can't speak to the effectiveness of this tactic, but Infiltrate, 3+ Armour, 4+ cover and a Stimulant Injector on your Stealth Shas'vre commanders makes for a much more durable and agravating target than some poor sap in the rank and file.

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