Tau Protector Escort

The Escorts from the Tau Protector Fleets are actual warships in contrast to the armed civilian vessels of the Tau Merchant Escorts. The Protector Escorts have frontal hull and co-axial weapons rather than broadside and split arc weapons of the Merchant navy. They also benefit from warfare bonuses.

Destroyers

Lance-Boat

Kir'la

The little lance-boat that could.

The Kir'la-class Carrier Escort, codenamed Warden-class Gunship, is a small warship of the Tau Empire.

The Kir'la accompanies the powerful Or'es El'leath-class Battleship into combat. With their Gravitic Drive capability being extremely limited due to their small size, Kir'las are carried between the stars by their Or'es El'leath motherships' Gravitic Hooks and launched when they reach the destination system. Warden-class Gunships are armed with an array of Heavy Ion Cannons and Starship Railgun Batteries.

Three Kir'las took part in the Taros Campaign, fighting alongside their mothership, the A'Rho.

The Warden is the lance possessing, all standard weapon light ship for the Tau Protectors' fleet. Since the Tau options are limited, you will probably find yourself using most of the available hulls at some point or another, as they all have fairly unique and worthwhile load-outs.

Interestingly, of the two escorts, the Warden is the shorter ranged craft along with being the weaker of the two defensively (due to its size), only having half the hull points of the larger Castellan.

It is armed with 2 Heavy Ion Cannon Turrets and 2 Starship Railgun Artillery.

• Length: 900m
• Width 1.2km
• Mass: 3.7 megatonnes; approx
• Crew: 29,000 crew; approx
• Acceleration: 3.9 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx

Frigates

Basic

Kir'shasvre

Your first introduction to the magic of HOMING MISSILES.

The Kir'shasvre-class Frigate (or Castellan) is an Escort roughly comparable to the Imperial Navy's Sword and Firestorm-class Frigates. It is armed with a prow Gravitic Launcher and Starship Railgun battery.

Twenty Castellans saw action during the Taros Campaign.

The Castellan is one of the first and earliest Tau warships that allows you to play around with their homing missiles. This gives the Tau a much longer potential range for their Torpedo launches than with other factions, especially if they can provide some form of massed fire or defensive squadron cover to protect the missiles from defence turrets as they travel along their journey. They also have a few light railgun turrets for point-defence purposes and dishing out moderate damage against enclosing enemy vessels.

It is armed with 2 Missile Launching Gravitic Launchers and 3 Double-Barrel Light Starship Railgun Turrets.

• Length: 1.6km
• Width 3.4km
• Mass: 4.7 megatonnes; approx
• Crew: 37,000 crew; approx
• Acceleration: 3.8 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx

In Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 1 & 2

There is nothing too amazing when it comes to the Tau Protector Escorts stat-wise. As both have relatively standard stats for ships of their size. One thing worth pointing out here is that they do not receive the bonus to frontal armor that line ships do on account of their lack of targetable subsystems. However, they do have a handful of basic skills and abilities, the most unique of which is their warfare bonuses they get to pick at the beginning of the battle. Beyond that, most of the uniqueness of the Protector faction lies in their special weapon types, frontal focusing arcs with lack of real broadside weaponry. Great faction for high single-target damage.

Vessels of the Tau Kor'Vattra and its Auxillaries.
Spaceships
	Space Station	Tau Space Station
	Battleships	Battleship (Tau Merchant - Or'Es El'Eleath Stronghold - Warsphere)
	Cruisers	Light Cruiser (Tau Merchant - Tau Protector) Cruiser (Tau Merchant - Tau Protector - Bastion)
	Escorts	Escort (Tau Merchant - Tau Protector - Nicassar Dhow)
	Logistics	Il'Emaar
	Dropships	Orca
Landships
	Titans	KX139 Ta'Unar Supremacy Armour
Airships
	Flying Fortress	Tiger Shark
	Aerospace Vessels	Manta