Tau Merchant Cruiser

Tau Merchant Cruisers like its smaller cousins and counterparts, only have one class called the Lar'shi-class Starship. But that class has multiple configurations.

Also known as the Hero-class Cruiser. The ship was born out of the Damocles Gulf Crusade.

During that conflict, the Tau had been shown first-hand where the Kor'Vattra was lacking, and attempted to design a ship that could match the Imperium's Lunar-class Cruiser. Although the resulting vessel was still no match for a comparable Imperial warship, the vessel that resulted was nonetheless a credible ship of the line.

As a purebred combat ship, the Lar'shi is significantly more effective in a straight-up firefight than its Gal'leath and Il'fannor predecessors.

Configuration

Ordnance-Boat

Tolku

Open all broadsides and say fuck it.

The Tolku is what happens when a Weeb says fuck it and wants to go all-in on broadsides and Dakka. That, or he has a Railgun fetish.

The Tolku loses effectiveness in its prow weaponry on the switch from lances to macros, an unusual case as typically the damage is increased, like with the batteries, to compensate for the loss of perfect accuracy and armor-piercing.

Instead, the Railgun Artillery keeps the same damage and loses half the crit chance. Because of this, if you are taking the Tolku over the Vash'Ya, make sure you are getting use out of those broadsides or you are wasting points doing less damage than you could have otherwise.

It is armed with 6 Missile Launching Gravitic Launchers, 2 Launch Bays carrying Barracudas and Mantas, 2 Double-Barrel Heavy Starship Railgun Artillery, 2 Double-Barrel Heavy Starship Railgun Turrets, 2 Starship Railgun Artillery and 2 Heavy Starship Railgun Battery Weapons.

• Length: 5.3km
• Mass: 23 megatonnes; approx
• Crew: 60,000 crew, including 15,000 pilots and support personnel; approx
• Acceleration: 3.0 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx

Lance-Boat

Vash'Ya

A lance-boat/carrier hybrid. Not a common sight.

In its primary Vash'Ya configuration, the Lar'shi packs a great deal of firepower in the form of a forward Gravitic Launcher, a forward Starship Railgun turret, two launch bays for Barracudas and Mantas, and a pair of Heavy Ion Cannon turrets, the latter of which are replaced by slightly weaker but longer-ranged Railgun batteries in the less-common Tolku variant. Both versions are protected by a Deflector that enhances their forward armor, allowing them to survive a head-on confrontation and bring their weapons' overlapping fields of fire to bear on an enemy.

Of the two Cruiser-class Tau Merchant ships are pretty similar in loadout beyond their macro/lance options, with the Vash'Ya being the lance-equipped Cruiser and the other, the Tolku, being the all macro variety.

One thing worth pointing out, the Vash'Ya has a significantly better on paper damage potential with its prow weapons versus the Tolku as the swap from Heavy Ion Cannon to Starship Railgun artillery doesn't come with the usual uptick in damage, thus losing out on both the switch to accuracy, armor penetration and lower critical hit chance.

It is armed with 6 Missile Launching Gravitic Launchers, 2 Launch Bays carrying Barracudas and Mantas, 2 Double-Barrel Heavy Starship Railgun Artillery, 2 Double-Barrel Heavy Starship Railgun Turrets, 2 Heavy Ion Cannon Artillery and 2 Heavy Ion Cannon Battery Weapons.

• Length: 5.3km
• Mass: 21.7 megatonnes; approx
• Crew: 57,300 crew, including 14,500 pilots and support personnel; approx
• Acceleration: 3.0 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx

In Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 1 & 2

The Tau Merchant Cruisers maintain the themes established earlier in the Light Cruiser weight class, with broadsides and limited arcs preferred over full-frontal facing load-outs, along with higher hit point totals, allowing them to absorb significantly more damage than a lot of ships their size. They oddly get a boost back to their engine speed over their lighter brethren, making them more manoeuvrable while also mixing in a few coaxial weapons and the Adaptive Deflectors from the Protector vessels.

Both of the Cruisers favour taking large racks of the Tau's special homing torpedoes and Launch Bays, the former is incredibly useful as the only other torpedoes capable of homing are Astartes boarding torpedoes. This simple addition to their weapons allows them to be used from much longer, even extreme ranges since it's easier to coordinated several different squadrons and torpedo launches to overwhelm defence turrets when they don't need to all do it from close range.

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