Tau Empire: Part 2, Ranged Weapons (aka too much dakka)

The Tau love guns. It's a fact. They may even love guns too much.

Example of Tau pornography

But they use that love as a catalyst for their expansion. The Greater Good is actually just a ploy to spread across the galaxy to find new Dakka to fire. It's an addiction, and one they battle with constantly. I'm going to go over their repertoire of weaponry and show you which weapons you might want to take.

Since a good chunk of these weapons are only available on one or two units and their specific BS's may differ I'll do the math for both to show which is more useful or more worth the points. Let's begin.




Airbursting Fragmentation Projector
Why is everything so wordy? Anywho a nice little weapon that's the equivalent of half a MEQ squad rapid-firing bolters. Since it's the same as bolter in Strength and AP the math is the same. Though the difference is that the weapon gives no cover save. This only really matters against those with built-in cover saves (Stealth/Shrouded) and if the weapon scatters poorly. It's still nice to have but not game-changing due to the nature of Barrage weapons. For 15 points it's not bad but you have to be in close to use it soooo I'm iffy. There are better options for the people who can take it. If your opponent is well spread out the weapon quickly loses effectiveness.

Rating: 5/10
There are simply better options for the same price. Great if you're facing blobs behind cover or play in heavy terrain maps though.

Burst Weapons
Burst Cannon
10 points for the non-Twin-linked version but 15 for TL. The TL makes you go from 2 hits average to 3. With 2+ to wound and AP5 this is pretty nice to kill FX squads with. Again, not effective against MEQ because of their armor save. The following calculations are the TL version with BS3.

vs. MEQ you get .67 wounds average
vs. FX you get 2.5 wounds average

Rating: 6/10

Slightly better chance of killing than the Airburst (due to scatter vs. BS) but only against FX. MEQ can still shrug these off.

Heavy Burst Cannon
Much better than the Burst Cannon. Unfortunately can only be taken by the Riptide and can't be taken twice for twin-linking. That means you're going to get about 4 hits with this beast average instead of the average6-7 hits you'd get with twin-linked. The weapon has 2+ to wound versus MEQ and FX but only FX really need to worry about it.

vs. MEQ it gets 1.1 wounds average
vs. FX it gets 3.3 wounds average.

With Nova-Charge

vs. MEQ it gets 2.33 wounds
vs. FX it gets 5 wounds

Both very nice and Gets Hot! isn't much of a worry with the 2+ armor save of the Riptide. Though to get to Nova-Charge you have a 1/3 chance of wounding yourself for nothing so there's that. Not much of an upgrade on this gun. Look to the Ion Accelerator for better stuff. Though with Nova Charge you're probably going to want the invuln save or the 4d6'' jet pack gtfo power or the "I'm going to fire all of my guns now bitch" power. (Rules clarification: The Riptide can fire 2 weapons because of Monsterous Creature and an additional weapon due to Multi-tracker. So with this you can fire 3 different weapons and one of them twice? It seems to be like that RAW which makes Riptide pretty darn powerful as a gun platform.)

Rating: 7/10
Would be higher but only one unit can take it and can't take it twin-linked either so you suffer from BS 3.

Fusion Blaster
A slightly better meltagun. You have to be 9'' away to get the melta benefits instead of 6 which makes it harder for the enemy to assault you after you fire. It's a pretty nice gun but everyone who can take it is BS3. Grand. Assault 1 so you miss half the time. And with dice that means you miss 90% of the time it's needed most and hit 90% of the time you want to kill 1 guy cause it's funny. To get it twin-linked it 20 points which, I think, is worth it. You go from 50/50 to 75% chance to hit. Honestly, though this weapon is good, the poor BS on the only two units that can take it really hurts it's buy-ability. Might want to stick with a Cyclic Ion blaster or Missle Pod though just for the extra shots you get.

Rating: 7.5/10
It's pretty good but only 50/50 to hit. Darn. Would be great if it was 5/10 instead of 15/20 though making Tau a better gunline than Space Wolves would be crazy! Who wants that?

Kroot Krap

Kroot Gun
A neat-o Autocannon that only gets the extra shot at half range. Woo! I'm confused though about Krootox Riders though, it looks like the rider has no bonus toughness from riding a massive dinosaur. Should have gotten a bike fool! Anyways the Kroot Gun is a worse Autocannon, period, and the Krootox is 25 points for something that dies instantly to a plasma gun. S7 AP2 Rapid Fire means that if you are in 24'' your chance of dying is ~80%. Nice buy! (Note: It is pretty cool if you Infiltrate the unit and have these guys unload. Not as good as a lot of other units but in this codex you can combine it with no scatter deep-striking suits and jump your army behind your opponents. Good luck pulling it off though!)

Rating: 4/10
It's a worse Autocannon on a low toughness unit. Lame.

Kroot Rifle
No longer counts as a bonus close combat weapon. Sigh. But does give you AP5! Yay! Unless you are shooting. Boo. This gun is really just a bolter with worse AP. Nothing to write home about. You can, however, pay an additional point for Sniper which gives you 4+ to wound against everyone, Pinning, Rending and 6's count as Precision Shots. Uhhh yeah, gonna 'splurge' here and spring for the extra point. So worth it!

Rating: 3/10 without Sniper 8/10 with
Great infantry weapon with Sniper rounds and now you don't have to take Fire Warriors anymore so take Kroot. They have the same BS but get an arguably better gun.

Ion Weapons

Cyclic Ion Blaster
Neat weapon that same stats as Autocannon but you sacrifice range for an extra shot. This means you'll probably get two shots off each time. The overcharge is nice but yikes, still AP4 so you're lucky if you kill MEQ and Blast instead of Large Blast means you're probably hitting just as many or fewer guys as the normal shooting attack. Then you have to suffer Gets Hot! so you may not get the Blast at all. Don't bother overcharging honestly.

Rating: 6.5/10
It's a good weapon but the 18'' range makes it not so good. It's like the pistol version of an autocannon. Also it's secondary firing mode is lame an unimpressive.

Ion Accelerator
Woah long range! Holy cats! And AP2? Ei chihuahua! Heavy 3 makes this gun the true elephant gun of the Tau army. You can overcharge it for a large blast and an extra strength which is Dee-lish. Pie plates can take out the majority of a MEQ squad from the other side of the map. Honestly, don't Nova-Charge this. Unless you reeeeeeally need to kill a tank or two. The overcharge on this baby is awesome and the normal mode is one of the best weapons in the codex. The AP is what sets this over the edge.

vs. MEQ it gets 1.25 wounds
vs. FX it gets 1.25 wounds

It's just better versus MEQ in both cases than the Heavy Burst Cannon. And you don't have to Nova-Charge to get a wicked pie plate. Versus FX the Heavy Burst Cannon has an edge when not over-charged. When overcharged it's equal.

Rating: 9/10
Honestly only the old Rail Gun is better and even then this has more shots than it. Great weapon. And it costs 5 points. What? If only Nova-charge let you fire this twice!

Ion Cannon
Ugh! The decisions here! It's BS4 always since only a Hammerhead can take it. This means you have 2/3 chance to hit with 3 shots. They are AP3 too and 60'' range so you can counter-snipe MEQ heavy weapons from afar. But you're trading it for the old rail gun. But the old Rail Gun isn't twin-linked on the Hammerhead. Urgh! But without having it you have no ability to kill Land Raiders or scary T5 units (Is Thunderwolf Cavalry still a thing? Nurgle Bikers? Nob Bikers? I honestly rarely play against them.) You also get re-roll with the Overcharge Large Blast template. The annoying part is that you have no save against Gets Hot!. Sad. Tough decision.

Rating: 6/10
Would be better if your Broadsides could take a twin-linked version. Also the opposing choice is pretty damn juicy. Damn the new rail rifle! Damn it to hell!

Ion Rifle
Guy who wrote this codex must love autocannons because guess what? Here's another. This one is slightly worse than the Kroot gun so whoopee. You can overcharge it for a blast template and with the amazing BS3 you have a great chance of missing horribly. (Average is 4'' off target). It does get better, however, on the Sun Shark Bomber's interceptor drones. Though, unfortunately the bomber itself is pretty expensive and pretty weak. But honestly, the Interceptor drones are pretty awesome if you can drop them near an aircraft. If only you could take them as part of a drone squad.

Rating: 5/10
Would be lower but interceptor drones are really nice to have. Pathfinders though...meh?

Quad Ion Turret
Only on Tau's pretty terrible fighter. It's actually better than an Autocannon because it's Heavy 4 and not that Rapid Fire bull. Overcharge is okay but the turret is not twin-linked to missing is a big possibility. So it's about as effective as 2 MEQ with Autocannons. Not gonna lie, getting really fed up with everything being S7 AP4. So far there are 4 weapons like it. And guess what? Fucking missile pods are too. 6 total weapons with S7 AP4. Such variety!

Rating: 6/10
Good but only on one unit makes me sad face. Would be sweet to take as a weapon platform like Eldar Guardians.

Missile Pods
(Expect misspellings of missile. I usually forget the second i and the spell-check here sometimes doesn't turn on. No idea why it happens.)

Missile Pod
Sacrifice 12'' for Assault 2 autocannon. Analysis = done.

You get 2 shots but you're going to miss one unless this is twin-linked. I've seen a lot of builds online with missiles everywhere and it's not a bad idea. The Autocannon is good and you can get a twin-linked assault version for 20 points? Okay! You can get 3 of them on your battlesuit which makes me laugh a lot. You can do 1 twin-linked and an extra one or get 3 non-twin-linked and pretty much mount 3 autocannons on one dude. That's awesome. The problem is your crappy BS. Missing half your shots and having to get 12'' closer and only being able to take 3 suits at a time means you can't field these in true numbers to really devastate armies. If you fill out all of your elite slots with them you get 9TL and 9 non-TL. This gets you:

vs. MEQ you get 3.125 wounds per turn.
vs. FX you get 9.375 wounds per turn.

So, in the end you aren't killing many troops with these bad boys but it might not be a bad idea to field one unit with this and get Skyfire on the them to take down a plane. Though I'd just go with Broadsides. Still though, it's a very good weapon, just, your whole army is BS3. Shooting a ton is great but when MEQ can do it better with equivalent weapons it means your army is poorly written.

Rating: 6.5/10 (on MEQ i'd give it an 8. It'd be so sold on them.)
It's actually a good weapon it's just very annoying to have it on a BS3 unit. Oddly, there's very little variation between the weapons available to battlesuits. 2 are S7 AP4 with range difference.

Heavy Missile Pod
Only available on Broadsides and twin-linked. This means you'll hit 3 of your shots on average. It's 36'' like the other missile pod and thus not much is different. It's just more shots. Oh but what's this? It's freaking Heavy 4. And Broadsides don't have Relentless or Slow & Purposeful so they are boned if they move. Jeez. Why doesn't the heavy weapons platform get Relentless? They aren't jet pack infantry (just infantry) so I don't think they get it unlike a lot of the other units here. So, if you move, Snap Shots. Yuck.

Rating: 5/10
Heavy 4 on a unit without Relentless is frustrating to say the least. It's not a bad weapon though. Difficult choice between their Rail Rifle and this. Just kidding, I'd go with this. Rail Rifle is 1 shots at S8. Are the enemy tanks reversing into your front-line? Yeah not a big worry when you have a 3/4 to hit and 1/2 to glance.

Neutron Blaster
A good weapon actually. A MEQ and FX killer that's good at range. Just too bad the unit that it's on is balls terrible. I mean honestly for a starting infantry weapon this gets 10/10, it's good against a huge number of units and doesn't cost anything. The unit it comes with though is pretty expensive and to get in range for this weapon you better be ready to get rapid-fired or charged and this unit can't really wither either. So in the end, great weapon, bad unit.

Rating: 5/10 (Weapon itself 10/10)
The weapon is awesome but the unit that gets it is bad. Would be even better if it benefited from the pulse weapon bonuses that some HQs give.

Plasma Rifle
The gravy of the battlesuit mashed potato volcano, the plasma gun is a weapon you'll see often. Good against MEQ, good against FX and not bad versus weaker vehicles, especially since you have a jet pack unit that can fly over them or deep-strike behind them. Gotta get close to get the double shots, just like the normal plasma gun, but you don't have to worry about getting Gets Hot!. It's the same gun as before, take 1 or 2 if you'd like.

Rating: 7/10
Good weapon with solid stats. Can clear infantry or light vehicles. Isn't good that you have to get in close but you do get 2d6'' "Let's get the Hell out of here Scoob!" move so you have a good chance of being out of charge range even after being close enough to Rapid Fire

Pulse Weapons

Longshot Pulse Rifle
You're probably not going to take Pathfinders but this adds 18'' to your range while lowering your ability to injure infantry and tanks. Sure, you get Rending and Precision shots but that's 1/6 chance. Not going to buy a unit because it's good 16% of the time. So, weapon is okayyy here's the math

vs. MEQ .14 wounds per shot
vs. FX .25 wounds per shot

MEQ can still be Pinned though which is cool but you have less than 1/6 chance of getting the test in the first place.

Rating: 6/10
It's okay, it's not great, it's just okay. You aren't going to take Pathfinders though.

Pulse Bomb
You can regenerate these and all it requires is that you fly over the unit to hit them. Therefore it's pretty good, as good as getting a unit of Fire Warriors to shoot a squad. So, not good? It's AP5 so you get .22 wounds per hit. You'll need to hit at least 4 guys to get a really good chance of killing a MEQ. This is great against blobs though as you roll 2+ to get another bomb next turn. FX blobs look out!

Rating: 8/10
It's ability to deal well with blobs is what gives this minor weapon an edge. If you take enough of these you may be able to drop of 6 interceptor drones to wipe out enemy flyers and drop enough pie plates to rough up a nice sized blob. Would get higher if the bomber wasn't made of aluminum wrapped around wood.

Pulse Carbine
Nice weapon! Low AP is countered by the threat of pinning and the 18'' double tap. The weapon is better than most infantry weapons but unfortunately goes on a pretty expensive and poor unit so you're actually paying for it. In my calculations the Fire Warrior is worth about 4 points with no weapons so you're paying 5 points for this gun. Since your units are probably not going to move it's a little not worth it when you can take the Pulse Rifle instead.

Rating:  6/10
The benefit it has over the Pulse Rifle is Pinning. Without it you're not getting much. I'm starting to wish the Tau weapons were purchaseable by IG or Space Marines. Jesus that'd be amazing.

Pulse Pistol
Only take this if you have to. Getting an extra CC attack for having a pistol is about the most useless thing you can look for in this codex. It'd be like taking wargear that ups your Strength but lowers your BS. I mean honestly, the entire army, barring the Riptide, is abysmal in CC and the Riptide is only mediocre. Only if you have to take this should you take this.

Rating: 3/10
Just bad. It's gives you a useless bonus and is strictly worse than all other infantry weapons.

Rail Weapons

Heavy Rail Rifle
A totally unnecessary nerf that hurts Broadsides and the Tau severely. You're still going to take it though because you can get equipment that grants Skyfire to them. Honestly it's just worse. If you're taking this without upgrading to Shas'vre with Skyfire you're doing it wrong. Man if this was S10 still it'd be a 10. Vehicle killer extraordinaire.

Rating: 7.5/10
If it was S10 it'd be no contest. You'd find Tau allies everywhere just for the Broadside. Stupid nerf to an already hurting army.

Rail Rifle
Not sure what the point of this weapon is? Blowing up DE and Ork vehicles I guess. This won't do much against IG or Space Marines unless they're trying to drive the miles off their vehicles by going backwards. And it's on Pathfinders. Pass.

Rating: 4/10
Its low strength coupled with it's short-range puts this in a weird niche: close anti-armor. There are much better options in this army.

Railgun - Solid Shot
The good 'ol railgun. Did you take Hammerheads before? Well they're a hell of lot cheaper now (150 for the railgun model with required extras compared to the new 125 point model.) It's a good bargain, not a great one as you can still miss as the gun isn't twin-linked and there's nothing in vehicle armory that let's you shoot down planes. Still, nice weapon, lots of possibility for blowing up other tanks but really, are you gonna take the Hammerhead over the Broadside? I sincerely hope not. (Though you can take it with that take guy and just ruin car park armies. Just make sure the guy is in cover *winky face*

Rating: 7/10
Not twin-linked, too bad, so sad. The gun itself isn't bad but 125 points for 1 BS4 shot bases a lot of your army on 1 unit's luck (although, admittedly, most of your army is based on luck)

Railgun - Submunition
Yay! AP 4 again! Woo! This is an FX killer but MEQs will wonder what that weird flash was all about on the other side of the board. It's worth 5 points because you can lob these at blobs without retaliation and wipe large chunks of them. Against MEQ though this weapon is very weak. This is specifically a blob-killer.

Rating: 7/10
It's only to kill blobs but it's just a 5 point upgrade which isn't bad. If you're taking a Hammerhead, definitely spend the points. I only give it a 7/10 though because you're not going to kill MEQ with this, lowering the score substantially.

Seeker Missle
Weird new rules with Markerlights mean that you need to hit with a Markerlight then spend the Markerlight counter to shoot one of these without having line of sight. It's resolved at BS5 so it's really likely to hit. It's a 1 shot nuke that'll kill 1 dude or severely hurt a vehicle. If you manage to Markerlight a Flyer this thing can easily get off at least a glance. At 72'' you can actually be on the other side of the map when you fire this. Imagine camping behind an Aegis line and having some Drone Squads unload on a vehicle with Markerlights and then blow it up without being able to see it. Pretty awesome but unfortunately the Markerlights are usually on some poor units. With it on a Sun Shark you can: fly over, markerlight some crap, then bomb another unit and then shoot a third unit (with Ion Rifles and missile pod) and then use the seekers on the markerlighted sucker.

Rating: 5/10
Great weapon but the only way good way to fire it is with Markerlights. Damn. Though it's still okay with Broadsides or Skyrays, since it's only a one-shot weapon you're taking a big risk with BS3. May spend a bunch of points just to fire duds.

Smart Missle System
Much better than the Seeker Missle as you can fire it every turn and it ignores cover and doesn't require line of sight. Unfortunately it's AP5 but the ability to remain in cover out of sight and shoot the crap out of a unit or light vehicle is nice. It only comes twin-linked. Woo! So you're going to hit 3-4 of these shots. It's pretty good but against MEQ ehhhhhh? Their armor save is just so good. Though really it's like better bolters firing from out of sight. With enough of these you can really ruin smaller units.

Rating: 8/10
Not a bad weapon, it's still really good and ignores cover and always comes twin-linked. It's not super effective vs. MEQ (average .66 wounds). Against FX it's pretty awesome getting 2.5 wounds average. With Riptide Nova-ing you can get 5 dead FX, then fire your Ion Accelerator, then fire yourrrrr? Nothing? You get extra shots that you don't have the weapons to use since you can't fire the same weapon twice but you get to fire 3 weapons per turn. I..uh..what? And Nova-charge let's you fire the same one twice, what the ham-fisted rules is going on? Regardless, Smart missiles = good. But not against FX.

The new Broadside

Conclusion
Holy god does this guy love Autocannons with fully 6 weapons being S7 AP4. There's not a lot of variety in the list and very little to make MEQ fear you (Plasma rifle is the only one that you can field a ton of without blowing 1/3 - 1/2 your armies points. I have a feeling I'll be seeing missiles everywhere but with the BS of most of these units being BS3 I'm not too worried. Side note: for some reason I've found a lot lists with Broadsides using missile drones but they're BS2 so I'm not sure what their getting at?

The new Tau have pretty much the same ol' weapons as before but the Riptide brings some new guns the field and Broadsides got unfairly nerfed. Crisis suits will probably take a twin-linked missile pod and a plasma rifle, not much change from last codex.

Overall, the changes are very limited. Ion accelerator and Heavy Rail rifle are the only real changes. Everything else remains pretty much the same.