Tau protection fleet fleet building questions

[unseelied]

Two questions.  First I am thinking about making a Tau Protection fleet using Firestorm armada ships and I was thinking of something like two battleships, custodians if I remember, three cruisers and six wardens plus some leaders brings me right to 1500pts. 

First I field one battleship per 750 pts of tau ships, does tau leadership count towards that total?

second, it states that I can't squadron the wardens with any other type of escort except castillians but does that then not allow me to squadron the wardens together?  Can I have one squad of six rather than two squads of three?  Thanks

[Bessemer]

First I field one battleship per 750 pts of tau ships, does tau leadership count towards that total?

No, Just the ships. And we're talking FULL 750 pts, not just part thereof, and even then allies and such don't count either (just clarifying!).
If your wanting 2 Custodians, I'm not sure if the cost of one is counted towards getting the second. Nice grey area there

In fact, another grey area is buying Wardens/orcas before you buy a ship capable of carrying them. I don't think this should be allowed, but in true GW style there's nothing saying you can or can't

second, it states that I can't squadron the wardens with any other type of escort except castillians but does that then not allow me to squadron the wardens together?  Can I have one squad of six rather than two squads of three?

Yes, Wardens can squad together, but only with other Wardens bought for the same capital ship. For example, a Custodian has 3 grav hooks for Wardens, so each custodian allows you to take a squad of no more than 3 Wardens.
The only way to get round this would be to squad up ships with grav hooks, as you go on the number of hooks for the squadron, rather than each ship individually. So if you did Squadron 2 Custodians (3 grav hooks a piece), you would be able to take a Squadron of Wardens up to 6 strong!

Hope this helps!

[horizon]

Hey,

Wardens: A Custodian can bring 3 Wardens to battle. These 3 Wardens are then an independant entity in your fleet. These 3 Wardens may be squadroned with either other Wardens in your fleet or other Castellans in your fleet.
So for example: if you field 1 Custodian and 1 Emissary with grav hook options then you can form a squadron of 5 Wardens in total if you want to.

Custodian: if you have 750pts exact, without Ld, you may field 1 Custodian and 3 Wardens within those 750pts.


So hey, I gave different answers then Bessemer.

[Bessemer]

 

Wardens: A Custodian can bring 3 Wardens to battle. These 3 Wardens are then an independant entity in your fleet. These 3 Wardens may be squadroned with either other Wardens in your fleet or other Castellans in your fleet.
So for example: if you field 1 Custodian and 1 Emissary with grav hook options then you can form a squadron of 5 Wardens in total if you want to.

OK, just re-read the rules for the CPF Hook escorts, and it just says you can't have more Wardens/Orcas than hooks to carry them.
Do they not use the same rules as listed in Armada (ie-bought per ship/squadron, Ld as ship/squadron)?
Can you just form as you want and roll Ld normally?
Couldn't they just have said this in the FAQ!   Either that or I need some new glasses!

Custodian: if you have 750pts exact, without Ld, you may field 1 Custodian and 3 Wardens within those 750pts.

Really? Seems a little beardy, but I won't quibble over getting a Custodian more easily

[Sigoroth]

Fleet lists are made ad hoc and their legality is checked post hoc. For example, you need 750 pts worth of Tau ships to field a Custodian, but you don't need to have 750 pts in your list before you put it in. Your Custodian is a Tau ship and will therefore count towards the 750 pts you need for legality purposes.

[unseelied]

Boo!  I figured it was too good to be true.  With two battleships at 1500 they would have been great.  Normally we play 1500.  Also I think that just three wardens alone will be squadorn "kill me for the easy points", so thats out too. 
I changed things up and tried this fleet list last night with proxied ships, Battleship, four protectors and six castillians.  Battleship and castillians were both good.  The cruisers were very fragile.  Three out of the four got crippled.  I might have to replace two of them with heros even though I wanted to run a "pure" protection fleet.  The other downside was I was going to use firestorm ships to represent them so I have on the way big, medium and small ships.  I will have to convert or somehow mark the two different medium ships.  I will have to play with the fleet some more and maybe the Protector's upsides will become more evident.  Right now they seem less good then heros in almost every way but they cost more.  The fleet is also fairly low on attack craft, for a Tau fleet anyway.  Takes some getting used to I guess.

[horizon]

Hey,

then squadron 3 Wardens with 2 Castellans. But their is nothing wrong with a 3 strong squadron in my opinion.

Protectors: I really like'em. More fragile then Heroes but 90* turns is what you must use to great effect. But be aware these are more raiders then ships of the line.
The Hero, is in official rules, to good for its points.

[unseelied]

Not fond of three ship escort squadrons personally. Just too easy to kill.   Also not fond of mixing torp ships with other things.  Always has the right tool but never enough of it.  Just my opinion.  I guess the make up of the rest of fleet would make a difference.  I can see if you ran a larger number of escort squadrons you could potentially give the enemy so many targets he'd have trouble finishing something off.  I'm from the big guns school so I mostly take a squadron of escorts once in a while just because it looks cool with the rest of the fleet not because I am expecting much from them.

I will have to try the protectors as more of a raider unit.  In my test game I used them more like an imperial fleet, moving up in a big block with the carrier.  It would leave the carrier unattended but I really don't have to advance with it just because it has 6+ prow armor.  I could just stay in the back and move abeam across the long table edge , launching ordnance, while the cruisers could advance up the sides and turn to nibble at the sides of the enemy formation. Seems like a good plan.  I will definately try it out.  Thanks.