Tau Kor'or'vesh Commerce Protection Fleet draft rules for BFG

[horizon]

Thinking,,,
ah yeah. I still remember the idea to replace Manta's with a Tigershark bomber variant (normal bomber of fighter bomber, I prefer the latter).
Then Manta's to be bought at 5 / 10pts a piece. 4+ armour, but can only be hit on the ordnance gunnery table and have a 4+ save vs everything but no shields.

iirc... that is...

[Vaaish]

Terminators have difficulty moving through corridors on ships, crisis are much larger and wouldn't be able to fit through them. There might be a whole lot of interior in these ships but 90% is going to be corridors which the Crisis won't be able to use.

[fracas]

stealth suits will work fine for boarding and likely the preferred suit

[lastspartacus]

Its all kinds Vaaish.  Arteries, veins, and capillaries.  Terminators are made for boarding actions and tight situations specifically, and BFG ships have massive and probably ridiculously sized cathedral rooms and large access ways in addition to normal hallways.  I'd say a portion of the ship wouldn't fit crisis suits, but there is fluff of carnifex's rampaging down hallways, so just send the firewarriors down the tighter spaces.
Stealth teams would be so brutal in a boarding action though! 0.o

Ya, Tigershark fighterbombers make a whole lot more sense than mantas in the kororvesh, a whole lot more.  Mantas are still not entirely military vessels.  Question is, would it be worth equal points?  It'd just be more flavorful and fun.

Idea of a freestyling buy-for-points manta is strange to me.

Idea of assault boat mantas, of course, it would be what Farsight used.  Space assault variant.  I KNOW they at least have the resources to rig breach charges and an exit on the nose

[Vaaish]

I believe I mentioned that, but it just wouldn't be practical to use crisis suits in boarding actions if you have good probability of getting the thing trapped in a hall it can't get through and bunch of angry crewers shooting lascannons at you with no place to go. I just don't see a pragmatic race like the tau using them in a boarding action.

[Zelnik]

I just remembered a big reason why Vaaish is right.  When a terminator or space marine gets trapped in a sticky situation, they have the advantage of being able to be teleported (at some risk) back to their ship.

Tau do not have this technology.

However, I am making this clear: The Taros campaign book is clear, the Tau Manta IS a military vessel, used for rapid and MASSIVE troop movements, as well as modified for space combat. Also, it has the ability for limited FTL... It would NOT be wise to compare it to, say, a Thunderhawk.


Considering that it also describes in the section about it's two massive railguns that it's sub-munition round is used against larger ships, the drone controlled ordnance finding weaknesses in the enemies armor, so blowing a hole to dump troops into should not be an issue, it's also why i added the possibility for them to fail (costing the parent ship one of it's mantas)

[lastspartacus]

Mantas could totally do assault boat duty, after some redesign and crew training, no doubt.  The idea of what vacuum fire warrior suits would look like is very cool in my mind, coincidentally.


I have a question.  What would the Protector be worth if it lost the LB?  (Where is that thing on the model anyway?)
The reason I ask this is 3 fold.

1. It would lower the cost of the ship, since we can't come to an agreement that its overpriced as it is.
2. Gives the Custodian even more of a needed linchpin role, as well as a fighter bay based Emissary.
3. Gives the Tau their first true warship that doesn't at all rely on AC, a thought that I like a lot.

[horizon]

Launch bay on Protector is very clearly visible -> Keel.

1. It would lower the cost of the ship, since we can't come to an agreement that its overpriced as it is

.
You are the only one who thinks it is overpriced. Don Gusto thinks undercosted. And all others see it as okay.

2. Gives the Custodian even more of a needed linchpin role, as well as a fighter bay based Emissary.

But you forget the pre-dominant raider scenarios to which the kor'or'vesh where no Custodian is present. These raids/border patrols are executed by Protectors/Castellans.

3. Gives the Tau their first true warship that doesn't at all rely on AC, a thought that I like a lot.

A Tau warship without launch bays would be nice but not the Protector as model has a launch bay.

A friend of mine has Tau ships in the picture without Launch Bays. Perhaps a WR article (31/32).

[lastspartacus]

What picture?

I was mainly asking for my own personal play and playtesting.  Perhaps a 'stripped down' Protector variant.
Whats an LB worth, 10, 15 points?

[Zelnik]

Stop calling it an assault boat!!!

Have you ever seen this vessel compared to a thunderhawk? It is in a class of it's own when a troop transport alone can take on, and destroy warlord titans

[lastspartacus]

Ah semantics

[Vaaish]

Don't you mean warhounds? Taros didn't have warlords deployed and that's the only fluff I can think of where the Tau took on Imperial titans.

[Zelnik]

I am going by stats, Vaaish, warlords were released in a recent imperial armor... and the manta still wins against it.

And those warhounds were one-shotted by a Tigershark AX-1-0.

[Vaaish]

eh.. I wouldn't put much weight behind stats as proof of that. In epic the stats would have the warlords win. I do realize it was the AX1-0 that took down a single warhound, but that was the only fluff I've seen of Tau vs Titans and they'd mentioned that, previously, the only thing that the Tau had capable of hurting the titans was the manta.

[Zelnik]

Then you should look at the Taros campaign, the AX-1-0 changed that.

There is a reason why the Titan legions don't assist in attacking the Tau often.  Also, I strongly suggest you look at the Aeronautica rules for the manta (as they are more updated and at epic scale).  It's literally the best ship in the game.