Tau Protection Fleet 2010 overview

[horizon]

If other people insist on a 5+ armoured Warden then 25pts would be sufficient. I think even better.
With 1 Custodian & 1 Emissary you have 5 Wardens = 100pts = 20 batteries, that is a lot on a fast moving item. The limitation due grav hooks is of less an issue since I think.

Zelnik,
I rather see a revision of Tau Armada.

[AndrewChristlieb]

I'm with Sig on the Warden's armor. If were going off of the models size as we have on all the other ships then it should be destroyer sized. Additionally if there is a variant instead of leaving the original 5+ drop it to the 4+ also for the same cost. This actually differs it a bit from the Orca and allows a pure Tau CPF to have the 3 standard types of escort.

Mind you, getting this escort right (the Warden) should lead to getting those other crappy escorts right, such as the Firestorm and all the Chaos escorts. Would like a review of these for publication in a FAQ or rules update. Even if it's only as a suggested optional rule.

Its about time someone said this. There is probably at least one ship in each of the fleet lists that need to be reevaluated if not in points then in stats and several of the lists could use a pass through as well.

[Zelnik]

I am glad to see that everyone agrees on the other ships at least.

I will agree with the 4+ 30cm variant for 25 points.

Also, I fully intend on going over all of the fleets, I just want to focus on the ones with glaring problems and ships that are less then useful.

[Sigoroth]

I am glad to see that everyone agrees on the other ships at least.

Well, I'm not entirely sold on the 2 launch bay Protector. It seems a backwards step to me.

[AndrewChristlieb]

So 25pts for 1 hit 1 shield 1 turret 4+ armor and 30cm speed. What weapons then? 4 L/F/R doesn't fit with the mix of turret and fixed guns that is the current standard. Or will this just remain as 2 weps F and 1 lance L/F/R? Maybe a variant with 2 weps F and 3 weps L/F/R like the havoc instead?

[Zelnik]

We do not mention ships from battlefleet ham sandwich here, andrew.  St 4 f/l/r is just fine


Lc2 is hardly a step back, it allows the tau to function with a strong ordnance presence without relying on an explorer all the time. Remember, ordnance is the primary strength of the tau, and this should not be weakened to the point of uselessness.

[AndrewChristlieb]

... But ham tastes soooo good

[horizon]

Baconnnnn.

ahem,

Protector, I am still in the 1 fighter bay for free or +5pts camp.

Zelnik, the Tau Armada has glaring problems! Hero to strong, Merchant to weak, cheese build list to easy.

[Zelnik]

BATTLEFLEET HAM SANDWICH ONLY ALLOWS HAM, BREAD, AND MAYBE CHEESE IF YOU SUCK UP TO YOUR HIGH ADMIRAL ENOUGH!!!!


Good lord, we have hit another one of these three way problems. Can I just say that having LC1 makes bombers useless? why not just have it LC 1 fighter? it's all it will be used for. 

What's worse is that we all clearly have different ideas as to where this ship is supposed to go.  LC 1 bomber and 1 fighter is just the same as LC 1 fighter, because no one will ever launch the bomber, and it's a waste of points. you might as well remove it all together and add 2 strength to the torpedo's.

Most of the problems I hear from folks here about LC 2 is scale... well we all know this game NEVER has adhered to scale.  Ship mini's are representations of tiny dots at the tip of the stem. 

[Sigoroth]

BATTLEFLEET HAM SANDWICH ONLY ALLOWS HAM, BREAD, AND MAYBE CHEESE IF YOU SUCK UP TO YOUR HIGH ADMIRAL ENOUGH!!!!


Good lord, we have hit another one of these three way problems. Can I just say that having LC1 makes bombers useless? why not just have it LC 1 fighter? it's all it will be used for. 

What's worse is that we all clearly have different ideas as to where this ship is supposed to go.  LC 1 bomber and 1 fighter is just the same as LC 1 fighter, because no one will ever launch the bomber, and it's a waste of points. you might as well remove it all together and add 2 strength to the torpedo's.

Most of the problems I hear from folks here about LC 2 is scale... well we all know this game NEVER has adhered to scale.  Ship mini's are representations of tiny dots at the tip of the stem.

Eh, I disagree. Firstly, a single bomber is still good for taking out an escort. Let's suppose that you've got a group of 3 escorts with 1 turret each in base contact to mass turrets. That one bomber has no hope. Now fire a salvo of torpedoes at the group. They will roll those turrets against the torps, because to do otherwise would be suicide for the entire squadron. Now that lone bomber can move in unimpeded and get 1d6-1 attacks. Very useful. Apart from this, Protectors are often in squadron and as such would be able to launch a wave of 2 bombers. This is tantamount to overkill when you consider that the main weaponry of the CPF is meant to be direct fire and that you can still very easily fit 8 AC into a 1k fleet (2 Protectors and a Custodian is pretty easy to do). Since most fleets up to 1500 pts only run 8 AC this seems fine to me. If you want to spam AC then you can still call in Explorers. But having a 6/1/1 split is actually better than having a 4/4 split as far as I'm concerned, since the majority of the time you'll be using at least 2 fighters per turn.

So I don't see having a single launch bay as being worthless. On top of which, I think that having 2 launch bays would be a step back to the Hero days. Really, a couple of Heroes in squadron had the launch capacity of a full carrier, and they were gunships.    That was, I suppose, ok for a fleet so heavily dependant upon AC, but the CPF is not meant to be that fleet.

As for scale, I don't agree. For the most part things are held to a loose scale. Frigates are larger than destroyers, and so usually have better armour. At the very least they are a better total package (advantage in armour, turrets or firepower, or even all 3). Light cruisers are larger than frigates and so have more hits as well as more goodies (firepower, etc). Cruisers are larger again, grand cruisers larger, and battleships still larger, all with attendant gains in hits, shields, firepower, etc. The Tau Protector is smaller than a Hero. It has much more firepower than a ship its size. It is already, I feel, as jam packed full of goodies as it can be given its size.

Let's think about it for a sec. If it has as much firepower as it can have, and it has as many hits as it can have, and it has as many shields and turrets as it can have and it has as many special rules as it can have and it still sucks, then, as far as I can see, the only real change left to make is to adjust its cost. At 185 pts it really is an odd duck. That price tag says that it is a better ship of the line than a Lunar or Gothic. There is no particular reason why you should have to get 185 pts worth of value out of a Protector, except that it costs 185 pts. So, drop the cost.

Now, this is my feeling on the subject. I don't see 1 launch bay as a problem, in fact I like the character. I think the best fix is a simple price reduction. But, if we really must include another launch bay, then I'd prefer either a variant that sacrifices some firepower for a couple of fighter bays or Horizon's idea of an additional single fighter bay. Whether this would mean that the Protector could launch 1f & 1b only or a choice of 1f & 1b or 2f is another matter.

Note: adding fighters is not a purely defensive option, by the way. Even if there is no enemy ordnance to expend the fighters on (such as against Necrons) then they can still support the bomber in the attack, granting +1 attack as well as being a meatshield.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Its been said time and time again that BFG adheres to no scale. While ships may be scaled against each other that in no way means that they all are, especially when were dealing with two different companies. The CPF fleet argument about scale is pointless if the ships were intended to represent one thing then there is no reason to say they represent another because of the actual size of it. This is like saying that my cruiser sized hulk is not a hulk because its not ridiculously over sized and held up with 8 pins attached to the base so long as its on the right sized base its whatever I say it is.

If the protector gets 1.5 launch bays it needs to be exactly that: 1 bomber 1 fighter or 2 fighters.

I still like the idea of removing some weaponry to make a "carrier" version, either removing the lances or some of the railguns for additional launch bays (keeping the cost reduction to 180).

[Sigoroth]

Its been said time and time again that BFG adheres to no scale. While ships may be scaled against each other that in no way means that they all are, especially when were dealing with two different companies. The CPF fleet argument about scale is pointless if the ships were intended to represent one thing then there is no reason to say they represent another because of the actual size of it. This is like saying that my cruiser sized hulk is not a hulk because its not ridiculously over sized and held up with 8 pins attached to the base so long as its on the right sized base its whatever I say it is.

No, this would undermine the already shaky integrity of scale that the game has. If you go around giving the Protector 8 hits, for example, then all arguments for ship hits based off apparent size go out the window. You'll get shit like "oh hey, look at the battleship I just made, the model is the size of a Cobra, but I've given it 300 hits because it represents something the size of a small moon".

While the scale issue is a subjective one, it does hold to some rough rules. Every exception to these rules undermines them and weakens the game. What we basically need to avoid is giving stats that the ship doesn't look like it has. For example, if you tried to use an Ork Hulk the size of a cruiser against me I'd say no way. It has 40 hits, make it bigger than a battleship.

If anything, instead of making more exceptions we should be looking for ways to reduce the number of exceptions. For example, giving a couple more hits to the Stronghold.

[Zelnik]

Horizon: One bomber is not enough to kill an escort with any sort of reliability, since said bomber will get destroyed 50% of the time. If the escort is B2b with it's buddies, it's destruction closes in on 100%.

There is -nothing- wrong with having 2 LC, and having it be a "hold over from the hero days" is a purely subjective thing on your part. This fleet is STILL heavily dependent on LC, even more so now that the average number of hits to the fleet has been forcibly reduced by 2 across the board.

The Tau are adaptive and practical, why remove something that works?  Simply giving them one more LC will also remove any need for them to have a 'carrier' variant and justify the cost of the ship. 

it also prevents some loud, nasty and unpleasant rules disputes in the future, and does not complicate things with "oh this launch bay only fires one thing, this one fires another".  It's absurd.

Giving it one more LC to justify it's cost is not going to change how it's used either, it will just make it's presence as a flexible combat vessel more defined.  I still UTTERLY fail to see your justification as to why they would move away from a method of war that works remarkably well.  Sure, more gun is great, but they have some of the best attack craft and torpedo's in the game... why move away from what works so well against almost every opponent?


Sig: Thanks for agreeing that the stronghold needs to be a 12 hit battleship.. seriously, what were they thinking...

[horizon]

Zelnik, Sig said that about 1 bomber, not me.

I think 1 bomber/1 fighter is an unique approach for a vessel that is a perfect raider. It can do anything.

[Sigoroth]

Horizon: One bomber is not enough to kill an escort with any sort of reliability, since said bomber will get destroyed 50% of the time. If the escort is B2b with it's buddies, it's destruction closes in on 100%.

There is -nothing- wrong with having 2 LC, and having it be a "hold over from the hero days" is a purely subjective thing on your part. This fleet is STILL heavily dependent on LC, even more so now that the average number of hits to the fleet has been forcibly reduced by 2 across the board.

The Tau are adaptive and practical, why remove something that works?  Simply giving them one more LC will also remove any need for them to have a 'carrier' variant and justify the cost of the ship. 

it also prevents some loud, nasty and unpleasant rules disputes in the future, and does not complicate things with "oh this launch bay only fires one thing, this one fires another".  It's absurd.

Giving it one more LC to justify it's cost is not going to change how it's used either, it will just make it's presence as a flexible combat vessel more defined.  I still UTTERLY fail to see your justification as to why they would move away from a method of war that works remarkably well.  Sure, more gun is great, but they have some of the best attack craft and torpedo's in the game... why move away from what works so well against almost every opponent?

Well, the Tau are about manoeuvrability. The proper application of force at a specific point. In the past their ships have been so slow and ungainly that they've had to rely upon attack craft to do this for them. Now, with a more mobile force, they are finally able to apply the guns of their ships as they wish. So we see a change in doctrine from total reliance upon attack craft to a more rounded fleet. Of course having 2 launch bays is better than only 1 and the Tau would prefer to have 2 rather than 1. It is a simple improvement. But that extra AC comes at the cost of something. It necessarily means the ship has less weaponry. There are only a finite number of things that you can fit into a ship and the more AC you have the less you have of something else. In this new Tau I think that the single bay is more of a safety net than anything else, used for CAP and the odd attack of opportunity. I don't think this new Tau would add a second bay if they had the room, I think they'd add more guns.

You might argue which is more effective, guns or AC. You might argue even that AC is better at applying force where they need it. But if that sentiment were mirrored in full by the Tau, they'd simply have nothing but carrier Explorers. It is possible that AC is by far the superior weapon system but that the Tau still move away from it. In Japan in WWII the big gun lobby vied for more battleships over carriers, even though carriers were superior (I'm sure they had their reasons).

Having said all that, it is my contention that the Protector is already jam packed full of goodies as it is. I personally don't think that you can fit anything more into the ship. This is, of course, my opinion. I think it's reasonably well supported by the model and its size as well as reasonable extrapolations from previous capabilities.

If the Protector is still lacking (as I believe it is) then I think that a cost reduction is the best fix. If there is still a need for a carrier (which I'm unsure of) then a variant adding 2 fighter bays at the cost of some other firepower seems sufficient to me. More  than that, it seems justifiable, due to the small prow launch bays. In the event that neither of these options is palatable then adding a single fighter bay to the Protector seems more than enough to me. Adding another Manta bay is less justifiable as far as I'm concerned (by the model) but also less desirable because it is a step back in design to the Hero. You may as well give it 6 torps and the same direct gunnery too.