The Beauty of Broadsides Part I

How badass is that picture!?

Okay guys - wow. Just wow. Broadsides are amazing. Lets look at some history.

Broadsides copped a LOT of flak when Tau were first rereleased, as they had no more str 10 guns. Enough said, that was definitely a shame. The Railgun basically died in the arse and was replaced by the "Heavy Rail Rifle" (wtf is that thing!?). That's a shame isn't it. So the release of the new Tau codex came, and people went crazy over the Riptide, and just really hated on the Broadside. You see a lot of Riptides these days - people ask me "You have a Tau Detachment? Why aren't you using a Riptide!?".

Well I'll damn tell you why. Lets crunch some numbers. The unit analysis below is only talking about Broadsides using both missile variants - taking High Yield Missile Pods and Smart Missile Systems.

The above load out (Missile + Missile) gives you 8 twin-linked shots per Broadside - fair dinkum. 4 of these are ignoring cover at strength 5, AP 5. The other 4 are strength 7, AP4. On average, you will be hitting with 3 missiles per system (BS3, twin linked). Thats six HITS per Broadside, without any Marker Light support... :)

Lets keep going, using Toughness 4, 3+ Space Marines (Marine Equivalents - MEQ's) for our wounding example.

On the roll to wound, you will wound (these are all statistical averages people) 2 Marines with your 3 strength 5, AP 5 hits. You will wound 2.5 Marines with your 3 strength 7, AP 4 hits. That's 4.5 wounds against MEQ's every shootings phase, averaging 1.5 MEQ dead per Broadside.

In a squad of 3 Broadsides, that's 4.5 Marines dead every shooting phase. Awesome, no?

But of course, the Beauty of Broadsides doesn't come from their ability to wipe out half a squad of marines per turn. Their beauty comes in the form of being supported by a Tau Commander with a Puretide Engram Neurochip. This thing does absolute wonders for the unit, and makes Broadsides one of the most effective Tank- and Monster-Hunter units in the game.

Lets crunch some numbers.

If we shoot at say, a vehicle with armour (AV) 12 (of course only with our Str 7 Missiles) with a squad of 3 Broadsides, we're hitting 9 times on average and doing an average of 4.96 damage results (before cover, unfortunately).

If we shoot at say, a vehicle with AV13 with a squad of 3 Broadsides, we're still putting out an impressive 2.75 damage results.

If we shoot at a Toughness 6 model that is a Monstrous Creature, we hit (you guessed it!) 9 times with our Str 7 missiles, and 9 times with our Str 5 missiles. That's 8 wounds with our Str 7 missiles on the Monstrous Creature, and 4.96 wounds from our Str 5 missiles. That's 12.96 wounds total from just those three broadsides. Pair that with say, our Tau Commander that's helping out with the trusty PENchip firing a Missile Pod and a Quad Gun, you're outputting 17.92 wounds on that Toughness 6 Monstrous Creature - roughly 3 wounds after armour saves (and I'm SURE you've got enough firepower to knock off that last wound with just a group of fire warriors or two).

That's an absolutely INSANE amount of output for a unit.

There are just so many things you can do with Broadsides, and that's why this is only the first post in a series of 2 or 3 that I plan to write about these things. Our next post will look at some different unit setups you can utilise, and our 3rd post will look at a few army list examples with some Broadside Spam.

Our friend Optimus-Prime-Time has also agreed to do a post on one of his favourite units, Tau Sniper Drones - you should all look forward to that!

Part II coming on Sunday!

Alles gute,
TommyH