The Beauty of Broadsides Part II

Time for Part II!

So lets have a quick recap on our last Broadside Post, shall we? Please remember, the Broadsides we are looking at are the "Double-Missile" setup (Twin-Linked High Yield Missile Pods, Twin-Linked Smart Missile Systems). 

- A unit of 3 Broadsides kills 4.5 Space Marine Equivalents (MEQs; Toughness 4, 3+ Armour Save) per shooting phase

- A unit of 3 Broadsides that has a Tau Commander attached with the Puretide Engram Neurochip (PENchip) does 4.96 Damage Results (before cover) to a vehicle with AV12

- A unit of 3 Broadsides that has a Tau Commander attached with the PENchip does 2.75 Damage Results (before cover) to a vehicle with AV13

- A unit of 3 Broadsides that has a Tau Commander attached with the PENchip does 12.96 wounds to a Toughness 6 Monstrous Creature

Awesome, awesome output from that unit. It's insane! 

So lets look at two different ways that I use to make the most out of my Broadsides, and analyse what they can do. 

1) Strength 7 Galore: 

- 3 Double Missile Broadsides with Early Warning Overrides (EWOs)

- Tau Commander with 2 Missile Pods, Velocity Tracker, Target Lock, Puretide Chip, Iridium Armour

- Behind an Aegis Defence Line with a Quad Gun

Now this is quite an expensive setup (coming in at nearly 500pts), however as I'm sure you will see has an awesome level of output. You are pumping out 18 Strength 7 AP 4 Shots (the Commander is only shooting one Missile Pod and also shooting the Quad Gun), and 12 Strength 5 AP 5 Shots with Ignores Cover. 

To put it simply; 

- This unit setup does 17.92 wounds to a Toughness 6 Monstrous Creature (before armour saves)

- It does 17.73 wounds to MEQs (before armour saves). 

- It causes 7.72 damage results to a vehicle with AV12 (before cover saves) 

- It causes 4.25 damage results to a vehicle with AV13 (before cover saves) 

The unit can deal with flyers; Broadsides average 3.6 hits against flyers with their Twin-Linked High Yield Missile Pods. As you've equipped them with EWOs and the Commander is firing the Quad Gun, you're averaging 7.6 hits against a Flyer just on your Interceptor hits (4.2 damage results to a flyer with AV12, before cover saves). You can also deal with Deep-Striking infantry/drop pods etc. with the above load out, and can still output a decent amount of shots in the subsequent shooting phase as you still can fire the Smart Missile Systems and your Commanders 2 Missile Pods! 

2) Support-Role Commander: 

- 3 Double Missile Broadsides with Early Warning Overrides (EWOs) 

- Tau Commander with Fusion Blaster, Drone Controller, Multi-Spectrum Suite, PENchip, Iridium Armour, 2 Gun/Marker Drones

- Behind an Aegis Defence Line with Quad Gun

This setup takes a bit to get used to: the Commander is extremely supportive and useful, but you need to remember that he can support your entire Tau Army, keeping him with the Broadsides for the entire game is usually not the ideal thing to do, so keep that in mind before reading any further. 

You are pumping out 16 Strength 7 AP 4 shots with Ignores Cover, and 12 Strength 5 AP 5 shots with Ignores Cover.

The Commander obviously doesn't shoot, this means that the unit gains Twin-Linked (which is a waste because all the Broadside weapons are Twin-Linked anyway...) and, more importantly, ignores cover. You also don't lose out on shooting (only minus 2 Strength 7 Shots from the "Strength 7 Galore" setup) as the Drones count as BS5 thanks to the Drone Controller, and will be shooting the Quad Gun. 

To put it simply; 

- This unit setup does 16.37 wounds to a Toughness 6 Monstrous Creature (before armour saves) 

- It does 16.7 wounds to MEQs (before armour saves)

- It causes 7.05 damage results to a vehicle with AV12 (cover is ignored!!!) 

- It causes 3.9 damage results to a vehicle with AV13 (cover is ignored!!!) 

The unit can also deal with flyers; in fact, as it ignores cover, it can deal with them better than the "Strength 7 Galore" setup, doing 4.19 damage results to flyers with AV12. As flyers can't gain a cover save, that's a Storm Raven dead every time one comes on from Reserve. You can still deal with Deep-Striking Infantry just as well, too.

I have taken to using the "Support-Role Commander" unit more often. The PENchip is such a great utility as it can provide a number of options - The Support-Role Commander can also buff your BattleBro Space Marine allies like crazy (Centurions that ignore cover and are twin-linked, anyone..? :D) and can join to your scoring units and use the Stubborn Universal Special Rule (USR) to keep your troops around longer. He's also a mobile Melta option, and if worst comes to worst can also be used to contest objectives late game with an average move of 13" per turn (after assault jump moves).

So I hope you guys have enjoyed the read up! Let me know if you like me doing unit analysis/unit set up posts and I'll keep them coming! 

What're your favourite Broadside setups? And what would you like to see me talk about in a potential "Beauty of Broadsides Part III" post? 

Alles gute, 

TommyH