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Ok.
I should perhaps have been a little more thorough in my reasoning as to why I wanted to see the Custodian and the Tracer barrage incorporated into the list.
Now, these ideas developed in my head more or less concurrently - with a fair bit of overlap, as you'll soon see - so I'm going to discuss the reasoning behind both ideas together.
Firstly, I wanted to add to the spacecraft options for the list, using the Qath'fannor (resin Tau fleet) as a source, since we already have a ship from the Ileath'fannor (metal Tau fleet) - a ship which handily can be taken in both fleet lists, I might add! As we already have a cruiser-sized ship in the list - not to mention that the specs for the Il'por'ui (Emissary) and Lar'shi'vre (Protector) are still in dispute, while the Or'es El'leath (Custodian) may only see changes which are irrelevant to its potential use in Epic - I settled on the Custodian as that ship.
However, while the Or'es El'leath has a considerable increase in transport capacity over the Lar'shi (Hero), it has half the number of Ion Cannon shots available in comparison to a Lar'shi. For a ship worth 300 points, this seemed like a lot to ask from a potential Tau gamer who would have to wait until turn 3 to use it at any rate!
Then the issue Tactica has mentioned regarding the T'au list's relative lack of MW and AT fire came to mind. I wanted to figure out a means of providing a reasonably limited amount of additonal MW fire, without unbalancing the ground assets or changing the specs of established unit types. It struck me that going with the idea of orbital missile strikes would be a way of reconciling the issue, while simultaneously adding a little more justification to the option of taking the Or'es El'leath over a Lar'shi.
Of course, since the Lar'shi has a gravitic launcher also, it stood to reason that that ship should also recieve an amount of missiles relative to its BFG missile strength - the idea was that the starship would be launching missiles over a wide enough area to target enemy formations across a number of concurrent battlefields - which is why you can't call on all 60 missiles a Lar'shi fires per turn! (Think of the 1-turn-only Avatar thing in the Eldar army, the molten one is jumping from battlefield to battlefield on the same planet, fighting when and where needed)
The above line would allow the justification of a Lar'shi having 4 or 6 Tracer shots, or the Or'es El'leath having 6 or 8, we can work out a balanced figure without worrying too much about the BFG side of things, as long as the relative values of each ship's salvoes are consistent.
Also, it would allow the Lar'shi to help in dealing with more than just WEs - I could see a formation of marked Russes or Basilisks as suitable targets, for example - but only conditionally (as you'd need to mark any non-WE formation if you want the missiles to be able to hit them!)
In my mind, an Or'es El'leath at 300 with 1PP, 6-Manta transport capacity and 6-8 Tracers seems reasonable, a Lar'shi with its 2PP, 2-Manta transport capacity and 4-6 Tracers may or may not be alright at 150, perhaps the Tracer salvo could be an optional +50 point extra if 150 is too cheap otherwise?
I hope this helps you see where all this is coming from, please tell me if I'm crazy or not!
Gary
_________________  Gue'senshi: The 1st Kleistian Grenadiers v7.3 pdfHuman armed forces for the greater good.
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