Unseen Enemy
As I was starting to get into the Tau, I was looking forward to a very different kind of game. Not only would I be shooting, which is something that my Tyranids rarely did (with the exception of my Godzilla list) but I'd also be making far more lateral movements and attempting to keep the enemy from being able to hit me back. As I was reading up on the Tau, however, a couple of ideas occurred to me about some _other_ different ways that Tau can do battle. One of them was the idea of the unseen enemy. One of the things that used to plague me when playing against Tau was their Smart Missiles. (Note, early on, as an opponent unfamiliar with the Tau army, I also confused Smart Missiles and Seeker Missiles, which lead me to vastly overestimate how good they were. I think I thought they were S8 and AP3 and fired 4 shots with no line of sight required! They really aren't that impressive, though that no-Line of Sight thing got me to thinking...) Missiles that can be fired without any Line of Sight are pretty darn impressive. Just look at how nasty a Basilisk or Whirlwind can be. Now combine that with the ability to mount them in a lot of different places in the Tau army list and you have the root of the idea that I had.

I thought to myself, what about designing an army around the concept of hitting things out of Line-Of-Sight. Being able to hide and still rain fire down on the enemy. That sounded pretty interesting, so I set out to see what all the Tau army list could muster in the way of hide and shoot weapons. After a bit of searching, I found 4 possibilities. Smart Missiles certainly work. _Seeker_ Missiles can be fired without Line of Sight from the vehicle that carries them, but they can only be fired by hitting the target with a Markerlight, and the Markerlight _does_ require Line of Sight. Jump Shoot Jump (just what it says on the tin: Jump out from behind cover, shoot the enemy, jump back behind cover) works well, but is something most Tau armies do anyway. Finally, Stealth Suits have the nightfighting universal special rule, meaning that _sometimes_ they can shoot but not be shot, even if they are in Line of Sight. Of these options, the Smart Missile seemed like the best bet.

Smart Missiles in the Tau inventory They can come on every Devilfish, but the Devilfish costs 80pts plus 20pts for the Smart Missiles, and you have to buy something to go in the Devilfish as well.

Let's take a look at what each Smart Missile Pod can do for us... S5 AP5 Heavy 4

BS3 4 x 1/2 x 2/3 x 1/3=4/9 or 0.44DSM assuming 15pt Space Marines, that's 6.66pts/turn

BS4 4 x 2/3 x 2/3 x 1/3=16/27 or 0.59DSM or 8.85pts/turn

Since the Smart Missile System doesn't carry itself onto the board, our first consideration is the efficiency of each potential SMS carrier. To measure their efficiency, we'll take the numbers above and divide the cost by them to see how long it would take to "make their points back." While I understand that making their points back isn't necessarily the most useful statistic for a unit, it is a useful way to measure and compare abilities. For convenience, I'll list them in order of efficiency from lowest to highest.

6 FireWarriors in a Devilfish with SMS: 160pts (that's 24 turns of firing to pay off the investment)

4 Pathfinders in a Devilfish with Smart Missiles: 148pts (22.2 turns to pay off)

Ionhead (Hammerhead with Ion Cannon) w/SMS: 125pts (18.7 turns)

6 FireWarriors in a Devilfish with SMS and Target Array: 165pts (18.6 turns)

4 Pathfinders in a Devilfish with Smart Missiles and Target Array: 153pts (17.3 turns to pay off)

Ionhead (Hammerhead with Ion Cannon) w/SMS and Target Array: 130pts (14.7 turns)

Broadside with TL Railgun, SMS and Advanced Stabilization System: 80pts (12 turns)

Note that the 5pts for Target Array are always very worthwhile here. It's also important to note how many of each choice we can take. For example, we are limited to a maximum of 3 Pathfinder units, even if they are more efficient than other units (such as FireWarriors, for example.) Finally, note that both the Ionhead and the Broadsides are in the same category (Heavy Support) and as such, we cannot choose more than 3 selections from there. (Fortunately the most efficient carrier is the Broadside Battlesuit, and we can take up to 3 of them as a single choice.)

So, the most efficient SMS carrier is a Broadside Battlesuit. The second most efficient is the Ionhead, which is also in the Heavy Support Category, so we can't have both of them. After that, we can turn to Fast Attack and the Pathfinders and their BS4 Devilfish. After that, we have to go with the Troops category. So, if we are going for maximally efficient SMS carriers in a 1500pt force, it will look something like this...

720 3x 3 Broadsides: TL Railgun, SMS, A.S.S. These are the most efficient choices, so we'll take the maximum amount here.

95 Commander Shas'O w/Plasma Rifle and Airbursting Fragmentation Projector, HWMT (We have to have a commander and this is a decent one without going overboard. In addition, the AFP should be able to do some non-LOS damage, which fits our theme nicely. I arrived at the estimate of damage for him by assuming he'd get 5 SM under the template on a Hit and 2 and a partial on a miss. That gives an average of 3.33 hits per shot which comes to 8.33pts/turn. That incidentally gives him an 11.4 turn payoff, which is better than our Broadsides! Too bad you can only get one AFP.)

330 2x6 FireWarriors in Devilfish with SMS and Target Array (We have to have at least 2 Troops, so even though they aren't as efficient as Pathfinders, we grab these two next.)

306 2x4 Pathfinders in Devilfish with SMS and Target Array

1456pts. 49pts left over to add something here or there. What does that get us?

9x BS3 SMS, or 59.9pts/turn
4x BS4 SMS, or 35.4pts/turn
1x Commander with AFP, or 8.33pts/turn

For a grand total of 103.6pts/turn from the whole army. Of course, that's just over 100pts of damage per turn that can be fired without any Line of Sight, which means it may be hard for them to return fire. Still, even if this army manages to do it's average damage on all 6 turns of a standard game and stays hidden so that it takes no damage, it's still only winning by 622pts, about 41%. Sure, a win is still a win, but that's hardly a slam-dunk and that's if the army performs near optimal. Lose a couple of Devilfish or a couple of turns of shooting and you are getting pretty near the Draw category. I won't say this isn't a viable army, but it's not exactly a sure thing. As a bonus though, it is only 34 models in 1500pts, which would make it fairly easy to assemble and paint. In addition, with the exception of the Broadsides, most Tau players will have most of the models already. Finally, if you _do_ get cornered and forced out into the open, 9 Broadsides should make short work of enemy vehicles and some of the bigger Monstrous Creatures.

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