[Edit:] The whole of my works on the Tau Navy is hosted on my blog here: http://40kroleplay.weebly.com/40k-roleplay-blog/modeling-the-korvattra

First baby step:

Il’Fannor (Merchant)-class voidship - Standard Ke'lshan configuration

Speed: 3 Manoeuvrability: +0 Detection: +17
Void Shields: 1 Armour: 19 Hull Integrity: 50 (60, if newer, improved hull)
Morale: 100 Crew Population: 100 Crew Rating: Competent (30)
Turret Rating: 2
Weapon Capacity: Prow 1, Port 2, Starboard 2 (of these slots, 1 port and 1 starboard slot pre-equipped with components)

Essential components
Compact, advanced Gravitic Drives (interstellar travel takes only 3 times as long as imperial vessels), Tau-pattern Warp Drive, Tau Command Bridge, Tau Life Sustainer, Tau Crew Quarters, Sensor Array

Supplemental components
1 Prow Railgun battery (Macrobattery; Strength 2; Damage 2d10; Crit Rating 3; Range 8)
1 Starboard Railgun battery* (Macrobattery; Strength 2; Damage 2d10; Crit Rating 3; Range 8)
1 Starboard Gravitic Hook - Capacity: 1 Orca -
1 Port Railgun battery* (Macrobattery; Strength 2; Damage 2d10; Crit Rating 3; Range 8)
1 Port Gravitic Hook - Capacity: 1 Orca -

Dal'yth Configuration
Replace Port/Starboard Gravitic Hooks with:
Port/Starboard Ion Cannon* (Lance; Strength 1; Damage 1d10; Crit Rating 4; Range 6)

*Tau rail gun and lance batteries are extremely sophisticated with advanced targeting systems that allow several individual weapons to engage each designated target regardless of their relative positions on the Tau ship. Therefore, Tau port/starbopard weapons marked with an asgerisk can also fire at target in the ship's Front arc.

Remarks: How good Tau Detection really is, is a bit unclear to me - however Tau tracking devices are reportedly very advanced; thus, arguably, their sensor arrays also are. I modeled Railguns as more powerful than macrocannons but with lower firing rate (strength). Should even out. More to follow as my time permits.

Thoughts?

Alex

Is this not more relevant for the RT boards? Unless you're adapting it for DW uses...I'm being unhelpful though so here is some brief feedback I can provide:

Tau detection I would say is fairly same as Imperium but what could also work in their favour are drones. I don't think there's any reason though why Tau wouldn't consider launch a number of drones with sensing capability which could relay the information back to the main vessel allowing them automated long distance recon. I think I read somewhere that you can take their detection grids and pump the data straight into their drone controlled weapons perhaps allowing even greater accuracy or better feedback for the pilots/gunners.

Is this not more relevant for the RT boards? Unless you're adapting it for DW uses...

With any luck this is just the beginning of a series of threads that are meant to integrate RT voidship rules into Deathwatch. I am going to post to RT forums some conversion guidelines though and will link to here. At least, that's the plan.

About detection: yeah, it's not entirely clear. What is known is this:

Tracking Systems

Tau Messengers boast highly advanced data storage and processing facilities to cope with the vast amounts of information they carry. When linked to ship sensors though this processing power can be used to provide a direct feed to the ships turrets. In fleet actions Messengers can route this data to nearby Tau vessels. Any Tau vessel within 10cm of a ship with tracking systems may re-roll misses when using turrets, and ignores the column shift when firing batteries at ranges above 30cm. Tracking systems continue to function even if a ship is braced for impact.

Not directly sensors-related but a hint towards some advanced capabilities of Tau tech. Same with weapons:

A Note on Tau Weapon Configurations

Tau rail gun and lance batteries are extremely sophisticated with advanced targeting systems that allow several individual weapons to engage each designated target regardless of their relative positions on the Tau ship. Where individual turrets and batteries may be relatively weak, combining firezones in this manner make Tau railguns and ion cannons fearsome prospects, especially in forward firing arc, where turrets from all over the vessel can combine against a single enemy vessel or squadron.

+20 seemed okay for a Light Cruiser-equivalent. Imperial Light Cruisers have +12 to +15 Detection. However, initial designs should always go for moderation, there's a tendency to exaggerate initially - going for that wow factor. I'll scale it back to +17.

Alex

Kass'l (Orca) Gunship

(Do not confuse with the Orca Dropship from Rites of Battle. )

Speed: 5 Manoeuvrability: +10 Detection: +20
Void Shields: 1 Armour: 17 Hull Integrity: 25
Morale: 100 Crew Population: 100 Crew Rating: Competent (30)
Turret Rating: 1
Weapon Capacity: Prow 2

Essential components
Gravitic Drive, Tau Command Bridge, Tau Life Sustainer, Tau Crew Quarters, Sensor Array

Supplemental components
Prow Railgun battery (Macrobattery; Strength 2; Damage 1d10+5; Crit Rating 4; Range 6)
Prow Ion Cannon (Lance; Strength 1; Damage 1d10; Crit Rating 4; Range 6)

Remarks: Detection follows a similar pattern a few points above imperial equivalents. Mobility is also more on the upper end for the speed bracket. Armour is slightly lighter than a Sword frigate. Same with Hull.

Gal'leath is next. When I have the core stats for all ships, I'll add the fluff stats.

Alex

Gal'leath (Explorer)-class voidship - Standard Vash'ya configuration Mk XXIII

Speed: 3 Manoeuvrability: -5 Detection: +15
Void Shields: 1 Armour: 21 (Rear 15) Hull Integrity: 120
Morale: 100 Crew Population: 100 Crew Rating: Crack (40)
Turret Rating: 5
Weapon Capacity: Prow 2, Port 2, Starboard 2, Dorsal 1, Stern 1 (of these slots, 2 port and 2 starboard slots pre-equipped with components)

Essential components
Gravitic Drives, Tau-pattern Warp Drive, Tau Command Bridge, Tau Life Sustainer, Tau Crew Quarters, Sensor Array

Supplemental components
Prow Railgun battery (Macrobattery; Strength 3; Damage 1d10+6; Crit Rating 3; Range 8)
1 Starboard Tau Launch Bay
1 Port Tau Launch Bay
1 Starboard Gravitic Hook - Capacity: 1 Orca -
1 Port Gravitic Hook - Capacity: 1 Orca -

Experimental Bor'kan configuration Mk XXIV

Replace Supplemental components section with:

Supplemental components

Prow Railgun battery (Macrobattery; Strength 3; Damage 1d10+6; Crit Rating 3; Range 8)

Prow Gravitic Launcher*
1 Starboard Launch Bay
1 Port Launch Bay
1 Starboard Gravitic Hook - Capacity: 1 Orca -
1 Port Gravitic Hook - Capacity: 1 Orca -

1 Stern Gravitic Hook - Capacity: 1 Orca -

*Rules for the Gravitic Launcher in a subsequent post. However, equipping the ship with one comes at the expense of one launch bay (choose which) - to make space for the drone-guided missiles.

Remarks: While being speculative, the Gal'leath probably does not have enough power for all components from both configurations at once.

Alex

The other ships here:

http://40kroleplay.weebly.com/40k-roleplay-blog/modeling-the-korvattra

This will get updated aith Attack Craft, Orbital Defenses and, more importantly, Tau personnel.

What do you think would be the influence of Tau personnel? I could imagine that the presence of an Etheral could make the Tau fight harder in boarding actions. Or maybe some Tau-specific ship actions?

Alex

The other ships here:

http://40kroleplay.weebly.com/40k-roleplay-blog/modeling-the-korvattra

This will get updated aith Attack Craft, Orbital Defenses and, more importantly, Tau personnel.

What do you think would be the influence of Tau personnel? I could imagine that the presence of an Etheral could make the Tau fight harder in boarding actions. Or maybe some Tau-specific ship actions?

Alex

Not sure of any of the RT rules so bare with me if these are totally wrong.

The presence of an ethereal inspires all Tau to fight with motivation. While the Ethereal survives, any morale losses experienced by the crew are reduced by half (round up) and regain 1D5 morale per X amount of time. Should he be killed, the crew morale is immediately halved (round down).

I would imagine that a Tau crew will not mutiny (or less likely to do so) unless it becomes a debate versus the renegades of Farsight and the Tau Empire itself. Likely they will choose to withdraw.

Presence of an Air Caste pilot is probably good for ship repairs as I think they do lots of the fixing work as well as piloting. Dunno what the rules are on repairs but perhaps the equivalent of having an experienced engineer onboard. So some sort of bonus to any repair rolls...

Veteran Fire Caste commander, very good for tactics and bonuses to boarding operations I would imagine, also able to assert command over the entire vessel much easier especially if he is a Shas'o. Again not sure on how this translates to RT so apologies if this isn't that helpful.

Drones, now do they count as personnel in this? If so you could populate a ship entirely with them but unlike living beings, they have no morale and are immune to any and all morale afflictions and will always operate at maximum combat efficiency so long as systems are not damaged. You could also put repair drones in, basically an entirely automated crew, no Tau units at all so no morale risks and they are just machines functioning by skimmers and antigrav so defenders could use that to their advantage by shutting off life support and environmental conditions/gravity. A good tactic for defenders.

This is hepful, CG. My thoughts were traveling in a similar direction. A couple of thoughts on my behalf.

• Tau are awful in boarding actions in BFG. I attributed that to not being a prefered tactic, therefore they hardly know what to do when it comes to that. I modeled it as -20 to command tests in boarding actions.
• I was considering making that -10 if there was an etheral on board but then again I wonder if that isn't a too weak disadvantage. Tau have half boarding strength in BFG. Maybe I should make it -30 and -20 with ethereal.
• Air Caste: The question is - are they better or worse than the imperium's master enginseers? Also I wonder how Air Caste pilots compare to Imperial personnel. I think I need to read up a bit more... Wiki says: "Tau pilots tend to be superior compared to their human counterparts because they have a better depth perception and higher acceleration-tolerance, but lack real combat experience compared to the best Imperial fighter-pilots."
• Admiral are called Kor'el and and Kor'O and are probably Navy (Air Caste) equivalents. I would simply say that the latter simply gives a bonus to command tests (Effective Rating = Crew Rating +10) or does not use Crew Rating but has a fixed value (50? 55? 60?).
• Drones: Yeah! But they apparently are not effective in boarding actions either (see above). Again, I rather attribute it to inexperienced officers, but I I don't want to give the Tau ship too much of an advantage. In BFG Tau are not good in boarding actions, so they must suck in 40K RP too. But what you say about no loss of morale is absolutely correct.

Alex

Observations:

Tracking systems are better than Imperial Navy standard tech, but ships mounting them are dedicated sensor/courier platforms - the spacegoing equivalent of an AWACs aircraft. A normal warship won't necessarily be any better than imperial standards.

I would suggest the Merchant class's manouvrability may be a bit high. The orca is agile enough, but the Merchant is noticably the only light cruiser in the game which can't pull 90' turns as standard. In fact it's a less agile ship than an ork Killkrooza.

Isn't this why we have the XV-4 for this situation? Or the hazard suits? This suggests Tau are moving more towards short range in your face tactics so they are having to get closer than they like. Plus if I had to board a ship I would rather do it in full suit.

The drones meanwhile, their use is more defensive. Not needing life support, defenders can vent oxygen out of compromised sections and drones would work fine. It forces unprepared to move.

IIRC air caste pilots do handle it better but lack the experience. However they also have the benefits of sophisticated targeting drones

Tracking systems are better than Imperial Navy standard tech, but ships mounting them are dedicated sensor/courier platforms - the spacegoing equivalent of an AWACs aircraft. A normal warship won't necessarily be any better than imperial standards.

Isn't that how I modeled the Messenger-class?

I would suggest the Merchant class's manouvrability may be a bit high. The orca is agile enough, but the Merchant is noticably the only light cruiser in the game which can't pull 90' turns as standard. In fact it's a less agile ship than an ork Killkrooza.

Is it? I gathered it was as agile (read: not at all) as the Krooza, just slower (Krooza: 5/+0). Also, since it gets used as full-fledged warship, I wanted it to be slightly better than imperial transports. So 3/+0 instead of 3/-5. You think that's wrong?

Isn't this why we have the XV-4 for this situation? Or the hazard suits? This suggests Tau are moving more towards short range in your face tactics so they are having to get closer than they like. Plus if I had to board a ship I would rather do it in full suit.

The drones meanwhile, their use is more defensive. Not needing life support, defenders can vent oxygen out of compromised sections and drones would work fine. It forces unprepared to move.

IIRC air caste pilots do handle it better but lack the experience. However they also have the benefits of sophisticated targeting drones

This is interesting. How do you imagine

• boarding actions (offensively/defensively)
• hit & run attacks (offensively/defensively)

to work out? Let's play Kor'O for a moment and assume we had the entire plethora of Tau units available on our Hero-class.

Boarding: This is a full-fledged battle for control between locked ships. Stealth suits seem to be critical to predict and interdict enemy movement. Fire Warriors suck but these will be your main fighting forces. Broadsides/Riptides, etc. will not be as useful as in open terrain. Crisis suits will be good but limited in numbers. Drones will come in handy but will not be enough.

Offensive Hit & Run: Stealth Suits, definitely. All the way. A single stealth suit with demo charges will be able to do a lot of damage. Not just that... the camouflage aspect means they don't have to go back home. they could independently do attacks every strategic turn until eliminated or brought home (on another hit&run mission).

Defensive Hit & Run: CG has given a very useful hint about drone usage and vaccuming sections. But again I think Stealth suits could be key. If they can just follow invaders and report their position and movement, it's possible to set-up blocking positions at targeted ship components.

So how about this: Tau get -30 for Boarding actions. That gets modified:

+10 Ethereal on board (rare)

+5 Stealth Battlesuits on board (sometimes, depending on ship type)

+5 XV46 Vanguard Void Battlesuits on board (rare)

Hit & Runs:

+10 Stealth Battlesuits on board

(of course Astartes should have their own bonuses if the GM doesn't want to play it out for whatever lame reason... ah, I need a thread on how to modify RT Ship Actions for Deathwatch)

In addition, Stealth suits can automatically conduct a Hit & Run each turn, if they are left behind. No Pilot test necessary. However, losing the opposed Command test by 2 DoF or more results in loss of the unit. They can be taken back home during a subsequent actual hit & run Ship Action (requires the Pilot test).

Drones: In addition, having an unusually high number of Drones (outfitting option for the GM) reduces all morale damage by 1 to a minimum of 0.

As for Air Caste... I have given the Tau ships Crew ratings that are less than stellar (no pun intended). That reflects their inexperience. So now I need to model their Barracuda and Manta Attack Crafts and give them adequate bonuses to compensate...

Feedback, guys?

Alex

I agree, Stealth Suits would be the bulk of your force. Fusion Blaster melta capability would allow them to be in a sealed environment and have something strong enough to take out sealed blast doors or make a few holes in the walls. Meanwhile crisis teams can be useful and depending on the amount of ceiling space and what the rooms are like you may be able to use the jump packs to give them a forward momentum boost rather than a vertical one to charge forward swiftly. Plus vectored retro thrusters to pull back swiftly. Arming crisis suits with flamers will allow them to spread a lot of flamey death through narrow corridors. This will drastically reduce the protection that anything will offer the defenders.

As correctly identified, foot soldiers will be less effective. A Tau fire warrior will likely fall prey to the same weaknesses as humans in that they are subject to a vacuum and are at risk of environmental conditions. One thing we have not considered though is the presence of auxillaries. A good number of Kroot may be able to work their way through the ship very quickly. Although they lack the endurance and are prone to environmental issues, they may be able to strike quickly through the ship being significantly more agile. Also their lithe frame may allow them to infiltrate and get places that a heavily armed crisis team or even an armoured fire warrior wont be able to get into (such as vents). Worst case scenario is that the close quarters hand to hand fighting may disorientate or tie down various squads and allow other forces to advance.

Defensive, depending on the ship layout, open long corridors would favour the power of a broadside as it reduces the enemy field of movement but the issue is that should a Railgun miss (and I refuse to update them to the frankly s*** version of them with "Rail Rifles") will likely breach the walls or hull. So unless they want to use this and the hull breaches isnt an issue then you would be at risk of more problems. The suit itself would have entrenched and likely magnetised to be a fixed position defensive turret. The XV-89 might be a good defensive suit, having heavier armour and semi decent weapons capability, trading it in for reduced movement which is lost on the tight space onboard ship. Best defence is still more drones though, automated turrets etc.

Hit and run, you are correct with stealth teams. A few XV-25s or 22's can easily do enough damage and leave fairly quickly without being detected. You may want to make use of Vespids, I don't think it's even been clarified whether their flight is silent or not but they may be able to make fast progress through a ship and with something that (on TT at least) can kill a marine would make for a powerful infiltration force. I am not sure on their effectiveness in poor atmosphere environments, I wouldn't imagine it is overly high.

Defensive hit and run I would say the key for this is detection of enemies and identifying sabotage so you are looking at drones all the way. A few with Xenos auspex and command link drones, you can easily detect and relay signs of hostile activity throughout the ship. Arm a few with pulse carbines and they can do a fair bit of damage to most attackers. You may want to include Kroot and/or Vespids as the former may be able to smell nearby enemies attempting to hide while the tri-vision spectrum of the latter may serve to detect those using camo cloaks. They would hide against the eyes of many but not against normal, IR and UV spectrums.

The thing about Tau crews though, they are only inexperienced in terms of not having much tactical knowhow at fighting. They are still just as numerous and capable as any Imperial crew and can hold their own fairly well but they havent had enough years of practice. That, I dont think justifies a massive hammering to their crewing capabilities just means they are marginally less effective. I would imagine given the same length of time and of war that Tau would eventually surpass the Imperial Navy.

I agree basically with it all. But I prefer to model the Tau as a bit less experienced... especially in 817. They are lacking 180 years of combat experience compared to standard 40K. And they are not that inexperienced... the Hero-class gets a default Crew rating of 50.

Alex

Hey, I prefer Tau over Imperium so I am slightly biased, so yes the numbers are minor . If Fantasy Flight released a full and proper book for RP'ing as a Tau with lots of nice shiny artwork then my wallet would be suffering faster and inflict more suffering than Slaanesh when he wiped out half the Eldar at their birth.

But yes those are fine so far.

Hmm, the Attack Craft rules in Battlefleet Koronus are...

There isn't exactly much spread between bonuses for fighters, is there? 5 or 10 points difference? And why didn't they capture that Darkstars can stay out in the void for much longer than normal fighters? Probably bookspace constraints but it's kinda disappointing...

Alex

A lot of stuff in the small craft section of BFK got cut, I think. There was even a sidebar that N0_1_H3r3 wrote to include mechanics for firing macrocannon at small craft or torpedoes that got cut- it shows up in the RT house-rules subforum, IIRC.

The fact that there's no quality degradation as long as there are still fighters left in the squadron, the fact that there really aren't rules for CSP (CVP?), the tight spread on quality... all of this was kind of a letdown for me.

Regarding punching holes in the hull with railguns/rifles: If you punch a hole through the side of the ship the size of a quarter, you know what you can do? Plug it with your ungloved hand. It's a 1 ATM differential- you might bruise, but you wont get sucked through the hole by the vacuum. The point is that holes can be patched- explosive decompression is what happens when you cause a bulkhead to cease to exist- good luck doing that with man-portable weaponry.

Also, I find the idea that armoured hulls that can withstand macrocannon fire can be breached by railguns or fusion blasters kind of laughable... but that's just me.

Of bigger concern is accidentally wrecking components or causing a steam/plasma rupture in engineering, or triggering accidental secondary explosions when fighting on a gun-deck. To quote an old movie- "Be careful. Most things in here don't react too well to bullets."

Tau Railguns are arguably the favourite for wrecking ships. Consider that the man portable back of the suit variants are devices which are accelerating and firing a dense solid projectile about the size of a hairdryer at roughly mach 7-10 (based on real life equivalents). However you choose to look at it, that will hurt when it hits something. Additionally since it can easily shatter the heavy armour of Imperial titans then it should be possible for it to do some damage on board a ship if the conditions are right. Scale it up to a ship weapon for the finishing touch when you can use larger generators to power electromagnets, use heavier/denser/larger projectiles and you have right there something which can likely smash a hull open with ease.

It's not just the weapons (though firing a railgun could pose some problems on your own ship), it is the dense environment, potentially restricting movement and allowing the enemy to get into CC easily. If I was a Kor'O, I would probably rather withdraw any Broadsides for a last stand on the bridge. I'd take a Terminator over 3 Broadsides in boarding actions on any given day.

Alex

A lot of stuff in the small craft section of BFK got cut, I think. There was even a sidebar that N0_1_H3r3 wrote to include mechanics for firing macrocannon at small craft or torpedoes that got cut- it shows up in the RT house-rules subforum, IIRC.

The fact that there's no quality degradation as long as there are still fighters left in the squadron, the fact that there really aren't rules for CSP (CVP?), the tight spread on quality... all of this was kind of a letdown for me.

So, you or anyone else up for a partial rewriting of the Attack Craft rules?

Alex

Tau Railguns are arguably the favourite for wrecking ships. Consider that the man portable back of the suit variants are devices which are accelerating and firing a dense solid projectile about the size of a hairdryer at roughly mach 7-10 (based on real life equivalents). However you choose to look at it, that will hurt when it hits something. Additionally since it can easily shatter the heavy armour of Imperial titans then it should be possible for it to do some damage on board a ship if the conditions are right. Scale it up to a ship weapon for the finishing touch when you can use larger generators to power electromagnets, use heavier/denser/larger projectiles and you have right there something which can likely smash a hull open with ease.

Tau shipscale railguns are macrocannon by another name. In BFG, there was literally no difference between the two, and I see no reason that a typical railgun battery would be any different from a Sunsear Las battery in execution. Your comparison as I read it (railguns can damage Titans, so they can damage ships too) is functionally identical to saying that a Lascannon can damage Titans, so they can damage ships too. The logic here is... suspect. Nevertheless... I have a news flash for you: they can. It's called a hit-and-run attack. Demo does it better, though- it's more controlled and more predictable. I would, it should be noted, never allow a player with a lascannon (or a tau Broadside opponent) to deal Hull damage during a character-scale firefight aboard a vessel.

Functionally they act the same but isnt a macrocannon just a scaled up bolter? Using explosive force to fire a projectile towards a target while Railguns use magnetic fields etc? Fluff question there, Imperial fleet stuff wasn't my speciality.

There is a difference between damaging and destroying though with regards to railguns. Railguns and Las cannons can destroy a titan by doing enough damage to them to force them to break down/collapse/blow up. Since they are capable of taking down some of the Imperiums biggest and baddest things out there, there is at least SOME chance, given the right conditions, which they can at least penetrate the ships hull. Never said it was a guaranteed but it's a risk. I mean don't get me wrong its not like either of them will properly cause any major damage to a ship beyond a few small breaches that cant be fixed, as you described, with a hand. The odds of damage would be minimal but I felt it worth mentioning. If anything though yes your biggest risk is collateral to hit anything else.

But we're getting sidetracked, I'd not ideally take them either unless you needed fire support for a long hallway and you're playing defensive and even then we're looking at last resort.

Taking this to PM- it doesn't really belong in DW forum.