Hey peoples, Ive been working on some tau ships for use in my own games and figured I might share, and get some input from those more experienced than I. My primary source has been battlefleet gothic and imperial armor books. I am trying to be as close to those ships as possible. Any input would be appreciated. Here goes:

TAU SHIPS

macrobattery
rail gun battery mk 2 (light cruiser or bigger)
3 strength 1d10+4 4 critical range 9
railgun battery mk 1 (any ship)
3 strength 1d10+4 4 critical range 6

lance
ion cannon battery mk 1 (any)
1 strength 1d10+2 3 critical range 6
Ion cannon battery mk 2 (cruiser only, prow only)
2 strength 1d10+2 3 critical range 6

gravitic launcher
-fire torpedoes that use plasma warheads with guided systems. These drone guided missles may act with a rating of 30 on thier own and do not require a player action to modify speed or course.
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grav hooks
-raider sized shipes may dock at these and be transported through the warp.

attack craft
bomber/(could be used as assualt boats as well, but tau don't do boardings) Mantas: rating +5 speed 6vus squadron size 1 special: shielded: +20 on upkeep tests
fighter: Barracudas rating +15 speed 8 vus squadron size 18 special: none

fire arcs
port and starboard fire arcs on tau made vessels are able to fire to the front or appropriate side rather than just to the side.
Tau have no restrictions to the fire arcs thier lance weapons use

prow deflector
by manipulating gravity the ship increases its fore armor by +4. A critical hit to the fore disables this deflector

Boarding actions
tau vessels have -30 to defend against boarding attacks and hit and run attacks.

Warp
Tau ships are only able to make short hops of the minimum distance at a time. They do not roll on encounters in the warp however, as they do not spend enough time there to encounter anything.

Old tau ships

Gal'leath (explorer)
battleship
speed 3
void shields 1
turret rating 5
manueverability +10
armor 17/14 rear
detection +10
hull integrity 120

weapons:
3 prow railgun battery mk 2
port launch bays str 4
starboard launch batteries str 4
port gravitic hook
starboard gravitic hook
dorsal gravitic hook

Gal'leath Borkan configuration
battleship
speed 3
void shields 1
turret rating 5
manueverability +10
armor 17/14 rear
detection +10
hull integrity 120

weapons:
3 prow railgun battery mk 2
prow gravitic launcher str 8
port launch bays str 2
starboard launch batteries str 2
port gravitic hook
starboard gravitic hook
stern gravitic hook

Il'fannor (merchant) ke'lshan
Light cruiser/transport
speed 3
void shields 1
turret rating 2
manueverability +10
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 60

weapons:
prow railgun battery mk1
port railgun battery mk1
starboard railgun battery mk1
port gravitic hook
starboard gravitic hook
integral cargo hold

Il'fannor (merchant) dal'ythspeed
Light cruiser/transport
speed 3
void shields 1
turret rating 2
manueverability +10
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 60

weapons:
3 prow railgun battery mk1
port railgun battery mk1
starboard railgun battery mk1
port Ion cannon battery mk1
starboard ion cannon battery mk1
integral cargo hold

Lar'shi (hero) Vash'ya
cruiser
speed 4
void shields 2
turret rating 3
manueverability +10
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 80

weapons:
prow gravitic launcher str 6
2 prow railgun battery mk2
port launch bay str 1
starboard launch bay str 1
port ion cannon mk2
starboard ion cannon mk2
prow deflector

Lar'shi (hero) tolku
cruiser
speed 4
void shields 2
turret rating 3
manueverability +10
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 80

weapons:
prow gravitic launcher str 6
2 prow railgun battery mk2
port launch bay str 1
starboard launch bay str 1
2 port railgun battery mk2
2 starboard railgun battery mk2
prow deflector

Kir'qath (defender)
Frigate
speed 4
void shields 1
turret rating 2
manueverability +10
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 35

weapons:
2 prow railgun mk 1
prow gravitic launcher str 2

Skether'qan (messenger)
frigate
speed 5
void shields 1
turret rating 2
manueverability +20
armor 17
detection +20
hull integrity 30

weapons:
prow railgun battery mk1

special: special tracking system gives +10 ballistic skill to all allies within 10 VUs of the messenger

Kass'l (orca)
Raider
speed 4
void shields 1
turret rating 1
manueverability +20
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 25

weapons:
prow railgun battery mk1
prow ion cannon batterymk1

special: no warp drive

New tau ships

Or'es El'leath (custodian)
battleship
speed 4
void shields 2
turret rating 5
manueverability +10
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 110

weapons:
prow gravitic launcher str 4
2 port railgun battery mk2
2 starboard railgun battery mk2
port ion cannon battery mk1
starboard ion cannon battery mk1
port launch bay str 4
starboard launch bay str 4
3 ventral gravitic hooks
prow deflector

Kir'la (warden)
raider
speed 4
void shields 1
turret rating 1
manueverability +20
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 25

weapons:
prow ion cannon battery mk1
prow railgun battery mk1

Kir'shasvre (castellan)
frigate
speed 4
void shields 1
turret rating 2
manueverability +20
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 35

weapons:
prow gravitic launcher str 2
2 prow railgun battery mk1

Lar'shi'vre (protector)
cruiser
speed 4
void shields 2
turret rating 3
manueverability +10
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 75

weapons:
prow gravitic launcher str 6
prow ion cannon battery mk2
prow railgun battery mk2
port railgun battery mk2
starboard railgun battery mk2
prow launch bay str 2
prow deflector

Il'porrui (emissary)
light cruiser
speed 4
void shields 1
turret rating 2
manueverability +10
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 60

weapons:
prow gravitic launcher str 3
prow railgun battery mk2
port railgun battery mk1
starboard railgun battery mk1
port launch bay str 1
starboard launch bay mk1

Good work.

Very good work but i have some toughts on armaments and speeds. IMO tau are very high technology race. There armament could be more powerful in comparison to imeprium. Maby increase strength of macrocannons and lances by 1, decrease turret ratings by 1 or 2 and increase speed by 1 or 2. they are only skimming the warp but in real space they should be agile and fast just like human vessels or better.

Actually in battle fleet gothic their ships were generally inferior to imperium ships. They all went pretty much the same speed, and were not much more maneuverable than imperium ships. They had a few advantages though. Every single weapon on any of thier ships could fire in the fore arc in addition to its other arcs, making them deadly in a frontal assault, much deadlier than any imperium ship. In addition their heavy use of attack craft and guided torpedoes allowed their fleets to "engage" from much farther away than conventional weaponry would allow, and even to engage enemies chasing them. Also of note is their battleships do not have the same restrictions on maneuvering, that other races battleships suffered in battlefleet gothic.

Their naval doctrine is very different from the imperium, and relies more on destroying the enemy from as far away as possible rather than out maneuvering them in close quarters. the truely maneuverable races in BFG were the eldar and dark eldar, not the tau. I was trying to stay as close to the lore as I could.

I never played in Battlefleet gothic so i don't know how tau vessels were presented in that game.

I know something on WH40K tabeltop and deathwatch. In both tau have great weapons with good to excelent range an much of a punch. So the armaments on tau ships could it be more powerfull in strength

Yeah the tau ground stuff is superb. Their space stuff not nearly so. These are the values I believe they should be at. You are free to adjust them for you game as You see fit though

I would recommend not increasing the strength of the lances though. They are strength 1 and 2, increasing them to 2 and 3 is a serious difference in power that I would not do. The macrocannons are a different story and I could see increasing the strength by a point (I still wouldn't do it, but I could understand why you might).

If you haven't checked out the material available on tau starships you might do so before you make changes though. all the battlefleet gothic pdfs are free to download from Gamesworkshop's main sight. Just click on specialist games, battlefleet gothic, then battlefleet gothic resources.

here is the address copy pasted from my browser:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat480005a&categoryId=6700003a&section=&aId=21500018a

Do the Tau ships suffer any from their crew's physical weakness? I don't know, but I suspect that their division of castes might be pretty universal, meaning that their "hardy" Fire Caste Warriors might not be in high supply on their ships. Air Caste Tau, on the other hand, have weak bodies, hollow bones, and sometimes live in 0-G containers, so they might not be much for a fight, should their ship be boarded. Long-range strategy might make them not plan for boarding often, but one shouldn't be foolish. The Earth Caste might've supplied on-board combat drones, to make up for this, but again, I don't know. Hell, the invaders might be at their own disadvantage, if the interior of the ship is low-grav, so it could balance out.

Just some thoughts I had. Sort of a shame that, with all the ships in RT, DW never took some time to give us the vessels Tau, or Space Marines (yeah Battle Barge!) use. Nids could be easy, with Space Krakens "Nidded up", but still makes me sad.

Otherwise, nice work on the fleet of the Greater Good.

Being boarded is indeed a major tau weakness. In BFG their ship rating was half the normal value for the purposes of boarding. While off the top of my head I can think a half a dozen things they could do to shore up that weakness, as a standard in the tau fleet, its a glaring weakness of thiers.

It does however happen, and sometimes they get lucky. If you have ever played the playstation game "firewarrior" you would encounter a situation where a tau vessel gets boarded, fights it off, and then counter boards and cripples the enemy vessel. So exceptions do exsist.

Tau vessels are primarily crewed and operated by air caste members, but I can only imagine they would have a contigient of earth caste engineers on board. As to fire warriors, I'm not so sure. If the ship has attack craft it would likely carry a hunter cadre for every manta it has, but if it has no mantas I would not be suprised if it had no fire warriors at all. As a not the attack craft are crewed by aircaste members as well.

An exception to that absence of fire warriors might be if the ship was carrying an ethereal, as when they are out and about they generally have a honor gaurd of fire warriors with them.

In game terms I would have the ships bonuses to boarding due to its size cut in half (or penalties doubled) then count a fire warrior contingent aboard as if it were a storm trooper contingent. If you want things like defense drones, I would have them be the equivalent to murder servitors. While it is against tau standard practices, thier mantas, which are used for bombing runs against starships, can carry a significant amount of troops (an entire hunter cadre in each one), and could therefore theoretically be used as assault boats as well. However unless they are well practiced at this deviant method, I would not give them a very high rating.

Hey Cry I was just looking these stats over and it looks really good but I was wondering for the newer Tau ships which version of the Battle Fleet Gothic rules are you using? I ask because the 2010 GWforum update makes the New Tau ships much more comparable to their Imperial counter parts (same speed, longer range, fewer hull point more maneuverable) and it's a little more difficult to get a hold of. Really glad you posted these, I spent a lot of time trying to find Tau BFG rules to homebrew some RT Tau, thanks for saving me some time XD.

I used the files downloaded from the gamesworkshop site. the link to it should be in a post above. I also used the stats found in the imerial armor-talos campaign book. If there are newer BFG stats or rules would you point me towards them?

Sure here you go:
tinyurl.com/ckbbrzq

They make some pretty big changes to the Imperial Armor rules, they increased the speed of the escorts, bummed up weapon power, gave more ships tracking systems and made most of the fleet more maneuverable. They also included the stats for Nisscar and Demiurge ships so if your interested in making the ship stats for Tau allies their there as well.

oh btw for the boarding situations above the included doc has BFG rules for including fire warrior teams and boarding teams for hit and run attacks, some of that should fit right into rogue trader. I'm pretty sure most Tau ships cruiser weight and up would have fire warrior teams. Although I would think that even with Fire warrior teams a Tau ship would be weak in boardings given their aversion to close combat and how squishy the majority air caste crew is.

Sweet! I'll go check that out now, and see what I can do with it. Thanks!

It's good to note… that you can combine the OLD Tau ships and the NEW Tau ships into one fleet.

Indeed, it is generally a very, very good idea to do so, as some options in one fleet can help shore up the weaknesses in the other fleet….

http://advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=12420

And Presumably, the actual Tau do something a bit like that… somewhat!

Okay here is what I have set the newer tau ships to after looking over that file:

New tau ships

Or'es El'leath (custodian)
battleship
speed 4
void shields 3
turret rating 4
maneuverability +10
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 110

weapons:
prow gravitic launcher str 8
2 port railgun battery mk2
2 starboard railgun battery mk2
port ion cannon battery mk2
starboard ion cannon battery mk2
port launch bay str 3
starboard launch bay str 3
3 ventral gravitic hooks
prow deflector
tracking systems

special: may not use adjust bearing or adjust speed and bearing actions.

Kir'la (warden)
raider
speed 5
void shields 1
turret rating 1
maneuverability +20
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 25

weapons:
prow ion cannon battery mk1
prow railgun battery mk1

special: may not travel through the warp without being attached to a gravitic hook

Kir'shasvre (castellan)
frigate
speed 5
void shields 1
turret rating 2
maneuverability +20
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 35

weapons:
prow gravitic launcher str 2
prow railgun battery mk II

Lar'shi'vre T'olku configuration (protector)
cruiser
speed 4
void shields 2
turret rating 3
maneuverability +20
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 75

weapons:
prow gravitic launcher str 5
3 prow railgun battery mk2
port railgun battery mk2
starboard railgun battery mk2
port Ion cannon battery mk I
starboard Ion cannon battery mk I
prow launch bay str 1
prow deflector

Lar'shi'vre Vior'la configuration (protector)
cruiser
speed 4
void shields 2
turret rating 3
maneuverability +20
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 75

weapons:
prow gravitic launcher str 5
2 prow railgun battery mk2
port railgun battery mk2
starboard railgun battery mk2
port Ion cannon battery mk II
starboard Ion cannon battery mk II
prow launch bay str 1
prow deflector

Il'porrui Dal'yth configuration (emissary)
light cruiser
speed 4
void shields 1
turret rating 2
maneuverability +20
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 60

weapons:
prow gravitic launcher str 3
2 port railgun battery mk2
2 starboard railgun battery mk2
prow launch bay str 2
port gravitic hook
starboard gravitic hook
prow deflector

Il'porrui Bork'an configuration (emissary)
light cruiser
speed 4
void shields 1
turret rating 2
maneuverability +20
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 60

weapons:
prow gravitic launcher str 3
2 port railgun battery mk2
2 starboard railgun battery mk2
prow Gravitic Launcher str 3
port gravitic hook
starboard gravitic hook
prow deflector

Il'porrui Sa'cea configuration (emissary)
light cruiser
speed 4
void shields 1
turret rating 2
maneuverability +20
armor 17
detection +10
hull integrity 60

weapons:
prow gravitic launcher str 3
port railgun battery mk2
starboard railgun battery mk2
port Ion cannon mk I
starboard Ion cannon mk I
prow deflector

Oh I also forgot I am increasing the railgun batteries strength by 1 each, and lowering the MK II ion cannon batteries strenght to 1 but increasing it's range to 9 to fit the new info as well