What was your list like?
I plan to try out a couple builds soon, but some of the challenges are pretty much baked in to the current list, eg the unit costs will mean lower activations, and the lack of tank formations to put Skyrays in probably makes AA harder to come by.
My approach will be to accept that this version is not as good as default Tau at range, and build for closer encounters.

It's expensive but I sometimes run FW on foot + 3 Broadsides + Skyray. 475 points so usually your BTS but it can garrison and deploy the Broadsides in a triangle with the Skyray in the middle so that with hit allocation the first AV hit or ideally 2 goes on the tougher Broadside first. Being LV the Broadsides can help with incoming fire for the FW too. I've used such a formation at tournaments and found it decent.

Also one of the other tournament players (and one of the top players) usually runs 3 x Fire Warriors formations in Devilfish with a Skyray added to each. Personally I most often add them to Hammerheads but there are definitely multiple viable options.

I'm a veteran of using the core Tau list so I'm looking forward to trying out the Viorla list (going to playtest the WIP Epic UK version sometime next month).