(The_Real_Chris @ Jun. 10 2008,13:16)
QUOTE
Far better I have found to deploy in a mutuality supporting positions, lose the formation but do damage with supporting fire and then hit them afterward.
Tau specifically I find the best lander killers are hero spaceships. Let them come in, try and aa them, afterwards get a formation with 15cms of them (hopefully breaking them on there own a hacking them) then hit them with the hero. So effective in fact you can use it to deny a turn of the game to anything that wants to land.
The Tau setup in this game was almost purely a system of mutually supporting positions, just like you describe. There was one exception: the intermingled Crisis + Railheads, and it was clearly a blunder. In the setup picture, one can clearly see that the Tau could have just extended their central setup to the right -- still within range of the forward Overwatching FW positions.
On the Hero bit, I agree completely. In fact, in our last tournament I used a Hero to hinder SM air assaults for *two turns*. The idea was to purposefully fail to activate the Hero late on turn 1, once the SM T-Hawks had already decided not to land. I succeeded in failing the activation (by getting a -1 for retain) and the Hero went on to threaten them again on turn 2 
This raised the question of whether one can use a SC to reroll a *successful* activation roll...
Joking aside it does serve to brilliantly highlight inspired moves and mistakes which will be illustrated outside of this bracket) for all shooting armies - not just Tau - is not to try and fight an assault (esp. air assault army) at there own game.
My first activation with the Morays should've been to the rear as well.
