There's a change to the protector class spaceship that I have been considering incorporating into the Vior'la list, but I'd like to see if we can get the same tweak made to the primary Tau list too so that they're equivalent.
This is the protector's profile:
Protector - 200pts,
2x Pinpoint MW2+ Titan Killer (D3)
The change I would like to make is to give it an
optional orbital bombardment that would fire
instead of the TK weapons. This means that instead of getting to fire TK and Blast (like a number of spacecraft), the player has to pick between the two.
Protector - 200pts,
2x Pinpoint MW2+ Titan Killer (D3)
OR Orbital Bombardment 3BP MW
Most ships with this Orbital Bombardment attack fire a TK as well, and are cheaper at 150pts, so most players would never use the bombardment. However, there is still a reason for it; I've seen a lot of games locally where there are no Titans in armies. This turns the Protector into 200pts worth of fly-on, fly-off dead points. Many areas feature so many Titans that this might never have come up, but we see plenty of speed freak or marine armies here that just don't have any titans (battle example
viewtopic.php?f=84&t=28871 ) and I'd rather not offer players something that might be dead points.
How does this work for balance?
If the player chooses to do an Orbital Bombardment, they do a much weaker attack than the SM ship that costs the same (it's not just that one gets 2 templates and the other gets only 1, it's that the second template is much much more aim-able and likely to hit a decent amount of enemy units).
The Tau player has also spent 50 points more than a Guard or Chaos player for the same attack, without getting the TK that goes with it.
For comparison:
Space Marines:
[] Strike Cruiser 5BP MW 200 pts
Guard:
[] Lunar Class 3BP MW
AND MW2+ TK(D3) 150pts
Chaos:
[] Devastation Class 3BP MW
AND MW2+ TK(D3) 150pts
The bombardment could be a 4BP attack but I'd rather start small, and while 3BP MW may not sound good value for 200pts, having it as an option would certainly be better than nothing.
Thoughts?
It's not really required as far as I can see. The Protector is a very good choice for 2 pin-point attacks. The number of armies which don't include any warengines is fairly small and it's just one of the risks a player has to weigh at list design.
It also doesn't fit the main design idea behind the original Tau list which was to stay away from barrage weapons and the indiscriminate firepower they generally represent.
Having said that I don't have any problem with you making changes to a Protector in the Vior'la list - ships can have many different weapon configurations after all - just re-name it a MkII or something else appropriate and arm as you would like. I would suggest as an alternative to Barrage you went with Dobbsy's idea of Tracer missiles but it is really up to you.
