Weight of Fire

Following up from an annoying argument with someone on Warseer in the Tau tactica section and my previous game with Vince.

Weight of fire is important in 5th. AP1 is also important but unless you have platforms which can send out 4+ S7+ AP1 shots a turn, relying on meltaguns or fast MMs isn't going to cut it (yes the Exorcist can do this but it suffers from D6 shots and only has a single gun. When that gets blown off *error noise*).

So in my recent game (and many many games before that) Rifle Dreads (2x TL autocannon) have been invaluable. They may not have killed much but because they are putting out 3-4 S7 hits on AV11+ chasis' every turn, they are doing something every turn. If as an army you can stop your opponents shooting reliably every turn, you're set. This is why target locks are so important on Tau. Each of their weapons is very good and therefore prone to overkill. Sure the chances of you wrecking both targets with 2 broadsides is minimal but you maximise your chances to do so and minimise your chances of "wasting" a wreck on an already wrecked target.

Whilst shaking your opponent 24/7 isn't going to win you games outright (enter your actual melta and AP1 weapons which can more reliably take out armor) against a lot of Mech armies it's going to give you a significant advantage. Take any mech list and mirror it against itself. Whichever side goes first is going to have the upperhand as they will have agreater odds ratio of inflicting multiple shakes across more targets and thus minimise the damage coming their way next turn. This is why vendettas, rifle dreads and crisis suits are all becoming increasingly popular.