Skyray or not?

Greetings,

silence dropped onto Bellum Aeternum for the last weeks due to too much work in real life. But now I have holidays and I spend my time with painting and considering army lists as the tournament is in less than two weeks. I have to paint 4 crisis suits and 1 broadside, 2 crisis are done and the broadside will be finished today.
Trotzki and me had some test games for training the last weeks and it seems I will have a hard time with my tau army at the tournament. I played the list I have posted earlier and it was a bit boring with 3 hammerheads, so I changed the heavy support choices for 2 broadsides, 1 hammerhead with railgun and a skyray. I had to drop 4 kroot for freeing points, so list is as follows:

Commander Shas'El, XV84-fireknife variant, targeting array, stimulant injector, 2 shield drones
bodyguard fireknife

3 Fireknives, 'Vre with targeting array

2 deathrains (TL missile pod, flamer, multitracker)

2x6 fire warriors in warfish (SMS, multitracker, tageting array, disruption pods, flechette dischargers)

16 kroot

2 broadside, targeting arrays, 2 shield drones

hammerhead, railgun, SMS, target lock, disruption pod, flechette discharger

skyray, SMS, targeting array, disruption pod, flechette discharger

1647 points


We just managed to play two games. Sorry, no pictures as my camera does not work with empty batteries (who would have thought) and I had to proxy a few minis and that looks terrible.

The first game was against Trotzki's semi-mech eldar (exarch with jump generator, warp spiders, 2x10 guardians, 10 dire avenger in serpent, 6 harlequins in serpent, 6 fire dragons in falcon, wraithlord).
Very sad, very sad. We played with two objectives in the own deployment zone. Trotzki had everything in reserve, I kept everything in reserve but the broadsides and their kroot screen on my objective. On turn two nearly everything became available for the eldar and the tanks zoomed towards my deployment zone and the dice gods failed me yet again (or preferred Trotzki, as you wish) I managed to do absolutely nothing, not even a shaken result (2 hits, with immobilized and weapon destroyed on a serpent with cover save reduced to 6+ by markerlights. Passed.) To make long things short, I got outmanoeuvred and shot down and killed in close combat. I abandoned my home objective and tried to run for Trotzki's but I got smashed there too. I made a few mistakes to be honest. I placed my hammerhead next to the broadsides as it became available from reserve and that stripped me of my whole anti-tank capability after two turns. I won't do that again, lesson learned. But it's impossible to win against such a fast force like eldar when you are not able to bring their tanks down quickly. You get outmanoeuvred and wiped out by highly specialised units. And bad dice rolling does not help either.

Second game was against a more or less fun list of marines:
Librarian in terminator armour with vortex of doom and gate of infinity,
5 terminators with assault cannon,
dreadnought with multi melta and heavy flamer,
2x10 tactical marines with missile launcher and melta in drop pod,
10 assault marines with fist sergeant, 2 flamer,
land speeder with multi melta and heavy flamer,
land raider with extra armour,
predator annihilator with lascannon sponsons, extra armour

That was a close and funny game. It started very bad for me as I seem to be unable to have luck with dices, but that bad luck turned around and "lady average" showed up in the second part of the game. We played the same mission with the same deployment and I placed the broadsides and the kroot on my objective, the broadsides on the second level of a building and the fireknife unit behind that ruin. I split my force into two parts, one consisting of the deathrains, the hammerhead and one fish trying to get to his objective and the other part defending my home objective as I saw a chance to hold it. I kept the skyray in the middle of my table edge to lend marker light support where needed. I made one mistake as not knowing the rules properly. I charged two combat squads with my kroot and one of those with my command team, thinking I would kill the smaller combat squad with the commander and his bodyguard so that he is free again on my next turn. But as the rule for multiple combat resolutions says, they have to stay in contact with the other ongoing close combat. I really thought that would be the game deciding moment as the terminators were due to charge. But luck was on my side this time and I could win this fight and managed to bring the two remaining kroot between the terminators and my command team and on top of this one kroot survived the shooting by going to ground and never failing a morale check. So I could gun down the terminators and all 20 tactical marines. The force designated to capture Trotzki's objective was taken down by assault marines and the land speeder. After the dust had settled, one lone (and pinned) fire warrior hold my objective and I had won this game.

So having played a few games with my former list and two games with this list, I will be fielding broadsides with kroot as screening unit. A railhead will definitely be in it too. Yesterday I thought about the skyray and its role in this army. Not much dakka for the spent points, that's obvious. But are the two, in most cases the one markerlight hit worth it? In the first games against eldar it was useless, completely. In the second game the markerlights boosted the ballistic skill of the fireknife squad so that the terminators suffered more plasma and missile hits. In this case it was well worth it. As I won't be able to play a game this week I have to "theorycraft" another idea. I am considering a hammerhead with ioncannon. The list would be something like that:

Unnamed1650 Pts  -   Tau Army

1 Commander Shas'el (XV 84 Variant) (HQ)     
     Target Lock; Markerlight; Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Targeting Array
     Hard-wired drone controller
     Stimulant Injector
     Bonding Knife
     1 Shield Drone
     1 Shield Drone
     1 Bodyguard Shas'vre
          Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Targeting Array
          Hard-wired multi-tracker
     1 Bodyguard Shas'vre
          Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Targeting Array
          Hard-wired multi-tracker

1 Crisis Battlesuit Team Leader (Elites)
     Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Targeting Array
     Hard-wired multi-tracker
     Bonding Knife
     Hard-wired drone controller
     1 Shield Drone
     1 Shield Drone
     1 Crisis Battlesuit
          Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker

1 Crisis Battlesuit Team Leader (Elites)
     Flamer; TL Missile Pod
     Hard-wired drone controller
     Bonding Knife
     1 Shield Drone
     1 Crisis Battlesuit
          Flamer; TL Missile Pod

6 FireWarrior Team (Troops)
     Pulse Rifle (x6)
     1 Devilfish
          Smart Missile System
          Disruption Pod
          Targetting Array
          Flechette Discharger
          Multi-tracker

6 FireWarrior Team (Troops)
     Pulse Rifle (x6)
     1 Devilfish
          Smart Missile System
          Disruption Pod
          Targetting Array
          Flechette Discharger
          Multi-tracker

16 Kroot Carnivore Squad (Troops)
     Kroot Rifle

1 Broadside Battlesuit Team Leader (Heavy Support)
     Smart Missile System; TL Railgun; Targeting Array
     Hard-wired drone controller
     Bonding Knife
     1 Shield Drone
     1 Shield Drone
     1 Broadside Battlesuit
          Smart Missile System; TL Railgun; Targeting Array

1 Hammerhead Gunship (Heavy Support)
     Railgun; Smart Missile System
     #Targetting Array
     Flechette Discharger
     Multi-tracker
     Target Lock
     Disruption Pod

1 Hammerhead Gunship (Heavy Support)
     Ion Cannon; Smart Missile System
     #Targetting Array
     Disruption Pod
     Target Lock
     Flechette Discharger
     Multi-tracker

Models in Army: 48
Total Army Cost: 1646

By taking the cheaper Ionhead I now can take another bodyguard for the commander thereby getting another BS4 fireknife. So the need for markerlights becomes somewhat redundant. And I have a bit more dakka. I think that 3 str. 7 shots should help against monstrous creatures, light transports and of course against power armour.
The point is, I haven't much time left to playtest this list and I know that the ionhead does not appear in any list you find in forums or on blogs, the so called internet-wisdom seems to despise this version of the hammerhead. Maybe it is really so bad but I don't know, on paper it looks ok. Does someone have experience with it? What list would you prefer? (I know the first list is pretty mich the same as the one Adam from Warhammer Tau fields).

So far so good, that's it for the moment. I have to paint some battlesuits! Pics are to follow later this week.