Tau Merchant Battleship

The Gal'Leath-class Battleship (known as the Explorer among the Imperials) was the first major interstellar vessel developed by the Tau and the largest and last Tau vessel with configurations.

Compared to the average speed of an Imperial ship in the warp, the Explorer could barely approach a fifth of this speed. It is also significantly less well armed and armoured, compared to most battleships. It does have a massive cargo capacity, however, and is much cheaper to produce than other ships of similar tonnage. Indeed, it was only the advent of war with the Orks that finally made the Tau design an alternate vessel for interstellar combat, a role which the Explorer is ill suited to undertake alone.

Configuration

Carrier

Vash'Ya

THE Tau aircraft carrier.

The carrier fleet of the Tau navy and the older cousin of the smaller Vash'Ya Configurated Lar'shi-class Starship.

It is the one efficient use of Launch Bays for the Tau Merchant fleet, costing 73.5 points per Launch Bay from the base cost, 49.5 points, if you account for the base cost of the Vash'Ya before the Orcas, are added in. The only other places you'll find Launch Bays will generally cost you around 100 points per bay so there's really not much of a contest for second place, as they are all equally inefficient compared to the Vash'Ya.

Beyond this bit about the Launch Bays, if you don't have a significant need for deploying squadrons, the Bor'Kan is a vastly superior Battleship for the cost.

It is armed with 6 Starship Railgun Batteries, 4 Launch Bays carrying Barracudas and Mantas, 3 Gravitic Hooks carrying Kass'l-class Gunships, Skether'qan-class Starships and the Kir'qath-class Starships and 3 Double-Barrel Super Heavy Starship Railgun Turrets.

• Length: 7.3km
• Mass: 35 megatonnes; approx
• Crew: 94,000 crew, including 20,400 pilots and support personnel; approx
• Acceleration: 2.2 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx

Lance-boat

Bor'Kan

The biggest lance-carrier you are gonna see.

Not counting the Launch Bays the Bor'Kan is by far the better of the two Battleships, with equal dps and a much higher cpm, the Bor'Kan manages this while keeping half of the damage output in lance based weaponry, something the Vash'Ya doesn't have. 6 dps and 1.8 cpm from lances alone, this is a pretty high number for lance based damage across factions as even ships that tend to have twice the numbers the Bor'Kan puts out, do so with the vast majority of that in macros.

The other major thing to highlight with the Bor'Kan is that it is the only ship in the game, besides the Ork Roks which are kind of a special case, that has torpedo tubes, or the faction equivalent Seeker Missiles, mounted on the sides rather than the prow. This works due to the fact that the homing nature of the Seeking Missiles allows them to curl around the sides of the Battleship to turn towards a target that may be in front or even to one or the other side or even behind the Bor'Kan.

Keep in mind, the Seeker Missiles still need a fair amount of space on both sides of the Bor'Kan to clear the bays and make their turns, so don't forget this fact when launching your missiles, lest you accidentally broadside your own ships.

It is armed with 6 Heavy Ion Cannon batteries, 2 Launch Bays carrying Barracudas and Mantas, 2 Missile Launching Gravitic Launchers, 3 Gravitic Hooks carrying Kass'l-class Gunships, Skether'qan-class Starships and the Kir'qath-class Starships and 3 Double-Barrel Super Heavy Starship Railgun Turrets.

• Length: 7.3km
• Mass: 33.2 megatonnes; approx
• Crew: 87,000 crew, including 20,000 pilots and support personnel; approx
• Acceleration: 2.2 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx

In Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 1 & 2

The final tier of Tau Merchant vessels come packed with Launch Bays, Grav Hooks and surprisingly a large amount of turrets and weapon load-outs that can focus all the fire to their fronts, despite their appearances that suggest broadside engagements. As is often the case with ships that have all their firepower capable of focusing on a single target, they tend to have slightly lower dps/cpm numbers than comparable ships of other factions, or even relatively speaking to the lighter ships of their own faction, that split their weaponry into separate distinct arcs.

One very unique feature of the Tau Merchant fleet comes with their Bor'Kan Battleship which is the only true ship (besides the station like Roks) to feature torpedo tubes that are mounted to the sides of the vessel as opposed to on the prow. This unique mounting is possible thanks to the homing nature of the Seeker Missiles, giving the Bor'Kan a bit of a "cool factor" as it releases swarms of heavy missiles that curve around its hull before flying full speed towards the enemy in an 8 wide, defence turret overwhelming salvo.

Vessels of the Tau Kor'Vattra and its Auxillaries.
Spaceships
	Space Station	Tau Space Station
	Battleships	Battleship (Tau Merchant - Or'Es El'Eleath Stronghold - Warsphere)
	Cruisers	Light Cruiser (Tau Merchant - Tau Protector) Cruiser (Tau Merchant - Tau Protector - Bastion)
	Escorts	Escort (Tau Merchant - Tau Protector - Nicassar Dhow)
	Logistics	Il'Emaar
	Dropships	Orca
Landships
	Titans	KX139 Ta'Unar Supremacy Armour
Airships
	Flying Fortress	Tiger Shark
	Aerospace Vessels	Manta