I am wondering if the Hammerhead is going to BS4+, because BS3+ with access to +1 to hit & hit/wound rerolls is pretty much a guaranteed 10 damage between the weapon damage and the mortal wounds.
Should be able to one-shot most Dreadnoughts and light vehicles. Low rate of fire might mitigate this, but lists that rely on Raiders, Buggies, Trukks, Dreads, Keepers of Secrets etc will be trouble.
I shudder to think of what the Volcano Cannon will be when they get around to the Astra Militarum codex...
TangoTwoBravo wrote: Should be able to one-shot most Dreadnoughts and light vehicles. Low rate of fire might mitigate this, but lists that rely on Raiders, Buggies, Trukks, Dreads, Keepers of Secrets etc will be trouble.
Or any other regular tank or monster in the game.
Don't forget it can be fired in close combat too and will kill 4 1 wound models pretty much guaranteed despite not being Blast or having more than 1 shot.
Gert wrote: Dedicated AT weapon finally good at killing tanks and big monsters. Next up, water wet?
And medium to heavy infantry, and light infantry.
It kills 4 models out of a unit of guardsmen if it hits and wounds (possibly on a 2+ with reroll and 2+, respectively). That's way more reliable than any d6 blast weapon against the same target
Yep. It kills 2 custodes, 2 and a half Marines, and 4 guardsmen with about the same chance as it has of one-shotting a Predator and only slightly better than it one-shots a Russ.
Aenar wrote: Right now an HH is 185 points. It's a strong gun that is still on a very expensive and frail chassis.
A glass cannon, really.
Yeah, as long as these don't get a ton more durability, I think people are definitely jumping to conclusions. That said, this is quite strong. If the whole book is this strong, then Tau offensive firepower is pretty crazy. That said, they will still have the fatal flaw of struggling to hold points.
Aenar wrote: Right now an HH is 185 points. It's a strong gun that is still on a very expensive and frail chassis.
A glass cannon, really.
Yeah, as long as these don't get a ton more durability, I think people are definitely jumping to conclusions. That said, this is quite strong. If the whole book is this strong, then Tau offensive firepower is pretty crazy. That said, they will still have the fatal flaw of struggling to hold points.
If they hit this hard, I can see why they'd lose JSJ (according to the rumors). Being and facing Tau becomes a huge battle of positioning.
Aenar wrote: Right now an HH is 185 points. It's a strong gun that is still on a very expensive and frail chassis.
A glass cannon, really.
Yeah, as long as these don't get a ton more durability, I think people are definitely jumping to conclusions. That said, this is quite strong. If the whole book is this strong, then Tau offensive firepower is pretty crazy. That said, they will still have the fatal flaw of struggling to hold points.
If they hit this hard, I can see why they'd lose JSJ (according to the rumors). Being and facing Tau becomes a huge battle of positioning.
Yep. You run at them as fast as you can, they hide as far in the corner as possible. Hurrah for maneuver, 9th edition 40k style.
vipoid wrote: The silly part for me is just auto-ignoring invulnerable saves.
I think it's a sign of the bloat in 40k rules. -6 AP, ignoring invulnerable saves and still has to cause mortal wounds.
Funnily enough it's only the mortal wounds that it allows saves against.
Mortal wounds may as well be sacked off from a rules perspective, at this point they're just another type of wound to be caused and the defences against them are only getting more widespread.
Aenar wrote: Right now an HH is 185 points. It's a strong gun that is still on a very expensive and frail chassis.
A glass cannon, really.
Yeah, as long as these don't get a ton more durability, I think people are definitely jumping to conclusions. That said, this is quite strong. If the whole book is this strong, then Tau offensive firepower is pretty crazy. That said, they will still have the fatal flaw of struggling to hold points.
If they hit this hard, I can see why they'd lose JSJ (according to the rumors). Being and facing Tau becomes a huge battle of positioning.
Yep. You run at them as fast as you can, they hide as far in the corner as possible. Hurrah for maneuver, 9th edition 40k style.
I think your table is supposed to be arranged such taht sitting in an actual corner doesn't let you see very much. Maneuver in 40k is very contingent on good terrain tables.
Aash wrote: I don’t understand the purpose of AP-6, what am I missing?
AP-5 bypasses a 2+ save and there aren’t any 1+ saves (are there?)
There are functional 1+ saves from units that have a 2+ save and either storm shields or if they're within light cover or another rule giving them a +1 to their armour saving throws. I think the -6 is there for the fringe cases so you basically don't have a save either way.
Aash wrote: I don’t understand the purpose of AP-6, what am I missing?
AP-5 bypasses a 2+ save and there aren’t any 1+ saves (are there?)
There are functional 1+ saves from units that have a 2+ save and either storm shields or if they're within light cover or another rule giving them a +1 to their armour saving throws. I think the -6 is there for the fringe cases so you basically don't have a save either way.
Aash wrote: I don’t understand the purpose of AP-6, what am I missing?
AP-5 bypasses a 2+ save and there aren’t any 1+ saves (are there?)
There are functional 1+ saves from units that have a 2+ save and either storm shields or if they're within light cover or another rule giving them a +1 to their armour saving throws. I think the -6 is there for the fringe cases so you basically don't have a save either way.
Right. This thing is designed to bypass any defense. So a vehicle's only defense is to just not get shot. Hide, hide, hide. Unless it's TITANIC, then it can't even do that. Range 72 means this can bracket a Knight from across the board. In one shot.
*sad Falchion noises in AP-5 D6 nominal titan killing weaponry*
On one hand it's cool to see the rules team experimenting with variations of damage mechanics, but on the other it really grinds my gears to see normal guns just bypass expensive defences like force fields that are there for the precise reason of stopping weapons like this. The strat is even more painful from immersive design viewpoint, when it could have just had an alternative firing profile instead of more MW spam.
So, are we back to whoever shoots first wins? I imagine that any titanic model is going to cost twice the cost of a hammerhead. So, if you have equal points shooting at each other who wins, the Knight or the hammerheads?
Aash wrote: I don’t understand the purpose of AP-6, what am I missing?
AP-5 bypasses a 2+ save and there aren’t any 1+ saves (are there?)
There are functional 1+ saves from units that have a 2+ save and either storm shields or if they're within light cover or another rule giving them a +1 to their armour saving throws. I think the -6 is there for the fringe cases so you basically don't have a save either way.
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.
Currently, a Custodes Guardian with a Storm Shield in Light Cover is an effective 0+ save. Even this AP-6 gun would leave a Guardian with a 6+ armor save. I know you were already told it was for edge cases, but I wanted to give an example.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: So, are we back to whoever shoots first wins? I imagine that any titanic model is going to cost twice the cost of a hammerhead. So, if you have equal points shooting at each other who wins, the Knight or the hammerheads?
Right now it depends a lot on dice because the hammerheads have one shot each.
The caveat is that the dice are still reliable (the worst roll is the 3+ to wound with no save allowed for the knights). There may also be dice mitigation mechanics in the Tau codex (e.g. long strike with +1 to wound, CP rerolls, whatever marker lights end up doing, etc).
So if the hammerheads are having an okay or a great day, they win. If the hammerheads are having a really bad day the Knights may have a chance, depending on the tools available to the hammerhead in the Tau book.
EDIT:
On the shooting first front, remember it is possible for the Hammerheads to stay 100% hidden all game and still shoot the Knights because they have >18 wounds.
GW is caught in a catch 22 of their own making. Theyve made invulns so common that this is really the only way to make a single shot, high damage weapon work. Otherwise, these kinds of weapons are way too swingy and just bounce off invulns all the time. We've hit a point where there are multiple non daemon factions that have access to army wide invulns, often baked right into their profile. Plus the much loved CP reroll, which is just further insurance against a big gun killing a key model with a single shot.
Im not crazy about how it just ignores invulns, but we wouldnt need it if half the factions in the game didnt have regular access to invulns on their tanks and monsters now.
On one hand it's cool to see the rules team experimenting with variations of damage mechanics, but on the other it really grinds my gears to see normal guns just bypass expensive defences like force fields that are there for the precise reason of stopping weapons like this. The strat is even more painful from immersive design viewpoint, when it could have just had an alternative firing profile instead of more MW spam.
The Fellblade Accelerator Cannon feels the Falchion's pain.
Unit1126PLL wrote:I can't wait to see the Vanquisher Cannon profile, given that it has historically been better AT than the railgun.
Probably the same as Macharius Twin Vanquisher Cannon, just "half". So Heavy 1, S16, AP-4, D9.
Rolsheen wrote:I can't wait to see the stats on the Ta'unars Rail Cannon
Currently Heavy 2, S18, AP-5, d6+6D + 3MWs on a successful wound roll in the Imperial Armour Compendium. They'll probably add "ignore invuls" in a FAQ.
I know I'm complaining to the choir/wind here, but this is a perfect example of what I despise about the current design direction in the game. We have a gun here, which shoots one shot, but has a bajillion other things attached to it. Re-rolling the hits (targeting array). Rolling d3 for extra damage. Tracking +3 mortal wounds. Negates armor and invulnerable saves. Also attached to a strat that instead causes a wound on each model on a 4+ (mortal wounds of course), with +1 modifer if you have 11+ models, but up to a maximum of 8.
JFC, what a headache to track all of that. It's a spaghetti mess of minutia.
Makes me wish the current game would get back to something simple like:
vipoid wrote: The silly part for me is just auto-ignoring invulnerable saves.
Its the logical next step in the arms race of 40k. With Eradicators Melta became incredibly lethal, then other guns followed. So now the only tanks that are usable are those with invul saves. So when everything you want to point an AT gun at has an invul the next step in AT weapons is one that ignores Invuls.
That said, its 1 shot an mounted on a tank with no invul of its own so it should never got off more then 1 shot per game unless they add something dramatic to the Hammerhead. My bold prediction is that it may well not see competitive play.
Wait..........why tf is this thing stronger than the Ares gun?
450pt flyer with a super strong gun that gets D3 shots or 185pt tank with stronger gun with 1 shot...............
Oh, so take 2 tanks and you do more damage, can hide (granted you have less durability), and can hold objectives for less points............. Seems legit.
Here are the main defenses to this weapon that some (though not all) of the factions in this game have access to:
-1 to being hit Probably the most commonly available. Assuming that Hammerheads hit on 4+'s, even with that reroll, -1 to being hit remains a big weakness of the T'au in general.
Transhuman cap on being wounded Necrons have this in-built on almost all their vehicles, and both Marines and Custodes have access to this, plus it seems to be getting more popular all the time. 2+ to wound that suddenly becomes 4+ because you grit your teeth hard enough is still fantastic.
Cap on suffering wounds Pretty limited right now, but man if Necrons don't run away like bandits vs T'au from what we're currently seeing. C'tan and Gazzy have this, and more could come forward.
Feel No Pain (both old and new) Even a 6+ here could make a big difference in whether you're still on the table, or are a hole in the sidewalk.
Now please, back aboard the hate train! It will be leaving this station and continuing shortly.
(I do think this level of lethality is crazy, but until we see points or other things, well, it's totally possible that in 2 months we'll be arguing how this thing somehow STILL isn't strong enough. Or we'll be calling for a massive nerf. I doubt it'll be anything other than one or the other.)
But by my calculations against a Leman Russ the Railgun gets 0.75×0.666×(2+6+3)=5.49
A Quad Las Predator averages 4×0.666×0.83×0.666×3.5=5.15
So while yes, the thing is really nasty, it's still got to hit and wound, and there are other staple vehicles out there that can get similar numbers by virtue of having MOAR guns. And Lascannons aren't really respected as AT firepower right now. 3 Attack Bikes can muster 6×0.666×0.5×5.5=10.989 in their Melta range against the same target.
Grav Devs get 12×0.666×0.333×0.83×2+(8
×0.96×0.333×0.83×2)=8.66 at 30", and are waaaay better at killing Troops than that Railgun Strat.
vipoid wrote: The silly part for me is just auto-ignoring invulnerable saves.
You know I think this is for stuff like Raiders. You want the Railgun to really swat them out of the sky. Brutal for Knights though. But still with to-Hit and to-Wound the RG averages 5.5w which just isn't much against Knights.
I think having ways of getting around invuls & FNPs is a good thing, they way those saves are being spread around like candy. However, ignoring them "just because" isn't a good thing. There's no tactical depth, strategy, etc., just point-and-delete. So either this things costs 300 points apiece, or every vehicle and high-T model with just an invulnerable save just became massively overcosted.
Insectum7 wrote: Ok ok ok. Lethality boost and yadda yadda yadda.
But by my calculations against a Leman Russ the Railgun gets 0.75×0.666×(2+6+3)=5.49
A Quad Las Predator averages 4×0.666×0.83×0.666×3.5=5.15
So while yes, the thing is really nasty, it's still got to hit and wound, and there are other staple vehicles out there that can get similar numbers by virtue of having MOAR guns. And Lascannons aren't really respected as AT firepower right now. 3 Attack Bikes can muster 6×0.666×0.5×5.5=10.989 in their Melta range against the same target.
Grav Devs get 12×0.666×0.333×0.83×2+(8
×0.96×0.333×0.83×2)=8.66 at 30", and are waaaay better at killing Troops than that Railgun Strat.
How does it compare with those units when shooting at a Dreadknight? A more relevant target in the current Meta.
If its going to be broken it will be because of ignoring invuls, not because of the damage because as you say, tis only 1 shot.
Averages are bad with weapons that do nothing or devastate things in comparison to firing lots of shots because there is no scenario where that ~6 wounds happens. It's always more or less in dramatic fashion, so it's better to talk about straight probabilities to off a target or to cripple a titanic one.
Insectum7 wrote: Ok ok ok. Lethality boost and yadda yadda yadda.
But by my calculations against a Leman Russ the Railgun gets 0.75×0.666×(2+6+3)=5.49
A Quad Las Predator averages 4×0.666×0.83×0.666×3.5=5.15
So while yes, the thing is really nasty, it's still got to hit and wound, and there are other staple vehicles out there that can get similar numbers by virtue of having MOAR guns. And Lascannons aren't really respected as AT firepower right now. 3 Attack Bikes can muster 6×0.666×0.5×5.5=10.989 in their Melta range against the same target.
Grav Devs get 12×0.666×0.333×0.83×2+(8
×0.96×0.333×0.83×2)=8.66 at 30", and are waaaay better at killing Troops than that Railgun Strat.
How does it compare with those units when shooting at a Dreadknight? A more relevant target in the current Meta.
If its going to be broken it will be because of ignoring invuls, not because of the damage because as you say, tis only 1 shot.
I don't know Dreadknights off the top of my head but if the Dreadknight is T8 then the calc will be the same since the invuln is ignored.
If T7 then 0.75×0.83×11= 6.84
If target has -1 Damage then subtract 1
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sherrypie wrote: Averages are bad with weapons that do nothing or devastate things in comparison to firing lots of shots because there is no scenario where that ~6 wounds happens. It's always more or less in dramatic fashion, so it's better to talk about straight probabilities to off a target or to cripple a titanic one.
I sorta agree, but the math is still informative. And the math for average is just easier. In the LRs case you can just interpret the result as 55% to cripple.
Insectum7 wrote: Ok ok ok. Lethality boost and yadda yadda yadda.
But by my calculations against a Leman Russ the Railgun gets 0.75×0.666×(2+6+3)=5.49
A Quad Las Predator averages 4×0.666×0.83×0.666×3.5=5.15
So while yes, the thing is really nasty, it's still got to hit and wound, and there are other staple vehicles out there that can get similar numbers by virtue of having MOAR guns. And Lascannons aren't really respected as AT firepower right now. 3 Attack Bikes can muster 6×0.666×0.5×5.5=10.989 in their Melta range against the same target.
Grav Devs get 12×0.666×0.333×0.83×2+(8
×0.96×0.333×0.83×2)=8.66 at 30", and are waaaay better at killing Troops than that Railgun Strat.
How does it compare with those units when shooting at a Dreadknight? A more relevant target in the current Meta.
If its going to be broken it will be because of ignoring invuls, not because of the damage because as you say, tis only 1 shot.
I don't know Dreadknights off the top of my head but if the Dreadknight is T8 then the calc will be the same since the invuln is ignored.
If T7 then 0.75×0.83×11= 6.84
If target has -1 Damage then subtract 1
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sherrypie wrote: Averages are bad with weapons that do nothing or devastate things in comparison to firing lots of shots because there is no scenario where that ~6 wounds happens. It's always more or less in dramatic fashion, so it's better to talk about straight probabilities to off a target or to cripple a titanic one.
I sorta agree, but the math is still informative. And the math for average is just easier.
The point is that the Hammerhead stays similar but everyone's damage gets halved.
That is where a Hammerhead would shine.
Insectum7 wrote: Ok ok ok. Lethality boost and yadda yadda yadda.
But by my calculations against a Leman Russ the Railgun gets 0.75×0.666×(2+6+3)=5.49
A Quad Las Predator averages 4×0.666×0.83×0.666×3.5=5.15
So while yes, the thing is really nasty, it's still got to hit and wound, and there are other staple vehicles out there that can get similar numbers by virtue of having MOAR guns. And Lascannons aren't really respected as AT firepower right now. 3 Attack Bikes can muster 6×0.666×0.5×5.5=10.989 in their Melta range against the same target.
Grav Devs get 12×0.666×0.333×0.83×2+(8 ×0.96×0.333×0.83×2)=8.66 at 30", and are waaaay better at killing Troops than that Railgun Strat.
Hits on 3s, so that's 18% more damage for the Railgun. After T1 the las predator will deal 20% less damage as the Leman Russ gets a 5+ with its new shiny 2+ Sv. The most important thing is the value of a CP re-roll. If you ever roll that 1-2 on a wound roll for one of your three mandatory Hammerheads you will CP re-roll it. 100 pts worth of extra damage for 1CP because that one roll is so important and there are no other failure states as you ignore saves, while re-rolling damage on a 1 for D6 Damage is 40 ish pts.
A CSM quad las will do 3,11 damage to a Dreadknight, Hammerhead will do 8, 3 MM Attack Bikes within 12" (as opposed to 72") do 7,33.
Aside, weapons like this make me wonder if Invulnerable saves should work more like FNP (saving against individual wounds, rather than one save to ignore all of them).
Just thinking that it would make high-damage weapons less swingy.
Not convinced the average mathhammer is the issue. Its all about the skew up.
Its not that unlikely. If people were to take 3 of these, in a lot of games, they are going to hit 3 times, wound 3 times and delete 10 wound things.
This is 9th editions problem. They've gone far too high on the average - so above average is completely broken.
In older editions you could roll nothing but 6s. I'm sure if you played enough it eventually happened. But it was incredibly unlikely. Now by contrast it happens all the time - because you only need to be a bit above average to nuke everything. Which is why it keeps turning up in tournament finals.
Assuming BS 4+, the Hammerhead has a 62.5% chance of doing 10-12 damage to any target in the game except T8 and/or special wound rules (and aside from 1 w infantry, of which it will kill 4 [still better than most d6 blast weapons], 2w infantry will lose 2.5 models, and 3 w infantry will lose 2 models).
Assuming BS 3+, the Hammerhead has an 74% chance to do same.
MrMoustaffa wrote: GW is caught in a catch 22 of their own making. Theyve made invulns so common that this is really the only way to make a single shot, high damage weapon work. Otherwise, these kinds of weapons are way too swingy and just bounce off invulns all the time. We've hit a point where there are multiple non daemon factions that have access to army wide invulns, often baked right into their profile. Plus the much loved CP reroll, which is just further insurance against a big gun killing a key model with a single shot.
Im not crazy about how it just ignores invulns, but we wouldnt need it if half the factions in the game didnt have regular access to invulns on their tanks and monsters now.
Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Power creep in defense begets power creep in offense.
Instead of making it straight-up ignore invulns, I think it should simply inflict more MWs. Maybe Damage 6, plus D6 (or 2D3) MWs on a successful wound roll.
What? You mean like how this looks bad until you realize that there's stuff way worse that you didn't notice because you were paying attention to this instead?
What? You mean like how this looks bad until you realize that there's stuff way worse that you didn't notice because you were paying attention to this instead?
Probably, but the weeks of "Woe me, woe the game, it's all over, the best unit in existence now exists!!!! I will never play tanks again, I won't attend events unless these are banned!" until in a few weeks and maybe 1-2 pop up in runner up placements because we still don't know the cost, we don't know of the chassis changed, we don't know what buffs are available and to be frank, who leaves their expensive 10-12 wound units just sat with their ass in the wind to be nuked turn 1?
Arcanis161 wrote: That feel when you play an army known for tanks and you realize the Tau can do a better Armored Company than you.
I'd bet good money that the Vanquisher will wind up in similar territory. That thing has been languishing in it's supposed AT role, and the RG is a good template for how to go about it.
Grimtuff wrote: A massive word salad of rules for a single shot weapon and a previously available alt firing method is now a bloody stratagem.
Mezmorki wrote: I know I'm complaining to the choir/wind here, but this is a perfect example of what I despise about the current design direction in the game. We have a gun here, which shoots one shot, but has a bajillion other things attached to it. Re-rolling the hits (targeting array). Rolling d3 for extra damage. Tracking +3 mortal wounds. Negates armor and invulnerable saves. Also attached to a strat that instead causes a wound on each model on a 4+ (mortal wounds of course), with +1 modifer if you have 11+ models, but up to a maximum of 8.
JFC, what a headache to track all of that. It's a spaghetti mess of minutia.
Makes me wish the current game would get back to something simple like:
R72", S10, AP1, Heavy1, Lance, Large Blast
Think we're reaching the point where current 40K achieves more or less the same outcome as 3rd-5th edition, but with a barrage of word salad attached to near enough everything... which ultimately just slows the game down, as it gets bogged down in words.
Also, anyone find it funny that this thing out shoots Titan weaponry?
Yeah, I was having a private giggle at the Eldar Cobra.
"Vaporizes entire Imperial Titans and sucks them into the warp, utterly bypassing their defensive fields!" - does not ignore invulns, AP -5, 6 flat damage, d3 MW on a 4+ to wound.
"Hunk of iron but really fast" - ignores invulns, AP -6, 7 damage minimum, 9 damage maximum, +3 mortal wounds automatically.
EDIT:
I am also bemused that the defenses against this thing's special rules are all just more special rules. Will statlines ever be important again or are we just having a "special rules war" (and the accompanying bloat)
Drachii wrote: People: 'High value one-shot weapons are useless because of invulns!'
GW: 'Okay, this one ignores invulns.'
People: [shocked pikachu]
its fine if it ONLY ignored invulns, the problem is it one shots too many things and still gets to do something against infantry thanks to the mortal wounds.
If the gun had flat 6 damage (and ignore invuln), it would still be better than most anti-tank weaponry whilst not being completely nuts.
Personally i'm glad i started playing OnePageRules, that nonsense is too much for me
Hmm. Are eldar or daemons more likely to get a special invulnerable save that ignores special rules that ignore invulnerable saves?
Or do I get to laugh when zoanthropes get it. (but lose their 3++ at the same time)
What? You mean like how this looks bad until you realize that there's stuff way worse that you didn't notice because you were paying attention to this instead?
Probably, but the weeks of "Woe me, woe the game, it's all over, the best unit in existence now exists!!!! I will never play tanks again, I won't attend events unless these are banned!" until in a few weeks and maybe 1-2 pop up in runner up placements because we still don't know the cost, we don't know of the chassis changed, we don't know what buffs are available and to be frank, who leaves their expensive 10-12 wound units just sat with their ass in the wind to be nuked turn 1?
Eradicators were crazy until the first wave of nerfs came in. They weren't as OP as people thought they were going to be, but pretending they didn't warp the meta is revisionist history.
Sisters of Battle Retributors being Eradicators on crack soon after that notwishstanding.
Also sidebar, no one has played tanks since those units dropped unless said tanks got a rule specifically designed to counter that type of firepower (I.e. Decent invuls or damage reductions.)
Oof. Not sure how I feel about this. I've wanted the hammerhead railgun to be better for a long time, but this seems a bit much. Kind of gives me 7th edition vibes in the sense that it seems like the tau player will autokill a target, then their opponent will retaliate with enough firepower to autokill the hammerhead, etc. Might not be a game breaker, but it definitely seems like we're back into feelsbad territory where your expensive vehicles/monsters get killed turn 1 before they really do anything.
Also, I'm pretty irked that the gun somehow nullifies invul saves derived form magic powers, hologram projectors, dodging, etc.
What? You mean like how this looks bad until you realize that there's stuff way worse that you didn't notice because you were paying attention to this instead?
Probably, but the weeks of "Woe me, woe the game, it's all over, the best unit in existence now exists!!!! I will never play tanks again, I won't attend events unless these are banned!" until in a few weeks and maybe 1-2 pop up in runner up placements because we still don't know the cost, we don't know of the chassis changed, we don't know what buffs are available and to be frank, who leaves their expensive 10-12 wound units just sat with their ass in the wind to be nuked turn 1?
Eradicators were crazy until the first wave of nerfs came in. They weren't as OP as people thought they were going to be, but pretending they didn't warp the meta is revisionist history.
Sisters of Battle Retributors being Eradicators on crack soon after that notwishstanding.
Also sidebar, no one has played tanks since those units dropped unless said tanks got a rule specifically designed to counter that type of firepower (I.e. Decent invuls or damage reductions.)
Thank you captain serious, I was poking fun at all the sky is falling people who quit the game or cried end times because of Internet hype over a unit that wasn't in the wild.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I just don't understand why it ignores Invul saves.
Gaming-wise, because it's a one shot weapon and invulns can quickly make one-shot weapons not worthwhile (see Lascannons in 7th ed). World-wise, because it overloads fields of various sorts? Dunno. But why add Mortal Wounds on top of that? Seems a little odd.
The ignore invul is literally the designer looking at all the invul save tanks & monsters everyone brings (because those without and invul are generally garbage) and thinking 'I want to counter that' and either no one being able to tell him no or GW recognizing that they gave out way to many invul saves.
Well, I can honestly say I've never seen a Hammer head for sale in my local GW brick and mortar. And I've only actually ever met two Tau players in my life. Is this really a major problem? Do we expect Tau to suddenly shoot to the top of the boards? No, because they still suck as a faction for the most part.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I just don't understand why it ignores Invul saves.
There's no good reason for it. It just comes down to their ruleset being broken, and invulnerable saves being spread too widely to make one shot weapons like this viable.
I am waiting to see what kind of stats and rules Tau's most powerful weapon in their arsenal will have. Because the article said this railgun wasn't even their most powerful gun lol.
Maybe it will be a one shot Str 16, 10 + d3 damage plus 3 MW that ignores Invul saves.
VladimirHerzog wrote: Is the Ignore invuln really the most broken part of the gun? I think its more the ridiculous damage AND mortal wounds on top.
Oh, its the whole package. But its also that we know the science behind the railgun. You take a perfectly ordinary chunk of metal and use magnetism to make it move really fast. No explosions, chemicals, magical materials, psychics or any other form of Unobtanium nonsense. It is one of the most perfectly mundane things in existence, on a purely ballistic trajectory.
And for no apparent reason, all the mystic, super-science and not-part-of-the-physical-universe defenses in the setting (and also just ducking, for models whose ++ save is based on dodging) just turn off because iron is moving at a pretty fast clip.
It gets weirder the more you think about it, too. How'd the necrons lose the war in heaven? How were enslavers ever a threat? Literally any of the advanced civilizations (and even a lot of the not-so-advanced ones) could have made iron go fast.
jeff white wrote: Well, inertia is a thing. Prediction: Cawl will birth the numarine gaussblasters, a jump troop which will ignore MW and be D3 base at 30”.
Don't forget the Gausfists, which are Sx3 and allow them to FAWLCUN PAUNCH their targets off the table. Plus +3 to charge rolls.
jeff white wrote: Well, inertia is a thing. Prediction: Cawl will birth the numarine gaussblasters, a jump troop which will ignore MW and be D3 base at 30”.
Rihgu wrote: To quote Unit from another post, some time ago,
GW writes results-focused rules for 40k. The narrative of the action doesn't matter, only the result.
Railgun big gun, make vehicle boom. It gets that result. Does the act of shooting with a railgun forge a narrative? no. But it does make vehicle boom.
Pretty much. It'll be interesting to see what kind of ridiculous fluff the writers come up with to explain it. I mean, we already have "extra organs let's you tank Volcano Cannon blasts".
Rihgu wrote: To quote Unit from another post, some time ago,
GW writes results-focused rules for 40k. The narrative of the action doesn't matter, only the result.
Railgun big gun, make vehicle boom. It gets that result. Does the act of shooting with a railgun forge a narrative? no. But it does make vehicle boom.
Pretty much. It'll be interesting to see what kind of ridiculous fluff the writers come up with to explain it. I mean, we already have "extra organs let's you tank Volcano Cannon blasts".
Extra Organs OR extreme discipline, in the case of Cadians.
Rihgu wrote: To quote Unit from another post, some time ago,
GW writes results-focused rules for 40k. The narrative of the action doesn't matter, only the result.
Railgun big gun, make vehicle boom. It gets that result. Does the act of shooting with a railgun forge a narrative? no. But it does make vehicle boom.
Pretty much. It'll be interesting to see what kind of ridiculous fluff the writers come up with to explain it. I mean, we already have "extra organs let's you tank Volcano Cannon blasts".
Extra Organs OR extreme discipline, in the case of Cadians.
It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.
It is in a faction that has only the moving and shooting phase to compete in to try and do anything in the game.
There are already other attacks that ignore invulnerable saves, this thing is really okay and appropriate for what it is.
If you have some single model that is really threatened by it, strategic reserves exists.
It is basically a Destroyer weapon that has a single shot.
Ignoring invuls is the newest step in trying to fix the shoddy AP system.
3rd-7th the AP system being all or nothing, with invuls being a "backup"
8th/9th most all weapons now effectively make what use to be decent armor irrelevant so to fix this oversight they hand out invuls amd other damage reduction like candy.
Now we get more ignore invul/MW mechanics offensively and damage reductions/transhuman defensively. This adds more layers of complexity to the game without increasing the grainularity of the 3rd-7th system.
You dont need all these bonus layers of damage reduction or invuls if your basic armor actually worked... imagine marines getting their 3+ vs all small-mid arms fire, only falling back to an invul vs anti-tank/plasma...
blaktoof wrote: It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.
It is in a faction that has only the moving and shooting phase to compete in to try and do anything in the game.
There are already other attacks that ignore invulnerable saves, this thing is really okay and appropriate for what it is.
If you have some single model that is really threatened by it, strategic reserves exists.
It is basically a Destroyer weapon that has a single shot.
There can be 4 in a Tau army (Longstrike), and the Tau codex has some of the largest shooting buffs for vehicles ever seen.
+1 to hit and ignores cover from Markerlights (and even if they change, the article expresses that Hammerheads will still synergize). Hammerhead has native rerolls.
Longstrike currently gives +1 to wound, could be changed - or could not.
CP reroll is a thing too. With so much damage on a single dice...
...all you have left is 'glass cannon'. But there should be an archetype in 40k other than Glass Cannon and things like the hammerhead don't leave much room for it.
blaktoof wrote: It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.
It is in a faction that has only the moving and shooting phase to compete in to try and do anything in the game.
There are already other attacks that ignore invulnerable saves, this thing is really okay and appropriate for what it is.
If you have some single model that is really threatened by it, strategic reserves exists.
It is basically a Destroyer weapon that has a single shot.
There can be 4 in a Tau army (Longstrike), and the Tau codex has some of the largest shooting buffs for vehicles ever seen.
+1 to hit and ignores cover from Markerlights (and even if they change, the article expresses that Hammerheads will still synergize). Hammerhead has native rerolls.
Longstrike currently gives +1 to wound, could be changed - or could not.
CP reroll is a thing too. With so much damage on a single dice...
...all you have left is 'glass cannon'. But there should be an archetype in 40k other than Glass Cannon and things like the hammerhead don't leave much room for it.
And lets not forget that broadsides can also have HEAVY rail rifles (feth me what stats those will have)
blaktoof wrote: It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.
It is in a faction that has only the moving and shooting phase to compete in to try and do anything in the game.
There are already other attacks that ignore invulnerable saves, this thing is really okay and appropriate for what it is.
If you have some single model that is really threatened by it, strategic reserves exists.
It is basically a Destroyer weapon that has a single shot.
There can be 4 in a Tau army (Longstrike), and the Tau codex has some of the largest shooting buffs for vehicles ever seen.
+1 to hit and ignores cover from Markerlights (and even if they change, the article expresses that Hammerheads will still synergize). Hammerhead has native rerolls.
Longstrike currently gives +1 to wound, could be changed - or could not.
CP reroll is a thing too. With so much damage on a single dice...
...all you have left is 'glass cannon'. But there should be an archetype in 40k other than Glass Cannon and things like the hammerhead don't leave much room for it.
I just don't see this as something new, there are already units that throw out this kind of damage or more for 200pts or less. Ad-mech troop choices already do this. This is the longest range version and being on a vehicle suffers from degrading in quality in a very binary way, but it is tied to a single shot & wound roll as opposed to being an aggregate of damage from some unit.
There can be 4 in a Tau army (Longstrike), and the Tau codex has some of the largest shooting buffs for vehicles ever seen.
+1 to hit and ignores cover from Markerlights (and even if they change, the article expresses that Hammerheads will still synergize). Hammerhead has native rerolls.
Longstrike currently gives +1 to wound, could be changed - or could not.
CP reroll is a thing too. With so much damage on a single dice...
...all you have left is 'glass cannon'. But there should be an archetype in 40k other than Glass Cannon and things like the hammerhead don't leave much room for it.
We definitely need the whole picture. I don't doubt there will be a meta shift to stuff that kills Hammerheads right quick in any event. And that won't take much.
If all of the Tau railguns ignore Invulns it'll shake up the meta a lot more.
jeff white wrote: Well, inertia is a thing. Prediction: Cawl will birth the numarine gaussblasters, a jump troop which will ignore MW and be D3 base at 30”.
Don't forget the Gausfists, which are Sx3 and allow them to FAWLCUN PAUNCH their targets off the table. Plus +3 to charge rolls.
This one had me laughing really hard! Have an exalt, good sir!
Eh I don't know.
Those profiles always look better than they work.
I would like to remind that we currently have a gun that always hits on 2+, always wounds on 2+, negates invul, negates cover, is AP-3 and ignores Look Out Sir. All this for 100 points and can shoot twice for 1 CP. It even rewards you with CPs for killing stuff!
If that description doesn't immediately make you think of the Vindicare assassin, is because he is NEVER seen on any table.
Spoletta wrote: Eh I don't know.
Those profiles always look better than they work.
I would like to remind that we currently have a gun that always hits on 2+, always wounds on 2+, negates invul, negates cover, is AP-3 and ignores Look Out Sir. All this for 100 points and can shoot twice for 1 CP. It even rewards you with CPs for killing stuff!
If that description doesn't immediately make you think of the Vindicare assassin, is because he is NEVER seen on any table.
Amen.
The railgun will still be on a frail chassis, it doesn't take much to bring some anti tank to deal with it. It's a rock-paper-scissor case: the railgun counters invulnerable save units, those counter standard anti-tank and anti-tank counters the railgun.
In the previous page it was shown how it's not an hyper-efficient unit.
If you compare it with current Tau units (magna rail rifle and missile broadsides, fusion blaster veteran crisis) it's less point efficient. And that's comparing it to units in one of the worst books in the current meta.
Will it be good? Probably, yes. Will it break the game? I doubt that.
What I can see it doing is being a big scare that pushes some vehicles and monsters out of the meta, a bit like Eradicators. Yet they are not in every competitive list.
Worst case scenario? It will be broken as some people think it is and then it will be nerfed. We have trimestral balance updates now.
blaktoof wrote: It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.
If a Tau army wants to build around these Railguns they can take 10 shots a turn, not limited to 3 shots a turn. More if we include Broadsides which one would assume would be weaker but still deadly. 22+ Railgun shots should be doable if we count 6 per Broadsides squad with an expected 3 Broadsides able to upgrade to Magna Rail Rifles.
Spoletta wrote: The more counters there are to invuln saves in the game, the happier I am.
They are definitely over used at the moment, so having to worry a little more when you put invul saves in your lists can't be a bad thing.
Also, for all we know, this thing could cost 220 points.
The problem is armies that have Inv saves baked into their point cost, so it is not an option.
Over proliferation of Inv saves is an issue, it will always be an issue, but the solution is to remove them from models and adjust the point costs, not to start making it easy to spam ignore inv.
blaktoof wrote: It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.
If a Tau army wants to build around these Railguns they can take 10 shots a turn, not limited to 3 shots a turn. More if we include Broadsides which one would assume would be weaker but still deadly. 22+ Railgun shots should be doable if we count 6 per Broadsides squad with an expected 3 Broadsides able to upgrade to Magna Rail Rifles.
Hammerheads don't come in squadrons, it's 0-1 unit size. So max 3 Hammerhads + 1 Longstrike in a list. And currently it's a 725 points investment for 4 T7 W13 3+ models.
Spoletta wrote: Eh I don't know.
Those profiles always look better than they work.
I would like to remind that we currently have a gun that always hits on 2+, always wounds on 2+, negates invul, negates cover, is AP-3 and ignores Look Out Sir. All this for 100 points and can shoot twice for 1 CP. It even rewards you with CPs for killing stuff!
If that description doesn't immediately make you think of the Vindicare assassin, is because he is NEVER seen on any table.
Because that only applies to infantry and it isn't guaranteed to kill a 5 Wound character.
The Railgun will do 10-13 wounds.
If the Vindicare wounded everything on a 2+ and did a flat 5 damage I would bet you would see it on the field a lot more.
Spoletta wrote: The more counters there are to invuln saves in the game, the happier I am.
They are definitely over used at the moment, so having to worry a little more when you put invul saves in your lists can't be a bad thing.
Also, for all we know, this thing could cost 220 points.
The problem is armies that have Inv saves baked into their point cost, so it is not an option.
Over proliferation of Inv saves is an issue, it will always be an issue, but the solution is to remove them from models and adjust the point costs, not to start making it easy to spam ignore inv.
I don't see this issue. This weapon doesn't ignore invul saves. This weapon ignores saves. Period.
Saying that it is unfair because you pay for invul saves, is the same as saying as this weapon is unfair because you pay for a 1+ and this things ignores it.
It's the same as saying that this weapon inflicts mortal wounds, like many other weapons do. It's nothing new.
blaktoof wrote: It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.
If a Tau army wants to build around these Railguns they can take 10 shots a turn, not limited to 3 shots a turn. More if we include Broadsides which one would assume would be weaker but still deadly. 22+ Railgun shots should be doable if we count 6 per Broadsides squad with an expected 3 Broadsides able to upgrade to Magna Rail Rifles.
I'm waiting to see things like the Tiger Shark. It has to be better than the Hammerhead one, and it has 2 of them.
blaktoof wrote: It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.
If a Tau army wants to build around these Railguns they can take 10 shots a turn, not limited to 3 shots a turn. More if we include Broadsides which one would assume would be weaker but still deadly. 22+ Railgun shots should be doable if we count 6 per Broadsides squad with an expected 3 Broadsides able to upgrade to Magna Rail Rifles.
Hammerheads don't come in squadrons, it's 0-1 unit size. So max 3 Hammerhads + 1 Longstrike in a list. And currently it's a 725 points investment for 4 T7 W13 3+ models.
So it is fine that a model with that Return exists so that it May insta bracket the supposedly most durable daemonengine to the last and outright removes the 2 Dino bots? Which btw are all only minimally cheaper?!
blaktoof wrote: It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.
If a Tau army wants to build around these Railguns they can take 10 shots a turn, not limited to 3 shots a turn. More if we include Broadsides which one would assume would be weaker but still deadly. 22+ Railgun shots should be doable if we count 6 per Broadsides squad with an expected 3 Broadsides able to upgrade to Magna Rail Rifles.
Hammerheads don't come in squadrons, it's 0-1 unit size. So max 3 Hammerhads + 1 Longstrike in a list. And currently it's a 725 points investment for 4 T7 W13 3+ models.
These Railguns are not only found on Hammerheads. There is a high capacitance railgun that takes 2 shots for 1 Hammerhead and Gunrigs are cheaper then Hammerheads (Currently) and have 2 railguns each. That's an extra 7 shots.
blaktoof wrote: It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.
If a Tau army wants to build around these Railguns they can take 10 shots a turn, not limited to 3 shots a turn. More if we include Broadsides which one would assume would be weaker but still deadly. 22+ Railgun shots should be doable if we count 6 per Broadsides squad with an expected 3 Broadsides able to upgrade to Magna Rail Rifles.
What other sources they have for hammerhead rail weapon than hammerhead in the GW codex(so not FW)? Note the broadside rail weapons are different weapons. You can't count them as these as stats will be different and we don't know yet. Odds are though as before it's the weaker version.
blaktoof wrote: It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.
If a Tau army wants to build around these Railguns they can take 10 shots a turn, not limited to 3 shots a turn. More if we include Broadsides which one would assume would be weaker but still deadly. 22+ Railgun shots should be doable if we count 6 per Broadsides squad with an expected 3 Broadsides able to upgrade to Magna Rail Rifles.
What other sources they have for hammerhead rail weapon than hammerhead in the GW codex(so not FW)? Note the broadside rail weapons are different weapons. You can't count them as these as stats will be different and we don't know yet. Odds are though as before it's the weaker version.
Tidewall Gunrigs are in the codex and have effectively the same rail weapon as the hammerhead only 2 shots each and possibly 3 shots with Kauyon. They might be one to watch out for with Markerlight support. I would be temped to outflank it with Breachers inside.
Yeah gunrigs are a non-issue because of their BS, even weaker defensive profile and unlike the drone-port the unit inside the rig can't shoot the railguns with their BS.
I don't see this issue.
This weapon doesn't ignore invul saves.
This weapon ignores saves. Period.
Saying that it is unfair because you pay for invul saves, is the same as saying as this weapon is unfair because you pay for a 1+ and this things ignores it.
Except that anti-vehicle weapons should be ignoring armour saves because they're explicitly anti-armour weapons.
This is why no one cares that meltas are AP-5 or that Dark Lances are AP-4. Because they're literally designed to penetrate armour.
(Incidentally, this is something that should be better reflected in vehicles having better armour saves in general so that the extra penetration makes more difference, compared to anti-infantry and mid-range weapons.)
However, just outright ignoring invulnerable saves - on a weapon with absolutely insane damage, no less - is a completely different kettle of fish. It's bad for gameplay and it's bad for fluff because there's absolutely no reason why a weapon like this should be able to outright invalidate invulnerable saves.
As others have said, if there are too many invulnerable saves in the game, the solution is to remove or weaken them and adjust those units accordingly. Hell, we've even seen this to an extent with Storm Shields, Wraiths etc. having been redesigned to remove 3++ saves from the game. The solution is *not* to de facto bring D-weapons back but only for certain armies.
blaktoof wrote: It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.
If a Tau army wants to build around these Railguns they can take 10 shots a turn, not limited to 3 shots a turn. More if we include Broadsides which one would assume would be weaker but still deadly. 22+ Railgun shots should be doable if we count 6 per Broadsides squad with an expected 3 Broadsides able to upgrade to Magna Rail Rifles.
What other sources they have for hammerhead rail weapon than hammerhead in the GW codex(so not FW)? Note the broadside rail weapons are different weapons. You can't count them as these as stats will be different and we don't know yet. Odds are though as before it's the weaker version.
Tidewall Gunrigs are in the codex and have effectively the same rail weapon as the hammerhead only 2 shots each and possibly 3 shots with Kauyon. They might be one to watch out for with Markerlight support. I would be temped to outflank it with Breachers inside.
Hitting on 5+ and wasn't kayon the one that begins on turn 3 onward? That is dead one. And anything with rail cannon won't survive T3 even if tau player picks the inferior style.
Also...it's not same weapon so we don't know the stats yet. What we do know is that it's not same weapon though so you can't just assume stats are same.
I'd still like to point out that a LR or any decent anti-tank (7+ strength) shooting unit can wipe these off the table fairly quickly. Hell, a smash captain in could kill all three for 200 points and a few CP. They will likely cost 200-300 points, making them wildly inefficient, and rarely earn points back. It's a Tau Death Strike. Looks mean on paper, but rarely works out.
Disagree. The Deathstrike already looks bad on paper. This new weapon profile further invalidates specific units.
I'm sure everybody is looking forward to face Tau with even more shooting capabilities. It's not like this army is only partaking in a single phase of the game since it's inception.
Auxiliary troops would have been the better route for the game, imho.
It being trivial to wipe off the table may balance the hammerhead as an individual unit, but consider what that means for the game.
We have a unit that can delete any single model in 3 shots. You can take 4.
If that is balanced by the fact that it, in turn, can be deleted in 3 shots...
Maybe lethality is too high, hm? Having a rousing game of "I hide, your turn" in order to have any army left is a bad thing...
Automatically Appended Next Post: Like, I could totally see myself in a crusade game picking Survivor and Lord of the Warp with my Daemons against this thing and literally hiding all game.
If his army moves any closer, my Slaanesh jump out and butcher it. If it doesn't, we just chill behind obscuring terrain for 5 turns and then shake hands and go home.
Unit1126PLL wrote: It being trivial to wipe off the table may balance the hammerhead as an individual unit, but consider what that means for the game.
We have a unit that can delete any single model in 3 shots. You can take 4.
If that is balanced by the fact that it, in turn, can be deleted in 3 shots...
Maybe lethality is too high, hm? Having a rousing game of "I hide, your turn" in order to have any army left is a bad thing...
Automatically Appended Next Post: Like, I could totally see myself in a crusade game picking Survivor and Lord of the Warp with my Daemons against this thing and literally hiding all game.
If his army moves any closer, my Slaanesh jump out and butcher it. If it doesn't, we just chill behind obscuring terrain for 5 turns and then shake hands and go home.
Fun game.
There is nothing wrong in removing an high value target in 3 shots when you are a high value target and have a single shot. 3 shots means 3 turns. This means a 1/3 return, which is the gold standard.
The problem with this gun isn't the firepower, which isn't anything special, it is how weirdly swingy it is.
Unit1126PLL wrote: It being trivial to wipe off the table may balance the hammerhead as an individual unit, but consider what that means for the game.
We have a unit that can delete any single model in 3 shots. You can take 4.
If that is balanced by the fact that it, in turn, can be deleted in 3 shots...
Maybe lethality is too high, hm? Having a rousing game of "I hide, your turn" in order to have any army left is a bad thing...
Automatically Appended Next Post: Like, I could totally see myself in a crusade game picking Survivor and Lord of the Warp with my Daemons against this thing and literally hiding all game.
If his army moves any closer, my Slaanesh jump out and butcher it. If it doesn't, we just chill behind obscuring terrain for 5 turns and then shake hands and go home.
Fun game.
There is nothing wrong in removing an high value target in 3 shots when you are a high value target and have a single shot. 3 shots means 3 turns. This means a 1/3 return, which is the gold standard.
The problem with this gun isn't the firepower, which isn't anything special, it is how weirdly swingy it is.
I mean the problem *is* the firepower, innit?
And the 1/3rd return thing is on lords of war. Against Russes or Keepers this thing makes its points back in one shot.
I mean, how do I counter it with keepers, kill it first? It ignores any defensive measure I can take.
Don't think it's a huge problem. If the Hammerhead sees a target, he'll kill it. Hurrah. And then it dies.
It's only toxic if that kind of output is on stuff you cannot interact with / hide from like Hive Guard, Stratoraptors, Wazboom Blastjets, etc..
Hammerhead plays the normal game with terrain, LoS, etc.. It should kill stuff when it gets to shoot, IMO. What shouldn't ever, ever happen in a game of 40K is a T7 vehicle dying to planes, hive guard or some such when you have it hidden.
On paper hammered's lethality means nothing. We miss the big picture, and only after the whole codex is released we could judge. Or, even better, only a few months after the codex release.
I still remember how people screamed OP!! when they learned about T5 ork boyz predicting unkillable hordes that would break the game. It turned out that no one takes large blobs of boyz anymore . Many don't even field a single ork boy now. Only min cheap squads of ork infantries are actually used pretty often and they would be used in the same numbers even if they still were T4.
So yeah, at the moment that thing might look scary and it might be OP, but it's completely irrelevant now. I'll wait for the whole picture, as always, before wrapping my head around it.
Well, they have the re-roll to hit through targeting array and re-roll to wound through Mont'ka. Even assuming they get no Black-Heart-Equivalent-Sept with a single re-roll, which traditionally helps non-Core units with very few, very high quality shots quite a bit.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I'd still like to point out that a LR or any decent anti-tank (7+ strength) shooting unit can wipe these off the table fairly quickly.
Even if that's true, I fail to see how it's good for the game.
When we have glass-cannons that can just delete other models if they get to shoot first, we might as well just roll the dice to see who goes first and call the game then and there.
a_typical_hero wrote: Disagree. The Deathstrike already looks bad on paper. This new weapon profile further invalidates specific units.
I'm sure everybody is looking forward to face Tau with even more shooting capabilities. It's not like this army is only partaking in a single phase of the game since it's inception.
Auxiliary troops would have been the better route for the game, imho.
Yeah, lets just give the army whose whole schtick is specialising in having incredibly strong firepower, no psykers and no melee bunch of psychic and melee units. Then they can be like every other army in the game. In fact you know what would make the game balanced? Just a single codex. Then we can reduce the differences in armies to being cosmetic only.
a_typical_hero wrote: Disagree. The Deathstrike already looks bad on paper. This new weapon profile further invalidates specific units.
I'm sure everybody is looking forward to face Tau with even more shooting capabilities. It's not like this army is only partaking in a single phase of the game since it's inception.
Auxiliary troops would have been the better route for the game, imho.
Yeah, lets just give the army whose whole schtick is specialising in having incredibly strong firepower, no psykers and no melee bunch of psychic and melee units. Then they can be like every other army in the game. In fact you know what would make the game balanced? Just a single codex. Then we can reduce the differences in armies to being cosmetic only.
Look, I solved 40k!
Why are you talking about Necrons? GW finally gave them killy melee units and "mages" this update - this thread is about Tau.
blaktoof wrote: It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.
If a Tau army wants to build around these Railguns they can take 10 shots a turn, not limited to 3 shots a turn. More if we include Broadsides which one would assume would be weaker but still deadly. 22+ Railgun shots should be doable if we count 6 per Broadsides squad with an expected 3 Broadsides able to upgrade to Magna Rail Rifles.
What other sources they have for hammerhead rail weapon than hammerhead in the GW codex(so not FW)? Note the broadside rail weapons are different weapons. You can't count them as these as stats will be different and we don't know yet. Odds are though as before it's the weaker version.
Tidewall Gunrigs are in the codex and have effectively the same rail weapon as the hammerhead only 2 shots each and possibly 3 shots with Kauyon. They might be one to watch out for with Markerlight support. I would be temped to outflank it with Breachers inside.
Hitting on 5+ and wasn't kayon the one that begins on turn 3 onward? That is dead one. And anything with rail cannon won't survive T3 even if tau player picks the inferior style.
Also...it's not same weapon so we don't know the stats yet. What we do know is that it's not same weapon though so you can't just assume stats are same.
That's why you outflank it on turn 3 and its a transport so you unload the Breachers into the backlines. Then boost its chance to hit and have it get an extra hit on up to a 4+. Its a Supermacy railgun so its even bigger then a hammerhead railgun, very unlikely to have worse stats. It will either be the same stats and 2 shots or even higher stats and 1 shot. In the past its always been the same stats only an extra shots. Yes there are some unknowns but its not something to just write off. I don't think a Supermacy railgun with Kauyon and a full breaches squad is something that can just be ignored. Its something to keep an eye on for when we have more info.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Currently Heavy 2, S18, AP-5, d6+6D + 3MWs on a successful wound roll in the Imperial Armour Compendium. They'll probably add "ignore invuls" in a FAQ.
I find it interesting that most of this was hiding in plain sight the whole time.
Everything can be justified fluff wise, and this makes no exception.
They are called railguns, so we only know that they shoot something metallic at a very high speed.
Now let's turn that into 40k porn numbers and say that it is shooting the metallic shell at 30% the speed of light, because why not!
No armor would protect you against something like that.
No field based on dissipating energy wouldn't be overloaded by that.
There would be no dodging something that literally bends time and space around it.
Even if you manage to not get hit by the shell, the sheer havoc it causes with its passage would kill any life form within many meters.
As you can see, apply enough 40k porn to the matter and everything works.
It's not that bad really, compared to weapons that hide how much damage they do behind multiple shots and the like.
But what I'm really wondering about is why there is the D3 in damage, because it basically does D3+9. I can't imagine that it's because of the randomness because the vast majority of the damage is fixed anyways.
ITT:
My Greater Daemons (made of unliving warpstuff) can dodge lascannons that move at the speed of light, but railguns at only 1/3rd as fast 'bend time and space' to become undodgeable!
The fluff cannot justify anything . There are limits.
Spoletta wrote: Nah, it takes this gun 3 shots to take down something like a Kill Rig, and this tank will have around the same cost.
A single Hammerhead with this profile is almost guaranteed to bracket the kill rig, and could possibly kill it.
People forget hammerheads have 2x secondary guns as well like the 12 shots from burst cannons (or worse, that isn't the only option).
The Tau little guns are getting buffed too.
Hammerhead gets EITHER 2 gun drones OR two burst cannons OR two SMS, so unless SMS gets a big buff you're looking at 8-12 S5 AP0 D1 shots (pulse carbines only got a range buff and burst cannon got 2 extra shots - hardly huge buffs) which shouldn't do much to anything you are likely to want to shoot the railgun at...
Spoletta wrote: Nah, it takes this gun 3 shots to take down something like a Kill Rig, and this tank will have around the same cost.
A single Hammerhead with this profile is almost guaranteed to bracket the kill rig, and could possibly kill it.
People forget hammerheads have 2x secondary guns as well like the 12 shots from burst cannons (or worse, that isn't the only option).
The Tau little guns are getting buffed too.
Hammerhead gets EITHER 2 gun drones OR two burst cannons OR two SMS, so unless SMS gets a big buff you're looking at 8-12 S5 AP0 D1 shots (pulse carbines only got a range buff and burst cannon got 2 extra shots - hardly huge buffs) which shouldn't do much to anything you are likely to want to shoot the railgun at...
Doesn't have to do more than 1-2 wounds off of 8-12 shots - and without knowing the codex we can't say. All it would take is for Longstrike to retain his +1 to wound, or some kind of reroll wounds access, and those guns become quite scary actually. 12 burst cannon shots with +1 to wound will do 1-2 wounds to a kill rig on average rolls (assuming BS 3). That is before we find out if septs or Markerlights or whatever give -1 AP or something like that.
Sim-Life wrote: Yeah, lets just give the army whose whole schtick is specialising in having incredibly strong firepower, no psykers and no melee bunch of psychic and melee units. Then they can be like every other army in the game. In fact you know what would make the game balanced? Just a single codex. Then we can reduce the differences in armies to being cosmetic only.
Look, I solved 40k!
1. You should reread the lore behind Tau and what auxiliary troops are.
2. Imperial Guard specialises in heavy firepower as well, while having Ogryns and Sanctioned Psykers. Somehow they still don't play like Space Marines.
3. Your low quality, hysterical troll posts don't add anything to the discussion.
That's why you outflank it on turn 3 and its a transport so you unload the Breachers into the backlines. Then boost its chance to hit and have it get an extra hit on up to a 4+. Its a Supermacy railgun so its even bigger then a hammerhead railgun, very unlikely to have worse stats. It will either be the same stats and 2 shots or even higher stats and 1 shot. In the past its always been the same stats only an extra shots. Yes there are some unknowns but its not something to just write off. I don't think a Supermacy railgun with Kauyon and a full breaches squad is something that can just be ignored. Its something to keep an eye on for when we have more info.
It's a fortification, so can't be put in strategic reserves.
Being a fortification also makes it exceptionally hard to deploy as it has a surprisingly large footprint.
Also, as a fortification, it is pretty much guaranteed not to get Core.
It also has less wounds and a worse save than a Hammerhead.
Spoletta wrote: Nah, it takes this gun 3 shots to take down something like a Kill Rig, and this tank will have around the same cost.
A single Hammerhead with this profile is almost guaranteed to bracket the kill rig, and could possibly kill it.
People forget hammerheads have 2x secondary guns as well like the 12 shots from burst cannons (or worse, that isn't the only option).
The Tau little guns are getting buffed too.
Hammerhead gets EITHER 2 gun drones OR two burst cannons OR two SMS, so unless SMS gets a big buff you're looking at 8-12 S5 AP0 D1 shots (pulse carbines only got a range buff and burst cannon got 2 extra shots - hardly huge buffs) which shouldn't do much to anything you are likely to want to shoot the railgun at...
Doesn't have to do more than 1-2 wounds off of 8-12 shots - and without knowing the codex we can't say. All it would take is for Longstrike to retain his +1 to wound, or some kind of reroll wounds access, and those guns become quite scary actually. 12 burst cannon shots with +1 to wound will do 1-2 wounds to a kill rig on average rolls (assuming BS 3). That is before we find out if septs or Markerlights or whatever give -1 AP or something like that.
Do you mean an additional -1AP? Because Montka already gives -1 AP and reroll 1s to wound.
So markerlights, sept bonuses, warlord traits and strats... how deep will this buff stacking get?
At this stage, I think I'd rather play epic. I have no issue with models getting insta smashed off the table when you have so many of them and big guns feel right by pulverizing a tank etc. But in 40K? I want everything to be a little more viable and not just eliminated in one shot so easily. People are also thinking that this is the only thing Tau have that can kill, we know that will not be the case. A tau shooting phase is going to be downright devastating, so terrain had better be damn good for your army to survive turn 1 and 2 (unless you pay CPs to put those armoured units in outflank).
I just don't like the ignore invulns, should not exist inherently within the weapon. Now, if Tau had some form of munition/system to reduce invulns (markerlights?) meaning they would have to 'soften" a target before the railgun hit, that would feel better. Simply bypassing it just feels wrong. I guess adding minuses to hit will be the best defense if you can't hide, since no save will help.
It's not that bad really, compared to weapons that hide how much damage they do behind multiple shots and the like.
minor point, but multi shot weapons like that interact differently with defences, especially damage reduction. -1 damage blocks 33% of a 3 hit, damage 3 guns output, after all, but only 11% of a single damage 9 shot. this railgun bypasses regular armour saves and invul saves, and simply swamps damage reduction by delivering all its damage in a single chuck.
Also, most of those multi damage, multi shot weapons:
A) interact with invul saves and often regular saves, giving the player more room to defend against them and enact counter-play
and
B) due the number of dice involved, their reliable damage output is much lower than their absolute output, and is skewed towards the centre of the bell curves by simple dice probability, and those stupendous potential damage outputs are linked to very low occurrence odds, low enough so that when your opponent gets them you just accept it as simple good/bad luck, not the inevitable result.
bullyboy wrote: At this stage, I think I'd rather play epic. I have no issue with models getting insta smashed off the table when you have so many of them and big guns feel right by pulverizing a tank etc. But in 40K? I want everything to be a little more viable and not just eliminated in one shot so easily. People are also thinking that this is the only thing Tau have that can kill, we know that will not be the case. A tau shooting phase is going to be downright devastating, so terrain had better be damn good for your army to survive turn 1 and 2 (unless you pay CPs to put those armoured units in outflank).
I just don't like the ignore invulns, should not exist inherently within the weapon. Now, if Tau had some form of munition/system to reduce invulns (markerlights?) meaning they would have to 'soften" a target before the railgun hit, that would feel better. Simply bypassing it just feels wrong. I guess adding minuses to hit will be the best defense if you can't hide, since no save will help.
I feel the opposite, having played a lot of Sigmar, Invulns are just not fun and I like the more rare Ward save in AoS as opposed to the Invulns of 40K.
Anyways, with respect to the railgun, I forsee that this won't be all that big an issue and that people are mostly overreacting to it. This thing has at current on a 3+/2+ 75% kill rate on a T7 10W target and will dip for a T8. Tanks are still trash af in this edition and this thing will likely also die to a stiff wind.
Sim-Life wrote: Yeah, lets just give the army whose whole schtick is specialising in having incredibly strong firepower, no psykers and no melee bunch of psychic and melee units. Then they can be like every other army in the game. In fact you know what would make the game balanced? Just a single codex. Then we can reduce the differences in armies to being cosmetic only.
Look, I solved 40k!
1. You should reread the lore behind Tau and what auxiliary troops are.
2. Imperial Guard specialises in heavy firepower as well, while having Ogryns and Sanctioned Psykers. Somehow they still don't play like Space Marines.
3. Your low quality, hysterical troll posts don't add anything to the discussion.
And you should learn what faction identity is and why it's good for game design and why homogenising all the factions to all do the same thing is bad.
Sim-Life wrote: Yeah, lets just give the army whose whole schtick is specialising in having incredibly strong firepower, no psykers and no melee bunch of psychic and melee units. Then they can be like every other army in the game. In fact you know what would make the game balanced? Just a single codex. Then we can reduce the differences in armies to being cosmetic only.
Look, I solved 40k!
1. You should reread the lore behind Tau and what auxiliary troops are.
2. Imperial Guard specialises in heavy firepower as well, while having Ogryns and Sanctioned Psykers. Somehow they still don't play like Space Marines.
3. Your low quality, hysterical troll posts don't add anything to the discussion.
They sort of do, yes fluffwise tau add in auxilia to reinforce their own weaknesses, but in current fluff they're distrusting of them in the 4th sphere following warp shenanigans.
Imperial guard is primarily ranged yes but their main aspect is quantity over quality, bodies, tanks, shots etc. so no they're not simply marines but they aren't just tau with melee and pyskers either.
Finally it adds value because it draws back to reminding people the factions place in the game design paradigm, which is the "technology over adversary, here's the best tech and weapons we can make to overcome our foe". They trust their tech, provide the best punch with their guns and so on, hence just hand waving their problems away with some auxilia dilutes the faction in terms of game design.
- What is the cost?
- Is the Advanced Targeting Array an upgrade? ( sounds like no )
- What is the markerlight system now and how easy is it to drop a +1 to hit?
- Does Longstrike still buff them?
- What is the stronger weapon?
- What do Broadsides do? These are the more dangerous precedent, because you can take way more.
- How will Knights deal with these?
Here's the unit crunch:
The Rail Gun kills an LRBT 20% of the time. This is with BS3 rerolling. With a CP reroll on a failed wound this goes to 25%.
With all the buffs it goes to 87% against a Dreadnought. Predator is 57% ( 43% with smoke ). Redemptor is 0% ( obviously ) with 14% to remain undamaged and the rest putting it on 2 to 4 wounds.
For comparison unbuffed Eradicators ( all rifle ) are:
So the absolute cap on damage for the Rail Gun "hurts" it a bit and even with a CP reroll it isn't guaranteed to knock an LRBT. Eradicators can hit 48 damage (short ) and average 21 ( long ). Triple DL Ravager can hit 18 and averages 15.
I do remember playing T'au in their early years. They were really good at killing vehicles, but that was a world before superheavies. The HH has no tangible benefit from Montka or Kauyon and will need help finishing off units half the time, which won't be another HH.
It is scary, but I am more concerned about the rest of the picture.
bullyboy wrote: At this stage, I think I'd rather play epic. I have no issue with models getting insta smashed off the table when you have so many of them and big guns feel right by pulverizing a tank etc. But in 40K? I want everything to be a little more viable and not just eliminated in one shot so easily. People are also thinking that this is the only thing Tau have that can kill, we know that will not be the case. A tau shooting phase is going to be downright devastating, so terrain had better be damn good for your army to survive turn 1 and 2 (unless you pay CPs to put those armoured units in outflank).
I just don't like the ignore invulns, should not exist inherently within the weapon. Now, if Tau had some form of munition/system to reduce invulns (markerlights?) meaning they would have to 'soften" a target before the railgun hit, that would feel better. Simply bypassing it just feels wrong. I guess adding minuses to hit will be the best defense if you can't hide, since no save will help.
I feel the opposite, having played a lot of Sigmar, Invulns are just not fun and I like the more rare Ward save in AoS as opposed to the Invulns of 40K.
Anyways, with respect to the railgun, I forsee that this won't be all that big an issue and that people are mostly overreacting to it. This thing has at current on a 3+/2+ 75% kill rate on a T7 10W target and will dip for a T8. Tanks are still trash af in this edition and this thing will likely also die to a stiff wind.
I don't care much about what this does to a Rhino or Leman Russ, that is the gravy on top. If its taken in lists it is because of Knights, Dreadknights, Daemon Primarchs and other big scary things with an invul save.
It is going to be a good tech against 4++ models, but against other stuff it doesn't reach the firepower of its competitors, and is also far easier to kill and hard to move (it will lose FLY in the codex).
It's a good balance. People are scared because it is good against current meta picks.
Spoletta wrote: It is going to be a good tech against 4++ models, but against other stuff it doesn't reach the firepower of its competitors, and is also far easier to kill and hard to move (it will lose FLY in the codex).
It's a good balance. People are scared because it is good against current meta picks.
They're scared because they're not thinking rationally, there's a lot of unknowns and the reality is there are other units out there with worse output as shown, but the magical ignores invuln and the point and click removal worries people beyond their ability to take a step back and contemplate point costs, terrain, deployment, counter striking etc.
The gun seems a bit much honestly....I'm all for some very special guns in the game being able to ignore invulns, since GW chose to hand them out like candy.....but it should not do THAT much damage at the same time.
Maybe it won't be as bad in practise, but idk...it really seems a bit over the top.
Hey, reserves are a thing.
Anyone remember the saying, 'If you can see something you can hit it; if you can hit something you can kill it.'?
If nothing else changes in the codex, deploy Longstrike and a couple Railheads and keep everything else in reserve. As things come onto the battlefield...
Spoletta wrote:It is going to be a good tech against 4++ models, but against other stuff it doesn't reach the firepower of its competitors, and is also far easier to kill and hard to move (it will lose FLY in the codex).
It's a good balance. People are scared because it is good against current meta picks.
It's also good against every other pick too. My Imperial Guard aren't at the top of the meta, but are worried. My Aeldari aren't at the top of the meta, but they're worried. My Chaos Daemons aren't at the top of the meta, and they're worried.
Dudeface wrote:
Spoletta wrote: It is going to be a good tech against 4++ models, but against other stuff it doesn't reach the firepower of its competitors, and is also far easier to kill and hard to move (it will lose FLY in the codex).
It's a good balance. People are scared because it is good against current meta picks.
They're scared because they're not thinking rationally, there's a lot of unknowns and the reality is there are other units out there with worse output as shown, but the magical ignores invuln and the point and click removal worries people beyond their ability to take a step back and contemplate point costs, terrain, deployment, counter striking etc.
Or, perhaps, they don't want the game to devolve into "who gets the hit in first wins"
Like I've illustrated, I can win (in the sense that I achieve objectives) against a HH spam list with my Chaos Daemons. But I don't think either of us would have fun in that sort of game.
The thing is there are already units out there that do stupid amounts of damage. The main difference here is that it's all rolled into one gun. A Leman Russ has four guns, one of which can fire twice. Devastators the same. The Hammerhead just has ONE gun, but somehow it's expected to fulfill the same role of fire support. Therefore the single gun is a big beefy one.
The main thing it has going for it is range, imo. Many of the other big lethality attacks out there are shorter range.
- What is the cost?
- Is the Advanced Targeting Array an upgrade? ( sounds like no )
- What is the markerlight system now and how easy is it to drop a +1 to hit?
- Does Longstrike still buff them?
- What is the stronger weapon?
- What do Broadsides do? These are the more dangerous precedent, because you can take way more.
- How will Knights deal with these?
Here's the unit crunch:
The Rail Gun kills an LRBT 20% of the time. This is with BS3 rerolling. With a CP reroll on a failed wound this goes to 25%.
With all the buffs it goes to 87% against a Dreadnought. Predator is 57% ( 43% with smoke ). Redemptor is 0% ( obviously ) with 14% to remain undamaged and the rest putting it on 2 to 4 wounds.
For comparison unbuffed Eradicators ( all rifle ) are:
So the absolute cap on damage for the Rail Gun "hurts" it a bit and even with a CP reroll it isn't guaranteed to knock an LRBT. Eradicators can hit 48 damage (short ) and average 21 ( long ). Triple DL Ravager can hit 18 and averages 15.
I do remember playing T'au in their early years. They were really good at killing vehicles, but that was a world before superheavies. The HH has no tangible benefit from Montka or Kauyon and will need help finishing off units half the time, which won't be another HH.
It is scary, but I am more concerned about the rest of the picture.
I mean, you're just going to ignore the range factor? 72" is hard to get into melee with, where as 24" is far simpler. That range is basically an invuln save, you can't kill it easily at that range. YMMV
Unit1126PLL wrote: ITT:
My Greater Daemons (made of unliving warpstuff) can dodge lascannons that move at the speed of light, but railguns at only 1/3rd as fast 'bend time and space' to become undodgeable!
The fluff cannot justify anything . There are limits.
I mean, they can't dodge a Callidus sticking them with a pointy stick either, moving significantly lower than 1/3rd as fast as the speed of light even among the most trained swordswomen.
Maybe the fluff cannot justify anything, but the new railgun rules aren't forging any new grounds into implausibility.
I mean, you're just going to ignore the range factor? 72" is hard to get into melee with, where as 24" is far simpler. That range is basically an invuln save, you can't kill it easily at that range. YMMV
Perhaps our experiences differ, but my local area doesn't play on 72" boards and/or boards that have no LOS-blocking terrain. Do you find your local layouts also cause trouble trying to avoid the shooting from (for example) admech laser chickens?
Insectum7 wrote: The thing is there are already units out there that do stupid amounts of damage. The main difference here is that it's all rolled into one gun. A Leman Russ has four guns, one of which can fire twice. Devastators the same. The Hammerhead just has ONE gun, but somehow it's expected to fulfill the same role of fire support. Therefore the single gun is a big beefy one.
The main thing it has going for it is range, imo. Many of the other big lethality attacks out there are shorter range.
The difference is there are things I can do against a Russ.
The Russ's CP rerolls and army buffs don't go as far as they do with a hammerhead.
My -1 to-hit hurts a Russ with no native rerolls than it does a Hammerhead with a single native reroll, and a single important shot.
My saves don't matter at all, while the matter a lot against a Russ.
Let me put it this way: A Russ Tank Commander Demolisher, on average, will do 7 shots, 5 hits (rounding up), 3 wounds (rounding up), and 2 d6 damage hits (rounding up) to a Keeper of Secrets with a 4++ for an average damage of 7. One CP reroll shifts that average very slightly, as do any other rerolls - and I rounded up in every case there was a fraction. It will take the Tank Commander 3 turns of shooting to down a Keeper if the Russ gets lucky and hits on its side of the averages every single turn. More likely, it will take 4 or 5 turns, as the KOS either has a Feel No Pain, a Heal, or both.
A HH with BS 4+ will do 11 damage to a Keeper of Secrets 62% of the time, and with BS 3+ 74% of the time. One CP reroll (say, on an unlucky 1 to wound) shifts these probabilities even higher and more dramatically than it would for a Russ. It will take the Hammerhead 2 turns of shooting to down a Keeper if the HH rolls exactly average. Neither FNP nor Healing nor both can stop this from happening, as it would be 20-24 wounds total and the Keeper will heal either d3 once or save ~4 of them (rounding up) on her 6++, leaving it dead.
Remember, the HH is cheaper than the Russ (currently), and the Russ's damage will always tend much closer to the averages than it will towards the extremes because of how rolling many dice at once work. You will very rarely get a massive damage spike.
Dolnikan wrote: It's not that bad really, compared to weapons that hide how much damage they do behind multiple shots and the like.
But what I'm really wondering about is why there is the D3 in damage, because it basically does D3+9. I can't imagine that it's because of the randomness because the vast majority of the damage is fixed anyways.
The damage is really interesting for various reasons.
It does d3+6+3MW.
There are a lot of 5+ saves versus mortal wounds in 9th- a lot of people seem reluctant to play 9th in 9th, you don't see people taking the MW saves even though MW generation has increased, much like you rarely see anyone put things into strategic reserves...putting a daemon primarch into strategic reserves if your opponent has 3 of these on the table seems like a smart move. Also mortal wounds are individual wounds, so if you fire in the standard mode with this it will still possibly kill 1 Model with 1 wound and do 3 MW to the unit representing the railgun round punching through to hurt other targets.
Daedalus81 wrote: The HH has no tangible benefit from Montka
Reroll 1 to wound is a pretty tangible benefit for a weapon that is going to wound on a 2+ pretty often and at worst a 3+ (without transhuman nonsense, but that usually costs the defender CP.)
I mean, you're just going to ignore the range factor? 72" is hard to get into melee with, where as 24" is far simpler. That range is basically an invuln save, you can't kill it easily at that range. YMMV
72" doesn't matter when a 36" gun can already shoot into your opponents deployment zone. And armies are so much faster these days.
Even deploying as far away as possible an assault army is going to charge you turn 2 no matter what the range on your gun is.
vipoid wrote: The silly part for me is just auto-ignoring invulnerable saves.
See, this right here! The rest of the profile I'm down with. It's scary, powerful, and effective... which is awesome! But ignoring invuln? That's just plain silly. Invuln is supposed to be the ultimate shield, the "so tough that it's near indestructible" part of the ridiculous 40k lore. A dude who makes his invuln save is supposed to be able to shrug off a titan stomping on his face. Is that ridiculous? OF COURSE IT IS! But, also, that's 40k!
So, to me, just flat out ignoring invuln is... problematic. It messes not just with the balance of the game but also even moves into the lore of the thing. Ugh. I'm actually starting to lose a bit of my desire to keep playing 40k with rules reveals like this :-(
Daedalus81 wrote: The HH has no tangible benefit from Montka
Reroll 1 to wound is a pretty tangible benefit for a weapon that is going to wound on a 2+ pretty often and at worst a 3+ (without transhuman nonsense, but that usually costs the defender CP.)
Mont'ka is only if your shooting at the closest target within 18/12/9.
Its not really relevant to a HH.
Spoletta wrote: It is going to be a good tech against 4++ models, but against other stuff it doesn't reach the firepower of its competitors, and is also far easier to kill and hard to move (it will lose FLY in the codex).
It's a good balance. People are scared because it is good against current meta picks.
They're scared because they're not thinking rationally, there's a lot of unknowns and the reality is there are other units out there with worse output as shown, but the magical ignores invuln and the point and click removal worries people beyond their ability to take a step back and contemplate point costs, terrain, deployment, counter striking etc.
Or, perhaps, they don't want the game to devolve into "who gets the hit in first wins"
Like I've illustrated, I can win (in the sense that I achieve objectives) against a HH spam list with my Chaos Daemons. But I don't think either of us would have fun in that sort of game.
You don't just line units up in the open for a Hammerhead to also line up in the open and take pot shots at from across the table though. 3 hammerheads are not going to decide who wins turn 1 any more than 3 units of 3 eradicators, a shadowsword or anything else with gross output.
Daedalus81 wrote: The HH has no tangible benefit from Montka
Reroll 1 to wound is a pretty tangible benefit for a weapon that is going to wound on a 2+ pretty often and at worst a 3+ (without transhuman nonsense, but that usually costs the defender CP.)
Mont'ka is only if your shooting at the closest target within 18/12/9.
Its not really relevant to a HH.
So, which is it? Will I be close enough to charge or too far away for Mont'Ka?
Insectum7 wrote: The thing is there are already units out there that do stupid amounts of damage. The main difference here is that it's all rolled into one gun. A Leman Russ has four guns, one of which can fire twice. Devastators the same. The Hammerhead just has ONE gun, but somehow it's expected to fulfill the same role of fire support. Therefore the single gun is a big beefy one.
The main thing it has going for it is range, imo. Many of the other big lethality attacks out there are shorter range.
The difference is there are things I can do against a Russ.
The Russ's CP rerolls and army buffs don't go as far as they do with a hammerhead.
My -1 to-hit hurts a Russ with no native rerolls than it does a Hammerhead with a single native reroll, and a single important shot.
My saves don't matter at all, while the matter a lot against a Russ.
Let me put it this way:
A Russ Tank Commander Demolisher, on average, will do 7 shots, 5 hits (rounding up), 3 wounds (rounding up), and 2 d6 damage hits (rounding up) to a Keeper of Secrets with a 4++ for an average damage of 7. One CP reroll shifts that average very slightly, as do any other rerolls - and I rounded up in every case there was a fraction. It will take the Tank Commander 3 turns of shooting to down a Keeper if the Russ gets lucky and hits on its side of the averages every single turn. More likely, it will take 4 or 5 turns, as the KOS either has a Feel No Pain, a Heal, or both.
A HH with BS 4+ will do 11 damage to a Keeper of Secrets 62% of the time, and with BS 3+ 74% of the time. One CP reroll (say, on an unlucky 1 to wound) shifts these probabilities even higher and more dramatically than it would for a Russ. It will take the Hammerhead 2 turns of shooting to down a Keeper if the HH rolls exactly average. Neither FNP nor Healing nor both can stop this from happening, as it would be 20-24 wounds total and the Keeper will heal either d3 once or save ~4 of them (rounding up) on her 6++, leaving it dead.
Remember, the HH is cheaper than the Russ (currently), and the Russ's damage will always tend much closer to the averages than it will towards the extremes because of how rolling many dice at once work. You will very rarely get a massive damage spike.
I think it's safe to assume that the HH cost will go up.
The LR Demolisher, in addition to it's main gun, can also pack 2 Multimeltas and a Lascannon. The HH doesn't have anything else other than Drones, is that right? Does it have a Burst Cannon? I forget.
I'm also looking at Devastators who, when armed with Multimeltas manage (what are the defensive stats of a KoS, T7 4++?) Let's see . . .
At 24": 6×0.666×0.666×0.5×3.5+(4
×0.83×0.666×0.5×3.5) = 8.5w
At 12": 6×0.666×0.666×0.5×5.5+(4
×0.83×0.666×0.5×5.5) = 13.39w
Spoletta wrote: It is going to be a good tech against 4++ models, but against other stuff it doesn't reach the firepower of its competitors, and is also far easier to kill and hard to move (it will lose FLY in the codex).
It's a good balance. People are scared because it is good against current meta picks.
They're scared because they're not thinking rationally, there's a lot of unknowns and the reality is there are other units out there with worse output as shown, but the magical ignores invuln and the point and click removal worries people beyond their ability to take a step back and contemplate point costs, terrain, deployment, counter striking etc.
Or, perhaps, they don't want the game to devolve into "who gets the hit in first wins"
Like I've illustrated, I can win (in the sense that I achieve objectives) against a HH spam list with my Chaos Daemons. But I don't think either of us would have fun in that sort of game.
You don't just line units up in the open for a Hammerhead to also line up in the open and take pot shots at from across the table though. 3 hammerheads are not going to decide who wins turn 1 any more than 3 units of 3 eradicators, a shadowsword or anything else with gross output.
Right, you're indirectly agreeing with me.
First turn has been powerful in 40k for a long time - precisely because of units like the HH that already exist. But instead of showing signs of fixing it, GW is doubling down MORE on the problem. That's my issue with the HH.
On average hammer stats, sure, I don't think its necessarily much more damage than a 3 lance Ravager (points/synergies depending etc). And a 3 lance ravager obviously can hit 3 times, wound 3 times, get 3 wounds through any saves and score 18 damage. But its not likely. You are far more likely to fall along a curve.
This doesn't do that. There is no half measures - its 0 damage or 10-12 damage. And from what we've seen, a very high chance of the 10-12.
We know that 10-12 damage on *loads of things* can get you towards a return of 150-200 points. Which will be a 100%ish return on your points assuming a Hammerhead is somewhere in the region of 160-200ish points.
I feel focusing on the exact specifics are getting lost in the weeds. Okay you are "unlikely" to 1-shot a 12 wound Leman Russ - but if you reduce it 1-2 wounds, you've the rest of your army to chip that off.
I mean we don't have the full picture. Tau could easily be crap. Say this is 250-300 points or something. But it most likely won't play out that way. GW keep doubling down on this idea that if you can shoot at what you want (which is basically a given unless the table is split up by a giant block of polystyrene) killing 1000 points turn 1 is about what you'd expect - and spiking higher will happen about as often as the stats would suggest (i.e. all the time). The fact "but you can also spike lower" doesn't really change this because games are discrete.
Insectum7 wrote: I think it's safe to assume that the HH cost will go up.
The LR Demolisher, in addition to it's main gun, can also pack 2 Multimeltas and a Lascannon. The HH doesn't have anything else other than Drones, is that right? Does it have a Burst Cannon? I forget.
It can have 2 Burst Cannons or two SMS, plus if it gets any additional upgrades in the 'dex (e.g. different types of drones being possible, i.e. missile system drones at str 7 d3 damage).
Insectum7 wrote: I'm also looking at Devastators who, when armed with Multimeltas manage (what are the defensive stats of a KoS, T7 4++?) Let's see . . .
At 24": 6×0.666×0.666×0.5×3.5+(4 ×0.83×0.666×0.5×3.5) = 8.5w
Not scared. This barely brackets me, and if they were in MM range and I didn't charge them then they're toast against a Keeper. Immediately and with a huge margin of error (10 [8 in that bracket] attacks, 6 [5] of them wound on twos with rerolls, flat damage 3, -3 AP). Once I kill them, I heal up (because they were non-vehicles) by d3.
Insectum7 wrote: At 12": 6×0.666×0.666×0.5×5.5+(4 ×0.83×0.666×0.5×5.5) = 13.39w
Still not scared. If they're within 12", they're still dead - d3 from smite in the psychic phase plus 6 (in this bracket) flat damage 3 attacks at -3 that very nearly auto hit and have a 97% chance to wound. Because I fought them, I can heal off of them (unlike the HH since it is a vehicle).
Insectum7 wrote: 12" + Capt + Lt: 6×0.777×0.777×0.5×5.5+(4 ×0.96×0.777×0.5×5.5) = 18.1w The amount of damage units can put out is just really high in general. The HH puts it all in one gun.
This is a bit scary, it's true, but it's also bringing in other units that I can also counter (f.e. forbidden gem).
The point is that there's counterplay, in your example. The counterplay for a HH is "kill it first" or "hide from it". The first is nigh impossible for a melee army, and the second is "Fun Game /s" territory.
Sure, you can get loads of Demolishers - but 9 demolishers is actually weaker than like 3 or 5 and an army around them. You can bring 4 hammerheads with an army around them, too.
Daedalus81 wrote: The HH has no tangible benefit from Montka
Reroll 1 to wound is a pretty tangible benefit for a weapon that is going to wound on a 2+ pretty often and at worst a 3+ (without transhuman nonsense, but that usually costs the defender CP.)
Mont'ka is only if your shooting at the closest target within 18/12/9.
Its not really relevant to a HH.
So, which is it? Will I be close enough to charge or too far away for Mont'Ka?
The units a HH wants to shoot at and the units looking to charge the HH don't have to be the same?
Units that can threaten charges from over 18" away.
Any sort of screen, since Mont'ka requires closest target.
If your going to put Mortarion in front of a Hammerhead within 18" and as the closest target then that is not a problem with the gun, that's a problem with your tactics.
Insectum7 wrote: I'm also looking at Devastators who, when armed with Multimeltas manage (what are the defensive stats of a KoS, T7 4++?) Let's see . . .
At 24": 6×0.666×0.666×0.5×3.5+(4
×0.83×0.666×0.5×3.5) = 8.5w
Not scared. This barely brackets me, and if they were in MM range and I didn't charge them then they're toast against a Keeper. Immediately and with a huge margin of error (10 [8 in that bracket] attacks, 6 [5] of them wound on twos with rerolls, flat damage 3, -3 AP). Once I kill them, I heal up (because they were non-vehicles) by d3.
Ok, so 8.5 wounds is "not scared" territory, but 64% chance at 11 wounds is? Sooo. . .
24" MMdevs with Cpt Lt passively nearby:
6×0.777×0.777×0.5×3.5+(4
×0.96×0.777×0.5×3.5) = 11.5. That's Hammerhead damage right there, and outside of KoS "danger zone" presumably.
Insectum7 wrote: I'm also looking at Devastators who, when armed with Multimeltas manage (what are the defensive stats of a KoS, T7 4++?) Let's see . . .
At 24": 6×0.666×0.666×0.5×3.5+(4 ×0.83×0.666×0.5×3.5) = 8.5w
Not scared. This barely brackets me, and if they were in MM range and I didn't charge them then they're toast against a Keeper. Immediately and with a huge margin of error (10 [8 in that bracket] attacks, 6 [5] of them wound on twos with rerolls, flat damage 3, -3 AP). Once I kill them, I heal up (because they were non-vehicles) by d3.
Ok, so 8.5 wounds is "not scared" territory, but 64% chance at 11 wounds is? Sooo. . .
24" MMdevs with Cpt Lt passively nearby: 6×0.777×0.777×0.5×3.5+(4 ×0.96×0.777×0.5×3.5) = 11.5. That's Hammerhead damage right there, and outside of KoS "danger zone" presumably.
Not at all, KOS can move 14" and advance and charge. And, you've brought a Captain and a Lieutenant, so presumably spent more than the Hammerhead AND given me counterplay options (since Slaanesh can shut down character auras - come to think of it, this would work on Longstrike too if he has a reason to get that close). Unfortunately, in this case it wouldn't help since HH wounds me on 2s already.
Daedalus81 wrote: The HH has no tangible benefit from Montka
Reroll 1 to wound is a pretty tangible benefit for a weapon that is going to wound on a 2+ pretty often and at worst a 3+ (without transhuman nonsense, but that usually costs the defender CP.)
Mont'ka is only if your shooting at the closest target within 18/12/9.
Its not really relevant to a HH.
So, which is it? Will I be close enough to charge or too far away for Mont'Ka?
The units a HH wants to shoot at and the units looking to charge the HH don't have to be the same?
Units that can threaten charges from over 18" away.
Any sort of screen, since Mont'ka requires closest target.
If your going to put Mortarion in front of a Hammerhead within 18" and as the closest target then that is not a problem with the gun, that's a problem with your tactics.
You know a HH can move 12" before it shoots right? I don't always have control over what model is the closest in the enemy's shooting phase, especially if the larger units all outrun the littler ones. But I generally agree, Mont'ka won't affect the HH much, which is why I didn't include it in my calcs.
What puzzles me a bit is this weird d3 in the damage. It seems a bit... I don't know... pointless to roll a dice? I know the difference between 10 and 12 damage means sometimes a Leman Russ is still barely alive and sometimes not. I just wonder why this has to be. They could have just fixed the damage (as they did with the IG Macharius Vanquisher). In my possibly very stupid gut feeling that would have made it easier to balance and easier to quickly calculate what it does when you meet it on the battlefield. If it would just do 8 damage + 3 MW it would be clear if it hits and wounds a Predator or Chimera is dead, a Leman Russ is still alive. Or if it would be 9 +3MW the LR would be dead if hit and that's it. In both cases everyone involved would know beforehand what it will be. As it is now it will likely suck for the Tau player if he hits and wounds and then rolls a 1, not killing that predator he would have deleted on any other roll. Even if I lack practical experience I don't really see the value of that d3 damage roll at the moment.
Also the flat 9 damage on the Macharius Vanquisher is interesting because it makes the (relatively) good calculated average damage an ambivalent thing, since it only achieves this damage against targets with 9/18/27 wounds, while being less efficient against other numbers.
Pyroalchi wrote: What puzzles me a bit is this weird d3 in the damage. It seems a bit... I don't know... pointless to roll a dice? I know the difference between 10 and 12 damage means sometimes a Leman Russ is still barely alive and sometimes not. I just wonder why this has to be. They could have just fixed the damage (as they did with the IG Macharius Vanquisher). In my possibly very stupid gut feeling that would have made it easier to balance and easier to quickly calculate what it does when you meet it on the battlefield. If it would just do 8 damage + 3 MW it would be clear if it hits and wounds a Predator or Chimera is dead, a Leman Russ is still alive. Or if it would be 9 +3MW the LR would be dead if hit and that's it. In both cases everyone involved would know beforehand what it will be. As it is now it will likely suck for the Tau player if he hits and wounds and then rolls a 1, not killing that predator he would have deleted on any other roll. Even if I lack practical experience I don't really see the value of that d3 damage roll at the moment.
Also the flat 9 damage on the Macharius Vanquisher is interesting because it makes the (relatively) good calculated average damage an ambivalent thing, since it only achieves this damage against targets with 9/18/27 wounds, while being less efficient against other numbers.
This is a good point too.
If the Macharius Vanquisher did 6 damage +3 mortal wounds, it would be MUCH BETTER of a choice (arguably an autotake among the IG superheavies) compared to just doing 9 wounds - not because it can sneak 3 through vs invulns but because that also means it kills infantry very well.
That's the part that's also weird about the railgun. It's not like it gets much worse return shooting at 3-wound models (kills 2 automatically, essentially) or Daemonettes (kills 4 automatically, which is better than a d6 blast weapon against a unit of 10).
It adds a little "excitement" to
a) have a chance to annihilate your opponent's tank in 1 shot.
b) have a chance that your tank survives your opponent's railgun shot, if only just barely.
Insectum7 wrote: I'm also looking at Devastators who, when armed with Multimeltas manage (what are the defensive stats of a KoS, T7 4++?) Let's see . . .
At 24": 6×0.666×0.666×0.5×3.5+(4
×0.83×0.666×0.5×3.5) = 8.5w
Not scared. This barely brackets me, and if they were in MM range and I didn't charge them then they're toast against a Keeper. Immediately and with a huge margin of error (10 [8 in that bracket] attacks, 6 [5] of them wound on twos with rerolls, flat damage 3, -3 AP). Once I kill them, I heal up (because they were non-vehicles) by d3.
Ok, so 8.5 wounds is "not scared" territory, but 64% chance at 11 wounds is? Sooo. . .
24" MMdevs with Cpt Lt passively nearby:
6×0.777×0.777×0.5×3.5+(4
×0.96×0.777×0.5×3.5) = 11.5. That's Hammerhead damage right there, and outside of KoS "danger zone" presumably.
Not at all, KOS can move 14" and advance and charge. And, you've brought a Captain and a Lieutenant, so presumably spent more than the Hammerhead AND given me counterplay options (since Slaanesh can shut down character auras - come to think of it, this would work on Longstrike too if he has a reason to get that close). Unfortunately, in this case it wouldn't help since HH wounds me on 2s already.
Imo the Captain and Lt are "free" since I'm bringing them anyways. But three such squads still one-shot the KoS.
I think the point is made though, other units do plenty of damage. The issue you're having appears to be counterplay, which imo is just an adjustment that has to be made sometimes. Some combination of reserves and hiding seem like the obvious choices in this case. I'm interested to see how Tau are supposed to hold midfield objectives, personally. Seems tenuous atm.
Yep. Counterplay is limited to hiding (either in reserves or literally).
As a crusade player, I'm only a little bit worried about objectives. The missions are very different and "victory" is not often the same as getting the most victory points.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yep. Counterplay is limited to hiding (either in reserves or literally).
As a crusade player, I'm only a little bit worried about objectives. The missions are very different and "victory" is not often the same as getting the most victory points.
Got anything like "units may not Fall Back"?. "Hiding" in CC is a well worn technique of assault oriented armies.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yep. Counterplay is limited to hiding (either in reserves or literally).
As a crusade player, I'm only a little bit worried about objectives. The missions are very different and "victory" is not often the same as getting the most victory points.
Got anything like "units may not Fall Back"?. "Hiding" in CC is a well worn technique of assault oriented armies.
I don't know Slaanesh Daemons very well.
There's tons of that in Slaanesh, so if I can get stuck in and the enemy survives I can pull that off.
That's a good bit of effort in the Fight phase though (I have to engage things without killing them, which means being careful and clever with movmenet, and make sure to engage them with the Do Not Fall Back Fiends or have the Mirror within 6").
Unfortunately, Fiends do not work on things with Fly, so most of the Tau army is safe from my Do Not Fall Back stuff (except the Mirror, which is vs Leadership). But if I can touch Infantry that aren't battlesuits, and if I can do so without killing them, and if they haven't killed my Fiends and if my Fiends are in the right place to also touch the enemy unit or if I have a mirror within 6" of the unit I don't want to fall back (which is the one I touched that I didn't kill) and if I pass a 3d6 leadership test, then I can probably beat a Hammerhead spam army and protect my models - at least the ones within a few inches of the Mirror.
Alternatively (now hear me out, I know it's crazy):
The HH could just not ignore invulnerable saves for no reason.
Daedalus81 wrote: The HH has no tangible benefit from Montka
Reroll 1 to wound is a pretty tangible benefit for a weapon that is going to wound on a 2+ pretty often and at worst a 3+ (without transhuman nonsense, but that usually costs the defender CP.)
I don't forsee HH being in position to take advantage of Montka often.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yep. Counterplay is limited to hiding (either in reserves or literally).
As a crusade player, I'm only a little bit worried about objectives. The missions are very different and "victory" is not often the same as getting the most victory points.
Got anything like "units may not Fall Back"?. "Hiding" in CC is a well worn technique of assault oriented armies.
I don't know Slaanesh Daemons very well.
There's tons of that in Slaanesh, so if I can get stuck in and the enemy survives I can pull that off.
That's a good bit of effort in the Fight phase though (I have to engage things without killing them, which means being careful and clever with movmenet, and make sure to engage them with the Do Not Fall Back Fiends or have the Mirror within 6").
Unfortunately, Fiends do not work on things with Fly, so most of the Tau army is safe from my Do Not Fall Back stuff (except the Mirror, which is vs Leadership). But if I can touch Infantry that aren't battlesuits, and if I can do so without killing them, and if they haven't killed my Fiends and if my Fiends are in the right place to also touch the enemy unit or if I have a mirror within 6" of the unit I don't want to fall back (which is the one I touched that I didn't kill) and if I pass a 3d6 leadership test, then I can probably beat a Hammerhead spam army and protect my models - at least the ones within a few inches of the Mirror.
Alternatively (now hear me out, I know it's crazy):
The HH could just not ignore invulnerable saves for no reason.
This is one option but it puts the railhead back into "limited use expensive niche unit" since most of what you want to hit has an invuln and all that lovely ap -6 you pay for is rendered useless.
. . .
Alternatively (now hear me out, I know it's crazy):
The HH could just not ignore invulnerable saves for no reason.
Right, so if the HH didn't ignore invulns, it'd be doing half-ish the damage that the Devs did in my last example against the KoS. The thing about the Devs is that against a similar T, non 4++ target/s, they average DOUBLE that last result. 23 wounds. Their ideal deployment is double that 18-odd in 12". 36 wounds.
I'd argue that if you're not scared of Devs, and they're ok in the game, then the HH is within the realm of ok too.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yep. Counterplay is limited to hiding (either in reserves or literally).
As a crusade player, I'm only a little bit worried about objectives. The missions are very different and "victory" is not often the same as getting the most victory points.
Got anything like "units may not Fall Back"?. "Hiding" in CC is a well worn technique of assault oriented armies.
I don't know Slaanesh Daemons very well.
There's tons of that in Slaanesh, so if I can get stuck in and the enemy survives I can pull that off.
That's a good bit of effort in the Fight phase though (I have to engage things without killing them, which means being careful and clever with movmenet, and make sure to engage them with the Do Not Fall Back Fiends or have the Mirror within 6").
Unfortunately, Fiends do not work on things with Fly, so most of the Tau army is safe from my Do Not Fall Back stuff (except the Mirror, which is vs Leadership). But if I can touch Infantry that aren't battlesuits, and if I can do so without killing them, and if they haven't killed my Fiends and if my Fiends are in the right place to also touch the enemy unit or if I have a mirror within 6" of the unit I don't want to fall back (which is the one I touched that I didn't kill) and if I pass a 3d6 leadership test, then I can probably beat a Hammerhead spam army and protect my models - at least the ones within a few inches of the Mirror.
Alternatively (now hear me out, I know it's crazy):
The HH could just not ignore invulnerable saves for no reason.
This is one option but it puts the railhead back into "limited use expensive niche unit" since most of what you want to hit has an invuln and all that lovely ap -6 you pay for is rendered useless.
You mean like all the other single-shot high damage weapons in the game that don't ignore invulns? Perhaps there's some kind of design issue there that GW should seriously consider...
nah it should just ignore invulns outright, you rite.
. . . Alternatively (now hear me out, I know it's crazy):
The HH could just not ignore invulnerable saves for no reason.
Right, so if the HH didn't ignore invulns, it'd be doing half-ish the damage that the Devs did in my last example against the KoS. The thing about the Devs is that against a similar T, non 4++ target/s, they average DOUBLE that last result. 23 wounds. Their ideal deployment is double that 18-odd in 12". 36 wounds.
I'd argue that if you're not scared of Devs, and they're ok in the game, then the HH is within the realm of ok too.
The biggest difference is the range and the lack of saves. If that wasn't clear from me pointing it out before. Yes, T7 targets without invulns are vulnerable to multimeltas - those targets have been since multimeltas existed. They have been less vulnerable to railguns than they are now.
. . .
Alternatively (now hear me out, I know it's crazy):
The HH could just not ignore invulnerable saves for no reason.
Right, so if the HH didn't ignore invulns, it'd be doing half-ish the damage that the Devs did in my last example against the KoS. The thing about the Devs is that against a similar T, non 4++ target/s, they average DOUBLE that last result. 23 wounds. Their ideal deployment is double that 18-odd in 12". 36 wounds.
I'd argue that if you're not scared of Devs, and they're ok in the game, then the HH is within the realm of ok too.
The biggest difference is the range and the lack of saves. If that wasn't clear from me pointing it out before. Yes, T7 targets without invulns are vulnerable to multimeltas - those targets have been since multimeltas existed.
I think the only real difference is range. Imo the ignore invulns is a wash. The HH maxes at 12 wounds while the Devs max at 36. Other "Big Guns" wind up doing things like using moar shots to remain relevant vs. invulns. Because the Railgun is just one shot, imo ignoring invulns is ok.
Unit1126PLL wrote: First turn has been powerful in 40k for a long time - precisely because of units like the HH that already exist. But instead of showing signs of fixing it, GW is doubling down MORE on the problem. That's my issue with the HH.
I personally think that anti-tank weapons should be good at destroying tanks. It doesn't make much sense to me to require 6 shots from anti-tank weapon to destroy one tank; 2 or 3 should be the norm. The HH has one huge anti-tank gun. It can destroy a tank in 2 or one if it's a lighter tank/transport vehicle and provided it hits which it does around 75% of the time (with some reroll). On a single shot weapon, that's fairly reasonable provided the tank is priced correctly. Where it does seem a bit more cruel is in its capacity to kill particularly pivotal and fancy command monsters like Greater Daemons and Avatars (Hive Tyrants have the benefits of bodyguards so are less included in that list) due to its giant F-you to all armor types except feel no pain. To me the HH is the ideal anti-tank weapon since it shoots a single shot. It cannot be used against any infantry, even ridiculously hardy ones like Custodes or Plague Terminators without wasting its power. Yes, it does have a stratagem that is particularly nasty against all type of infantry and that's actually what I am more worried about, but stratagems like these aren't going to be that bad since I believe the Tau in general will be using their points like crazy in general for markerlights and jump-shoot-jump tricks (that and you can't use it multiple times in the same round from multiple HH). If anti-tank potential was lower across the board, you would end-up back in 8th edition where the meta was dominated by mid-power multiple shot weapons a la autocannon to chip down tanks and still tackle heavy infantry at the same time. I don't think the HH itself is going to be that difficult to destroy nor to bracket. I wonder how Longstrike will affect its performance though.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yep. Counterplay is limited to hiding (either in reserves or literally).
As a crusade player, I'm only a little bit worried about objectives. The missions are very different and "victory" is not often the same as getting the most victory points.
Got anything like "units may not Fall Back"?. "Hiding" in CC is a well worn technique of assault oriented armies.
I don't know Slaanesh Daemons very well.
There's tons of that in Slaanesh, so if I can get stuck in and the enemy survives I can pull that off.
That's a good bit of effort in the Fight phase though (I have to engage things without killing them, which means being careful and clever with movmenet, and make sure to engage them with the Do Not Fall Back Fiends or have the Mirror within 6").
Unfortunately, Fiends do not work on things with Fly, so most of the Tau army is safe from my Do Not Fall Back stuff (except the Mirror, which is vs Leadership). But if I can touch Infantry that aren't battlesuits, and if I can do so without killing them, and if they haven't killed my Fiends and if my Fiends are in the right place to also touch the enemy unit or if I have a mirror within 6" of the unit I don't want to fall back (which is the one I touched that I didn't kill) and if I pass a 3d6 leadership test, then I can probably beat a Hammerhead spam army and protect my models - at least the ones within a few inches of the Mirror.
Alternatively (now hear me out, I know it's crazy):
The HH could just not ignore invulnerable saves for no reason.
This is one option but it puts the railhead back into "limited use expensive niche unit" since most of what you want to hit has an invuln and all that lovely ap -6 you pay for is rendered useless.
You mean like all the other single-shot high damage weapons in the game that don't ignore invulns? Perhaps there's some kind of design issue there that GW should seriously consider...
nah it should just ignore invulns outright, you rite.
And thank you for that constructive input, you're right, let's follow your method and just piss and moan.
Unit1126PLL wrote: First turn has been powerful in 40k for a long time - precisely because of units like the HH that already exist. But instead of showing signs of fixing it, GW is doubling down MORE on the problem. That's my issue with the HH.
I personally think that anti-tank weapons should be good at destroying tanks. It doesn't make much sense to me to require 6 shots from anti-tank weapon to destroy one tank; 2 or 3 should be the norm. The HH has one huge anti-tank gun. It can destroy a tank in 2 or one if it's a lighter tank/transport vehicle and provided it hits which it does around 75% of the time (with some reroll). On a single shot weapon, that's fairly reasonable provided the tank is priced correctly. Where it does seem a bit more cruel is in its capacity to kill particularly pivotal and fancy command monsters like Greater Daemons and Avatars (Hive Tyrants have the benefits of bodyguards so are less included in that list) due to its giant F-you to all armor types except feel no pain. To me the HH is the ideal anti-tank weapon since it shoots a single shot. It cannot be used against any infantry, even ridiculously hardy ones like Custodes or Plague Terminators without wasting its power. Yes, it does have a stratagem that is particularly nasty against all type of infantry and that's actually what I am more worried about, but stratagems like these aren't going to be that bad since I believe the Tau in general will be using their points like crazy in general for markerlights and jump-shoot-jump tricks (that and you can't use it multiple times in the same round from multiple HH). If anti-tank potential was lower across the board, you would end-up back in 8th edition where the meta was dominated by mid-power multiple shot weapons a la autocannon to chip down tanks and still tackle heavy infantry at the same time. I don't think the HH itself is going to be that difficult to destroy nor to bracket. I wonder how Longstrike will affect its performance though.
You realize part of my problem with this guy is he is better against a squad of 10 guardsmen than a d6 Blast Weapon right?
And each shot kills 2 Custodes pretty much guaranteed, whereas a regular Russ struggles to get any damage through at all?
It isn't a "single shot anti-tank weapon". It is a single shot weapon that is good against everything, and especially great against tanks.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yep. Counterplay is limited to hiding (either in reserves or literally).
As a crusade player, I'm only a little bit worried about objectives. The missions are very different and "victory" is not often the same as getting the most victory points.
Got anything like "units may not Fall Back"?. "Hiding" in CC is a well worn technique of assault oriented armies.
I don't know Slaanesh Daemons very well.
There's tons of that in Slaanesh, so if I can get stuck in and the enemy survives I can pull that off.
That's a good bit of effort in the Fight phase though (I have to engage things without killing them, which means being careful and clever with movmenet, and make sure to engage them with the Do Not Fall Back Fiends or have the Mirror within 6").
Unfortunately, Fiends do not work on things with Fly, so most of the Tau army is safe from my Do Not Fall Back stuff (except the Mirror, which is vs Leadership). But if I can touch Infantry that aren't battlesuits, and if I can do so without killing them, and if they haven't killed my Fiends and if my Fiends are in the right place to also touch the enemy unit or if I have a mirror within 6" of the unit I don't want to fall back (which is the one I touched that I didn't kill) and if I pass a 3d6 leadership test, then I can probably beat a Hammerhead spam army and protect my models - at least the ones within a few inches of the Mirror.
Alternatively (now hear me out, I know it's crazy):
The HH could just not ignore invulnerable saves for no reason.
This is one option but it puts the railhead back into "limited use expensive niche unit" since most of what you want to hit has an invuln and all that lovely ap -6 you pay for is rendered useless.
You mean like all the other single-shot high damage weapons in the game that don't ignore invulns? Perhaps there's some kind of design issue there that GW should seriously consider...
nah it should just ignore invulns outright, you rite.
And thank you for that constructive input, you're right, let's follow your method and just piss and moan.
The first step to fixing a problem is to recognize that there is one.
They sort of do, yes fluffwise tau add in auxilia to reinforce their own weaknesses, but in current fluff they're distrusting of them in the 4th sphere following warp shenanigans.
Current fluff takes place during 5th Sphere Expansion. 4th Sphere Vets are quietly being forced to play nice because their xenophobia is anti-Tau philosophy.
Your real complaint is the range it does this at, multiple people have pointed out there is a variety of 200p units that do this damage output after saves are taken, just from shorter ranges.
There are already models that ignore invulnerable saves in the game.
You really just dislike that it does this damage from range and you can't roll dice. There are plenty of units that let you roll dice but the end result is your greater daemon is still dead like 6 plasma inceptors, or 2 skitarii vanguard with some buffs and CP spent.
You might say but movement and counterplay, the HH requires LoS, reserves exist.
The regular HH kills both 2 Custodes and 4 Guardsmen with one shot, ignoring it's secondary weapons (which themselves are pretty good against guardsmen, killing 4 again on average rolls if burst cannons).
VladimirHerzog wrote: ignoring invulns is fine, the damage (and mortal wounds) isnt.
I don't know. Think about the required investment for that single shot. A DL Ravager can kill a Redemptor while a HH absolutely cannot. Maybe you'll get lucky to scratch the last 2-4 wounds off with Burst Cannons provided you rolled well enough with the D3, but it's unlikely.
A few people are mystified by the seemingly slapped together cluster of rules to present the damage on this gun, but to me it seems like GW considered what would take the edge off this thing. Whether or not the army as a whole is sane will depend on the points and the rest of the book.
In any case this gun does 10, 11, or 12 damage. That D3 adds that small inch of variability that can take the gun out of kill range for many vehicles. The mortal wounds give an angle to increase the opponent's chance for interaction through 'Armor of Contempt' style strats. It seems silly, but I think it exists for a purpose.
Tyel wrote: Custodes have a 6+++ against mortal wounds unless that's changing?
Currently thats JUST in the Psychic Phase,
According to the leaker we may be getting a 5+ against ALL MWs. But losing the +1 to all saves purity buff. Ugly tradeoff, but we won't know until codex drops for full in late Q1 2022. Right now they are correct, two dead Custodes. Unless they are Wardens, who may live past both the first shot and the MWs. Then will likely kill it in melee, for roughly the same cost.
Tyel wrote: Custodes have a 6+++ against mortal wounds unless that's changing?
Currently thats JUST in the Psychic Phase,
According to the leaker we may be getting a 5+ against ALL MWs. But losing the +1 to all saves purity buff. Ugly tradeoff, but we won't know until codex drops for full in late Q1 2022. Right now they are correct, two dead Custodes. Unless they are Wardens, who may live past both the first shot and the MWs. Then will likely kill it in melee, for roughly the same cost.
Fair point - my mistake. Custodes are one of the few armies I've never even taken 10 minutes trying to learn the rules of.
The regular HH kills both 2 Custodes and 4 Guardsmen with one shot, ignoring it's secondary weapons (which themselves are pretty good against guardsmen, killing 4 again on average rolls if burst cannons).
Dudeface wrote: (1)They sort of do, yes fluffwise tau add in auxilia to reinforce their own weaknesses, but in current fluff they're distrusting of them in the 4th sphere following warp shenanigans.
(2)Imperial guard is primarily ranged yes but their main aspect is quantity over quality, bodies, tanks, shots etc. so no they're not simply marines but they aren't just tau with melee and pyskers either.
(3)Finally it adds value because it draws back to reminding people the factions place in the game design paradigm, which is the "technology over adversary, here's the best tech and weapons we can make to overcome our foe". They trust their tech, provide the best punch with their guns and so on, hence just hand waving their problems away with some auxilia dilutes the faction in terms of game design.
(1) Ok, so you confirm what I say that we can explore Demiurg, Kroot, Vespids, Gue'vesa and other auxiliaries as that is well established fluff. So we may flesh out the faction beyond ever bigger Gundams.
(2) Somehow you miss the point while spelling out that adding "something" to a faction does not automatically make that faction play exactly like another one at the same time by yourself. So I don't get why you argue against my point?
(3) See your point above. Adding depth to the one dimensional playstyle of Tau does not mean that they will be Gundam skinned Guard or Marines. Auxiliaries are as much part of the original Tau design as fielding high tech battle suits. Last time we had Gue'vesa rules was in 3rd and the last time we saw new auxiliary troops were Vespids in 4th. It is about time.
Read again what I wrote and what Sim-Life replied. Defending their contentless, hysterical response is enabling their gakposting. Going from "explore auxiliaries instead of upping the guns" to "LeT's ReMoVe EvErYtHiNg AnD jUsT hAvE oNe CoDeX fOr AlL fAcTiOnS SKREEEEEEEE"
Daedalus81 wrote: The HH has no tangible benefit from Montka
Reroll 1 to wound is a pretty tangible benefit for a weapon that is going to wound on a 2+ pretty often and at worst a 3+ (without transhuman nonsense, but that usually costs the defender CP.)
I don't forsee HH being in position to take advantage of Montka often.
That's fine. Then its probably not getting charged or attacked with melta weapons, either.
Somehow.
Unit1126PLL wrote: You realize part of my problem with this guy is he is better against a squad of 10 guardsmen than a d6 Blast Weapon right?
Speculative at best since you don't know the cost of the HH. A couple of mortars like a Wyvern is probably going to be much better than using a HH and spending CP for a stratagem to kill them using mortal wounds. That stratagem will see far better use against Sisters of Battle or Eldar Aspect Warriors who have descent armor, good stats, but only one wound and little mortal wound negation shenanigan. Though at short range, with both the submunition stratagem and the burst cannon and could potentially do nice damage to infantry, but if that's how one use a HH, I wouldn't be too scared. There is probably a far more effective way of killing infantry.
And each shot kills 2 Custodes pretty much guaranteed, whereas a regular Russ struggles to get any damage through at all?
It's a single shot weapon. It cannot kill 2 Custodes. It could do it with a stratagem and it's that stratagem that concerns me the most. Even then, to kill 2 Custodes with that stratagem you would need to inflict 6 or 7 mortal wounds which is statistically impossible when one considers a Custodian Guard unit can be as small as 3 models.
JNAProductions wrote: No, it kills two Custodian Guard or four GEQ with a normal shot.
By the time the Tau codex is out, custodes will have 4 wounds.
It will kill 1 custodes if it hits and wounds, and put up to 3 MW on another.
3 of these firing all with target array upgrades will kill 2 custodes and put up to 3 MW onto another in a single round with a total of 64% chance to hit and then wound per shot, with the to hit reroll included.
Considering that's likely 600pte of Tau I somehow had expect some kind of counter play after the first time they shoot.
Also in 9th objectives are a big deal, hammerheads aren't really doing anything in that regard.
Killing 4 geq 64% of the time for a 200 or model is pretty terrible. If the HH shot every turn for 5 turns without being bracketed it would kill 16 geq, or 80pte of models by the end of the game. It's secondary guns would obviously add more play in terms of killing geq when they are in range.
There are already models that ignore invulnerable saves in the game.
I think most of them make at least some sense from a lore pov as well? This doesn't.
I'm in the same boat, I don't mind things ignoring Invul saves and so far from a lore perspective its things that make sense like a rare artifact or a supreme daemon. The railgun is not something I would have expected to have an ignore Invul.
I understand why. Low shot high power weapons have a high chance of sour grapes so they want to remove things in the way of the 'well that sucks' moment. Still doesn't jive with me though. I am happy Tau will finally be a thrown a bone though.
Y'know what's funny? A Sororitas Canoness with the Mantle of Ophelia can take a Railgun shot to the face and survive. If she's in the Order of the Valorous Heart, she can take their WL trait for a 5+++ and potentially take zero damage (unlikely but possible), or at least possibly survive multiple such hits. Granted, that should never come up unless the Sisters player really screws up hard, but it's a funny situation to think about.
I love how people are acting like the objective game is gonna be hard for Tau, it's not like HH's are gonna have at least an 8" move and as vehicles there is literally no down side to moving with them.
I am not gonna go out and say that HH's are gonna be meta breaking but it just fething sucks that my models like Belakor are a liability on the table because of one unit. Monsters and vehicles have no defense vs this thing and just like most of 9th edition it is not fun to just pick up my models while the other player roles dice. Lethality wouldn't be so bad if there was some way to mitigate it but when your mitigation is hide and hope they can't get an angle on you, that is gak game play.
Whether or not it ends up being overpowered, this is a great sign of how down the rabbithole GW has gone that they need to do this sort of nonsense to make a big gun worthwhile.
Any time you have a special rule to ignore another special rule is a good time to think carefully about whether that isn't a sign that your game is too bloated. The fact that this gun not only has a special rule ignoring another special rule but also has another special rule on top of it to do damage in a different way that *also* ignores the normal rules of the game only rams the point home.
My money has been on 10th being another full reset for a while now but I think it is becoming clearer and clearer that 9th is approaching the same place 7th did in terms of the whole rules structure collapsing under its own weight. How any game designer can come up with those weapon rules and not see it as a sign of how bad a state the game is in, I do not know.
It'll get worse. They've set the precedent and started the paradigm shift.
Someone's going to get a defensive hit modifier that ignores ignoring modifiers (and possibly stacks)
Someone's going to get to ignore transhuman (and similar)
Someone's going to get to ignore -1 damage abilities.
And so on...
Some of these aren't going to matter too much because they'll be on a relic armor or sword, but one or two will end up on something spammable by the end of the year.
Voss wrote: It'll get worse. They've set the precedent and started the paradigm shift.
Someone's going to get a defensive hit modifier that ignores ignoring modifiers (and possibly stacks)
Someone's going to get to ignore transhuman (and similar)
Someone's going to get to ignore -1 damage abilities.
And so on...
Some of these aren't going to matter too much because they'll be on a relic armor or sword, but one or two will end up on something spammable by the end of the year.
Nightbringer ignores -1 damage abilities....but not spammable and melee range.
Spoletta wrote: Eh I don't know.
Those profiles always look better than they work.
I would like to remind that we currently have a gun that always hits on 2+, always wounds on 2+, negates invul, negates cover, is AP-3 and ignores Look Out Sir. All this for 100 points and can shoot twice for 1 CP. It even rewards you with CPs for killing stuff!
If that description doesn't immediately make you think of the Vindicare assassin, is because he is NEVER seen on any table.
It doesn't make me think much of the Vindicare Assassin because the Vindicare Assassin doesn't bracket my Great Unclean One with a single shot on average.
Yeah, lets just give the army whose whole schtick is specialising in having incredibly strong firepower, no psykers and no melee bunch of psychic and melee units. Then they can be like every other army in the game. In fact you know what would make the game balanced? Just a single codex. Then we can reduce the differences in armies to being cosmetic only.
Look, I solved 40k!
Think that if you want, but don't then whine when Tau get gutted into unplayability again because their incredibly toxic leafblower playstyle is inherently uninteractive and boring to play against and, more to the point, extremely overbearing when strong much like the recent Admech and Ork flyer lists.
The units a HH wants to shoot at and the units looking to charge the HH don't have to be the same?
Units that can threaten charges from over 18" away.
Any sort of screen, since Mont'ka requires closest target.
If your going to put Mortarion in front of a Hammerhead within 18" and as the closest target then that is not a problem with the gun, that's a problem with your tactics.
Where exactly should you put Mortarion, considering he doesn't benefit from obscuring terrain and the railgun has 72" range? Besides putting him in reserves it is not possible to hide him.
Spoletta wrote: Eh I don't know.
Those profiles always look better than they work.
I would like to remind that we currently have a gun that always hits on 2+, always wounds on 2+, negates invul, negates cover, is AP-3 and ignores Look Out Sir. All this for 100 points and can shoot twice for 1 CP. It even rewards you with CPs for killing stuff!
If that description doesn't immediately make you think of the Vindicare assassin, is because he is NEVER seen on any table.
It doesn't make me think much of the Vindicare Assassin because the Vindicare Assassin doesn't bracket my Great Unclean One with a single shot on average.
Also, Hits on a 2+ (assuming you didn't move), Wounds on a 2+ (if you're targeting INFANTRY or something else that's T2), negates invulns, cover, and 4+ or worse armor, but allows saves against 3+ or better, and ignores Look Out Sir... For d3 damage. And can shoot twice, but has to target two separate targets. It does also do MW, if it does any damage from the normal shot. One MW on a 3+, then one on a 4+, then one on a 5+, so on and so forth, but stopping when you fail a roll. That averages to 1.74 MW.
So, a Vindicare Assassin can kill an ordinary SM Captain if they hit (2+), wound (2+), Captain fails save (5-), then d3 damage plus MW rolls have to be 5 or higher. The odds of a successful unsaved wound killing a Captain (with no FNP) is about 16%, so combine that with three 5/6 odds, and you get a whopping 9% chance of killing a Captain. Put that Captain on a Bike, and those odds drop a TON. Assassin is now wounding on a 4+, and the extra wound means he needs a 2+ on damage to kill the Captain even with perfect MW rolls. Actual odds? 1.5%.
Against the mentioned GUO, you're looking at hitting on a 2+, wounding on a 5+, no save, and dealing an average of about 2.3 wounds on a successful unsaved wound. Average of (with hitting and wounding accounted for) .64 wounds per shot. Put another way, that's 28 Vindicare turns to kill a GUO.
Now, a Hammerhead one-shots any Captain, but to be fair, said Captains have Look Out Sir protecting them. What about that GUO? We'll assume they hit on a 4+, thanks to Miasma. They deal an average of 7.33 wounds per successful shot, so it does take three good hits to kill a GUO. With a 4+ rerollable to-hit and a 2+ to-wound, that's a 5/8ths chance of any given shot landing a wound. Or, put another way, it takes just under 5 Hammerhead turns to kill a GUO.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: I love how people are acting like the objective game is gonna be hard for Tau, it's not like HH's are gonna have at least an 8" move and as vehicles there is literally no down side to moving with them.
I am not gonna go out and say that HH's are gonna be meta breaking but it just fething sucks that my models like Belakor are a liability on the table because of one unit. Monsters and vehicles have no defense vs this thing and just like most of 9th edition it is not fun to just pick up my models while the other player roles dice. Lethality wouldn't be so bad if there was some way to mitigate it but when your mitigation is hide and hope they can't get an angle on you, that is gak game play.
It is funny that you mention Belakor. He is the absolute worst target for an Hammerhead.
It takes 3 hammerheads 3 turns of continous fire to take him down.
Daedalus81 wrote: The HH has no tangible benefit from Montka
Reroll 1 to wound is a pretty tangible benefit for a weapon that is going to wound on a 2+ pretty often and at worst a 3+ (without transhuman nonsense, but that usually costs the defender CP.)
I don't forsee HH being in position to take advantage of Montka often.
That's fine. Then its probably not getting charged or attacked with melta weapons, either.
Somehow.
It will definitely get charged by infantry walking through walls and there's plenty of weapons better than melta.
Spoletta wrote: Eh I don't know. Those profiles always look better than they work.
I would like to remind that we currently have a gun that always hits on 2+, always wounds on 2+, negates invul, negates cover, is AP-3 and ignores Look Out Sir. All this for 100 points and can shoot twice for 1 CP. It even rewards you with CPs for killing stuff!
If that description doesn't immediately make you think of the Vindicare assassin, is because he is NEVER seen on any table.
It doesn't make me think much of the Vindicare Assassin because the Vindicare Assassin doesn't bracket my Great Unclean One with a single shot on average.
Also, Hits on a 2+ (assuming you didn't move), Wounds on a 2+ (if you're targeting INFANTRY or something else that's T2), negates invulns, cover, and 4+ or worse armor, but allows saves against 3+ or better, and ignores Look Out Sir... For d3 damage. And can shoot twice, but has to target two separate targets. It does also do MW, if it does any damage from the normal shot. One MW on a 3+, then one on a 4+, then one on a 5+, so on and so forth, but stopping when you fail a roll. That averages to 1.74 MW.
So, a Vindicare Assassin can kill an ordinary SM Captain if they hit (2+), wound (2+), Captain fails save (5-), then d3 damage plus MW rolls have to be 5 or higher. The odds of a successful unsaved wound killing a Captain (with no FNP) is about 16%, so combine that with three 5/6 odds, and you get a whopping 9% chance of killing a Captain. Put that Captain on a Bike, and those odds drop a TON. Assassin is now wounding on a 4+, and the extra wound means he needs a 2+ on damage to kill the Captain even with perfect MW rolls. Actual odds? 1.5%.
Against the mentioned GUO, you're looking at hitting on a 2+, wounding on a 5+, no save, and dealing an average of about 2.3 wounds on a successful unsaved wound. Average of (with hitting and wounding accounted for) .64 wounds per shot. Put another way, that's 28 Vindicare turns to kill a GUO.
Now, a Hammerhead one-shots any Captain, but to be fair, said Captains have Look Out Sir protecting them. What about that GUO? We'll assume they hit on a 4+, thanks to Miasma. They deal an average of 7.33 wounds per successful shot, so it does take three good hits to kill a GUO. With a 4+ rerollable to-hit and a 2+ to-wound, that's a 5/8ths chance of any given shot landing a wound. Or, put another way, it takes just under 5 Hammerhead turns to kill a GUO.
Exactly, as you correctly said, the hammerhead is bad into a GUO. 5 turns to kill a model of similar cost, isn't exactly a great return (pending exact cost of HH obviously). Also, with miasma it hits on 5+, so it doesn't even get to kill him in 5 turns.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: I love how people are acting like the objective game is gonna be hard for Tau, it's not like HH's are gonna have at least an 8" move and as vehicles there is literally no down side to moving with them.
I am not gonna go out and say that HH's are gonna be meta breaking but it just fething sucks that my models like Belakor are a liability on the table because of one unit. Monsters and vehicles have no defense vs this thing and just like most of 9th edition it is not fun to just pick up my models while the other player roles dice. Lethality wouldn't be so bad if there was some way to mitigate it but when your mitigation is hide and hope they can't get an angle on you, that is gak game play.
HH won't be jumping on objectives and Tau are still really bad at melee even if their suits survive it and can shoot.
It isn't simple to draw Los across a table with good terrain.
bullyboy wrote: At this stage, I think I'd rather play epic. I have no issue with models getting insta smashed off the table when you have so many of them and big guns feel right by pulverizing a tank etc. But in 40K? I want everything to be a little more viable and not just eliminated in one shot so easily. People are also thinking that this is the only thing Tau have that can kill, we know that will not be the case. A tau shooting phase is going to be downright devastating, so terrain had better be damn good for your army to survive turn 1 and 2 (unless you pay CPs to put those armoured units in outflank).
I just don't like the ignore invulns, should not exist inherently within the weapon. Now, if Tau had some form of munition/system to reduce invulns (markerlights?) meaning they would have to 'soften" a target before the railgun hit, that would feel better. Simply bypassing it just feels wrong. I guess adding minuses to hit will be the best defense if you can't hide, since no save will help.
Problem is there's too much invulnerable saves. So any 1 shot AT weapon=useless. You miss, hit or bounce on inv too often.
And as for terrain...in 9e rule of thumb is if you can't hide 100% of your army in deployment your terrain is too sparse. Enemy needs indirect guns to shoot if they go first.
Alternatively (now hear me out, I know it's crazy):
The HH could just not ignore invulnerable saves for no reason.
Alternatively, invulnerable saves could just not exist.
Or y'know, they could be separated into categories.
-Arcane
-Technological
-Biological
Pretty sure we've discussed this before, but why those categories? I'd be more inclined to do something like:
-Forcefield
-Evasion
-Anatomical
Pretty sure those are more or less what most of the invulns in the game boil down to regardless of whether their source is machinery, biology, or magic. Skitarii cyborg bits and drukhari pain tolerance are both probably "Anatomical", but one would be technological and the other biological in your system. Any invuln from a psychic power would be "arcane," but you might be achieving those results by making the unit blink in and out of reality (Evasion) or by simply putting up a telekinetic shield (Forcefield). Plus, I feel like mechanics that interact with such hypothetical tags are more likely to care about the type of defense being expressed rather than the mechanisms used to manifest them. A flamer, for instance, could reasonably counter Evasion-derived invulns that represent units being hard to hit, but not Forcefields or Anatomical invulns like cybernetics and pain tolerance. But I'm not sure that same flamer particularly cares whether a unit is hard to hit because it has cybernetics, tyranid limbs, or magic-infused limbs.
But yeah. Kind of agree with the notion of just not letting the HH ignore invulns. You have to squint pretty hard to justify it bypassing necrons phasing out of reality, mandrakes being made of shadow, or eldar vehicles not being where the shot was in the first place. I'm not sure making it a little cheaper, a little more niche, and more fluffy is a bad way to go. If you just made it Damage 6+d6 and then ditched the mortal wounds and ignores invulns stuff, you'd have a weapon that was very good against conventional armored targets but less good against targets with defenses rooted in evasion and magic. Seems fluffy. Gives you a reason to take other units in your army that are good against such defenses. Seems like a good move all around.
Or...and this is just a thought here...they could stop throwing so much AP into the game that anything without an Invulnerable save is irrelevant? That way they wouldn't have to throw quite so many Invulnerable saves into the game, and AT weapons wouldn't have to ignore Invulnerable saves to be relevant, and we wouldn't have to argue as much about what different Invulnerable saves represent and why it makes sense for a weapon to ignore one but not the other.
I know it's asking a lot to ask GW to be disciplined enough to not completely invalidate core mechanics of their game by assigning stats like Oprah, but maybe, just maybe, the game would work better if they would admit some things were stupid decisions and go back and fix them, instead of piling a tower of band-aid patches on top of shaky foundations until there's so much bloat they'll need to burn down the game and start over again just five years after the last time they burned down the game and started over.
AnomanderRake wrote: Or...and this is just a thought here...they could stop throwing so much AP into the game that anything without an Invulnerable save is irrelevant? That way they wouldn't have to throw quite so many Invulnerable saves into the game, and AT weapons wouldn't have to ignore Invulnerable saves to be relevant, and we wouldn't have to argue as much about what different Invulnerable saves represent and why it makes sense for a weapon to ignore one but not the other.
I know it's asking a lot to ask GW to be disciplined enough to not completely invalidate core mechanics of their game by assigning stats like Oprah, but maybe, just maybe, the game would work better if they would admit some things were stupid decisions and go back and fix them, instead of piling a tower of band-aid patches on top of shaky foundations until there's so much bloat they'll need to burn down the game and start over again just five years after the last time they burned down the game and started over.
That would work too. I kind of feel like the proliferation of invulns on vehicles were sort of a weird choice at the time. Like, we spent a long time (prior to the melta weapon update) complaining about how plasma was more effective than melta/lascannons at killing vehicles. Giving more vehicles invulns just made that problem worse. If you nixed a lot of the slapped-on invulns and changed some of the recently buffed anti-tank weapons to just be Dd6 min 3 instead of dX+Y (dark lances, melta, etc.), then I think we'd land in a reasonably good place.
Edit: It also feels like the increased damage profiles were partly a response to the proliferation of mechanics that reduced damage (like on dreadnaughts). Which in turn was introduced because plasma type weapons were too good at chewing through dreadnaughts compared to dedicated anti-tank guns. So it feels like a lot of these newer balance problems could have been avoided by just doing something about plasma-like weapons.
AnomanderRake wrote: Or...and this is just a thought here...they could stop throwing so much AP into the game that anything without an Invulnerable save is irrelevant? That way they wouldn't have to throw quite so many Invulnerable saves into the game, and AT weapons wouldn't have to ignore Invulnerable saves to be relevant, and we wouldn't have to argue as much about what different Invulnerable saves represent and why it makes sense for a weapon to ignore one but not the other.
I know it's asking a lot to ask GW to be disciplined enough to not completely invalidate core mechanics of their game by assigning stats like Oprah, but maybe, just maybe, the game would work better if they would admit some things were stupid decisions and go back and fix them, instead of piling a tower of band-aid patches on top of shaky foundations until there's so much bloat they'll need to burn down the game and start over again just five years after the last time they burned down the game and started over.
Well while that would be nice...it still wouldnt change restart cycle. That's done for profit. GW won't stop press money button.
AnomanderRake wrote: Or...and this is just a thought here...they could stop throwing so much AP into the game that anything without an Invulnerable save is irrelevant? That way they wouldn't have to throw quite so many Invulnerable saves into the game, and AT weapons wouldn't have to ignore Invulnerable saves to be relevant, and we wouldn't have to argue as much about what different Invulnerable saves represent and why it makes sense for a weapon to ignore one but not the other.
I know it's asking a lot to ask GW to be disciplined enough to not completely invalidate core mechanics of their game by assigning stats like Oprah, but maybe, just maybe, the game would work better if they would admit some things were stupid decisions and go back and fix them, instead of piling a tower of band-aid patches on top of shaky foundations until there's so much bloat they'll need to burn down the game and start over again just five years after the last time they burned down the game and started over.
That would work too. I kind of feel like the proliferation of invulns on vehicles were sort of a weird choice at the time. Like, we spent a long time (prior to the melta weapon update) complaining about how plasma was more effective than melta/lascannons at killing vehicles. Giving more vehicles invulns just made that problem worse. If you nixed a lot of the slapped-on invulns and changed some of the recently buffed anti-tank weapons to just be Dd6 min 3 instead of dX+Y (dark lances, melta, etc.), then I think we'd land in a reasonably good place.
Edit: It also feels like the increased damage profiles were partly a response to the proliferation of mechanics that reduced damage (like on dreadnaughts). Which in turn was introduced because plasma type weapons were too good at chewing through dreadnaughts compared to dedicated anti-tank guns. So it feels like a lot of these newer balance problems could have been avoided by just doing something about plasma-like weapons.
All these problems are here because they wanted to do 2W infantry (which just pushes the power creep further because your D1 weapons become increasingly irrelevant unless you slam masses of buffs on them), wrote the to-wound table wrong (so it's too easy to spam shots that wound on 5+ and too hard to get to a shot that wounds on 2+/6+, not to mention they didn't bother to use all this stat range they claim to have opened up and made 99.7% of vehicles T7/3+), and really wanted to bring overcharged plasma back from 2e for some reason (which isn't really in-scale with 40k, it should have stayed in Necromunda where it belongs).
It isn't simple to draw Los across a table with good terrain.
It is when you can move, advance, and count as stationary. OR when HH arrive from strategic reserves, the tau player to place it where it can draw los to enemy units.
Dudeface wrote: (1)They sort of do, yes fluffwise tau add in auxilia to reinforce their own weaknesses, but in current fluff they're distrusting of them in the 4th sphere following warp shenanigans.
(2)Imperial guard is primarily ranged yes but their main aspect is quantity over quality, bodies, tanks, shots etc. so no they're not simply marines but they aren't just tau with melee and pyskers either.
(3)Finally it adds value because it draws back to reminding people the factions place in the game design paradigm, which is the "technology over adversary, here's the best tech and weapons we can make to overcome our foe". They trust their tech, provide the best punch with their guns and so on, hence just hand waving their problems away with some auxilia dilutes the faction in terms of game design.
(1) Ok, so you confirm what I say that we can explore Demiurg, Kroot, Vespids, Gue'vesa and other auxiliaries as that is well established fluff. So we may flesh out the faction beyond ever bigger Gundams.
(2) Somehow you miss the point while spelling out that adding "something" to a faction does not automatically make that faction play exactly like another one at the same time by yourself. So I don't get why you argue against my point?
(3) See your point above. Adding depth to the one dimensional playstyle of Tau does not mean that they will be Gundam skinned Guard or Marines. Auxiliaries are as much part of the original Tau design as fielding high tech battle suits. Last time we had Gue'vesa rules was in 3rd and the last time we saw new auxiliary troops were Vespids in 4th. It is about time.
Read again what I wrote and what Sim-Life replied. Defending their contentless, hysterical response is enabling their gakposting. Going from "explore auxiliaries instead of upping the guns" to "LeT's ReMoVe EvErYtHiNg AnD jUsT hAvE oNe CoDeX fOr AlL fAcTiOnS SKREEEEEEEE"
What's the main tactical weaknesses tau possess? They don't have chunky high save melee troops to sit on/clear objectives nor access to psykers for mw defence or buffs.
What happens when you then introduce some demiurg who are robust high save/t melee blobs to sit on midfield objectives. They either become auto includes by proxy, or suddenly you're having to deal with a hard to kill block whilst being shot to bits by "the shooting army".
The intentional gaps are there by intent, I'd wager they stopped adding auxilia in because they realised there wasn't scope without creating some horrid cookie cutter default list.
It isn't simple to draw Los across a table with good terrain.
It is when you can move, advance, and count as stationary. OR when HH arrive from strategic reserves, the tau player to place it where it can draw los to enemy units.
Both cases put the HH in a terrible position, and since they don't make their points back in a single turn, you don't want them where they can be easily attacked by the whole enemy army.
I can do the same with a melta pod, by outflanking retributors, by advancing chickens or simply jumping 3 landspeeders in your face. They all get to inflict horrible damage to an enemy target I really want dead, and then get deleted.
Out of all of those, rushing an HH into the opponent's face looks like the least effective of the bunch.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: I love how people are acting like the objective game is gonna be hard for Tau, it's not like HH's are gonna have at least an 8" move and as vehicles there is literally no down side to moving with them.
I am not gonna go out and say that HH's are gonna be meta breaking but it just fething sucks that my models like Belakor are a liability on the table because of one unit. Monsters and vehicles have no defense vs this thing and just like most of 9th edition it is not fun to just pick up my models while the other player roles dice. Lethality wouldn't be so bad if there was some way to mitigate it but when your mitigation is hide and hope they can't get an angle on you, that is gak game play.
getting to the Objectives has never been Tau's problem. Surviving when they get there is. And sofar we have seen nothing that helps with that aside from making it easier to kill your opponent and be unopposed.
bullyboy wrote: At this stage, I think I'd rather play epic. I have no issue with models getting insta smashed off the table when you have so many of them and big guns feel right by pulverizing a tank etc. But in 40K? I want everything to be a little more viable and not just eliminated in one shot so easily. People are also thinking that this is the only thing Tau have that can kill, we know that will not be the case. A tau shooting phase is going to be downright devastating, so terrain had better be damn good for your army to survive turn 1 and 2 (unless you pay CPs to put those armoured units in outflank).
I just don't like the ignore invulns, should not exist inherently within the weapon. Now, if Tau had some form of munition/system to reduce invulns (markerlights?) meaning they would have to 'soften" a target before the railgun hit, that would feel better. Simply bypassing it just feels wrong. I guess adding minuses to hit will be the best defense if you can't hide, since no save will help.
Problem is there's too much invulnerable saves. So any 1 shot AT weapon=useless. You miss, hit or bounce on inv too often.
A 1 shot weapon that deals such massive damage is going to reap the reward of a failed invuln, that's basically this game in a nutshell. However, when you automatically bypass the invuln (and basically any other save), then the damage needs to be tempered. This thing does both...oh and then tack on some MW too for good measure....because reasons.
It's too much of a meta shifting weapon which will stifle list building. Marine dreadnoughts, even those with a shield save from deathwatch, nope...just take more infantry. Transports? Nope, just more infantry. Immolators....already bad, not taking for sure now. Anything in that 8-12 wound range that isn't super cheap is going to take a hard pass. The HH will need to be over 200pts to compensate for this (like the marine tanks that nobody takes) and had better not be anywhere near 160pts.
Im fine with this. Its a flyer so they can only have 2. They die very easily, and only get one shot.
Ill throw tannhausers bones on my on my Chaplain on Bike, and ignore the mortals on 5+, and use Litany of Divine Faith around it's most likely targets. It says no invul, but still a FNP.
It's going to be interesting. My Templars are the most resilient army I've ever played.
My Orks, well, ill be attacking Hammerheads with Rukkatrukk Squigbuggies. If you can go first and take one down quickly, its one less big gun to worry about.
With my Blood Angels, I'll just die quickly and horribly.
Apocalypse81 wrote: Im fine with this. Its a flyer so they can only have 2. They die very easily, and only get one shot.
Hammeread is a heavy support skimmer, not a flyer. There's also an Hammered HQ like AM tank commanders, which is Longstrike. So it's at least 4 of those weapons, as maybe there are other ways to field railguns or something similar. Definitely not just 2.
Maybe going out on a limb, but not convinced this is going to warp the meta any more than its already warped.
Its the equivalent of a Ravager with 4-5 shots. This has a different probability curve on the damage - 10-12 wounds or nothing is I think is worse for the game - but in terms of competitive play I don't think that matters.
Sure if your opponent brings 3 and they all hit and wound and blow up three of your vehicles/monsters that's going to be lame. But if I bring 3 ravagers and, idk, a Jetfighter, and I roll in the upper 25% outcome bracket, I'm going to kill a load of your stuff too. That's just 9th edition.
I don't think the Hammerhead will be used all that often in all honesty. A one per detachment type of deal at most.
Hear me out.
It absolutely annihilates whatever single target it hits at a very good range, regardless of whether it's a knight, a monster or character. Two HHs stand a pretty good chance of killing anything that normal 40k can reasonably field, barring things like Ghaz or C'Tan.
These will 100% be priority number one for anyone facing them, and will be shot off the table as soon as possible to prevent them nuking your expensive stuff. I don't see GW making the HH super durable without it being made absurdly expensive to compensate, so it should be killable pretty quickly if you can get LOS on it.
Taking three HH's is going to be overkill and wasted points except against pure Knights lists and Nid Monster Mash or something. One isn't enough because it gets killed straight away, so two is the magic number. The rest of the list will be full of things like burst cannons and blast weapons to deal with infantry and chip everything else down.
There's also the factor that the HH presents some super big, super spooky numbers. People don't want their stuff getting one shot, so they either lean in to infantry so that the firepower is wasted, or lean eeeven further into AT alpha strike to kill the HH before it can do anything. Either way, the HH suffers where other more flexible units prosper.
I think the HH will be seen infrequently, but will absolutely matter when it does show up.
Alternatively (now hear me out, I know it's crazy):
The HH could just not ignore invulnerable saves for no reason.
Alternatively, invulnerable saves could just not exist.
Or y'know, they could be separated into categories.
-Arcane
-Technological
-Biological
Pretty sure we've discussed this before, but why those categories? I'd be more inclined to do something like:
-Forcefield
-Evasion
-Anatomical
Because those are the main three those things can be broken down into.
Arcane can cover everything from psyker abilities or runic inscriptions or BELIEVING! to daemonic vitality to C'Tan powers, etc. If it isn't a part of the warriors' wargear(cybernetic limbs, force field generators, extra hefty armor) or natural biology(for argument's sake, we'll throw "moves really fast!" into this although I don't believe Evasion should be an invulnerable save), it's Arcane.
Pretty sure those are more or less what most of the invulns in the game boil down to regardless of whether their source is machinery, biology, or magic. Skitarii cyborg bits and drukhari pain tolerance are both probably "Anatomical", but one would be technological and the other biological in your system. Any invuln from a psychic power would be "arcane," but you might be achieving those results by making the unit blink in and out of reality (Evasion) or by simply putting up a telekinetic shield (Forcefield). Plus, I feel like mechanics that interact with such hypothetical tags are more likely to care about the type of defense being expressed rather than the mechanisms used to manifest them. A flamer, for instance, could reasonably counter Evasion-derived invulns that represent units being hard to hit, but not Forcefields or Anatomical invulns like cybernetics and pain tolerance. But I'm not sure that same flamer particularly cares whether a unit is hard to hit because it has cybernetics, tyranid limbs, or magic-infused limbs.
Drukhari pain tolerance is great and all, but if you're on fire then you're on fire.
Shooting a Drukhari with an arc rifle might not do a whole lot other than the 'basic' damage...but against a Necron or a Skitarii or a Power Armored enemy with an invulnerable save that isn't Arcane or Biological it should be doing a bit more.
The whole point of setting them up into those three categories is because "evasion" shouldn't be an Invulnerable Save category. If it's going to be a thing and if it's going to be used, it should be its own thing--and have counters that affect it. The Hydra used to be able to "lock" Flyers into only being able to go a certain speed before it got blanded for the codex proper to throw an example out there.
But yeah. Kind of agree with the notion of just not letting the HH ignore invulns. You have to squint pretty hard to justify it bypassing necrons phasing out of reality, mandrakes being made of shadow, or eldar vehicles not being where the shot was in the first place.
You have to squint pretty hard to justify Mandrakes having an invulnerable save rather than a cover save for "being made of shadow". You have to squint pretty hard to justify "phasing" as an invulnerable save that's always on rather than tying it to movement. Etc. Etc.
I'm not sure making it a little cheaper, a little more niche, and more fluffy is a bad way to go. If you just made it Damage 6+d6 and then ditched the mortal wounds and ignores invulns stuff, you'd have a weapon that was very good against conventional armored targets but less good against targets with defenses rooted in evasion and magic. Seems fluffy. Gives you a reason to take other units in your army that are good against such defenses. Seems like a good move all around.
You're literally ignoring that what makes these kinds of weapons have a poor showing is that you don't get to control your opponent's list. You can't ask them "Please sir, put some tanks in so my Hammerhead can have fun!".
Apocalypse81 wrote: Im fine with this. Its a flyer so they can only have 2. They die very easily, and only get one shot.
Ill throw tannhausers bones on my on my Chaplain on Bike, and ignore the mortals on 5+, and use Litany of Divine Faith around it's most likely targets. It says no invul, but still a FNP.
It's going to be interesting. My Templars are the most resilient army I've ever played.
My Orks, well, ill be attacking Hammerheads with Rukkatrukk Squigbuggies. If you can go first and take one down quickly, its one less big gun to worry about.
With my Blood Angels, I'll just die quickly and horribly.
Why die horribly with BA?
BA armies often consist of jump packers and a Chaplain on bike.
Here every shot of the Hammerhead is a waste.
Apocalypse81 wrote: Im fine with this. Its a flyer so they can only have 2. They die very easily, and only get one shot.
Ill throw tannhausers bones on my on my Chaplain on Bike, and ignore the mortals on 5+, and use Litany of Divine Faith around it's most likely targets. It says no invul, but still a FNP.
It's going to be interesting. My Templars are the most resilient army I've ever played.
My Orks, well, ill be attacking Hammerheads with Rukkatrukk Squigbuggies. If you can go first and take one down quickly, its one less big gun to worry about.
With my Blood Angels, I'll just die quickly and horribly.
Why die horribly with BA?
BA armies often consist of jump packers and a Chaplain on bike.
Here every shot of the Hammerhead is a waste.
Maybe Apocalypse built their BA force differently than what's most often seen?
You know there are those who don't merrily March along in lockstep with the herd....
Anyways, I presume they know the downsides to their own particular force.
Daedalus81 wrote: The HH has no tangible benefit from Montka
Reroll 1 to wound is a pretty tangible benefit for a weapon that is going to wound on a 2+ pretty often and at worst a 3+ (without transhuman nonsense, but that usually costs the defender CP.)
I don't forsee HH being in position to take advantage of Montka often.
That's fine. Then its probably not getting charged or attacked with melta weapons, either.
Somehow.
*Cough* Vertus Praetors with Salvo Launchers *Cough*
bullyboy wrote: This thing does both...oh and then tack on some MW too for good measure....because reasons.
People keep thinking the MW are to make it more deadly, but clearly that isn't the case as it ignores almost all possible saves. It's to allow an avenue for saves. That's the "because reasons".
bullyboy wrote: This thing does both...oh and then tack on some MW too for good measure....because reasons.
People keep thinking the MW are to make it more deadly, but clearly that isn't the case as it ignores almost all possible saves. It's to allow an avenue for saves. That's the "because reasons".
But the counter point to this is that it also allows the 1 shot gun to be tremendously better against elite units compared to any other 1 shot gun in the game, no 1 shot weapon meant purely as a massive AT one shots 2 terminators/custodes/necron desteoyers/wraiths etc etc, but at that point between that and the strat is not even irrelevant in case I bring a list without tanks, no downside to bringing HHs
bullyboy wrote: This thing does both...oh and then tack on some MW too for good measure....because reasons.
People keep thinking the MW are to make it more deadly, but clearly that isn't the case as it ignores almost all possible saves. It's to allow an avenue for saves. That's the "because reasons".
Ah yes, the handcrafted design to be ever-so-slightly worse if the Hammerhead happens to be facing off against very specific subfactions that will possibly shrug off an average of 1 in 3 mortal wounds. I can taste the game balance.
IMHO the 3MW is so that it can be a better weapon against Guardsmen and Custodes than if it was just D3+9.
Remember, this single shot against a unit of 10 infantry outperforms most d6 Blast weapons and is only one dead model short of equalizing the average of the Submunitions strat against the same target.
So the crappy thing about this unit to me is that it just makes for a lot more die rolls. Now every time this thing shoots you have to do 4-5 FNP rolls.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So the crappy thing about this unit to me is that it just makes for a lot more die rolls. Now every time this thing shoots you have to do 4-5 FNP rolls.
FNP rolls happen for any wound where FNP rolls are available, and Rail Guns are hardly the sole source of MWs in this game, so it really just concentrates a lot of FNP rolls at once, instead of several over time?
"The weapon that doesn't even allow multiple categories of rolls by negating practically all saves and not allowing invulnerable saves is somehow increasing the number of die rolls" is a simply fascinating take.
The more I'm thinking about this, the more fascinating this take is.
This weapon can, for all practical purposes, be rolled for with a single wave of your hand using 4 d6 (preferrably 2 of one color, and 1 each of two different colors). The hit uses the two d6, with either hitting meaning the shot hits. If it hits, you look at the wound dice. If that succeeds, the last dice determines if its 10, 11, or 12 damage.
Not a lot of places where an action from start to finish with 4d6 rolled with one hand can have that much effect in this game, that I can recall.
Most players like when damage is more average,it makes it more likely to occur and predict a damage range as opposed to there is a 64% chance you take 10-12 wounds and a 36% chance you take 0.
It is not a strong basis for competitive play across a series of games, which a tournament would be.
Whereas a Lucius 20 model vanguard blob would be, and ironically does similar or more damage after saves and what not, you just get to roll dice and pretend you will roll all saves consistently is the main difference, with the likely outcome gated behind a series of many dice being rolled.
Because those are the main three those things can be broken down into.
Arcane can cover everything from psyker abilities or runic inscriptions or BELIEVING! to daemonic vitality to C'Tan powers, etc. If it isn't a part of the warriors' wargear(cybernetic limbs, force field generators, extra hefty armor) or natural biology(for argument's sake, we'll throw "moves really fast!" into this although I don't believe Evasion should be an invulnerable save), it's Arcane.
But is Arcane/Biological/Technological a useful distinction? Granted, I can see certain anti-psyker weapons interacting with an Arcane tag, but how many weapons in the game would care whether an invuln was derived from tech vs organics?
Splitting invuls up based on how they manifest just seems like a more useful taxonomy. Forcefields can be negated by sufficiently powerful weapons or things designed to overload/bypass them. Evasion saves can be negated by things like template weapons that don't care where exactly you're standing. Anatomical is, admittedly, the weakest of my proposed categories.
Drukhari pain tolerance is great and all, but if you're on fire then you're on fire.
Shooting a Drukhari with an arc rifle might not do a whole lot other than the 'basic' damage...but against a Necron or a Skitarii or a Power Armored enemy with an invulnerable save that isn't Arcane or Biological it should be doing a bit more.
That's fair, but I feel like there aren't a ton of "anti-tech" weapons in the game. It's pretty much what? Arc rifles and haywire weapons?
The whole point of setting them up into those three categories is because "evasion" shouldn't be an Invulnerable Save category. If it's going to be a thing and if it's going to be used, it should be its own thing--and have counters that affect it.
Well, yes. Making evasion saves counterable by appropriate weapons is kind of my point. A flamer could reasonably turn off a star weaver's hologram projector save. A railgun probably shouldn't. As for invulns representing evasion, well, that just seems like a mechanically useful lever to have.
You're literally ignoring that what makes these kinds of weapons have a poor showing is that you don't get to control your opponent's list. You can't ask them "Please sir, put some tanks in so my Hammerhead can have fun!".
I mean, a big gun that does a lot of damage to a single target isn't that niche of a weapon. Especially if you keep the submunition shot around in some form (either as a strat or a second profile). If you're facing a horde with literally no vehicles or monsters in it, then sure. You'll be less effective because you're facing a skew list. Similar to how taking a wyvern isn't optimal if you're facing a vehicle skew list. The same is basically true of a squad of eliminators facing a daemon or 'nid horde.
Some options in 40k are specialized against certain types of targets. This means that those options can be rendered less effective against certain skew lists. If you have a way to prevent skew lists or bad matchups from being a thing in general, great. Otherwise, that possibility is neither unique nor especially egregious in the case of the hammerhead. Your opponent will usually have at least one decent target for a single big shot weapon (even if invuls make it a little less efficient), and the hammerhead has never been without some sort of submunition shot that lets it double as a decent anti-horde weapon.
So literally the only defense against this thing is A. ruin it's ballistic skill so it never makes the shot, OR B. FNP negates the damage. There are too many FNP units to count, but what ways are there to ruin it's shooting and force it to shoot at 5/6+?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So literally the only defense against this thing is A. ruin it's ballistic skill so it never makes the shot, OR B. FNP negates the damage. There are too many FNP units to count, but what ways are there to ruin it's shooting and force it to shoot at 5/6+?
If the Hammerhead stays BS 3+ base then 5/6+ is impossible because hit modifiers cap at +/- 1
(not counting stuff like the Culexus always 6+ rule because those are super rare)
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So literally the only defense against this thing is A. ruin it's ballistic skill so it never makes the shot, OR B. FNP negates the damage. There are too many FNP units to count, but what ways are there to ruin it's shooting and force it to shoot at 5/6+?
Or C feed it something of lower value to waste a round on then nuke it in return.
But is Arcane/Biological/Technological a useful distinction? Granted, I can see certain anti-psyker weapons interacting with an Arcane tag, but how many weapons in the game would care whether an invuln was derived from tech vs organics?
As it stands currently? Probably not many going strictly off rules, since they gutted a lot of the rules like Armourbane, Fleshbane, etc.
Splitting invuls up based on how they manifest just seems like a more useful taxonomy. Forcefields can be negated by sufficiently powerful weapons or things designed to overload/bypass them. Evasion saves can be negated by things like template weapons that don't care where exactly you're standing. Anatomical is, admittedly, the weakest of my proposed categories.
The problem is that it's not simply template weapons that would be reasonably expected to negate or mitigate Evasion saves. There's also good old fashioned "lots and lots of bullets". Fields, unless specifically described as such, would be directional. Hyperactive poisons or radioactive effects could overwhelm biology.
I'm totally down for fields to be directional. But given how seemingly difficult it was for people to understand about positioning for how the Knights' fields worked? I don't think that's going to happen again.
That's fair, but I feel like there aren't a ton of "anti-tech" weapons in the game. It's pretty much what? Arc rifles and haywire weapons?
What are we defining as anti-tech? Strictly anti-force field, or also things designed to punch clean through heavy layers of reinforced armor and the like?
Because to throw an example out there that doesn't have anything right now: Vespids. Their weapons are supposed to bypass armor entirely, frying nervous systems and internal circuitry. Transauranic Arquebi are supposed to be able to punch clean through thick armour because of their ammunition. It's why they had Armourbane(roll 2D6 for Armor Pen vs vehicles) and could be a nasty surprise if played right.
Well, yes. Making evasion saves counterable by appropriate weapons is kind of my point. A flamer could reasonably turn off a star weaver's hologram projector save.
How does a flamethrower do it? By saturating the area.
You'd have more of a point if the Holofields were actually physically projecting them into another space--but the lore effectively is that it's a shimmery mess that makes them harder to track or pinpoint.
A railgun probably shouldn't.
Sure it should. The overpressure wave of the round traveling that fast, even if it kinda/sorta misses, would probably still collapse the field.
As for invulns representing evasion, well, that just seems like a mechanically useful lever to have.
It would be, if template weapons had ever been done sensibly. The constant tying them to flamethrowers or the like was daft. The Icarus Array is supposed to throw down extensive amounts of hard-rounds from the autocannon and barrages of rockets from the 'dumbfire' launcher it has. The Hydra is supposed to throw down ridiculous amounts of autocannon fire, with a sophisticated sensor array that locks onto the target once hits were scored. Hell, Radium Carbines are supposed to release so much saturated radiation that they create zones of radioactivity that can kill an unshielded individual within moments.
All of that would be just as much of a "NOPE!" to someone jumping around all nimbly-pimbly as a wall o' fire.
The TLDR? Adding some differentiation to the Invulnerable Saves would open up the ability to add some new life into weapons. Blessed (or Cursed or Warpfire or just Force) weapons could be given the ability to counteract or degrade Arcane based Invulnerable Saves. Haywire, Tesla, Arc, and Neutron weapons could be given the ability to counteract or degrade Tech based Invulnerable Saves. Poison, Plague, Radium, and Parasitic(Tyranid grubs, anyone?) weapons could be given the ability to counteract or degrade Biological based Invulnerable Saves.
Some weapons could probably even be given new life by reducing their current effectiveness by adding a bit of this to them. Plasma's too good now? Tone it down, but give it a bit of counterpunch to Tech/Biological saves. Melta/Fusion too good now? Same thing.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So literally the only defense against this thing is A. ruin it's ballistic skill so it never makes the shot, OR B. FNP negates the damage. There are too many FNP units to count, but what ways are there to ruin it's shooting and force it to shoot at 5/6+?
Or C feed it something of lower value to waste a round on then nuke it in return.
You are assuming the tau player is a moron who is going to avoid the tasty targets. Also, what about the factions that literally can't afford to sacrifice anything? Custodians don't have pawns. Everything in their book is Rook level, with the exception of the Telemon, which is a queen. Same with knight lists. You don't have chaff when running the elite factions.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So literally the only defense against this thing is A. ruin it's ballistic skill so it never makes the shot, OR B. FNP negates the damage. There are too many FNP units to count, but what ways are there to ruin it's shooting and force it to shoot at 5/6+?
Or C feed it something of lower value to waste a round on then nuke it in return.
You are assuming the tau player is a moron who is going to avoid the tasty targets. Also, what about the factions that literally can't afford to sacrifice anything? Custodians don't have pawns. Everything in their book is Rook level, with the exception of the Telemon, which is a queen. Same with knight lists. You don't have chaff when running the elite factions.
A Hammerhead won't kill a knight in a volley before the knight kills the Hammerhead, same for the custodes dreads iirc and if it kills 2 custodes infantry, then you kill the tank in return, that's a trade up.
Edit: to be fair I'm also assuming this custodes player isn't a moron that just leaves units out to get ganked by hammerheads t1.
If it shoots my Telemon, guess what, it's on it's last bracket basically. 18W down to 5-8. It's effectively useless for the rest of the game. If it kills two of my Guardians, I need to spend a CP to even have a Chance of killing it, likely just bracketing it, and that's if I throw a 5 person squad at it, which with spears is about 250 points, and is now down to likely it's last 2. A better tank killer would be the Terminators, popping out of DS. Or the Blade Champions. But BCs are 120ppm, and an HQ, the Terminators are 75ppm. For them to have a chance at killing it they need to have 3-4 survive, so thats a blob of 6, which is max, or 450points, to POSSIBLY kill a tank which is T7, 13 wounds.
I really can't stand the "buffs" my faction got this edition.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: If it shoots my Telemon, guess what, it's on it's last bracket basically. 18W down to 5-8. It's effectively useless for the rest of the game. If it kills two of my Guardians, I need to spend a CP to even have a Chance of killing it, likely just bracketing it, and that's if I throw a 5 person squad at it, which with spears is about 250 points, and is now down to likely it's last 2. A better tank killer would be the Terminators, popping out of DS. Or the Blade Champions. But BCs are 120ppm, and an HQ, the Terminators are 75ppm. For them to have a chance at killing it they need to have 3-4 survive, so thats a blob of 6, which is max, or 450points, to POSSIBLY kill a tank which is T7, 13 wounds.
I really can't stand the "buffs" my faction got this edition.
Did I miss the Custodes codex coming out? or are you whining about your buffs that you haven't even seen yet.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: I love how people are acting like the objective game is gonna be hard for Tau, it's not like HH's are gonna have at least an 8" move and as vehicles there is literally no down side to moving with them.
I am not gonna go out and say that HH's are gonna be meta breaking but it just fething sucks that my models like Belakor are a liability on the table because of one unit. Monsters and vehicles have no defense vs this thing and just like most of 9th edition it is not fun to just pick up my models while the other player roles dice. Lethality wouldn't be so bad if there was some way to mitigate it but when your mitigation is hide and hope they can't get an angle on you, that is gak game play.
It is funny that you mention Belakor. He is the absolute worst target for an Hammerhead.
It takes 3 hammerheads 3 turns of continous fire to take him down.
I am sick right now so I can not run the numbers effectively right now but I don't think you are right when you are hitting on 5+, wounding on 4+ which will be a great candidate for a CP reroll since you can't reroll the tohit and each hit is going to average out to 11 wounds (3 MW + 8 base damage.)
This is not taking into account what markerlights might do next edition or what ever Longstrike is gonna do for his Hammerhead.
Plus, you don't have to one shot something to take it out of the fight effectively. If you get one hit in on Belakor for 11 wounds then you only need to do 5 more with other units in your army which is probably not going to be an issue for Tau.
Again I am not saying that the HH is gonna be game breaking, I really think that the meta will adjust and it will be one of those things that is scary but often not worth taking. What I AM saying is that it is a feel bad unit that is just completely unfun, it is literally a unit that your opponent doesn't get any interaction with other than picking up models. I say this as someone who plays Tau fish of fury style because I like mobile infantry with HH fire support. I don't like the mecha design that Tau got heavily into and prefer them as what they first came out as.
bullyboy wrote: This thing does both...oh and then tack on some MW too for good measure....because reasons.
People keep thinking the MW are to make it more deadly, but clearly that isn't the case as it ignores almost all possible saves. It's to allow an avenue for saves. That's the "because reasons".
Nah. You're over thinking it Daed. Doing (X) MWs on a successful wound roll is just what Tau rail weapons do now. Every railgun in the Imperial Armour Compendium does (X) MWs on a successful wound roll, the number varies, but they all do it. This one does 3 because it's a "big" railgun. It's also the only one that ignores invulns. But they all have the MWs rule, because, apparently, that's just what railguns do now.
And why do people keep assuming this thing will be hitting on 4s now? Hammerheads have been hitting on 3s for a long time, is there new information to suggest that's changing? Or is it just wishfull thinking?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So literally the only defense against this thing is A. ruin it's ballistic skill so it never makes the shot, OR B. FNP negates the damage. There are too many FNP units to count, but what ways are there to ruin it's shooting and force it to shoot at 5/6+?
Or C feed it something of lower value to waste a round on then nuke it in return.
You are assuming the tau player is a moron who is going to avoid the tasty targets. Also, what about the factions that literally can't afford to sacrifice anything? Custodians don't have pawns. Everything in their book is Rook level, with the exception of the Telemon, which is a queen. Same with knight lists. You don't have chaff when running the elite factions.
A Hammerhead won't kill a knight in a volley before the knight kills the Hammerhead, same for the custodes dreads iirc and if it kills 2 custodes infantry, then you kill the tank in return, that's a trade up.
Edit: to be fair I'm also assuming this custodes player isn't a moron that just leaves units out to get ganked by hammerheads t1.
In fairness though, we don't know the points cost yet. And assuming a duel between a Knight and Hammerheads, its a safe bet that the Tau, point for point will be fielding at least 2 of them, possibly 3 against the bigger knights. Same for the Telemon and/or Custodes.
1 vs 1, yeah the Knight is better, but that isn't a good measure of its usefulness, its point for point that tells us if this is good or not. I'll reserve my judgement until we see the points costs. What I can definitively say right now though is that if it doesn't go up at least 25%-33% its going to be dramatically under priced.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So literally the only defense against this thing is A. ruin it's ballistic skill so it never makes the shot, OR B. FNP negates the damage. There are too many FNP units to count, but what ways are there to ruin it's shooting and force it to shoot at 5/6+?
Or C feed it something of lower value to waste a round on then nuke it in return.
You are assuming the tau player is a moron who is going to avoid the tasty targets. Also, what about the factions that literally can't afford to sacrifice anything? Custodians don't have pawns. Everything in their book is Rook level, with the exception of the Telemon, which is a queen. Same with knight lists. You don't have chaff when running the elite factions.
A Hammerhead won't kill a knight in a volley before the knight kills the Hammerhead, same for the custodes dreads iirc and if it kills 2 custodes infantry, then you kill the tank in return, that's a trade up.
Edit: to be fair I'm also assuming this custodes player isn't a moron that just leaves units out to get ganked by hammerheads t1.
In fairness though, we don't know the points cost yet. And assuming a duel between a Knight and Hammerheads, its a safe bet that the Tau, point for point will be fielding at least 2 of them, possibly 3 against the bigger knights. Same for the Telemon and/or Custodes.
1 vs 1, yeah the Knight is better, but that isn't a good measure of its usefulness, its point for point that tells us if this is good or not. I'll reserve my judgement until we see the points costs. What I can definitively say right now though is that if it doesn't go up at least 25%-33% its going to be dramatically under priced.
I'm expecting a 2:1 on Hammerhead vs knight, which still wouldn't drop a knight a turn on average, but odds are it'll leave it in bad shape.
bullyboy wrote: This thing does both...oh and then tack on some MW too for good measure....because reasons.
People keep thinking the MW are to make it more deadly, but clearly that isn't the case as it ignores almost all possible saves. It's to allow an avenue for saves. That's the "because reasons".
Nah. You're over thinking it Daed. Doing (X) MWs on a successful wound roll is just what Tau rail weapons do now. Every railgun in the Imperial Armour Compendium does (X) MWs on a successful wound roll, the number varies, but they all do it. This one does 3 because it's a "big" railgun. It's also the only one that ignores invulns. But they all have the MWs rule, because, apparently, that's just what railguns do now.
And why do people keep assuming this thing will be hitting on 4s now? Hammerheads have been hitting on 3s for a long time, is there new information to suggest that's changing? Or is it just wishfull thinking?
Once, long ago all the Tau vehicle also had BS 4+ (or BS 3 so you hit on a 4+ because old edition). There was an upgrade to improve a vehicles BS by 1. The Hammerhead had this upgrade by default.
Later this was changes to simply give the Hammerhead a base BS 3+.
The new native re-roll they showed the Hammerhead will get has the same name as the old BS upgrade. So people jump to the conclusion that Hammerheads will go down to BS 4+.
That or they don't actually know Tau and think the Hammerhead has a BS 4+ because all Tau do.
Either way, I see no reason to assume the Hammerhead will go down to BS 4+ at this time.
bullyboy wrote: This thing does both...oh and then tack on some MW too for good measure....because reasons.
People keep thinking the MW are to make it more deadly, but clearly that isn't the case as it ignores almost all possible saves. It's to allow an avenue for saves. That's the "because reasons".
Nah. You're over thinking it Daed. Doing (X) MWs on a successful wound roll is just what Tau rail weapons do now. Every railgun in the Imperial Armour Compendium does (X) MWs on a successful wound roll, the number varies, but they all do it. This one does 3 because it's a "big" railgun. It's also the only one that ignores invulns. But they all have the MWs rule, because, apparently, that's just what railguns do now.
And why do people keep assuming this thing will be hitting on 4s now? Hammerheads have been hitting on 3s for a long time, is there new information to suggest that's changing? Or is it just wishfull thinking?
It's unknown at this point, but there's a few variables that I and others believe points towards a reduction to BS4+.
First, Hammerheads have had a 3+ to hit (at the time, called BS4) since their inception due to a specific piece of wargear that was hard-wired into the chassis, called a Targeting Array. The Targeting Array increased BS by 1, which means the Hammerhead chassis itself (without a Targeting Array) was the typical T'au BS of 4+ to hit.
8th edition Indexes came, and T'au Vehicle wargear suddenly disappeared from available mechanics without explanation. Hammerheads kept their BS3+. Forge-world, mostly doin' its own thing, had its vehicles with BSs that you didn't see outside of Commander or Special Characters in the Codex... aside from the Hammerhead, perhaps, the chassis essentially untouched from the Index.
9th edition comes around, and Forgeworld rules (now fully subsumed by GW rules writers) showcase a few things. First, all of the changes to the Rail Gun you saw except the Ignore Invuln (higher str, higher AP, more consistent damage, consistent MW generation), a few other tidbits... aaaaaaand all except the Titan-class Vehicles dropping back down to the T'au baseline of BS4+.
Finally, we have the Reveal, where we learn that there's something called a Targeting Array (hey, that sounds exactly like the Wargear that disappeared an edition-and-a-half ago), which has an explicit mechanical benefit (rerolling a single attack roll per shooting) that is not what it used to be (+1 to BS).
None of these are conclusive on their own, or even together. It's possible that Hammerheads and Skyrays retain their BS3+.
But in my opinion, that's unlikely. The more likely thing to happen is that we go to BS4+/3+ for Hammerheads/Longstrike respectively, which still gives Hammerheads a respectable but not oppressive hit chance. And whoofing one of those shots is going to hurt so bad. It also makes bracketing them extremely useful, as BS5+, even rerolled, isn't the accuracy you want on a probable 150+ pt single shot gun.
bullyboy wrote: This thing does both...oh and then tack on some MW too for good measure....because reasons.
People keep thinking the MW are to make it more deadly, but clearly that isn't the case as it ignores almost all possible saves. It's to allow an avenue for saves. That's the "because reasons".
Nah. You're over thinking it Daed. Doing (X) MWs on a successful wound roll is just what Tau rail weapons do now. Every railgun in the Imperial Armour Compendium does (X) MWs on a successful wound roll, the number varies, but they all do it. This one does 3 because it's a "big" railgun. It's also the only one that ignores invulns. But they all have the MWs rule, because, apparently, that's just what railguns do now.
And why do people keep assuming this thing will be hitting on 4s now? Hammerheads have been hitting on 3s for a long time, is there new information to suggest that's changing? Or is it just wishfull thinking?
Once, long ago all the Tau vehicle also had BS 4+ (or BS 3 so you hit on a 4+ because old edition). There was an upgrade to improve a vehicles BS by 1. The Hammerhead had this upgrade by default.
Later this was changes to simply give the Hammerhead a base BS 3+.
The new native re-roll they showed the Hammerhead will get has the same name as the old BS upgrade. So people jump to the conclusion that Hammerheads will go down to BS 4+.
That or they don't actually know Tau and think the Hammerhead has a BS 4+ because all Tau do.
Either way, I see no reason to assume the Hammerhead will go down to BS 4+ at this time.
Yeah, that's my take as well. Important to note: as recently as 7th edition, Hammerheads were native BS4 (which meant that they hit on 3s), and could take a Targeting Array as optional equipment, which conferred the Precision Shots USR. So there is precedent for them having a Targeting Array and hitting on 3s. However dropping from hitting on 3s with a reroll to 4s with a reroll would make a significant difference in the Hammerhead's potential output, especially considering that gw has been giving out -1 to be hit strategems to vehicles like candy. Just one more thing we don't know yet.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So literally the only defense against this thing is A. ruin it's ballistic skill so it never makes the shot, OR B. FNP negates the damage. There are too many FNP units to count, but what ways are there to ruin it's shooting and force it to shoot at 5/6+?
Or C feed it something of lower value to waste a round on then nuke it in return.
You are assuming the tau player is a moron who is going to avoid the tasty targets. Also, what about the factions that literally can't afford to sacrifice anything? Custodians don't have pawns. Everything in their book is Rook level, with the exception of the Telemon, which is a queen. Same with knight lists. You don't have chaff when running the elite factions.
A Hammerhead won't kill a knight in a volley before the knight kills the Hammerhead, same for the custodes dreads iirc and if it kills 2 custodes infantry, then you kill the tank in return, that's a trade up.
Edit: to be fair I'm also assuming this custodes player isn't a moron that just leaves units out to get ganked by hammerheads t1.
In fairness though, we don't know the points cost yet. And assuming a duel between a Knight and Hammerheads, its a safe bet that the Tau, point for point will be fielding at least 2 of them, possibly 3 against the bigger knights. Same for the Telemon and/or Custodes.
1 vs 1, yeah the Knight is better, but that isn't a good measure of its usefulness, its point for point that tells us if this is good or not. I'll reserve my judgement until we see the points costs. What I can definitively say right now though is that if it doesn't go up at least 25%-33% its going to be dramatically under priced.
I'm expecting a 2:1 on Hammerhead vs knight, which still wouldn't drop a knight a turn on average, but odds are it'll leave it in bad shape.
Especially considering that the knight can't hide, at all, unless you have some ridiculously big opaque terrain, because gw doesn't think 18+ wound units should get any benefit from terrain.
Honestly, I think if gw would just fix terrain and LOS rules and change the negative modifiers to hit cap, this thing would be more reasonable.
bullyboy wrote: This thing does both...oh and then tack on some MW too for good measure....because reasons.
People keep thinking the MW are to make it more deadly, but clearly that isn't the case as it ignores almost all possible saves. It's to allow an avenue for saves. That's the "because reasons".
Nah. You're over thinking it Daed. Doing (X) MWs on a successful wound roll is just what Tau rail weapons do now. Every railgun in the Imperial Armour Compendium does (X) MWs on a successful wound roll, the number varies, but they all do it. This one does 3 because it's a "big" railgun. It's also the only one that ignores invulns. But they all have the MWs rule, because, apparently, that's just what railguns do now.
And why do people keep assuming this thing will be hitting on 4s now? Hammerheads have been hitting on 3s for a long time, is there new information to suggest that's changing? Or is it just wishfull thinking?
Once, long ago all the Tau vehicle also had BS 4+ (or BS 3 so you hit on a 4+ because old edition). There was an upgrade to improve a vehicles BS by 1. The Hammerhead had this upgrade by default.
Later this was changes to simply give the Hammerhead a base BS 3+.
The new native re-roll they showed the Hammerhead will get has the same name as the old BS upgrade. So people jump to the conclusion that Hammerheads will go down to BS 4+.
That or they don't actually know Tau and think the Hammerhead has a BS 4+ because all Tau do.
Either way, I see no reason to assume the Hammerhead will go down to BS 4+ at this time.
Yeah, that's my take as well. Important to note: as recently as 7th edition, Hammerheads were native BS4 (which meant that they hit on 3s), and could take a Targeting Array as optional equipment, which conferred the Precision Shots USR. So there is precedent for them having a Targeting Array and hitting on 3s. However dropping from hitting on 3s with a reroll to 4s with a reroll would make a significant difference in the Hammerhead's potential output, especially considering that gw has been giving out -1 to be hit strategems to vehicles like candy. Just one more thing we don't know yet.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So literally the only defense against this thing is A. ruin it's ballistic skill so it never makes the shot, OR B. FNP negates the damage. There are too many FNP units to count, but what ways are there to ruin it's shooting and force it to shoot at 5/6+?
Or C feed it something of lower value to waste a round on then nuke it in return.
You are assuming the tau player is a moron who is going to avoid the tasty targets. Also, what about the factions that literally can't afford to sacrifice anything? Custodians don't have pawns. Everything in their book is Rook level, with the exception of the Telemon, which is a queen. Same with knight lists. You don't have chaff when running the elite factions.
A Hammerhead won't kill a knight in a volley before the knight kills the Hammerhead, same for the custodes dreads iirc and if it kills 2 custodes infantry, then you kill the tank in return, that's a trade up.
Edit: to be fair I'm also assuming this custodes player isn't a moron that just leaves units out to get ganked by hammerheads t1.
In fairness though, we don't know the points cost yet. And assuming a duel between a Knight and Hammerheads, its a safe bet that the Tau, point for point will be fielding at least 2 of them, possibly 3 against the bigger knights. Same for the Telemon and/or Custodes.
1 vs 1, yeah the Knight is better, but that isn't a good measure of its usefulness, its point for point that tells us if this is good or not. I'll reserve my judgement until we see the points costs. What I can definitively say right now though is that if it doesn't go up at least 25%-33% its going to be dramatically under priced.
I'm expecting a 2:1 on Hammerhead vs knight, which still wouldn't drop a knight a turn on average, but odds are it'll leave it in bad shape.
Especially considering that the knight can't hide, at all, unless you have some ridiculously big opaque terrain, because gw doesn't think 18+ wound units should get any benefit from terrain.
Honestly, I think if gw would just fix terrain and LOS rules and change the negative modifiers to hit cap, this thing would be more reasonable.
Just so you're aware of the maths, a HH hitting on an unmodified 4+ (i.e. without any -1s or +1s) does 10-12 damage 62ish percent of the time, and if it hits on 3s it's 74ish percent of the time.
Tyel wrote: Maybe going out on a limb, but not convinced this is going to warp the meta any more than its already warped.
Its the equivalent of a Ravager with 4-5 shots. This has a different probability curve on the damage - 10-12 wounds or nothing is I think is worse for the game - but in terms of competitive play I don't think that matters.
Sure if your opponent brings 3 and they all hit and wound and blow up three of your vehicles/monsters that's going to be lame. But if I bring 3 ravagers and, idk, a Jetfighter, and I roll in the upper 25% outcome bracket, I'm going to kill a load of your stuff too. That's just 9th edition.
I stand corrected.
Im certainly interested in seeing what shakes out of this codex.
Either way, I see no reason to assume the Hammerhead will go down to BS 4+ at this time.
Definitely BS3+ base. But unless tau get multiple stackable ways to gain +1 to hit the Hammered will always hit on 3s or 4s due to how easy is to give -1 to hit to targets through terrain or special rules, stratagems, etc.. Just the gigantic targets might suffer.
I feel like the no invul saves maybe too much like can it just -1 or -2 invul saves as well because, you know, really strong tank killer, but still deal the mortals no matter what, like if it hits its auto 3 mw before seeing if wounds went through. We can then have it be --1/--2 like the saves being 4++ or 5++ for invul saves. And at this point only premier tank killing level weapons like ones to hunt titanic or specialized ones like executioner battle cannon.
Despite many considering it a bad thing for the game, the fact that recently weapons saw and increase in the number of attacks, is actually quite good.
The more the output of a weapon is split in several attacks, the less the game depends on the randomness of the dices.
This weapon instead goes completely against that concept, and this is why it isn't good for the game.
It doesn't have a problem of firepower, or MWs or ignore invul or stuff like that. It has a problem on the distribution of results.
All or nothing.
The existence of this weapon makes the game a lot more dice based. Hitting or missing with it makes a huge swing in the course of the game.
bullyboy wrote: This thing does both...oh and then tack on some MW too for good measure....because reasons.
People keep thinking the MW are to make it more deadly, but clearly that isn't the case as it ignores almost all possible saves. It's to allow an avenue for saves. That's the "because reasons".
Ah yes, the handcrafted design to be ever-so-slightly worse if the Hammerhead happens to be facing off against very specific subfactions that will possibly shrug off an average of 1 in 3 mortal wounds. I can taste the game balance.
That's the difference between a dead vehicle and an alive one, which means they've needing to have other guns in place. Burst cannons are still only 18", which is quite short if you're trading tanks. Honestly this is probably the best way to make a unit that only really gets one shot - at least Raiders can still transport models.
This thing is still a huge problem for superheavies so the full jury is still out until we have the whole picture.
Anyway of the next books the following have a general purpose FNP:
Admech - 4+++
Marines
The entire GK army
Thousand Sons
And these have a strat to go top profile:
Admech
Marines PotMS GKPotMS DGPotMS TSPotMS
Necrons have none, but have Quantum Shielding and a subfaction. DE have nothing, but I don't think anyone cares there. Orks have none, but have high wound counts on the vehicles that would care. Sisters have none, but aren't a "big vehicle" army.
This is all aside from prayers, spells, other abilities, or armies that can double repair.
