Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Red Corsair wrote:

If you want to use physics at least be accurate, a rail gun acts like any other fired projectile except it does not use explosive charges to fire a propellant, it uses magnetism as a slingshot, and if a rail round hits a target, even if it punches through, the odds of it continuing on its original path are laughable, it would still veer off, regardless of how fast its moving.... physics in 40k isn't worth mentioning.

Tell that to the US Navy, I'm sure they would value your scientific input which invalidates their actual test results. The measured deflection of the projectiles path was negligible over small distances in most testing done, except against really thick/strong armor. This is largely because the projectile turned most solid matter to plasma as it passed through it, leaving very little to interfere with its flight path. This fits perfectly with the "until glancing hit" part of the rumor, and fits just fine with the Tau's original design philosophy.

The rumour for the rail gun travels until getting a glancing hit seems somewhat stupid imo.

Surely a glancing hit would still allow it to travel fairly fast as opposed to hitting armour bang on.

I know that the glancing hit could make it spin off and bury itself into the ground, but it does somewhat sound stupid imo.

EDIT: Although given the Tau is a technoligically advanced race, i suppose that could somewhat justify the rail gun rumour.

Even though I intend to play Tau, this is my thought on the rail gun.

EDIT 2: Fixing spelling errors.

I don't care if it's perfectly "realistic" or not, it sounds like an interesting rule either way. The glancing hit thing is likely just for balance.

johnscott10 wrote:The rumour for the rail gun travels until getting a glancing hit seems somewhat stupid imo.

Surely a glancing hit would still allow it to travel fairly fast as opposed to hitting armour bang on.

I know that the glancing hit could make it spin off and bury itself into the ground, but it does somewhat sound stupid imo.

EDIT: Although given the Tau is a technoligically advanced race, i suppose that could somewhat justify the rail gun rumour.

Even though I intend to play Tau, this is my thought on the rail gun.

EDIT 2: Fixing spelling errors.

I just had a funny thought, on a glancing hit roll a scatter dice to determine where it goes, and it comes right back at you

like this

youbedead wrote:

johnscott10 wrote:The rumour for the rail gun travels until getting a glancing hit seems somewhat stupid imo.

Surely a glancing hit would still allow it to travel fairly fast as opposed to hitting armour bang on.

I know that the glancing hit could make it spin off and bury itself into the ground, but it does somewhat sound stupid imo.

EDIT: Although given the Tau is a technoligically advanced race, i suppose that could somewhat justify the rail gun rumour.

Even though I intend to play Tau, this is my thought on the rail gun.

EDIT 2: Fixing spelling errors.

I just had a funny thought, on a glancing hit roll a scatter dice to determine where it goes, and it comes right back at you

like this

Hahaha yea thats an interesting thought, what would happen if you got a direct hit tho?? Would it continue in a straight line or would the small arrow still determine the direction it goes

Oh, that hurts just to look at....

It doesn't help that it keeps playing over and over

Ouch. melon upside the....well, melon. ouch.

I always laugh when people start talking about how unrealistic something is.

Who cares?! So my army of Fish Faced aliens and Space Chickens' super rail guns wouldn't do what the game mechanics say they would!

Yeah, nothing in this game is realistic, it isn't meant to be. It is an abstraction of reality.

And what the Tau really need is a power boost. I think that rule for the Hammerhead is good because it:
1.) Is great anti light armor spam which we see now a days.
2.) Gives Tau a reason to actually use a Hammerhead over the vastly superior broadsides.

So bring it on, I say! That is a cool mechanic that will give Tau the hammer of God ranged weapons that they should have.

I'd also like to see sniper drones integrated into Fire Warrior teams as an upgrade. One guy becomes the spotter and the squad can take up to three sniper drones. His networked marker light also effects the entire squad's shooting.

Don't require Pathfinders to take a devilfish.

More options for the hammer head tank chassis.

Move sky ray's to fast attack and give them the ability to shoot up to 6 missiles a turn with marker light hits, not 6 total.

More weapon options for piranhas.

Hazard suits in the standard codex.

That is all wish listing, but those are changes I would like to see at any rate.

Some, infantry ASS that makes pathfinders relentless would make them awesome, pricing it correctly might be a problem tho.

Reecius wrote:.

I'd also like to see sniper drones integrated into Fire Warrior teams as an upgrade. One guy becomes the spotter and the squad can take up to three sniper drones. His networked marker light also effects the entire squad's shooting.

I'd rather they remain a separate choice, the Tau are still meant to be a highly mobile force, Sniper Drones would curtail that a good bit. Or make them a separate choice purchased with the Firewarriors (I.E. - occupies the same Troop slot but is a separate unit). I could see that as being a very "Tau" method of operating. The highly mobile firewarriors move around doing their thing while the heavy weapons sit back and provide long-range precise fire support. They need to fix the Sniper Drones though, the controller should have a control radius within which the sniper drones can travel, so they don't have to maintain the 2" coherency with the controller. That kills the units practicality.

More options for the hammer head tank chassis.

I would expect it. The trend has been to give more options in every codex thus far, but truthfully, the Forgeworld alternative weapons SUCK. They need a big boost to make them worth taking (with the exception of the Fusion Cannon and I think the Plasma Cannon).

Move sky ray's to fast attack and give them the ability to shoot up to 6 missiles a turn with marker light hits, not 6 total.

I can get behind this. Alternatively give the Skyray a heavier variant of hte Seeker Missile (say a small blast version). Really, seeker missiles are a dime a dozen in the codex, who the hell would waste an FA slot on a vehicle whose sole purpose is to carry them?

More weapon options for piranhas.

Indeed. I want my TX-42s damnit.

Hazard suits in the standard codex.

Would be nice.

Since this is a News and Rumours forum I will direct Tau players to the several long "What to do about Tau" threads in the Proposed Rules forum.

@Reecius
If you read what I said thoroughly I said nothing in the game is realistic.....so people should not use realism as an argument to validate a broken rule....

To me the real issue is still in regards to LOS all anyone would have to do is target a soft unit in order to hit the target they really want to hit, its stupid,. As I said before, a player could park a HH behind a bunker and punch holes through its weak armor 12 in order to hit targets it could not see behind it... its bogus, the idea sounds cool and I will agree that is probably something the tech savvy tau could take advantage of, but it still blows up the rules for LOS with a direct fired weapon.

Are they not skimmers and as such can simply shoot over the bunker anways? Or am I missing something that only happened in 4th, I wouldn't know, I haven't played any skimmers yet in 5th where that kind of thing came up.

Red Corsair wrote:

To me the real issue is still in regards to LOS all anyone would have to do is target a soft unit in order to hit the target they really want to hit, its stupid,. As I said before, a player could park a HH behind a bunker and punch holes through its weak armor 12 in order to hit targets it could not see behind it... its bogus, the idea sounds cool and I will agree that is probably something the tech savvy tau could take advantage of, but it still blows up the rules for LOS with a direct fired weapon.

I'd say that instead of this tactic making the special rules overpowered, instead it's wasting the potential of such a powerful weapon. You've got a (at a guess) 72" S10 line of death, and you're only using it to hit 2 models? Think bigger Red Corsair, think bigger *insert evil Mwahahaha laugh*

1) How's about in a turn that the sky ray doesn't shoot, it can reload D3 or, if we're lucky, D6 missiles.

2) A normal rapid fire gun is 24" range, with double shot at 12", right? So double shot is at 1/2 the range of a normal rapid fire gun. But a tau pulse rifle has a range of 30", so it would make sense for the double shot range to be 15", which I'd like to see. This will, probably never happen, because 12" is also assault range, with 6" movement phase, and 6" assault phase. It'd be nice, though.

The 15 inch Rapid Fire range is what I have advocated for months as a fix to Fire Warriors.

Plenty of dedicated assault troops have over 12 inch assault range so it does not make the Fire Warrior immune to assault.

Kilkrazy wrote:The 15 inch Rapid Fire range is what I have advocated for months as a fix to Fire Warriors.

Plenty of dedicated assault troops have over 12 inch assault range so it does not make the Fire Warrior immune to assault.

Good point, but can you imagine how much some people would complain? "Wat mah spess mehrines can't use the chainssorde to go choppa choppa and make the fish people into sush???? Naoo Fare!!!"

Red Corsair wrote:@Reecius
If you read what I said thoroughly I said nothing in the game is realistic.....so people should not use realism as an argument to validate a broken rule....

To me the real issue is still in regards to LOS all anyone would have to do is target a soft unit in order to hit the target they really want to hit, its stupid,. As I said before, a player could park a HH behind a bunker and punch holes through its weak armor 12 in order to hit targets it could not see behind it... its bogus, the idea sounds cool and I will agree that is probably something the tech savvy tau could take advantage of, but it still blows up the rules for LOS with a direct fired weapon.

You do realize that it is possible to take 4 models that do just that in the Sw codex... Jaws: If I hit you with enough of them, eventually you will roll a ...

@Chaos0xomega
I like those addendum. Fire Warriors need a boost, and being able to leave a sniper team behind would be ace. Just get them out of heavy, they shouldn't compete with Broadised sand HH's.

@Red Corsair
I wasn't aiming my rant at your particularly. I didn't mean to offend. Just in general, it always cracks me up when people act intellectually superior (not saying this applies to you) when they point out something silly in the game. Such as: Titans would collapse under their own weight, or Nids' anatomy is all wrong, or Termie armor wouldn't fit, etc. etc. etc.

It's one thing to joke about that stuff, but when people get in a huff over the unrealistic nature of the game, I laugh. Like, who cares? Suspend your disbelief and just enjoy the game. No one thinks that someone on the net is Jhonny Smartman because he points out something unrealistic in a Science Fantasy game of toy soldiers.

QuietOrkmi wrote:

Red Corsair wrote:@Reecius
If you read what I said thoroughly I said nothing in the game is realistic.....so people should not use realism as an argument to validate a broken rule....

To me the real issue is still in regards to LOS all anyone would have to do is target a soft unit in order to hit the target they really want to hit, its stupid,. As I said before, a player could park a HH behind a bunker and punch holes through its weak armor 12 in order to hit targets it could not see behind it... its bogus, the idea sounds cool and I will agree that is probably something the tech savvy tau could take advantage of, but it still blows up the rules for LOS with a direct fired weapon.

You do realize that it is possible to take 4 models that do just that in the Sw codex... Jaws: If I hit you with enough of them, eventually you will roll a ...

Maybe a balance w/ some rule about it not continuing on after hitting infantry, or not being able to shoot through a building?

Kilkrazy wrote:The 15 inch Rapid Fire range is what I have advocated for months as a fix to Fire Warriors.

What I have been advocating is a dual-profile weapon with Heavy 2/3(subject to balancing) at 30" and Rapid Fire. That way unlike other forces, Tau will maintain a more or less constant rate of fire regardless of range.

I don't see how the line would be overpowered at all. We already have JotWW which does pretty much the same thing (just not against vehicles). The only way I could see it being ridiculously destructive is if the entire opposing army's vehicles are all neatly lined up and just begging for it. And even then, trying to get into a position to hit all of them with one shot would be difficult.

It just sounds like a neat bonus for the hammerhead. Cool if you're ever in a position to take advantage of it, but most of the time it probably won't come into play.

Or maybe I'm wrong, I dunno. I'm not a game designer...and neither are most of you.

Well, the way I see it, is that when the Railgun was introduced to the game, it was meant to be THE most post powerful ranged anti-tank weapon in the game. Since it's introduction a few major things have occured: AP1 no longer upgrades a glancing hit to a penetrating hit, and a railgun now rolls at -1 on a vehicle damage chart on a glancing hit. This makes Railguns less likely to destroy a vehicle overall (yes, even on a penetrating hit, while the AP1 gives you a +1 to the damage roll, the fact that you have to roll one higher on the armor penetration roll then you did before to get a penetrating hit kinda negates that).

AND THEN, GW went even further. Not only are Railguns no longer as efficient at doing their job, but then they introduced Zoanthropes with a S10AP1 Melta-Lance weapon. Yes. A weapon that auto-glances most vehicles in the game within what is it 9"? And virtually guaranteed to glance everything else up to 18"away? If Tyranids can have such a weapon, why can't Tau have something better?

Is it overpowered? A little yeah. Do the Tau deserve it? Definitely.

If it was able to hit every unit and not just Vehicles that would be even more over powered but oh so sweet. Draw a 72 inch line and everything on it gets hit by Str 10 AP 1 shot in continual order from the barrel until it gets a glancing hit on a vehicle.... Drool.

I would love to play against SW then, eat that JotWW!

If it got minus one strength for every target it passes through that could balance it a little as it loses momentum. Whatever, still a cool idea.

Brother SRM wrote:If it got minus one strength for every target it passes through that could balance it a little as it loses momentum. Whatever, still a cool idea.[/quote\]

i would have to agree, becuase the fact that its a machine and not a Pyshic power, plus you can state that every 12' this strengh of the weapon is minus 1

So the railgun would effectively be useless firing at anything more than 24" away? Yeah, I think I'd rather have GW write the rules.

I know I'm hate to the Tau-hate rumor-salting party, but I'm yet again upset that GW would take some unique gimmick of the Eldar and give it to another race. Imperial Guard got super Falcons, Blood Angels got super Wave Serpents, Tyranids got lances, and not Tau are getting super-Vibrocannons?

I hope this is all just wishlisting. I can't wait until Codex: S3/T3 Skittles Marines comes out and they have nothing special left.

"Waah, Eldar aren't the best at everything!"

Yeah, I suppose Tau shouldn't change at all and should just continue sucking so they don't step on anyone's toes.

Sorry if I sound like an ass, I just get real defensive when people start "hating" on Tau. Seeing as how it was my first army, currently my only army since I lack the cash to build another one, and I've spent the past 3 years collecting and playing them. So it's fair to say I'm pretty well-invested in Tau and don't want another gakky codex.