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I'm still using Railheads, and don't have any complaints. The real trick is to make sure you don't have unrealistic expectations of them. Railheads are an anti-Infantry unit first, and anti-Tank second. I also prefer the BC varients, they're a little cheaper and if I'm getting close enough to use the SMS or BC, then it's going to be very concentrated firepower in order to completely eliminate the targets.

I'm a wierd Tau player though, I'm very agressive (Mass Tank Shock FTW), don't use Broadsides or Markerlights, and use a bunch of Piranha. Hammerheads just fit better with my game, Broadsides are too much of an anchor and make me feel too attached to a particular part of the board.

Bottom line is, it really depends on what you need in the list, Broadsides are good, Railheads are good, they just have different jobs.

Am I really hearing Tau players complain about a BS 4 Str 10 Ap 1 tank that can move 6" and is permanently smoked?

I can understand Tau players complaining about certain things, but complaining about Railheads is something new.

Compared to meltas on Crisis suits and Piranha as well as broadsides they have poor anti tank. It takes about three and a half turns of firing a hammerhead at BS 4 to reliably kill a rhino. A rhino. It takes about nine to kill something AV 14. Not good anti tank, at least compared to other options. Hammerheads make good anti infintry though which broadsides suck at.

Volkov wrote:

72" is worthless unless you're playing on some really odd tables.

As a player of guard primarily I am surprised how often I make corner to corner shots with my basilisks

They've got indirect fire and a longer range.

I'm not saying 72" is useless, actually it's brilliant, but it isn't all powerful. 48" is surprisingly useful considering it sounds such a lot less than 72".


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Creeping Dementia wrote:I'm still using Railheads, and don't have any complaints. The real trick is to make sure you don't have unrealistic expectations of them. Railheads are an anti-Infantry unit first, and anti-Tank second. I also prefer the BC varients, they're a little cheaper and if I'm getting close enough to use the SMS or BC, then it's going to be very concentrated firepower in order to completely eliminate the targets.

I'm a wierd Tau player though, I'm very agressive (Mass Tank Shock FTW), don't use Broadsides or Markerlights, and use a bunch of Piranha. Hammerheads just fit better with my game, Broadsides are too much of an anchor and make me feel too attached to a particular part of the board.

Bottom line is, it really depends on what you need in the list, Broadsides are good, Railheads are good, they just have different jobs.

I agree with this. Broadsides are the real anti-tank units, not Railheads.

The Hammerhead is an anti-infantry tank first and fore-most, but has an all-purpose gun. Sure the Leman Russ Battle Tank is a serviceable tank hunter, but that's not where it is most effective: the same is true of the Hammerhead. People know the Leman Russ Battle Tank is an infantry killer, but the same is not true of the Hammerhead; people assume because it can shoot a Railgun, it must be a tank buster. That's the first hurtle you have to get over.

Flavius Infernus wrote:AP1 and 72" is worth way more than 35points extra when considering hammerheads vs. Vindicators. Also vindicators usually also have to choose between being AR13 or shooting, since they can't do both. Also also, even BS4 single shot is probably more accurate than BS4 templates when shooting at vehicles (though that's hard to quantify).

That's easy to quantify. As a general rule of thumb, templates are more accurate than solid shots. For example: a Vindicator is targetting a Rhino chasis. The template has 33% not to scatter, leaving you 66%. Within that 66%, you can roll up to a 4 and not scatter, but you also have to account for favourable scatters. Against just about any transport you can scatter 2-3" and still be hitting the hull, so you can roll up to 6-7 inches on your scatter roll. That's 61-72% accuracy, so we'll call it 67% average. BS4 is about 67% accurate aswell, but the trick is the bigger your target is the more accurate you are. The Rhino and Chimera are probably the smallest common chasis in the game (Pirhanas and Warbuggies are not common), so against something like a Landraider, Vendetta, Stormraven, or a Monolith you can easily scatter up to 5" and still be on target. That takes your accuracy to a stunning 88% (higher than BS5) compared to the 67% of a solid shot. (Pro tip: the small blast has a larger center circle than the Large Blast.)

The same is true against infantry squads, where you can scatter within the "shape" of the squad and still hit something, which brings me to my point. The Subminition shot is a damn good infantry killer, particularly if you remove their cover. Tank Shock a mob of Orks, or Nids, out of cover or simply to clump them up, then hit them with this template. Its easy to get 10-17 guys under the template with some clever tank shocking. Remove any cover they have, and that's about 100 points of Orks a shot. Two shots and you've got your points back. Three and you've killed a horde. The same is true of Guard blob squads: you can get about 10 under that template without a tank shock, and without cover that's 10 kills and a morale check. Even getting 7 or so wounds on a Tac squad makes them sweat.

This weapon comes on a mobile, near impenetrable chasis and a board-covering range. Long ranged anti-tank has trouble with AV13, and anything that doesn't can't ignore the 4+ save. Keep the Hammerhead back and bombard squads of interest. Nothing else in the Tau aresenal can reach out and touch infantry like the Hammerhead, which is why it still has a place if you make room for it. Other units have to pick up the anti-tank slack, but the Tau can fit anti-tank into any slot save Troops.

eNvY wrote:Am I really hearing Tau players complain about a BS 4 Str 10 Ap 1 tank that can move 6" and is permanently smoked?

I can understand Tau players complaining about certain things, but complaining about Railheads is something new.

Thing for Tau is, you don't get Railguns for any other FOC slot than HS. If you buy three Railheads, your anti-tank consists of three Railguns and that is. With vehicle damage tables being as they are, three Railguns likely won't achieve that much in anti-tank role. So if you go that way, you need to buy meltaguns, either as Piranhas (expensive) or battlesuits (which brings other complications for your list). Railgun is great, but Tau can't spam them like some other armies can spam Dark Lances or Lascannons or Multi-meltas...unless you take Broadsides, and that means no Railheads.

So you see, it's not that Railhead is bad, in fact it's great, but limitations in FoC may force you considering dropping them.

Broadsides and Hammerheads are not mutually exclusive n the same army; the problem is that as the point-level scales up, it becomes mandatory to swap out Hammerheads for more Broadsides.

I'm not a big fan of the hammerhead either. In this time of mech armies its template is useless in turn 1. Against marine armies it's useless in the other turns as well The main thing it has going for it is that most opponents think it's really scary. I like the Sky Ray (move 12", shoot everything) and Ionhead (allround, cheap) better.

Dont being a Tau player, all I can give is advice on what hurts the most from a tyranid/eldar perspective:

On the topic of Rail heads, they are a large point stink, even with a cover save, you are spending about 15% of your points (1500 pts game) per Railhead. Many people rely alot on them performing well, so I do my best to kill it straight up and then the enemy is stuck as they have put a lot of their plan into using the railhead. Its expensive and stiocks out.

On the Ionhead, now thats a threat, able to kill large things, has 3 shots and its as expensive, means people have more things on the board. Ionheads are cheaper than rails and do hurt a lot.

My vote goes to the ionhead

I would say that unless you are facing high toughness MCs with 3+ armour saves (eg tyranids) that the submunition shot of the railhead is more efficient then an ionhead.

And those 3+ armor Tyranids can in turn be torrented with your Crisis Suits. Funny how that works, no?

why not just toss on the Ion Cannon on the hammerhead then. Isn't it cheaper?

I do, actually. My current army list (which is being altered a bit to include more troops) is here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Lorek%27s_Tau_Army

I am going to ditch the Railhead and replace it with the Piranhas in the 1850 list, and add another Ionhead in the 2000 list (amongst other changes). Started painting the new Ion Cannon last night, actually.

I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything with the Railhead, and it turns out that I wasn't. I've pretty much used it exclusively as anti-infantry, and I've never really had a problem killing infantry; light vehicle spam has always been a larger problem. Not only am I swapping in two Fusion Blaster Piranhas, I'm changing the Helios suits to Deathrains; the Helios have too many problems with the whole "not surviving short-ranged return fire" thing.

OMG, Deathrains are the only reason why I got into a bit of Tau.
They are awesome shooty platforms.

Piranhas are fun as well, but they offer more utility to the list rather than raw damage dealing.

Nice looking army Lorek. A little dusty weathering on your tanks and it will be awesome

From my experience being on the wrong side of a Tau muzzle, I would say that Railheads have really been replaced as the best Tau unit. In 4th they really used to scare me, but lately I have found the 1 shot, 1 smoke save sort of crap to result in poor tank killing, and has been said that long range pie is largely pointless turn 1. My usual Tau opponent has been mixing in Sky Rays and Ionheads with his mech tau to much better effect (also, a HUGE swarm of outflanking kroot.) Hell, anymore sniper drone teams have been more worrisome than rail heads.

The issue seems to be that by the time a rail head can reliably kill a rhino or chimmy, it has already gotten to where it needs to be. After all, standard rhino doctrine is "12" forward, blow smoke. Your turn." It takes a lot of marker lights to make that a likely kill, and you have just spent a lot of points and units to kill one transport of say 3-4, while ignoring any anti-tank vehicles that might be trying to shut up that rail gun with just a stun.
Now, admittedly I run Sisters, which are pretty well suited to killing tau, but still those single shot weapons never really seem to pay off when you need them too. Better to have broadsides or a side shooting ionhead it seems.

Statistically, the Railhead has a better chance at killing a Rhino than an Ionhead. Usually I have enough Pathfinders that Smoke becmes a nonissue. And Skyrays suck.

I think that Tau Vehicles in general are a bit on the expensive side for what you can bring. I think if the points were a bit cheaper I would be happier with them. So Far i think broadsides with shiled drones are much better for the points.

A Railhead might have a better chance at killing than an Ionhead, but it also has a better chance of missing completely. Generally with transports immobilizing or stunning is just as good as killing first turn.

And skyrays are perhaps not optimal (I don't know too well, not knowing points but only effect, but can keep themselves out of trouble much better than the railhead who pops out from behind a building, misses a shot (or merely immobilizes) on an exorcist, and then gets pummeled with d6 Str8 shots. Now, I am not saying that everyone should go out and get skyray conversions for their railheads, just that suddenly railheads are on weirdly even ground with this other tank. Broadsides are just by far more useful these days for killing the swarms of transports, and otherwise the tau do not lack infantry killing power.

DarkHound wrote:The Hammerhead is an anti-infantry tank first and fore-most, but has an all-purpose gun. Sure the Leman Russ Battle Tank is a serviceable tank hunter, but that's not where it is most effective: the same is true of the Hammerhead. People know the Leman Russ Battle Tank is an infantry killer, but the same is not true of the Hammerhead; people assume because it can shoot a Railgun, it must be a tank buster. That's the first hurtle you have to get over.

Flavius Infernus wrote:AP1 and 72" is worth way more than 35points extra when considering hammerheads vs. Vindicators. Also vindicators usually also have to choose between being AR13 or shooting, since they can't do both. Also also, even BS4 single shot is probably more accurate than BS4 templates when shooting at vehicles (though that's hard to quantify).

That's easy to quantify. As a general rule of thumb, templates are more accurate than solid shots. For example: a Vindicator is targetting a Rhino chasis. The template has 33% not to scatter, leaving you 66%. Within that 66%, you can roll up to a 4 and not scatter, but you also have to account for favourable scatters. Against just about any transport you can scatter 2-3" and still be hitting the hull, so you can roll up to 6-7 inches on your scatter roll. That's 61-72% accuracy, so we'll call it 67% average. BS4 is about 67% accurate aswell, but the trick is the bigger your target is the more accurate you are. The Rhino and Chimera are probably the smallest common chasis in the game (Pirhanas and Warbuggies are not common), so against something like a Landraider, Vendetta, Stormraven, or a Monolith you can easily scatter up to 5" and still be on target. That takes your accuracy to a stunning 88% (higher than BS5) compared to the 67% of a solid shot. (Pro tip: the small blast has a larger center circle than the Large Blast.)

The same is true against infantry squads, where you can scatter within the "shape" of the squad and still hit something, which brings me to my point. The Subminition shot is a damn good infantry killer, particularly if you remove their cover. Tank Shock a mob of Orks, or Nids, out of cover or simply to clump them up, then hit them with this template. Its easy to get 10-17 guys under the template with some clever tank shocking. Remove any cover they have, and that's about 100 points of Orks a shot. Two shots and you've got your points back. Three and you've killed a horde. The same is true of Guard blob squads: you can get about 10 under that template without a tank shock, and without cover that's 10 kills and a morale check. Even getting 7 or so wounds on a Tac squad makes them sweat.

This weapon comes on a mobile, near impenetrable chasis and a board-covering range. Long ranged anti-tank has trouble with AV13, and anything that doesn't can't ignore the 4+ save. Keep the Hammerhead back and bombard squads of interest. Nothing else in the Tau aresenal can reach out and touch infantry like the Hammerhead, which is why it still has a place if you make room for it. Other units have to pick up the anti-tank slack, but the Tau can fit anti-tank into any slot save Troops.

I agree with you mostly but I think whjere the Epic fail is, The Hammer Head is supposed to be a Tank Hunter.

*Sigh*, I didn't want to have to break out the Mathhammer:

A single Ion Cannon shot has a 66% chance to hit. Glances 1 in 6 times. Penetrates 1 in 3 times. We'll be generous, and assume immobilization and stuns count. Each glance has a 1/3 chance to do something. Each Ion shot has a 5/6 chance. So you've got an 18.52% chance with each Ion Cannon shot doing something.

But wait, you get 3 shots? Shouldn't 3 shots be three times as good as one? Nope. Better way to do this is to subtract 18.52 from 100%. You have an 81.4% chance a single shot does nothing meaningful. So the odds of *all* three shots doing nothing are 54.1%. So ultimately, the Ionhead has a 45.9% chance of a stun/immobilize/destroy, vs AV 11.

The Railgun has a 66% chance to hit. A glance has a 50% chance of stunning, immobilizing, or destroying. A Railhead pen's on 2+. On a 2+, it will stun, or immobilize. Odds in total? 51%. (Note for reference, a Broadside

Let's assume cover. The difference is muted here for the most part, with only a .5% difference in efficiency (before Markerlights get thrown into account). However, when one considers that Weapon Destroyed results contribute to immobilization, it becomes more even (this part is a bit tougher to quantify).

However, this argument is frankly silly for ultimately, mass Strength 7 and Marine-busting can be reliably found in your Elites section, without removal of Railguns.

so far I've never played tau without a railhead, even 500 points, and if its 1000 or more I run at least 2. For me they have always paid for themselves. I use them as med-front line firepower to support my suits. I move 6 a turn, fire off the cannon and 6 S5 AP5 shots at different targets. Broadsides are nice, but they arent nearly as versatile and I usually don't take any until 1500 points, they tend to die easily if you don't run a 3 man squad with 2-4 shield drones. Every player knows to kill them first and when some SM, IG, eldar, or De player starts sending lots of instant death at them, they drop fast. The Railhead's solid shot is great, sure there's a chance to miss, but with 2 of them, and one markerlight hit each, you have BS 5, you're most likely going to get both hits. I've never had broadsides perform relative to their cost, after you add in wargear they get expensive, and they scream for deepstrikers, outflankers, and Demolishers to annihilate them on turn 2.

The kind of list i typically play is

Crisis Commander
5-8 Crisis suits, various configurations, depends on my mood, as cheap as possible while retaining usefulness.(the good old 50 point BC/missile/TA has proven itself great against non meq)

sometimes stealthsuits instead of some of the crisis suits

1-2 FW squads, 12 man rifles, 1 in a fish
0-1 kroot squad for forest obj holding and outflanking.

1-2 Pathfinder squads(usually 1) in a fish(the fish goes to the FW squad without a fish if applicable)
a squad of 1-2 piranha, meltaguns, for quick anti tank units
these are pretty nice, they're immune to bolters from the front, and most players will disregaurd them, thinking the hammerheads are more dangrous)

finally, 2 railheads
0-1 broadside team.

This is about what i run at 1500, usually less crisis suits actually, with a decent amount of success

Magic Juggler: While I don't disagree with your math, you do neglect to include the fact that multiple shots increases your chances of immobilization through weapon destroyed results. Minor, but all together it brings the chances of stopping (by kill or by immobilization and stunning) a rhino with or without smoke to near parity.

What this tells us is that the railgun is very slightly better than the ion head at stopping rhinos. Less than 1 in 100 better. So that leads us to question the tank's other benefits, since it isn't too exciting for stopping light transports.

Is a Str 6 AP 4 large blast better than Str 7 AP 3? More importantly, is that blast marker so much better that it is worth the, what 40 odd points for it? (I don't recall the points costs, sorry.)

While I agree that the Tau codex has a great source of MEQ kill in the form of Crisis Suits, those same suits are also excellent tank killers in the plasma/fusion configuration.
As to Broadsides, they are certainly more durable than a tank given that most weapons that can hit them first turn either have to go through a 2+/4+ armor/cover/invulnerable save, 2 wounds before any reduction in efficiency is felt, compared to a single 4+ cover and pen roll on the tank, which can be silenced by all but 1 of the results on the damage table.

Your needs for tanks will vary with your list, but the Railhead is suddenly innundated with competition, Broadsides for the best antitank, and the Ionhead for various light vehicle and infantry killing roles. Personally, I think MEQ killing is more important seeing as how the tau have PILES of Str5 AP5 lying around, but relatively little AP3 outside of suits and vespid... ok really just suits And sorta sniper drones, but no one seems to like them, and BS4 Str 7 ap 3 isn't anything to sneeze at.

Generally speaking, because of the ability of enemy infantry to clump up in assault after assaulting a vehicle, being bottled through a chokepoint, being tank-shocked about, or having had lost their transport to it being exploded (I do take *both* Broadsides and Railheads in the same list after all...), I would say that in more situations the S6 AP 4 Large Blast is better than the S7 AP 3 blast.

Do note of course, that while there is near-parity with AV 11, and Smoke, the odds only become more stacked in favor of the Railgun as AV rises or as cover becomes negated through Markerlights.

Also, Fusion goes on Piranhas. Not on Crisis Suits.

MagicJuggler wrote:Statistically, the Railhead has a better chance at killing a Rhino than an Ionhead. Usually I have enough Pathfinders that Smoke becmes a nonissue. And Skyrays suck.

Actually, when you figure in cost too, Ionhead is better busting AV10/11 than Railhead...

SkyRays don't really suck as such, but suffer from same problem as any other Tau HS choice which doesn't have a Railgun: it doesn't have a Railgun.

The cost doesn't really matter as much once the point level becomes high enough (though again, you'll start having to swap out Hammerheads for Broadsides as you scale up anyway). It's not like you're going to spend the excess points on a mass of additional Fire Warriors, right?

And the Skyray does suck. It really does.

Been running Ion heads since last August, Someone said that Railguns were mandatory for the Tau and I took it as a challenge. Been discussing it for the past couple of days here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/290159.page

Some interesting list ideas, check them out

The costs matter if you are thinking of running something to complement your broadsides, especially if complementing means dealing with both light transports and MEQ. In that case, the Ionhead is probably just as good, and cheaper to boot. If complementing means heavier tank kill, perhaps another broadside or two is better?

I wouldn't be surprised to find that some people like both options, but my point all along has been that the ionhead is now stiff competition for the 'head chassis slot.

Broadside are a priority target. More Railguns=more redundancy/backup for in case you lose said Broadsides. I mostly treat the Railhead as anti-infantry, with the Solid Shot being used when the Broadsides fail.

I think it is important to keep in mind that a Railhead only needs to be 170 points - Multitracker, Target lock, disruption pod, burst cannons.

The railgun is 35 points more than the ion cannon.

You can have an ionhead and three ASS broadsides, or you can have a railhead, two ASS broadsides, and a deathrain suit with a flamer.

I still stick with two railheads because I really really like the submunition, and because I like having two mobile railgun platforms. There are three elite slots full of strength 6/7 shots in the army, one of which you aren't using. Heavy support is the only place you can get railguns.

I definitely don't think ionheads are a bad choice though, I think it depends on your army's playstyle and what you expect to fight. I don't play with helios suits very often anymore, it's almost always fireknife.