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 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If we're making the Hammerhead reliably knock out Land Raiders from across the board it's going to need one heck of a price rise unless we want it to be the vehicle-equivalent of a Riptide.

Nah. make it a vehicle signature system like a Nova Reactor for a Hammerhead. a 50-100 pt upgrade much like I suggested elsewhere:

 carldooley wrote:
that is one of the things that a nova reactor could do for a hammerhead. Just as it gives a riptide options, it could do the same for vehicles, hence the signature system or upgrade , option.
What could the nova options be?
My choices would be:
StrD for the railing or haywire for the ion cannon or,
Shoot all weapons twice or,
Flyer rules for a turn (as well as the ability to enter ongoing reserves) or,
3+ Cover.

Yours?

thinking about it though, there is another thing that could be added to make it a functional riptide clone - a capacitor option for interceptor.

I want it to reliably damage whatever I point it at, as opposed to "kill it outright or do nothing". I don't necessarily want to be able to ace the Land Raider in one shot, but having a decent chance to blow off a weapon or stun it, yes. Let me tie up your Techmarine for a turn - or make you wish you'd brought one.

Hmm, how about this:

Base railgun: Range 72" S10 AP1 Ordnance 1
High Explosive Anti-Tank: Range 60" S10 AP3 Heavy 1, Lance, Tank Hunters, Monster Hunters, Concussive (10 points to add the option)

The HEAT round's purpose is to reliably punch armor (Lance, Tank Hunters, S10) while not being able to explode vehicles unless they're open-topped (hence, AP3). It can also help against melee MCs by making them go at I1 (which gives... well, pretty much nothing Tau have except lucky Riptides a fighting chance at holding them off. Maybe that lets an allied Wraithlord handle them?)

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If we're making the Hammerhead reliably knock out Land Raiders from across the board it's going to need one heck of a price rise unless we want it to be the vehicle-equivalent of a Riptide.

Why? The game already has melticide pods and D weapons. Vehicles are much less valuable than entire marine squads in general. Plus, the LR already sucks. Plus, the Riptide's issue isn't really its offense, its the durability. The Hammerhead has no durability to speak of.

"I don't necessarily want to be able to ace the Land Raider in one shot"

You might as well. It doesn't make the LR any worse.

Eh, AV13 with a 3+ cover save isn't bad, actually, though admittedly Jinking usually costs your firepower. Though Tau can neutralize that problem more easily than Necrons or (Dark) Eldar. Or even IoM, for the few Imperial skimmers.

jade_angel wrote:
Eh, AV13 with a 3+ cover save isn't bad, actually, though admittedly Jinking usually costs your firepower. Though Tau can neutralize that problem more easily than Necrons or (Dark) Eldar. Or even IoM, for the few Imperial skimmers.

Jinking is a non-viable solution for a unit that wants to be shooting.

Can't markers just up the bs if the tank jinks?

 Formosa wrote:
Can't markers just up the bs if the tank jinks?

Yes, but there are certainly a finite number of markers. Much more finite if someone like BA are dumping heavy flamer tacs with deathwind pods all over the field.

That's a good point, there aren't many marker platforms that can stand up to that, other than Skyrays. And if there are Skyrays, point a few lascannons at those too, and force them to jink or die.

And that's coming from arguably the worst codex in the game.

Or just dont buff them even more?

In the good old days the Guard used to be the gunline army. Then the Tau came and took that from us.

But it was okay, we could still do Infantry Blobs and Tanks.

Then the new crap dropped and Infantry Blobs became as viable as a chocolate teaspoon. But we still had our tanks.

Then 7th dropped and our tanks became almost usless. But we can still just about make them work.

Now the Tau want to take our tanks from us.

No. Sod off, tanks are OUR thing, not yours. You have your gunline. Your Rapetide. Your Jumppack moves in the Assault phase.

Go away and leave our one remaining demi strength be.

Martel732 wrote:
I'm talking about the kill rate of the Abrams, Challenger and Leopard II. You normally can't salvage after getting hit with one of their main guns.

The problem with that conclusion is that these tanks aren't usually firing at top-end armour (as wars between the most technologically advanced nations have been scarce in recent years). There's plenty of classified testing of this sort of thing of course, but publicly, we only know about a relatively small number of friendly fire incidents between the most high-tech armoured vehicles, in which they have almost always been either operable or salvageable.

(Actually, the US army had to do a lot of work trying to make a crippled Abrams unsalvageable on some occasion. I think they eventually ended up having to drop a couple of Hellfire missiles on it, which make tank main guns look like toys).

 master of ordinance wrote:
Or just dont buff them even more?

In the good old days the Guard used to be the gunline army. Then the Tau came and took that from us.

But it was okay, we could still do Infantry Blobs and Tanks.

Then the new crap dropped and Infantry Blobs became as viable as a chocolate teaspoon. But we still had our tanks.

Then 7th dropped and our tanks became almost usless. But we can still just about make them work.

Now the Tau want to take our tanks from us.

No. Sod off, tanks are OUR thing, not yours. You have your gunline. Your Rapetide. Your Jumppack moves in the Assault phase.

Go away and leave our one remaining demi strength be.

Yes, Hammerheads should be able to obliterate your tanks. Otherwise, the Hammerhead has no purpose like 2/3 of my army and I don't wish that on anyone.

I thought a direct hit from the main gun of a similarly classed tank was unlikely to destroy it in one round?

That's the point of Tank Destroyers, although even their main guns weren't likely to completely destroy a tank either (do we even make those anymore?).

I thought the modern answer to tanks was missiles, not big guns?

(I'd bet the Hammerhead on the tabletop has a much higher chance of exploding a LR than an Abrams is to completely destroy another Abrams head-to-head, but haven't read much of tank combat in the modern era - its been decades since even then-modern West and Soviet armor went head to head)

 master of ordinance wrote:
Or just dont buff them even more?

In the good old days the Guard used to be the gunline army. Then the Tau came and took that from us.

But it was okay, we could still do Infantry Blobs and Tanks.

Then the new crap dropped and Infantry Blobs became as viable as a chocolate teaspoon. But we still had our tanks.

Then 7th dropped and our tanks became almost usless. But we can still just about make them work.

Now the Tau want to take our tanks from us.

No. Sod off, tanks are OUR thing, not yours. You have your gunline. Your Rapetide. Your Jumppack moves in the Assault phase.

Go away and leave our one remaining demi strength be.

Or you could go away and think up some ideas for fixing your own army, rather than trying to blame it on somebody else's.

IG do not have exclusive rights to tanks; indeed IG are not supposed to have the best tanks. They're supposed to have the cheap tanks in vast numbers. The fact that the current codex doesn't allow you to do that isn't Tau's fault.

And the reason you see so many Riptides is precisely because of the issue I'm trying to fix, which is that there is no other option!

MCs are so much better than vehicles right now its stupid.

Martel732 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If we're making the Hammerhead reliably knock out Land Raiders from across the board it's going to need one heck of a price rise unless we want it to be the vehicle-equivalent of a Riptide.

Why? The game already has melticide pods and D weapons.

The Meltacide pods die after they've done their thing. I'll give you the D weapons though.

In my opinion, all the Railhead needs is 120" range, Armourbane for the Solid Shot, and maybe a 5 points drop and/or free Submunitions (the Ionhead would retain its current cost of course).

Otherwise, the problem is not with the Railhead but with vehicles in general. The tank kinda-sorta performs well in its intended role (long-range tank duels), but this role is simply not needed on the actual battlefield or never comes into play in the first place. That's sad, but I guess it can't be helped.

Personally, I think the Hammerhead needs to stay just the way it is. The Tau are already more than simply 'good' at every other aspect of play except melee and armor. They don't need any improvements at anything else.

If we're going to improve the Hammerhead, then Broadsides need to take a hike up to the tune of 60 ppm base, and maybe allow AT LEAST cover saves against Markerlights.

Heir of the Void wrote:
Personally, I think the Hammerhead needs to stay just the way it is. The Tau are already more than simply 'good' at every other aspect of play except melee and armor. They don't need any improvements at anything else.

If we're going to improve the Hammerhead, then Broadsides need to take a hike up to the tune of 60 ppm base, and maybe allow AT LEAST cover saves against Markerlights.

No, I think the Hammerhead needs significant improvement to be brought in line with the rest of the codex. Currently, the Hammerhead is a useless unit and the game if full of them currently.

One fix I've always liked for the Hammerhead and Riptide is to swap the Ion Accelerator and Ion Cannon. Gives the Hammerhead a bit more firepower and tones down the Riptide a bit and leaves it with a still fairly powerful gun. Keep the Nova profile to nova up to AP2 and it balances it out a bit more.

I don't really have a solution for the Railgun but I can attest to it being incredibly insufficient for anti-tank. Railguns are what got me to start collecting Tau and now a weapon that was once a staple is now incredibly lackluster. There are a lot of ways to fix the issue, I personally like the idea of it being Lance and Cuncussive. Just my two cents.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Heir of the Void wrote:
AT LEAST cover saves against Markerlights.

Sure you can. Just go ahead and roll to save all those wounds against markerlights.
I've always hated this suggestion. Why do people think they should get cover saves? It's an invisible laser targeting system that relays data.
Lets run some quick math to get a single marker token through. One full squad of pathfinders is 44 points. Half shots miss, armywide BS3 for the most part, for 2 tokens.
Now factoring in at least a 5+ gives 1.33 marker tokens. So one minimum squad to raise BS by one point.
Now just double that for an 8 man squad and you get 2.66 markers for almost a hundred points. One average one point BS increase and ignoring cover.
This is assuming no casualties, no moving, no going to ground, no fall back. Any of those factor in and it becomes laughable.

Heir of the Void wrote:
Personally, I think the Hammerhead needs to stay just the way it is. The Tau are already more than simply 'good' at every other aspect of play except melee and armor. They don't need any improvements at anything else.

If we're going to improve the Hammerhead, then Broadsides need to take a hike up to the tune of 60 ppm base, and maybe allow AT LEAST cover saves against Markerlights.

The Tau codex is basically held up by Riptides, Broadsides, Crisis Suits, and their Commander Suits. Outside of the all star units you end up with an army that is good at shooting but really lacking in everything else (and other armies now can rival Tau shooting while not being squig gak at survivability and close combat). Power creep is a very real thing and with Tau being "only good at shooting" army they aren't even the best shooting army anymore but they still are by far the worst close combat army.

The Hammerhead in particular is a victim of being a single shot gun in dice game where you need the rule of large numbers to balance out individual bad rolls. Against AV14 (which in the fluff its noted as punching a hole through the front and the back armor of a russ while sucking its crew out of the rear hole) its a something like a 33% chance to hit and deal damage (glance or pen) to it. Its a 7% chance per shot (hit and pen) to explode an AV14 tank and that's ignoring any potential cover or invuln saves. A melta gun fired from a space marine in melta range has something like a 47.5% chance to hit and deal damage to an AV14 vehicle. Melta guns on tac marines are more reliable at killing a Leman Russ tank than a Hammerhead (and its not like its hard to get a space marine close enough to melta the thing when drop pods exist). Its even worse against MCs so take for example trying to kill a Riptide and assuming no usage of its nova reactor shield or stim injector and even giving it the benefit of auto hitting (assuming markerlight and good rolls to hit). The Hammerhead shooting its Railgun would take slightly over 7 turns to kill the riptide. As a main battle tank, with one of the "strongest" weapons on a non super heavy, its damage output is really limited and underwhelming.

 Vankraken wrote:
The Hammerhead in particular is a victim of being a single shot gun in dice game where you need the rule of large numbers to balance out individual bad rolls. Against AV14 (which in the fluff its noted as punching a hole through the front and the back armor of a russ while sucking its crew out of the rear hole) its a something like a 33% chance to hit and deal damage (glance or pen) to it. Its a 7% chance per shot (hit and pen) to explode an AV14 tank and that's ignoring any potential cover or invuln saves.

The "punching a hole through it and sucking out of the crew" thing is an example for the 7% instant-Explodes result.

Also, it is worth noting that the Melta-Marine with his Drop Pod can only take out one Leman Russ for good, then he will probably die. On the other hand, a Railhead can make potshots from a safe distance until the game ends as the only two things that can potentially reach and hurt it are the Vanquisher and the Tank Destroyer - and even then, the Railhead will have the advantage of mobility and cover.

The issue with the Railgun is that, when they went to make the 6th ed codex they had to differentiate the massive Railgun on the Hammerhead from the smaller weapons on the Broadsides. As there was no D or Primary Weapon options in standard 40k at the time, and Ordnance would have severely limited the Hammerhead move and shoot capability (though the removal of the Multitracker did the same thing). So they nerfed the Broadside Railgun.


As for how to make the Hammerhead the scary tank smashing machine it needs to be, a few thoughts

A) The ability to reroll failed penetrations - seeing as it goes through a Landraider on a 5+, this would all but garuntee any hit becomes a penetration.
B) Enhanced results on the damage table - either an extra +1 or a reroll or something to increase the odds of that all important explodes result, though this helps less with the super heavy threat.
C) Make a successful penetration take of extra HP (say 1D3) in addition to its normal effects
D) 'nuff said

I think any of the above could work without significant price increase except possibly upgrading to D strength.

Of course, returning the ability of Tau tanks to move 12 and shoot the Railgun at full BS would be a good option too. Opening up more flank shots for a better probability of a penetration. This is what I miss most about the old Hammerheads. Sending them up one side of the board while my Broadsides sat on the opposite side. The Broadsides were the bigger threat and drew the frontal armour, giving the Hammerhead some big juicy flank and rear shots.

The Hammerhead is sufficiently expensive already that STR D would be a fine upgrade for no cost. Remember folks, the WK exists. It has two STR D shots and is neigh unkillable. And fights in CC very well.

Stop being paralyzed by GW's propensity to make only 15% of units good and the rest also-rans.

The problem with Str D is it completely dumpsters the value of AV13/14 such as the Battlewagons and Land Raider. In one my my earlier comments I mentioned having a D3 wound/HP shot and an armorbane shot as a trade off between extra reliability to pen vs extra damage. The hammerhead needs extra damage output vs MCs (and light vehicles) and more reliability against high AV vehicles. Having both in one shot (Str D) just ends up marginalizing the high AV and we continue to have the same gak where medium armor jinking skimmers are superior to AV14 transports because the cover save is more valuable than the extra armor value (plus AV14 tends to be over costed).

 Vankraken wrote:
The problem with Str D is it completely dumpsters the value of AV13/14 such as the Battlewagons and Land Raider. In one my my earlier comments I mentioned having a D3 wound/HP shot and an armorbane shot as a trade off between extra reliability to pen vs extra damage. The hammerhead needs extra damage output vs MCs (and light vehicles) and more reliability against high AV vehicles. Having both in one shot (Str D) just ends up marginalizing the high AV and we continue to have the same gak where medium armor jinking skimmers are superior to AV14 transports because the cover save is more valuable than the extra armor value (plus AV14 tends to be over costed).

I have no problem with AV 13/14 being dumpstered by a massive rail gun. AV 13/14 is already dumpstered by the WK anyway. So the damage is done. GW already made the decision that MCs are amazing and vehicles are subpar.

Martel732 wrote:
The Hammerhead is sufficiently expensive already that STR D would be a fine upgrade for no cost. Remember folks, the WK exists. It has two STR D shots and is neigh unkillable. And fights in CC very well.

Okay. Thankfully, the Hammerhead should duel the Fire Prism and not the WK. For the WK, the Tau has (will have) the Supremacy Suit. Hell, this is pretty much the whole fluff of the Supremacy Suit: the Hammerhead sucks at killing big stuff, so the Tau invented the Supremacy Suit.

 AtoMaki wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
The Hammerhead is sufficiently expensive already that STR D would be a fine upgrade for no cost. Remember folks, the WK exists. It has two STR D shots and is neigh unkillable. And fights in CC very well.

Okay. Thankfully, the Hammerhead should duel the Fire Prism and not the WK. For the WK, the Tau has (will have) the Supremacy Suit. Hell, this is pretty much the whole fluff of the Supremacy Suit: the Hammerhead sucks at killing big stuff, so the Tau invented the Supremacy Suit.

I'm just pointing out that there is already very commonly fielded Str D in the game. I don't understand why anyone cares if an AV 13/12 tank has a str D weapon when much better units already have it.

Martel732 wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
The Hammerhead is sufficiently expensive already that STR D would be a fine upgrade for no cost. Remember folks, the WK exists. It has two STR D shots and is neigh unkillable. And fights in CC very well.

Okay. Thankfully, the Hammerhead should duel the Fire Prism and not the WK. For the WK, the Tau has (will have) the Supremacy Suit. Hell, this is pretty much the whole fluff of the Supremacy Suit: the Hammerhead sucks at killing big stuff, so the Tau invented the Supremacy Suit.

I'm just pointing out that there is already very commonly fielded Str D in the game. I don't understand why anyone cares if an AV 13/12 tank has a str D weapon when much better units already have it.

Thing is, that the Wraithknight's Strength D weapon is justified. On the other hand, handing D to the Railhead is pretty 'meh' - at this rate, the Vanquisher Battle Cannon, the Lance shot of the Prism Cannon, and the Neutron Laser Battery should be Strength D too. The Railgun should be in-line with these weapons, and shouldn't break away just because you feel it is weak. It isn't weak, or at least it isn't weak enough to justify the D upgrade... the Railhead fill up its intended role (long-range anti-tank) just fine, it is just overshadowed by even better options (this is, in fact, the problem of many units in the tau Codex).

If you want more out of the concept, then you can give it the extra range, Armourbane, and a slight points cut. Done. That's the best you can do without rewriting the fluff and the unit's role.

I don't care about fluff or comparable units. Only what mechanically fits for a weapon of that size and purpose. Str D is the only thing that makes sense to me.

All the weapons you listed should probably be Str D as well now that GW has opened that Pandora's box.

"Thing is, that the Wraithknight's Strength D weapon is justified."

Glad you think so. I don't think it's justified. What's the justification for BA being horrible at assault, their alleged specialty?

"up its intended role (long-range anti-tank) just fine"

No, it really doesn't. Single shots suck in 7th ed. Unless they are D.