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I can't wait to see the stats on the Ta'unars Rail Cannon

Article does say the Railgun isn’t their most powerful weapon.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I can't wait to see the Vanquisher Cannon profile, given that it has historically been better AT than the railgun.

I was thinking the same thing. One would think that it would have a similar profile but perhaps without the submunition bit.

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:

R72", S10, AP1, Heavy1, Lance, Large Blast

 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.

ps.
insert obligatory '40k is to lethal rant'.

I can see really big guns (like volcano cannons) getting the ignore invuln rule as well.

This is incredibly stupid.

I remember like it was yesterday the greatest critique of 4th was how easy it was to one-shot a tank.

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.

I wrote an entire novel's worth of a comment, but I think what'll hurt the most is just to say this reminds me of D weapons from 7th edition.

FYI; just to help derail the hate train here

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.)

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.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Wait..........why tf is this thing stronger than the Ares gun?

Because the Ares hasn't gotten updated post-this change in GW game writing philosophy.

Honestly it's all eradicator hype again

 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.

 Ordana wrote:

 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:

 Ordana wrote:

 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.

Oh are Hammerheads BS4 (Edit: I mean 3+, been looking at older Eds )? Yes, forgot about LR 2+ save.

But also Lascannons kinda suck right now.

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.

Here's a better way to put the averages.

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.

.

@vipod: Good thought

@Tyrel: agree

That feel when you play an army known for tanks and you realize the Tau can do a better Armored Company than you.

Dudeface wrote:
Honestly it's all eradicator hype again

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?