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So as we all will do, I was wondering on some things the Tau Earth Caste might come up with to make war 'easier'. Heres a wild and crazy idea for y'all to weigh in on.

IDEA ONE: Megalodon Railgun Slug
This super tank busting marvel was designed as an alternate munition for Hammerhead mounted Railguns that can't seem to get away from those pesky Land Raiders. Depleted Uranium tip and core surrounded by a tungsten sheathe and an exo-layer of reactive gel that is ignited upon firing to create a temporary plasma bubble around the supersonic round equal to the heat generated on a spaceships re-entry. Pretty crazy Star Trek science right there people! So here is what it does: Cost 30pts per round, Max 3, Special Issue, When using this ammunition type, treat this attack as though it had the Lance Universal Special Rule.

WHAAAAT!?!!??!!!?1?? Super delicious yet elegant in its execution...of your big scary tank.

Fall in and tear it apart people! Lets do this!

KnuckleWolf wrote:So as we all will do, I was wondering on some things the Tau Earth Caste might come up with to make war 'easier'. Heres a wild and crazy idea for y'all to weigh in on.

IDEA ONE: Megalodon Railgun Slug
This super tank busting marvel was designed as an alternate munition for Hammerhead mounted Railguns that can't seem to get away from those pesky Land Raiders. Depleted Uranium tip and core surrounded by a tungsten sheathe and an exo-layer of reactive gel that is ignited upon firing to create a temporary plasma bubble around the supersonic round equal to the heat generated on a spaceships re-entry. Pretty crazy Star Trek science right there people! So here is what it does: Cost 30pts per round, Max 3, Special Issue, When using this ammunition type, treat this attack as though it had the Lance Universal Special Rule.

WHAAAAT!?!!??!!!?1?? Super delicious yet elegant in its execution...of your big scary tank.

Fall in and tear it apart people! Lets do this!

Because Str 10 Ap 1 isn't already the best you cna get.

Why?

Bawwww! My Railguns aren't powerful enough!

To be honest, the railguns aren't really all that special anymore. There is a lot of Strength 10 AP 1 or AP 2 to be found in later codexes, often with additional special rules attached to it.

GREAT start there guys. Good effort. But give me some more edits you would make, or at least make a decent jab, I mean really Valkyrie? Bawwww? I did LOL myself a little there, but you can do better, I believe in you.

BUT KEEP IT CLEAN FELLAS! Don't want no trouble here. And yes all caps do make better points. (edit: whoops, didn't know 'it' was keyworded. lol.)

As Jefffar points out, other then maybe range, the Railgun has been kind of antiquated in comparison to older days and/or newer rules. Yeah I know, super pie-plate of destruction, got it. Sure, ST 10/ AP 1 at 72" range from a cruising speed skimmer tank that is moderately armoured. We got the basics covered there. But lets break this down and rebuild it. I want to get to an anti-air round next.

Ready? aaaand ACTION!

Jefffar wrote: There is a lot of Strength 10 AP 1 or AP 2 to be found in later codexes,

Name 3.

Death Ray

Conversion Beamer

Lance Strike

Ouch, Really? Honestly had no idea except Conversion beamer. Any others?

Vindicator? Every marine codex?

My Eldar cry reading this thread. You want a better Railgun, I want one at all! No...taking 2 x tanks to get one doesn't count.

@Farseer Tau, Eldar, Orks, Sisters, and all the other older codecies all need updates. Eldar in particular, while I don't think needing S10 AP1, could use for some much cheaper S7 AP2 on the all-and-all.

I prefer ap 2-1 being rare expensive or unwieldy now. It makes the entire game more balanced I believe, well while helping out ott lists paladin armies in paticular. But it gives me a reason to play my shooty terminators that I love playing! Without having to worry about them being rediculously fragile...

Oh, right, haha, Vindicator. Forgot about that guy, he's so silly! Never really liked the thing. And sorry Farseer Mael Dannan, I know it hurts having your Lance rule copied. You get shiny flyers before Tau do, thats something right?

Bah! What am I saying!? Focus people. Freakish new gun round. Very shooty. Lets poll it shall we?

Q1: For whatever reason you can dream up, should the Tau get a Railgun boost? Namely in the form of new ammunition. For whatever reason. Redundant, yes, I know.

Q2: If so, would it be the Megalodon Slug listed above? If not, what?

Or keep bantering away. It's funny.

I'd prefer not to load more power onto the most powerful aspects of the Tau, but instead equalize the power throughout the codex - there are more pressing aspects to work on (in my opinion) than messing with the railgun (but the change I propose anyways is 200 points for the railhead and letting it roll for 3 wounds if it hits).

Here's a simple idea for the Railgun - at least the Hammerhead Railgun - make it Ordinance.

Best out of 2 tries to Penetrate to represent the greater striking power of the larger Railgun over the smaller twin-linked one on the Broadsides. Not quite as crazy cheesed out as giving it Lance or Armour Bane.

For alternate fun (and as is being rumored) a version of the Beam mechanic (Draw a line from weapon muzzle out 72 inches, first target hit takes St 10, second St 9, third St 8 and so on) would make sense fluff wise and return the gun to its status as one of the true uber-weapons of the game. I think this one is also a kind of fun option as you get into the tactical complexity of trying to line up the perfect shot for maximum effect on maximum targets.

Now if you really want to give love to some Tau weapons that need it, here are two challenges for you:

Pulse Carbine

Rail Rifle

There's also the Medusa siege gun, with the added bonus that its a template.

Ah, love me some big guns.

Yeah, not so sure why it's a big deal personally It's still S10 AP1, what more does it need to be? It's one of the single most powerful standard codex weapons in the entire game, why could it need to be made better?

Having said that though, maybe a barrage version would be cool. Roll a D3 to see how many shots you get to represent the batteries charge fluctuating to cater for the advanced targetting required. Get a re-roll on the owning players choice of one miss to represent Tau having what I believe to be kick ass computers and gak to help with targetting.

However, if you said "here's a bio bug round used by the kroot that gives them AP3" or something...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ps, forgot to say KnuckleWolf, I find the energy in your posts to be incredibly amusing, please keep consuming the same number of red bulls (other energy drinks are available) that you clearly do now

Alllllrriiiiight! Take all you mad geniuses, put you in a thread-think-tank, give you some questions, and by the Emperor we make progress! *sniiiiiiffffff* Ahhhhh. Smell that? That's the power of the internet baby! It's barbecue time!

So here is what I'm kind of hearing, lets see, we got... (In no particular order, I swear)

1. The Railgun doesn't need more power/ Don't want the crazy power swing for a more 'evened' out codex. That's fair. Good opinions. Taste good.

2. Change the weapon type to have barrage or be ordinance. Simple but effective. Also tasty thoughts.

3. Throw nifty side rules on that allow it to hit in a line/ Give it more shots. Very nice, very nice.

Right? We good?

My thoughts... To number one, technicaly no, the Railgun doesn't NEED more power. Really it doesn't. But we're talking 40K here. Every thing has been getting more power or options am I right? The Megalodon was meant to charge heavily for a very specific situation answer and be an option, albeit likely one everybody takes. I mean, 30pts for one shot that is really only needed occasionally? And it could fail, but it's cool guys, we're cool. As to a more even codex, I just can't see the Tau doing that. They have a heavy thing for teamwork that would say there is an emphasis on the huge mutual dependency. Supported by a rank system which we know determines what they can use in the field. That is to say, grunts are carrying grunt gear, commanders get special issue experimental toys. They scale you know? More could be said and will be...but Im late for work.

Keep cooking guys! It's starting to smell gooood in here! But no messes got it

Yes, the Tau love their specialist units and I like the idea too.

The Railgun doesn't need more to be effective, but as codex creep has increased the number of Strenght 10 shooting attacks, the Tau's primary specialty, biggest guns in the game, has been eroded.

If the Tau don't have their big gun advantage, what are they? The answer is expensive versions of the guard who can't throw a punch.

This is why the Tau need something. My opponents rarely care about my broadsides any more. They have felt the sting of the Railgun and know they can do as good or better with their Doom Arks, Vindicators and Medusas. Heck a Bright Lance or Dark Lance has the same odds of a penetration on a Land Raider as the raillgun does.

The Railgun is good, but it should be terrifying. The Lance idea would do that, but only versus vehicles and I think that it steals the Eldar specialty a little much. That is why I mentioned Ordinance and Armourbane as an alternative to put the Railgun back at or near the top of the vehicle killer pile.

The Beam idea is the best IMHO. It recalls the description of Imperium tanks being punched completely through by Railguns and provides a benefit against more than tanks. It's a cool special rule that can easily be explained by the raw penetrative power of the weapon rather than trying to fluff in a special ammunition. The Tau already use as optimized ammunition as they can.

So back to the challenge I gave earlier, here are my thoughts.

The Railrifle has seen a nerf with the loss of it's integral Target Lock and it's abillity to pin remains as flukey as it did last edition. So here are my two thoughts. 1) give it a beam modifier similar to the Railgun and/or 2) have what used to be it's target lock provide the precision shot ability. Given that this is the Tau equivalent of a Sniper rifle, precision shot makes sense. The beam attack would be cool as a universal trait of rail weapons and the limited strength of the Railrifle would cut down on getting large numbers of high powered hits out of the weapon to balance the idea a little. A third idea might be an integrated Targeting Array. I wouldn't say all of these need to be in place, but one or two would be fine.

As for the Pulse Carbine my thought is to make it Assault 2 first. Then I would strip off the Pinning capability. As this ability comes from the built in Photon Grenade Launcher I would then give the gun a second shooting profile to represent lobbing this grenade at the enemy. The profile would be 0 strength but posses the Blind special rule. If I was really having fun with it, I would add other types of ammunition, perhaps an EMP round, an airbursting fragmentation round and a Flechette round that functioned as a template.

i would say make the rail gun on the hammerhead be able to re roll their Armour pen i mean that is a round being shot at the speed of light

For the Pulse Carbine and Pulse Rifle: I made the Pulse Carbine grant the benefits of Defensive Grenades, I believe. If I didn't I was silly, because that would've been a good idea. I also made it Salvo 3/2 - which is like rapidfire+1. The Rifles I made Salvo 1/2, which is BACKWARD rapidfire. Fire Warriors got a special rule that gives them a choice between strikedown and interceptors, and popped up to 12ppm.

For the Rail Rifle, I made it Pinning and Strikedown, and rolls an extra to-wound representing its penetrative power.

For other trouble-weapons, I made the Ion group a modular weapon that fires its choice of blast, template, or assault 4. The Missile Pod has a bolter-strength blast firing mode, burst weapons are assault-4 shred (and heavy burst weapon is S6 AP4, which there was a distinct lack of in the tau codex).

Heavy Ion Cannon grabs S7 AP3 Heavy 2 blast. Vehicles ignore glancing hits from ion weapons, but they count as ap2.

Who-hoo-hoo Nelly. That was exciting! A little off track but you kno...awww look at the litlle kitty cat! Augh! You got me!

First let me wrap up my first post nice and neat here...I think i was at number two, here we go...

Ordinance. Simple change but surprisingly drastic. The reason being you the have to specify (potentialy) a different gun entirely, with similar stats, on other units like Broadsides lest they suffer the setbacks of the core change. Not difficult to do by any means, but, meh. I just don't see changing its core profile so drastically, y'know? For support let me point out that the 'Krak Missile' wasn't changed to hit flyers, though it would almost make sense. Instead we have a new missile entirely, 'Flakk Missile", which also makes alot of sense. But the 'best of 2 dice' would satisfy like a cold beer on a hot day.
Barrage: how about a tank upgrade or a Markerlight gave the ability separately from the guns entry? That would be sweet! Pathfinders and Shas'ui calling anti tank rounds through buildings? That idea as an avenue of thought would be worth exploring.

Number Three: Salvo and or other multiple shot upgrades? Again, changing that core profile, which is hard to get away from I, realize. As much as we seem to be against upgrading its power, adding more shots seems to make a circular route back to the same end result, open to interpretation. Would love to lay down the firepower, but firing this bad boy off more than once a turn from each tank would be baaaad yo! On the line/corridor idea....don't taze me bro I know where you'r all coming from, but I don't like the mechanic on any weapon. It takes time to work out, and with trying to use "true line of sight" it really wouldn't go far. Watch out now! I'm calling in my big brother Physics! Stay low! Going to hit the fan y'all! Think about it. The Gun is on top of a skimmer. A majority of its targets will be 'down hill' from it. Particularly if its pulling a Superman on top of a building. After punching through anything, alot of that velocity will be lost number one, and then it would be lucky if it didn't plow into the dirt, or shoot off over and out of the battlefield. But we are talking 43rd millennium alien TOY soldiers so whatever man. Wer'e cool. The idea still has merit, I just don't really want that effect.

Well, looks like the 'Megalodon' was chewed to pieces here, say a prayer to the emperor for it eh? Lots of other real great ideas to grab in here, but I got to get going again. Be back soon! And don't adjust the oven heat, I'm baking a heretic soufle. Want a piece? Om nom nom

Seriously fellas, keep it clean,...and don't change the oven temp.

I just got to thinking (dangerous I know). What I came up with is similar to others.

I already gave Rail weapons the Strikedown rule to simulate their kinetic energy but what if we also represented their power to penetrate obstacles by giving them the Ignores Cover special rule. Now Rail Rifles and Rail Guns will shoot right through any kind of cover as long as it doesn't have an armor value!

I like the idea of making the Hammerheads Rail Gun an ordnance weapon, in m Codex I already separated it out. I respect your reluctance to do so though. And, I have the same feelings in regards to drawing a line. but if we got it

Neat way of doing it Teggerdine. Very cool way to run it. I'm seeing a lot of people grouping the rail weapons together for a universal rule subset kind of thing. Which opens some weird doors.

Had to think long and hard on the Ignore cover thing though, after I was done geeking out over how simply and accurately it could portray the weapons ability. Then I looked up some weapons that used it. It occurs to me in my (dangerous, lol) thinking that technically the gun does shoot through cover obstacles, but the firing unit likely does not see through the covering obstacles, see what I'm saying? Many of the ignore cover weapons do so because their destructive effect usually wraps around the obstacle in some fashion, like fire or gas, or this little guy: "Whats cooking yo?". The main point is that part of the cover rules are there to portray the unit not being seen by its enemy at all, and your just firing in the direction where you think they are. And beware of people arguing that if your Hammerhead Railgun fires at a unit in a heavy fortification, that your 'Ignore Cover' shouldn't work, or that you should have to target the structure instead.

I could totally justify it with a markerlight use of some kind though. Then its location would be known, so you could shoot through cover that way!

KnuckleWolf wrote:Neat way of doing it Teggerdine. Very cool way to run it. I'm seeing a lot of people grouping the rail weapons together for a universal rule subset kind of thing. Which opens some weird doors.

I mislead you there, I haven't made a rail type weapon system I just mean that I gave strikedown to the weapons with Rail XXXXX name.

Had to think long and hard on the Ignore cover thing though, after I was done geeking out over how simply and accurately it could portray the weapons ability. Then I looked up some weapons that used it. It occurs to me in my (dangerous, lol) thinking that technically the gun does shoot through cover obstacles, but the firing unit likely does not see through the covering obstacles, see what I'm saying? Many of the ignore cover weapons do so because their destructive effect usually wraps around the obstacle in some fashion, like fire or gas, or this little guy: "Whats cooking yo?". The main point is that part of the cover rules are there to portray the unit not being seen by its enemy at all, and your just firing in the direction where you think they are. And beware of people arguing that if your Hammerhead Railgun fires at a unit in a heavy fortification, that your 'Ignore Cover' shouldn't work, or that you should have to target the structure instead.

I could totally justify it with a markerlight use of some kind though. Then its location would be known, so you could shoot through cover that way!

IDEA ONE: Drone Controlled Ordinance +15 Points
Change the Large blast to the type "Ordinance, Barrage" When rolling for scatter, only roll 1d6.
To give the fluff version, Picture a drone, fired into the sky with the munitions, guiding it slightly.

Idea Two : Explosive Decompression
When a vehicle is wrecked or explodes, each model inside suffers a S4 hit WITH NO SAVES ALLOWED

I think it would be better as Armourbane, and left at that.

For Broadsides, leave it as is, they are a lot smaller or make it S8 Armourbane

also make the railguns force re-rolls on passed AS or INV, this represents the massive force of being hit by a supersonic chunk of pigeon (thats what railguns fire... didnt ya'll know?)

What do you know Teggerdine, great minds think alike! Hopefully I didn't offend ya there.(Didn't check which, but another thread I was in somewhere might have discussed the same markerlight use, but it might have been a slightly different version. hmmm...) And no worries about misleading me. We just failed to communicate. I knew where you were headed You see, to me, by adding a rule to every gun with 'Rail' in its name, you are in function making a sub type for the weapon. Which is perfect! I wouldn't mind seeing something like "Rail weapons have strikedown, roll the best of two dice to penetrate armor, and force successful armor, invulnerable, and cover saves to be re-rolled." (I just tacked in a bunch of thoughts from the thread as a demonstration, I kind of like it, broken as it is.) The last part of which I think is a really awesome idea in so many ways Formosa, again I just threw in the cover part, it fits though. Formosa's idea has the tifecta to me: simple mechanic, demonstrative of its power, but not fun killing.

But wait! There's more! If you buy now....Okay, I hear ya, shutting up now.

In all seriousness, I still like the idea of shooting through cover. And I think there's a way to do a really interesting fluff and mechanical version of this. I'm picturing a 'pigeon' ( I like 'shard' better, but, whatever.) bundle that is capable of being programmed to split after a certain distance into a flechette, shotgun like, flamer template blast. Mechanicaly you would find lOS, draw a line to the target, then at any point along that line, lay down the flamer template along the line. Check for models hit, and they suffer a strength 7 armor piercing 3+ hit that has 'Ignores Cover'. This takes away the 'can I even see the target' aspect while keeping the 'powerful as heck projectile' thing intact! What do you think? You should keep this idea, it's super effective against all types of pok-e-mon. I call it the Pack Hunter Round. It's obviously kind of built off a variation in the classic submunition round. This would of course only be usable by the Hammerhead mounted version. Play around with it though, I'm sure you can balance its power and word it well.

Yeah I hate to agree, just because its so simple and obvious, but Armourbane probably would be the easiest way. If only just for the Solid Slug round. And I never, even though I play them, liked how the broadside gun was equal to the tank version. It just seemed 'off' y'know?

Hey Adderfist? could you give us a little more on your two ideas? And man our names are alike.