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I've been brainstorming ways to make heavy-rail rifle toting Broadsides. I was looking for some critiques on the ideas below.

Make them S9 - Plain and simple.
Make them Ordnance - The maximum potential armor penetration is still the same, however, the odds of rolling high is stronger.
Make them rapid fire - This one is interesting, the weapon doesn't get any stronger or better at its job. However, doubling the volume of fire increases its likelihood of doing damage.

How about purchasable lance ammo like submunitons on the HH.

 Desubot wrote:
How about purchasable lance ammo like submunitons on the HH.

This doesn't really help though, with S8 you're not going to be very damaging to AV12 anyway. The way I see it, Rail rifles hunt infantry, heavy rail rifles hunt light-tanks and multi-wound models while railguns attack AV13s and the monstrous creatures.

Can we play a game or two with the book before altering it?

 pretre wrote:
Can we play a game or two with the book before altering it?

I'm one of the fortunate few that have played a few games, it's great to have friends close-by. There's also what the mathhammer says and comparison to similar weapon systems.

Lance makes no sense, these arent laser based
Ordinance makes no sense, this isnt an explosive projectile.
S9 makes them too much a direct competitor to hammerheads again.


Broadsides NEEDED nerfed. There was no reason a S10 AP1 TL shot at long range should be on infantry. Rather than try to return to a time when they defined the Tau codex because they were the one OP unit the codex had, nerf them but cost them effectively. At S8 AP1 they are 3x as effective at popping transports compared to missiles. The problem is that missiles can be taken so much cheaper. Give broadsides an option to just take the railgun and be much cheaper than their current choice with up to squads of 5. It makes them into tougher devastators that can also double as anti-MC or heavy anti-inf.

 zephoid wrote:
Lance makes no sense, these arent laser based

Well why not a high density rail shot designed to boar through the toughest of armor? it doesn't have to be laser based.

i agree though that Broadsides needed a nerf, but taking out the majority of options to deal with the biggest of biggest threats inst helping. by being able to purchase something like lance ammo at least gives broadsides a ok chance to deal with raiders.

 Desubot wrote:

 zephoid wrote:
Lance makes no sense, these arent laser based

Well why not a high density rail shot designed to boar through the toughest of armor? it doesn't have to be laser based.

i agree though that Broadsides needed a nerf, but taking out the majority of options to deal with the biggest of biggest threats inst helping. by being able to purchase something like lance ammo at least gives broadsides a ok chance to deal with raiders.

They still have Hammerheads and masses of Fusion Blasters for dealing with Land Raiders, if you're really worried about them. S8 AP1 on Broadsides is fine.

 zephoid wrote:
Lance makes no sense, these arent laser based
Ordinance makes no sense, this isnt an explosive projectile.
S9 makes them too much a direct competitor to hammerheads again.


Broadsides NEEDED nerfed. There was no reason a S10 AP1 TL shot at long range should be on infantry. Rather than try to return to a time when they defined the Tau codex because they were the one OP unit the codex had, nerf them but cost them effectively. At S8 AP1 they are 3x as effective at popping transports compared to missiles. The problem is that missiles can be taken so much cheaper. Give broadsides an option to just take the railgun and be much cheaper than their current choice with up to squads of 5. It makes them into tougher devastators that can also double as anti-MC or heavy anti-inf.

Ordnance does not mean the weapon is explosive nor projectile based, the Riptide's Ion Accelerator shows as much.
Also, Broadsides were not overpowered. For twice the cost of s terminator, you had a model that could shoot 1 shot at moderate accuracy. It also had tough armor and 2 wounds. However, with the ease-of-access of AP2 weaponry, as well as T4, they could easily be killed if you really wanted to. The only saving grace of the Broadside, and Tau in general, is that due to their long range, you had to take casualties to reach them. With the introduction of the new codex, Broadsides received a substantial loss to their weaponry, in addition to the loss of the ability to move and shoot effectively. All of this is exchange for a nominal price reduction.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 zephoid wrote:
Lance makes no sense, these arent laser based

Well why not a high density rail shot designed to boar through the toughest of armor? it doesn't have to be laser based.

i agree though that Broadsides needed a nerf, but taking out the majority of options to deal with the biggest of biggest threats inst helping. by being able to purchase something like lance ammo at least gives broadsides a ok chance to deal with raiders.

They still have Hammerheads and masses of Fusion Blasters for dealing with Land Raiders, if you're really worried about them. S8 AP1 on Broadsides is fine.

Since we have Fusion blasters why bother taking broadside rails? the rail roll seems to only be good for flyers now and even then alot of people drop into the missilesides. id like to have the "option" and i think lance ammo was reasonable.

of course we have fusion blasters and as it is rail guns Are fine for general use. but still options are nice.

The main reason against fusion, not that their bad, is that even with the range buff, you're getting dangerously close to an enemy unit to use it.

 Desubot wrote:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 zephoid wrote:
Lance makes no sense, these arent laser based

Well why not a high density rail shot designed to boar through the toughest of armor? it doesn't have to be laser based.

i agree though that Broadsides needed a nerf, but taking out the majority of options to deal with the biggest of biggest threats inst helping. by being able to purchase something like lance ammo at least gives broadsides a ok chance to deal with raiders.

They still have Hammerheads and masses of Fusion Blasters for dealing with Land Raiders, if you're really worried about them. S8 AP1 on Broadsides is fine.

Since we have Fusion blasters why bother taking broadside rails? the rail roll seems to only be good for flyers now and even then alot of people drop into the missilesides. id like to have the "option" and i think lance ammo was reasonable.

of course we have fusion blasters and as it is rail guns Are fine for general use. but still options are nice.

Then don't take Railguns. No one's forcing you to take Broadsides anymore than they're forcing me to take Pryovores, Blood Claws, etc.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

Then don't take Railguns. No one's forcing you to take Broadsides anymore than they're forcing me to take Pryovores, Blood Claws, etc.

That's not the point of this thread.

IMO the ability for them to have Tank Hunter is all that was needed to make it all better. As it is, you need a 100+ point baby sitter to do that.

Its obvious that GW is lowering the amount of S10 from the game. However, if they could have taken tankhunter then they would effectively have twinlinked on the to hit and twin linked on the to pen roll. Still a poor choice to fire at AV14, but now still reasonably effective against AV13.

 Desubot wrote:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

Then don't take Railguns. No one's forcing you to take Broadsides anymore than they're forcing me to take Pryovores, Blood Claws, etc.

That's not the point of this thread.

Indeed. How can we return them "to their former glory"? Make them S10 AP1 no skyfire. Easy. But then who's going to take Hammerheads, Skyrays, etc?

On top of that, I honestly found it bothersome that my daemon prince can literally be one shot by a railgun. Trust me, on a unit that has literally no close combat capabilities, it is not fun to see your daemon prince die to one shot. I do admit that it would have been nice to see, just perhaps... a vehicle hunter? Something that gives it more strength against tanks to continue to pop them whilst the broadside could be built more to kill toughies like MEQs and Terminators? This is probably actually a horrendous recommendation ha ha.

 Desubot wrote:

Since we have Fusion blasters why bother taking broadside rails? the rail roll seems to only be good for flyers now and even then alot of people drop into the missilesides. id like to have the "option" and i think lance ammo was reasonable.

of course we have fusion blasters and as it is rail guns Are fine for general use. but still options are nice.

The HYMP is better against all targets. The HRR only has the range and the AP1 over the HYMP what is very scare (so to say).

Lance ammo would be quite silly, because then why no lance ammo for railguns? Or rail rifles? And it won't really help either, because against 80% of the targets (ifnantry and vehicles with AV<13), it has no effect.

On the other hand, I love the Rapid Fire solution. It would add mobility and increased RoF what should even the scales against the HYMP (especially the mobility part).

So my vote goes for making the HRR a Rapid Fire weapon.

 zephoid wrote:
Lance makes no sense, these arent laser based
Ordinance makes no sense, this isnt an explosive projectile.
S9 makes them too much a direct competitor to hammerheads again.


Broadsides NEEDED nerfed. There was no reason a S10 AP1 TL shot at long range should be on infantry. Rather than try to return to a time when they defined the Tau codex because they were the one OP unit the codex had, nerf them but cost them effectively. At S8 AP1 they are 3x as effective at popping transports compared to missiles. The problem is that missiles can be taken so much cheaper. Give broadsides an option to just take the railgun and be much cheaper than their current choice with up to squads of 5. It makes them into tougher devastators that can also double as anti-MC or heavy anti-inf.

Lance makes perfect sense, but it would have to be applied for all railguns. Do you know how railguns work? Lance fits rather well, actually.

Ordnance could also work well, considering how railguns work. Ordnance does in no way indicate that the round is explosive.

S9 does not need to happen.

As it is, Broadsides will still eat light vehicles for breakfast, and if you give railsides skyfire, you can kill your flyers goodbye. Of course HYMPs are better because it has more shots, but Rail Rifles are still excellent vehicle killers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jayden63 wrote:
IMO the ability for them to have Tank Hunter is all that was needed to make it all better. As it is, you need a 100+ point baby sitter to do that.

Its obvious that GW is lowering the amount of S10 from the game. However, if they could have taken tankhunter then they would effectively have twinlinked on the to hit and twin linked on the to pen roll. Still a poor choice to fire at AV14, but now still reasonably effective against AV13.

Or you could take a 45 point upgrade and have one of the best anti-vehicle units in the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Keep in mind, however, that Advanced Targeting Systems exists. S8 AP1 precision shots, anyone?

 McNinja wrote:
As it is, Broadsides will still eat light vehicles for breakfast, and if you give railsides skyfire, you can kill your flyers goodbye. Of course HYMPs are better because it has more shots, but Rail Rifles are still excellent vehicle killers.

Or you could take a 45 point upgrade and have one of the best anti-vehicle units in the game.

Statistically, the HRR has a better chance of blowing up most vehicles. However, with the meta-shift of 6th edition, you can just wreck vehicles with multiple glances/pens which is what the HYMPs excel at.
And while the Hammerhead is still a fierce-some tank hunter, with its loss of its multi-tracker, target-lock, and dpod nerf, it is no longer the undisputed king of anti-vehicle weapons.

 AtoMaki wrote:

The HYMP is better against all targets.

Not all, just nearly all. HRR is still better against biomanced monstrous creatures. Those guys have toughness and armor saves that the HYMP has too much trouble against.

HRR are also better against AV13 and 14. They're pretty bad at those things, but HTMP are worthless.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

The HYMP is better against all targets.

Not all, just nearly all. HRR is still better against biomanced monstrous creatures. Those guys have toughness and armor saves that the HYMP has too much trouble against.

HRR are also better against AV13 and 14. They're pretty bad at those things, but HTMP are worthless.

HRR is also much better against targets that are more than 36" away.

I'd have made them S9 and possibly AP2 and/or lower range (48" perhaps?) to make them still far worse than the hammerhead railgun but still capable (theoretically) of one-shotting land raiders.

Or perhaps have a special rule where they can have twin-linked S8 or single shot S9?

 acekevin8412 wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
How about purchasable lance ammo like submunitons on the HH.

This doesn't really help though, with S8 you're not going to be very damaging to AV12 anyway. The way I see it, Rail rifles hunt infantry, heavy rail rifles hunt light-tanks and multi-wound models while railguns attack AV13s and the monstrous creatures.

Wat

S8 Vs AV 12 is a 50/50 chance to pen/glance.

S8 Vs AV 14 is a 16.667 chance to glance.

pretty big difference...

Here's an idea:

Give them rending. That's right. Rending.

They get AP2 (very necessary against those pesky terminators.), but if they roll a 6, it's a pen.

That'd be enough to bring them up to reasonable, without making them hammerheads - they can actually make use of their AP1.

Rending doesn't give AP2 against vehicles though.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Rending doesn't give AP2 against vehicles though.

Especially when your gun is already AP1.

I was saying that the AP2 isn't important - you have ap1 anyway.

What rending does give you, is that S8 rolls of 6 are pens against AV14, which means that a Railgun can remain S8 while still being able to turn its AP1 against any kind of tank.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

Especially when your gun is already AP1.

I was saying that the AP2 isn't important - you have ap1 anyway.

What rending does give you, is that S8 rolls of 6 are pens against AV14, which means that a Railgun can remain S8 while still being able to turn its AP1 against any kind of tank.

Ooooookaaaayyy... But how would it give an edge over the HYMP against anything else other than AV13/14 (and multi-wound T4 models)? Like, okay, it can deal with AV14 now, but there is still no reason to take the HRR over the HYMP.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

Especially when your gun is already AP1.

I was saying that the AP2 isn't important - you have ap1 anyway.

What rending does give you, is that S8 rolls of 6 are pens against AV14, which means that a Railgun can remain S8 while still being able to turn its AP1 against any kind of tank.

Ooooookaaaayyy... But how would it give an edge over the HYMP against anything else other than AV13/14 (and multi-wound T4 models)? Like, okay, it can deal with AV14 now, but there is still no reason to take the HRR over the HYMP.

What this guy said. Rending would indeed make it better against AV14, however, wouldn't that be stepping on the railguns toes? The AV bands I see in my mind are 10-11 HYMPs, 11-12 HRR, 13-14 RG. The main reason the HYMP is so good, is because it's only -1S but with 4 times the chances to damage. AP1 is only beneficial if you're able to score a penetrating or glancing hit. With HRRs you only get 1 shot per turn, they really have to make their hits count if they want to be useful.

Ordinance refers to large caliber weapons that carry an explosive payload. There is a reason almost every single weapon in the game with the ord rule is a blast weapon bar a few FW models (rapier comes to mind, but that thing has been changed so many times i think they got confused). IRL a tank was rarely considered an ordinance weapon, however an artillery was.

Lance is connoting the ability of lasers to pretty much ignore the impact properties of armor. Solid shells, even fast moving shells, are still prone to angle bouncing and compression of ceramic materal. See SABOT vs Chobham armor. Rail guns in the current sense are even more suitable to angle bounces due to the shell required to handle the acceleration and impact. You cant put a HEAT warhead in a rail gun, the thing would ignite on firing. You cant put a HESH warhead either. In most uses, it would have a solid shell AP head, which has long since been discarded as a tank-tank shell due to the poor properties of impact.

Riptide's ion accelerator is essentially containing a large plasma charge in a similar way to a plasma cannon and discharging it. Ordinance there is connoting the size of the plasma field contained and its ability to splash into essential parts of the vehicle. Even plasma cannons having ord would not be out of the question due to how they interact on contact with a vehicle, but it was probably excluded for balance purposes.

For twice the cost of a terminator, you got 2 wounds. That seems about right. Where terminators must get close, and often die to quantity of fire due to that, you got a weapon that was not only long range, but held a better ranged weapon than a terminator had in melee. It was also a jump infantry, could get ablative wounds in shield drones, and synergized with marker lights to make up for their shortcomings. The only reason you didnt have every army allying them in was due to the "tax" of taking allies. If broadsides were put in any other codex, i cant think of one where they would not be a go-to choice for AT.

 zephoid wrote:

In most uses, it would have a solid shell AP head, which has long since been discarded as a tank-tank shell due to the poor properties of impact.

Which is completely irrelevant when the projectile is travelling at Mach 20. Furthermore, the BRB fluff definition of Ordnance weapons mentions that they are almost always mounted on tanks and artillery, and thus aren't exclusively artillery. The Hellstrike Missiles on a Vendetta are Ordnance but not blast, for example.

Also, "ordnance", not "ordinance".

 zephoid wrote:
Ordinance refers to large caliber weapons that carry an explosive payload. There is a reason almost every single weapon in the game with the ord rule is a blast weapon bar a few FW models (rapier comes to mind, but that thing has been changed so many times i think they got confused). IRL a tank was rarely considered an ordinance weapon, however an artillery was.

Lance is connoting the ability of lasers to pretty much ignore the impact properties of armor. Solid shells, even fast moving shells, are still prone to angle bouncing and compression of ceramic materal. See SABOT vs Chobham armor. Rail guns in the current sense are even more suitable to angle bounces due to the shell required to handle the acceleration and impact. You cant put a HEAT warhead in a rail gun, the thing would ignite on firing. You cant put a HESH warhead either. In most uses, it would have a solid shell AP head, which has long since been discarded as a tank-tank shell due to the poor properties of impact.

Riptide's ion accelerator is essentially containing a large plasma charge in a similar way to a plasma cannon and discharging it. Ordinance there is connoting the size of the plasma field contained and its ability to splash into essential parts of the vehicle. Even plasma cannons having ord would not be out of the question due to how they interact on contact with a vehicle, but it was probably excluded for balance purposes.

For twice the cost of a terminator, you got 2 wounds. That seems about right. Where terminators must get close, and often die to quantity of fire due to that, you got a weapon that was not only long range, but held a better ranged weapon than a terminator had in melee. It was also a jump infantry, could get ablative wounds in shield drones, and synergized with marker lights to make up for their shortcomings. The only reason you didnt have every army allying them in was due to the "tax" of taking allies. If broadsides were put in any other codex, i cant think of one where they would not be a go-to choice for AT.

A few things,
-FYI, and with no malice, Ordnance is military weapons/ammunition, and ordinance is law or decree
-Disregarding the all real world implications of ballistics and physics in general, I used ordnance for its rule, roll 2d6 take the highest, not as a description on how the HRR functions.
-For the price of 2 terminators, you have a model that dies just as easily to lascannons or meltas because of T4. If Broadsides were T5, which I think they should give the size of the model, I would readily agree with you on that point.
-Also, Terminators have an invulnerable save, either a 5++, which is okay, and the almighty 3++ of a storm shield.
-Broadsides are not jump infantry, you're thinking of the Riptide.
-Terminators can deep strike, negating the need to get up close, unless you roll terrible scatter. I will concede you can't assault immediately from deep strike
-Unless you're using a sword or lightning claw, HRRs and terminator cc weapons are both S8 ignores armor. The only difference is AP1 which gives the HRR a big advantage when tank hunting.
-Each HRR only puts out a single S8 AP1 hit per turn whereas terminators get 2+ S8 AP2 hits each.