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So I've used them quite a few times now and still cant figure out if they're useful or not.
The railgun variety never does anything for me, it always misses or fails to pen.
The ion cannon is better, but then prevents having anything good for AV13/14.
It's nice to have a 6" moving 4+ cover heavy weapon but it never hits/pens despite my best efforts (i.e. markers).

What have your experiences been?

Have you considered a Railhead with Longstrike? I don't think the ability to fire Overwatch with the tank is that special (not sure if you can overwatch with the submunition shot, which would be appealing despite the scatter risk) but he's cheaper than his opposite number Pask and gives you a BS5 railgun.

190 points for a hammerhead just seems too much to me. He's the equivalent of 4 pathfinders on his own.
Don't get me wrong i know he's alright but he should be in the ion one which negates the tank hunting.
Reason overwatch with 3x S7 AP3 shots.

You can't overwatch with a blast weapon. Trust me, this was the first thing I asked my friend (who actually owns the big rulebook) when I read the longstrike entry.

That said, s6 ap4 large blast? That ain't bad. I know the ion does it better, but s10 is just too good for me to pass up. And don't get me started with the +2 on vehicle damage rolls. Nothing brings a smile to my face more than shooting at open topped vehicles with my railgun.

I play against a hammerhead with Longstrike and rail gun pretty regularly, and I always tell the guy after the game that his list would be greatly improved without it. It never seems to do much and just isn't worth the points.

I don't think I've ever had a Hammerhead kill a vehicle - then again, until recently I primarily used Broadsides for vehicle destruction. Now fusion guns are my preferred vehicle killers.

To be honest, I think the Hammerhead's railgun should really have been made an ordinance weapon.

Having longstrike is a double edged sword. Having that bs5 without marker lights is really nice and makes the hammerhead deadly. However it makes it a huge target. I usually run two of them and almost always that one gets destroyed first.

I think there are some weapons in this game that get cursed for the user. Like when I play Dark Eldar I never score hits with a dark lance, just bad luck. Perhaps the railgun is cursed for you

When Codex came out, I took one look at it and said "Hammerhead really sucks, little to no reason to take them anymore". And everyone jumped me and was all "stfu noob, it's the best tank in the game! They made it so much better because it's so cheap!"

Yep....

I could agree with Longstrike being a bit much, but the hammerhead itself is far from being a poor option in either varient. It's actually my prefered Heavy support unit, but I can never decide on which primary weapon to take.

It's decently priced, has the range to stay back and hide, and decent armor. Both weapons are pretty good for what they do. I've had AP3 large blasts remove entire marine units and I've had Railguns one shot Land Raiders. I find that generally people will remember failures more and associate a unit the blame rather than praising units for their usefulness. For example, I've had Riptides fail 4 out of 8 2+ saves and dying on turn one and rolled 11 and 12" for scatter about 5 times in a row. With Hammerheads, I've put about 10 railgun shots into 3 Landraiders and only managed to kill 1. The other two had to be melta'd and charged by Riptides in 3 rounds of CC to take them down.

The Hammerhead will always be an extremely valuable unit to Tau players since it has two varients. Both are good and able to handle a specific threat while not being so focused on one that they can't handle other threats. It's price went down sufficiently to allow it to fit in easily into lists while still being easily equipped to handle it's goal.

Backfire wrote:
When Codex came out, I took one look at it and said "Hammerhead really sucks, little to no reason to take them anymore". And everyone jumped me and was all "stfu noob, it's the best tank in the game! They made it so much better because it's so cheap!"

Yep....

It is a good if not great tank at what it does, but unlike some other tanks, it's not a top tier anti-tank unit. Broadsides, Crisis Suits, Piranhas and Riptides are the ones for killing Tanks. The Hammerhead is for light vehicles and heavy infantry.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

The Hammerhead will always be an extremely valuable unit to Tau players since it has two varients. Both are good and able to handle a specific threat while not being so focused on one that they can't handle other threats. It's price went down sufficiently to allow it to fit in easily into lists while still being easily equipped to handle it's goal.

Hammerhead's points cost is rather irrelevant: it takes a Heavy Support slot, that makes it very expensive for Tau.

As for my other feelings about the tank, it's summed up in my sig.

Admittedly it isn't as mobile as it originally was, but it is significantly cheaper. They should have given it an upgrade that let it operate somewhere between a fast and normal skimmer. Regardless, it's what it is and shouldn't be compared to what it was. Is it good now? I think so.

As to it's cost, I don't think I have ever been wanting for space with the HS slot. Yes it competes with Broadsides and Skyrays, but it's not really justification for the Hammerhead being bad. Saying that the Hammerhead can't take all 3 slots in HS because you have two other awesome units to use isn't a bad thing.

That and you could just take an ally Farsight unit to unlock a 4th HS slot.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Admittedly it isn't as mobile as it originally was, but it is significantly cheaper.

It doesn't matter how cheap it is, I can't take more of them to compensate for their lacking performance, nor there are other similar units available in other FOC slots. A Heavy support tank is not like a basic troops choice in that regard.

Riptides fill a similar role to hammerheads. They just have arms and legs as well as giant honking guns

What lack of performance are you concerned about? A BS4 S10 AP1 single shot or S6 AP4 large blast is pretty decent for a 130 point AV13 tank. Same goes for BS4 S7 AP3 Heavy 3 or S8 AP3 large blast for 125. You may not be able to take more of them because they can't take squadrons, but it does free up points elsewhere.
The Ion cannon is a toned down version mounted on the Riptide, which is more mobile.
The Railgun solid shot is a better version of a Broadside but still unique to the Hammerhead, while the Template fills more of a general anti-infantry role that a lot of other weaponry is geared towards in the army.

I don't really understand what you're wanting from the tank, other than for it to accomplish more than being a tank with a good gun.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

I don't really understand what you're wanting from the tank, other than for it to accomplish more than being a tank with a good gun.

How about mobility and ability to split fire - those things it did have in the previous, much better designed codex?

The previous and "much better" designed codex also lacked an effective way to deliver markerlights at the amount needed to remove cover but didn't stop people from going to ground for a save. It also had no reason to field Hammerheads since you could get a twinlinked S10 AP1 shot with 2+ armor and cover save that could split fire with it's unit of 1-3. Much better designed probably for two editions ago maybe, but it's pointless to argue about it now.

It has a few drawbacks to the original, I admit that. Let's break it down.
Pro:
-20 point decrease
-ion cannon is now worth taking and comes with a free AP3 blast
-sms is now a free upgrade and it's better than burst cannons
-has the capacity to bring Longstrike
Con:
-Lost multitracker
-lost split fire
-disruption pod is now more expensive and does less

The old version could fire like a fast vehicle and got a 3+ cover while moving for 165 points.
You are reduced to a 5+ cover standard and fire like a normal skimmer for 125 points. Is it a fair price? Absolutely. It's not the last editions version, but that's fine with me. It's still a good tank.

Is there anything you can say about how it's a bad tank without point to the old codex?

How can anybody be hating on my boy Longstrike? I mean just look at the guy, he goes hard earning his points.

The hammerhead is indeed quite a tank, but like many things in the tau codex (more so the older one, and the super heavies) it favors quality over quantity - which is why tau need markerlights.

With only a single S10 shot, you don't want a cover save to deal with.

Unfortuntely with such a weapon (low volume of shots - the railgun) luck can have a very bad affect - rolling a 1 on your pen is quite painful.

Of course, even more painful, is managing to go first against eldar, but having all their shields turn your Railheads in to "glance masters" one single shot at a time...but that as they say, is another story.

The tau codex is put together rather well, and once people learn their Achilles heal, we will see all the codex hoppers jump on to the next bandwagon - leaving the tau players who enjoy all the wonderful options and builds....

Um...yeah, mr v, can we get our multi trackers back? please?

 Savageconvoy wrote:
The previous and "much better" designed codex also lacked an effective way to deliver markerlights at the amount needed to remove cover but didn't stop people from going to ground for a save.

I covered my grievances with the new Codex in the other thread, no point repeating them here.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

The old version could fire like a fast vehicle and got a 3+ cover while moving for 165 points.
You are reduced to a 5+ cover standard and fire like a normal skimmer for 125 points. Is it a fair price? Absolutely. It's not the last editions version, but that's fine with me. It's still a good tank.

Is there anything you can say about how it's a bad tank without point to the old codex?

Yeah, it's such a good tank that we're talking about it in a thread where people complain how useless it is...

Railhead+submunition+disruption pod costs 145 points. Minimal Railhead from the old book (with similar abilities to the new one) costed 155 points. Woo hoo, a 10 point save. That's totally worth it, for losing out the options which made it good. Ion cannon is better, yes, but it also costs more. Fully kitted out Ionhead costed 130 points in the old book. New one costs 140 points, has better guns but no other goodies.

Inability to split fire is bigger than most people realize. See, Railgun solid shot is pretty important - in current book, more than ever since there is no equivalent weapon. This means that Railgun has to shoot at tanks (in the old days, Railheads were primarily an anti-infantry unit). However, it's secondary weapons can't hurt tanks. This means that your Railhead is reduced to (barely) moving single-shot AT gun, and those secondary weapons are useless. Almost no other tank in the entire game has similar mismatching armament. For example, Predator is typically kitted to either full anti-tank/anti-MC role, or anti-infantry role. Nobody takes Lascannon/Heavy bolters Predator.

I view the hammerhead as depending on who youre facing. Against most xenos, hammerhead with subs would be devastating since S6 AP4 still wrecks most their infantry and the S10 pops any big things they brought.
The part of whether its good or not is when 3+ armor is involved, or armies that tend to not have vehicles or vehicles worth firing at (like droppods). Now its kinda dumb since unless you gave it Precision Shots, its not going to paste out any characters unless the opponent is an idiot with his boss guy in front of the troops. A pi plate is still a pi plate, and it wounds on 2s unless its nurgle marines, so it still applies wounds but doesnt pen any armor against MEQ.

I usually reserve it for Necrons. Hammerhead makes quick work of that dang AV13 shield, and the AP4 pens majority of their codex. Even against necrons though i doubt you'd need more than 1 and unless im against IG i wont take Longstrike since he adds soooo little for 45pts unless its against IG (preferred enemy).

I have mostly stopped using Hammerheads since the new codex dropped. I really hated the loss of the multitracker, and I have switched over to the far more mobile Riptides in response to the changes. They aren't bad tanks, but they are no fun to play without the cool wargear.

Fact of the matter is, the single Hammerhead railgun has never been a particularly reliable way to kill vehicles. It can potentially pop any vehicle in one hit, but you require not one, but three die rolls to go your way to take out a vehicle, four if it has cover, and you only get one shot per turn. With the old codex, my method of operation was to run a pair of hammerheads and a 3 man broadside squad, along with some deathrains. Deathrains tackled AV10-AV12, Broadsides tackled AV13-AV14, and the Hammerhead used its submunition on tight infantry formations. If either the deathrains of the broadsides were struggling to kill their targets, or they couldn't get the appropriate vantage point, only then would my hammerheads switch the vehicle hunting. In many ways the submunition was more valuable than the solid shot in the old codex, as it was the only source of large blast templates outside of the single ABFP you could take.

Now things are different. Large blast are available from a large variety of sources in the new codex, and most of those blast are considerably better than the submunition, save the gets hot. Even the much maligned razorshark fires a large blast that is more powerful than the submunition. So now the solid shot really needs to stand on its own merits. It is comparatively much more valuable with the loss of the broadside railguns, as Tau's only other long range anti-heavy vehicle weapons are available on the riptide, but that doesn't make it any more effective. If nothing else, it certainly doesn't hurt to be able to threaten heavy vehicles across the board, and it can be surprisingly difficult to get fusion blasters, the new Tau to-go anti-heavy armor weapons, to where they need to be under many circumstances. You will definitely be glad you brought them when you come up against landraiders, necrons, leman russ or ironclad dreadnoughts.

If you don't like how they are performing, Riptide heavy burst cannons are an oddly effective alternative provided you can pass the nova reactor test, and are great for mech Tau players who want faster anti-tank units.