Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Well, I can honestly say I've never seen a Hammer head for sale in my local GW brick and mortar. And I've only actually ever met two Tau players in my life. Is this really a major problem? Do we expect Tau to suddenly shoot to the top of the boards? No, because they still suck as a faction for the most part.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I just don't understand why it ignores Invul saves.

There's no good reason for it. It just comes down to their ruleset being broken, and invulnerable saves being spread too widely to make one shot weapons like this viable.

Is the Ignore invuln really the most broken part of the gun? I think its more the ridiculous damage AND mortal wounds on top.

I am waiting to see what kind of stats and rules Tau's most powerful weapon in their arsenal will have. Because the article said this railgun wasn't even their most powerful gun lol.

Maybe it will be a one shot Str 16, 10 + d3 damage plus 3 MW that ignores Invul saves.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
World-wise, because it overloads fields of various sorts? Dunno. But why add Mortal Wounds on top of that? Seems a little odd.

Overloads daemonic auras? Psychic barriers?

Sorry, but the 'It shoots Dreadaxes!' explanation above makes more sense to me.

:shrug: Mortal Wounds does the same thing. I enjoy the Dreadaxe explanation too, though.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Is the Ignore invuln really the most broken part of the gun? I think its more the ridiculous damage AND mortal wounds on top.

Oh, its the whole package. But its also that we know the science behind the railgun. You take a perfectly ordinary chunk of metal and use magnetism to make it move really fast. No explosions, chemicals, magical materials, psychics or any other form of Unobtanium nonsense. It is one of the most perfectly mundane things in existence, on a purely ballistic trajectory.

And for no apparent reason, all the mystic, super-science and not-part-of-the-physical-universe defenses in the setting (and also just ducking, for models whose ++ save is based on dodging) just turn off because iron is moving at a pretty fast clip.

It gets weirder the more you think about it, too. How'd the necrons lose the war in heaven? How were enslavers ever a threat? Literally any of the advanced civilizations (and even a lot of the not-so-advanced ones) could have made iron go fast.

Well, inertia is a thing. Prediction: Cawl will birth the numarine gaussblasters, a jump troop which will ignore MW and be D3 base at 30”.

 jeff white wrote:
Well, inertia is a thing. Prediction: Cawl will birth the numarine gaussblasters, a jump troop which will ignore MW and be D3 base at 30”.

Don't forget the Gausfists, which are Sx3 and allow them to FAWLCUN PAUNCH their targets off the table. Plus +3 to charge rolls.

 jeff white wrote:
Well, inertia is a thing. Prediction: Cawl will birth the numarine gaussblasters, a jump troop which will ignore MW and be D3 base at 30”.

It will also be 13ppm

To quote Unit from another post, some time ago,

GW writes results-focused rules for 40k. The narrative of the action doesn't matter, only the result.

Railgun big gun, make vehicle boom. It gets that result. Does the act of shooting with a railgun forge a narrative? no. But it does make vehicle boom.

Rihgu wrote:
To quote Unit from another post, some time ago,

GW writes results-focused rules for 40k. The narrative of the action doesn't matter, only the result.

Railgun big gun, make vehicle boom. It gets that result. Does the act of shooting with a railgun forge a narrative? no. But it does make vehicle boom.

Pretty much. It'll be interesting to see what kind of ridiculous fluff the writers come up with to explain it. I mean, we already have "extra organs let's you tank Volcano Cannon blasts".

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Rihgu wrote:
To quote Unit from another post, some time ago,

GW writes results-focused rules for 40k. The narrative of the action doesn't matter, only the result.

Railgun big gun, make vehicle boom. It gets that result. Does the act of shooting with a railgun forge a narrative? no. But it does make vehicle boom.

Pretty much. It'll be interesting to see what kind of ridiculous fluff the writers come up with to explain it. I mean, we already have "extra organs let's you tank Volcano Cannon blasts".

Extra Organs OR extreme discipline, in the case of Cadians.

Rihgu wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Rihgu wrote:
To quote Unit from another post, some time ago,

GW writes results-focused rules for 40k. The narrative of the action doesn't matter, only the result.

Railgun big gun, make vehicle boom. It gets that result. Does the act of shooting with a railgun forge a narrative? no. But it does make vehicle boom.

Pretty much. It'll be interesting to see what kind of ridiculous fluff the writers come up with to explain it. I mean, we already have "extra organs let's you tank Volcano Cannon blasts".

Extra Organs OR extreme discipline, in the case of Cadians.

I thought it was being "plucky".

Rihgu wrote:
To quote Unit from another post, some time ago,

GW writes results-focused rules for 40k. The narrative of the action doesn't matter, only the result.

Railgun big gun, make vehicle boom. It gets that result. Does the act of shooting with a railgun forge a narrative? no. But it does make vehicle boom.

Yeah.

Unfortunately it makes it rather difficult to forge the narrative though.

Which was why I brought it up in the first place

It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.

It is in a faction that has only the moving and shooting phase to compete in to try and do anything in the game.

There are already other attacks that ignore invulnerable saves, this thing is really okay and appropriate for what it is.

If you have some single model that is really threatened by it, strategic reserves exists.

It is basically a Destroyer weapon that has a single shot.

Ignoring invuls is the newest step in trying to fix the shoddy AP system.

3rd-7th the AP system being all or nothing, with invuls being a "backup"

8th/9th most all weapons now effectively make what use to be decent armor irrelevant so to fix this oversight they hand out invuls amd other damage reduction like candy.

Now we get more ignore invul/MW mechanics offensively and damage reductions/transhuman defensively. This adds more layers of complexity to the game without increasing the grainularity of the 3rd-7th system.

You dont need all these bonus layers of damage reduction or invuls if your basic armor actually worked... imagine marines getting their 3+ vs all small-mid arms fire, only falling back to an invul vs anti-tank/plasma...

blaktoof wrote:
It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.

It is in a faction that has only the moving and shooting phase to compete in to try and do anything in the game.

There are already other attacks that ignore invulnerable saves, this thing is really okay and appropriate for what it is.

If you have some single model that is really threatened by it, strategic reserves exists.

It is basically a Destroyer weapon that has a single shot.

There can be 4 in a Tau army (Longstrike), and the Tau codex has some of the largest shooting buffs for vehicles ever seen.

+1 to hit and ignores cover from Markerlights (and even if they change, the article expresses that Hammerheads will still synergize). Hammerhead has native rerolls.

Longstrike currently gives +1 to wound, could be changed - or could not.

CP reroll is a thing too. With so much damage on a single dice...

...all you have left is 'glass cannon'. But there should be an archetype in 40k other than Glass Cannon and things like the hammerhead don't leave much room for it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.

It is in a faction that has only the moving and shooting phase to compete in to try and do anything in the game.

There are already other attacks that ignore invulnerable saves, this thing is really okay and appropriate for what it is.

If you have some single model that is really threatened by it, strategic reserves exists.

It is basically a Destroyer weapon that has a single shot.

There can be 4 in a Tau army (Longstrike), and the Tau codex has some of the largest shooting buffs for vehicles ever seen.

+1 to hit and ignores cover from Markerlights (and even if they change, the article expresses that Hammerheads will still synergize). Hammerhead has native rerolls.

Longstrike currently gives +1 to wound, could be changed - or could not.

CP reroll is a thing too. With so much damage on a single dice...

...all you have left is 'glass cannon'. But there should be an archetype in 40k other than Glass Cannon and things like the hammerhead don't leave much room for it.

And lets not forget that broadsides can also have HEAVY rail rifles (feth me what stats those will have)

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.

It is in a faction that has only the moving and shooting phase to compete in to try and do anything in the game.

There are already other attacks that ignore invulnerable saves, this thing is really okay and appropriate for what it is.

If you have some single model that is really threatened by it, strategic reserves exists.

It is basically a Destroyer weapon that has a single shot.

There can be 4 in a Tau army (Longstrike), and the Tau codex has some of the largest shooting buffs for vehicles ever seen.

+1 to hit and ignores cover from Markerlights (and even if they change, the article expresses that Hammerheads will still synergize). Hammerhead has native rerolls.

Longstrike currently gives +1 to wound, could be changed - or could not.

CP reroll is a thing too. With so much damage on a single dice...

...all you have left is 'glass cannon'. But there should be an archetype in 40k other than Glass Cannon and things like the hammerhead don't leave much room for it.

I just don't see this as something new, there are already units that throw out this kind of damage or more for 200pts or less. Ad-mech troop choices already do this. This is the longest range version and being on a vehicle suffers from degrading in quality in a very binary way, but it is tied to a single shot & wound roll as opposed to being an aggregate of damage from some unit.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

There can be 4 in a Tau army (Longstrike), and the Tau codex has some of the largest shooting buffs for vehicles ever seen.

+1 to hit and ignores cover from Markerlights (and even if they change, the article expresses that Hammerheads will still synergize). Hammerhead has native rerolls.

Longstrike currently gives +1 to wound, could be changed - or could not.

CP reroll is a thing too. With so much damage on a single dice...

...all you have left is 'glass cannon'. But there should be an archetype in 40k other than Glass Cannon and things like the hammerhead don't leave much room for it.

We definitely need the whole picture. I don't doubt there will be a meta shift to stuff that kills Hammerheads right quick in any event. And that won't take much.

If all of the Tau railguns ignore Invulns it'll shake up the meta a lot more.

The more counters there are to invuln saves in the game, the happier I am.

They are definitely over used at the moment, so having to worry a little more when you put invul saves in your lists can't be a bad thing.

Also, for all we know, this thing could cost 220 points.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
Well, inertia is a thing. Prediction: Cawl will birth the numarine gaussblasters, a jump troop which will ignore MW and be D3 base at 30”.

Don't forget the Gausfists, which are Sx3 and allow them to FAWLCUN PAUNCH their targets off the table. Plus +3 to charge rolls.

This one had me laughing really hard! Have an exalt, good sir!

Voss wrote:

Yep. You run at them as fast as you can, they hide as far in the corner as possible. Hurrah for maneuver, 9th edition 40k style.

They hide　in corner? Good. They see no objective outside their dz so you go to objectives and win game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Aash wrote:
I don’t understand the purpose of AP-6, what am I missing?
AP-5 bypasses a 2+ save and there aren’t any 1+ saves (are there?)

2+ with +2 to saves exists. -7 would be needed to negate even more of saves.

So gw kinda Made the premium paying daemonengines Worth it, in 8th only to implement AT that completly ignores the thing you are paying premium for?

Thanks i guess , can my decimator again revive then at full health on a 2 + , because that would be less nuts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta wrote:
The more counters there are to invuln saves in the game, the happier I am.

They are definitely over used at the moment, so having to worry a little more when you put invul saves in your lists can't be a bad thing.

Also, for all we know, this thing could cost 220 points.

220 is too cheap for that maincannon.

Eh I don't know.
Those profiles always look better than they work.

I would like to remind that we currently have a gun that always hits on 2+, always wounds on 2+, negates invul, negates cover, is AP-3 and ignores Look Out Sir. All this for 100 points and can shoot twice for 1 CP. It even rewards you with CPs for killing stuff!

If that description doesn't immediately make you think of the Vindicare assassin, is because he is NEVER seen on any table.

Spoletta wrote:
Eh I don't know.
Those profiles always look better than they work.

I would like to remind that we currently have a gun that always hits on 2+, always wounds on 2+, negates invul, negates cover, is AP-3 and ignores Look Out Sir. All this for 100 points and can shoot twice for 1 CP. It even rewards you with CPs for killing stuff!

If that description doesn't immediately make you think of the Vindicare assassin, is because he is NEVER seen on any table.

Amen.
The railgun will still be on a frail chassis, it doesn't take much to bring some anti tank to deal with it. It's a rock-paper-scissor case: the railgun counters invulnerable save units, those counter standard anti-tank and anti-tank counters the railgun.

In the previous page it was shown how it's not an hyper-efficient unit.
If you compare it with current Tau units (magna rail rifle and missile broadsides, fusion blaster veteran crisis) it's less point efficient. And that's comparing it to units in one of the worst books in the current meta.

Will it be good? Probably, yes. Will it break the game? I doubt that.
What I can see it doing is being a big scare that pushes some vehicles and monsters out of the meta, a bit like Eradicators. Yet they are not in every competitive list.

Worst case scenario? It will be broken as some people think it is and then it will be nerfed. We have trimestral balance updates now.

blaktoof wrote:
It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.

If a Tau army wants to build around these Railguns they can take 10 shots a turn, not limited to 3 shots a turn. More if we include Broadsides which one would assume would be weaker but still deadly. 22+ Railgun shots should be doable if we count 6 per Broadsides squad with an expected 3 Broadsides able to upgrade to Magna Rail Rifles.

Spoletta wrote:
The more counters there are to invuln saves in the game, the happier I am.

They are definitely over used at the moment, so having to worry a little more when you put invul saves in your lists can't be a bad thing.

Also, for all we know, this thing could cost 220 points.

The problem is armies that have Inv saves baked into their point cost, so it is not an option.

Over proliferation of Inv saves is an issue, it will always be an issue, but the solution is to remove them from models and adjust the point costs, not to start making it easy to spam ignore inv.

Pottsey wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
It's 1 shot weapon on a large T7 13 Wounds 3+ save model that easily gets bracketed and becomes worse at hitting and costs nearly 200pts. It still needs to hit, and still needs to wound. They can get three of them in a Tau army. No one has a hard time killing T7 3+ save vehicles, they are going to shoot once and then die on average. On the off chance they live they will likely be bracketed to BS 5+ and die shortly thereafter.

If a Tau army wants to build around these Railguns they can take 10 shots a turn, not limited to 3 shots a turn. More if we include Broadsides which one would assume would be weaker but still deadly. 22+ Railgun shots should be doable if we count 6 per Broadsides squad with an expected 3 Broadsides able to upgrade to Magna Rail Rifles.

Hammerheads don't come in squadrons, it's 0-1 unit size. So max 3 Hammerhads + 1 Longstrike in a list. And currently it's a 725 points investment for 4 T7 W13 3+ models.

Spoletta wrote:
Eh I don't know.
Those profiles always look better than they work.

I would like to remind that we currently have a gun that always hits on 2+, always wounds on 2+, negates invul, negates cover, is AP-3 and ignores Look Out Sir. All this for 100 points and can shoot twice for 1 CP. It even rewards you with CPs for killing stuff!

If that description doesn't immediately make you think of the Vindicare assassin, is because he is NEVER seen on any table.

Because that only applies to infantry and it isn't guaranteed to kill a 5 Wound character.
The Railgun will do 10-13 wounds.

If the Vindicare wounded everything on a 2+ and did a flat 5 damage I would bet you would see it on the field a lot more.