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 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It's a bit like giant anti-material rifle/anti-tank rifle. It can pass through and not do too much damage, but have it hit anything like an engine or ammuntion, and that tank goes boom. Imagine this passing through the ammunition stores of a leman russ. With all those battle cannon shells going off, there wouldn't be any tank left.

The same goes for every other AT weapon in the game, from the bright lance to the meltagun.

But the don't have the penetrating power that the railgun has.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
But the don't have the penetrating power that the railgun has.

They actually do, just not the "overpenetration". The meltagun is even described as capable of turning a tank into a heap of molten slag within a blink of an eye.

And it is, but I'm talking about long ranged weaponry here.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
And it is, but I'm talking about long ranged weaponry here.

According to the rules, the meltagun has the same chance to insta-kill a tank than a railgun. So going by fluff-logic, the railgun should receive a damage nerf (AP2?) and a penetration buff (Armourbane?).

I'd be fine with that, and a little re-pricing. But I thought ordnance worked fine, it gives it a penatration buff, while not making overpowered. Although I'm not really concerned about the rail gun as much as the heavy rail rifle (which is currently worse at penetration than lascannons).

The Railgun hurts by being one shot and not being twin linked, so a single bad roll to hit or penetrate can negate its effect. The BS can be compensated for by markerlights, penetration needs a boost, especially given the relatively commonplace superheavies now.

I think making it Strength D and/or Primary Weapon or Ordnance would just about do it. Tau tanks don't get multi-trakers and target locks any more, so there's no need to worry about a bunch of strength 5 attacks when you're slinging a strength 10 AP 1.

Heavy Rail Rifles are heavily overshadowed by the HYMP. Taking them back to being strength 10 would be awesome, but horribly overpowering in their spamability. They also need to be differentiated from the regular Railguns due to size. So, instead being able to fire an additional shot and/or being salvo to restore some mobility to the Broadside is what I would like to see. Neither would be massively overpowering but would make the HYMP not an autoinclude.

Rail Rifles are great, Iwish I could put them on fire warriors, stealth suits, crisis suits and Cadre Fireblades.

Just make broadside rail rifle S9. Maybe give the ordinance rule to all rail weapons as well.

We could do to nerf HYMP to heavy 3 as well.

I think those changes would put the two types of broadsides in line with each other.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
And it is, but I'm talking about long ranged weaponry here.

According to the rules, the meltagun has the same chance to insta-kill a tank than a railgun. So going by fluff-logic, the railgun should receive a damage nerf (AP2?) and a penetration buff (Armourbane?).

Except the mere broadside mounted railgun is by fluff capable of penetrating the front armor of a russ, penetrate the rear again while destroying everything inside with sheer pressure and energy of the projectile passing through, and than penetrate the front armor of yet another leman russ tank that was behind the first, and utterly decimate it as well.

If we go by fluff, the rail weaponry are supposed to be insanely powerful and completely and utterly dominating the field of armored warfare against pretty much everything. they are accurate, long ranged, and utterly decimate anything they hit with relative ease. its a one-shot-one-kill weapon in the armored warfare field.
Longstrike became a legend by taking out a WARHOUND with a hammerhead railgun.
Fluffwise, railtech is the most powerful non-necron weapon around for its size class, at every single class.

HOWEVER there are many inconsistencies between fluff and game-in order to keep the game playable, and giving railguns their fluff destructive abilities would ahve broadsides carry D weapons, hammerheads having even more powerful versions and the tigershark would be dealing multiple D strikes per hit. it will be absurd.


What we DO talk about, is to reduce the silliness of the railgun failing to penetrate so damn often. the HRR that is a dedicated AT gun not being able to even penetrate AV14 on theory.
Hammerheads fail to utlize their true power outside apoc, as range 72" is irrelevant in a normal game, but they should still penetrate better, and the HRR is far behind what it SHOULD do. (the braodside as a whole does not fit the fluff. I cannot find an excuse why a centurion is thougher than a braodside.)
The fact HRR utterly fails compared to HYMP is that HYMP is really just too good, but the HRR fails even if the HYMP did not exist. it will have only about a 16% chance to kill even an AV10 AFTER hitting, and its supposedly one of the best anti-tank guns in the entire setting. a 35 point transport will take the 65 point broadside the entire game to kill.

Even the tri-las predator, who is largely hailed as a bad choice will outpreform the "mighty" hammerhead railgun against nearly anything. despite it being supposely the best tank destroyer that exists under the superheavy class.

As for markerlights someone brought up-they help you land the shot, but they wont help you penetrate, or do damage.
If you land the shot at 100%, there is still a fair chance the railgun will do nothing at all against anything heavier then a chimera. and as a dedicated anti-tank gun, that's just not enough.
And when people compare its chances to a meltagun-a meltagun does not come on a 125 base platform. yes, it has range-but range helps little if you can't actually land a kill with it.

As long as its a non-threat to MCs (due to the simple fact that with all its points, it will not shoot enough during the game to kill any MC with T of 6 or higher even if left unharmed), it should furfill its declared purpose, being the end-all-be-all tank destroyer.
Right now? I'm just running fusion suits. despite running multiple railheads, because I know they will never get the job done.
And my railsides just went to shelf, because they cannot do the one thing they are supposed to do, kill tanks.

Distortion weapons are easily more powerful than the Railguns as well, as are Shokk Attack Gunz (when they work).

I'm also going to be that guy and ask for a source on the multi-killed Leman Russ Tanks, because at this point it 'a becoming Chinese whispers. Further, if Longstrike became legendary due to killing a Warhound with a Railgun I would argue that the Hammerhead isn't supposed to be able to lose a credible threat to a Warhound, otherwise Longstrike wouldn't be very legendary at all.

What about giving rail weapons Ordnance and Beam? or some kind of beam where it keeps going until whatever it hits survives?

Taffy17 wrote:
What about giving rail weapons Ordnance and Beam? or some kind of beam where it keeps going until whatever it hits survives?

That's something, but if I were a Tau player, I'd want that one shot to count for a lot more than it does right now. You are paying the price of the hammerhead to basically get one shot. It better be a helluva shot, which, right now, it isn't. It's actually inferior to a short-range meltagun shot.

As a total side note, I wonder where the people complaining about me being a Tau hater are now? I don't like units that make no sense or that are too good/too poor. The rail head is total joke right now compared to missilesides. I want to change that.

The railgun should have marker light support. Give them the primary rule instead of ordinance like the doomsday ark from necrons. Also, while updating the old vehicle design rules, i noticed that to make a str10 shot into a D strength shot, it costs 30 points per round fired. Get your people to give it a chance, and see what you can do!

How about increase the point cost of a HH to 150pts and make it's weapon twin-linked and have the following special rules.

Rail: Against vehicles no saves of any kind can be taken, including invulnerable saves. On a roll of 2+ for armor penetration the shot automatically penetrates. If the model has the tank hunter special rule it can re-roll its damage table roll (Basically to have a reason for taking Longstrike).

Now this gives the HH a 27% chance to one hit any vehicle and does not buff it against non-vehicles. This does not guarantee that it can one shot a vehicle but it will do some "damage" to it on a consistent basis. 3 HH against a knight with some marker support will average around 4 HP a turn. Obviously the HRR cannot have this rule too because that will be OP. I think the best fix for HRR is just make them rapid fire.

Tautastic wrote:
How about increase the point cost of a HH to 150pts and make it's weapon twin-linked and have the following special rules.

Rail: Against vehicles no saves of any kind can be taken, including invulnerable saves. On a roll of 2+ for armor penetration the shot automatically penetrates. If the model has the tank hunter special rule it can re-roll its damage table roll (Basically to have a reason for taking Longstrike).

Now this gives the HH a 27% chance to one hit any vehicle and does not buff it against non-vehicles. This does not guarantee that it can one shot a vehicle but it will do some "damage" to it on a consistent basis. 3 HH against a knight with some marker support will average around 4 HP a turn. Obviously the HRR cannot have this rule too because that will be OP. I think the best fix for HRR is just make them rapid fire.

That's a pretty good fix too.

How about give HRR armorbane?

I don't understand your line of thinking, gents. The Hammerhead is very similar to other single-shot, dedicated tank destroyers like the Fire Prism or Vanquisher. This should be your first point of comparison.

If you want a better railgun -- say strength D, 110", Ordnance -- it's actually already available to the Tau. It's just not at 125pts.

Yoyoyo wrote:
I don't understand your line of thinking, gents. The Hammerhead is very similar to other single-shot, dedicated tank destroyers like the Fire Prism or Vanquisher. This should be your first point of comparison.

If you want a better railgun -- say strength D, 110", Ordnance -- it's actually already available to the Tau. It's just not at 125pts.

Fire prism is a really good comparison with a HH. Outside of +1 front armor, I believe the fire prism is better in all other aspect. It is fast, will pen anything on a roll of 4+ and has 3 different firing mode with good AP (1, 2, 3). I am not really familiar with the vanquisher. It is the single range shot with armourbane and same strength of a missile pod? Either way, I do not remember the last time I saw one on a table top. I understand that if you buff the railgun that all other dedicated anti-tank should also be buffed. As it is now, I believe all three of those models are shelved. I do not even know if they are being "considered" in any competitive list.

OP I don't believe there's anything off with its stats. Its a point stronger than the most widespread human anti-tank weapon and 1 AP better too. (and has the bonus of using submunitions). Longer range too I believe. That +2 on the damage chart is already significant enough, +3 is too much imo. If it's proving underwhelming in games then a points drop might be the best solution.
Agreed if it hits a rhino or other light vehicle it would tear through it like cardboard but don't forget as in real warfare a piercing hits are not neccessarily a kill. An example that comes to mind is the US escortcarriers in WW2 on one occasion Japanese heavy cruisers caught a few escort carriers but they ironically survived because they were lightly armoured -the heavy Japanese shells tended to tear through the ships and out the other side without exploding.

Actually, the lascannon is a good point of comaprison, it is slightly worse in range strength and AP, but has one thing the railgun can't hope to match, numbers.

The lascannon is on everything, many tanks boasting twinliked or multiples. It is even carried by infantry. The railgun is a single main weapon on a relatively expensive tank.

Yoyoyo wrote:
I don't understand your line of thinking, gents. The Hammerhead is very similar to other single-shot, dedicated tank destroyers like the Fire Prism or Vanquisher. This should be your first point of comparison.

If you want a better railgun -- say strength D, 110", Ordnance -- it's actually already available to the Tau. It's just not at 125pts.

Those weapons systems are also subpar, I'd say. Single shots in this game are very weak unless juiced by some serious rules.

A lot in 40k is "subpar". That's because your point of reference is power lists, right?

I understand the need to argue for balance but for fun, let's imagine using troops and dedicated tranports as a baseline, as well as cross-codex 'tank destroyers' like the Prism and Vanq. A Hammerhead is the same price as a Tac squad in a Razorback, a Vet squad in a Chimera, or 5 FW in a Devilfish (all before upgrades). The Railgun has a good anti-infantry profile with submunitions, is still S10AP1 at 72" and can be supported with Markerlights. It all seems pretty fair once we change the standard of comparison from 5HP superheavies and undercosted HS choices to classic CAD troops. In this light, the Hammerhead is a good platform, it's fairly costed, and the Railgun is a decent weapon.

It's only "subpar" once we start matching them against the AdLance, or cost them uniquely against Riptide or Missileside spam which are seen as the new baseline because of tournament copycats. Unfortunately, that's what happens when you take a game that has very little support for competitive balance, and get invested in the tournament scene where the players are actively searching to break the game in their favor.

Yoyoyo wrote:
A lot in 40k is "subpar". That's because your point of reference is power lists, right?

I understand the need to argue for balance but for fun, let's imagine using troops and dedicated tranports as a baseline, as well as cross-codex 'tank destroyers' like the Prism and Vanq. A Hammerhead is the same price as a Tac squad in a Razorback, a Vet squad in a Chimera, or 5 FW in a Devilfish (all before upgrades). The Railgun has a good anti-infantry profile with submunitions, is still S10AP1 at 72" and can be supported with Markerlights. It all seems pretty fair once we change the standard of comparison from 5HP superheavies and undercosted HS choices to classic CAD troops. In this light, the Hammerhead is a good platform, it's fairly costed, and the Railgun is a decent weapon.

It's only "subpar" once we start matching them against the AdLance, or cost them uniquely against Riptide or Missileside spam which are seen as the new baseline because of tournament copycats. Unfortunately, that's what happens when you take a game that has very little support for competitive balance, and get invested in the tournament scene where the players are actively searching to break the game in their favor.

I would take the devilfish and 5 Fire warriors over the hammerhead. 9/10 times they will be more useful.

Of course this isn't saying much - devilfish are still overcosted for what they bring to the table, and fire warriors can't even take special weapons. I'd take the chimera and vets given the choice to have them as objective secure troops in a tau FOC. At least that way I get S6 at 36" and special weapons.

I think you miss the point. Hammerheads do fine in a conventionally balanced old-school list. They don't see much use in the tournament scene that min-maxes undercosted units and takes 3x Riptides as an auto-include.

Example, competitive types will run 3x Riptides in a 1000pt game. Do you really need S10AP1 or an S6AP4 template in this list? Nope.

Claiming that Hammerheads are simply so woefully underpowered they can't compete, and ignoring the wider context of why, isn't helpful to the greater good, if you know what I mean...

You are the one missing the point man.

Its not a matter of meta, its a matter of the railgun failing to preform its one job, even at the best of conditions, even in a vaccum and even if riptides did not exist at all.
Heck, even if I know my opponent is running a full-on armored list, I still don't want the "god of anti tank" railgun, not to mention the utterly pointless HRR.

Its not a matter of "I got better things to spend points at", its a matter of "I got no reason to field this unit, even in vacuum"
Its a dedicated anti-tank weaponry that simply does not destroy tanks nearly in anything that resembles a reliable matter.

And the fact people keep saying "use markerlight" just proves how much they don't get it-the problem isn't with HITTING, the problem is that even if you hit every time, you still won't take out tanks nearly fast enough for it to matter.

And for a dedicated anti-tank to not be good at killing tanks, that's just makes it unreasonable.


And this is coming from someone how fields 2 railgun hammerheads every time in a "conventional balanced list" because I just like the apperance and style of the tank.
I KNOW they don't work, from infinite testing. the once-in-a-while turn 1 instakill is nice, but more often than not, I just shake my head on how much they DONT hurt anything.

 BoomWolf wrote:
You are the one missing the point man.

Its not a matter of meta, its a matter of the railgun failing to preform its one job, even at the best of conditions, even in a vaccum and even if riptides did not exist at all.
Heck, even if I know my opponent is running a full-on armored list, I still don't want the "god of anti tank" railgun, not to mention the utterly pointless HRR.

Its not a matter of "I got better things to spend points at", its a matter of "I got no reason to field this unit, even in vacuum"
Its a dedicated anti-tank weaponry that simply does not destroy tanks nearly in anything that resembles a reliable matter.

And the fact people keep saying "use markerlight" just proves how much they don't get it-the problem isn't with HITTING, the problem is that even if you hit every time, you still won't take out tanks nearly fast enough for it to matter.

And for a dedicated anti-tank to not be good at killing tanks, that's just makes it unreasonable.


And this is coming from someone how fields 2 railgun hammerheads every time in a "conventional balanced list" because I just like the apperance and style of the tank.
I KNOW they don't work, from infinite testing. the once-in-a-while turn 1 instakill is nice, but more often than not, I just shake my head on how much they DONT hurt anything.

Quoted for truth.

If your argument depends on existing in a vacuum, free of context or challenges, it's not a strong argument. Think about the impact of turn 1 advantage if those "nice" instakills were actually something you (or your opponent) could depend on.

Once again, D-strength Railguns already exist in the Tau codex. Go see if you can find them.

It's pretty obvious they don't belong on a spammable 125pt platform though.

Actually, they don't exist in the tau codex. They exist on 2 things that have never been in the tau codex. And the 2 units that it is on are both overpriced compared to their non-tau alternatives (and over priced in general IMO).

Yep, rail weaponry across the entire game, both GW and FW are overcosted, and underpreforming.

The railgun tigershark, fluff-wise intended to be a titan hunter, is actually highly unlikely to kill one (even a mere knight) over the course of the entire game. the single D shot on a platform that costs over 650 points, has targeting issues (being supersonic) and can't start the game on board at all is just not worth bothering with.

I would not play it if I owned it, even at a 20% point discount.



And the point you are utterly missing is that my argument does not depend on a vacuum, but that it works even in vacuum, let alone the harsher reality where it actually has to compete with other things.
The so-called "master of tank destruction" is incapeable of taking out a simple chimera in any degree of reliability.

A chimera is about half the cost of the railgun hammerhead. and the latter will take an average of about four turns to take it down on it own, before factoring cover that may exist, as it deals about 0.55 HP on average, and has about 11% to get an explode result.
A CHIMERA.

An anti-tank unit that takes 4 turns to kill a tank half its price is USELESS, because it means that during a game, even if unhindered, its unlikely to actually pay itself off!
Would you play any unit that cannot pay itself off under optimal conditions, unless it was tax for something much better? (aka most troops)


God just running the numbers make me regrent running them all the time. I know I love them, and they get me one-shots once in a blue moon that are epic, but they are just horrible.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Yep, rail weaponry across the entire game, both GW and FW are overcosted, and underpreforming.

The railgun tigershark, fluff-wise intended to be a titan hunter, is actually highly unlikely to kill one (even a mere knight) over the course of the entire game. the single D shot on a platform that costs over 650 points, has targeting issues (being supersonic) and can't start the game on board at all is just not worth bothering with.

I would not play it if I owned it, even at a 20% point discount.



And the point you are utterly missing is that my argument does not depend on a vacuum, but that it works even in vacuum, let alone the harsher reality where it actually has to compete with other things.
The so-called "master of tank destruction" is incapeable of taking out a simple chimera in any degree of reliability.

A chimera is about half the cost of the railgun hammerhead. and the latter will take an average of about four turns to take it down on it own, before factoring cover that may exist, as it deals about 0.55 HP on average, and has about 11% to get an explode result.
A CHIMERA.

An anti-tank unit that takes 4 turns to kill a tank half its price is USELESS, because it means that during a game, even if unhindered, its unlikely to actually pay itself off!
Would you play any unit that cannot pay itself off under optimal conditions, unless it was tax for something much better? (aka most troops)

God just running the numbers make me regrent running them all the time. I know I love them, and they get me one-shots once in a blue moon that are epic, but they are just horrible.

How many points is the unit inside that chimera? It's probably veterans at 60 points, plus 30-40 points of gear. Oh what's that? You're now shooting at a unit worth about 155 points. You penetrate on a 3+, on a 2+ you take it out of action for a turn if not the rest of the game. Oh, so now that hammerhead is actually throwing a wrench into you're opponent's strategy, go figure.

No, i'm shooting at the chimera itself.

The extra 60 points of troops and 30-40 points of gear are extra troops and gear.

I might disable it, but it means I need to shoot again next turn, and nothing stops the troopers from disembarking and doing their thing.

By your logic the WS is not OP because you need to pay for the units inside it too.


And the chemira was a randomly chosen unit for the fact its pathetic defensivly compared to real armor.

Predators? I'll need about an entire game's worth of hammerhead shots not considering cover.
Land raider or russ? you are not likely to kill it even if you hit every single turn. again-not even considering possible cover.


Its a dedicated anti-tank gun that cannot kill any tank in the game in any fasion that resembles efficiency. a dedicated unit should be able to do at least twice if not trice its cost in damage to its target of choice over the course of the game, because its not going to do anything of value to any other target. (assuming its not killed naturally, twice or trice its cost over the course of 6 rounds of action.)

The end line is, the railgun hammerhead fails to preform even against its target of choice under optimal conditions, and to top it off in any other conditions its hardly even helping.
Therefor its a bad unit. there is no way around it.
It lacks the firepower to matter. its actually completely safe to ignore it all game long even if you are an armored list-who are its supposed targets of choice.