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Well personally I think that giving all rail weapons (not just railguns) Lance would go a long way.

Lance may be a tad strong in strength 10 weapons (penetrate AV 14 on a 3+) and it would allow Rail Rifles to glance Land Raiders on 6s.

Railgun(x)

A Hit from a Railgun always glances. On a roll of X+, it also penetrates.

Railgun:
36" range, Rapidfire, Railgun(6).

Heavy Railgun
60" range, Twin-Linked, Railgun(4)

Railhead
72" Range, Railgun(2).

Adjust points to taste. Gun is now flavourful and effective rather than bland and hokey.

Jefffar wrote:
Lance may be a tad strong in strength 10 weapons (penetrate AV 14 on a 3+) and it would allow Rail Rifles to glance Land Raiders on 6s.

Yep that was the point. It effectively gives rail rifles Gauss vs. vehicles and makes the heavy rail rifle and railgun very good against medium or heavy vehicles, with no improvement at all against Monstrous Critters or light vehicles, thus not stepping on the toes of.the HYMP or ion cannon.

Necrons have a S10 Pen 1 Lance Blast.

 chrisrawr wrote:
Railgun(x)

A Hit from a Railgun always glances. On a roll of X+, it also penetrates.

Railgun:
36" range, Rapidfire, Railgun(6).

Heavy Railgun
60" range, Twin-Linked, Railgun(4)

Railhead
72" Range, Railgun(2).

Adjust points to taste. Gun is now flavourful and effective rather than bland and hokey.

So what you're saying is that a squad of pathfinders with rail rifles can take out a land raider in 1 turn....

Alcibiades wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Lance may be a tad strong in strength 10 weapons (penetrate AV 14 on a 3+) and it would allow Rail Rifles to glance Land Raiders on 6s.

Yep that was the point. It effectively gives rail rifles Gauss vs. vehicles and makes the heavy rail rifle and railgun very good against medium or heavy vehicles, with no improvement at all against Monstrous Critters or light vehicles, thus not stepping on the toes of.the HYMP or ion cannon.

Necrons have a S10 Pen 1 Lance Blast.

How about instead a +1 to penetration rolls. Gives the HRR a chance to pen even AV 14, the Railgun a decent chance against it and the RR doesn't suddenly become potent enough to punch the frontal armour of a Leeman Rus.

Jefffar wrote:
Lance may be a tad strong in strength 10 weapons (penetrate AV 14 on a 3+) and it would allow Rail Rifles to glance Land Raiders on 6s.

I was thinking lance is far too weak for a rail gun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kingbobbito wrote:

 chrisrawr wrote:
Railgun(x)

A Hit from a Railgun always glances. On a roll of X+, it also penetrates.

Railgun:
36" range, Rapidfire, Railgun(6).

Heavy Railgun
60" range, Twin-Linked, Railgun(4)

Railhead
72" Range, Railgun(2).

Adjust points to taste. Gun is now flavourful and effective rather than bland and hokey.

So what you're saying is that a squad of pathfinders with rail rifles can take out a land raider in 1 turn....

Sounds fine to me. The Tau are supposed to be advanced, right?

Martel732 wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Lance may be a tad strong in strength 10 weapons (penetrate AV 14 on a 3+) and it would allow Rail Rifles to glance Land Raiders on 6s.

I was thinking lance is far too weak for a rail gun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kingbobbito wrote:

 chrisrawr wrote:
Railgun(x)

A Hit from a Railgun always glances. On a roll of X+, it also penetrates.

Railgun:
36" range, Rapidfire, Railgun(6).

Heavy Railgun
60" range, Twin-Linked, Railgun(4)

Railhead
72" Range, Railgun(2).

Adjust points to taste. Gun is now flavourful and effective rather than bland and hokey.

So what you're saying is that a squad of pathfinders with rail rifles can take out a land raider in 1 turn....

Sounds fine to me. The Tau are supposed to be advanced, right?

Pathfinders can only take 3 rail rifles per squad at a high price
Their stat lines are terrible: 11 points + 15 per rifle - that replaces their markerlight
WS 2 BS3 T 3 W 1 5+ - so its not like you can't kill them easily.

Jefffar wrote:
Hmm, how about on 6s to penetrate the hit inflicts an extra D3 Hull Points to represent the complete passage of the shell through the vehicle?

This could also be a bonus number of wounds on a roll of 6 to wound for representing the massive trauma the shell causes to Monstrous and Gargantuan creatures

I could get on board with this.

I could even get on board with giving the heavy rail gun ordnance so it could roll 2 dice for penetration.

If you're going to discuss balance guys, always look cross-codex. The Rail Rifle is an imperial plasma equivalent -- it has the same price and can take on roughly the same targets. Better range, no "gets hot", better AP. But only S6, which is how GW attempted balance at the time. For 15pts, it's not too badly balanced in theory.

The Ion Rifle is cheaper and is S7 AP4, S8 AP4 with overcharge. It's profile is basically light anti-infantry (can't explode vehicles or negate MEQ+ saves). But wait! Is it also a better anti-AV weapon? Probably, because it's easier to glance AV with S7/S8, easier to pen, and AP1 is nice but not needed to kill vehicles. I didn't run stats but I imagine yes, there is a problem.

Here is another way to help pricey AP+ weapons, simply end AP- HP scrubbing. If a weapon doesn't have a minimum AP3 rating, it can't hurt armour at AV11+. At all.

No more S6/S7 spam, Lascannons and Krak necessarily supplant autocannons for anti-AV+, and Railguns (with that AP1) suddenly become more attractive if you want to stop anything even as weak as a Rhino. If you want to kill armour, you don't take a "S7" weapon, you take a weapon that can penetrate armour (AP1/2/3). Secondary effects are that with less mid-strength, high-volume shooting on the board, it's safer to run troops again. A lot of underused weapons would get a lot more attractive (HK/Seeker missiles), and a lot of silly high RoF weapons would get used less. Perfect example of this silliness is Punisher Pasks being the preferred option to glance down AV with an AP- weapon. Cmon yo. Take an anti-armor weapon.

You'd have to do a mess of balancing and changes after, but you're improving the core mechanics rather than layering on overcomplicated extra rules to sidestep addressing a real problem. It's not like you'd take 2 units of Pathfinders for 6x 30" Rail rifles when you could get a Missileside unit under the current ruleset -- the Missilesides are more versatile, have S7 to glance up to AV13, put out far more firepower, use Markerlights more efficiently, have more wounds, equivalent or better range, and get a 2+ save.

Nobody likes when their toys get nerfed though!

Martel732 wrote:
Sounds fine to me. The Tau are supposed to be advanced, right?

Hmm, if you go down that road you'll get people like me stating. "Power armour is supposed to give near immunity to small arms fire therefore I think power armour should give a 2+ save on a D20." and so forth... I'm tolerant of the disparity between the power of things in the fluff and on the tabletop, if only in the interest of keeping the game practically playable.

Yoyoyo wrote:
If you're going to discuss balance guys, always look cross-codex. The Rail Rifle is an imperial plasma equivalent -- it has the same price and can take on roughly the same targets. Better range, no "gets hot", better AP. But only S6, which is how GW attempted balance at the time. For 15pts, it's not too badly balanced in theory.

The Ion Rifle is cheaper and is S7 AP4, S8 AP4 with overcharge. It's profile is basically light anti-infantry (can't explode vehicles or negate MEQ+ saves). But wait! Is it also a better anti-AV weapon? Probably, because it's easier to glance AV with S7/S8, easier to pen, and AP1 is nice but not needed to kill vehicles. I didn't run stats but I imagine yes, there is a problem.

Here is another way to help pricey AP+ weapons, simply end AP- HP scrubbing. If a weapon doesn't have a minimum AP3 rating, it can't hurt armour at AV11+. At all.

No more S6/S7 spam, Lascannons and Krak necessarily supplant autocannons for anti-AV+, and Railguns (with that AP1) suddenly become more attractive if you want to stop anything even as weak as a Rhino. If you want to kill armour, you don't take a "S7" weapon, you take a weapon that can penetrate armour (AP1/2/3). Secondary effects are that with less mid-strength, high-volume shooting on the board, it's safer to run troops again. A lot of underused weapons would get a lot more attractive (HK/Seeker missiles), and a lot of silly high RoF weapons would get used less. Perfect example of this silliness is Punisher Pasks being the preferred option to glance down AV with an AP- weapon. Cmon yo. Take an anti-armor weapon.

You'd have to do a mess of balancing and changes after, but you're improving the core mechanics rather than layering on overcomplicated extra rules to sidestep addressing a real problem. It's not like you'd take 2 units of Pathfinders for 6x 30" Rail rifles when you could get a Missileside unit under the current ruleset -- the Missilesides are more versatile, have S7 to glance up to AV13, put out far more firepower, use Markerlights more efficiently, have more wounds, equivalent or better range, and get a 2+ save.

Nobody likes when their toys get nerfed though!

So far your complaints all come from a desire to overhaul the underlying game in its entirety. Try to stay on-track with the focus of the thread, which is strictly "improving the tau's weapons." Limited scope, limited intent. Rail weapons are overcosted and underperforming across the board, and this is a thread for proposed boosts that would be acceptable given a points increase proportionate to the upgrade.

Try to provide useful feedback and constructive criticism within this scope, rather than complaining about the state of the game not being something you like.

To re-cap: this thread is about how the Railhead and other rail weapons are inconsistent in their intended purpose, and that their gameplay does not line up with fluff in a big way, and about what can be done to improve this situation.
It is not about how power armour isn't strong enough or how there's other weapons with similar statlines.

Thank you!

What used to make railguns scary was that you could have 9 twin linked ST 10, AP1 shots with a range of 72 inches in a standard FOC.

Now the standard FOC lets you either have 3 St10, AP1 shots with 72 inch range or 9 twin-linked St 8, AP1, 60 inch shots. While the latter still does a number on light armour and MCs, the ability of the Tau to kill heavy armour from more than 9 inches away has essentially disappeared this edition.

Regaining this loss is a fair bit of the reason behind this thread, though doing so in a way that doesn't break the game is the tricky part.

 thegreatchimp wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Sounds fine to me. The Tau are supposed to be advanced, right?

Hmm, if you go down that road you'll get people like me stating. "Power armour is supposed to give near immunity to small arms fire therefore I think power armour should give a 2+ save on a D20." and so forth... I'm tolerant of the disparity between the power of things in the fluff and on the tabletop, if only in the interest of keeping the game practically playable.

It's too great of a disparity in this case.

 chrisrawr wrote:
So far your complaints all come from a desire to overhaul the underlying game in its entirety. Try to stay on-track with the focus of the thread, which is strictly "improving the tau's weapons." Limited scope, limited intent. Rail weapons are overcosted and underperforming across the board, and this is a thread for proposed boosts that would be acceptable given a points increase proportionate to the upgrade.

Try to provide useful feedback and constructive criticism within this scope, rather than complaining about the state of the game not being something you like.

To re-cap: this thread is about how the Railhead and other rail weapons are inconsistent in their intended purpose, and that their gameplay does not line up with fluff in a big way, and about what can be done to improve this situation.
It is not about how power armour isn't strong enough or how there's other weapons with similar statlines.

Thank you!

I don't have an overwhelming desire to overhaul the game. I'm making observations, drawing conclusions from them, and seeing where they lead.

It's very easy to "fix the railgun". Lower price, bump strength, hand out special rules. What is hard, however, is to create a balanced game out of many asymmetrical pieces, which is why you need to take a holistic approach. And if you can't do that, you have no business suggesting balance "solutions" that consider neither what makes a certain unit weak, or the secondary effects of improving it.

Considering GW has no feedback mechanism or real-time balance team, this thread is all theory anyway. So if you think what I said was wrong in any way, feel free to explain why.

Yoyoyo wrote:

 chrisrawr wrote:
So far your complaints all come from a desire to overhaul the underlying game in its entirety. Try to stay on-track with the focus of the thread, which is strictly "improving the tau's weapons." Limited scope, limited intent. Rail weapons are overcosted and underperforming across the board, and this is a thread for proposed boosts that would be acceptable given a points increase proportionate to the upgrade.

Try to provide useful feedback and constructive criticism within this scope, rather than complaining about the state of the game not being something you like.

To re-cap: this thread is about how the Railhead and other rail weapons are inconsistent in their intended purpose, and that their gameplay does not line up with fluff in a big way, and about what can be done to improve this situation.
It is not about how power armour isn't strong enough or how there's other weapons with similar statlines.

Thank you!

I don't have an overwhelming desire to overhaul the game. I'm making observations, drawing conclusions from them, and seeing where they lead.

It's very easy to "fix the railgun". Lower price, bump strength, hand out special rules. What is hard, however, is to create a balanced game out of many asymmetrical pieces, which is why you need to take a holistic approach. And if you can't do that, you have no business suggesting balance "solutions" that consider neither what makes a certain unit weak, or the secondary effects of improving it.

Considering GW has no feedback mechanism or real-time balance team, this thread is all theory anyway. So if you think what I said was wrong in any way, feel free to explain why.

You've got "fix" and "buff" mixed up.

Also, you don't have a shop that lets you use homerules? It's definitely not theory-craft for me. I run my railguns with additional/ess vehicle damage table for over/underpenetration at 175 points and 4 hull points before additional upgrades - the always glances and x chance to additional pen was also excellent back in 5th edition, but strips a lot of hullpoints now, which is why I only mentioned it as a secondary offering (would be priced at 200, 4hp as well).

Check out the Vehicle Design Rules thread for more ways to alter the Tau Vehicles with the intention of seeking greater effectiveness and balanced points cost. I run all my homebrew with a 10% point tax rounded off to the nearest 5. The Overpenetration rule costs 25 points per shot (2.5x more than haywire). The Railgun rule costs 45. Both are Addons.

Well, if you give the railgun Lance it has an about 22% chance of destroying a Land Raider in one hit, if it hits. (2/3 chance to Pen x 1/3 chance to Explode = 2/9).

If you give the Heavy Rail Rifle (which is actually the weapon that I think needs real imporovement) Lance it has an about 11% chance to one-shot a Land Raider on a successful hit. (1/3 chance to Pen x 1/3 Explode chance = 1/9).

Is that really too much? What was it in 5th edition?

In 5E you could pen a Raider 33% of the time on a hit, explodes 33% of the time, wrecked 50% of the time, immobilized or take a weapon of your choice off it over 75% of the time.

On a glance, you still had a 17% chance to wreck it.

Alcibiades wrote:
Well, if you give the railgun Lance it has an about 22% chance of destroying a Land Raider in one hit, if it hits. (2/3 chance to Pen x 1/3 chance to Explode = 2/9).

If you give the Heavy Rail Rifle (which is actually the weapon that I think needs real imporovement) Lance it has an about 11% chance to one-shot a Land Raider on a successful hit. (1/3 chance to Pen x 1/3 Explode chance = 1/9).

Is that really too much? What was it in 5th edition?

I still think those numbers are too low. A weapon with the purpose and cost of the railhead should kill a LR at least 50% of the time. Remember that it is directly competing with a unit that gets *24* shots. The railhead gets *one*. ONE.

Martel732 wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
Well, if you give the railgun Lance it has an about 22% chance of destroying a Land Raider in one hit, if it hits. (2/3 chance to Pen x 1/3 chance to Explode = 2/9).

If you give the Heavy Rail Rifle (which is actually the weapon that I think needs real imporovement) Lance it has an about 11% chance to one-shot a Land Raider on a successful hit. (1/3 chance to Pen x 1/3 Explode chance = 1/9).

Is that really too much? What was it in 5th edition?

I still think those numbers are too low. A weapon with the purpose and cost of the railhead should kill a LR at least 50% of the time. Remember that it is directly competing with a unit that gets *24* shots. The railhead gets *one*. ONE.

The unit that gets 24 shots costs over twice as much (I think?) and can't hurt the Land Raider at all.

No weapon should kill a 250-point model at least 50% of the time, I think.

A Lance railgun will Pen 2/3 of the time, usually causing somehing like Weapon Destroyed and Immobilized, with a 33% chance of just blowing the thing up. I think that is great.

Martel732 wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
Well, if you give the railgun Lance it has an about 22% chance of destroying a Land Raider in one hit, if it hits. (2/3 chance to Pen x 1/3 chance to Explode = 2/9).

If you give the Heavy Rail Rifle (which is actually the weapon that I think needs real imporovement) Lance it has an about 11% chance to one-shot a Land Raider on a successful hit. (1/3 chance to Pen x 1/3 Explode chance = 1/9).

Is that really too much? What was it in 5th edition?

I still think those numbers are too low. A weapon with the purpose and cost of the railhead should kill a LR at least 50% of the time. Remember that it is directly competing with a unit that gets *24* shots. The railhead gets *one*. ONE.

50% chance to kill a 250+ point model at 72" for 125 points? No. That's a completely unrealistic and unbalanced vision of the game.

Units can be powerful, long-ranged, or cheap. You can have any two of those, you cannot have all three.

 TheSilo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
Well, if you give the railgun Lance it has an about 22% chance of destroying a Land Raider in one hit, if it hits. (2/3 chance to Pen x 1/3 chance to Explode = 2/9).

If you give the Heavy Rail Rifle (which is actually the weapon that I think needs real imporovement) Lance it has an about 11% chance to one-shot a Land Raider on a successful hit. (1/3 chance to Pen x 1/3 Explode chance = 1/9).

Is that really too much? What was it in 5th edition?

I still think those numbers are too low. A weapon with the purpose and cost of the railhead should kill a LR at least 50% of the time. Remember that it is directly competing with a unit that gets *24* shots. The railhead gets *one*. ONE.

50% chance to kill a 250+ point model at 72" for 125 points? No. That's a completely unrealistic and unbalanced vision of the game.

Units can be powerful, long-ranged, or cheap. You can have any two of those, you cannot have all three.

I never said it would cost 125 pts.

"Point at unit, remove unit" is bad game design

Alcibiades wrote:
"Point at unit, remove unit" is bad game design

Maybe, but it's how modern armor works and the railhead is the most modern armor-like unit in the game. The kill rate for the M1A2 Abrams is super high. And this game is supposed to be the future. If the railhead is not going to function like modern armor, maybe it shouldn't be in the game. Because right now, it's just a trap choice.

IMO of course


Automatically Appended Next Post:
whoops this was supposed to be attached to an earlier post - sorry


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
"Point at unit, remove unit" is bad game design

Maybe, but it's how modern armor works and the railhead is the most modern armor-like unit in the game. The kill rate for the M1A2 Abrams is super high. And this game is supposed to be the future. If the railhead is not going to function like modern armor, maybe it shouldn't be in the game. Because right now, it's just a trap choice.

This is a game to have fun by having both sides be evenly matched, not an actually military engagement where one side tries to be as unbalanced as possible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I guess we could play "cavemen vs. Wehrmacht," where one side gets rocks and the other gets tanks but that would not be enjoyable

If the unit is not going to be allowed to work as it should, then I say it should just be removed then. A one-shot weapon in 40K needs to be very reliable or it will just be outshone by all the mid-high ST spammy weapons and never used. Which is exactly what we are seeing now. No matter how you slice it a single pen from AP 1 has a miserable chance of killing a vehicle now and getting that pen against AV 13/14 is inconsistent as well. Terrible.

Martel732 wrote:
If the unit is not going to be allowed to work as it should, then I say it should just be removed then. A one-shot weapon in 40K needs to be very reliable or it will just be outshone by all the mid-high ST spammy weapons and never used. Which is exactly what we are seeing now. No matter how you slice it a single pen from AP 1 has a miserable chance of killing a vehicle now and getting that pen against AV 13/14 is inconsistent as well. Terrible.

Sounds like the right answer is Hammerhead Squadrons then. Let it Spam!

 AtoMaki wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If the unit is not going to be allowed to work as it should, then I say it should just be removed then. A one-shot weapon in 40K needs to be very reliable or it will just be outshone by all the mid-high ST spammy weapons and never used. Which is exactly what we are seeing now. No matter how you slice it a single pen from AP 1 has a miserable chance of killing a vehicle now and getting that pen against AV 13/14 is inconsistent as well. Terrible.

Sounds like the right answer is Hammerhead Squadrons then. Let it Spam!

That's one possibility for sure.

If you want a model can destroy Land Raiders and Knights with any kind of reliability, the Lynx and Gauss Pylon are your points baseline. Not 125pts, not 170pts, it's actually 400+pts. At this point you're talking about a different unit entirely, and it's a LoW and not a HS choice. Example :

Tau Carcharodon. Hammerhead chassis/options, Heavy Railgun Battery (Str D AP1 110", Primary Weapon, Ordnance 4), 420pts.

If just want minor buffs in your own games and your opponents are ok with it, run Ordnance as a houserule, unlimited Longstrikes, allow squadrons, or design your own custom vehicles exactly as chrisrawr mentioned. Why not? A lot of good suggestions have already come up in this thread.

If you're interested in discussing global balance and the desired endstate for gameplay, you need to look at the entire picture, not just complain your railgun is too ineffective. Should running a mounted Ork army = auto lose against Tau? That's not good design.

To have a more productive discussion, it would be good to reflect which of these three separate discussions we are currently having. All three at once is going to result in a lot of circular arguments.

"If you want a model can destroy Land Raiders and Knights with any kind of reliability, the Lynx and Gauss Pylon are your points baseline. Not 125pts, not 170pts, it's actually 400+pts"

Ridiculous, imo.