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 BlaxicanX wrote:

 MajorWesJanson wrote:

maceria wrote:

Merellin wrote:
Why does the head "Need to be bigger"? If you know anything about Tau battle suits you know that the head contain nothing more then a set of cameras and sensors letting the pilots that are compleately in the chest see whats going on, And the Tau do nothing that isent nececary. Does bigger head increase the capabilities of the suit? No? then it wont get a bigger head.

Nope, old fluff about how the Tau don't make stupid edifices like the IOM don't work anymore, as evidenced by the shift "giant walkers are dumb, let's just shoot them from orbit" to "LOOK AT MA ION CANNON HANDS PEW PEW PEW!"

Or the Tau have come to realize that in a galaxy where everyone else has massive robots and monsters, and air superiority is far from guaranteed, maybe the races that have been fighting for tens of thousands or millions of years have a point when it comes to giant walkers.

If you don't have air superiority than your giant walker is dead anyway since it's going to just get bombed back to the stone age by the other guy's air/space assets.

There is no in-universe situation where a giant bi-pedal robot would be more ideal than a mobile flyer/skimmer. Like Centurions, the only reason this unit exists is because it looks cool.

There's nothing wrong with that... but let's call a spade a spade.

Let's be honest, when you have mile-long starships that can virus-bomb, split apart or incinerate a planet, the pretext for launching a ground assault is pretty flimsy anyway.

 Mr Morden wrote:
I always thought the large heads on units like the Warhound were partly psychological - many predators have large heads with big jaws and so helps with the intimidation factor.

This also fits in with the limited personality engrams that the Warhound has?

oh and rule of cool of course - that wins.

I like Ork stuff where they just weld loads guns together - I had hoped that the Tau would show their cleanness of design and efficiency and hence appear the opposite. Then again I am not a fan of the over the top anime designs it obviously modelled on.

If it was a Archer, Marauder or Warhammer lookalike then hell yeah.............

Warhounds and other titans actually house the cockpit for the pilot to sit in, pilots for Tau suits sit in the chest area, think dreadnought but not filled with half-decayed dead guy.

I'm just saying it's a full blown ret-con of Tau, to then scale of Necrons going from faceless, emotionless, robot skeletons to colorful, personality based, undead robots. Tau are changing from clean, efficient, designs not based on being scary edifices to "STRAHP ON MOAR GUNZ!".

Tau previously didn't make giant walkers explicitly because they are inefficient. Then GW decided they could sell boatloads of giant robots, and Tau fluff started changing. I'm curious to read the new codex and see just how far they change it, and if they go full Necron it.

As for the head on the giant dumb walker, I think the small head looks great. Unlike the stupid Ion Cannon hands.

maceria wrote:

Tau previously didn't make giant walkers explicitly because they are inefficient.

The Collegia Titanica disagrees.

maceria wrote:
I'm just saying it's a full blown ret-con of Tau, to then scale of Necrons going from faceless, emotionless, robot skeletons to colorful, personality based, undead robots. Tau are changing from clean, efficient, designs not based on being scary edifices to "STRAHP ON MOAR GUNZ!".

Tau previously didn't make giant walkers explicitly because they are inefficient. Then GW decided they could sell boatloads of giant robots, and Tau fluff started changing. I'm curious to read the new codex and see just how far they change it, and if they go full Necron it.

As for the head on the giant dumb walker, I think the small head looks great. Unlike the stupid Ion Cannon hands.

Yeah, I know but the fact is that fliers pretty much suck and one-shot Tau super-heavy fliers are pretty bad in the game anyway. Instead of fixing the rules, forgeworld continues the GW trend of "big stompies for everybody! derrr" producing a giant model with a commensurate price tag (I'm sure).

 AtoMaki wrote:

maceria wrote:

Tau previously didn't make giant walkers explicitly because they are inefficient.

The Collegia Titanica disagrees.

Strong=/=efficient. The imperium can waste recorces on godmachines, but for the tau it's better invested elsewhere.

I see it like a big Broadside; really just a big artillery platform with legs. I agree that the gun hands just being guns strapped to guns look a bit silly on a Tau suit, though I really like the shoulder ones.

It's Tau. It's not like they're replacing their entire military and methods of warfare with giant robots. This suit could be a test, a proof-of-concept. It could find a niche (insert "battlesuits are otiose in a niche" comment), or it might not. If it does, they'll deploy them in ways that cater to the strengths and weaknesses of the suit. If they don't, then they'll stop making them (Tau, not Forge World).

 agnosto wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
I always thought the large heads on units like the Warhound were partly psychological - many predators have large heads with big jaws and so helps with the intimidation factor.

This also fits in with the limited personality engrams that the Warhound has?

oh and rule of cool of course - that wins.

I like Ork stuff where they just weld loads guns together - I had hoped that the Tau would show their cleanness of design and efficiency and hence appear the opposite. Then again I am not a fan of the over the top anime designs it obviously modelled on.

If it was a Archer, Marauder or Warhammer lookalike then hell yeah.............

Warhounds and other titans actually house the cockpit for the pilot to sit in, pilots for Tau suits sit in the chest area, think dreadnought but not filled with half-decayed dead guy.

Yeah I know but with that in mind making your head look like a giant menacing predators head seems a good thing

Merellin wrote:
Why does the head "Need to be bigger"? If you know anything about Tau battle suits you know that the head contain nothing more then a set of cameras and sensors letting the pilots that are compleately in the chest see whats going on, And the Tau do nothing that isent nececary. Does bigger head increase the capabilities of the suit? No? then it wont get a bigger head.

Don't care, it looks dumb IMHO, so I swap them out with bigger, better looking heads.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

Merellin wrote:
Why does the head "Need to be bigger"? If you know anything about Tau battle suits you know that the head contain nothing more then a set of cameras and sensors letting the pilots that are compleately in the chest see whats going on, And the Tau do nothing that isent nececary. Does bigger head increase the capabilities of the suit? No? then it wont get a bigger head.

Because it looks stupid, that's why. If we were going for maximum efficiency, it wouldn't even have head, but it's there for looks. I just think the size of the head relative to the rest of the model is stupidly small.

If anyone at all in 40k was interested in maximum efficiency, there wouldn't be any mecha/titans/knights/dreadnoughts/battlesuits bigger than, say, stealth suits. Along with a whole host of other poorly designed vehicles and weapons of war.

I personally think a loadout that heavy would've looked better on a suit/hover tank hybrid a la Lord of Skulls but with grav-tech, like if the upper body were mounted on a giant devilfish sorta thing. All those guns look like it would knock it flat on its butt when fired.

shade1313 wrote:

Merellin wrote:
Why does the head "Need to be bigger"? If you know anything about Tau battle suits you know that the head contain nothing more then a set of cameras and sensors letting the pilots that are compleately in the chest see whats going on, And the Tau do nothing that isent nececary. Does bigger head increase the capabilities of the suit? No? then it wont get a bigger head.

Don't care, it looks dumb IMHO, so I swap them out with bigger, better looking heads.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

Merellin wrote:
Why does the head "Need to be bigger"? If you know anything about Tau battle suits you know that the head contain nothing more then a set of cameras and sensors letting the pilots that are compleately in the chest see whats going on, And the Tau do nothing that isent nececary. Does bigger head increase the capabilities of the suit? No? then it wont get a bigger head.

Because it looks stupid, that's why. If we were going for maximum efficiency, it wouldn't even have head, but it's there for looks. I just think the size of the head relative to the rest of the model is stupidly small.

If anyone at all in 40k was interested in maximum efficiency, there wouldn't be any mecha/titans/knights/dreadnoughts/battlesuits bigger than, say, stealth suits. Along with a whole host of other poorly designed vehicles and weapons of war.

Exactly. If it's going to be there for looks, we might as well make it look cool.

 pax macharia wrote:
I personally think a loadout that heavy would've looked better on a suit/hover tank hybrid a la Lord of Skulls but with grav-tech, like if the upper body were mounted on a giant devilfish sorta thing. All those guns look like it would knock it flat on its butt when fired.

For some reason it's really difficult to find good pictures of the Hildolfr from the actual episode it's in. It's from Gundam: IGLOO.

One day the Tau will have a suit so big it rivals the Emperor Class Titan. And Forgeworld will take your money and laugh.

Also relax guys. Some fairly reliable rumors have the Tau getting a super heavy skimmer tank of some kind. Not for some time, but it is being considered.

I think the titan suit looks fantastic, it's a nice throwback to the days when the Railside was good. But I'll stick with my Heavy RailgunTigershark for the foreseeable future I think... That suit is a fire-sponge, and Tau shouldn't function like that IMHO

The tigershark has D weapons, 2 structure points and I bet will be a fraction of the cost of that thing... It also carries 8 seeker missiles.

While it's speculation I also think our new troop choice will use carbines and jetpacks. It would be cool to have more mobile troops to work with our mobile style of warfare.

So a big huge ass missile suit Tau bigger than a Riptide.

Possible new XV8 kit options (again I can hope).

New Crisis Commander Kit.

Finally a new suit smaller than a Riptide. Well that's too broad for me to figure out.

I hope those Kroot rumors pan out as well and we get them in their own codex. I know it's been explained why this is not likely but I can hope dammit.

Also since so many of the Tau rumors are bearing fruit from way earlier this year a reliable rumor put us at getting a fortification.

The on the FW side of things we got the Supremacy Armor. Also someone read the rule book of the model and says "The first in a series of new Tau war machines..." but this is fluff maybe? I mean if its referencing things we haven't seen yet or are about to in Oct. then yes. Then further in the future possibly a SH skimmer tank.

"Time of the Tau" indeed. Looks like we're in for a gigantic update.

XV107 R'VARNA wrote:I think the titan suit looks fantastic, it's a nice throwback to the days when the Railside was good. But I'll stick with my Heavy RailgunTigershark for the foreseeable future I think... That suit is a fire-sponge, and Tau shouldn't function like that IMHO

The tigershark has D weapons, 2 structure points and I bet will be a fraction of the cost of that thing... It also carries 8 seeker missiles.

The KX-139 was made to counter Imperial Knights and smaller titans. It won't cost 2 or 3 times a Tiger Shark - in fact, I'd believe it'll cost similarly, if not a bit cheaper. 600ish points are ok for it.
This thing will have more than 6 HPs and D weapons as well. It's easier to hit, I agree - but can fire from turn 1.

 pax macharia wrote:
All those guns look like it would knock it flat on its butt when fired.

If the shoulder guns are railguns, there won't be any recoil (IIRC).

 -Shrike- wrote:

 pax macharia wrote:
All those guns look like it would knock it flat on its butt when fired.

If the shoulder guns are railguns, there won't be any recoil (IIRC).

Yea newsflash. In real life railguns produce so much recoil if you fired a rail rifle we make today it will rip your arm off.

The only thing that's large enough to fire a railgun and not be torn to shreds is a freaking battleship and a lot of that has to do with the water. Even then there have been reports of quick consecutive shots nearly tipping them over at a few points and they almost took on water. So let that sink into your head a single railgun was enough to almost tip over a gigantic ship with its recoil. This is only a prototype railgun by the way. Also for the record it can fire 220 miles away or soon will be able to. It's enough to outdistance quite a few missiles.

I assume in the Tau lore they have some way to reduce recoil by a huge margin otherwise any sort of railgun short of on a huge spaceship would be impractical even dangerous.

There are some prototype missiles that are being developed that can outrange the railgun but they are just in development.

 Gamgee wrote:

 -Shrike- wrote:

 pax macharia wrote:
All those guns look like it would knock it flat on its butt when fired.

If the shoulder guns are railguns, there won't be any recoil (IIRC).

Yea newsflash. In real life railguns produce so much recoil if you fired a rail rifle we make today it will rip your arm off.

The only thing that's large enough to fire a railgun and not be torn to shreds is a freaking battleship and a lot of that has to do with the water. Even then there have been reports of quick consecutive shots nearly tipping them over at a few points and they almost took on water. So let that sink into your head a single railgun was enough to almost tip over a gigantic ship with its recoil. This is only a prototype railgun by the way. Also for the record it can fire 220 miles away or soon will be able to. It's enough to outdistance quite a few missiles.

I assume in the Tau lore they have some way to reduce recoil by a huge margin otherwise any sort of railgun short of on a huge spaceship would be impractical even dangerous.

There are some prototype missiles that are being developed that can outrange the railgun but they are just in development.

Well as railguns do have equal recoil to the force put on the round, the recoil is prolongued and less sudden than a gunshot as the force is being distributed between many magnets. This means that even though the gun is receiving equal force in the opposite direction(experienced as recoil) it is less dramatic and sudden than that of a gunshot. This means that compensators and inertial dampeners are easier to implement because the force can be more evenly and steadily distributed. This also means that since the idea of the rail rifle is a smaller caliber round, which then of course requires less force and energy to propel, which means less recoil.

The guns being mounted on battleships actually has less to do with the recoil of the gun, more the power storage required to fire a round at the speed and caliber the military is looking for. They are less interested in infantry rifles and more interested in anti-tank/ship/plane/missile weapons for the railgun.

Obviously it is easier to imagine that the tau have developed some advanced way to stabilize the weapon, etc, etc or it wouldnt be used as you say.

 Gamgee wrote:

 -Shrike- wrote:

 pax macharia wrote:
All those guns look like it would knock it flat on its butt when fired.

If the shoulder guns are railguns, there won't be any recoil (IIRC).

Yea newsflash. In real life railguns produce so much recoil if you fired a rail rifle we make today it will rip your arm off.

The only thing that's large enough to fire a railgun and not be torn to shreds is a freaking battleship and a lot of that has to do with the water. Even then there have been reports of quick consecutive shots nearly tipping them over at a few points and they almost took on water. So let that sink into your head a single railgun was enough to almost tip over a gigantic ship with its recoil. This is only a prototype railgun by the way. Also for the record it can fire 220 miles away or soon will be able to. It's enough to outdistance quite a few missiles.

I assume in the Tau lore they have some way to reduce recoil by a huge margin otherwise any sort of railgun short of on a huge spaceship would be impractical even dangerous.

There are some prototype missiles that are being developed that can outrange the railgun but they are just in development.

I'm not really sure where you're getting your info from, but to date, no railgun has been affixed to any sort of naval vessel. Additionally, current railguns are nowhere near capable of "quick, consecutive shots." Also while the railguns being tested do indeed have the capability of reaching over 200 nm, they still fall far short in terms of standoff cruise missiles which can have ranges of over 1000 nm. Where the benefit of utilizing a railgun is realized is in terms of the cost per round, which is extremely low for a projectile vice a missile.

Now, the recoil of a railgun is no different than any other sort of projectile weapon at a given power level (read: Newton's Third Law of Motion). It is entirely possible to create a railgun that is capable of being fired by a person; you just have to get the power level right. The reason why railguns are perceived as being so powerful is because they are capable of accelerating a projectile far faster than chemical propellants, which are limited by their burn rates. So, yes, a railgun can indeed be extremely powerful, but it doesn't necessarily have to be, since a railgun is simply a form of linear induction motor where the amount of power input determines the acceleration of the projectile which in turn determines the recoil.

 Gamgee wrote:

 -Shrike- wrote:

 pax macharia wrote:
All those guns look like it would knock it flat on its butt when fired.

If the shoulder guns are railguns, there won't be any recoil (IIRC).

Yea newsflash. In real life railguns produce so much recoil if you fired a rail rifle we make today it will rip your arm off.

The only thing that's large enough to fire a railgun and not be torn to shreds is a freaking battleship and a lot of that has to do with the water. Even then there have been reports of quick consecutive shots nearly tipping them over at a few points and they almost took on water. So let that sink into your head a single railgun was enough to almost tip over a gigantic ship with its recoil. This is only a prototype railgun by the way. Also for the record it can fire 220 miles away or soon will be able to. It's enough to outdistance quite a few missiles.

I assume in the Tau lore they have some way to reduce recoil by a huge margin otherwise any sort of railgun short of on a huge spaceship would be impractical even dangerous.

I'm going to disagree with you here, to a degree. First a note, note the recoil when it's fired at the 14 second mark.




Yes, there is recoil but it will be in proportion to the length of the pulse used to launch the payload rather than like what you see with explosive-fire weapons which have a breech of some sort and contain the explosion causing larger recoil. An example would be a Barrett sniper rifle (closed breech) vs. a should-fired rocket (open breech) the rocket has much less recoil even though it's launched with much greater force as the opposite force applied is vented out the rear of the weapon.

For a coil or rail weapon, the longer the pulse, the more opposite force will be applied. The good news is that you don't need long pulses to fire a several kilogram payload 60 miles or more with sufficient force to penetrate/destroy a target.

Here's a picture of one being fired from a wheeled platform:


Physics is fun.

Good read here:
http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/navy-wants-fire-its-ridiculously-strong-railgun-ocean

The Tau can mount extremely powerful railguns on skimmers and aircraft. It is safe to assume that they have technological mastery of redirecting kinetic energy. Hammerheads are not heavy vehicles and they float, yet they are not thrown back by the recoil of each shot. This is not because there is no recoil or less recoil than a cannon (actually the opposite), but because they have the technology to make the recoil such a minor concern that they'd put it on a skimmer.

While fascinating, the recoil discussion is a digression from the topic. Please take it elsewhere if you want to continue.

I think it looks cool. Isn't that enough? -It doesn't legitamise anything any more just because it looks more realistic. I like my fantasy fantastical and that means departing from reality in a consistent way even if it isn't a realistic one.

Super heavy skimmer tanks could be neat.

Tau rumors would be even neater hehe....or should that be more neat...

That is a very vague unconfirmed rumor. Probably BS, but still out there.

 Vector Strike wrote:

XV107 R'VARNA wrote:I think the titan suit looks fantastic, it's a nice throwback to the days when the Railside was good. But I'll stick with my Heavy RailgunTigershark for the foreseeable future I think... That suit is a fire-sponge, and Tau shouldn't function like that IMHO

The tigershark has D weapons, 2 structure points and I bet will be a fraction of the cost of that thing... It also carries 8 seeker missiles.

The KX-139 was made to counter Imperial Knights and smaller titans. It won't cost 2 or 3 times a Tiger Shark - in fact, I'd believe it'll cost similarly, if not a bit cheaper. 600ish points are ok for it.
This thing will have more than 6 HPs and D weapons as well. It's easier to hit, I agree - but can fire from turn 1.

That may be the case, and if it is, fantastic. However a titan doesn't fit in with the Tau Philosophy towards war. The Heavy flyers do though, they strike from a distance, are cheap to manufacture and hit hard and fast (whilst being much harder to hit)

A titan is a fire sponge and whilst that might mean in big games my Riptides live until turn 3 or 4, I'd rather hold air superiority and nuke Knights and stuff from the air.

Each to their own I guess Do like the idea of a super-heavy skimmer though, I'd love to see a Tau equivalent to the Eldar Scorpion

The KX-139 fits just fine into the Tau philosophy of war.

Especially taking into consideration that when the thing was first shown off, the poster over at Advanced Tau Tactica who picked the FW guy's brains was told that they were looking to expand upon the various concepts of Tau warfare rather than just Killing Blow or Patient Hunter.

 Kanluwen wrote:
The KX-139 fits just fine into the Tau philosophy of war.

Especially taking into consideration that when the thing was first shown off, the poster over at Advanced Tau Tactica who picked the FW guy's brains was told that they were looking to expand upon the various concepts of Tau warfare rather than just Killing Blow or Patient Hunter.

It's also one of the most amazing looking super heavy kits that Forgeworld has ever made in my opinion, and I'm pretty sure it will sell very well. Giant mechs never make any sense from a realism point of view, since they can be destroyed with missiles from hundreds of kilometers away, while also remaining vulnerable to ground forces, but they still look damn cool and capture our imagination.

Of course not everybody will love this model in particular, just like some people think Imperial Titans and tanks look absolutely laughable, and some think Eldar vehicles and Titans are the most beautiful designs ever while others don't care for them at all. What's unarguable though is that this Tau Titan seems to be an extremely high quality kit with incredible amounts of detail and that the end model is highly posable. In short, I love it, and will get one, despite not even playing Tau.