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Most players would save a CP reroll for the wound roll for something as critical as possibly bracketing a knight. And do we know that the other railguns are getting the ignore invulns rule? Could just be the Hammerhead.

I make it a 60% chance to get a wounding hit, or 72% with a CP for a hit re-roll. At that point you do 10-12 damage to almost any target in the game. That's an average of 8 wounds with the re-roll. Or for 1CP a sub munition shot gets you 8 mortal wounds to any unit with 11+ models.

Reroll to hit, and you know you're going to reroll that wound if it fails.

Why does it ignore force fields? Magical warp-based damage immunities? Psychic barriers? I don't get it. It's like they had a bunch of ideas on how to make the Railgun better - What if it did D3+6 damage? What if it ignored Invul saves? What if it did 3 auto-MWs? - and decided that "All of them!" was the solution.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Sub-munitions is the best blast weapon in the game too. It doesn't even need to roll to hit and rolls a die for every model with no max. It caps at 8MW.... Oh no not a paltry 8! It gets through hit mods, cover, armor, invulns....

So it's kinda like Combat Attrition tests, ignoring most of the things that determine how casualties are caused?

'Cause we needed more than that.

I don't know how knights (chaos or imperial) are supposed to fight against this new scary weapon. Knights can't even hide because they are 24W.

At least it will be over mercifully quick. Instead of rolling a whole ton of hits and wounds, and saves to kill a knight. Now you basically just roll a few, and the knight player doesn't even get a save ... lol.

Voss wrote:
They've never really grasped the idea that the entire edition (and all the books) needs to be treated as a whole and given constraints and limitations. Too often, the army books seem like a competition between egos, and one author has to 'surpass' the previous author, all at the expense of the game as a whole.

I don't think they've ever heard of design documents (or at least not doing them in advance).

I am reminded of the CSM designer notes for the new Codex in a white dwarf back in 4th? edition. It talked about how previous Possessed were a random roll to find out what mutation they had, including things like Infiltrate that didn't work if you bought them a Rhino and how this was unfun and bad so in the new Codex you payed points for their mutation so you knew what kind of Possessed you were getting when you started a game.
And the edition after that Possessed promptly went back to being random because 'random is fun'.

So no, there are no design documents, and if any exist no one bothers to read them. Codexes are entirely decided by the luck of the draw of which author they get and whether or not that particular person likes or hates playing an army.

Welcome to 40k

 Ordana wrote:

Voss wrote:
They've never really grasped the idea that the entire edition (and all the books) needs to be treated as a whole and given constraints and limitations. Too often, the army books seem like a competition between egos, and one author has to 'surpass' the previous author, all at the expense of the game as a whole.

I don't think they've ever heard of design documents (or at least not doing them in advance).

I am reminded of the CSM designer notes for the new Codex in a white dwarf back in 4th? edition. It talked about how previous Possessed were a random roll to find out what mutation they had, including things like Infiltrate that didn't work if you bought them a Rhino and how this was unfun and bad so in the new Codex you payed points for their mutation so you knew what kind of Possessed you were getting when you started a game.
And the edition after that Possessed promptly went back to being random because 'random is fun'.

So no, there are no design documents, and if any exist no one bothers to read them. Codexes are entirely decided by the luck of the draw of which author they get and whether or not that particular person likes or hates playing an army.

Welcome to 40k

Must've been 3.5. That's the only CSM codex I can think of that allowed you to pick the mutation you wanted for Possessed and pay points for them. All of the others, including 8th, have had some element randomness to them. Because Chaos = Random!

Daemon Engines are now so sad against that new railgun lol. Imagine having your 200 point Lord Discordant one shotted by a railgun... lol

I really hope they are not going to focus only on Daemon Engines as a theme for CSM when our new codex comes out...

Fingers crossed the day the codex drops, the inevitable FAQ will update the profile again.
"Oops, that was a typo, we meant for it to be Damage D6+3. Our bad, we mixed the numbers by accident. Oh, and you only get 3MWs if you roll a 6 to wound"

If it's going to ignore invuls, it shouldn't reliably be doing 10+ wounds.
Actually, so far we've only seen the Warhammer Community post. It's entirely possible that the Codex won't need this FAQ and the WC article has it "wrong" just to drum up hype and sell some Hammerheads.

Even if my guess is right (which it probably isnt) D6+3 ignore invuls with a 6+ chance to do 3MWs is still way better than it currently is AND way better than most anti-tank shots.
So let's hope they just swapped the 6 and 3 by mistake. D3+6 is a really weird combo (very little swing with large set bonus). D6+3 seems more in line with other things (bigger swing value with modest set bonus)

-

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Why does it ignore force fields? Magical warp-based damage immunities? Psychic barriers? I don't get it.

Suddenly the 40k universe is a more magical place, and the Tau have figured out that cold-wrought iron trumps all magical defenses. So just throwing a chunk of iron real hard solves everything. With a big enough meteor, they could close the Eye of Terror!

Ooo. The hinted even-more-better gun is going to spray all the witches with salt. It will auto-hit and disallow FnP and shrugging off mortal wounds in addition to no invulnerable saves and -6 AP.

 Galef wrote:
Fingers crossed the day the codex drops, the inevitable FAQ will update the profile again.
"Oops, that was a typo, we meant for it to be Damage D6+3. Our bad, we mixed the numbers by accident. Oh, and you only get 3MWs if you roll a 6 to wound"

If it's going to ignore invuls, it shouldn't reliably be doing 10+ wounds.
Actually, so far we've only seen the Warhammer Community post. It's entirely possible that the Codex won't need this FAQ and the WC article has it "wrong" just to drum up hype and sell some Hammerheads.

Even if my guess is right (which it probably isnt) D6+3 ignore invuls with a 6+ chance to do 3MWs is still way better than it currently is AND way better than most anti-tank shots.
So let's hope they just swapped the 6 and 3 by mistake. D3+6 is a really weird combo (very little swing with large set bonus). D6+3 seems more in line with other things (bigger swing value with modest set bonus)

-

They will definitely have to give into all the drukhari players that complained they lost a single raider before dousing the hammerhead in 8 of their 36 dark lances.

Voss wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Why does it ignore force fields? Magical warp-based damage immunities? Psychic barriers? I don't get it.

Suddenly the 40k universe is a more magical place, and the Tau have figured out that cold-wrought iron trumps all magical defenses. So just throwing a chunk of iron real hard solves everything. With a big enough meteor, they could close the Eye of Terror!

Ooo. The hinted even-more-better gun is going to spray all the witches with salt. It will auto-hit and disallow FnP and shrugging off mortal wounds in addition to no invulnerable saves and -6 AP.

I'm reminded of the time Gav Thorpe wrote rules for WHFB vs. 40k, back when Armor Values were still a thing. In that setting, an Imperial Great Cannon was MUCH more effective at killing Land Raiders than a lascannon was.

 BrotherGecko wrote:

They will definitely have to give into all the drukhari players that complained they lost a single raider before dousing the hammerhead in 8 of their 36 dark lances.

I guess my point is that the Rail gun, Dark Lance spam and the rumoured Fire Prism lance shot (d3+3 damage at AP-5 that also ignores invuls and can shoot twice), paints a VERY clear picture that GW is happy with the number of Knights it's sold. Because there is literally no point in every bringing Knights if there's a chance to get paired against T'au, Eldar, DE and I'm sure a few others.

Daemon Primarchs, Nid MCs and WraithKnights are equally laughable now (not saying any of those were competitive, just that they absolutely are not now).

It will be very interesting to see where this takes the meta. Big models can now be deleted with little to no counter play.
Infantry it is, I suppose

-

Simple. They will sell a million hammerhead gunships then nerf them in the next rules update. Then it will not have the ignore invuln ability or mortal wounds anymore. You guys haven’t figured out the formula yet? Sell models by giving them overpowered abilities. Eldar will be really OP for a while then once the models are sold they will get hit with the nerf bat

I don't think the Hammerheads themselves will be durable enough to stand up to any sort of return fire, given how damned lethal 40k is.

They'll get a turn to make their mark, and that'll be it for them.

Ok then let’s roll to see who goes first, then go bowling.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I don't think the Hammerheads themselves will be durable enough to stand up to any sort of return fire, given how damned lethal 40k is.

They'll get a turn to make their mark, and that'll be it for them.

What return fire ? Tau can hide behind LOS blocking terrain, move, even advance, and count as stationary in turn 1-3. They will then kill everything what can hurt them. Any opponent will be tabled T2, or severly crippled. You cant even tie them up in melee anymore, they can fall back and shoot in turn 3-5.

 p5freak wrote:

What return fire ? Tau can hide behind LOS blocking terrain, move, even advance, and count as stationary in turn 1-3. They will then kill everything what can hurt them. Any opponent will be tabled T2, or severly crippled. You cant even tie them up in melee anymore, they can fall back and shoot in turn 3-5.

Once they shoot, they are in sight of the enemy. Besides, it's not like reserves aren't a thing anymore, far from it. Tau can't still destroy what's not on the table on their turn.

Doom and gloom from a couple rules and hypothetical scenarios never last long in front of actual games.

 p5freak wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I don't think the Hammerheads themselves will be durable enough to stand up to any sort of return fire, given how damned lethal 40k is.

They'll get a turn to make their mark, and that'll be it for them.

What return fire ? Tau can hide behind LOS blocking terrain, move, even advance, and count as stationary in turn 1-3. They will then kill everything what can hurt them. Any opponent will be tabled T2, or severly crippled. You cant even tie them up in melee anymore, they can fall back and shoot in turn 3-5.

If tau advances counting as stationary and fall backs and shoots　same game he's cheating,

Yeah cheaters generally tend to win. No surprise there.

 BrotherGecko wrote:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:

I am bothered that this is a huge leap in damage dealing potential halfway through the edition when nothing else in any codex is even close to this.

Nonsense, tons of stuff can do this kind of damage just not typically in one single shot and only shot. A bunch of units can do more damage in CC than the hammerhead.

Tau being an army without any high damage melee units instead have so far one unpointed unit that is pretty fragile that can keep up with stuff like knights on damage output at range.

Save the salt for whatever broadsides become.

No, they really can't.

There is no unit that can achieve a damage potential like this without a SERIOUS points investment, AND such potential is dramatically slashed but -1 damage effects that are increasingly common in the game.

 Laughing Man wrote:

Doohicky wrote:
So Basically Tau with a hammerhead can, with a single vehicle, destroy morty in two turns.

Tau bring some of these guys vs knights and it's not even a game is it?

It takes three Hammerheads to kill Morty in 2 turns, 80% of the time. It also takes three Hammerheads to kill a single Knight in a turn, ignoring hit and wound calcs. Given what's returning fire, the Knights almost certainly will trade up.

Unless you think 3 hammerheads will cost the same as 3 knights, which is the majority of a 2k army, I don't see trading up for anything. I suspect 3 hammerheads might cost 1 knight. Or even less.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I don't think the Hammerheads themselves will be durable enough to stand up to any sort of return fire, given how damned lethal 40k is.

They'll get a turn to make their mark, and that'll be it for them.

The game has been making it increasingly easy to reserve away it's damage punches, and I doubt Tau will be any different. They will get their shot off. And the other player has to hope they have something left to fight back.

 p5freak wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I don't think the Hammerheads themselves will be durable enough to stand up to any sort of return fire, given how damned lethal 40k is.

They'll get a turn to make their mark, and that'll be it for them.

What return fire ? Tau can hide behind LOS blocking terrain, move, even advance, and count as stationary in turn 1-3. They will then kill everything what can hurt them. Any opponent will be tabled T2, or severly crippled. You cant even tie them up in melee anymore, they can fall back and shoot in turn 3-5.

You only get to use one of the philosophie thingys per game...
Nonetheless, T'au alpha strike could cripple a careless opponent into nothingness.

Nibbler wrote:

 p5freak wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I don't think the Hammerheads themselves will be durable enough to stand up to any sort of return fire, given how damned lethal 40k is.

They'll get a turn to make their mark, and that'll be it for them.

What return fire ? Tau can hide behind LOS blocking terrain, move, even advance, and count as stationary in turn 1-3. They will then kill everything what can hurt them. Any opponent will be tabled T2, or severly crippled. You cant even tie them up in melee anymore, they can fall back and shoot in turn 3-5.

You only get to use one of the philosophie thingys per game...
Nonetheless, T'au alpha strike could cripple a careless opponent into nothingness.

Im pretty sure that in the new codex named characters will be able to use both philosophies, or that there will be a stratagem that allows a unit to use the other philosophy, when one has already been used. You will not be able to hide from tau, they have artillery, and they can move, advance, and shoot, counting as stationary.

stratigo wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:

I am bothered that this is a huge leap in damage dealing potential halfway through the edition when nothing else in any codex is even close to this.

Nonsense, tons of stuff can do this kind of damage just not typically in one single shot and only shot. A bunch of units can do more damage in CC than the hammerhead.

Tau being an army without any high damage melee units instead have so far one unpointed unit that is pretty fragile that can keep up with stuff like knights on damage output at range.

Save the salt for whatever broadsides become.

No, they really can't.

There is no unit that can achieve a damage potential like this without a SERIOUS points investment, AND such potential is dramatically slashed but -1 damage effects that are increasingly common in the game.

Just to add to this, not many of these super CC units are making it into combat first turn, and making it unscathed either. Especially against Tau.

People are really acting as if a Hammerhead will live longer than a single turn in 40k's most lethal edition huh

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
People are really acting as if a Hammerhead will live longer than a single turn in 40k's most lethal edition huh

You sound like you already know their defensive stats, what are they ?

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
People are really acting as if a Hammerhead will live longer than a single turn in 40k's most lethal edition huh

Depends how much terrain is on the board. You don't want to go first against Tau as they can just hide it behind terrain, and pop out to deal significant damage.

That's if you don't decide to forgo VP points first turn by advancing out, where they are still giving a major advantage to the Tau player who can advance out and start collecting VP's, just by the sheer intimidating presence of them.

Let's also not consider these in isolation, Tau units have always been great at murdering advancing troops. You decide to counter with infantry and they will pick them off with ease also.

 p5freak wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
People are really acting as if a Hammerhead will live longer than a single turn in 40k's most lethal edition huh

You sound like you already know their defensive stats, what are they ?

T7 13W 3+ sv.
What you think the basic tank profile will change?

 Ordana wrote:

 p5freak wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
People are really acting as if a Hammerhead will live longer than a single turn in 40k's most lethal edition huh

You sound like you already know their defensive stats, what are they ?

T7 13W 3+ sv.
What you think the basic tank profile will change?

What is your source of information ? How do you know the basic tank profile wont change ?

 p5freak wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

 p5freak wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
People are really acting as if a Hammerhead will live longer than a single turn in 40k's most lethal edition huh

You sound like you already know their defensive stats, what are they ?

T7 13W 3+ sv.
What you think the basic tank profile will change?

What is your source of information ? How do you know the basic tank profile wont change ?

What would you stipulate a hammerhead becomes if not it's current profile?

 p5freak wrote:
Warhammer Community wrote :

The railgun is not the only big hitter getting a major update in the new Codex: T’au Empire – would you believe it isn’t even the strongest weapon in their arsenal?

There are heavy rail guns on the tigershark, and the twin rail gun on the floating bunker tower thing.