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Everything can be justified fluff wise, and this makes no exception.

They are called railguns, so we only know that they shoot something metallic at a very high speed.

Now let's turn that into 40k porn numbers and say that it is shooting the metallic shell at 30% the speed of light, because why not!

No armor would protect you against something like that.
No field based on dissipating energy wouldn't be overloaded by that.
There would be no dodging something that literally bends time and space around it.
Even if you manage to not get hit by the shell, the sheer havoc it causes with its passage would kill any life form within many meters.

As you can see, apply enough 40k porn to the matter and everything works.

It's not that bad really, compared to weapons that hide how much damage they do behind multiple shots and the like.

But what I'm really wondering about is why there is the D3 in damage, because it basically does D3+9. I can't imagine that it's because of the randomness because the vast majority of the damage is fixed anyways.

ITT:
My Greater Daemons (made of unliving warpstuff) can dodge lascannons that move at the speed of light, but railguns at only 1/3rd as fast 'bend time and space' to become undodgeable!

The fluff cannot justify anything . There are limits.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Nah, it takes this gun 3 shots to take down something like a Kill Rig, and this tank will have around the same cost.

A single Hammerhead with this profile is almost guaranteed to bracket the kill rig, and could possibly kill it.

People forget hammerheads have 2x secondary guns as well like the 12 shots from burst cannons (or worse, that isn't the only option).

The Tau little guns are getting buffed too.

Hammerhead gets EITHER 2 gun drones OR two burst cannons OR two SMS, so unless SMS gets a big buff you're looking at 8-12 S5 AP0 D1 shots (pulse carbines only got a range buff and burst cannon got 2 extra shots - hardly huge buffs) which shouldn't do much to anything you are likely to want to shoot the railgun at...

sanguine40k wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Nah, it takes this gun 3 shots to take down something like a Kill Rig, and this tank will have around the same cost.

A single Hammerhead with this profile is almost guaranteed to bracket the kill rig, and could possibly kill it.

People forget hammerheads have 2x secondary guns as well like the 12 shots from burst cannons (or worse, that isn't the only option).

The Tau little guns are getting buffed too.

Hammerhead gets EITHER 2 gun drones OR two burst cannons OR two SMS, so unless SMS gets a big buff you're looking at 8-12 S5 AP0 D1 shots (pulse carbines only got a range buff and burst cannon got 2 extra shots - hardly huge buffs) which shouldn't do much to anything you are likely to want to shoot the railgun at...

Doesn't have to do more than 1-2 wounds off of 8-12 shots - and without knowing the codex we can't say. All it would take is for Longstrike to retain his +1 to wound, or some kind of reroll wounds access, and those guns become quite scary actually. 12 burst cannon shots with +1 to wound will do 1-2 wounds to a kill rig on average rolls (assuming BS 3). That is before we find out if septs or Markerlights or whatever give -1 AP or something like that.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Yeah, lets just give the army whose whole schtick is specialising in having incredibly strong firepower, no psykers and no melee bunch of psychic and melee units. Then they can be like every other army in the game. In fact you know what would make the game balanced? Just a single codex. Then we can reduce the differences in armies to being cosmetic only.

Look, I solved 40k!

1. You should reread the lore behind Tau and what auxiliary troops are.
2. Imperial Guard specialises in heavy firepower as well, while having Ogryns and Sanctioned Psykers. Somehow they still don't play like Space Marines.
3. Your low quality, hysterical troll posts don't add anything to the discussion.

Pottsey wrote:

That's why you outflank it on turn 3 and its a transport so you unload the Breachers into the backlines. Then boost its chance to hit and have it get an extra hit on up to a 4+. Its a Supermacy railgun so its even bigger then a hammerhead railgun, very unlikely to have worse stats. It will either be the same stats and 2 shots or even higher stats and 1 shot. In the past its always been the same stats only an extra shots. Yes there are some unknowns but its not something to just write off. I don't think a Supermacy railgun with Kauyon and a full breaches squad is something that can just be ignored. Its something to keep an eye on for when we have more info.

It's a fortification, so can't be put in strategic reserves.

Being a fortification also makes it exceptionally hard to deploy as it has a surprisingly large footprint.

Also, as a fortification, it is pretty much guaranteed not to get Core.
It also has less wounds and a worse save than a Hammerhead.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

sanguine40k wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Nah, it takes this gun 3 shots to take down something like a Kill Rig, and this tank will have around the same cost.

A single Hammerhead with this profile is almost guaranteed to bracket the kill rig, and could possibly kill it.

People forget hammerheads have 2x secondary guns as well like the 12 shots from burst cannons (or worse, that isn't the only option).

The Tau little guns are getting buffed too.

Hammerhead gets EITHER 2 gun drones OR two burst cannons OR two SMS, so unless SMS gets a big buff you're looking at 8-12 S5 AP0 D1 shots (pulse carbines only got a range buff and burst cannon got 2 extra shots - hardly huge buffs) which shouldn't do much to anything you are likely to want to shoot the railgun at...

Doesn't have to do more than 1-2 wounds off of 8-12 shots - and without knowing the codex we can't say. All it would take is for Longstrike to retain his +1 to wound, or some kind of reroll wounds access, and those guns become quite scary actually. 12 burst cannon shots with +1 to wound will do 1-2 wounds to a kill rig on average rolls (assuming BS 3). That is before we find out if septs or Markerlights or whatever give -1 AP or something like that.

Do you mean an additional -1AP? Because Montka already gives -1 AP and reroll 1s to wound.

So markerlights, sept bonuses, warlord traits and strats... how deep will this buff stacking get?

At this stage, I think I'd rather play epic. I have no issue with models getting insta smashed off the table when you have so many of them and big guns feel right by pulverizing a tank etc. But in 40K? I want everything to be a little more viable and not just eliminated in one shot so easily. People are also thinking that this is the only thing Tau have that can kill, we know that will not be the case. A tau shooting phase is going to be downright devastating, so terrain had better be damn good for your army to survive turn 1 and 2 (unless you pay CPs to put those armoured units in outflank).

I just don't like the ignore invulns, should not exist inherently within the weapon. Now, if Tau had some form of munition/system to reduce invulns (markerlights?) meaning they would have to 'soften" a target before the railgun hit, that would feel better. Simply bypassing it just feels wrong. I guess adding minuses to hit will be the best defense if you can't hide, since no save will help.

It's not that bad really, compared to weapons that hide how much damage they do behind multiple shots and the like.

minor point, but multi shot weapons like that interact differently with defences, especially damage reduction. -1 damage blocks 33% of a 3 hit, damage 3 guns output, after all, but only 11% of a single damage 9 shot. this railgun bypasses regular armour saves and invul saves, and simply swamps damage reduction by delivering all its damage in a single chuck.

Also, most of those multi damage, multi shot weapons:

A) interact with invul saves and often regular saves, giving the player more room to defend against them and enact counter-play

and

B) due the number of dice involved, their reliable damage output is much lower than their absolute output, and is skewed towards the centre of the bell curves by simple dice probability, and those stupendous potential damage outputs are linked to very low occurrence odds, low enough so that when your opponent gets them you just accept it as simple good/bad luck, not the inevitable result.

 bullyboy wrote:
At this stage, I think I'd rather play epic. I have no issue with models getting insta smashed off the table when you have so many of them and big guns feel right by pulverizing a tank etc. But in 40K? I want everything to be a little more viable and not just eliminated in one shot so easily. People are also thinking that this is the only thing Tau have that can kill, we know that will not be the case. A tau shooting phase is going to be downright devastating, so terrain had better be damn good for your army to survive turn 1 and 2 (unless you pay CPs to put those armoured units in outflank).

I just don't like the ignore invulns, should not exist inherently within the weapon. Now, if Tau had some form of munition/system to reduce invulns (markerlights?) meaning they would have to 'soften" a target before the railgun hit, that would feel better. Simply bypassing it just feels wrong. I guess adding minuses to hit will be the best defense if you can't hide, since no save will help.

I feel the opposite, having played a lot of Sigmar, Invulns are just not fun and I like the more rare Ward save in AoS as opposed to the Invulns of 40K.

Anyways, with respect to the railgun, I forsee that this won't be all that big an issue and that people are mostly overreacting to it. This thing has at current on a 3+/2+ 75% kill rate on a T7 10W target and will dip for a T8. Tanks are still trash af in this edition and this thing will likely also die to a stiff wind.

a_typical_hero wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Yeah, lets just give the army whose whole schtick is specialising in having incredibly strong firepower, no psykers and no melee bunch of psychic and melee units. Then they can be like every other army in the game. In fact you know what would make the game balanced? Just a single codex. Then we can reduce the differences in armies to being cosmetic only.

Look, I solved 40k!

1. You should reread the lore behind Tau and what auxiliary troops are.
2. Imperial Guard specialises in heavy firepower as well, while having Ogryns and Sanctioned Psykers. Somehow they still don't play like Space Marines.
3. Your low quality, hysterical troll posts don't add anything to the discussion.

And you should learn what faction identity is and why it's good for game design and why homogenising all the factions to all do the same thing is bad.

Rembrancer video of Tau Hammerhead Engaging Mortarion in Close Combat.

a_typical_hero wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Yeah, lets just give the army whose whole schtick is specialising in having incredibly strong firepower, no psykers and no melee bunch of psychic and melee units. Then they can be like every other army in the game. In fact you know what would make the game balanced? Just a single codex. Then we can reduce the differences in armies to being cosmetic only.

Look, I solved 40k!

1. You should reread the lore behind Tau and what auxiliary troops are.
2. Imperial Guard specialises in heavy firepower as well, while having Ogryns and Sanctioned Psykers. Somehow they still don't play like Space Marines.
3. Your low quality, hysterical troll posts don't add anything to the discussion.

They sort of do, yes fluffwise tau add in auxilia to reinforce their own weaknesses, but in current fluff they're distrusting of them in the 4th sphere following warp shenanigans.

Imperial guard is primarily ranged yes but their main aspect is quantity over quality, bodies, tanks, shots etc. so no they're not simply marines but they aren't just tau with melee and pyskers either.

Finally it adds value because it draws back to reminding people the factions place in the game design paradigm, which is the "technology over adversary, here's the best tech and weapons we can make to overcome our foe". They trust their tech, provide the best punch with their guns and so on, hence just hand waving their problems away with some auxilia dilutes the faction in terms of game design.

So my ( unanswerable ) questions / concerns --

- What is the cost?
- Is the Advanced Targeting Array an upgrade? ( sounds like no )
- What is the markerlight system now and how easy is it to drop a +1 to hit?
- Does Longstrike still buff them?
- What is the stronger weapon?
- What do Broadsides do? These are the more dangerous precedent, because you can take way more.
- How will Knights deal with these?

Here's the unit crunch:

The Rail Gun kills an LRBT 20% of the time. This is with BS3 rerolling. With a CP reroll on a failed wound this goes to 25%.
With all the buffs it goes to 87% against a Dreadnought. Predator is 57% ( 43% with smoke ). Redemptor is 0% ( obviously ) with 14% to remain undamaged and the rest putting it on 2 to 4 wounds.

For comparison unbuffed Eradicators ( all rifle ) are:

23 / 51% ( half ) - Predator w/ Smoke ( compare to 43% )
11 / 45% - Redemptor
11% - LRBT

Those results will be higher if you add a MM in, but then you need to deal with whether or not they moved.

A triple DL Ravager with a single reroll to hit and wound --

13% - Redemptor
27% - Predator w/ Smoke
26% - LRBT ( compare to Rail Gun 25% )

So the absolute cap on damage for the Rail Gun "hurts" it a bit and even with a CP reroll it isn't guaranteed to knock an LRBT. Eradicators can hit 48 damage (short ) and average 21 ( long ). Triple DL Ravager can hit 18 and averages 15.

I do remember playing T'au in their early years. They were really good at killing vehicles, but that was a world before superheavies. The HH has no tangible benefit from Montka or Kauyon and will need help finishing off units half the time, which won't be another HH.

It is scary, but I am more concerned about the rest of the picture.

 Togusa wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
At this stage, I think I'd rather play epic. I have no issue with models getting insta smashed off the table when you have so many of them and big guns feel right by pulverizing a tank etc. But in 40K? I want everything to be a little more viable and not just eliminated in one shot so easily. People are also thinking that this is the only thing Tau have that can kill, we know that will not be the case. A tau shooting phase is going to be downright devastating, so terrain had better be damn good for your army to survive turn 1 and 2 (unless you pay CPs to put those armoured units in outflank).

I just don't like the ignore invulns, should not exist inherently within the weapon. Now, if Tau had some form of munition/system to reduce invulns (markerlights?) meaning they would have to 'soften" a target before the railgun hit, that would feel better. Simply bypassing it just feels wrong. I guess adding minuses to hit will be the best defense if you can't hide, since no save will help.

I feel the opposite, having played a lot of Sigmar, Invulns are just not fun and I like the more rare Ward save in AoS as opposed to the Invulns of 40K.

Anyways, with respect to the railgun, I forsee that this won't be all that big an issue and that people are mostly overreacting to it. This thing has at current on a 3+/2+ 75% kill rate on a T7 10W target and will dip for a T8. Tanks are still trash af in this edition and this thing will likely also die to a stiff wind.

I don't care much about what this does to a Rhino or Leman Russ, that is the gravy on top. If its taken in lists it is because of Knights, Dreadknights, Daemon Primarchs and other big scary things with an invul save.

It is going to be a good tech against 4++ models, but against other stuff it doesn't reach the firepower of its competitors, and is also far easier to kill and hard to move (it will lose FLY in the codex).

It's a good balance. People are scared because it is good against current meta picks.

Spoletta wrote:
It is going to be a good tech against 4++ models, but against other stuff it doesn't reach the firepower of its competitors, and is also far easier to kill and hard to move (it will lose FLY in the codex).

It's a good balance. People are scared because it is good against current meta picks.

They're scared because they're not thinking rationally, there's a lot of unknowns and the reality is there are other units out there with worse output as shown, but the magical ignores invuln and the point and click removal worries people beyond their ability to take a step back and contemplate point costs, terrain, deployment, counter striking etc.

The gun seems a bit much honestly....I'm all for some very special guns in the game being able to ignore invulns, since GW chose to hand them out like candy.....but it should not do THAT much damage at the same time.

Maybe it won't be as bad in practise, but idk...it really seems a bit over the top.

Hey, reserves are a thing.
Anyone remember the saying, 'If you can see something you can hit it; if you can hit something you can kill it.'?

If nothing else changes in the codex, deploy Longstrike and a couple Railheads and keep everything else in reserve. As things come onto the battlefield...

Spoletta wrote:It is going to be a good tech against 4++ models, but against other stuff it doesn't reach the firepower of its competitors, and is also far easier to kill and hard to move (it will lose FLY in the codex).

It's a good balance. People are scared because it is good against current meta picks.

It's also good against every other pick too. My Imperial Guard aren't at the top of the meta, but are worried. My Aeldari aren't at the top of the meta, but they're worried. My Chaos Daemons aren't at the top of the meta, and they're worried.

Dudeface wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
It is going to be a good tech against 4++ models, but against other stuff it doesn't reach the firepower of its competitors, and is also far easier to kill and hard to move (it will lose FLY in the codex).

It's a good balance. People are scared because it is good against current meta picks.

They're scared because they're not thinking rationally, there's a lot of unknowns and the reality is there are other units out there with worse output as shown, but the magical ignores invuln and the point and click removal worries people beyond their ability to take a step back and contemplate point costs, terrain, deployment, counter striking etc.

Or, perhaps, they don't want the game to devolve into "who gets the hit in first wins"

Like I've illustrated, I can win (in the sense that I achieve objectives) against a HH spam list with my Chaos Daemons. But I don't think either of us would have fun in that sort of game.

The thing is there are already units out there that do stupid amounts of damage. The main difference here is that it's all rolled into one gun. A Leman Russ has four guns, one of which can fire twice. Devastators the same. The Hammerhead just has ONE gun, but somehow it's expected to fulfill the same role of fire support. Therefore the single gun is a big beefy one.

The main thing it has going for it is range, imo. Many of the other big lethality attacks out there are shorter range.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
So my ( unanswerable ) questions / concerns --

- What is the cost?
- Is the Advanced Targeting Array an upgrade? ( sounds like no )
- What is the markerlight system now and how easy is it to drop a +1 to hit?
- Does Longstrike still buff them?
- What is the stronger weapon?
- What do Broadsides do? These are the more dangerous precedent, because you can take way more.
- How will Knights deal with these?

Here's the unit crunch:

The Rail Gun kills an LRBT 20% of the time. This is with BS3 rerolling. With a CP reroll on a failed wound this goes to 25%.
With all the buffs it goes to 87% against a Dreadnought. Predator is 57% ( 43% with smoke ). Redemptor is 0% ( obviously ) with 14% to remain undamaged and the rest putting it on 2 to 4 wounds.

For comparison unbuffed Eradicators ( all rifle ) are:

23 / 51% ( half ) - Predator w/ Smoke ( compare to 43% )
11 / 45% - Redemptor
11% - LRBT

Those results will be higher if you add a MM in, but then you need to deal with whether or not they moved.

A triple DL Ravager with a single reroll to hit and wound --

13% - Redemptor
27% - Predator w/ Smoke
26% - LRBT ( compare to Rail Gun 25% )

So the absolute cap on damage for the Rail Gun "hurts" it a bit and even with a CP reroll it isn't guaranteed to knock an LRBT. Eradicators can hit 48 damage (short ) and average 21 ( long ). Triple DL Ravager can hit 18 and averages 15.

I do remember playing T'au in their early years. They were really good at killing vehicles, but that was a world before superheavies. The HH has no tangible benefit from Montka or Kauyon and will need help finishing off units half the time, which won't be another HH.

It is scary, but I am more concerned about the rest of the picture.

I mean, you're just going to ignore the range factor? 72" is hard to get into melee with, where as 24" is far simpler. That range is basically an invuln save, you can't kill it easily at that range. YMMV

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
ITT:
My Greater Daemons (made of unliving warpstuff) can dodge lascannons that move at the speed of light, but railguns at only 1/3rd as fast 'bend time and space' to become undodgeable!

The fluff cannot justify anything . There are limits.

I mean, they can't dodge a Callidus sticking them with a pointy stick either, moving significantly lower than 1/3rd as fast as the speed of light even among the most trained swordswomen.

Maybe the fluff cannot justify anything, but the new railgun rules aren't forging any new grounds into implausibility.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

I mean, you're just going to ignore the range factor? 72" is hard to get into melee with, where as 24" is far simpler. That range is basically an invuln save, you can't kill it easily at that range. YMMV

Perhaps our experiences differ, but my local area doesn't play on 72" boards and/or boards that have no LOS-blocking terrain. Do you find your local layouts also cause trouble trying to avoid the shooting from (for example) admech laser chickens?

 Insectum7 wrote:
The thing is there are already units out there that do stupid amounts of damage. The main difference here is that it's all rolled into one gun. A Leman Russ has four guns, one of which can fire twice. Devastators the same. The Hammerhead just has ONE gun, but somehow it's expected to fulfill the same role of fire support. Therefore the single gun is a big beefy one.

The main thing it has going for it is range, imo. Many of the other big lethality attacks out there are shorter range.

The difference is there are things I can do against a Russ.

The Russ's CP rerolls and army buffs don't go as far as they do with a hammerhead.

My -1 to-hit hurts a Russ with no native rerolls than it does a Hammerhead with a single native reroll, and a single important shot.

My saves don't matter at all, while the matter a lot against a Russ.

Let me put it this way:
A Russ Tank Commander Demolisher, on average, will do 7 shots, 5 hits (rounding up), 3 wounds (rounding up), and 2 d6 damage hits (rounding up) to a Keeper of Secrets with a 4++ for an average damage of 7. One CP reroll shifts that average very slightly, as do any other rerolls - and I rounded up in every case there was a fraction. It will take the Tank Commander 3 turns of shooting to down a Keeper if the Russ gets lucky and hits on its side of the averages every single turn. More likely, it will take 4 or 5 turns, as the KOS either has a Feel No Pain, a Heal, or both.

A HH with BS 4+ will do 11 damage to a Keeper of Secrets 62% of the time, and with BS 3+ 74% of the time. One CP reroll (say, on an unlucky 1 to wound) shifts these probabilities even higher and more dramatically than it would for a Russ. It will take the Hammerhead 2 turns of shooting to down a Keeper if the HH rolls exactly average. Neither FNP nor Healing nor both can stop this from happening, as it would be 20-24 wounds total and the Keeper will heal either d3 once or save ~4 of them (rounding up) on her 6++, leaving it dead.

Remember, the HH is cheaper than the Russ (currently), and the Russ's damage will always tend much closer to the averages than it will towards the extremes because of how rolling many dice at once work. You will very rarely get a massive damage spike.

 Dolnikan wrote:
It's not that bad really, compared to weapons that hide how much damage they do behind multiple shots and the like.

But what I'm really wondering about is why there is the D3 in damage, because it basically does D3+9. I can't imagine that it's because of the randomness because the vast majority of the damage is fixed anyways.

The damage is really interesting for various reasons.

It does d3+6+3MW.

There are a lot of 5+ saves versus mortal wounds in 9th- a lot of people seem reluctant to play 9th in 9th, you don't see people taking the MW saves even though MW generation has increased, much like you rarely see anyone put things into strategic reserves...putting a daemon primarch into strategic reserves if your opponent has 3 of these on the table seems like a smart move. Also mortal wounds are individual wounds, so if you fire in the standard mode with this it will still possibly kill 1 Model with 1 wound and do 3 MW to the unit representing the railgun round punching through to hurt other targets.

Daedalus81 wrote: The HH has no tangible benefit from Montka

Reroll 1 to wound is a pretty tangible benefit for a weapon that is going to wound on a 2+ pretty often and at worst a 3+ (without transhuman nonsense, but that usually costs the defender CP.)

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

I mean, you're just going to ignore the range factor? 72" is hard to get into melee with, where as 24" is far simpler. That range is basically an invuln save, you can't kill it easily at that range. YMMV

72" doesn't matter when a 36" gun can already shoot into your opponents deployment zone. And armies are so much faster these days.

Even deploying as far away as possible an assault army is going to charge you turn 2 no matter what the range on your gun is.

 vipoid wrote:
The silly part for me is just auto-ignoring invulnerable saves.

See, this right here! The rest of the profile I'm down with. It's scary, powerful, and effective... which is awesome! But ignoring invuln? That's just plain silly. Invuln is supposed to be the ultimate shield, the "so tough that it's near indestructible" part of the ridiculous 40k lore. A dude who makes his invuln save is supposed to be able to shrug off a titan stomping on his face. Is that ridiculous? OF COURSE IT IS! But, also, that's 40k!

So, to me, just flat out ignoring invuln is... problematic. It messes not just with the balance of the game but also even moves into the lore of the thing. Ugh. I'm actually starting to lose a bit of my desire to keep playing 40k with rules reveals like this :-(