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HH does not kill 2 custodes with 1 shot.

It has a 64% chance to kill one custodes.

Your real complaint is the range it does this at, multiple people have pointed out there is a variety of 200p units that do this damage output after saves are taken, just from shorter ranges.

There are already models that ignore invulnerable saves in the game.

You really just dislike that it does this damage from range and you can't roll dice. There are plenty of units that let you roll dice but the end result is your greater daemon is still dead like 6 plasma inceptors, or 2 skitarii vanguard with some buffs and CP spent.

You might say but movement and counterplay, the HH requires LoS, reserves exist.

ignoring invulns is fine, the damage (and mortal wounds) isnt.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


You realize part of my problem with this guy is he is better against a squad of 10 guardsmen than a d6 Blast Weapon right?

And each shot kills 2 Custodes pretty much guaranteed, whereas a regular Russ struggles to get any damage through at all?

I have the MM Devs averaging 3 Custodes kills at 24".

8 Guardsmen with the Cpt+Lt buffs. Lol.

The HH requires a Strat.

No it doesn't. Mortal wounds spill over.

The regular HH kills both 2 Custodes and 4 Guardsmen with one shot, ignoring it's secondary weapons (which themselves are pretty good against guardsmen, killing 4 again on average rolls if burst cannons).

There are already models that ignore invulnerable saves in the game.

I think most of them make at least some sense from a lore pov as well? This doesn't.

Custodes have a 6+++ against mortal wounds unless that's changing?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
ignoring invulns is fine, the damage (and mortal wounds) isnt.

I don't know. Think about the required investment for that single shot. A DL Ravager can kill a Redemptor while a HH absolutely cannot. Maybe you'll get lucky to scratch the last 2-4 wounds off with Burst Cannons provided you rolled well enough with the D3, but it's unlikely.

A few people are mystified by the seemingly slapped together cluster of rules to present the damage on this gun, but to me it seems like GW considered what would take the edge off this thing. Whether or not the army as a whole is sane will depend on the points and the rest of the book.

In any case this gun does 10, 11, or 12 damage. That D3 adds that small inch of variability that can take the gun out of kill range for many vehicles. The mortal wounds give an angle to increase the opponent's chance for interaction through 'Armor of Contempt' style strats. It seems silly, but I think it exists for a purpose.

Tyel wrote:
Custodes have a 6+++ against mortal wounds unless that's changing?

Currently thats JUST in the Psychic Phase,

According to the leaker we may be getting a 5+ against ALL MWs. But losing the +1 to all saves purity buff. Ugly tradeoff, but we won't know until codex drops for full in late Q1 2022. Right now they are correct, two dead Custodes. Unless they are Wardens, who may live past both the first shot and the MWs. Then will likely kill it in melee, for roughly the same cost.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Custodes have a 6+++ against mortal wounds unless that's changing?

Currently thats JUST in the Psychic Phase,

According to the leaker we may be getting a 5+ against ALL MWs. But losing the +1 to all saves purity buff. Ugly tradeoff, but we won't know until codex drops for full in late Q1 2022. Right now they are correct, two dead Custodes. Unless they are Wardens, who may live past both the first shot and the MWs. Then will likely kill it in melee, for roughly the same cost.

Fair point - my mistake. Custodes are one of the few armies I've never even taken 10 minutes trying to learn the rules of.

Custodes will have 4 wounds before HH comes out...

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
No it doesn't. Mortal wounds spill over.

The regular HH kills both 2 Custodes and 4 Guardsmen with one shot, ignoring it's secondary weapons (which themselves are pretty good against guardsmen, killing 4 again on average rolls if burst cannons).

It shoots through one and into the others

The way the rule is worded, I think it does the MWs first, then you resolve the wound step.

sieGermans wrote:
The way the rule is worded, I think it does the MWs first, then you resolve the wound step.

From the core rules:

If an attack inflicts mortal wounds in addition to the normal damage, resolve the normal damage first.

Aash wrote:

sieGermans wrote:
The way the rule is worded, I think it does the MWs first, then you resolve the wound step.

From the core rules:

If an attack inflicts mortal wounds in addition to the normal damage, resolve the normal damage first.

Which actually can help-if you have a Marine on one wound, you’d kill them entirely, then kill one more and wound another with the MW.

The other way around would kill three Marines total, instead of two and a half.

Dudeface wrote:
(1)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.

(2)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.

(3)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.

(1) Ok, so you confirm what I say that we can explore Demiurg, Kroot, Vespids, Gue'vesa and other auxiliaries as that is well established fluff. So we may flesh out the faction beyond ever bigger Gundams.
(2) Somehow you miss the point while spelling out that adding "something" to a faction does not automatically make that faction play exactly like another one at the same time by yourself. So I don't get why you argue against my point?
(3) See your point above. Adding depth to the one dimensional playstyle of Tau does not mean that they will be Gundam skinned Guard or Marines. Auxiliaries are as much part of the original Tau design as fielding high tech battle suits. Last time we had Gue'vesa rules was in 3rd and the last time we saw new auxiliary troops were Vespids in 4th. It is about time.

Read again what I wrote and what Sim-Life replied. Defending their contentless, hysterical response is enabling their gakposting. Going from "explore auxiliaries instead of upping the guns" to "LeT's ReMoVe EvErYtHiNg AnD jUsT hAvE oNe CoDeX fOr AlL fAcTiOnS SKREEEEEEEE"

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Voss wrote:

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.)

I don't forsee HH being in position to take advantage of Montka often.

That's fine. Then its probably not getting charged or attacked with melta weapons, either.
Somehow.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
You realize part of my problem with this guy is he is better against a squad of 10 guardsmen than a d6 Blast Weapon right?

Speculative at best since you don't know the cost of the HH. A couple of mortars like a Wyvern is probably going to be much better than using a HH and spending CP for a stratagem to kill them using mortal wounds. That stratagem will see far better use against Sisters of Battle or Eldar Aspect Warriors who have descent armor, good stats, but only one wound and little mortal wound negation shenanigan. Though at short range, with both the submunition stratagem and the burst cannon and could potentially do nice damage to infantry, but if that's how one use a HH, I wouldn't be too scared. There is probably a far more effective way of killing infantry.

And each shot kills 2 Custodes pretty much guaranteed, whereas a regular Russ struggles to get any damage through at all?

It's a single shot weapon. It cannot kill 2 Custodes. It could do it with a stratagem and it's that stratagem that concerns me the most. Even then, to kill 2 Custodes with that stratagem you would need to inflict 6 or 7 mortal wounds which is statistically impossible when one considers a Custodian Guard unit can be as small as 3 models.

No, it kills two Custodian Guard or four GEQ with a normal shot.

 JNAProductions wrote:
No, it kills two Custodian Guard or four GEQ with a normal shot.

By the time the Tau codex is out, custodes will have 4 wounds.

It will kill 1 custodes if it hits and wounds, and put up to 3 MW on another.

3 of these firing all with target array upgrades will kill 2 custodes and put up to 3 MW onto another in a single round with a total of 64% chance to hit and then wound per shot, with the to hit reroll included.

Considering that's likely 600pte of Tau I somehow had expect some kind of counter play after the first time they shoot.

Also in 9th objectives are a big deal, hammerheads aren't really doing anything in that regard.

Killing 4 geq 64% of the time for a 200 or model is pretty terrible. If the HH shot every turn for 5 turns without being bracketed it would kill 16 geq, or 80pte of models by the end of the game. It's secondary guns would obviously add more play in terms of killing geq when they are in range.

blaktoof wrote:

By the time the Tau codex is out, custodes will have 4 wounds.

No they're apparently staying at 3 wounds.

Twilight Pathways wrote:

blaktoof wrote:

By the time the Tau codex is out, custodes will have 4 wounds.

No they're apparently staying at 3 wounds.

If that is the case then it would kill 2 64% of the time.

Ah yes we move closer to the pre game roll off. If I roll high enough... don't bother deploying.

 Mr Morden wrote:

There are already models that ignore invulnerable saves in the game.

I think most of them make at least some sense from a lore pov as well? This doesn't.

I'm in the same boat, I don't mind things ignoring Invul saves and so far from a lore perspective its things that make sense like a rare artifact or a supreme daemon. The railgun is not something I would have expected to have an ignore Invul.

I understand why. Low shot high power weapons have a high chance of sour grapes so they want to remove things in the way of the 'well that sucks' moment. Still doesn't jive with me though. I am happy Tau will finally be a thrown a bone though.

Y'know what's funny? A Sororitas Canoness with the Mantle of Ophelia can take a Railgun shot to the face and survive. If she's in the Order of the Valorous Heart, she can take their WL trait for a 5+++ and potentially take zero damage (unlikely but possible), or at least possibly survive multiple such hits. Granted, that should never come up unless the Sisters player really screws up hard, but it's a funny situation to think about.

I love how people are acting like the objective game is gonna be hard for Tau, it's not like HH's are gonna have at least an 8" move and as vehicles there is literally no down side to moving with them.

I am not gonna go out and say that HH's are gonna be meta breaking but it just fething sucks that my models like Belakor are a liability on the table because of one unit. Monsters and vehicles have no defense vs this thing and just like most of 9th edition it is not fun to just pick up my models while the other player roles dice. Lethality wouldn't be so bad if there was some way to mitigate it but when your mitigation is hide and hope they can't get an angle on you, that is gak game play.

Whether or not it ends up being overpowered, this is a great sign of how down the rabbithole GW has gone that they need to do this sort of nonsense to make a big gun worthwhile.

Any time you have a special rule to ignore another special rule is a good time to think carefully about whether that isn't a sign that your game is too bloated. The fact that this gun not only has a special rule ignoring another special rule but also has another special rule on top of it to do damage in a different way that *also* ignores the normal rules of the game only rams the point home.

My money has been on 10th being another full reset for a while now but I think it is becoming clearer and clearer that 9th is approaching the same place 7th did in terms of the whole rules structure collapsing under its own weight. How any game designer can come up with those weapon rules and not see it as a sign of how bad a state the game is in, I do not know.

It'll get worse. They've set the precedent and started the paradigm shift.

Someone's going to get a defensive hit modifier that ignores ignoring modifiers (and possibly stacks)

Someone's going to get to ignore transhuman (and similar)

Someone's going to get to ignore -1 damage abilities.

And so on...

Some of these aren't going to matter too much because they'll be on a relic armor or sword, but one or two will end up on something spammable by the end of the year.

Voss wrote:
It'll get worse. They've set the precedent and started the paradigm shift.

Someone's going to get a defensive hit modifier that ignores ignoring modifiers (and possibly stacks)

Someone's going to get to ignore transhuman (and similar)

Someone's going to get to ignore -1 damage abilities.

And so on...

Some of these aren't going to matter too much because they'll be on a relic armor or sword, but one or two will end up on something spammable by the end of the year.

Nightbringer ignores -1 damage abilities....but not spammable and melee range.

Spoletta wrote:
Eh I don't know.
Those profiles always look better than they work.

I would like to remind that we currently have a gun that always hits on 2+, always wounds on 2+, negates invul, negates cover, is AP-3 and ignores Look Out Sir. All this for 100 points and can shoot twice for 1 CP. It even rewards you with CPs for killing stuff!

If that description doesn't immediately make you think of the Vindicare assassin, is because he is NEVER seen on any table.

It doesn't make me think much of the Vindicare Assassin because the Vindicare Assassin doesn't bracket my Great Unclean One with a single shot on average.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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!

Think that if you want, but don't then whine when Tau get gutted into unplayability again because their incredibly toxic leafblower playstyle is inherently uninteractive and boring to play against and, more to the point, extremely overbearing when strong much like the recent Admech and Ork flyer lists.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ordana wrote:

The units a HH wants to shoot at and the units looking to charge the HH don't have to be the same?
Units that can threaten charges from over 18" away.
Any sort of screen, since Mont'ka requires closest target.

If your going to put Mortarion in front of a Hammerhead within 18" and as the closest target then that is not a problem with the gun, that's a problem with your tactics.

Where exactly should you put Mortarion, considering he doesn't benefit from obscuring terrain and the railgun has 72" range? Besides putting him in reserves it is not possible to hide him.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Eh I don't know.
Those profiles always look better than they work.

I would like to remind that we currently have a gun that always hits on 2+, always wounds on 2+, negates invul, negates cover, is AP-3 and ignores Look Out Sir. All this for 100 points and can shoot twice for 1 CP. It even rewards you with CPs for killing stuff!

If that description doesn't immediately make you think of the Vindicare assassin, is because he is NEVER seen on any table.

It doesn't make me think much of the Vindicare Assassin because the Vindicare Assassin doesn't bracket my Great Unclean One with a single shot on average.

Also, Hits on a 2+ (assuming you didn't move), Wounds on a 2+ (if you're targeting INFANTRY or something else that's T2), negates invulns, cover, and 4+ or worse armor, but allows saves against 3+ or better, and ignores Look Out Sir... For d3 damage. And can shoot twice, but has to target two separate targets. It does also do MW, if it does any damage from the normal shot. One MW on a 3+, then one on a 4+, then one on a 5+, so on and so forth, but stopping when you fail a roll. That averages to 1.74 MW.

So, a Vindicare Assassin can kill an ordinary SM Captain if they hit (2+), wound (2+), Captain fails save (5-), then d3 damage plus MW rolls have to be 5 or higher. The odds of a successful unsaved wound killing a Captain (with no FNP) is about 16%, so combine that with three 5/6 odds, and you get a whopping 9% chance of killing a Captain.
Put that Captain on a Bike, and those odds drop a TON. Assassin is now wounding on a 4+, and the extra wound means he needs a 2+ on damage to kill the Captain even with perfect MW rolls. Actual odds? 1.5%.

Against the mentioned GUO, you're looking at hitting on a 2+, wounding on a 5+, no save, and dealing an average of about 2.3 wounds on a successful unsaved wound. Average of (with hitting and wounding accounted for) .64 wounds per shot. Put another way, that's 28 Vindicare turns to kill a GUO.

Now, a Hammerhead one-shots any Captain, but to be fair, said Captains have Look Out Sir protecting them. What about that GUO? We'll assume they hit on a 4+, thanks to Miasma. They deal an average of 7.33 wounds per successful shot, so it does take three good hits to kill a GUO. With a 4+ rerollable to-hit and a 2+ to-wound, that's a 5/8ths chance of any given shot landing a wound. Or, put another way, it takes just under 5 Hammerhead turns to kill a GUO.