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 DarkHound wrote:
I'll throw my hat in the ring. I posted a pseudo battle report in the Imperial Knights thread. The short of it is that Knights actually do well against a TAC Tau list in a casual setting. Top tier tournament lists are running a trio of Broadsides, or a Stormsurge, but rarely more than that. So what if Tau can build the hardest counter to Imperial Knights? That kind of Hammerhead spam would be god-awful against a huge variety of other lists. In a tournament, you just wouldn't run into it. In a casual game, you'd tell your opponent to knock it off. Either way, it's not a practical problem.

But this thread spends pages telling you how they're incredibly efficient at killing guard squads and marines etc. How they're singularly too good against any target and that 4 x Hammerhead is the way forward because of how efficient they are into everything and the scourge of existence.

 Mr Raptor wrote:

Let me rephrase that. It feels more like a meme rather than a serious thing. Also, you need to own 3 railguns, and a lot of casual people don't. The whole point of casual play is to not specifically follow the meta and take 3x the best thing in the codex.

They're (maybe) the best thing now. They definitely weren't in the past. And having 3x of a single vehicles isn't that unreasonable, especially if you are someone who likes armoured companies rahter than spamming big robots.

I'm an ork player and I love the battlewagon. I have 3 of them and I'd love to field the full 3 if their rules encourage me to do so. Always fielded 3 ravagers when I played drukhari, and they are basically the drukhari's hammerheads. I've also played against 3 PB crawlers (deathguard's hammerheads) pretty often, etc... And never been to a tournament, although I do play against guys that are testing their lists for tournaments sometimes.

Well, all our tau veterans own three hammerheads, simply because a long time ago it use to be the only heavy support choice other than broadsides that wasn't a joke and it looked cool to have an all-tank army.

Dudeface wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:
I'll throw my hat in the ring. I posted a pseudo battle report in the Imperial Knights thread. The short of it is that Knights actually do well against a TAC Tau list in a casual setting. Top tier tournament lists are running a trio of Broadsides, or a Stormsurge, but rarely more than that. So what if Tau can build the hardest counter to Imperial Knights? That kind of Hammerhead spam would be god-awful against a huge variety of other lists. In a tournament, you just wouldn't run into it. In a casual game, you'd tell your opponent to knock it off. Either way, it's not a practical problem.

But this thread spends pages telling you how they're incredibly efficient at killing guard squads and marines etc. How they're singularly too good against any target and that 4 x Hammerhead is the way forward because of how efficient they are into everything and the scourge of existence.

I haven't seen anybody in this thread say 4x HH is "the way forward". People were saying "these will be in tournament lists" (which, they are, so those people were right) before we knew quite how insane the rest of the book would be that the Hammerhead would be somewhat overshadowed. But please, keep compiling these bad takes that'll be proven wrong after Hammerheads show up once GW has nerfed the more egregious offenders.

For a purely aesthetics pov, the HH is extremely cool so I wouldn't be surprised if Tau players, specially old ones, own several of them.

As for it being a hit or miss gun, it always has been be a hit or miss gun, it always will be. The current version has specifically designed to be mostly a hit rather than miss, that's why it has a re-roll, s14, ap-6 mortal wounds and ignore invul.

Now I agree the ignore invulnerable saves is ridiculous and broke the gun, both in lore and in balance, but the rest? The HH should be a one shot damage 6+D3+3 mortal wounds, it should be a gun that can one shot a dread and two shot everything else.

Just you know, don't ignore invulnerable, the sheer momentum of the projectile is supposed to be represented by the mortal wounds, ignoring invulnerables just makes it a feel bad gun for the opponent.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:
I'll throw my hat in the ring. I posted a pseudo battle report in the Imperial Knights thread. The short of it is that Knights actually do well against a TAC Tau list in a casual setting. Top tier tournament lists are running a trio of Broadsides, or a Stormsurge, but rarely more than that. So what if Tau can build the hardest counter to Imperial Knights? That kind of Hammerhead spam would be god-awful against a huge variety of other lists. In a tournament, you just wouldn't run into it. In a casual game, you'd tell your opponent to knock it off. Either way, it's not a practical problem.

But this thread spends pages telling you how they're incredibly efficient at killing guard squads and marines etc. How they're singularly too good against any target and that 4 x Hammerhead is the way forward because of how efficient they are into everything and the scourge of existence.

I haven't seen anybody in this thread say 4x HH is "the way forward". People were saying "these will be in tournament lists" (which, they are, so those people were right) before we knew quite how insane the rest of the book would be that the Hammerhead would be somewhat overshadowed. But please, keep compiling these bad takes that'll be proven wrong after Hammerheads show up once GW has nerfed the more egregious offenders.

OK, so I'm making a bad take by saying that 4 hammerheads aren't the peak of the op cheese and aren't going to dominate the game. Your response is to confirm that is correct, but what, they can become the Tau standard list if they nerf other stuff, so we're into the "wait and see" land.

Okay, look, Hammerheads simply do not fill the roles that make the current main-stays good. If Crisis suits get worse, you don't switch over to Hammerheads instead. There's no wait-and-see about it. Hammerheads are niche, and their gun is basically exactly as good as a one-shot gun needs to be in order to be relevant.

 DarkHound wrote:
Okay, look, Hammerheads simply do not fill the roles that make the current main-stays good. If Crisis suits get worse, you don't switch over to Hammerheads instead. There's no wait-and-see about it. Hammerheads are niche, and their gun is basically exactly as good as a one-shot gun needs to be in order to be relevant.

Its still a bad design, and again, not every game is top tier competitive lists facing off. If a Daemon player happens to play against a tau list that brought a number of hammerheads, its gonna be a terrible game.

the gun should pick two of these :

Ignore invuln
high damage
Mortal wounds

having all 3 is dumb

 Tyran wrote:
For a purely aesthetics pov, the HH is extremely cool so I wouldn't be surprised if Tau players, specially old ones, own several of them.

As for it being a hit or miss gun, it always has been be a hit or miss gun, it always will be. The current version has specifically designed to be mostly a hit rather than miss, that's why it has a re-roll, s14, ap-6 mortal wounds and ignore invul.

Now I agree the ignore invulnerable saves is ridiculous and broke the gun, both in lore and in balance, but the rest? The HH should be a one shot damage 6+D3+3 mortal wounds, it should be a gun that can one shot a dread and two shot everything else.

Just you know, don't ignore invulnerable, the sheer momentum of the projectile is supposed to be represented by the mortal wounds, ignoring invulnerables just makes it a feel bad gun for the opponent.

Agreed....I hate that it ignores invulns and I have a pair of Hammerheads....plenty of other things to do but that.

It also highlights some of the limitations of the game system when units that rely on speed for defense (which are given invulns, because the game otherwise has no mechanics to represent being hard to hit) don't get saves against the railgun either.

A gun that puts a hole through any defense can be part of an interesting rock-paper-scissors dynamic, but not when it also can't be dodged and also can kill lots of models at once to the point of being reasonably efficient against even chaff. It doesn't have range or mobility limitations either, so there's no counterplay besides 'kill it first'.

Even if it manages to be balanced, it's boring.

While it is true that it is effectively VERY POTENT against chaff, I would hardly count it as a big perk. If you shoot at any infantry with 1w, the return on investment is gonna be pretty low most of the time.

Or at least unless you're using that stratagem for 8 MW but it still has to be worth it.

Outside of that, yeah sure it kills 2 custodes or shield termi straight up, but lots of other things in the codex are better at doing that.

Well, the Fire Prism has been previewed by WarCom, and it's probably going to be a more popular (but still unpopular) take on giving ranged weapons Ignore Invul.

Pros:
You only need to expose a single Fire Prism to fire at a target, so long as the other Fire Prism(s) are within 12", to get all the Fire Prisms' shots together. That's a decent sized bubble for a Prism-sized vehicle.

It's also 2 shots that average 6 damage, and are minimum 3 damage, so it can at least spread the hurt around heavy elite infantry. (Poor Custodes).

Con:

You need 2+ Fire Prisms, and it costs a 2 CP Stratagem. You don't get to ignore Invulns for free, so this is closer to a non-<craftworld> limited-in-scope version of the Bork'an Ignore Invuln strat than it is to the Hammerhead (which gets it for free).

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
and it's probably going to be a more popular (but still unpopular) take on giving ranged weapons Ignore Invul.

It's such a dumb mechanic.

I won't be surprised at all if next we start getting units with special rules that let them always take a save even against invuln-ignoring weapons.

 catbarf wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
and it's probably going to be a more popular (but still unpopular) take on giving ranged weapons Ignore Invul.

It's such a dumb mechanic.

I won't be surprised at all if next we start getting units with special rules that let them always take a save even against invuln-ignoring weapons.

We are already getting ignore damage or only take so much damage a turn so yeah more and more will continue in this arms race.

Don't worry Tau players, eldars are gonna replace you very soon on the hate train ^^

 catbarf wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
and it's probably going to be a more popular (but still unpopular) take on giving ranged weapons Ignore Invul.

It's such a dumb mechanic.

I won't be surprised at all if next we start getting units with special rules that let them always take a save even against invuln-ignoring weapons.

We have transhuman and phase limited damage.

Ignoring invulnerable saves isn't really without precedent.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Ignoring invulnerable saves isn't really without precedent.

If it exists in the game it should be back on Warscythes.

Hecaton wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Ignoring invulnerable saves isn't really without precedent.

If it exists in the game it should be back on Warscythes.

Fine with that, overlords etc aren't exactly a melee threat these days.

Hecaton wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Ignoring invulnerable saves isn't really without precedent.

If it exists in the game it should be back on Warscythes.

Tbf, the Nightbringer ignores invuln and FNP. However, not only is it on a 370pts melee unit, it also hasn't gotten the recent codex treatment and the damage is stuck to a stupid d6.

Not saying the necrons are weak by any mean, but still...

 Mr Raptor wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Ignoring invulnerable saves isn't really without precedent.

If it exists in the game it should be back on Warscythes.

Tbf, the Nightbringer ignores invuln and FNP. However, not only is it on a 370pts melee unit, it also hasn't gotten the recent codex treatment and the damage is stuck to a stupid d6.

Not saying the necrons are weak by any mean, but still...

Wouldn't really say they're good though. More CORE certainly helped.

Top list right now is likely the Custodes one. A Hammerhead has easy access to +1 to hit and re-roll 1s to hit. Assuming those easy buffs, they are likely to hit 4 out of 5 turns. They are completely capable of killing 1 Sagitarum Custode per turn, and likely killing 2. Thats a 50-100pt return on investment each and every turn. Against the bigger models like the Vetus Praetors its 1 dead Model per turn, but thats an 85pt model. A unit of 3 HHs is killing 240pts of Praetors with relative ease, thats 435pts killing more than 50% its value in 1 turn. That isn't a bad return on investment in the slightest. A pair of HHs can likely 1 shot a Caladius Grav tank as well.

So "is the hammerhead broken" yeah it probably is, but that doesn't mean its the best model for Tau right now. range, durability have to factor in and most importantly, likely target environment. Not many people are bringing big center piece models anymore because they are so easy to lose in 1 turn. Likewise, if you get a bad match up vs an light infantry list you are going to regret not bringing other things.

Just to put it this way, If some Tau player showed up to a GT with 4 HHs (including the character) they would likely beat the top custodes list due to bad match up more than anything else. Those 600ish points of models being able to take away 250-300pts of enemy models turn 1 from the other side of the table is just insanely powerful.

SemperMortis wrote:
Top list right now is likely the Custodes one. A Hammerhead has easy access to +1 to hit and re-roll 1s to hit. Assuming those easy buffs, they are likely to hit 4 out of 5 turns. They are completely capable of killing 1 Sagitarum Custode per turn, and likely killing 2. Thats a 50-100pt return on investment each and every turn. Against the bigger models like the Vetus Praetors its 1 dead Model per turn, but thats an 85pt model. A unit of 3 HHs is killing 240pts of Praetors with relative ease, thats 435pts killing more than 50% its value in 1 turn. That isn't a bad return on investment in the slightest. A pair of HHs can likely 1 shot a Caladius Grav tank as well.

Aren't Custodes [im]famous for their stratagem negating rerolls? And their Transhuman stratagem? (I've heard something about a -1 to hit banner, too). All of which are likely to be used as often as possible on those big, heavy-in-point units like Praetors, I'd think.

Where is the Hammerhead getting reroll 1's to hit? Pretty sure that was almost universally taken away from non-Core T'au.

How many turns are the Hammerheads surviving after they get around 50% of their value in targets killed?

Just to put it this way, If some Tau player showed up to a GT with 4 HHs (including the character) they would likely beat the top custodes list due to bad match up more than anything else. Those 600ish points of models being able to take away 250-300pts of enemy models turn 1 from the other side of the table is just insanely powerful.

The HH gets to reroll to a hit baseline with Targeting Array.
If you go Tau you can also always have the ability to reroll the wound roll.

You then throw out 16 S6 AP-1 shots - or 8 S5 AP-1 shots that ignore LOS. Not amazing perhaps if you are base BS4 no rerolls - but if you get Mont'ka these will likely add up to something. And plenty of ignoring LOS shooting is just kind of good.

Yeah, T'au Sept Railguns (IF you can use your rerolls) are pretty darn reliable for a single shot weapon on a BS4 platform.

And they can take secondary weapon systems that either emphasize their 1st (and probably only) turn of shooting OR let them take potshots while waiting for the perfect moment to take their 1st (and probably only) turn of shooting.

But that's the thing - they need the right sort of target to trade up efficiently, because T7 14w 3+ in the open isn't going to live long against a competent player, and it's too big to hide forever. So to be worthwhile at all, they need to be able to do lots of work while they still exist in non-flaming-wreckage form.

Edit: and they can. If you catch the right target in the right circumstance, you can trade up horrifyingly well. Or at least well enough for the Hammerhead to have carried its weight in value.

Which is why I would describe it as good. It's not the best thing the T'au have in heavy slots (that's probably Broadsides), but that doesn't mean Hammerheads are bad. It COULD still be overtuned while not being the best option for the slot, but I don't think that's really been shown.

Yeah. Its a bit one-dimensional, but if you were going to take 6 Broadsides and some drones, or the 4 HHs (roughly the same points) - the Broadsides are just better. Probably base - and incredibly so due to being Core.

But I think Broadsides are comically undercosted and will get nerfed at some point. Which moves into DE territory whereby HHs would be considered. Perhaps especially if GW jumped on the Talos train and went "no one's using them, cut 10 points off for the lols".

Not intended as threadomancy but instead to save a new one in the same topic:

Now we have an incline of what knights might look like in 9th on base profiles, are 4 Hammerheads still their doom?

Castellan stats:

Dudeface wrote:
Not intended as threadomancy but instead to save a new one in the same topic:

Now we have an incline of what knights might look like in 9th on base profiles, are 4 Hammerheads still their doom?

Castellan stats:

Spoiler:

Aww. My Helverins and Armigers will probably get too many wounds to use cover.

Valiant statline
Note the "DOMINUS MALFUNCTION" roll

Nice termintor killer harpoon.

The harpoon can take a back seat hitting on 3's at best and degrading, the upgraded flame cannon is a winner