As a tau player I totally get it and agree a lot with this video. I myself think that the unit rules were just too focused on making the main weapon a solid choice for the intended purpose. Be it for the ion with heavy infantry or the rail for vehicles. While the rest of the weapons are more or less just there to add more shots. The stats are mostly solid if not a bit of a glass cannon. It could even be argued that a single broadside can be considered a more reliable choice given the heavy rail rifle and more diverse choice of attachable equipment and drones for a notable less count of points each.
Kinda makes you miss 7th when there wasn't so many things made for one job and it was more, this gun is really strong so it cost a lot and this one is weak but its cheap.
I wouldn't say the railgun is only intended for large targets. Stuff like redemptor dreadnoughts, helbrutes, forge- and maulerfiends all make for suitable targets for a railgun + seeker missile combo to take the target out of the game in a single activation. I don't think GW would or should bring back the forgeworld options, but it definitely is a missed opportunity that they did nothing about the ion cannon. It is so strange to me that a commander's cyclic ion blaster, riptide's ion accelerator and pathfinder's ion rifle all have the same strength values and largely the same damage values (riptide excepted). Having a gun so big it has to be mounted to a tank should have a more threatening output than a pathfinder with their ion rifle. I would ask for the strength value of the hammerhead's ion cannon to be bumped up from s7/s8 to s9/s10, and the damage from 1/2 to 3/4. AP can stay the way it is. With these changes the ion cannon becomes a massive threat vs elite infantry, while still being a less than ideal weapon against bulkier vehicles/monsters. I don't understand why GW thought it necessary to punish tau for split firing, imo that rule should be scrapped. Almost all of our vehicle datasheets were designed around the concept of split firing, typically having a big gun for one particular target and smaller guns for (chaff) infantry. The one silver lining here is that mont'ka detachment with its easy access to lethal hits does give the smaller guns a little more punch if you fire them into that same knight/landraider/leman russ. The only downside is that a railgun hitting on a 6 will deny it the ability to get devastating wounds on the wound roll since lethal hits don't trigger critical wounds. Overall the sky ray's missile rack is more consistent than a hammerhead with a railgun, but in my limited experience fielding both I have come to prefer the railgun just because when it does hit, it hits like a freight train. Oneshotting an enemy vehicle is worth the occasional 're-roll a 1 into a 1' moment to me.
I think having the marker light restrictions make it much more balanced. It forces good playing with smart usage of the ability. Tau already have offensive firepower, buffing that even more (even as small as removing the negative from splitting fire) could potentially make us an intolerable faction to play against. Just my 2 cents - good video! Very enlightening
Very nice Video, you've got my sub :)
As a tau player I totally get it and agree a lot with this video. I myself think that the unit rules were just too focused on making the main weapon a solid choice for the intended purpose. Be it for the ion with heavy infantry or the rail for vehicles. While the rest of the weapons are more or less just there to add more shots. The stats are mostly solid if not a bit of a glass cannon.
It could even be argued that a single broadside can be considered a more reliable choice given the heavy rail rifle and more diverse choice of attachable equipment and drones for a notable less count of points each.
Kinda makes you miss 7th when there wasn't so many things made for one job and it was more, this gun is really strong so it cost a lot and this one is weak but its cheap.
I wouldn't say the railgun is only intended for large targets. Stuff like redemptor dreadnoughts, helbrutes, forge- and maulerfiends all make for suitable targets for a railgun + seeker missile combo to take the target out of the game in a single activation.
I don't think GW would or should bring back the forgeworld options, but it definitely is a missed opportunity that they did nothing about the ion cannon. It is so strange to me that a commander's cyclic ion blaster, riptide's ion accelerator and pathfinder's ion rifle all have the same strength values and largely the same damage values (riptide excepted). Having a gun so big it has to be mounted to a tank should have a more threatening output than a pathfinder with their ion rifle. I would ask for the strength value of the hammerhead's ion cannon to be bumped up from s7/s8 to s9/s10, and the damage from 1/2 to 3/4. AP can stay the way it is. With these changes the ion cannon becomes a massive threat vs elite infantry, while still being a less than ideal weapon against bulkier vehicles/monsters.
I don't understand why GW thought it necessary to punish tau for split firing, imo that rule should be scrapped. Almost all of our vehicle datasheets were designed around the concept of split firing, typically having a big gun for one particular target and smaller guns for (chaff) infantry. The one silver lining here is that mont'ka detachment with its easy access to lethal hits does give the smaller guns a little more punch if you fire them into that same knight/landraider/leman russ. The only downside is that a railgun hitting on a 6 will deny it the ability to get devastating wounds on the wound roll since lethal hits don't trigger critical wounds.
Overall the sky ray's missile rack is more consistent than a hammerhead with a railgun, but in my limited experience fielding both I have come to prefer the railgun just because when it does hit, it hits like a freight train. Oneshotting an enemy vehicle is worth the occasional 're-roll a 1 into a 1' moment to me.
It might be worth to take if you know you gonna fight imperial knights.
oh yeah, but if you are going to an event where you'll be fighting a random match up, you may be in troube.
Crisis suits are scarier tbh
I think having the marker light restrictions make it much more balanced. It forces good playing with smart usage of the ability. Tau already have offensive firepower, buffing that even more (even as small as removing the negative from splitting fire) could potentially make us an intolerable faction to play against. Just my 2 cents - good video! Very enlightening
Pity, I will miss this game, I had tau and tyranids, but the woke is slowly destroying our world of 40k. I refuse to buy from them anymore.
Great video, but it's too late. The lore doesn't matter anymore; the Disnyfication has begun. It's all ogre now.