I have not been on this site for a very long time and only just got back into playing tau , but on sunday at my local club I had a good 1000pt battle against a vehicle heavy ork army and i discovered the real value of my hammerhead and the railgun. On the first turn, my hammerhead used the multi tracker upgrade to zoom out of cover 12" and then blasted a battlewaggon while firing SMS at a killa kan (target lock) to no avail. Next turn, i fired a sub. round at a squad of ard' boyz that had just piled out of their trukk and killed 7 at the same time as killing 3 lootas with the SMS. In the ork turn my opponent nearly destroyed it with an immobelised result, but this was saved by my decoy launchers.

So I have realised that with the right wargear, a hammerhead can launch a solo hit and run war from the table edge.

So do you recommend running the SMS over the burst cannons? My hammerheads are still waiting patiently in their boxes but I still haven't figured which secondary armament I would use.

I have generally prefered the SMS over the Burst Cannons for one main reason; SMS does not require line of sight to fire, meaning that your Hammerhead can stay behind buildings and large hills. This is key as there are a lot of Tyranid players in my area, along with a preference for Close Combat Dreadnoughts. Many players will attempt to validate taking Dreads and Hive Tyrants by attempting to kill the biggest threat with them (proving their value in terms of victory points killed) and by kiting them around large pieces of terrain provide suppressing fire against their Gaunts or Tactical Marines that I am actually worried about, while using the terrain to influence where their heavy killers are moving.

If you are playing a metagame where, instead of 'Nids and SMurfs, you see much more Eldar, Necrons, Guard and Orks, then the Burst Cannon is better overall. If possible I would make both models of the pods and try them for yourself against your regular opponents. The extra shots can be very nice, but the added technical ability that the SMS provides should not be overlooked.

I recommend the Burst cannons due to its 2 weapons to destroy rather than a single one and IMO it looks cooler

Just a reminder: in 5th ed you can't move 12'' and shoot your secondary weapons even with a multi-tracker because all of the secondaries are Str 5 and therefore not defensive weapons.

But you could move 11".... ?



I reckon it looks cooler too!

If you're hiding your Hammerhead behind terrain and only firing SMS, your opponent doesn't need to kill it as you are rendering your best weapon combat ineffective. If you are "worried" about Gaunts, then you should be dropping templates on them along with the SMS. An AV13 tank with a disruption pod should be able to get out into the fight with reasonable confidence instead of plinking cheap troops from cover.

@fallschirmjager: You could always magnetize your secondary weapon and swap them out to test them.

Not if you want to fire two weapons. A Hammerhead with a multitracker can fire one main weapon and any defensive weapons if it moves up to 12", but more than 6". As we have no defensive weapons on our tanks, that means that you have to be moving between 0" and 6" to be able to fire more than one weapon. Oddly enough, this does make Drones appear viable (albeit very briefly), as they get to fire as long as the vehicle can fire at least one weapon.

It's great to see you had a good game and a nice experience with one of our more infamous units. I would like to reinforce the point that you can not move 12" (12" being defined as more then 6") and fire more then one weapon with the hammerhead as none of its weapons count as defensive.

I am curious how your opponent "nearly destroyed" your hammerhead with an immobilized result, as this would have required all weapons be destroyed and the vehicle to be immobilized already.

I think there is a rule that means fast moving skimmers (12"+) are destroyed from immobelised results

I'm not surprised that you discovered the value of the Hammerhead (though if you'd read this site first, you would have found that everything you "discovered" has been known and discussed for years), since it's a solid unit in low-point games. The only real drawback is the fact that in larger games you just can't afford to spend a heavy support slot on a single railgun, and Broadsides become mandatory.

Of course if you want versatility, there are worse things than adding in a Hammerhead with TL fusion cannons. Up close, it out-guns the railhead against tanks, and melta blast templates are just cruel against heavy infantry.



There is, but since it is not possible for a Hammerhead to move flat out (over 12"), I don't see how it's relevant here.



The problem with drones is that, unlike the Devilfish's "free" drones, you have to pay the same cost as the SMS to get them. Add in the price of a target lock (since the drones are not effective against the main gun's targets), and you're paying way too many points for an average of one STR 5 hit per turn. Either keep the standard BCs, or get the SMS if you're going to pay for an upgrade.

Though, TBH, I'm less and less convinced that even the SMS is worth buying. Sure, it seems cheap, but 15 points here and there adds up quickly, and I can usually find a lot better things to spend those points on than improving my marginally-effective STR 5 shots.

I am a fan of using SMS on Hammerheads. I very rarely use BCs because I appreciate the extra range that is gained out of them. Very often I've used the Hammerhead to hold a section of the line solo while the rest of the army absorbs the main enemy offensive. After I've included all the upgrades the Railhead that I take ends up costing 180 points, but I believe that those points are put to very good use more often than not. I typically use the same loadout that the OP described (Railgun, SMS, MT, TL, DP). If I have a few extra points I'll put on a Seeker just for fun, or take flechettes, but it's something I try not to take regularly.

Also adding drones to a Hammerhead offers up another killpoint to the opponent and things are bad enough already if you take basic Devilfish (I tied IG 9 to 9 because of this when I would have won 9 to 6 otherwise). I'm with Peregrine on the SMS upgrade, it just doesn't seem to do enough for the points. The ability to shoot regardless of line of sight is nice but in the end you are shooting four non-twin-linked shots and paying 15 points to do so. Instead of doing this you can keep your cheaper burst cannons and work a little magic in the movement phase so that you can shoot your main weapon and now six shots. Burst Cannons just seem to be the better choice.

The SMS gives the Hammerhead a much larger threat radius that does not care about LOS. It also allows one to stay well out of range of most retaliation, and thus you are better able to kite the enemy with less pressure.

I guess we have here a fundamental difference of opinion, because both answers are the correct one.

There is one thing mentioned in the battle report that realy separates broadsides from hammerheads is the subunition round that massacres (in my battle report at least) anything with a 4+ or worse armour save (Eldar, 'nid gribblies, storm troopers, guardsmen, ork boys and 'ard boys etc)

Sure, it's a longer-ranged threat, but it's still a very weak threat. I really don't see why you'd want to pay to upgrade the range of some mediocre STR 5 shooting, unless you just happen to have a few points left over with nothing better to spend them on.



But you know what is even better at letting you stay out of range? Moving 12" every turn and ignoring your secondary weapon.

The reason, is because the rest of the S5 in the rest of my army is stripped to bare minimum, typically. Being on an AV13 chassis, and being BS4, the SMS on the Hammerhead is one of the best places to put S5 out of our entire selection within the codex. Given a Target Lock and the Hammerhead can pelt units farther out while still threatening the closer threats.


The longer range of the SMS means that you are threatening the enemy from earlier in the game, meaning that you can slowly kite backwards if the situation calls for it. Doing so, you are increasing the number of turns before you have to move at Cruising. Admittedly though, this works much better against non assault based armies, or armies that are painfully slow.

The problem is that any* army which isn't fast is a gunline army with more than enough range to blow up your Hammerhead no matter how far away you try to keep it. Since you'll need to move fast to keep outside that critical 12" range and ensure that you're only hit on 6's by assaulting units, you'll very rarely get a chance to fire your secondary weapon. Paying to upgrade it to an SMS would be a marginally effective choice at best even if you could fire every turn, but when you're so frequently giving up those shots anyway, it's just wasted points.



*Unless your opponent is a clueless newbie, in which case you're going to win no matter what you put on your Hammerhead.

I have never found SMS to be very efficient in points. If the SMS fires every single turn for six turns it will be point for point the same as a pair of burst cannons fired twice in total number of points per shot.

There's one good reason to take SMS, and that's LOS. It's measured from the weapon mount, and hammerhead secondary weapons are hung very low, meaning that LOS isn't a foregone conclusion, so it's definitely more comfortable to not have to worry about it.

That said...I wouldn't pay points to "upgrade" to a weapon that gets fewer shots because you can't shoot it at all if you move more than 6" and fire the main gun, not to mention that having more secondary weapons (3 versus 2) does improve the railhead's statistical chance of being around for a last-turn objective tankshock. Maybe in the next codex, we'll be able to fire burst cannons in two modes: 5 S3 shots or 3 S5 shots...that way, you could move 12" and still shoot everything, making the multitracker less wasteful.