I haven't seen anything on this so far, so if it's talked about move me over.

I always used at least one squad of broadsides to spread heavy shots around. But now with target locks gone I don't know if they're even worth taking. It seems having hammerheads are a better heavy choice. Does anyone feel the same or am I missing something?

You aren't missing anything. I still consider broadsides a better pick than Hammerheads for their accuracy. A broadside unit can look at just about any tank in the game sternly and guarantee it's death in a single turn while missile pods and pulse fire can torrent down the other, less armored vehicles. This generally means that the units your Missile Pods and Pulse Rifles can't handle happen to be the more heavily armored tanks in the games - i.e. the ones that take 2-3 railguns to kill anyways, so the focused fire isn't too much of a downside.

Also against squadrons of vehicles, like those fielded by the imperial guard, the focused fire helps.

A Hammerhead with a railgun and two burst cannons is very nearly the same cost as two XV88s, and while the tank has the better native BS, the '88's are twinlinked. It's good to have a Hammerhead around for the large blast (one of just two we have access to, after all), but it's certainly not a foregone conclusion to go with that over an '88 team for your railgun needs. Particularly since that Hammerhead can now be glanced to death by S7 weapons, while most such things will barely even phase the 2+ armour of a Broadside.

Despite losing the ability to split their fire (which I will miss dearly), I think the broadsides are just as effective as before. Thanks to the new slow and purposeful they are moving faster, twin-linked makes a pretty significant difference when using snapfire (such as for taking down flyers), and even when you're not snap firing, twin-linked S10 AP1 is a sweet deal.

I think as always both the hammerhead and their broadsides have their ups and downs, and neither one should be considered useless.

I personally run my broadsides with TA's and two shield drones on a squad leader. While a little more expensive than a MT and less versatile than the Advanced Stabilization System (especially with the new BGNT mission), I feel the 14% increase in accuracy helps a lot over the course of a game. If you consider the points you spend for each shot fired by broadsides as opposed to say an IG heavy weapons squad, they are a relitavely inflexable\expensive option. Therefore I prefer sit back and to isolate and focus fire crucial targets with mine as oppsed to the (formerly) popular split fire "spray and pray". Not to say other loadouts are useless or inferior, this is just the one ive had the most success with.

I am an A.S.S. man myself when it comes to broadsides, I find the ability to shoot and scoot out weighs better ballistic skill, or any of the other options. Team lead of course gets a bonding knife, a muliti-tracker, and a drone controller with two shield drones. In the past he would have gotten a Target Lock, but no more. I do hope this is fixed when we get a new Tau Codex, or F.A.Q.'ed in that they can use split fire special rule. As for hammerhead over broadsides, I always try to find a way to have both. In the case of lower point games I will favor the broadsides. In my experience I have found twin linked anti-tank rails better then a single rail with better ballistic skill, even if that single rail can drop a pie plate. I will rely more on the rest of the cadre for crowd control.

Thurgen

Should also point out, that the target lock thing was apparently a mistake according to bloggers who went to the Games Developer event at Warhammer world. It's to be replaced with granting the Split Fire special rule (think that's the name) to the unit. Which is potentially a very interesting development as unless specifically clarified it allows a Shas'vre or team leader to either shoot their own target with a hard wired target lock, or pick a squad member to do it instead.

It would also mean that at most, a unit could only split its fire between 2 targets, with only one model from the unit being allowed to fire at the second target.

It also means you are required to pass a Leadership test to Split Fire, and if you fail that test any hits on the first enemy unit are re-rolled.
Hardly a fair swap in my opinion.

Leadership test, yes (which I don't mind; it's a nerf, but if they have a USR they're going to want to use it) but what makes you think hits are re-rolled if the Ld test is failed? Doesn't say that anywhere under the Split Fire USR.

Yeah, sorry - long day at work and I got confused...

I would still rather pay for something that works 100% of the time than get something for free that doesn't, and also doesn't work as well when it does.

Pathfinder rail rifles just went from mediocre to terrible... if they get the USR at all.

So are the target locks still gone or do they give the splitfire rule now? Do we have any official confirmation?

There's nothing official as of yet, but hopefully that will be fixed in the next FAQ. In friendly games however, you opponent may be happy to let you use Target Lock = Splitfire in advance, on the basis that GWHQ has said that it will be in the next FAQ (IIRC).

To be fair, the Split Fire rule is basically a rehash of the Target Priority tests from 4th, for which the target lock was originally designed. It working every time was a quirk of 5th having no USR that allowed models in a unit to divide their fire, rather than being a conscious choice of GW to make it easier for Tau to break up their firing units without presenting ludicrous numbers of kill points. It was never supposed to be a sure thing.

I would like someone who knows the space wolf codex better than myself to correct me if I'm wrong but don't long fang squads have the ability to split fire? I've looked at their FAQ and haven't seen this rule get altered so why was ours altered but theirs wasn't? Or is it because Tau can take the ability on an army wide scale while wolves only have it on one unit?

Long Fangs can indeed split fire into two separate targets as long as the Squad Leader is alive. Why they got to keep it may be because it is a special rule for the unit and they are Space Marines (marines NEVER get nerfed). I think ours got deleted because it still referred to Target Priority tests from 4th Ed. Either it was removed along with all other wargear that was tied to that old mechanic as part of a "cleanup" process that accidentally removed one of our key abilities or the designers felt that no longer having any drawback (having to pass a leadership test) made it too powerful. In either case, I think it was pure laziness on the part of the FAQ writers not to replace it or change it to leave us with SOME functionality. It's not like they didn't invent a new Special Rule that they could have given it in place of the old wording.

They probably got to keep it because it's a codex-based special rule with no interaction with any other rules, and a clearly defined, internally consistent order of operations to use it. And if Marines never get nerfed, what good are the new Acute Senses supposed to be for the Space Wolves? Do you expect to see a lot of outflanking Long Fang squads?

@Nan'sha about as much as they do for crisis and broadsides although they make wolf scouts almost a guarantee to arrive where you want then, lucky for use they can't charge