I have used some of the suggestiong given. I also caved to Dipsomaniac about the submunition.(if it was like a shotgun then wouldn't the blast radius be larger at long range?
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Tau Hammerhead Basics: by TauFreak
1. A little history
A. The Hammerhead
2. Main weapons
A. Rail Gun
a. Solid
b.Submunition
B. Ion Cannon
3. Sub-weapons
A. Smart Missile System
B. Burst Cannons.
4. Upgrades.
All Tau are trained from birth to live for two things. To serve the mysterious Ethereal Caste members and to fight for the Greater Good are the only goals worth achieving. In Tau culture the Water caste are the diplomats, the Earth caste are the builders and farmers, the Air caste are the pilots and crew of the Tau fleet, and then there is the Fire caste that is the army. In this army all left-handed Tau are made to pilot the vehicles in the Hunter Cadres. One of these tanks is the famed HammerHead gunship. The Hammerhead is one of the most devastating tanks in the eastern fringe with its amazing Rail Gun. In this tactica we will look at some of these aspects that this tank can be used in.
The Hammerhead itself.
The Hammerhead chassis is the same generic chassis that the Devilfish APC (Armored Personal Carrier) and the Skyray gunship are built on. Unlike the Devilfish the Hammerhead’s insides has been stripped and gutted so more armor plating and mount capacitors for the Rail Gun and other weapons can be stored there. Thus it cannot carry any troops. Speaking of armor, the Hammerhead has a very good front armor that only falls short of a real brute like the Space Marine Landraider. The Hammerhead has shown the Imperium and all other races that it deserves to be on the battle field. It can sport any combination of two main weapons and two sub-weapons. We will take a look that these now.
The Rail Gun Solid Shot.
The Hammerhead is large enough and has the right equipment to carry this massive gun as its main weapon. The Rail gun is arguably THE most powerful gun in the game with just its high strength and armor penetration value. It is the most effective tank hunter in the game. The rail gun propels its solid shot at the molecular level as it leaves the barrel. With this much power the shot can travel far past the range of almost any other weapon. When this shot impacts the results are that the armor almost liquefies instantly and punches right through to the interior of the target.
The Submunition Round.
The Rail Gun on the Hammerhead is much more powerful and larger than the Broadside mounted version. Therefore is can use two different kinds of rounds. This second round is highly compacted anti-infantry explosives. The design of the Rail Gun barrel allows it to handle the shotgun-like round of the Submunition without losing any range. However, this results in reduced penetration power and energy. It can easily annihilate entire squads of light to medium infantry with the large blast radius. If you are fighting an army like Orks, Tyranids, or Imperial Guard that don’t have or didn’t bring tanks, your high point cost Rail Gun can still eat its way through whole squads and support your infantry by taking out that nasty squad of clawed ‘stealers. Trust me your Fire Warriors will thank you.
The Ion Cannon.
This is the second main weapon of the Hammerhead. The Ion cannon is way cheaper in its points cost but you pay for what you get I suppose. The Ion-head has a shorter range than the Rail-head but it still has an amazing range that can outshoot a Lascannon. The Ion-head is good for two things: hunting space marines or other heavy infantry or as a light vehicle hunter. With its multiple shots you can easily pay for your Ion cannon after one or two turns of shooting Space Marines. Also the amount of shots it gets can take down most light vehicles but then again so can other weapons.
Sub-weapons.
All Tau vehicles have two weapon slots for various sub-weapons that can assist someone in taking out mostly light infantry but they can also kill other types as well. Some of the side weapons are a vehicle mounted version of the battle-suit burst cannon, the broad-side mounted smart missile system, or regular old Gun Drones. Although the Hammerhead cannot take the side drones it can choose from the other two.
The Smart Missile System.
As an added bonus this great tank gets better as you can take a sub-weapon. The Smart Missile System (or SMS) is one of the rare indirect fire weapons for Tau in Warhammer. Shooting four missiles a turn with a fair range isn’t bad, they are so advanced that they can shoot over that dang forest and “snipe” that nasty melta squad. Used in tandem with your main weapon and a few upgrades (see later) you can fly over the battle field and wreak havoc on multiple squads a turn.
Burst Cannons.
Being similar to the battle-suit weapon the Hammerhead can take not one but two of these bad boys. Wait it gets better as they do not have to fire at the same target! You can now shoot at a maximum of three squads a turn. With three shots each they have the same strength as the SMS but the downside is that they are shorter range and cannot shoot over cover. That means you have to be out in the open to fire your weapons. Although you reveal yourself to the enemy with your armor I think you will make it.
Upgrades for Vehicles.
For this section you will find generic upgrades for all Tau vehicles. These can be one of two things, completely useless or righteously awesome. The following is just the upgrades what they do and a brief description.
Sensor Spines.
These handy spikes were of help in the old codex where you could detect ambushes, secret deployment, and only trigger mines on a six. In the Tau Empire they have drastically changed their position in Hunter Cadre Commanders hearts. Now they can let your skimmer tank glide nicely through terrain with absolutely no consequences.
Multi-tracker.
This little piece of wargear is one of the musts on any Hammerhead. Why is it so important you ask? It is because this nice add-on lets your Hammerhead fire as though it is a fast vehicle. For those of you who don’t know, the Hammerhead is a skimmer tank, not a fast vehicle, thus it can only move six inches and still fire all of its guns. With a multi-tracker upgrade it can move up to twelve inches and fire! Wait there is more! Now that you move twelve instead of six and still fire you also will get a neat little bonus. When you are hit with that nasty Lascannon and it gets a deep penetrating hit your moving fast rule makes it ALWAYS downgrade to a little ricochet glancing hit and you can still fire back. You are WAY more likely to survive this than the first.
The Targeting Array.
For you Hammerhead fans out there you do not need to worry about this one because it is already built into your head. For those of you who just play Tau this improves your shooting ability by a great margin with your vehicles. What is a great shooting army that can’t hit? A dead one that’s what!
Black-sun Filter.
The filter is only good for if you are going to play night-fight because it lets you range and sight meet in the middle. Other than that leave this one at home.
Flechette Launchers.
These neat pods on the front of your tank make it so when you are charged by anything you will launch a cloud of thousands of high velocity flechettes that shred the enemy troops no problem. This is always funny when you play a chaos krorne player who keeps rolling ones for blood-rage so they have to keep charging you but they can't hurt you heavily armored tank.
Decoy Launchers.
Take these pods so you can stay alive, I will explain. If you take the multi-tracker take this upgrade because they launch tiny reflective strips and emitter drones to protect your engines. If your Hammerhead suffers a glancing hit immobilized roll you can make you opponent re-roll it once. Why you would take this? Because when you move fast (see Multi-tracker entry) and you engine suddenly dies you are going to crash and or explode.
Disruption Pod.
The disruption pod throws out distorting images to make your valuable head an obscured target. This means that if you are penetrated you can (on a four up) make it a glancing. If you moved fast (again see multi-tracker entry) then this is useless.
Target Lock.
Ahh the target lock, I love this thing just for the fact that you can use you burst cannons or smart missiles to shoot other thing closer so your Rail Gun or Ion cannon can take care of the real business. Like the crisis team target lock this one has its own special place on you Hammerhead.
The Seeker Missiles.
Just as an added bonus to having the amazing tank you can also attach MORE weapons. The seeker missile is a fairly cheap high powered weapon that has a good AP. To fire one of these bad boys you need to have a marker-light hit on your target but other than that they are fairly good. Oh I just remembered they are only ONE use. They do hit on 2’s though and have a high chance of penetrating light vehicles and killing that nasty Chaplain that is by him with no two up save. Although it has a few downsides they are still a pretty good weapon.
Closer.
I hope that I have helped you to better understand and use this tank and its weapons. From light to medium to heavy infantry and light to heavy tanks the Hammer head can kill pretty much anything. My advice to you go out and have a few battles and experiment for yourself what you like and feel comfortable with. Oh one more thing, do NOT glue your guns on either just let them sit on the mounts or get magnets to switch them out with but you will regret it if you use glue. Other than that I think you are ready to do battle for the Greater Good!
