Editing Gauss (section)

=== Tau ===

The [[Tau]] use railguns as the primary heavy weapons on tanks and walkers.

Rail Weapons are considered some of the most potent and fearsome weaponry employed by the Tau Empire. Rail weapons are linear accelerators that use super-conductive electrodes to accelerate a solid-shot round to hypersonic speeds. The vast kinetic energy generated by the round on impact is capable of devastating damage on enemy vehicles.

Usually, Rail weapons are (obviously) very powerful and capable of extreme penetration (as in real life) as the acceleration is limited only by the amount of power that can be input and how much the weapon can handle without exploding or melting.

====Rail Rifle====
[[File:RailRifle6.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Rail Rifle]]
Emboldened by the success of vehicle-mounted railguns, the Earth Caste built a [[Tau]]-portable railgun weapon, called the "rail rifle." It debuted in [[Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior]] as a prototype weapon; it soon got rules in [[Chapter Approved]], and by the next Tau Empire [[Codex]], it was a regular part of the Fire Caste's armory, used by [[Pathfinder Team|Pathfinders]] and drones as a sniper weapon. Incidentally, while it was in Chapter Approved, the Rail Rifle was subject to "Gets Hot!" like a Plasma Gun, but the Earth Caste improved the safety margins on it such that blowing up in the user's face is no longer a concern by the time of the 4th Edition codex. 6th edition further uplifted the rail rifle, turning it from Heavy to Rapid Fire and making it AP1, meaning it now could oneshot terminators and light vehicles, be fired on the move and even could be fired in full-auto.

It is mentioned in the fluff that once Rail Rifles are advanced enough to mass-produce and do not eat all the ammo and battery pack in a matter of seconds (and seeing their progress rate from overheating backpack-powered heavy weapon to magazine-fed rapid fire rifles in a matter of a few decades it's not a long time to wait for), Tau command have plans to use them as standard issue Fire Warrior guns instead of pulse rifles. Come 8th edition they are still used only by Pathfinder teams. At least until a new Tau Codex comes out. If GW did do this they would either likely nerf its range to match up with the [[Lasgun]] and [[Bolter]] and increase the price to the same as a [[Plasma Gun]], OR give it to an elite new Tau unit analogous to the space marine Sternguard since, logically, a new weapon would not be available in large enough numbers for the whole army as they just started mass production so best give it only to the elites. Otherwise it would pretty much break the game with Tau basic infantry being able to steamroll everything in their field of view even more than 3E Necrons could. One would think that this would be possible as the Tau now have [[awesome|Plasma Shotguns]] but they [[derp|remain one of the few races without a one man flamer]].

====Heavy Rail Rifle====
[[File:Heavy_Rail_Rifle.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Heavy Rail Rifle]]
A recent development wielded by next-generation Broadside battlesuits, it is less powerful than the Tau's primary railguns, though only moderately so (S8 versus S10). However, its reduced bulk allows it to be mounted in such a way as to more easily track fast moving targets, and thus it fulfills an anti-air role, where its slightly reduced strength is not a big liability as it is still plenty powerful enough to punch through most fliers with ease, and its double-barreled (twin-linked) setup [[derp|increases its odds of hitting a target rather than its odds of wounding or total wounds deal after wounding]]. That said, it's still a considerable threat even to AV13 vehicles, since with AP1 the first penetrating hit would likely be the last.

====Railgun====
[[File:RailgunHammerhead.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Railgun]]
The Railgun is the iconic [[Tau]] heavy weapon, mounted on [[Hammerhead Gunship]]s (and ''[[Battlesuit]]s'', in previous editions) to cause massive damage to enemy armor (72", S10, AP1). At its most basic form the railgun is a linear accelerator using standing wave acceleration along a number of cylindrical superconductive electrodes surrounding a barrel (duh).

A Broadside Battlesuit Team used to be able to carry up to 3 twin-linked railguns in one Heavy Support slot (nerfed to the S8 heavy rail rifle, see below, in their 6E codex), while the Hammerhead can only carry one, but the Hammerhead has enough ammunition capacity to also carry a S6 AP4 Large Blast submunition round for dealing with infantry blobs. (Squad of guardsmen a turn anyone?)

With the 9th Edition Tau Codex coming out soon these guns got a humble buff to '''72" S14 AP-6 D1d3+6 WITH AND ADDITIONAL FLAT 3 MORTALS WITH THE ENTIRE GUN ALSO IGNORING INVULNERABLE SAVES AND GETTING A REROLL TO HIT!''' Knights tremble before this gun and hide behind their terrain, praying to Big E that the tank it's attached to looks the other way. Though the stats are pretty damn good, Broadsides (with the Heavy Rail Rifle) outperform it when you throw in point costs. This makes the Railgun more of a psychological tool to strike fear into the previously mentioned Knights.

====Heavy Railgun====
[[File:Heavy_Railgun.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Heavy Railgun]]
Because the regular railgun wasn't enough for putting down the really big targets (like [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|Titan]]s), the Earth Caste developed the '''Heavy Railgun''' (110", SD, AP1) for their super-heavy vehicles. It was originally designed to blow up ''space ships'', as Tau never expected anyone to be stupid or crazy enough to build a big enough land-based vehicle to justify this weapon's use against it.

Then they encountered Ork gargants and Imperium titans, and figured out that most inhabitants of the Galaxy aren't sane or reasonable. The [[Manta]] mounts two of these, while the [[Tiger Shark AX-1-0]] mounts a twin-linked pair. Like the Hammerhead railgun, the heavy railgun can fire a pie-plate for destroying massed infantry formations, but the heavy railgun's submunitions are [[rape|S7 AP3 and the blast is 10" across.]]

====Heavy Rail Cannon Array====
[[File:HeavyRailCannonArray.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Heavy Rail Cannon Array]]
The latest advancement in bringing hyper magnetized death to the enemies of the Greater Good. The Heavy Rail Cannon Array is mounted on the KX-139 Ta'Unar Supremacy Armour, and is designed to take down Super-Heavy vehicles and Gargantuan creatures, alongside any infantry which may be attempting to close in on the suit.

The Heavy Rail Cannon itself possesses a longer range than the equally destructive Heavy Railgun topping out at 120", S:D AP1, Ordinance (1), Blast (3") however it has been designed to aim at the heaviest points of an enemy and strike those points with enough force that should it wound the enemies own mass is turned against itself (roll twice on the Destroyer Weapon Attack table and pick the higher result when firing against Super Heavies or Gargantuan Creatures), and is paired with the Cluster Shell system which is used to launch sub-munition shells at nearby enemies (36", S:6 AP4, Apoc Barrage (4), pinning), in such a way that both weapons may be fired against different targets at the same time.

====Starship Railgun====
[[File:TwinRailgun.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Starship Railgun]]
Exceptionally large and heavy Railguns mounted on the biggest [[Weeaboo]] vessels.

Starship Railguns are the primary weapons for the [[Kor'Vattra]]. Their ease of construction and maintenance of Railweapons among the Tau means that eventually, they were gonna supersize this and call it a day.

All/most Starship-level Railguns are twin-linked for twice the [[Dakka|shooty power.]]

Due to how common and ubiquitous these weapons are, these Railguns are analogous to the Imperial [[Macrocannon]]s, except, in a display of common sense, the Tau actually thought it was a good idea to mount them on a turret to fire anywhere, rather than restricting it to 17th century-level static broadsides. The primary advantage of this is that it allows Tau ships to basically fire anywhere, leaving no blind spots unlike the Imperial, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks or Chaos fleets. The downside of this is that because of the turret, they could not be compacted as much as Macrocannons, meaning that there are fewer Railguns per-ship than usual, ergo less [[Dakka]].

====Heavy Starship Railgun====
[[File:BFGHeavyRailgun.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Heavy Starship Railgun]]
Because of course the fish faces didn't stop at ''just'' a ship-sized Railgun. For when they want to punch through something neat and clean, the Heavy Starship Railgun is a much bigger and longer weapon than your typical Starship Railgun.

Owing to its longer barrel, the Heavy Starship Railgun are the largest version of Railweapon mounted on larger Tau spacecraft. Its size means that it can't be twin-linked, but it also means that it has a longer range and hits twice as hard. Only 3 Heavy Starship Railguns could be mounted on the largest of [[Tau Merchant Battleship]]s as they are the only ones with the power to use these things in numbers.

Like its smaller brethren, it is mounted on a turret which allows it to hit anywhere. Although considered their analogue of a [[Nova Cannon]], the Heavy Starship Railgun does not deal the same level of catastrophic explosion as its Imperial counterparts, rather, trading balls-out firepower with consistent shooting and accuracy.

{{40k-Tau-Weapons}}