With the latest set of codices now on the shelves, it’s time to start breaking down what units and options are going to be right for your list!
Guest Writer: Dan Meyer
While playing test games is the best way to understand your options, it’s hard to get in enough games to understand all the variables at play and arrive at a reasonable set of expectations. Have no fear though! I am here to help by giving you an in depth look at what you should really expect out of a unit or piece of wargear.
My Shtick
I will look at a unit and their wargear options and help you understand what is the best choice for a given situation or at least help you figure out what you can truly expect from your units. I achieve this by simulating 1,000,000 iterations of that unit attacking a set of common targets that are representative of things you will see in the meta and get a true sample population so we can not only underst1and the mean of the expected outcome, but also how the variance shapes the outcome distribution. This will give you a much better appreciation for the variability in your game. If you have any questions on my process, ask away!
What can you expect out of a Stormsurge?
Tau is hot on the scene and making waves in the typical form, making people upset on the internet! I may have sold off my Tau a couple years ago, but I really loved the Stormsurge model, but the rules never backed up how cool the model was. Has yours been longingly staring at you from its shelf, probably a little dusty by now? Maybe with the latest 9th edition rules, things might be different. I’m going to keep this one simple and data dump a ton of information to you. Coming in at 330-345 pts depending on loadout, you will want this guy to perform. So let’s dive right in and just scan through a bunch of weapon breakdowns.
| Weapon | Shots | Strength | AP | Dmg |
| Pulse Driver Cannon | 3D3 | 10 | 4 | 3 |
| Pulse Blastcannon -Focused -Dispersed | 26 | 1612 | 42 | 124 |
| Destroyer Missile | 1 | 12 | 5 | 2D3 |
| Cluster Rocket System | 4D6 | 5 | 1 | 1 |
The Stormsurge comes base with Pulse Driver Cannon, 4x Destroyer Missiles (limited to 2 shots a turn and are one-use-only), and the cluster rocket system. You can upgrade from the Pulse Driver Cannon to the Pulse Blastcannon for 10pts. You also come stock with a twin Tau flamer and 2 smart missile systems (SMS), with options to upgrade…we won’t talk about those as they aren’t unique to the Stormsurge and are better analyzed on something like Crisis suits or other units in my opinion. For all of our analyses we will assume you anchor this sucker down using its rebuilt anchor ability and have markerlights all over the place…so in the end this simply means reroll hits and +1 hit. This is huge to make the Stormsurge tick…there is a massive difference between BS4 and effective BS3 rerolling 1’s and 2’s.
Let the Simulation Begin…
First, let’s take a look at the baseline weapon, Pulse Driver Cannon, and see how it does against a Redemptor, a Knight with Rotated Ion Shields, Vertus Praetors, and Vertus Praetors with Transhuman active.
Figure 1: Pulse Driver Cannon vs. Variety of Units
The Pulse Driver Cannon is a solid weapon if you can roll a little lucky with number of shots. The ability to hurl thunder hammers downtown at AP4 is very nice for dealing with a wide variety of units. However, if you roll short it’s going to feel bad. Against our typical tough units we examine for these sorts of weapons, it does commendable work, especially considering it will likely shine against other units that aren’t super tough that we didn’t necessarily consider here.
Let’s get to the spicy Pulse Blastcannon alternative big gun option. First up, we examine the Focused shot profile option…with a whopping Strength 16 and 12 damage per shot…that’s not messing around.
Figure 2: Pulse Blastcannon-Focused vs. Variety of Targets
So with only two shots, this thing will almost always dunk a Redemptor or anything similar up to 22 wounds (or 24 if no -1 damage) >50% of the time. That really is nice. About 14% of the time, you can outright kill a knight if they are unlucky with two invulnerable saves. As you’d expect, it’s not a great option for dealing with Vertus Praetors, but if you get a shot through it’s a dead bike. Transhuman on the bikes just makes it a nonstarter for this shot profile. But the best part of the Pulse Blastcannon is having two options for shot profiles, so next up we look at the Dispersed profile.
Figure 3: Pulse Blastcannon-Dispersed vs. Variety of Targets
The dispersed profile is not as good as the super shots for the Redemptor or Knight, partly due to lower strength, AP and lower damage per shot meaning the invulns will have more chances to reduce the damage. However, the key thing to note here is the Vertus Praetor kills. From focused to dispersed we see almost half a model more destroyed on average. The higher volume of shots allows for the damage to not get blown out on just one model, but slowly work its way through the squad more advantageously.
Beyond the main cannons for dealing with tough targets, the Stormsurge has four destroyer missiles onboard. Unfortunately, you are limited to two shots a turn (WHY GW WHY?!?!?!?!). The hope here is general cleanup work if you expect to need help taking down something. Looking at the output in Figure 4, confirms my suspicion. Very low averages means this is relegated to the simple hope of bonus damage. Pair it with the Pulse Driver Cannon, and you can get close to finishing off a Redemptor like unit or help you finish off a tougher infantry models.
Figure 4: Destroyer Missiles vs. Variety of Targets
Lastly, we have the Cluster Rocket System. While it looks badass on the model itself, the weapon stats aren’t overly exciting, though it is nice that it has AP1 at least. Rocking 4D6 shots, we are expecting high variability ranging anywhere from 4-24 shots. Since it is only Str 5 and 1 damage, we will examine it in the light of clearing infantry and trying to finish out a Redemptor.
Figure 5: Cluster Rocket System vs. Variety of Targets
When facing Marines, you can expect to be able to kill at least 2 models 50% of the time, but don’t hope for much more than that thanks to the variability of shots and 2 wounds per model. The output against guardsmen looks much better as you would expect, easily acing 7+ models 50% of the time. Against the Redemptor, it’s able to throw down about 2 wounds on average, enough to try and pick up the odd left over damage when needed.
Well there you have it, the Stormsurge in all its…glory? It does have additional output we didn’t look at here, but nothing super exciting. So the question is, is it worth the 330-345 points? I’m not sure. I don’t feel like Tau need help with shooting output and especially on something that will essentially never be able to hide. It is incredibly durable for once though, so that is super nice. What do you think? Have you had any success or failures with your Stormsurge since the new codex release?
Let me know if you have any questions, comments or concerns with any of the results you have seen here! And of course, I welcome all suggestions for future simulations!
The Emperor Protects,
Dan
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