40K Tactics: Breaking Down the KV128 Stormsurge!
Everyone and thier brother has seen the new tau ballistic suit. Let’s talk about the KV128 Stormsurge’s rules!
Rumor has it the Tau are going to get a long release window and we are going to see models from both GW and FW before we see a proper codex. Not a bad way to sell some White Dwarfs. It is a win/win for everyone.
The KV128 Stormsurges…
Hey everyone. I’m TPM, the host of Forge The Narrative. Below I take a pretty lengthy dive into the new Tau Super Suit.
Where to start?
I’ll first start by giving a shout out to the people who have memorized the Tau naming convention. There are some people out there that can tell you the approximate role and size of the suit just by hearing its mnemonic. That sort of dedication to a faction and the background in general is admirable.
Aesthetically the model is pushing even more of the anime style than we have seen in the past with the clear absence of real arms. There is a nod to some of the best giant robots of all time – Robotech Destroids. I like it. It looks a bit boxy but I think these were purposeful design choices and not just a compromise for sprue space.
I’m not going to complain about the price point on this thing here but I will give some thoughts on the ‘mentality’ of pricing it this way later in another article.
What the Stormsurge Means to the Causal Gamer?
If you’ve been a long time Tau player and have drooled over the Tau stories and pictures of more super suits then this is your year. You’re going to get the KX139 Super Tuna from Forge World and a host of new releases from GW proper.
For kitchen table Warhammer these things are prefect. You can talk about what you’re going to bring for game night with your opponent beforehand and arrange a balanced game with all the giant toys. Or you can choose to surprise your buddy with all the cheese – have a quick game and then drink some beer. The social contract demands that you buy the beer at that point, ha.
What the Stormsurge means to the Tournament Gamer?
This is a hard question. We can assume that most tournaments will limit the availability of the KV128. In unrestricted formats the Lord of War slot and the 360 points base for one of these would normally be a limiter here but GW has thrown us a curve ball. Right in the KV128 options we have the ability to take up to TWO additional Stormsurges to form a squadron. A squadron of Lords of War..
We can try to easily dismiss the impact of the tournament scene on the course of the game delivered to us from GW HQ. GW doesn’t interact much on the various forums or social media but they do pay attention and that has been evident in how 7th edition has evolved. The things that we as a player base have pushed against (such as allies, psychic dice and whatever) have continued to be re-branded to us in a way they think we will digest it.
We are now at a point in the game where we, as a group, are resistant to dominating Gargantuan Creatures and typically penalize Lords of War in the tournament scene in one way or another. Now we have a unit that gives a whole faction of players another bargaining avenue for their environment to relax on these restrictions.
Whether it works or not will be up to your local environment and tournament organizers.
Enough about that. Let’s talk about the rules!
The KV128 comes in at a whopping 360 points. 65 more points than a base Wraithknight. That is probably significant. We won’t know the full significance until we see the full new Tau codex.
The weapon upgrade options are basically irrelevant. Not in the sense that you may never use them but they are only a few points each and don’t impact the overall point cost of the model. I am not sure there is a time when you would ever sub out the Pulse Blastcannon for a Pulse Driver cannon so let’s talk about that.
The Pulse Blastcannon has different modes of fire based on the range of your target from the KV128.
0-10 inches you are firing two str D ap 1 shots.
11-20 inches you are firing two str 10 ap 3 blasts
21-30 inches you are firing two str 9 ap 5 large blasts
The Pluse Driver Cannon is way less exciting. For an extra 15 points you can upgrade to a 72 inch single shot str 10 ap 2 large blast ordinance shot. I don’t want to overly downplay the effect of ordinance or longer range too much, but that weapon profile is incredibly boring compared to the Blastcannon.
The KV128 has a rule called Stabilizing Anchors. When deployed the model can’t move and can’t perform Stomp attacks. You have to be incredibly strategic when you use this rule as the stomp is one of the best rules this model has. What does it do? It allows the Storm Surge to fire twice. You have to deploy these Anchors in a shooting phase. In the NEXT shooting phase, and all the shooting phases after that where you still have the Anchors deployed you can fire your weapon systems twice. This creates a use case for the long range of the Pulse Driver and the Cluster Rockets we’re going to talk about below.
As powerful as this is, I still consider this somewhat of a fringe competitive tactic. Most assault elements are fast moving (bike death stars, annihilation force) or use drop pods. I only see this coming into play during Hammer and Anvil missions and then only when you are playing against someone who isn’t fast or using drop pods. I suppose the game could play out where in turns 5-6, you’re needing to consider this due to objectives on the other side of the table and then only when you are needing to clear your opponent off of them.
You can retract the Anchors at the start of any movement phase and then move and stomp as normal.
Secondary Weapons
The Stormsurge comes standard with four other weapon systems, the Cluster Rocket System, a twin linked Flamer, twin liked Smart Missile System, and a compliment of Destroyer Missiles.
The Cluster Rocket System seems impressive but I don’t see it doing a lot of damage on its own. It fires 4D6 str 5 ap 5 missiles. The average shots each round is around 12-14 shots. We haven’t mentioned this yet but the BS on this guy is 3. Half of these shots will miss. Fewer of them will do wounds and even less will translate into unsaved wounds (on average).
An opinion I would like to make is that random shot weapons are essentially a time waster in tournaments. It’s subtle, but one of main reasons Tau have a sour rep in the tournament scene is the amount of time the player spends rolling dice while their opponent just stares at them. Adding more random essentially do nothing rolls to that equation is not adding enjoyment to the game. Sure, the Tau player will get some excitement when he rolls 24 shots but it doesn’t happen often enough to justify compromising the experience of the opponent.
To make matters worse – those 24 shots don’t kill or hurt anything in the game that 12 shots wouldn’t have the same effect versus. Basically – the only thing in the game this weapon hurts is small jetbike or scout squads. On average it won’t do any damage to any imaginable death stars, it won’t do significant damage to the Gladius Strike Force and won’t have enough shots to even consider firing at flying monstrous creatures or flying vehicles.
The saving grace here is that since the KV128 is a Gargantuan Monstrous Creature it can choose to fire its weapons at different targets – this allows the suit to find that small unit it can hurt and lob some missiles in their direction or possibly use this weapon system to line up a favorable charge.
For being such a significant feature on the model GW could have made this weapon system a little more impressive. I am making this review sight unseen of the rest of the tau wargear and options. Adding twin linked or ignore cover to this weapon significantly increases its effectiveness. Please don’t mistake my critiques as complaints other than the time wasting bit. I look at things from a standpoint of tournament player. This weapon system just doesn’t do enough to worry about. The times when this weapon accomplishes something it wouldn’t matter what you were firing. Perhaps play testing revealed that adding more rules to this weapon was too over powered.
Even firing them twice you still don’t do any damage to the significant threats to traditional Tau armies.
The Destroyer Missiles are str 8 ap1. Before I say anything else I would like to draw a parallel to the old Blood Strike Missiles from the Blood Angel Storm Raven. I did a lot of work with those missiles and I would expect similar results from these if there is a way to give them Skyfire. They will do some work popping Rhinos and the occasional drop pod. The fact that they are one use only doesn’t matter much since you have 4 of them and by the time you unload them you’ll likely be in assault.
Don’t sleep on these missiles. As a player it’s easy to forget you have them. As an opponent it is even easier to forget the Tau player has them. These will do damage on the table top and don’t forget they are excellent for killing t4 non eternal warrior character models. We still see a few of those!
The Twin Linked Flamer is one of the only true options on the model. You can sub this out for either a Twin Linked Burst Cannon or a Twin Linked Airbursting Fragmentation Projector. As the rules stand on those weapons right now I am not sure I’d bother to exchange the Flamers.
Both the flamer and the projector ignore cover and the projector has a longer range. I guess if you plan to spend a lot of time rooted to the ground you could consider that but… The flamers being twin linked give you more wounds and that seems like the smarter play in most take all comers situations and also for lining up those charges where you want to fire at targets farther away and do damage before trying to lock up a unit that is threatening you anyway. You can make a small case for the Burst Cannon when rooted but, eh, at Str 5 my argument about not killing much more still stands.
The twin linked Smart Missile System is something everyone is familiar with – this model is awesome at killing exposed t4 and small lightly armored units. Two volleys of 4 shots that ignore line of sight and ignore cover at 30 inch range aren’t anything to sneeze at.
The KV128 is a nightmare to lightly armored ground pounder armies and if an army like the War Convocation doesn’t get a lot of work done on the turn it deploys/drops it is going to get ugly for the Imperium.
Keep in mind we are just looking at the KV128 in a vacuum. We are not factoring in any of the rest of the Tau army that will come with this thing.
The Statline
It is sporting a pretty impressive wargear package and selection of URSs due to it being a Gargantuan Creature but let’s look at the stat line.
BS 3. This is rough but I have to imagine we’ll see a way to buff this in the new codex. I wouldn’t worry about this too much if you’re a Tau player. It has more than enough shots to compensate for average BS.
ST 6. is basically irrelevant. You’re going to want this thing in combat sometimes simply for its ability to Stomp or tie up units. With only 2 attacks base you aren’t expecting this to do any punching.
T 6. I believe GW is expecting you to squadron this thing so if you lose one to shooting due to its lowish toughness and only 3+ save then I guess everything is functioning as designed. In a tournament setting this opens up the creature to be wounded by quite a few more things than plague the Wraithknight. I mean… it is conceivable that this thing could be killed by bolters and you do have to worry about plasma guns (ravenwing knights).
W 8. At 8 wounds the model compensates for the lower toughness. Still, with significant pressure from the rest of the army there is a reality where the last couple of wounds from this thing are taken by a lucky tac squad.
Sv 3+. This isn’t as much of a detriment as it seems. For one, Grav weapons only wound you on a 3+. It has become increasingly easier to kill things like Riptides and Broadsides. Having this beast only wounded on 3s and having 8 wounds is significant. Second, you are rarely going to have this thing in the open. Gargantuan Creatures benefit from being able to to drag terrain for a cover save or you can easily fit this thing on a Skyshield Landing Pad for a 4++ or within the barrier of a Void Shield Generator. GCs also benefit from Feel No Pain. These points combine to make the power armor save less of an issue for shooting attacks.
Close Combat
It does suffer in close combat. In Assault you’re going to be absolutely relying on those Stomps. We all know this is a tricky proposition but in my opinion assault is inevitable. The 3+ save and T6 make this thing vulnerable to basic close combat attacks and especially power weapons. We don’t see a lot of regular power weapons but it is still an issue. Power Fists and Thunder Hammers will tear through this thing but I’m ok with that.
The good thing here is that at least you’ll likely be alive to get a Stomp off. The high toughness and wounds should make it very difficult for the standard st4 ap- unit to take you down. I wouldn’t be scared to rush this thing into combat if a charge from the opponent is imminent anyway.
Tactics and Vulnerabilities
The KV128 is a cool looking army centerpiece. I have no doubt it will combine with other elements from the new codex to form an impressible backbone of the Tau army. The weapons on paper look good. Math wise I don’t think this is going to shake out to be the next Wraithknight or boogey man but they do fill similar roles. This will be a fire and attention magnet. When using units like this don’t be afraid to ‘be the bully’ with them. Force your opponent to make tough decisions and cause them to either over extend or make a mistake.
For the Opponent, expect to see these the moment they are available if you have a Tau player in your group. You will certainly see them at tournaments in some capacity. Right now it doesn’t look like they are going to effectively change the way you would normally deal with a Tau army so don’t spend too much time thinking about it but I would rank them fairly high on the ‘first strike’ list. The Tau and the KV128 are likely going to be very susceptible to psychic powers.
At Ld9 the KV128 is vulnerable to psychic shriek to peel off a few of those wounds. I can see the KV128 be a popular target for Misfortune, Dominate and Vortex of Doom as well. These powers are on the commonly used charts.
The Stormsurge does not have any real inherent defense against D weapons but it’s high number of wounds can possibly put you out of lucky 6 shot range. If it happens, it happens. D is still one of the big equalizers in the game.
In Stormsurge on Stormsurge combat it is going to come down to who has the hottest dice but that is always the case in the mirror match between two equally skilled players.
In conclusion, this is one of the cooler suits we’ve seen from the Tau. It follows the design theme for the rest of the army and the rules aren’t as overpowered as they seem on the initial glance if you are playing with this thing in a ‘competitive’ setting. Time will tell how this factors into new codex and army designs that will come from it. I am actually looking forward to facing off against whatever this ‘new Tau’ becomes. This article specifically does not address the support systems this model can take because we don’t what they will become in the new book.
Agree, disagree – let us know below.
