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crisis suit change wont happen unless they make them too expensive to run...mainly because they are already so good.

This is how I would like to see Tau redone.

HQ
Shas'el/Shas'O - comes standard with bonding knife, multi-tracker, ability of other units to use commander's leadership within 6" - most other options remain the same (more on wargear later)

Farsight - makes crisis suits scoring (but not troops), reduce his retinue to 5 strong, give him eternal warrior (he is the longest lived Tau). Dawn Blade ignore invulnerable saves (basically becomes a C'tan Warscythe). Preferred enemy granted to all units. Same restrictions as before but hammerheads are 0-2. Hazard Suits are 0-1

Shadowsun - should be able to join other units. Increase toughness to 4. Give her either fusion cascade equivalents or multi-melta equivalents.

Ethereal - lose the price of failure rule. Give a standard 4+ invulnerable save. Maybe add a retinue of some sort.

Etheral Retinue: Demiurg weapon-smith: one unit can reroll to hit or to wound once per battle. Water Caste Ambassador: Can force a reroll for choosing deployment zones. Earth Caste advisor: bolster defences rule, some kind of anti-deepstrike/ anti-infiltrate rule. Firecaste bodyguards: "Look Out, Aargh" rule with weapons options and so on and so forth. Not really clear on this one. Add in an anti-psyker Niccassar guy and maybe options for vesspid and kroot advisors that give those units buffs. Not really sure on this retinue thing.

ELITE
Crisis Suits: 1-4 suits. bonding knives standard along with BS4 and multi-trackers. Can take two guns. Give them skilled flyers, jet packs, hit and run USRs. 1 Shas'vre comes standard can be given 'special issue' wargear which is not longer 0-1 per army. Defensive grenade dischargers.

Hazard Suits: 1-3 suits. bonding knives, multi-trackers standard. Massive points drop (say... 35 points base). BS4, T5. weapon options mostly the same but at reduced cost. skilled flyers, jet pack, hit and run. defensive grenades, flechettes first round of combat.

TROOPS
Firewarriors - 6-12: 8 points a piece. Shas'ui standard with bonding knife. defensive grenades standard. Can take 2-3 rail rifles in the squad. BS4. EMP grenades for +1 point per model. Can take 2 drones (marker, gun, shield). 14 models or less can ride in devilfish or 8 models or less in new AV11 transport that is open topped.
* Can take one sniper drone squad per Firewarrior's squad. Cannot claim objectives. do not give up kill points. drones don't die is controller dies. Heavy rail-rifles ( 60" strength 7 AP3, heavy 1 or 30" Strength 5 AP4, heavy 3). Stealth fields standard.

Kroot: 10-20 kroot. Shaper standard. move through cover, infiltrate, stealth USR. Kroot advisor in Ethereal retinue gives them either fleet, furious charge, or Ymgarl "I pop out of terrain" power. Kroot hounds 0-12. Kroot Oxen removed as an option (I hate them that much). Can use Ethereal's inspiring presence if Kroot advisor taken. Can use markerlights if Kroot shaper is alive.

0-2 Pathfinders - 5-10 models. Shas'ui standard with bonding knife, defensive grenades. Scouts, infiltrate, move through cover USRs. BS4. can take 2 drones (marker, gun, shield) Can ride devilfish or new AV11 open topped transport.

FAST ATTACK
Stealth Suits: 5-10 suits. BS4 standard. price drop to 20 pts per model. Burst cannon rules changed. Stealth field gives them veil of tears effect. defensive grenades. Give them skilled flyers, jet packs, stealth, hit and run USRs. Shas'vre standard can take special issue items same as Crisis Suits. Deep Strike locator beacon option. Add more weapon diversity (options for fusion blasters, burst cannons, cyclic ion blasters, SMS?)

Vespid: 5-10 stingwings. 12 points base. BS4. skilled flyers, move through cover, hit and run USRs. Jump Infantry. 4+ armor save. can use markerlgihts if strain leader is alive. Can use ethereal's inspiring presence if vespid advisor is in ethereal's retinue. 0 2 Neutron flamer based weapon option ( as heavy flamer).

Piranhas - can remove drones to twin-link weapons (ala TX-42 for +10 points). Can take SMS. 1-5 per squadron. Most other options remain the same.

HEAVY SUPPORT
Hammerhead - mostly the same. Add heavy missile pod option for sponsons (autocannon profile). Comes with multi-tracker, disruption pod, and target array as standard.

Broadsides - 1-3. Shas'vre standard. Slow and Purposeful and multi-trackers standard. can replace railguns with single ion cannon for free.

Sky Ray: Negates night fight for entire army "advanced target array rule." Seeker missiles are now hunter killers (no need for markerlights. Can take heavy missile pods as sponsons. Skimmers and bikes don't get their turbo-boost save. comes standard with multi-tracker, and dispod. Can call in off board missile strike once per game (large blast Str. 8 ordinance barrage).

TRANSPORTS
Devilfish - 80 points base: SMS, dispod, and multi-tracker included. Transports up to 14 models. Option for firewarriors, pathfinder, ethereal if taking retinue. BS4. AV12/11/10. Pathfinder ones include marker beacons. can upgrade burst cannon to fusion cannon (multi-melta) for 10 points. can replace SMS with two burst cannon sponsons for free.

Pufferfish Transport - 50 points base. AV11/11/10. Open-topped. Fast skimmer and tank. burst cannon, sms weapons. Can take flechettes. Can upgrade SMS to two burst cannons for free. Can transport 8 models.

It's late, and my brain is fried. I will post up wargear tomorrow if anyone is interested.

I agree-a hover veihcle should be able to move faster than a big heavy tank that rumbles along slowly on the ground.
FW should be bs 4 still-if you read the fluff youll see that-they are trained from induction to shoot so why are they only as good as guard when it comes to shooting.
pulsecarbines are ASSAULT weaponry-small light and short ranged BUT with a high rate of fire-they should be assault 2 pinning.
arnt pulserifles range 36"? i thought they were. if not then they should be.

Even in 3rd ed the Tau needed the following:

Cheaper Crisis Suits and or BS4
BS4 for all actual Tau units or cheaper FWs/Pathfinders/markerlights (30 points for a ML drone? Really? That's insane)
Drones don't count for morale (I mean, the drone is designed to be killed instead, so why would it panic the team?) or unit size (does a plasma gun count against unit size? a drone is just an intelligent weapon/wargear bit).

Outside of that, other things are nice bonuses.

I'd love more variety of crisis weapons, more crisis suit types, a 'crisis-wing' army list, a stealth commander and 'steath-wing' army list, more auxilery, allowing Gue'vesa to take either battle suit weapons as heavy weapons or take imperial standard weapons in their squads...

Really though mostly just the top must be done, or else they just limp along or min/max out things.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

master of ordinance wrote:I agree-a hover veihcle should be able to move faster than a big heavy tank that rumbles along slowly on the ground.
FW should be bs 4 still-if you read the fluff youll see that-they are trained from induction to shoot so why are they only as good as guard when it comes to shooting.
pulsecarbines are ASSAULT weaponry-small light and short ranged BUT with a high rate of fire-they should be assault 2 pinning.
arnt pulserifles range 36"? i thought they were. if not then they should be.

In 3rd Ed it speciffically mentions they have genetically adapted to fill the various niches of the castes. That is, firewarriors are genetically adapted to be better shots.

If 40k were a D10 system, you could have marines still be better, but have Tau better than guard.

Alternatively, you could go with the old cadian - reroll 1s rule for all actually Tau units. This makes them better shots than BS3, but not as good as marines (I think they should be as good as marines, but if GW wants to keep them inferior, this still makes them better, and more cost effective).

Most Tau FWs/Crisis/Pathfinders are inherantly overpriced for what you get out of them.

I don't really see why FW should shoot better than guard really. With markerlight support they can be BS 5, which is plenty.

I'd like to see the other Castes appear on the battlefield, but I'd rather not see IG/Inquisition Retinue.

I'd like to see the Etherial be able to call for "Ultimate Sacrifice" and give everyone within 12" Furious Charge, counter attack, +1 A, FNP, Fearless for 1 turn. It would give the Tau one crazy, semi effective moment of close combat in a fluffy way.

I'd also like to see more combat effective Etherials, like Aun'Shi was back in the day.

kestral wrote:I don't really see why FW should shoot better than guard really. With markerlight support they can be BS 5, which is plenty.

I'd like to see the other Castes appear on the battlefield, but I'd rather not see IG/Inquisition Retinue.

I'd like to see the Etherial be able to call for "Ultimate Sacrifice" and give everyone within 12" Furious Charge, counter attack, +1 A, FNP, Fearless for 1 turn. It would give the Tau one crazy, semi effective moment of close combat in a fluffy way.

I'd also like to see more combat effective Etherials, like Aun'Shi was back in the day.

I'm not saying they should shoot better - just as good as. More than half the time I play guard all their infantry is BS4 anyway (mechvet spam)

Alternatively, they could make markerlights cheaper and better, plus make pathfinders and marker drones bs 4.

If GW wants to keep markerlights as part of the tau deal, base firewarriors and Broadsides could stay at BS 3.

However, any number of squads/models should be able to use a single marker light. No more, just one squad benefits stupidity. Plus, they need Target Locks to split the fire up. So that Pathfinders have a reasonable change to hit, and can shoot varried targets.

Right now there is little reason to run larger Pathefinder squads. Being able to spread the ML love around would be an effective way to address issues.

Right now it's rubbish that you must hit with a BS3 to have to then roll again to hit with another model.

In some ways this having to hit twice is a big draw back to the Tau. No one else has to cobble that many points and units into getting a signle unit up to BS4.

kestral wrote:I don't really see why FW should shoot better than guard really. With markerlight support they can be BS 5, which is plenty.

I'd like to see the other Castes appear on the battlefield, but I'd rather not see IG/Inquisition Retinue.

I'd like to see the Etherial be able to call for "Ultimate Sacrifice" and give everyone within 12" Furious Charge, counter attack, +1 A, FNP, Fearless for 1 turn. It would give the Tau one crazy, semi effective moment of close combat in a fluffy way.

I'd also like to see more combat effective Etherials, like Aun'Shi was back in the day.

I agree, make markerlights cheaper and more prevalent and you have the BS problem solved. The pressure being HOW the tau uses his markerlights - seeker missiles, BS +, remove cover, increased pin tests.

My 2cents:

MLs:
Instead of the whole token thing just make ML drones buff the BS of the unit they're in; kind of like a purchasable upgrade, really. 120pts for the FW unit and for 20pts they can take a ML drone that gives the unit +1 BS. A passive bonus that a well placed blast weapon or a large amount of wounds could take out so it would be fairly balanced. MLs on pathfinders still drop tokens and they can take the drone for the BS bump.

Crisis Suits:
They're elit and they're in big boxes with tons of extra sensor and targeting equipment, why the heck aren't they BS4? And why the heck are they S5? Why? They die in CC just like firewarriors. I'd say they T and S values should be swapped (S4 T5). There, fixed.

Kroot:
For the love of humanity allow krootox to have all the abilities of the kroot so they're actually worth taking. Make the krootox gun able to move and shoot. Give the shaper an option to take a power weapon. Give "genetic" upgrades like was in the retconned Kroot Mercenaries codex; it'd be really cool to have a variety of specialist kroot units.

Vespid:
Make them useful or get rid of them. Something like chameleon abilities that give them a 5+ cover vs. shooting and rending attacks because of their "diamond sharp" talons.

Hammerheads:
Pull the turret options over from forgeworld.

Skyrays:
Bring back Alpha strike so I can shoot all my missiles at once and then spend a turn reloading or something.

Firewarriors:
Allow the 'ui to take a special weapon (plasma rifle or something).

Piranhas:
Mostly fine. More weapon options; imagine them with SMS.

Wargear:
Agree with others, stop with the limits on "special issue" wargear unless it's to limit it to one unit per army. The Tau are all about unit specialization, why would it be far-fetched to have a unit of 3 suits with TL AFPs?

Broadsides:
Slow and purposeful standard. Otherwise, fine.

Add:
Some open-topped skimmer/transport. Imagine a hover skid with a load of firewarriors on top just flying around as fire support.