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Because that would be horrible.
Nasty shooting + Insane overwatch + massive dmg in close combat is just to much. Tau should suck in close combat, or lose some of their other super powers. If not they will have the same issues as the 5th edition Wardian GK. It is just that simple

Also I have the feeling Gw is staying away from the whole humanoid suicide bomber idea on purpose.

 oldzoggy wrote:
Also I have the feeling Gw is staying away from the whole humanoid suicide bomber idea on purpose.

Back in the old days Imperial Guard had a unit called "Human Bombs", condemned prisoners with bomb harnesses. They were supposed to run straight into enemy lines and go kaboom to earn the Emperor's forgiveness, so Penal Legion stuff. Yes, that would be a bit awkward with everyone running scared of terrorists (instead of cars, but humans are irrational like that).

Otherwise good points have been made. Heavy pieces of military equipment are usually not rigged for self-destruct with a single button. We armchair Generals might think it's silly those little plastic men (or even real soldiers) don't always fight to the death, but people often value staying alive over killing a few more nameless enemies. There's enough ways for a vehicle to get destroyed or knocked out as it is without adding some way of doing it on purpose that could also go off accidentally in formation. It would seriously impact morale, enemy saboteurs could take out your stuff even easier (or rig the selfdestruct to go off when you arm your guns) and ofc, in combat panicked soldiers would destroy perfectly salvageable hardware while battle-crazed soldiers do it just to kill one more guy for the price of a tank. The money counters back home would be extremely unhappy and so would any General who likes having some control over how many vehicles are spent in an engagement.

Stopping a determined fighter pilot from ramming something when he's sure he'll die anyway is probably impossible, but these guys are officers for a reason. They're supposed to be capable of figuring out whether they can make it back or not very fast and act accordingly. Tank or ship crews destrying their ride to avoid the enemy capturing it is also a different matter IMO - there's ways to do that without having a big red SUICIDE button.

That would be fine, if my Raptors get to jam their Chainswords through the mouths of Nobz like in Space Marine to ID them.

Spetulhu wrote:

Back in the old days Imperial Guard had a unit called "Human Bombs", condemned prisoners with bomb harnesses.

Yeah that was back in the day. I don't think GW still bets on risky models these days.

1) The same reason we "generals" can't shoot into or through close combat. Despite the desperate times and the tactical advantage, it's "wrong".

2) The Tau DO shoot their weapons in CC. They just suck at it in "swirling chaos" that is represented by their WS, I and A stats.

They don't wana die from their own rokkits.

Jaxler wrote:

 raverrn wrote:
Because the missiles have a minimum arming distance and that close they're not even moving that fast.

Then how come they can fire at something an inch in front of them/over watch?

Because that is the minimum distance...

Jaxler wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I would be okay with this if my Devastators can jam their Lascannons into anything they are fighting and blow them to pieces or my Furioso Dreadnought can grab ahold of something in CC and blast it apart with its underslung meltagun. Difference is, there is an example of the Dreadnought doing exactly this in the fluff (Cassor the Damned does it in Deathstorm).

Basically, no one could do this because, despite it probably being awesome, would require a bunch of changes to the rules across the board. I would be in favor of Pistol weapons being able to use their regular profile in place of any additional CC attacks. Then they might actually be worth their points.

I agree about the point about pistols.

It's been 20 years so I may be remembering this incorrectly, but in second edition you could use pistols in CC at their profile. However, AP didn't exist back then it was just a save modifier.

You guys want to give IG sergeants a S7 AP2 attack? What's the point in power fists?

Alcibiades wrote:
You guys want to give IG sergeants a S7 AP2 attack? What's the point in power fists?

Yes I think it'd be a good idea so long as BS was modified greatly in close combat. IF you're only hitting on sixes, then that attack is pretty gak.

If they're hitting on 6 with a pistol, than how the hell are they hitting on 3-4 with a krak nade?

All that pistols need in cc is being able to use it's profile instead of 1 melee attack. It'd be kind of nade usable vs anything. This way, 15 pts for a plazma pistol is justified. And you still risk blowing yourself up rolling a 1. Hell, there WILL be a reason to use a Kustom Mega Slugga, finally!

I don't even think a lot of pistols would need a point bump as their current price comes from the times you could use them in melee anywayz. I'm not sure if they added +1 attack back than, however. It might need some thought. Seems it'd be fine even with +1 attack.

To be fair, a rocket pod detonating inside a broadsides hand surely can't be that impressive. I mean, the missiles aren't that powerful based on their strength profile. If anything, we need guardsmen detonating a satchel charge during CC.

 kingbobbito wrote:
To be fair, a rocket pod detonating inside a broadsides hand surely can't be that impressive. I mean, the missiles aren't that powerful based on their strength profile. If anything, we need guardsmen detonating a satchel charge during CC.

They basically do anyway. :p 6" range...