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 gnome_idea_what wrote:
This seems like a lazy fix. My inner conspiracy theorist says that it’s a sign that Tau are getting a new HQ to make up for it, but my inner cynic says that GW isn’t organized enough to plan that kind of move without more preparation.

Tau are getting no new models, which so far this edition means no new units.

If you were getting a new model/unit it would have been previewed on Monday.

Given that they are going through the pattern of faction spotlights it means that you will be made codex comparable through rules, stratagems, and warlord traits.

You will have a gimmick, perhaps two if you're lucky, and then you will be done until they decide to make new models for you.

But hey, check me after the codex drops, perhaps my read on the situation is not accurate.

 Imateria wrote:
I like the change and hope it gets applied to more armies, I hate seeing lists with multiple Hive Tyrants.

Can't see a problem with it either, it's not like the Fireblade is a bad choice and since Fire Warriors look pretty good why wouldn't you want multiple Fireblades to keep them all buffed.

This will be a thing with 36" firewarriors from the +6 inch range to all non assault weapons sept.

 gnome_idea_what wrote:
This seems like a lazy fix. My inner conspiracy theorist says that it’s a sign that Tau are getting a new HQ to make up for it, but my inner cynic says that GW isn’t organized enough to plan that kind of move without more preparation.

So, Tau are getting a new HQ unit. Two, in fact. From today's post:

You’ll even be able to decide whether you want to equip yours with the XV8 Crisis battlesuit (or even XV8-02 Crisis Iridium armour, which is now an upgrade rather than a Signature System) or opt to spend more points and gain an extra Wound with the XV85 Enforcer battlesuit.

Both of these new units are likely keyword COMMANDER.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 gnome_idea_what wrote:
This seems like a lazy fix. My inner conspiracy theorist says that it’s a sign that Tau are getting a new HQ to make up for it, but my inner cynic says that GW isn’t organized enough to plan that kind of move without more preparation.

Tau are getting no new models, which so far this edition means no new units.

If you were getting a new model/unit it would have been previewed on Monday.

Given that they are going through the pattern of faction spotlights it means that you will be made codex comparable through rules, stratagems, and warlord traits.

You will have a gimmick, perhaps two if you're lucky, and then you will be done until they decide to make new models for you.

But hey, check me after the codex drops, perhaps my read on the situation is not accurate.

Thought I saw some enforcer suit advertised for the commander. Not familiar with it. Thought it must mean a new commander box set.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 gnome_idea_what wrote:
This seems like a lazy fix. My inner conspiracy theorist says that it’s a sign that Tau are getting a new HQ to make up for it, but my inner cynic says that GW isn’t organized enough to plan that kind of move without more preparation.

Tau are getting no new models, which so far this edition means no new units.

If you were getting a new model/unit it would have been previewed on Monday.

Given that they are going through the pattern of faction spotlights it means that you will be made codex comparable through rules, stratagems, and warlord traits.

You will have a gimmick, perhaps two if you're lucky, and then you will be done until they decide to make new models for you.

But hey, check me after the codex drops, perhaps my read on the situation is not accurate.

Thought I saw some enforcer suit advertised for the commander. Not familiar with it. Thought it must mean a new commander box set.

The Enforcer suit is the newish Commander boxed set. The original commanders, in a standard XV8/Crisis suit, are going to be a new unit. It's most likely that the Index Commander will be the Enforcer entry, so you can no longer run that unit with an XV8 model.

 gnome_idea_what wrote:
This seems like a lazy fix. My inner conspiracy theorist says that it’s a sign that Tau are getting a new HQ to make up for it, but my inner cynic says that GW isn’t organized enough to plan that kind of move without more preparation.

I'm ALMOST certain the ethreals are getting changed to possible have some uniqueness to them and maybe be a little useful....if not well they made 2 useless ethreals more useless i guess...end of the day the cheapest one is still cheap

The main reason for why Tau Commanders get this hardcap while other HQ's don't is probably because they are, afaik (correct me if I'm wrong) the only extremely shooty, non-targetable HQ in the game.

Other HQ's either don't reach the same amount of Dakka as a Tau Commander, or they do, but can be targeted.

You can hide a shooty Autarch or a shooty SM Captain behind units, but they're not gonna delete units on their own with their ranged weapons.

Dakka-Tyrants can delete units on their own with their ranged weapons, but can't hide behind the rest of their army, so you can actually shoot back at it.

Daemon Princes don't need a hardcap because they don't really shoot, and in order to be effective they need to be in close combat, where they can be targeted, and after said combat they will probably be much closer to your army, so being able to target it shouldn't be hard.

However, spammable Tau Commanders who hide behind a wall of cheap Firewarriors or Kroots, who can't be targeted by ranged weapons and who are either fast enough to avoid combat, or because they're so much chaff in the way that they can't be killed in close combat would literally break the game.

A solution for this would be to allow the Commander to be targeted by ranged attacks even if it's not the closest model, but players would probably have issues with that as well, so GW decided to go with the Hardcap instead.

 MinscS2 wrote:
The main reason for why Tau Commanders get this hardcap while other HQ's don't is probably because they are, afaik (correct me if I'm wrong) the only extremely shooty, non-targetable HQ in the game.

Custodes Shield-Captains (hurricane bolter hitting on 2s rerolling 1s) come to mind immediately.

 meleti wrote:

 MinscS2 wrote:
The main reason for why Tau Commanders get this hardcap while other HQ's don't is probably because they are, afaik (correct me if I'm wrong) the only extremely shooty, non-targetable HQ in the game.

Custodes Shield-Captains (hurricane bolter hitting on 2s rerolling 1s) come to mind immediately.

At least try to be sincere.
You're not seriously comparing a Custodes Shield-Captain with hurricane bolters to a Tau Commander are you?

A Hurricane Bolter within Rapid Fire-range does less than 3 wounds on average to a squad of Firewarriors.
Hardly what I'd consider "extremely shooty", let alone "removing units on it's own".

 MinscS2 wrote:

 meleti wrote:

 MinscS2 wrote:
The main reason for why Tau Commanders get this hardcap while other HQ's don't is probably because they are, afaik (correct me if I'm wrong) the only extremely shooty, non-targetable HQ in the game.

Custodes Shield-Captains (hurricane bolter hitting on 2s rerolling 1s) come to mind immediately.

At least try to be sincere.
You're not seriously comparing a Custodes Shield-Captain with hurricane bolters to a Tau Commander are you?

I'm just pointing out it's an untargettable HQ with good shooting. Obviously they're not identical units.

Although I did think of a few more: Sammael, Dark Angels Talonmasters, Bjorn the Fell-Handed, and Venerable Chaplain Dreadnoughts. As it's apparently necessary, I'll also point out these units are also not identical to Tau Commanders. They are, however, untargettable characters with good shooting.

 meleti wrote:

I'm just pointing out it's an untargettable HQ with good shooting. Obviously they're not identical units.

Your bar for what qualifies as "good shooting" is clearly very different from mine.

Worth mentioning that Sammael and Bjorn are unique, so regardless of how good their shooting is, they'd be in the exact same seat as a Tau Commander come the codex.

As it's apparently necessary, I'll also point out

Drop the attitude. Being snide won't get you anywhere on these forums.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Thought I saw some enforcer suit advertised for the commander. Not familiar with it. Thought it must mean a new commander box set.

Pretty sure it's re-purposing an old model at best.

 MinscS2 wrote:

 meleti wrote:

I'm just pointing out it's an untargettable HQ with good shooting. Obviously they're not identical units.

Your bar for what qualifies as "good shooting" is clearly very different from mine.

Yeah, clearly. Do consider anything less shooty than a Tau Commander to have bad shooting?

They added the Lieutenant to the Space Marine codex. Maybe we'll see a Subcommander for the T'au codex

 Ghaz wrote:
They added the Lieutenant to the Space Marine codex. Maybe we'll see a Subcommander for the T'au codex

I'm guessing that the XV8 Commander is going to fill that role, but it's still possible there will be another unit.

 meleti wrote:

 MinscS2 wrote:

 meleti wrote:

I'm just pointing out it's an untargettable HQ with good shooting. Obviously they're not identical units.

Your bar for what qualifies as "good shooting" is clearly very different from mine.

Yeah, clearly. Do consider anything less shooty than a Tau Commander to have bad shooting?

Talk was about non-targeatable guys with extreme shooting capable of wiping entire units on their own. Not ones that kill 3 chaff guys. That kind of firepower isn't game breaking.

tneva82 wrote:

 meleti wrote:

 MinscS2 wrote:

 meleti wrote:

I'm just pointing out it's an untargettable HQ with good shooting. Obviously they're not identical units.

Your bar for what qualifies as "good shooting" is clearly very different from mine.

Yeah, clearly. Do consider anything less shooty than a Tau Commander to have bad shooting?

Talk was about non-targeatable guys with extreme shooting capable of wiping entire units on their own. Not ones that kill 3 chaff guys. That kind of firepower isn't game breaking.

Tau Commanders are great shooting units, but if they were game breaking wouldn't they have had better tournament results in 8th edition?

 meleti wrote:

I'm just pointing out it's an untargettable HQ with good shooting. Obviously they're not identical units.

Although I did think of a few more: Sammael, Dark Angels Talonmasters, Bjorn the Fell-Handed, and Venerable Chaplain Dreadnoughts. As it's apparently necessary, I'll also point out these units are also not identical to Tau Commanders. They are, however, untargettable characters with good shooting.

All of these provide significantly less efficient shooting than you can find elsewhere -- you would not take these just because you want them to shoot at things while hiding behind a screen. Also note that two of them are already 0-1 per army, not just 0-1 per detachment.

Like, sure, an alternate "fix" to Commanders would have been to increase their price so much that nobody wanted to bring them just in order to shoot at things anymore. People bring the Ravenwing characters in large part for their powerful auras or Sammael's CC ability, which Commanders lack. Redesigning Commanders to mostly be about buffing other Tau units was also a possible fix, but GW seems to have wanted Commanders to be able to function as shooty hero units in the same way that most other factions get an individually-scary HQ -- Tau already have Ethereals and Fireblades as buffing HQs.

 meleti wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 meleti wrote:

 MinscS2 wrote:

 meleti wrote:

I'm just pointing out it's an untargettable HQ with good shooting. Obviously they're not identical units.

Your bar for what qualifies as "good shooting" is clearly very different from mine.

Yeah, clearly. Do consider anything less shooty than a Tau Commander to have bad shooting?

Talk was about non-targeatable guys with extreme shooting capable of wiping entire units on their own. Not ones that kill 3 chaff guys. That kind of firepower isn't game breaking.

Tau Commanders are great shooting units, but if they were game breaking wouldn't they have had better tournament results in 8th edition?

While they may not be the top dogs per faction

its pretty telling when most of the tourney tau lists had nothing but taumanders running around

And just because they are not consistently top whatever doesnt make it ok.

Dionysodorus wrote:

 meleti wrote:

I'm just pointing out it's an untargettable HQ with good shooting. Obviously they're not identical units.

Although I did think of a few more: Sammael, Dark Angels Talonmasters, Bjorn the Fell-Handed, and Venerable Chaplain Dreadnoughts. As it's apparently necessary, I'll also point out these units are also not identical to Tau Commanders. They are, however, untargettable characters with good shooting.

All of these provide significantly less efficient shooting than you can find elsewhere -- you would not take these just because you want them to shoot at things while hiding behind a screen. Also note that two of them are already 0-1 per army, not just 0-1 per detachment.

Like, sure, an alternate "fix" to Commanders would have been to increase their price so much that nobody wanted to bring them just in order to shoot at things anymore. People bring the Ravenwing characters in large part for their powerful auras or Sammael's CC ability, which Commanders lack. Redesigning Commanders to mostly be about buffing other Tau units was also a possible fix, but GW seems to have wanted Commanders to be able to function as shooty hero units in the same way that most other factions get an individually-scary HQ -- Tau already have Ethereals and Fireblades as buffing HQs.

Yeah, my point isn't that other units are as good or efficient at shooting as Tau Commanders, just that Tau Commanders aren't the only unit in the entire game that I'd consider to have good shooting on a untargettable character model. I do think the unique aspect of Tau Commanders is that they were untargettable and more efficient than other shooters in the list, which was clearly a problem. A Talonmaster still shoots pretty damn well, but maybe not as well as a Dark Talon. And that's why Commanders were a problem unit, and why something ought to have been done about them. If you go back to my original post in this thread before it turned into a discussion of what a good shooting was, my point was that I liked Commanders because they were Crisis suits that were good at shooting. Crisis suits aren't any more efficient at shooting now (as far as we know), and Commanders aren't any less, it's just impossible to fit as much shooting from Commanders into a Tau list under the codex.

 Desubot wrote:

While they may not be the top dogs per faction

its pretty telling when most of the tourney tau lists had nothing but taumanders running around

And just because they are not consistently top whatever doesnt make it ok.

Yeah, totally agree. I just think you have to consider that it's not only telling of how strong Commanders were, it's telling of how weak Commander substitutes were.

I'm waiting to see the book once it comes out so the context of the restriction can be seen.

Is this restricting the 'Commander' Keyword or the 'Commander' Datasheet?

It seems strange to restrict the Coldstar suits when the problem is the 4 fusion suits.

Cheers

Andrew

 AndrewC wrote:
I'm waiting to see the book once it comes out so the context of the restriction can be seen.

Is this restricting the 'Commander' Keyword or the 'Commander' Datasheet?

It seems strange to restrict the Coldstar suits when the problem is the 4 fusion suits.

Cheers

Andrew

I mean the language is in the OP. It says no more than one Commander per detachment which is clearly the keyword.

 AndrewC wrote:
I'm waiting to see the book once it comes out so the context of the restriction can be seen.

Is this restricting the 'Commander' Keyword or the 'Commander' Datasheet?

It seems strange to restrict the Coldstar suits when the problem is the 4 fusion suits.

Cheers

Andrew

It's the COMMANDER keyword. GW posted an image of the actual rule from the codex, and codex phrases in all-caps are keywords.

Current models with a COMMANDER keyword (models with a * are FW):

Commander
Commander in XV86 Coldstar Battlesuit
Commander Farsight
Commander Shadowsun
Shas'o R'myr*
Shas'o R'alai*
Commander in XV81 Crisis Battlesuit*
Commander in XV84 Crisis Battlesuit*

Let's break down the whole Warhammer Community post, as a long time tau player and fan

1) Farsight Enclaves get to re-roll to wound rolls of 1 when shooting within 6"
This allows you to play a very aggressive tau army, potentially shifting away from gunlines and instead storming forward and unleashing waves of S6 shots from strike teams supported by Crisis suits deep striking around them

2) Farsight's weapons are now very cool
Close combat killing machine and long ranged damage? Yes please. Also the heroic intervention means he can save units from melee doom.

3) Only one commander per detachment in matched
A, you can take multiple detachments, b, the return of signature systems means commanders might return to the super-support buffmanders of before, so you probably don't even want that many. It depends on the whole codex, if there isn't a suitable output of damage to replace the commander, it could be bad, but we don't know yet. Also the different suits actually mean something now.

4) Fusion blades
The coolest thing from the fluff that never got into the rules now has rules. Very nice. Maybe the 2 4+ to hit attacks means they aren't exactly close combat beasts, but it's pretty cool all the same. Depending on how many points it is, there may be no reason to not tack it onto your already existing triple fusion crisis suits.

5) Ongar Gauntlet makes it's return with almost the same statline, but D6 damage and instant death isn't a thing any more
It was my favourite signature system in 7th, even if it wasn't very effective. I, for one, welcome our new one-punch-Japanese-men overlords.

6) Command and Control Node.
Instead of shooting himself, buffmander allows a friendly sept unit within 6" to reroll wounds. For 1cp.
That looks pretty tasty.

To quote the end, "If bringing the fight directly to your enemy with an army of short-ranged battlesuits sounds fun, then the Farsight Enclaves are for you. Of course, the new T’au Empire codex features plenty for more subtle generals as well. Check back tomorrow, when we’ll be looking at the stealthy forces of Dal’yth and some improvements to the sneakiest of battlesuits."

After the OP Bor'kan announcement, things only seem to keep getting better. Aggressive playstyles seem potentially viable, the buffmander is coming back, and it looks like stealth suits, one of the best index units, is getting either a general buff or a Dal'yth specific buff at least.

Google "Fake Balance" and go from there. The laziness is quite amusing.

I think my main issue with the Commander thing is that this was done as a reaction to the fusion suits, but suits that were there for buffing, or didn't load up on so many weaponry are punished too.

The whole point of points is to provide balance like this. Perhaps what GW should have done is have player pay MORE points for having more ranged weapons - so one fusion is X points, two fusions is 2X points, but three fusions is 3X+Y points and four is 4X+Z points. That way, if you spec all for a fusion suit, you pay for that specialisation.

Branched nova charged borkan HBC riptide with command and control node anyone?

 MinscS2 wrote:
The main reason for why Tau Commanders get this hardcap while other HQ's don't is probably because they are, afaik (correct me if I'm wrong) the only extremely shooty, non-targetable HQ in the game.

Other HQ's either don't reach the same amount of Dakka as a Tau Commander, or they do, but can be targeted.

You can hide a shooty Autarch or a shooty SM Captain behind units, but they're not gonna delete units on their own with their ranged weapons.

Dakka-Tyrants can delete units on their own with their ranged weapons, but can't hide behind the rest of their army, so you can actually shoot back at it.

Daemon Princes don't need a hardcap because they don't really shoot, and in order to be effective they need to be in close combat, where they can be targeted, and after said combat they will probably be much closer to your army, so being able to target it shouldn't be hard.

However, spammable Tau Commanders who hide behind a wall of cheap Firewarriors or Kroots, who can't be targeted by ranged weapons and who are either fast enough to avoid combat, or because they're so much chaff in the way that they can't be killed in close combat would literally break the game.

A solution for this would be to allow the Commander to be targeted by ranged attacks even if it's not the closest model, but players would probably have issues with that as well, so GW decided to go with the Hardcap instead.

Dark Angels Sammael on Sableclaw (unique) and Dark Angels Talonmaster (fully spammable) shoot 18 times per model, ignore cover and re-reroll hits and wounds while being untargetable. They’re very competitive choices too both in soups and with Dark Talon spams.

So, you’re wrong. Dead wrong.

Tau were nerfed because one of two reasons. 1) Someone at GW has a hate boner for Tau 2) They’re planning a big HQ change in the March Big FAQ that restricts super HQs like Flyrants to one per detachment.

The only other explanation is incompetence. With GW, this one is never really out of the picture.

 Therion wrote:

Dark Angels Sammael on Sableclaw (unique) and Dark Angels Talonmaster (fully spammable) shoot 18 times per model, ignore cover and re-reroll hits and wounds while being untargetable. They’re very competitive choices too both in soups and with Dark Talon spams.

So, you’re wrong. Dead wrong.

Tau were nerfed because one of two reasons. 1) Someone at GW has a hate boner for Tau 2) They’re planning a big HQ change in the March Big FAQ that restricts super HQs like Flyrants to one per detachment.

The only other explanation is incompetence. With GW, this one is never really out of the picture.

Oh come on. At least try to understand the point the person you're replying to is making.

Like, we've all seen people spamming Tau Commanders and chaff (mostly gun drones, which have good anti-infantry shooting) and doing pretty well. It's not the toppest of top tier, but it's a pretty nasty sort of list. I've never seen someone spamming Talonmasters. Googling "talonmaster spam" turns up nothing -- I see one list with 2 talonmasters. Checking the army list subforum here for "Dark Angels" and "Ravenwing" and "Talonmaster" turns up nothing resembling Talonmaster spam. There's probably a reason for this: it doesn't work nearly as well. Or, sure, maybe this is a secret OP strategy that Dark Angels players just haven't cottoned on to yet. But either way your post is kind of ridiculous. It is deeply weird to argue that Tau Commanders did not present a unique problem in the actual game of Warhammer 40k that was being played by real people, likely having to do with their ability to efficiently handle almost all of your army's shooting needs while enjoying character protection.

We can talk about exactly why Talonmasters don't present the same problem, but you have to concede that they don't present the same problem. That's just an empirical fact. The only similar things we've seen in 8th edition are a bunch of Imperium characters hiding behind some Culexi (which is not that great of a list and is also not very shooty, and which is crushed by the experimental CA rules), and then Malefic Lord and Horror spam (which was nerfed with extreme prejudice). It's just silly to act like this is some bizarre anti-Tau agenda.

You can get an extra commander in an Aux detachment (if the tourney isnt running 3 detachment limit), just costs cp but with how cheap our battalions should have enough for other goodies.