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According to the fluff, Fire Warriors go through a decade or more of rigorous training, fight in dozens of battles and hone their skills. Eventually, some of these warriors will rise above their brothers and sisters and earn their place as a suit pilot. The most advanced wargear that the T'au have. These suits are the pinnacle of T'au engineering and design, loaded with high capacity super computers, targeting enhancers, communications systems and jammers. They are test beds for technology that is far beyond anything the Imperium can muster or maintain, let alone grasp the basic physics and engineering principles of.

The sheer force of will, intelligence and skill needed to pilot a suit is immense. Even these veteran Fire Cast warriors will still need to practice for years before they actually sortie a mission in their suit. Longstrike for example was considered a prodigy with an idetic memory. He still required years of study with each suit or vehicle he learned to pilot. Commander Farsight also had an idetic memory, and his rise to being a pilot was long in the making.

So, given all this. The skill required. The access to super computers and targeting systems.

Why do T'au suits hit on a 4+?

Real answer, only so much granularity can be pulled off on a d6. Fluff wise, I do recall that Tau are noted as having poor dept perception and slower reaction speeds compared to even a base line human. They need all that tech to make up for that.

A lot of people wonder that. I'm not sure myself. I would guess that it has to do with game balance reasons, but I don't have a good fluff explanation.

One joke reason that is sometimes given is that Tau just aren't very good at fighting. Their caste of soldiers trained from birth to fight is a little less skilled than an Imperial Guardsman.

Sadly, I think part of it has to do with the legacy of markerlights, which could boost your BS more than by 1 like they can now. So they wanted to keep the Tau baseline BS (Commanders aside) at 4+ so that it's not like several units would effectively become BS2+ just from having markerlights hitting a few units. Also, currently speaking, BS3+ re-rolling ones isn't bad, the main issue with Crisis Suits atm is their pricing and competition against the Crisis Commander just being more cost efficient and survivable.

It's the same reason why SM veterans in termie armour or vanguard vets don't fight any better than scouts. As mentioned above, there's not enough granularity in a D6 to show the nuances in skill, so they compensate via wargear instead.

 Grimskul wrote:
Sadly, I think part of it has to do with the legacy of markerlights, which could boost your BS more than by 1 like they can now. So they wanted to keep the Tau baseline BS (Commanders aside) at 4+ so that it's not like several units would effectively become BS2+ just from having markerlights hitting a few units. Also, currently speaking, BS3+ re-rolling ones isn't bad, the main issue with Crisis Suits atm is their pricing and competition against the Crisis Commander just being more cost efficient and survivable.

It's the same reason why SM veterans in termie armour or vanguard vets don't fight any better than scouts. As mentioned above, there's not enough granularity in a D6 to show the nuances in skill, so they compensate via wargear instead.

I don't disagree with any of you on the why. But Terminator armor isn't a Crisis Suit, which according to the lore has 4 separate targeting computers in it. A lot of people in the tau camp complain about crisis suitsbeing too expensive, which is true. They're horribly over costed. But, a lot of people say that if they went to a base BS3+ that this would alleviate some of the problem.

But for a faction that is completely locked out of two of 6 phases of the game (No Magic, no cc) it seems a little odd that we cannot at least dominate in the one phase we are supposed to dominate in! I'm not saying we're bad, not at all. I think this editions Codex is fine! Guard can dominate in shooting (as they should) because of volume. But we cannot put out anywhere near the number of shots they can, so we rely on the fact that our basic gun is S5 and has a long range. It's good! There are some fun things you can do with them.

Why do Custodes hit on 2+ in everything? Why is that not OP but letting us (Crisis suits, broadsides, riptides for example, not the whole army) hit on 3+ is?

One of the go to things I always see is the markerlight excuse, but anyone who has actually played T'au will know how risky that is. With a couple of exceptions (which are also ironic) your marker lights hit on 4+ with drones being a 5+. So in order to get that bump in BS you need to be able to lay down continuous volley of ML support. At most you're getting 1-3 units per turn with an appropriate amount of Markerlgihts on them. It's very, very hard to do. I mean without going off on a tangent, the whole ml concept is a bit of a mess. Getting two ml on a target makes seekers hit on their full BS. Except NO ONE uses seeker missiles, because they're garbage. HOT garbage.

In all honesty I'm seeing the same problem with BS/WS with this army that my Tyranids have. All of the tyranid CC beasts hit on 4+ most of the T'au shooting hit on a 4+.

Maybe it's time we move away from D6 to D8? I don't know.


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 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:
A lot of people wonder that. I'm not sure myself. I would guess that it has to do with game balance reasons, but I don't have a good fluff explanation.

One joke reason that is sometimes given is that Tau just aren't very good at fighting. Their caste of soldiers trained from birth to fight is a little less skilled than an Imperial Guardsman.

I dunno about that last part, from my readings on the subject, they're highly martial and trained quite well. Guradsmen are often treated like conscripts, where the tau are more like a modern professional military force.

The problem ties back to the limits of a d6 system. Should the average tau shoot better than the average guardsman, probably. Should they shoot as well as a space marine, probably not. The biggest issue for a ton of units is that the difference between elite and average is so narrow that there is no room for something in between.

Tua have all these targetting computers, all these enhancements, all this military training - and that's still not enough for them to match baseline humans.

They might be well trained: for Tau. Imagine training a child in strength excercises, giving them steroids, all the training in the world to boost their strength - they're still not going to be stronger than a healthy adult. Tau might just (and seem to) have a lower innate aptitude for combat than humanity.

As for gameplay, Tau DID dominate shooting in 6th and 7th. The reason Custodes are better at shooting (ignoring the lore that they're basically godlike) is that they have nothing that great to shoot with. No man-portable lascannons, nothing like that. Tau have a whole arsenal of weapons that would be broken on Custodes, if they had the option.

The issue with "letting Tau dominate shooting" is that no faction SHOULD dominate in a single round. Especially when shooting is the most important round in a 40k game.

Space Marines are one man armies - at the scale we play one marine should be supremely overpowered against anything but a leader. Something like the Swarm Lord on the other hand should be able to one-man almost anything up to a Greater Demon.


Also Gaunts and Guardsmen should be deployed in their hundreds to thousands.

In general the game (like any game) has to compromise for the sake of fun, otherwise it gets silly. Tau are super trained; on the other hand Tyranids are specifically bred from design for singular pathways in life - they should be the supreme ultimate beyond even a marine enhanced body. Eldar have mystical technology far in advance of anyone and should be supreme - orks - orks should have enough dakka that they are literally firing a wall of metal at you most turns.


Game makes sacrifices everywhere to capture a flavour of armies but not be faithful in representation since only a computer simulation could get close to simulating real 40K Warfare.

Here is the real question...Why does advanced targeting system make your bullets penetrate armor better - instead of just hit better?

Why can't tanks take advanced targeting systems?...Why does an ATS take up the ability to take another gun? (It should be a computer chip and standard on any war suit)

Tau have a lot of dumb rules you see...suits hitting on 4's is another one of those dumb rules. Just gotta remember you are playing a game where the designers don't care at all about the rules and you are better making the rules up for yourself if you want to have more fun.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Here is the real question...Why does advanced targeting system make your bullets penetrate armor better - instead of just hit better?

Why can't tanks take advanced targeting systems?...Why does an ATS take up the ability to take another gun? (It should be a computer chip and standard on any war suit)

Tau have a lot of dumb rules you see...suits hitting on 4's is another one of those dumb rules. Just gotta remember you are playing a game where the designers don't care at all about the rules and you are better making the rules up for yourself if you want to have more fun.

Actually there is nothing wrong with the penetration aspect. Advance Targeting Systems can analyze the armor and find its weakness.

Also, I don't believe that at all. I think the designers care a great deal, and have done an excellent job with the game over the past 15 months.


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 Overread wrote:
Space Marines are one man armies - at the scale we play one marine should be supremely overpowered against anything but a leader. Something like the Swarm Lord on the other hand should be able to one-man almost anything up to a Greater Demon.


Also Gaunts and Guardsmen should be deployed in their hundreds to thousands.

In general the game (like any game) has to compromise for the sake of fun, otherwise it gets silly. Tau are super trained; on the other hand Tyranids are specifically bred from design for singular pathways in life - they should be the supreme ultimate beyond even a marine enhanced body. Eldar have mystical technology far in advance of anyone and should be supreme - orks - orks should have enough dakka that they are literally firing a wall of metal at you most turns.


Game makes sacrifices everywhere to capture a flavour of armies but not be faithful in representation since only a computer simulation could get close to simulating real 40K Warfare.

I don't disagree with you. Just remember, I'm basically asking, why the suits. Since everyone complains about how bad suits are now, from a lore perspective, their accuracy doesn't make sense. 3 Crisis suits are 100 points without any upgrades. Compared to a 5 man terminator squad, they'll do nothing except die. That can be fixed by either a point decrease, or I think by a simple accuracy bump!

 Togusa wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Here is the real question...Why does advanced targeting system make your bullets penetrate armor better - instead of just hit better?

Why can't tanks take advanced targeting systems?...Why does an ATS take up the ability to take another gun? (It should be a computer chip and standard on any war suit)

Tau have a lot of dumb rules you see...suits hitting on 4's is another one of those dumb rules. Just gotta remember you are playing a game where the designers don't care at all about the rules and you are better making the rules up for yourself if you want to have more fun.

Actually there is nothing wrong with the penetration aspect. Advance Targeting Systems can analyze the armor and find its weakness.

Also, I don't believe that at all. I think the designers care a great deal, and have done an excellent job with the game over the past 15 months.

That makes no sense - if you are targeting weak spots and can actually hit them - you would also be hitting better.

 Togusa wrote:
According to the fluff, Fire Warriors go through a decade or more of rigorous training, fight in dozens of battles and hone their skills. Eventually, some of these warriors will rise above their brothers and sisters and earn their place as a suit pilot. The most advanced wargear that the T'au have. These suits are the pinnacle of T'au engineering and design, loaded with high capacity super computers, targeting enhancers, communications systems and jammers.

Orks may use the pinnacle of Ork engineering , Eldar the pinnacle of Eldar engineering, etc pp. The fluff has to support the "playing-pieces" , thus making whatever you find in codices look good is to be expected and sometimes expectations rise too high.
Your Question is a gaming question, something better placed in rules-design than Background IMHO.

 Togusa wrote:

They are test beds for technology that is far beyond anything the Imperium can muster or maintain, let alone grasp the basic physics and engineering principles of.

Too much kool aid?

Main reasons:

1) Tau combat doctrine, by and large, emphasises rate-of-fire over the precision of individual shots. With the exception of the hammerhead's railgun, most 'big guns' are either rapid fire, multi-barrel or mounted in at least pairs.

2) The targeting computers are supporting multitasking. Back when battlesuits first became a thing, the most critical support system was the multitracker - which is what allowed a suit to aim and fire two different weapons systems simultaneously. You could argue 'anyone can do that now' but I'd respond that very few non-vehicle, non-monster units have two weapons (ignoring grenades and pistols)

3) As noted, the tech and training brings you up to human levels - by default tau ballistic skill would be down with conscripts and ork boyz. Guardsmen are proffessional military, too - that's the distinction between them and conscripts.

4) Whilst t'au tech is superior to 'guard-level' imperial tech, it's only on par with astartes and probably a touch behind mechanicus tech (albeit it's improving).

5) Longstrike and farsight are both better than BS4+. Regular suits are piloted by Shas'ui - essentially the same guys who command fire warrior teams give or take a relatively few (given tau lifespan) years of experience.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Here is the real question...Why does advanced targeting system make your bullets penetrate armor better - instead of just hit better?

Why can't tanks take advanced targeting systems?...Why does an ATS take up the ability to take another gun? (It should be a computer chip and standard on any war suit)

Tau have a lot of dumb rules you see...suits hitting on 4's is another one of those dumb rules. Just gotta remember you are playing a game where the designers don't care at all about the rules and you are better making the rules up for yourself if you want to have more fun.

Actually there is nothing wrong with the penetration aspect. Advance Targeting Systems can analyze the armor and find its weakness.

Also, I don't believe that at all. I think the designers care a great deal, and have done an excellent job with the game over the past 15 months.

That makes no sense - if you are targeting weak spots and can actually hit them - you would also be hitting better.

Really dude? It makes perfect sense. The analyzer can pinpoint where armor is the weakest and the you proceed to target that spot, thus increasing your chance of penetration.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

locarno24 wrote:
Main reasons:

1) Tau combat doctrine, by and large, emphasises rate-of-fire over the precision of individual shots. With the exception of the hammerhead's railgun, most 'big guns' are either rapid fire, multi-barrel or mounted in at least pairs.

2) The targeting computers are supporting multitasking. Back when battlesuits first became a thing, the most critical support system was the multitracker - which is what allowed a suit to aim and fire two different weapons systems simultaneously. You could argue 'anyone can do that now' but I'd respond that very few non-vehicle, non-monster units have two weapons (ignoring grenades and pistols)

3) As noted, the tech and training brings you up to human levels - by default tau ballistic skill would be down with conscripts and ork boyz. Guardsmen are proffessional military, too - that's the distinction between them and conscripts.

4) Whilst t'au tech is superior to 'guard-level' imperial tech, it's only on par with astartes and probably a touch behind mechanicus tech (albeit it's improving).

5) Longstrike and farsight are both better than BS4+. Regular suits are piloted by Shas'ui - essentially the same guys who command fire warrior teams give or take a relatively few (given tau lifespan) years of experience.

So I strongly disagree with #3. There isn't anything I've read to suggest that Humans are just naturally better at fighting. If anything, my understanding of 40K lore and history, is that the guard only makes its gains by sheer brute force, not by actual skill, technology or tactics. Meanwhile everything about the Fire Cast screams modern American style military training and doctrine. In fact, isn't there a book called "15 Hours" about a guardsman, who has 6 weeks of basic, 10 weeks transport and then is expected to survive only 15 hours? I'm not buying this argument.

#4 also seems like a problem. How on earth could their tech be behind Mechanicus, when they cannot even produce anything remotely like a Riptide, Stormsurge or a Hammer Head. The entire point of Humans in 40K is that they're stagnant, relying on technology thousands of years old, bedeviled and in serious need of upgrading. Humanity caries on through the weight of their own immensity, not by how good their tech is.

The lore is changing of course, Primaris an example of this with their new anti-gravity toys. But, if this is the direction they want to go with this, it's a bad one.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 1hadhq wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
According to the fluff, Fire Warriors go through a decade or more of rigorous training, fight in dozens of battles and hone their skills. Eventually, some of these warriors will rise above their brothers and sisters and earn their place as a suit pilot. The most advanced wargear that the T'au have. These suits are the pinnacle of T'au engineering and design, loaded with high capacity super computers, targeting enhancers, communications systems and jammers.

Orks may use the pinnacle of Ork engineering , Eldar the pinnacle of Eldar engineering, etc pp. The fluff has to support the "playing-pieces" , thus making whatever you find in codices look good is to be expected and sometimes expectations rise too high.
Your Question is a gaming question, something better placed in rules-design than Background IMHO.

 Togusa wrote:

They are test beds for technology that is far beyond anything the Imperium can muster or maintain, let alone grasp the basic physics and engineering principles of.

Too much kool aid?

I don't disagree that their is a rules debate here. But I did want to focus less on that and more on the writing. Let's be honest, even the best 40K stories, are C+ science fiction at best. The lore is conflicting, and, I think needs a huge update. Honestly. They should have just AoS'd 40K when 8th launched. Keep the factions, don't go quite so far, but let's clean all this up and make it more presentable!

Because Tau have weak eyesight, low reaction time and are overall clumsy. Without their tech, they are completely hopeless. Also, those Battlesuits shouldn't be able to fight at all in melee, yet they did. If you remove all melee attacks from Tau suits and make them BS 3+, that would be a fair trade.

And because BS 3+ isn't available to generic troops unless they have fought for at least a hundred years. Yes, those Astra Miliarum veterans have fought for more than a hundred years, kept alive through stasis and rejuvenate treatments.

#4 also seems like a problem. How on earth could their tech be behind Mechanicus, when they cannot even produce anything remotely like a Riptide, Stormsurge or a Hammer Head. The entire point of Humans in 40K is that they're stagnant, relying on technology thousands of years old, bedeviled and in serious need of upgrading. Humanity caries on through the weight of their own immensity, not by how good their tech is.

The counterexample Cerastus and Quaestoris Knight Armours, and Titans, which are still built by forge worlds.

Equally, an onager's neutron laser is a match for a hammerhead's railgun as an antitank weapon.


I agree that a lot of higher imperial tech is little-understood archeotech, but bits of it are noticably better than tau stuff. Comparison points:

~ Force Fields. Both can make force fields, but a tau shield generator is the size of a shield or large frying pan, whilst the imperial equivalent can be built inside jewelry (rosarius)

~ Artificer armour. This is personal scale stuff proportionately not all that much bulkier than cadre armour which is as hard to pierce as a broadside suit's plating.

~ Teleportation. The Tau do not have this technology.

~ FTL travel. Only tau capital ships and bigger escorts have interstellar capability, not their destroyer-equivalents (which have to travel docked to a bigger warship) and they're extremely slow. Combining a lack of the ability to use escorts to scout and no FTL communications is why the Tau fleet really struggles to face the imperial navy, no matter how good its shields, railguns and missiles get.

~ Small arms - this is a little off topic of 40k; more going into the RPGs such as deathwatch, dark heresy, only war and rogue trader. A pulse rifle is an incredibly potent rifle but that's at least in part because the thing is so damn heavy and unwieldy compared to a lasrifle (or even a boltgun), and, more importantly, it has a much smaller magazine capacity and it can't be easily recharged. For the small, industrially rich, technologically homogenous tau empire it's no big deal, but the astra militarum is used to being at the cruddy end of a logistics chain; when you're trying to arm soldiers by the thousand-strong regiment and don't know when if ever they'll get a resupply, lasguns have a lot of advantages. Equally, whilst a pulse rifle is better than a bolt-gun firing mass-reactives, compare it to a boltgun firing kraken rounds and suddenly it looks less impressive. Now compare it to the odd archeotech-level man-portable bolt weapon (like the executioner pistol or dorn's arrow) and it starts to look really anaemic.

So I strongly disagree with #3. There isn't anything I've read to suggest that Humans are just naturally better at fighting. If anything, my understanding of 40K lore and history, is that the guard only makes its gains by sheer brute force, not by actual skill, technology or tactics. Meanwhile everything about the Fire Cast screams modern American style military training and doctrine. In fact, isn't there a book called "15 Hours" about a guardsman, who has 6 weeks of basic, 10 weeks transport and then is expected to survive only 15 hours? I'm not buying this argument.

And then you have Cadians, where 'any child who can't field-strip his own lasgun was born on the wrong planet' and who match any training regime a modern military does. Arvin Larn (from fifteen hours) is onl y seventeen - in 40k terms, he's a conscript.

Some guard armies - such as the death korps - do fight WWI style attrition battles - but there are plenty of well trained formations too, like the elysian drop troopers or tanith first-and-only, who fight in much more 'modern' fashions.

Perhaps the advanced computing only makes up for the interfacing between biological pilot and mechanical suit making it difficult for him/her to aim. Also I do get the sense that Tau are just bad at combat by default; they would be at 5+ without all that extra training and gear.

As for guard, well every guardsman model probably represents a good half dozen of them anyways.

Edited: not worth it