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Spoilered for size.

So, according to Warhammer Community, they hardcapped Commanders at one per detachment.

Mixed feelings, personally, as a non-Tau player, but was going to start when their codex got released (and I finished my current armies).

On one hand, it's largely removed the quad fusion Commander that was prevalent.

On the other, it's an incredibly lazy move, that doesn't really go any way to helping the rest of the faction, which was struggling without the quad fusion. From what I've seen, there hasn't been much to replace that. It's effectively rendered entire detachments useless (Supreme Command), and I can almost guarentee that no other faction will have this kind of rule, despite Tau Commanders from a Sept being more plentiful than Space Marine Captains from their Chapter, yet they'll be more plentiful than Tau ones.

A fix, but a lazy one.
Your views?

Imagine having an illness, and that illness had only one medication that didn't fix your symptoms, but just made them tolerable. This medication has a nasty side-effect when taken that you experience. So, the doctor yanks your prescription and tells you to eat well as he drives off with the payment your insurance company sent.

That's what this is. The illness is the lack of viable units and the medicine was commander spam. So now GW sees that as a bad side-effect and removes it. Now you get some generally good life advice (more balanced riptides, some relics, etc.) but you're still stuck with that original illness.

Totally fine with this, Guard had such a rule for Command Squads in the Codex and NOBODY complained.

MATCHED PLAY RULE:
COMMAND SQUADS
If you are playing a matched play
game, then in a Battle-forged army,
you can include a maximum of one
<REGIMENT> Command Squad (pg 96)
in a Detachment for each <REGIMENT>
OFFICER in that Detachment. Similarly,
if you are playing a matched play game,
then in a Battle-forged army, you can
include a maximum of one Militarum
Tempestus Command Squad (pg 98) in
a Detachment for each Tempestor Prime
(pg 91) in that Detachment.

KurtAngle2 wrote:
Totally fine with this, Guard had such a rule for Command Squads in the Codex and NOBODY complained.

MATCHED PLAY RULE:
COMMAND SQUADS
If you are playing a matched play
game, then in a Battle-forged army,
you can include a maximum of one
<REGIMENT> Command Squad (pg 96)
in a Detachment for each <REGIMENT>
OFFICER in that Detachment. Similarly,
if you are playing a matched play game,
then in a Battle-forged army, you can
include a maximum of one Militarum
Tempestus Command Squad (pg 98) in
a Detachment for each Tempestor Prime
(pg 91) in that Detachment.

I do think you missed both of the prior posts point on "no other legitimately viable units." AM has a number of other viable units that don't even need company commanders..

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
Imagine having an illness, and that illness had only one medication that didn't fix your symptoms, but just made them tolerable. This medication has a nasty side-effect when taken that you experience. So, the doctor yanks your prescription and tells you to eat well as he drives off with the payment your insurance company sent.

That's what this is. The illness is the lack of viable units and the medicine was commander spam. So now GW sees that as a bad side-effect and removes it. Now you get some generally good life advice (more balanced riptides, some relics, etc.) but you're still stuck with that original illness.

.... Do we know if the other units are not viable still? its hard to say without seeing the book.

Tau seem to have recieived huge point drops, powerful now strats and relics plus other stuff.

It would seem that this rule would therefore be fine.

As I said in the rumor thread, I don't really know what else you do with a unit like the Commander. He's a non-targetable Character with good shooting. If you can take a lot of them you're risking Malefic Lord type lists, where all of the stuff you actually want to shoot can't be targeted because it's behind a wall of durable trash. Most characters don't present an issue this way because they're either mostly valuable for their buffing or mostly valuable for CC, and so are either inherently non-spammable or else can be picked out and killed much more easily.

Sure, this was the only thing keeping index Tau in the running, and possibly what they've done with other things in the new codex won't be enough. But it seems to me that they've hit on probably the only realistic solution to Tau Commander spam that leaves them as desirable shooting units, and what they should do going forward if the overall codex is weak is buff other things.

KurtAngle2 wrote:
Totally fine with this, Guard had such a rule for Command Squads in the Codex and NOBODY complained.

MATCHED PLAY RULE:
COMMAND SQUADS
If you are playing a matched play
game, then in a Battle-forged army,
you can include a maximum of one
<REGIMENT> Command Squad (pg 96)
in a Detachment for each <REGIMENT>
OFFICER in that Detachment. Similarly,
if you are playing a matched play game,
then in a Battle-forged army, you can
include a maximum of one Militarum
Tempestus Command Squad (pg 98) in
a Detachment for each Tempestor Prime
(pg 91) in that Detachment.

Because you could never take Command Squads without their Commanders before. That was normal, and considering that Command Squads had similar style units throughout the army (Veterans, Special Weapon Teams etc etc), it wasn't a massive issue.

Commanders are, to my knowledge and excluding Unique units or Relic FW units, the ONLY units which are limited in such a way. Even the more fluffily "rare" Custodes Shield Captains aren't restricted in such a way. Instead of upping the points of the Commander, fixing it so it couldn't do THAT kind of damage, or something else, they hardcapped it completely. Why haven't other "spammed" units seen such a hardcap?

To me, this feels like a massive cop-out, personally. I had no issue with them nerfing the Commander, but I'd actually want to be able to not take a Fireblade or Ethereal, and have a chance of having a decent amount of CP.

There is no point in arguing the balance or not of the effect in a vacuum. Wait for the codex.

If all the rumors are right, it looks like Tau may actually end up closer to nids then anything else with lots and lots of viable options and builds that require synergy and work to be effective. The absolute best place their codex could be.

The problem with comparing commander-spam to HQ units in other armies is that a Tau Commander is just about the only HQ in the game that's a more efficient replacement for a unit in your army. Space Marine characters tend to get the most mileage out of being support elements rather than running around stabbing things on their own, I can get an Autarch with a Reaper Launcher but he's not better than just getting Dark Reapers, Guard tank commanders and Tyranid Hive Tyrants are strong but they don't make good straight-up replacements for other tanks/MCs because of the cost...

The problem with the Tau commander is that he's BS2+ when the rest of your Crisis suits are BS4+ because GW doesn't want to give you BS3+ and Markerlights at the same time. Which ends up meaning that the Commander is the battlesuit I can't cripple without touching it by torching your Markerlights, which makes him better than just taking XV-8s.

To my mind there were three solutions: lose BS2+, lose four guns, or the 0-1 rule. I'd rather have seen Commanders restricted to two guns and given more interesting support for other units on the logic that they're supposed to be Commanders and the Tau are supposed to be the more sensible army where that means they command other forces rather than run around bonking things over the head with great big swords themselves, but I don't think the 0-1 rule is unwarranted.

Its a fix. But its lazy. Atleast it has removed commander spam from the equation.
The issue with it as already stated is that it kills the supreme command detachment, but not only that, it also means tau HAVE to take one of the weaker squishy foot hqs for any detachment that gives more than 1 cp.
Persinally I would have added anothee commander profile, the shas'el (junior commander) with 1 less wound, leadership, weapon hardpoint, bs, and ws. Make this option unlimited as an hq choice.
Then take the current commander profile, rename to shas'o, and make 0-1 per detachment.

I did say allow the shas'o to make an extra master of war declaration but that probably isnt a good idea

We won't have any idea whether this move is a fair one until we see the the full Tau codex.

Not much point speculating since it's so close now.

it desperately needed an exemption for named HQ choices like shadow sun and far sight.

over all though tau has vastly far too few HQ choices for non-tau sept for this change to have gone through.

of the hq choices we have, 4 are commanders, long strike and dark strider are tau sept, 3 of them are varying shades of an ethreal and the last one is fire blade.

as such if the detachment forces 3 hq choices(battalion, and supreme) and you are't playing tau sept, you have no other choice but to run an ethereal and a fire blade, I'm not a fan of being forced to take things, what's worse is you want to take a battalion because we need tons of CP to compete. I'm seriously hoping they made 2 of the ethereal more expensive because they made them actually good >.>

I heard a rumor they will be doing this with Daemon Princes as well in the March FAQ. Might have been someone wishlisting it, but I wouldn't be opposed to the change. Right now Daemon Princes' are just flat out better to take than other options in both Daemons and CSM lists because they can't be shot at. Limiting this would go a long way to making more diverse lists.

its ok they sold all their commander kits when the index dropped they don't need to many more sales on commanders and have excess stock of other kits. lets nerf how many commanders you can use and buff other kits...thats how this works.

ballzonya wrote:
its ok they sold all their commander kits when the index dropped they don't need to many more sales on commanders and have excess stock of other kits. lets nerf how many commanders you can use and buff other kits...thats how this works.

Because nobody will allow you to play Commanders as normal Crisis suits. And nobody allowed you to play crisis suits as commanders in the first place, right.

I like the change and I think some other armies might benefit from this too (looking at you Daemon Prince). It's a neat way to keep the Commander powerful while preventing mindless spam, and isn't that what people always complain about around here?

KurtAngle2 wrote:
Totally fine with this, Guard had such a rule for Command Squads in the Codex and NOBODY complained.

MATCHED PLAY RULE:
COMMAND SQUADS
If you are playing a matched play
game, then in a Battle-forged army,
you can include a maximum of one
<REGIMENT> Command Squad (pg 96)
in a Detachment for each <REGIMENT>
OFFICER in that Detachment. Similarly,
if you are playing a matched play game,
then in a Battle-forged army, you can
include a maximum of one Militarum
Tempestus Command Squad (pg 98) in
a Detachment for each Tempestor Prime
(pg 91) in that Detachment.

The difference is that Command Squads are Elite choices. You don't need them to make an army, and there's other good things without them.

The Tau have 3 HQ options:
Commander
Ethereal
Cadre Fireblade

This wouldn't be a big deal if armies didn't have to have 3-5 HQ's in them, and detachments that actually give CP's require many HQ's.

Ushtarador wrote:

ballzonya wrote:
its ok they sold all their commander kits when the index dropped they don't need to many more sales on commanders and have excess stock of other kits. lets nerf how many commanders you can use and buff other kits...thats how this works.

Because nobody will allow you to play Commanders as normal Crisis suits. And nobody allowed you to play crisis suits as commanders in the first place, right.

I like the change and I think some other armies might benefit from this too (looking at you Daemon Prince). It's a neat way to keep the Commander powerful while preventing mindless spam, and isn't that what people always complain about around here?

There needs to be a conspiracy orkmoticon for when we get these.

lol I doubt there is a conspiracy I have played Tau since they got released and I don't buy lots of models cause I know GW does this I buy the models I like the look of and how I can model them. I wasn't the guy buying 6 commanders when the index popped. I own 0 commanders. there is no reason to make a unit so OP one edition and then either nerf them hard or limit them. to me its one of two things, they either are the worst play testers in existence or they are basing models off sales.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
you you bought models in 4th edition and never bought another model you will have seen your models go from OP to completely useless since then, why is that?

0-1 seems insane and I can understand why - with what the Commander is now. But there were so many other ways to deal with this. Give the commander WS3+, reduce the weapon hardpoints (and maybe even add commander only support systems), increase the points on them or decrease the points for standard suits to make them a more viable take.

It just feels like a lazy "there you go everyone not Tau - problem solved!"

ballzonya wrote:
lol I doubt there is a conspiracy I have played Tau since they got released and I don't buy lots of models cause I know GW does this I buy the models I like the look of and how I can model them. I wasn't the guy buying 6 commanders when the index popped. I own 0 commanders. there is no reason to make a unit so OP one edition and then either nerf them hard or limit them. to me its one of two things, they either are the worst play testers in existence or they are basing models off sales.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
you you bought models in 4th edition and never bought another model you will have seen your models go from OP to completely useless since then, why is that?

meh I have 3, I had 3 from back in 4th edition, I still have 3 now, I still don't like being forced to play an ethreal and fire blade just because I don't want to play tau sept but want a brigade.

limiting commanders is fine with me, but they didn't limit just commanders, they limited our named hq's, our cold stars, and more, then locked off most of the other decent hq choices in a single sept.

it's like if they put all of the named space marines in primaris and left nothing but librarians for the other chapters.....then limited them to 1 >.>

What I'm curious about is how/if they're going to limit Farsight Enclaves from using Ethereals. Previously there's been no limits on Legion/Chapter/Craftworld/etc. traits and all units in the codex can be used by everything, and the solution to divergent lists is to split DA/BA/TS/DG off into their own books.

There's a first time for everything, of course, but this will break the trend. Or suddenly Farsight's cool with some Ethereals but not all...

All I ever did was take 3 commanders anyways - I'll still be able to do that. Plus the commanders will be even cheaper!

What I really want to know is their ability still 1 time use. It just seems silly that tau gets these restrictions.

Can only take 1 commander per detechment
but you can take a whole army of grand master dreadknights?

Tau reroll ability is 1 use only and nothing can move to utilize it.
Calgar rerolls all hits all the time in 6 inch bubble with no restrictions

KurtAngle2 wrote:
Totally fine with this, Guard had such a rule for Command Squads in the Codex and NOBODY complained.

Of course those rules aren't exactly same in effect...AM is lot less restrictive and is actually restricting you far less often than tau one.

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.

 frightnight wrote:
What I'm curious about is how/if they're going to limit Farsight Enclaves from using Ethereals. Previously there's been no limits on Legion/Chapter/Craftworld/etc. traits and all units in the codex can be used by everything, and the solution to divergent lists is to split DA/BA/TS/DG off into their own books.

There's a first time for everything, of course, but this will break the trend. Or suddenly Farsight's cool with some Ethereals but not all...

It wouldn't be the first time, Black Templars are noted as being unable to use Psykers in the Space Marine codex.

My thoughts on this are that I want to run some Crisis suits. I don't really care if they're a Crisis Team, Crisis Bodyguards, a Commander, a Shas'el, whatever.

I'm not really sold on Crisis suits that aren't Commanders in 8th edition. Maybe if you're running a team with 3 Flamers, I guess.

I hope the codex will make Crisis teams more attractive for all Tau septs.

On the broader point of the 1 per detachment rule itself, well, I think it's dumb. But I don't think GW is going to extend that rule to other units so it's just a dumb thing Tau players have to work around.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Commanders are, to my knowledge and excluding Unique units or Relic FW units, the ONLY units which are limited in such a way.

Wrong. Chapter Master, direct SM equivalent, is limited to one and costs 3 CP or lots of extra points for these few Chapters with named one.

That on top of SM traits applying only to light units, not everything like in Tau book, including titans, worse relics, weapons, traits, support, etc, etc. Wanna swap?

it desperately needed an exemption for named HQ choices like shadow sun and far sight.

Shrike, Calgar and the rest of CM don't get one, sooo...

you have no other choice but to run an ethereal and a fire blade

So a force remotely resembling what Tau army should look like? *gasp* The horror!

Wanna take a look at the compulsory HQs of a lot other armies, compare their cost to cheapness of the option above, and see how many of these would give a lot for such cheap filler HQs?

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.

 Irbis wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Commanders are, to my knowledge and excluding Unique units or Relic FW units, the ONLY units which are limited in such a way.

Wrong. Chapter Master, direct SM equivalent, is limited to one and costs 3 CP or lots of extra points for these few Chapters with named one.

That on top of SM traits applying only to light units, not everything like in Tau book, including titans, worse relics, weapons, traits, support, etc, etc. Wanna swap?

it desperately needed an exemption for named HQ choices like shadow sun and far sight.

Shrike, Calgar and the rest of CM don't get one, sooo...

you have no other choice but to run an ethereal and a fire blade

So a force remotely resembling what Tau army should look like? *gasp* The horror!

Wanna take a look at the compulsory HQs of a lot other armies, compare their cost to cheapness of the option above, and see how many of these would give a lot for such cheap filler HQs?

the general issue with your complaint is you are comparing the options tau have to the options space marines/IG have, it's not 1 for 1, they split a faction that barely has a handful of hq's into 6 different septs then limited 4 of them to 1x. It's a terrible choice, but I suspect it will get flushed out in the future...just no idea how long that would take, possibly years. they could resolve it with an FAQ by giving us some generic HQ options, or they could create some named hq's for other septs. but i suspect thee earliest we could see anything would be chapter approved or if the FW campaign happens hey may add a few HQ options.

feel free, to tell me all the compulsory hq choices an by that I mean literally no other choice, i will look them over see what I think. I suspect if you are right my opinion will be that GW was a gak developer twice and think both cases should be fixed but who knows maybe it will be different.