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You cant complain about commanders in a vacuum though. We have no idea how it will balance out in the army.

This thread is a knee jerk reaction to a snippet of news about a big unknown. Im not surprised it exists. I am .... Disappointed?... Its so predictable how quickly everyone went negative about a fraction of the tau picture.

Some leaks mentioned that crisis suits would not change at all (the guy seemed to have the codex). So while most lists will do fine with other units, the commander/crisis problem was not fixed which is disappointing. That's what most of this is based on. (it could be wrong though...)

It's like when conscripts got the "raw recruits" rule and were limited to max 30 guys a squad. It solved nothing which resulted in a zealous overnerf afterwards.

So, again, GW failed to fix the actual problem. I believe they misinterpreted the modest usage of crisis suits as a sign they were good/balanced, while in actuality they were not. Right now, a crisis suit with one burst cannon (nothing else) is as expensive as a spear custode, and people wonder why commanders were spammed.

http://www.3plusplus.net/2018/03/tau-leak-stratagems-warlord-traits-signature-systems-point-values/

Wow the HBC rumor was true, ffs WHAT WAS THE POINT OF TERMINATORS GETTING 2 WOUNDS? Lots of point drops on the weapons, Through Unity Devastation warlord trait is great.


EDIT: Wow so many of these stratagems are so bad... wth.

I feel bad for Tau, and I say this as a guy who is pretty well known for hating on Tau

It feels like a lazy fix when they shouldve had their points adjusted accordingly.

If every army gets this restriction fair enough, but if it's only Tau thats a raw deal through and through.

I'd hardly call it a restriction.

If your list was 8 Commanders, then well yeah you tried to capitalise on a netlist and have been hit by the meta shifting nerf hammer. They can join the likes of triple Heldrake and Paladin spam.

If your army is a normal Tau army with several different units synergising together, then this looks like a really good codex that will have a lot of options open.

I'd argue my battalion with two commanders and a fireblade, along with fire warriors, breachers, crisis suits, devilfish, pathfinders and, and stealthsuits was "normal." Shame I need to split that off into two detachments if I want to run two commanders because GW was too lazy to fix the problem and just blanket restricted them. That's the problem for me. I've always run 2-3 commanders. Never more. So in all honesty this doesn't effect me much, as I can still run exactly the same number as I always have even with the restrictions.

But it's annoying that I'm forced to run either fireblades or ethereals. It's a lessening of options, and that's never fun. Imagine if space marine captains were restricted to cone per detachment. Or chaos lords. Or orc warbosses. Or eldar farseers. It's a completely arbitrary restriction based on laziness and that's all.

My friend that plays t’au seems to be overjoyed about new (-1 point) firewarriors. He runs 150 of the guys and has now saved 150 points, i did some math with him and using fireblades, and the drone thing with the sept to get up to 42” range on those guns sure seems good. All for a tad more that half a 2000 point list.

With markerlights and the focus fire stratagem it seems like they sure have some punch or is it just me not knowing the army that good?

So I guess my army that usually consisted of R'alai+coldstar with a bunch of fire warriors, hammerheads and varius suits is not "normal tau"?

Deadawake1347 wrote:
I'd argue my battalion with two commanders and a fireblade, along with fire warriors, breachers, crisis suits, devilfish, pathfinders and, and stealthsuits was "normal." Shame I need to split that off into two detachments if I want to run two commanders because GW was too lazy to fix the problem and just blanket restricted them. That's the problem for me. I've always run 2-3 commanders. Never more. So in all honesty this doesn't effect me much, as I can still run exactly the same number as I always have even with the restrictions.

But it's annoying that I'm forced to run either fireblades or ethereals. It's a lessening of options, and that's never fun. Imagine if space marine captains were restricted to cone per detachment. Or chaos lords. Or orc warbosses. Or eldar farseers. It's a completely arbitrary restriction based on laziness and that's all.

Fair enough point. But you'd want to split them into 2 detachments anyway to maximise on CP would you not?

I'd be all for Captains being 1 per detachment. My opinion, in fact make most of the HQ's 1 per detachment. Move the "support" HQ to Elites, similar to what DG have done with their characters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BoomWolf wrote:
So I guess my army that usually consisted of R'alai+coldstar with a bunch of fire warriors, hammerheads and varius suits is not "normal tau"?

Break them into 2 detachments and be happy you have a decent codex again.

 NurglesR0T wrote:

Deadawake1347 wrote:
I'd argue my battalion with two commanders and a fireblade, along with fire warriors, breachers, crisis suits, devilfish, pathfinders and, and stealthsuits was "normal." Shame I need to split that off into two detachments if I want to run two commanders because GW was too lazy to fix the problem and just blanket restricted them. That's the problem for me. I've always run 2-3 commanders. Never more. So in all honesty this doesn't effect me much, as I can still run exactly the same number as I always have even with the restrictions.

But it's annoying that I'm forced to run either fireblades or ethereals. It's a lessening of options, and that's never fun. Imagine if space marine captains were restricted to cone per detachment. Or chaos lords. Or orc warbosses. Or eldar farseers. It's a completely arbitrary restriction based on laziness and that's all.

Fair enough point. But you'd want to split them into 2 detachments anyway to maximise on CP would you not?

It depends on the slots he uses. If he's only got say 4 troops, 2 fast attack, 2 elites, and 1 heavy he would need to change his list to fit the other detachment which may upset his playstyle.

 NurglesR0T wrote:

I'd be all for Captains being 1 per detachment. My opinion, in fact make most of the HQ's 1 per detachment. Move the "support" HQ to Elites, similar to what DG have done with their characters.

Stop being so reasonable. It's the internet for pete's sake... Though I would add that secondary HQs would still be needed for brigades/battalions. Just something to consider.

Dandelion wrote:

 NurglesR0T wrote:

Deadawake1347 wrote:
I'd argue my battalion with two commanders and a fireblade, along with fire warriors, breachers, crisis suits, devilfish, pathfinders and, and stealthsuits was "normal." Shame I need to split that off into two detachments if I want to run two commanders because GW was too lazy to fix the problem and just blanket restricted them. That's the problem for me. I've always run 2-3 commanders. Never more. So in all honesty this doesn't effect me much, as I can still run exactly the same number as I always have even with the restrictions.

But it's annoying that I'm forced to run either fireblades or ethereals. It's a lessening of options, and that's never fun. Imagine if space marine captains were restricted to cone per detachment. Or chaos lords. Or orc warbosses. Or eldar farseers. It's a completely arbitrary restriction based on laziness and that's all.

Fair enough point. But you'd want to split them into 2 detachments anyway to maximise on CP would you not?

It depends on the slots he uses. If he's only got say 4 troops, 2 fast attack, 2 elites, and 1 heavy he would need to change his list to fit the other detachment which may upset his playstyle.

All he'd need to do is run 2 Patrols, or if he gets another HQ 1 Patrol/1 Battalion.
Ideal? No, certainly not. But there is a way.
I does suck though. There's definitely a more elegant fix out there.

EDIT: I certainly used certainly a certain number of times that far exceeded what is certainly a normal amount. I'm certain.

Looking at these stratagems, I don't know what people are complaining about. Most of them are 1cp and really helpful. They also bring back many of the cool upgrades Tau had in the past.

 meleti wrote:

 NurglesR0T wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
To be fair, Tau have significantly less reason to move than nids. Their guns are WAY longer range with synergies giving them way better accuracy.

Their Jormungandr trait should actually amount to the same thing for the most part.

Unless you're moving to grab objectives. Or see past some LoS blocking terrain. Or shoot a better target, or move to hopefully make a charge harder to reach you.

Hooray, welcome to every other army that has to actually move to play the game.

For the other 4 turns of the game where more than likely most of your army won't be moving, you get a +1 to your save. Hell, if you don't get first turn, don't worry, you get army wide bonuses to +1 to your save - meanwhile marine (loyalist and chaos) vehicle drivers renounced their legion when they jumped into the drivers seat.

What army are you playing that doesn't move 80% of the game? Genuinely curious.

With GW scenario's...Pretty much every army that's not pure assault army and that's bad proposition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NurglesR0T wrote:

Deadawake1347 wrote:
I'd argue my battalion with two commanders and a fireblade, along with fire warriors, breachers, crisis suits, devilfish, pathfinders and, and stealthsuits was "normal." Shame I need to split that off into two detachments if I want to run two commanders because GW was too lazy to fix the problem and just blanket restricted them. That's the problem for me. I've always run 2-3 commanders. Never more. So in all honesty this doesn't effect me much, as I can still run exactly the same number as I always have even with the restrictions.

But it's annoying that I'm forced to run either fireblades or ethereals. It's a lessening of options, and that's never fun. Imagine if space marine captains were restricted to cone per detachment. Or chaos lords. Or orc warbosses. Or eldar farseers. It's a completely arbitrary restriction based on laziness and that's all.

Fair enough point. But you'd want to split them into 2 detachments anyway to maximise on CP would you not?

I'd be all for Captains being 1 per detachment. My opinion, in fact make most of the HQ's 1 per detachment. Move the "support" HQ to Elites, similar to what DG have done with their characters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BoomWolf wrote:
So I guess my army that usually consisted of R'alai+coldstar with a bunch of fire warriors, hammerheads and varius suits is not "normal tau"?

Break them into 2 detachments and be happy you have a decent codex again.

Something to keep in mind though. If GW thinks they are so broken that they needs to be restricted then this means either:

a) they are wrong and the commanders are way underpowered or got silly restriction nobody else has and that isn't needed because even if you spam the commanders it's not that good.
b) they are right, commanders are super awesome so you want to spam which means THEY ARE BROKEN! Then this limitation is only applying bandaid to limit the damage rather than fix and means every tau player is fool in competive sense to not run 3 detachments to get maximum commanders. This also leads to very unscalable system where the 3 commanders tau can(and will if they are so broken they needed this limitation) field are lot more broken in 1000-1500 games than 2000.

This is indication of point drops GW loves to give to unique models that you can have max 1 because "you can only have 1 of them". No. Unit that's worth 200 shouldn't cost 150 pts just because you can have max 1 of them.

So either it's unneeded restriction as commanders are either balanced or too weak or commanders are too good for their points.

I suspect it’ll be broadside spam with kroot screening and 3 commanders. We still will have mostly trash units, and this will spam the few ones that don’t suck, except this time we’ll be worse than in the index.

 NurglesR0T wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
So I guess my army that usually consisted of R'alai+coldstar with a bunch of fire warriors, hammerheads and varius suits is not "normal tau"?

Break them into 2 detachments and be happy you have a decent codex again.

Sure, I can do that,

And now I don't have any CPs, because reasons.

After thinking this through I approve of this nerf. The logic kind of makes sense

Was commander spam an issue? Yes
Has this nerf removed commander spam from the game? Yes
But has this made commanders completely useless? No
Does this create more variety in Tau army lists and reduce spam? Yes

Tau players should be grateful, they had an over performing unit and it still does really well, it just cant be spammed any more.

IG had an over performing unit (conscripts) and they got nerfed so hard they became literally unplayable. We also had commissars that got nerfed to being unusable.

 Jaxler wrote:
I suspect it’ll be broadside spam with kroot screening and 3 commanders. We still will have mostly trash units, and this will spam the few ones that don’t suck, except this time we’ll be worse than in the index.

Aren't you a jolly fella. Also quite oracle-ish.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Looking at these stratagems, I don't know what people are complaining about. Most of them are 1cp and really helpful. They also bring back many of the cool upgrades Tau had in the past.

Except now they aren't upgrades.

And the ability to JSJ, a core element of the army since its very beginning, is now a signature system.

It's akin to Space Marines, after 5 editions, going from 3+ save to 4+ except on one model who can take a 3+ relic. Or Imperial Guard losing Leman Russ tanks except for a single unique one which finctions the same as the previous ones.

Also, they didn't fix the plasma disparity between Tau and the Imperium introduced when the Imperium gained a safe shooting mode with no loss of strength. We didn't even get a points decrease, strength or range increase, overcharge profile, nothing.

 FatBoyNoSlim wrote:
After thinking this through I approve of this nerf. The logic kind of makes sense

Was commander spam an issue? Yes
Has this nerf removed commander spam from the game? Yes
But has this made commanders completely useless? No
Does this create more variety in Tau army lists and reduce spam? Yes

Tau players should be grateful, they had an over performing unit and it still does really well, it just cant be spammed any more.

IG had an over performing unit (conscripts) and they got nerfed so hard they became literally unplayable. We also had commissars that got nerfed to being unusable.

But if this was done to nerf it they did it in wrong way. If it's too good to spam it's now still underpriced model and every tau player will max detachments(even as patrol) to get max 3.

It's bandaid. But limit of # is NEVER justification for proper point values. If commander is too good then it's power or point cost needs to be limited. Not restrict #. That doesnt' weaken it. It just bandaids effect in totally non-scalable way.

Not to mention it's silly tau only has them. Where's limit on marine HQ's? IG? Tyranids? Orks? All those have HQ's that make little sense to spam in fluff terms. And as said game balance isn't reason to limit. If it's too good it's still too good even if you can only take limited numbers. If it's not too good no reason to limit spam like that.

 FatBoyNoSlim wrote:


Tau players should be grateful, they had an over performing unit and it still does really well, it just cant be spammed any more.

We should be grateful that GW didn't fix the reason Commanders were spammed and instead punish us with a limit because they can't do their job properly?

 FatBoyNoSlim wrote:
After thinking this through I approve of this nerf. The logic kind of makes sense

Was commander spam an issue? Yes
Has this nerf removed commander spam from the game? Yes
But has this made commanders completely useless? No
Does this create more variety in Tau army lists and reduce spam? Yes

Tau players should be grateful, they had an over performing unit and it still does really well, it just cant be spammed any more.

IG had an over performing unit (conscripts) and they got nerfed so hard they became literally unplayable. We also had commissars that got nerfed to being unusable.

Yes, we should be GRATEFUL that the merciful GW has decided to turn a large portion of our armies illegal despite the fact the codex changes shows they acknowledge that the index army was trash tier that was overpriced and underpowered across the board.

Commander spam was an issue FOR TAU, not for anyone else. tau was FORCED to do that because literally nothing else was remotely viable, and even that was unimpressive.
Has this nerf removed commander spam from the game? Yes, but by making it illegal is stupid. the moment the rest of tau got balanced, the commander spam would mostly go away on its own.
Has it made commanders useless? YES because I LITERALLY CANT TAKE THEM. every commander beyond the first is a freaking paperweight.
Does it create more variety? NO. it just flips the switch by enforcing infantry gunline and disabling suit centered aggressive lists.

The commander was NOT over-preforming, it was preforming, unlike the rest of the index.
And yes, it still plays very well, EXCEPT I AM NOT ALLOWED TO PLAY IT.

Actually this has kind of turned me. I kimda feel maybe they should have limited it to two in every battalion for the suit focused lists.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Looking at these stratagems, I don't know what people are complaining about. Most of them are 1cp and really helpful.

That, and people didn't stop to think for a second and realized yet they also apply to broken FW mess. Ta'unar is also a battlesuit, show me one other army that gets so cheap and powerful boosts to their titan-grade units...

But it's annoying that I'm forced to run either fireblades or ethereals. It's a lessening of options, and that's never fun. Imagine if space marine captains were restricted to cone per detachment. Or chaos lords. Or orc warbosses. Or eldar farseers. It's a completely arbitrary restriction based on laziness and that's all.

As I have already pointed out, Chapter Master, SM equivalent, is one per army. Not detachment, army. He also costs a lot of CPs and/or points, and can't juggle quadruple meltas. Hell, SM officers forgot keys to armoury and can't take even one melta or plasma gun to take advantage of their BS stat, unless you take overpriced combi-guns and even then only a few HQs have access to them.

And frankly, even if Captains were made 1 per detachment, nothing would change. Most people already take 1 and fill the rest of the slots with librarians and lieutenants. The fact you see so much salt flowing over that one small Tau change is best proof how 'balanced' the Commander is and how needed the change was...

I doubt the Ta'unar will remain a battlesuit after the FW side gets updated though.

And using the chapter master as an equvilat is pure gak, because captains exist-and you can take infinite amount of them if you want.
If Tau would have gotten some sort of "not quite commander, but still a suit HQ" (yaknow, like we used to have back in 5th), nobody would rage over this.

They could also cut on their damage output and give them an actual aura like every other "leader" in every other army in the game has to shift them from a gunship to an actual commander, and solve the spam all the same.


There are SO many ways to fix the problem (assuming there really was a problem, I'd reckon that post codex nobody would have taken more than 2-3 commanders anyway) WITHOUT screwing over anyone that wants to do something as simple as have 2 suit HQs in his battalion.
Heck, limit them to only 1 in a supreme command detachment, and you get all the benefit of stopping spam without hurting anyone who plays a plain old battalion (or any of the other detachment)

One thing that strikes me with the 0-1 Commander Limitation per detachment, and I am not sure if anyone has raised this yet, is that it completely invalidates The Eight both in terms of fluff and crunch. Taking Commanders together was actually a legitimate part of Tau fluff, at least in terms of FSE, and now we are literally prevented from taking a detachment akin to this.

 Irbis wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Looking at these stratagems, I don't know what people are complaining about. Most of them are 1cp and really helpful.

That, and people didn't stop to think for a second and realized yet they also apply to broken FW mess. Ta'unar is also a battlesuit, show me one other army that gets so cheap and powerful boosts to their titan-grade units...

But it's annoying that I'm forced to run either fireblades or ethereals. It's a lessening of options, and that's never fun. Imagine if space marine captains were restricted to cone per detachment. Or chaos lords. Or orc warbosses. Or eldar farseers. It's a completely arbitrary restriction based on laziness and that's all.

As I have already pointed out, Chapter Master, SM equivalent, is one per army. Not detachment, army. He also costs a lot of CPs and/or points, and can't juggle quadruple meltas. Hell, SM officers forgot keys to armoury and can't take even one melta or plasma gun to take advantage of their BS stat, unless you take overpriced combi-guns and even then only a few HQs have access to them.

And frankly, even if Captains were made 1 per detachment, nothing would change. Most people already take 1 and fill the rest of the slots with librarians and lieutenants. The fact you see so much salt flowing over that one small Tau change is best proof how 'balanced' the Commander is and how needed the change was...

How about if you couldn't take more than one Space Marine HQ unit in power armour in any detachment, even if they are different datasheets? That is more akin to what we're facing.

Because, as it stands, we can't even take Farsight and a generic commander, or Shadowsun and a generic commander in the same detachment.

Apparently Commander spam was so bad we couldn't even use our special characters, even Farsight who has never been overpowered, alongside a generic Commander in a detachment.

tneva82 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

More than 1 per 2 battallion detachments would be generous fluff wise so idea of having battallion with 3 company commanders is just silly.

Fluff wise I thought 3 companies normally make up a battalion?

Platoon 5 squads, company 2-5 platoons, battalion 2-3 companies. Detachment can't fit that many squads. Battallion detachment is reinforced platoon

Looking at the current codex p15 - Regimental Organisation

It confirms that units are seldom anywhere near their paper strength which is also true of historical units on our world. The Infantry "regiment" detailed only contains 3 companies (!) each of 3 platoons of 3 squads each.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Irbis wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Looking at these stratagems, I don't know what people are complaining about. Most of them are 1cp and really helpful.

That, and people didn't stop to think for a second and realized yet they also apply to broken FW mess. Ta'unar is also a battlesuit, show me one other army that gets so cheap and powerful boosts to their titan-grade units...

But it's annoying that I'm forced to run either fireblades or ethereals. It's a lessening of options, and that's never fun. Imagine if space marine captains were restricted to cone per detachment. Or chaos lords. Or orc warbosses. Or eldar farseers. It's a completely arbitrary restriction based on laziness and that's all.

As I have already pointed out, Chapter Master, SM equivalent, is one per army. Not detachment, army. He also costs a lot of CPs and/or points, and can't juggle quadruple meltas. Hell, SM officers forgot keys to armoury and can't take even one melta or plasma gun to take advantage of their BS stat, unless you take overpriced combi-guns and even then only a few HQs have access to them.

And frankly, even if Captains were made 1 per detachment, nothing would change. Most people already take 1 and fill the rest of the slots with librarians and lieutenants. The fact you see so much salt flowing over that one small Tau change is best proof how 'balanced' the Commander is and how needed the change was...

How about if you couldn't take more than one Space Marine HQ unit in power armour in any detachment, even if they are different datasheets? That is more akin to what we're facing.

Because, as it stands, we can't even take Farsight and a generic commander, or Shadowsun and a generic commander in the same detachment.

Apparently Commander spam was so bad we couldn't even use our special characters, even Farsight who has never been overpowered, alongside a generic Commander in a detachment.

So then take multiple detachments?

A T'au sept battlsuit (except a commander) equipped with a CDS is more accurate in overwatch than it is in regular shooting.