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Ok i've been playing 40k for a bit with tau as my army, and as you can guess i'm wanting to have my tau enter honourble melee combat. Also we need to give those mechs some sweet as looking swords.
so what i propose is a homebrewed crisis suit unit for 8th edition.
I've decided to call them Farsight FireBlades because melee crisis suits would only really be in the Farsight Enclaves. the reasoning for this is that the farsight enclaves are the only tau faction that have had fusion blades in lore, and it isn't that far fetched to have a unit within the farsight enclaves to dedicate themselves to hand to hand combat, also the tau are known to adapt their tactics to help them gain an advantage in battle and abandoning tactics that are less effective. as the tau have expanded i'm pretty sure they have come to realize that a lot of the other factions like to engage in honourable melee combat so they might adapt to do the same. also mechs withs laser swords 'nuf said.

The stats that could work for a melee focused tau unit

Farsight FireBlades
M|WS|BS|S|T|W|A|LD|SV
Shas'ui Farsight FireBlade 8"|4+ |5+ |5|5| 3 |2 | 7|3+
Shas'vre Farsight FireBlade 8"|4+ |5+ |5|5| 3 |3 | 7 |3+

This unit contains 3 shas'ui Farsight FireBlade. It can include up to 3 additional shas'ui Farsight FireBlade or up to 6 additional Shaas'ui Farsight FireBlade. A Shas'vre Farsight Blade can Take the place of one Shas'ui Farsight FireBlade. Each Farsight Fireblade is equipped with a Fusion Blaster, and may be accompanied by up to two tactical drones.

Weapon Range | Type | S | AP | D | Abilities
Fusion Blade Melee |Melee| 8 | -4 |D6| user is only allowed to attack once with this weapon

Wargear optioins
- Any Shas'ui or Shas'vre Farsight FireBlade may replace their Fusion Blade with up to three items from the FireBlade weapons and support systems lists

Abilities
- for the geater good
- Bonding knife ritual
- Manta strike

faction keywords: t'au empire, farsight enclaves
Keywords: battlesuit, Jet pack, fly, XV8 Farsight FireBlade

FireBlade waepons and support systems list
Fusion Blade Range | Type | S | AP | D | Abilities
Melee |Melee| 8 | -4 |D6| user is only allowed to attack once with this weapon
Onager Guantlet Melee |Melee| +5| 0 | 1 | -
Assult Cannon 18" |Assult 2| 5 | 0 | 1 | -
A lesser Burst cannon
Missle Pod* 30" |Assult 2| 7 | 0 |D3 | -

Modified sheild Generator
- only the model gets a 3+ invulnerable save.
Velocity Thrusters
- This model may add 8" to its advance move instead of 1D6
Stimulant Injector
- roll a dice each time a model with a stimulant injector suffers a wound or mortal wound. on a roll of 6, ignore it.

points costs
XV 8 Farsighht FireBlade 3-9 models per unit | 45 points per model
onager guantlet | 11 points per weapon
Fusion Blade | 21
Missle pod |24

modified Sheild genertator | 10 points per system
velocity Thrusters | 10 points per system
stimulant injector | 5

Looks cool, but this is posted in the wrong place really. Try putting it in the '40k Proposed Rules' for a better response.