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So its no question that T'Au has had our time in the sun as a top tier army that left certain armies with no response than playing up 20% points (looking at you 7th ed orks), but 8th ed T'Au are laughably points inefficient and just have no legitimate response to common tactics besides "spam commanders"
So I propose a change, that is admittedly a touch book-keeping heavy.

T'Au sergeants like everyone else's enjoy +1LD and +1Attack over their vanilla brothers. But we are a shooting army with no legitimate melee options, so +1 attack is pointless in application. Further all of our units are bs4+ outside of hq's, and many suffer -1 bs for moving, forcing a static standstill boring army, unless spamming commanders.

Our grunts are known as Shas'la, the sergeants are Shas'ui, a "veteran sergeant" is a shas'vre, and then finally we have Shas'o i.e. commanders.

So I propose, Shas'la remain as they are
Shas'ui are bs 4+ but can re-roll 1 to hit die per attack. so stealth suits would get to re-roll 1 missed shot out of the 4 from their burst cannon, but the firewarrior with pulse rifle gets to reroll his 1 shot at 20"
Shas'vre, veterans of hundreds or more battles finally get to be bs3+ with the re-roll 1 missed shot/die. Risk here is Ghostkeels and Riptides are Shas'vre by default, but riptide is so poor right now, i don't think it yet justifies his points price tag, and its 1 die
Shas'o would remain as bs2+

Do you (dakka) think this is acceptable? OP, hardly meaningful to your lists? Feedback is welcome, and I don't require being launched to AM level of brokenness to be satisfied.

I have trouble remembering the individual names in the progression, but basically i don't like (and this applies to most armies) the non-linear jump in ability. Taking tau BS for example, it goes from 4+ to 2+. Where are the guys that aren't as good at shooting as the commanders, but are still better shots than the rank and file? In other words, where's the 3+?

So to start with, yeah i can get behind shas'vre being bs 3+. It's a logical progression. As for the reroll a dice, not sure i agree there. Tau are supposed to be 'bad' at melee, but not necessarily innately 'good' at shooting compared to the other races. I could get behind a variant special rules that gives them that (septs basically) like other armies are getting as their codex drops, or equipment like a targeting lock (for eg) doing that.

The basic problem is that 'veteran' status is basically leadership and melee for all armies, which doesn't necessarily make sense but has been the standard for a long time. My problem isn't necessarily getting the reroll, but that it doesn't apply to all armies who have similar issues.

@pumaman1: Hmm. I don't know. It almost feels too weak to be worth implementing. It's like a way worse version of Salamander chapter tactics. As Torga_DW pointed out, this seems like it might work better as a "Sept Tactic," and at that point I'd rather it get the full Salamanders treatment. As you've pitched it, I see it causing a lot of extra little rolls that don't usually add up to much.

Perhaps this is off-topic, but I've always kind of wished that Shas'ui could trade out their normal weapon options for man-portable versions of more specialized gear. A burst cannon shas'ui to help strike teams drown the enemy in strength 5 or a fusion blaster shas'ui to help out a breacher squad, for instance, would both be a lot of fun and add some customization to our basic troops.

On the topic of balancing out Tau in general, I feel like the shas'ui are kind of low on the list of things that could stand to be tweaked. You've pointed out that we can't really use our mobility without giving up a lot of effectiveness, for instance. Personally, I think we could also stand to gain access to some decent tank busting options other than storm surges and fusion blaster suits. Fine-tuning our sargeants feels like it's putting the krootox before the rider.

@wyldhunt, I am cautious to over correct because with new marker light changes, 1 already reroll ones, so you may wind up rerolling everything with marker light support.

The striker, or more breacher to me (keeping more relevant default range) option of switching to burst cannons sounds fun. Strikers should be able to take ion rifles. Again, consistent range. Rail rifle feels like it should stay with pathfinders since they have vanguard moves.

@Torga, the other shooting armies save elder have gotten their fixes already. Ad much, am, and sm variants. And prior marker lights made our relatively low volume of high (high yield missile pods withstanding) quality fire be applied well. Now we just have. .. fusion commanders

A few suggestions I would make:

3+ ballistic skill on Crisis bodyguard units - at the moment they're just a glorified Battle suit unit where everyone is a squad leader.

slight points reduction on the basic crisis suit - with just a burst cannon, these guys clock in more expensive than an aggressor with much less to talk about with regards to firepower and are severely underwhelming in combat whilst the Agressor gets to walk around with powerfists. I mean seriously, power level 11 and 156pts for 3 crisis suits with a burst cannon each (And minimal special rules) compared to 3 fully kitted out aggressors with 2 significant special rules, that's just not OK.

Points reduction on broadside suits: These guys clock in way more expensive than a tank with less than 1/2 of the durability. Just no... if you want to justify the price somewhat, at least make them BS3+.

Riptides point reduction: I know these guys were the bane of everything in 7th, but with the loss of JSJ tactics and the switch to 8th, these guys took a hit. HARD. Auto mortal wounds for nova make it a significant decision between longer survival and how much you really need that 3+ invuln or that overcharged shot. I'm not sure if Pre-8th points would be appropriate now, but the point we pay now are just flat out stupid when you consider you pay less for a land raider.

As an additional note, Commander battlesuits. I'd rather the Mont'ka and Kauyon abilities be free stratagems with the stipulation that only one be used once per game as long as the commander battlesuit is alive and actually give them a buff bubble like other HQ's

Tristanleo wrote:
A few suggestions I would make:

3+ ballistic skill on Crisis bodyguard units - at the moment they're just a glorified Battle suit unit where everyone is a squad leader.

slight points reduction on the basic crisis suit - with just a burst cannon, these guys clock in more expensive than an aggressor with much less to talk about with regards to firepower and are severely underwhelming in combat whilst the Agressor gets to walk around with powerfists. I mean seriously, power level 11 and 156pts for 3 crisis suits with a burst cannon each (And minimal special rules) compared to 3 fully kitted out aggressors with 2 significant special rules, that's just not OK.

Points reduction on broadside suits: These guys clock in way more expensive than a tank with less than 1/2 of the durability. Just no... if you want to justify the price somewhat, at least make them BS3+.

Riptides point reduction: I know these guys were the bane of everything in 7th, but with the loss of JSJ tactics and the switch to 8th, these guys took a hit. HARD. Auto mortal wounds for nova make it a significant decision between longer survival and how much you really need that 3+ invuln or that overcharged shot. I'm not sure if Pre-8th points would be appropriate now, but the point we pay now are just flat out stupid when you consider you pay less for a land raider.

As an additional note, Commander battlesuits. I'd rather the Mont'ka and Kauyon abilities be free stratagems with the stipulation that only one be used once per game as long as the commander battlesuit is alive and actually give them a buff bubble like other HQ's

Bodyguards are shas'vre by default, and would thus be bs3+ with 1 reroll.
broadsides yes the point shift was overkill, would be bs4+ with a reroll or 3+ with a reroll since they are Shas/ui at least and 1 can be upgrdaed to shas'vre per squad.

 pumaman1 wrote:

Tristanleo wrote:
A few suggestions I would make:

3+ ballistic skill on Crisis bodyguard units - at the moment they're just a glorified Battle suit unit where everyone is a squad leader.

slight points reduction on the basic crisis suit - with just a burst cannon, these guys clock in more expensive than an aggressor with much less to talk about with regards to firepower and are severely underwhelming in combat whilst the Agressor gets to walk around with powerfists. I mean seriously, power level 11 and 156pts for 3 crisis suits with a burst cannon each (And minimal special rules) compared to 3 fully kitted out aggressors with 2 significant special rules, that's just not OK.

Points reduction on broadside suits: These guys clock in way more expensive than a tank with less than 1/2 of the durability. Just no... if you want to justify the price somewhat, at least make them BS3+.

Riptides point reduction: I know these guys were the bane of everything in 7th, but with the loss of JSJ tactics and the switch to 8th, these guys took a hit. HARD. Auto mortal wounds for nova make it a significant decision between longer survival and how much you really need that 3+ invuln or that overcharged shot. I'm not sure if Pre-8th points would be appropriate now, but the point we pay now are just flat out stupid when you consider you pay less for a land raider.

As an additional note, Commander battlesuits. I'd rather the Mont'ka and Kauyon abilities be free stratagems with the stipulation that only one be used once per game as long as the commander battlesuit is alive and actually give them a buff bubble like other HQ's

Bodyguards are shas'vre by default, and would thus be bs3+ with 1 reroll.
broadsides yes the point shift was overkill, would be bs4+ with a reroll or 3+ with a reroll since they are Shas/ui at least and 1 can be upgrdaed to shas'vre per squad.

I think the reroll will just drag things out, having to denote your leaders shots to benefit from the reroll will just complicate things. In my opinion, the BS of the units isn't too much of a hindrance if the crisis suits see a small decrease in base suit cost to acknowledge the additional wound and toughness but doubling it from 7th is just too much. making bodyguard suits BS3+ makes them more attractive than just loading up a commander with a nearby drone fodder unit because it's cheaper and more effective for absorbing heavy damage fire because they can pose a good threat to things that come close thanks to their ballistic skill and weapon variety as well as actually guard the commander. Being a battlesuit bodyguard is a much higher esteemed position than just a shas'vre, there used to be another position between Shas'vre and Shas'o which was Shas'el back in 6th who was basically a lesser commander with BS4 under the old system. it would make sense that a Battlesuit Bodyguard would effectively be this rank over just a Shas'vre.

Tristanleo wrote:

 pumaman1 wrote:

Tristanleo wrote:
A few suggestions I would make:

3+ ballistic skill on Crisis bodyguard units - at the moment they're just a glorified Battle suit unit where everyone is a squad leader.

slight points reduction on the basic crisis suit - with just a burst cannon, these guys clock in more expensive than an aggressor with much less to talk about with regards to firepower and are severely underwhelming in combat whilst the Agressor gets to walk around with powerfists. I mean seriously, power level 11 and 156pts for 3 crisis suits with a burst cannon each (And minimal special rules) compared to 3 fully kitted out aggressors with 2 significant special rules, that's just not OK.

Points reduction on broadside suits: These guys clock in way more expensive than a tank with less than 1/2 of the durability. Just no... if you want to justify the price somewhat, at least make them BS3+.

Riptides point reduction: I know these guys were the bane of everything in 7th, but with the loss of JSJ tactics and the switch to 8th, these guys took a hit. HARD. Auto mortal wounds for nova make it a significant decision between longer survival and how much you really need that 3+ invuln or that overcharged shot. I'm not sure if Pre-8th points would be appropriate now, but the point we pay now are just flat out stupid when you consider you pay less for a land raider.

As an additional note, Commander battlesuits. I'd rather the Mont'ka and Kauyon abilities be free stratagems with the stipulation that only one be used once per game as long as the commander battlesuit is alive and actually give them a buff bubble like other HQ's

Bodyguards are shas'vre by default, and would thus be bs3+ with 1 reroll.
broadsides yes the point shift was overkill, would be bs4+ with a reroll or 3+ with a reroll since they are Shas/ui at least and 1 can be upgrdaed to shas'vre per squad.

I think the reroll will just drag things out, having to denote your leaders shots to benefit from the reroll will just complicate things. In my opinion, the BS of the units isn't too much of a hindrance if the crisis suits see a small decrease in base suit cost to acknowledge the additional wound and toughness but doubling it from 7th is just too much. making bodyguard suits BS3+ makes them more attractive than just loading up a commander with a nearby drone fodder unit because it's cheaper and more effective for absorbing heavy damage fire because they can pose a good threat to things that come close thanks to their ballistic skill and weapon variety as well as actually guard the commander. Being a battlesuit bodyguard is a much higher esteemed position than just a shas'vre, there used to be another position between Shas'vre and Shas'o which was Shas'el back in 6th who was basically a lesser commander with BS4 under the old system. it would make sense that a Battlesuit Bodyguard would effectively be this rank over just a Shas'vre.

I mean.. we have the most time-efficient shooting in the game (besides none), and no psychic phase so if we take an extra 30 seconds its ok. Space marines do it all the time with the 1 special weapon and 1 heavy weapon in tactical squads, sergeants in devastator squads (or even signum) etc.. so denoting your shas'ui shooting is basically already a part of the game, and we are late to the party.
The bs4+ is a hindrance because we cannot move and fire most units without shooting at orc level/untrained human level. and T'Au are all lifelong professional/caste soldiers.
Shas'el have been removed in the 6th ed codex, and the 7th ed refresh so that's why I left them out.

 pumaman1 wrote:

Tristanleo wrote:

 pumaman1 wrote:

Tristanleo wrote:
A few suggestions I would make:

3+ ballistic skill on Crisis bodyguard units - at the moment they're just a glorified Battle suit unit where everyone is a squad leader.

slight points reduction on the basic crisis suit - with just a burst cannon, these guys clock in more expensive than an aggressor with much less to talk about with regards to firepower and are severely underwhelming in combat whilst the Agressor gets to walk around with powerfists. I mean seriously, power level 11 and 156pts for 3 crisis suits with a burst cannon each (And minimal special rules) compared to 3 fully kitted out aggressors with 2 significant special rules, that's just not OK.

Points reduction on broadside suits: These guys clock in way more expensive than a tank with less than 1/2 of the durability. Just no... if you want to justify the price somewhat, at least make them BS3+.

Riptides point reduction: I know these guys were the bane of everything in 7th, but with the loss of JSJ tactics and the switch to 8th, these guys took a hit. HARD. Auto mortal wounds for nova make it a significant decision between longer survival and how much you really need that 3+ invuln or that overcharged shot. I'm not sure if Pre-8th points would be appropriate now, but the point we pay now are just flat out stupid when you consider you pay less for a land raider.

As an additional note, Commander battlesuits. I'd rather the Mont'ka and Kauyon abilities be free stratagems with the stipulation that only one be used once per game as long as the commander battlesuit is alive and actually give them a buff bubble like other HQ's

Bodyguards are shas'vre by default, and would thus be bs3+ with 1 reroll.
broadsides yes the point shift was overkill, would be bs4+ with a reroll or 3+ with a reroll since they are Shas/ui at least and 1 can be upgrdaed to shas'vre per squad.

I think the reroll will just drag things out, having to denote your leaders shots to benefit from the reroll will just complicate things. In my opinion, the BS of the units isn't too much of a hindrance if the crisis suits see a small decrease in base suit cost to acknowledge the additional wound and toughness but doubling it from 7th is just too much. making bodyguard suits BS3+ makes them more attractive than just loading up a commander with a nearby drone fodder unit because it's cheaper and more effective for absorbing heavy damage fire because they can pose a good threat to things that come close thanks to their ballistic skill and weapon variety as well as actually guard the commander. Being a battlesuit bodyguard is a much higher esteemed position than just a shas'vre, there used to be another position between Shas'vre and Shas'o which was Shas'el back in 6th who was basically a lesser commander with BS4 under the old system. it would make sense that a Battlesuit Bodyguard would effectively be this rank over just a Shas'vre.

I mean.. we have the most time-efficient shooting in the game (besides none), and no psychic phase so if we take an extra 30 seconds its ok. Space marines do it all the time with the 1 special weapon and 1 heavy weapon in tactical squads, sergeants in devastator squads (or even signum) etc.. so denoting your shas'ui shooting is basically already a part of the game, and we are late to the party.
The bs4+ is a hindrance because we cannot move and fire most units without shooting at orc level/untrained human level. and T'Au are all lifelong professional/caste soldiers.
Shas'el have been removed in the 6th ed codex, and the 7th ed refresh so that's why I left them out.

Every weapon on a crisis battle suit is assault (Bar plasma rifle) so moving isn't the problem, Advancing maybe but suits move 8 inch which isn't something to balk at when you ignore terrain for flying. Broadsides shouldn't need to be moving so no issue there either. hammerheads do suffer this but they are pretty decent at shooting anyway so a -1 isn't too bad. the biggest problem for moving and shooting is on the Ghostkeel and the Riptide as they really do suffer because their main armaments are heavy weapons when they are supposed to be mobile units that can run and gun, they even seemed to pre-empt the heavy penalty when considering Riptides degrading statline as it goes from 4+ to 5+ to 5+, a casual look would make you think great, only a 1 drop in ballistic skill as I take damage until you get in the game and remember that you suffer -1 to hit when moving which these units do to stay relevant. Ghostkeel you're always gonna want to move back to keep your opponent at arms length for as long as possible and to stay within the small range of your weapon systems. the only infantry heavy weapon is the overcharged Ion rifle which if you're moving and firing that thing, you kind of deserve the end result...

I had a similar idea, but with a little less bookkeeping.

Basically, all shas'vre would get BS3+, and the multi-tracker would change to "if a model equipped with a multi-tracker fires all its weapons at the same enemy unit, then any other models in the same unit as the firing model may use that model's ballistic skill when firing at the same target." So, you'd have to narrow your targeting down a little to benefit, but that would let you put out a lot of fire at BS3+. Of course, Riptides, Ghostkeels, Stormsurges and singleton Broadsides would just have BS3+ all the time, but basically that's fine. (Though it would be a buff to shielded missile drones, which, well, could use one.)

I do like the idea that Strike Team, Pathfinder and Breacher shas'ui should confer some kind of benefit, though. Maybe being able to take ion and rail rifles would fit. Rail rifles aren't "sniper" weapons and haven't been since 4e, so I don't agree that they should be Pathfinder-only for fluff reasons. Although the idea of firing a single powerful shot feels like what we think of as "sniper rifles", they don't mechanically work like that - they have the same range and ROF as the basic pulse rifle, but they're more powerful. That makes them analogous to Imperial plasma guns, IMHO.

Also, I'd change the plasma rifle. Used to be, it was S6 but didn't get hot - fair trade. Now, Imperial plasma doesn't overheat either unless you overcharge, but it's still S7, and Tau plasma can't overcharge. So what I'd do, is leave it at S6 AP-3 D1, but change it from Rapid Fire 1 to Assault 2.

 pumaman1 wrote:
@Torga, the other shooting armies save elder have gotten their fixes already. Ad much, am, and sm variants. And prior marker lights made our relatively low volume of high (high yield missile pods withstanding) quality fire be applied well. Now we just have. .. fusion commanders

I would say they've gotten codexes, i wouldn't say they've gotten fixes. The veteran bonus for all the troops, even the shooty ones, is still +1Ld and +1 attack. IG can't even take lasguns on their infantry squad sergeants, most guard players i've met aren't very fond of that. I do agree that tau need work. And the more i think about it, the more i like the concept of veteran being something along the lines of "+1ld and may reroll a 1 to hit in shooting (or melee)" to be an interesting one. I just don't see why tau would get it and no-one else?

I don't love having BS by rank. It would be nice enough if breacher/strike/pathfinder had bs4, XVs had bs3, and characters had BS2. The XVs could get a slight point increase to balance their current overpricedness to the new strength level and woah our elites would be elite rather than incompetent. I mean, T'au are supposed to have low numbers high efficiency by comparison right?

In the words of 6th and 7th ed Tau players: git gud. The rationalizing and apologizing of Tau players for the last two editions removed any sympathy I have.

Martel732 wrote:
In the words of 6th and 7th ed Tau players: git gud. The rationalizing and apologizing of Tau players for the last two editions removed any sympathy I have.

Very insightful. Very constructive. We'll all pause this conversation to mull this over.

Martel732 wrote:
In the words of 6th and 7th ed Tau players: git gud. The rationalizing and apologizing of Tau players for the last two editions removed any sympathy I have.

Because a new Tau player should feel the hate, even if they didn't even play 40k when that happened to you?

Because a veteran Tau player should feel the hate, even if all their opponents enjoyed playing them?

Collective guilt is stupid, judge a player by their own actions, not the actions of other people who happen to have bought the same plastic soldiers.

Something has to change to make Crisis Suits worth taking versus just spamming Commanders.

The problem, though, is that crisis suit weapons aren't costed according to the BS of the unit using them. Commander weapons should be worth a lot more, or Crisis weapons should be worth a lot less, because of that BS difference. I'm of the opinion that everybody is paying Commander costs for weaponry, and that's something that needs to be fixed.

 John Prins wrote:
Something has to change to make Crisis Suits worth taking versus just spamming Commanders.

The problem, though, is that crisis suit weapons aren't costed according to the BS of the unit using them. Commander weapons should be worth a lot more, or Crisis weapons should be worth a lot less, because of that BS difference. I'm of the opinion that everybody is paying Commander costs for weaponry, and that's something that needs to be fixed.

In my opinion, this was the problem with the game as a whole in 7th that I feel has been rectified in 8th. there were some units with heavy equipment as standard that when you actually priced up with comparative models were cheaper than the resulting model with said weapons. Now that price is based on the model plus the weapons, it makes it much more balanced and less obscure. the problem with crisis suits is that they have had a double points increase without much to show for it, making them a much weaker choice considering the ability of many weapons to mulch through wounds now.

base costing, a Terminator gained one wound without a price increase, Crisis suits gained one wound to show that they are still more protective in some way than terminator armour and +1 toughness to make them stand better in the new changed edition but doubled in price for the privilege before considering guns. My argument is that the main cost of a crisis suit comes from what you stick to it, not what it is so that should be reflected in the weapons cost (Which it is) and not in the unit cost.

As this is ultimately two proposed rule changes, I'll take each in turn.

1. Shas'vre get BS3+.

As a T'au player, I'm sure you're all just completely flabbergasted to know that I'm for it! Who'd have thunk!

Mechanically, I think its appropriate that the elite leaders of our elite forces could rise to the ballistic skill level of the elites of other armies, particularly for an army so utterly focused on shooting. A T'au shouldn't have to be specialized in Drone Controlling or Tank Gunning (or be a Commander) to reach that level of (comparatively unassisted) shooting skill.

I can't think of any Shas'vre that would be particularly overpowered with this change, though I think Bodyguards come closest (roughly 33% increase in damage output from the get-go is always a nice boost, universal given they're all Shas'vre), but they really needed the boost. Crisis Suits and Stealth Squads benefit a bit, Broadsides will generally always want to be Shas'vre (does anyone take them in units of more than 1 these days, or take them at all?), and Ghostkeels/Riptides needed all the help they can get, and a 33%+ boost in effective damage might almost be enough...

I think, with this change alone, you'd start seeing every Crisis Squad become a Bodyguard unit, since they benefit so significantly with such a small change in point cost.

2. Rerolls of 1s to hit based on Rank.

Its an interesting idea, and I don't even mind that this is effectively working as a temporary Chapter Tactics-equivalent boost (since these rules would need to be reassessed when a new codex comes out regardless).

If you plan to use custom Sept Tactics, its probably best to not apply this change at all.

It seems like it might bog the game down a bit, but realistically, not by much. It's extremely redundant in our army, though. given the myriad ways we can reroll 1s to hit already. It also seems like it would thus be a fairly insignificant gain (maybe freeing up more markerlights, but i'd honestly rather encourage more ML, not less).

What I'd rather see is a bonus that isn't really available elsewhere (I'm thinking rerolling to wound rolls instead of to hit), and one that applies to boost the team as a whole (because a lot of the Leadership of T'au that isn't Mecha Suits winning battles solo are team leaders like the Fireblade who make their soldiers awesomesauce) rather than that model (and perhaps explicitly not that model).

It would need to be more limited than the original suggestion, since its more powerful (stackable with T'au's ubiquitous reroll 1s to hit), so perhaps Shas'ui allows 1 reroll for their squad, Shas'vre allow 2, and they stack (if you have a Shas'ui and Shas'vre in the same unit, the unit would have 3 rerolls).

About the same rerolling and record-keeping as the original suggestion (perhaps fewer rerolls), and it would fit the T'au leadership's role better (make your unit better, rather than yourself), without being significantly overpowered (at most, a squad is getting 3 rerolling 1's to wound per shooting phase).

Just my suggestion to keep it mechanically interesting AND thematically appropriate!