Man, I don't like the Commander limit thing.

[Trevak Dal]

I only have three, (one that's an actual commander kit, my old Commander and Farsight) and I'd really just prefer to run them together in a battalion. I know I can comfortably get two in a vanguard and battalion, but I just don't want to build (or buy) a fireblade.

[Panzer]

Yeah it's riddiculous. Once GW introduced the rule of 3 for tournaments they should have Errata'd our Codex as well. It becomes especially dumb with FSE who can only take Commanders or Fireblades as HQ choice.

[brother_b]

Or the fact I can’t take 4 onagers for my Admech but guard can take 9 leman Russ.

 

I plan on having two battalions and a detachment for 3 commanders total.

[Closet Skeleton]

It is ridiculous, but to be honest I'd rather see it extended to all factions HQ choices than removed from commanders. Smash captains and Hive Tyrants are way more egregious than Tau commanders ever were.

Edited May 6, 2019 by Closet Skeleton

[Happy-inquisitor]

It is pretty frustrating, especially for FSE. It is also completely necessary.

 

Having played The Eight for a while I think that commander spam with full powered commanders with sensible weapon loads would be pretty much broken. Most armies would be helpless against it and it would table most opposition in 2-3 turns.

 

So for the greater good of the game we are stuck with a frustrating limitation.

 

Personally I think it could be fixed by just not including named commanders in the limit, that gives FSE a decent way to build lists without going too far the way of auto-win buttons. However from a GW perspective I can see why this is nowhere near the top of their todo list.

[Panzer]

It is pretty frustrating, especially for FSE. It is also completely necessary.

 

Having played The Eight for a while I think that commander spam with full powered commanders with sensible weapon loads would be pretty much broken. Most armies would be helpless against it and it would table most opposition in 2-3 turns.

 

So for the greater good of the game we are stuck with a frustrating limitation.

 

Personally I think it could be fixed by just not including named commanders in the limit, that gives FSE a decent way to build lists without going too far the way of auto-win buttons. However from a GW perspective I can see why this is nowhere near the top of their todo list.

Nobody is talking about allowing Commander spam. The rule of 3 would still be there.

[Dosjetka]

Except that the Rule of Three is a tournament rule, not an actual rule for playing game of Warhammer 40'000, which means that depending on the local community lifting this restriction would see some folks fielding multiple Commanders in just one or two Detachments.

It's a frustrating restriction but it's a necessary evil in my view, very much "for the greater good". I do agree that it could and should be tweaked: Happy-inquisitor's suggestion is a good one and would be the place to start if ever GW decided to fix this issue.

Edited May 6, 2019 by Chaplain Dosjetka

[Panzer]

A tournament rule most people use and I don't see how Commander spam would be necessarily worse than other competetive units getting spammed anyway. It got introduced to tournaments for a reason and that reason wasn't Commanders as by that time the Codex with the limit on them was already in place.

[Happy-inquisitor]

 

Nobody is talking about allowing Commander spam. The rule of 3 would still be there.

 

 

Commanders come on three datasheets, XV85, XV8 and Coldstar. Those 9 commanders in a list would sure feel like spam to any opponent. If you add in the dodgy forgeworld generic commanders you could be running 15. Then there are named commanders (2 codex, 2 FW) to bring you up to 19.

 

I agree that they could have addressed this in other ways but I am willing to live with the small level of frustration in return for people not immediately flipping the table when I so much as mention that I brought my T'au list to play. To be honest until the last FAQ they did not really have an approach to dealing with this that would have worked at all IMO, the way they approached Daemon Princes could now be extended to Commanders and loosen up the one per detachment thing.

[Marshlands]

 

 

 

Nobody is talking about allowing Commander spam. The rule of 3 would still be there.

 

Commanders come on three datasheets, XV85, XV8 and Coldstar. Those 9 commanders in a list would sure feel like spam to any opponent. If you add in the dodgy forgeworld generic commanders you could be running 15. Then there are named commanders (2 codex, 2 FW) to bring you up to 19.

 

I agree that they could have addressed this in other ways but I am willing to live with the small level of frustration in return for people not immediately flipping the table when I so much as mention that I brought my T'au list to play. To be honest until the last FAQ they did not really have an approach to dealing with this that would have worked at all IMO, the way they approached Daemon Princes could now be extended to Commanders and loosen up the one per detachment thing.

This seems like it would work well. Basically no more than 3 commanders of any type at 2k but it doesn't matter what detachment they are in

[Panzer]

The multiple datasheets for Commanders is kinda dumb anyway, but I can see where you are coming from. Taking the tournament rule of 3 and make it keyword dependend for the Commander would be a great way to solve it though. Best of both worlds.

[Trevak Dal]

Or the fact I can’t take 4 onagers for my Admech but guard can take 9 leman Russ.

 

I plan on having two battalions and a detachment for 3 commanders total.

Yeah but I have to get other hqs to fill a battalion, and I play enclave so I don't have any Fireblades or the desire to make them.

[Marshlands]

 

Or the fact I can’t take 4 onagers for my Admech but guard can take 9 leman Russ.

 

I plan on having two battalions and a detachment for 3 commanders total.

Yeah but I have to get other hqs to fill a battalion, and I play enclave so I don't have any Fireblades or the desire to make them.

You literally have no choice if you want any CP and pure FSE

 

Maybe a Kroot HQ will come along one day

[Trevak Dal]

I got plenty of firewarriors, I'll just get a 32mm base and put one on it and call it done.

[Panzer]

 

Maybe a Kroot HQ will come along one day

 

 

With the shaper being an Elite choice (that's worth than an Ethereal for your Kroots even) and the named Kroot character from Blackstone fortress being an Elite choice as well I lost that hope a long time ago already lol

[Marshlands]

 

 

Maybe a Kroot HQ will come along one day

 

With the shaper being an Elite choice (that's worth than an Ethereal for your Kroots even) and the named Kroot character from Blackstone fortress being an Elite choice as well I lost that hope a long time ago already lol

There used to be a master shaper HQ right, when shapers were just unit leaders. We can hope

[Triszin]

Id love to see new * commander/hq choices.

 

Heck I'd love a build your commander option, choosing armor (fireblade, xv25, crisis, ghost and tide).

[Marshlands]

Some new non commander characters would help with the issue of building detachments. Seems like a generic tank commander would make sense and maybe a Kroot.

 

Don't know what else they could do that isn't a commander variant, maybe a jump/ ranger type thing would fit or some kind of drone controller

[Panzer]

A Subcommander with slightly worse stats and different aura would've been nice but instead we just got another Commander that can take the Iridium armour. 

[Triszin]

A Subcommander with slightly worse stats and different aura would've been nice but instead we just got another Commander that can take the Iridium armour.

Do yay get access to the field commander thing the Marines get?

[Panzer]

 

A Subcommander with slightly worse stats and different aura would've been nice but instead we just got another Commander that can take the Iridium armour.

Do yay get access to the field commander thing the Marines get?

 

 

We don't have any specialist detachment, so no. ^^

[Marshal van Trapp]

What if they changed the limit to 3 per army instead of 1 per detachment? Wouldn't allow you to spam them but still be able to take a batallion with 2 commanders or a brigade with 3

 

Edit: or remove the limit entirely and make it one single datasheet

 

Tau Battlesuit commander: equipped with an xv-8 crisis suit, may take XV8-02 iridium crisis suit or upgrade to an XV-85 enforcer or XV-86 coldstar

 

It would literally be the same as equipping a marine commander with a jump pack except it changes some more of the stats. Honestly I do not understand why "Commander Spam" is so much more deadly than Captain spam, you could hypothetically have 9 captains in a space marine army right now, granted 3 of them would be kinda useless (terminators) but the other 6 could be extremely useful

Edited May 9, 2019 by Marshal van Trapp

[Trevak Dal]

That would be fine with me man. In times past, I'd always take a Shas'o (Captain) and a shas'el (lieutenant), if I wasn't going to try something tricky with Shadowsun (my favorite 40k model next to the old metal Red Terror)

[Commander Dawnstar]

Honestly I do not understand why "Commander Spam" is so much more deadly than Captain spam, you could hypothetically have 9 captains in a space marine army right now, granted 3 of them would be kinda useless (terminators) but the other 6 could be extremely useful

 

The T'au Commander basically isn't analogous to the Captain at all beyond their slot in the FoC. They don't even have an innate passive reroll aura.

 

The Commander is a Crisis Suit with four weapon slots rather than three, BS2+ rather than BS4+ and access to the Coldstar suit for incredible mobility if desired. They're a reliable and reasonably priced shooting platform that puts out damage comparable to a three-suit Crisis Team for 50-100 points less (and provide the army with its most dependable source of melta weaponry). They make for a very solid shooting unit that does more or less exactly the same thing as some other units in a more efficient fashion, and all without the need for Markerlights or other rerolls.

 

Commander Spam was rampant in the Index era because quite a lot of their competition was weaker, more expensive or both. It certainly wouldn't be as prolific now, but I imagine they would still crowd out units like Crisis Suits and Ghostkeels if the restriction was rescinded and the current top-tier T'au units saw nerfs or detrimental meta-shifts.

[Panzer]

 

Honestly I do not understand why "Commander Spam" is so much more deadly than Captain spam, you could hypothetically have 9 captains in a space marine army right now, granted 3 of them would be kinda useless (terminators) but the other 6 could be extremely useful

 

The T'au Commander basically isn't analogous to the Captain at all beyond their slot in the FoC. They don't even have an innate passive reroll aura.

 

The Commander is a Crisis Suit with four weapon slots rather than three, BS2+ rather than BS4+ and access to the Coldstar suit for incredible mobility if desired. They're a reliable and reasonably priced shooting platform that puts out damage comparable to a three-suit Crisis Team for 50-100 points less (and provide the army with its most dependable source of melta weaponry). They make for a very solid shooting unit that does more or less exactly the same thing as some other units in a more efficient fashion, and all without the need for Markerlights or other rerolls.

 

Commander Spam was rampant in the Index era because quite a lot of their competition was weaker, more expensive or both. It certainly wouldn't be as prolific now, but I imagine they would still crowd out units like Crisis Suits and Ghostkeels if the restriction was rescinded and the current top-tier T'au units saw nerfs or detrimental meta-shifts.

 

 

If you want to compare it like that ...

 

The Commander has an innate aura-like ability as well (which just happens to work only once per game because we have Markerlights), but the aura is not why people spam Captains anyway.

 

The Captain is a Veteran with BS and WS 2+ rather than BS and WS 3+, A5 rather than A2 and an innate 4++. It's true that the Coldstar boosts the mobility a LOT more than what regular Crisis can achieve, but if that were the problem they could have just limited the Coldstar instead of all Commanders. You say the Commander takes over the job of a unit of Crisis Suits, but so do Captains. You see Thunderhammer Captains everywhere, often multiples in a competetive list, but never Thunderhammer Veterans. You know why? Because he hits on a 3+ re-rolling 1s all on his own while the Veterans only hit on a 4+. The one has a small footprint, is protected by the character keyword and can deliver its damage reliably, the other gets blasted off the board easily and struggles with reliability.

 

It's EXACTLY the same situation, except that the Captain fills a niche role (melee) while the Commander filled a main role (shooting stuff).

Commanders got spammed in the T'au Index because the Crisis were horribly bad without being allowed to be bad due not just filling any niche. Captains get spammed because they are really good but it's not as apparent for the internal balance because 40k is a shooting game and nobody really notices when they don't see melee Veterans in most Marine lists unless they are playing against melee chapters like Space Wolves or Blood Angels (which still use their Sanguinary Guard because they are basically flying Terminators this edition to be fair). If the Captain would replaces Devastators the same way it replaces Vanguard Veterans you'd bet your ass that we'd see a similar outcry in the community and a following limitation.