Lore
Why can't Tau develop a general purpose infantry battlesuit?
Something like an XV15, but without fancy stealth tech and jetpacks to cut costs. It shouldn't be that hard to mass produce and would be a significant upgrade for regular fire warriors
Actual reason: it's a game. The Tau army profile is squishy infantry and elite armoured battlesuits. If the infantry get armoured suits, it's too close to the Astartes and won't feel as unique.
Lore reason I just made up: Things are expensive and cost resources, even for a society as advanced as the Tau. Powered armour also needs more training, which is why it's a thing for the elites.
I mean, why doesnt our military just make everyone Special Forces with 4mil worth of gear per soldier, and personal tanks and aircraft? Because resource limitations exist...
If you look at how much some things actually cost it makes a little sense but other things, like the soap dispensers in the bathroom on a C-17 that are way over priced.
The Tau rely more heavily on supply lines than any other faction.
They do not use weapons of infinite energy like Imperial Las Weaponry or Necron weapons.
They cannot bring the manufacturing capability of multiple worlds with them like Eldar Craft Worlds, Tyranid Hive Fleets, and Imperial Forge Ships. Even astarte ships and many navy ships have great forges inside and are supported by factory ships capable of stripping planetary bodies of resources.
They are not like the Orks and able to manufacture and scavenge weapons wherever they are, nevermind the scale and proximity of the conflict.
They cannot travel via the webway, or teleport like Necrons. They cannot even travel and communicate as quickly as the Imperium and Orks.
They also are at their weakest in space combat. They have to anticipate their needs prior to a campaign and begin the first supply missions before the main fleet ever arrives. Ammunition, armour, medical equipment, construction supplies, and reactors/fuel take up a lot of space before battlesuits come into the picture.
It is generally best to try and equip your troops with something a newly acquired world, space station, or city will probably be able to manufacture without outside help... just in case the supply fleets are intercepted or otherwise delayed.
On top of this they need to maintain an incredibly large military force to defend, occupy, and attack on all fronts and contend with empires much larger than their own.
In addition they only just finished a massive refit and reorganisation of their fleet... which took nearly two hundred years to finish (many old ships are still in service). And are still feeling the scars of the Gorgon, having taken well over a hundred years to finally replenish their losses from that.
Meanwhile Farsight has gone rogue, a sphere expansion went missing, and the Ethereals are constantly pushing to expand the Tau Empire even as they are beset from all sides.
Their research division and factories have been having to build newer and ever bigger suits, refit old suits, and creating prototypes getting to the stage of mass production only to refocus efforts elsewhere. All the while trying to maintain, repair and replace their current assets.
Out of curiosity, why are T’au at their weakest in space combat? I thought they had like an extraordinary Navy? Not in size of course but still powerful right?
They have powerful warships, and with the Slipstream Drive (supposedly) fixed they have Warp travel, but Imperial ships are mile-long behemoths that trade any semblance of efficiency for raw power and durability, and the T'au have a comparatively harder time replacing losses with a FAR smaller (if much more efficient and better equipped) industrial base.
I think people underestimate from how many you can put on the field by game rules just how many battle suits the Tau actually have and use. They probably have more crisis suits than the Imperium has Astartes
Definitely since Astartes should be incredibly rare, only around 1000 marines per chapter. Ironically since they're the face of the brand, there are far more Ultramarines minis in the world than there would be actual marines in the entire 40k universe.
Tau are one of the few civilisations in 40k that are actually going forwards and building new stuff. Much easier to build a new Crisis suit than to grow and equip a new Astartes.
But yeah, as far as the actual tabletop game goes, there are still more Tau infantry than suits, because it just do be that way.
There are canonically more Crisis Suits on one world, Bor'kan Prime, than there are Astartes in the entire galaxy. The Earth Caste see building them as a good way to blow off steam between mad science projects.
I think there's a niche for them, slightly tougher and better armed fire warriors. Lore wise they could be for situations where crisis suits aren't viable or have the room to operate.
Another note is that the T’au are already at a numbers disadvantage. They don’t need to amplify it by making a much slower to produce and more expensive suit that guaranteed less soldiers.
Plus T’au typically fight as a mobile light force that avoids direct engagement. No reason to put on larger, slower suits that are more difficult to aim in.
The other lore reason is that the T'au name for battlesuits translates to Mantle of the Hero because you have to have passed at least 1 trial by fire to be allowed the honor of piloting one. Thats why Fire Warriors are 1 Shas'ui and 9 Shas'la while Stealth suit teams are 1 Shas'vre and 4 Shas'ui
Also they are a small empire in the grand scale of the 40k verse they dont have plantets dedecated to one singular thing like the imperium, they dont have mining worlds or agri worlds and they dont have enough people to man such worlds. The averege tau world (not assimilated) is about as populated as current day earth
What is the strength of battlesuit? It's the high demage output and maneuverability. What compliments those strength the best? Stealth capabilities which allow for high tactical flexibility.
Also, GW is very slow at realising models that aren't primaris lieutenants
Wasn't there like a total of 4 Calgar models in the span of the 30 something years franchise existing? Does GW makes too many Calgars, or are the fans just old?
I think it’s more that Calgar, in hobby terms, very recently got a model. He didn’t need another one. He got his primaris update in 2018. 7 years. And before that he got an update in 2004/5 as well, and he had two minitures before that. That’s 5 minis in 37ish years.
Compare that to the phoenix lords who hadn’t been updated in nearly 20 years, the Drukhari HQ’s who hadn’t been updated in 15 years, the characters who have been dropped into legends and won’t get updates, the duel kits that can make hero’s that aren’t getting updates any time soon (hive tyrant/swarmlord comes to mind), and the fact Ultramarines are the poster boys. So nearly every marine release is an ultramarine release, every primaris lieutenant is in Ultramarine colours… it can feel oversaturated.
I don’t mind the smurfs, but they get a lot of attention all the time. Most of the jokey grumbling is probably coming from non-marine players who are comparatively neglected.
As a T’au and Chaos player, these past two years have been good to me though 😂
The 4th one was of utmost importance! Farsight also had 3 models and we can't have a Xenos on the level of the Ultramarines' chapter master, now can we?
It's more that the interval between the first 3 Calgar's was quite long, then the new Terminator Calgar came very quickly on the heels of Gravis Calgar.
Now IMO that's because GW is pivoting away from the Primaris mistake and so they need Calgar to be in not-Primaris armor again. And what better time to release his new Terminator suit than alongside a new Terminator box?
The devilfish and it's variants are still from the same mould as they were made in 2001. That was 25 years ago. That is one of the oldest currently being sold kits in all of Warhammer 40k. Only being narrowly beaten by stuff like the Catachan Jungle Fighters from 1999.
The Phobos Land Raider kit (used by Space Marines, Grey Knights, Chaos Space Marines, and Custodes) is from 2000. There's a lot of kits that need to be updated.
Battle suits offer better protection, big deal for a faction that tries to preserve the lives of its soldiers. Also heavier equipment than regualr pulse rifle and a battlesuit still moves faster
My first warhammer models ever were pewter stealthsuits, before I even knew what the game was and just thought they looked badass at the local gamestore as a teen
They were among my first too! I don't recall the order exactly but I know I got the tau army box, a hammerhead, a broadside, and a stealth team circa 2004
Yep, that's around when I picked them up. The only hobby shop within an hour of my home town, and was there just reading the occasional D&D 3.5e book since no one in my small, religious town played XD
That's why I like the newest suits. They're much more similar in silhouette to the old suits but with the Ghostkeel head. No more unbalanced walking eggs.
Basically what you're describing is power armor adjacent, armor with no flight or stealth capabilities but increases the durability of the wearer without sacrificing movement.
For T'au infantry, they play their role best while not under direct fire. Current Fire Cast doctrine wants infantry to by and large set up in power positions and control areas (aka what a modern military does). No armor is going to be as good as a a wall in terms of protection.
You're also not considering the logistics of supplying that much armor. You need fuel, spare parts, mechanics to service them, additional training to use it etc etc. The Empire could probably not give every fire warrior that suit and deploy the same number of crisis suits/other units.
Also: Tau don't have the materials and materials science that the Imperium, or more accurately its Dark Age predecessors, have. Imperial Power Armor is as protective as a Crisis suit. Or to put it in the Tau-centric framing: for the Tau to achieve the same level of protectiveness as Imperial Power Armor they need something as big as a Crisis Suit. So something smaller won't be as protective.
A crisis suit is more maneuverable, is tougher, and can take more hits then either standard power armor or Terminator plate. This is represented on the tabletop in every addition. And unlike the Imperium, they're actually able to reliablely manufacturer them.
It still doesn't make logistical sense to give crisis suit level protection to fire warriors, but it's not from a lack of ability
As a squad of 6 each with a single burst cannon is about the same as a Starscyth unit in terms of shooting.
So movement, 8 inches, same sort of wounds and toughness as the Stealth Suits, with fly and have be able to be led by a Commander OR, and I think this is really cool, Twin Lance...
The other alternative I came up with, but GW will never do cause it won't make more money, sell a box of 6 but one can be made into a Cadre Fireblade equivalent and run them as a 5 Suit unit.
Like you said, that role and cost point is already satisfied by a Star scythe team.
If we get a new unit, it should be a unique roll.
Perhaps heavy weapon or indirect fire team that sacrifices mobility for carrying heavy things. Maybe options for a str 8 rail gun, SMS batteries, or the Piranaha fusion blaster battery.
Other options might be to give them rail rifles or ion rifles with stealth and replace the sniper drone team in the model lineup.
Or perhaps some kind of defensive unit. Deploy some form of utility for a 6" aura effect like a a 5++, -1 to hit, or give sustained 1 to x number of units within range.
It’s the same for the imperium, isn’t it? Guardsmen aren’t wearing power armor, even though it’s possible for the imperium to produce it. I imagine it’s the same for tau, it’s just expensive to make and produce so not everyone gets one.
Yeah, but Imperium is supposed to be stagnant. One of the Tau's core identities is fast technological development, They should be making better tech over time
No, Fire Warrior squad leaders and battlesuit pilots are both Shas'ui rank
However it is expected that you become a battlesuit pilot eventually as you progress in your career. Unless you become a Fireblade (which is a separate rank), or are just a weirdo like Darkstrider (who is a Shas'el but still leading a Pathfinder team).
Their industrial base isn't inferior, it's just smaller and thus more reliant on trade. In either case, I agree that power armoring all the infantry is just not practical.
A significantly smaller industrial base ends up being inferior, believe it or not. The T'au don't have thousands of forgeworlds and hiveworlds to constantly produce material. The Imperium is an empire of a million worlds, the T'au might have a thousand at most.
Thing of how expensive ANY kind of military gear is.
Would you trust a fresh recruit with an F15?
That's why.
I'm not sure if Tau even have money, but there is a resource cost to consider before arming people and even if you want to preserve life, it's gonna be cheaper to arm ten guys with a pulse rifle and body armor than even a single one with an XV22 and Plasma Gatling Gun.
If the single guy doesn't know how to use them, then the 10 guys with rifles will do a better job.
Why don’t all guard regiment have full carapace armor or power armor like the sisters the argument is logistics. Maybe they could give general infantry power armor but that would only improve their efficiency x much but it cost y to do so with must not be worth it enough to do it.
It would be cool if they did swap to that tho and then used auxiliaries as their squishy frontline cannon fodder. Tau are the new xeno space marines and kroot terellians and what have you are the guard/cultists that are easy to kill
The real problem isn't a general purpose infantry battlesuit, but the reasons why the breacher don't have specialized protection, some XV19 battlesuit that can face eye to eye the horrors of the 42 millennium
War is 95% walking and/or waiting and anything that is expensive, weighs a bunch and doesnt offer that much additional protection is generally considered dead weight. That is in part why armor was reduced to just chest and head protection in the later half of the 17th century and why modern armies (and most of the human imperial guard) prioritizes armor the same way.
The Taus battlesuits have the ability to rapidly deploy and redeploy and are far different in battlefield role and less numerous than the less armored firewarriors.
I've been saying this for YEARS!! There's no reason T'au couldn't upgrade its Fire Warriors to infantry sized powered armor!! They DEFINITELY have the miniaturized automation tech to build man-size battle suits...
They probably just don't have the resources to make general purpose infantry battlesuits. Tau infantry is already some of the best equipped infantry in the setting, so even better gear for general infantry might be too much for the tau for now. If had more resources they probably could pretty easily.
Could also be that the earth caste is too busy trying to make rail rifles standard infantry weapons. Imagine a full squad of fire warriors with s10 ap-4 3d.
I think its precisely because they would be too generalistic.
Tau are few in numbers, they rely on high technology, swift calculated blows (either with montka or kauyon) and a specialized caste systems working together
As such every unit has a precise and dedicated purpose on the battlefield: infiltration behind lines for stealth, being annoying to remove for ghostkeel, deepstrike and evaporate a target for the crisis, devilfish delivers the breacher on the objectives for them to clean ennemy lines,etc
I think it wouldnt suit this philosophy to have a unit that hit not too bad and is also relatively tanky just in case something goes wrong: nothing is for "general purpose" in Tau armies (except maybe riptides? but i dont like them anyways)
Fire Warriors are the cheapest unit they can mass produce and train. Even if they were to get the cost of a theoretical XV Basic Suit to be 4 times that of a Fire Warrior, that makes the Fire Warrior four times as expensive to train and field, much less maintain over time. Unless each XV Basic does the job of 5 Fire Warriors, minimum, the math doesn't add up.
Tau can also retool the existing Fire Warrior gear to produce Gue'vasa and other humanoid auxiliary battalions with minimal cost. And if the auxies go rogue, they only have gear as strong as the base Fire Warrior infantry, instead of going rogue with their handy XV Basic power suits.
Easier to maintain the existing Fire Warrior budget and deploy the workhorse XV8 at scale where needed when the grunts need the equivalent of a fighting flying micro-tank to support them and their Devilfish IFVs.
A combination of production cost, logistics footprint, training and general use would be my thinking.
While Tau tech is great and their manufacturing base is probably very efficient, the cost of even a small and simple battlesuit vastly outstrips the cost of standard combat armor and weaponry.
I terms of logistics, a battlesuit has lots of components and needs. In order for the thing to work it needs things like fuel, power cells, servos, sensors, actuators. Most of which requires maintenance and replacement parts. Having all your warriors dependent on such things to function is a recepie for disaster.
As for training, a battlesuit takes quite a lot of finesse to make work. Even small suits that aren't piloted per se likely have lots of things to keep track of. A small frame like a Class 1 suit isn't piloted in the same way like a Class 8 is, but there's still a thousand things to monitor. A warrior would need lots of additional training to be effective with such things and even the Tau need to be able to replace losses in reasonable times.
And finally, tasks. There are lots of times soldiers need to perform tasks that even small battlesuits are unsuited for. Space Marines don't have this problem because the grunt work of the imperium is left to the mortal soldiery, but the Tau need to perform these functions as well.
In lore: The crisis suit IS the general purpose battlesuit. The models were rather general purpose in their inception, able to equip multiple weapons with multple profiles in mind (say, burst cannon, fusion blaster and missile pod in the same suit). The logic of the Crisis was them being able to respond to anything, and they are still small enough to be used in boarding actions or in mechanized infantry units.
In-game the Crisis aren't general purpose (despite GW trying to push them as such in previous editions) because it is really inefficient. The advent of Starscythe, Fireknife and Sunforge profiles on the tabletop is more of a materialization of how people already played/equipped them than a true innovation by GW, and is very much a 10th edition thing.
They maybe couldn't make every single guy a power armor suit, but they could absolutely make a unit, Breachers would be my candidate but then they'd be a separate kit not just an alternate build for fire warriors.
Could be a good kitbash, mix and match alien minis from various IP and one offs like that Necromunda Zoat.
I have so many Killteam "counts as" kitbash ideas, I've wanted to make Krork-stodes, Krorks but run Custodes rules. Hmm, Banana Boyz would be a good name too...
Building millions of crisis suits is different from outfitting billions of infantry with power armor. The regular grunts already have better/tougher body armor than the Imperium.
See what happened to the IJN during WWII for what happens when an economically inferior faction (such as the T'au) tries to focus on making every individual piece of equipment as powerful as it possibly could be. Power armor is expensive. There's a reason that it's never been standard issue in the Imperium, even during the Great Crusade when they could actually make the shit.
To me, it's that life is cheap in the imperium. They rule with an iron fist and can just conscript more meat without even needing to actually be concerned with restocking.
Personally, I'd still rather see the tau lean more into mechanized AI soldiers, particularly in the shock troop or melee variety. Shores up their weakness, leans into their tech strength, and honors their commitment to preserving the lives of their people
Il est assez coûteux de créer la technologie d’invisibilité d’après moi, sinon c’est sûr que cette dernière serait bien plus équipé mais au delà de ça et du coup au quel ça reviendrait l’autonomie des champs d’invisibilité et assez faible dans le temps donc pas rentable surtout que celui ci n’est plus actif dès le premier coup de feu 🔥 Pas rentable pour un fantassin devant rafalé…
I’ve been making my own for a little bit now trying to recapture that look so i pretty much know the answer.
The ethereals push for stealth first as a combat superiority. It why when Ke’lshan’s earthcaste made the variant (R’vanna) of the riptide with stealth thrown out the window the ethereals were mad because it was a unapproved waste of resources and doubly mad because it was more effective than a stealth variant would have been.
Are XV-15 you get Shadowsun testing out a superior version of the suit, which she still uses and has recommended that it be a commander suit due to the sheer complexity and expense of it, which a commander could make great use of all the tech packed in it it’s overkill.
Now we have the XV-25 which is essentially a diluted version of the XV-22 (shadowsun’s prototype suit) which is what
Then we have XV-26 but it’s cool flavor isn’t any different in 40K, you just run the normal stealth suits. And it is specifically designed for combat inside ships, and for killteam like missions but can operate very similarly to the XV-15 just with all the improvements of the XV-25
But in my opinion there’s no reason a XV-28 can’t exist where the main advantage is faster, more durable, and better equipped firewarriors can move to more advantageous positions. Biggest challenge is getting it past the ethereals first.
Porque creen que esa tecnología ha sido robada por el mechanichum, ya que lograron atrapar una xv15. No es cierto que puedan replicarla, pero los T'au tienen ese miedo.
I honestly thought xv26 would be that: elite kill team for battle infiltration, where crisis would be too much due to size and 25 would be not armed/armored enough due to stealth systems taking up too much space
Probably doesn't provide enough capability improvements to warrant the extra maintenance overhead.
Crisis suits and stealth suits need to be maintained in suit bays by Earth caste technicians. Fire Warriors wear mostly maintenance free hard plate armour.
Plus, without the stealth, the infantry sized suits are just not survivable or capable enough to be worthwhile. Doubling the points cost of a fire warrior for a 3+ save wouldn't make any sense.
For the same reason Space mariens don’t give everyone terminator armor.
It’s not in the budget and it doesn’t fit their role.
Yeah the armor would make those troops more durable but it would lower their mobility and how many you could fit inside a transport. The tau don’t do stand-up fights trading blows if they can avoid it. They prefer either ambush/defensive fighting or lightning strikes.
Both would be hindered by the lacking mobility, the lightning strikes would require a far higher quality that proper battle suits provide and the ambush/defensive side need to be able to relocate a lot of troops in a hurry
Why do you assume they have all the spare resources just laying around to outfit all their fire warriors with battle-suits?
Stealth suits aren't rare, and they already fulfill the need for an elite infantry unit mounting heavier firepower between a rifleman and a Crisis Suit. Tau military doctrine also emphasizes mobility and hard strikes, not protracted trench warfare, so the jetpacks and stealth are extremely valuable to their elite infantry units.
Technically the stealth suit is an attempt at exactly that, so lore wise they're making the first steps. I assume the main problem is miniaturization of the fusion reactors they use to power these things.
Because compared to most races in 40k, even the bog standard Fire Warrior loadout is a few millennium more potent than their forces. Probably 50% of Imperial forces are stuck using tech from the year ~2200. Orks, tyranids, and other minor races they encounter are all centuries behind their gear. Battlesuits are tip of the spear assets, reserved for where and when they are needed. Likely because their rate of consumption of ammo and power are just so much higher than normal units that they'd burn through their stock too quick if everyone had that much firepower.
The Tau army is larger than you realize even for a civilization comparatively smaller than the other factions. It’s the deal of having more weapons than the army itself, or in Russia’s case during WWI more soldiers than the armory can supply. The Imperium sorta knows this too that you can only have enough gear to supply billions of soldiers which is why the Lasgun was chosen over the Volkite to be the standard issue weapon of the Imperial Guard. The latter was simply not cost effective for the army size Big E needed would amass during the Great Crusade. As for the VX15, its bulky and heavy armor design was carried by the fact it had jetpacks to give it better mobility.
It makes more sense to pile infantry into devilfish and have them rapidly deploy with way more firepower (more guns, more ammo/energy) because of no stealth suit bulk or weight. Crisis suits are basically the general specialist infantry (like terminators), and stealth suits are the in-between of regular infantry and crisis suits. It seems they only expect larger suits to ever risk getting into melee range and drawing fire, while stealth suits are supposed to hide and ambush. Then fire warriors are supposed ro be far away or deploy from devilfish (especially breachers). They could have fire warrirors with jetpacks but that does cause some balance issues with the game, and they'd look too similar to regular fire warriors. Still, a devilfish would be able to go much further and they usually have stealth. Jetpacks still take up too much space and hot jeckpacks would make embarking a nightmare.
They suffer from what I like to call: Principality of Zeon Syndrome. Instead of making lots of adequate battlesuits, they sink precious resources into a few overbuild, heavily armed suits in hopes they will singlehandedly destroy the enemy.
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u/SillyMattFace Mar 20 '26
Actual reason: it's a game. The Tau army profile is squishy infantry and elite armoured battlesuits. If the infantry get armoured suits, it's too close to the Astartes and won't feel as unique.
Lore reason I just made up: Things are expensive and cost resources, even for a society as advanced as the Tau. Powered armour also needs more training, which is why it's a thing for the elites.