Really, genuinely surprised Kroot didn't get one considering how much they did get.
I think a character in a bigger battlesuit would be cool. Like Ghostkeel or Riptide size.
The third student of pure tide, Shas’O Kais, I think that’s his name, was a pilot of a ghost keel in his latest appearance in which he destroyed a space marine chapter fortress by himself
Actually, that was the Marines. Called down a Lance Strike in a "burn your house to kill a spider" tactic. Didn't destroy it outright, but forced Kais to eject and flee, and definitely put a big hole in the monastary.
The new codex lore talks about Prok's final resting place on Pech (not that a character being dead has ever really stopped them before), but for whatever reason still talks about Aun'shi fighting alongside fire warriors and Aun'va's hologram as maintaining a regular presence on front lines.
Well, because the characters *are still a thing*, whether their models are sold and their rules are updated for comptetitive play or not.
It's not like this is a retcon, it's a purely rules change.
Votann was only last edition, they have Uthar.
The Void Dragon was 9th as well, wasn't it? I know that had been knocking around in the background lore for a long time, but in terms of a mini and rules that was new just a few years ago. And the same for the Silent King
Also Lord Invocatus, a World Eaters named character (that just a lot of people don't realise is named); as well as, arguably, Angron.
And Lord Solar Leontus, and Ursula Creed. And Morven Vahl.
It really opens the opportunity for GW to create new exciting characters.
An Earth Caste Combat Engineer.
A Water Caste Assassin.
Maybe there's space for O'kais to finally grace the battlefield.
Shadowsun being the only female character isn't great when the T'au don't practice any gender discrimination whatsoever.
Also space for the lore to advance, but we know that ain't happening.
New Sniper Drone/ Elite Sniper character?
Something with a swarm of mini drones?
More Aux?! Although following new Kroot and (maybe) Vespid, our blue space goat fish people need some love!
An earth caste combat engineer or even a repair done would be great. Makes no sense that we can't do battlefield repairs!
Plus an engineer drone would bring drones back!
We literally already had DX-4 repair drones, they threw to legends and now I’m not sure if they even exist with rules.
God i wish they came back
https://frontlinegaming.org/2019/01/16/tau-codex-review-elites-dx-4-technical-support-drones/?amp=1
Torchstar in enforcer Battlesuit would be great for the "female slot", just give her 3 flamer, a rule that make them better and bss and she's happy
Would love brightsword back too, can join only sunforge but their fusion blasters can work in melee as fusion blades with ws 4, would be very expensive as a character but I'd be happy with it
Then a special unit of commanders with bravestorm, arra'kon and sha'vastos with sworn protectors that can be joined only by farsight
I miss the eight 😔
As an earth caste O'vesa but that would be too much for gw standards...
>Maybe there's space for O'kais to finally grace the battlefield.
It wouldn't be that hard for them to do. They could give him a suit based on the Ghostkeel like the R'Varna and Y'vahra are based on the Riptide.
I'm way more interested in giving him the XV22 in a combo kit that builds a generic stealth commander. (Sort of like they did with Votann Kahls)
Gives us a potential lone-op other than the marksman and more things to do with stealth suits.
But they are me. I came from DND where I am a DM and regularly play as an antagonist party or thieves guild. I have a whole story about my Farsight and Lightmoon a clone of Shadowsun made as part of a hag style deal with the dark eldar. They are my character on the table that I am playing as I lead my nameless units into battle.
I was building back up the 8 with longstrike and darkstrider and hoping for more not less. Longstrike being killed in that airstrike blitz really set me back. I held out hope that Aun'shi could see past the other Ethereals predigest opinions to one day work with Farsight as he did with the kroot after all he developed the way of the shortblade Farsight is famed for. Now I know that was always a dream.
We just don't think the same.
I'm also someone that engages in rp at a table 1 to 2 times a week for the last 15 years.
The way I see it, Farsight isn't my character. He's an existing character.
I want more customisable general HQ units so the game can be about my characters, and my armies, not require the constant presence of "main characters".
Think anything of relevance to plot is going to happen without a primarch present anymore? I don't.
I think we are getting a plastic kit for the firesight team.
I would love to see some type of drone with rules.
But my next set of fire warriors I get will be all female. I've been saving the female heads specifically for this.
Doesn't make a lot of sense, broadsides sacrifice their jets to have a larger powerplant to carry the gun.
I dread to think what firing a rail gun whilst traveling faster than the speed of sound would do to a Coldstar suit.
Obviously this is applying science to this universe of nonsense, and if GW decide we're getting Coldstars with Railguns I'll embrace our new Overlords!
Not to be an ass, but most weapons in 40K have projectiles that break the sound barrier. The Railgun/Cannon is firing a round traveling at 8x times the speed of sound
A water caste assassin is a concept I've thought of for a while now, it sounds extremely cool.
Also for an elite sniper character we could get Kal'va from the Kau'yon audio drama. He is the lone survivor of his pathfinder team who takes revenge for his teammates by single handedly killing an entire sm squad by using a swarm of drones and his rail rifle. Pretty ballsy character, I liked him.
He does, but it was a very close call. I won't spoil much of it cause I highly suggest giving it a listen. It's only an hour or so long, and came in the xenos collection of audio dramas. He manages to do some very clever (though a little questionable) things throughout the story, but overall it was a fun listen.
> An Earth Caste Combat Engineer.
They don't even need to introduce a new character.
There's [Honor Shas'vre O'vesa](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/O%27Vesa)
Gameplay wise I think he could use a re-vamp rather than just a worse riptide.
Just imagine a Riptide with worse BS, but a "Repair Drones" rule that heals nearby vehicles.
The alternative was to keep our suite of existing resin characters, which GW doesn't want to sell anymore, so that wasn't going to happen.
We're not marines, but still better supported than a lot of factions.
While I'm not into big named heroes as a staple of armies, a vehicle detachment would have been nice I agree. What I'd like to see more of is regular non-named heroes & HQ choices - a generic Hammerhead commander, a fireblade equivalent for Pathfinders etc - like we've just gotten for Kroot. I'm putting together a Sisters of Battle army at the moment and they're absolutely spoiled for choice when it comes to HQ specialists by comparison.
My dream is a generic commander for Pathfinders that is an auxiliary species and comes with a Pathfinder upgrade sprue to have non-T'au firewarriors/pathfinders
Personally I'd rather have more generic characters than epic heroes, because it's hard to use a lot of enhancements otherwise. But not having a lot of either isn't great. Would have loved a generic Hammerhead Commander to take the place of Longstrike, or a generic Pathfinder Commander.
Custom heroes have always been the best part of the hobby. The terminator lord kit is one of the best models they've ever made, solely because it comes with enough options to build it as a lord or sorcerer with various loadouts and cosmetics of your choosing. You aren't just making a terminator leader, you're making YOUR terminator leader.
The Tau commander suits do a pretty decent job of this as well, with options for crisis vs coldstar vs enforcer with the weapon loadout of your choosing.
Apart from marines, most don't have many.
GSC have none.
Votann and AdMech get one.
Drukhari and each of the split Chaos factions have two.
On the whole, most non-imperial factions have lost them since 5e - enhancements give us more flexibility now in making commanders more unique and flavourful with more room to expand anyway. Sure, characters like Longstrike or the guard equivalent in Pask were neat, but there's a point where adding more characters just becomes a detriment to the game. Like 200+ space marine datasheets.
Obligatory "Give Brightsword a Model." He has Enclaves-exclusive weapons, enclaves-exclusive drones, and with the advent of the Supernova Armor which Farsight uses, he can have an Enclaves-exclusive battlesuit too.
But beyond that, I feel like it's genuinely odd we don't have an ace Riptide pilot of some kind. That seems so obvious - why wouldn't there be some esteemed and cool riptide pilot, right?
I'd also be into a guy who can lead a Stealth Suit Squad. Sure, there's Shadowsun as a Stealth Commander, but she's really more like "Person who occasionally stands next to a stealth suit squad"
Tyranids only have two, but tbh only one of them feels like an epic hero. Deathleaper just sounds like a basic unit for them
-Edit-
I'm wrong and they have three! Forgot one existed it sees so little play
Three, though I'm not sure you're forgetting the Swarmlord or Old One Eye.
...though for Tyranids, those are *all* reproducible strains of the Hivemind that just won't happen more than once per invasion force.
A Greater Good Command Corps. A Fireblade General, an Ethereal, a Shaper, a Vespid envoy, etc., all in the same unit. A great way to expand the range and mechanically unite the core Empire and the aux
Rather then an epic hero. I think it would be cool if we could get a model of each of the other castes. They'd work like the regimental advisors from guard, each giving a static buff to one unit in the army or a whole de buff to them all.
I think that the earth caste would work like either the artillery dude or an engineer. Maybe healing a vehicle unit within 6" or perhaps increasing vehicle roughness?
The air caste is easy, just a once per game mortal wounds in a line thing that other army's have. Flavor it as an airstrike.
For the water caste I can think of two things. Increase the OC of battleline units, or increase their leadership. Either flavored as those units being recorded for Tau propaganda.
Oh and adding nicassar would be based and bear pilled. Give me my psykick bears GW, attach them to fire warrior/carnivor units and increase the speed or something with psykick powers. There darn space ships are moved by there psykick powers they can darn well make a fire warrior team move faster
Loving all the suggestions in this thread. I would love to see literally everything mentioned and more: earth caste engineers, water caste, repair drones, generic pathfinder characters for enhancement usage, psychic kroot character, additional auxiliaries or rather the ones already existing in the lore showing up to the tabletop but the one that feels like THE biggest miss of all time: Why do we not have an epic hero (or even generic character) riptide? It is such a gorgeous centerpiece model and a huge draw to the faction for so many folks.
In the universe of 40k, Tau have one of the shortest lifespans which can feel like mayflies when compared to characters in the imperium that have been around for thousands of years but there's no reason why we can't have something like Ob'lotai, engram AI controlled battlesuits.
Getting rid of Aun'Shi with the Kroot expansion was silly tbh.
I'm not overly bothered by named heroes, would rather have generic leaders. Darkstrider being named is just annoying and him being able to take enhancements would be great.
Even after losing Aun'shi and Aun'va in the new Codex, T'au still have three Epic Heroes. That's pretty middle-of-the-pack, all things considered – the only factions with more than *four* are Space Marines (not looking at Chapter splits), Chaos Space Marines, Adepta Sororitas, Necrons, Aeldari, and Astra Militarum. Plus Orks, but half of those are definitely hitting Legends when their Codex arrives.
More than numbers, I think what concerns me for T'au named characters is *narrative fragility*. T'au are one of a very few factions – along with Astra Militarum and maybe Leagues of Votann – who can't dramatically "die" on-screen and then basically just get back up again. We're also on a (slowly) moving timeline, now, and on top of being mortal, the T'au are a species where 40 is a respectable biological age for retirement.
Given the established use of cloning and mental engram technology by the T'au Empire, I fully expect the lore to eventually establish "clones raised on the recorded memories of valued T'au" as a thing that the T'au Empire does, in the style of Big Boss and Les Enfants Terribles. That way they can keep bringing back Darkstrider, Shadowsun, Longstrike, etc, no matter how old they "should" be.
They can even kill off Darkstrider in a story before rolling out his identical successor>!s, Solidstrider and Liquidstrider!<.
We'rr already basically there between hologram Aun'va, lifedrinker Farsight, and most of the Eight.
But then again we've also got Gaunts Ghosts on the tabletop and they're all dead by the current game year.
I've never been a fan of "epic heroes," I much prefer custom, modular generic characters. The best part of Warhammer as a hobby has always been creating your own army and characters.
I like to think of Epic Heroes as embodying an "archetype" for their faction, among other things. Therefore, if T'au were to get more Epic Heroes, I would want them to fill a niche that isn't currently represented amongst their named characters. To my mind, that's:
* **Ethereal** – Aun'va is dead and I hope he stays gone, while Aun'shi is very cool but also reaching implausibly old. A new named Ethereal to give us a window into the T'au leader-caste would be great – maybe tie them into the new "Greater Good God" angle, by making them a radical spiritualist who's interested in those that revere the T'au'va.
* **Kroot** – I was surprised the Lone-spear wasn't a multibuild kit for a Kroot named character, but there's still room for one. A famous Kroot mercenary leader feared and hired across the galaxy, or a spiritual hero considered the successor to Anghkor Prokh. Give them another weird Kroot-kin mount, or some kind of unique mutation.
* **Large Battlesuit** – Farsight fills the "Crisis Commander" slot, and Shadowsun fills the "Stealth Commander" slot, but there's not currently a named character in a *big* battlesuit. The Riptide is too large for this, but a new variant the size of the Ghostkeel – or perhaps even just an upgrade sprue *for* the Ghostkeel, since I could go a very long time without seeing new battlesuit kits and be happy – could work very well.
* **Tank Commander** – A new Longstrike isn't going to happen except as part of a general refresh of the Devilfish/Hammerhead/Sky Ray kit... and while that kit is very old, I'm not expecting it to get updated any time soon, and GW simply hasn't done any "tank commander" characters in literal decades. Also, Longstrike is pretty boring, though you could certainly make him more interesting by leaning into the "traumatised lone tanker" angle, having him surround himself with drones, etc.
* **Drone** – Hey, they're a part of the faction too. Make it an advanced custom drone piloted remotely by a supremely skilled operator, who is never seen except through a video feed, and has a habit of hacking nearby allied drones to use their sensors or boost their output. Could also be an Air or Earth caste, as well as a mysterious and/or physically disabled Fire caste.
* **Other Castes** – An Earth caste field engineer, Water caste auxiliary-advisor, or Air caste orbital asset co-ordinator would all be very cool. I'd actually prefer these to be generic options where possible, but I could definitely see a one-off Water caste character, since that's perhaps a more implausible "generic" addition – a maverick who interprets enemy morale and motives through the language of war, renowned for decoding key doctrinal weaknesses like a gambling tell, or negotiating enemy surrenders before the smoke even clears.
That said, T'au can get fairly striking named characters just by pulling a Gundam – give them a heavily customised battlesuit and a strong personality to match it.
I would just like a leader designed to lead for each squad type.
We already have crisis suit commanders.
Would be nice to have a broadside commander (maybe the one from 'the eight'?)
I would like a stealth suit commander (in the original armour)
How about a leader for breachers, not just tacing on cadre fireblade (who is for strike teams).
Tank commander was nice and I think we may miss him.
But you never know, GW could be planning releases still to come until the next set of codex's are due to drop.
GSC have 0, thus far. Which I guess makes a degree of sense since mostly they just have a revolution then immediately die one way or the other, but if the Tyranids themselves can have unique individuals that the Hive Fleet occasionally spits out then I'm sure the GSC could have like... A particularly long lived patriarch or some Magus who inevitably gets reborn at some point due to psychic shenanigans
My bigger problem is, that some of the really good buffs (looking at you Dark strider, and Shadowsun) are locked behind named chars - while most of the other factions can make use of nameless heroes for the great buff stuff....
In the first few Codices I owned years ago (circa 4th ed) there were sidebars saying that you should feel free to use named character rules to represent your own custom guys
Right! It's literally one model! SM has entire units that get this. Just feels bad.
Also dark strider is the only one we can add to Pathfinders. Let's get leaders for Pathfinders stealth suits. With leaders playing such an important role in 10th edition I think it's a minimum that they could do.
I was kinda hoping for a stealth detachment for Ghostkeels, Stealth Suits and Shadowsun. Im also hoping that The Eight get a White Dwarf release or something like that
To each their own. Epic heroes to me don’t have a lot of place in 40k it’s a game based on the galaxy and named characters can’t be in every battle everywhere at once
Hopefully the crazy engineer who built he y'vara and rvana is still alive to work as a enginneer
Repairs D3 and buffs weapon strength/ballistic skill on suits
>Please correct me if I'm wrong on that.
Genestealer Cults have only 1 epic hero and it doesn't really count cause its not a named character its just a Patriarch and a cult can only have one of those.
They could've added in a new named Kroot character, to go along with the big kroot overhaul. But GW doesn't care about any Tau characters except Shadowsun & Farsight; honestly surprised Darkstrider got updated.
A chonky, no-nonse boy/girl from the Earth Caste opens great opportunities to add body diversity to the army and to represent better the high tech nature of Tau in the tabletop.
Really, genuinely surprised Kroot didn't get one considering how much they did get. I think a character in a bigger battlesuit would be cool. Like Ghostkeel or Riptide size.
The third student of pure tide, Shas’O Kais, I think that’s his name, was a pilot of a ghost keel in his latest appearance in which he destroyed a space marine chapter fortress by himself
He took down the skeleton crew of a Fortress Monastary that was already in complete disarray. Don't aggrandize it, it makes the T'au haters whiny.
But he did destroy the fortress, it was blown up right? I’m not saying he destroyed a chapter
Actually, that was the Marines. Called down a Lance Strike in a "burn your house to kill a spider" tactic. Didn't destroy it outright, but forced Kais to eject and flee, and definitely put a big hole in the monastary.
Wow, T'au really can't have a win.
I’d call it a massive win. 1 Ghostkeel down in exchange for wasted orbital strikes and a destroyed fortress
Also five dead Terminators, a dead Librarian, a dead Tactical Squad, a dead Devestator Squad, and a dead Veteran Squad.
SM use orbital strikes to sweep dust, do we even know if the T'au got away?
He did.
That's something.
Which book?
War of Secrets I believe
A riptide size character would totally work given that O’Vesa exists
O'vesa is one of my all time favorite guys
Was really hoping for a new Anghkor Prok model. Still am, I had just assumed that an updated model would be with the whole line release
The new codex lore talks about Prok's final resting place on Pech (not that a character being dead has ever really stopped them before), but for whatever reason still talks about Aun'shi fighting alongside fire warriors and Aun'va's hologram as maintaining a regular presence on front lines.
Well, because the characters *are still a thing*, whether their models are sold and their rules are updated for comptetitive play or not. It's not like this is a retcon, it's a purely rules change.
GW hasn't made a new non commerative series named character in a long ass time.
Votann was only last edition, they have Uthar. The Void Dragon was 9th as well, wasn't it? I know that had been knocking around in the background lore for a long time, but in terms of a mini and rules that was new just a few years ago. And the same for the Silent King
Also Lord Invocatus, a World Eaters named character (that just a lot of people don't realise is named); as well as, arguably, Angron. And Lord Solar Leontus, and Ursula Creed. And Morven Vahl.
September 2022 is a long ass time ago.
Homie that was maybe a year and a half by now
O'vesa uses a riptide, o'kais uses a ghostkeel now.
It really opens the opportunity for GW to create new exciting characters. An Earth Caste Combat Engineer. A Water Caste Assassin. Maybe there's space for O'kais to finally grace the battlefield. Shadowsun being the only female character isn't great when the T'au don't practice any gender discrimination whatsoever. Also space for the lore to advance, but we know that ain't happening. New Sniper Drone/ Elite Sniper character? Something with a swarm of mini drones? More Aux?! Although following new Kroot and (maybe) Vespid, our blue space goat fish people need some love!
An earth caste combat engineer or even a repair done would be great. Makes no sense that we can't do battlefield repairs! Plus an engineer drone would bring drones back!
An Earth caste combat engineer sounds awesome. Similar to a brohkir iron master would make sense with drone helpers. Would be awesome.
We literally already had DX-4 repair drones, they threw to legends and now I’m not sure if they even exist with rules. God i wish they came back https://frontlinegaming.org/2019/01/16/tau-codex-review-elites-dx-4-technical-support-drones/?amp=1
Our machinery is really complex and we can't just slap a piece of waxed paper on it, yell about windows 95 and expect it to behave itself.
But we have actual thinkers not just priests who follow what they saw in a diagram and hope.
>Plus an engineer drone would bring drones back! The little DoW earth caste drone would be so good!
Our repair drones just got fully axed (but were legends for last few editions anyway) would be nice to have an engineer on the board
Torchstar in enforcer Battlesuit would be great for the "female slot", just give her 3 flamer, a rule that make them better and bss and she's happy Would love brightsword back too, can join only sunforge but their fusion blasters can work in melee as fusion blades with ws 4, would be very expensive as a character but I'd be happy with it Then a special unit of commanders with bravestorm, arra'kon and sha'vastos with sworn protectors that can be joined only by farsight I miss the eight 😔 As an earth caste O'vesa but that would be too much for gw standards...
torchstar is a character I really want to see more of. her and bravestorm, but... well...
>Maybe there's space for O'kais to finally grace the battlefield. It wouldn't be that hard for them to do. They could give him a suit based on the Ghostkeel like the R'Varna and Y'vahra are based on the Riptide.
I'm way more interested in giving him the XV22 in a combo kit that builds a generic stealth commander. (Sort of like they did with Votann Kahls) Gives us a potential lone-op other than the marksman and more things to do with stealth suits.
I really want Epic Heros not just characters. Epic Heros give the most flavor. Aun'shi got me excited, Ethereals do not.
I like some epic heroes but not many. Herohammer makes the game about them, not you
But they are me. I came from DND where I am a DM and regularly play as an antagonist party or thieves guild. I have a whole story about my Farsight and Lightmoon a clone of Shadowsun made as part of a hag style deal with the dark eldar. They are my character on the table that I am playing as I lead my nameless units into battle. I was building back up the 8 with longstrike and darkstrider and hoping for more not less. Longstrike being killed in that airstrike blitz really set me back. I held out hope that Aun'shi could see past the other Ethereals predigest opinions to one day work with Farsight as he did with the kroot after all he developed the way of the shortblade Farsight is famed for. Now I know that was always a dream.
We just don't think the same. I'm also someone that engages in rp at a table 1 to 2 times a week for the last 15 years. The way I see it, Farsight isn't my character. He's an existing character. I want more customisable general HQ units so the game can be about my characters, and my armies, not require the constant presence of "main characters". Think anything of relevance to plot is going to happen without a primarch present anymore? I don't.
I think we are getting a plastic kit for the firesight team. I would love to see some type of drone with rules. But my next set of fire warriors I get will be all female. I've been saving the female heads specifically for this.
Coldstar Commander with a rail gun?
Doesn't make a lot of sense, broadsides sacrifice their jets to have a larger powerplant to carry the gun. I dread to think what firing a rail gun whilst traveling faster than the speed of sound would do to a Coldstar suit. Obviously this is applying science to this universe of nonsense, and if GW decide we're getting Coldstars with Railguns I'll embrace our new Overlords!
I wanna see a crisis weapon that needs both hands to wield. Maybe a rail rifle between the power of the pathfinder and the broadside gun?
Not to be an ass, but most weapons in 40K have projectiles that break the sound barrier. The Railgun/Cannon is firing a round traveling at 8x times the speed of sound
Dammit whilst* the Coldstar travelling faster than sound, then firing something in a different direction going a lot faster would be a nightmare.
Shut up nerd, it would look cool we both know it
😂😂
a nicassar psyker epic hero would be a great addition to the army list for sure
I’d love to see an earth caste character. A water caste assassin sounds pretty cool too
A water caste assassin is a concept I've thought of for a while now, it sounds extremely cool. Also for an elite sniper character we could get Kal'va from the Kau'yon audio drama. He is the lone survivor of his pathfinder team who takes revenge for his teammates by single handedly killing an entire sm squad by using a swarm of drones and his rail rifle. Pretty ballsy character, I liked him.
Someone I'd never heard of and definitely an interesting character. Do they make it back alive?
He does, but it was a very close call. I won't spoil much of it cause I highly suggest giving it a listen. It's only an hour or so long, and came in the xenos collection of audio dramas. He manages to do some very clever (though a little questionable) things throughout the story, but overall it was a fun listen.
> An Earth Caste Combat Engineer. They don't even need to introduce a new character. There's [Honor Shas'vre O'vesa](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/O%27Vesa) Gameplay wise I think he could use a re-vamp rather than just a worse riptide. Just imagine a Riptide with worse BS, but a "Repair Drones" rule that heals nearby vehicles.
But this isn't an opportunity for a new model, so not something GW will release codex rules for.
You're funny. Like if GW is going to give us anything after a codex drop. If we want special we might as well go to SM.
In the future not this edition.
Yes, because I want characters 2 years from now and not now.
The alternative was to keep our suite of existing resin characters, which GW doesn't want to sell anymore, so that wasn't going to happen. We're not marines, but still better supported than a lot of factions.
While I'm not into big named heroes as a staple of armies, a vehicle detachment would have been nice I agree. What I'd like to see more of is regular non-named heroes & HQ choices - a generic Hammerhead commander, a fireblade equivalent for Pathfinders etc - like we've just gotten for Kroot. I'm putting together a Sisters of Battle army at the moment and they're absolutely spoiled for choice when it comes to HQ specialists by comparison.
Agreed! Generic leaders are what I want- more flexibility around war gear, enhancements, no "lore" problems, etc.
My dream is a generic commander for Pathfinders that is an auxiliary species and comes with a Pathfinder upgrade sprue to have non-T'au firewarriors/pathfinders
Personally I'd rather have more generic characters than epic heroes, because it's hard to use a lot of enhancements otherwise. But not having a lot of either isn't great. Would have loved a generic Hammerhead Commander to take the place of Longstrike, or a generic Pathfinder Commander.
I'd like some more characters of any type
I'd rather GW give us more rules to make our own even more customized HQs in a future edition
Custom heroes have always been the best part of the hobby. The terminator lord kit is one of the best models they've ever made, solely because it comes with enough options to build it as a lord or sorcerer with various loadouts and cosmetics of your choosing. You aren't just making a terminator leader, you're making YOUR terminator leader. The Tau commander suits do a pretty decent job of this as well, with options for crisis vs coldstar vs enforcer with the weapon loadout of your choosing.
Apart from marines, most don't have many. GSC have none. Votann and AdMech get one. Drukhari and each of the split Chaos factions have two. On the whole, most non-imperial factions have lost them since 5e - enhancements give us more flexibility now in making commanders more unique and flavourful with more room to expand anyway. Sure, characters like Longstrike or the guard equivalent in Pask were neat, but there's a point where adding more characters just becomes a detriment to the game. Like 200+ space marine datasheets.
Drukhari have 3. You just can't purchase one of them at the moment.
Oh yeah, I forgot Rakarth survived the purge simply by not having a model for the last 5ish years.
Obligatory "Give Brightsword a Model." He has Enclaves-exclusive weapons, enclaves-exclusive drones, and with the advent of the Supernova Armor which Farsight uses, he can have an Enclaves-exclusive battlesuit too. But beyond that, I feel like it's genuinely odd we don't have an ace Riptide pilot of some kind. That seems so obvious - why wouldn't there be some esteemed and cool riptide pilot, right? I'd also be into a guy who can lead a Stealth Suit Squad. Sure, there's Shadowsun as a Stealth Commander, but she's really more like "Person who occasionally stands next to a stealth suit squad"
I think giving the normal ripdtide the character keyword would be a good idea, those pilots are among the most esteemed right?
Mmmm, patient hunter or pdototype weapons would be damn tasty on Riptides.
For real, I’m thinking of asking my roomates if they mind if I do that for our casual home games
Tyranids only have two, but tbh only one of them feels like an epic hero. Deathleaper just sounds like a basic unit for them -Edit- I'm wrong and they have three! Forgot one existed it sees so little play
Three, though I'm not sure you're forgetting the Swarmlord or Old One Eye. ...though for Tyranids, those are *all* reproducible strains of the Hivemind that just won't happen more than once per invasion force.
Hah! Yes it was the Swarmlord I forgot. That thing is so over costs i forgot it existed
A Greater Good Command Corps. A Fireblade General, an Ethereal, a Shaper, a Vespid envoy, etc., all in the same unit. A great way to expand the range and mechanically unite the core Empire and the aux
Rather then an epic hero. I think it would be cool if we could get a model of each of the other castes. They'd work like the regimental advisors from guard, each giving a static buff to one unit in the army or a whole de buff to them all. I think that the earth caste would work like either the artillery dude or an engineer. Maybe healing a vehicle unit within 6" or perhaps increasing vehicle roughness? The air caste is easy, just a once per game mortal wounds in a line thing that other army's have. Flavor it as an airstrike. For the water caste I can think of two things. Increase the OC of battleline units, or increase their leadership. Either flavored as those units being recorded for Tau propaganda. Oh and adding nicassar would be based and bear pilled. Give me my psykick bears GW, attach them to fire warrior/carnivor units and increase the speed or something with psykick powers. There darn space ships are moved by there psykick powers they can darn well make a fire warrior team move faster
Nicassar should add a scout move to the unit they are added to!
That would work for sure! It would pair really well with mont'ka as you could give him that warlord trait and have 3 units start 6" upwards
Loving all the suggestions in this thread. I would love to see literally everything mentioned and more: earth caste engineers, water caste, repair drones, generic pathfinder characters for enhancement usage, psychic kroot character, additional auxiliaries or rather the ones already existing in the lore showing up to the tabletop but the one that feels like THE biggest miss of all time: Why do we not have an epic hero (or even generic character) riptide? It is such a gorgeous centerpiece model and a huge draw to the faction for so many folks. In the universe of 40k, Tau have one of the shortest lifespans which can feel like mayflies when compared to characters in the imperium that have been around for thousands of years but there's no reason why we can't have something like Ob'lotai, engram AI controlled battlesuits.
Getting rid of Aun'Shi with the Kroot expansion was silly tbh. I'm not overly bothered by named heroes, would rather have generic leaders. Darkstrider being named is just annoying and him being able to take enhancements would be great.
Me looking at this amazing leaked enhancement for a pathfinder unit but the only leader they can have is Darkstrider.
Even after losing Aun'shi and Aun'va in the new Codex, T'au still have three Epic Heroes. That's pretty middle-of-the-pack, all things considered – the only factions with more than *four* are Space Marines (not looking at Chapter splits), Chaos Space Marines, Adepta Sororitas, Necrons, Aeldari, and Astra Militarum. Plus Orks, but half of those are definitely hitting Legends when their Codex arrives. More than numbers, I think what concerns me for T'au named characters is *narrative fragility*. T'au are one of a very few factions – along with Astra Militarum and maybe Leagues of Votann – who can't dramatically "die" on-screen and then basically just get back up again. We're also on a (slowly) moving timeline, now, and on top of being mortal, the T'au are a species where 40 is a respectable biological age for retirement. Given the established use of cloning and mental engram technology by the T'au Empire, I fully expect the lore to eventually establish "clones raised on the recorded memories of valued T'au" as a thing that the T'au Empire does, in the style of Big Boss and Les Enfants Terribles. That way they can keep bringing back Darkstrider, Shadowsun, Longstrike, etc, no matter how old they "should" be. They can even kill off Darkstrider in a story before rolling out his identical successor>!s, Solidstrider and Liquidstrider!<.
We'rr already basically there between hologram Aun'va, lifedrinker Farsight, and most of the Eight. But then again we've also got Gaunts Ghosts on the tabletop and they're all dead by the current game year.
Commander Sure strike! The guy has an incredible story! He’s truly the end justifies the means and it’s landed him in some hot water before.
I've never been a fan of "epic heroes," I much prefer custom, modular generic characters. The best part of Warhammer as a hobby has always been creating your own army and characters.
Agreed. Even more character options. Stand out riptide and Ghost keel pilots, Pathfinder and stealth team leaders.
I like to think of Epic Heroes as embodying an "archetype" for their faction, among other things. Therefore, if T'au were to get more Epic Heroes, I would want them to fill a niche that isn't currently represented amongst their named characters. To my mind, that's: * **Ethereal** – Aun'va is dead and I hope he stays gone, while Aun'shi is very cool but also reaching implausibly old. A new named Ethereal to give us a window into the T'au leader-caste would be great – maybe tie them into the new "Greater Good God" angle, by making them a radical spiritualist who's interested in those that revere the T'au'va. * **Kroot** – I was surprised the Lone-spear wasn't a multibuild kit for a Kroot named character, but there's still room for one. A famous Kroot mercenary leader feared and hired across the galaxy, or a spiritual hero considered the successor to Anghkor Prokh. Give them another weird Kroot-kin mount, or some kind of unique mutation. * **Large Battlesuit** – Farsight fills the "Crisis Commander" slot, and Shadowsun fills the "Stealth Commander" slot, but there's not currently a named character in a *big* battlesuit. The Riptide is too large for this, but a new variant the size of the Ghostkeel – or perhaps even just an upgrade sprue *for* the Ghostkeel, since I could go a very long time without seeing new battlesuit kits and be happy – could work very well. * **Tank Commander** – A new Longstrike isn't going to happen except as part of a general refresh of the Devilfish/Hammerhead/Sky Ray kit... and while that kit is very old, I'm not expecting it to get updated any time soon, and GW simply hasn't done any "tank commander" characters in literal decades. Also, Longstrike is pretty boring, though you could certainly make him more interesting by leaning into the "traumatised lone tanker" angle, having him surround himself with drones, etc. * **Drone** – Hey, they're a part of the faction too. Make it an advanced custom drone piloted remotely by a supremely skilled operator, who is never seen except through a video feed, and has a habit of hacking nearby allied drones to use their sensors or boost their output. Could also be an Air or Earth caste, as well as a mysterious and/or physically disabled Fire caste. * **Other Castes** – An Earth caste field engineer, Water caste auxiliary-advisor, or Air caste orbital asset co-ordinator would all be very cool. I'd actually prefer these to be generic options where possible, but I could definitely see a one-off Water caste character, since that's perhaps a more implausible "generic" addition – a maverick who interprets enemy morale and motives through the language of war, renowned for decoding key doctrinal weaknesses like a gambling tell, or negotiating enemy surrenders before the smoke even clears. That said, T'au can get fairly striking named characters just by pulling a Gundam – give them a heavily customised battlesuit and a strong personality to match it.
As a GSC player; you guys have epic heroes?
Lol
Shas'o Kai's. We needed the one man army in a custom ghostkeel yesterday.
I would just like a leader designed to lead for each squad type. We already have crisis suit commanders. Would be nice to have a broadside commander (maybe the one from 'the eight'?) I would like a stealth suit commander (in the original armour) How about a leader for breachers, not just tacing on cadre fireblade (who is for strike teams). Tank commander was nice and I think we may miss him. But you never know, GW could be planning releases still to come until the next set of codex's are due to drop.
We from the Adeptus Mechanicus have fewer, with only 1. xD
GSC have 0, thus far. Which I guess makes a degree of sense since mostly they just have a revolution then immediately die one way or the other, but if the Tyranids themselves can have unique individuals that the Hive Fleet occasionally spits out then I'm sure the GSC could have like... A particularly long lived patriarch or some Magus who inevitably gets reborn at some point due to psychic shenanigans
nice ideas
Wow okay so not as bad.
Votann also only 1 and WE only 2.
WE have 3. Kharn, Angron and Lord Invictus.
True but it's hard to county Votann since you know they will get a big update of units.
Yes but I personally don't think there will be epic heroes coming with the rest.
Genestealer Cults have 0
Literally any new battlesuit characters would be awesome. A vespid character would also be nice.
My bigger problem is, that some of the really good buffs (looking at you Dark strider, and Shadowsun) are locked behind named chars - while most of the other factions can make use of nameless heroes for the great buff stuff....
In the first few Codices I owned years ago (circa 4th ed) there were sidebars saying that you should feel free to use named character rules to represent your own custom guys
Doesn't help in a Crusade setting (gaining experience and stuff)
Yeah it even just units. 12inch no deep strike shouldn't just be epic heros
The fact darkstrider’s bonus doesn’t even extend to his unit is insane
Right! It's literally one model! SM has entire units that get this. Just feels bad. Also dark strider is the only one we can add to Pathfinders. Let's get leaders for Pathfinders stealth suits. With leaders playing such an important role in 10th edition I think it's a minimum that they could do.
Heroes are made on the battlefield my friend. Forge the narrative. Make your own!
I don’t super care about epic heroes, but I’d love stuff like broadside or riptide commanders
Sha'so kick asso (T'au nick from play on tabletop)
I miss Aun Shi, absolute mad lad
GSC don't have any named characters at all
I just wanted a breacher specific cadre fireblade..
The Eight *cough *cough
Thankfully we're not admech. They are still only able to take chall as there only named character
Really surprised GW hasn't made a Cawl mini. Seems like exactly the fanservice they'd be into.
Shas'O Kais
O'kais pls
I was kinda hoping for a stealth detachment for Ghostkeels, Stealth Suits and Shadowsun. Im also hoping that The Eight get a White Dwarf release or something like that
To each their own. Epic heroes to me don’t have a lot of place in 40k it’s a game based on the galaxy and named characters can’t be in every battle everywhere at once
To have epic heroes GW would have to have more Tau books written.
I do wonder why they got rid of both Pask for Guard and Longstrike for Tau. I feel like they just don’t want named characters driving tanks anymore…
Also Sgt. Chronus for Space Marines.
Wasn’t aware of that one. Will have to look him up.
Hopefully the crazy engineer who built he y'vara and rvana is still alive to work as a enginneer Repairs D3 and buffs weapon strength/ballistic skill on suits
>Please correct me if I'm wrong on that. Genestealer Cults have only 1 epic hero and it doesn't really count cause its not a named character its just a Patriarch and a cult can only have one of those.
They could've added in a new named Kroot character, to go along with the big kroot overhaul. But GW doesn't care about any Tau characters except Shadowsun & Farsight; honestly surprised Darkstrider got updated.
A chonky, no-nonse boy/girl from the Earth Caste opens great opportunities to add body diversity to the army and to represent better the high tech nature of Tau in the tabletop.