Big changes:
As I'm sure I don't have to tell you, 5th edition was mech edition. Everything you took was aimed to take down vehicles. Melta suicide squads, Long Wolf Missile spam, the works. For the Tau, a big part of that was maxing out on Missile Pods. However, 6th edition has changed the game quite a bit in regards to vehicles; not only can they never score (save that one mission), they can't contest. They also have taken huge hits to durability. While in 5th landing a glancing hit was nothing to write home about, now it chips off a third of the health of most vehicles.
So what does all this mean? First and foremost, it means vehicles are going to be less prevalent. We need to switch over to a larger focus on anti-infantry firepower. Other armies may be focusing on this through packing plasma guns where they can and making use of weapons like bolters and lasguns. Luckily, we excel at anti-infantry naturally, having a plethora of S5 options. That brings us to...
The Humble Stealth Suit |
Now things are different. While you could make the comparison that a TL-Burst Cannon/Black Sun Filter Crisis Suit would just be a better Stealth Suit (gaining a wound, a toughness, and a Twin-linked weapon for only 10 points more), Stealth Suits now have two excellent USRs thanks to the FAQ; Stealth and Shrouded. Shrouded increases your cover save by 2 points, while Stealth does the same by one point. This works even in the open, meaning if you would normally have no cover, Stealth Suits go from nothing to 5+, then from 5+ to 4+. Behind the weakest cover, they have 3+ cover saves. Behind the majority of cover, they go down to 2+ cover saves. 2+ cover saves. That's a huge deal. We all know that Tau are masters of obscuring themselves using their own units or terrain. Combine this with the new Stealth Suits and you have huge saves.
Furthermore, Stealth Suits make efficient vehicle hunters via Deepstrike or Outflanking in this edition, even without a melta. A full squad of Stealths shooting at AV10 get on average 1.5 Penetrating hits and 1.5 Glances... enough to drop a vehicle with the standard 3 hull points. While this may seem like little, it makes them something your opponent has to watch for and adjust for, and with the Stealth Generator giving us a 2+ cover saves, it makes them a difficult to crack force. Not to mention that they can still act their original role of dicing through infantry models. Unfortunately, we lose out on the old Stealth Field rules to get these bonuses, but this is a decent enough trade-off in my opinion.
I can see Stealth Suits being a much bigger part of the game.