Tyranids are scary. The Necrons are scary. Chaos is scary. The Orks are scary. The Dark Eldar are scary. The Imperium is scary.
Nobody is scared by the Eldar, or the Tau.
How do we make them scary?
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Tyranids are scary. The Necrons are scary. Chaos is scary. The Orks are scary. The Dark Eldar are scary.
I don't think there's much you even COULD do
Both of them are fairly well explored, their motives are basically out in the open, there's little secretive about either faction other than le advanced Eldar tech
Like, I play and still enjoy 40k ttrpgs, and it's impressive even to me that 40k has kept alive for so long by adding next to nothing, elaborating on everything, and despite the increasing absence of any mystery whatsoever, retained fans and in fact grown
>the Eldar, or the Tau.
>How do we make them scary?
Give them huge dicks.
>captcha: 2ADAY
At least.
I bet I could write a story of a lone imperial guardsman trying to sneak his way back to friendly lines while trying to avoid roaming tau forces.
and ending with execution for desertion?
Or shot as a spy
yes
The Imperium is only scary to the tau and imperial citizens
>Get discovered by the Imperium
>First, they throw endless legions of Imperial Guardsmen at you, an endless sea of soldiers as far as the horizon stretches, an endless tide of green filled with screaming soldiers so numerous that you don't have the ammo to kill them all.
>Then comes the monsters, the Space Marines and Ogryn and Dreadnoughts, mutant cybernetic abominations that twist the flesh and are beyond understanding
>Then comes the metal monstrosities, towering titans as big as mountains, capable of levelling cities with a single shot, and creating earthquakes with every step
>And if all of that somehow fails, they'll simply call upon their space leviathans, enormous cities with entire populations all of their own that will blow the entire planet apart piece by piece until it is unlivable
>And the worst part? Even if you kill trillions of guardsmen, wipe out entire chapters of space marines, destroy a whole legion of titans, and destroy their entire fleet...it'll just be attributed to a rounding error, and they'll send 10 times as many against you in the future
Neither Orks nor the Imperium are scary. Tyranids and Necrons are scary because they are "emotionless". Chaos and Dark Eldar are scary because they do naughty things. Tau and Eldar are just fighting for survival, they don't need to be scary.
>nor the Imperium are scary
The Imperium is scary as frick.
The Imperium is only scary for those in the Imperium.
Nah, the Imperium is scary to pretty much everyone except maybe the Necrons and Tyranids.
Orks are not scared of the Imperium, neither are Dark Eldar, neither are Chaos, even the Tau canonically are not afraid of the Imperium. The only thing scared of the Imperium are their citizens.
>the Tau canonically are not afraid of the Imperium
that is horseshit
when the Tau learned even a fraction of the true scale of the human empire that they butted up against when they expanding, they were scared shitless
Then why haven't they killed themselves yet?
dunno man
why haven't you?
Tyranids are also scary because their true numbers are not known, and who the frick knows how big they are. They are also the only threat thats come from outside the galaxy
Why would you care if Tau or Eldar are scary? Tau can be scary in the right mindset, the same way Americans claim anyone who gives a crap about poor people is secretly the antichrist, Imperial citizens might see the Tau as people with fancy promises and to hide dark intentions. Eldar are extremely alien and weird, and they've been known to unleash massive violence with no regard for humans whatsoever.
You have to be scary to be respected.
Not really, the Tau are an actively expanding empire that's practically prospering despite circumstances, and the Eldar have the best tech and hottest b***hes in the 'verse. Rather or not they're scary, the Imperium would hate them either way.
>t. Russian
Please don't lump that Black person with us
>t. actually russian
You can'teasily without changing their fundamental identity which I wish would happen.
I think a small change could be to make their annexing of other other races more forceful and while appealing on the surface, in reality far more oppressive than it currently is. essentially turning smaller auxiliaries into pets on the tau empire: well looked after, but zero freedom, zero say in the empire, sterilized and largely used as cannonfodder and a meat shield.
Tau aren't meant to be scary to the audiance, they're meant to be scary to the Imperium since they are everything the imperium is not.
>Not technological stagnant
>Tau society supports the leadership of the etheral caste
and not divided amongst lots of different power structures like the Imperium is
>Uses minor xenos as allies and auxiliaries to complement their weaknesses and doesnt exterminate them
>Said xeno mercs are also the imperiums chickens coming home to roost, xenophobia and genocide has led to many races hell bent on its destruction which could have been avoided
The Tau are already scary since they're expanding and have already thrown back Imperial battlegroups
I think make the Tau alliances to other xenos forceful and sinister is a mistake. Should be a 'coalition of the willing' type deal not enslaved labour
To me, a setting where everything HAS to be grimdark isn't very grimdark at all since it ends up justifying all the evil and makes the Imperium come across as good guys. I think the idea that the Tau represent, that the 'necessary evils' of the Imperium aren't necessary at all, is a vital and necessary component of the setting for it to be truly grimdark, cause then it adds the finishing touch onto the Imperium's suffering...that it's all ultimately pointless.
>justifying all the evil
That's what makes it grimdark, that being that evil is necessary to survive. When you have another faction that gets their cake and eats it too, it just makes humanity look idiotic, not grimdark.
>Should be a 'coalition of the willing' type deal not enslaved labour
The question was "how do we make them scary", a coalition of the "willing" is the complete opposite of that. Its fine if you don't agree with that, but that's beside the point.
I just fundemenally disagree that the Tau should be scary, thats not their niche or design philospohy. But to be on topic we could treat them like the necrons, this unknowable xeno force in coalition with many other xenos, co-ordinating xeno attacks across the imperium to seemgly build their own empire. Reverse the naive tau part and make the imperium naive about the Tau while the Tau thanks to their xeno allies who have fought the imperium for a long time, know all about the Imperium and how exactly it functions
They've dabbled in it, but not only is it still not remotely grimdark compared to everyone else, it waters down their style. It's kicking a puppy in a setting where everyone else is running automated puppy grinders.
>sterilizing producers of future workforce
moronic take
Eldar are scary as frick. They are all artists and poets and such, until they go to war. Then they all don new killer personas and being led into battle by warrior priests who have become stuck in theirs and now only know war. They take the souls of their dead and put them into warmachines who need to be led and guided by the living eldar since all they otherwise see is darkness. Cherry on top, they even sacrifice one of their own to awaken a demon of carnage, war and destruction to lead them.
Couldn't have said it better.
No, CWE aren't ugly, or unnecessarily cruel like their cousins. But they are a genetically engineered warrior race with an alien mind that will crush hundreds of planets just to save one soul of theirs. In the best cases, they are cold, melancholic, distant and far beyond you. In the worst case scenarios, they sing of blood and war and dedicate their entire being to that.
>But they are a genetically engineered warrior race with an alien mind that will crush hundreds of planets just to save one soul of theirs.
This would work for them if they weren't constantly getting killed left and right. When they are, it makes them just look like impotent arseholes.
I always felt like they are supposed to be cold, distant, alien, melancholic and unsettling
make everything else goofy. Oh wait, it already is...
you have a problem with strong powerful space dwarves, chudster?
Write stories of Tau launching stealth remora drones, combat drones and seeker missiles from Tigersharks to terrorize IG forces.
Use Kroots and Vespids to eat Guardsmen for breakfast.
Non-Dark Eldars are only scary as playing poker with your life-savings on the stake against a guy that you don't know can read your mind.
Tau are only as scary as being subjugated by a foreign culture.
Give the Tau something similar to the eldar gods,with avatar and all,but they are streghthen by the actions of the Tau instead of their emotions,like every time they win a war,they make their war god stronger,also a god of science for the earth caste would be cool too!
With their actions,i mean,their collective actions,like,you wanna explain why Farsight didn't fall completely to Khorne,let's say a hypothetical Tau Sigmar give all the strenght that he was reserving from other Tau victories,because he liked Farsight a lot because he's also the Tau God of those who want freedom
The Etherals came from out of nowhere and are suspected to be doing the bidding of another being. The mystery is scarier than revealing it to be any cartoony god. Once they reveal the mystery it will be a midiclorian situation all over again where all the intrigue and allure is replaced by bad gobbledyasiatic.
Eldar are already scary in the ghost ninja sense common in fiction - you have no idea they were there even as they metaphorically garotte wire your friend in the other room and you never hear from them again or know what did it. This is how 99% of Eldar operations work, they're just not given much deep level focus for obvious reasons.
Tau aren't meant to be scary outside of combat. In combat fighting the Tau as Imperials is to suffer constant sniper anxiety where you or your friend's head could disappear or your entire convoy could be missiled and not only are you incapable of doing anything about it, but can't realistically catch the guy who did it. While the Imperials' superior numbers inevitably can force the Tau into a box the treck to get there is nothing but loss after loss by sniper or smart artillery while you spend the rest of the month walking.
Neither are scary. Only the Dark Eldar are in any sense intimidating. Craftworld Eldar are pussies, Exodites are Amish and can't do shit, and Tau cheer about beating the Imperium in Damocles and they were little more than skirmishes in Imperial statistics.
Oh if you're talking about overall large-scale power on the map then yeah the Tau aren't a spooky faction. Craftworld Eldar still remain scary because of how important they are to the setting even without the numbers due to how cleverly they can put down their hands - as a reminder if it weren't for the Eldar the Imperium would've been dead millennia ago, they effectively use Humanity as meatshields and are good at it too.
>imperium would've been dead without eldar
0/10.
So Guilliman isn't important? Good to know.
The scary part of the Tau isn't how strong they are now, it's that they're growing stronger at a ridiculous pace and the Imperium can't do shit about it because they're busy elsewhere. The first Damocles Crusade was fought to a stalemate - the Second Damocles Crusade, which was only a few hundred years later, was much bigger and had its ass beat. The next Crusade will have to be much bigger than the Second to even stand a chance and the next one after that much much bigger to obtain the same result, all while the Imperium is actively becoming less and less capable of martialling forces.
Why are you trying to make the two most Human factions in the setting scary? They're literally there for people who don't want to play psychos or killdroids.
Eldar can do Galadriel-style freakouts, especially if they are Farseers. Tau are just CCP so it's about control.
Eldar are psychos though, they just control themselves
Good guys aren't scary
>The Orks are scary
Orks are not scary. They are goofy as frick.
You'll have a much much harder time making those goof-balls look scary than the effort it'll take with the eldar or tau.
I agree with you're overall post thou.
>not afraid of people that can literally see the future, can mess with your mind and is faster than a blink of an eye
>not afraid of an insidious civilization that with a flick of the fingers can convert an entire planet to its ideology and that has evolved to surpass most of humanity's current technological development in barely 5,000 years
not being afraid of them is a fool's stance
The only reason the Eldar and Tau still exist is because the Imperium hasn't bothered in give them any serious attention yet. Any actual effort to destroy them would see the both of them wiped out.
Sure, but such resources are needed elsewhere. Chaos, Tyranids, Orks adn Necrons are helluva more dangerous and demand most of the Imperium's attention.
Also, the Eldar and the Tau can work with the Imperium here and there, since they are the 2 most civilized races around (don't tell the Necrons I've said that). They can be used as tools by the Imperium, so why destroy them (for now)?
Destroying the Eldar is easier said than done because you would have to find them first.
Slaanesh is constantly hunting Eldar and either attacking them directly or directing other factions against them, and yet there are still plenty of craftworlds left
>even the Tau canonically are not afraid of the Imperium
depends what source you use
>neither are Chaos
the individual cults and subfactions often are though
also you forgot the many d-list xenos who are afraid of being genocided
I don't get how the Eldar aren't, considering. how dangerous they are in the games.
>Craftworld Eldar
Stop making them a punching bag and instead play to their strengths, and ditch the "dying race" aspect.
So:
>Dying Race -> Declined Empire
Instead of presenting them as "Craftworld Eldar are dying out and can't stop it", present them as "Craftworld Eldar are greatly diminished from their former power". They're not a dying power, their population is slowly regrowing and they get more powerful the more dead souls they accumulate anyways (more wraith troops, maybe it makes their starships stronger, or more resistant to Chaos, whatever). True, they're no longer at the apex of their power, and far from it, but what they have is still formidable, and they are rebuilding & becoming more of a threat over time.
>stop making them a punching bag
This one's simple. Stop making "killing an Avatar" something everyone does. Stop using them as a cannon fodder race. When they show up, everyone should be shitting their pants - not because they're gonna do horrific shit like Dark Eldar or Chaos will, but because they're the best warriors in the galaxy and it's very unlikely you'll beat them. And instead of the Eldar constantly getting their Craftworlds sacked or whatever, it should be more the case that the Craftworlds are nearly impossible to catch (because they're fricking starships guided by the best precognitives in the galaxy, not only should locating and chasing them be impossible, it turns out the Craftworld knew everywhere you were going to go and evaded it all) and even harder to assault.
>play to their strengths
They're an agile, highly precognitive race with superb manoeuvre warfare capabilities and the oldest psychic traditions in the galaxy. They should be running rings around their enemies. Craftworld Eldar show up, kick ass, accomplish their goals with ease, disappear. And then half the time even when they aren't present and other factions are fighting, it turns out they were manipulated into an outcome that benefits some Craftworld or other.