What is the appeal of the Tau?
>Advanced tech
Necrons, Eldar, Mechanicus, and Custodes are more advanced.
>Elite armies
Necrons, Eldar, Custodes, and Space Marines are all more elite.
>Regular Joes
Imperial Guard does it better.
>Mechs
Imperium has bigger mechs and the Imperial Knights have way more mechs.
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The design language and visual aesthetic of the Tau high-tech/mechs is distinct from any of those other factions, and these qualities appeal to the subjective tastes of some people. This is not a quantitative factor that can be assessed in terms of 'more X'.
This would be very obvious if you weren't cripplingly autistic, but it is good that your are trying to expand your understanding. In the future, ask questions like this in the 40k general, rather than clogging the catalogue.
Cool Mecha and being the only good guy faction alongside the Craftworlds
>Tau
>Good
If you like betraying your species for better living conditions maybe.
Sure, i´d turn my back on them in an heartbeat.
I don't need to empathize or be the same species as the little toy soldiers I play with, you mong.
>betraying your species
American detected.
The Tau are pretty much just modern Americans
>collectivist techno-alien weirdos obsessed with clans
>"amuhricuns"
say you're not obsessed now.
Mutts need to learn to fricking read.
(Looks at the Imperium) Runs screaming into the arms of my Tau Waifu.
>If you like betraying your species for better living conditions maybe.
>better living conditions
The silly Gue'Vesa thinks it's people. Make sure it's castrated then sent to fight our enemies in the front lines
We still have yet to actually see Gue'vesa being castrated
There is that ending slide in Dark Crusade I believe, but then again it was after a rebellion and its not like Imperium wouldn't do much worse shit to rebelled populace
Is it betraying Mankind to improve their standard of living?
>being a slave to the Ethereals
>improve their standard of living
Do hives turn into paradise planets under the Tau now?
>Do hives turn into paradise planets under the Tau now?
Sort of, when the Tau take a hive world they relocate the human population to various other worlds within their empire to reduce overcrowding, then they begin the process of reconstruction and terraforming the land to support life again.
That's both hilariously inefficient and is going to bite them directly in the ass when a "newly integrated" human population of a few billion turns out to be an Ordo Xenos plot to delete an essential Tau world, or worse, part of an Alpha Legion scheme.
>That's both hilariously inefficient
Not really. The Tau have ecumenopolises with populations in the trillions. They just don't have filthy hive-cities filled with pollution where people eat corpses to survive.
>relocating billions of people just to spread them out
>not really inefficient
You might genuinely have autism. Also bringing up food is ironic when Tau food is notoriously gross compared to Guard rations.
Humans perform a useful function as gue'vesa because they can perform any job instead of being limited to the roles of their caste like the Tau are. Why WOULDN'T the Tau spread them out around their empire to fill in many different roles across every planet?
Because that's a very easy way for, on the day when Terra deems the Tau worth dealing with, every single Ethereal to get domed at once by assassins and the Tau Empire to completely collapse. The Tau are fragile, that's the reason why they get the narrative plot armor they do, as written unless they have as many miraculous victories as they can be handed by the plot one good loss will simply wipe them out.
Yes, I'm sure an ecumenopolis has a thriving ecosystem and no pollution. Oh wait, the most populated tau worlds are also disgusting hellholes.
>Oh wait, the most populated tau worlds are also disgusting hellholes.
Proof?
Isn't that the alien quarter of whatever planet the Tau settle on? It turns into a dirty, messy, polluted and violent state, with constant skirmishes between various races, which the Fire Warriors ruthlessly police.
I remember that being in the Last Chancers novel.
Wasn’t it stated somewhere that a single hive world has a larger population than the entire tau empire?
No. That was never stated
No, it was a single hive world has more population than an entire Tau sept, basically a system.
Which, keep in mind, not all septs are equal. Some septs have populations in the mere billions, while others will have populations of potentially hundreds of trillions.
Huh, Found the quote.
>A single average hive city contains more people than a typical tau sept. Which, no shit
Not funny.
A single hive city like the ones in Agrellan contained between 2-7 billion humans.
A single Tau city described in Planetstrike contained billions.
Farsight fleet contained 100 billion Tau + billions non-Tau
How do you get the population figures from the Farsight enclaves?
They literally only control 4 star systems, with only 1 major inhabited world among them (With a few minor worlds sprinkled in).
I said fleet.
And the number comes from the Farsight series. "Farsight: Empire of Lies" to be exact.
I see no source in empire of lies that seems to back up your claim, the only quote I could find is a human commenting that t’au Society has ‘billions’ of gue’vesa
My mistake. It's in Crisis of Faith chapter 6
picture related
I would say "lol GW numbers" but the Tau are so Mary Sue tier right now due to culture warriors writing to own le chuds that I believe they actually meant this.
I'm gonna (You) my own post to add something important here, because there's a really good example of this in the lore. Someone clearly started to write a case of the Tau getting in over their heads, fricking up, reacting badly, and not just taking massive losses but also badly damaging the Tau shtick of "all races are welcome in the Greater Good" in the process with the Fourth Sphere Expansion...only for someone else to go "nah they can just absorb those losses lol, low numbers aren't real and the Tau aren't allowed to be racist", with it then being finagled into a technical success followed by an immediately super-successful Fifth Expansion and a Sixth being planned. Similarly, and I wonder if it was around the same time, the Ethereals' supreme leader gets absolutely mauled by a Culexus and killed in what was supposedly a slow and horrific way. The Tau have zero reaction to this, he's simply replaced with an Aun'Va AI and it has zero repercussions. Even at their peak Sueness, the biggest Sues of the setting, Space Marines, never got this kind of treatment because a rival codex would invariably go out of its way to shit on them and include some named character riverdancing on a pile of dead Ultramarines while picking its nose with one of the Chapter relics.
If this human is a gue'vasa himself it's also likely that he's just repeating propaganda. Remember that the Tau are big on covering up problems, they still haven't admitted Supreme Leader Aun'Va is dead, have they?
In reality, all these numbers are low. If you have fusion power, any rock in any solar system, even in the void between the stars is colonizable. Even the most barren rock could be turned a lush paradise with access to such a rich energy source.
As a person who got into 40K originally playing Tau.
And a person who cringes every single time some lorelet homosexual claiming to be a grog calls the obsessively Caste-Based society "communists".
Yeah. They unironically do. At least by 40K standards, in which a "Paradise planet" is very much a real thing, by way of new infrastructure developments, a considerably less complicated hierarchy and division of labours and authorities, a more functional distribution of resources.
Not to mention, everyone has a shared duty, or passion (in the greek sense) and don't get greedy or selfish in the same way.
The end result is that Quality of life and living, as well as cultural and economic prosperity goes through the roof within a generation of settlement.
While there is a notable amount of cultural resistance from much of humanity, given specifically the new required stances on religious practices, world culture, hierarchy, social decorums and notably the new architecture and city planning, these changes are relatively benign, comfortable, have bugger all daily impact next to Imperial legislation, and come with the fact that the air is now breathable, and the life expectancy goes beyond 40 now.
Thank goodness, there are still people that knows how to read, and has read the codex instead of spreading moronic youtuber lore memes.
At this pace the meme versions will overthrow the originals like krieg originally not having anything special with their shovels or actually being scared as frick of death like any other imperial guard.
>be slave of the imperium
>life sucks major shit under every aspect
>be slave of the ethereals
>life sucks considerably less
noooooo why are they betraying muh specierino
Yes. The T'au in the Damocles Anthology talk about reshaping Hiveworlds into better places.
> Also bringing up food is ironic when Tau food is notoriously gross compared to Guard rations.
Citation needed.
Citation needed.
Da'lyth Prime is among the most populated sept worlds and the humans describe it as a paradise.
If the Emperor wanted humans to live comfortable long lives he wouldn't have created the Imperium. Remember, a brief life burns brightly.
Emperor was planning on turning humans into Eldar++
The famously very very long lived Eldar
Humans don't live comfortable long lives under the Tau, except Facilitators, whose existence is as a propaganda piece and infiltrator.
Humans live long but inglorious lives under the Tau, serving the filthy xenos in comfort
But in the Imperium? Humanity lives brief, but glorious lives, knowing that every suffering they endure is for the glory of the God-Emperor.
Stop trying to "jokingly" rephrase it into this noncanon idea that life is better under the tau for the typical worker.
Life is terrible for the Gue'vesa under the Tau. They'll never know the glory of dying in their childhood to purge the filthy xenos from the Earth. They'll never experience the delight of chowing down on corpse starch after a long-days work pumping out lasguns by the hundreds in the busy hive cities of the Imperium. Their lives are sad, and empty.
Again, that really depends on which world the human comes from. The Imperium is too big to be universally anything.
Life is definitely better under the Tau for the average worker. it's not that life in the Tau empire is great, it's still a totalitarian oligarchy where you don't look like the ruling caste, but it's better than the Imperium, which is an enforced shithole.
Literally this, but post-unironically
>butbutbut that's about the iom
Sure. Its about everyone else too. There are no good guys in 40k.
Wrong
Everyone is the good guy, but they're buttholes about it.
Except Chaos, who are just buttholes.
Congratulations!
You made the dumbest post on /tg/ in the last 12 hours!
Step into traffic to receive your prize!
>1980s fedora-tipping virgins: fanaticism means evil vs evil, enjoy our satire TT!
>ecclesiastical, ecumenical, and philosophical Great Writers since time immemorial: compromise defeats the point of diversity, trve respect is vicious Good vs Good conflict
Pft, you sound angry, nerd.
Give me my lunch money
Enlightened post.
Humanity is inherently the good guys.
>Craftworlds being a good guy faction
Their entire strategic identity consists of inaccurate predictions and they throw every fricking thing they have into it, and frick things up or fail.
They're the faction that only looks out for themselves because they're selfish space elves. How is that a good guy?
Good Guys - Bad guys is only a relative concept, and trying to find "good guys" is missing the point, but:
>Their entire strategic identity consists of inaccurate predictions and they throw every fricking thing they have into it, and frick things up or fail.
This is the result of shitty writers, rather than the core concept of the Eldar. Ignore all BL, ignore all vidya shit.
>They're the faction that only looks out for themselves
...as opposed to?
>Their entire strategic identity consists of inaccurate predictions and they throw every fricking thing they have into it, and frick things up or fail.
That is just a meme. Most of the time their predictions work, otherwise there would be none left
>faction that only looks out for themselves because they're selfish space elves
They look out for their own which makes them better than most factions in 40k
Yeah, the Eldar will always put the Eldar first but they don’t go out of their way to attack other species even when it would harm their own survival like the Imperium does.
>That is just a meme. Most of the time their predictions work, otherwise there would be none left
GW/video gayme writer:
>So Eldar are able to read portents of the future, and this is what influences their strategic thinking...
>But what if... they got the prophecy LE WRONG!!?? OMG I'M A GENIUS!!
It works once, but when it's the premise for every single bit of story about the Eldar, it shows just how lazy and moronic the writers are.
>craftworlds
>good
Tau basically just ripped off the Eldars schtick.
>the only good guy faction alongside the Craftworlds
Salamanders say what's good
>burns Eldar children to death
As one should.
NTA but the thing that really weirds me out about the Tau is that all of their books and lore seem to be written by teenagers. If I was writing about a space empire when I was fourteen, I would write it exactly like the Tau, where they never lose, their stated weaknesses are never reflected in their actual lore, and every one of their planets is designed to be "cool" and show off how badass they are rather than interesting, and the Farsight Enclave's whole "elemental worlds" shtick really is one of the best examples of that I can think of. I don't think people dislike the Tau because Tau are weebs anymore, I think they dislike them for being genuine, unapologetic Mary Sues. Moreover, they're that way because their politics, which were originally meant to be a tongue-in-cheek representation of how North Korean propaganda would portray that shithole as a perfect paradise free of want and disease, now mesh far too closely with some of the utopian philosophies their writers actually believe in. If you write a Craftworld, a Votann world, or an Imperial world, you write it to be interesting and multifaceted with problems that both affect the populace and make the reader interested in seeing whether those problems can be overcome. The Tau have no such subtlety, the typical Tau world will be described as population-heavy as a hiveworld with the climate of a paradise world and the defenses of a fortress world, renowned for shrugging off a simultaneous Imperial Crusade, Necron Dynasty, and Hive Fleet Tendril all at the same time. On paper they're given low numbers and hopefulness born from naivete as weaknesses, but in practice this never pans out, much like a classical Mary Sue being "clumsy" only results in her falling into her rich gigachad husbando's arms.
More or less why I sold my Tau army, I didn't want to be associated with this shit anymore. It really makes me sad, I enjoyed painting them, but I don't want to be associated with this crap.
>where they never lose
They lose most of their battles.
>NTA but the thing that really weirds me out about the Tau is that all of their books and lore seem to be written by teenagers
That is because most of them are written by Kelly, who is a shit hack even by BL standards
Given how small the Tau are, and how few iconic battles they have fought in, it would have been entirely possible for a capable writer who is also good at worldbuilding to put his personal stamp on them and ensure we get at least one faction in the 40k universe that benefits from good writing and consistent worldbuilding
Instead we get Kelly who can't write science fantasy, and regularly retcons his own lore and the lore of others depending on what side of the bed he woke up on that morning
But 40k is science fantasy
It'll never cease to amaze me how much Imperiumgays project onto the Tau. The Imperium wins 71% of its battles. Not as an in-setting statistic, but rather, of all the battles written for 40k where the Imperium was involved, they came out the victor in 71% of cases.
Meanwhile, the Tau have a win percentage closer to 49%. And around half of those are pyrrhic victories.
In other words, the Imperium is the biggest mary sues in the setting, but they get to get away with it because nobody expects good writing when humans are involved, they just expect the humans to win because they're human and you don't need a reason for humans to win.
>The Imperium wins 71% of its battles. Not as an in-setting statistic, but rather, of all the battles written for 40k where the Imperium was involved
>Meanwhile, the Tau have a win percentage closer to 49%. And around half of those are pyrrhic victories
not sure why this is surprising, there isn't too many settings where the protagonists don't win most of the time
don't worry, the tau will get more orks, nids, and no-name imperial worlds led by meme-tier antagonists to roflstomp in their next book series or campaign
It's not surprising at all. It's just also anathema to any attempts to label the Tau as 'mary sues'.
The problem with the tau is that the only way the people who write for them seem to be able to make them win is by nerfing the other factions hard
If you are used to reading Guard novels where the better regiments are shown as being pretty tactical and competent, or Marine novels where they are powerwanked to the max, then read Mont'ka or a Kelly novel where they act like complete idiots, the experience is kind of jarring and it doesn't feel like "real 40k"
>If you are used to reading Guard novels where the better regiments are shown as being pretty tactical and competent
Which is kinda questionable in itself. Why the frick is the Guard full of tactical geniuses who pull off incredible victories against powerful enemies if the Imperium is supposed to be this decaying state whose primary advantage is sheer manpower?
I guess you can assume that the novels and the like are only focusing on a few outliers, which in the grand scale of The Imperium and its massive warfront are just drops in the bucket.
Like it does not matter in the long run how much Rommel is going sicko mode in Africa if Halder is eating glue outside Moscow.
That works for when the Tau are fighting some nobody Guard regiment, but falls apart when the tau fight groups that are known to be highly competent from other sources like Marines, Cadians, Catachan, etc.
Being low tech doesn't mean you can't be good at strategizing though
Also the tau also sometimes use melee weapons
>but falls apart when the tau fight groups that are known to be highly competent from other sources like Marines, Cadians, Catachan, etc.
The thing is, the Imperium is not used to fighting against modern military tactics, because nobody uses them against them. Daemons, Orks, Tyranids, their strategies all tend to involve charging at the enemy with overwhelming numbers. And those three enemies all make up like 95% of what the Imperium faces. The reason the Imperium sucks at fighting the Tau is because they follow the British strategy of largely fighting people who barely understand how to use a gun.
Imperium fights human rebels and cultists all the time
Nids only showed up recently, and daemons were rare up until very recently
Because no one wants to play as a complete joke, that is what PDF and cultists are for
Also, Guard are supposed to be relatively elite, it is just that 1-on-1 near every other unit that actually has a model kicks their butt in both lore and crunch
Really? The Imperium is incredible backwards-looking. They have legions of slaves, superstitious cargo cults, and medievalist practises and organization. They have a few fancy toys here and there, but it is a place where a guy with a sword is not out of place.
The Tau are a modern/futuristic society. They have fully automated production, drone armies, battlesuits, floating tanks, precision missiles, AI, networked battlefields, railguns, a modern army etc.
The only reason why the Imperium wins against the Tau is because the massive number of assets it has with a few aces up their sleves.
God GW lore gays are tedious.
>Comes into GW lore thread
>Finds GW Lore
Fair point
I Absolutely agree with you,dude,these people are a bunch of glue eaters,i mean,they just got to see pretty much every piece of official artwork envolving the tau,they get horribly slaughtered,specially against the basic b***h fricking poster boys and the GW's pet that are the space marines,it angers me to hell and back so much how this company(of Teethrotten Britbums) gets away with all their bullshit writting(That Exodite bullcrap was just torture porn for tau haters,also all the genocide bullshit from the Kel'shan sept of killing their allies alongside their kids) and anti-costumer practices(fricking up the 10th edition leagues of Votann and Tau codexes,also not being able to use Onager Gauntlet or the fusion sword mode for the fusion blaster),that i want to do as uncle ted taught me and letting a nice package in their mail box,if you don't know what i mean,what that nice package contains begin with P and ends with ipe Bomb.
PD:Also,where dafuq is my earth caste scientist army GW,you slugde of british genocidal filth?,too busy fricking a toaster to make another scientist army who this time are not greedy tech hoarders?
>Imperium has bigger mechs
They're ridiculous
They're awesome is what they are.
For me their design works well in titanicus scale, especially with big titans. Not so much in regular 40k
They're boring. It looks like a barely bipedal turtle with it's short, hunchbacked stature and redundant weapon options. For being the imperium of man it doesn't look like a man, but more like a koopa from super Mario.
I'm so sick of mechs too cowardly to get those hands dirty. I'm a 50 ton robot, but no I'm going to just hang back and shoot stuff like the rest of my roster. Just get tanks. They're smaller and so the same thing
Now go back to your contention general, spamer.
>Custodes
An advanced boltgun on a stick?
The very genetics of the Custodes and Primarchs is a science which the Tau have never come close to.
Didn't the Tau vat grow their own which were failures for not having proper training?
They vat grew their own Space Marines, but not their own Custodes or Primarchs.
Yes, and they fought well to, the only thing that gave them away to the empire was their odd style of greeting, and the lack of etiquette and custom.
Imperium kinda sucks for most humans so I don't see why not
Yeah but at least it sucks in a way that propagates the human species. If you lived in the Tau Empire, you're basically living with the knowledge that your descendants will someday be completely wiped out when the Imperium returns to finish the job.
>yes, yes, you see, eating the corpse stach is good
>now sign up in the guard while we sip amasec in the upper spire
Holy mother of bootlicker. If you fail to provide me a good living but those aliens over there can, get fricked.
"Those aliens over there" are going to die soon. It doesn't matter if you get nice food and a warm bed with them, because in a decade, a century, a millennia, they will all be destroyed.
So? In a century or a millennia, im dead. Not my problem. The imperium might be dead too by then, eaten by nids or fricked by crons or raped by chaos. What a moronic argument. The alien gives me a good time while im here, the imperium does not. Its that simple.
homosexuals like you think other people should engage with your headcanon
Whateva at least they will live with their bellies full and safe from hive gangsters until then
every major confrontation with the tau has ended in an imperial loss, every major confrontation with the tau has also happened when the tau were smaller and the imperium was bigger
The Imperium has never sent its full strength against the Tau, only uncommitted crusades. Consider for a moment that the Imperium has drawn forces away from fighting the Tau to fight Hive Fleet Behemoth and the 13th Crusade instead. However, we have never seen the Imperium draw forces away from fighting Chaos/Necrons/Orks/Tyranids to fight the Tau. The Tau were, and continue to be, a force not worthy of the Imperium's sustained attention.
>The Imperium has never sent its full strength against the Tau
The imperium also cant send its full strength against the Tau because it doesent have those resources spare.
They have however sent everything they could in a crusade to take them out (back when they were much smaller) and then failed miserably
Everything you said is not true.
The Imperium committed great amounts of forces against the T'au. The first Damocles Crusade was described as vast and massive in T'au and Imperial codexes.
The second battle for Agrelan featured more Imperial forces than the Imperial forces present on Cadia during the 13th Black Crusade. Moreover, the tank battles that happened on the planet were described as among the largest the Imperium ever fought.
So you are either a liar or an ignorant lorelet.
>The second battle for Agrelan featured more Imperial forces than the Imperial forces present on Cadia during the 13th Black Crusade.
GW can't into numbers, unless the comparison is explicitly drawn, then for all intents and purposes any number gw wrote here or there should be read as an undefined "lots"
>numbers do count, but only if it makes the Imperium look cool and badass
Uh-huh
>The first Damocles Crusade was described as vast and massive in T'au and Imperial codexes
but not in the novel series that describes it in detail
>tank battles that happened on the planet were described as among the largest the Imperium ever fought
two regiments of tanks, nope
you need to stop cherrypicking from throwaway lines in WD articles and look at the sources that cover the subject matter in detail
>Cadia during the 13th Black Crusade
Cadia was just one battlefront of many in the 13th Crusade
GW makes no effort to make things consistent numbers wise, but sometimes you need to look at the big picture and accept that Tau are never mentioned as a focus of Imperial efforts the same way the Black Crusade or the Nid invasions are.
in the new rules plasma weapons only blow up if deliberately supercharged
>but not in the novel series that describes it in detail
Why do you lie like that? The novel series says that there were tens of millions of boots on the ground in ONE BATTLE. You dishonest prick missed that detail?
>two regiments of tanks, nope
Citation needed.
>Cadia was just one battlefront of many in the 13th Crusade
So was Agrellan, you dipshit.
The T'au fire power is second to none. The Imperium plasma guns can't maintain a consistent flow of shots like the T'au's
>tens of millions of boots on the ground in ONE BATTLE
page number?
>Citation needed.
the Imperial commander at Blackfossil was a mere Colonel, and he only had two armored regiments under him in the org chart
>So was Agrellan, you dipshit.
but many sources treat the 13th Black Crusade like a big deal for the Imperium, the Agrellan Campaign not so much
>That's a lie. A Primaris marine in the War of Secrets novel still say that their plasma guns can explode.
I was talking game mechanics, lore wise it is still possible but not nearly as common as the memes suggest, and again is probably due to supercharging rather than normal operation
>was ordered by the High Lords
the High Lords order lots of stuff
>page number?
>‘They have been repelled, for now,’ said Farsight, anger simmering in his voice, ‘but a new attack gathers outside Gel’bryn in force. We have slowed it down with missile strikes from the hills, hunted and put down their outriders with overlapping sweeps of our stealth teams. But the main body remains intact, and still numbers in the tens of millions.’
-Blades of Damocles by Phil Kelly
>the Imperial commander at Blackfossil was a mere Colonel, and he only had two armored regiments under him in the org chart
You might want to read the disclaimer above the page, you idiot. The chart shows only the command structure, not the total forces deployed.
>, the Agrellan Campaign not so much
Agrellan has a fair share of sources saying it was a colossal campaign. It's consequences are also stated to have been a possible cause of the Great Rift appearing.
>ore wise it is still possible but not nearly as common as the memes suggest,
You need to read the Muniturom book.
>the High Lords order lots of stuff
Only the important stuff. Others stuff they delegate.
>Blades of Damocles by Phil Kelly
I was talking about the Rogue Trader series which provides a lot of context around the attack on Damocles Crusade
>The chart shows only the command structure, not the total forces deployed.
But a Colonel is realistically not going to be commanding a massive force
>It's consequences are also stated to have been a possible cause of the Great Rift appearing
That is likely a reference to the (probably heretical) device used to destabilize routes in and out of the Gulf. A few billion dead people is just another Saturday afternoon in the 40k universe
>You need to read the Muniturom book
it says there is a risk, which is subjective
>Only the important stuff. Others stuff they delegate.
"important" is also subjective, even if they only sign off on a few hundred wars a years out of tens of thousands, it still means the Agrellan Campaign may not have cracked the top 100 in that year
>I was talking about the Rogue Trader series which provides a lot of context around the attack on Damocles Crusade
A lot of Andy Chambers Tau lore was overwritten by Phil Kelly. Most of it was retconned. If you want to get a clear picture of the current incarnation of the war you read the Phil Kelly books which retold the conflict in its entirety.
>But a Colonel is realistically not going to be commanding a massive force
That's what the disclaimer says. The chart shows only a small fraction of the 1000+ regiments involved in the war.
>That is likely a reference to the (probably heretical) device used to destabilize routes in and out of the Gulf. A few billion dead people is just another Saturday afternoon in the 40k universe
+bloodshed of the war.
Also the firestorm merged with Warpstorms and it resulted in entire worlds being engulfed. It was more than a few billions.
> it still means the Agrellan Campaign may not have cracked the top 100 in that year
The fact that it had more forces than on Cadia, featured an execution force, and an arcane secret weapon means it was up there in the top ten.
>If you want to get a clear picture of the current incarnation of the war you read the Phil Kelly books which retold the conflict in its entirety.
Few things ever truly get retconned in 40k. New writers do half-assed research and sometimes cite older stuff instead of newer stuff. For example, the description of events found in the 8e tau codex draws heavily from the Rogue Trader version of events despite being written two years after Blades of Damocles. Also, different writers sometimes refuse to acknowledge the headcanons of other writers, and GW and BL don't care enough about the minor details to intervene
>firestorm merged with Warpstorms and it resulted in entire worlds being engulfed. It was more than a few billions.
But it was the firestorm itself that destabilized things. The Imperium has fought many campaigns where billions died in combat, not to mention plenty of Exterminatus, plagues, partial orbital bombardments, etc. Warpstorms rarely result from these
>more forces than on Cadia
The billion on Cadia is mostly the planet's native population. The Black Crusade affected multiple sectors and hundreds of worlds, they were probably just too overstretched to move billions from other worlds to Cadia. Alternately, GW is just bad at math and consistency. Or the one reference to "billions" in the Mont'ka book is an error that didn't get picked up by editors, every other part of the book says "millions"
>an execution force, and an arcane secret weapon
Not really relevant to the size of the campaign, they both fill highly specific niches. In particular, the execution force is mostly for political issues on the home front.
The fact that the Imperium couldn't find any titans to deploy on Agrellan is probably more telling
>Geh, i grow more and more weary of GW's changes to the older lore.
Then just ignore them. The few decent writers that GW has left tend not to take nulore that seriously either
Continued.
>in the new rules plasma weapons only blow up if deliberately supercharged
That's a lie. A Primaris marine in the War of Secrets novel still say that their plasma guns can explode.
>accept that Tau are never mentioned as a focus of Imperial efforts the same way the Black Crusade or the Nid invasions are.
The First Damocles Crusade was ordered by the High Lords.
The second attack on Agrellan was ordered by the High Lords and featured an equal number of regiments to the ones defending the Cadian Gate. Stated to have been billions of troops. Also it contained an Execution Force which can only be unleashed with the approval of all High Lords. And a space immolating weapon.
A lone Tau singlehandedly defeated the Damocles Gulf Crusade.
>Don't join the faction that gives you a proper education and purpose, you'll get killed by the Imperium
>Stay as a disposable cog in the machine that intentionally kills more Humans than every other species combined so that you can get killed by the Imperium except legally
???
Think of it like this:
If you stay in the Imperium, and the Tau conquers your world, you’ll survive anyways since the Tau want you to live. Sure the Imperium might commit exterminatus on the planet to prevent it from falling into the Tau’s hands, but the Tau will generally try their best to prevent that from happening since they get weirdly choked up over the idea of humans civilians being casualties.
Meanwhile, if you’re in the Tau Empire, even as a human, and the Imperium conquers your world, they will kill you, your entire family, even your children, and laugh as you bleed out in the gutter.
This actually means it’s safer to be a human in the Imperium, since if you’re on the receiving end of an invasion, it’s not guaranteed to result in your death so long as the Tau are invading.
In the Imperium there's a high chance you will also be killed, along with your entire family and children by laughing schizos as you bleed out in the gutter - or else butchered by one of the many policies in the Imperium that murders its citizens in subtle ways.
With the Tau you're at least actively contributing to the force liberating people from that fate - even if it's to bind them to another authoritarian regime, one that is far less cruel.
You do know that the T'au have a policy of relocating human populations from the frontline worlds to areas deeper in the T'au Empire for their safety. A portion of the human population of Agrellan was relocated from beyond the Damocles Gulf to freaking Da'lyth Prime.
The 9th ED codex says that human populations in the T'au Empire are increasing each year. Phil Kelly recently said in the afterword of the Shadowsun novel that there are hundreds of billions of humans living in the T'au Empire. Enough numbers that they are influencing the Warp around the T'au Empire
>you're going to Siberia for your own good, comrades!
kek. I appreciate them staying true to their inspo.
They took them from a hellhole Hiveworld and settled them in a utopian urban multiracial world with free healthcare, education, and housing.
In the Damocles Anthology they describe the reactions of the humans to their new better lives.
Twould depend on what world they come from, wouldn't it?
The Imperium is too big to be universally anything. Some parts are bound to be pretty decent places to live.
According to GW's multiple statements recently about how the Imperium is evil.
The vast majority of humans living in the Imperium live short painful lives of toil and oppression.
So the conclusion is if decent places exist in the Imperium they are vanishingly rare
Geh, i grow more and more weary of GW's changes to the older lore.
The Imperium has always been the cruelest regime imaginable. The Tau are sort of like the modern China compared to the Imperium's North Korea.
Macragge
Fair enough, Ultramar is canonically the nicest place to live in the Imperium.
You still have to work under an authoritarian regime, but Gilly at least made sure everything works without gratuitous suffering
Nothing is said about infanticide. The comic shows that it's an oppressive state with widespread slavery.
Then what was this dude
on about?
>until the recent disasters, the average human life expectancy even managed to reach the mid-thirties
this is moronic, the average civilian on ultramar had as good a life as it gets in the galaxy
A place with a massive slave caste, widespread infanticide, and an average lifespan of around 35.
This is the BEST the Imperium has to offer.
Space Romans, yes
Yes, and given the choice between erecting statues as a slave caste to the glory of Guilliman and living in a fully automated gay space communist society it's not a difficult choice.
What kind of subhuman would ever choose gay space communist?
I'm erecting statues of best Primarch so it can look over you.
Simple. I like eating actual food, getting healthcare, having an education, and having a roof over my head that won't collapse.
Also on the military side of things I prefer the high-speed low-drag professional operator style of the Tau over medieval crusader LARPing.
>getting healthcare
If your comrades get you back to base alive in the Guard, you're getting augmetics from the cogboys there. The Tau will go "sorry we are overbudget, for the Greater Good we are putting ethnic tau at the head of the line for free healthcare, prease consider suicide pod (Y;
>The Tau will go "sorry we are overbudget, for the Greater Good we are putting ethnic tau at the head of the line for free healthcare, prease consider suicide pod
This isn't true, we actually have firsthand accounts from Gue'vesa who formerly lived in a hive city talking of their experienced getting food, shelter, medical care, watching their children grow up to be stronger and bigger with long-lifespans.
The Tau have a mostly automated society, they don't even need to farm cause the drones do all that shit. Healthcare is an easy thing to come by.
>we actually have firsthand accounts from Gue'vesa who formerly lived in a hive city talking of their experienced getting food, shelter, medical care, watching their children grow up to be stronger and bigger with long-lifespans.
Yeah that's called propaganda, the Tau do that to try to sway humans away from their rightful destiny.
Okay, here's a better question then:
Why would the Tau hurt their own side by denying humans medical care? The Tau's number one issue they face is a lack of manpower. Why kill their own men?
That's a completely irrelevant question because it was never what was suggested. At what point did anyone say that the tau were going to murder their own enslaved humans rather than send them to die fighting their cousins or infiltrate other worlds to spread their poison? I would rather get a metal arm fighting for humanity's destiny than let a filthy alien decide whether my life is worth the cost because 'muh Greater Good', because I choose greatness over easy convenience.
Joining the losing side is never the way to achieve greatness.
So go throw yourself down a nid's throat and become part of the "winning side"'s biomass. I am a human, I am morally correct to put humanity first and aliens in the ground.
If you wanted to put humanity first the Imperium is the last thing to join. They think less of you as a human than the Tau do.
Ironic stattement considering the Imperium willingly and knowingly feeds the Tyranids more Humans proportionally than the Tau as part of their 'brilliant strategies' that have lost them entire Sectors to them.
The Tau are completely irrelevant as a force fighting the Tyranids compared to the Imperium, so yes.
And yet proportionally the Imperium chooses to throw people into the hungry maws of the Tyranids where the Tau do a much better job at maintaining their own lives while fighting back. The Imperium will literally throw you into a Carfinex's mouth to stall it - the Tau realize, and have the technology to actualize, that such tactics are needlessly cruel and also just ineffective.
>And yet proportionally the Imperium chooses to throw people into the hungry maws of the Tyranids where the Tau do a much better job at maintaining their own lives while fighting back.
Factually incorrect.
>The Imperium will literally throw you into a Carfinex's mouth to stall it
Source?
>the Tau realize, and have the technology to actualize, that such tactics are needlessly cruel and also just ineffective.
That's headcanon. The Tau are intensely collectivist and see no value in individual life.
>Factually incorrect
>That's headcanon. The Tau are intensely collectivist and see no value in individual life
Tau militaries are smaller and more efficient than Imperial ones, quality-over-quantity and explicitly do not employ wave tactics or final stands compared to the Imperium - their literal doctrine description ever since 3e has essentially been 'less wasteful of life than Imperial methods.'
>Source?
Guard strategy 101 is attrition; against Tyranids the entire point is throwing Guard at the Tyranids to stall them while grinding them down with firepower.
So just headcanon then?
>s-smaller and m-more efficient
Nobody cares, you're still getting run over with a baneblade.
>you're still getting run over with a baneblade.
You can try. But previous attempts to make that happen usually result in a clean little railgun hole through the baneblade, and the liquified remains of the crew inside sucked out the other end.
>The Tau are intensely collectivist and see no value in individual life.
That's false. The 3rd, 4th ed edition codexes state that the T'au value life and attempt to limit the losses to all their armed forces either T'au or non-T'au. For example, the Gue'Vesa and Kroot are not treated as cannon fodder.
>prease consider suicide pod (Y;
Fricking got me you fricker
>If your comrades get you back to base alive in the Guard, you're getting augmetics from the cogboys there.
You mean, the AdMech will turn you into a servitor.. But nice cope there, buddy.
No, it's well established in the lore that if you get injured in the guard you're getting augmetics. The only way you're getting made into a servitor is as punishment for dereliction of duty.
Why would they not? That's veteran guardsmen that are now further aligned with the blessed machine and now indebted to the mechanicus. That's pure wins for installing cheap cybernetics on now proven soldiers.
>You're getting augmetics
The actual Uplifiting Primer states that major injuries are best treated by putting the Guardsman to sleep on maximum grade painkillers and letting them die.
>Tau wouldn't give healthcare due to resource shortages
Give me a single source, just one, literally one quote, of anything like this happening otherwise you're full of shit.
>The actual Uplifiting Primer
Which in practice is used for toilet paper
>Give me a single source, just one, literally one quote, of anything like this happening otherwise you're full of shit.
How about every single piece of lore we have about the Tau empire? How much of a secondary are you? The "Greater Good" is entirely cynical and even the Tau's greatest living war hero correctly identified it as absolute bullshit and conquest and slavery by any other name by whatever the Ethereals actually are. Humans living under the Tau are not permitted to prosper and fulfill their destiny of grasping the stars, they are simply permitted to exist, and to die for the plans of the Ethereals.
>Humans living under the Tau are not permitted to prosper and fulfill their destiny of grasping the stars, they are simply permitted to exist, and to die for the plans of the Ethereals
Unlike in the Imperium of course, where they... oh, wait a second. They treat their people worse!
According to the Tau.
>How about every single piece of lore we have about the Tau empire?
Broken Sword? The Greater Evil? The Tau Codex? Oh wait, none of those say anything of the sort. In fact, they say the complete opposite. But since you've already decried everything remotely showing the Tau as being better than the Imperium as propaganda, there's really no reason to argue with you since you're just using headcanon at this point.
>Which in practice is used for toilet paper
So you're telling me the Imperial Guard needs to ignore the whims and politics of their superiors - which they die for - to be effective, and still choose to believe it's a good system? Curious.
>How about every single piece of lore we have about the Tau empire?
You mean the ones where every single interaction they have with Imperial citizens is improving their quality of life like on Taros or...
>The "Greater Good" is entirely cynical and even the Tau's greatest living war hero correctly identified it as absolute bullshit and conquest and slavery by any other name by whatever the Ethereals actually are. Humans living under the Tau are not permitted to prosper and fulfill their destiny of grasping the stars, they are simply permitted to exist, and to die for the plans of the Ethereals.
Nice headcanon, source?
I dunno what to tell you if you've never bothered to actually look into the lore and just picked the side that aligned with your real life politics, man. You're too stupid to engage with.
Still waiting on a single source that's not 'how about all Tau lore,' you disingenous frick. I'm literally giving you a free out here by giving you a chance to say ANYTHING of value and give me ANYTHING to work with and as always you respond to vague allusions to lore you cannot cite and then back out with your tail between your legs quoting bad faith.
Frick off.
I'm sorry you feel called out by the truth and are throwing a melty, but the Tau are the weakest faction in lore for a reason and you've headcanoned them into being the kind of utopian society you imagine would exist if you didn't have to work at McDonalds and participate in Capitalism, when that has never been their lore. You are literally mentally ill and there is no point in engaging with you like a sane adult, the only morally correct thing for me to do is insult you so you feel shame for your failure as a human.
>M-muh hedcannon
Still waiting lardo.
>The Guard, even ignoring the admech, will give any random trooper that gets injured an augmetic, instead of leaving the Guardsman to just sort shit themselves by whittling a peg-leg or making a hook hand.
>The Tau won't shell out every expense on their relatively small, higher performing armies, many of which don't even feature frontline combatants that aren't in an orbital entry-rentry capable battle mecha that let them take on 300 year old transhuman power armoured battle-monks and win.
Lol and lmao.
Imagine not knowing the lore of the game you profess to play. Typical Tau player, honestly.
>This man doesn't know the finer points of Imperial Guard Regimental formation, Munitorium Requisition process, or the constant political power struggle the admech has with the munitorium, and the guard.
Clearly you've never played Only War anon.
Hey wait a minute.
If the average lifespan is 35, and there's widespread infanticide, doesn't that mean that the people who aren't killed at birth usually live to around 70?
That's how averages work, and 70 really isn't that bad all things considered.
Hive life is fricking comfy and being in the Guard is based. Only weak homosexuals don't think the Imperium is awesome.
Live on Gereon was pretty nice before it fell into Chaos hands 2bh
The Imperium can't spare the manpower to crush the Tau, the Tau prove they are a decaying empire fighting too many wars on too many fronts
>living with the knowledge that your descendants will someday be completely wiped out when the Imperium returns to finish the job.
cool origin story ngl, makes tau players slightly less gay
"I want to play a faction that isnt pants on head moronic"
The Tau are still pretty moronic. They actually thought they killed the "king of the Space Marines" after killing a mere chapter master.
They also thought they killed "slaanesh" the first time they encountered chaos cultists, and the imperium thought demons were weird aliens the first time they met them.
Ignorance =/= stupidity.
And to be fair, it was a first founding chapter master. He might as well have been a king among the marines since he was the overall marine commander of the entire war and his death humiliated the Imperium to such an extent that they used cosmic WMDs.
>"I want to play a faction that isnt pants on head moronic"
Isn't the entire Tau culture based on a lie? Also, weren't they betrayed by their main general who created his own faction to fight against his own species?
>Isn't the entire Tau culture based on a lie?
No?
>Also, weren't they betrayed by their main general who created his own faction to fight against his own species?
Also no, farsight was just one of puretides proteges. He mainly fights orcs too.
>advanced tech
>mechanicus
You're a fricking imbecile and I say this as an AdMech player.
The Mechanicus has shit way more advanced than the Tau do.
10K years later and they can't invent plasma guns that don't kill their users. Not even Cawl.
>10K years later and they can't invent plasma guns that don't kill their users
It should be noted however that these plasma guns are more powerful than Tau plasma. Additionally, even if there is like a 15% chance it'll blow up and kill you every time you fire it...life is pretty cheap in the Imperium. Suicide bombers are a very valid strategy for such an empire.
Which is why they give plasma pistols to all their squad leaders, lol. It'd be funny if it was actually intentional, that they're earnestly giving randomly user-killing guns to everyone in command.
Yes, stuff they found lying in a box and now have a cargo cult over
Hey, if the praying and rituals works, it works...
It works because they are practically reciting instructions as prayers, and even then they lost a lot of tech over time
>we want the anime fan market but holy frick don't tell them gunpla does it better and cheaper"
Boxy tech looks good
It's the only thing in the game that looks clean/new, and I appreciate that aesthetic.
Also I'm a weeaboo.
>Weeb
Thank goodness, his gundam has distracted them from my shuriken cannon
Saved
You’re not swamped by this strange muscle-mania aesthetic of big muscle and big guns that look like they are oversized to compensate for something, and they aren't some just strange fever dream of a faction from history.
I remember loving the look of Infantry Hellrifle Lasguns, then my friend told me they were the elite slots of the army.
I spent a bit of free time for a week pricing out the entire army and looking at what organization structures it’d take to make an effective army while maximizing the elite slots only to find that I’d have a mass of models that felt more at home in a sci-fi forever World War II 1940’s army than something from the far future, with just three squads of my elite troopers I thought were fun.
Then I picked up tau with Devilfish fury being the bread and butter, going up from there. Heck, the HQ slots were adjustable enough that I could use a battlesuit guy with mad modular weapon loadouts
>Factions that are more X are better because they're more X
I can almost guarantee you have shit taste and automatically gravitate to whatever fictional soldier is the strongest if you legitimately think like this - but while we're here you forgot to mention;
>Diplomatic/Trade Focused
>Thriving instead of decaying
>Dynamic instead of traditionalist
>Multiracial conglomerate
>High interest in quality of life without being decadent or post-scarcity
And that's only if you're going for the absolute most surface level elements, and aren't considering the narrative appeal of the thought experiment; 'what if there was a faction that could actually fix the setting but was born far too late and is doomed like everyone else.'
I have no input regarding your question on the Tau, but please stop talking about Custodes as if they are anything but a meme that should have never been included in the game. Thank you.
(Imperial Knights are also not a real faction).
weeb aesthetics plus some equipment inspired by tacticool real world modern stuff
>weeb aesthetics
/thread
Based on the other conversation going on I think the Tau attract the Mary Sue crowd too honestly.
They always have. It's never been about the weeb aspect, it's the OC fanfiction feel of them that makes everyone hate them and cheer when they lose.
Tau was the faction that finally got me into 40keks after being a WHFB-gay most of my life. For me, the concept of highly mobile, hard hitting dudes that shoot and dance around the enemy (why yes, I was a wood elf player; how could you tell?) was what made me take the plunge. The Ghostkeel suit and stealth suits with a bunch of pathfinders was my start. After getting the codex and reading about the Farsight enclaves, I went crisis suit heavy and ran a very aggressive list with lost of deep strike, close range fusion and flamers. I used to chuckle because opponents always expected me as the Tau player to "static gunline" only to have flamer teams amongst their infantry turn 1.
At least for me, originally, it was interesting to have a faction that echoed optimistic ideals about a technocratic, progressive future stuck in the 40k setting and getting fricking rekt by every major faction they met and being forced to confront the fact that the universe was a crazy place. The way the Damocles Gulf crusade just ends because there's bigger fish to deal with and how the Tau just have to come to terms with the fact they're basically WW2 Czechoslovakia in the middle of WW4 was funny.
Aesthetically they were pretty cool and unique for the setting, and their original ship lineup in BFG was fun to paint and make backgrounds for.
Yeah, seconding this. I especially liked the Farsight spin where he was like
>Nothing I learnt readied me for the horrors outside our spheres
then had to go his own way because the ethereals tried to suppress it.
They wanted to tap into the Japanese/weeaboo mech model kit market. That's literally it.
"After the Horus Heresy all 11 remaining inhabited worlds of Ultramar benefited from the Imperial reforms enacted by Roboute Guilliman during the Time of Rebirth and Ultramar's citizens remain disciplined, productive and loyal. As a result, Ultramar is a wealthy stellar empire within the larger Imperium that knows little unrest and no rebellion or heresy -- a somewhat unique distinction in the increasingly desperate days of the 41st Millennium. The population lives in sprawling cities, but these cities are surrounded by extensive farmlands and seas that teem with fish.
Each of Ultramar's worlds are self-sufficient in raw materials and food. Trade between the planets is active, and each planet has its specialties and delicacies. Each world is balanced as a society and also as an ecosystem -- although composed of primarily Industrial Worlds, Ultramar has none of the nightmarish toxic wastelands that are common phenomena throughout the rest of theHuman-settled galaxy. It is therefore little wonder that many system governors and planetary lords across the Imperium regard Ultramar with an envious eye."
Ultramar sounds awesome compared to most of the Imperium, places like Necromunda especially.
Genuinely glad Bobby G is in charge now, he's good at what he does. I like the idea that the Imperium has at least some hope.
Hope was what makes Warhammer Fantasy better as a general rule, the fact that decent people existed and could actually help people sometimes.
It gave people something to root for.
>What is the appeal of the Tau?
The Covenant from Halo.
Well, at least they kinda used to be like that.
Gay morons whose weapons are worse than modern day ballistics, led by "prophets" against the hoo-rah Ameri-human marines in a thinly veiled allegory for the War On Terror?
sure anon, something like that sure
don't really see that tbqh
>Imperium has bigger mechs and the Imperial Knights have way more mechs.
Do you think size is the only 'quality' that mech-lovers care about?
And no Knights don't have more mechs, Tau definitely have a bigger variety than them
Blue sideways space-fish-cow poon
I unironically invested in drone armies (LOL).
I liked the idea of a few nerds, some suits, and a lot of drones.
medhes together with their aesthetic well.
Triptide.
>mechanicus, custodes, space marines, imperial guard, imperial knights
why list one faction five times
The amount of humans who work comfortably for the tau are probably outnumbered by the amount of humans who work comfortably for the imperium, just by virtue of the difference of scale.
The Tau don't have a monopoly on high speed low drag operators either when you've got Kasrkin, Harakoni, Catachans, Raptors, Deathwatch, all the Assassin cults and orders, not to mention the likely countless duplicates the Imperium has of alot of those.
Catchan isn't the Imperium's only deathworld, nor is Cadia its only fortress world. Not that Cadia is still around anymore.
Speaking of which, does anyone havr any idea for how to run Tau enemies in Only War? Should I just rip the Deathwatch stats for them?
Also the Tau do have a nice aesthetic, when I first got into 40k I was super into them for that and the fact that they did have human soldiers around, somewhere in the fluff., At the time, the Imperium felt like a very initially alienating premise but it's sort of grown on me through it's diversity of culture, particularly the guard's. Cyborg proto-skitarri mechanized units alongside Conan the Cimmerian barbarians who know not where they are, just that the Emperor has brought them there, and they must kill.
Would be neat if GW had a guardsman character in 40k that was sort of a tribute to Conan the way Gaunt is to Sharpe and Cain to Flashman.
There's also probably more humans that are currently trapped in a cupboard. There's a lot of humans.
GW missed the opportunity to reveal that the Tau are just a small client race of the Leagues of Votann
That they are not space medieval morons.
>Mechanicus
>More advanced than the Tau
Since fricking when
Since forever. Every single "technologically more advanced" civilization goes
>hurr durr witch doctors dumb techpriests worship toasters lololol
Then they get shot to death.
Blazing fast mechs are way cooler than the slow, hulking scyscrapers that Knights are.
Killakans are cooler than knights FFS.
If Armored Core 6 has taught me anything, it is that nothing is more satisfying than a bigger, slower mech grabbing a smaller, lighter mech and just crushing it. Also Knights are based.
But knights are too slow to grab a fast mech dashing around it.
They're slow moving skyscapers with tons of guns strapped to them and them being in humanoid form doesn't add much.
It's like an upscaled AT-AT from star wars
>Killakans
Underrared mecha army.
Same with Sentinels.
>Same with Sentinels.
Anon, that takes points away from TANKS and I don't have LITERALLY as many Leman Russ Battle Tanks as possible, I have shirked my duty as a commander.
(On a more serious note, Sentinels are amazing this edition)
After reading this thread, how do they do against Tau? I kind of want to make an anti-Tau guard army.
>how do they do against Tau?
Guard aren't in an amazing spot this edition (really when are we ever). Our best tools for dealing with the Tau are artillery with Indirect Fire and Guard blobs to out objective control the tau by miles. Use Scout Sentinels to call in positions and then the take aim orders on mortar squads / basilisks /any other arty you can find. Orders spam works great and putting a squad of scout sentinels or a guard blob back on the voard for 2 CP to out advantage your opponents is huge. Cheap tanks aren't bad here, but the tau have the tools to shred them unfortunately
If only Dred Mobs were viable in any of the recent editions.
>Why would I ever try to better myself and my kin?
>I love the human meat grinder because it's HUMAN!
>I can't wait to lick a third hand picture of my master's boot, because he's so far removed that I could never in my wildest dreams imagine licking his actual boot!
"I have a vision of a Galaxy overrun by mankind from Core to Rim. Of four hundred billion stars each enslaved to the rhythms of Earth’s day, Earth’s year. I have a vision of a trillion planets pulsing to the beat of a human heart."
"And I have a vision of a child. Who will grow up knowing neither family nor comfort. Who will not be distracted by the illusion of a long life. Who will know nothing but honor and duty. Who will die joyously for the sake of mankind."
"That is a hero. And I will never know her name."
"Always remember: a brief life burns brightly."
And of the millions of the depraved, starving, uneducated lunatics you produce to create that hero?
>yes, yes, no family is good
>yes, no comfort is good
>yes, you dont want to live long, haha
>dont think, just obey
>now go and die for me pls
The absolute state of bootlickers
Tbf, that quote is actually about the ICOG from the Xeelee Sequence. Though tbf, the ICOG is what the Imperium wishes to be when it grows up.
>why would anyone want to join the cringe alien, the based Imperium is so much better in every rega...
cr-ACK!
>n-no you're the bootlickers, I became a slave to a much weaker alien race willingly, actually communism is heckin wholesome an-ACK!
If the Tau were weaker they wouldn't keep beating the Imperium over and over and over again.
The Tau lost to the Imperium, and was only militarily relevant when the Imperium was dealing with actually meaningful, threatening xenos races. The Tau are straight-up more irrelevant than the Eldar, without even the benefit of the Eldar's knowledge and competence.
>The Tau lost to the Imperium
When? They won the Damocles Crusade and the Agrellan Campaign, and that latter one had more guardsmen involved than were defending fricking Cadia during the 13 black crusade.
>Agrellan
You might legitimately be moronic. That was beyond a phyrric victory for the Tau and completely blunted their expansion.
It temporarily halted their expansion. The Tau got a hive world's worth of humans, temporarily got halted...and then just kept expanding after anyways.
In your headcanon, sure, but that's not what happened in reality.
>he doesn't know about the 4th and 5th sphere of expansion
Oh sweet summer child
>sweet summer child
Things that will cease to exist the very moment that Roboute Guilliman deigns to regard them as a priority and are increasingly losing momentum due to other factions finally noticing the Tau exist?
>and are increasingly losing momentum due to other factions finally noticing the Tau exist?
Did the Imperium not know Cadia existed? Because they sent fewer troops to it than they did to the Agrellan Campaign. And that was back when the Tau Empire was much weaker and smaller than it is now.
The Fourth and Fifth expansions collapsed after scrabbling a couple of worlds at great cost and getting a bunch of Tau leaders executed for war crimes, and the Agrellan "campaign" was a phyrric defensive victory for the Tau, which seems to be par for the course for their "great victories", having a major Tau mascot character present to fight some Literally Who Imperial commander shoving into Tau space.
>The Fourth and Fifth expansions collapsed after scrabbling a couple of worlds at great cost
The 4th sphere expansion collapsed because of the whole ftl incident, but they still managed to capture several worlds. The 5th sphere expansion was by all means a raging success and is STILL ongoing, mind you. It hasn't "collapsed", it's currently happening.
>halted and many of the worlds it supposedly had pacified are now openly contested while the 6th sphere expansion is being planned
>raging success
The 6th sphere expansion is planned to take place at the same time as the 5th one. They're concurrent expansions, they're not stopping the 5th sphere expansion, they're just adding a whole new expansion on top of the expansion they already have going.
>they're not stopping it
Cope. It doesn't help that the 4th Sphere survivors showed their true colors by chimping out and murdering or sacrificing all the non-tau with them and only got a slap on the wrist for it.
Don't bother arguing with him, he's moronic.
No, it's worse than that. What moron-kun doesn't remember is that the Death Guard assault managed to achieve its goal of slipping some of its members to the Tau homeworlds.
Plague soon. 🙂
Based Morty gonna feed the groxfrickers some bat wings and give them the coof.
The frick are you talking about? The 9th ED codex states nothing of the sort. It just states that the T'au conquered the systems and are now preping for a greenskin onslaught. The 5th sphere was an amazing success.
Do you seriously need it explained to you why the amount you have to spread your forces out increases disproportionately with the size of your territory? The Tau have had it very easy until now, more or less because nobody fricking noticed the little blue grox-fondlers, but now they aren't just fighting the Imperium while it's also battling Tyranids, Orks, and Abaddon, they're having to fight the factions that the Imperium is also fighting, and Shadowsun and the bulk of the Tau Empire's forces increasingly cannot be everywhere. The Tau are a victim to the harsh realities of logistics and they're going to pay the exact same price for it every expansion-based upstart civilization has in the history of everything.
>Do you seriously need it explained to you why the amount you have to spread your forces out increases disproportionately with the size of your territory?
But so do the amount of forces you have to fight with. It's not a static number, with every world taken the Tau get billions or trillions more people to draw soldiers from.
That's not how it works, the equivalent of the square-cube law is in effect. Basic logistics. Also, these worlds are not getting taken intact, and there simply are not enough existing Tau forces to police them all against the Imperium leisurely exterminatusing all of them and calling it a day.
Exterminatus is a lot less likely than
>oh hey we aren't under immediate threat anymore and you tried to genocide us
>we, the millions and billions of humans, are going to ape out on the local Tau garrison that thinks humans are as docile as their other client races
>Please ignore the obvious Inquisitors in the room
>the equivalent of the square-cube law is in effect. Basic logistics
The Tau have a much easier time of logistics than the Imperium seeing as to how much of their society is automated.
Ah, the brainlet's understanding of automation. Yeah, the guy who said you're putting your own utopian ideals onto the Tau was right, you're moronic.
Not him but night bringer book briefly mentions the tau and other civilizations being way more efficient and flexible in terms of burocracy and logistics.
The larger an operation is, the more inherently inefficient it is. That's why the Roman Empire had this massive initial expansion and then started falling apart because it was just too big and more borders creates more problems, even if they were dealing with plagues more than tyranids.
Sounds like the Emperor should've never bothered to launch the Great Crusade in the first place.
That was under the old management.
The only reason the Tau have been as effective as they have been thus far is because they have been concentrated in a tiny area with short, well-established supply lines and trade routes which they could actually afford to keep safe. With every expansion, this web gets more fragile. As someone else pointed out, every Tau win has Shadowsun and the entirety of the main Tau forces present, are they going to be there when Dark Eldar decide that the Tau are a softer target than Imperial worlds and start raiding their supply ships? Or when more Chaos Space Marines show up? One Legion was already a massive problem just giving the Tau a poke, two or three might spell the end of the Tau Empire entirely.
You don't need outside forces. All it takes is a couple of plucky Space Marine chapters with a named character of their own at a time when Tau model sales are down.
The person you're arguing with is also blatantly ignoring every single Imperial win and still-open warzone in an ongoing event, don't give him the benefit of the doubt.
Aside from Taros (a still open warzone) how many victories does the Imperium have against the Tau?
More than I'm going to bother to look up, and every single loss hurts the Tau more than a hundred losses would hurt the Imperium, which is why their expansions are stalling.
>and every single loss hurts the Tau more than a hundred losses would hurt the Imperium
Not really. The Tau aren't huge, but they are dense, and losses can be made up for fairly quickly.
Being dense does the opposite of help here
>losses can be made up for fairly quickly
Not compared to any of the other factions besides maybe eldar, especially not compared to the Imperium.
>The Tau have a much easier time of logistics than the Imperium
That doesn't matter. The Tau are still bound by math and distance.
Are you an idiot? The Firestorm lasted for a few years. Maybe less.
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/05/13/new-warhammer-40000-war-zone-damocles-may13gw-homepage-post-4/
The T'au resumed their expansion after the fire cleared. So what the Imperium did amounted to nothing. How fricking dare you come here with all the facts in order or are you straight up lying?
So...lets order things. The Imperium lost the ground war. And their trump card in case they lost was a the equivalent of a immature ejaculation
>won the Damocles crusade
You mean when the Imperium destroyed and retook a bunch of Tau worlds? The Imperium can casually soak hundreds of lost planets better than the Tau can soak a single world in flames.
>You mean when the Imperium destroyed and retook a bunch of Tau worlds?
And then lost them right afterwards, as well as several more planets. That's the Imperium's idea of a "victory". Failing to achieve any of their objectives and losing several planets is apparently the Imperium's idea of a success if you're to be believed.
This is what people under the influence of the Ethereals actually believe.
>Weaker
>Imperium is dying
>Tau are thriving
>Tau keep beating the Imperium whenever they fight already
>It's only going to get even worse for the Imperium fighting them in future
We're not talking about your headcanon though. The Tau are incredibly far down the Imperium's list of priorities for a reason. All it takes is one moment where the Imperium is not fighting off three massive threats, and one crusade will literally exterminate the entire Tau race. This is a simple fact, especially now that the Imperium is led by an absolutely peerless logistician with unquestionable authority rather than a council of inbred old morons.
Impressive. With this most recent achievement, fate has in a single stroke, marked the decline of the Imperium and spelled a new era of wondrous prosperity and peaceful galactic dominance for the T'au dragon, which promises to firmly stand in sharp contrast to the historically bloody ascent of Imperial power and the cruel subjugation it brought to the humbler planets of the galaxy. With the blessings of the Ethereal's quantum direct-current pheromones, quantum space cruisers and quantum enhanced railguns will be the instruments with which the T'au Empire affirms its noble stewardship of the 41st millennium in galactic politics and offers the non-Imperial worlds a different option; a greater alternative to the depredations of Imperial leadership and the opportunity for a more equitable and dignified multilateralism.
Americans see an exaggerated satire of despots where every man is worth less than shit and think "Man what a fantastic world, I wish I could live there!"
There's like 50 Warhammer threads. Please return to containment and commit suicide.
Playing a faction that's optimistic, in ascendence, and not pants on heads moronic.
Big robots.
Wanting a faction that actually embodies the Emperor's vision for the galaxy.
The decline in this board can be measured in direct proportion to the decrease of warhammer content proportions.
You are the problem with this board.
>Wanting a faction that actually embodies the Emperor's vision for the galaxy.
Bold assumption thinking the Emperor wanted humanity to be prosperous
>nuh uh! Your made up guys suck!
>nuh uh! Your made up guys suck more!
Do you guys ever get tired of this?
sprit hosts are some of the most miserable, infuriating models I've ever put together.
they're so poorly designed and barely fit together
Early on for me it was the idea that the best way to grimmen and darken the grimmest and darkest setting was to inject some bright eyed and well intentioned good guy empire to contrast the endless drudgery and infinite wallowing in suffering that 40k trafficked in so heavily up to their release. What could be more grim and dark than the technologically progressive power ranger hopefuls being dashed on the rocks and losing their resolve against immovable and malicious opposition? The implications of their release caught my full attention where Spess Muhreens had been growing tiresome for some time. My interest got kicked into overdrive once I noticed that they're clearly written to be the functional expy of Rome and not Atlantean Communism like all the memes parrot endlessly. I was there on that hype train from the jump, and was really excited for the new stuff the story could do with some kind of paragon virtue conflict in the current era, especially since the coalition of aliens theme they started out with would have allowed for a shitload of Your Dudes and variable army listing most factions just couldn't have-- But then they saw the ultramarines crying about blueberries dying to lazerguns, and GW did what they do best now, they tried to backtrack everything and ruined the whole premise by backing their car out of the living room instead of the garage when they resolved the question of what happens when societal clash happens in 40k with stinky ethereal gemstone mind control pheromones and Chinese bureaucratic nonsense with centerpiece gundam models.
>But what is the appeal of the Tau?
Memes mostly. 0 melee power + weeb + fish + new big robot released is about all I hear about them anymore.
Tau are 40k for people who don't like 40k. It's like Elvis' manager selling 'I hate Elvis' shirts.
hooves
Chaos
The appeal of the Tau was their sleek designs, minor xenos and battlesuits before GW went all in on centerpiece $120 supersuit autism. You can really tell since 6 or 7e or so, everything about 40k from the design team to the writers takes their cues from suits who barely know anything about the setting.
Folks saying Tau are irrelevant aren't making up their own dumb stories as they paint up or play with their Tau army.
The Tau are basically the counterbalance to ground the ridiculousness of Warhammer 40k. They look at all the grimderp shit happening around them, say “that’s fricking stupid”, and just don’t do it, and it usually works out for them.
>say “that’s fricking stupid”, and just don’t do it, and it usually works out for them.
Except they do it. Tau are all about titan-sized robots now. Reasonable resource management and alliances with xenos is not their thing anymore
The reason is because big dumb robots sell. Games Workshop is primarily a miniature company and people who get into warhammer are teenagers who love big dumb stuff. The lore (and game rules) is just a plus. I wish we have gotten superheavy tanks instead, even if these are just a bit less dumb.
The tau should have never happened. It was just a silly attempt to cash in on star wars
Tau LOOK like they have advanced tech. Eldar might have a box that's more advanced than your entire civilization, but it still just look like a magic box. The imperium have all sorts of crazy shit, but it's wrapped in a saints bones and covered in psalms.
Tau will have something that actually looks like a piece of very advanced technology.
My first army ever, easy to paint but still nice looking at a low skill floor. Maybe requires more effort to look amazing because most of their units are flat panels and relatively bland armour plating rather than tabard, swords and sigil. Also lore wise they provide a sort of contrast, makes everything seem so much worse.
>What is the appeal of the Tau?
Big blueberry booba
Sorry lad, but Tau have no breasts canonically.
They're the only sci-fi faction in a sci-fi setting
They fill the role that humans typically fill in 99% of sci-fi settings: bold newcomers, ready to take on the galaxy, painfully unaware of the dangers, who should be crushed like bugs by elder alien threats and instead steadily rise to galactic dominance because humans are "special".
If I'm not given a government mandated tau gf for betraying my species what's even the point. I'll just save up money or stow away to move to ultramar or something instead.
Matters of taste?
Aesthetically, the Tau look sleek and futuristic, while having that whole japanese theme going on. Compare it to the Imperium's archaic and industrial style, or the Eldar's organic and alien tech.
Gameplay-wise they're the shooty faction when most of the others are either melee/shooty or just melee.
They should still be about allying with other aliens,specially Farsight who could have become a rol model to follow for not only Tau,but also Kroot,Vespids,Demiurgs,Nicassar and the other allied races,maybe we could had have the Hrenians,who are depicted as rodent-like aliens(they could space skaven but not stupid) having their own mech like these
Some people prefer their aesthetic. I don't, but far be it from me to question their stupid opinions or their dumb choices.
They're cute.
>What is the appeal of the Tau?
I am the only guy who is trying to play them how they are in canon: a multiracial conglomerate of species rather than just DUDE................ LE MECH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is my appeal: I get tired of painting the same space marine for the 40th time so I'm drawing up designs for Tau aligned squats and humans and beastmen and such to do a kitbash for with some Fire Warriors.
As GW sells them though, there is no appeal. Except mechs.
I just like playing as the underdogs
The amazing developers at GW decided to rebalance 9 indirect shots from the orc army and then within the year they give Tau something like 60 indirect shots per turn.
Fluff doesn’t matter. In fact it just makes everything worse.
The fluff should be read as the internal myth is which tells of the incredible accomplishments of a people’s heroes. The crunch is the reality in the ground.
For a while, they were the civilization at least making an attempt to not be shit-oppressive tyrants, and I liked their models, and the Kroot were neat.
I heard that got retconned eventually or something? I dunno. I don't follow 40k very closely and I haven't played in a very long time, but when they were new, thats why people I knew liked them. I never built a whole army, but I bought a few tau models to paint.
I was more of a WHFB player in highschool (though I fell off that too after highschool).
Tau (when new) was a faction to appeal to people who didn't like the 40k setting. If you don't find the grimderp appealing, you could either tau, or tyranid, and have a less grimderp faction or essentially ignore the setting and play as bugs.
Or roll Chaos Daemons so you can main WHFB instead of 40k, and your 40k army is just for occasional pickup games.
>Mechs
>Imperium
Only good looking Mecha in your game are the space elf ones.