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You think that with a growing population like the Tau that at least some female Tau would be in the military? Currently we only know one, Commander Shadowsun. Could the caste system be severely limiting the women from becoming FIre Warriors and forcing them in the other castes?

You are born into your caste. That is what makes it a caste. A woman, who is born a fire warrior, has a rifle in her hands by the time she is 5 (or whenever they give out the rifles.)

Oh and I also should mention that each caste is a different breed of tau. So a firewarrior has a different physiology compared to say an aircaste pilot and it's again impossible to switch castes.

Gender doesn't matter in Tau society.

Fenmale fire warriors are going to look the same as male ones. Athletic women can typically fit in5o the same armorial as men, you aren't going to be able to tell the difference.

And you are born into a caste, not recruited or assigned.

Same as Guardswomen, they are there but we don't see them much.

Don't know if they have boobs or not? That's the question that was bothering me from the beginning...

You wouldn't know under the armour.
Good body armour won't show the difference.

Boob armour would just result in a fractured sternum on a human female if she fell face first.

Whilst most terran mammalian females have mammaries, there is nothing to state that Tau females are limited to a single pair, or whether they have more or a single udder.

Cue: "Three boobs, AWESOME!" comments.

Commander Ice Shade wrote:You think that with a growing population like the Tau that at least some female Tau would be in the military? Currently we only know one, Commander Shadowsun. Could the caste system be severely limiting the women from becoming FIre Warriors and forcing them in the other castes?

Castes are completely seperate racial groups of Tau with interbreeding forbidden lest it weaken the caste's ability to do its tasks for the greater good.

There is very little that distinguishes female tau from the males on the outside. In Courage and Honor, Captain Uriel can just regester the sex of a Fire warrior and only from scent and voice. He couldn't tell just by looking.

It isn't even completely clear how Tau reproduce exactly, they don't have your traditional mammalian setup.

Grey Templar wrote:There is very little that distinguishes female tau from the males on the outside. In Courage and Honor, Captain Uriel can just regester the sex of a Fire warrior and only from scent and voice. He couldn't tell just by looking.

It isn't even completely clear how Tau reproduce exactly, they don't have your traditional mammalian setup.

Well the only other way to tell a female tau from a male is by the "dips" (or something like that) on their heads. Males have just a line, while females have it Y shaped. And in terms of breeding, I assume they mate by normal means considering the tau are humanoid and have males/females, but I guess its to ones own interpretation.

I would guess that a good deal of female fire-caste would be uninvolved in combat, instead, they would be reserved for reproduction. The Fire-caste suffers the most casualties of any of the castes, reserving some females (or males in that matter) for reproduction ensures that the population can never fall to critical lows.

Brother Coa wrote:Don't know if they have boobs or not? That's the question that was bothering me from the beginning...

Shadowsun has an expanded chest cavity in her suit but that might just be her suit as it's experimental.

The novel "Fire Warrior" features female Fire Warriors in an obviously mixed gender regiment. Men and women are treated the same. Still, Tau can easily distinguish the genders even in battle dress. Esp. the heads look different, Xenology also claims that anatomy is very close to humans.

Kroothawk wrote:Xenology also claims that anatomy is very close to humans.

Tau boobs for all

While Tau females may have breasts, there's nothing dictating that they must, therefore, have 36DD. The Tau are a generally small race, their racial physiognomy might dictate that their women are (to a human viewpoint) universally small-breasted, perhaps excepting when pregnant or nursing, but otherwise fully capable of being comfortable in armor designed for a male.

For all we know, a B-cup could be considered the Dolly Parton of the Tau, with AA or A cups being the norm.

Should've saw this turning into a boob thread a mile away

nah, their an anime based race so its like two water melons under that chest plate

and those are the small ones, as we all know the laws of anime states that size of the breasts=how good they are in combat+chance of fighting tentacled tyranids, hence why you dont see tau with massive boobs or any tau with good combat skills, they're all of fighting tyranids

You... take issue with boobs? I mean, no problem if you do, whatever floats your goat, man.

Seriously, though, GW simply hasn't given us a zomgbewbz Tau mini for the tabletop, so the thought has developed that either all Tau soldiers are male or there's no distinction between their genders easily visible to the untrained human eye. I'm just tossing an idea out there that might offer a good middle-ground for people who want to employ female Tau troops without needing a quarter pound of greenstuff for every mini.

Its not a middle ground idea Psiensis, its supported by the canon. Tau females are extremely similer to the males for the purposes of astetics as far as the table top and fluff is concerned. If space marines in the fluff can just barely tell which are male and which are female then it goes that it will be nearly impossable to tell when they are fully suited up.

Sure, Tau can tell who's who. It would make reproduction are highly difficult activity if they couldn't.

Humans probably could only tell the difference for sure if they had completely disrobed tau of both genders to compare.



As far as bewbs are concerned, Tau are described as being similer to Bovines or other ungulent terren species in some respects. Cow's udders can fluctuate quite abit between when they have milk and when not. It is very possable that Tau mammary glands are extremely tiny when not nursing, and logic would dictate that a Fire Warrior would be given maternity leave so she could give birth and raise the baby at least past weaning age. Then the little guy gets shoved into basic training and mom goes back to active duty.

King Crow wrote:Should've saw this turning into a boob thread a mile away

Brother Coa: "I hate Tau. These inferior Xenos should be exterminated on sight!"
"But they have boobs."
Brother Coa: "Wait! Are you sure?"

Humans are alone in primates in that they have breasts during times that they are not lactating for the sustenance of their young. Therefore it is highly reasonable to assume that other species, even if they were to follow the internal reproductive cycle of terrestrial mammals, would not necessarily have breasts that one might notice.

The Tau, being a pragmatic and egalatarian race, would not simply leave their females at home as breeding stock. Why cut your available military by an additional 50% after you already allow only 20% of your populace to fight in the first place. To do otherwise implies a 6th (breeding) caste, of which no mention has been made. More fluff implies that females fight.

In the fluff for my army every unit is 50/50 male female. Individual members simply don't matter. They are there for war, not for titilation. Breeding occurs when it is necessary. For the Greater Good.

This does call to question a deeper issue. Are affairs allowed (encouraged, expected?) within Taelissera? Say a unit of 12 firewarriors is split 50/50. They bond in the taelissera ritual. Are they expected to breed then? Forbidden from doing it? If breeding/cohabitation occurs, is it a group family with males/females pairing as they will? It seems to be implied that mating does not occur in Tau society until after a certain time in the Fire Warrior's life (as in Sparta, and very Darwinian: only those strong enough to survive years of service will reproduce.)

Well, the Na'vi from Avatar have boobs, they're blue, Tau are blue, via the transitive property, Tau have boobs.

This does call to question a deeper issue. Are affairs allowed (encouraged, expected?) within Taelissera? Say a unit of 12 firewarriors is split 50/50. They bond in the taelissera ritual. Are they expected to breed then? Forbidden from doing it? If breeding/cohabitation occurs, is it a group family with males/females pairing as they will? It seems to be implied that mating does not occur in Tau society until after a certain time in the Fire Warrior's life (as in Sparta, and very Darwinian: only those strong enough to survive years of service will reproduce.)

I'm not sure GW has given us a canonical answer to questions like these. With the exception of Humanity, we're rarely given a glimpse of the Xeno at home.

I'm not sure is this is physically possible, but could it be that the reproductive cells are just harvested, like gene seed, and then used to create vat grown "offspring"? It would take out lot of the issues of maternity leave, and affairs getting in the way of the Greater Good.

acekevin8412 wrote:I'm not sure is this is physically possible, but could it be that the reproductive cells are just harvested, like gene seed, and then used to create vat grown "offspring"? It would take out lot of the issues of maternity leave, and affairs getting in the way of the Greater Good.

I doubt it, Tau society itself is less dependent on technology, being based on feudal cultures and whatnot. Also, the Tau would have had to forgo the artificial reproduction for most of their history, until they were united by the Ethereals, Tau society is pretty sentimental so I doubt that their culture would have led to their soldiers being mass-produced.

How did we get on breasts? Well on that topic, isn't there a picture of a naked tau in the xenology book?

The most defining part seems to be the forehead marks an head shape. Males have the line. Females have the Y. If your looking to model a female tau, that's how you should do it.

Here is a pic of what I think is the best tau female model.
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTFNzSFfCyhy1i1w92CcI-XswcLnAquUvxvOOJNoj1x1JXgSoZ7-4eoM-31

Squidmanlolz wrote:

acekevin8412 wrote:I'm not sure is this is physically possible, but could it be that the reproductive cells are just harvested, like gene seed, and then used to create vat grown "offspring"? It would take out lot of the issues of maternity leave, and affairs getting in the way of the Greater Good.

I doubt it, Tau society itself is less dependent on technology, being based on feudal cultures and whatnot. Also, the Tau would have had to forgo the artificial reproduction for most of their history, until they were united by the Ethereals, Tau society is pretty sentimental so I doubt that their culture would have led to their soldiers being mass-produced.

I have to disagree. The Tau are actually more technology dependent since they don't have warp powers or ancient stc to build off of. I will however, admit that in-vitro reproduction would have to be fairly new. But the Tau are described as being a very small race. And then, only 1/10, assuming equal numbers between castes which is unlikely, would be unable to fight for some time.

The way I understand it the Tau Castes are not all equal in terms of numbers.
I see the numbers like this Earth>Water>Fire=Air>Ethereal Corresponding to about 40, 25, 25, and 10.
And since the Tau are supposed to be a "Communist" or utilitarian society, I can't see them placing emphasis on one-on-one child care as opposed to communal care.

nomotog wrote:How did we get on breasts? Well on that topic, isn't there a picture of a naked tau in the xenology book?

The most defining part seems to be the forehead marks an head shape. Males have the line. Females have the Y. If your looking to model a female tau, that's how you should do it.

Here is a pic of what I think is the best tau female model.
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTFNzSFfCyhy1i1w92CcI-XswcLnAquUvxvOOJNoj1x1JXgSoZ7-4eoM-31

No its covered. Darvus did say that most of the body structure was close to that of a human, which surprised him. So it is not ridiculous to say that Tau females have boobs

Funny this thread is here..I just finished my Female Tau Ethereal and she has boobs.......yay!


original model had a chainmail bikini, had to sculpt something a bit more modest.

The question isn't "do tau have boobs?", its "do they have 'Boobs'?"