I'm just thinking about it... it would be pretty cool to see a Dark Eldar equivalent of the Tau, kind of like a Dark Tau. The paint schemes would be nothing short of awesome, and I think it could fit the models well. What are your thoughts? Thread!

No, just no.. .please no...

If you want to play 'evil' Tau, play Farsight Enclaves.

Why would this happen? They're not susceptible to warp energy so it's not like they can go all Chaos here. The closest thing to renegade Tau is Farsight's cadre, who aren't Chaos or anything like that.

Okay so maybe the Dark Eldar was a bad example. I'm not thinking about the Chaos aspect of anything, though that would be cool. I was just thinking of a pirate-themed Tau equivalent. I'd definitely play it because I think the models would be totally rad. I guess I'm coming at this from mostly a modeling aspect, but I also think the fluff could be fun.

Farsight Enclave please !

You can paint them any colour scheme you like at the moment.

Ilove40k wrote:Farsight Enclave please !

Seriously, I want to see it. There is huge potential for awesome background story here.

The term Dark Tau is just wrong, if you want rouge or pirate Tau come up with a more original term.

blood reaper wrote:The term Dark Tau is just wrong, if you want rouge or pirate Tau come up with a more original term.

Ugh, you people are taking this way too literally. I don't care about the name, I just said Dark Tau because I was thinking of a Tau-like army sort of related to the pirate-like theme of the Dark Eldar. I wouldn't know what to call them. I would say do a Farsight Enclave codex but I'm thinking of an army that is much, MUCH more sinister than the Enclave. If you want to rip the name fine, but if you're going to rip something at least contribute back with something positive and quit trolling.

Codex: Tau Caliginous

There, a cool word, happy? It represents a shrouded, more sinister Tau.

Sinister Tau? That's really just not in their nature, the Pirates of the Eldar are far different than any other race or army.

Kilkrazy wrote:You can paint them any colour scheme you like at the moment.

I get that Kil, but it's one thing to paint them whatever you'd like, but it's another to have a dedicated army with it's own dedicated model line. That's really what I'd like to see, but apparently nobody else wants to see it. I don't see the harm in it, personally.

Still sounds too cliche for me.

peebzguy wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:You can paint them any colour scheme you like at the moment.

I get that Kil, but it's one thing to paint them whatever you'd like, but it's another to have a dedicated army with it's own dedicated model line. That's really what I'd like to see, but apparently nobody else wants to see it. I don't see the harm in it, personally.

Look at it like this.
You essentially want 'Evil Tau'. From the established Tau background this doesn't really suit them all that well (unless they regressed to their pre-Greater Good stage)
It isn't really in character for them though in theory you could do it...

peebzguy wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:You can paint them any colour scheme you like at the moment.

I get that Kil, but it's one thing to paint them whatever you'd like, but it's another to have a dedicated army with it's own dedicated model line. That's really what I'd like to see, but apparently nobody else wants to see it. I don't see the harm in it, personally.

The harm in it is that there already are 10 "Dark" factions and creating another one just dilutes the effort for no real gain. Remember, Necrons, Tau, Eldar, Orks and SoB are still waiting for a 5th edition upgrade.

But no-one is stopping you from writing up unofficial Dark Tau if you want, so rock on with the idea.

So a group of Tau who have given themselves over to the Mont'au. That would definitely create a "dark" Tau. They would be murderous, violent and probably not averse to close combat (and probably quite good at it with spear like weapons a favourite).

I could see this as a group of warriors who live by raiding human worlds. It's likely that instead of the upper end Tau gear they would be using a mixture of human gear sprinkled with some rare surviving Tau items.

Or just model spikey bits to your Tau models. That is pretty much how GW shows an army is "Dark".

I think you have a good platform to make some origional models... my question would be why do they need to be evil/ renegade tau?

the tau are a resourceful people... not to the extent of orks btu they are very technilogically inclined

I can see you makign a back story of how your particular group was fighting against a dark eldar incurtion and drove those S&M elves back into the webway. ... they unfortunatly had badly damaged equipment and thus using thier tech skills had to salvage DE parts and incorperate them into thier own equipment to makeit off the planet

thats just an idea I'm sure you could come up with a hundred reasons why they have the pirate or dark eldar theme... coudl be cool link models if you decide to do it. I can see some cool hybrid hammerhead/raiders

helgrenze wrote:Or just model spikey bits to your Tau models. That is pretty much how GW shows an army is "Dark".

Spiky Tau? I kind of want to see that now. I'm imagining Spiky Crisis Suits with scary looking skulls all over them. Yeah that would be an awesome new race!

Jefffar wrote:So a group of Tau who have given themselves over to the Mont'au. That would definitely create a "dark" Tau. They would be murderous, violent and probably not averse to close combat (and probably quite good at it with spear like weapons a favourite).

I could see this as a group of warriors who live by raiding human worlds. It's likely that instead of the upper end Tau gear they would be using a mixture of human gear sprinkled with some rare surviving Tau items.

I'm supporting this - it says somewhere that before the ethereals came the Tau where very sinister in several ways, fighting amongst each others. Pretty uch as dark as Tau can be, I think.

edit: yay LEET post count!

Wha6t evr the f<$k anyone else says, I quite like the idea. Like the Farsight Enclaves, but piratical, travelling across the galaxy, models a cross between IW and Tau as that would suit them, then some nice fluff about how they split away and previous victories.

Saintspirit wrote:

Jefffar wrote:So a group of Tau who have given themselves over to the Mont'au. That would definitely create a "dark" Tau. They would be murderous, violent and probably not averse to close combat (and probably quite good at it with spear like weapons a favourite).

I could see this as a group of warriors who live by raiding human worlds. It's likely that instead of the upper end Tau gear they would be using a mixture of human gear sprinkled with some rare surviving Tau items.

I'm supporting this - it says somewhere that before the ethereals came the Tau where very sinister in several ways, fighting amongst each others. Pretty uch as dark as Tau can be, I think.

edit: yay LEET post count!

If by somewhere you mean the Tau codex, yeah, pretty much.

We see hints of it in modern Tau as well. When pressed hard and/or without close Ethereal supervision the Tau have proven to be as violent and genocidal as any other race. See the stories of Brightsword and Farsight.

I'm just the kind of guy who likes a light and dark side to everything!

Now this is the discussion I had in mind I was thinking about this during the meeting I was in, and was pondering - if the Ethereals use their abilities to influence the minds of the Tau (whether through pheromones or psy ability, as has been eluded to in fluff). I dunno, there's a lot of ways you could go with. If you want to go the psy route, I would say that within the Ethereal caste there was a random mutation which allowed for psy abilities, and thus could be influenced by the Warp. The Tau race, having never been exposed to Warp energies before, the few Ethereals with the mutation easily succumbed to the Ruinous Powers of Chaos... Or the pheromone route... I dunno, can't think of one right now, but I love the mutation route

Sooo many conversions going through my head right now, I love this hobby.

I'd say: Join the queue. Every second teen starting 40k has the naughty naughty idea of THEEVULZ Tau with spikes and tentacles and thinks he is the first to have this idea. I named this phenomenon the Paladrin syndrome, after WoW, where every second teen made a corrupted Paladin called "Dark Avenger of Death" or something like that. WoW eventually bowed to the demand and made a special epic character class for all those teens, available to all classes, called Death Knight.

So if you feel the need to do Chaos Tau, Chaos Eldar, corrupted Grey Knights, boob themed Sororitas, female Space Marines or any army painted PINK (muahahaha), join the naughty club but be aware that most members are not older than 16

Kroothawk wrote:I'd say: Join the queue. Every second teen starting 40k has the naughty naughty idea of THEEVULZ Tau with spikes and tentacles and thinks he is the first to have this idea. I named this phenomenon the Paladrin syndrome, after WoW, where every second teen made a corrupted Paladin called "Dark Avenger of Death" or something like that. WoW eventually bowed to the demand and made a special epic character class for all those teens, available to all classes, called Death Knight.

So if you feel the need to do Chaos Tau, Chaos Eldar, corrupted Grey Knights, boob themed Sororitas, female Space Marines or any army painted PINK (muahahaha), join the naughty club but be aware that most members are not older than 16

I'm not claiming to be the first guy to come up with the idea, as I'm sure someone thought of it right when the Tau came out in 2001 or 2002, or whenever it did. Rather, it was a new thought for me and I got excited about it. After all, that's what it's all about right? I just don't understand why people feel the need to put something down because they feel it's dumb. I realize it's an open community and you can say what you want for the most part, it's just not something I would do personally, which is why it bothers me. I'm well beyond 16, by the way

Anyway, now I'm torn, I don't know whether to start my quirky Tau army or wait for the impending Necron release, as I've been waiting for Necrons for, oh, years :( Decisions decisions...

For the Greater Evil

FuryTheBerserker wrote:For the Greater Evil

For Mont'au

Genuine question - the Culexus Assassin has no warp presence and puts dread even into daemons, so why don't the Tau have even a slightly similar effect on daemons?

Howard A Treesong wrote:Genuine question - the Culexus Assassin has no warp presence and puts dread even into daemons, so why don't the Tau have even a slightly similar effect on daemons?

They have a tiny warp presence, it's barley readable in the Warp by Daemons. They are not blanks.

Kroothawk wrote:I'd say: Join the queue. Every second teen starting 40k has the naughty naughty idea of THEEVULZ Tau with spikes and tentacles and thinks he is the first to have this idea. I named this phenomenon the Paladrin syndrome, after WoW, where every second teen made a corrupted Paladin called "Dark Avenger of Death" or something like that. WoW eventually bowed to the demand and made a special epic character class for all those teens, available to all classes, called Death Knight.

So if you feel the need to do Chaos Tau, Chaos Eldar, corrupted Grey Knights, boob themed Sororitas, female Space Marines or any army painted PINK (muahahaha), join the naughty club but be aware that most members are not older than 16

+eleventyone billion!!!!!1!!11eleven!!1

Sorry, but Kroothawk is right. Yes, in and of itself, it might look like a good idea, but immediately when you put it into context - id est the 40K universe - it becomes a silly, silly idea, because this universe is anything but black&white. Tau are not the good guys, they are an imperialistic, dogmatic, communist caste society trying to rule the galaxy and killing everyone who doesn't agree with them. Yes, compared to the fundamentalistic, fascist IoM, they look like the good guys, but there you go: there are no good guys, only different levels of evil.

But most importantly, making an evil version of everything that seems to be nice is just what Kroothawk said: juvenile. And once you aren't a youth anymore, you tend to dislike juvenile things.

Also, as they don't have the means to make use of the Web-Way, Tau Pirates are going to be a.... very local problem. Even if they are, somehow, using a stolen DE ship to get around in... they have no real concept of the Warp, or the Web-way (if at all) and, given that there's not a whole lot of "rogue DE" just flying about the galaxy, these Tau will be hard-pressed to repair their DE-derived technologies, as there won't be a ready source of replacement parts.

This is second to the fact that battle casualties will not be easily replaced. Humans might want to join the Tau for the Greater Good.... but most humans will abhor anything appearing like the Dark Eldar. Gue'la auxiliaries will be very hard to come by.

I dont need to be under the thrall of a chaos god to go home and chop up my mum and dad with a rusty chainsaw. And then use a nail gun to attach my sister to the front of the house. Humans in 40k dont need to be a direct contact with the eye of terror to be a evil villian. The dark elder hate chaos yet they are pure evil. The necrons are weapons against warp and its minions and yet murder in the millions. You dont need to scream praises to the dark gods of chaos doom to be evil, and as humans we can not understand the ways of the xeno. Can there be 'Dark Tau'? If you want tau who are evil / dark then hell why not.

Why is Dark Tau new army?
They just need to made sterilization, using Kroot and Humans as expendable conscripts and feeding their PoW to Kroot and making them work until death fluff valid and true and regular Tau becomes Dark Tau

Yup and there is a built in backstory reason for an evil Tau, the Mont'au.

It's actually a cool reason for an evil force in 40K. It isn't inspired by a dark god or demon. It doesn't involve demons or beings that feed upon the stars.

Instead it's the darkness that lurks deep inside even the best of us all. It's the dark urges of anger, fear and hate unleashed.

It is a natural evil. An evil that we ourselves can feel.

So I really like the concept from a fluff perspective.

I like this idea, Mont'au Raiders sounds pretty awesome and makes some sense fluff wise, and it's not something I can see / find.
Being a Dark Eldar player, with an extended codex (and a skaven player...) that's about to start a Tau force it appeals to me.
Almost tempted to make one...

Ideally I need to get myself a tau codex first though...

Believe it or not, my friend used have his models as dark tau, but he made them a seperate caste, ones exiled by the other caste's and forgotten from tau history, because they had a relative link to a warp-corrupt area on the planet, or something similar anyways, but I liked the idea as using them as a sort of nuetral merc faction in that sense.
Although I do have to agree with kroothawk on this, it seems homemade evil armies dont tend to keep there hype over the guy who made it and quickly inspire regret. As I have seen in many a faction at my local GW.

Mont'au is the tau word for kinstrife. It is the opposite of "For the Greater Good", ie of Tau of all castes working together. The Mont'au is what happened before the ethereals appeared, when the castes fought each other almost to the point of extinction.

It has nothing at all to do with violence towards other races. The Mont'au is the horror of the Tau because it means their races' demise.

So no, it is not a good basis for any 'Dark Tau'. Those are still silly.

Criminal acts may or may not happen in Tau society, but for something to be worth writing a codex about, it should be more than your local neighbourhood crook.

The idea of Dark Tau does not make sense fluffwise. And yes, their society is already plenty dark.

You could always play Dark Tau models as count as Kroot in a regular Tau army.

Skylifter wrote:Mont'au is the tau word for kinstrife. It is the opposite of "For the Greater Good", ie of Tau of all castes working together. The Mont'au is what happened before the ethereals appeared, when the castes fought each other almost to the point of extinction.

It has nothing at all to do with violence towards other races. The Mont'au is the horror of the Tau because it means their races' demise.

So no, it is not a good basis for any 'Dark Tau'. Those are still silly.

Criminal acts may or may not happen in Tau society, but for something to be worth writing a codex about, it should be more than your local neighbourhood crook.

The idea of Dark Tau does not make sense fluffwise. And yes, their society is already plenty dark.

From what I can see, the Mont'au is their baser urges, when order goes bye bye.
So a well organised criminal gang, large enough to have aqquired the resources, and good enough to evade capture / destruction etc to be a space-faring raiding force could logically use it as a name to strike fear into their kin.

At least this is how I'm looking at it.

Also - even if it's a local problem, the battles can still happen and thus be played out.

The Tau are already "dark"...their god damn communists can't get much more evil. If you want to do a pirate army just do human pirates or something, or traitor guard

Dark Tau would be awesome. They could force planetary populations to join their rigid Stalinist caste system at gunpoint, make inferior races all get sterilised, and, erm, oh.

Communists are not inherently evil, not even close.
Hell - the concept of communism is damn near perfect, just because pretty much every human attempts failed is mostly due to the fault of the leaders of the parties. This doesnt mean they're all evil, most are just gonna be people trying to get by.

As an entire race there's going to be variations in ideology. There's going to be criminals and dissdents, aswell as those just plain crazy.

Ovion wrote:Communists are not inherently evil, not even close.
Hell - the concept of communism is damn near perfect, just because pretty much every human attempts failed is mostly due to the fault of the leaders of the parties. This doesnt mean they're all evil, most are just gonna be people trying to get by.

As an entire race there's going to be variations in ideology. There's going to be criminals and dissdents, aswell as those just plain crazy.

It was more or less a joke about it being "evil" as most of us on this forum come from capitalistic nations. Kind of off topic but the reason communism fails is because its accepts mediocrity there is no reason for an individual to work harder. thats why most communist countries now days have a of capitalistic themes. that is why communism doesn't work....the world would look like the 1800's if every country was communist

An evil version of tau would be cool like an extremist cell. Though I also think it would be cool to have a more guerrilla force of tau who are rebelling against the greater good. Units entirely designed around ambush and traps unlike most(maybe all) outside of appoc. And cities of death.

FIrstly tau are already evil and farsight could actually be a good guy (or bad guy) depending on how you read the fluff .

you want evil tau - paint them black and stick lots of spikey stuff and lots of dead body parts

The Tau are good.

The Ethereals . . . that's debatable.

What the hell is wrong with you guys? Why is every idea in this place just shot down?
Its always "Noes you idjiot fluffs wouldnt allow it" or just thats plain stupid.
I, for one, think its a good idea. I dont see why tau cant be pirates. Theyd do just as well as chaos or imperial pirates.
Nor do i see why tau cant fall to chaos. Why not? Just because its unordinary doesnt mean it cant happen.
/rant.
To anyone who doesnt apply to these circumstances, disregaurd this.

Jollydevil wrote:What the hell is wrong with you guys? Why is every idea in this place just shot down?
Its always "Noes you idjiot fluffs wouldnt allow it" or just thats plain stupid.
I, for one, think its a good idea. I dont see why tau cant be pirates. Theyd do just as well as chaos or imperial pirates.
Nor do i see why tau cant fall to chaos. Why not? Just because its unordinary doesnt mean it cant happen.
/rant.
To anyone who doesnt apply to these circumstances, disregaurd this.

It's usually because they are poorly thoughout and because of that pretty stupid...
There are exceptions of course...

Because putting the word Dark or Evil or Chaos before the word Tau dones npt mean the two are gonna fit.

Jollydevil wrote:What the hell is wrong with you guys? Why is every idea in this place just shot down?
Its always "Noes you idjiot fluffs wouldnt allow it" or just thats plain stupid.
I, for one, think its a good idea. I dont see why tau cant be pirates. Theyd do just as well as chaos or imperial pirates.
Nor do i see why tau cant fall to chaos. Why not? Just because its unordinary doesnt mean it cant happen.
/rant.
To anyone who doesnt apply to these circumstances, disregaurd this.

I agree with you, let them do what they want as long as the rules are legit BUT - I wanted too make a non evil daemon army (made of eagle headed daemons that represent the emperors will) as long as you fallow the rules of the codex you use hell you can make an army made of cats for all I care

peebzguy wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:You can paint them any colour scheme you like at the moment.

I get that Kil, but it's one thing to paint them whatever you'd like, but it's another to have a dedicated army with it's own dedicated model line. That's really what I'd like to see, but apparently nobody else wants to see it. I don't see the harm in it, personally.

You do realise that Tau are barely popular enough to justify one model line?

Jollydevil wrote:What the hell is wrong with you guys? Why is every idea in this place just shot down?
Its always "Noes you idjiot fluffs wouldnt allow it" or just thats plain stupid.
I, for one, think its a good idea. I dont see why tau cant be pirates. Theyd do just as well as chaos or imperial pirates.
Nor do i see why tau cant fall to chaos. Why not? Just because its unordinary doesnt mean it cant happen.
/rant.
To anyone who doesnt apply to these circumstances, disregaurd this.

"It is also true that the Tau are a race bereft of psykers. Whether it is due to their limited Warp interaction or something distinct about the Tau mind it means that they are unique amongst the dominant races of the galaxy. For while it does mean that the Tau do not possess the significant advantages that having psykers brings, it is also worthy to note that not one Tau has ever fallen to Chaos. In fact, as a species, the Tau register as barely more than a blip in the Warp and it may well be that this has been their saving grace, protecting the altruism and idealism their race shares from the destructive tendencies of Chaos."

Straight from Lexicanum.

No one said he couldn't do it. If you post topics here you are giving the community the right to criticize your ideas. But if he did go a head and do it, he could get a lot of gak from lore freaks.

I'm all for people thinking up ideas for the universe, but to do something that is clearly stated "NEVER HAPPENS" is going to cause backlash from people who are into lore. As for tau as pirates/chaos, go for it, no one here can stop you but I would guess that a person who posts here wants to hear what the community thinks about it.

Boy this topic went crazy fast. I actually think it's a new record for a tau thread. Anyway yes you can do dark tau. The frist thing people will think when they see them is "something is wrong with these tau". That is kind of the point of dark tau though. There is something wrong with them.

There are ways you can do this.

Farsight tau. There right in the codex as your dark tau. Model wise, I think you should use come kroot parts. Add daggers, bayonets, capes, other tribal symbols. Farsight is what Mont'au tau would look like. (It might be neat to model some tau from the Mont'au, but all they had was muskets back then so you couldn't do a lot with them)

I think we also had a thread on this topic before, but I can't find it right now.

Got a fairly solid idea for the basic troops choice floating in my brain already...

But why the hell not.

I really, really like the sound of that, Ovion! Mont'au Raiders... that's awesome

Ovion wrote:Got a fairly solid idea for the basic troops choice floating in my brain already...

But why the hell not.

Spoiler:

Oh the idea is to make a whole extra codex. (I thought the idea was just modeling things differently.) This sounds fun. So what is your basic troop idea?

All I have read was the topic, and all I can say is this:

FARSIGHT ENCLAVES ARE EVIL ENOUGH

killykavekommando wrote:All I have read was the topic, and all I can say is this:

FARSIGHT ENCLAVES ARE EVIL ENOUGH

Maybe, but I really would like GW to refine and and expand on it a lot. The Farsight rule is kind of what I like, but I want to see it officially developed on a lot further. For the time being I can be satisfied with a nifty paint scheme, conversions, and using Farsight, but I think there is a lot of room for improvement.

peebzguy wrote:

killykavekommando wrote:All I have read was the topic, and all I can say is this:

FARSIGHT ENCLAVES ARE EVIL ENOUGH

Maybe, but I really would like GW to refine and and expand on it a lot. The Farsight rule is kind of what I like, but I want to see it officially developed on a lot further. For the time being I can be satisfied with a nifty paint scheme, conversions, and using Farsight, but I think there is a lot of room for improvement.

Can't argue with that.

A Mont'au army is easy: special rule: "Mont'au army may only attack itself, may not use any advanced weapons." Sounds like an interesting game

nomotog wrote:

Ovion wrote:Got a fairly solid idea for the basic troops choice floating in my brain already...

But why the hell not.

Spoiler:

Oh the idea is to make a whole extra codex. (I thought the idea was just modeling things differently.) This sounds fun. So what is your basic troop idea?

As far as I can tell, the initial thing was the fellow wanted a line of models / a new race, but couldnt be bothered to create a codex himself.
I just thought it was a fun idea and was debating doing it, then with such huge nay-saying in such a silly manner, I decided I just had to do it to annoy those guys as much as attempt to pull it off

My idea for the troop so far is a quicker mobile unit with shorter range weaponry, something that can move/shoot/move and has something like 2 pistols with an 18inch range, the option to switch pistols to ccws and such, and the option of adding a couple of bigger guns, such as special rifles etc.

Kroothawk wrote:A Mont'au army is easy: special rule: "Mont'au army may only attack itself, may not use any advanced weapons." Sounds like an interesting game

I'm doing this as basically a kind of... Tau Mafia or maybe Yakuza type thing, using the power of a name to strike fear

How about you call them the OutCaste

Ahem, a little like this?





The colours of my Tau army are black with crimson and white/yellow Sept markings.

For the record, he's not Chaotic, nor possessed. He has, however, gone a little off the rails. In my take on Farsight, he's been away from the influence of the Tau Empire and has reverted somewhat to the warlike ways. He understands the power of psychological warfare. He adorns his armour with trophies and, in some cases, armour and weapons gleaned from the enemy because he often has no choice, due to the isolation and lack of resources.

He's not evil. But he is very, very angry...

The Tau culture is already based around mind control and social stratification. One could quite easily collect a Codex army with lots of Kroot and Vespid units (and even human auxiliaries) made to look like beaten-down, abused and lobotomised slaves and give the Tau units more of a 'spiky' look to signify they're on the 'disorder' side of the goody/baddy dichotomy used to team up Tyranids, Necrons and Black Legion in fluff-based multiplayer games.

The main thing distinguishing 'Dark' Tau would be a lower PR budget.

Ovion wrote:

nomotog wrote:

Ovion wrote:Got a fairly solid idea for the basic troops choice floating in my brain already...

But why the hell not.

Spoiler:

Oh the idea is to make a whole extra codex. (I thought the idea was just modeling things differently.) This sounds fun. So what is your basic troop idea?

As far as I can tell, the initial thing was the fellow wanted a line of models / a new race, but couldnt be bothered to create a codex himself.
I just thought it was a fun idea and was debating doing it, then with such huge nay-saying in such a silly manner, I decided I just had to do it to annoy those guys as much as attempt to pull it off

My idea for the troop so far is a quicker mobile unit with shorter range weaponry, something that can move/shoot/move and has something like 2 pistols with an 18inch range, the option to switch pistols to ccws and such, and the option of adding a couple of bigger guns, such as special rifles etc.

Kroothawk wrote:A Mont'au army is easy: special rule: "Mont'au army may only attack itself, may not use any advanced weapons." Sounds like an interesting game

I'm doing this as basically a kind of... Tau Mafia or maybe Yakuza type thing, using the power of a name to strike fear

So what is the thinking here. Like is it just expending farisight into a full army or a completely new tau army.

Well, being I only learnt about farsight after starting to take part in this thread.... Not that.

Am currently trying to get a cheapy tau codex off ebay.

I'm thinking from a more DE standpoint combined with some more general organised crime / dissidant elements.

As far as a fluff basis for "dark" Tau, there was a reference to a corrupted Tau colony in the early part of the Black Library Book "Black Tide" by James Swallow.

There is also a former Tau sept world mentioned in the codex. A world which the Tau abandoned under untold circumstances. Tau originally from that world are still considered untrustworthy by other Tau.


Also there is another Sept world that spent many years isolated from the rest of the Empire. It has since been re-integrated but there is talk of technological if not social regression.

So after a few days thinking on it (hours of being bored of work are great) I've figured through a few things for the Mont'au Raiders, and it's changed up a bit (one wonders if they could overly be classed as 'dark' anymore either...) and am going to run the ideas through here before I start my own thread later in the week / next week.

So
Mont'au Raiders:
- They're immune to whatever effect Ethereals normally have on tau. No one is sure why or how.
-- The immunity is genetic, via a recessive gene.
-- It's insanely rare, I'm not sure of the current population of the Tau but I'm thinking something like 1% or less are carriers, let alone actually immune.
-- Those that are immune are able to tell others like them by sight. Again, it's not known how or why this is.

- The raiders were initially akin to a secret underground on T'au, knowledge of their group spread by word of mouth among their kind.
-- Currently led by a former member of the Air Caste, who orchestrated their crowning achievement - the theft of a trio of Mantas and enabling the succession of a large number of their kind from T'au.
-- Now live on what's thought by the Tau Empire to be an uninhabited world. A small city has been carved deep into a large cliff face, centered around a massive natural cavern that holds their small shipyards and what little navy they have.
-- Have recently completed setting up mining facilities (have so far been processing ore from carving out the city) and so are now able to easily produce own gear.

- To the immune Mont'au doesnt mean the end of their race or 'destruction' it means 'freedom'.
-- They believe that the majority of the Tau race is under a kind of mind control, practically enslaved by the ethereals.
-- Continue to run expeditions to find and extract the immune from tau worlds, including several infiltrating the society to act as facilitators.
-- Are of the opinion there's little they can do about the ethereals - they're too small in number to fight a full fledged war, whatever they attempt to do in regards to making their bretheren see whats going on would be nullified by a few words from an ethereal etc.
-- Run raids to aqquire additional technology, infomation, funds, food, equipment etc.


That's what I got so far.

Mantas don't have warp drive if you where thinking that.

The Tau, in general, don't have warp drives... at least, not in the serious, long-reaching way of pretty much everyone else in the galaxy. They basically "skip" across the surface of the warp like a stone on a lake, which is one of the reasons their empire is so tiny... they simply don't have the technology to fly further.

Yep, and the Mantas don't even have that capability, which I believe was nomotog's point.

The Tau mind control in Xenology is theorized to be based on those shiny rocks in the center of the Etherals heads being the same structure as another jelly fish looking things shiny rock organs. These emit pheremones or some such nonsense causing those that can sense them a reduced self preservation and replaces it with an extreme loyalty to those around them.

If you just stuffed up the Tau faceholes they should go back to thinking about themselves. I'd have to dig the book out, but I think thats the gist of it.

As a side note, How did the Etherals get there mind control smell creators all the way from the western side of the Galaxy? DUN DUn DUN!

Is not Xenology supposed to be written (and read as) the heavily-edited, tour de force of propaganda that the Infantryman's Uplifting primer was?

I recently got a Damocles Gulf edition of the IUP, and while reading it, I learned that the Tau are:

Afraid of fire
Afraid of water
Afraid of shadows
Dull-witted and stupid
Nearly blind
Have weak, hollow bones, which snap easily
Will sacrifice human babies to their alien gods

This, of course, is why we must eradicate them from the Galaxy. They simply don't deserve to live.

... that said, if Xenology is written in the same manner, I would not take anything it contains as actual truth about the race depicted.

It's not. The primer is full of lies because it's meant for the guardsmen. Xenology is written by a inquisitor for inquisitors. It's not meant to be a pack of lies. (It might have things wrong in it though.)

Tau mind control could fill up several threads. It's a theory, but not proven. That's about the basics of it.

No one knows how it happens, which is why no one knows how ey're immune.

The manta things just meant to be an imppressive feat, allowing a lot of them to escape, the planet was going to be local though I can change that to a jump drive enabled ship, and have the planet further out just to be cooler - they're still pirates after all

Ovion wrote: - To the immune Mont'au doesnt mean the end of their race or 'destruction' it means 'freedom'.

"Bloodshed is peace! Civil war is freedom! Kill everyone who wants to help you! For the Greater Violence!"

What about dark orks? Or dark tyranids? How about dark dark eldar?

Kroothawk wrote:

Ovion wrote: - To the immune Mont'au doesnt mean the end of their race or 'destruction' it means 'freedom'.

"Bloodshed is peace! Civil war is freedom! Kill everyone who wants to help you! For the Greater Violence!"

See you keep spewing this sorta thing but you forget 2 relatively important points.
1; This is proposed rules, a place where you create fiction to add to fiction, not just slag things off, you haven't actually given any actual input so far nor done anything constructive, infact your entire input seems to have been 'lololol your ideas suck' regardless of what's said.

2; Being these are piratical raiders, immune to the mind control of the ethereals, working outdside regular tau society and norms with their own sub-dialect (think difference between spanish and catalan or whatever it is they speak in the pironese that funny spench language.) with lots of similarities and a few of the same words meaning different things.

I mean, I've been thinking up viable ideas, but you seem to think that an entire race will behave in the exact same manner with no indiiduality. And while this may well be true to an extent especially under the influence of the ethereals - it's going to nose dive once you remove that (ie farsight or anyone outside their influence for X time) so logically tau immune to the ethereals effect that have grown and developed in tau society will have developed differently to their precivilised equivalent.

Aswell as that it took hundreds if not thousands of years to get to the point of self destruction, so even if they ARE delusional, it'll be a while till it comes to that.

Ultimately though, it's a bit of fun, like everything in proposed rules so stop taking the piss and ttollig.

Relax. He was just having a little fun. Or maybe he was just following what he thinks most people would do for "The Worser Bad"!

By the by - are there any known names / classes for tau starships?

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Tau_Navy_(Kor'vattra)

This is proposed rules, a place where you create fiction to add to fiction

Proposed rules is for adding rules for a game system. Fluff should be in the 40K Background or, like this is, in 40K General Discussion.

Kroothawk's post was referencing Orwell's 1984 btw, which to me would be an excellent starting point for a 'dark' Tau force. A perversion of their greater good ideals into a brutal autocracy. Sounds good to me.

forgot this threads in general - missed that on the phonebrowser and am normally there.

I'm also generally involved more with building units and codices, which includes fluff aswell.

And thanks for the tau navy link. theresnothingthere:(

Gotcha, also, found this old thread on ATT, does all of the typing on what Xenology, and the different conspiracy theories surrounding the Tau.

http://advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3797&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Ok - my phone just screwed up on opening the link. Stupid phone.

peebzguy wrote:Okay so maybe the Dark Eldar was a bad example. I'm not thinking about the Chaos aspect of anything, though that would be cool. I was just thinking of a pirate-themed Tau equivalent. I'd definitely play it because I think the models would be totally rad. I guess I'm coming at this from mostly a modeling aspect, but I also think the fluff could be fun.

You don't need Dark Tau fluff to paint up and model your Tau army this way. If you want a pirate themed Tau army then by all means make one. You don't need special rules to do the modeling project.

Skriker

Kroothawk wrote:

Ovion wrote: - To the immune Mont'au doesnt mean the end of their race or 'destruction' it means 'freedom'.

"Bloodshed is peace! Civil war is freedom! Kill everyone who wants to help you! For the Greater Violence!"

Reminds me on Tau during the Nibosa campaign

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tau#Space_Fleet

see also:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Kor%27vattra

... for Tau interstellar capabilities and vehicles.

Ok, so I figure it'll make more sense (and be a somewhat more daring feat) if they stole a trio of Gal'Leath-class Starships (and associated escorts) and dissapeared into the night.

This would also give a logical start-point for colonising a planet as these things are more than capable of holding the resources and materials to do so, as well as a more sensible capacity to carry ther kin off-world, and a somewhat better foundation for their navy.

Though I intend them to have their own 'flair' in regards to tech and design of vehicles etc.

The explorer is a ugly ship. Use the Custodian.

Mont'au is, as can be read in the Codex, the time of bloody civil war that almost destroyed the Tau race. It was ended with the appearance of the ethereals.

Praising the selfdestructive bloodshed and civil war times as carefree freedom times and ethereals as the killjoys IS either a proof of not knowing the basic fluff OR a sign of deliberate Orwellian newspeak, that would make a PM manager of the weapon industry proud. Civil war and massacring your neighbor is not the epitome of freedom, and peace is no oppression that every decent man has to stand up against.

That said, I don't like it when people want to make tau just another "kill everything on sight" race like every other fraction in 40k, and I came back to 40k because tau HAD a better background than that.

Reworking the idea - it'll be maybe 1-200 years or so ago that the theft occured, giving a bit more time for them to have fleshed out and set up shop as it were.

I havent read the Tau codex, working on aqquiring one right now, working mostly off info flowing through this thread (and others) and what I've gleaned from wikis / lexanicum etc. I imagine my 'initial concept' may well be altered yet again once I get the full book.

And I'm not making them another just kill everything on sight race, more a 'is freedom at the cost of free will really freedom type thing'.

I'm going for a - the Tau appear good, while are more.. very grey, while the Raiders will be more appear bad, while leaning towards 'true freedom'.

Like I said, they might ultimately be delusional it'll all fail and they'll rip themselves apart. But hey - at least they tried right!

That's where we differ: For me the right to massacre your neighbors is not true freedom.
BTW Tau are not mindless drones of the ethereals, Tau society is more based on Asian societies with a different approach to individualism. See also the link on utilitarianism in my sig to see that they aren't commies either.

Not at all...

Should I counter on the same level by adding a Hitler beard to an Emperor portrait?

Tau ideology - Grater Good for all galaxy. All shall be united in a single empire, have rights etc...

Communism - All is for the Grater Good of Mankind. Every person will work, live in free country and have all rights it can...

Sound familiar...?

And Tau are brainwashed by Etherials, just like CSM are with Chaos Gods. Not only that, Etherials divided their race to 4 caster. You can't choose what caste you may be + you are not allowed to breed with member of the other caste. I am just waiting to read about Tau in their free time, to se ewaht kind of civil right they have. Only Farsight is free from their influence, to me he is the only true Tau.

Cerebrium wrote:What about dark orks? Or dark tyranids? How about dark dark eldar?

Would they have more spikes or fewer?

Brother Coa wrote:Tau ideology - Grater Good for all galaxy. All shall be united in a single empire, have rights etc...

Communism - All is for the Grater Good of Mankind. Every person will work, live in free country and have all rights it can...

Sound familiar...?

And Tau are brainwashed by Etherials, just like CSM are with Chaos Gods. Not only that, Etherials divided their race to 4 caster. You can't choose what caste you may be + you are not allowed to breed with member of the other caste. I am just waiting to read about Tau in their free time, to se ewaht kind of civil right they have. Only Farsight is free from their influence, to me he is the only true Tau.

Communism is a sociopolitical movement that aims for a classless and sometimes a stateless society structured upon common ownership of the means of production, free access to articles of consumption, and the end of wage labour and private property in the means of production and real estate.


The Tau have a Caste system( like you mentioned) that breaks the Tau into different classes (Warrior, Diplomat, Ruler, Builder, Pilot), which is what Communism is trying to get away from and end. Right off the bat, the Tau show they are not Communists, because they have a very Rigid Caste System, which goes against the base Idea of Communism.


Edit: However!

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "good" of the greatest number of individuals. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its resulting outcome. The most influential contributors to this theory are considered to be Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

This is what the Tau are all about. The Caste System is for the overall good of the Tau (breeding better warriors/Diplomats/Builders/ect).

Brother coa. If you want to talk about the tau being commies, you might just want to do your own tau are commies thread.

Ovion you might just want to shelve the idea till after you read the codex. It will give you a lot of insight to the tau and what they are like when they are evil.

Brother Coa wrote:Tau ideology - Grater Good for all galaxy. All shall be united in a single empire, have rights etc...

Communism - All is for the Grater Good of Mankind. Every person will work, live in free country and have all rights it can...

Sound familiar...?

And Tau are brainwashed by Etherials, just like CSM are with Chaos Gods. Not only that, Etherials divided their race to 4 caster. You can't choose what caste you may be + you are not allowed to breed with member of the other caste. I am just waiting to read about Tau in their free time, to se ewaht kind of civil right they have. Only Farsight is free from their influence, to me he is the only true Tau.

There are theories that the etherals emit Pheromones making those receptive more or less the perfect little Utilitarians. The caste's are divided based on what each, basically, sub species, is naturally good at. Think, Ogryns and ratlings. Each has a pretty well defined role thanks to its genetic make up.

Farsight without Etherals, shows the ability of the Tau to still work, and not descend into the Mont'ka. Either way, the concept of the greater good could take root within the IoM, and the =I= would have some interestig work ahead of them.

Kroothawk wrote:I'd say: Join the queue. Every second teen starting 40k has the naughty naughty idea of THEEVULZ Tau with spikes and tentacles and thinks he is the first to have this idea. I named this phenomenon the Paladrin syndrome, after WoW, where every second teen made a corrupted Paladin called "Dark Avenger of Death" or something like that. WoW eventually bowed to the demand and made a special epic character class for all those teens, available to all classes, called Death Knight.

So if you feel the need to do Chaos Tau, Chaos Eldar, corrupted Grey Knights, boob themed Sororitas, female Space Marines or any army painted PINK (muahahaha), join the naughty club but be aware that most members are not older than 16

Fail post

Seriously, why are there so much fluff Nazis on Dakka. It’s one of the reasons why I avoid fluff topic on Dakka now. Fluff topics without trolling on dakka are too far and few.

That being said, I don’t see anything wrong with the idea of a renegade Tau faction. Me thinks people are judging the topic on name alone. My recommendations personally would be to have the faction disdain ethereals and focus more on the warlike aspect (even more than Farsight). They could be an early break away faction whose ideologies have slowly but vastly differed from their counter parts over the years. So rather than being another “moustache twirling” evil faction like Chaos or DEldar, they merely reflect the Grim Dark nature of the 40k universe and blur the morality lines more prominently than their counter parts.

I’d reckon “victory at all costs” would be a cool catchphrase for the faction.

I feel like there's some serious potential with this. Perhaps something like a genetically-altered Chaos Ethereal, a Fabulous Bile experiment left to go crazy, giving itself over to Tzeentch and collecting its own piratical Tau retinue. And, of course, mutations abundant.

That's just one of many ideas I'm having. I seriously like this idea. Good work, bro. Good work.

nomotog wrote:Brother coa. If you want to talk about the tau being commies, you might just want to do your own tau are commies thread.

Ovion you might just want to shelve the idea till after you read the codex. It will give you a lot of insight to the tau and what they are like when they are evil.

Good news, I just won a tau empire dex on ebay. (for £4 too)

I'll be focusing on ship/vehicle/unit design for the next 2-5 days till it artives. I've ogled more than enough tau goodies to do that.

I'm going to stick with the imminuty as the core concept as i feel thats a solid way to get tjhe offshoot.

I was toying with the idea of making a tau veteran army, grizzled and battleworn, not fit for going back to civilian life anymore. It would have a much darker feel than the straight out the factory look so many tau armies have, but they wouldn't be evil, well, they wouldn't be the 40k evil of mutations and stupid grins. More like a bunch of mercenaries, viewed as 'evil' by the people they fight for/against.

Why not just make a renegade Ethereal who wants too make his own little empire, the Ethereals control the Tau but I doubt they can control each other.

Toastedandy - The Tau have a caste system. You are born into it and live your whole life into it. So there is no 'civillian' life for Fire caste, just an end to frontline service.

Also, every 4 years of service a Fire Caste warrior faces what is called a Trial by Fire. At the end of the Trial there are one of 2 results. Result number one, the warrior is promoted to his next rank. Result number two, his death serves as an object lesson to others.

So you don't get old Tau warriors, they literally have to get promoted to live.

Jefffar wrote:Toastedandy - The Tau have a caste system. You are born into it and live your whole life into it. So there is no 'civillian' life for Fire caste, just an end to frontline service.

Also, every 4 years of service a Fire Caste warrior faces what is called a Trial by Fire. At the end of the Trial there are one of 2 results. Result number one, the warrior is promoted to his next rank. Result number two, his death serves as an object lesson to others.

So you don't get old Tau warriors, they literally have to get promoted to live.

You do get old tau warriors. After they finish with service, they retire to teach or to join politics. Ex: Puretide was commander during the gulf crusade, but after that he retired to teach.

yevix wrote:Why not just make a renegade Ethereal who wants too make his own little empire, the Ethereals control the Tau but I doubt they can control each other.

Then you get an etherioff where they try to influence each others forces :p

A crazed mutant ethereal with crazed mutant folloewrs left by fabius bile,even if the external effects are minor might make it different enough though.

Bile, or DE Haemies messing with them for giggles.

Tau are still too small and secluded to have some mavericks sans farsight and that wasn't even rebellion. It was more like over zealous rage looking for redemption

see, you say that but look at our own race and planet. Modern humanity is hugely splintered. Numerous societies, peoples and countries, ideologies etc.

And thats 1 planet of 6-7 billion people. Theres such huge variatio here that surely a galactic civilisation has plenty of scope for dissident and variation.

nomotog wrote:

Jefffar wrote:Toastedandy - The Tau have a caste system. You are born into it and live your whole life into it. So there is no 'civillian' life for Fire caste, just an end to frontline service.

Also, every 4 years of service a Fire Caste warrior faces what is called a Trial by Fire. At the end of the Trial there are one of 2 results. Result number one, the warrior is promoted to his next rank. Result number two, his death serves as an object lesson to others.

So you don't get old Tau warriors, they literally have to get promoted to live.

You do get old tau warriors. After they finish with service, they retire to teach or to join politics. Ex: Puretide was commander during the gulf crusade, but after that he retired to teach.

You do, but you don't get to step back from active service as a member of the Fire Caste until you've been a Shas'o for at least 4 years . . . everyone else dies before they reach that point.

Jefffar wrote:
You do, but you don't get to step back from active service as a member of the Fire Caste until you've been a Shas'o for at least 4 years . . . everyone else dies before they reach that point.

When you reach O you decide to retire or lead. "Upon attaining the rank of "O", a member of the Fire Caste may be allowed to retire from active duty and become an advisor to the Tau military's command structure, the Shas'ar'tol. Other than death this is the only way to leave the Tau military"
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Caste_System

Well when Fire Caste only live 30 to 40 years (actually, I dont remember where that info came from, so grain of salt there) and they dont reproduce nearly as fast as humans, it really is surprising that their are as many Tau is there are. Basically, you need to get promoted pretty quick. La, Ui, Vre, El, and O or retirement. With 4 ranks to progress through, it takes 20 years to reach the top, saying Fire Warriors go from Saal to La and start careers at 10 (which I have no fluff basis for, just seemed like a number the Tau would pick, being all 1 and 0 together and what not.) then if they get promoted as soon as possible they become eligible for retirement at 30. 25% of life in retirement sounds about right to me, but then again they all end up going to be advisers or tactical teachers, so how retired are they really?

Ovion wrote:A crazed mutant ethereal with crazed mutant folloewrs left by fabius bile,even if the external effects are minor might make it different enough though.

All sources say, that ethereals are totally 100% immune to chaos corruption. Only on non-ethereals there are different opinions. Read the novel Fire Warrior if you are interested in details.

Jefffar wrote:Toastedandy - The Tau have a caste system. You are born into it and live your whole life into it. So there is no 'civillian' life for Fire caste, just an end to frontline service.

Also, every 4 years of service a Fire Caste warrior faces what is called a Trial by Fire. At the end of the Trial there are one of 2 results. Result number one, the warrior is promoted to his next rank. Result number two, his death serves as an object lesson to others.

So you don't get old Tau warriors, they literally have to get promoted to live.

Source? Or did you make that up?

"Provided the warrior survives 4 years of active duty, he undergoes the first Trial by Fire, which can be anything from mere gladiatorial affairs to trial by constant combat. If the Shas'la survives his first Trial by Fire, he is promoted to the rank of Shas'ui, or Veteran. For every consecutive four years of service, the Fire Warrior undergoes another Trial. The higher one's rank within the Fire Caste, the more likely one is to be a Battlesuit pilot. Upon attaining the rank of "O", a member of the Fire Caste may be allowed to retire from active duty and become an advisor to the Tau military's command structure, the Shas'ar'tol. Other than death this is the only way to leave the Tau military."

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Caste_System
Cites the 3rd edition codex

Kroothawk wrote:

Ovion wrote:A crazed mutant ethereal with crazed mutant folloewrs left by fabius bile,even if the external effects are minor might make it different enough though.

All sources say, that ethereals are totally 100% immune to chaos corruption. Only on non-ethereals there are different opinions. Read the novel Fire Warrior if you are interested in details.

Normal ethereals, sure, but mutant ethereals with warp presence sounds plausible.

Etherals were designed, specifically to not fall to chaos.
The Slaan make the Eldar who make the Etherals. Boom. Blew your mind.

The Eldar had so much trouble with that whole chaos thing they designed the Etherals to fix that up for them.

KilroyKiljoy wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:

Ovion wrote:A crazed mutant ethereal with crazed mutant folloewrs left by fabius bile,even if the external effects are minor might make it different enough though.

All sources say, that ethereals are totally 100% immune to chaos corruption. Only on non-ethereals there are different opinions. Read the novel Fire Warrior if you are interested in details.

Normal ethereals, sure, but mutant ethereals with warp presence sounds plausible.

And since when when genetic manipulation the same as chaos?

It could be a genetic manipulation to increase susceptibility to the influences of the warp. But I think that one would have been countered with a, mix up this dna, get a big old pile of etheral goo instead of walking talking etheral.

CpatTom wrote:It could be a genetic manipulation to increase susceptibility to the influences of the warp. But I think that one would have been countered with a, mix up this dna, get a big old pile of etheral goo instead of walking talking etheral.

I think Fabulous Bile could pull it off. He's cloned himself, Horus, and others multiple times over and over again. Sure, it probably wouldn't work the first time, but he'd get it on #3 or something. Also, I'd imagine the ethereal to look drastically different.

Kroothawk wrote:

Ovion wrote:A crazed mutant ethereal with crazed mutant folloewrs left by fabius bile,even if the external effects are minor might make it different enough though.

All sources say, that ethereals are totally 100% immune to chaos corruption. Only on non-ethereals there are different opinions. Read the novel Fire Warrior if you are interested in details.

Neither the Haemonculi nor Fabius Bile 'corrupt' their subjects using chaos or psyhic powers.
Both utilise perverse surgery, genetic manipulation, chemicals and torture to corrupt and mutate, and it has been shown that LOTS of tau have been caught under both the haemies and biles knife.

Geneticly modified, chemically warped or chimera like tau could feasibly be linked to a single twisted ethereal, or an ethereal could be supercharged and driven insane and Bile especially has a habit of just.. Abandoning his 'experiments' once he's done / got bored of that one.

Yeah, I'm not saying it to be impossible(its 40k, nothing is off the table, and anybody who says different should have studied law instead of the BL), but I think, with no evidence to this either way, that the Etherals would come out pretty distorted. The only problem then is convincing other Tau to join up when you are a hideous disgusting Etheral possibly resembling thing.

The Etheral pheromone isn't Mind Control, its more a suggestive state of consciousness that allows for easier convincing towards a cause already recognized as worthy by the individual through the reduction in perception of self as an Individual.

No torture (x), surgery or magic pill turns an ethereal into an evil psyker, that's not how this universe works. Maybe you should get more familiar with tau before getting wild on ideas.


As said, the novel Firewarrior deals with exactly this scenario: A daemon doesn't even try to corrupt an ethereal (because he knows he can't), he tries to find the one in a million Fire Warrior who might be corruptable and he finally fails miserably. Even the questionable Xenology indicates that ethereals were created by Eldar to make Tau immune to Chaos.

(x)"Will you become a psyker?""No ... arrrrgh""And now?""Okay, but don't hurt me anymore"

Youre telling me that if an etheral had brain surgery to corrupt the very way he thinks hell still be the same old etheral?

Making them a psyker is less likely tbh, but doable - though it would be pure tau.

Something like an Ethereal / Tau genetic mash would likely be susceptable.

And torture, drugs etc could easily make tau and ethereals evil and/or mindless thugs (its been done). Making them a vaguely intelligent fighting force would be harder, but I don't see impossible.

Both Bile and the Haemonculi are like... think Mengele but with better technology and less morals.

After having read a TON of Tau fluff this week, I now realize that the "chaos corruption" aspect of what I wanted was completely naive. I thought the whole Eldar involvement with the creation of the Tau was pretty rad, and I would love to read more about that. That all being said, I still think you could justify chaos corruption via a mutated Ethereal, afterall all biological traits are genetic, so it could in theory happen (no matter how unlikely) based on what we know of evolution. I still would like to start a rogue Tau force of some kind, but I love Necrons so much (been my main for 10 years), so my Tau will have to wait until I collect my new Necrons

I think if you want to do dark tau, you want to do them without an eternal. The fire cast by themselves is rather aggressive. They respond to every problem with violence. You don't have to jump through hoops trying to make the whole tau evil just pull out the nice parts of the tau leaveing the evil. (though you might want to do that as like alternate universe tau)

Yes, the evil within Tau isn't tied to chaos or dark gods. So finding another reason for them to be evil (in the case of Farsight it seems to be aggressiveness and a large degree of racial supremacy that ar responsible for his 'evi") that mkes sense to those particular Tau.

The Tau are capable for good and evil. The Ehtereals guide them towards a version of good, but nothing is preventing Tau who are not under the influence of Ethereal from becoming evil other than that particular Tau's own conscience.

And that's where being immune to the Ethereals influence comes in

And the immunity to peaceful cooperation

Anyway, now I'm torn, I don't know whether to start my quirky Tau army or wait for the impending Necron release, as I've been waiting for Necrons for, oh, years :( Decisions decisions...

How about mixing both!... instead of copying other 'evil' versions of races with pirates or chaos, you make something more complex and do a dark army that let the lust for technological advancement get the better of them... Get the necron codex when it comes out, and model an evil looking tau army with AI piloted suits etc, using the necron codex! saves having to make your own army, and could fit in with the idea of power hungry tau!

Just a thought, take from it what you will!

EDIT: just thought i would expand on my idea, especially since fluff is fun to write! A new colony is established on a planet rich in all the resources needed to mass produce weapons, the colony is relatively small, but becomes more and more powerful as it creates ridiculous amounts of new wargear. soon, it stops manufacturing for the greater good, deciding to declare independence and give in to the natural aggression the ethereals normally hold back. As time goes on, they increasingly use AI to protect their small numbers while waging war on other races, until the people at the top realise that they have actually become so dependent on it, they no longer have any serious part in the decision making for their people. they have in effect, created a collective sentience that only exists for the purpose of war!

you get the idea lol

I thought kroot mercenaries were kind of like pirates? Make an all kroot or nearly all kroot force.

On the Kroot Mercenary note:
http://www.advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?p=119489

The words aren't so important, I just like the pretty pictures sprinkled throughout.

Edit: The Krootopter on page 6 is one of my favorite conversion ideas.

Kroothawk wrote:And the immunity to peaceful cooperation

You seem solidly of the opinion no ethereal instantly results in mindless rage?

Kazerkinelite wrote:The Tau are already "dark"...their god damn communists can't get much more evil. If you want to do a pirate army just do human pirates or something, or traitor guard

Communism is actually an extremely kind idea, it's everyone sharing everything, and everyone owning everything, therefore Communism is about everyone being equal, and no the USSR weren't communist it where a facist dictatorship claiming to be Communist.

In my eyes Capitalism is the true evil in this world.

Ovion wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:And the immunity to peaceful cooperation

You seem solidly of the opinion no ethereal instantly results in mindless rage?

Yepp. Farsight started massacring when by accident all accompanying ethereals were killed. Brightsword, his follower, also started massacring and was sacked immediately. And then there is Mont'au.

Farsight and Brightsword massacred with Ethereas still in the mix. Brightsword was punished for it because he was considered particularly remorseless (noncombatants as well as defense forces were his victims). Farsight just pulped a bunch of Greenskins.

Aun'va's flavour text indicates he has orchestrated a massacre too, again of orcs.

So the Tau are not afraid of getting their hands dirty in war, even with an Ethereal present. They do seem to draw a line against unnecessary civilian casualties. though.

Farsight remained loyal until all his Etherial advisers were wiped out on Arthras Moloch. After that he came to some realizations regarding the way of the universe and that efforts at peace, comeraderie and the greater good were ultimately meaningless as the rest of the univers just didn't work that way.

Also from what I've gathered the result of their death has a negative effect (something like a withdrawl symptom maybe?) but 3 things remain:
1 - Pre-Ethereal Tau were warlike but not mindless murderers. I see it probably closer to something like the Mongol hordes etc than anything else currently.

2 - If they were raised within tau society, yet immune to the influence of the ethereals, they would likely still pick up morality and culture etc, they are certainly going to be wiser than their ancient kin. (nature vs nurture).

3 - Again, even if it is folly and they do end up killing themselves (though they'd be more likely to be destroyed in the fiery retribution of having broken from the path of the 'greater good' long before that) it's possible if only as a 'screenshot' of a period lasting only a few dozen years. It's still doable :3

I'm not going to do it as mindless killy, and I'm going to do my damndest to ensure balance. I don't care for poorly made fan content and I'll do my best to make sure mine isn't by justifying everything best I can within the fluff.

I love this idea! Who's to say they have to go against their "Greater Good" mentality to be evil? Maybe they're a sect that believes in the Gaia Theory: All lesser races must systematically be eradicated for the good of the other, stronger species. This could even extend to the other tau, castes that they view as "lesser"

angry-jezuz wrote:I love this idea! Who's to say they have to go against their "Greater Good" mentality to be evil? Maybe they're a sect that believes in the Gaia Theory: All lesser races must systematically be eradicated for the good of the other, stronger species. This could even extend to the other tau, castes that they view as "lesser"

It's erm been awhile since the last post.

So...do you just want this for the paint scheme? Because you can paint them however you'd like...

Are you doing it for renegade fluff? The Farsight affair has that down pat.

Are you looking for a more brutal tau? R'alai's fluff fits that, as does his (and all XV9s') playstyle, unleashing massive firepower then assault to avoid being shot at, then leaving the combat and firing again.

You mean something like this?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/313827.page

Long life to Farsight!!!!

Well, the Ethereals are already kinda sinister, but the Fire Caste without the Ethereal mind control are barbaric and violent. Could easily make a Tau Corsair army and it would make sense if you don't use Ethereals.

Threadcromancy.... grumble...

Get the torches and pitchforks, boys, there's a necromancer among us.

Hey it's my thread! Back from the dead! Inb4lock

peebzguy wrote:Hey it's my thread! Back from the dead! Inb4lock

Yes, we must rejoice before this thread is locked!

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Well, the Ethereals are already kinda sinister, but the Fire Caste without the Ethereal mind control are barbaric and violent. Could easily make a Tau Corsair army and it would make sense if you don't use Ethereals.

No they aren't.

The ethereals are actually quite innocent, rather less than I'd like them to be, but whatever. They were proven not to use pheromones, they aren't psykers because their souls barely register in the warp...Loyalty is not so hard to understand.

And the fire caste is not barbaric, they are simply more aggressive then the other castes (though it varies by sept; each one largely has it's own personality)

I always have pictured the Ethereal caste as being like brahmin or lama of the Tau race. An enlighted spiritial guide for the tau rather than a politburo so to speak. Each caste and race member of the Tau Empire have members in the governing body or as advisers to it from what I've gathered in the fluff. (really makes me wonder why its the Tau Empire, it not like they have an emperor or a monarch. )

I think if Tau could be dark, it would be in such a way that the dark tau still follow the greater good but in a more athoritarian way, believing only they know whats best and everyone else are fools.
Farsight comes to mind though I havnt given up on him comming back to the fold.

Tun_Tau wrote:I always have pictured the Ethereal caste as being like brahmin or lama of the Tau race. An enlighted spiritial guide for the tau rather than a politburo so to speak. Each caste and race member of the Tau Empire have members in the governing body or as advisers to it from what I've gathered in the fluff. (really makes me wonder why its the Tau Empire, it not like they have an emperor or a monarch. )

I think if Tau could be dark, it would be in such a way that the dark tau still follow the greater good but in a more athoritarian way, believing only they know whats best and everyone else are fools.
Farsight comes to mind though I havnt given up on him comming back to the fold.

I like your views, they are not dissimilar to my own.

And I REALLY like your idea that the renegades, instead of abandoning the greater good, simply have different beliefs as to what serves the GG. Sort of like all those quarrels way back when between the catholic church and the young protestant religion.

They do have Aun'Va, who is the head honcho.

Ovion wrote:They do have Aun'Va, who is the head honcho.

He is the senoir ethereal on T'au and sits on the counsils that rule. He packs a lot of weight but isnt the head honcho.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

I like your views, they are not dissimilar to my own.

And I REALLY like your idea that the renegades, instead of abandoning the greater good, simply have different beliefs as to what serves the GG. Sort of like all those quarrels way back when between the catholic church and the young protestant religion.

Thank you. I am happy that I'm not the only one.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
I could see Farsight and the councils falling out about the greater good but it would be more of an ethical split.

Farsight believes in " the end justify the means" vs. the general tau belief in "right action" to serve the greater good.

To put it another way....
Renegades believe that they are working towards the greater good even if they have to use questionable methods.

While the Tau follow the ethereals guidance so they carefully measure each action to see if it acts for the greater good.
......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
And then there is the thought that its reversed- because I really like the thought of Farsight as the hero

Aun'Va believes the end justify the means and is behind a lot of the dark rumors of the Tau, using his influence on the high councils.

Farsight believes in right action, after events on Arthas Moloch became aware of Aun'Va's plots decided he could no longer in good conscious follow the party line.
Once Aun'shi's expedition reaches the Farsight Enclave's he is presented with evidence of these plots. He joins with Farsight and returns to confront Aun'va.

They land on Vior'la sept and are welcomed but Shadowsun and Aun'Va demand they be turned over as traitors. Farsight and Aun'shi being both hero's on the sept get an hearing to defend themselves. They convice Vior'la to side with them and then.....
we get the epic showdown between Farsight/Aun'shi and Shadowsun/Aun'va.

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Well, the Ethereals are already kinda sinister, but the Fire Caste without the Ethereal mind control are barbaric and violent. Could easily make a Tau Corsair army and it would make sense if you don't use Ethereals.

No they aren't.

The ethereals are actually quite innocent, rather less than I'd like them to be, but whatever. They were proven not to use pheromones, they aren't psykers because their souls barely register in the warp...Loyalty is not so hard to understand.

And the fire caste is not barbaric, they are simply more aggressive then the other castes (though it varies by sept; each one largely has it's own personality)

I don't that you saying so, emphatically, over and over, is actually what we in the discussion business refer to as "proof", lol.

However, let's agree to disagree, as I've found your arguments to be wholly unconvincing, and you seem to be unwilling to accept mine, and there's no sense in dragging this thread down.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Well, the Ethereals are already kinda sinister, but the Fire Caste without the Ethereal mind control are barbaric and violent. Could easily make a Tau Corsair army and it would make sense if you don't use Ethereals.

No they aren't.

The ethereals are actually quite innocent, rather less than I'd like them to be, but whatever. They were proven not to use pheromones, they aren't psykers because their souls barely register in the warp...Loyalty is not so hard to understand.

And the fire caste is not barbaric, they are simply more aggressive then the other castes (though it varies by sept; each one largely has it's own personality)

I don't that you saying so, emphatically, over and over, is actually what we in the discussion business refer to as "proof", lol.

However, let's agree to disagree, as I've found your arguments to be wholly unconvincing, and you seem to be unwilling to accept mine, and there's no sense in dragging this thread down.

Agreed (did I just agree with Veteran Sergeant?)

Tun_tau, to be honest I think the first half of your story fits better. Also, you said the second story was because you liked Farsight as a hero, but he can still be a hero in the first one (a brutal one, like the punisher) and it's better because the second one makes the TE seem kinda illuminati-ish.

The way it happens in my mind is that Farsight felt stifled because he was limited to clean, precise maneuvers, even if they are less efficient than his somewhat more brutal tactics. He becomes frustrated with the empire and becomes like an attack dog that has slipped it's leash, chasing enemies and not returning afterwards.

It would be fun to kill like all Tau are.

Ugh....

Well in that case I want to play Good Chaos Marines....

They can bust out of the warp healing the sick and taking care of the orphanages.

Milisim wrote:Ugh....

Well in that case I want to play Good Chaos Marines....

They can bust out of the warp healing the sick and taking care of the orphanages.

This... would be hilarious and brilliant....

Planting flower gardens, educating the masses, putting money into public transport and helping kittens out of trees! xD

Love for the Love God! (or is that Slaanesh?)

Milisim wrote:Ugh....

Well in that case I want to play Good Chaos Marines....

They can bust out of the warp healing the sick and taking care of the orphanages.

Orphanages aren't a thing that is still around.

It's all about the foster homes now.

peebzguy wrote:I'm just thinking about it... it would be pretty cool to see a Dark Eldar equivalent of the Tau, kind of like a Dark Tau. The paint schemes would be nothing short of awesome, and I think it could fit the models well. What are your thoughts? Thread!

Oh, good lord no. 40k will officially die. If Matt Ward writes the next BIBLE you can do it. If not then this thread.must die.

Deadshot wrote: Oh, good lord no. 40k will officially die. If Matt Ward writes the next BIBLE you can do it. If not then this thread.must die.

Jesus is going to be in the DA codex?

Is Ward writing it?

Writing what the Tau codex?

I hope so!

Str 10 plasma rifles with 6 shots per turn twin linked to boot.

The ability to move 30" AFTER shooting to retreat behind cover!

Sounds good... oh and i hear there is a Jump, Shoot, Jump, Shoot, Jump, shoot and one more jump phase coming for the Tau! SWEET.

In reality though I bet Ward will write it but since he buggered up the GK so much he will be hit with the nerf bat on his outlandish ways and the Tau will get a shytty weak ass codex because he dosent want to break the game AGAIN by making a game breaking army auto win.

I heard Cruddace is supposed to write this one on a rumor thread a while back and that Ward stated that he will not be involved with the Tau Codex as well.

Ward seems to be more involved with Marine 'dexes than xenos.

Hello everyone,

Dark Tau seems like an alright idea but i doubt GW will think of doing it because they will most likely just think if you want Dark Tau to just Paint them and slightly costomise them to look like Dark versions of Tau and use the normal Rule book, same thing with Imperial Guard, I would like to see more Races brought out in 40K, would make it interesting maybe chaos chapters like they do with space marines, A Viking chaos chapter with own rules would be mad, would be similar to Space Wolfs.


Have a good day

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