Reading up on Behemoth and Leviathan, its obvious how much the Imperium has sacrificed to ward off the Tyranids, including killing billions of their own people to deny them resoruces. Given the Tau Empire's position on the Eastern Fringe, it seems a likely target from any future attacks. Despite its technology, the Tau lack the sheer defence in depth the Imperium has, not to mention their fleet mainly consisting of merchantmen with defensive weapons strapped on.

One thing I think they might out-grimdark the Imperium on is sacrificing worlds (thats if they're capable of Exterminatus). Despite their image, the Greater Good has an obvious malignancy and I can see where the High Lords balked at Kryptman's genocidal tactics against Leviathan, the Ethereals would be pushing it pretty quick.

Look in the Nyd codex their is a story where Tau killed a lot a nyds I'm not sure who won though.

Full force of a Hive Fleet? No, never, obliterated. They don't have enough worlds to make starving the 'Nids a viable tactic...They'd kill off their entire empire and the 'nids would just roll on into Imperial space.

Splinter Fleet? Yes, they can and have.

Could the Tau withstand anything? That's mean, but seriously, once something reaches them they are in trouble, and taking out a swarm army like the Tyranids before they hit home is no easy task, Carnifex anyone?

Likely the Tau like most beings that are facing annihilation , would get inventive, and seeing that the Tau tech advances very swiftly they would respond with a indirect response, maybe with the nissicars help they would develop a artificial becon to draw the hive fleets away from their most important systems.
And failing that perhaps a more sci-fi response using their bigest strength and self replicating nano-drones as a tech response to the bio-logical threat of tyranids, scorched earth tactics , but at any case I believe as long as Tau sales are good they have nothing to fear from tyranids.

If anybody can engineer a disease that could cripple the Nid swarms, I'd say the Tau and all its sciencey allies would have a good chance at it.

The only thing is, they would have to get Shas'vre Smi'Th And Fio'ui Gold'Blum to fly it into the hivemind though.

Full on fleet, Hell no. No one can (The Imperium blowing up their own planets = giving up IMO)

Splinter Fleet, Yea. IIRC, they have about 2-3 times. Once in the Tau codex( with No losses) and Once in the Tyranid Codex( With serious losses). Prolly one more.

Well the tau did fight one off. Grogon. It ate a research outpost and most of a sept world before it was stopped.

I don't think you will see the tau useing the starve them out technique. They would just meet them in force. Maybe fair better then the IG because there force is higly meconiced and can deal large amounts of damage with little to no biomass.

I also doubt they will make a nid killing plague. Bio tech seems to be a weak point in tau tech.

CpatTom wrote:If anybody can engineer a disease that could cripple the Nid swarms, I'd say the Tau and all its sciencey allies would have a good chance at it.

Actually, there's a reason that the Imperium doesn't use diseases or pathogens against Tyranids.

That reason is that they've done it before--and the Tyranids "adapted" to them, absorbed them, and reconfigured them for their own purposes.

Imagine the scenario.
You create an engineered pathogen that in tests on Tyrannic lifeforms has shown them to rapidly go into an adrenal shock and eventually burn them out. You then start issuing it to your field commanders, telling them it's a "last resort" and "only to use if it's absolutely necessary, and to kill every Tyrannic lifeform exposed to it just to be sure".

It takes one Tyrannic organism which develops an immunity, and then returns to the Brood Nests with this pathogen in its biomass when it goes into the Digestion Pools to be processed and then you not only have Tyranids immune to your supersecret doomsday weapon--but the Tyranids have reverse engineered it in such a way that by unleashing this pathogen it buffs their troops into an adrenaline frenzy, making even the Rippers immune to what should be crippling damage and it also affects your troops in the way you'd originally intended the Tyranids to be affected.

Personally, I like to think of Tyranids as being like the underrated "alien" invasion/comedy "Evolution" with David Duchovony.
You can try as hard as you might to destroy them, but they will adapt to it. You need to find a way to kill the base organism(in this case, the Hive Mind of the Tyranids) before you can mop up.

Kanluwen wrote:
Personally, I like to think of Tyranids as being like the underrated "alien" invasion/comedy "Evolution" with David Duchovony.
You can try as hard as you might to destroy them, but they will adapt to it. You need to find a way to kill the base organism(in this case, the Hive Mind of the Tyranids) before you can mop up.

Smith and Goldblum are the key to this plan (Will and Jeff). Come on, you've got it...

Seriously though, just engineer something that ramps up their metabolism to a level even higher than it already is. Nids cant travel fast enough. Starve the nids to death going from meal to meal. (Thats what led to defeating the splinter Gorgon fleet)

Depends on if the Tau have authorial fiat on their side in that particular engagement or not.

Hmm, guess it's again time for another Tau genocide fantasy thread by a dedicated tau hater, oh well...

Kroothawk wrote:Hmm, guess it's again time for another Tau genocide fantasy thread by a dedicated tau hater, oh well...

I don't see how question: Can Tau stand against Tyranid fleet? is much different from: Can Imperium withstand another Chaos Black Crusade?

On OP, Tau even if they have tech they don't have numbers against Nids. They barely survived Gorgon, and that was minor fleet in comparison to Behemoth, Kraken and Levithian. To put it this way:


Tau would run out of ammo loooooong before Nids run out of Biomass.

And + last Nid invasion in Tau spae actually adopted to pulse rifle fire. And because of that only railguns, rockets and Kroot rifles can harm them.

It's pretty clear the Tyranids will wipe out all life in the galaxy. They've already done it to a different galaxy.

Iur_tae_mont wrote:Full on fleet, Hell no. No one can (The Imperium blowing up their own planets = giving up IMO)

That was Kryptman, and that strategy is abandoned ( not even HLoT liked they way he destroyed 50 Imperial worlds and only slowing down Nids for a bit ). See Tarsis Ultra or Aurelia fir more recent anti-Tyranid strategies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kilkrazy wrote:It's pretty clear the Tyranids will wipe out all life in the galaxy. They've already done it to a different galaxy.

That galaxy didn't have Humans in it

Kroothawk wrote:Hmm, guess it's again time for another Tau genocide fantasy thread by a dedicated tau hater, oh well...

Oh, boo hoo, move along then.

Given the tau aptitude at technology, it wouldn't surprise me if they started making remote drone controlled crisis suits or some purely technological defense.

Tyranids fight through a war of attrition that they excel at because every victory makes them stronger as they scavenge the biomass of their dead as well as the enemies dead. Loosing a battle is not such a tragic loss as long as they can scavenge the biomass of their dead.

However against an army like the Necrons, the tyranids loose definitively (fluff not tabletop). The reason being that any victory of the tyranids is still a significant expenditure of biomass for no biomass gained. The loss in biomass in a failed encounter would be staggering with the way gause flayers work.

Now the Tau wouldn't be quite that effective, but they have a very mecahnised army. They already employ things like attack drones and a crisis suit makes up for a units worth of combat potential with just a single Tau's worth of biomass. If they were to pull back their human resources and deploy mainly their mechanical resources they should be able to leverage an advantage for themselves. I also wouldn't underestimate the ability of the Air Caste in combating the Hive fleet in space. Their technology and super specialization of their cast system should give them a very effective navy. Potentially one that could destroy a hive mind in space. (I wouldn't count on it, but who knows.)

Brother Coa wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:It's pretty clear the Tyranids will wipe out all life in the galaxy. They've already done it to a different galaxy.

That galaxy didn't have Tau in it

Fixed...

The Tau would be more than able to hold off the Tyranids. The Tau Custodian class capitol ships can obliterate an Imperial fleet without backup. The Tau have four to unleash against invaders and they are building more.

Most Bioships would die to these vessels before they could release spores. The Tau response to landings would be a defensive line and a strategy I like to call "It's Rainin' Drones".

No, probably not. They're too small.

gabrielhorus wrote:The Tau would be more than able to hold off the Tyranids. The Tau Custodian class capitol ships can obliterate an Imperial fleet without backup. The Tau have four to unleash against invaders and they are building more.

Most Bioships would die to these vessels before they could release spores. The Tau response to landings would be a defensive line and a strategy I like to call "It's Rainin' Drones".

Wishful thinking. Or you're simply a troll. Custodians obliterating an entire Imperial Fleet? What kind of fleet was this, two escorts and a single bulk transport? Either way, what you've said is fictional.

Remember when the Imperial fought Behemoth? It required the entire Ultramarines fleet, their system ships, and a Segmentum Fleet, to take down one Hive Fleet, and they were only victorious because the Dominus Astra sacrificed itself to win the day, and even then the fleet was nearly obliterated. Good luck Tau is all can say. Actually, no, I would hope them to be obliterated by a Hive Fleet and expunged from the universe.

Tau'll simply turn nids into the Greater Good...

Brother Coa wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:It's pretty clear the Tyranids will wipe out all life in the galaxy. They've already done it to a different galaxy.

That galaxy didn't have Humans in it

But it did have Orks in it. (it's been pretty established that Orks are everywhere)

Plot armor would allow the Tau to survive the full force of a Hive Fleet, but they'd have to get creative. Like using handwavium to trigger a solar flare and then cause it to lase (shamelessly stolen from Ringworld), or busting out some experimental truely warp capable ship and rigging it to blow (plus side, it destroys the 'Nids, down side, it creates a cute little mini-Eye of Terror right in Tau space).

Basically something where the Godzilla Threshold leads to either the Dangerous Forbidden Technique or Crossing the Streams tropes. TV Tropes rocks.

gabrielhorus wrote:The Tau would be more than able to hold off the Tyranids. The Tau Custodian class capitol ships can obliterate an Imperial fleet without backup.

No, they really can't. They are approximately on par or slightly less powerful than an Imperial battleship.

I actually have 2 Custodians in my Tau BFG fleet, and I can assure you the only order I would give if one faced an Imperial Fleet would be "disengage and GTFO of here!".

iproxtaco wrote:

gabrielhorus wrote:The Tau would be more than able to hold off the Tyranids. The Tau Custodian class capitol ships can obliterate an Imperial fleet without backup. The Tau have four to unleash against invaders and they are building more.

Most Bioships would die to these vessels before they could release spores. The Tau response to landings would be a defensive line and a strategy I like to call "It's Rainin' Drones".

Wishful thinking. Or you're simply a troll. Custodians obliterating an entire Imperial Fleet? What kind of fleet was this, two escorts and a single bulk transport? Either way, what you've said is fictional.

Remember when the Imperial fought Behemoth? It required the entire Ultramarines fleet, their system ships, and a Segmentum Fleet, to take down one Hive Fleet, and they were only victorious because the Dominus Astra sacrificed itself to win the day, and even then the fleet was nearly obliterated. Good luck Tau is all can say. Actually, no, I would hope them to be obliterated by a Hive Fleet and expunged from the universe.

The Imperial navy sacrificed a massive number of ships to take down one Custodian, solo. This would be over the size of a standard battlefleet as this was a full crusade.
Also, Imperial fleets have a bad habit obeying the order "engage the enemy more closely". Valid in the case of the Space Marines and their boarding parties, but it brings them into range of the Tyranid melee ships. The Tau would stay back and take advantage of their superior weaponry.

Farseer Petriel wrote:Tau'll simply turn nids into the Greater Good...

A Tau/Nid alliance? The next GW bromance in the making; something to rival the eternal love between Necrons and Blood Angels. Railgun toting carnifex...venom canon toting crisis suits.

No organized entity can withstand a full-on Hive Fleet except for the Imperium, and that's only because of its sheer size, resources, and depth. If the Imperium loses 5,000 worlds they can still function as a governmeny, the same can not be said for the Tau. And even for the Imperium they ended up abandoning whole swaths of worlds and the Tyrannic Wars have probably been the largest/most costly for the Imperium since the Horus Heresy. It certainly has consumed a huge amount of their military resources, I don't know how many times I've read "x was moved to the Eastern Fringes to fight the Tyranids" in various GW/BL/FW books.

Meanwhile the Eldar would have been toast had Kraken hit Iyanden full force, instead it had split and the other tendril hit Ichar IV. Dark Eldar are safe in the Webway, Orks have endless numbers, Chaos are too dispersed and have the advantage of the Eye of Terror, Necrons aren't organic. But the Tau are too small in the end and lack any kind of natural safety barrier, though I'm sure they'd put up a great fight.

gabrielhorus wrote:The Imperial navy sacrificed a massive number of ships to take down one Custodian, solo. This would be over the size of a standard battlefleet as this was a full crusade.

What is the source on this?

I know a Custodian (the A'Rho) was killed by a very small Imperial Fleet at Taros, killing only a cruiser and 3 Firestorm Frigates down before dying.
And the Firestar was wrecked facing Hivefleet Gorgon, so clearly not a major problem for the nids.

Kanluwen wrote:

CpatTom wrote:If anybody can engineer a disease that could cripple the Nid swarms, I'd say the Tau and all its sciencey allies would have a good chance at it.

Actually, there's a reason that the Imperium doesn't use diseases or pathogens against Tyranids.

That reason is that they've done it before--and the Tyranids "adapted" to them, absorbed them, and reconfigured them for their own purposes.

Imagine the scenario.
You create an engineered pathogen that in tests on Tyrannic lifeforms has shown them to rapidly go into an adrenal shock and eventually burn them out. You then start issuing it to your field commanders, telling them it's a "last resort" and "only to use if it's absolutely necessary, and to kill every Tyrannic lifeform exposed to it just to be sure".

It takes one Tyrannic organism which develops an immunity, and then returns to the Brood Nests with this pathogen in its biomass when it goes into the Digestion Pools to be processed and then you not only have Tyranids immune to your supersecret doomsday weapon--but the Tyranids have reverse engineered it in such a way that by unleashing this pathogen it buffs their troops into an adrenaline frenzy, making even the Rippers immune to what should be crippling damage and it also affects your troops in the way you'd originally intended the Tyranids to be affected.

Personally, I like to think of Tyranids as being like the underrated "alien" invasion/comedy "Evolution" with David Duchovony.
You can try as hard as you might to destroy them, but they will adapt to it. You need to find a way to kill the base organism(in this case, the Hive Mind of the Tyranids) before you can mop up.

Doesn't the IoM do exactly that? The polot of DOW2 involves making a poison to to kill a hive fleet. They also have a poisoned bolter that sets nids on fire.

Tau and IoM fight the nids in different ways. The IoM uses a large amount of human forces and tries to grind it's way through an enemy. Fighting nids, it's probably a net loss for the IoM, so that's why they use all kinds of tricks to kill a hive fleet. (destroying worlds, poisons ext) The tau are different, there force is very mechanized and they don't in fight the whole horde. They focus on taking out the command structure. (anyone else think it's strange how nids have comanders?)

nomotog wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

CpatTom wrote:If anybody can engineer a disease that could cripple the Nid swarms, I'd say the Tau and all its sciencey allies would have a good chance at it.

Actually, there's a reason that the Imperium doesn't use diseases or pathogens against Tyranids.

That reason is that they've done it before--and the Tyranids "adapted" to them, absorbed them, and reconfigured them for their own purposes.

Imagine the scenario.
You create an engineered pathogen that in tests on Tyrannic lifeforms has shown them to rapidly go into an adrenal shock and eventually burn them out. You then start issuing it to your field commanders, telling them it's a "last resort" and "only to use if it's absolutely necessary, and to kill every Tyrannic lifeform exposed to it just to be sure".

It takes one Tyrannic organism which develops an immunity, and then returns to the Brood Nests with this pathogen in its biomass when it goes into the Digestion Pools to be processed and then you not only have Tyranids immune to your supersecret doomsday weapon--but the Tyranids have reverse engineered it in such a way that by unleashing this pathogen it buffs their troops into an adrenaline frenzy, making even the Rippers immune to what should be crippling damage and it also affects your troops in the way you'd originally intended the Tyranids to be affected.

Personally, I like to think of Tyranids as being like the underrated "alien" invasion/comedy "Evolution" with David Duchovony.
You can try as hard as you might to destroy them, but they will adapt to it. You need to find a way to kill the base organism(in this case, the Hive Mind of the Tyranids) before you can mop up.

Doesn't the IoM do exactly that? The polot of DOW2 involves making a poison to to kill a hive fleet.

Yes and no.
Remember how the poison was introduced into the Tyranid biomass directly via the reclamation pools?

The goal was to weaken the Hive Ships enough that any reinforcements could break up the remnants. It's apparently a common enough Deathwatch tactic, which is presumably where Cyrus learned it.

They also have a poisoned bolter that sets nids on fire.

"Hellfire Rounds have devastating results on organic matter, as the rounds are developed to combat Tyranids. The core and tip are replaced with a vial of mutagenic acid with thousands of needles that fire into target upon the shattering of the vial, pumping the acid into the target. "
The fact that they used acid rather than a viral or bacterial agent is what makes the Hellfire Rounds effective.

Tau and IoM fight the nids in different ways. The IoM uses a large amount of human forces and tries to grind it's way through an enemy. Fighting nids, it's probably a net loss for the IoM, so that's why they use all kinds of tricks to kill a hive fleet. (destroying worlds, poisons ext) The tau are different, there force is very mechanized and they don't in fight the whole horde. They focus on taking out the command structure. (anyone else think it's strange how nids have comanders?)

I don't think it's fair to say that the IoM exclusively uses "drag 'em down" tactics.

There's a reason the Deathwatch have Kill-Teams, Nomotog. Many Deathwatch Kill-Teams end up tracking and killing Tyranid command beasts over their service.

Edit was to remove a comment that might have seemed a bit confrontational/condescending.

Kanluwen wrote:

nomotog wrote:
Tau and IoM fight the nids in different ways. The IoM uses a large amount of human forces and tries to grind it's way through an enemy. Fighting nids, it's probably a net loss for the IoM, so that's why they use all kinds of tricks to kill a hive fleet. (destroying worlds, poisons ext) The tau are different, there force is very mechanized and they don't in fight the whole horde. They focus on taking out the command structure. (anyone else think it's strange how nids have comanders?)

Do you really think the IoM relies only upon destroying worlds or introduces poisons?

There's a reason the Deathwatch have Kill-Teams, Nomotog. Many Deathwatch Kill-Teams end up tracking and killing Tyranid command beasts over their service.

That's what the ect was for. The IoM seems to get really smart when it comes to nids using a lot of crazy ways to stop them. Though the bulk of there force is still the IG, or the PDF(spelling?). There is also the shadow of the warp that the nids do. Cutting off communication allows them to eat IoM worlds in secret before the IoM can get it's fighting force together. You know it actually looks like the IoM is the per4fect target for the nids. Any other side would fair much better vs the nids.

I don't know about any other side faring much better against the Tyranids, but the Imperium is a good target for pretty much any of the Xenos factions in 40k.

The tau have been fairing better so far. First contact for the IoM was really bad, but first contact for the tau wasn't as bad. Eldar could probably jump from planet to planet avoiding the nids. Necrons would kill the nids with little problems. Orks.. I don't know. An ork world would last longer fighting a fleet, but they wouldn't be able to win. Only side that might fair worse would be the single planet empires.

Kroothawk wrote:Hmm, guess it's again time for another Tau genocide fantasy thread by a dedicated tau hater, oh well...

Yes. That's exactly what this thread is about.


Some interesting thoughts, I quite like the idea of the Nicassar creating a psychic faint to lure them away. Though hordes of suicidal drones would be an excellent counter to their bio-harvesting, just a case of if they can scrape together enough of the blighters.

Also Brother Coa, thanks for that picture never seen it before, looks excellent.

nomotog wrote:The tau have been fairing better so far. First contact for the IoM was really bad, but first contact for the tau wasn't as bad.

"First contact" for the IoM was an entire Hive Fleet. The Tau have faced splinters from a Hive Fleet, and even then they got pretty heavily trounced by and large.

Kanluwen wrote:

nomotog wrote:The tau have been fairing better so far. First contact for the IoM was really bad, but first contact for the tau wasn't as bad.

"First contact" for the IoM was an entire Hive Fleet. The Tau have faced splinters from a Hive Fleet, and even then they got pretty heavily trounced by and large.

They lost one research station and part of a Sept world. Though the big thing is that they didn't lose the Sept world. The first time is always the worst. After you know what the nids are and how you find them, they lose the element of surprise there biggest weapon.

They lost one research station, part of a Sept world, and what amounted to a sectoral fleet.

I'd also like to point out that if a delayed Imperial Guard/Navy contingent hadn't arrived they likely would have lost the Sept world.

daveNYC wrote:
(it's been pretty established that Orks are everywhere)

Somehow I don't think an Ork would survive the millions of years drifting through space to get to another Galaxy. Actually, make that billions, since there's no Warp travel in the void.

Anyway, I think Tau would adapt pretty well. They're one of the only races to use Drones as frontline combat troops, and given an enemy that feeds on organic matter they'd probably develop an entire range of Drone troops and drop turrets to hold the Nids back, denying them precious biomass. Every vehicle they had could be piloted by a drone. Suicide Drone space ships. Drone-controlled Battlesuits. They have a weapon against Tyranids the Imperium could never have.

obvioustrollmode on/ Remember, an entire Hive Fleet was shattered trying to take one star system. The most plot armoured star system in the Galaxy apart from Terra, but a single star system nonetheless./obvioustrollmode off

Kanluwen wrote:I don't know about any other side faring much better against the Tyranids, but the Imperium is a good target for pretty much any of the Xenos factions in 40k.

Not sure about this, but wouldn't the Fleet do well to avoid the Eye of Terror? The normal Nids mightn't have minds to corrupt, but they wouldn't be immune to the mutations.

Durza wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:I don't know about any other side faring much better against the Tyranids, but the Imperium is a good target for pretty much any of the Xenos factions in 40k.

Not sure about this, but wouldn't the Fleet do well to avoid the Eye of Terror? The normal Nids mightn't have minds to corrupt, but they wouldn't be immune to the mutations.

To quote a ancient philisopher:

If a Tyranid tentacled horror is corrupted in the Eye of Terror, would anyone notice?

Harriticus wrote:
Meanwhile the Eldar would have been toast had Kraken hit Iyanden full force, instead it had split and the other tendril hit Ichar IV.

First, Hive Fleets have always tendriled. It spreads out the Shadow of the Warp, which cuts off distress cries from worlds in between the Tendrils... its a very effective strategy for consuming biomass...

Second The Eldar have proven very effective at dispatching Tyranids, and their record is certainly better than the Imperium. Remember that Iyanden is a single craft world, they were cut off from reinforcements by the Shadow in the Warp, and were aided really only by a Corsair Fleet of Iyanden decent. Also its important to note that the Tendril which hit Iyanden was a "massive tendril" of one of the larger hive fleets to invade the Galaxy. Sure it nearly eliminated Iyanden, but it was fighting only a single Craftworld. Ulthwe, Biel Tan, Saim Han and Alaitoc, the 4 other major Craftworlds were not even involved in the conflict.

Earlier, Hive Fleet Naga got curb stomped by Iyanden and two minor Craftworlds, losing only 7 exodite worlds and 2 maiden worlds. Sure all of Malan'tai was destroyed, but that was at the hands of a single, and new type of Zoanthrope. You can bet the Eldar won't ignore Zoanthropes anymore...

Tau technological adaptation forces Nid biological adaptaion, which causes the nids to expend more biomass on the construction of troops reducing the number that can be produced. If the IoM was capable of nimbly altering their technology to an adapting enemy force composition, they too could face smaller Nid hordes.

Defeating the nids is simple biomass accounting. Either make it more expensive to produce all of the nids, thereby reducing the total number you have to defeat, or keep them from aquiring new stores of biomass, by destroying the battlegrounds you lose.

"Losing only 7 Exodite worlds and 2 Maiden worlds" is not a good thing.

Habitable worlds are rare. It's why the Imperium is actually kind of hesitant in declaring Exterminatus, despite people's ideas to the contrary.

TrollPie wrote: Every vehicle they had could be piloted by a drone. Suicide Drone space ships. Drone-controlled Battlesuits. They have a weapon against Tyranids the Imperium could never have.

Never have?
They had that. Didn't stay loyal, didn't they?

A full hive fleet would eat the Tau empire. For Breakfast. Until GW decides the range is nice and sells and throw in another force, something
that was done per necrons, per Dark Eldar and per Cadians before. I'd guess Tau are safe until finally failing the 'plot-armor' save....

gabrielhorus wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:

gabrielhorus wrote:The Tau would be more than able to hold off the Tyranids. The Tau Custodian class capitol ships can obliterate an Imperial fleet without backup. The Tau have four to unleash against invaders and they are building more.

Most Bioships would die to these vessels before they could release spores. The Tau response to landings would be a defensive line and a strategy I like to call "It's Rainin' Drones".

Wishful thinking. Or you're simply a troll. Custodians obliterating an entire Imperial Fleet? What kind of fleet was this, two escorts and a single bulk transport? Either way, what you've said is fictional.

Remember when the Imperial fought Behemoth? It required the entire Ultramarines fleet, their system ships, and a Segmentum Fleet, to take down one Hive Fleet, and they were only victorious because the Dominus Astra sacrificed itself to win the day, and even then the fleet was nearly obliterated. Good luck Tau is all can say. Actually, no, I would hope them to be obliterated by a Hive Fleet and expunged from the universe.

The Imperial navy sacrificed a massive number of ships to take down one Custodian, solo. This would be over the size of a standard battlefleet as this was a full crusade.
Also, Imperial fleets have a bad habit obeying the order "engage the enemy more closely". Valid in the case of the Space Marines and their boarding parties, but it brings them into range of the Tyranid melee ships. The Tau would stay back and take advantage of their superior weaponry.

Source or it didn't happen. In fact, I can tell you right now that you're fabricating nonsense. An entire Crusade fleet against a single Tau vessel without it's escort? A Custodian was deemed a threat, and was hunted down, and destroyed, the Imperial losses weren't battlefleet sized.
This second part is interesting though. Have you ever heard of the Imperium launching Space Marine Boarding parties? No, you haven't, because the vast majority of Tyranid ships can't be boarded. Warriors of Ultramar has the Imperium fight the Tyranids much the same as any other enemy, not charging in to have a game of fisty-cuffs, so you're just making stuff up.

I don't see the Tau surviving an entire full on hive fleet assault. They just don't have the numbers imho.

1hadhq wrote:

TrollPie wrote: Every vehicle they had could be piloted by a drone. Suicide Drone space ships. Drone-controlled Battlesuits. They have a weapon against Tyranids the Imperium could never have.

Never have?
They had that. Didn't stay loyal, didn't they?

A full hive fleet would eat the Tau empire. For Breakfast. Until GW decides the range is nice and sells and throw in another force, something
that was done per necrons, per Dark Eldar and per Cadians before. I'd guess Tau are safe until finally failing the 'plot-armor' save....

If nothing had plot armour, Space Marines would have gone extinct long ago, the Necrons would all wake up in unison and destroy everything, the SoB would have been turned in to table ornaments by Chaos Lords a few moments after being founded and GW wouldn't have a successful game.
And people who think Tau drones will all suddenly rebel and destroy their empire are forgetting this has happened once in the same setting because at the time Terminator was pretty popular, and that well programmed computers don't rebel.
Also, there are about 30 fully developed planets in the Tau Empire and 70 minor planets or allied worlds. That's alot. It's just because the Imperium is so big it makes everything else seem small by comparison. The total population of the Tau is most likely in the hundreds of billions. A ridiculously large proportion of that is in the Fire Caste. It's nothing compared to the Imperium, but it's density and Caste system means it's far from an easy meal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

snake wrote:I don't see the Tau surviving an entire full on hive fleet assault. They just don't have the numbers imho.

Single Imperial Star Systems have survived Tyranid Hive Fleet assaults and their numbers are a fraction of that of the Tau Empire.

iproxtaco wrote:

gabrielhorus wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:

gabrielhorus wrote:The Tau would be more than able to hold off the Tyranids. The Tau Custodian class capitol ships can obliterate an Imperial fleet without backup. The Tau have four to unleash against invaders and they are building more.

Most Bioships would die to these vessels before they could release spores. The Tau response to landings would be a defensive line and a strategy I like to call "It's Rainin' Drones".

Wishful thinking. Or you're simply a troll. Custodians obliterating an entire Imperial Fleet? What kind of fleet was this, two escorts and a single bulk transport? Either way, what you've said is fictional.

Remember when the Imperial fought Behemoth? It required the entire Ultramarines fleet, their system ships, and a Segmentum Fleet, to take down one Hive Fleet, and they were only victorious because the Dominus Astra sacrificed itself to win the day, and even then the fleet was nearly obliterated. Good luck Tau is all can say. Actually, no, I would hope them to be obliterated by a Hive Fleet and expunged from the universe.

The Imperial navy sacrificed a massive number of ships to take down one Custodian, solo. This would be over the size of a standard battlefleet as this was a full crusade.
Also, Imperial fleets have a bad habit obeying the order "engage the enemy more closely". Valid in the case of the Space Marines and their boarding parties, but it brings them into range of the Tyranid melee ships. The Tau would stay back and take advantage of their superior weaponry.

Source or it didn't happen. In fact, I can tell you right now that you're fabricating nonsense. An entire Crusade fleet against a single Tau vessel without it's escort? A Custodian was deemed a threat, and was hunted down, and destroyed, the Imperial losses weren't battlefleet sized.
This second part is interesting though. Have you ever heard of the Imperium launching Space Marine Boarding parties? No, you haven't, because the vast majority of Tyranid ships can't be boarded. Warriors of Ultramar has the Imperium fight the Tyranids much the same as any other enemy, not charging in to have a game of fisty-cuffs, so you're just making stuff up.

I don't know about the Tau but as far as the Imperium goes, yeah, they send Space Marines to board Tyranid ships all the time. This is a bit of fluff from Epic Hive War page 34:

"The fight has not been entirely in vain. In a number of systems Space Marines have boarded Tyranid ships while they were still dormant after exiting the warp. These boarding parties entered the pulsing vitals of the immense alien craft, gathering information about the Tyranids and destroying thousands of aliens while they lay in frozen hibernation. The information gathered by these brave Space Marines has proved vital to the Imperium's search for a way to defeat the Tyranid menace."

TrollPie wrote:Single Imperial Star Systems have survived Tyranid Hive Fleet assaults and their numbers are a fraction of that of the Tau Empire.

No single Imperial star system has survived the force of an entire Hive Fleet purely using its own forces. The Tau don't have the numbers to wage such a war - if their Drones were so easy to mass manufacture and easily capable of controlling tanks and battlesuits, then they'd have conquered far more than they actually have through dint of vast numbers of quickly replacable forces. Drones are not as potent as you are making them out to be.


Also, all the plot armour talk is kind of ridiculous. It essentially ends up being, in, say, the case of the Astartes, people saying that they could never possibly be that potent a force (which leads to the problem of them not being that good and being effectively useless as a force, or being that good and as such being hugely useful).

I would say the eldar have more chance of survival then the tau nuff said.

I'm right, you're wrong. Hahaha.

Edit: Haha, Seriously though. I see a lot of arguments for the fact that the Tau couldn't win, because they couldnt win the IoM way. That is true, they couldnt win that way, cause they arent the IoM. Just because they would lose one way, does not mean they could not win another way. This is flawed logic, and it makes any argument using it flawed as well.

TrollPie wrote:


And people who think Tau drones will all suddenly rebel and destroy their empire are forgetting this has happened once in the same setting because at the time Terminator was pretty popular, and that well programmed computers don't rebel.


Also, there are about 30 fully developed planets in the Tau Empire and 70 minor planets or allied worlds. The total population of the Tau is most likely in the hundreds of billions. A ridiculously large proportion of that is in the Fire Caste. It's nothing compared to the Imperium, but it's density and Caste system means it's far from an easy meal.
.

Crons still be "terminator" to some degree, so we'll see what happens when they return...

The total population of the Tau is only shown in ....their first dex... and probably much lower than some fans want it to be.
Just 100 planets? high chance the nids eat the important ones and the "empire" crumbles in a few months. You don't need to annex every place in an "empire" to end said "empire".

IIRC the Eldar weren't used to save the Tau, so there is still hope to survive the nids by the grace of the 'elder' races....

As stated already, the Tau have no hope of standing up to a fully fledged Hive Fleet, but they have handled a Splinter fleet in the past.

But they probably won't need to stand against a hive fleet alone, Ultramarines and other nearby Imperial Forces will be working hard to kill tyranids, however I wouldn't put it past them to 'direct' some tyranids towards the Tau as they have done to Orks before.

Roadkill Zombie wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:

gabrielhorus wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:

gabrielhorus wrote:The Tau would be more than able to hold off the Tyranids. The Tau Custodian class capitol ships can obliterate an Imperial fleet without backup. The Tau have four to unleash against invaders and they are building more.

Most Bioships would die to these vessels before they could release spores. The Tau response to landings would be a defensive line and a strategy I like to call "It's Rainin' Drones".

Wishful thinking. Or you're simply a troll. Custodians obliterating an entire Imperial Fleet? What kind of fleet was this, two escorts and a single bulk transport? Either way, what you've said is fictional.

Remember when the Imperial fought Behemoth? It required the entire Ultramarines fleet, their system ships, and a Segmentum Fleet, to take down one Hive Fleet, and they were only victorious because the Dominus Astra sacrificed itself to win the day, and even then the fleet was nearly obliterated. Good luck Tau is all can say. Actually, no, I would hope them to be obliterated by a Hive Fleet and expunged from the universe.

The Imperial navy sacrificed a massive number of ships to take down one Custodian, solo. This would be over the size of a standard battlefleet as this was a full crusade.
Also, Imperial fleets have a bad habit obeying the order "engage the enemy more closely". Valid in the case of the Space Marines and their boarding parties, but it brings them into range of the Tyranid melee ships. The Tau would stay back and take advantage of their superior weaponry.

Source or it didn't happen. In fact, I can tell you right now that you're fabricating nonsense. An entire Crusade fleet against a single Tau vessel without it's escort? A Custodian was deemed a threat, and was hunted down, and destroyed, the Imperial losses weren't battlefleet sized.
This second part is interesting though. Have you ever heard of the Imperium launching Space Marine Boarding parties? No, you haven't, because the vast majority of Tyranid ships can't be boarded. Warriors of Ultramar has the Imperium fight the Tyranids much the same as any other enemy, not charging in to have a game of fisty-cuffs, so you're just making stuff up.

I don't know about the Tau but as far as the Imperium goes, yeah, they send Space Marines to board Tyranid ships all the time. This is a bit of fluff from Epic Hive War page 34:

"The fight has not been entirely in vain. In a number of systems Space Marines have boarded Tyranid ships while they were still dormant after exiting the warp. These boarding parties entered the pulsing vitals of the immense alien craft, gathering information about the Tyranids and destroying thousands of aliens while they lay in frozen hibernation. The information gathered by these brave Space Marines has proved vital to the Imperium's search for a way to defeat the Tyranid menace."

Not quite.

Sending a Strike Ship to sail right up to a Tryanid ship, firing boarding pods into a combat zone in the heat of battle, is very different from the situation described above. Those ships were dormant, the Tyanids inside were sleeping in cryo,and those situations were few and far between.

Actually if the Imperium knows they're coming I'm sure those situations would be rather common. I would have to find them but I'm pretty sure there are stories of marines boarding ships during combat to destroy the hive ships before they get close enough to a planet to destroy it. But I don't think it's recent fluff.

Anyway, it does happen and not that rarely. If I remember correctly they even did that during the invasion of Ultramar.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

TrollPie wrote:Single Imperial Star Systems have survived Tyranid Hive Fleet assaults and their numbers are a fraction of that of the Tau Empire.

No single Imperial star system has survived the force of an entire Hive Fleet purely using its own forces. The Tau don't have the numbers to wage such a war - if their Drones were so easy to mass manufacture and easily capable of controlling tanks and battlesuits, then they'd have conquered far more than they actually have through dint of vast numbers of quickly replacable forces. Drones are not as potent as you are making them out to be.


Also, all the plot armour talk is kind of ridiculous. It essentially ends up being, in, say, the case of the Astartes, people saying that they could never possibly be that potent a force (which leads to the problem of them not being that good and being effectively useless as a force, or being that good and as such being hugely useful).

Tau do have the ability to make drones easy. I base this on the fact that everyone gets a drone. Everyone. Form diplomats to battle suits to farmers. The tau have drones coming out of the wazoo. I doubt they can drive tanks though, or they would have them out driveing tanks.

The Tau drones won't rebel like the Iron Men did because Tau drones don't carry a true AI (Silica Animus) onboard. They're simply very smart computers, but are not self-aware/self-sentient constructions.

That said... I don't think the Tau, alone, could withstand an entire Hive Fleet coming up from below the galactic plane to eat their empire, and their empire alone. If we stage it as just the Tau vs just the Tyranid Hive fleet.... we will call it Hive Fleet Cthulhu, in keeping with the Lovecraftian themes of all other named Hive Fleets... the Tau simply don't have the numbers.

The Tau are already struggling with a few other xeno species on single worlds/single systems in the Jericho Reach that have absolutely no interest in joining the Greater Good, primarily because whatever these xenos are don't communicate with the Tau in any way, and just eat them, apparently magically. No details of these creatures are given, as Deathwatch is written from a human perspective and no Imperial elements are on these worlds, but it seems there is some sort of crystal-ghost race on a few worlds the Tau really want... but are having a hell of a time taking.

The Tyranid will not join the Greater Good. The concept of mutual support and benefit doesn't exist to them... all they have is the Hunger. You can't even really speak to a Tyranid biomorph... they have mouth-parts, but no known language, at least in so far as can be deciphered. Most of them don't even have enough brain-space to engage with telepathically (and those that do bring down the brunt of the Hive Mind, so the telepath's head pops). There's no foothold for an Ethereal to gain here, and a Water Caste delegation will be assumed to be an offering of sushimi to a Hive Tyrant.

As for the Tau Navy? Well... yeah, it's good but... each ship only holds so many guns. There are about a million Nids in a fleet per gun. A gun might kill half of that on their approach... but that's still 500,000 Nids now crawling all over your hull, eating your cannons, your power relays, your airlocks. Fly enough bio-acid-bleeding Tyranids at the ships, and eventually, well, it's like your windscreen after a summer's drive. Covered in bug-goo. Bug-goo that opens your ship to the void.

The Tau simply don't have the numbers... and as has happened with Imperial forces in other areas, once the Tyranid are defeated by one means, the next wave/generation of biomorphs will have adapted. Getting crisped by Tau plasma-pulse? Build heat-resistant bugs. Getting torn up by drone swarms? Build swarms of smaller bugs that are camouflaged against the camera optics of the drones (ie, heat-baffled or camo-skinned or light-bending).

Or, easier for the Tyranid.... send in your Warriors to the front to engage the Tau in ranged combat while your ripper swarms and carnifex and lictors and all your other close-combat monstrosities get them in the flanks, or from below. Crisis suits are awesome, but relatively few in number compared to the legions of troops Hive Fleet Cthulhu can bring to the battlefield. It becomes simply a numbers game at this point (which everyone loses when it comes to the Nids, with the exception of the Necrons).

The Tau would need to adopt an extremely mobile battle doctrine to defeat the Hive Fleet, avoiding combat on the ground (which the Tau will lose simply by attrition) and instead keep the fight in space, and from range. I don't believe the Tau have anything like Blackstone Fortresses or other super-weapons in space, so the best they can hope for is lightning strike raids, harrying actions and such, but will need to basically sacrifice their planets, even if they can evacuate all of its residents.

nomotog wrote:Tau do have the ability to make drones easy. I base this on the fact that everyone gets a drone. Everyone. Form diplomats to battle suits to farmers. The tau have drones coming out of the wazoo. I doubt they can drive tanks though, or they would have them out driveing tanks.

Oh sure, they can make a lot of them and easily. Just not as easily as suggested, otherwise the Tau would simply be undergoing continual and quick expansion without pause. They will not be able to create enough to out-fight a Tyranid Hive Fleet in attrition.

They also still need Tau operators around, otherwise they'd just send in entire armies of Drones.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

nomotog wrote:Tau do have the ability to make drones easy. I base this on the fact that everyone gets a drone. Everyone. Form diplomats to battle suits to farmers. The tau have drones coming out of the wazoo. I doubt they can drive tanks though, or they would have them out driveing tanks.

Oh sure, they can make a lot of them and easily. Just not as easily as suggested, otherwise the Tau would simply be undergoing continual and quick expansion without pause. They will not be able to create enough to out-fight a Tyranid Hive Fleet in attrition.

They also still need Tau operators around, otherwise they'd just send in entire armies of Drones.

Not to split hairs but it's their drone technology that's enabled them to expand as quickly as they have. From Hammerheads on up to Tau and starships (Manta have 16 drone controlled turrets), Tau vehicles have fully integrated drone technology. The fluff talks about automated factories which enable them to quickly adapt craft to their needs (BFG) and the codex has an excerpt from an imperial source that talks about advanced production and agriculture tech that meets or ::gasp:: exceeds IoM tech.

The Tau have gone through 3 phases of massive expansion and could not have accomplished this without drones since the number of Tau is relatively small. IA:3 talks about how extensively drones are used and even the codex allows for units for drones without a controller. IA:3 has heavy gun drones that may be taken in units of 2-6 as their integrated FoF tehcnology and preprogramming allow them to accomplish basic missions without a controller; there's nothing more basic than "Go here and kill any enemy along the way." There are other types of drones like sentry turrets and tech drones as well.

Psienesis wrote:The Tau drones won't rebel like the Iron Men did because Tau drones don't carry a true AI (Silica Animus) onboard. They're simply very smart computers, but are not self-aware/self-sentient constructions.

Theres this upcoming model ' I may point at: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/270/403994.page#3448421
Rebellion? Re-programming loyality routines I say....

gabrielhorus wrote:The Tau would be more than able to hold off the Tyranids. The Tau Custodian class capitol ships can obliterate an Imperial fleet without backup. The Tau have four to unleash against invaders and they are building more.

Most Bioships would die to these vessels before they could release spores. The Tau response to landings would be a defensive line and a strategy I like to call "It's Rainin' Drones".

Now to move into more serious things, no. The Tau do have nice gadgets and weapons, yes. But they could not have any hope in defeating a major hive fleet. The Imperium of Man is hundreds of times larger than the Tau Empire, and it nearly failed to stop the Hive Fleet Leviathan. The Tau can destroy a splinter fleet. And have already done so.

They simply lack the manpower to even give the Fleet a challenge. Besides, when the Hive Mind discovers that the Ethereals are guiding the others with hormones, they would strike at them first. Without them, the Tau would panic and be so disorganised that their Empire would fall in weeks, if not days. The rule "Shoot the big ones!" also applies to the Tau: "Shoot the Ethereals!"

The tau in theory could and should be using their automation to fight in place of organic troops, unless there is some overriding reason (doctrine, fear, problems with technology, etc.) preventing them from doing so. Their fighters, tanks, battlesuits, etc could and probably should all be droid controlled or remotely piloted (They've at least shown the capability exists) but.. for whatever reason.. they don't. Or if they needed squishy organics they could just let their auxiliaries fight inside the suits (with Tau crews controlling andb acking up the systems - there's plenty of ways they can work safeguards in ot prevent that tech being used against them.) But they don't, nor do they Drone-spam anyone in place of conventional forces, so there may be some obvious limitations of some kind (or they just are incapable of thinking of it so far - they have shown quite a bit of naitvete on the galactic scale.)

As to whether they can survive a hive fleet.. it depend entirely on how big a hive fleet we are talking about. A small one (like they faced in the Tyranid Codex or like Behemoth) probably. The more usual "million ship/billions of tyranid" type force.. no. They may be able to destroy it cetainly, but destroying and surviving are two entirely different things. The Tau are, territory wise, as large as (maybe a big larger) as an Imperial Sector in terms of worlds (somewhere in the hundreds of inhabited worlds.) They have some technological advantage,s but their main asset is solid logistics and a standardized kit/gear amongst the tau-derived troops (which your typical Guardsmen does not have. Hell even lasguns and flak aren't guaranteed nowadays.) On the other hand, they typically have smaller populations per world than the Imperium does (A major Sept world has a fraction of the population of a hive world) And the Imperium can generally expect to lose scores if not hundreds of worlds stopping a sizeable hive fleet (EG Kraken) that means the Tau could expect to lose a fair chunk of their empire, if nto a majority of it, stopping the Tyranids.

The small size of the Tau, their generally low signature in the Warp, and their low population densities are likely what keep them from being noticed (compared to the Orks, Eldar, Humans, etc...)

agnosto wrote:
Not to split hairs but it's their drone technology that's enabled them to expand as quickly as they have. From Hammerheads on up to Tau and starships (Manta have 16 drone controlled turrets), Tau vehicles have fully integrated drone technology. The fluff talks about automated factories which enable them to quickly adapt craft to their needs (BFG) and the codex has an excerpt from an imperial source that talks about advanced production and agriculture tech that meets or ::gasp:: exceeds IoM tech.

To an extent. My point was that they can't just send out millions of Drones to fight wars for them. They need boots on the ground, and in the tanks, and in their starships.

The Tau have gone through 3 phases of massive expansion and could not have accomplished this without drones since the number of Tau is relatively small. IA:3 talks about how extensively drones are used and even the codex allows for units for drones without a controller. IA:3 has heavy gun drones that may be taken in units of 2-6 as their integrated FoF tehcnology and preprogramming allow them to accomplish basic missions without a controller; there's nothing more basic than "Go here and kill any enemy along the way." There are other types of drones like sentry turrets and tech drones as well.

If they could use Drones to simply out-last a Tyranid Hive Fleet, then they'd have expanded far more than they currently have. That's my point. They have Drones in large numbers, but those numbers are still no way near large enough to starve the Tyranids of biomass.

1.) What happens when humans invade a Tau home planet? Tau first evacuate the whole civil population then start a fight (see novel "White Scars"), but retreat if necessary. Tau are not territorial at all, not even on their homeplanet. So if a big Hive Fleet approaches, Tau would just avoid them, not run into close combat to prove their manhood.
2.) Concerning the drone rebellion: Not every intelligent life form starts with killing its creator. Not every child tries to kill its parents to get free of an unequal relationship. Actually most children appreciate their parents.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

agnosto wrote:
Not to split hairs but it's their drone technology that's enabled them to expand as quickly as they have. From Hammerheads on up to Tau and starships (Manta have 16 drone controlled turrets), Tau vehicles have fully integrated drone technology. The fluff talks about automated factories which enable them to quickly adapt craft to their needs (BFG) and the codex has an excerpt from an imperial source that talks about advanced production and agriculture tech that meets or ::gasp:: exceeds IoM tech.

To an extent. My point was that they can't just send out millions of Drones to fight wars for them. They need boots on the ground, and in the tanks, and in their starships.

The Tau have gone through 3 phases of massive expansion and could not have accomplished this without drones since the number of Tau is relatively small. IA:3 talks about how extensively drones are used and even the codex allows for units for drones without a controller. IA:3 has heavy gun drones that may be taken in units of 2-6 as their integrated FoF tehcnology and preprogramming allow them to accomplish basic missions without a controller; there's nothing more basic than "Go here and kill any enemy along the way." There are other types of drones like sentry turrets and tech drones as well.

If they could use Drones to simply out-last a Tyranid Hive Fleet, then they'd have expanded far more than they currently have. That's my point. They have Drones in large numbers, but those numbers are still no way near large enough to starve the Tyranids of biomass.

I think they could deploy them in large enough numbers to starve the nids. Pound per pound a tau army is very light on bio mass. Tau deploy in smaller armies and are very mechanized. That is before they focus on drones. They could deploy lines of drone maned turrets, deploy squads of gun drones to flank, then snipe snaps creatures with sniper drones. The only place they need people is in the command ranks. Now that they know about the nid threat, you can bet they have a few of these anti nid fighting forces around.

On the other hand, they would be defending a populated planet and civilians make good biomass.

Kroothawk wrote:1.) What happens when humans invade a Tau home planet? Tau first evacuate the whole civil population then start a fight (see novel "White Scars"), but retreat if necessary. Tau are not territorial at all, not even on their homeplanet. So if a big Hive Fleet approaches, Tau would just avoid them, not run into close combat to prove their manhood.
2.) Concerning the drone rebellion: Not every intelligent life form starts with killing its creator. Not every child tries to kill its parents to get free of an unequal relationship. Actually most children appreciate their parents.

Avoiding a hive fleet is the worst way to handle one. Assuming it dosen't follow you, it has time to murder the bio sphere of your planets and grow unrestricted. The tau sit on some very prime planets. A dense cluster of habitable planets and the nids would turn them into rocks. The tau would never be able to recover.

No, probably not. I think i remember a thread on here that said it would take .04% of IG forces to wipe out the tau. If it takes that little to kill them from an imperium standpoint, I cant seem them surviving a hive fleet. Its hard to the Imperium and other more formidable Xenos to do that.

1hadhq wrote:

TrollPie wrote:


And people who think Tau drones will all suddenly rebel and destroy their empire are forgetting this has happened once in the same setting because at the time Terminator was pretty popular, and that well programmed computers don't rebel.


Also, there are about 30 fully developed planets in the Tau Empire and 70 minor planets or allied worlds. The total population of the Tau is most likely in the hundreds of billions. A ridiculously large proportion of that is in the Fire Caste. It's nothing compared to the Imperium, but it's density and Caste system means it's far from an easy meal.
.

Crons still be "terminator" to some degree, so we'll see what happens when they return...

The total population of the Tau is only shown in ....their first dex... and probably much lower than some fans want it to be.
Just 100 planets? high chance the nids eat the important ones and the "empire" crumbles in a few months. You don't need to annex every place in an "empire" to end said "empire".

IIRC the Eldar weren't used to save the Tau, so there is still hope to survive the nids by the grace of the 'elder' races....

The population of 20 Earths is roughly 140 billion. The Tau have thirty well developed worlds and many small ones. Therefore the Tau Empire could easily number in the hundreds of billions, especially given their industrialised nature.
Tyranids eat the important planets and then the Empire crumbles? Well, since the Tau Empire's most important planets are all 1st Phase Sept worlds which are heavily industrialised and produce a large proportion of the Fire Caste, this will be no easy feat. The complete lack of importance that the Tau place on territory means that if they needed they would evacuate all of their endangered worlds and send their leaders to safer places anyway. Simply destroying their important planets isn't enough; you have to destroy every safe haven they have to ensure their leaders don't escape. Not to mention the Tyranids would have no way of knowing which Tau worlds are important anyway.
Also, stop putting the word Empire in inverted commas. Name one known Empire in 40k outside the Warp bigger than the Tau. I can only think of one.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
To an extent. My point was that they can't just send out millions of Drones to fight wars for them. They need boots on the ground, and in the tanks, and in their starships.

On the ground? Seeing as drones feel no fear or pain, will always act rationally regardless of how much danger they're in, have far more accurate weapons than an unspecialised living organism and can move at far greater speeds over any terrain than regular troops (yay frizbees!) they're pretty much perfect combat troops.
In tanks? See above.
In their starships? Drones already control their Starships. A living creature can't target things millions of kilometres away moving at speeds inconcievable to human minds. They also can't manouvre ships at these speeds, or work out where themeselves and the enemy are, without the aid of computers. Swap the living creatures for repair drones and strategising computers and you have a fully combat capable starship.

nomotog wrote:
I think they could deploy them in large enough numbers to starve the nids. Pound per pound a tau army is very light on bio mass. Tau deploy in smaller armies and are very mechanized. That is before they focus on drones. They could deploy lines of drone maned turrets, deploy squads of gun drones to flank, then snipe snaps creatures with sniper drones. The only place they need people is in the command ranks. Now that they know about the nid threat, you can bet they have a few of these anti nid fighting forces around.

Unfortunately, the Tau army has to been on a planet. They have to hold it and stop the Tyranids from consuming it. That doesn't allow you to just use smaller armies. We know the Tyranids can use amazing tactics, and we know that gun lines end up being destroyed by whatever bizarre creature the Tyranids come up with. You could have dozens of lines of Drone turrets and it would only delay them and the Tyranids would recover more quickly than the Tau. They need sufficient people to command the Drones to attempt to out-think the Tyranids. That alone will require large numbers of Tau. Drone turrets would be far too inflexible to prove much of a hassle. For one thing, they're defenceless against burrowing creatures.

On the other hand, they would be defending a populated planet and civilians make good biomass.

Not to mention the planet itself. All the plants and such as well as the actual minerals and water.

Billagio wrote:I think i remember a thread on here that said it would take .04% of IG forces to wipe out the tau.

You shouldn't really take everything said on Dakka Dakka as gospel truth.

TrollPie wrote:Name one known Empire in 40k outside the Warp bigger than the Tau.

Doesn't it say that the Tau on the same scale as dozens of other xeno empires?

On the ground? Seeing as drones feel no fear or pain, will always act rationally regardless of how much danger they're in, have far more accurate weapons than an unspecialised living organism and can move at far greater speeds over any terrain than regular troops (yay frizbees!) they're pretty much perfect combat troops.

Then why aren't they used as the perfect combat troops? Why do the Tau have to use actual Tau on the ground? Why aren't they invading vast swathes of the Imperium instead having to fight hard battles or negotiate with Imperials?

In their starships? Drones already control their Starships. A living creature can't target things millions of kilometres away moving at speeds inconcievable to human minds. They also can't manouvre ships at these speeds, or work out where themeselves and the enemy are, without the aid of computers. Swap the living creatures for repair drones and strategising computers and you have a fully combat capable starship.

They still require the Air Caste for a reason. Drones are not the be all and end all of Tau warfare.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

TrollPie wrote:Name one known Empire in 40k outside the Warp bigger than the Tau.

Doesn't it say that the Tau on the same scale as dozens of other xeno empires?

TrollPie wrote:

The fact that they are unnamed but on the same scale doesn't support your position at all.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

TrollPie wrote:

The fact that they are unnamed but on the same scale doesn't support your position at all.

It was just a little joke. But seriously, they're pretty much the same size as almost any other Empire in 40k so when someone keeps putting the word "Empire" in inverted commas it's pretty annoying.

Depends on how you class an empire. Every other major race is more populace, the Tyranids, the Imperium, the Orkz, the Necrons, and arguably the Dark Eldar and Eldar. The former four are probably thousands of times more numerous. It's doubtless that there are other races out there that could number close to the Tau, spread out mind you. But I digress, the Tau are the second largest unified faction. Oh no, maybe not, because Abaddon and Huron rule their own sizeable areas of space. Huron we know controls many systems, and billions of lives.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

On the ground? Seeing as drones feel no fear or pain, will always act rationally regardless of how much danger they're in, have far more accurate weapons than an unspecialised living organism and can move at far greater speeds over any terrain than regular troops (yay frizbees!) they're pretty much perfect combat troops.

Then why aren't they used as the perfect combat troops? Why do the Tau have to use actual Tau on the ground? Why aren't they invading vast swathes of the Imperium instead having to fight hard battles or negotiate with Imperials?

Because they wouldn't sell as well without actual Tau models.

In their starships? Drones already control their Starships. A living creature can't target things millions of kilometres away moving at speeds inconcievable to human minds. They also can't manouvre ships at these speeds, or work out where themeselves and the enemy are, without the aid of computers. Swap the living creatures for repair drones and strategising computers and you have a fully combat capable starship.

They still require the Air Caste for a reason. Drones are not the be all and end all of Tau warfare.

And what reason would that be? Maybe they're just on standbye in case of a malfunction. Maybe so that they can add a little initiative. But against Tyranids, they could easy be replaced by less juicy meals and combat capability would barely drop at all-it would probably increase.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

nomotog wrote:
I think they could deploy them in large enough numbers to starve the nids. Pound per pound a tau army is very light on bio mass. Tau deploy in smaller armies and are very mechanized. That is before they focus on drones. They could deploy lines of drone maned turrets, deploy squads of gun drones to flank, then snipe snaps creatures with sniper drones. The only place they need people is in the command ranks. Now that they know about the nid threat, you can bet they have a few of these anti nid fighting forces around.

Unfortunately, the Tau army has to been on a planet. They have to hold it and stop the Tyranids from consuming it. That doesn't allow you to just use smaller armies. We know the Tyranids can use amazing tactics, and we know that gun lines end up being destroyed by whatever bizarre creature the Tyranids come up with. You could have dozens of lines of Drone turrets and it would only delay them and the Tyranids would recover more quickly than the Tau. They need sufficient people to command the Drones to attempt to out-think the Tyranids. That alone will require large numbers of Tau. Drone turrets would be far too inflexible to prove much of a hassle. For one thing, they're defenceless against burrowing creatures.

What I meant by small is that a tau army is about 100-200 people and it flattens the ground that would take other sides 500-1000 people. The tau need to deploy far fewer people to combat. They would still use a lot of people, but no where close to the number of people used by other armies.

Can nids recover from a combat where they gain no biomass? I mean if a squad of nids gets flatted by a drone force, they lose biomass. If the nids flatten the drone force, they get no biomass. It dosen't just delay them it weakens them.

I don't know how many people you would need to command a drone army. Not many though. Drones can be deployed in squads without tau to command them. Same with the drone turrets. (I am thinking about the FW turrets here not some hypothetical turret.) You would still want crisis suits tanks and other tau maned vehicles, but the amount of biomass you get from cracking open a tank is less then the amount that the tank shoots up.

Just the fact that the tau army is mostly robots makes them a poor target.

The important thing to note is a Tau army would have an easier time killing a Synapse creature than an Imperial Army with their massive range.

Also they would just throw Kroot and Vespids in to tie up the waves of gaunts and stealers while the Tau themselves would fire upon Monstrous Creatures.

Kilkrazy wrote:It's pretty clear the Tyranids will wipe out all life in the galaxy. They've already done it to a different galaxy.

It's been posited that, because of the various directions that the Hive Fleets have entered the galaxy, they may have each come from a different galaxy, and the true Tyranid force has consumed the vast majority of the local cluster, meaning that it is possible that out of four or five galaxies, the Tyranids have consumed them all, and we are the last ones left.

The Tau could not stand against the full force of a Hive Fleet.

The Orks are probably the best bet against permanently staving off the Tyranids. In the Ork codex (3rd ed, pg 33) it states how there are tens of millions of more Orks in one of the Segmentums, and that when it comes to the Orks, there is literally strength in numbers (more Orks = stronger Orks).

It also states if all Orks united under one banner the combined might of all other races couldn't stave them (they don't exclude Tyranids so they must also be included).

The problem is they would never do it.

nomotog wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

nomotog wrote:
I think they could deploy them in large enough numbers to starve the nids. Pound per pound a tau army is very light on bio mass. Tau deploy in smaller armies and are very mechanized. That is before they focus on drones. They could deploy lines of drone maned turrets, deploy squads of gun drones to flank, then snipe snaps creatures with sniper drones. The only place they need people is in the command ranks. Now that they know about the nid threat, you can bet they have a few of these anti nid fighting forces around.

Unfortunately, the Tau army has to been on a planet. They have to hold it and stop the Tyranids from consuming it. That doesn't allow you to just use smaller armies. We know the Tyranids can use amazing tactics, and we know that gun lines end up being destroyed by whatever bizarre creature the Tyranids come up with. You could have dozens of lines of Drone turrets and it would only delay them and the Tyranids would recover more quickly than the Tau. They need sufficient people to command the Drones to attempt to out-think the Tyranids. That alone will require large numbers of Tau. Drone turrets would be far too inflexible to prove much of a hassle. For one thing, they're defenceless against burrowing creatures.

What I meant by small is that a tau army is about 100-200 people and it flattens the ground that would take other sides 500-1000 people. The tau need to deploy far fewer people to combat. They would still use a lot of people, but no where close to the number of people used by other armies.

Can nids recover from a combat where they gain no biomass? I mean if a squad of nids gets flatted by a drone force, they lose biomass. If the nids flatten the drone force, they get no biomass. It dosen't just delay them it weakens them.

I don't know how many people you would need to command a drone army. Not many though. Drones can be deployed in squads without tau to command them. Same with the drone turrets. (I am thinking about the FW turrets here not some hypothetical turret.) You would still want crisis suits tanks and other tau maned vehicles, but the amount of biomass you get from cracking open a tank is less then the amount that the tank shoots up.

Just the fact that the tau army is mostly robots makes them a poor target.

When has a Tau army ever been "mostly robots"? They use a significant amount of Drones, but you never see them numbering more than Firewarriors or Kroot. They don't pilot vehicles, there's still a Tau inside every mech and tank. Face it, they simply don't have the numbers or the resources. The Imperium defeats the Tyranids because they have the brute strength to fight the wars of attrition that Tyranid engagements inevitably become. The Tau can't engage in this kind of battle, their doctrines are designed to make them avoid such battles.

Mostly robots is a poor way to put it. There army is mostly machine. That is pound to pound you get more inorganic matter then organic matter.

It depends on exactly how the hive fleet works, but a tau planet will fair better then a IoM planet.

It's because Tau armies are generally smaller, not because they're mostly machine.
And no, a Tau planet won't. Tau aren't noted for entrenching themselves, and wars of attrition are how Tyranid engagements are fought. They would fair much, much worse.

iproxtaco wrote:It's because Tau armies are generally smaller, not because they're mostly machine.
And no, a Tau planet won't. Tau aren't noted for entrenching themselves, and wars of attrition are how Tyranid engagements are fought. They would fair much, much worse.

They are smaller and mostly mechanized. Every element in the tau (except kroot vespin) is a mechanized element.

Then there is two things. You don't actually have to engage in an attrition war with the nids. Actually such a war is the worst way to fight the nids. You will slowly grow weaker well they get stronger. To stop a nid fleet, you need to be fast deadly taking them out in a killing blow.

The next thing, even though the tau codex says that the tau don't defend land or entrench. In stories, the tau are almost always entrenched. It's a disconnect between what they say and what they do. What version is right? Bugger if I know.

Tau Drones require controllers.

In order for Drones to be on the ground fighting, the Fire Caste must be on the ground as well operating with Drone Controllers.

Kanluwen wrote:Tau Drones require controllers.

In order for Drones to be on the ground fighting, the Fire Caste must be on the ground as well operating with Drone Controllers.

Not always. When operating in large numbers Drones form a sort of network intelligence, that's why Gun Drone squads have no controllers.

TrollPie wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Tau Drones require controllers.

In order for Drones to be on the ground fighting, the Fire Caste must be on the ground as well operating with Drone Controllers.

Not always. When operating in large numbers Drones form a sort of network intelligence, that's why Gun Drone squads have no controllers.

And when they form those "networked intelligences", Drones behave in a far different fashion where they'll fall back or 'break'.

Kanluwen wrote:

TrollPie wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Tau Drones require controllers.

In order for Drones to be on the ground fighting, the Fire Caste must be on the ground as well operating with Drone Controllers.

Not always. When operating in large numbers Drones form a sort of network intelligence, that's why Gun Drone squads have no controllers.

And when they form those "networked intelligences", Drones behave in a far different fashion where they'll fall back or 'break'.

But not out of fear or cowardice, but because they know that they would serve more use if they fall back. A good soldier knows when to retreat.

Who knows, with conventional weapons against an very large fleet probaly not but..

Somewhere underground in an Tau command bunker:

- Now look.. if we don't deal with this now its only a matter of time before the Nids turn our major septs into biogoo.

- So what do you suggest?

- Its simple we ah reactivate the Leviathan project.

- You're crazy.

- No.. I'm not...

( Yeah an ripoff but who cares? )

TrollPie wrote:
But not out of fear or cowardice, but because they know that they would serve more use if they fall back. A good soldier knows when to retreat.

And retreating before the Tyranids is not actually a good idea.

There's a reason the Imperium holds the line as long as they can, and it's not pure stubbornness.

nomotog wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:It's because Tau armies are generally smaller, not because they're mostly machine.
And no, a Tau planet won't. Tau aren't noted for entrenching themselves, and wars of attrition are how Tyranid engagements are fought. They would fair much, much worse.

They are smaller and mostly mechanized. Every element in the tau (except kroot vespin) is a mechanized element.

Which generally means lot of small squads, and lots of vehicle pilots. The Tau's mechanization has little to do with it. Their forces are generally smaller, that's why.

Then there is two things. You don't actually have to engage in an attrition war with the nids. Actually such a war is the worst way to fight the nids. You will slowly grow weaker well they get stronger. To stop a nid fleet, you need to be fast deadly taking them out in a killing blow.

Oh yes, it is. You have to be strong, and hold the line. You can't rely solely on this, Tarsis Ultra is evidence enough, but a Tyranid swarm numbering in the tens of millions isn't going to be taken down by guerilla tactics and mechanized infantry.

[/]The next thing, even though the tau codex says that the tau don't defend land or entrench. In stories, the tau are almost always entrenched. It's a disconnect between what they say and what they do. What version is right? Bugger if I know.

Kanluwen wrote:

TrollPie wrote:
But not out of fear or cowardice, but because they know that they would serve more use if they fall back. A good soldier knows when to retreat.

And retreating before the Tyranids is not actually a good idea.

There's a reason the Imperium holds the line as long as they can, and it's not pure stubbornness.

Programme them to be more reluctant to retreat. That's the advantage of Drones- they'll reliably follow any orders they're given.

The Tau as a force are optimized for conquest and occupation throughout their society (must expand the Greater good and all). This means they are better at taking on the Imperium (especially since their distance from the Imperium means that any sort of coherent or well-supplied response is difficult to amass, especially in the midst of two major ongoing conflicts and quite a few medium and countless minor ones.) which means they have considerable logistical and "home field" advantages compared to the Imperium. Their method of waging war, however, is not well suited to fighting the Orks or Tyranids for the simple reason that the motivations of both groups do not mesh well with a conquest-oriented force. The Orks fight for the sake of fighting and for their own evolutionary development, and the tau literally would have no chance of conquering them. Crushing or destroying them, yes, but that won't end things (since it will just draw more orks. and once they're on the ground they're impossible to purge.)

The Tyranids are another race they simply cannot conquer and will never co-exist with, but their tactics emphasize extreme mobility, even to the point of (as much as they are able to at least) giving up ground rather than holding it. To an extent this makes perfect sense, as mobility is a considerable advnatage (Allowing you to concentrate fire, especially the firepower-heavy nature of the Tau) but that only works so long as you have a solid logistical tail and a strong base to operate from (Factories, recruits, food, etc.) And that means you can only back up so far without giving up your ability to engage in war. The tyranids, as a force, are optimized for attrition warfare (they'll just destroy their troops at the end and rebuild them once they win, so losses are functionally irrelevant. Hell even if they lose they'll keep rebuilding so long as there is avialable biomass.) They can deploy effectively from orbit unless you deny them the high ground (space fleets or strong anti-ship defenses are a necessity) and they engage in rampant and insidious biowarfare (spore mins, corrupting/tyranoforming the planet around the defenders, etc.) The probably numerical superiority (at least per planet, if not parity) is only the icing on the cake.

It also doesn't help that they really don't have that much experience of fighting or knowledge of the Tyranids. Hell, they hardly knew much about Genestealers.

TrollPie wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

TrollPie wrote:
But not out of fear or cowardice, but because they know that they would serve more use if they fall back. A good soldier knows when to retreat.

And retreating before the Tyranids is not actually a good idea.

There's a reason the Imperium holds the line as long as they can, and it's not pure stubbornness.

Programme them to be more reluctant to retreat. That's the advantage of Drones- they'll reliably follow any orders they're given.

Except when there's no one there controlling them.

But not to as high a standard as a regular biological life form like the Tau. A Drone will do what it's programmed to do, a Firewarrior will follow orders, but it's their decision making ability that makes a Drone useless as the main body of an army unless it's either an AI or has a significant amount of controller input, to the point where the Tau is telling it absolutely everything, so you might as well have that Tau do a better job himself.

Kanluwen wrote:

TrollPie wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

TrollPie wrote:
But not out of fear or cowardice, but because they know that they would serve more use if they fall back. A good soldier knows when to retreat.

And retreating before the Tyranids is not actually a good idea.

There's a reason the Imperium holds the line as long as they can, and it's not pure stubbornness.

Programme them to be more reluctant to retreat. That's the advantage of Drones- they'll reliably follow any orders they're given.

Except when there's no one there controlling them.

Except there's always someone controlling them. A Fire Caste Commander a hundred miles away sending them instructions would have just as much influence as a Fire Warrior a few feet away shouting at them. As soon as they leave the factory, you can give them programming to perform a certain mission and they'll do it. Programming that includes when and when not to retreat, what to aim at, where to go etc...

TrollPie wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

TrollPie wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

TrollPie wrote:
But not out of fear or cowardice, but because they know that they would serve more use if they fall back. A good soldier knows when to retreat.

And retreating before the Tyranids is not actually a good idea.

There's a reason the Imperium holds the line as long as they can, and it's not pure stubbornness.

Programme them to be more reluctant to retreat. That's the advantage of Drones- they'll reliably follow any orders they're given.

Except when there's no one there controlling them.

Except there's always someone controlling them. A Fire Caste Commander a hundred miles away sending them instructions would have just as much influence as a Fire Warrior a few feet away shouting at them. As soon as they leave the factory, you can give them programming to perform a certain mission and they'll do it. Programming that includes when and when not to retreat, what to aim at, where to go etc...

So that's why when they're outside of the range of a Drone Controller(mounted on a Crisis Suit or a Fire Caste Warrior's jewelry, whatever) they need to be networked with at least 4-5 other Drones.

Drones are not a solution.

iproxtaco wrote:

nomotog wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:It's because Tau armies are generally smaller, not because they're mostly machine.
And no, a Tau planet won't. Tau aren't noted for entrenching themselves, and wars of attrition are how Tyranid engagements are fought. They would fair much, much worse.

They are smaller and mostly mechanized. Every element in the tau (except kroot vespin) is a mechanized element.

Which generally means lot of small squads, and lots of vehicle pilots. The Tau's mechanization has little to do with it. Their forces are generally smaller, that's why.

Then there is two things. You don't actually have to engage in an attrition war with the nids. Actually such a war is the worst way to fight the nids. You will slowly grow weaker well they get stronger. To stop a nid fleet, you need to be fast deadly taking them out in a killing blow.

Oh yes, it is. You have to be strong, and hold the line. You can't rely solely on this, Tarsis Ultra is evidence enough, but a Tyranid swarm numbering in the tens of millions isn't going to be taken down by guerilla tactics and mechanized infantry.

The next thing, even though the tau codex says that the tau don't defend land or entrench. In stories, the tau are almost always entrenched. It's a disconnect between what they say and what they do. What version is right? Bugger if I know.

I don't know about almost always. A few times, yes, but there are plenty of instances where they follow the doctrine.

I don't know if i am explaining this right. Tau army mostly tech. Nids don't eat tech. Tau army has less to eat.

Guerrilla tactics is attrition. Again you do not want to fight a war of attrition with the nids.

Entrenching is part of the doctrine. It's the patent hunter side. You set up a trap and let the enemy fall into it. Farsight was good at this.

iproxtaco wrote:But not to as high a standard as a regular biological life form like the Tau. A Drone will do what it's programmed to do, a Firewarrior will follow orders, but it's their decision making ability that makes a Drone useless as the main body of an army unless it's either an AI or has a significant amount of controller input, to the point where the Tau is telling it absolutely everything, so you might as well have that Tau do a better job himself.

Drones have decision making ability. It sees an enemy convoy appraoching from the flank, it knows that the squad to the left has anti-tank weapons, it knows that the other squad needs a diversion if they are to get within range of the tanks, it knows that the squad to the right is vulnerable to the weapons they have, it knows that it isn't. So the Drone draws the convoy's fire- completely free from the fear that would cause a normal soldier to panic and retreat- while ordering the squad to the left to advance under their cover fire and destroy the convoy, as well as ordering the squad to the right to hold the infantry off while they do this and to stay in a building hidden from the convoy's view. All by taking in information and following it's programming. A normal squad would probably be too distracted by enemy fire to act rationally. It then gets orders from a Shas'o far from the fight to hold the line until reinforcements arrive and follows them to the letter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kanluwen wrote:

TrollPie wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

TrollPie wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

TrollPie wrote:
But not out of fear or cowardice, but because they know that they would serve more use if they fall back. A good soldier knows when to retreat.

And retreating before the Tyranids is not actually a good idea.

There's a reason the Imperium holds the line as long as they can, and it's not pure stubbornness.

Programme them to be more reluctant to retreat. That's the advantage of Drones- they'll reliably follow any orders they're given.

Except when there's no one there controlling them.

Except there's always someone controlling them. A Fire Caste Commander a hundred miles away sending them instructions would have just as much influence as a Fire Warrior a few feet away shouting at them. As soon as they leave the factory, you can give them programming to perform a certain mission and they'll do it. Programming that includes when and when not to retreat, what to aim at, where to go etc...

So that's why when they're outside of the range of a Drone Controller(mounted on a Crisis Suit or a Fire Caste Warrior's jewelry, whatever) they need to be networked with at least 4-5 other Drones.

What's why? And the only time a Drone won't have 3 other Drones nearby is if something's gone badly wrong.

As I recall individual drones need some sort of organic guidance (EG from the tau) beyond certain specific tasks (like farming, manufacturing, surveillance, etc.) They can be joined to gether to form some sort of higher-intelligence network, but this doesnt mean they are neccesarily as capable as a normal human (Why that is, I dont know.) All we know is that they still use massive numbers of squishy organics to fight, so either they need to or they choose to, or it simply hasn't occured to them to switch to an all robot army. I suspect the last one is least likely, as the Tau, while naive, are not stupid and they do adapt.

Connor MacLeod wrote:As I recall individual drones need some sort of organic guidance (EG from the tau) beyond certain specific tasks (like farming, manufacturing, surveillance, etc.) They can be joined to gether to form some sort of higher-intelligence network, but this doesnt mean they are neccesarily as capable as a normal human (Why that is, I dont know.) All we know is that they still use massive numbers of squishy organics to fight, so either they need to or they choose to, or it simply hasn't occured to them to switch to an all robot army. I suspect the last one is least likely, as the Tau, while naive, are not stupid and they do adapt.

An all-Drone army would have less initiative and flexibility than an organic force. But when using an organic force would mean literally feeding the enemy they could switch to a majority-AI force.

nomotog wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:

nomotog wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:It's because Tau armies are generally smaller, not because they're mostly machine.
And no, a Tau planet won't. Tau aren't noted for entrenching themselves, and wars of attrition are how Tyranid engagements are fought. They would fair much, much worse.

They are smaller and mostly mechanized. Every element in the tau (except kroot vespin) is a mechanized element.

Which generally means lot of small squads, and lots of vehicle pilots. The Tau's mechanization has little to do with it. Their forces are generally smaller, that's why.

Then there is two things. You don't actually have to engage in an attrition war with the nids. Actually such a war is the worst way to fight the nids. You will slowly grow weaker well they get stronger. To stop a nid fleet, you need to be fast deadly taking them out in a killing blow.

Oh yes, it is. You have to be strong, and hold the line. You can't rely solely on this, Tarsis Ultra is evidence enough, but a Tyranid swarm numbering in the tens of millions isn't going to be taken down by guerilla tactics and mechanized infantry.

The next thing, even though the tau codex says that the tau don't defend land or entrench. In stories, the tau are almost always entrenched. It's a disconnect between what they say and what they do. What version is right? Bugger if I know.

I don't know about almost always. A few times, yes, but there are plenty of instances where they follow the doctrine.

I don't know if i am explaining this right. Tau army mostly tech. Nids don't eat tech. Tau army has less to eat.

I understand, I just think you're wrong.

Guerrilla tactics is attrition. Again you do not want to fight a war of attrition with the nids.

Different phrase then. Holding the line is the way Tyranids are fought. Mixing things up works if you hold the line somewhere else.

Entrenching is part of the doctrine. It's the patent hunter side. You set up a trap and let the enemy fall into it. Farsight was good at this.

That's laying a trap, not entrenching and holding a position. Tau don't like defending places, all their doctrines make the point of keeping mobile.

TrollPie wrote:
The population of 20 Earths is roughly 140 billion. The Tau have thirty well developed worlds and many small ones. Therefore the Tau Empire could easily number in the hundreds of billions, especially given their industrialised nature.

Like I said, imagined and made up numbers, not provided by GW.
Earth and TaU have nothing in common. So maybe you can't have drones doing all the work and claim lots of Tau because they are Sooo
industrialized. Either they use drones and don't need as many living creatures, or they are a lazy bunch that won't work and are not prepared to face the hardships of incoming tyranid invasions.

TrollPie wrote:
Tyranids eat the important planets and then the Empire crumbles? Well, since the Tau Empire's most important planets are all 1st Phase Sept worlds which are heavily industrialised and produce a large proportion of the Fire Caste, this will be no easy feat. The complete lack of importance that the Tau place on territory means that if they needed they would evacuate all of their endangered worlds and send their leaders to safer places anyway. Simply destroying their important planets isn't enough; you have to destroy every safe haven they have to ensure their leaders don't escape. Not to mention the Tyranids would have no way of knowing which Tau worlds are important anyway.

Last time I've checked, nids take all the biomass, thus worlds are bereft of life. Its a concept I personally deem weird as the mass they have to transport if they take 'everything' would be too much to move without spending extreme amounts of energy. But Gw wrote it so.
Nids were able to take iron warriors fortress worlds, so why should they even slow down against Tau who flee but can't escape because the nids encircled them? Threats don't play to 'your' tune, nids don't fight like any species in this Galaxy wants them to.
The map of the Tau empire doesn't hint at varied worlds, but on specialized worlds. Specialization is a double edged sword.

What happens if the 'pheromone control' thing is true and the nids find out and mimic it? Tau willingly sacrificing their biomass ?

TrollPie wrote:
Name one known Empire in 40k outside the Warp bigger than the Tau. I can only think of one.

Really?
The tau are just one of the species of this galaxy and you can't think of more than one empire bigger than theirs?
A start could be the BRB, as no alphabetical order could mean the xenos are listed per size and the Tau are not on N°1 there....

There'd be ways around that. Have the tau all deploy in either heavily shielded battlesuits, or placed within their various armoured vehicles, seveing as command and control nexus for various drones. We know they have good networking amidst the fire warriors (They can communicate, transmit visual and audio or even HUD information between themselves and vehicles, etc.) and you wouldn't have to even deploy infantry - all Tau would be drone/remote controllers, and I suspect if they ca make drones they could just make bigger drones to serve the function of tanks and battlesuits.

Kanluwen wrote:

Drones are not a solution.

It depends. There's the good point that drones would not supply biomass to a tyranid invasion force whereas "boots on the ground" would. For every tyranid that's killed by a drone, you make the tyranid force weaker whereas every drone destroyed supplies zero benefit to the tyranids.

I won't say that the tau would fare any better than any other faction vs. a full-blown hive invasion; just that their technology adequately compensates their lack of numbers. As someone else mentioned before, they wouldn't fare any better, just cope differently out of necessity.

As to the drone discussion. I think you would be well advised to go back and read the fluff on drones. IA:3 has drone sentry towers and drone defense turrets that have no controller within visible distance. They're programmed with FoF software and left to defend an area or provide intel in an area as per their programming. Also, they can't run so there's no chance of breaking and they can be dropped from ships. As for the group programming of drone squads; we all know what the effect of unbreakable drone squads would have in game terms so GW writers added the bit about a form of self-preservation being programmed into them. In reality, if I were manufacturing drones to fight a battle on a planet I knew didn't have Tau citizenry, in this case a Tyranid invaded planet that had been evacuated (as seems their standard protocol), I program them to kill everything and drop them en masse all over the planet. Even in today's age, software upgrades can be completed without a tech touching the piece of equipment, heck we can tell robots on mars what to do; I would hope that 40,000 years in the future they can do at least that much.

Again. Would the Tau live? Nope; just like every other faction. Heck, the IoM may have millions of worlds but if they just willy-nilly throw them away, they'll be as small as the Tau before long. Between exterminatus, cleansings, chaos invasions, tau poachings, ork invasions and the tyranids if GW advanced the storyline the IoM would be in as much hot water as everybody else.

1hadhq wrote:The tau are just one of the species of this galaxy and you can't think of more than one empire bigger than theirs?
A start could be the BRB, as no alphabetical order could mean the xenos are listed per size and the Tau are not on N°1 there....

You think the rule book lists armies based on size? I always thought it was based on popularity.

Evacuting planets is NOT a good idea. For one thing it would bea logisticla nightmare.

The tau probably have hundreds of billions, if not trillions of people. Let's be generous and assume they have tons of transports capable of hauling oh, 10 million people apiece. If they have a 1 trillion population, that needs 100,000 transports which are, in all probability, as large as a very large cruiser/battlecruiser or small Imperial battleship and I'm assuming they can multiply holding cpaacity by a factor of 100 there without any problems on life support or maintenance. I'm not even sure the Tau have 100,000 transports (10x more than the biggest numbers I've seen for an Imperial sector's transport capacity, or a fair fraction of the Imperium's TOTAL implied shipping if you wantt o be strictly literal.) So they probably have less. a few tens of thousands at most, more like thousands (say 20K) which means they have to make mulitple trips.

Then there's travlel time. The Tau empire is spread out over a few hundred LY as I recall. Best "typical" imperial wpar speeds are something like A few LY to a few tens of LY per hour, and probably less (inter sector travel times for Chartist ships run into the days or even weeks.) So lets say hours or days.. It could take days, or weeks to haul the entire population into those core worlds. Less time the closer you get in, but it sstill petty damn slow (esp since ether drive is nowhere near as fast as warp to begin with.. we're talking days at a minimum, and more probably weeks for round trips.. and probably longer since there has to be time to refuel, to do maintanece and repairs, etc.)

But let's say they do all this and the Hive Fleet doesn't interfere. There are STILL massive problems. Its debatable whether you hauled out any equipment (that requires more transports and more time to transit) or any resource. You gave up all the planets that were your industry, your sources of materials, and so on. Your populations per planet will have ramped up massively and you have to find housing for them, provide food and supplies to sustain them, etc. which is a further logistical nightmare (where do you find that food, etc.) You also have fewer planets to sustain your military. And you have basically conceded all the territory you won over decades, centuries or evne millenia, lost everything you buit up there (a massive economic loss) and the 'Nids STILL get to eat all those biosystems, whcih is only going to STRENGTHEN their forces. And if that's bad enough, they have the forces derived from scores if not hundreds of worlds to divvy up amongst a smaller number of planets to take.

I cannot even begin to see a single part of that which is a good idea, and as much as Tau have seemed to like overly detailed, compelx planning, they simply can't hope ot rely on things going completely their way (except by authorial fiat) and pull this off. There's too much that can go wrong and too much relies on them having the sorts of capacities I ascribe to them. Lower population would help some, but that just means you have a lower population base with which to sustain your military from, making you that much weaker. Overall this is perhaps the WORST possible thing oyu could do to fight hte Tyranids.

It's their doctrine and they've done it; I can't recall the world involved but I'm sure someone does. Fluff doesn't have to make sense to us, GW writers are infamously terrible (I'll just carve my initials on this demon-lord's heart for larfs).

As for population; the Tau population is relatively small, especially in Third Sphere worlds that haven't reached Sept level yet. You have to remember that Tau settlers are mostly coming from one of 20 sept worlds or the Tau homeworld; not the millions of IoM worlds with limitless population, etc.

Tau make up for small population with technology; that is something that is constant in the fluff. IoM and the other factions have huge populations (except maybe DEldar) but Tau have tech.

nomotog wrote:

1hadhq wrote:The tau are just one of the species of this galaxy and you can't think of more than one empire bigger than theirs?
A start could be the BRB, as no alphabetical order could mean the xenos are listed per size and the Tau are not on N°1 there....

You think the rule book lists armies based on size? I always thought it was based on popularity.

It lists at least 4 other xeno empires ( without fleshing them out, but naming them on page 119 ), as examples of dozens or hundreds of civilizations in this galaxy. Tau are within this list.

Necrons for example are stated as awakening on thousands of worlds... thousands...

agnosto wrote:It's their doctrine and they've done it; I can't recall the world involved but I'm sure someone does. Fluff doesn't have to make sense to us, GW writers are infamously terrible (I'll just carve my initials on this demon-lord's heart for larfs).

You're really going to bring Matt Ward into this when the Tau have Andy "Pathfinders killed a Titan!" Hoare?

Tau make up for small population with technology; that is something that is constant in the fluff. IoM and the other factions have huge populations (except maybe DEldar) but Tau have tech.

No, they supplement small population with technology.

Fire Warriors train to fight alongside Drones and other Auxiliary. They also practice a method of warfare which is honed to a 't' and involves drawing the foe in and minimizing allied casualties.

If stuff doesnt make sense ehtn why even bother defending it? It will just be "authorial fiat will deicde the Tau win due to Greater Good" or something silly and that will be it. It doesn't have to be discussed more than that.

If logic is being employed, then there are going to be certain obvious criteria and constraints they meet. Yes, if they have lower populations evacuations are easier. And yes, I suspect they could evac populations - they have to be able to move colonists from world to world, and the Imperium can certainly evacuate people. The question is lnot whether or not they can do it, its whether "can they do it in the face of a Tyranid force, how long do they need to do it, and do they have the ability to maintain their fighting ability despite the loss of the worlds and resources those evacuated worlds represent, whilst at the same time manintaining the increased populations on the more heavily defended planets." That's not a simple question to address, and I suspect we own't have enough information to answer it.

The fact of the matter is - they can't simply keep falling back in the face of a Hive Fleet, not without suffering losses of some kind which simply hamper them (they'd have to destroy the worlds behind them, which means losing everything they have built up at the same time. That is not a trivial setback here. And if they don't destroy it, the Tyranids will. They strip planets down to bare, airless balls of rock remember.) Sooner or later they have to make a stand and fight, (which they can do) but that means a kind of warfare they do not like nor are well suited to fight. I do believe Planetstrike had them developing fixed fortifications in fact to help them against Tyranids.

Also for whatever reason, pure robotic armies are out. They've had plenty of motivation to use them by now if the capacity (or the will) existed. The most they can do is "supplement existing forces with drone troops." Maybe its limits in computer technology or data sharing or networking or whatever. Or maybe its logistics (maybe drones are more disposable but more maintenance intensive. Or they may not exactly be "cheap" to build. They could be quite expensive, but the material tradeoff is seen as being worth it sometimes rather than losing organics.)

Also, Hoare has gotten better about things since Rogue STar/Star of Damocles. I found hunt for Volodrious rather enjoyable, and Savage Scars was a vast improvement compared to the previous two novels (I still find the Arcadius arrogant and intolerable though.)

Trollpie wrote:Because they wouldn't sell as well without actual Tau models.

Yet in the background the importance of the Tau in battle is continually emphasised. The Drones play a limited role.

And what reason would that be? Maybe they're just on standbye in case of a malfunction. Maybe so that they can add a little initiative. But against Tyranids, they could easy be replaced by less juicy meals and combat capability would barely drop at all-it would probably increase.

Since the Air Caste have a lot of pilots, I'd assume that they pilot the ships. And I doubt Drones would increase combat performance - machines are rarely as good at reacting to unexpected circumstances as a sapient being.

nomotog wrote:Can nids recover from a combat where they gain no biomass? I mean if a squad of nids gets flatted by a drone force, they lose biomass. If the nids flatten the drone force, they get no biomass. It dosen't just delay them it weakens them.

Only if the Tyranids lose overall. If they destroy the Drone force and then eat the world, they gain a lot. They have to hold the line, and Drones are poor for that especially since they'll struggle to adapt alongside the Tyranids.



For the whole bad background idea, I'd put the Tyranids near the top. The Hive Mind doesn't seem that intelligent to me when it can create creatures capable of destroying Titan Legions but rarely does so.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
For the whole bad background idea, I'd put the Tyranids near the top. The Hive Mind doesn't seem that intelligent to me when it can create creatures capable of destroying Titan Legions but rarely does so.

Why should it?

It takes massive amounts of resources to create Hierophants and anything larger. Why create those when you can create a few hundred Gaunts for the same resource cost?

Kanluwen wrote:
You're really going to bring Matt Ward into this when the Tau have Andy "Pathfinders killed a Titan!" Hoare?

Touche

I think Andy's not working for GW any longer though, right?

agnosto wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
You're really going to bring Matt Ward into this when the Tau have Andy "Pathfinders killed a Titan!" Hoare?

Touche

I think Andy's not working for GW any longer though, right?

Not "officially".

He works at FFG as a freelancer and still writes for BL occasionally.

Kanluwen wrote:
Why should it?

It takes massive amounts of resources to create Hierophants and anything larger. Why create those when you can create a few hundred Gaunts for the same resource cost?

A few hundred Gaunts are so much easier to kill. We're talking about something that can apparently withstand the most powerful mobile ground weaponry the Imperium can muster and then breach one of the Imperiums strongest fortresses on its own. How would most planets even be able to stop it without orbital fire?

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
Why should it?

It takes massive amounts of resources to create Hierophants and anything larger. Why create those when you can create a few hundred Gaunts for the same resource cost?

A few hundred Gaunts are so much easier to kill. We're talking about something that can apparently withstand the most powerful mobile ground weaponry the Imperium can muster and then breach one of the Imperiums strongest fortresses on its own. How would most planets even be able to stop it without orbital fire?

It probably not very biomass effective. Locking up all your biomass into one giant creature is a risky move that could stall your biomass economy. Imagine if they kill your hierophants; all that biomass down the drain. To put it another way. If you spend all your money on a hierophat, you cant spend it on spawning pools. It's kind of a trade off between larger less adaptive creatures and smaller more adaptable creatures.

This trade off actually played a role in fleet gorgon. It went for smaller more adaptable creatures to try and out pace the tau. That left it with mostly small creatures. That ended up being a poor move because they had few command creatures and the tau where able to deliver a strike to brake the fleet.

Maybe gorgon would have done better with hierophants?

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
Why should it?

It takes massive amounts of resources to create Hierophants and anything larger. Why create those when you can create a few hundred Gaunts for the same resource cost?

A few hundred Gaunts are so much easier to kill. We're talking about something that can apparently withstand the most powerful mobile ground weaponry the Imperium can muster and then breach one of the Imperiums strongest fortresses on its own. How would most planets even be able to stop it without orbital fire?

Heirophants are only roughly as powerful as Warhound titans. At about 15 metres (7 stories approx.) tall they're vulnerable to massed fire from anything of HB size or bigger. Titans in general are nowhere near as powerful as BL novels and the like say they are.


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nomotog wrote:

It probably not very biomass effective. Locking up all your biomass into one giant creature is a risky move that could stall your biomass economy. Imagine if they kill your hierophants; all that biomass down the drain.

Actually, unless the carcass is burned, the nids just eat the corpse and get all their biomass back.

I'd say a standard hammerhead/broadside firing line would rip your avarage Hierophant to shreds, and that's not even taking in the heavy weaponry some of their ships are packing.

As for tau vs full hive fleet.

No chance in hell, they might last for a bit, but eventually, the lack of FTL travel would just make their response fleets to slow, and they would be left with nowhere to run.

Also, the tau wouldn't last long in all out ground based battle. When the nid lines reach the tau, it's over. They really have no close combat counter.

TrollPie wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
Why should it?

It takes massive amounts of resources to create Hierophants and anything larger. Why create those when you can create a few hundred Gaunts for the same resource cost?

A few hundred Gaunts are so much easier to kill. We're talking about something that can apparently withstand the most powerful mobile ground weaponry the Imperium can muster and then breach one of the Imperiums strongest fortresses on its own. How would most planets even be able to stop it without orbital fire?

Heirophants are only roughly as powerful as Warhound titans. At about 15 metres (7 stories approx.) tall they're vulnerable to massed fire from anything of HB size or bigger. Titans in general are nowhere near as powerful as BL novels and the like say they are.

You know why they're "nowhere near as powerful as BL novels and the like say they are"?

Because gameplay factors in and balance is important, even in Apocalypse Games.

There's a reason Hammerhead and Broadside railgun shots don't pass clean through multiple tanks, as they do in the fluff and it's the same reason that Reaver Titans can't oneshot an enemy army in a single barrage.

Ah the old Rules=/=fluff stupidity going round these days is so annoying...

nomotog wrote:
It probably not very biomass effective. Locking up all your biomass into one giant creature is a risky move that could stall your biomass economy. Imagine if they kill your hierophants; all that biomass down the drain. To put it another way. If you spend all your money on a hierophat, you cant spend it on spawning pools. It's kind of a trade off between larger less adaptive creatures and smaller more adaptable creatures.

While true, it was something that the Imperial forces of a Forgeworld were apparently unable to counter short of their bastion guns. I don't think most Imperial or Tau worlds would actually have something capable of doing much damage to it.

TrollPie wrote:Heirophants are only roughly as powerful as Warhound titans. At about 15 metres (7 stories approx.) tall they're vulnerable to massed fire from anything of HB size or bigger. Titans in general are nowhere near as powerful as BL novels and the like say they are.

I don't think I'm talking about Heirophants. If I recall correctly it was the creature used on Gryphonne IV and seemed to single-handedly take down a Titan Legion and breach the basilica since only the mighty guns of the basilica were capable of killing it.

Actually, unless the carcass is burned, the nids just eat the corpse and get all their biomass back.

And even if you do burn it, if the Tyranids then take the planet regardless then they absorb the atmosphere anyway.

Kanluwen wrote:

TrollPie wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
Why should it?

It takes massive amounts of resources to create Hierophants and anything larger. Why create those when you can create a few hundred Gaunts for the same resource cost?

A few hundred Gaunts are so much easier to kill. We're talking about something that can apparently withstand the most powerful mobile ground weaponry the Imperium can muster and then breach one of the Imperiums strongest fortresses on its own. How would most planets even be able to stop it without orbital fire?

Heirophants are only roughly as powerful as Warhound titans. At about 15 metres (7 stories approx.) tall they're vulnerable to massed fire from anything of HB size or bigger. Titans in general are nowhere near as powerful as BL novels and the like say they are.

You know why they're "nowhere near as powerful as BL novels and the like say they are"?

Because gameplay factors in and balance is important, even in Apocalypse Games.

There's a reason Hammerhead and Broadside railgun shots don't pass clean through multiple tanks, as they do in the fluff and it's the same reason that Reaver Titans can't oneshot an enemy army in a single barrage.

Where did I say anything about the rules? I said that BL authors massively exaggerate their power. I never made any comparisons to the rules.


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SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:.

TrollPie wrote:Heirophants are only roughly as powerful as Warhound titans. At about 15 metres (7 stories approx.) tall they're vulnerable to massed fire from anything of HB size or bigger. Titans in general are nowhere near as powerful as BL novels and the like say they are.

I don't think I'm talking about Heirophants. If I recall correctly it was the creature used on Gryphonne IV and seemed to single-handedly take down a Titan Legion and breach the basilica since only the mighty guns of the basilica were capable of killing it.

That's probably a Hydrophant you're thinking of. They're the Tyranid equivalent of a Warlod titan. However I don't think any Tyranid beast can single-handedly take down a Titan legion, so it's probably a case of poor writing.

TrollPie wrote:
Where did I say anything about the rules? I said that BL authors massively exaggerate their power. I never made any comparisons to the rules.

Then what basis are you using for saying they are "nowhere near as powerful as BL novels and the like say they are"?

I'm pretty certain you have no portal which allows you to hopscotch between our world and the 40k, so I'm going to reliably assume that you are in fact not taking Titans out for a spin to see their power yourself.

You're either referring to the rules (which are purposely toned down for gameplay balance purposes) or the background, which is used as the 'framework' which the rules are extracted from.

Kanluwen wrote:

You're either referring to the rules (which are purposely toned down for gameplay balance purposes) or the background, which is used as the 'framework' which the rules are extracted from.

I'm referring to the FW pieces describing their size and power. They're the most solid figures GW have ever put out concerning Titans, since they actually include numbers.

TrollPie wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

You're either referring to the rules (which are purposely toned down for gameplay balance purposes) or the background, which is used as the 'framework' which the rules are extracted from.

I'm referring to the FW pieces describing their size and power. They're the most solid figures GW have ever put out concerning Titans, since they actually include numbers.

And the FW pieces describing their size and power are in line with the Black Library pieces.

So either you're reading the most absolutely incorrect Black Library pieces or you're getting the 'wrong' sense from the FW pieces.

Kanluwen wrote:They lost one research station, part of a Sept world, and what amounted to a sectoral fleet.

I'd also like to point out that if a delayed Imperial Guard/Navy contingent hadn't arrived they likely would have lost the Sept world.

Doesn't that specific codex entry make it rather obvious that the Imperial forces only helped the Tau mop up the remaining tyranids? They didn't do any of the heavy fighting themselves

Retribution wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:They lost one research station, part of a Sept world, and what amounted to a sectoral fleet.

I'd also like to point out that if a delayed Imperial Guard/Navy contingent hadn't arrived they likely would have lost the Sept world.

Doesn't that specific codex entry make it rather obvious that the Imperial forces only helped the Tau mop up the remaining tyranids? They didn't do any of the heavy fighting themselves

Nope, it says the opposite.

"Acting in concert, the Imperial and Tau fleets cut deep into Hive Fleet Gorgon. Casualties are heavy, but almost all the bio-vessels are destroyed."

You are right, however, in that the Imperial forces helped them "mop up" the remaining Tyranids...if "mopping up" means "purge the Tyranids from the planet" and "combined with the disparate nature of weaponry and tactics employed by the Tau and Imperial Guard, prevents the rapid adaptation that plagued the Tau in earlier battles".

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

nomotog wrote:Tau do have the ability to make drones easy. I base this on the fact that everyone gets a drone. Everyone. Form diplomats to battle suits to farmers. The tau have drones coming out of the wazoo. I doubt they can drive tanks though, or they would have them out driveing tanks.

Oh sure, they can make a lot of them and easily. Just not as easily as suggested, otherwise the Tau would simply be undergoing continual and quick expansion without pause. They will not be able to create enough to out-fight a Tyranid Hive Fleet in attrition.

They also still need Tau operators around, otherwise they'd just send in entire armies of Drones.

Drone production has nothing to do with slow space travel limiting Tau expansion...not to mention the fact that the tau prefer not to fight

TrollPie wrote:
That's probably a Hydrophant you're thinking of. They're the Tyranid equivalent of a Warlod titan. However I don't think any Tyranid beast can single-handedly take down a Titan legion, so it's probably a case of poor writing.

Maybe. It was in the Tyranid Codex. Something along the lines of the Titan Legion keeping the Tyranids at bay, and then the fella coming along, destroying the Titans, and even while being taken down by the basilica guns' tearing massive rents in the walls. I can only assume that the Titan Legion had Warlord Titans due to the fact that it was such an important Forgeworld, although that may not be correct. The Tyranid Codex has a fair amount of bad background in my opinion.

Retribution wrote:Drone production has nothing to do with slow space travel limiting Tau expansion...not to mention the fact that the tau prefer not to fight

Slow Warp travel hasn't been much of a concern to the Tau thus far, as they aren't large enough. The Tau prefer not to fight mainly because they don't want the losses and like to rule over more species'. If Drones are as potent as posited, they'd simply be an ever-expanding ripple. They aren't. They have to pick and choose their battles, and they have a lot of living forces doing the fighting.

Pretty sure no single military force can withstand the full might of a full on Tyranid Hive Fleet except for perhaps Orkz and the "New Necrons"

Mostly cuz Boyz never stop growing and something like a World Engine sounds like it could break Terra's defenses.


As for previous victories, pretty much all are thanks to multiple races fighting on multiple fronts. So no, the Tau would certainly not stand a chance alone.

I've never felt happier to see BeefCakeSoup in a Tau thread.

Well-played sir. Well-played.

They can survive splinter fleets (like gorgon).

But a full blown hive fleet? They'll put up a fight but eventually lose.

TrollPie wrote:
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nomotog wrote:

It probably not very biomass effective. Locking up all your biomass into one giant creature is a risky move that could stall your biomass economy. Imagine if they kill your hierophants; all that biomass down the drain.

Actually, unless the carcass is burned, the nids just eat the corpse and get all their biomass back.

Actually that brings up a question. Do nids lose any biomass to food costs, or is it always more more more? Can they starve if they don't find anything to eat?

Kanluwen wrote:I've never felt happier to see BeefCakeSoup in a Tau thread.

Well-played sir. Well-played.

Even Fanboy Tau Trolls know the limits.

I'd assume so. Every one of their ships is a living creature. Whilst the Tyranids on the ground are just there to kill, the vast Hive Ships and attack vessels have to survive from engagement to engagement, and all of their movements require resources. They can go into stasis, but since their entire existence is driven by a need to continue the species they have to attack. It all requires energy, which is found in biomass. So yes, they do need it to survive.

Kanluwen wrote:

TrollPie wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

You're either referring to the rules (which are purposely toned down for gameplay balance purposes) or the background, which is used as the 'framework' which the rules are extracted from.

I'm referring to the FW pieces describing their size and power. They're the most solid figures GW have ever put out concerning Titans, since they actually include numbers.

And the FW pieces describing their size and power are in line with the Black Library pieces.

So either you're reading the most absolutely incorrect Black Library pieces or you're getting the 'wrong' sense from the FW pieces.

BL books often seem to present them as over 100 metres high and capable of destroying entire cities.


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Oh God, the biggest Tau fanboi on the sight thinks the Tau wouldn't stand a chance.

I think it might be time to reconsider my position.
...Is it just me, or is this the first time in internet history that someone has changed their mind after a discussion?

iproxtaco wrote:I'd assume so. Every one of their ships is a living creature. Whilst the Tyranids on the ground are just there to kill, the vast Hive Ships and attack vessels have to survive from engagement to engagement, and all of their movements require resources. They can go into stasis, but since their entire existence is driven by a need to continue the species they have to attack. It all requires energy, which is found in biomass. So yes, they do need it to survive.

Then that would be another reason for them to use small creatures over big ones. Large creatures use more energy to move about.


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TrollPie wrote:
Oh God, the biggest Tau fanboi on the sight thinks the Tau wouldn't stand a chance.

I think it might be time to reconsider my position.
...Is it just me, or is this the first time in internet history that someone has changed their mind after a discussion?

Yes. Yes it is.

nomotog wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:I'd assume so. Every one of their ships is a living creature. Whilst the Tyranids on the ground are just there to kill, the vast Hive Ships and attack vessels have to survive from engagement to engagement, and all of their movements require resources. They can go into stasis, but since their entire existence is driven by a need to continue the species they have to attack. It all requires energy, which is found in biomass. So yes, they do need it to survive.

Then that would be another reason for them to use small creatures over big ones. Large creatures use more energy to move about.

And yet larger creatures are better for specific roles. A Hive Tyrant or a Carnifex can rip Tanks apart, the former controls vast areas of the swarm. They won't have a fantastic chance at taking down Imperial Titans if they use nothing but Termaguants, a Bio-titan however can go one-to-one and win. It's simple resource allocation. The larger ones are more expensive and more effective, so there are less needed to fulfil tasks, the smaller ones are less expensive and more are needed to fulfil tasks.

Large creatures like Carnifex and biotitans and the like ARE held in reserve for specific purposes. They're the last, heaviest strike the 'Nids will deliver if there is resistance.

The first wave is all the smallest, most numerous, and most expendable assets - gaunts and the like. THey are used both to weaken the enemy as well as to probe and test his defenses and to gauge where resistance is strongest. This is supplemented by use of forces like Lictors and other scouting troops to do recon, assassination, and sabotage. Then they unleash another wave (or more) which will incorporate heavier Tyranid troop types (you might get more Stealers, WArriors, etc.) to start a serious assault and crush opposition. And if things still stand up, then they unleash the Carnifexes and other heavy troops to try and break resistance.

All the while this is going on, the Nids are doing various things. They'll be setting up the stuff to tyranoform the planet - spore chimneys and the little digestion vats. They'll probably be sucking up any available biomatter "behind" their lines (including corposes) to contine fabricating new troops to throw into the battle (if need be.) They'll be unleashing all manner of spores (from microscopic biowarfare nastiness to large high explosive spore mines, which could even rank up to potential thermonuclear ones of the type used in space combat.) They will use burrowing troops. They'll use Zoanthropes and the other 'Thrope" types to fething around with things. The'll be bombarding the planet (with more mycetic spores at least, but asteroids, pyro acidic bombardments, kinetic strikes etc. Hell if you go back into earlier fluff they're even using particle beams and warp blasts.) They may use genestealer broods, or already-laid hormagaunt broods (who nest, reproduce on planet, and multiply in preparation for an assault as further insurrection elements.)

And if the 'Nids win, any remaining organic troops, Tyranid or otherwise, will be killed and their biomatter devoured, tossed into the digestion pools, and sucked up into the waiting hive ships. They will suck off the atmosphere and oceans (you want to know how impressive that is? Earth's oceans are something like 1/100th the mass of the planet) They strip various minerals and materials from the surface of the planet (I rmemeber the GW website having an article on tyranoforming where they mentioned the Tyranids strip off layers of the crust for their purposes. Tyranid chitin is at least partily sillicate in nature, after all.)

And then they use those ressources to rebuil dand replenish their forces, perhaps even expandin gthem if they can build more hive ships, and then go on to the new assault. They are a force purpose built for human wave, attrition warfare style of combat, and that is not a trivial thing to consider. Losses do not matter to the tyranids, because they will have just had to kill off those troops later anyhow.

TrollPie wrote:
BL books often seem to present them as over 100 metres high and capable of destroying entire cities.

Very rarely do they actually out and out state exactly what kind of Titan it is.

And Titans, if left unchecked, are capable of destroying entire cities.

It won't be in a single shot for a Warhound or a Reaver, most likely, but it can be done in the course of an afternoon.

Tau evacuated their home planet Dal’yth when the Imperial fleet approached for an attack (Savage Scars novel). They would do the same if a big hive fleet approaches. So whether or not they win the fight, the race would survive easily. Only stupid humans would run into close combat with a carnifex and let their people die.

Kroothawk wrote:They would do the same if a big hive fleet approaches. So whether or not they win the fight, the race would survive easily.

Easily? What if the rest of the Tau worlds were consumed as well? Where would they run to? How long would they last without a manufacturing base?

TrollPie wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:.

TrollPie wrote:Heirophants are only roughly as powerful as Warhound titans. At about 15 metres (7 stories approx.) tall they're vulnerable to massed fire from anything of HB size or bigger. Titans in general are nowhere near as powerful as BL novels and the like say they are.

I don't think I'm talking about Heirophants. If I recall correctly it was the creature used on Gryphonne IV and seemed to single-handedly take down a Titan Legion and breach the basilica since only the mighty guns of the basilica were capable of killing it.

That's probably a Hydrophant you're thinking of. They're the Tyranid equivalent of a Warlod titan. However I don't think any Tyranid beast can single-handedly take down a Titan legion, so it's probably a case of poor writing.

It was a Viragon. Not called that by name, obviously, but it fits the description. A large, snake like organism resembling a Trygon, but the size of a Reaver titan. Larger than a Viragon was, but basically the same thing, a huge Trygon. A Hydraphant resembles a huge Heirophant, which is definitely not like a Trygon.

Whether you think it could or not, or even if it was a case of poor writing, makes absolutely no difference. Fluffwise, now, that creature, presumeably a Viragon, destroyed Legio Annihilator in studio source material.

Harrower wrote:

gabrielhorus wrote:The Imperial navy sacrificed a massive number of ships to take down one Custodian, solo. This would be over the size of a standard battlefleet as this was a full crusade.

What is the source on this?

I know a Custodian (the A'Rho) was killed by a very small Imperial Fleet at Taros, killing only a cruiser and 3 Firestorm Frigates down before dying.
And the Firestar was wrecked facing Hivefleet Gorgon, so clearly not a major problem for the nids.

Based on the Description of the Custodian in the Forge World site, as well as a Black Library novel. (I don't remember which one)

It was the A'Rho, but it had been maimed in massive combat with the crusade fleet before being ambushed as it fled to make field repairs.


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I realise I am not using the best sources.

Or using the info from the sources right. In neither does it say an entire Crusade Fleet was nearly destroyed to take down one Custodian.

Quite the opposite. All evidence points to a Custodian being noticebaly less lethal than an Imperial battleship, both in the fluff and game stats 9which aren't that useful I grant except as a supportive source).

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:They would do the same if a big hive fleet approaches. So whether or not they win the fight, the race would survive easily.

Easily? What if the rest of the Tau worlds were consumed as well? Where would they run to? How long would they last without a manufacturing base?

I dunno, ask the Demiurg maybe since that's what happened to them and they still exist and even have a high tech capacity since they provided the Tau with Ion-Cannon tech.

Since when did the Demiurg have their worlds consumed by Tyranids?

Since people have started saying that the Demiurg = Squat, which is unbased nonsense.

iproxtaco wrote:Since when did the Demiurg have their worlds consumed by Tyranids?

It's one of the theories as to why they don't have a homeworld. I may have that confused with how the squats ended though. meh. Anyway, both the Nicassaur and Demiurg don't have homeworlds and don't seem to be the worse for it.

agnosto wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:Since when did the Demiurg have their worlds consumed by Tyranids?

It's one of the theories as to why they don't have a homeworld. I may have that confused with how the squats ended though. meh. Anyway, both the Nicassaur and Demiurg don't have homeworlds and don't seem to be the worse for it.

Which is a good point, but I thought you may have been confusing them with GW past attempt at making Space Dwarves, which we know were all of a sudden killed by Tyranids. The Demiurg and Nissacar would be able to at least stop them from becoming extinct.

As already noted, the ability of the Tau to evacuate is not contested, assuming they have enough time (EG they don't get attacked by the Nids or otherwise disrupted while they try to evacuate.) Of course we also don't know how big a population it had to begin with - a few million tau are easier to evacuate than billions would be, for example.

And even if they do evacuate this is only a temporary solution at best, since it only delays conflict. And evacuating, again as noted, basically means they give up all the economic and military iinfrastructure they invest on the planet which will have to be replaced down the line - this is NOT trivial for them, and you just end up strengthening the Tyranid force when they consume all the planet's biomass and oceans without them having to expend military forces to take it.

As far as going "nomadic" goes - if they have the capability to exist purely in space-based form without any degradation to their empire or capability, why do they even bother with planets to begin with? Taking a planet simply gives your enemies a target to attack. I also question whether we know enough about the Demiurg or the Nicassar (the bulk of the information on either coming from BFG as I recall) to speculate on their actual societies.

agnosto wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:Since when did the Demiurg have their worlds consumed by Tyranids?

It's one of the theories as to why they don't have a homeworld. I may have that confused with how the squats ended though. meh.

You indeed do have the two confused, as mentioned.
"Squats" and "Demiurg" might both be "Space Dwarfs"(putting it simply, at best)--but Demiurg do not equal Squats.

Anyway, both the Nicassaur and Demiurg don't have homeworlds and don't seem to be the worse for it.

But it's not because they were forced to "evacuate".

With the Nicassar, they are "driven by an insatiable curiosity to explore and travel, becoming semi-nomadic and most content only when traveling." which makes it seem more like they gave up having a homeworld in favor of going out amongst the stars to explore and travel. Going from a planetary based race to a race which favors space-based culture does not necessarily require a cataclysmic event.

The Demiurg...we don't have too much about to go off of. It might be that they gave up their homeworlds, again, in favor of becoming spacefaring wanderers. Given the generally beneficent nature of the Demiurg I can see them doing such a thing, so that they can go from sector to sector aiding races that they feel need it.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:They would do the same if a big hive fleet approaches. So whether or not they win the fight, the race would survive easily.

Easily? What if the rest of the Tau worlds were consumed as well? Where would they run to? How long would they last without a manufacturing base?

If the Tyranids eat the whole galaxy, then obviously all races in the galaxy have a problem. Otherwise there are habitable worlds left to emigrate to.

And as the Tau have active knowledge of their technology (unlike the human empire that relies on old templates), they can rebuild manufacturies.

Connor MacLeod wrote:As already noted, the ability of the Tau to evacuate is not contested, assuming they have enough time (EG they don't get attacked by the Nids or otherwise disrupted while they try to evacuate.) Of course we also don't know how big a population it had to begin with - a few million tau are easier to evacuate than billions would be, for example.

And even if they do evacuate this is only a temporary solution at best, since it only delays conflict. And evacuating, again as noted, basically means they give up all the economic and military iinfrastructure they invest on the planet which will have to be replaced down the line - this is NOT trivial for them, and you just end up strengthening the Tyranid force when they consume all the planet's biomass and oceans without them having to expend military forces to take it.

As far as going "nomadic" goes - if they have the capability to exist purely in space-based form without any degradation to their empire or capability, why do they even bother with planets to begin with? Taking a planet simply gives your enemies a target to attack. I also question whether we know enough about the Demiurg or the Nicassar (the bulk of the information on either coming from BFG as I recall) to speculate on their actual societies.

1.) Dal’yth is a home planet, not a small colony. So Tau are able to evacuate a bigger population.
2.) Tau don't evacuate for fun. They evacuate to save the civil population. Nothing won if Tyranids consume the whole population as well. Better rebuild the infrastructure elsewhere than die. Remember: Tau don't think territorial.
3.) That said, of course the Tau fleet will fight back. They might win if the Hive fleet is small enough.

You can't rebuild anything if there's no atmosphere to build within.

The Tau technology base seemingly isn't good enough to terraform their homeworlds, much less the barren and airless rocks that are left after the Tyranids get through with a world.

agnosto wrote:I dunno, ask the Demiurg maybe since that's what happened to them and they still exist and even have a high tech capacity since they provided the Tau with Ion-Cannon tech.

We have no idea as to what happened to them.

Kroothawk wrote:
If the Tyranids eat the whole galaxy, then obviously all races in the galaxy have a problem. Otherwise there are habitable worlds left to emigrate to.

Which they'll probably have to fight over and they'll be in a terrible rush to do so. Losing all current planets isn't a minor thing. How would the Tau supply themselves with sufficient food? They'd have to take a fair number of worlds to be able to sustain themselves, and that's assuming that there are sufficient inhabitable and fertile planets nearby (and if there are, why wouldn't they already be colonised by the Tau?)

And as the Tau have active knowledge of their technology (unlike the human empire that relies on old templates), they can rebuild manufacturies.

If they have the time and the materials on whatever world they get to.

Kroothawk wrote:
1.) Dal’yth is a home planet, not a small colony. So Tau are able to evacuate a bigger population.

So how big is it's population? I've heard of Tau planets having several billion (apocalypse I think) but I've also heard of them being far smaller than double digit billion hive worlds (Kill Team.) Saying "its a major population" doesnt tell me how many people it actually has.

2.) Tau don't evacuate for fun. They evacuate to save the civil population. Nothing won if Tyranids consume the whole population as well. Better rebuild the infrastructure elsewhere than die. Remember: Tau don't think territorial.

They don't think territorially? Then why do they even bother inhabiting planets to begin with? By your logic they should be staying entirely space bound, in mobile habitats. They shouldn't be going on planets, building factories, etc. And yet, they do.

And why the heck are you dismissing rebuilding infrastructure as trivial? Did the Tau magically gain the ability to create wraithbone at some point or something? I kind of doubt that, since they bled and died (including the death of an Ethereal - a being they will willingly fight and die in droves to protect, I might add.) to take Taros, and that was not exactly a trivial engagement for them.

The big thing about the tau just running that there section of space thy have now is a very good section. Lots of habitual worlds in a very small space. It's unlikely that they could find anyplace nearly as good.

Or outrun an army that posses FTL travel.

Soladrin wrote:Or outrun an army that posses FTL travel.

The tau do have FTL. You can't actually be a space empire without it. The nids have FTL too right?

Connor MacLeod wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:
1.) Dal’yth is a home planet, not a small colony. So Tau are able to evacuate a bigger population.

So how big is it's population? I've heard of Tau planets having several billion (apocalypse I think) but I've also heard of them being far smaller than double digit billion hive worlds (Kill Team.) Saying "its a major population" doesnt tell me how many people it actually has.

GW has never published any solid figures on pretty much anything. Dal'yth could be a tiny moon with farms taking up half the space or a world twice the size of Terra with cities underwater and in the sky.

2.) Tau don't evacuate for fun. They evacuate to save the civil population. Nothing won if Tyranids consume the whole population as well. Better rebuild the infrastructure elsewhere than die. Remember: Tau don't think territorial.

They don't think territorially? Then why do they even bother inhabiting planets to begin with? By your logic they should be staying entirely space bound, in mobile habitats. They shouldn't be going on planets, building factories, etc. And yet, they do.

Tau value lives more than territory. They'd prefer to kill a million Xenos than take their planet with no casualties to the Xenos, and save a million Tau than save Tau territory. But obviously they value territory as important.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nomotog wrote:

Soladrin wrote:Or outrun an army that posses FTL travel.

The tau do have FTL. You can't actually be a space empire without it. The nids have FTL too right?

Nids have a form of FTL where they shut of the gravitational pull of the universe behind them and are then pulled forwards by the universe ahead of them. How they manage to bypass the speed of light when doing this is beyond me.

TrollPie wrote:

Connor MacLeod wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:
1.) Dal’yth is a home planet, not a small colony. So Tau are able to evacuate a bigger population.

So how big is it's population? I've heard of Tau planets having several billion (apocalypse I think) but I've also heard of them being far smaller than double digit billion hive worlds (Kill Team.) Saying "its a major population" doesnt tell me how many people it actually has.

GW has never published any solid figures on pretty much anything. Dal'yth could be a tiny moon with farms taking up half the space or a world twice the size of Terra with cities underwater and in the sky.

2.) Tau don't evacuate for fun. They evacuate to save the civil population. Nothing won if Tyranids consume the whole population as well. Better rebuild the infrastructure elsewhere than die. Remember: Tau don't think territorial.

They don't think territorially? Then why do they even bother inhabiting planets to begin with? By your logic they should be staying entirely space bound, in mobile habitats. They shouldn't be going on planets, building factories, etc. And yet, they do.

Tau value lives more than territory. They'd prefer to kill a million Xenos than take their planet with no casualties to the Xenos, and save a million Tau than save Tau territory. But obviously they value territory as important.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nomotog wrote:

Soladrin wrote:Or outrun an army that posses FTL travel.

The tau do have FTL. You can't actually be a space empire without it. The nids have FTL too right?

Nids have a form of FTL where they shut of the gravitational pull of the universe behind them and are then pulled forwards by the universe ahead of them. How they manage to bypass the speed of light when doing this is beyond me.

Dal'yth is a merchant and trading planet with lots of alien visitors. cosmopolitan. Picture big and buzzing with people and trade.

So do the nids move faster or slower then the tau? I don't know if any hard speeds have been posted about them.

If we're talking about the Narvhal style transit ability (rather than warp style they used to have - I'll let other people argue about whether they still have that or not, especially for their scouting elements) it seems to be some magic gravity fold-space type drive between point A and point B, which has all sorts of unpleasant consequneces for the surroundings.

FTL wise I'd guess it's no better or worse than other forms of attack. Given that Tyranids have been encountered in various places across the galaxy in a matter of a few years or decades in contrast to their initial penetration on the Eastern Fringe (nevrmind navigating around to come at the galaxy from below) I'm guessing they must be capble of at least matching non-Navigator warp speeds, if not touch onto the low end of the Navigator warp speeds (EG across the galaxy in years.)

Kanluwen wrote:You can't rebuild anything if there's no atmosphere to build within.

Maybe I wasn't suggesting, they should chose a barren rock in space or a sun to start a new colony
BTW Kroot Warspheres can warp-travel only to inhabitable planets (no explanation given), so finding these planets or even traveling to these through the warp is possible.

Connor MacLeod wrote:They don't think territorially? Then why do they even bother inhabiting planets to begin with? By your logic they should be staying entirely space bound, in mobile habitats. They shouldn't be going on planets, building factories, etc. And yet, they do.

As said above, Tau value life more than territory. Staying at home with all the infrastructure is pragmatic, as long as you don't face a hive fleet. Then it is pragmatic to evacuate the civilian population than to face certain death. The military will try to fight the enemy off. But whatever the outcome, the Tau will survive.

BTW, the Air caste live in Orbital stations, but they are adapted to low gravity.

TrollPie wrote:Nids have a form of FTL where they shut of the gravitational pull of the universe behind them and are then pulled forwards by the universe ahead of them. How they manage to bypass the speed of light when doing this is beyond me.

It works by using the target planetary systems gravitational field to kind of collapse space. It makes no sense, but that's how it works. It also really feths up the arget planet by causing massive tectonic upheaval from the gravitational forces unleashed on the planet.

The difference is Tyranids don't have or want a galctic 'Empire'. They eat a planet and move on, leaving basically a huge rock in its wake.

Kroothawk wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:You can't rebuild anything if there's no atmosphere to build within.

Maybe I wasn't suggesting, they should chose a barren rock in space or a sun to start a new colony
BTW Kroot Warspheres can warp-travel only to inhabitable planets (no explanation given), so finding these planets or even traveling to these through the warp is possible.

So your solution is that they only go to inhabitable planets(which usually are inhabited)?

I understand you weren't saying that "they should choose a barren rock in space or a sun to start a new colony". The problem is that the Tau are going to run out of inhabitable planets because of the Tyranids leaving dead and lifeless worlds in their wake.

Interestingly enough, the Tyranids also go only for "inhabitable planets", so that poses a problem.

So the Vespid are safe. Sounds great, they can all just go live with them.

"Hey cousin Ickit, we're moving in!"

-Loki- wrote:

TrollPie wrote:Nids have a form of FTL where they shut of the gravitational pull of the universe behind them and are then pulled forwards by the universe ahead of them. How they manage to bypass the speed of light when doing this is beyond me.

It works by using the target planetary systems gravitational field to kind of collapse space. It makes no sense, but that's how it works. It also really feths up the arget planet by causing massive tectonic upheaval from the gravitational forces unleashed on the planet.

The difference is Tyranids don't have or want a galctic 'Empire'. They eat a planet and move on, leaving basically a huge rock in its wake.

Dose this mean that the nids are only able to travel to planets?

nomotog wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

TrollPie wrote:Nids have a form of FTL where they shut of the gravitational pull of the universe behind them and are then pulled forwards by the universe ahead of them. How they manage to bypass the speed of light when doing this is beyond me.

It works by using the target planetary systems gravitational field to kind of collapse space. It makes no sense, but that's how it works. It also really feths up the arget planet by causing massive tectonic upheaval from the gravitational forces unleashed on the planet.

The difference is Tyranids don't have or want a galctic 'Empire'. They eat a planet and move on, leaving basically a huge rock in its wake.

Dose this mean that the nids are only able to travel to planets?

Planetary systems. When they get close enough, they drop into sublight speed and crawl their way. If they can't use the Narvhal to get there, they go into hibernation and crawl their way.

The Narvhal also makes no mention of extra-galactic travel. It needs to be able to see the target to do this, so I'd guess they'd have to crawl at sublight speed a great distance before they see a galaxy they like.

Kanluwen wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:You can't rebuild anything if there's no atmosphere to build within.

Maybe I wasn't suggesting, they should chose a barren rock in space or a sun to start a new colony
BTW Kroot Warspheres can warp-travel only to inhabitable planets (no explanation given), so finding these planets or even traveling to these through the warp is possible.

So your solution is that they only go to inhabitable planets(which usually are inhabited)?

I understand you weren't saying that "they should choose a barren rock in space or a sun to start a new colony". The problem is that the Tau are going to run out of inhabitable planets because of the Tyranids leaving dead and lifeless worlds in their wake.

Interestingly enough, the Tyranids also go only for "inhabitable planets", so that poses a problem.

Tau leaders would figure some way to get the IoM involved in fending off the hive fleet. Given that a Hive fleet the size posed in the problem above would, as the Emperor's Faithful on Dakka have pointed out, either eat through the Tau Empire and threaten the eastern fringe of Man, or chase the Tau into the Imperium, where all the tasty alternatives to blue men are.

So, Tau pick up. Stop by to say high to the Ultramarines, and then make a bee line to another fringe of the Galaxy that the IoM will have to leave undefended to turn back the tide of Tyranid approaching from the east.

The Tau take the long game.

Well it seems clear that the tau couldn't stop or force back a hive fleet, but could they weather one. You know batten down the hatches and keep an eye out for gene stealer cults. Present such a hard target that the fleet flows around them.

CpatTom wrote:Tau leaders would figure some way to get the IoM involved in fending off the hive fleet. Given that a Hive fleet the size posed in the problem above would, as the Emperor's Faithful on Dakka have pointed out, either eat through the Tau Empire and threaten the eastern fringe of Man, or chase the Tau into the Imperium, where all the tasty alternatives to blue men are.

They already threaten the Imperium on the Eastern Fringe. That's where the majority of the fleets are arriving. The reason the Imperium stepped in against Gorgon was because they were already there, and they were threatened as well as the Tau. It was sensible to ally with the Tau. If the Imperium is not there fighting already, there's little chance they're going to go save an enemy. They'd probably see it as beneficial, as the Tyranids would wipe out a thorn in their side for them. They've already consumed Tau and fought them, so there's little more adaptions they can get anyway, and the Tau might just deplete some biomass in their demise.

How 'bout we ask Mr. Hoare?


900'th post!

-Loki- wrote:

CpatTom wrote:Tau leaders would figure some way to get the IoM involved in fending off the hive fleet. Given that a Hive fleet the size posed in the problem above would, as the Emperor's Faithful on Dakka have pointed out, either eat through the Tau Empire and threaten the eastern fringe of Man, or chase the Tau into the Imperium, where all the tasty alternatives to blue men are.

They already threaten the Imperium on the Eastern Fringe. That's where the majority of the fleets are arriving. The reason the Imperium stepped in against Gorgon was because they were already there, and they were threatened as well as the Tau. It was sensible to ally with the Tau. If the Imperium is not there fighting already, there's little chance they're going to go save an enemy. They'd probably see it as beneficial, as the Tyranids would wipe out a thorn in their side for them. They've already consumed Tau and fought them, so there's little more adaptions they can get anyway, and the Tau might just deplete some biomass in their demise.

I was not clear enough. Man is not coming to the Tau's aid. The Tau are packing up shop and running. The Tau only have to skip into IoM space long enough to leave.

Any Nid threat large enough to displace the Tau Empire, would require Military resources to be drawn away from somewhere. The Tau go there instead.

Another point - can the Tau run? Aren't they restricted to where they are due to a combination of their slow FTL travel and their relatively short lifespan?

Also, military forces being drawn away from somewhere else... Yeah, it doesn't work like that. The PDF and sector Navy are still there. They're not drawn to go fight elsewhere, because that would be stupid.

They are quite efficient at evacuation, what with there all being orderly and what not, so they shouldn't be suprised (at least no the entire Empire, maybe the Eastern most worlds get nom'd, but they hold the line for the rest to get up and out). Again, they dont have to be faster than the Nids very long. Just long enough to be the delicious bio treat that is farther away than the IoM.

The Demuirig (SP) are ship bound. The Tau adapted others tech before.

No real source info on a Tau Bio Ships, Habidomes, whatever. I'd have to cede the argument to someone with a lil more know how.

Edit: The PDF wouldnt, but certainly a portion of the Navy would. Even if they didnt, The entire Tau Empire (Not just the Tau themselves, but the whole bunch of Xenos) would be attacking. Not a pirate raiding party.

This still dances around the question in the OP - could they withstand a hive fleet? Running isn't doing that. Running is retreating.

That is the way Man would think about it. Must stand and die. No retreat, no alternatives! And its exactly that thinking that the Tau are counting on. Its a tactical withdrawal until an alternative strategy with a greater chance at success can be developed. And it works because the IoM are going to stand and hold the line with their masses in a war of attrition depleting the surrounding systems military garrisons. Leaving perfectly habitable worlds open to "Negotiation".

CpatTom wrote:That is the way Man would think about it. Must stand and die. No retreat, no alternatives! And its exactly that thinking that the Tau are counting on. Its a tactical withdrawal until an alternative strategy with a greater chance at success can be developed. And it works because the IoM are going to stand and hold the line with their masses in a war of attrition depleting the surrounding systems military garrisons. Leaving perfectly habitable worlds open to "Negotiation".

I could see that. It would be much better to lose a world to the tau then to lose it to the nids, but can that overcome the IoMs crazy irrational hate. "The Grater good is coming at you from my bolter!"

CpatTom wrote:That is the way Man would think about it. Must stand and die. No retreat, no alternatives! And its exactly that thinking that the Tau are counting on. Its a tactical withdrawal until an alternative strategy with a greater chance at success can be developed. And it works because the IoM are going to stand and hold the line with their masses in a war of attrition depleting the surrounding systems military garrisons. Leaving perfectly habitable worlds open to "Negotiation".

That' is still not withstanding a hive fleets assault. it's running and settling somewhere else just to survive. There actually is a difference. Withstanding the assault doesn't mean dying, it means fighting them off and surviving.

Are you admitting the Tau could not do that, and would just die unless they ran?

nomotog wrote:

CpatTom wrote:That is the way Man would think about it. Must stand and die. No retreat, no alternatives! And its exactly that thinking that the Tau are counting on. Its a tactical withdrawal until an alternative strategy with a greater chance at success can be developed. And it works because the IoM are going to stand and hold the line with their masses in a war of attrition depleting the surrounding systems military garrisons. Leaving perfectly habitable worlds open to "Negotiation".

I could see that. It would be much better to lose a world to the tau then to lose it to the nids, but can that overcome the IoMs crazy irrational hate. "The Grater good is coming at you from my bolter!"

Fringe worlds have a way of appreciating the Tech that comes along with a healthy trading relationship with the Tau. There is a great amount of hatred and fear directed at Xenos (Tau included); however, For the Emperor shows a wonderful example of a world that slowly adopts a lax outlook towards the Tau presence due to the slow cultural melding the Tau (water caste especially) do so well. You convert the youth of a population, and one day you have converted the entirety of the population.

Edit: Loki wrote: "Are you admitting the Tau could not do that, and would just die unless they ran?"
I'm admitting that the argument is irrelevant. If it was less than likely they would be able to fend the attack they would fall back and regroup. The best weapon the Tau have in this case to with stand the assault would be the IoM.

CpatTom wrote:

nomotog wrote:

CpatTom wrote:That is the way Man would think about it. Must stand and die. No retreat, no alternatives! And its exactly that thinking that the Tau are counting on. Its a tactical withdrawal until an alternative strategy with a greater chance at success can be developed. And it works because the IoM are going to stand and hold the line with their masses in a war of attrition depleting the surrounding systems military garrisons. Leaving perfectly habitable worlds open to "Negotiation".

I could see that. It would be much better to lose a world to the tau then to lose it to the nids, but can that overcome the IoMs crazy irrational hate. "The Grater good is coming at you from my bolter!"

Fringe worlds have a way of appreciating the Tech that comes along with a healthy trading relationship with the Tau. There is a great amount of hatred and fear directed at Xenos (Tau included); however, For the Emperor shows a wonderful example of a world that slowly adopts a lax outlook towards the Tau presence due to the slow cultural melding the Tau (water caste especially) do so well. You convert the youth of a population, and one day you have converted the entirety of the population.

Well that's the worlds themselves. Worlds that almost go rouge just by talking with the tau. Talking with the IoM it's self, it's SMs, it's IG, its IN. That is where things get hard. Some times they can work things out temporary. Some times... Well there is a reason that tau diplomats wear shields.


Really I think we can define withstanding as: After the fleet is gone, the tau are living on the tau home world. If they can manage that, that should count as withstanding.

nomotog wrote:
Well that's the worlds themselves. Worlds that almost go rouge just by talking with the tau. Talking with the IoM it's self, it's SMs, it's IG, its IN. That is where things get hard. Some times they can work things out temporary. Some times... Well there is a reason that tau diplomats wear shields.
Really I think we can define withstanding as: After the fleet is gone, the tau are living on the tau home world. If they can manage that, that should count as withstanding.

Then no. By that definition they can not withstand a Nid invasion.

Could a Vindicare defeat an Eversor in battle? Not if you made him stand there and try and punch it out.

CpatTom wrote:

nomotog wrote:
Well that's the worlds themselves. Worlds that almost go rouge just by talking with the tau. Talking with the IoM it's self, it's SMs, it's IG, its IN. That is where things get hard. Some times they can work things out temporary. Some times... Well there is a reason that tau diplomats wear shields.
Really I think we can define withstanding as: After the fleet is gone, the tau are living on the tau home world. If they can manage that, that should count as withstanding.

Then no. By that definition they can not withstand a Nid invasion.

Could a Vindicare defeat an Eversor in battle? Not if you made him stand there and try and punch it out.

That analogy doesn't work, because the Vindicare would kill the Eversor at range, not run away with his Executor pistol bewteen his legs.

You are forcing the Tau to fight a way that they wouldn't normally fight to fit the parameters of a question.

That is exactly the same thing.

Edit: Now throw an IG blob behind the Vindcare and what would he do? Hopefully fall back behind the wall of expendable idiots with sticks and let them take care of it, or mop up if they cant.

CpatTom wrote:You are forcing the Tau to fight a way that they wouldn't normally fight to fit the parameters of a question.

That is exactly the same thing.

You used the analogy of a Vindicare slugging it out with an Eversor. The Vindicare would fight at range, with his rifle. A Tau army would fight at range, with its guns. The analogy does work. Your conclusions of running away don't, as neither would do that (a Vindicare would not fight in melee or run, Tau would not run giving up their homeworlds). Remember the Tau philosophy of life - it is better to burn short and bright. Running is not doing that.

The Tau have no problems fighting Tyranids, so don't take it as people giving Tau gak. As it says in the Tyranid codex, they did fight off a minor hive fleet, even if it was with the help of the Imperium. The problem with fighting a main hive fleet is the sheer size of it. Behemoth was a the smallest of the major hive fleets, and look what it dod to the Ultima Segmentum!

The Taus problem with fighting a major hive fleet is there simply are not enough Tau.

First the Tau wouldn't attract a larger Hive Fleet due to the dampened warp presence. So, there goes that to begin with.

I'm pretty sure the Tau philosophy of life is service to the Greater Good. And running from the big hungry mob is in fact doing that: No Tau, no Greater Good.

Remember the Tau Philosophy of war: "The Mont'ka is a carefully planned attack designed to wipe out critical enemy defenses or units in single, well-placed strikes. Once the strongest points of enemy resistance are crushed, the remainder of the force can generally be finished off more easily. The Kauyon is essentially an ambush, where the enemy is drawn by use of a "lure" into a carefully prepared killing zones."

Mont'ka would require an ability to destroy the hive mind with a precise strike at a singular point. Under Current fluff that is out, unless there is someway to kill a Hive Mind I'm unaware of.

Kauyon it is then, so fall back, set traps, fall back, set traps... Fall back behind the IoM. Invent terraforming tech. Rebuild the Tau Empire if you really wanted to. (Although I doubt they would unless they awoke the Necrons, then they would probably run away, again).

CpatTom wrote:First the Tau wouldn't attract a larger Hive Fleet due to the dampened warp presence. So, there goes that to begin with.

Hive fleets simply devour everything in their path, so a dampened warp presence means nothing if they happen to be in the path.

CpatTom wrote:I'm pretty sure the Tau philosophy of life is service to the Greater Good. And running from the big hungry mob is in fact doing that: No Tau, no Greater Good.

They are also communists. As we have learned from history, communist nations tend to sacrifice large numbers of their populace for the "greater good".

CpatTom wrote:Kauyon it is then, so fall back, set traps, fall back, set traps... Fall back behind the IoM. Invent terraforming tech. Rebuild the Tau Empire if you really wanted to. (Although I doubt they would unless they awoke the Necrons, then they would probably run away, again).

The Tau are on the eastern fringe. The majority of the existing hive fleets have come from galactic east, they would have to fight through the IOM in order to hide behind it.

CpatTom wrote:First the Tau wouldn't attract a larger Hive Fleet due to the dampened warp presence. So, there goes that to begin with.

Where do you get the idea warp prescence is what draws Tyranids? Food does. Ripe, juicy planets ready to be eaten. They send vanguard forces (ie Lictors and Genestealer broods) all over the galaxy, which then tells the Tyranids where the best food is. A cluster of over a hundred munchable worlds will attract a big hive fleet eventually. They've been lucky so far that it hasn't.

The fluff about the astronomican attracting them is new, and not all encompassing.

Orblivion wrote:
1. Hive fleets simply devour everything in their path, so a dampened warp presence means nothing if they happen to be in the path.

2. They are also communists. As we have learned from history, communist nations tend to sacrifice large numbers of their populace for the "greater good".

3. The Tau are on the eastern fringe. The majority of the existing hive fleets have come from galactic east, they would have to fight through the IOM in order to hide behind it.

1. They are attracted to the Astronomicon's warp presence(Nid Codex IIRC, so I dont want to believe it cause it is new isnt a very good argument), as well Nids are put off by blanks (For The Emperor, Bl, not sure if this is corroborated anywhere, but I dont know anywhere it is contradicted as well), so it would not be unreasonable to think that the Nids prefer tasty meats with psychic presences (I think its cause the Nids can hear them scream on the insides, tastier that way).

2.They aren't Communists. "Communism is a social, political and economic movement that aims at the establishment of a classless and stateless communist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production." They have a caste system, and a governmental structure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism.

3. The IoM is not going to waste resource attempting to shoot down all the Tau in the face of a full Hive Fleet Nid invasion. Why would they do that? That is not sound military strategy. You don't start a war before you have to fight a war. The fact that these Nid guys keep trampling through my yard is a good enough reason for the Tau to move for me.

CpatTom wrote:

Orblivion wrote:
1. Hive fleets simply devour everything in their path, so a dampened warp presence means nothing if they happen to be in the path.

2. They are also communists. As we have learned from history, communist nations tend to sacrifice large numbers of their populace for the "greater good".

3. The Tau are on the eastern fringe. The majority of the existing hive fleets have come from galactic east, they would have to fight through the IOM in order to hide behind it.

1. They are attracted to the Astronomicon's warp presence(Nid Codex IIRC, so I dont want to believe it cause it is new isnt a very good argument), as well Nids are put off by blanks (For The Emperor, Bl, not sure if this is corroborated anywhere, but I dont know anywhere it is contradicted as well), so it would not be unreasonable to think that the Nids prefer tasty meats with psychic presences (I think its cause the Nids can hear them scream on the insides, tastier that way).

2.They aren't Communists. "Communism is a social, political and economic movement that aims at the establishment of a classless and stateless communist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production." They have a caste system, and a governmental structure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism.

3. The IoM is not going to waste resource attempting to shoot down all the Tau in the face of a full Hive Fleet Nid invasion. Why would they do that? That is not sound military strategy. You don't start a war before you have to fight a war. The fact that these Nid guys keep trampling through my yard is a good enough reason for the Tau to move for me.

1. Point still stands. If the hive fleet's path towards the Astronomican takes them past the Tau homeworld, it will not be ignored.

2. And yet as far as I know they have been designed with historical communist nation parallels.

3. The IOM is a religion based government, sound military strategy is not going to take precedence over "purge the xenos". Specific commanders might make concessions to ignore a xenos threat in light of a larger xenos threat during combat situations, but if we're talking about the bulk of the Tau race moving into IOM territory, there is no way it will be tolerated.

1. True, they will eat them if they go that way.
2. Draigo isn't Sysiphus.

3. Fine, they would attack the Tau, because the IoM is commanded by failed tactical minds. The Tau would fight with desperation to break contact, and eventually escape.

The Nids have a field day with an unprepared IoM, and would gain the Bio-mass momentum (Especcially considering the tau did nothing to slow them through their system, because the IoM was never going to let them through, so the Tau would need the Nids right on their tail) to make a legitimate push towards Terra. Forces would have to be recalled to deal with the Nid threat. Now the Imperium lacks the power to exert its influence over a large portion of the Galaxy, and the differing forces fighting against it expand their spheres of control.

Or the IoM drafts an agreement with the Tau to allow for passage to somewhere better than the IoM wants to give up, but worse than the Tau want, in the promise that Tau forces will contest their own worlds slowing the Hive Fleet and allowing for the Imperium to set up successful defenses. This would reduces the Imperium strain dealing with the Nid threat, and allows for the relocation of the Tau Empire somewhere that the IoM has a hand in choosing.

The IoM has a lot of experience with politics and military engagements. They would probably have some smart guys on this one.

CpatTom wrote:1. They are attracted to the Astronomicon's warp presence(Nid Codex IIRC, so I dont want to believe it cause it is new isnt a very good argument), as well Nids are put off by blanks (For The Emperor, Bl, not sure if this is corroborated anywhere, but I dont know anywhere it is contradicted as well), so it would not be unreasonable to think that the Nids prefer tasty meats with psychic presences (I think its cause the Nids can hear them scream on the insides, tastier that way).

There's only 2 hive fleets that have paid attantion to the astronomican, Scylla and Charybdis, which are heading right for it. All other hive fleets are doing their own thing.

Black Library isn't really a good source for fluff, since authors do their own thing. In studio material, Tyranids have made no distinctions between psychic and non-psychic prey. They don't hunt by psychic prescence, they follow their vanguards, which assess biomass levels and target defenses.

They hear the psychic scream because the hive mind sits in the warp. They basically see the same thing navigators do. There's nothing to dissuade Tyranids from the Tau Empire. The reasons they haven't been wiped out by a huge hive fleet is plot armour, nothing more. If they were wiped out by Gorgon, GW wouldn't have a model range to sell.

Let's agree on the following:
1.) We could imagine a Hive Fleet so big it will swallow the galaxy in whole, posing a problem to all reaces living there.
2.) We could imaging a Hive Fleet so small that any decent military can deal with it.

Orblivion wrote:They are also communists. As we have learned from history, communist nations tend to sacrifice large numbers of their populace for the "greater good".

Let's put it politely: Your knowledge on Tau equals your knowledge on history/politics

Kroothawk wrote:Let's agree on the following:
1.) We could imagine a Hive Fleet so big it will swallow the galaxy in whole, posing a problem to all reaces living there.
2.) We could imaging a Hive Fleet so small that any decent military can deal with it.

Orblivion wrote:They are also communists. As we have learned from history, communist nations tend to sacrifice large numbers of their populace for the "greater good".

Let's put it politely: Your knowledge on Tau equals your knowledge on history/politics

I'll admit my knowledge of the Tau is rudimentary at best.

But are you suggesting that the Soviet Union didn't sacrifice wall after wall of conscripted bodies at the Nazi's in WW2? US casualties in WW2 estimated at just under half a million, same for the UK. Russian casualties are estimated at around 26 million. It is estimated that 13 million of those casualties were civilians, but how many of the 13 million "military" casualties were conscripts given nothing more than a uniform and a direction to run in? Now I will grant you that the Soviet Union did not follow the true meaning of communism, but that is how they labeled themselves, and therefore that is how they will be remembered.

Nids are attracted to warp presence. It's part of how they tell dead rocks from living planets. It's also used with gene stealers. A stealer cult acts a warp beacon to a hive fleet. Tau having low warp might help, but it would help a lot more if they did regular testing for gene stealers and moving them to dead planets to act as a giant flank.

You can talk all you want about tau being Communist and communist being bla bla bla, but it is the case that tau value life. They value there peoples lives they even value the lives of there enemies.

Orblivion wrote:But are you suggesting that the Soviet Union didn't sacrifice wall after wall of conscripted bodies at the Nazi's in WW2?

I am suggesting that Tau are no communists. Maybe have a look at my sig

BTW there are other communist states beside the USSR. And UK and USA weren't invaded by a foreign army during WW2 to be fair, so civilian casualties (and victims to a cold winter) were naturally lower. That said, I am not disputing that Stalin and Hitler had a low respect for the lifes of their own soldiers.

nomotog wrote:Nids are attracted to warp presence. It's part of how they tell dead rocks from living planets. It's also used with gene stealers. A stealer cult acts a warp beacon to a hive fleet. Tau having low warp might help, but it would help a lot more if they did regular testing for gene stealers and moving them to dead planets to act as a giant flank.

You can talk all you want about tau being Communist and communist being bla bla bla, but it is the case that tau value life. They value there peoples lives they even value the lives of there enemies.

It still won't stop the Tyranids from being attracted to the Tau. Genestealers are the way good targets are found. Look at how Kryptman re-directed Leviathan, the concentration of Genestealers attracted the fleet, because that signifies a good source of food. When the time comes, the Tau's high concentration of edible planets will be a veritable banquet.

Orblivion wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:Let's agree on the following:
1.) We could imagine a Hive Fleet so big it will swallow the galaxy in whole, posing a problem to all reaces living there.
2.) We could imaging a Hive Fleet so small that any decent military can deal with it.

Orblivion wrote:They are also communists. As we have learned from history, communist nations tend to sacrifice large numbers of their populace for the "greater good".

Let's put it politely: Your knowledge on Tau equals your knowledge on history/politics

I'll admit my knowledge of the Tau is rudimentary at best.

But are you suggesting that the Soviet Union didn't sacrifice wall after wall of conscripted bodies at the Nazi's in WW2? US casualties in WW2 estimated at just under half a million, same for the UK. Russian casualties are estimated at around 26 million. It is estimated that 13 million of those casualties were civilians, but how many of the 13 million "military" casualties were conscripts given nothing more than a uniform and a direction to run in? Now I will grant you that the Soviet Union did not follow the true meaning of communism, but that is how they labeled themselves, and therefore that is how they will be remembered.

Of which roughly 4,5 millions were POWs ( of which roughly 3 millions died ). Even the 13 millions figure is possibly inflated. Other sources give 11 millions ( Mikhalev ) or even "just" 9 millions.
Contrary to popular belief the Red Army wasn't full of ill trained conscripts which were nothing but cannonfodder. This picture might hold true in the most desperate phase of catastrophical losses during the early war but that's it. Compare that to total number of German and Soviet military deaths, roughly 5,5 millions for germany, which does exclude the german allies ( italy, hunary, romania and Finland add roughly another million together ). While the difference in casualties is still considerable one has to keep in mind that a large part of these casualties happened in 1941, when the red army was severaly unprepared to counter the Wehrmacht's thrust into the SU ( the german wiki states alone 3 million casualties and 3 million pows for Barbarossa alone ).

The Soviet Union, USSR ( union of socialist soviet republics ) called itself, as the name implies, a socialist republic and not a communist one because otherwise
the dictatorial regime would have been hard pressed to rationalise it's very existence.

iproxtaco wrote:

nomotog wrote:Nids are attracted to warp presence. It's part of how they tell dead rocks from living planets. It's also used with gene stealers. A stealer cult acts a warp beacon to a hive fleet. Tau having low warp might help, but it would help a lot more if they did regular testing for gene stealers and moving them to dead planets to act as a giant flank.

You can talk all you want about tau being Communist and communist being bla bla bla, but it is the case that tau value life. They value there peoples lives they even value the lives of there enemies.

It still won't stop the Tyranids from being attracted to the Tau. Genestealers are the way good targets are found. Look at how Kryptman re-directed Leviathan, the concentration of Genestealers attracted the fleet, because that signifies a good source of food. When the time comes, the Tau's high concentration of edible planets will be a veritable banquet.

Ok I don't get exactly what you mean. You seem to agree that fleets are attracted to genestealers and that you can redirect a fleet, but that won't help?

CpatTom wrote:
Tau leaders would figure some way to get the IoM involved in fending off the hive fleet. Given that a Hive fleet the size posed in the problem above would, as the Emperor's Faithful on Dakka have pointed out, either eat through the Tau Empire and threaten the eastern fringe of Man, or chase the Tau into the Imperium, where all the tasty alternatives to blue men are.

So, Tau pick up. Stop by to say high to the Ultramarines, and then make a bee line to another fringe of the Galaxy that the IoM will have to leave undefended to turn back the tide of Tyranid approaching from the east.

The Tau take the long game.

Why would Imperium help Tau?
Last time Ethereal tried to talk with Space Marine he got his head blown up, and he didn't even ask one question.


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Orblivion wrote:
They are also communists. As we have learned from history, communist nations tend to sacrifice large numbers of their populace for the "greater good".

Tau are communist but only ideologically. Peace, unity, equality and tolerance are all the main stream of communist ideology + let all of us work toward the "Grater Good" of the galaxy - like people in USSR or Yugoslavia worked together toward Grater Good of their nations.
Tau would never sacrifice million of troopers like Imperium does to save billions of citizens. They would just flee all together and find new place to live.

Brother Coa wrote:
Tau are communist but only ideologically. Peace, unity, equality and tolerance are all the main stream of communist ideology

The Tau don't want equality.

CpatTom wrote:First the Tau wouldn't attract a larger Hive Fleet due to the dampened warp presence. So, there goes that to begin with.

nomotog wrote:Nids are attracted to warp presence.

Not really. Do they care for the empyrean, the warp itself? If nids chased warp presence, every demonic infestation would attract them.

Nids care only for one thing and thats bio-mass.

Densly packed clusters of inhabitable worlds are a major target for nids.
The Tau empire provides that.
Thus the hivemind will sooner or later come for dinner.
The idea of re-direction works if you have to deal with small splinters. A hungry fully blown fleet may just eat everything in its path.

nomotog wrote:
Ok I don't get exactly what you mean. You seem to agree that fleets are attracted to genestealers and that you can redirect a fleet, but that won't help?

You have to provide a target. Empty rocks wouldn't keep them busy. If the Tau don't change their pace, nothing except THEIR worlds may be close enough for a very hungry hive fleet. Because the re-direction game can be played in multiplayer mode too....

Brother Coa wrote:
Why would Imperium help Tau?
Last time Ethereal tried to talk with Space Marine he got his head blown up, and he didn't even ask one question.
Nobody said anything about asking for help.

To expand on the idea, The Tau would pick up and leave for another fringe of the IoM, as I posted earlier.

CpatTom wrote:
Fine, they would attack the Tau, because the IoM is commanded by failed tactical minds. The Tau would fight with desperation to break contact, and eventually escape.

The Nids have a field day with an unprepared IoM, and would gain the Bio-mass momentum (Especcially considering the tau did nothing to slow them through their system, because the IoM was never going to let them through, so the Tau would need the Nids right on their tail) to make a legitimate push towards Terra. Forces would have to be recalled to deal with the Nid threat. Now the Imperium lacks the power to exert its influence over a large portion of the Galaxy, and the differing forces fighting against it expand their spheres of control.

Or the IoM drafts an agreement with the Tau to allow for passage to somewhere better than the IoM wants to give up, but worse than the Tau want, in the promise that Tau forces will contest their own worlds slowing the Hive Fleet and allowing for the Imperium to set up successful defenses. This would reduces the Imperium strain dealing with the Nid threat, and allows for the relocation of the Tau Empire somewhere that the IoM has a hand in choosing.

The IoM has a lot of experience with politics and military engagements. They would probably have some smart guys on this one.

I'm a millionare. Just because the USSR says it is Communist does not mean it is true.

1hadhq wrote:

CpatTom wrote:First the Tau wouldn't attract a larger Hive Fleet due to the dampened warp presence. So, there goes that to begin with.

nomotog wrote:Nids are attracted to warp presence.

Not really. Do they care for the empyrean, the warp itself? If nids chased warp presence, every demonic infestation would attract them.

Nids care only for one thing and thats bio-mass.

Densly packed clusters of inhabitable worlds are a major target for nids.
The Tau empire provides that.
Thus the hivemind will sooner or later come for dinner.
The idea of re-direction works if you have to deal with small splinters. A hungry fully blown fleet may just eat everything in its path.

nomotog wrote:
Ok I don't get exactly what you mean. You seem to agree that fleets are attracted to genestealers and that you can redirect a fleet, but that won't help?

You have to provide a target. Empty rocks wouldn't keep them busy. If the Tau don't change their pace, nothing except THEIR worlds may be close enough for a very hungry hive fleet. Because the re-direction game can be played in multiplayer mode too....

The idea is that the fleet follows the genestealers. So you move all the infected you can find to a trap. A rock of a world with heavy defense. The hive attacks that planet and dosen't realize it's a trap till it's late.

nomotog wrote:Nids are attracted to warp presence. It's part of how they tell dead rocks from living planets. It's also used with gene stealers. A stealer cult acts a warp beacon to a hive fleet. Tau having low warp might help, but it would help a lot more if they did regular testing for gene stealers and moving them to dead planets to act as a giant flank.

You seem to be confusing it a bit here. They're not attracted to warp prescences, they're attracted to the psychic beacon their vanguard organisms project. The Tau having no psychic prescence of their own means nothing. The vanguard tells the hive fleets that food is there, and they go there.

The reason they don't wipe the Tau out with a big hive fleet is again, they still want to have a Tau range to sell.

No, they wouldn't. The reason they dont is because it is Deus Ex Machina vs Deus Ex Machina. The Nids "evolve" solutions to everything, and the Tau "invent" solutions to everything, so they would continue one upping each other forever.

Not quite, Tau have only slightly over 100 worlds. Even losing 20 worlds would be a blow to them, and Tyranids have something that Tau can't fight against - limitless number of bodies.

Kilkrazy wrote:It's pretty clear the Tyranids will wipe out all life in the galaxy. They've already done it to a different galaxy.

Surprisingly, I agree. They may have even wiped out multiple other galaxies.

CpatTom wrote:No, they wouldn't. The reason they dont is because it is Deus Ex Machina vs Deus Ex Machina. The Nids "evolve" solutions to everything, and the Tau "invent" solutions to everything, so they would continue one upping each other forever.

And they do this because they want to sell models.

That's the overall bottom line it always comes to. The Tyranids have spores they could absolutely choke a planet with. Venomthropes? Yeah, the spores they release would, if released on a planet wide scale, kill every living thing on the planet. Every type of animal would have its organs liquefied and they'd drown in their own fluids, and the Tyranids would just need to drop down, plant their capillary towers, and use Hive Guard to fend off any lingering threats that were in bunkers or sealed vehicles. The idea that this race would need to deploy ground troops does not make sense.

Other races have technology to make ground assaults pretty redundant as well.

But they want to sell models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:It's pretty clear the Tyranids will wipe out all life in the galaxy. They've already done it to a different galaxy.

Surprisingly, I agree. They may have even wiped out multiple other galaxies.

The rulebook specifically states a dozen galaxies.

Orblivion wrote:
They are also communists. As we have learned from history, communist nations tend to sacrifice large numbers of their populace for the "greater good".

Really, the Tau fight the opposite of this, weak Communist parallels or not. The Tau fight in a meticulous, surgical manner that is meant to minimize casualties. Their style of combat is much more similar to the Eldar then to Mankind, Tyranids, or Orks, who rely on weight of numbers and take enormous casualties on a regular basis.

Fine, the 12 galaxy large fat man of 40k will get his blue seahorse sandwich.

If gorgon shows anything though, its that the Nids couldnt keep up with the Tau, so I still hold the Tau wouldnt just sit there and wait to get eaten. Thats stupid and irrational. Two things the Tau aren't. Just my opinion of course.

That or pull a page out of the BA play book and start doing the Space Mummy Fist bump. New mummy fluff totally makes it possible (rumored of course) haha, how happy are all the Necron players after that wait, haha.

The things with Gorgon was, while they hyper evolved to match the Tau technology,they were very exceptional because of this. The book actually makes mention of that - most hive fleets don't evolve that much that fast. They just crush through weight of bodies. Given Gorgon was a small hive fleet, it was probably evolving like that to make up for lack of numbers.

There's plenty of scope to defeat a hive fleet, but it mostly comes down to numbers. Behemoth was the smallest of the major hive fleets, and it took several regiments of Guard, a chapter of Space Marines and an entire segmentum worth of Imperial Navy. And it was only won through plot armour (hey, that battleships warp drive overloaded at just the right size to only engulf the Tyranid fleet). And they only defeated the main tendrils of Behemoth, the rest are still out there killing things (as shown by the fact that they were the hive fleet that took part in the Medusa Campaign).

A major hive fleet, even the size of Kraken, would have a lot of fun in the Tau Empire.

-Loki- wrote:

CpatTom wrote:No, they wouldn't. The reason they dont is because it is Deus Ex Machina vs Deus Ex Machina. The Nids "evolve" solutions to everything, and the Tau "invent" solutions to everything, so they would continue one upping each other forever.

And they do this because they want to sell models.

That's the overall bottom line it always comes to. The Tyranids have spores they could absolutely choke a planet with. Venomthropes? Yeah, the spores they release would, if released on a planet wide scale, kill every living thing on the planet. Every type of animal would have its organs liquefied and they'd drown in their own fluids, and the Tyranids would just need to drop down, plant their capillary towers, and use Hive Guard to fend off any lingering threats that were in bunkers or sealed vehicles. The idea that this race would need to deploy ground troops does not make sense.

Other races have technology to make ground assaults pretty redundant as well.

But they want to sell models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:It's pretty clear the Tyranids will wipe out all life in the galaxy. They've already done it to a different galaxy.

Surprisingly, I agree. They may have even wiped out multiple other galaxies.

The rulebook specifically states a dozen galaxies.

It does? Whereabouts?

Nope, the Nids would get cut down by superior tech. Pew pew pew.
Unless they started to evolve faster, but that would limit numbers because the increased speed of evolution increased the metabolism of Gorgon's fleet thus limiting the number Nids due to biomass constraints. It didn't evolve cause it was small, it was small because it evolved. The Tau didn't win through plot armor. They just won.

I wonder if the IoM would have responded so nimbly to a threat capable of making its weapons useless?

Unless the Nids have evolved to the point where they no longer have a metabolism. And which this argument is no longer necessary because the nids have defeated the law of conservation of energy.

Again, only if the Tau stick around to fight though.

The rest of the tendrils are out there so the Nid players don't get left out, haha, like the Tau...

Farseer Petriel wrote:Tau'll simply turn nids into the Greater Good...

I like it. Who has the stronger brainwashing, Genestealer Cults or the Greater Good?

"In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only politics."

CpatTom wrote:Nope, the Nids would get cut down by superior tech. Pew pew pew.
Unless they started to evolve faster, but that would limit numbers because the increased speed of evolution increased the metabolism of Gorgon's fleet thus limiting the number Nids due to biomass constraints. It didn't evolve cause it was small, it was small because it evolved. The Tau didn't win through plot armor. They just won.

Good tactics let them reak the synapse web on Sha'draig. Retreating, leaving behind a suicide force, and breaking the synapse web was good tactics. They still lost Sha'draig. By the time the tactic worked, ripper swarms had consumed the planet. They retreated and fell back because they couldn't keep up with the Tyranids evolution.

At Kel'shan, Gorgon was losing the space war until they devloped immunity to the Tau ion weaponry, which forced the Tau to retreat. The Tau also lost a few trading fleets. Before the Tyranids hit Kel'shan, an Imperial fleet arrived and attacked. When the Tyranids arrived, the Imperial and Tau forces both attacked Gorgon, and it couldn't keep up its evolutions against two foes.

The Tau didn't win by themselves. If the Imperial fleet hadn't been delayed in the warp by 150 years and arrived too late to help the Damocles crusade, Gorgon wouldn't have been stopped.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:

Farseer Petriel wrote:Tau'll simply turn nids into the Greater Good...

I like it. Who has the stronger brainwashing, Genestealer Cults or the Greater Good?

"In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only politics."

Oh man.... Imagine the Possibilities.

Give a Flyrant the Vespid "translator" Helmet.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:It does? Whereabouts?

Err, the Tyranid fluff part in the Dark Milennium section?

"With the barren husks of a dozen galaxies behind them..."

-Loki- wrote:

CpatTom wrote:Nope, the Nids would get cut down by superior tech. Pew pew pew.
Unless they started to evolve faster, but that would limit numbers because the increased speed of evolution increased the metabolism of Gorgon's fleet thus limiting the number Nids due to biomass constraints. It didn't evolve cause it was small, it was small because it evolved. The Tau didn't win through plot armor. They just won.

Good tactics let them reak the synapse web on Sha'draig. Retreating, leaving behind a suicide force, and breaking the synapse web was good tactics. They still lost Sha'draig. By the time the tactic worked, ripper swarms had consumed the planet. They retreated and fell back because they couldn't keep up with the Tyranids evolution.

At Kel'shan, Gorgon was losing the space war until they devloped immunity to the Tau ion weaponry, which forced the Tau to retreat. The Tau also lost a few trading fleets. Before the Tyranids hit Kel'shan, an Imperial fleet arrived and attacked. When the Tyranids arrived, the Imperial and Tau forces both attacked Gorgon, and it couldn't keep up its evolutions against two foes.

The Tau didn't win by themselves. If the Imperial fleet hadn't been delayed in the warp by 150 years and arrived too late to help the Damocles crusade, Gorgon wouldn't have been stopped.

Yes! My trap is sprung, haha. So when the Tau were losing, what did they do? Retreated, and formulated a new strategy.

Hmmm. I wonder about a Genestealer Etheral though. Thoughts? I have no source material of which to base any speculation.

-Loki- wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:It does? Whereabouts?

Err, the Tyranid fluff part in the Dark Milennium section?

"With the barren husks of a dozen galaxies behind them..."

Well then, the milky way is screwed x12.

CpatTom wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

CpatTom wrote:Nope, the Nids would get cut down by superior tech. Pew pew pew.
Unless they started to evolve faster, but that would limit numbers because the increased speed of evolution increased the metabolism of Gorgon's fleet thus limiting the number Nids due to biomass constraints. It didn't evolve cause it was small, it was small because it evolved. The Tau didn't win through plot armor. They just won.

Good tactics let them reak the synapse web on Sha'draig. Retreating, leaving behind a suicide force, and breaking the synapse web was good tactics. They still lost Sha'draig. By the time the tactic worked, ripper swarms had consumed the planet. They retreated and fell back because they couldn't keep up with the Tyranids evolution.

At Kel'shan, Gorgon was losing the space war until they devloped immunity to the Tau ion weaponry, which forced the Tau to retreat. The Tau also lost a few trading fleets. Before the Tyranids hit Kel'shan, an Imperial fleet arrived and attacked. When the Tyranids arrived, the Imperial and Tau forces both attacked Gorgon, and it couldn't keep up its evolutions against two foes.

The Tau didn't win by themselves. If the Imperial fleet hadn't been delayed in the warp by 150 years and arrived too late to help the Damocles crusade, Gorgon wouldn't have been stopped.

Yes! My trap is sprung, haha. So when the Tau were losing, what did they do? Retreated, and formulated a new strategy.

And still lost. And then retreated again. And got saved by the Imperium, and only because the Tyranids couldn't evolve defenses against two enemies at once.

So they would retreat behind the IoM and wait it out. Oh, yes I do believe so. How right I am. I love being right, la di da da.

CpatTom wrote:So they would retreat behind the IoM and wait it out. Oh, yes I do believe so. How right I am. I love being right, la di da da.

Except, and this is the salient point, they have to go through the Imperium. And they'd be settling in the Imperiums borders. The Imperium is not a fan of this happening. They launch big crusades agains aliens that attempt this. It's a problem of having to run to survive, and the only place to run being to someone who wants to kill you.

The point that you proved? That the IoM would focus on the impending Nid invasion instead of the Tau. The Tau skip off away.

Not being a fan and letting it happen anyway is what a bureaucratic system is good at, and I can think of no better bureaucratic system than the IoM.

Sure, if you take the reason away for the Tau to be leaving in the first place then, yeah, the IoM shoots down the Tau on sight; considering there is a hive fleet, and the IoM is stretched to (beyond) the breaking point already, the Tau are gonna slip by.

The lil blue fish guy running by screaming is gonna be on your mind right up to the point that you notice the gross fatty who just finished closing up 12 all you can eat buffets coming your way.

The Imperium has more than enough hate for 2 wars at once.
The Tau trying to move through or settle in Imperium space would lead to no more Tau very, very quickly.

The Imperium are ALREADY fighting multiple Hive Fleets, and Eldar, and Orks, and Chaos, and Dark Eldar, and Necrons, and random uprisings and....you get te idea.
Adding Tau back onto the "and" list really wouldn't bother them too much.

The Imperium is currently having its hands full with the Chaos uprising of the 13th Black Crusade in Segmentum Obscurus, and Hive Fleet Leviathan is coming up from below threatening Ultima (already dealing with splinter hive fleets) , Solar (which is fighting to maintain Armageddon still nevermind chasing Ghazzie down), and I think Tempestus (which has also suffered from Tyranid assualts in recent years.) The Eldar don't seem to be offering as much threat lately, and the Orks are an omnipresent danger, so there's nothing really stopping the tau from gobbling up territory while the Imperium is occupied (which is basically what they have been doing.) The Imperium doesn't have enough forces on hand to swat them down - Taros wouldn't have happend (for example) had it not been lobbying by the AdMech, and even then it didn't turn out the way they wanted because of all the major issues the Imperium is already dealing with.

Edit: Also the Tau aren't going to be retreating much becaues they need and want territory. And to keep territory you have to fight for it, no amount of "preserving life" is going to change that (That's like saying having a whole housing block or apartment building burn down is a trivial issue for the people building there, because they can just build it all back! its not costly at all!)

The Imperium is overextended from a Military standpoint. If it wasnt, it could easily start to check off enemies. (I doubt its leaders would want to, but thats another discussion). The Imperium is the greatest force in the Galaxy, and if you put them one on one with any other faction, they win. However, the Imperium can do that because they have to many wars to fight.

I never said the Tau moving was trivial. You stay and try and fix a little flooding (Small fleet). You (Tau) get out of dodge (the Eastern Fringe) when a tidal wave (Enormous Nid Fleet) is coming.

CpatTom wrote:
I never said the Tau moving was trivial. You stay and try and fix a little flooding (Small fleet). You (Tau) get out of dodge (the Eastern Fringe) when a tidal wave (Enormous Nid Fleet) is coming.

"Hive Fleets don't leave worlds in their path."
Scout Sargent Cyrus, Blood Ravens Chapter, Aurelian Crusade 999.M41

Hey, if the BAs and Necrons can get married and move into a 3bed 2ba on the lower east side, there's room for the Tau.

They can invite the GKs over for some SoB blood on the weekends.

agnosto wrote:Hey, if the BAs and Necrons can get married and move into a 3bed 2ba on the lower east side, there's room for the Tau.

They can invite the GKs over for some SoB blood on the weekends.

Biggest fails in 40k fluff history...