Can the Tau handle another Imperial Crusade? And not like the previous Damocles Gulf Crusade, which was quite tiny and a rather pitiful excuse for a 'crusade'; a real Imperial Crusade, one focused entirely on the Tau (unlike in the Jericho Reach where they're spread out fighting multiple factions). And likewise, the Tau aren't distracted by other factions.

I think that even with the Tau's superior technology, if the Imperium devoted its full resources to a crusade against them, simple numbers would mean that the Tau would stand little chance.

This is my opinion though of course.

 rohansoldier wrote:
I think that even with the Tau's superior technology, if the Imperium devoted its full resources to a crusade against them, simple numbers would mean that the Tau would stand little chance.

This is my opinion though of course.

I didn't mean the entire Imperium you know

The Imperium is so big and has so many enemies that it is absolutely impossible that it can concentrate solely on the Tau. What I do mean, however, is a standard or higher-scale Imperial Crusade.

Still fantasizing about a Tau genocide, Admiral?

 Kroothawk wrote:
Still fantasizing about a Tau genocide, Admiral?

No; just a good ol'fashioned crusade and not the pathetic excuses for 'crusades' these days

The Imperium is in much worse shape than it was during the Damocles Crusade. Between the Tyranids, Orks, Necrons, and Chaos the Imperium of Man has suffered massive set backs with little more than Pyrrhic victories. If it threw that much at a minor problem like the Tau Empire, it would find swathes of itself being overwhelmed by much more threatening Xenos and heretics.

Honestly, if the imperium felt like getting off its butt and dedicated "repel the 13th black crusade" levels of manpower to the back side of nowhere (seriously, both Terra and the eye of terror are on the far side of the galaxy.) the Tau Empire would go "splat" like a grape.

That said, if they did that then they'd probably get destroyed by all the other stuff they've been holding off with all those soldiers which are suddenly fighting the Tau.

And I'm betting that Tau could hold off a pretty serious invasion, now they've started to realize how big the galaxy is and are gearing up for the long haul. They'd cause the imperium quite a headache before they went away. And even then they might just practice the Tau way of war on a grand scale and evacuate their entire empire, or at least as much of it as feasibly possible, subsequently going into hiding among the stars until the time is right for them to strike again and reclaim their birthright.

Ah, but those poor bastards are nowhere near of technological level that Imperium can muster if it would be hard-pressed.

In any way, no. Tau is at the state of collapse. Wars of Dakka resulted in stalemate. For a limited and finite empire that is a disaster. Tau are at the edge of galaxy where worlds are far less defended. Due to that, Tyranid presence is strongest there and no matter outcome of wars with Orks, Tau will be destroyed by Tyranids. It was all part of Imperium's plan.


Imperium could easily crush Tau alone. Democles crusade was at a pitiful scale where Imperium's main trait, main strength have even didin't come into play. Also, Democles crusade could have resulted in far greater gains for the Imperium if they would have not underestimated those xenos in a first place. I think, Imperium's failure to combat them is due to the fact of underestimation of them. Democles crusade's main failures was purely due that. Tau's successful attacks on the Imperium was only successful due to ruses (sacrificing worlds to attract Imperial presence). I fear that Tau only managed to get Imperium's respect and orks recommendation as being able to create a good fight and that's a terrible news for this empire.

When was the "last Real Crusade" the IoM launched, and was on the offensive, and not reacting to Tyranids, Necrons, Orks, Chaos...it seems all the Imperium is capable now is large reactionary combat operations, the Tau frontier is the only one that seems to permit the IoM to even try to go on the offensive, due to the more passive nature of the Tau empire.

But seeing how incredibly dangerous the Tau are to the imperium at large I am sure they would be happy to divert any and all means to eradicate them, at the small cost of what ever planets/systems that would fall to any of the other various threats that strip planets bare or kill all the life of imperial worlds...the logical thing for the Imperium to do would to be to make the Tau frontier a less hostile one , with some form of limited alliance..since this is one of the only races that actually will make alliances.

But oh well, that's not how the IoM rolls..easier to just fight everyone

The may want to move the Necrons up a bit more on the Threat chart since in the new FW book, the Cron's conquered something like a 100 planets in a course of a few months...may want to point the conquest/ offensive fantasies that direction...oh but wait, the necrons are a little to nasty huh.

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
When was the "last Real Crusade" the IoM launched, and was on the offensive, and not reacting to Tyranids, Necrons, Orks, Chaos...it seems all the Imperium is capable now is large reactionary combat operations, the Tau frontier is the only one that seems to permit the IoM to even try to go on the offensive, due to the more passive nature of the Tau empire.

I want to say the Sabbot Worlds Crusade (the Gaunt's Ghost series)

but that was still a long time ago. (like M41.700s)

It's Sabbath Worlds.

Sabbat actually.

The Imperium as it stands is a dying entity. The Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, and Chaos are pressing into it like never before and the entire organization seems like it'd collapse if another threat on the level of the big four enemies popped up.

 Kain wrote:
The Imperium as it stands is a dying entity. The Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, and Chaos are pressing into it like never before and the entire organization seems like it'd collapse if another threat on the level of the big four enemies popped up.

Don't underestimate the Humans. I don't like the way the post-Heresy Imperium is like and how it does things, but it gets gak done with regards to Humanity's future. They may surprise us yet.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Kain wrote:
The Imperium as it stands is a dying entity. The Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, and Chaos are pressing into it like never before and the entire organization seems like it'd collapse if another threat on the level of the big four enemies popped up.

Don't underestimate the Humans. I don't like the way the post-Heresy Imperium is like and how it does things, but it gets gak done with regards to Humanity's future. They may surprise us yet.

Well Chaos is largely made out of humanity since all the major xenos races seem to have a great deal of protection and nobody cares about minor xenos.

 Kain wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Kain wrote:
The Imperium as it stands is a dying entity. The Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, and Chaos are pressing into it like never before and the entire organization seems like it'd collapse if another threat on the level of the big four enemies popped up.

Don't underestimate the Humans. I don't like the way the post-Heresy Imperium is like and how it does things, but it gets gak done with regards to Humanity's future. They may surprise us yet.

Well Chaos is largely made out of humanity since all the major xenos races seem to have a great deal of protection and nobody cares about minor xenos.

Most Humans march under the Imperial Eagle though

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Kain wrote:
The Imperium as it stands is a dying entity. The Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, and Chaos are pressing into it like never before and the entire organization seems like it'd collapse if another threat on the level of the big four enemies popped up.

Don't underestimate the Humans. I don't like the way the post-Heresy Imperium is like and how it does things, but it gets gak done with regards to Humanity's future. They may surprise us yet.

Well Chaos is largely made out of humanity since all the major xenos races seem to have a great deal of protection and nobody cares about minor xenos.

Most Humans march under the Imperial Eagle though

True but the Imperial Eagle doesn't look like it could handle one or two more threats on the scale of the big four emerging suddenly.

That's why the Imperium is the Determinator of the setting.

That kind of Imperium do you imagine then talking about crusade to Tau's space? Hypothetical with free forces to spare or realistic one?

The real issue is: can the Imperium even waste its time by launching such an operation? Would it destroy itself in the process considering the situations with the 13th Black Crusade, Armageddon, and Tyranids?

Imperium doesn't have infinite resources.

With the Imperium, I feel they could conquer any enemy faction easily if it were to put its full resources into it, bar the Tyranids and Black Crusade. The Eldar are in too short supply to fight the entire Imperium, the Dark Eldar wouldn't waste their time trying, except perhaps to aid Eldar to keep the race alive. Orks would eventualy be crushed under the Space Marines, and burned into inexistance. Tau would be flattened in weeks.

The Black Crusade would be a challenge but I am confidnt the maneuvering room and spatial firepower. Sure the Blackstones and Planet Killer can blow stuff up but eventually unending fire will see them go bye bye. Particularly if the Eldar are not yet destroyed as they would help, as would Tau if the Imperium struck a deal, and Orks if the could stay still long enough to make an offer of the greatest fight ever.

The Nids, well, there is more of them and then can just adapt to beat Imperial stuff.

That theory of balance is simply not true.
Eldar and dark eldar would simply avoid Imperium's search parties.
Orks cannot be destroyed, only suppressed.
Not all Tyranids fleets are even in this galaxy yet.
Chaos is protected by eye of terror.
Necrons are either hiding (sleeping) or creating havoc with their super-advanced fleets. Even though, Imperium could still cause immense damage to their race if not outright destroying it if they would be focused same way as chaos is and prioritised over them.
Tau are just a minor nuisance. They are GW's money makers and due to that, they get special treatment. In reality, they are not so promising and dangerous as some other minor races are.

 Deadshot wrote:
With the Imperium, I feel they could conquer any enemy faction easily if it were to put its full resources into it, bar the Tyranids and Black Crusade. The Eldar are in too short supply to fight the entire Imperium, the Dark Eldar wouldn't waste their time trying, except perhaps to aid Eldar to keep the race alive. Orks would eventualy be crushed under the Space Marines, and burned into inexistance. Tau would be flattened in weeks.

The Black Crusade would be a challenge but I am confidnt the maneuvering room and spatial firepower. Sure the Blackstones and Planet Killer can blow stuff up but eventually unending fire will see them go bye bye. Particularly if the Eldar are not yet destroyed as they would help, as would Tau if the Imperium struck a deal, and Orks if the could stay still long enough to make an offer of the greatest fight ever.

The Nids, well, there is more of them and then can just adapt to beat Imperial stuff.

The Necrons both potentially outnumber and ludicrously outgun the Imperium of man in space, and if the Imperium can't land any troops due to the Necrons wiping out all their spaceships, they can't do anything. As for the Orks? The Imperium under the Emperor couldn't make a dent in the Orkoid population. There are more Orks than there are lasgun shots to shoot at them.

The Necrons outgun the Imperium so badly in space that a small Necron fleet absolutely mopped the floor with a large imperial fleet without taking any casualties. And with their inertialess drives back, the necrons can simply just hop around the galaxy and strike wherever the Imperium is at it's weakest with minimal losses.

They could for example, raze all the agri-worlds feeding terra and let the capital of the Imperium literally starve to death.

The Necrons, however, are not a unified threat. Many Dynasties possess no space-based technologies at all, and instead can secure only a single planet, or a small number of worlds (perhaps ones that are exceptionally far-flung) through the use of their Dolmen Gates.

GW has, though, painted themselves into a corner with the Necrons, however, especially with the fluff regarding their space technology. There's little conceivable way that the Necrons lose to anything in space. At all. Given their firepower and resilience, a couple Necron fleets could devour an entire Hive Fleet, all the way back to its point of origin.

 Krellnus wrote:
Sabbat actually.

thank you both for the correction

I'm sure the Tau could use some just as planed ickery to get some orks or other races to intercept. not on eldar levels but possibly enough.

but in a vacuum the Tau would be utterly stomped.

The Point of the matter is, if the Imperium places threat priorities upon its targets, and assigns forces in a manner relative to this, the last several offensives against the Tau are a indicator of its commitment to the Tau "Threat".

Damocles was the first, then Taros, then Zeist , and the zeist campaign has been penned in broad strokes, in the C:SM it was a overwhelming marine victory, and in the Tau codex it went exactly "according to plan" so read into that as you will.

And seeing as to according to GW doctrine the Tau have met and battled every major race in the 40k franchise (to establish "realistic" reasons for any army to fight any other at any time ), I would say the forces required by the Imperium to fully destroy the Tau empire is not cost/threat/transport realistic, so small (in the scope of the Imperium) reactionary strikes and small crusades will be the order of the day for the IoM.

In the Taro's campaign it seemed the major stumbling block for the IoM forces was a lack of transports available, they had to ferry several regiments to the battle zone after the initial invasion and lost a entire regiment (the 8th Brimstone Dragoons) due to commerce raiders, so it may be that the biggest problem facing imperial planners is not how many troops they have..its getting them where they need them.

But at any rate, my Tau stand ready and eager to whup on any invaders butts, and have been doing quite well lately

None can withstand a crusade of faith and rage.

 unmercifulconker wrote:
None can withstand a crusade of faith and rage.

Helbrecht's crusade of wrath against Hive Fleet Leviathan seems to be going pretty badly for him.

Eh they tau will get a Crusade agianst them sooner or later. While they don't appear to be a threat now, thier means of productions are now over the top, To make their newest battlehips takes them roughly a year or two to manufacture, while the Imperial counterpart takes many decades to a century to manufacture. They are becoming a larger threat rather increasingly,

Must purge.

 High Emperor Aggron wrote:
Must purge.

Toilets that way -------------->

Well the necrons would drive the imperium crazy because of the fire power and the monliths and the ability to appear out of nowhere,and there is still millions of tomb worlds all over the galaxy,i think the bugs give them the scary threat because there arms can appear in the solar systems and really cause hell on every planet,imotec has yet to be defeated and right nwo the necrons are only cared about is waking up there tombs worlds and when they are done the the full power of necron would crush the imperium in my thinking.

It's academic, really, because GW is not going to remove a product line out of the narrative. While they may simply stop producing models for a line (as they seem to have done with the Sisters), they're not going to write them out of the setting.

This goes for all of the factions, so the Nids will never eat the Imperium, the Eldar will never destroy the Necrons, the Necrons will never exterminate the Nids and the Tau will forever be small, dumb and blue.

 Kain wrote:

 unmercifulconker wrote:
None can withstand a crusade of faith and rage.

Helbrecht's crusade of wrath against Hive Fleet Leviathan seems to be going pretty badly for him.

Na its all good, as long as one enemy dies, the crusade is successful.

Tau are no threat to anyone except in the sense that they can convert enemies without violence, something damn near no other threat to the Imperium can seem to do.

The main reason the 3rd Sphere expansion worked out so well is because the Imperium(and everyone else not named Tau) were invited to the Eye of Terror for a huge "Aggressive Exchange of Ideas".

While everyone was on the other side of the galaxy, Tau took some planets.

Imperium could delete the Tau Empire, but why Bother? There are bigger fish to fry.

You all under estimate the tau. They are the youngest race yet they compete for the title of the most technologicaly advanced race in the galaxy. The only obstacle to the tau is their lack of "warp drive" that all other races posses. If the tau were to capture a necron vessel and learn of how they execute interstellar travel there would be a new sphere of expansion like none other. The tau would be able to both fortify and reinforce worlds and be able to journey expand to places that normally would take a taus life span to acomplish.

Their technology, while advanced, is nowhere near IoM simply because they cannot harness the warp. And I highly doubt they will find an intact Necron Drive for two reasons:
1. They cannot compete in space with the Necrons
2. Necron guard that tech even more so.

Actually, if the IoM cracked that FTL it would solve a ton of their problems. Problems like the Tau.

Seriously though, it is the predicament that humanity is in that keeps the Tau kicking. I'm also sure that many Imperial strategists would prefer to use them as a road block to the 'nids anyway.

Shaso_Keo wrote:
You all under estimate the tau.

Rightfully so.

They are the youngest race yet they compete for the title of the most technologicaly advanced race in the galaxy.

Not even close. Necrons, Eldar, and Nids have millions of years of technological advances on them.

The only obstacle to the tau is their lack of "warp drive" that all other races posses

And their very limited numbers and ressources. And their ship designs being the most fragile in the universe. And the fact that they are incredibly naive about the rest of the universe...

Pretty much, the Tau's weakness is their biggest advantage.

If the tau were to capture a necron vessel and learn of how they execute interstellar travel there would be a new sphere of expansion like none other. The tau would be able to both fortify and reinforce worlds and be able to journey expand to places that normally would take a taus life span to acomplish.

And if the Emperor was to wake up and go talk to the Dragon, they might discover that they are best of pals, that it was all just a big misunderstanding, and that from now on, it'll be the Imperium of Man and Machine.

Shaso_Keo wrote:
You all under estimate the tau. They are the youngest race yet they compete for the title of the most technologicaly advanced race in the galaxy. The only obstacle to the tau is their lack of "warp drive" that all other races posses. If the tau were to capture a necron vessel and learn of how they execute interstellar travel there would be a new sphere of expansion like none other. The tau would be able to both fortify and reinforce worlds and be able to journey expand to places that normally would take a taus life span to acomplish.

Even the Orks can out tech the Tau.

I mean the Orks managed to teleport down hundreds of Gargants en masse to Armageddon and actually out do the Imperium and even the Eldar in quite a few areas (shielding and teleportation especially).

Not to mention the Eldar are the favored children of the frakking old ones and the heirs to their entire legacy. They got a lot of sweetness out of that deal.

And the Necrons? A Necron fleet with, none of which were particularly big, completely crapped all over an Imperial fleet three times it's size in ship numbers and vastly larger in total ship tonnage. Necron ground technology is truly amazing (and we've only scratched the surface of it) but their Space tech is ridiculously better than anyone else's, to the point that one Necron Tomb ship didn't even register an entire Word Bearer's fleet as a threat.

The Necrons, Orks, and Eldar are the products of a war that makes the Horus Heresy look like a school yard brawl next to the second world war. The amount of power unleashed during the War in Heaven was galaxy shattering and utterly beyond the capacity of the Tau to even grasp. And here's the thing. The Necrons won that war.

And the Tyranids? One of the smallest hive fleets worthy of the distinction very nearly pushed the entire Tau Empire to the brink of extinction. If Hive Fleet Leviathan dedicated a tendril or three to the Tau Empire, the Tau species and all of it's accomplishments would be utterly eradicated. And it is highly unlikely that the Tau will survive the coming of the Tyranids in their earnest. Because as big as Hive Fleet Leviathan is (and it is mind boggilingly huge) it's just the tip of the Iceberg, and the Tau are already terrified of the prospect of a repeat of Gorgon.

The tau however are an advancing race while the others barring the nids, are either stagnate or declining. The reason I enjoy the tau is their pioneering mentality. I also argue that if they were able to obtain FTL through the necrons or a similiar drive they would become a much more powerful species. The reason tau had/has.so much difficulty with defending their planets is thay they cannot reinforce their colonies. It could take months for a reinforcement fleet to arrive to deal with ork or nid invasions. This is the main reason they lose so much ground, like in damoclese, it wasn't until a tau hunter cadre arrived that they were able to repel the IoM. With a FTL drive tuau would become more mobile and colonies amd major septs could be equally defended.

Ok youngling Tau, sit down before you hurt yourself......

All kinds of cool stuff could happen if..IF, gw ever decided to advance the timeline..wont happen, not unless GW makes some major changes to its design philosophy .

And these sort of debates always end the same...everyone declares how uber their race /group/ flavor of the month is, and it devolves into tech measuring debates, and genocide fantasies..my suggestion, just walk away and enjoy playing with your Tau minis on a table and beating the snot outta your opponents.

word from a veteran of many Tau related dakka debates..it aint worth it.

Shaso_Keo wrote:
The tau however are an advancing race while the others barring the nids, are either stagnate or declining. The reason I enjoy the tau is their pioneering mentality. I also argue that if they were able to obtain FTL through the necrons or a similiar drive they would become a much more powerful species. The reason tau had/has.so much difficulty with defending their planets is thay they cannot reinforce their colonies. It could take months for a reinforcement fleet to arrive to deal with ork or nid invasions. This is the main reason they lose so much ground, like in damoclese, it wasn't until a tau hunter cadre arrived that they were able to repel the IoM. With a FTL drive tuau would become more mobile and colonies amd major septs could be equally defended.

Both the Orks and Necrons are advancing their technology further and further. The Necrons are confirmed as having advancing tech by IA12 thanks to the genius of the Crypteks, who form a dedicated and specialized scientist caste.

Also the Tau most definitely do have FTL, some of the travel dates given show distances traveled that are not possible without going faster than light. It may be slower than warp travel on average, but it's generally more reliable.

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
Ok youngling Tau, sit down before you hurt yourself......

All kinds of cool stuff could happen if..IF, gw ever decided to advance the timeline..wont happen, not unless GW makes some major changes to its design philosophy .

And these sort of debates always end the same...everyone declares how uber their race /group/ flavor of the month is, and it devolves into tech measuring debates, and genocide fantasies..my suggestion, just walk away and enjoy playing with your Tau minis on a table and beating the snot outta your opponents.

word from a veteran of many Tau related dakka debates..it aint worth it.

Haha alright ill take your word for it. I just like passing the time at work by arguing with these small minded greenskin lovers. The debate was never about how necrons or orks may be able to beat tau, but about of tau could survive an IoM crusade. I would say genocide would not happen. The tau may retreat until their technology suprasses the IoM and retake what they had lost.

The Imperium goes out of it's way to actively prevent aliens from developing true Warp Travel, as the Qu'orl can testify to. However the Stutter drives of the Tau seem to work well enough, but while the Kroot and Demiurg have true warp drives, they don't seem keen on sharing.

You can't reverse-engineer Necron technology, since it always phases-out whenever they retreat. Imperial and Eldar Warp technology is also impossible to reverse-engineer completely, considering it requires an understanding of the Warp that the Tau do not and will never possess.

I always figured that capturing an imperial ship (stealth suits would probably be pretty terrifying in boarding combat if you think about it), putting a pulse rifle to the captain/navigator's head, and saying "make this thing work or we start blowing body parts off" would be an effective way for the tau to reverse engineer imperial warp technology.

 dementedwombat wrote:
I always figured that capturing an imperial ship (stealth suits would probably be pretty terrifying in boarding combat if you think about it), putting a pulse rifle to the captain/navigator's head, and saying "make this thing work or we start blowing body parts off" would be an effective way for the tau to reverse engineer imperial warp technology.

The issue with his is that the IoM don't understand how the majority of their technology works, often the IoM beleives their tech such as warp drive works because of the.empras will. Also tau are unaffected by the warp, as such they would be unable to use the warp drive evem if they built it perfectly. This is why I argue that the tau would habe to capture a necrons unique FTL drive that does not require psionic capablities. This is why ork, eldar and hummie tech is useless to tau I'm this regard. Unless the tau can figurenit out on their own its capture a necron ship or no dice they are stuck to bunny hops

Edit: to summarize the issue with capturing a human ship, if the IoM or even the navigator doesn't understand how the drive works, as stated in the tau codex, then there is no way foe the tau to benefit. Not that they could since they lack psionic powers.

apparently the Tau had evaluated a captured Imperial Warp engine, and had a mishap or somesuch causing the Ethereals to ban any research along the imperial warp method..not sure where I read that, it may have been old fluff or from FFG, but without Navigators that method is not a viable alternative.

So they do something else, and apparently it works for them fine...plus they have learned how to blow up stars...so they got that going for them

just forget all the use imperial..or reverse engineer necron stuff..they have their own ways of doing things, and seem to be cracking on .

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
apparently the Tau had evaluated a captured Imperial Warp engine, and had a mishap or somesuch causing the Ethereals to ban any research along the imperial warp method..not sure where I read that, it may have been old fluff or from FFG, but without Navigators that method is not a viable alternative.

The Medusa V campaign IIRC. The Ethereals stopped all research on the Warp after seeing the aftermath of a Warp Storm or something like that.

Shaso_Keo wrote:
This is why I argue that the tau would habe to capture a necrons unique FTL drive that does not require psionic capablities.

You can't capture Necron equipment because they phase-out to the nearest Tomb World upon defeat. So unless the Tau actually capture a Tomb World (a hideous proposition that even the most genocidal Imperial Commanders would balk at), it's impossible.

The Tau empires biggest advantage is production time. As I said earlier their new battleships only require ~1 year to make which can go toe to toe with its imperial counter part fairly decently. The imperial counter part though take many decades if not centuries to build.

When the tau found the crashed "alien" (imperial) ship they copied its engine but where never able to get them to work correctly because they lacked psykers.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Shaso_Keo wrote:
This is why I argue that the tau would habe to capture a necrons unique FTL drive that does not require psionic capablities.

You can't capture Necron equipment because they phase-out to the nearest Tomb World upon defeat. So unless the Tau actually capture a Tomb World (a hideous proposition that even the most genocidal Imperial Commanders would balk at), it's impossible.

If someone finds a Tomb World who's Master Autonomic Program has broken down before it could reawaken the Necrons within, it would be a major boon to any race outside of the IoM (they will just waste the opportunity with plasma). I could see some FW pieces playing on this, but never in a proper codex.

I think Necron tech is safe for the foreseeable future, unless there is a major shift within GW.

 Nilok wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Shaso_Keo wrote:
This is why I argue that the tau would habe to capture a necrons unique FTL drive that does not require psionic capablities.

You can't capture Necron equipment because they phase-out to the nearest Tomb World upon defeat. So unless the Tau actually capture a Tomb World (a hideous proposition that even the most genocidal Imperial Commanders would balk at), it's impossible.

If someone finds a Tomb World who's Master Autonomic Program has broken down before it could reawaken the Necrons within, it would be a major boon to any race outside of the IoM (they will just waste the opportunity with plasma). I could see some FW pieces playing on this, but never in a proper codex.

I think Necron tech is safe for the foreseeable future, unless there is a major shift within GW.

If you gave Julius Caesar a jet engine, no one in rome would be able to reverse engineer it. The same applies for Necron technology.

 Kain wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Shaso_Keo wrote:
This is why I argue that the tau would habe to capture a necrons unique FTL drive that does not require psionic capablities.

You can't capture Necron equipment because they phase-out to the nearest Tomb World upon defeat. So unless the Tau actually capture a Tomb World (a hideous proposition that even the most genocidal Imperial Commanders would balk at), it's impossible.

If someone finds a Tomb World who's Master Autonomic Program has broken down before it could reawaken the Necrons within, it would be a major boon to any race outside of the IoM (they will just waste the opportunity with plasma). I could see some FW pieces playing on this, but never in a proper codex.

I think Necron tech is safe for the foreseeable future, unless there is a major shift within GW.

If you gave Julius Caesar a jet engine, no one in rome would be able to reverse engineer it. The same applies for Necron technology.

Agreed. Their technology is millions of years ahead of the Eldar of all people; if not for psionics, the Necrons would have won the War in Heaven (well, the 3rd Edition Necrons did, but that's beside the point).

 Kain wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Shaso_Keo wrote:
This is why I argue that the tau would habe to capture a necrons unique FTL drive that does not require psionic capablities.

You can't capture Necron equipment because they phase-out to the nearest Tomb World upon defeat. So unless the Tau actually capture a Tomb World (a hideous proposition that even the most genocidal Imperial Commanders would balk at), it's impossible.

If someone finds a Tomb World who's Master Autonomic Program has broken down before it could reawaken the Necrons within, it would be a major boon to any race outside of the IoM (they will just waste the opportunity with plasma). I could see some FW pieces playing on this, but never in a proper codex.

I think Necron tech is safe for the foreseeable future, unless there is a major shift within GW.

If you gave Julius Caesar a jet engine, no one in rome would be able to reverse engineer it. The same applies for Necron technology.

In the new Tau Empire Codex, the Tau reverse engineered Ork "technology" and actually made something that worked. If anyone could reverse engineer Necron technology, it would be the Tau.

 Nilok wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Shaso_Keo wrote:
This is why I argue that the tau would habe to capture a necrons unique FTL drive that does not require psionic capablities.

You can't capture Necron equipment because they phase-out to the nearest Tomb World upon defeat. So unless the Tau actually capture a Tomb World (a hideous proposition that even the most genocidal Imperial Commanders would balk at), it's impossible.

If someone finds a Tomb World who's Master Autonomic Program has broken down before it could reawaken the Necrons within, it would be a major boon to any race outside of the IoM (they will just waste the opportunity with plasma). I could see some FW pieces playing on this, but never in a proper codex.

I think Necron tech is safe for the foreseeable future, unless there is a major shift within GW.

If you gave Julius Caesar a jet engine, no one in rome would be able to reverse engineer it. The same applies for Necron technology.

In the new Tau Empire Codex, the Tau reverse engineered Ork "technology" and actually made something that worked. If anyone could reverse engineer Necron technology, it would be the Tau.

Most impressive...not. Most Ork 'technology' is just bastardized Imperial technology in any case.

 Nilok wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Shaso_Keo wrote:
This is why I argue that the tau would habe to capture a necrons unique FTL drive that does not require psionic capablities.

You can't capture Necron equipment because they phase-out to the nearest Tomb World upon defeat. So unless the Tau actually capture a Tomb World (a hideous proposition that even the most genocidal Imperial Commanders would balk at), it's impossible.

If someone finds a Tomb World who's Master Autonomic Program has broken down before it could reawaken the Necrons within, it would be a major boon to any race outside of the IoM (they will just waste the opportunity with plasma). I could see some FW pieces playing on this, but never in a proper codex.

I think Necron tech is safe for the foreseeable future, unless there is a major shift within GW.

If you gave Julius Caesar a jet engine, no one in rome would be able to reverse engineer it. The same applies for Necron technology.

In the new Tau Empire Codex, the Tau reverse engineered Ork "technology" and actually made something that worked. If anyone could reverse engineer Necron technology, it would be the Tau.

I also wouldn't be surprised if a mad Heretek could also derive something from Necron tech. It won't be as potent as standard Necron tech, but i doubt it is impossible.

It would still effectively be children trying to gain the powers of the gods. The Necrons are the lords and masters of the Materium who not only make everyone else look like rock thumpers in comparison, they're still advancing their tech. The Tau can't even match up to the pinnacles of Ork or Human science. The Necrontyr on the other hand spit on the accomplishments of DAoT humanity and the Eldar.

The AdMech can't even figure out how Necron technology works (and despite the stereotype they're quite accomplished scientists), and instead throw their arms up in the air and say "feth it, it's magic." I doubt the Earth Caste will have any better luck than the AdMech in even figuring out any of the principles behind Necrontyr technology.

I mean, the Necrons have a galaxy busting weapon up their sleeve, and I doubt even the smartest Earth Caste scientist can measure up to the dumbest Cryptek.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 Kain wrote:

If you gave Julius Caesar a jet engine, no one in rome would be able to reverse engineer it. The same applies for Necron technology.

In the new Tau Empire Codex, the Tau reverse engineered Ork "technology" and actually made something that worked. If anyone could reverse engineer Necron technology, it would be the Tau.

Most impressive...not. Most Ork 'technology' is just bastardized Imperial technology in any case.

Actually i believe it was a Kustom Force Field. A piece of Ork tech not derived from Imperial Technology, which caused the Earth Caste no end of anguish, since it shouldn't have worked in the first place.

And yet the Earth Caste still made a prototype system from it.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Shaso_Keo wrote:
This is why I argue that the tau would habe to capture a necrons unique FTL drive that does not require psionic capablities.

You can't capture Necron equipment because they phase-out to the nearest Tomb World upon defeat. So unless the Tau actually capture a Tomb World (a hideous proposition that even the most genocidal Imperial Commanders would balk at), it's impossible.

If someone finds a Tomb World who's Master Autonomic Program has broken down before it could reawaken the Necrons within, it would be a major boon to any race outside of the IoM (they will just waste the opportunity with plasma). I could see some FW pieces playing on this, but never in a proper codex.

I think Necron tech is safe for the foreseeable future, unless there is a major shift within GW.

If you gave Julius Caesar a jet engine, no one in rome would be able to reverse engineer it. The same applies for Necron technology.

In the new Tau Empire Codex, the Tau reverse engineered Ork "technology" and actually made something that worked. If anyone could reverse engineer Necron technology, it would be the Tau.

Most impressive...not. Most Ork 'technology' is just bastardized Imperial technology in any case.

Actually the Orks are more advanced than the Imperium in many key areas, such as teleportation, ballistics, and force fields. Which makes sense as the Orks were made to be foot soldiers in a war between virtual gods.

 Nilok wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 Kain wrote:

If you gave Julius Caesar a jet engine, no one in rome would be able to reverse engineer it. The same applies for Necron technology.

In the new Tau Empire Codex, the Tau reverse engineered Ork "technology" and actually made something that worked. If anyone could reverse engineer Necron technology, it would be the Tau.

Most impressive...not. Most Ork 'technology' is just bastardized Imperial technology in any case.

Actually i believe it was a Kustom Force Field. A piece of Ork tech not derived from Imperial Technology, which caused the Earth Caste no end of anguish, since it shouldn't have worked in the first place.

And yet the Earth Caste still made a prototype system from it.

Tau: Yo, what's up gue'la! Come and look at my shiny new force field! Bling, bling melon-fether!

Imperial: (yawns and activates Refractor Field) What?

 Kain wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Shaso_Keo wrote:
This is why I argue that the tau would habe to capture a necrons unique FTL drive that does not require psionic capablities.

You can't capture Necron equipment because they phase-out to the nearest Tomb World upon defeat. So unless the Tau actually capture a Tomb World (a hideous proposition that even the most genocidal Imperial Commanders would balk at), it's impossible.

If someone finds a Tomb World who's Master Autonomic Program has broken down before it could reawaken the Necrons within, it would be a major boon to any race outside of the IoM (they will just waste the opportunity with plasma). I could see some FW pieces playing on this, but never in a proper codex.

I think Necron tech is safe for the foreseeable future, unless there is a major shift within GW.

If you gave Julius Caesar a jet engine, no one in rome would be able to reverse engineer it. The same applies for Necron technology.

In the new Tau Empire Codex, the Tau reverse engineered Ork "technology" and actually made something that worked. If anyone could reverse engineer Necron technology, it would be the Tau.

Most impressive...not. Most Ork 'technology' is just bastardized Imperial technology in any case.

Actually the Orks are more advanced than the Imperium in many key areas, such as teleportation, ballistics, and force fields.

Only because of the Mechanicum's insistence on 'replication' as opposed to 'innovation'. And the effects are otherwise similar.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
*snip*
Only because of the Mechanicum's insistence on 'replication' as opposed to 'innovation'. And the effects are otherwise similar.

Well it's more because the Orks were made by the Old Ones to fight a war on a scale that makes the Horus Heresy seem like a schoolyard brawl next to world War 2.

Sure the Orks, Hrud, Umbra, Eldar, Slann, Jokaero and co all lost (the old ones aren't breathing anymore) but you don't want to half ass your warrior races in the face of a fully united C'tan backed Necrontyr empire.

 Kain wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
*snip*
Only because of the Mechanicum's insistence on 'replication' as opposed to 'innovation'. And the effects are otherwise similar.

Well it's more because the Orks were made by the Old Ones to fight a war on a scale that makes the Horus Heresy seem like a schoolyard brawl next to world War 2.

Sure the Orks, Hrud, Umbra, Eldar, Slann, Jokaero and co all lost (the old ones aren't breathing anymore) but you don't want to half ass your warrior races in the face of a fully united C'tan backed Necrontyr empire.

Fair enough

I have to admit the Imperium cannot defeat the Eldar Empire at its height, but the DAoT Humans did give them a good run for their money, given the passive coercion of information from the imprisoned Void Dragon on Mars.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
*snip*
Only because of the Mechanicum's insistence on 'replication' as opposed to 'innovation'. And the effects are otherwise similar.

Well it's more because the Orks were made by the Old Ones to fight a war on a scale that makes the Horus Heresy seem like a schoolyard brawl next to world War 2.

Sure the Orks, Hrud, Umbra, Eldar, Slann, Jokaero and co all lost (the old ones aren't breathing anymore) but you don't want to half ass your warrior races in the face of a fully united C'tan backed Necrontyr empire.

Fair enough

I have to admit the Imperium cannot defeat the Eldar Empire at its height, but the DAoT Humans did give them a good run for their money, given the passive coercion of information from the imprisoned Void Dragon on Mars.

Even at their height the Eldar were a pale shadow of the Old One's domain. Not that they cared, because hey; 60 million year long orgy!

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 Kain wrote:

If you gave Julius Caesar a jet engine, no one in rome would be able to reverse engineer it. The same applies for Necron technology.

In the new Tau Empire Codex, the Tau reverse engineered Ork "technology" and actually made something that worked. If anyone could reverse engineer Necron technology, it would be the Tau.

Most impressive...not. Most Ork 'technology' is just bastardized Imperial technology in any case.

Actually i believe it was a Kustom Force Field. A piece of Ork tech not derived from Imperial Technology, which caused the Earth Caste no end of anguish, since it shouldn't have worked in the first place.

And yet the Earth Caste still made a prototype system from it.

Tau: Yo, what's up gue'la! Come and look at my shiny new force field! Bling, bling melon-fether!

Imperial: (yawns and activates Refractor Field) What?.

Sorry to say but the Tau already have Shield Generators that function the same (better?) as Refractor Fields. Ork Kustom Force Field work on a wildly different method and a wildly different result (giving all units within 12"[?] 5+ cover).

The bigger point I am trying to make, is the Tau Earth Caste was able to derive reason from pure madness. Ork technology shouldn't work. It only works because the Orks think it dose. Yet the Earth Caste was able to produce a prototype from this non-functioning lump of metal and parts.

If they can turn something that can't work, into something that can, it would only be a matter of time before they could unlock the secrets of Necron technology.
Which is the entire concept of the Tau, the rising treat.

 Kain wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
*snip*
Only because of the Mechanicum's insistence on 'replication' as opposed to 'innovation'. And the effects are otherwise similar.

Well it's more because the Orks were made by the Old Ones to fight a war on a scale that makes the Horus Heresy seem like a schoolyard brawl next to world War 2.

Sure the Orks, Hrud, Umbra, Eldar, Slann, Jokaero and co all lost (the old ones aren't breathing anymore) but you don't want to half ass your warrior races in the face of a fully united C'tan backed Necrontyr empire.

Fair enough

I have to admit the Imperium cannot defeat the Eldar Empire at its height, but the DAoT Humans did give them a good run for their money, given the passive coercion of information from the imprisoned Void Dragon on Mars.

Even at their height the Eldar were a pale shadow of the Old One's domain. Not that they cared, because hey; 60 million year long orgy!

Remember what came of it? "Mazel Tov! It's a...OH MY GOD! HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"



Imperial Archeologist: What those space elves were thinking, I don't even...

 Nilok wrote:
Ork technology shouldn't work. It only works because the Orks think it dose. Yet the Earth Caste was able to produce a prototype from this non-functioning lump of metal and parts.

What are you talking about? Commissar Cain has since demonstrated that is nonsense. Ork technology is perfectly capable of functioning on its own.

Basic examples of ork tech are functional although significantly more unreliable in human hands. More esoteric examples of Ork technology though tend to work on principles the AdMech finds to be annoyingly hard to ascertain.

Those Old Ones are still trolling people even after being dead since the Dinosaurs.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Nilok wrote:
Ork technology shouldn't work. It only works because the Orks think it dose. Yet the Earth Caste was able to produce a prototype from this non-functioning lump of metal and parts.

What are you talking about? Commissar Cain has since demonstrated that is nonsense. Ork technology is perfectly capable of functioning on its own.

From everything I have read about, most Ork technology doesn't really work. The Orks believe it works, using a gestalt psychic field (Waaagh!), it just dose. Most Ork guns don't have the internal part to function, lacking firing pins, ammo, or even detonating on use when a poor Guardsmen tried to use one after a battle.

Unless they they retconned that in their 4e codex, it should still be the same since more recent codexes reference it (Tau). Commissar Cain may have found some Ork tech that worked, or the Orks nearby thought it should work, and it did. Or the book forgot about some fluff, wouldn't be surprised with some of GW's other materal.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Waaagh!

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Ork#Ork_Technology

One thing that seems to have slipped people's minds when comparing Necron, Eldar and Ork tech with Tau's... yes, they are millions of years ahead, but they are also millions of years older. The reason Tau technology is viewed as incredibly advanced and a real threat to the other factions is because it is incredibly advanced for a race that is still so young. They are catching up. Fast. Despite their young and fragile state, they have contended with all the other major players and have lived on. They are already in a position to both defend their fledgling empire and take more ground to boot. And they're only really just starting to pop up on the galactic radar. By the time the others realise just how much of a threat they are, it'll be too late because they'll be even more advanced and just as capable to handle what gets thrown their way. The relationship they share with the rest of the galaxy is one of mutual escalation.

 Anfauglir wrote:
One thing that seems to have slipped people's minds when comparing Necron, Eldar and Ork tech with Tau's... yes, they are millions of years ahead, but they are also millions of years older. The reason Tau technology is viewed as incredibly advanced and a real threat to the other factions is because it is incredibly advanced for a race that is still so young. They are catching up. Fast. Despite their young and fragile state, they have contended with all the other major players and have lived on. They are already in a position to both defend their fledgling empire and take more ground to boot. And they're only really just starting to pop up on the galactic radar. By the time the others realise just how much of a threat they are, it'll be too late because they'll be even more advanced and just as capable to handle what gets thrown their way. The relationship they share with the rest of the galaxy is one of mutual escalation.

You're comparing the Tau to a race that fires star stuff compressed into degenerate matter (white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes etc) at machine gun like rates as standard practice for space battles.

The Tau are bright children, the Necrons are gods.

I'm gonna pitch in here to the original question. Tau v crusade. Any future crusade would not go the way of the Damocles, the Tau have since made many advancements to their military, better ships, riptides etc. But one notable piece of kit which I believe would turn the tide of any ground campaign.

The Remora Drone Fighter.
Stealth Technology, seeker missiles, unmanned, mass produced.
In one swoop they have attained the capacity launch on demand stealth airstrikes and likely numerical superiority.

Game rules state only a couple of vessels can be controlled by a single aircraft. But I'm willing to bet that a Sept has a global coverage network and a central control.

So let's assume the imperialist come with enough air assets to counter the drones, I'd still give advantage Tau. Why? Because their installations are defended by seeking aerial mines. It is no simple matter to silence Tau surface to orbit ion cannons and rail guns.

With aerial dominance I would expect the Imperium to be extremely hard pressed on the ground. Moving armoured formations and vehicles. The assault would be slow at least and that works to the Taus advantage.

 Kain wrote:
You're comparing the Tau to a race that fires star stuff compressed into degenerate matter (white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes etc) at machine gun like rates as standard practice for space battles.

The Tau are bright children, the Necrons are gods.

Okay. Firstly, you're slightly over-egging the Necros (and have been throughout the topic). It's fine to indulge in some of the colourfully written uber-fluff that comes as standard fare for each faction, it's another to start leaning on it to over-egg the potency of said faction in the face of comparable debate. If we were to take all of the uber-fluff as written, then each of the factions will have already conquered the galaxy many times over by now. Necrons are wannabie Gods. They fancied themselves Gods, played at being Gods. Look how well that turned out. Secondly, my point seems to have sailed plainly over your head, as your response still caters to the mistake I already pointed out. You're comparing a race that has had millions of years of a head start on most of the current galaxy to another which, by comparison, have taken their first few baby-steps and just moved onto solids. And yet, are already capable of contending with the other major factions. The Necrons current shadow of their former selves sit tidily on top of millions of years of advancement and evolution. The Tau have arrived where they are in mere thousands. Imagine where they'd be with a million under their belt...

 Anfauglir wrote:

 Kain wrote:
You're comparing the Tau to a race that fires star stuff compressed into degenerate matter (white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes etc) at machine gun like rates as standard practice for space battles.

The Tau are bright children, the Necrons are gods.

Okay. Firstly, you're slightly over-egging the Necros (and have been throughout the topic). It's fine to indulge in some of the colourfully written uber-fluff that comes as standard fare for each faction, it's another to start leaning on it to over-egg the potency of said faction in the face of comparable debate. If we were to take all of the uber-fluff as written, then each of the factions will have already conquered the galaxy many times over by now. Necrons are wannabie Gods. They fancied themselves Gods, played at being Gods. Look how well that turned out. Secondly, my point seems to have sailed plainly over your head, as your response still caters to the mistake I already pointed out. You're comparing a race that has had millions of years of a head start on most of the current galaxy to another which, by comparison, have taken their first few baby-steps and just moved onto solids. And yet, are already capable of contending with the other major factions. The Necrons current shadow of their former selves sit tidily on top of millions of years of advancement and evolution. The Tau have arrived where they are in mere thousands. Imagine where they'd be with a million under their belt...

The Necrons fired compressed degenerate matter in IA12 which utterly gutted an Imperial Fleet. They are also continually advancing their technology via their Crypteks, also in IA12. They utilized weapons that were described as "universal" in scale, and can destroy every single star in the galaxy by flicking a switch. Their most basic gun can destroy the most advanced tank. They fought a war on a scale so great that the Tau would not be noticeable in it and won, and then betrayed their own allies and beat them too.


The Tau can advance their tech? So can the Necrons. The Tau are a credible threat in space? The Imperium is not even a credible threat to the Necron space fleets. The Tau can conquer some planets? The Necrons conquered an entire sector with just two million warriors. The Tau have FTL? The Necrons can just channel a supernova into the warp and feth up everyone's FTL but theirs and the Tyranids because guess what? The Necrons have Inertialess FTL drives again.

A single dynasty on the scale of the Maynarchs could wipe out the Tau Empire overnight.

TL;DR Read IA freaking 12.

Cry some more fanboy.

Heck a good Chaos assault could destroy the Tau Empire, or a serious Tyranid hive fleet, or a good enough Waaagh since the Tau are losing the War of Dakka.

The Tau, the Imperium, and the Eldar will die, leaving only endless misery and carnage and suffering until the galaxy dies screaming before being silenced once and for all in an apocalyptic fit of violence between the Orks, necrons, tyranids, and Chaos. And whomever wins will leave nothing but death and destruction in their wake as all hope perishes once and for all.

The idea of the naive wide eyed idealist faction winning when the setting is designed so that only the undeniably evil factions can win is absurd. And honestly, I like 40k better now that only evil can triumph.

 Eetion wrote:
I'm gonna pitch in here to the original question. Tau v crusade. Any future crusade would not go the way of the Damocles, the Tau have since made many advancements to their military, better ships, riptides etc. But one notable piece of kit which I believe would turn the tide of any ground campaign.

The Remora Drone Fighter.
Stealth Technology, seeker missiles, unmanned, mass produced.
In one swoop they have attained the capacity launch on demand stealth airstrikes and likely numerical superiority.

Game rules state only a couple of vessels can be controlled by a single aircraft. But I'm willing to bet that a Sept has a global coverage network and a central control.

So let's assume the imperialist come with enough air assets to counter the drones, I'd still give advantage Tau. Why? Because their installations are defended by seeking aerial mines. It is no simple matter to silence Tau surface to orbit ion cannons and rail guns.

With aerial dominance I would expect the Imperium to be extremely hard pressed on the ground. Moving armoured formations and vehicles. The assault would be slow at least and that works to the Taus advantage.

God help them if they start producing more Tiger sharks as well in massive quantity, or just stick stealth tech on all of there war gear.
they just need to keep quite, and produce in secret as the rest of the galaxy fights amongst them selves.

 Desubot wrote:

 Eetion wrote:
I'm gonna pitch in here to the original question. Tau v crusade. Any future crusade would not go the way of the Damocles, the Tau have since made many advancements to their military, better ships, riptides etc. But one notable piece of kit which I believe would turn the tide of any ground campaign.

The Remora Drone Fighter.
Stealth Technology, seeker missiles, unmanned, mass produced.
In one swoop they have attained the capacity launch on demand stealth airstrikes and likely numerical superiority.

Game rules state only a couple of vessels can be controlled by a single aircraft. But I'm willing to bet that a Sept has a global coverage network and a central control.

So let's assume the imperialist come with enough air assets to counter the drones, I'd still give advantage Tau. Why? Because their installations are defended by seeking aerial mines. It is no simple matter to silence Tau surface to orbit ion cannons and rail guns.

With aerial dominance I would expect the Imperium to be extremely hard pressed on the ground. Moving armoured formations and vehicles. The assault would be slow at least and that works to the Taus advantage.

God help them if they start producing more Tiger sharks as well in massive quantity, or just stick stealth tech on all of there war gear.
they just need to keep quite, and produce in secret as the rest of the galaxy fights amongst them selves.

The Orks are coming whether they like it or not. And they're winning too.

Oh and so are the Tyranids, if there's a genestealer cult on any Tau planet, the Tyranids will come.

And Chaos does whatever Chaos wants.

And some Necron Dynasty may decide to get the Tau off their lawn.

 Kain wrote:
The Necrons *snip*

*sigh* And you continue to utterly miss the point. It's like talking to a broken record.

A single dynasty on the scale of the Maynarchs could wipe out the Tau Empire overnight.

Heck a good Chaos assault could destroy the Tau Empire, or a serious Tyranid hive fleet, or a good enough Waaagh since the Tau are losing the War of Dakka.

Hmm, indeed. And the Orks could unite and bury the stars in a green tide... the Tyrannids could arrive wholesale and devour the galaxy... the Emperor could return, revive all living Primarchs, recall/find the lost two and usher in a second Golden Age for the IoM... yadda yadda yadda. Don't speak to me in hypotheticals and ifs and maybes in an attempt to galvanise your own fanboyisms into some state of increased relevance or fact. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. We can present fluff information on an equal footing, and we can hypothesise about our chosen factions uber-ness filled future exploits on an equal footing. We do it on that basis or not at all. Simple as that.

TL;DR Read IA freaking 12.

Cry some more fanboy.

Lol, excuse me? First, IA "freaking" 12 isn't the be-all and end-all of 40k fluff. Just because it's FW latest contribution (key word) to the setting, and happens to feature a faction you are clearly quite, quite taken with, it doesn't steamroll over and erradicate all the other codices and rulebooks etc. Sorry, but once more, it doesn't work that way. Secondly, projection will do you no good here. Drop it at the dakka doorway. Again, we will debate on an equal footing in a mature manner, or not at all. Simple as that.

 Kain wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 Eetion wrote:
I'm gonna pitch in here to the original question. Tau v crusade. Any future crusade would not go the way of the Damocles, the Tau have since made many advancements to their military, better ships, riptides etc. But one notable piece of kit which I believe would turn the tide of any ground campaign.

The Remora Drone Fighter.
Stealth Technology, seeker missiles, unmanned, mass produced.
In one swoop they have attained the capacity launch on demand stealth airstrikes and likely numerical superiority.

Game rules state only a couple of vessels can be controlled by a single aircraft. But I'm willing to bet that a Sept has a global coverage network and a central control.

So let's assume the imperialist come with enough air assets to counter the drones, I'd still give advantage Tau. Why? Because their installations are defended by seeking aerial mines. It is no simple matter to silence Tau surface to orbit ion cannons and rail guns.

With aerial dominance I would expect the Imperium to be extremely hard pressed on the ground. Moving armoured formations and vehicles. The assault would be slow at least and that works to the Taus advantage.

God help them if they start producing more Tiger sharks as well in massive quantity, or just stick stealth tech on all of there war gear.
they just need to keep quite, and produce in secret as the rest of the galaxy fights amongst them selves.

The Orks are coming whether they like it or not. And they're winning too.

Oh and so are the Tyranids, if there's a genestealer cult on any Tau planet, the Tyranids will come.

And Chaos does whatever Chaos wants.

And some Necron Dynasty may decide to get the Tau off their lawn.

I though this was a discussion about a crusade.

if it is just a general statement then
chaos indeed will do what chaos wants
Nids will do what nids do
orks will ork
necrons could just celestial orary every single star in the galaxy but that would be an incredibly boring story and should be ignored.

good job guys 40k is done lets pack it up and play a new game.

 Kain wrote:
The Tau, the Imperium, and the Eldar will die, leaving only endless misery and carnage and suffering until the galaxy dies screaming before being silenced once and for all in an apocalyptic fit of violence between the Orks, necrons, tyranids, and Chaos. And whomever wins will leave nothing but death and destruction in their wake as all hope perishes once and for all.

The idea of the naive wide eyed idealist faction winning when the setting is designed so that only the undeniably evil factions can win is absurd. And honestly, I like 40k better now that only evil can triumph.

Ah, I think I now see what your problem is. You seem to have conjured up your own, personal interpretation of the current setting, added your own, personal projections of its future outcome, taking some substantial artistic liberties with the IP, if I do say so myself, and actually supplanted it in your mind as the actual, official setting.

Well done.

 Desubot wrote:
I though this was a discussion about a crusade.

You're right. This tangent has run it's course, I think. Time to get back on topic.

good job guys 40k is done lets pack it up and play a new game.

Indeed.

 Anfauglir wrote:

 Kain wrote:
The Necrons *snip*

*sigh* And you continue to utterly miss the point. It's like talking to a broken record.

A single dynasty on the scale of the Maynarchs could wipe out the Tau Empire overnight.

Heck a good Chaos assault could destroy the Tau Empire, or a serious Tyranid hive fleet, or a good enough Waaagh since the Tau are losing the War of Dakka.

Hmm, indeed. And the Orks could unite and bury the stars in a green tide... the Tyrannids could arrive wholesale and devour the galaxy... the Emperor could return, revive all living Primarchs, recall/find the lost two and usher in a second Golden Age for the IoM... yadda yadda yadda. Don't speak to me in hypotheticals and ifs and maybes in an attempt to galvanise your own fanboyisms into some state of increased relevance or fact. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. We can present fluff information on an equal footing, and we can hypothesise about our chosen factions uber-ness filled future exploits on an equal footing. We do it on that basis or not at all. Simple as that.

TL;DR Read IA freaking 12.

Cry some more fanboy.

Lol, excuse me? First, IA "freaking" 12 isn't the be-all and end-all of 40k fluff. Just because it's FW latest contribution (key word) to the setting, and happens to feature a faction you are clearly quite, quite taken with, it doesn't steamroll over and erradicate all the other codices and rulebooks etc. Sorry, but once more, it doesn't work that way. Secondly, projection will do you no good here. Drop it at the dakka doorway. Again, we will debate on an equal footing in a mature manner, or not at all. Simple as that.

And please tell me how the Tau intend to survive when they're losing the War of Dakka, having already lost three septs and are noted as incapable of pushing the orks back while more and more orks are coming in to push forward.

Or how a single minor hive fleet almost destroyed the entire Tau empire.

Or how the Tau were helpless when the Necrons decided to play mars attacks during Hive Fleet Gorgon's rampage.

Or how a minor crusade nearly shattered the Tau Empire.

Or how the Tau barely even know the threat of Chaos and would likely take massive losses to so much as a single grand company and it's hanger's on worth of chaos space marines, much less a black crusade.

The only faction that can't squeeze out the Tau in a slugging match is the Eldar, who seem to have at the very least created the Ethereal caste in xenology and have repeatedly expressed an unusual amount of interest in their development. And even the Eldar themselves acknowledge that Eldarkind is doomed, so that help is temporary at best.

The Tau do not have a win condition, neither do the Eldar (of any variety). The Imperium's win button is incredibly uncertain (the Emperor might be reborn if the throne fails, or a new eye of terror may open up), meaning only the Orks, Chaos, Necrons, and Tyranids hold a win button.

If you want a setting where the good guys can win, go play star trek online or something, 40k is always evil all the time.

 Kain wrote:





The Tau do not have a win condition, neither do the Eldar (of any variety). The Imperium's win button is incredibly uncertain (the Emperor might be reborn if the throne fails, or a new eye of terror may open up), meaning only the Orks, Chaos, Necrons, and Tyranids hold a win button.

If you want a setting where the good guys can win, go play star trek online or something, 40k is always evil all the time.

No.

Evil auto - looses. To 100%. Every single setting

Orks? Wouldn't press the right button. They'd press every button...so more like a nice big bang..
Chaos? doesn't realize the laughing god swapped the "i win" and the "admit defeat" buttons so...
Tyranids? Stuck in the monster/villain corner of cinematic edition 40k. You know what button they will find?
Necrons? Not united and still booting from disk. They have to have several things going in their favor before the win button is available to them. Plus, Necrons aren't part of the 'evil' club.

 1hadhq wrote:

 Kain wrote:





The Tau do not have a win condition, neither do the Eldar (of any variety). The Imperium's win button is incredibly uncertain (the Emperor might be reborn if the throne fails, or a new eye of terror may open up), meaning only the Orks, Chaos, Necrons, and Tyranids hold a win button.

If you want a setting where the good guys can win, go play star trek online or something, 40k is always evil all the time.

No.

Evil auto - looses. To 100%. Every single setting

Orks? Wouldn't press the right button. They'd press every button...so more like a nice big bang..
Chaos? doesn't realize the laughing god swapped the "i win" and the "admit defeat" buttons so...
Tyranids? Stuck in the monster/villain corner of cinematic edition 40k. You know what button they will find?
Necrons? Not united and still booting from disk. They have to have several things going in their favor before the win button is available to them. Plus, Necrons aren't part of the 'evil' club.

You're grasping at straws here. The Evil factions simply have so many more resources that victory for them is inevitable.

All the "good" factions are in decay or are so badly outmatched by the Evil factions that it's actually kind of funny.

And the Necrons are in fact evil. They at best want to Enslave us, and at worst want to Exterminate us.

Also, do you want a list of times where the bad guy won?

 Kain wrote:



You're grasping at straws here. The Evil factions simply have so many more resources that victory for them is inevitable.

All the "good" factions are in decay or are so badly outmatched by the Evil factions that it's actually kind of funny.

And the Necrons are in fact evil. They at best want to Enslave us, and at worst want to Exterminate us.

Also, do you want a list of times where the bad guy won?

Yes, I would like to see your list of settings where "evil" has won. To be precise, won the setting, not some battle here or there.


Secondly, Necrons are just themselves. They got Vassals now. Call them feudal, or space undead with an egyptian touch.
Evil? ... doesn't compute ...
Thirdly, good and evil doesn't fit 40k. Seen the ."x..is the good guys" threads? We are better off without those IMO.

In cinematic 40.000 there is only xplosions, FX and it all set up to 5 mins before 12.00.

No finecosted, limited and direct only win button.

 1hadhq wrote:

 Kain wrote:



You're grasping at straws here. The Evil factions simply have so many more resources that victory for them is inevitable.

All the "good" factions are in decay or are so badly outmatched by the Evil factions that it's actually kind of funny.

And the Necrons are in fact evil. They at best want to Enslave us, and at worst want to Exterminate us.

Also, do you want a list of times where the bad guy won?

Yes, I would like to see your list of settings where "evil" has won. To be precise, won the setting, not some battle here or there.


Secondly, Necrons are just themselves. They got Vassals now. Call them feudal, or space undead with an egyptian touch.
Evil? ... doesn't compute ...
Thirdly, good and evil doesn't fit 40k. Seen the ."x..is the good guys" threads? We are better off without those IMO.

In cinematic 40.000 there is only xplosions, FX and it all set up to 5 mins before 12.00.

No finecosted, limited and direct only win button.

Feudalism is an evil system that disenfranchises countless individuals for the benefit of a select few. Those select few will be the necrons, while the dirty peasant other races will be pissed on at best by the Necrons or outright exterminated for the lulz by the Necrons.

They're evil through and through.

And I'm looking at things from a military perspective. The Tyranids, Orks, Necrons, and Chaos all have potentially unlimited resources, while the Tau, Imperium, and Eldar are most definitely finite and in as state of decay or insignificance. In a state of total war, the three reasonable factions cannot survive, while the four factions inmicable to the continued existence of a universe compatible with humanity living comfortably can wage war until the cows come home.

But of course you're rather blatantly trolling with your nonarguments.

As for the list; It's a trope.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheBadGuyWins

 1hadhq wrote:
Evil auto - looses. To 100%. Every single setting

1.) Noone wins in 40k as it is a static setting with no progression.
2.) The Imperium of Man is quite dominant in 40k, but I wouldn't call the fascist regime "good".

What's with the good vs evil theme all of a sudden? There is no 'good' in 40k. Only bad vs worse.

Tau are growing, advancing and expanding on a rate similar to that of the expansionist Roman Republic. They started as a tiny backwards nation surrounded by far larger and more advanced Empires. Carthage, Greece at the time of Alexander the Great... Empires they had no business contending with. But you know what, they not only expanded, they advanced at such a rate they were able to overcome and defeat both empires. When Rome started its first war against Carthage they didn't even have a fleet! But after losing their first navel engagement the Romans went on to create a fleet that was able to defeat the Carthaginian fleet in an astonishingly short period of time. Rome went on to completely destroy Carthage over three wars and emerged strong enough to turn its attention to the crumbling factions that had once been the Greek empire, absorbing them peacefully when possible and crushing them mercilessly when challenged.

On the subject of the Tau, an imperial crusade may have been able to throw them back off their recently acquired colonies but it was unable to conquer even a single sept world. Furthermore, they were able to recover all their lost ground and then some in a matter of years. Since then the Tau empire has grown considerably larger, more advanced and more powerful than it was at the time of the last imperial crusade while the imperium has grown weaker and continues to stagnate. They are stretched to thin and forced onto the defensive. The tau, despite their continued difficulties with orks and tyranids are continuing to expand at a rapid rate. Its growth vs decline. While the imperium is undeniably still vastly larger they no longer have the strength to devote a powerful offensive against the tau. They are already tied up in massive wars with Armageddon, hive fleet leviathan and a massive chaos crusade. Wars they are losing ground in or at best reaching a stalemate.

Don't discount the smaller expansionist guy. History has shown he can grow to dominate and defeat far larger foes.

O'Shovah303 wrote:
Tau are growing, advancing and expanding on a rate similar to that of the expansionist Roman Republic. They started as a tiny backwards nation surrounded by far larger and more advanced Empires. Carthage, Greece at the time of Alexander the Great... Empires they had no business contending with. But you know what, they not only expanded, they advanced at such a rate they were able to overcome and defeat both empires. When Rome started its first war against Carthage they didn't even have a fleet! But after losing their first navel engagement the Romans went on to create a fleet that was able to defeat the Carthaginian fleet in an astonishingly short period of time. Rome went on to completely destroy Carthage over three wars and emerged strong enough to turn its attention to the crumbling factions that had once been the Greek empire, absorbing them peacefully when possible and crushing them mercilessly when challenged.

On the subject of the Tau, an imperial crusade may have been able to throw them back off their recently acquired colonies but it was unable to conquer even a single sept world. Furthermore, they were able to recover all their lost ground and then some in a matter of years. Since then the Tau empire has grown considerably larger, more advanced and more powerful than it was at the time of the last imperial crusade while the imperium has grown weaker and continues to stagnate. They are stretched to thin and forced onto the defensive. The tau, despite their continued difficulties with orks and tyranids are continuing to expand at a rapid rate. Its growth vs decline. While the imperium is undeniably still vastly larger they no longer have the strength to devote a powerful offensive against the tau. They are already tied up in massive wars with Armageddon, hive fleet leviathan and a massive chaos crusade. Wars they are losing ground in or at best reaching a stalemate.

Don't discount the smaller expansionist guy. History has shown he can grow to dominate and defeat far larger foes.

And what's stopping the four big bad factions from turning their attentions to the Tau?

The Tau are already losing the War of Dakka to the Orks as more and more Orks are coming in to smash blueskin face.

But the Eldar may be the Tau's saving grace. Xenology all but states out loud that at the very least, the Eldar gave the Tau the Ethereal caste. I'm not sure if the Eldar will let their pet project die out before they're ready for whatever plan they have in store.

You can at least, count on the Eldar throwing one last gambit to try and reset the table in their favor and the Tau are prime pawns for the pointy ears' game..

O'Shovah303 wrote:
Tau are growing, advancing and expanding on a rate similar to that of the expansionist Roman Republic. They started as a tiny backwards nation surrounded by far larger and more advanced Empires. Carthage, Greece at the time of Alexander the Great... Empires they had no business contending with. But you know what, they not only expanded, they advanced at such a rate they were able to overcome and defeat both empires. When Rome started its first war against Carthage they didn't even have a fleet! But after losing their first navel engagement the Romans went on to create a fleet that was able to defeat the Carthaginian fleet in an astonishingly short period of time. Rome went on to completely destroy Carthage over three wars and emerged strong enough to turn its attention to the crumbling factions that had once been the Greek empire, absorbing them peacefully when possible and crushing them mercilessly when challenged.

On the subject of the Tau, an imperial crusade may have been able to throw them back off their recently acquired colonies but it was unable to conquer even a single sept world. Furthermore, they were able to recover all their lost ground and then some in a matter of years. Since then the Tau empire has grown considerably larger, more advanced and more powerful than it was at the time of the last imperial crusade while the imperium has grown weaker and continues to stagnate. They are stretched to thin and forced onto the defensive. The tau, despite their continued difficulties with orks and tyranids are continuing to expand at a rapid rate. Its growth vs decline. While the imperium is undeniably still vastly larger they no longer have the strength to devote a powerful offensive against the tau. They are already tied up in massive wars with Armageddon, hive fleet leviathan and a massive chaos crusade. Wars they are losing ground in or at best reaching a stalemate.

Don't discount the smaller expansionist guy. History has shown he can grow to dominate and defeat far larger foes.

That is a VERY BAD idea.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?96321-Rise-of-the-Tau

Why is this still going on? Kroothawk pointed out the fallacy of these kinds of arguments...

This game isn't a war simulator. It has no forward progression. It's a setting, not a storyline. None of these factions will ever go away, ever get completely wiped out from the product line, ever stop being a set of toy soldiers you can buy to play pretendy fun-time wargames with.

The irony of the setting is that everyone cheers for their favorite faction who, regardless of which one they are, are pretty nasty sorts of people from an objective viewpoint.

Isn't Xenology written as imperium propaganda written by ordos xenos?

How accurate is it? (i dont actually have the book)


The only thing the Tau has to do is seriously just stay quite, manage there enemies and stay off the radar as they pump out more and more forces.

They are very adaptable and given enough time can eventually deal with orks or whatever.
Heck even within the whatever 1000 years of there existence they now have tech to blow up stars (albeit very rudimentary) as long as they lay low and get the opportunity to adapt they can make one heck of a comeback i believe.

But if your going to bring out the what if everyone go there gak together card, necrons could just rage quit the universe as previously stated, orks and nids are supposed to be in other galexys iirc though so meh.

 Desubot wrote:
Isn't Xenology written as imperium propaganda written by ordos xenos?

How accurate is it? (i dont actually have the book)


The only thing the Tau has to do is seriously just stay quite, manage there enemies and stay off the radar as they pump out more and more forces.

They are very adaptable and given enough time can eventually deal with orks or whatever.
Heck even within the whatever 1000 years of there existence they now have tech to blow up stars (albeit very rudimentary) as long as they lay low and get the opportunity to adapt they can make one heck of a comeback i believe.

But if your going to bring out the what if everyone go there gak together card, necrons could just rage quit the universe as previously stated, orks and nids are supposed to be in other galexys iirc though so meh.

Xenology is written from the viewpoint of an Ordo Xenos inquisitor investigating a radical inquisitor who was actually a Necron Lord who infiltrated the Ordo Xenos via shapeshifting and conducts interviews with an increasingly deranged adeptus mechanicus tech priest and goes over the Necron Lord's studies and analysis of other species and various in universe reports.

I believe the tidbit about the Tau actually comes from one of the Eldar or ancient Tau legends, not sure.

But the reports were made and compiled by a Necron, not a human.

The Puritan inquisitor does put some of his own thoughts too, as do the interviewed Xenos and the Tech priest.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
Why is this still going on? Kroothawk pointed out the fallacy of these kinds of arguments...

This game isn't a war simulator. It has no forward progression. It's a setting, not a storyline. None of these factions will ever go away, ever get completely wiped out from the product line, ever stop being a set of toy soldiers you can buy to play pretendy fun-time wargames with.

The irony of the setting is that everyone cheers for their favorite faction who, regardless of which one they are, are pretty nasty sorts of people from an objective viewpoint.

Son, I once frequented Spacebattles.com, we take our discussions of who can beat up who and how many megagigateraomgwtfbbq tons something shoots seriously.

What stopped Greece and Carthage from stamping out Rome before they became powerful enough to threaten them? Because they had larger problems and concerns. Probably because people like you were in power, people who didn't register them as a threat and devoted their attention to concerns they felt more pressing. What reason does chaos have to pay attention to the tau? Their hatred and attention is devoted to man, the tau don't even register in the warp. What does chaos have to gain from attacking the tau? Any domain of man of both easier and more profitable to assault. The orks are fighting the Tau on one front yes, but the tau empire continues to expand and grow regardless. The necrons motives are about as clear as mud and vary from faction to faction but the necrons are just that: factions. They are not united in any common goal and there is no united power that is either capable or willing to destroy the tau at this point. The tau have thus far avoided major tyranid invasion mostly on luck but as a whole they have fared significantly better than other races in their encounters with the bids, both due to a certain amount of luck and their style of battle. How they will fare against a major tyranid invasion is open to debate but they have overcome all other obstacles so far and evolve and adapt considerably faster than other tyranid opponents. If anyone is capable of adapting a new technology to push back nid invasions its probably the tau.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also the War of Dakka you are referring to is being fought against the Farsight Enclaves. This is a renegade faction led by commander farsight and is not a part of the tau empire. While commanding sizable amount of forces and planets, farsight does not have any official connections with the tau empire.

O'Shovah303 wrote:
What stopped Greece and Carthage from stamping out Rome before they became powerful enough to threaten them? Because they had larger problems and concerns. Probably because people like you were in power, people who didn't register them as a threat and devoted their attention to concerns they felt more pressing. What reason does chaos have to pay attention to the tau? Their hatred and attention is devoted to man, the tau don't even register in the warp. What does chaos have to gain from attacking the tau? Any domain of man of both easier and more profitable to assault. The orks are fighting the Tau on one front yes, but the tau empire continues to expand and grow regardless. The necrons motives are about as clear as mud and vary from faction to faction but the necrons are just that: factions. They are not united in any common goal and there is no united power that is either capable or willing to destroy the tau at this point. The tau have thus far avoided major tyranid invasion mostly on luck but as a whole they have fared significantly better than other races in their encounters with the bids, both due to a certain amount of luck and their style of battle. How they will fare against a major tyranid invasion is open to debate but they have overcome all other obstacles so far and evolve and adapt considerably faster than other tyranid opponents. If anyone is capable of adapting a new technology to push back nid invasions its probably the tau.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also the War of Dakka you are referring to is being fought against the Farsight Enclaves. This is a renegade faction led by commander farsight and is not a part of the tau empire. While commanding sizable amount of forces and planets, farsight does not have any official connections with the tau empire.

Well basically both didnt have the time or resources to deal with Rome, a minor power at best. Carthage was busy fighting the Greek cities on Sicily and Macedon was mostly involved in Greece and Asia Minor. But by the time they tried it was to late, although one tried, we got the nice expression of a phyrric victory from him But in all seriousness, Rome had a huge advantage in manpower (around the time they started to encounter major powers they already did), the Tau dont, so the comparison isnt that valid. Chaos might just be the one most interested in Tau/Necrons/Tyranids just because they dont register in the warp. The Tau would not feed the Chaos gods, so their expansion at the cost of the Imperium would not benefit them. Best remove them and let tasty humans re/colonize their planets. If Tau numbers go up Human numbers in the region would go down and thats something that cant be overlooked over a longer time.

The Tau greatest strength might be that they dont register as a threat yet. Double that for the nids, they seem to be attracted by the Emperor's beacon, so the Tau having no warp presence might help a bit with the invasion side. But if they ever encounter a major nid hive fleet their chances would not be that great. The only way the Imperium has stopped them is with huge sacrifices in life and planets. Even the Iyaden Eldar had great difficulty holding them off. One could argue that the craftworld has better tech and a larger military then most Tau worlds and even Sept worlds. Yet they barely made it and by the speed Tyranid fleets are starting to enter this galaxy their time for developing new tech could soon be up. The Zeist campaign and the Damocles Crusade showed that the Tau arent on par with the Imperium in terms of brute strength. How would they possibly counter a hive fleet like Behemoth, Kraken or Leviathan?

Yes, Rome had manpower by the time it faced Greece and Carthage, citizen soldiers called to battle in times of war. Not even a true professional standing army at that point and they didn't have plasma rifles or space craft either. I never said it was a perfect comparison. Very few comparisons are. The point was that a once small and minor player rose to defeat nations that were once vastly larger than they were in a remarkably short period of time. I have far more points going for my comparison than I have refuting it. Wars are rarely won by numbers alone. History has shown that the more advanced nation generally prevails. The tau are a great deal more advanced then the imperium. The general troops and tech of the imperium are vastly outclassed technologically and the factions that are capable of rivalling the Taus tech are few and far between. They have superior technology and more importantly they are capable of reproducing it on a large scale. The imperium is not capable of producing their high technology anymore. They don't even understand how it works anymore. How can you continue to fight and advanced race when you can't keep up with their tech and you have too many threats pushing in your own borders to muster the kind of manpower you would need to overrun them? I'm not arguing that the tau will wtf pwn the imperium of man, I'm just saying they are a far greater that than people give them credit for and they aren't just going to blow over if you send a crusade in their direction.

Sure the tau empire could take a fleet like behemoth or kraken. Ultramar basically stood alone against behemoth and they triumphed. It was costly but they were still victorious. The tau are both more advanced and more willing to adapt then ultramar was and I would say they could handle it at least as well, probably a lot better. Especially since they actually have experience fighting tyranids now, an advantage ultramar lacked. Leviathan is a completely different beast entirely though. They are large enough to engage everyone at once. And they have the numbers to wear down the imperium through attrition, let alone the tau.

The only reason Ultramar weathered Behemoth was because an Imperial Battleship sacrificed itself by deliberately imploding its Warp Drive and pulling the entire Hive Fleet in space with it into the Warp. Behemoth would have overrun Ultramar otherwise.

And the Imperium doesn't have to fight its own battles if it doesn't want to. The Imperium is perfectly capable of manipulating 'lesser' races like the Eldar do. It shouldn't be too hard to 'seed' the Tau Empire with Genestealers and re-direct a Hive Fleet or two down on them.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
The only reason Ultramar weathered Behemoth was because an Imperial Battleship sacrificed itself by deliberately imploding its Warp Drive and pulling the entire Hive Fleet in space with it into the Warp. Behemoth would have overrun Ultramar otherwise.

And the Imperium doesn't have to fight its own battles if it doesn't want to. The Imperium is perfectly capable of manipulating 'lesser' races like the Eldar do. It shouldn't be too hard to 'seed' the Tau Empire with Genestealers and re-direct a Hive Fleet or two down on them.

Tau system sensors and Defences are a bit more advanced and coordinated than the Orks. Also why on earth would the Imperium want to feed the nids an Small Empire? If the nids win what size nid force would come out of the other side.

Also for every genestealer cult the imperialist plant, there's probably a hundred naturally occurring cults on Imperial planets.

Manipulating xenos isn't the Imperiums thing. It was an exception by a wacky inquisitor. Which hasn't quite gone to plan once the fights over the Imperials are going to hurt.

 Eetion wrote:


Manipulating xenos isn't the Imperiums thing. It was an exception by a wacky inquisitor. Which hasn't quite gone to plan once the fights over the Imperials are going to hurt.

It's a last resort thing. And its not like the Eldar's manipulations don't backfire, considering every conflict they've deflected to the Imperium ends up making the Imperium even stronger.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Eetion wrote:


Manipulating xenos isn't the Imperiums thing. It was an exception by a wacky inquisitor. Which hasn't quite gone to plan once the fights over the Imperials are going to hurt.

It's a last resort thing. And its not like the Eldar's manipulations don't backfire, considering every conflict they've deflected to the Imperium ends up making the Imperium even stronger.

d you assume they don't know that. If Gazzy didn't 'lose' the 2nd war for Armageddon, what might have he done, he came back for another go.
The Eldar ultimately act in their own interests. It doesn't matter to them if the Imperium emerges victorious, weaker or stronger following their manipulationd providing it changes the strand of fate where the Eldat lose a life etc

And it was way beyond a last ditch attempt. It was somethin. Neither done or tried before by a crazy inquisitor who's plan A was a program of scorched Earth to deny the nids. It was done once and probably never again for the repercussions it has.

O'Shovah303 wrote:
Yes, Rome had manpower by the time it faced Greece and Carthage, citizen soldiers called to battle in times of war. Not even a true professional standing army at that point and they didn't have plasma rifles or space craft either. I never said it was a perfect comparison. Very few comparisons are. The point was that a once small and minor player rose to defeat nations that were once vastly larger than they were in a remarkably short period of time. I have far more points going for my comparison than I have refuting it. Wars are rarely won by numbers alone. History has shown that the more advanced nation generally prevails. The tau are a great deal more advanced then the imperium. The general troops and tech of the imperium are vastly outclassed technologically and the factions that are capable of rivalling the Taus tech are few and far between. They have superior technology and more importantly they are capable of reproducing it on a large scale. The imperium is not capable of producing their high technology anymore. They don't even understand how it works anymore. How can you continue to fight and advanced race when you can't keep up with their tech and you have too many threats pushing in your own borders to muster the kind of manpower you would need to overrun them? I'm not arguing that the tau will wtf pwn the imperium of man, I'm just saying they are a far greater that than people give them credit for and they aren't just going to blow over if you send a crusade in their direction.

Sure the tau empire could take a fleet like behemoth or kraken. Ultramar basically stood alone against behemoth and they triumphed. It was costly but they were still victorious. The tau are both more advanced and more willing to adapt then ultramar was and I would say they could handle it at least as well, probably a lot better. Especially since they actually have experience fighting tyranids now, an advantage ultramar lacked. Leviathan is a completely different beast entirely though. They are large enough to engage everyone at once. And they have the numbers to wear down the imperium through attrition, let alone the tau.

I would argue against 'minor' player and 'vastly larger'. The only valid point would be against Carthage, but then again they were both minor, but Carthage did have larger territories. This example only gives credit to the 'wars are won by numbers alone', basically the second Punic war shows that. Rome might be the worst to compare the Tau too, they always had numbers on their side. They lost more than once but just kept sending in the next wave. If anything the Imperium is Rome and the Tau are Parthians/Saassanids. A better comparison would be Alexander and the Tau, massive difference in numbers, but better tech/tactics. The Tau might be more advanced, but its not such a huge advantage that the huge difference in population can be ignored. Not yet anyways. One could question if the Tau could just keep expanding, if they become larger more Orks/Chaos forces/Necrons/Tyranids would start to move against them. Just by the virtue of them being just another large empire in the way. Off course the Tau are stronger in tech, I give them the credit for that, but they are still being defeated/driven back by the Imperium for now. Numbers and Space Marines count in favour of the Imperium in the foreseeable future. The Tau would ahve to bide their time untill they reach a point where their tech negates that advantage. To act now, like they are trying is just drawing attention and the Ultramarines and succesors halt them, but if they keep pushing the Ultramarines might start pushing back.

We have to take into account that the hive fleet might split up, attack multiple sectors at once. Tau travelling speed isnt that great and they dont have the numbers to protect everything. How much would have to be sacrificed just to get a strong response up and running? Ultramar lost countless PDF forces, large numbers of Ultramarines and a number of ships from the Segmentum Tempestus fleet. This combined force would have probably made a great crusade against the Tau Empire, just look at the huge number of ships involved and the ground forces. This was around the same time as the Damocles crusade, one could argue that the Imperium had assembled a force big enough to crush the Tau just to stop a single Hive Fleet. In the end they only succeeded by sacrificing their flagship using tech the Tau not even posses just to survive. I think you overestimate the advantage tech would give the Tau against the nids, because the Eldar already showed that advanced tech is not the only deciding factor against the nids.

 Eetion wrote:
It was done once and probably never again for the repercussions it has.

You underestimate the ruthlessness of the Inquisition.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Eetion wrote:
It was done once and probably never again for the repercussions it has.

You underestimate the ruthlessness of the Inquisition.

Given the Inquisior who did has been condemned by his peers, he has drastically wreaked imperial capabilities in the area. It would be a brave inquisitor to take up a flawed plan.

O'Shovah303 wrote:
The tau are a great deal more advanced then the imperium. The general troops and tech of the imperium are vastly outclassed technologically and the factions that are capable of rivalling the Taus tech are few and far between. They have superior technology and more importantly they are capable of reproducing it on a large scale. The imperium is not capable of producing their high technology anymore. They don't even understand how it works anymore.

Sigh, this argument always pops up sooner or later in a Tau vs. Imperium thread, and it's always just as wrong as the last time. You gravely underestimate the skill and capability possessed by the Adeptus Mechanicus. Dreadknights are still produced. Power Armour is still produced. Ordinatii are still produced. Imperator Titans are still produced. Battleships are still produced. Terminator Armour is still produced. Most crucially, Warp Drives are still produced. The reason the Imperium hasn't armed all of its soldiers with the most advanced stuff is that the Imperial Guard numbers are many magnitudes greater than the Fire Caste. Look at the Skitarii, Adepta Sororitas or Stormtroopers (who, for the record, have better guns than Fire Warriors) for some rather well-equipped Imperial soldiers (who probably outnumber the Fire Caste as well).

The biggest problem for the Tau, however, is the massively sub-standard form of FTL travel the Tau have to rely on, coupled with their short life spans, which means that they simply can't keep on expanding, and without having a warp presence they're gonna have some problems building warp-reliant tech to solve this problem.

Regarding the "oh, but the Tau are united behind a single cause" argument, the Farsight supplement, from what I've read online, tells us that someone in the Tau Empire is smuggling weapons to supply Farsight. Seems as though there's Tau that aren't exactly pleased with the way the Greater Good is going, after all.

It's also a matter of unimaginable scale. A single Imperial Sector may actually out-populate the entire Tau race.... and there's hundreds, if not thousands, of sectors of Imperial space.

*If* all of the other threats in the galaxy did not occupy the Imperium's attention, the Tau empire (which is smaller in scale to the Imperium than Rhode Island is to the entire continent of North America) would cease to exist, probably within a decade. The Tau simply do not have the manpower. They could have a kill ration of 1000 to 1, and they would still lose.

This, of course, will never happen, as 40K is a setting, not a story, so things will never advance in any meaningful way. While the Imperium may lose planets to Tau, Orks, Tyranids, whatever, and the Tau gain some, there's always more planets to write into the background. In the galaxy of 40k, resources are limited only by what the authors write in.

The Tau generally more advanced.

It's a case of accessibility.

It's all well and good having superior high end equipment, but if it's not accessible to the forces there's no point. Power armour, Terminators, dread knights. All fearsome. But ultimately so small in number as to be almost negligible.
e Stormtrooper regiments weapons are not superior to pulse rifles. Game rules give them a better ap they used to have ap 5 but severely lack strength and range over the pulse rifle. In essence the pulse rifle is a mini plasma gun.
The Tau side arms are a world above the standard issue imperial counterparts.
Their entire armed forces wear equivalent armour to storm troopers.
Their plasma weaponry isn't prone to overheating.
The Tau can mass produce anti gravity devices in drones and Tetras where the JetBike is a lost relic.

I Will absolutely admit that the Imperial high end tech is league's above the Tau. But also that isn't the equipment you have to judge them on. On any confrontation it's Pulse rifle v flashing lasgun that you use to make your bench mark.
POwer and Terminator armour is advanced armour, their equivalent choice would be the Crisis and Broadside suits of the Tau.

In the end Imperial tech is few in number, held by small number of forces and individuals. The Tau in Any confrontation Will likely have the technological superiority.

Its no good Inquisitor Bob having a refractor field cod piece and digital weapons if the Guardsmen actually doing the fighting can't make use of that technology.

That and every piece of Tau technology is being enhanced, upgraded, refined and improved. Not just simply made by workers on a production line because it's all they know how to do or have ever done.

 Eetion wrote:
The Tau generally more advanced.

It's a case of accessibility.

It's all well and good having superior high end equipment, but if it's not accessible to the forces there's no point. Power armour, Terminators, dread knights. All fearsome. But ultimately so small in number as to be almost negligible.
e Stormtrooper regiments weapons are not superior to pulse rifles. Game rules give them a better ap they used to have ap 5 but severely lack strength and range over the pulse rifle. In essence the pulse rifle is a mini plasma gun.
The Tau side arms are a world above the standard issue imperial counterparts.
Their entire armed forces wear equivalent armour to storm troopers.
Their plasma weaponry isn't prone to overheating.
The Tau can mass produce anti gravity devices in drones and Tetras where the JetBike is a lost relic.

Lasguns are superior to Pulse Rifles the same way the AK47 is superior to the M16: ease of production and reliability, and in the case of the Lasgun virtually unlimited ammunition. Think about how much ammunition the Imperium would have to ship around if the Lasguns weren't refuleable with pretty much anything.

Imperial Plasma weaponry is "prone to overheating" because they've decided to turn the dial up to 11, whereas the Tau have it set to 7 or 8. You might note that when the Riptide turns it up to 11 it gets hot as well.

The Imperium has anti-grav tech as well, most commonly Land Speeders, but Land Trains and Servo-skulls use them as well.

There's probably more Guardsmen in Carapace Armour than there are members of the Tau race. Plenty of heavy infantry regiments get Carapace Armour as standard and I'd imagine that most Skitarii get it as well.

Any Crusade against the Tau would include Astartes, at which point the quality advantage swings rather steeply toward the Imperium. The Marines themselves are the result of some pretty high-tech stuff.

Yet that assumes something on the ease of manufacture on the pulse rifle. we honestly don't know production times or reliability. but fact is the Fire Warriorshave superior range and stopping power.

And even though the Imperium still makes servo skulls and landspeeders yet lack the insight to make jet bikes. Why? Because of complete lack of innovation.

Yes plenty of infantry regiments get carapace, but its dependent entirely on the world and function of the regiment. Flakk is and always will be the most common function. Every single Tau is equipped that way.

The Marines are formidable but not invincible. The Avenging Sons were sent packing in short order in the Taros campaign.

The idea that there is no innovation in the Imperium is a myth. Every lynchpin in the Imperial Guard, from the Lasgun up to Leman Russ tanks, is built to require low maintainance and to be rugged and reliable. Building hover tanks or jetbikes for one regiment just isn't economical when you could use the same resources to build ordinary bikes and tanks for a hundred regiments.

It really doesn't matter that every single Tau warrior has at least Carapace-level armour when there's potentially more Servitors in the Imperium than there are Tau. Being able to distribute Carapace Armour to a greater proportion of their army doesn't make Tau tech superior, it just highlights how outnumbered they are.

Then there's the matter of the Damocles Gulf crusade, which the Imperium nominally lost because the Tyranids decided to appear. Seriously, the Tau were struggling to take down Warhound (i.e scout) Titans. They haven't (to my knowledge) faced Warlord Titans yet, let alone Imperator Titans. Then there's the Nimbosa Crusade, which illustrates what happened when three Chapters joined forces against the Tau.

The Imperium is lacking innovation. How much grief and testing occurred for simple weapon load outs on the Predator tank initially, 200 years only for them to come to the conclusion that it was probably meant to be able to do that.
He'll it took 500 years to bring the lightning fighter into production when they had the STC data. Pure innovation that isn't it.


When you have a warrior class, even just a 1% population of Fire Caste gives a vast number of local troops. and yes Nimbosa was a disaster, But the Imperial Guard didn't fare too well against the Tau either. I'm not denying the Marines are a threat. The Tau are not invulnerable. But it's not the Marines who will be doing the majority of the fighting.

Legio thantaros took part in the Damocles crusade, who were in turn countered by Mantas. Since then the Tau have developed the Rail Cannon toting Tiger Sharks and the Rip Tides as counters.

I'm not debating that Tau can be out numbered, but the Imperium must be able to deploy those assets.

This boils down to the Tau infantry being equipped with superior equipment as standard.
Since Damocles the Tau have adapted and upgraded to meet nee threats posed by the Imperium adapting their technology and equipment. The Imperium has not.

Because the Imperium does not have to. The Damocles Gulf Crusade was, by the commanding officers own account, too weak to feasibly take Dal'yth, and yet they did. That was 14 capital ships, and the only reason the Tau have Dal'yth today is because the Imperium gave it back when Kryptmann recalled the Crusade to fight the Tyranids. The Black Templars alone have more than 14 capital ships, add other Chapters and their assets and it's just silly.

The Black Templars are also spread out and never localised at one place.

The campaign on the ground had long since ground to a halt. Neither side had the advantage.

And once again marines are a rarity. They would not be doing the bulk of the fighting. Also with regards to the space fleet that's another area of vast improvements that the Tau have made since Damocles.

It won't be a roll over, the Imperium Was stung at Typha 4 and Taros.
The New generation of Tau vessels are much more formidable than the generation of vessels at Damocles.

Allow me to get to the point...this will essentially be a repeat of WWII's Eastern Front. The Tau will be the Germans with their superior technology, and the Imperium will be the USSR with vast fleets and numerous soldiers. Now how did it end again?

Well. Let me slightly alter your analogy to better reflect the Example.

The Tau are Nazi Germany. Imperium are Russia. The Chinese are the nids launching am all out assault. The Necrons are the US assaulting from Alaska in para troop hit and run assaults. Oh and Russia is undergoing a massive civil with vast tracts of territory lost to Cossacks or Chechens that's the Orks. Oh let's not forget those slaving Eldar/dark Eldar from I dunno hidden terrorist cells. And finally we have Chaos, the bowels of hell opening in the far north of the country.

Now consider the forces available to the eastern front.

 Eetion wrote:
Well. Let me slightly alter your analogy to better reflect the Example.

The Tau are Nazi Germany. Imperium are Russia. The Chinese are the nids launching am all out assault. The Necrons are the US assaulting from Alaska in para troop hit and run assaults. Oh and Russia is undergoing a massive civil with vast tracts of territory lost to Cossacks or Chechens that's the Orks. Oh let's not forget those slaving Eldar/dark Eldar from I dunno hidden terrorist cells. And finally we have Chaos, the bowels of hell opening in the far north of the country.

Now consider the forces available to the eastern front.

Now it starts to sounds like warhammer fantasy.

That analogy gives way too much weight to the Tau, it'd be more like Belgium invading the Soviet Union while the Soviets were fighting China. It's the same effect that's let Sweden successfully wage war against Russia in the past; we won until the Russian army got back from eastern Siberia, at which point we were slapped silly. Similarly, the Tau took Nimbosa while the Imperium was away fighting Tyranids and then promptly lost it when the Imperium came back with a proper Crusade. Bear in mind that's after the Damocles Gulf, so after the Tau have had a chance to adapt.

 Eetion wrote:
Well. Let me slightly alter your analogy to better reflect the Example.

The Tau are Nazi Germany. Imperium are Russia. The Chinese are the nids launching am all out assault. The Necrons are the US assaulting from Alaska in para troop hit and run assaults. Oh and Russia is undergoing a massive civil with vast tracts of territory lost to Cossacks or Chechens that's the Orks. Oh let's not forget those slaving Eldar/dark Eldar from I dunno hidden terrorist cells. And finally we have Chaos, the bowels of hell opening in the far north of the country.

Now consider the forces available to the eastern front.

Did you even read the OP? I said the Imperium has nothing to distract it in this thread.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Eetion wrote:
Well. Let me slightly alter your analogy to better reflect the Example.

The Tau are Nazi Germany. Imperium are Russia. The Chinese are the nids launching am all out assault. The Necrons are the US assaulting from Alaska in para troop hit and run assaults. Oh and Russia is undergoing a massive civil with vast tracts of territory lost to Cossacks or Chechens that's the Orks. Oh let's not forget those slaving Eldar/dark Eldar from I dunno hidden terrorist cells. And finally we have Chaos, the bowels of hell opening in the far north of the country.

Now consider the forces available to the eastern front.

Did you even read the OP? I said the Imperium has nothing to distract it in this thread.

Indeed I did. You said 'A real Imperial Crusade where they are not fighting multiple opponents like at Jerichos reach and likewise the Tau are not distracted'
Now to me that's a case of no hive fleet behemoths forcing withdrawal no ork interference. A straight up crusade into Tau space 'winner takes all situation'
However what constitutes a real crusade and the consideration. Of what is available to it must still be held. Any 'proper' crusade must still be confined to the situation the Imperium is in. Otherwise what's the point?
Imperiums bigger, redistribute forces from fighting the Black Crusades, levitation and at Armageddon, along with every guard regiment and fleet in the segmentum. Crush the Tau.

But that wouldn't be a 'proper' crusade would it. Because it's completely unfeasable for them to do. Prevailing strategic and political situations must still be considered.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also with regards to Nimbosa. That was 1 world and one of the most important worlds annexed by the Tau during initial stages of Kraken.
So the Tau lost nimbosa they still came out with a net win in world's gained.
And ask yoursel if the Imperium would have Bern bbetter served using those forces against Kraken?

To summarize given enough time the tau could have a massive orgy to increase population and advance technology to survive a crusade and perhaps even defeatn one out right. If a crusade was called with the IoM en-mass the tau would be the willie cyote looking up at the sky as a grand piano came down ending in *splat*.

Wh 41k tau win (?)
WH 40K tau go splat.

The problem is the amount of men and material the Imperium is willing to commit to a "proper crusade" varies. How BIG a proper crusade are we talking about? Sabbath Worlds size? Nimbosa sized? Jericho Reach sized without the distractions of other factions? Black Crusade sized? (If the latter, the tau would be smooshed like a bug)

For the most part though it'd be hard for the Tau to survive any serious undistracted attack by the Imperium due to sheer numbers alone. However, without defining EXACTLY just HOW undistracted and HOW serious the Imperium would be about such a venture, it's really meaningless to try to discuss further than that.

TiamatRoar wrote:
The problem is the amount of men and material the Imperium is willing to commit to a "proper crusade" varies. How BIG a proper crusade are we talking about? Sabbath Worlds size? Nimbosa sized? Jericho Reach sized without the distractions of other factions? Black Crusade sized? (If the latter, the tau would be smooshed like a bug)

For the most part though it'd be hard for the Tau to survive any serious undistracted attack by the Imperium due to sheer numbers alone. However, without defining EXACTLY just HOW undistracted and HOW serious the Imperium would be about such a venture, it's really meaningless to try to discuss further than that.

Sure there is reason to discuss. Its fun and passes long bus rides.

Just because the IOM is a declining Empire, don't count it out. Rome, as it was falling, still managed to defeat the biggest threat they ever faced, Atilla the Hun. It was their swan song, but they managed to do it. Don't count out the Empire just yet. Also, with the Tau, don't discount innovation. Innovation can explode during the course of a single war. Look at the technology at the beginning of WWII compared to the end. Went from bolt action rifles and biplanes to assault rifles and nuclear bombs. Heck, maybe the Tau develop some super anime-esque mega beam buster cannon that wipes out armies at a time. Who knows. What I'm saying is that no one can say X faction is doomed to win/lose because there are too many variables and nothing is set in stone. Heck, the Byzantine Empire made a huge comeback from decline with Alexios I. Could happen.