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Kanluwen wrote:
I like the Tau. I just don't like people misconstruing things to say that it means that they're somehow a huge galactic threat. They're not. They're a threat to the Imperium of Man like sharks are a threat to the US Army.

That analogy is funny considering that the Tau name all their vehicles and stuff after fish

Shhh.. Don't type that kind of stuff; GW will make it happen. (about the rainforest tribes shooting lasers and having giant robots)

Really, who cares if one fictional army can beat another one. Put 'em on the table and roll some dice. I don't know all that much fluff but I know my units of broadsides can take down titans in 1 turn of shooting. It's a shame the ones in the books can't do that. Maybe if the writers would actually play the game, they might write better fluff.

I'll never own a Manta, I have no desire to put that monster together and certainly no desire to paint it. As bad as FW pieces what with warped bits, that would be an outright nightmare.

agnosto wrote:Shhh.. Don't type that kind of stuff; GW will make it happen.

Really, who cares if one fictional army can beat another one. Put 'em on the table and roll some dice. I don't know all that much fluff but I know my units of broadsides can take down titans in 1 turn of shooting. It's a shame the ones in the books can't do that. Maybe if the writers would actually play the game, they might write better fluff.

Yeah, remember in the SS books where the railguns basically turned boulders into liquid?

im2randomghgh wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
I like the Tau. I just don't like people misconstruing things to say that it means that they're somehow a huge galactic threat. They're not. They're a threat to the Imperium of Man like sharks are a threat to the US Army.

That analogy is funny considering that the Tau name all their vehicles and stuff after fish

I wonder if Matt Ward will write Codex:Tau? One criticism I have about him is that a lot of wargear he creates is very themed around the army he's writing about.

agnosto wrote:Shhh.. Don't type that kind of stuff; GW will make it happen.

Really, who cares if one fictional army can beat another one. Put 'em on the table and roll some dice. I don't know all that much fluff but I know my units of broadsides can take down titans in 1 turn of shooting. It's a shame the ones in the books can't do that. Maybe if the writers would actually play the game, they might write better fluff.

Well it depends.

Are we talking about Warhound Titans or Reavers/Warlords?

In terms of how things work in the books: Pour enough fire into something or find a weak spot in the shields--those Titans will go down to Broadsides.

But at the same time, Titans will usually have escorting infantry and armoured regiments that are wrecking those Broadsides.

Hence the Tau decided "Maybe we should pull those massive railguns out of the Manta...and put it in a Tiger Shark!"

"Won't the ammo weigh it down?"

"Well, maybe. But who cares. Big guns! Wooo!".

And thus the Tiger Shark AX-1-0 was born.

im2randomghgh wrote:That analogy is funny considering that the Tau name all their vehicles and stuff after fish

Actually...the Tau don't. The Imperium does.

The Tau likely name them something silly like the Mobile Personnel Ferry X56673235J.

iproxtaco wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
I like the Tau. I just don't like people misconstruing things to say that it means that they're somehow a huge galactic threat. They're not. They're a threat to the Imperium of Man like sharks are a threat to the US Army.

That analogy is funny considering that the Tau name all their vehicles and stuff after fish

I wonder if Matt Ward will write Codex:Tau? One criticism I have about him is that a lot of wargear he creates is very themed around the army he's writing about.

Yeah, I want my Crisis Cannon and my Hammerhead Missile and whatever crap he'd come up with. He'd probably have the Tau falling in love with Chaos or something because they helped to repell the tyranids from a world... If I were him, I'd get my jollies everyday from writing that stuff:

Ward: Hey, Kirby, I'm going to throw this into the Tau codex, every weapon is named after the unit that uses it.
Kirby: How about some Greater Good references, we can't have these idiots forgetting what army they're playing.
Ward: Right, right right.
Both: cackle.
Ward: wait, I've got it! The Tau actually team up with Khorne to kick some Tyranid arse!
Kirby: Brilliant! Write it up!

Kanluwen wrote:
Hey now. Not nice.

I like the Tau. I just don't like people misconstruing things to say that it means that they're somehow a huge galactic threat. They're not. They're a threat to the Imperium of Man like sharks are a threat to the US Army.

lets be honest now...they are at least sharks with laser beams attached to their heads...

agnosto wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
I like the Tau. I just don't like people misconstruing things to say that it means that they're somehow a huge galactic threat. They're not. They're a threat to the Imperium of Man like sharks are a threat to the US Army.

That analogy is funny considering that the Tau name all their vehicles and stuff after fish

I wonder if Matt Ward will write Codex:Tau? One criticism I have about him is that a lot of wargear he creates is very themed around the army he's writing about.

Yeah, I want my Crisis Cannon and my Hammerhead Missile and whatever crap he'd come up with. He'd probably have the Tau falling in love with Chaos or something because they helped to repell the tyranids from a world... If I were him, I'd get my jollies everyday from writing that stuff:

Ward: Hey, Kirby, I'm going to throw this into the Tau codex, every weapon is named after the unit that uses it.
Kirby: How about some Greater Good references, we can't have these idiots forgetting what army they're playing.
Ward: Right, right right.
Both: cackle.
Ward: wait, I've got it! The Tau actually team up with Khorne to kick some Tyranid arse!
Kirby: Brilliant! Write it up!

Try as hard as I might, I just can't bring myself to hate him. He clearly has an enthusiasm for what he's doing(and not the same kind of enthusiasm as that git Goto did).

He also is pretty clearly developing in terms of writing fluff. Good or bad, that still puts him miles beyond Goto.

VoxDei wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
Hey now. Not nice.

I like the Tau. I just don't like people misconstruing things to say that it means that they're somehow a huge galactic threat. They're not. They're a threat to the Imperium of Man like sharks are a threat to the US Army.

lets be honest now...they are at least sharks with railguns attached to their heads...

There, fixed it for you.

Kanluwen wrote:

KingDeath wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

KingDeath wrote:Once again, with the exception of virusbombing the planets ( assuming the templars have enough of the Lifeeater and their fleet actually manages to deploy it's exterminatus class weapons )

Every Space Marine ship can feasibly deploy Exterminatus class weapons. And the Life Eater isn't the only virus the Imperium has. It's just the most effective.

And considering Battle Barges have cut their way through entire Tau fleets before, I'd say odds are pretty high that the Black Templars can manage it what with having the largest fleet of almost any single Space Marine Chapter.

what enables a few thousand Spacemarines to conquer an entire world? They lack numbers, they lack heavy support ( oh look, a few dozen landraiders and perhaps a few hundred Predators..against a world which can, if their production capabilities are similar to 2end WW earth, produce many thousands of tanks each year ), they lack aircraft and most important of all, they cannot replenish their numbers.

Who says the Marines lack aircraft? Thunderhawks are aircraft.

Oh, you mean fighter jets. Well the Tau don't have those either. Their craft are without exception all superheavies.
But I will point you to the Land Speeder Tempest. One man craft, equipped with Typhoon launchers and Assault Cannon.

Marines can cripple a world, they can, if deployed properly, devastate the military infrastructure of a world but, thanks to their low numbers, they can never actually conquer it. That job falls to the massive numbers
of the Imperial Guard.

It's not hard to conquer a world of corpses.

The number of Exterminatus-Virus strains avaiable to the Imperium is not the issue but merely if the Black Templars have the necessary quantity of exterminatus weaponry to actually destroy 100+ planets and
if they get close enough to do so. The Black templars have a large fleet, but the majority of it consists of light cruisers and escorts, with perhaps a dozen battlebarges ( this is speculation, but would make sense unless the chapter has a much higher battlebarge to marine ratio than other chapters, which seems unlikely.). I would find it hard to believe that the entire Tau navy couldn't match that.

To suggest that the entire Tau navy would be in a single place at a single time is silly.

It takes one weakness in a Tau sector's defenses for the Black Templars to theoretically kick the door down. If the Black Templars were to throw their entire fleet against each sector one at a time, it would be entirely feasible. It's not like the Tau have instantaneous communication capabilities. They have to send ships between systems to pass communiques.

Battlebarges are, at least if we go by BFG stats, more or less comparable to the largest Tau Spacecraft ( at least as long as the Custodian has it's full complement of Wardens ). They won't "cut their way trough entire Tau fleets".

A standard sized Tau fleet? The hell they won't cut their way through the entirety of it.

Spacemarines lack any means to actually get air superiority, they have nothing which equals the Baracuda or even the Remora Drones.

Actually they really don't. It's called bombarding the airfields from orbit.

Nothing says air superiority like your opponent never getting airborne

This is where one of the biggest problems with these scenarios comes up. The goal of Exterminatus isn't to get boots on the ground or engage in air superiority. It's the complete and utter destruction of life in an area.

Thunderhawks are heavily armed transports and gunships, not fightercraft.

Wrong. They were originally introduced as a fighter for space combat to replace the aging Stormbird design. That they're used as gunships and 'heavily armed transports' now is really irrelevant.

But I will remind you that Thunderhawks are able to bring down Warhound Titans. The Tau had to employ Mantas to do that.

The Land Speeder Typhoon is, if we go by it's Imperial armour description, not a fighter and more comparable to a modern attack helicopter ( which it matches in speed and firepower ).

The Land Speeder TEMPEST is a fighter.

The Typhoon is more comparable to a modern attack helicopter, yes.
The Tempest is not.

This is the Tempest. It's uparmored and its role is to provide aerial cover(i.e. engaging aerial threats) to Marine formations.

So no, unless the Marines win the war in space ( unlikely with perhaps a dozen well armed battlebarges and only strikecruisers/escorts for the rest ) and then manage to bomb everything on the ground into oblivion there will be no "world of corpses" to conquer.

I think you really need to figure out how Exterminatus works.

You don't "bomb everything on the ground into oblivion". It's three or four bombs, deployed at once, and then you get the feth out of there in many cases.

You're also overestimating how much of the Tau fleet is able to convene in a location at once. Which is actually a boon for the Black Templars if the entire Tau Air Caste were to defend one single world.

Your ideas about the Tempest are unfortunately wrong. It has a max speed of 300KPH ( source: imperial armour 2 ) It is far slower than any kind of real aircraft and therefore, despite it's different method of locomotion, not even remotely viable for air superiority. It's role, according to IAII, is to "engage enemy infantry and armour" / "to provide fast moving firesupport for the lightning raids of their ( the White Scars's) bike squads".

What the Thunderhawk used to be is if no concern, they are slow, large, not especialy maneuverable and have no weapons for air to air combat as shown by their rules in the Apocalypse/ Imperial Armour books.
That a T-Hawk can bring down a Warhound titan is, given it's ability to equip a turbolaser, not suprising.
Destroying airfields and deploying exterminatus class weapons would require a victory in space ( assuming that the templars don't have any of those nifty servitor piloted killships ). A victory in space is unlikely given the low amount of grandcruiser/battlecruiser/battleship sized ships in our imagined Black Templar fleet. The majority of Spacemarine capital ships are Strikecruisers, which are nothing more than uparmoured light cruisers ( comparable to the Dauntless class ).
Unfortunately i know of no sources which can give us a reliable idea about the size of the Tau Fleet, their BFG suplement simply stated that their shipyards are powerfull and efficient, which isn't realy helpfull.
Still, given the advanced production capabilities as well as the relatively large timescale to build a fleet as well as the existence of Kroot (haha, okok, Warspheres suck ) and Demurg i see no reason why the Tau Fleet shouldn't outnumber ( or have at the very least equals numbers compared with ) the Black Templar Fleet.

The point about the communications lag between the actual marine attack and the notification of the tau admirality is a good one and needs some pondering. The problem might be somewhat extenuated by the relatively short distances involved and the...lets call it variable sublight speed of warhammer ships in fluff ( ranging from days of intrasystem travel to mere hours ) but i do not think that this alone is sufficient to counter it.

agnosto wrote:
I just read through the whole thread and never saw anyone even mention that the Tau Empire could conquer the IoM. It seems the main bone of contention here is exactly what amount of force it would take for the IoM to squash the Tau and their allies.

You didn't post at the last 5 threads regarding this, one Tau fan actually said that Tau Fire Cast outnumber the Imperial Guard...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kanluwen wrote:
I like the Tau. I just don't like people misconstruing things to say that it means that they're somehow a huge galactic threat. They're not. They're a threat to the Imperium of Man like sharks are a threat to the US Army.

You dot owned...

Dude, auto-fail due to wall o' text. I failed my WoT save and suffered a sprained scroll-finger.

The Damoclese Crusade was halted partially due to the powerful ground-based anti-ship batteries that the Tau had. (Tau Codex, forget what page and I'm too lazy to dig it out of the closet).

@Brother Coa,

Meh, I don't usually troll every Tau-hate thread; I had some time to kill.

im2randomghgh wrote:
Well what with the world's overpopulation and you guys already having 11x our population, a decrease in population isn't such a bad thing...not saying I am going to go around killing stuff, just saying there are two sides to it.

Not a bad thing if anyone around you don't want a part of your country ( Kosovo ) and when there are only 8.000.000 of us left.
Two sides? Let me live 1 year in Canada and you try living 1 year here...You will get mad in 2 months fist because of mad people, second because of how low the living standards are. And don't get me started about how our government is incompetent...

Brother Coa wrote: And don't get me started about how our government is incompetent...

What government isn't? Ours can't even finalize a budget...

agnosto wrote:
Meh, I don't usually troll every Tau-hate thread; I had some time to kill.

Good for you, usually I get tired after 15 minutes of this and just launch DoW and play against 3 Tau insane...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

agnosto wrote:

Brother Coa wrote: And don't get me started about how our government is incompetent...

What government isn't? Ours can't even finalize a budget...

Budget, we don't even have a budget and we are building the Europe's most expensive bridge now. And our fnalized our budget by increasing pensions for 3%, that's like increasing your pension for 60 cents...

im2randomghgh wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
So why did the Tau call in "significant reinforcements"?

The reinforcements arrived late.

@1hadHQ, They were evacuating citizens, because unlike the IoM, they CARE ABOUT CIVILIAN LOSSES.

If they HAD unleashed the V-bomb, they superior Tau fleet would have broken them over their knee.

And the Imperium doesn't? Here is an example of Imperium caring about civilians. This is taken form another website -

GW held a big campaign called Medusa V where the entire goal of the Imperium was to save the people on the planet. The correct choice would have been to launch virus bombs at the world, killing off a whole lot of Chaos Marines, Tau, Eldar, ect, which would not have been a bad trade off for several million civilians. However, the Imperium did the right thing and evacuated the people. Other, similar stories abound of Imperial forces fighting off the odds to save the common person. Just as many examples exist of the Guard officer who just sends in more men or the Space Marine who shells the refugee camp because there are orks in the grounds. Its really hard to label the Imperium as anything, as the Imperium is so diverse, its hard to pinpoint just what the Imperium is. Many times, the only common tie is Emperor-worship. It seems, that for every despotic hellhole, there are worlds that are not so bad to live on at all. To summarize, I think the Imperium does care about the people, but its huge bureaucracy and sheer size means that often, millions die because of a math error or something. Hence, the person sitting on a bug example. The Imperium is evil though sheer clumsiness. I often think of Stalin's Collective Farms. Many people died as the Soviet Union changed its farming sytem, but I don't think the Soviets meant to, nor wanted those people to die.

Another example -

Yet Leviathan continued to carve its bloody path through the Imperium. Perhaps Leviathan's main gain was the vital forge world of Gryphone IV, home of the War Griffons Titan legion. Kryptman knew he had to slow down the hive fleet's advance to buy time for Battlefleets Solar and Tempestus to muster. With grim finality, he ordered a cordon to be established. Every world within was to be evacuated and undergo immediate Exterminatus wherever possible. With one stark, callous decision, the Inquisitor had inflicted the Imperium's worst act of genocide upon on its own since the Horus Heresy. Kryptman was denounced as a radical and a traitor; when migrating Orks claimed a score of former human worlds, he was stripped of his title and thrown out of the Inquisition.

So, how many Space Marines would it take to destroy the Necron menace? Impossible? You know those Necron players are laughing at you guys, they have Gods after all. Not some dead pansy on a golden toilet but real gods!

Makes me think of Ghostbusters. heh

Kanluwen wrote:

Nerivant wrote:Dal'yth is, IIRC, the least militarized the first founding worlds. Sa'cea or Vior'la would be able to handle a lot worse.

And the Tau pulled a large amount of their entire Empire's defensive capabilities back to Dal'yth.

Sorry but this is completely unsupported. The Tau probably were not even sure Crusade was going to attack Dal'yth, and it was not reinforced during the battles.

Plus, the Tau military in 999.M41 is probably around 2 or 3 times stronger than it was during Damocles Gulf Crusade, particularly the fleet.

Kanluwen wrote:
This is a bit from the Imperial Munitorum Manual by Graham McNeill, considered 100% canon, that details the supply usage by a single Cadian regiment during the 13th Black Crusade. It was from a turning point during the fighting on Cadia, and was from the fighting lasting a single week to hold a sector of a Kasr.

During the 91st Cadian's recent combat operations during the 13th Black Crusade, lasting a week, they expended 400,000 Lasgun Power Packs, 120,000 ration packs, over 3 million gallons of fuel, 13,300 pints of Type O Negative, and expended enough ordnance to level a continent.

If you really think the Tau can stand that can of knock-down, dragout fighting--Tau players you're delusional.

Why is that supposed to be impressive? In Taros campaign, IoM brought ten regiments (including Cadians) and they were defeated handily.

At any rate, as I said before, the original question is pointless. If the Templars ever gathered at one place, the Inquisition would instantly have proof about them violating the Codex Astartes, and they would be demanded to break up. They are viewed as borderline renegade already.

Backfire wrote:
Why is that supposed to be impressive? In Taros campaign, IoM brought ten regiments (including Cadians) and they were defeated handily.

At any rate, as I said before, the original question is pointless. If the Templars ever gathered at one place, the Inquisition would instantly have proof about them violating the Codex Astartes, and they would be demanded to break up. They are viewed as borderline renegade already.

You know I didn't want to get involved into this debate but I have to dispute this. The Taros campaign is nothing but deus ex machina to let the Tau win. Bad luck after bad luck crapped all over the Imperium to let the Tau win nothing more.

Imperial armour all suck, even the nid one. All just fail.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Backfire wrote:
Why is that supposed to be impressive? In Taros campaign, IoM brought ten regiments (including Cadians) and they were defeated handily.

At any rate, as I said before, the original question is pointless. If the Templars ever gathered at one place, the Inquisition would instantly have proof about them violating the Codex Astartes, and they would be demanded to break up. They are viewed as borderline renegade already.

You know I didn't want to get involved into this debate but I have to dispute this. The Taros campaign is nothing but deus ex machina to let the Tau win. Bad luck after bad luck crapped all over the Imperium to let the Tau win nothing more.

Imperial armour all suck, even the nid one. All just fail.

They don't suck, but they're basically an excuse to see the Imperium lose.

Kanluwen wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Backfire wrote:
Why is that supposed to be impressive? In Taros campaign, IoM brought ten regiments (including Cadians) and they were defeated handily.

At any rate, as I said before, the original question is pointless. If the Templars ever gathered at one place, the Inquisition would instantly have proof about them violating the Codex Astartes, and they would be demanded to break up. They are viewed as borderline renegade already.

You know I didn't want to get involved into this debate but I have to dispute this. The Taros campaign is nothing but deus ex machina to let the Tau win. Bad luck after bad luck crapped all over the Imperium to let the Tau win nothing more.

Imperial armour all suck, even the nid one. All just fail.

They don't suck, but they're basically an excuse to see the Imperium lose.

Thats why they suck, I don't mind the Imperial losing. But please do it in a manner that makes sense, in a manner that doesn't reek of plot armor and deus ex machina. For example a Vindicare assasin doesn't use its special ammunition despite knowing that its target is a cardinal thus has access to a Rosarius. Vindicares are supposed to be ultra-trained assasins; why all this stupid handicaps?

Corporal_Reznov wrote:
You know I didn't want to get involved into this debate but I have to dispute this. The Taros campaign is nothing but deus ex machina to let the Tau win. Bad luck after bad luck crapped all over the Imperium to let the Tau win nothing more.

Of course it is, but isn't EVERYTHING?

I mean, is there some special category of GW fluff which tells us the straight truth and is NOT meant to advance a certain viewpoint which promotes some character/unit/faction?

Backfire wrote:They are viewed as borderline renegade already.

No, no they're not, not in the slightest. The inquisition raises concern over their numbers but thats it, no renegade worries from them. There is not a single instance of disloyalty in the history of the chapter.

Source:

McNeil, Graham. Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Black Templars. Nottingham: Games Workshop Ltd. 2005. 8.

The Black Templars borderline renegade? That's made my day.

Also, everyone see that at the end of my post?

That's a citation in modified Chicago manual of style format used by the University of otago, I can change it to MLA (used in most American schools) if it pleases you. The point is a lot of random facts get thrown about in these debates, so if you're going to tell me how many suits the tau have or how many worlds the black templars can conquer it had better be from a credible source (in this case the BRB, codexes, IA etc). You don't have to cite it like that but at least tell where you got the info from.

If you have been doing that then kudos to you.

There's no point in citing, in most cases people will just claim the author doesn't know what he was writing about.

There's really only two authors who that can be applied to (Henry Zou and C.S. Goto) though.

Kanluwen wrote:There's no point in citing, in most cases people will just claim the author doesn't know what he was writing about.

There's really only two authors who that can be applied to (Henry Zou and C.S. Goto) though.

then that brings up a whole new set of problems then, if we can all agree on our source material then all we're doing is this

Yep. Pretty much.

iproxtaco wrote:The Black Templars borderline renegade? That's made my day.

They ignore restrictions on Chapter size and organization, they fight only when and where they feel like it, they tolerate no orders/inquests/interference from legitimate Imperial authorities, they establish all sorts of outposts on worlds and come and go as they please...it's really not very far fetched. Just because they fight what they see as the enemies of the emperor doesn't necessarily mean they haven't functionally gone renegade.

the Codex Astartes is OPTIONAL for marine chapters.


the High Lords know it is impossable to enforce and so they don't.