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BaronIveagh wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:

Good fluff, but still that doesn't mean anything...
Tau Fleet still is not bigger than IoM fleet...
And reason because that crusade is extended for so long is because it was manor and it was not give any reinforcements. If your statement if Imperium lose one battleship and fail to replace him, then Cadia would fall right after the heresy, and Macragge would be eaten by Tyranids and so on....
And even if Tau have that magic trick of turning it into the most basic ship into the most basic warship doesn't mean nothing. IN still outnumber Tau gravelly, and in case of crusade - on 1 Tau ship would come 10 Imperial Battleships minimum ( not counting other ships ).

Dragging out my copy of Codex: Eye of Terror...

Um, no. Neither side fields more then 100 battleships. And this is the 13th Black Crusade!

Battlefleets Cadia, Scarus, Agrippa, and Coronus are the largest and most supplied battlefleets in the Imperium outside of Terra itself. Cadia has 12 battleships. Corona has 7, Scarus only has 5.

By comparison, Battlefleet Gothic itself, as the supposedly 'average' sector fleet, has 3 (Divine Right, Bloodhawk, and Cardinal Boras)

The Explorer has 24 different mks alone.

There seems to be a bit of confusion here. A Battleship is a massive warship. These would generally be the flagships of larger fleets. A single Battleship could probably take the entire Tau navy in a straight up fight. Smaller warships, like escorts and cruisers, make up the bulk of the fleet; the smallest of them rivals the best the Tau can field, and is produced in the thousands on an annual basis.

looking up Tau ships,

their largest vessel has only 2 sets of offensive weapons.


they also have 5+ armor with 4+ rear armor.

their speed is also atrocious.


I feel that my marine fleet(which is a seriously underpowered one) would run circles around these mighty Tau "battleships"

2 of their Cruisers have only 4 hit points(average for a cruiser is 8) with one class having 8.



the Tau fleet isn't a truely fearsome fleet. no way they could go toe to toe with any imperial fleet.

I wish the IoM would send something that is large enough to not get slaughtered in a few months.

All the fanboys in here talking about "ZOMG SPACE 'RINES FTW!"

Whole bunch of chump talk. It's like a big bodybuilder talking about how he coulda beat that little guy who gave him a black eye.

For the record, the IoM did send a fleet, they did send Space Marines, they did send Guard regiments, they did send Titan Legions and they lost. Get over it. You're "uber" faction got pantsed by a "puny" Empire.

Tau for the win.

look again at the Crusade.


the force sent was pitifully small. only half a dozen ships, 500 marines, a few guard regiments, and 8 titans.

thats a tiny force that was formed to combat a threat that was much larger then it was originally belived to be.


this crusade STILL managed to raze a Sept world to the ground and ravage many more colonies.

never mind that the Tau got them all back. the Crusade did alot of damage for how small it was.

Grey Templar wrote:those are massive Battleships.

the Imperium has thousands of Cruisers, heavy cruisers, and light cruisers.

then millions of escort class vessels.


a Cobra Class escort can be built in a day. the Tau can't match that kind of production schedule.

Um...wrong.

"Building a void-ship from scratch is a massive undertaking: it can take years to build an escort-class vessel and centuries to build a capitol ship' - Battlefleet Koronus, page 46)

As far as millions of ship, there are 28,000 sectors in the Imperium. There are approx 50-70 ships per sector fleet. That means that the entire Imperium has 1,960,000 ships grand total.

As far as all of them traveling to the Gulf to fight:

Given that the longer a ship journeys through the warp, the odds of something bad happening approach 1, you're looking at a possible loss of upwards of 50% before you ever engage a single Tau.

look up some more recent fluff.

the Ship yards of the various fleet bases CAN build Escort vessels in a day. Mars and Saturn certaintly can.

Grey Templar wrote:looking up Tau ships,

their largest vessel has only 2 sets of offensive weapons.


they also have 5+ armor with 4+ rear armor.

their speed is also atrocious.


I feel that my marine fleet(which is a seriously underpowered one) would run circles around these mighty Tau "battleships"

2 of their Cruisers have only 4 hit points(average for a cruiser is 8) with one class having 8.



the Tau fleet isn't a truely fearsome fleet. no way they could go toe to toe with any imperial fleet.

What ship is that one? I think the best ship the tau have is custodian. It's a massive carrier ship.

Grey Templar wrote:look again at the Crusade.


the force sent was pitifully small. only half a dozen ships, 500 marines, a few guard regiments, and 8 titans.

thats a tiny force that was formed to combat a threat that was much larger then it was originally belived to be.


this crusade STILL managed to raze a Sept world to the ground and ravage many more colonies.

never mind that the Tau got them all back. the Crusade did alot of damage for how small it was.

Okay, I'll look at the crusade. It was a surprise attack that wiped a few isolated outposts then stalled out on ONE planet against ONE city.


Afterwords? They were so "shocked" by the mighty IoM, that they reclaimed the lost worlds and beyond. I won't even mention Taros...

The power of a hammer is meaningless when its too heavy to swing.

Tau > IoM

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
There seems to be a bit of confusion here. A Battleship is a massive warship. These would generally be the flagships of larger fleets. A single Battleship could probably take the entire Tau navy in a straight up fight. Smaller warships, like escorts and cruisers, make up the bulk of the fleet; the smallest of them rivals the best the Tau can field, and is produced in the thousands on an annual basis.

Um, wrong. Tau battleships are quite capable of killing the best battleships the Imperium has to offer. Though, granted, tehy do have two fewer HP.

Grey Templar wrote:look again at the Crusade.

the force sent was pitifully small. only half a dozen ships, 500 marines, a few guard regiments, and 8 titans.

thats a tiny force that was formed to combat a threat that was much larger then it was originally belived to be.


this crusade STILL managed to raze a Sept world to the ground and ravage many more colonies.

never mind that the Tau got them all back. the Crusade did alot of damage for how small it was.

Grey, I have Codex: Tau Empire right here, and they did not 'raze a sept world' though they did manage to land and fight on it, and began suffer something called 'defeat' due to something called 'air power' (the problems you have when you are an army with swords, power or not, and the enemy has mechanized infantry and air superiority fighters that pimp slap yours) and then when no reinforcements were forthcoming due to the Tyranids and supplies were running out, they agreed to withdraw.

Over running a handful of barely defended colonies after the tau have largely evacuated, and actually having to fight another force on even terms are two different things, as one of the characters in the BL novels about the Crusade pointed out.

nomotog wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:looking up Tau ships,

their largest vessel has only 2 sets of offensive weapons.


they also have 5+ armor with 4+ rear armor.

their speed is also atrocious.


I feel that my marine fleet(which is a seriously underpowered one) would run circles around these mighty Tau "battleships"

2 of their Cruisers have only 4 hit points(average for a cruiser is 8) with one class having 8.



the Tau fleet isn't a truely fearsome fleet. no way they could go toe to toe with any imperial fleet.

What ship is that one? I think the best ship the tau have is custodian. It's a massive carrier ship.

the Carrier is larger for tonnage, but its weapons and armor befits its role as a support ship.

Grey Templar wrote:looking up Tau ships,

their largest vessel has only 2 sets of offensive weapons.


they also have 5+ armor with 4+ rear armor.

their speed is also atrocious.


I feel that my marine fleet(which is a seriously underpowered one) would run circles around these mighty Tau "battleships"

2 of their Cruisers have only 4 hit points(average for a cruiser is 8) with one class having 8.



the Tau fleet isn't a truely fearsome fleet. no way they could go toe to toe with any imperial fleet.

LOL Look at the points cost, now tally up how much AC that is. Now, use that lump of grey matter between your ears, and you should see why Tau tend to win tournaments. Granted the ship has crap guns. But it has str 8 launch bays. meaning you launch like an Emperor class battleship, for 100 points less, and without having to take three cruisers first.

As far as the marine fleet: Don't get your hopes too high. Even with FAQ 2010, this sucker is a turkey. Unless you're using that new Str 18 BC battle barge.

Grey Templar wrote:look up some more recent fluff.

the Ship yards of the various fleet bases CAN build Escort vessels in a day. Mars and Saturn certaintly can.

BFK was Feb/March of this year. That's fairly recent.

Grey Templar wrote:

nomotog wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:looking up Tau ships,

their largest vessel has only 2 sets of offensive weapons.


they also have 5+ armor with 4+ rear armor.

their speed is also atrocious.


I feel that my marine fleet(which is a seriously underpowered one) would run circles around these mighty Tau "battleships"

2 of their Cruisers have only 4 hit points(average for a cruiser is 8) with one class having 8.



the Tau fleet isn't a truely fearsome fleet. no way they could go toe to toe with any imperial fleet.

What ship is that one? I think the best ship the tau have is custodian. It's a massive carrier ship.

the Carrier is larger for tonnage, but its weapons and armor befits its role as a support ship.

It's the tau version of a battle ship. I don't think the tau want to build a battleship battleship. Overall the tau are behind the IoM in shipworks, but I wonder if they have made any new ones in the time sense the last crusade?

What do you have against the Tau anyway...?

nomotog wrote:
It's the tau version of a battle ship. I don't think the tau want to build a battleship battleship. Overall the tau are behind the IoM in shipworks, but I wonder if they have made any new ones in the time sense the last crusade?

Custodian class was made since the Crusade (actually, most of the ships at Taros were brand new designs made since the Crusade). The Custodian is broadly similar to the Emperor (again, tau = attack craft)

One thing that Is being missed is their lack of a column shift on the gunnery table, meaning that while their wb str is low, it is rolling dice as though it were higher at range.

What this all really boils down to is that the Tau are orders of magnitude slower in the warp. This massing of the entire Tau fleet to crush the Black Templars would simply never occur. A surprise attack, reinforcements are dispatched and the Templars are conquering the next world before they arrive. It's all about mobility. To quote Lexicanum

"The Gal'leath class battleship (known as the Explorer among the Imperials) was the first major interstellar vessel developed by the Tau. Compared to the average speed of an Imperial ship in the warp, the Explorer could barely approach a fifth of this speed."

A fifth. Do you understand the strategic advantage the Imperium would have? One of the core worlds is attacked, all fleet elements are dispatched to reinforce it. Say it takes five days for the combined Tau fleet to arrive. As soon as they do, the Imperials simply transition out, and attack any of the other, now undefended worlds, where they have a full theoretical four days to do whatever they want.

Bromsy wrote:What this all really boils down to is that the Tau are orders of magnitude slower in the warp. This massing of the entire Tau fleet to crush the Black Templars would simply never occur. A surprise attack, reinforcements are dispatched and the Templars are conquering the next world before they arrive. It's all about mobility. To quote Lexicanum

"The Gal'leath class battleship (known as the Explorer among the Imperials) was the first major interstellar vessel developed by the Tau. Compared to the average speed of an Imperial ship in the warp, the Explorer could barely approach a fifth of this speed."

A fifth. Do you understand the strategic advantage the Imperium would have? One of the core worlds is attacked, all fleet elements are dispatched to reinforce it. Say it takes five days for the combined Tau fleet to arrive. As soon as they do, the Imperials simply transition out, and attack any of the other, now undefended worlds, where they have a full theoretical four days to do whatever they want.

It's not as big of an advantage as you'd think when you factor in that it will always get there, whereas the Imperial fleet might not.

Oh, and the Imperial fleet still has to run all the way out of the Star's gravity well to jump. It's not like IN can just go into the warp anywhere (well, you can, but you risk this unfortunate side effect of your ship exploding if you're too deep in a gravity well). Tau don't have this problem since they don't actually enter the warp, instead skipping along the edge of it.

And, again, in the Gulf this advantage is largely nullified by A) sept worlds having defense on par with an Imperial sector fortress (Star of Damocles) and B) warp travel being riskier then usual there due to warp storms.

I'm sorry, but all supposed negatives to the Imperial's warp capabilities aside, you simply cannot mass overwhelming force against an enemy that is five times faster than you. That's ridiculous. Mobility is the single most important factor in warfare. The whole five day example i posted is no doubt quite generous, they could simply jump away to the opposite side of the Tau Empire - imagine month long jump.

I think you are overestimating the danger represented by the Gulf - it's not like much of the Tau Empire is actually inside it. And do you really think a Tau Sept world without large fleet elements could resist the Black Templars combined might? I'm really not trying to denigrate the Tau, but....seriously?

A five day lead isn't going to help at all. When you factor in that you aren't going to even be making landfall for a day or two considering Tau orbital defenses tend to be beefed up. Even then, Battlesuits are going to be turning those Space Marines into cute piles of mush with ease while they outmanuever them.

No offense to the legion of Space Marine fans out there, but they are straight up trash compared to kitted out suits. Which Tau have no shortage of in any of their hunter cadres.

to say nothing of the possability of the Imperial fleet arriving before it left...


the Tau also have significant Intersteller communication problems. their method of transmission is slow. ships traveling and bringing messages in person is almost as fast.


so, a week or so for the cry for help to ge through.

another week for the fleet to mobilize for help,

another week for them to get there.



the Imperium could easily take a planet in 3 weeks. or simply nuke the site from orbit


the Imperium could sail around and attack Tau production facilities and star ports. crippling the Tau ability to resupply while they play a merry game of Ring around the Rosy with the Tau fleet.

eventually, the Tau fleet runs out of fuel and their worlds are decimated by Imperial raids.

heck, a normal space marine fleet could do this very thing with a battlebarge, 2-3 cruisers, 30 escorts, and 4-5 companies.

Bromsy wrote:I'm sorry, but all supposed negatives to the Imperial's warp capabilities aside, you simply cannot mass overwhelming force against an enemy that is five times faster than you. That's ridiculous. Mobility is the single most important factor in warfare. The whole five day example i posted is no doubt quite generous, they could simply jump away to the opposite side of the Tau Empire - imagine month long jump.

I think you are overestimating the danger represented by the Gulf - it's not like much of the Tau Empire is actually inside it. And do you really think a Tau Sept world without large fleet elements could resist the Black Templars combined might? I'm really not trying to denigrate the Tau, but....seriously?

The problem is that there are few stable warp routes through Tau space at all, and the Gulf is a bottleneck that must be passed through by Imperial ships to get into the Tau Empire, as it's surrounded by impassible (*to imperials) warp storms. And, no I'm not overstating how dangerous it is. In fairly stable areas of the warp, it takes 1 day to travel between two fairly close star systems and about a month to travel across a sector (according to the latest fluff).

This is in calm warp conditions using well known routes with well marked beacons.

Two key issues emerge in Tau space: The astronomicon is barely detectable. And the warp is 'abnormal' here. Time eddies are the most common, though not only, issue.

Both of these serve to lengthen warp travel using a warp drive and navigator.

This means that, while, yes, under 'normal' circumstances, they're five times faster, under less then ideal circumstances (as is found throughout Tau space) they're not, as the Tau's ships are largely unaffected by things like warp storms. This is most likely how the Tau stole a march on the Imperium in the Jerico reach, where the Tau (and Chaos, and the Nids) are currently slowly squeezing the life out of another Imperial Crusade.

So, the problem is: You have to beat down a heavily watched and guarded 'front door' to start hopping around. And tht's after having snuck through several systems worth of listening posts and tau equivilants of fortress worlds. The sept itself is was defended on the level of a Imperal sector fortress BEFORE the tau found the Imperium on their doorstep. One would imagine they've beefed it up even further now.

BaronIveagh wrote:
Dragging out my copy of Codex: Eye of Terror...

Um, no. Neither side fields more then 100 battleships. And this is the 13th Black Crusade!

Battlefleets Cadia, Scarus, Agrippa, and Coronus are the largest and most supplied battlefleets in the Imperium outside of Terra itself. Cadia has 12 battleships. Corona has 7, Scarus only has 5.

By comparison, Battlefleet Gothic itself, as the supposedly 'average' sector fleet, has 3 (Divine Right, Bloodhawk, and Cardinal Boras)

The Explorer has 24 different mks alone.

That's a good fluff, but still. During 13'th Black Crusade there where only 44 Regiments listed...and reports was that they where "only" over 200 Regiments in fighting there...
Because Cadia has "only"12 battleships mean that they didn't mention others. Do you know how hard is job to name 200 ships?

Grey Templar wrote:to say nothing of the possability of the Imperial fleet arriving before it left...


the Tau also have significant Intersteller communication problems. their method of transmission is slow. ships traveling and bringing messages in person is almost as fast.


so, a week or so for the cry for help to ge through.

another week for the fleet to mobilize for help,

another week for them to get there.



the Imperium could easily take a planet in 3 weeks. or simply nuke the site from orbit


the Imperium could sail around and attack Tau production facilities and star ports. crippling the Tau ability to resupply while they play a merry game of Ring around the Rosy with the Tau fleet.

eventually, the Tau fleet runs out of fuel and their worlds are decimated by Imperial raids.

heck, a normal space marine fleet could do this very thing with a battlebarge, 2-3 cruisers, 30 escorts, and 4-5 companies.

Grey, The Imperium took 4 companies and 7 million gaurdsmen (and the Grey Knights) to Vraks and it took ten years. Secondly: Starship fuel (in 40k) isn't produced on plaets or at facilities. It's usually produced by ships with plasma scoops at stars.

Secondly, forgetting that the Tau are not dumb and have a fleet base RIGHT THERE so they don't HAVE to travel through the warp for weeks. Or the fact that they were probably tipped off months ago because they have listening posts all up and down the Gulf, as well as spies IN the Imperium.

Think 'Cadia'.

BeefCakeSoup wrote:Tau orbital defenses tend to be beefed up. Even then, Battlesuits are going to be turning those Space Marines into cute piles of mush with ease while they outmanuever them.

Do you have link where I can read about Tau orbital defences? I found only Tau Orbital city on Lexicanum....

As for battlesuits:

Brother Coa wrote:
That's a good fluff, but still. During 13'th Black Crusade there where only 44 Regiments listed...and reports was that they where "only" over 200 Regiments in fighting there...
Because Cadia has "only"12 battleships mean that they didn't mention others. Do you know how hard is job to name 200 ships?

It didn't name them at all:

"Battlefleet Cadia, Total Force: Battleships 12, Cruiser squadrons 12, Escort Squadrons 21.
Battlefleet Corona, Total Force: Battleships 7, Cruiser Squadrons 13, Escort Squadrons 17
Battlefleet Scarus, Total Force: Battleships 5, Cruiser Squadrons 9, Escort Squadrons 13. "
(Page 16)

Gothic is flat out stated to only have 3 battleships of it's own, and names them.

I recall a quote from this other thread that said the Crusade was slowed at Dal'yth by the 'full might of the Tau military'.

Grey Templar does remind me of the other massive weakness of the Tau - not only are their ships slower, despite the reasoning you've laid out, they rely on couriers and basically have no interstellar communications. You can throw out things like warp storms and the weakened astronomicon, but you have no actual proof of their material effect. Where in any fluff does it say in corollary that the warp's turbulence in Tau space slows Imperial ships to the same speed as Tau ships? It doesn't; that is naked supposition on your part. Temporal distortions can go either way - they could arrive even faster. Add to this the fact that the entire great crusade was fought without the Astronomicon, and the Legions still managed to take most of the galaxy.

People have been throwing out all kinds of illogical arguments here, like the fact that lower points costs in BFG mean that the Tau would outnumber the Imperials...? And even if we take your point about abnormal warp circumstances - say the imperium is only three times faster than the Tau - you really don't cede that this is an incredible strategic advantage, even though one of the core concepts of Tau military doctrine is mobility?

I will give you that the entire Tau military, concentrated on one planet, could defeat the Black Templars. How exactly would that happen though? Run me through how, given the time delays, slower communications, and slower movement, in your opinion, how this would happen?

We aren't talking an Imperial Guard, slow, grinding, forward at all costs advance, we are talking a space borne legion of the finest shock troops the galaxy has ever seen, with members who have fought for something like up to 10x the average Tau lifespan. Take out of your mind tactical and strategic inflexibility, these guys have more military experience than you give them credit for.

Once again, I have no animosity towards the Tau, and I am not a special fan of the Black Templars.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, I just realized that I haven't actually said my overall point -short of exterminatus, the Templars alone couldn't conquer the Tau Empire. But they could utterly cripple them in every meaningful way.

Brother Coa wrote:

Do you have link where I can read about Tau orbital defences? I found only Tau Orbital city on Lexicanum....

On the pictures: You do realize that as the main character, they could have hit him with an orbital strike and he would have shrugged it off. After all, he'd already violated canon five times by this point in the story.


BFG:A Page 106
IA:3 pg 216
FAQ2010 Pg 166 (latest rules)

In addition to the usual point defense such as the Imperium uses, the Tau also have the Security Orbital, which has four times the hit points and turrets of a standard static defense, with comparable firepower as well as the advantage of lances and WB on the same platform.

The orbital city is marginally inferior to the Ramilies class starfort, with firepower and HP roughly that of a retribution class battleship, however, it costs a little under half what the battleship does, or an 8th what the star fort does.

The one's in BFG:A allow for the orbital to have it's own built in escorts and are modular, so they can have pretty much any combination of weaponry.

BaronIveagh wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
There seems to be a bit of confusion here. A Battleship is a massive warship. These would generally be the flagships of larger fleets. A single Battleship could probably take the entire Tau navy in a straight up fight. Smaller warships, like escorts and cruisers, make up the bulk of the fleet; the smallest of them rivals the best the Tau can field, and is produced in the thousands on an annual basis.

Um, wrong. Tau battleships are quite capable of killing the best battleships the Imperium has to offer. Though, granted, tehy do have two fewer HP.

Tau don't have battleships. Their most advanced naval assets fail to match low-end cruisers. Battlefleet Gothic is a game, wherein balance is more important than staying true to fluff. Taking stats from it at face value is as silly as, say, assuming that a lasgun's range is around 100', when it's greater than 500 meters.

Grey, I have Codex: Tau Empire right here, and they did not 'raze a sept world' though they did manage to land and fight on it, and began suffer something called 'defeat' due to something called 'air power' (the problems you have when you are an army with swords, power or not, and the enemy has mechanized infantry and air superiority fighters that pimp slap yours) and then when no reinforcements were forthcoming due to the Tyranids and supplies were running out, they agreed to withdraw.

Over running a handful of barely defended colonies after the tau have largely evacuated, and actually having to fight another force on even terms are two different things, as one of the characters in the BL novels about the Crusade pointed out.

A scant two regiments take a vast swathe of Tau space, and turn a Sept world into a charred no-man's-land during a protracted stalemate. Two regiments is somewhere in the range of ten to forty thousand troops, by the way.

BaronIveagh wrote: After all, he'd already violated canon five times by this point in the story.
.

How so?
He shred a lot of Tau infantry and one 88....
Don't see any problem there...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BaronIveagh wrote:
It didn't name them at all:

"Battlefleet Cadia, Total Force: Battleships 12, Cruiser squadrons 12, Escort Squadrons 21.
Battlefleet Corona, Total Force: Battleships 7, Cruiser Squadrons 13, Escort Squadrons 17
Battlefleet Scarus, Total Force: Battleships 5, Cruiser Squadrons 9, Escort Squadrons 13. "
(Page 16)

Gothic is flat out stated to only have 3 battleships of it's own, and names them.

Oh I get it, you where referring to SYSTEM fleet. Well let me tell you SECTOR fleet is bigger ( Cadian sector ) and SEGMENTUM fleet is much more bigger...
It's quite normal for a star system to have 5 - 12 battleships, segmentum fleet count in thousands.... They still outnumber the Tau....

dagsta2 wrote:I recall a quote from this other thread that said the Crusade was slowed at Dal'yth by the 'full might of the Tau military'.