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so the fluff lite is this tau sept was a scouting party, lost their ethereal in a heavy chaos attack and were cut off from normal space by a convenient to me warp storm
after the loss of the ethereal they kept on as usual until they came across a particualrly nasty knornate warband. after defeating them the tau leader admired the chaos leaders axe and decided to take it as a trophy. this was the start of the end as the demonic weapon was sentient and actually decided to take over the tau.

this army will be a combined force of tau and imperial guard. to make things even more count as i will be making the army using codex orks. the nobs will be crisis suits and the guardsmen and fire warriors will simply be boys with shootas. the crisis suits are in the midst of demonic transformation hence the arms and hooves (well at least my attempt at hooves.) i am thinking of adding the khornate helmet "wings" to the crisis suits but thought id get some opinions. the left hand will become a power fist/klaw.

im sorry that the pics are so bad but hopefully theyre enough to get an idea of what i'm going after. im looking for suggstions and criticism on the idea overall as well as my conversions.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/usernamesareannoying/2422471620/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/usernamesareannoying/2422470896/

ugh, how do i get pics to work?

Counts as Orks? Orks?! Boy, you just went ahead and picked the most unTau-like army out there, didn't you?

And what's a Tau doing admiring an AXE, anyways?

Two ways.

1. You can upload them to Dakka via the Photo Dump section of the forums.

2. Flickr has its own system of allowing remote hosting. Click
on the button All Sizes and it should allow you to view
a static URL for the image which you then cut and paste
into the URL tags on DAkka.

Tau are a non psychic race, and difficult to subvert. The worst you will get is a terndency towards personal violence *couigh* O'Shovah *cough*.

You might be better of with a concept of direct daemonic manifestation, with spirits tsking over crisis suits a la Defilers.

i don't know if you have seen them already but somewhere on the internet there is rules for tau human auxillaries which you could use instead of using codex orks,

link
http://uk.games-workshop.com/tau/tau-auxiliaries/1/

Well ... using Codex Orks seems bit of a stretch even for me. I'm fine with the demonic infestation and the chance for some craaazy conversions - I like the ogre arms here, hilarious and huge - but I don't think the orks are such a hot choice of counts as lists. Crisis -> nobs in heavy armor is decent I guess, but you best be bulking up those guard and fire warriors (and seriously messing with the lasguns and pulse rifles to upgrade/downgrade them to shootas!) to match a shoota boy. Mixing them together might make for a good 'mutated rabble' look.

My own 'slightly spooky' chaos tau are just tau still, guns and all. I think your project could have legs but orks seems like a stretch right now.

- Salvage

thanks guys.
my issue is the fact that i like the ork codex but i dislike the ork figures. i love the imperial guard and tau of which i have both so i thought i could merge both.

ugh... now im at a loss how to achieve what i wanted.

would using guard solely be any more feasible using the ork codex?

You won't get too many happy opponents with using codex orcs.

Just run it as an Apocalypse force then you can do anything.

use orcs for the ork codex

if you like tau and imperials, then use the rules for guesa'va(imperial recreiutments for tau)

if you want to go chaos go chaos.

right now your theme is all over the place, in the end, using another army as an ork proxy just about never works, thier just too different from everyone else.

in the end since it seems as if you want to use the ork codex, you should just play orks, and just use the ork models.

you can always start more than one army.

Yeah homie, I am not sure how you are going to get me to suspend my disbelief that the most un-hand-to-handy army in the game is really the most hand-to-handy army in the game. Nice job on the fluff trying to get them there, but nah, as Orlanth said the Tau are not psykers and thus can not be affected that way. It would be like trying to infect an abicus with a worm virus.

I'm going to disagree with the fluff nazis to a point- 40K is a big universe and anything can happen. Chaos Tau = A-OK in my book. Orks and counts-as = Go for it.

How well you will pull this off depends a lot on how much time you put into modelling and converting this. If you throw a bunch of unmodified Tau on the table and say they're boyz, you should expect groaning and complaining. If it's clear that they've been changed and aren't normal Fire Caste Warriors then I don't think it's reasonable for anyone to say you can't do it- just make sure you make it fairly clear from your modelling what is represented by what and ALWAYS make sure your opponent understands what your army really is before the game.

Modelling-wise, keep in mind that a Tau army is supported by 4 other castes that keep it functioning, particularly the Earth and Water Castes who manufacture equipment and keep the supplies coming. A Tau cadre who splinters off of their Empire is going to have trouble repairing and maintaining their equipment and repairing damage. You would be able to represent a lot of your cadre's renegade-ness just by battering them up, cutting open panels to reveal worky-bits inside, running extra power cables outside the suits (to represent in-expert repairs made in the field by soldiers who don't exactly know what they're doing) and bolted on Imperial/Ork bits.

Good luck!

yeah, _if_ you can field an army of horribly deformed chaotic-looking Tau who are no longer capable of fighting like normal Tau (and would very likely be exterminated by the normal Tau should they ever meet, for the 'Greater Good'), then I for one would think 'cool'.

I must say though that involving _three_ races/codices (Tau, Chaos and Orks) is pushing it - two would be preferable.

As you seem to only be involving Chaos as an excuse for the mutations, why not instead go for the simpler approach of 'Tau mercenaries' - a variety of alien races fighting (for money) on the Tau side. That way you can use any figures you like (preferably making them not look like any other race), and it's fluffy for them to count as orks so long as you can make figures that look like they'd have the same stats as orks. Unfortunately, given your stated preference for Tau/Imperial figures, that may not be easy. Bionic enhanced crazed super warriors maybe?

Another thought - ork-owned mutant human slaves in a Blood Axe army? That would at least help with explaining the orky fighting style - but you'd also need some fluff to exlain why the orks aren't doing their own fighting

Clang wrote:As you seem to only be involving Chaos as an excuse for the mutations, why not instead go for the simpler approach of 'Tau mercenaries' - a variety of alien races fighting (for money) on the Tau side. That way you can use any figures you like (preferably making them not look like any other race), and it's fluffy for them to count as orks so long as you can make figures that look like they'd have the same stats as orks.

Very nice idea!

And if you're worried about Ork BS: they aren't lousy shots because they can't aim, but because their equipment is not always in the best condition and not all the squads have consistent ammunition supplies.

JOHIRA wrote:

Clang wrote:As you seem to only be involving Chaos as an excuse for the mutations, why not instead go for the simpler approach of 'Tau mercenaries' - a variety of alien races fighting (for money) on the Tau side. That way you can use any figures you like (preferably making them not look like any other race), and it's fluffy for them to count as orks so long as you can make figures that look like they'd have the same stats as orks.

Very nice idea!

And if you're worried about Ork BS: they aren't lousy shots because they can't aim, but because their equipment is not always in the best condition and not all the squads have consistent ammunition supplies.

I agree, much more plausible idea, and as Johira pointed out you have other castes, perhaps the earth caste is more staunch and Ork like as the air caste is more lith and eldar like.