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 Furyou Miko wrote:


You're lucky I can't find my Necron codex, but it states therein that Warriors are the elevated slave caste, and that Immortals were created from the soldier-caste. I know this, because it was a retcon from the previous codex, which had Immortals as bodyguards and Warriors as soldiers.

Either way, there aren't enough Immortals for the Necrons to field an army of them.

There are billions of Immortals and tens or hundreds of trillions of warriors. There are tombworlds that have hundreds of billions of warriors and billions of immortals alone.

Warriors are civilians. Immortals were made from soldiers and retained some of their previous personality but it is shallow and empty.

 PhillyT wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
The Conversion Beamer is man-portable. Especially if that man happens to be a Skitarii or Space Marine.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Conversion_beamer#.VCMRGJRdVKY

And in the Dark Age of Technology, they *were* very common. What the Tau now possess is *nothing* to the technological marvels Mankind possessed in its Golden Age, wherein the Baneblade was considered a light battle tank and the Rhino was just a tractor.

I'm sure the long-lost glories of the DAoT were very consoling when the Tau fought off the Taros invasion.

Even if it was common, they're so rare that they are held only by the most elite of technology-worshippers and so hard to use... they're pretty much only used by the most elite of technology-worshippers.

Even then, you only get to hit like a rail gun at the longest of ranges. A railgun still hits like a railgun at less than 42 inches.

To finish- the conversion beamer is impossible to mass-produce, incredibly rare, and less adaptable than a railgun.... and that's supposed to be heartening to the Imperium.

There is a chance there are more conversion beamers than railguns in the galaxy. I think you are struggling the the difference in scale between the Imperium and the Tau. But you seem to be struggling with much of those sorts of things. You certainly wear your bias on your sleeve!

There are roughly a thousand Chapters of Space Marines. Not all will have a Master on hand with enough knowledge to keep the thing running... and no one outside of the Admech would have the know-how.

As for the AdMech, *shrug.* I suppose it doesn't matter how many are locked in martian vaults that the AdMech can't get to anymore.

Tech marines aren't the only ones who use conversion beamers. The Inquisition has access to them as well. You really aren't as well informed on fluff as you seem to think.

 Psienesis wrote:
If so, they chose a really bad place to stick them. There's a dozen Space Marine Chapters within spitting distance of their miniscule empire, and the Imperium is not exactly known for its friendly foreign relations.

Of course, the Damocles Crusade retreated... those dozen Space Marine chapters failed to reconquer all of their lost worlds, retreated, and allowed the Tau to reclaim everything on their side of the Gulf.

Next time, the Tiger Shark's anti-Titan version will prevent humanity's best weapons from having the same effect they did before.

By the time that the Tau are enough of a threat to warrant full Imperial attention, they'll be big enough to take on the Imperium.

You have an amusing lack of understanding concerning a sense of scale.

You also don't seem to understand the Damocles Crusade wasn't a Tau victory. It was a fluff writers artifice to give the Tau a fight with Marines that didn't involve a conflict where the Imperium saw the Tau as a serious enough threat to remove.

They wouldn't need to be on Mars. They could have five on every Forgeworld. They'd still outnumber the count of Pulse Rifles.

The thing that GW does not comprehend (in any of its factions) is the relative size of them. The Tau Empire is so small, in comparison to the Imperium that it would, literally, be like the state of Rhode Island attacking the entire Western Hemisphere.

It would not matter how many high-tech weapons RI had (as the Tau also lack "super weapons" on par with the Imperium or the Necrons), as the Western Hemisphere could arm their soldiers with sticks and rocks and still kill every man, woman and child in Rhode Island. So it is with the Tau and the Imperium, and what's keeping the Tau alive now is GW's allowance of plot armor that other concerns are keeping the Imperium busy (and GW's unwillingness to demonstrate, against their own product line, the sour-grapes attitude of the Imperium. Can't recover that planet? Destroy it utterly.).

I'll be sitting here waiting for the Tau codex update... should be what? 2 years?

Seriously, show a little understanding every other faction is HUUUUUGE!

That is sort of the problem isn't it? Even setting aside the Imperium and the absurd claim that the Tau have better technology than them. The Necron very likely have more warriors than the Imperium has guardsmen and untold billions of immortals. The idea that the Tau are somehow poised for greatness flies in the face if the picture GW has painted. They are a fun little example of what lay outside the conflicts of the big boys and how a plucky minor collective can survive by guile, but they aren't some next great step for the galaxy given the bleakness GW has portrayed the coming century to be.

 PhillyT wrote:
Tech marines aren't the only ones who use conversion beamers. The Inquisition has access to them as well. You really aren't as well informed on fluff as you seem to think.

... and there are how many Inquisitors who have been around long enough and are knowledgeable enough to use one?

This is why the Tau, despite the addition of the rumors of re-education camps and the "disappearing" of protesters in some media, doesn't jive with the rest of 40K.

"In the grim future of the 41st millennium, there is only war!" is the catchphrase. The Tau are too nice, too friendly, too naive and way too liberal to fit into the grimdark setting. What the Tau are depicted as should have been used as a footnote in C:SM as an example of a race that could have brought peace, prosperity and technological innovation to the galaxy... except they poked the Imperium and got exterminated, and now their light is forever extinguished. It'd be tragic, of course, that the best hope for the galaxy was brutally and utterly destroyed... but that's 40K for you.

Then, the Tau product line could be a Xeno empire from, say, the other side of the Ghoul Stars, or the far side of the Halo Stars, that is the remnants of that once-great society, and survives by scavenging its once-wondrous technology that its now-debased culture cannot fully comprehend, but it uses its knowledge of humanity, and the Imperium, to lure recidivist planets to its side, while stealing Imperial tech (and adapting it to their own)... and enslaving those worlds who resist. *That* is the 40K we all know.

A happy-go-lucky force of Gundams doesn't really fit into the setting.

... and there are how many Inquisitors who have been around long enough and are knowledgeable enough to use one?

You know the Inquisition has vast libraries that encompass pretty much the sum of surviving human knowledge, right? Since there are living Tech-Priests who know the use and operation of them, training someone else to do so is not an impossible task.

 PhillyT wrote:
That is sort of the problem isn't it? Even setting aside the Imperium and the absurd claim that the Tau have better technology than them. The Necron very likely have more warriors than the Imperium has guardsmen and untold billions of immortals. The idea that the Tau are somehow poised for greatness flies in the face if the picture GW has painted. They are a fun little example of what lay outside the conflicts of the big boys and how a plucky minor collective can survive by guile, but they aren't some next great step for the galaxy given the bleakness GW has portrayed the coming century to be.

... and they're mostly asleep underground.

Only some will come back to life, and even then, they may be scattered over such a long time period that they don't amount to much. Eventually, the other races figure them out, kill them in their sleep, and that's that. The Eldar have destroyed a tomb world before it awoke at least once, on Maedrex.

Of course, the C'tan are still looking for payback from being shattered... the 'crons probably aren't going to brush them off. The destroyers could go crazy all the way and butcher their compatriots. Lots of things can happen. The necrons have a lot of problems to deal with to keep their crap in order.


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 Psienesis wrote:


You know the Inquisition has vast libraries that encompass pretty much the sum of surviving human knowledge, right? Since there are living Tech-Priests who know the use and operation of them, training someone else to do so is not an impossible task.

It's also maybe not one they'll do. Mistrust and an unwillingness to share toys goes back at least as far as the Baal Predator, which the Blood Angels don't share with the Imperium.

To put it in perspective.

The tau are about equal in size to the Severan Dominate, which is a secessionist faction from the Imperium. They are under assault from the Orks, DE, Chaos, and Imperium daily.

But they are still alive, right? That is because everyone is still primarily fighting the Imperium in the sector. A similar situation for the Tau.

Now this Traitor Empire is the same size as the Tau. It is a sub-sector of a sector of a Segmentum.

Now Imperial forces that engage the forces in this subsector daily are huge. A regiment fights on a world daily on average, while another few rest from their own fight. Now the Damocles Crusade was 19 regiments, in THIS sub-sector there are somewhere around 12 active and 50 resting. 12 Capital ships? HA! here there are at least 20 active at a time. 5 companies of Marines? try a couple chapters

The Tau faced barely a inkling of the force the Imperium can bring to bear, and they lived because this fraction of percent was needed somewhere else fighting someone who was a ENDGAME threat.

They are all waking up. The Tau aren't going anywhere ever. They will be right where they are for a little while longer. Probably buried under tyranids.

You love to make grand assumptions about the future of the Tau while ignoring the very clear fluff for everyone else...

 Psienesis wrote:
The thing that GW does not comprehend (in any of its factions) is the relative size of them. The Tau Empire is so small, in comparison to the Imperium that it would, literally, be like the state of Rhode Island attacking the entire Western Hemisphere.

It would not matter how many high-tech weapons RI had (as the Tau also lack "super weapons" on par with the Imperium or the Necrons), as the Western Hemisphere could arm their soldiers with sticks and rocks and still kill every man, woman and child in Rhode Island. So it is with the Tau and the Imperium, and what's keeping the Tau alive now is GW's allowance of plot armor that other concerns are keeping the Imperium busy (and GW's unwillingness to demonstrate, against their own product line, the sour-grapes attitude of the Imperium. Can't recover that planet? Destroy it utterly.).

Athens and her surrounding territories weren't much bigger than RI, I think, back when they beat back an empire spanning two continents.

Give them time. I'm sure once the third sphere expansion is over and those territories have been integrated, the Tau'll have enough resources to build a few super-weapons of their own.

An IG Regiment is not that many troops, relatively. That one Regiment fights in a battle a day is... not saying much.

It's also worth noting that the Severan Dominate is found in FFG's Only War game, and is on the edge of the Calixis Sector, which is basically an Imperial backwater. Every faction in the game makes an appearance because it's an RPG.... kind of how everyone and their mother shows up in the Dawn of War series.

Athens and her surrounding territories weren't much bigger than RI, I think, back when they beat back an empire spanning two continents.

And then Sparta, a superior military force, ended them.

 Psienesis wrote:
An IG Regiment is not that many troops, relatively. That one Regiment fights in a battle a day is... not saying much.

It's also worth noting that the Severan Dominate is found in FFG's Only War game, and is on the edge of the Calixis Sector, which is basically an Imperial backwater. Every faction in the game makes an appearance because it's an RPG.... kind of how everyone and their mother shows up in the Dawn of War series.

Yes and regiments aren't that big, and the Imperium only sent 19 what do you expect? If you guys are gonna be quoting Fire Warrior I'll bring Only War into this.

The reason Fire Warrior is referenced is because it's one of the only sources of fluff on the Tau that the franchise has, and was one of the marketing pushes to get people into the faction.

We have, literally, scores of books on nearly every facet of the Imperium. All of the Xenos factions have, comparatively, next to nothing to provide us with details in how they function, their capabilities, social structures, etc. So we gotta work with what we've got... otherwise threads like this one are basically fan-fiction, with no support from studio-published sources.

And, yes, while there is no "canon" in 40K, there is still some degree of accepted background lore to separate "gak I made up for my local playgroup" and "what the 40k community, in general, accepts as true".

And the fire warrior book is surprisingly good for what it is based on.

 PhillyT wrote:
They are all waking up.

Except the ones that are broken... go back and reread Page 8 of the Necron codex.

I'm not sure you guys know the necron fluff all that well.

Necrons also aren't very well-organized. (page 9, since if I don't list a page, one of you will claim otherwise). They'll be fighting among themselves to re-establish the Triarch or something similar soon enough.

There is no Necron Aun'va or Necron High Lords of Terra. The Silent King may be trying to unite the Necrons against the tyranids, but there's no guarantee he'll succeed.

Minor correction - it was Persia's gold, not Sparta's might, that gave Sparta the win over Athens.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:

What makes you think that it is the Craftworld Eldar specifically involved in it? If the Eldar have the tech to create Warp Storms, as in sector wide ones, we have not seen it yet. And if a specific Craftworld did this, which do you suggest. The only known craftworld even remotely near the Tau Empire in the galaxy are Iyanden, with every other one being half a galaxy away. Add that to the fact even Eldrad doesn't know why he feels protectiveness towards the Tau, that means he wasn't involved, which rules out Ulthwe. So what's your line of thinking?

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Don't forget they are the last of the universe's most advanced race.

If the Necrons could make the celestial orrery, then the Eldar can certainly make warp storms.


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 Psienesis wrote:
If so, they chose a really bad place to stick them. There's a dozen Space Marine Chapters within spitting distance of their miniscule empire, and the Imperium is not exactly known for its friendly foreign relations.

The Imperium is in no position to focus on the enemies of Chaos.


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 PhillyT wrote:
You have an amusing lack of understanding concerning a sense of scale.

I think he's correct though.
If the Tau Empire doubles in size at every expansion and their technological evolution is much faster, it may very well reach critical mass (numbers X technology) before Imperial predictions, and therefore become unstoppable.

But in my opinion, the main reason the Tau will survive the Empire, is that the Empire has to deal with a lot more gak, including Chaos, meaning the north of the galaxy will be limited to handling Hive Fleets.

At least, that's how the Imperium would play it as an immediate threat is more real than a future one, their psykers aren't that good, and other psykers are covering up for the Tau.

I never said the Eldar couldn't do it, i am saying the Craftworld Eldar wouldn't. Instead i believe it's the work of the Harlequins who are even more advanced then their craftworld cousins solely due to having access to the Black Library.

Also your reasoning is flawed, creating the Celestial Orrey and creating a on the extreme ends of different scales. The Orrey shows complete mastery of the material world, the Warp Storm shows mastery of the Warp. Comparing one to the other is not a fair one.

 PhillyT wrote:
That is sort of the problem isn't it? Even setting aside the Imperium and the absurd claim that the Tau have better technology than them. The Necron very likely have more warriors than the Imperium has guardsmen and untold billions of immortals. The idea that the Tau are somehow poised for greatness flies in the face if the picture GW has painted. They are a fun little example of what lay outside the conflicts of the big boys and how a plucky minor collective can survive by guile, but they aren't some next great step for the galaxy given the bleakness GW has portrayed the coming century to be.

Which may never reactivate, or be destroyed while in stasis.
There could be a whole crusade dedicated to nuking tomb worlds before the Necrons wake up.

The Tau are hope, they represent potential vs realized, and they definitely have a shot at being ignored enough while growing, not posing a significant threat in the eyes of the Imperium until they're too big to be defeated.



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 EmpNortonII wrote:

There is no Necron Aun'va or Necron High Lords of Terra. The Silent King may be trying to unite the Necrons against the tyranids, but there's no guarantee he'll succeed.

And when he does, he'll be fighting.... tyranids !

So yeah.. if the only unifying influence of the Necrons has its eye on Tyranids, I guess Tau may be relatively safe on that side too.


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 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
I never said the Eldar couldn't do it, i am saying the Craftworld Eldar wouldn't. Instead i believe it's the work of the Harlequins who are even more advanced then their craftworld cousins solely due to having access to the Black Library.

Also your reasoning is flawed, creating the Celestial Orrey and creating a on the extreme ends of different scales. The Orrey shows complete mastery of the material world, the Warp Storm shows mastery of the Warp. Comparing one to the other is not a fair one.

I think it's fine. Eldar are to warp mastery what necrons are to material mastery.

But I agree, it's a lot more likely to be the Harlequins, and with the help of the Laughing God, they could easily recover long lost secrets to further their plans, and not only from the Black Library.
Their god could very well guide them to recover some stuff from the "best of Eldar" times.

EmpNortonII wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:


You're lucky I can't find my Necron codex, but it states therein that Warriors are the elevated slave caste, and that Immortals were created from the soldier-caste. I know this, because it was a retcon from the previous codex, which had Immortals as bodyguards and Warriors as soldiers.

Either way, there aren't enough Immortals for the Necrons to field an army of them.

The only Necron dynasty that's short on Immortals is the Maynarkh, and that's only because they keep downgrading themselves into Flayed Ones.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 PhillyT wrote:
They are all waking up.

Except the ones that are broken... go back and reread Page 8 of the Necron codex.

I'm not sure you guys know the necron fluff all that well.

Necrons also aren't very well-organized. (page 9, since if I don't list a page, one of you will claim otherwise). They'll be fighting among themselves to re-establish the Triarch or something similar soon enough.

There is no Necron Aun'va or Necron High Lords of Terra. The Silent King may be trying to unite the Necrons against the tyranids, but there's no guarantee he'll succeed.

Imotek's Dynasty alone is large enough to grind the Tau into dirt. More numerous than the Tau and technology so far ahead of anything the tau could hope to comprehend.

It is only a small fraction of the tombworld that currently exist that WON'T awaken. Many have died, but the vast majority are coming online. It is the standard GW way of preventing everything from going to pot while providing the ultimate awesome story they so love.

Necron are a nightmarish elite army that is also insanely numerous. To be honest, I think the necron are what you wish the Tau were - the actual future of the galaxy and the likely answer to many of the coming problems.

That the Necrons engage in in-fighting is... irrelevant. There are enough major dynasties that aren't, with more than enough forces available that, should they decide to End the Tau, they could. The Tau don't possess anything that prevents the Necrons from phasing out, repairing, and returning. They also don't have anything at all from stopping a Deathmark from eliminating their Etherals (or, worse, Mind Shackling it) before the battle even begins.

What protects the Tau from the Necrons, currently, is the fact that they're on opposite ends of the galaxy from one another. The majority of the Necron Tomb Worlds are in the galactic north-west, which was the seat of their empire sixty-plus million years ago. The flyspeck that is the Tau Empire is in the galactic south-east.

The Imperium is in no position to focus on the enemies of Chaos.

The Tau are not the enemies of Chaos. They do not even comprehend what Chaos is. The Necrons, as the "living" embodiment of unending, unchanging Order, are the enemies of Chaos. They always have been, for more years than most other races in the galaxy have existed.

 Psienesis wrote:
That the Necrons engage in in-fighting is... irrelevant. There are enough major dynasties that aren't, with more than enough forces available that, should they decide to End the Tau, they could. The Tau don't possess anything that prevents the Necrons from phasing out, repairing, and returning. They also don't have anything at all from stopping a Deathmark from eliminating their Etherals (or, worse, Mind Shackling it) before the battle even begins.

What protects the Tau from the Necrons, currently, is the fact that they're on opposite ends of the galaxy from one another. The majority of the Necron Tomb Worlds are in the galactic north-west, which was the seat of their empire sixty-plus million years ago. The flyspeck that is the Tau Empire is in the galactic south-east.

The Imperium is in no position to focus on the enemies of Chaos.

The Tau are not the enemies of Chaos. They do not even comprehend what Chaos is. The Necrons, as the "living" embodiment of unending, unchanging Order, are the enemies of Chaos. They always have been, for more years than most other races in the galaxy have existed.

By the time they can become a threat, the Tau will at least have quadrupled their size with further expansion. Their technology will have progressed. After interacting with the Necrons, the Earth Caste may find a way to stop their phasing out.

The Tau can still do things like that. They're progressing technologically.

As more Necrons come online, the potential for civil war increases. The C'tan will make attempts to avenge their betrayal and shattering. The flayed ones will become more numerous. The destroyers may go all of the way off the wall and start attacking the necrons. The necrons have plenty of factors that will prevent them from being as dangerous as they could be.


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 PhillyT wrote:


It is only a small fraction of the tombworld that currently exist that WON'T awaken. Many have died, but the vast majority are coming online. It is the standard GW way of preventing everything from going to pot while providing the ultimate awesome story they so love.

Necron are a nightmarish elite army that is also insanely numerous. To be honest, I think the necron are what you wish the Tau were - the actual future of the galaxy and the likely answer to many of the coming problems.

What I really want is a lizardman army in space...

At any rate, I'm not seeing anywhere in the codex indicating that as many tomb worlds will come online as you think. Certainly, there are hundreds of billions of 'Crons that are not yet active... but there hasn't been a Gallup poll taken of "Is your tomb world awake or will be awoken?" The only thing the codex is clear on is that the majority still slumber, waiting to rise... or be put down by an Imperial crusade or Eldar hunt.


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Bharring wrote:
Minor correction - it was Persia's gold, not Sparta's might, that gave Sparta the win over Athens.

I see we have a member who is well-versed in ancient history.

On a side note- is there a particular side you think was more in the right during the conflict than the other?

By the time they can become a threat, the Tau will at least have quadrupled their size with further expansion. Their technology will have progressed. After interacting with the Necrons, the Earth Caste may find a way to stop their phasing out.

The Tau can still do things like that. They're progressing technologically.

They would need to first capture a Necron to take it apart and see how it Phases Out before they can begin to counter the science behind the event. The Earth Caste aren't wizards, they can't just see something happen and gain understanding of the mechanics behind the event. But this is only possible if the Necrons have already arrived, which means its too late.

If the Tau increased their size ten-fold they would still be a tiny circle in the lower right-hand corner of the galactic map. That's how small their Empire is. It currently numbers, what, twenty-five systems?

They also managed to piss off the Space Wolves, which never bodes well for anyone, because if any Chapter wears 10 meters of plasma-strengthened Plot Armor, it's the Space Wolves.