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Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:Yeah I know, but the military training in me has a hard time dealing with such blatant idiocy.

Really my military experience has taught me exactly how to deal with that. That being said I was USAF computer programming and helpdesk(got out a few years ago), and most of my helpdesk training consisted of how to tell people what they were doing was stupid in a respectful manner.

Every faction has annoying fanboys. The SoB seem to have less of them (part of why I picked it up), the Ork ones are easiest to deal with (they just scream waaah and talk funny), and the Eldar ones usually seem worse (call me mon'keigh again and i will punch your tanks out of the sky, maybe IRL too).

The problem that most player have with tau is the low grimdark quotient. The setting is supposed to be "no good guys', and even with the brainwashing and sterilization that was added in the fluff (second codex i want to say) they are still the bright shiny flower children of the setting. All of the other factions are utterly deplorable, tau are only mildly deplorable. Now if they genocide off a few races, and do some other stuff that will run them off the moral event horizon like everyone else, they might get more acceptance. Orks are the 2nd least Grimdark, and they are a race genetically engineered psychic psychopathic murderers. They are also the absolute funniest faction.

Armless Failure wrote:

Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:Yeah I know, but the military training in me has a hard time dealing with such blatant idiocy.

Really my military experience has taught me exactly how to deal with that. That being said I was USAF computer programming and helpdesk(got out a few years ago), and most of my helpdesk training consisted of how to tell people what they were doing was stupid in a respectful manner.

Every faction has annoying fanboys. The SoB seem to have less of them (part of why I picked it up), the Ork ones are easiest to deal with (they just scream waaah and talk funny), and the Eldar ones usually seem worse (call me mon'keigh again and i will punch your tanks out of the sky, maybe IRL too).

The problem that most player have with tau is the low grimdark quotient. The setting is supposed to be "no good guys', and even with the brainwashing and sterilization that was added in the fluff (second codex i want to say) they are still the bright shiny flower children of the setting. All of the other factions are utterly deplorable, tau are only mildly deplorable. Now if they genocide off a few races, and do some other stuff that will run them off the moral event horizon like everyone else, they might get more acceptance. Orks are the 2nd least Grimdark, and they are a race genetically engineered psychic psychopathic murderers. They are also the absolute funniest faction.

USAF...its kinda military experiance , J/K battle, well I am Combat arms, and even had to do my Drill time, which sucked BTW, But I understand what you say, I just enjoy a good fluff discussion without devolving into how much one side can sodomize the other, at that point all interest for the dialogue ends.

It's nice to have military experience on this sort of topic, hopefully I will qualify as having it as I am planning to enlist in a few years (after college and such). Also, I find that the Tau aren't completly devoid of grimdarkness, I think that they just do a good job of covering some of it up... I personally an basing my Tau of off some of the most recognizable baddies in videogaming history...

Imagine the Imperium are an Elephant and the Tau are a Mouse. The scale is pretty similar.

Now the Elephant can easily crusth the Mouse if it chooses to. Yeah the mouse can scurry aroudn a bit, making it harder. It might even deliver a sharp bite when the foot comes down, but there is really nothing the mosue can do to stop that foot when it starts moving.

However, in the same enclosure as the Elephant and the Mouse we have a pack of jackals (Chaos) a pack of Hyenas (Orks) a pride of Lions (Chaos Marines) and a swarm of army ants ('nids).

Please explain to me why the Elephant would waste it's time squishing the Mouse.

Jefffar wrote:Imagine the Imperium are an Elephant and the Tau are a Mouse. The scale is pretty similar.

Now the Elephant can easily crusth the Mouse if it chooses to. Yeah the mouse can scurry aroudn a bit, making it harder. It might even deliver a sharp bite when the foot comes down, but there is really nothing the mosue can do to stop that foot when it starts moving.

However, in the same enclosure as the Elephant and the Mouse we have a pack of jackals (Chaos) a pack of Hyenas (Orks) a pride of Lions (Chaos Marines) and a swarm of army ants ('nids).

Please explain to me why the Elephant would waste it's time squishing the Mouse.

I would consider 'Nids more formidable than "army ants"
Also, the Tau are a growing collective, they may be mice for now but they are growing into a capybara...eventually even bigger, mammoth mouse maybe...

Honey badger

Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:Honey badger

Honey Badger don't care!

Squidmanlolz wrote:

I would consider 'Nids more formidable than "army ants"
Also, the Tau are a growing collective, they may be mice for now but they are growing into a capybara...eventually even bigger, mammoth mouse maybe...

http://youtu.be/MStCYtXT6Lw - seem pretty dang formidable to me.

fair enough, but against an elephant, im not entirely sure that they could bite through sucha thick hide as easily as the tyranids conquer imperial planets.

Squidmanlolz wrote:
I would consider 'Nids more formidable than "army ants"
Also, the Tau are a growing collective, they may be mice for now but they are growing into a capybara...eventually even bigger, mammoth mouse maybe...

Would you?

Even the largest known Nid-fleets have always been stopped by no more than a single Space Marine chapter. Smaller Nid-fleets have been brought to a screeching halt by even smaller things like Ork Freebootaz, inventive Inquisitors or, as it stands, the Tau. One splinter fleet was killed to the last bug by Maugan Ra singlehandedly. Iyanden as a Craftworld more or less engineered the end of not one but two Hive Fleets! Hive Fleet Jormungandr's vanguard was actually OUTNUMBERED! by the Vallhallan 18th.

If a single Space Marine Chapter is enough to stop major Hive Fleets like Behemoth (and there're thousands of Space Marine Chapters in the IoM) and a single Craftworld can engineer the end of 2 Hive Fleets (and there's still several dozend Craftworlds out there) and a single IG Regiment can outnumber an Hive-Fleet vanguard (and there're millions of IG regiments out there), Tyranids don't seem much more than ants at best. There's been less than 20 Hive Fleets overall at best.

Compare that to Tau, for example the battle over the Forgeworld Praetonis V, where it took the combined forces of no less than 9 Space Marine Chapters (about the equivalent of the SM Forces deployed in the Badab War), including Ultramarines under Sicarius, the Aurora Chapter and the Crimson Fists to move the Tau. Given the Nids record, 9 Space Marine Chapters, including many of the "named" and "important" ones, seems plenty to deal with pretty much all Tyranids known to have entered the Galaxy over several centuries simultaniously.

In short, Tyranids' military record is pretty pathetic. If you think Tau are insignificant compared to the IoM, Tyranids with their even less significant record of making any meaningful dent in the power-balance of the Galaxy would likely not even show on the map.

The tyranids took Macragge pretty easily, that might as well be considered the elephant's toe.

Tyranids never took Maccragge (unlike the Tau who did take major imperial worlds like the Forgeworld Praetonis V for a while). Not to mention that Behemoth was the very first ever Hive Fleet to enter the IoM, new, unknown enemy and all that.

But hell, even in an alternate universe where the Nids would have taken Maccragge and annhiliated the Ultramarines. That'd be one chapter down, several thousands to go. That is alot of toes.

My bad, I thought that the Tyranids won the battle for Maccragge... oops, It would have given the ultras a little more flavor if their home was taken from them.

Squidmanlolz wrote:My bad, I thought that the Tyranids won the battle for Maccragge... oops, It would have given the ultras a little more flavor if their home was taken from them.

That is a tangent, but I disagree. If Ultramarines had lost their homeworld, they'd be stepping on Dark Angel toes. They are far more unique and flavourfull as what they are now, "inofficial" rulers of a "mini-"realm that in many ways lives up to what the entire Imperium could perhaps be. It fits their narrative role as paragons far better and is certainly a gazillion times more interesting than the 184th gloom-and-doom Dark Angel clone roaming the Galaxy in fading memory of past glory.

The Tyranids need a better codex.

Squidmanlolz wrote:My bad, I thought that the Tyranids won the battle for Maccragge...

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kilkrazy wrote:The Tyranids need a better codex.

True to that, and they need at least few more victories.

KingDeath wrote:

Psienesis wrote:Macharius did, however, eventually crush the Interex.

And now, "... nothing is left of them and their works but dust", to quote Lord Solar Macharius' journal.

Afaik that quote was from the destruction of Adrantis V and not from the destruction of the Interex, whose fate remains unknown.
For all we know the Interex might have been completely forgotten and still exists in relative isolation beyond the borders of the current Imperium.

No, the Interex were conquered (or destroyed) by the Imperium. It says so in the novel False Gods.

Jefffar wrote:Imagine the Imperium are an Elephant and the Tau are a Mouse. The scale is pretty similar.

Now the Elephant can easily crusth the Mouse if it chooses to. Yeah the mouse can scurry aroudn a bit, making it harder. It might even deliver a sharp bite when the foot comes down, but there is really nothing the mosue can do to stop that foot when it starts moving.

However, in the same enclosure as the Elephant and the Mouse we have a pack of jackals (Chaos) a pack of Hyenas (Orks) a pride of Lions (Chaos Marines) and a swarm of army ants ('nids).

Please explain to me why the Elephant would waste it's time squishing the Mouse.

What I love about that analogy. Elephants are afraid of mice.

Zweischneid wrote:

Squidmanlolz wrote:My bad, I thought that the Tyranids won the battle for Maccragge... oops, It would have given the ultras a little more flavor if their home was taken from them.

That is a tangent, but I disagree. If Ultramarines had lost their homeworld, they'd be stepping on Dark Angel toes. They are far more unique and flavourfull as what they are now, "inofficial" rulers of a "mini-"realm that in many ways lives up to what the entire Imperium could perhaps be. It fits their narrative role as paragons far better and is certainly a gazillion times more interesting than the 184th gloom-and-doom Dark Angel clone roaming the Galaxy in fading memory of past glory.

I just want them to allow one actually bad thing to happen to the Ultrasmurfs. The new SM codex has made me actively hate them though, so it's likely just me feeling vindictive since I can never be an ultramarine.

nomotog wrote:
What I love about that analogy. Elephants are afraid of mice.

Mythbusters bust that myth.

Brother Coa wrote:

nomotog wrote:
What I love about that analogy. Elephants are afraid of mice.

Mythbusters bust that myth.

I watched that episode. They confirmed the myth.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpTSA_25wGE

And I tough that they busted it.

No matter, that analogy is wrong anyway. Imperium would be more like a Blue Whale, with Tau being a mouse:

The point is. The IoM dose go out of it's way not to kill the tau. Nearly every crusade into tau space gets called back after one system and thanks to the revisionists in BL these are crusades that are going very well at the time too.

nomotog wrote:What I love about that analogy. Elephants are afraid of mice.

Of course. I had to explain why Imperium Fans frequently discuss Tau genocide instead of dealing with the real problems the Imperium faces.

Jefffar wrote:
Of course. I had to explain why Imperium Fans frequently discuss Tau genocide instead of dealing with the real problems the Imperium faces.

We deal with real problems with Chaos and Tyranids. But when you got Tau fans that constantly wine about how much powerful Tau is - how can you ignore them?
WE explain then that they are minor threat in the galaxy, and they call us "Tau genocidalist".

There's a difference between saying the Tau are a minor threat in the galaxy (which I agree with) and posting threads about destroying the Tau Empire.

I've seen more of the latter in the few months I've been on Dakka than I thought would be the case.

Jefffar wrote:

nomotog wrote:What I love about that analogy. Elephants are afraid of mice.

Of course. I had to explain why Imperium Fans frequently discuss Tau genocide instead of dealing with the real problems the Imperium faces.

Maybe it's because the tau are the only race that the IoM can actually fight. Maybe nids too because of the worf effect, but everyone else is beasicly immune to being defeated by the IoM.

Brother Coa wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Of course. I had to explain why Imperium Fans frequently discuss Tau genocide instead of dealing with the real problems the Imperium faces.

We deal with real problems with Chaos and Tyranids. But when you got Tau fans that constantly wine about how much powerful Tau is - how can you ignore them?
WE explain then that they are minor threat in the galaxy, and they call us "Tau genocidalist".

Which is true, Tau forum posters keep saying how Tau is the best and how they have powerful weapons. It's just inviting trouble from Imperial or other forum posters.

There are also threads about destroying the Imperium.
And I don't wine about them.

And realistically - Tau are the only race that can be exterminated in 40k, in the present time.

Some tau fans seem to think they are owed big threat status, why, I don't know.