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[This post is very long, but not very heavy going. Please don’t be put off by the size!]

[WARNING: THIS IS 100% OPINION! I am not saying the following post holds all the answers or is 100% right, I am very open minded about it and I am more that happy for it to be discussed and disagreed with, in fact, that is the reason why I have posted it!]

Looking at things written about on this subject in the past, I believe this could be quite 'controversial'. Some discussions I have read have become very heated, and I feel that this have the potential to be similar. I would ask people to remain level headed and post constructive arguments, rather than just saying 'I know more about Tau/ Chaos fluff than you could ever imagine!' (I read a 15 page post on the subject before writing this, and about 10 pages of it was simply that!). From what is out there, I think that this concept has not being discussed fully and I will try to resolve the issue, if it ever will, with your help.

I feel this is very possible that Tau can turn to Chaos on the small scale (by small scale I mean both individually and 'combat patrol' size armies). I am going to use the Tau and Chaos codex’s to re- enforce my arguments, as they are things most people already have, have knowledge or can easily find a copy. The fluff in codex's is also nearly non- disputable (I say 'nearly' just in case there are few rare examples I don’t know about), which, if I base my arguments off of, they will be much stronger.

Firstly in going to look at the Chaos codex, to see if it is in fact possible for Chaos to consume Tau.
Page 8 of the Chaos codex talks about the creation of the Chaos Gods. It talks about emotions and events ('their hopes and dreams...rage and wars...love and hatred') 'feeding the Chaos Gods and nurturing their power'. It also says 'A Chaos God can only grow in power through the actions and thoughts of morals'. Therefore, the more morals acting in the name of the Gods, the stronger they will become, and the Chaos Gods want to become as strong as possible. It is therefore in the Gods favour to have as many followers as possible.
When it comes to Chaos Tau, why would the Chaos Gods not want them as followers? Even if their minds barely registered in the warp (second to last paragraph, page 6 in Tau Codex), they would still beneficial, even if only marginally. True, it would hardly be worth it for the Gods to actively seek them as followers, but if the Tau offered themselves up, for whatever reason, why would the Gods look a gift horse in the mouth?

From this, I conclude that it is possible for Chaos to consume Tau, but would the Tau ever act in such a way to please the Chaos Gods?

In the Tau codex, on page 5, it talks about the time before the Ethereal's, the Mont'au, roughly translated to 'dark times'. This was a time of great war and disease, where the Tau were brought to near extinction:

'As the savagery of the fighting escalated, it seemed as though the Tau race would surely extinguish itself in the fires of this own barbarity.' (Tau codex, bottom of 'Advanced Evolution', page 5)

This shows that the Tau can be brutal, even to their own, without the guiding presence of the Ethereal's. If the guiding light of the Ethereal's was not present and were cut off from the main body of Tau, it could be very possible that the Tau could act in a very bloodthirsty and barbaric way.

But why would the Tau turn to Chaos?

I am going to look at each God individuality, and what they could offer the Tau, what the Tau can offer them, and how realistic this would be. I have put them in the order I see as the most plausible.

Khorne could offer an ambitious warrior who wish's to carve out an empire of his/her own, Khorne giving the soldiers and skill to do so. Khorne, in return, would demand that blood would be spilled in his name, which if an empire is being built and war waged, isn't a huge demand for the Tau. This seems to be a good bargain for both Tau and God, as Khorne 'cares not from whence the blood flow, only that it does.' (Codex: Chaos, page 9). Why would he care who is making the blood flow and for what reason?

Tzeentch could give the a Tau an number of rewards, the limit of the Tau' s dreams and aspirations being the only thing holding him back. Alternately, Tzeentch could offer the Tau knowledge in return of his services. Tzeentch would get another pawn in his game of fate that entangles the universe. To me, this seems very plausible.

Nurgle would offer a Tau a body that could resist illness, starvation and death, which is going to be very tempting! Though what Nurgle could get in return in not clear. The Tau could, in return for his/her resilient body, could become the bearer of a terrible plague that would infect others, much like the destroyer plague. Nurgle is a welcoming God, and I think this is plausible that he would accept Tau, though I think what use he would have for them need to be exploded more.

Slaanesh could offer a sense of individuality to the Tau and give them new found pleasures and experiences. As the pleasures get old, the Tau would turn to more and more horrific acts to amuse themselves. I can't think of a good use the Tau would be for Slaanesh, other that must more warriors and followers, though Slaanesh does not really interest me, so if someone else could ponder this it would be great!

In what sort of situation would this happen?

Anywhere were there is no Ethereal’s present and the Tau are cut off for a long period of time and/or are in desperate need. This is quite a specific set of circumstances, but it is very similar to how many Space Marines fall from grace, the faith in the emperor being lessened by not having a functioning Chaplain in the ranks and little to stop the Space Marine deserting.

So what do you think of all this? Plausible, or a load of rubbish that could never happen? What do you think could and couldn’t work? Have anything to add?

Thanks very much for reading, it is greatly appreciated.

[I wish I could this much time and effort into my homework…]

I that the fact that they barely register in the warp (or not at all) is the reason they can't turn to chaos. Demons can't possess something that has no presence in the warp. If they are unable to feed the chaos gods because of their lack of a warp presence, there's no point to even take note of them.

That said, I think the only chaos god that would even be able to get a toe-hold in the tau psyche would be nurgle; he's the most group minded of the chaos gods.

agnosto wrote:I that the fact that they barely register in the warp (or not at all) is the reason they can't turn to chaos. Demons can't possess something that has no presence in the warp.

It does say that they barely register in the warp, meaning that they do register in the warp, and so therefore can be possessed, but I guess with great difficulty. I read somewhere that in the 'firewarrior' book a Tau does get possessed by a strong daemon, so I think it is very possible especially if the Tau is willing.

agnosto wrote:If they are unable to feed the chaos gods because of their lack of a warp presence, there's no point to even take note of them.

For example, the Tau massacred a large number of Chaos worshippers and foiled an attack/plan/whatever, the Gods may pay attention to them, and see them as fearsome warriors that could potentially further Chaos's aims. A long shot, but I'm sure others could also think of other examples

agnosto wrote:That said, I think the only chaos god that would even be able to get a toe-hold in the tau psyche would be nurgle; he's the most group minded of the chaos gods.

If your creative enough with the fluff, you could do anything. Though a series of demoralising events, the Tau could loose faith in the group mentality, only willing to serve themselves, or something like that...

Tau don't have to be possessed by Daemons in order to turn towards Chaos.

Eric

Another aspect of this would be the Tau's partner races. I think Kroot would fall to Khorne very easily, maybe Nurgle since they have that adaptive genetic code. I'm sure they could make some amazing plague-warriors. Not too sure about Vespids. That whole communion helm thing would make it hard. If they fell to anyone it would be because the Tau gave them the order to.

with an ethereal present it could never happen as the ethereals actually exude a pheremone that causes the tau to be loyal to them. Also I believe it was in the aformentioned firewarrior game where an agent of chaos attempts to corrupt an ethereal only to realize it isn't possible to which he replies "a race with no chance at corruption? how boring

The main obstacle to tau being corrupted is they have no psychers, without conduits to the warp it is exceptionally difficult to make contact with the tau in a form they would accept communication from. A manifested demon would be attacked on sight and without a pleasing form to be an ambassador I don't see the tau ever falling to the silver tongued words of the lords of chaos.

Certainly it could be possible on an individual level but as ethereals are the ruling caste and have thus far proved incorruptible I can't see a plausible scenario in which any kind of chaos movement could take root.

I'm with Aftersong on this.

Tau don't appeal to Chaos' sense of self-preservation and indulgence. In fact, they are quite the opposite.

No connection to the other realm. Why bother? Humanity is more fun, anywhoo.

Chaos demands individuality, and in a race that is taught unity from birth, I doubt it.

When a Space Marine turns, he has that vital link to the warp. The Tau's link is so small and nonexistent that the Gods need not pay attention when entire worlds of humans with strong connections offer themselves.

I thought I read somewhere that a tau can be "possessed" or influenced or whatever by Chaos. However, from what I read that I can remember, a Chaos demon or prince basically stated that the effort to do so is so ridiculously strenuous that they'd rather spend the time and effort into messing with Humanity.

I personally think that a Tau commander can be influenced by the Chaos powers. Not in the normal Rrrrragggh! Kill you! turn-into-a-demon prince influence. But small whisperings of rage or doubt over a loooong period of time. Of course, when an Ethereal pops up the acts like a normal Tau, but as soon as the Ethereal leaves, the Chaos powers start their mind games again.

While its not the, turn into Chaos spawn, type effect it's still the Chaos powers at work. Barring a Tau fleet falling into the Warp, I don't personally think they can get all spiky-like.

I woudl lean towards the "no" side of the camp, as far as the race of Tau falling to Chaos.

But a task force/squad sized group? For example: A task force loses their Etherial and are suitably demoralized. They are hounded by their enemy and have to make a running retreat into the wilderness. When they are that deperate to survive, wouldn't the tennets of "The Greater Good" fall by the wayside? If a choas daemon/lord/god coudl convince them then why wouldn't they follow?

-They are proud warriors and must survive for the greater good, the only way to survive is to slaughter their enemies, the only way to do that is embrace chaos to gain enough power to triumph against the overwhelming force arrayed against them.

In this case the most likely god to turn them woudl be Khorne (slaughter) or Tzeentch (to convince them). If it was Tzeentch he wcould appear t them in their dreams disguised as the dead Etherial.

Hey Presto, a Chaos Tau task force.

Basically, the reason why I posted this was because I wanted to have evil Tau. My Tau at the moment have urban combat armour, mostly black with grey with red bits and a white gun. Its quite a dark, sinister look, and that's what got me started on the Chaos idea. Also, I had an awesome picture of a battle suit with two great big chain axes in each hand and juggernaut like head on his upper chest in my appear in my mind, which couldn't be ignored!

Fluff wise I was thinking something like Praxiss, but I had an idea. Basically, I want the Tau to look like Chaos, but it's difficult for them to be possessed by Chaos, and so I have come up with this bit of fluff:

The unsuspecting Khorne ship hung silent in the sky as the Tau ships raced towards it, the fire warriors on board getting to board the enemy, excepting unimaginable horror's on-board. The Ethereal's wanted the ship captured rather than destroyed, it was a unique chance for they to study any weakness's the ship may have and possibly find future Chaos plans.
The reason why the Khorne ship did not attempt to fire upon the attacking Tau ships was made clear with the Tau boarded. They were met with the sight of hundreds of dead Space Marines, with the marking of Khorne, hacked to dead and lining the corridors for hundreds of miles. As the Tau ventured further in, why found the few survivors still alive attacking one another in great fits of rage. It appeared that the berserker's had been without battle for a long while, and in devotion to their God Khorne, had turned on each other in sacrifice. When it was clear that their was no real fight to be had, the Ethereal's sent more Tau on board, both of Fire and Earth caste, to hasten the search for information. But what they did not know was that the ship was set to warp jump in a matter hours, which it did, separating the Tau on board the Chaos ship from their Ethereal's, still on the Tau ships, who could not follow due to the Tau's lack of the Navigator gene.

Billions of miles from home, the Tau were trapped in their Chaos tomb in a large patch of empty space, unable to control the Chaos ship, leaderless; alone. The lower rank warrior's turned to their respecting superiors for guidance. At first, the Tau worked together, but supplies started to become low, so did the trust between the Tau. They started to divide the ship between them, each group having a small area with they were allowed to stay in; and no else was allowed to enter.

Whatever provoked the great battle between the Tau is not clear, it could have been one attacked another for more supplies, or simply a small argument between a couple of rival Tau, but whatever happened, Tau was put against Tau in a bitter kin strife. Tau sunk as lower as eating the long dead Space Marines, and even cannibalism, to stay alive. The meaning of 'for the greater good' was lost, simply meaning victory over the other Tau. The war raged on and on, a whole new generation was born, knowing nothing of the outside universe, and living in a constant turf struggle.

After many years, only one faction remained. When the ship was first divided, one of the groups were gifted with the best the Earth caste could get. Rather than simply dismiss the Chaos weapons around them as crude, as the other's did, they studied them, hacking the ships computers and dismantling the Khorne chain axes to see how they worked. The commanders allowed them to do this as the low supplies of ammunition and the natural choke points of the ship meant that the usually Tau tactics of avoiding close combat were ineffective.

The commanders faith in the research paid off. They mounted the Khorne chain axe's on their guns like heavy duty bayonets, which were highly effective at cutting though the enemies armour. Soon after these were deployed, all other Tau had submitted to or had been killed by the newly named "Son's of Khorne", in honour of who inspired their victory. [I am shocked that were is no Chaos chapters already called this!].

Whilst they had destroyed all opposition, the Son's of Khorne were still trapped on the ship, and set about to decode the computers so that they were able to pilot and control the ship. The more they de- coded, the more they found out about the God of War, and the more they liked. The years of struggle and knowing nothing of war had led the Tau on- board to respect the fiercest of warriors, and while the old Tau code would have shunned what terrible acts that they had committed, Khorne welcomed it. So it seemed natural for the Tau to start to worship Khorne, and change their battle cry to 'Blood for the Greater God!'

The Fire caste practically enslaved the Earth caste, forcing them to work for days on end in retched conditions to de- code the Chaos ship. They soon found out how the ship could create it's own food supplies, but it didn't stop the Tau from eating the thousands of dead berserker's found on- board, thinking that by eating them, it would bring them closer to Khorne. As the new generations were born on the ship, the facts of the great battle started to be twisted. It did not take long for the Tau to tell their children that Khorne himself had come to the ship in their aid, and later generations thought that they were descendants of Khorne himself!

The truth of the matter was that Khorne hardly knew of the Tau race's existence at all. The Tau's mind hardly registers in the warp, meaning that Chaos is largely uninterested in them. The Tau, however, were ignorant of this, thinking that they were the most blessed in all the universe, willing to do anything their 'father' asked of them.

It was also around this time that the Tau found out about the lobotomy that the World Eaters had perfected, creating fearless warriors who got their greatest rush from killing. The weakest on the ship were the first to be experimented on, perfecting the operation on those who did not matter. Eventually, after many 'test subjects' had been killed, they found away to perform a similar operation on the Tau brain, creating thousands of warriors that did not fear death and felt ecstasy in killing, dedicating themselves to 'father Khorne'.

The Earth caste were pressed even harder after this, the more aggressive Tau wanting to kill in the name of Khorne, and after any hundreds of years, the Tau were finally able to control the ship they had called home for generations, attacking merchant and military ship's alike, not for the plunder, but in the name of a God that did not know or care for them.

'Blood for the Greater God!'


I quite excited about this and I think I am going to write up an army list/ chaos tau codex based on this. I may also thinking of other fluff ideas for the other Gods, such as Tau catching a Nurgle plague that places them under a Chaos Lords direct control or some breakaway Tau simply start enjoy their new found freedom to the extreme (effectively Slaanesh). I like Praxiss idea about Tzeentch as well.

Right, I'm going to play in the snow now, hope you enjoyed my little story

They barely register, doesn't mean 'no'.
From a converting stand-point I actually have Nurgle Tau...

Hell, RAW, you can play Chaos Tau, it just has to be facing off against Deamon Hunters and using the codex special rules in the back.

I'm not sure tau could be subverted directly by any of the chaos gods. It probably wouldn't be worth the effort. However, I can see some tau becoming loyal to chaos indirectly, via human cultists. If they can be convinced that a particular group of humans, perhaps even involving chaos marines, were fighting against the Imperium that sought to destroy them and had attacked that tau group, a mutual if temporary alliance could be formed. With the cultists acting as a go between, the tau could be used to serve the god's means. Extra bodies skilled in combat seem quite helpful, even if they have little warp presence and can't be possessed. And space marines have enough similarities to battle suits that tau would accept them (I'm not meaning they would think they ARE battlesuits, I'm meaning the idea of a 'caste' of highly skilled warriors that use powered armour to augment their skills would seem perfectly logical).

Since said manipulations would have to be rather subtle, particularly at first, and since cultists with obvious repulsive signs are unlikely to be listened to, I think Tzeentch is most likely to succeed. And their lack of warp presence could be a significant advantage if they were used to attack forces of the other gods. Fighting an enemy you cannot sense would throw off most demons at first.

i think slaanesh would be the most likely, they are a very 'communist' type race working for the 'greater good'
eventually there would be a backlash at least somewhere in their empire which if left unchecked a small sect could go all slaaneshi loopy and just maybe slaanesh being the younger of the chaos gods would be better atuned to noticing these new creatures just enough to bend them to his will with the promise of luscious extacy and decadence
yummy

This:
http://www.freewebs.com/montaucodex/

Wasn't there rumours/hypothesis waaay back about commander fancypants with the sword being influenced by it, because it was some kind of chaos artifact?

vodo40k wrote:This:
http://www.freewebs.com/montaucodex/

That's just sad, it's amazing how when someone wants to make a "cool new race codex" they wind up being OP beyond belief. A S6 AP4 flamer? Uh, ok. Why not just make it AP1? They all have WS4? So becoming evil turns you from a WS2, close combat weenie, into a WS4 close combat god? We should all be evil; what tau player wouldn't kill to have "death spiders" and what's with all the twin linked pulse carbines?

Meh. I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying don't make your own list, use a the regular codex and put spiky bits on the tanks or something.

You could say the serve a "life tree" and have to dye themselves blue and the daemons take the shape of dino-styled "winged creatures" that they can fly . . .

agnosto wrote:

vodo40k wrote:This:
http://www.freewebs.com/montaucodex/

That's just sad, it's amazing how when someone wants to make a "cool new race codex" they wind up being OP beyond belief. A S6 AP4 flamer? Uh, ok. Why not just make it AP1? They all have WS4? So becoming evil turns you from a WS2, close combat weenie, into a WS4 close combat god? We should all be evil; what tau player wouldn't kill to have "death spiders" and what's with all the twin linked pulse carbines?

Meh. I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying don't make your own list, use a the regular codex and put spiky bits on the tanks or something.

Yeah I know what your talking about. When I do it I will post a draft on dakkadakka so people can comment, that should get rid of the OPness...

What if a warband of tau are stuck in the eye of terror fighting on a demon world? What then?

tigonesskay wrote:What if a warband of tau are stuck in the eye of terror fighting on a demon world? What then?

They run out of ammo and die.

If you want to make Chaos Tau, go for it. The background allows almost anything to be created and justified.

Be prepared to put up with a lot of argument from sticklers. Look at the crap anyone gets for suggesting female Marines, or female Guard.

To be fair there are two ways of doing it. One is to stick some spikes on the models and call them Chaos, but use the Tau codex. The other would be to spikeyfy them and use the Chaos Marines codex. I quite like that idea. Upgrade normal Tau armour to Sv3 and make the crisis suits into Terminators.

As long as you stick with the rules from an official codex there can't be much unfairness in the army.

Kilkrazy wrote:If you want to make Chaos Tau, go for it. The background allows almost anything to be created and justified.
Look at the crap anyone gets for suggesting female Marines, or female Guard.

I doubt anyone ever posted anything against female guard.

But female IG needs more dedication to the project than some "head-swaps".
Female guard are sadly not what some posters aim for, seems its too easy to use a concept with support from
40k background, so instead, a few "fans" cant resist to ignore/contradict available fluff in favor of arguments and
their role of a victim of some "fluff-hardliners".

Chaos Tau, why? Theyre already "greatar good" fanatics. Got already mainpulated by their etherals.
Until the unknown creators of the Tau are revealed, there isn't much that points to chaos-Tau.

Don't have the choas tau follow khorne ffs though, going from "JOIN OUR AWESOME EMPIRE BROS!" to "Blood for the non blue dude!!" is kinda a stretch. Also Tau =/= CC.

The Tau are blue naive fools.

However, eventually they will be corrupted by Chaos.

It works out perfectly, 5 castes; 5 aspects of chaos:

Water caste worships tzeentch; they're elusive and slippery negociators, the powers of tzeentch would allow them to influence the minds of others.

Earth caste worships Nurgle; they could use his blessing to become tougher build more of those curey buildings, ONLY WITH SPIKES EVERYWHERE!!!

Air caste worships slanesh to enhance every sensation when they fly and make them better pilots.

Fire Caste worships Khorne; they use the fury of Khorne in battle.

Etherals practice the worship of chaos undivided, as they work to unify the other castes.

The entire tau army doesn't need to be directly corrupted to fall under chaos influence. I mean they are constantly hunting down artifacts of various natures to use in research projects. On expedition a commander could encounter a daemon weapon and become corrupted by its touch. Or an ethereal might be able to be possessed by a daemon under some sort of circumstance. Its already been stated that kroot can directly be corrupted by eating chaos tainted flesh from marines, daemons or cultists. These individuals could slowly lead their forces their in charge of astray whilst out exploring the cosmos and even encourage them to go rogue on the empire. Whilst I wouldn't be interested in making such a force but the scope for theming/justifying it can be quite broad.

Best of luck if you decide to try making such a group.

lordrevege wrote:The Tau are blue naive fools.

However, eventually they will be corrupted by Chaos.

It works out perfectly, 5 castes; 5 aspects of chaos:

Water caste worships tzeentch; they're elusive and slippery negociators, the powers of tzeentch would allow them to influence the minds of others.

Earth caste worships Nurgle; they could use his blessing to become tougher build more of those curey buildings, ONLY WITH SPIKES EVERYWHERE!!!

Air caste worships slanesh to enhance every sensation when they fly and make them better pilots.

Fire Caste worships Khorne; they use the fury of Khorne in battle.

Etherals practice the worship of chaos undivided, as they work to unify the other castes.

Wow, that's a really cool idea, well done mate!

I don't really think that the Chaos gods are interested in the Tau. They don't really seem to be interested in them. Mostly everything that has been corrupted by chaos are things that already had things in common with the god/gods of Chaos. For example, for those of you who read Flight of the Eisenstein, there were so many similarities between the Pre-Heresy Death Guard and Nurgle.
-They had Seven Companies, and Nurgle's sacred number is seven.
-They already believed that being persistant, resilient, and stubborn was what won battles.
-They already had a lot of exposure to poisonous gases, liquids, etc. because their home planet was Barbarus, a planet where most humans, and even most other Space Marines could not hope to live on, due to its toxic atmosphere.

The World Eaters:
-Already were insane psychopaths in battle.
-Believed killing and spilling blood made you strong.

Thousand Sons:
-Already were obsessed with sorcery and magic.

Emperor's Children:
-Dressed excessively flashy and flamboyantly.
-Already liked seeking strange and abnormal sensations.

All the guys that go over to Chaos always seem to be interested in or similar in way that parallels can be drawn between them and Chaos.