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That's a good point, and it makes sense, I'm just saying you can't really point to the fluff as an example anymore.

Well, no, GW could change everything and just make "Codex: Xeno Empire" without the Tau being the focus anymore if they wanted to.

Thanks to kroot for putting this stuff together!

Looks promising! a bit exciting isn't it! :-) I always love the rumors and sneaky bits to whet our appetite even if the army isn't one i intend on playing or painting! the big guy with the four arms really gives me a 'PITT' feel to him! i'd be inclined to remove 2 arms and paint him up as such if the model comes to fruition and is released!

and cheers Kroot for keeping us in the one spot! much easier to read!

Nerdfest09

Sidstyler wrote:Well, no, GW could change everything and just make "Codex: Xeno Empire" without the Tau being the focus anymore if they wanted to.

But Tau ideology still shapes the goals of the Empire. Even if the Kroot are just playing along, they're still playing along with Tau rather than Kroot ideology.

This is conjecture, but the rumor from the man they call jayne said that there is another insectoid auxillary unit/ race:

Spoiler added for folks without the Xenology book.

I seriously hope the rules are sorted out to make the book worthwhile in a battlefield sense, not just to sell a load of new alien models.

Sidstyler wrote:But with Codex: Necrons it's kind of impossible to not build a Necron army. People are trying to argue that it should be possible to build a Tau army with no actual Tau in it, and that doesn't really make sense or even seem reasonable.

Errm - Grey Knights 'dex, Sid? As far as I'm aware, it is possible to build a Grey Knights army without using any Grey Knights.

I don't think the idea of a Tau Empire army without any actual Tau in it is such a bad idea.

chaos0xomega wrote:CpatTom, I again direct you to the fact that it is Codex: TAU empire. Also, every piece of material from GW and FW have indicated that even the Tau's predominantly non-Tau military formations, such as Auxiliary cadre's etc. are led by Tau officers.

That is not true on many levels.
1.) Anghkor Prok became a general of the tau army after fighting alongside tau troops for years. The war where tau and Kroot first met featured both races fighting side by side with no Tau general leading the kroot.
2.) While most background focusses on Tau armies under the leadership of a tau general, I have never heard of Tau officers in a non-tau unit, it's not even legal in games. And Kroot mercenaries obviously fight without any tau participation. Demiurg are an independent race as well only allied to the Tau Empire. Most human armies on planets joining the tau Empire won't see any changes in organisation or equipment.
3.) ghost21 said, he plans to play a Demiurg only army. His rumours suggest that it will be possible to play Kroot-only and Demiurg-only armies without the participation of tau officers. Given the background this makes sense.

Its not Codex: Tau
Its Codex: Tau Empire

If it was Codex Tau it wouldn't make any sense if you could make a force of non Tau's, but as it is Codex Tau Empire, as in the Empire and all the elements that comprise that Empire it makes a great deal of sense that there would be forces organized by members of the Empire not run by the Tau.

Just because they call it the Tau Empire doesn't mean actual Tau have to be involved. At points throughout history the British had functioning countries under there rule that, had minimal British ruler ship. (Granted this is just my view from my oh so "terrible" American education.)

All I'm going to say is that there is a reason why the current book required you to field a minimum of a Tau HQ and a Tau troops choice, and I hope similar restrictions remain. I also don't trust ghost in the slightest, he can stick his "demiurg-only" army where the sun don't shine.

An official all Kroot force? I hope so!

Would be a bit expensive with so many models but that would be awesome.

I hope they put rules in for other Kroot units even if they don't release the models (some variations are just too easy to convert), like Vultures and the Hunters.

Dysartes wrote:

Sidstyler wrote:But with Codex: Necrons it's kind of impossible to not build a Necron army. People are trying to argue that it should be possible to build a Tau army with no actual Tau in it, and that doesn't really make sense or even seem reasonable.

Errm - Grey Knights 'dex, Sid? As far as I'm aware, it is possible to build a Grey Knights army without using any Grey Knights.

Still requires a Daemon Hunting Inquisitor, much like the previous Daemon Hunter Codex.

OT I have always like the Tau, but found that FW need to be supported by everything else. If they can make it more balanced (maybe allow FW to have an Assault/heavy weapon and cheaper Transports) then the army would be awesome.

If there are more Xenos, I wouldn't be bothered.

CpatTom wrote:Its not Codex: Tau
Its Codex: Tau Empire

If it was Codex Tau it wouldn't make any sense if you could make a force of non Tau's, but as it is Codex Tau Empire, as in the Empire and all the elements that comprise that Empire it makes a great deal of sense that there would be forces organized by members of the Empire not run by the Tau.

Just because they call it the Tau Empire doesn't mean actual Tau have to be involved. At points throughout history the British had functioning countries under there rule that, had minimal British ruler ship. (Granted this is just my view from my oh so "terrible" American education.)

All I have to say is read the codex. Fluff could always change on a whim, we know that, but judging purely on current fluff, a "force organized by non-Tau" doesn't make much sense, and it's not hard to see why.

You can't compare the Tau to the British (not just because one exists only in fantasy) because the Tau have billions and billions to their number, the Tau race stretches across several worlds and every world in their empire likely does have a Tau presence on it to ensure that the will of the ethereals is being carried out and that all their subsumed races are operating in the Tau way, for the Greater Good (because the Tau not only have the manpower but they probably also give more of a gak than the British in ensuring their Empire was run the way it "should" be*). If I recall correctly, the Fire Caste is also very traditional and purist, and they don't really prefer using alien auxiliaries if they can help it, they mostly only do so because the ethereals will it and have incorporated auxiliary forces into the military themselves. If the Fire Caste had their way Tau armies would probably all be purely Tau. But I might be wrong about that.

The only race that really operates independently is the Kroot, and they only get away with that because they do it outside of the watchful eye of their Tau overseers. The Tau probably wouldn't be too happy if they learned the Kroot were acting as mercenaries for the other races against their back, and doing it purely for their own gain (their continued evolution and survival by consuming the dead of other races, a practice the Tau don't condone and are fighting hard to change even though it would lead to an evolutionary dead end and the stagnation of the Kroot race).


*In case anyone was wondering this was meant more as a joke than anything, I'm not exactly a history buff so I couldn't tell you.

Surely if GW do decide to allow an all 'non-Tau' force to be selected, then you just decide not to select one!

I like the kroot, vespids and the idea of new 'alien' units but i'll still select my battlesuit and FW units 90% of the time!

alphaomega wrote:

Dysartes wrote:

Sidstyler wrote:But with Codex: Necrons it's kind of impossible to not build a Necron army. People are trying to argue that it should be possible to build a Tau army with no actual Tau in it, and that doesn't really make sense or even seem reasonable.

Errm - Grey Knights 'dex, Sid? As far as I'm aware, it is possible to build a Grey Knights army without using any Grey Knights.

Still requires a Daemon Hunting Inquisitor, much like the previous Daemon Hunter Codex.

Not the argument that was put forward, alphaomega, which seems to be that because the codex is Tau Empire, that an army chosen from it must feature Tau.

I was pointing out that an army from the Grey Knight book doesn't require you to take any Grey Knights...

There's no rule of the game that X army must feature Y unit. Personally I wouldn't play an all Kroot army but a lot of people would if the list was reasonable. There was a Kroot Mercenary army list in Chapter Approved years ago and it has always had followers.

It would be nice to see a Xenian codex with a variety of possible lists, rather than half a dozen SM codexes with similar and only slightly different lists.

Kilkrazy wrote:There's no rule of the game that X army must feature Y unit. Personally I wouldn't play an all Kroot army but a lot of people would if the list was reasonable. There was a Kroot Mercenary army list in Chapter Approved years ago and it has always had followers.

I always thought the followers were due to the Kroot-in-a-fez, myself...

The Tau Empire is large and Tau are not present on every planet. Fights by human PDFs are totally thinkable, also by other alien races within the Tau Empire. Kroot are known to fight independently. Demiurg are not even part of the Empire but allies, so used to fight for themselves as well (of course Demiurg would never accept a Tau officer in their army).

chaos0xomega wrote:All I'm going to say is that there is a reason why the current book required you to field a minimum of a Tau HQ and a Tau troops choice, and I hope similar restrictions remain.

I don't get this at all. When I look at an upcoming army list, I hope that it allows me to field the kind of army that I want to play and I hope that it is balanced. To hope that the army list forbids armies that you personally aren't interested in seems... odd.

Dysartes wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:There's no rule of the game that X army must feature Y unit. Personally I wouldn't play an all Kroot army but a lot of people would if the list was reasonable. There was a Kroot Mercenary army list in Chapter Approved years ago and it has always had followers.

I always thought the followers were due to the Kroot-in-a-fez, myself...

JOHIRA wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:All I'm going to say is that there is a reason why the current book required you to field a minimum of a Tau HQ and a Tau troops choice, and I hope similar restrictions remain.

I don't get this at all. When I look at an upcoming army list, I hope that it allows me to field the kind of army that I want to play and I hope that it is balanced. To hope that the army list forbids armies that you personally aren't interested in seems... odd.

I've been playing Tau since release, call me a purist, but I want to play Tau and I want to see others play Tau. I don't want them to become a sidelined item in their own codex.

Dysartes wrote:

alphaomega wrote:

Dysartes wrote:

Sidstyler wrote:But with Codex: Necrons it's kind of impossible to not build a Necron army. People are trying to argue that it should be possible to build a Tau army with no actual Tau in it, and that doesn't really make sense or even seem reasonable.

Errm - Grey Knights 'dex, Sid? As far as I'm aware, it is possible to build a Grey Knights army without using any Grey Knights.

Still requires a Daemon Hunting Inquisitor, much like the previous Daemon Hunter Codex.

Not the argument that was put forward, alphaomega, which seems to be that because the codex is Tau Empire, that an army chosen from it must feature Tau.

I was pointing out that an army from the Grey Knight book doesn't require you to take any Grey Knights...

Bah humbug.

I wouldn't worry that will happen.

Plenty of people like me have 3,000+ points of Tau and we're only waiting for a decent codex to get them out again. (Actually mine are in storage in Japan but the principle stands.)

It'd be nice if their was enough versatility in the Tau Empire codex for it to be a great 'Alien Civilisation no. 2456' counts as codex.

I hope the fire warrior restriction goes, I always wanted to build a Tau army without the fire warriors... all suit army please, GW.

Plastic Vespid would make me a very happy man.

CpatTom wrote:Its not Codex: Tau
Its Codex: Tau Empire

If it was Codex Tau it wouldn't make any sense if you could make a force of non Tau's, but as it is Codex Tau Empire, as in the Empire and all the elements that comprise that Empire it makes a great deal of sense that there would be forces organized by members of the Empire not run by the Tau.

Just because they call it the Tau Empire doesn't mean actual Tau have to be involved. At points throughout history the British had functioning countries under there rule that, had minimal British ruler ship. (Granted this is just my view from my oh so "terrible" American education.)

Well, I think the Etherials would be alright with it as long as the Tea,Sugar and Tobacco arrived on time and wasn't intercepted by 'privateers'

I see no problem with a Tau Empire codex having a option to play with only the allied races of the Tau. It could make for some interesting campaigns. I just hope that the Tau don't suddenly get warp capable ships, are all over the Galaxy, 'insert other mcguffin to make them l3370' as demanded by 'The Plot,tm'. I hope they do evolve the fluff and introduce more and varied units in the codex. I would love to see GW take the FW sculpts for the Battlesuits and use it. And for the love of god please fix the ankle joints on the suits.

Other then that bring on the 'little blue buggers'. It might make me get back into 40k again. Especially if 6th ed is any good.

chaos0xomega wrote:I've been playing Tau since release, call me a purist, but I want to play Tau and I want to see others play Tau. I don't want them to become a sidelined item in their own codex.

This is exactly what bothers me. I get the feeling that there are a lot of people in here (who probably don't even play Tau) that are calling for them to be pushed off to the side or maybe even phased out of their own codex, so something else like Kroot can take over. That's not fair to people like me and chaos0xomega who actually like Tau units, especially when Tau are supposed to be the main focus of the codex and Kroot are more like hired mercenaries that aren't part of the main army in the first place.

What it comes down to is you're trying to take the "Tau" out of "Tau Empire". And I know what's going to happen, CpatTom's going to come back and say the exact same thing he said twice already: "It's Codex: Tau EMPIRE, not Codex: Tau!", arguing in circles again because then all I have to do is put emphasis on "Tau" and my argument will be just as valid...that is, if you ignore the fact that Codex: Tau did exist at one point, and that there's more of a precedent for Tau-dominant armies than what he's asking for, which as far as I know isn't really supported by codex fluff. Or at least I've never read anything in either book (I own both codices, most of the fluff is exactly the same) about entire armies of Kroot without any Tau leadership guiding them at all, in fact the codex says the opposite: in most instances the Kroot and Vespid are mentioned as operating in tandem with the Fire caste, the stealthy Kroot being used to support pathfinder teams, acting as the lure in a Kauyon maneuver (which the codex mentions is only a recent thing and that most Tau prefer the honor of being the lure to go to bonded fire warriors instead), or helping to maintain a battle line so the Tau can fight on a larger scale, or the Vespid being support for crisis teams in particular. The point is the average Tau cadre mostly consists of Tau warriors with units like Kroot or Vespid being used as support only, not the core.

Kroothawk wrote:1.) Anghkor Prok became a general of the tau army after fighting alongside tau troops for years. The war where tau and Kroot first met featured both races fighting side by side with no Tau general leading the kroot.

First of all, that was one special character. I would argue that he's an exception and not the rule, because the only mention of Kroot fighting independently in the codex is as mercenaries for other races behind the Tau's back (Anghor Prok isn't even in the codex and didn't exactly have a rich backstory [more like a paragraph long] IIRC so I can't comment on him too much). Also, you're talking about before the Kroot were integrated into the Empire, so of course they're not going to have Tau leaders at that point.

Kroothawk wrote:2.) While most background focusses on Tau armies under the leadership of a tau general, I have never heard of Tau officers in a non-tau unit, it's not even legal in games. And Kroot mercenaries obviously fight without any tau participation. Demiurg are an independent race as well only allied to the Tau Empire. Most human armies on planets joining the tau Empire won't see any changes in organisation or equipment.

I don't think I need to point out the fallacy of using what's "legal in the game" during a fluff argument. Are we going to start arguing about statlines next? "Marines should have more than one wound!"

And like I said, Kroot mercenaries operate outside of the Tau's watchful eye, as doing what they do goes against the idea of the Greater Good. So I'd argue that being able to make a mercenary force with Codex: Tau Empire makes even less sense if that's your justification for it.

As for Demiurg and human auxiliaries: so? You can argue about the Demiurg and humans all you want (neither of which have game rules, btw if you're going to use that as an argument then you need to be consistent, don't bring up game rules when it supports your argument and then leave it out when it doesn't), but Vespid and Kroot (non-mercs) aren't independent and mostly support Tau units, not fighting as full Kroot or Vespid armies.

Kroothawk wrote:3.) ghost21 said, he plans to play a Demiurg only army. His rumours suggest that it will be possible to play Kroot-only and Demiurg-only armies without the participation of tau officers. Given the background this makes sense.

Who the hell is ghost21 and why should I care what he does? If that's what GW ends up doing then fine, whatever. I just won't update my Tau army or buy the new rules because I got into it for the Tau units and vehicles, not so I could field a Kroot army, and I don't like the idea of my army being pushed off to the side or ignored in their own fething codex. But I wouldn't claim that this "makes sense" because according to the current background it kinda doesn't...unless the Tau find out that the Kroot are operating as mercs for other races and not following the philosophy of the Greater Good, and were totally okay with that for some reason, in the new codex. Things could change, I'm aware of that, but we can't really argue about fluff we haven't seen yet, can we?

Or I dunno, I guess ghost21 could. Good for him.

Kilkrazy wrote:I wouldn't worry that will happen.

I would. Have you seen the kind of hate Tau get in the 40k community? There are quite a few people out there who would be happy if Tau were "killed off", because they aren't "grimdark" enough, I guess. I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case here but people were just afraid to come out and say it.

It might have also been the "Mary Sue" fluff, but considering how bad each codex has gotten lately, Tau fluff is actually not that bad in comparison so I'm not really going to acknowledge that as an argument anymore.

H.B.M.C. wrote:I don't think the idea of a Tau Empire army without any actual Tau in it is such a bad idea.

Because you're a hater. lol

No, you're probably just bitter because of what GW did to Daemonhunters and now you're out to feth up Tau for me!



Oh, another thing:

Kroothawk wrote:The Tau Empire is large and Tau are not present on every planet.

Can we get a codex quote on that one, please? Because now that I think about it I don't remember the codex saying whether or not the Tau did have a presence on every world in their Empire. There's nothing to back up what you said, so really either one of us could be right.

Sidstyler, I think you may be over-reacting just a teensy bit here - no-one is saying that Codex: Tau EMPIRE shouldn't have any Tau in it. That would be plainly nonsensical, in the same way that producing Codex: Grey Knights without putting any Grey Knights in it would have been.

What some posters are saying is that they are interested by, or at least like, the idea that it would be possible to build an army focussing on the auxiliary aspects of the Tau if they so wished.

The debate may be continuing at cross-purposes here, but I am failing to see why presenting that option - especially after invalidating the Kroot-in-a-fez army list - is causing you to have such a visceral reaction.

I'll be honest - while I did try to run a Codex: Tau army back in the day, they've never really felt to me like they fit the setting properly. However, I'd say the same about the Necrons (especially when they had the C'Tan running around). In neither case, though, would I be particularly happy if a random splinter fleet of Tyranids came up through the galactic plane and devoured their Homeworlds...

Well, all Codices now get a bunch of special characters of all fractions in the book. Would be difficult to add "can't be used as an HQ" to all non-Tau HQ selections. Some people are not satisfied with getting all the options they want, they also want that noone else gets his options

I fully support SM codexes without any SMs in them.