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 Pendix wrote:
To Be Fair: (and unless I'm mistaken) they did not conquer the Entire Galaxy . They re-conquered/re-united human worlds (and did away with Xenos that interfered with that) that were connected by easily traversed warp routes. It was probably in the order of .5 to 2 million worlds, depending on the wars of conquest conducted post Heresy, and world lost since then to bring us up to the approximate current number of 1 million.

Nothing to sniff at for sure, and I agree with the sentiment that the SM must have been pretty dam awesome to do that, but it was hardly the Entire Galaxy .

True but in the context of comparing it to the Tau Empire, it might as well be.

I think the point here is that while the Tau may be a high-tech and sophisticated faction, their Fire Warriors are hardly in the same league as the Astartes and so would not have nearly the same amount of epicness to represent them in novels and fluff.

Maybe. But not every star system is going to have habitable planets. They didn't have to conquer all the planets. Just all the ones they wanted. It seems like most of the life forms in the galaxy exist in more or less the same habitable range as humans do. I mean, 90% of our own solar system's (significant) extra-solar bodies are effectively lifeless.

But yeah, a little hyperbole. But even half a million worlds in 200 years is pretty efficient. Wholly outside the realm of plausibility, but efficient. That's why I've always posited that most worlds just said "Hey, uh, 7 foot tall superhumans and the ability to destroy us from orbit? Praise this Emperor of yours."

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Maybe. But not every star system is going to have habitable planets. They didn't have to conquer all the planets. Just all the ones they wanted. It seems like most of the life forms in the galaxy exist in more or less the same habitable range as humans do. I mean, 90% of our own solar system's (significant) extra-solar bodies are effectively lifeless.

Excellent point here! It seems like most factions are fighting over the same planets, as seen in the Damocles Crusade and conflict over Eldar maiden worlds.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
But yeah, a little hyperbole. But even half a million worlds in 200 years is pretty efficient. Wholly outside the realm of plausibility, but efficient. That's why I've always posited that most worlds just said "Hey, uh, 7 foot tall superhumans and the ability to destroy us from orbit? Praise this Emperor of yours."

That seems to have been just the case, with the whole "compliance thing" from the HH series. It seems like most planets simply surrendered outright or at least after a key planet in a system/sector had been conquered by Space Marines.

 Pendix wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
To be fair, Space Marines conquered an entire galaxy in 200 years. Even if they fought in greater concentrations back then that's kinda impressive.

Even more so that they accomplished it while goofing off as much as they appear to do in the Horus Heresy series.

To Be Fair: (and unless I'm mistaken) they did not conquer the Entire Galaxy . They re-conquered/re-united human worlds (and did away with Xenos that interfered with that) that were connected by easily traversed warp routes. It was probably in the order of .5 to 2 million worlds, depending on the wars of conquest conducted post Heresy, and world lost since then to bring us up to the approximate current number of 1 million.

Nothing to sniff at for sure, and I agree with the sentiment that the SM must have been pretty dam awesome to do that, but it was hardly the Entire Galaxy .

Eh, some sources put the number of imperial worlds well over a million.

The Shas'O Kais thing may not even be the same Kais. No where does it say that the Kai's from "Fire Warrior" becomes the Kais from Dawn Of War and the codex. I recall reason someplace that Kais is a common name within the Tau meaning skillful. But I may be mixing that last bit up with something else. Regardless, it's unconfirmed.

Just put the Tau hero in a Riptide- then when she kills Spacies by the dozen with no effort, it'll be just like tabletop!

 Wyzilla wrote:
Eh, some sources put the number of imperial worlds well over a million.

Yea but that's hardly the entire galaxy. But it could mean most of the planets that can be settled.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
Just put the Tau hero in a Riptide- then when she kills Spacies by the dozen with no effort, it'll be just like tabletop!

Thank the Emperor for his god-machines, the Titans!

 Wyzilla wrote:

SGTPozy wrote:
... So it is ridiculous when a single Fire Warrior in a novel destroys an entire army on his own but it's fine when marines do it in every novel?

You just described why it's ridiculous. Not to mention that again, that Fire Warrior was empowered by Khorne.

Read again. I don't remember any such moment wherein Kais was influenced by any chaos god BEFORE they tried to seduce him at the four altars. A character in 40k having a moral crisis is 99/100 times going to be dealing with Chaos taint, but this is a TAU...

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Eh, some sources put the number of imperial worlds well over a million.

Yea but that's hardly the entire galaxy. But it could mean most of the planets that can be settled.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
Just put the Tau hero in a Riptide- then when she kills Spacies by the dozen with no effort, it'll be just like tabletop!

Thank the Emperor for his god-machines, the Titans!

Werent the Riptides developed because of Titans? I think they were made to hunt Titans from what I remember. Kind of how Warhound Titans hunt bigger Titans. And I know the Tau aircraft (Barracuda et al) are used for Titan hunting.

One of my first thoughts is that you would lower the damage of pulse rifles. In the TT rules they are destructive things that can slag light vehicles, but they tend to be shown more like sniper rifles in fluff. Something like lower the str raise the accuracy though bs or some other stat.

Tau missiles tend to be cooler in fluff blasting out thousands of mini missiles all over. There is also melee missile move where a battle suit jumps up and bombs the ground under their feet.

Verity of tech is another area. The tau are always pulling out some new tool or new weapon. This is kind of reflected in the newer rules with all the prototype weapons and wargear, but maybe more of it in more places. In fluff, firewarrors get more.

The mercenary aspect is really played up in the fluff, so maybe rules for more mercenaries.

 ImAGeek wrote:

 EngulfedObject wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Eh, some sources put the number of imperial worlds well over a million.

Yea but that's hardly the entire galaxy. But it could mean most of the planets that can be settled.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
Just put the Tau hero in a Riptide- then when she kills Spacies by the dozen with no effort, it'll be just like tabletop!

Thank the Emperor for his god-machines, the Titans!

Werent the Riptides developed because of Titans? I think they were made to hunt Titans from what I remember. Kind of how Warhound Titans hunt bigger Titans. And I know the Tau aircraft (Barracuda et al) are used for Titan hunting.

The AX-1-0 Tiger Shark is the best Titan-hunting weapon in the galaxy. It carries a Str D weapon that can be fired at other aircraft, if needed. Since it is a flier, most Titans have no way of hitting back at it.

Yeah, cos I know in the old fluff they didn't make Titans or big suits, and relied on their aircraft for Titan hunting (sensible). That was retconned with the riptide to sell a big expensive model.

As far as I am concerned, Tau and IG are the only factions who really match their background quite well. Tau would get some buffs, but only minor things.

Buy water caste diplomats for a roll to see if the opposing army surrenders without a fight.

The stories in the Damocles anthology don't portray pulse weapons as particularly powerful. Better than lasguns yes but they didn't seem any stronger than boltguns. One scene that sticks out in my mind had a character repeatedly shoot a marine point blank with a pulse carbine without much effect until someone in a battle suit with better weapons saved him. Fire warriors didn't get much time in the spotlight. Oh and Riptides go down like chumps. They probably only have a 4+ save or actually fight more like dreadnoughts than like monstrous creatures.

Archonate wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

SGTPozy wrote:
... So it is ridiculous when a single Fire Warrior in a novel destroys an entire army on his own but it's fine when marines do it in every novel?

You just described why it's ridiculous. Not to mention that again, that Fire Warrior was empowered by Khorne.

That Firewarrior was a military genius when it came to the fighting way of the Monat. According to the Tau codex, he went on to train under Puretide next to Shadowsun and Farsight.
He was empowered by Khorne for less than a minute, allowing him to kill a Lord of change.

what page is that on? According to the book, Shas'la T'au Kais (I don't think he was promoted in the book, although he was made a pathfinder shas'ui in the game) lapsed into a coma after destroying the Lord of Change and was scheduled to go into an asylum to prevent his madness infecting the rest of Tau society on the off chance he should ever wake up.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Archonate wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

SGTPozy wrote:
... So it is ridiculous when a single Fire Warrior in a novel destroys an entire army on his own but it's fine when marines do it in every novel?

You just described why it's ridiculous. Not to mention that again, that Fire Warrior was empowered by Khorne.

That Firewarrior was a military genius when it came to the fighting way of the Monat. According to the Tau codex, he went on to train under Puretide next to Shadowsun and Farsight.
He was empowered by Khorne for less than a minute, allowing him to kill a Lord of change.

what page is that on? According to the book, Shas'la T'au Kais (I don't think he was promoted in the book, although he was made a pathfinder shas'ui in the game) lapsed into a coma after destroying the Lord of Change and was scheduled to go into an asylum to prevent his madness infecting the rest of Tau society on the off chance he should ever wake up.

It's a fan connection entirely based of conjecture of the Dark Crusade Tau commander sharing the same name.... ignoring how it's a common name among Tau.

... Isn't Farsight's middle name Kais, in that case?

 Wyzilla wrote:
It's a fan connection entirely based of conjecture of the Dark Crusade Tau commander sharing the same name.... ignoring how it's a common name among Tau.

So, it is like Mr Kim. You would not believe the insane amount of stuff Mr Kim did in Korea .

When I read the thread title, I was expecting to see a thread saying there should be a Tau movie.

To which the answer would be - Why? Buy a fish tank, it's just as good and lasts longer!


It is always amusing how the movies and books get you fired up though with the epicness of the characters, only to have it dashed on the tabletop by some dice

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Archonate wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

SGTPozy wrote:
... So it is ridiculous when a single Fire Warrior in a novel destroys an entire army on his own but it's fine when marines do it in every novel?

You just described why it's ridiculous. Not to mention that again, that Fire Warrior was empowered by Khorne.

That Firewarrior was a military genius when it came to the fighting way of the Monat. According to the Tau codex, he went on to train under Puretide next to Shadowsun and Farsight.
He was empowered by Khorne for less than a minute, allowing him to kill a Lord of change.

what page is that on? According to the book, Shas'la T'au Kais (I don't think he was promoted in the book, although he was made a pathfinder shas'ui in the game) lapsed into a coma after destroying the Lord of Change and was scheduled to go into an asylum to prevent his madness infecting the rest of Tau society on the off chance he should ever wake up.

It's a fan connection entirely based of conjecture of the Dark Crusade Tau commander sharing the same name.... ignoring how it's a common name among Tau.

I said nothing about Dark Crusade. You're beating up a strawman with that one.
As for being the Kais in the codex, I think it was a deliberate 'read-between-the-lines (cause we won't confirm of deny)' thing. Kais in the book did nearly everything alone. He got very good at it. He worked better alone than with a team. And he was never given any name other than "Kais". In the codex, Farsight and Shadowsun studied with somebody known only as Kais who was devoted entirely to the way of the Monat. Considering the remarkable things he does in the book, it's not much of a leap to infer he was rewarded as one of only three to study personally with Puretide.

lapsed into a coma after destroying the Lord of Change and was scheduled to go into an asylum to prevent his madness infecting the rest of Tau society on the off chance he should ever wake up.

Wow you REALLY read between the lines on this.
At the end of the book he loses an arm (a trivial thing to replace considering the superiority of Tau cybernetics.) and goes catatonic. Something which we are able to treat in our day and age. Another trivial thing for Tau to correct. Especially for such a selfless exemplar of the Greater Good.

 Wulfmar wrote:
It is always amusing how the movies and books get you fired up though with the epicness of the characters, only to have it dashed on the tabletop by some dice

Get into X-Wing after playing Shadows of the Empire. Load up Dash Rendar and run him with two Rookies.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
It is always amusing how the movies and books get you fired up though with the epicness of the characters, only to have it dashed on the tabletop by some dice

Get into X-Wing after playing Shadows of the Empire. Load up Dash Rendar and run him with two Rookies.

Are you trying to render him friendless?

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
It is always amusing how the movies and books get you fired up though with the epicness of the characters, only to have it dashed on the tabletop by some dice

Get into X-Wing after playing Shadows of the Empire. Load up Dash Rendar and run him with two Rookies.

yeah see iof Dash Rendar is better then Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antillies or Sontr Fel. then yes X-wing suffers from this too

 Archonate wrote:

Wow you REALLY read between the lines on this.
At the end of the book he loses an arm (a trivial thing to replace considering the superiority of Tau cybernetics.) and goes catatonic. Something which we are able to treat in our day and age. Another trivial thing for Tau to correct. Especially for such a selfless exemplar of the Greater Good.

Do you have the book to hand? Because I'm pretty sure I'm reading the literal meaning of the words, but it was several years ago that I last looked at the book in question.

BrianDavion wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Wulfmar wrote:
It is always amusing how the movies and books get you fired up though with the epicness of the characters, only to have it dashed on the tabletop by some dice

Get into X-Wing after playing Shadows of the Empire. Load up Dash Rendar and run him with two Rookies.

yeah see iof Dash Rendar is better then Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antillies or Sontr Fel. then yes X-wing suffers from this too

His ship is better. It's a transport, not a fighter.

You can run Wedge and Luke with two rookies also. Two X Wings vs an Outrider can work out if you fly them well.

If you *really* like Wedge, fly him with Biggs. No one loves Biggs. He lives to die protecting Luke or Wedge.