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First of all before anything I would like to make it clear that this is not a topic for discussing the possibility of Chaotic Tau nor is it a place to discuss conspiracy theories concerning Ethereal mind controle.

Ok so I haven't seen a discussion made about the Farsight Enclaves in terms of what people think is going on in the Enclaves. This can include any ideas that fit within the fluff (again no Chaos corruption and no ideas about O'shovah serving the Necrons. They take souls not servants).

Topics that I would like to discuss are.

1. Farsights motive/goals?
2. Is Farsight really still alive? if so how?
3. What is the Dawnblade?
4. Are the warriors of the Enclave still as organised as those of the Empire or are they more individual?
5. Do the Enclaves partake in pirate/mercenary activities?
6. What do you think the future is of the Enclaves?
7. How do they train for close combat? are they armed with close combat weapons?
8. O'shovahs acolytes, at least one remains in the Empire. What if there are more? could there be more en masse defectors?
9. How do you think their combat rules should be represented?

Personally I think that O'Shovah has come to the conclusion that the Tau Empires plan for the Greater Good is hopeless in that the myrid races of the galaxy are too set in their ways and the goal of uniting them all will never be realised. And so he does not fight to unify all but for the survival of his species.

I also believe that O'Shovah is still alive and my reasoning behind this is the Dawn Blade. I don't think that the Dawn Blade is a Daemon or Necron weapon but is instead a relic of the Old Ones which has passed some of its creators longevity to its current owner. I don't think the Dawn Blade is of Necron or Chaos origin because the markins on the blade do not match anything that has been seen of Chaos or the Necrons.

With Farsight training his warriors to embrace their more agressive natures, this coupled with the absence of Ethereals gives them more freedom in my opinion. Also the fact that the Enclaves are lacking in the resources of the main Empire this means that they would probably have to improvise on repairs and quiet possibly take armor from those they kill meaning that their appearance may not be as proffessional. But despite their appearance I think that they are still just as skilled and organised as their bretheran in the Empire. They simply are more individualised.

As far as the Enclaves partaking in Pirate/Mercenary actions I believe that they do. While they most likely have members of the Earth Caste in the Enclaves they probably do not opperate on a large enough scale to supply the entirety of the Enclaves and so I believe that they work as mercenaries or raid/attack others (probably fringe humans) to gain supplies.

I actually like this idea and think that it plays a large part in the Enclaves and O'Shovahs background as I think that he and his followers are based off of the Liang Mountain bandits from the book Outlaws of the Marsh. They share a close resemblence in that the leader of the outlaws was once a military leader of the Chinese Empire who was betrayed by a politician and so he defects and starts leading the bandits against the empire.

In the future (although we probably won't see it as gamers) think that a large portion of the Fire Caste will defect to the Enclaves as many of them see Farsight as a hero and there are already students of Farsights within the main Empire such as Brightsword who share his beliefs. I like the idea that this will lead to a second civil war between the Tau Empire and the Enclaves. Although I like the idea of the main Tau Empire I think that it would lose as those they previously believed to be loyal (kroot, vespid etc) turned against them.

And finally something that greatly seperates the Enclaves from the Empire is the fact that O'Shovah trains his warriors in hand to hand combat. While I like the idea of the Tau being more adept in CC I have a hard time seeing how they would train to do so. For some reason Tau power/chainswords just don't seem to fit to me.

So while they may carry some assortment of CC weapons I think that the Enclaves train in unarmed combat, when I think of this I'm reminded of the martial style used by the Vostroyan 1st Born (I forget the name at the moment, it's in the book Rebel winter) where the Vostroyans mainly deflect and evade their opponents attacks untill they can find an opening the can use. As far as rules go I liked the way they where represented in the first codex better, while O'Shovahs reputation may have been made fighting Orks the training he gives his warriors would most likely be usefull against all opponents and not just Orks.

1. i think farsight see's (like you said) that unifing the galaxy is hopeless so i wont go to indetph

2. Maybe yes, Maybe no, he might be dead seeing hes lived for so fricken long but their is a posibillity, if so we could see a second in comand come into play

3. the dawn blade Is a blade of unkwn origin most likely a lost old one wepon, like you said, looks not chaoitic enough to be deamon, and not grim enough to be a necron wepon

4. i would think many act more individual than the empire, that said they would have very lose sqaud struture and more "Im The guy with the longest runing career, Im the Sarge!"

5. yes, they need suplies, they need money, theyed do behind farsights back even.

6. i think either geting realy strong over thowing the eatherials, and starting a civil war, or disembanding and becoming nothing but mercs

7. they train by seeing how others fight and then make thier own style, and that being said they would have some katana like wepon

8. yes their could be more, though brightsword was assasinated for being to "war provoking", this would anger some in the fire caste, gaining suport for farsights cause

9. +1 ws +1 ccw a 5+ armour save (they dont get new equip) and a selection of assulte wepons.

hope this helps

While I'm gratefull for the response I would like to point out that grammar and spelling are a great thing (even though I'm not perfect in this area either)

GW's revealed the nature of Farsight's sword, though unfortunately I can't remember what they said it was or where it was that they revealed it.

iirc, it is NOT a Chaotic weapon.

I think anyone who actually reads the fluff and isn't a conspiracy theorist knew that already

I'd be interested to see where GW has said what the Dawn Blade is as this is the first I've heard of it.

I think Farsight has formed his own, militaristic beliefs and has set up his own colonies, but doesn't see the old regime as "evil" and so doesn't attack the main Tau empire.

Mr Nobody wrote:I think Farsight has formed his own, militaristic beliefs and has set up his own colonies, but doesn't see the old regime as "evil" and so doesn't attack the main Tau empire.

This sounds about right, given that the T'au High Command had him evacuated when the enclaves were all but overrun by a Waaagh!, implying he's still in their good books.

Mr Nobody wrote:I think Farsight has formed his own, militaristic beliefs and has set up his own colonies, but doesn't see the old regime as "evil" and so doesn't attack the main Tau empire.

IIRC, in the codex it suggest, at least I believe from my point of view, that Farsight feels betrayed for some reason (Dont feel like reading the whole fluff right now from the codex ). It goes along the lines of the TAU Empire didnt give him enough support in one battle or something so he lost allot of his troops.

Right it was because his forces where cut off and he became imbittered at the loss of life, and as was said he blamed others for failing to break through and releave the pressure on his forces. He's a general who cares about his soldiers.


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And like Mr Nobody said he dosen't see the Tau Empire as evil he just sees them as ignorant to the realities of the galaxy. He has woken up and realised the grim-dark reality that is the 40k universe while the main empire is in a sense still day dreaming. I think if the Tau would be better off where they to realise that trying to apply the Greater Good to all races would just lead them to a battle of attrition they can't win.

But if they sought the Greater Good in terms of the Tau race and started looking out for themselves then they would be better off then waisting time trying to unite everyone. I think that's what Farsight has realised and is now trying to do. It's like someone who keeps asking for peace while their head gets bashed in vs someone who decides to fight back.

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:I think anyone who actually reads the fluff and isn't a conspiracy theorist knew that already

I'd be interested to see where GW has said what the Dawn Blade is as this is the first I've heard of it.

Impossible, all must have some sort of conspiracy theory in relation to Farsight and his enclave if they have read. Why? Because there is frustratingly not enough written about it.

Instead GW HAD to focus more on Farsight's shiny toy and fancy artwork

No because there is still enough written about him and the Tau in general to know that the Dawn Blade is not a Daemon Weapon. It dosen't fit

For 7 and 9, the tau have bonding knives, a ceremonial short katana, which they have probably adapted for combat. I could see each fire warrior unit having a few sumurai like soldiers for close combat who go through extreme training for close combat.

Doesn't matter if your short if you can cut the enemies kness off.

The codex says bonding knives are ceremonial (though the Enclaves could have adapted them for combat like you said) and I've never seen anything that says the look like a Katana, In fact all you see of them is the hilt

There is even a codex picture of the bonding knife and it looks like a hunting knife. (pg 37)

And again it is against their moral code.

Just for accuracy the blade that Mr Nobody is refering to is actually a Tanto not a Katana

I'm not sure about it being against a moral code as the Farsight Enclaves do train in hand to hand combat. But I do think it would be a question of honor. Bonding Knives are used for the ceremonial bonding of Fire Warriors, it represents their unity. I don't think that they would sully a blade used for such a purpose with the blood of an enemy.

Still, if GW are going for an estern feel for the tau, it would make interesting cc units.

After looking at the Bonding Knife in the pictureit looks like a Khukri blade

first off i seriously hope GW doesn't put out a line of katana wielding tau, they have enough anime fanboys already

second i like your theory regarding the origins of the dawn blade, i agree that it would be a bit played out to have farsight turn out to be another hapless dupe of the chaos gods.

I have my own theory regarding his motivations however. i've always seen farsight as the Zhukov to the ethereal's Stalin (this is not a communist thing) he's a war hero with enough popular support to spark a civil war, however he accepts, or in this case willingly exiles himself to avoid strife and/or probable assassination ala an oh so convenient heroic death engineered by the ethereals.

As to what his enclaves are doing my guess would be that they are smuggling resources and defectors into their territory to ensure the survival of their race as they grimly await the day when their parent nation collapses under the weight of its own misguided ideology.

Thats what i think is/would like to be happening, in all likelihood however we will just get chaos tau. after all Arthas Moloch is a former chaos world and we all know what happens when you vacation on one of those...

I agree that they shoulden't give them katanas as it just dosen't suit them. However in trying to think of how I could represent the Dawn Blade in my own counts as Farsight acolyte I had an idea which I think still fits the Tau fluff.

The item is called a Shield Blade, it is only for battlesuits and was developed by the Farsight scientists after improving upon Imperial power weapons. The Shield Blade is a bladed bracer that produces an energy field. This field can function on 2 frequincies and is controled by the battlesuit pilot. 1 frequency is weaker then the other but the field is spread throughout the entire suit and acts like a shield. The second frequency centralizes the field around the bracer and is far more powerfull turning the bracer into a highly effective weapon.

When I model it it isn't going to be like a powerfist or anything it is supposed to cut so I'm going to take an idea I've seen and use it on my commander. The idea was a player took the rounded antena piece from the Apocalypse Eldar command vehicle and fit it to the arm of the battlesuit. It will represent both his shield generator and Dawn Blade

something like this? (or close to it)

That is by far the coolest Tau picture I've ever seen.

Anyway take away the blade then cut a small square section out of the front of the disk on his arm, make the disk slightly larger and put a bladed edge around it and you've got the idea.

For 1, I believe that farsight's goals are survival and killing orks, he really hates orks.

Who dosen't (in the universe I mean)

Orks hate Orks
Nids think other things is food
Imperium hates Orks
Necron Hates all lives including Orks
Farsight hates Orks
Eldar hates Orks
Dark Eldar also hates Orks
Chaos may or may not hate Orks
anything i miss?

Orks don't hate Orks they just think their own kind are the only race that can put up a real fight.

Isn't there one clan who is disliked by all other for their equipments ?

Not their equiptment but the fact that they actually use tactics.

And there is a differance between dislike and hate. In fact I don't think the Orks actually hate any race, war is what they do it isn't personal

Orks don't hate, they simply smash

Exactly. Also for whoever said that they think the Dawn Blade is one of the swords forged by the Eldar god Vaul there is a little tid bit of information in the Eldar codex I thought you would like.

It says that the last sword Vaul failed to forge for Khaine was called Anaris which means Dawnlight in Eldar. After defeating Vaul Khaine took the blade for himself. There is no mention as to what happens to Anaris after Khaine is broken into the various pecies that form the Avatars of Khaine.

Not saying I've changed my mind about the theory but just an interesting bit of information