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OK, before I start, it seems that Tau get a lot of hate around here (if that's not true, well sorry, I'm new here) and these debates get a bit...heated. So just remember, keep it civil.

Anyway, there's a significant lack of fluff regarding the numbers of the Fire caste, and in a lot of debates this seems to be the dividing line between pro-Tau and anti-Tau arguements. So, rather than let all the other Tau fluff threads have that, let's settle it here. Please remember all this is my own estimates and is based mostly on speculation and what I hope is logic.

So, first we see how much the total Tau population is. I'm going by the "balanced" idea, that each sept world is half industrialised, with cities and factories, while the other half is agricultural, providing food for the cities and the Air Caste in the upper atmosphere. If the living conditions are similair to a modern day Western country, such as the UK or the USA, (with similair sized houses, distribution and birth rates) then the population should be about 5 billion per sept world, similair to todays Earth, but slightly lower due to the numbers shipped off world and the birth control regime. With 26 sept worlds, the population should be around 130 billion, while the other 70 worlds are either too small to bother adding, allied worlds or being nom'd by the Nids.

Then, the rough size of each caste. Note the numbers may seem high, however a significant proportion of each will be children or old and infirm, so about half won't be part of the workforce. While each caste is a sub-species and their numbers are not naturally dependent on the overall need, the Ethereals would probably control birth rates if the numbers are insufficient-after all, there's no point in having 40 billion negotiators. The Earth caste should be largest, being the laborours, however much of the manual labour is performed by drones. I'd put the numbers at around 40 billion, as it could be assumed they are not just slaves, but the general working class-running shops and transporting goods etc. The Air Caste, however, are entirely adapted to live off world, and so they would be running all space stations and ships, keeping satellites running, piloting fighters and providing the entire crew for large ships. I think they would number around 30 billion, with only a few dozen million involved in combat while most are messengers, transport crews or living in off-world installations. The water caste, while having a narrow role, could probably find jobs in every day life; anything from police negotiators to salesmen to normal everyday jobs. So I'd say the numbers are around 20 billion.

So that puts the Fire Caste numbers at....dundundun! 30 billion. Stop facepalming! If you remove the numbers in traing, retired or injured, you're left with about 15 billion. Them minus the ones acting as police forces, garrison duties, patrolling or with more basic tasks (terrtorial army type things), and the ones on leave or with no actual combat to do (doing regular working-class jobs), you're only left with a few million involved in actual wars at one time. With roughly 5 billion more in reserve or patrolling, your left with a force that could feasibly defend an empire of 100 worlds while not being an instant win mega-army.

Discuss.

There's nothing to discuss.

We can't have any real ideas as to the numbers of the Fire Caste because we don't have any real basis to work from.

There aren't "entire worlds" full of Fire Caste, they share the space with the Earth and Water Castes. It's a case of limited resources and we don't have the entire picture.

Kanluwen wrote:There's nothing to discuss.

We can't have any real ideas as to the numbers of the Fire Caste because we don't have any real basis to work from.

There aren't "entire worlds" full of Fire Caste, they share the space with the Earth and Water Castes. It's a case of limited resources and we don't have the entire picture.

OK, maybe this is a dumb thread. But I did say it was speculation and guesswork, mostly.
But I never said there were "entire worlds" of fire caste.

Meh, it's fairly solid speculation. Using common sense I would put the number far lower, at only a few million. Simply because the Tau don't field millions of Fire-Warriors at every engagement and that the stated number of available warriors for the Third Sphere was a million, IIRC from a previous thread.

These threads seem to turn sour pretty quickly.

So...

iproxtaco wrote:Meh, it's fairly solid speculation. Using common sense I would put the number far lower, at only a few million. Simply because the Tau don't field millions of Fire-Warriors at every engagement and that the stated number of available warriors for the Third Sphere was a million, IIRC from a previous thread.

I agree with this position.

The tau are not truly mobilized for war the way the other factions are.

iproxtaco wrote:Meh, it's fairly solid speculation. Using common sense I would put the number far lower, at only a few million. Simply because the Tau don't field millions of Fire-Warriors at every engagement and that the stated number of available warriors for the Third Sphere was a million, IIRC from a previous thread.

"As his words echoed into silence a million Firewarriors listening outside the councildome went down on bended knee. The Earthcase began the building of a vast temple in his name The Air Caste launched a thousand vessels..." ( Codex Tau Empire, 4. edition page 42 ).
So, unless every single Firewarrior who participated at the third sphere expansion was outside the councildome, listening to the spacepope's words this number is of little worth for us.
The total number of Firewarriors is most likely quite a bit higher, perhaps several millions for each of the major, developed Septworlds, even if we assume an unusualy low level of
mobilisation. Even if only one in 300 Tau ( a similar number to what many european nations field atm) is a Firewarrior we get 18 million Firewarriors for each earthlike septworld.

Kanluwen wrote:

We can't have any real ideas as to the numbers of the Fire Caste because we don't have any real basis to work from.

the sad truth.

KingDeath wrote:
So, unless every single Firewarrior who participated at the third sphere expansion was outside the councildome, listening to the spacepope's words this number is of little worth for us.

If you "scroll down" on page 42 ( paragraph 5 IICC ) the number of a million firewarriors comes up again.

KingDeath wrote:
The total number of Firewarriors is most likely quite a bit higher, perhaps several millions for each of the major, developed Septworlds, even if we assume an unusualy low level of
mobilisation. Even if only one in 300 Tau ( a similar number to what many european nations field atm) is a Firewarrior we get 18 million Firewarriors for each earthlike septworld.

So youre assuming anything earth "like" (sized ?) has a population density like earth?

I believe the major issue is and always will be GW may throw some numbers around for IG and even those are not a 1:300, and keeps any
xenos at a vague level when it comes to sizes. I doubt there is any source of a population density of a xenos race in M41 from GW.

In Savage scars, some hundreds up to thousands of various types of firewarriors are noticed as participating in the fighting. On a major sept world. Not millions.

So the questions is:

- A ) firewarriors, counted like we could use common sense and real life examples?
- B ) firewarriors, counted based on GW publications and GW's idea of the sizes of military formations?

A or B ?

TrollPie wrote:So, first we see how much the total Tau population is.

Basically, you start with a handful of arbitrary assumptions and get another arbitrary assumption. Doesn't help that some assumptions are obviously false.

Bottom line is that we have no clue about total numbers and caste specific numbers. We only know that Fire caste is the largest (50% IIRC) and Ethereal caste is the smallest. And that no Tau planet has a population density coming close to human planets.

Why would you remove garrisoned units form the count?

Anyways, this is similar to my estimate on another thread a few weeks ago. The forces defending these worlds are LARGE. The damocles gulf crusade (which included titans) was halted by the garrison (the "PDF") of Dal'yth, a world with a low militarization rate. The Tau are hugely focused on expansion, but are anal about defending their claims.

Also, you can't remove the air caste from the number you got based off the planetary populations, as the aircaste do NOT live on planets. They live in orbital cities.

And also, the support staff cannot be subtracted from the number of FW, as those roles (Battlefield Engineers, armourers etc.) would be filled by the Earth caste.

You numbers start out fine. 5 bil seems about right for a sept world. I expect them to have a little less density then earth would.

I don't think I can trusty your ratios. It wouldn't be a set 1/4 for each class, but I don't know if yours are right.

You forgot the kroot, the vespin, the human worlds. Each on would have a different density and some are sept worlds. That should eat quite a few numbers.


On second look, you make a lot of assumptions that I just can't buy.

nomotog wrote:You numbers start out fine. 5 bil seems about right for a sept world. I expect them to have a little less density then earth would.

I don't think I can trusty your ratios. It wouldn't be a set 1/4 for each class, but I don't know if yours are right.

You forgot the kroot, the vespin, the human worlds. Each on would have a different density and some are sept worlds. That should eat quite a few numbers.


On second look, you make a lot of assumptions that I just can't buy.

Vespid, Pech and all the Gue'vesa worlds are not considered sept worlds -_-"

Also, if you include the Gue'vesa, Stingwings and kroot the Tau military is significantly larger, as the xenos auxilliaries have much higher rates of militarisation, and the human worlds have higher density.

There are only around seven full sept worlds, which on the outside might approach several billion in population. The rest of the septs would probably be closer to Cadian levels, in the low hundreds of millions on the outside. The remainder are small colonies with populations in the thousands.

However, regardless of the population, fire warriors can't number anywhere near even one billion, as that would mean there would be around five million available for every last colony if only 50% were in combat-ready condition. As they only field them in the low thousands or tens of thousands in major conflicts, this is clearly not the case, as one would expect hundreds of thousands for even minor skirmishes, let alone major engagements.

This means either their population is significantly lower, the fire caste makes up a relatively small percentage of their population, or only a very small percentage of fire caste meet the physical and psychological requirements to enter the military.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
This means either their population is significantly lower, the fire caste makes up a relatively small percentage of their population, or only a very small percentage of fire caste meet the physical and psychological requirements to enter the military.

On the topic of the third one, I don't think a member of the Fire caste can obtain a position outside of the military. IIRC, they stay in until they die.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:There are only around seven full sept worlds, which on the outside might approach several billion in population. The rest of the septs would probably be closer to Cadian levels, in the low hundreds of millions on the outside. The remainder are small colonies with populations in the thousands.

However, regardless of the population, fire warriors can't number anywhere near even one billion, as that would mean there would be around five million available for every last colony if only 50% were in combat-ready condition. As they only field them in the low thousands or tens of thousands in major conflicts, this is clearly not the case, as one would expect hundreds of thousands for even minor skirmishes, let alone major engagements.

This means either their population is significantly lower, the fire caste makes up a relatively small percentage of their population, or only a very small percentage of fire caste meet the physical and psychological requirements to enter the military.

Five million for every last colony really isn't a stretch. Numbers given in 40k fluff for troop sizes are hilariously low. If we're being "realistic", then you would need tens of millions to defend an entire planet. For reference, the Nazis needed about 5 million to unsuccessfully invade a small portion of Russia. To adequately defend 7 planets would require at hundreds of millions easily, let alone the many colonies and smaller septs.

I was just reading the first Cain novel today and the Commissar himself mentions the Imperial Guard has 30,000 men on a planet, "more than enough" to protect it from the Tau. In reality, this is about 1/5 of the troops Germany used to occupy Norway during WW2, or about half of the confederate army present at Gettysburg. I think it's safe to totally throw out what fluff authors have put forth as far as numbers are concerned, if we're trying for a realistic total.

im2randomghgh wrote:

nomotog wrote:You numbers start out fine. 5 bil seems about right for a sept world. I expect them to have a little less density then earth would.

I don't think I can trusty your ratios. It wouldn't be a set 1/4 for each class, but I don't know if yours are right.

You forgot the kroot, the vespin, the human worlds. Each on would have a different density and some are sept worlds. That should eat quite a few numbers.


On second look, you make a lot of assumptions that I just can't buy.

Vespid, Pech and all the Gue'vesa worlds are not considered sept worlds -_-"

Also, if you include the Gue'vesa, Stingwings and kroot the Tau military is significantly larger, as the xenos auxilliaries have much higher rates of militarisation, and the human worlds have higher density.

Bla. You see that is what I get for leaving my codex at my firends house.

Maybe going from the top down is the wrong way to do it. We only know the number of worlds, their population, the ratio of fire warriors, who can fight, ect. It's a lot of stuff to guess at.

What if we go from the bottom up. Find out how many fire warriors fir in a manta, how many manta fit into a spaceship, how many spaceships in a fleet, and then how many fleets they have.

A manta holds 92 fire warriors. 48 loose warriors + 8 In battle suits + 6 in two hammer heads (I assume it takes three to pilot a hammer head pilot, gunner, commander)+30 in the two devilfish (3 for crew and 12 inside the passenger compartment. I don't have my codex on hand. Fill me in if i am off on how many fit in a fish.) This info comes from forge world's page on the manta.

A explorer class starship holds 8 squads of manta or barracuda. I don't know what the ratio of bomber version to transport versions would be. Again if you have a idea fill me in. My guess is half and half. That gives us 368 fire warriors (Maybe a few spares, but they can't just be dropped with out ships.)

This is about where I run out of information. How many explorer (I want to use the emissary or custodian if anyone knows how many they hold) class ships do we have in a fleet. And how many fleet per world. I think we will have to do some guesses there.

Going along this way might get us better numbers.

Melissia wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:Meh, it's fairly solid speculation. Using common sense I would put the number far lower, at only a few million. Simply because the Tau don't field millions of Fire-Warriors at every engagement and that the stated number of available warriors for the Third Sphere was a million, IIRC from a previous thread.

I agree with this position.

The tau are not truly mobilized for war the way the other factions are.

I agree with some of what Kan says, but I disagree with you mel.

The Tau Empire is capable of mobilizing every single adult into state service. Since a Tau will kill himself on command, their devotion is without question. As a military state, they have fought and won against the IoM and several other factions on more than a few worlds.

The Tau shortcoming is strictly in their size and FTL. They are a very tiny faction but a very lethal one to be sure.

Estimates about the number of Fire Caste is a question without an exact answer however...

Several factors to keep in mind:

Dal'yth Prime had billions of Tau.
A million Ceremonial Fire Warriors attended a speech.
They have a force org that allows for Regimental sized deployments.
They devote 100% of a sub-species to ground war allowing to leave only through death or politics.

These are just a few hints at what the Tau have for a Fire Warrior population. If we cater to the low end of the numbers it would be plausible a few battalions of Tau fought and defeated Regiments, Titan Legions, Astartes, etc. It is more plausible they have millions and send thousands between 5,000 - 50,000 to conflicts holding most in reserve, due to a highly defensive doctrine of warfare and lack of rapid re-deployment options should other fronts open up against them.

BeefCakeSoup wrote:

Melissia wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:Meh, it's fairly solid speculation. Using common sense I would put the number far lower, at only a few million. Simply because the Tau don't field millions of Fire-Warriors at every engagement and that the stated number of available warriors for the Third Sphere was a million, IIRC from a previous thread.

I agree with this position.

The tau are not truly mobilized for war the way the other factions are.

I agree with some of what Kan says, but I disagree with you mel.

The Tau Empire is capable of mobilizing every single adult into state service. Since a Tau will kill himself on command, their devotion is without question.

Uh, what?
Where in the hell are you getting that from? We've heard nothing of "a Tau will kill himself on command". We've heard speculation that they will if an Ethereal orders it.

The Tau Empire is also incapable of mobilizing every single adult into state service. Many of those individuals would have no real role to play in state service if there were full scale wars on--such as the Water Caste. That's an entire large chunk of their population doing basically nothing.

As a military state, they have fought and won against the IoM and several other factions on more than a few worlds.

"As a military state" they have fought and won against the IoM coming at them in very small forces. The designation of "Crusade" is given to any Imperial Task Force performing a certain mission. There could be a Crusade of the Clean Underpants given the way the Imperium is organized.

And despite the thing that always gets thrown out here of "Well they killed Titans!"(Warhounds. Sentinels, the Imperium's mass produced scout walker, have killed Warhounds in the fluff before. Hell, infantry with heavy weapons and gusto have killed Warhounds in the fluff before. And don't forget that the Tau had to cannibalize ship to ship weaponry to kill those Warhounds.)--the Tau are far from being anywhere near a major player in the Grimdarkverse.

The Tau, for all intents and purposes, are the Israel of 40k. They've been involved in some really high intensity, low number conflicts. They've punched above their weight class in those conflicts, and usually for a variety of ridiculous reasons and plot armor shielding their flaws.

That's not to say, before someone accuses me of being 'racist against the Tau' like last time this topic was broached, that they might not have actually succeeded. There's always that possibility. After all, the Continental Army beat the British didn't they?
The point is it's a tiny possibility, if a full scale high intensity war were to break out that the Tau would survive. They've encountered, at best, the tip of the spear that the Imperium is poking their territories with.

The Tau shortcoming is strictly in their size and FTL. They are a very tiny faction but a very lethal one to be sure.

Far from it. They're a very tiny faction which inhabits a very lethal section of space. Without the protection of the Warp Storms that destroyed the Imperial colonization fleet, without the
turbulent warp surround it, etc etc

Estimates about the number of Fire Caste is a question without an exact answer however...

Several factors to keep in mind:

Dal'yth Prime had billions of Tau.
A million Ceremonial Fire Warriors attended a speech.
They have a force org that allows for Regimental sized deployments.
They devote 100% of a sub-species to ground war allowing to leave only through death or politics.

They devote 100% of a sub-species to war, period. There is also no "allowing to leave only through death or politics". Where do you think the Tau get the Fire Caste instructors from? They're not magical drone Fire Caste.

These are just a few hints at what the Tau have for a Fire Warrior population. If we cater to the low end of the numbers it would be plausible a few battalions of Tau fought and defeated Regiments, Titan Legions, Astartes, etc. It is more plausible they have millions and send thousands between 5,000 - 50,000 to conflicts holding most in reserve, due to a highly defensive doctrine of warfare and lack of rapid re-deployment options should other fronts open up against them.

Ehhh.

I just don't see us having any hard numbers (ever) for stuff like this. GW loves vagueness (which I applaud) when it comes to total civilization numbers, and I hope they leave these blanks for each of us to fill in as we will.

the color purple wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:There are only around seven full sept worlds, which on the outside might approach several billion in population. The rest of the septs would probably be closer to Cadian levels, in the low hundreds of millions on the outside. The remainder are small colonies with populations in the thousands.

However, regardless of the population, fire warriors can't number anywhere near even one billion, as that would mean there would be around five million available for every last colony if only 50% were in combat-ready condition. As they only field them in the low thousands or tens of thousands in major conflicts, this is clearly not the case, as one would expect hundreds of thousands for even minor skirmishes, let alone major engagements.

This means either their population is significantly lower, the fire caste makes up a relatively small percentage of their population, or only a very small percentage of fire caste meet the physical and psychological requirements to enter the military.

Five million for every last colony really isn't a stretch. Numbers given in 40k fluff for troop sizes are hilariously low. If we're being "realistic", then you would need tens of millions to defend an entire planet. For reference, the Nazis needed about 5 million to unsuccessfully invade a small portion of Russia. To adequately defend 7 planets would require at hundreds of millions easily, let alone the many colonies and smaller septs.

I was just reading the first Cain novel today and the Commissar himself mentions the Imperial Guard has 30,000 men on a planet, "more than enough" to protect it from the Tau. In reality, this is about 1/5 of the troops Germany used to occupy Norway during WW2, or about half of the confederate army present at Gettysburg. I think it's safe to totally throw out what fluff authors have put forth as far as numbers are concerned, if we're trying for a realistic total.

Guard are the equivalent of modern Spec Ops in skill level, supported by godlike armor on the ground, and supported by warships in orbit with the firepower to level continents in days and the precision to level a city block, to say nothing of their rapid redeployment capacity. If you had a comparable force available you could probably take every important nation on Earth, and glass any of the others if they don't submit.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

the color purple wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:There are only around seven full sept worlds, which on the outside might approach several billion in population. The rest of the septs would probably be closer to Cadian levels, in the low hundreds of millions on the outside. The remainder are small colonies with populations in the thousands.

However, regardless of the population, fire warriors can't number anywhere near even one billion, as that would mean there would be around five million available for every last colony if only 50% were in combat-ready condition. As they only field them in the low thousands or tens of thousands in major conflicts, this is clearly not the case, as one would expect hundreds of thousands for even minor skirmishes, let alone major engagements.

This means either their population is significantly lower, the fire caste makes up a relatively small percentage of their population, or only a very small percentage of fire caste meet the physical and psychological requirements to enter the military.

Five million for every last colony really isn't a stretch. Numbers given in 40k fluff for troop sizes are hilariously low. If we're being "realistic", then you would need tens of millions to defend an entire planet. For reference, the Nazis needed about 5 million to unsuccessfully invade a small portion of Russia. To adequately defend 7 planets would require at hundreds of millions easily, let alone the many colonies and smaller septs.

I was just reading the first Cain novel today and the Commissar himself mentions the Imperial Guard has 30,000 men on a planet, "more than enough" to protect it from the Tau. In reality, this is about 1/5 of the troops Germany used to occupy Norway during WW2, or about half of the confederate army present at Gettysburg. I think it's safe to totally throw out what fluff authors have put forth as far as numbers are concerned, if we're trying for a realistic total.

Guard are the equivalent of modern Spec Ops in skill level, supported by godlike armor on the ground, and supported by warships in orbit with the firepower to level continents in days and the precision to level a city block, to say nothing of their rapid redeployment capacity. If you had a comparable force available you could probably take every important nation on Earth, and glass any of the others if they don't submit.

Guardsmen are well trained but "special forces level" ( which by themself vary greatly in their ability to actualy wage a groundwar ) is stretching it, supported by highly inefficient armour designs and warships which are vulnerable to planetary defences unless brought in overwhelming numbers or deployed against a badly defended world.

The thread is supposed to be about the Fire Warriors, not Imperial Guard.

As several people said, there is no basis of data from which to work, thus we can only speculate as to numbers.

The same is true for most factions in the fluff. Even the numbers of SMs can only be estimated fairly roughly.

Tau are controlled by Ethereals, since an Ethereal holds absolute sway over a Tau their dedication to the cause is flawless.

Also, trying to downplay the Tau victories is silly, they fought and won. The IoM also saw fit to use both Astartes and Cadians, two factions that seldom see anything the IoM doesn't deem a notable threat. But to downplay a Warhound Titan is about as out there as it gets.

Also, with the exception of death, politics is the only way a FW leaves his position. Stated in the dex... So for all we know, yes, it is very plausible Dome training consists of drones teaching a Tau something in weeks that takes other races months to learn with actual deployments in line units making up most of their time alive.


That's getting out there though, the actual number of Tau is one of two realities...

A) A few Tau battalions can pants a few regiments..

B) The Tau have more than a few battalions...

KingDeath wrote:Guardsmen are well trained but "special forces level" ( which by themself vary greatly in their ability to actualy wage a groundwar ) is stretching it,

Admittedly a variable quantity, but one that ranges from "upper-end conventional forces" to "twice the training of a SEAL by the time they're admitted to the Guard". They're not trained to operate as Spec Ops, but in terms of combat ability they'd have an equivalent average level of capability.

supported by highly inefficient armour designs

The best modern armor would end up around AV10-11, while a Russ has a main gun that inflicts the equivalent damage of a HEAT charge at its point over every inch of an 8-13 foot radius. Efficiency of design doesn't really matter, when it's proven that they can produce many billions of their main battle tank, and likely millions of their superheavies, and those designs come out as the pinnacle of armored vehicles regardless of their potential to be much greater given the technology involved in making them work to begin with.

and warships which are vulnerable to planetary defences unless brought in overwhelming numbers or deployed against a badly defended world.

There's no land-based weapons system that can touch warships in orbit, since Titans were retconned down to a level in keeping with sanity. There is likewise no orbital defense system outside of Imperial hands (if even there) which is capable of standing up to Imperial warships, either, and if there were than the number of Guard necessary to take a planet would hardly be in question unless there was sufficient Naval force to bash the orbital defenses apart.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nerivant wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
This means either their population is significantly lower, the fire caste makes up a relatively small percentage of their population, or only a very small percentage of fire caste meet the physical and psychological requirements to enter the military.

On the topic of the third one, I don't think a member of the Fire caste can obtain a position outside of the military. IIRC, they stay in until they die.

Do we know that there are only pure military positions for them, though? Really, the Tau society is itself rather without much description, and parts don't really line up that well:

They're semi-post-labor, using drones for all manual labor.
They're apparently quite ascetic when it comes to luxury, since personal comfort doesn't further their "greater good".
There are only so many jobs that could be filled when all manual labor is handled by machines, most of which are engineering or research positions.
They have neither the level of development nor the level of technology that would go alongside mass employment in engineering and research, when an infinite pool of labor exists in the form of easily manufactured drones.

What is known of the Tau is incongruent with every available body being employed in such a capacity, and yet also with a significant portion of the population existing in the sort of leisure and prosperity that the mass automation of labor would create under a government concerned with its people, and a massive service industry is also incongruent with their personal asceticism.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
There's no land-based weapons system that can touch warships in orbit, since Titans were retconned down to a level in keeping with sanity. There is likewise no orbital defense system outside of Imperial hands (if even there) which is capable of standing up to Imperial warships, either, and if there were than the number of Guard necessary to take a planet would hardly be in question unless there was sufficient Naval force to bash the orbital defenses apart.

In the grim darkness of the far future there are no orbital defences?

Medium of Death wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
There's no land-based weapons system that can touch warships in orbit, since Titans were retconned down to a level in keeping with sanity. There is likewise no orbital defense system outside of Imperial hands (if even there) which is capable of standing up to Imperial warships, either, and if there were than the number of Guard necessary to take a planet would hardly be in question unless there was sufficient Naval force to bash the orbital defenses apart.

In the grim darkness of the far future there are no orbital defences?

None capable of standing up to the sort of warships that escort Guard transports outside of Imperial hands, no.

BeefCakeSoup wrote:Tau are controlled by Ethereals, since an Ethereal holds absolute sway over a Tau their dedication to the cause is flawless.

Also, trying to downplay the Tau victories is silly, they fought and won. The IoM also saw fit to use both Astartes and Cadians, two factions that seldom see anything the IoM doesn't deem a notable threat. But to downplay a Warhound Titan is about as out there as it gets.

To upplay the defeat of a Warhound Titan is 'about as out there' as it gets as well. It's a scout Titan, BeefCake. We're not talking about something dangerous here.

I should also add that the only reason the Astartes and Cadians were involved with Taros is that Forge World wanted them to be. They picked a Chapter known for lightning assaults, the Raptors, and had them basically doing convoy duty. They had the Cadians operating in a mechanized column with no tank support. They had the Elysians drop with very little air cover, et al.

The whole point of Taros was that the Imperium was going to lose.

By the by: There's nothing that says 'Cadians are only deployed to the Imperium's most vital warzones'. If you're persecuting a dragging out war--would you rather keep feeding in fresh regiments, or add in a regiment from a world known for high quality of troops and which are known to work quite well with Astartes forces?
Should also add that as it stands, the numbers of Astartes involved with the Damocles Gulf Crusade depending on the source range from multiple Companies of Astartes--to the more reliable sources saying that there was a single Company, consisting of forces from 5 Chapters.

Despite this excessive chestthumping that "THE TAU DEFEATED A CRUSADE!"--it really is leaning more towards it being a stupidly pathetic force, which really should not have been named a 'Crusade' in the fluff.
But like I said earlier: anyone in the Imperial command structure can declare a crusade provided the Ecclesiarchy blesses it and the higher ups sign off on it. Even if it's a handful of ships, some transports, and a pocket full of dreams--meet that criteria and you have a Crusade!

Also, with the exception of death, politics is the only way a FW leaves his position. Stated in the dex... So for all we know, yes, it is very plausible Dome training consists of drones teaching a Tau something in weeks that takes other races months to learn with actual deployments in line units making up most of their time alive.

You realize that training assignments are considered 'a position' right? There's nothing in the codex that says "No Tau Fire Warrior ever serves as a combat instructor".
It's also worth noting that Fire Caste lifespans are barely 45-50 years.
And really, "dome training consists of drones teaching a Tau something in weeks that takes other races months to learn" is a huge stretch. The Guard and Astartes both employ hypnotic conditioning if they need to flashtrain someone. That takes a week, at best, and not only teaches them it--but makes it instinctive.

That's getting out there though, the actual number of Tau is one of two realities...

A) A few Tau battalions can pants a few regiments..

B) The Tau have more than a few battalions...

A) The Tau organizational structure, as put forth in Codex: Tau, is stupidly vague with organizations such as the 'Command'--which is 'All the forces within an assigned area of an assigned Caste'.
B) Nobody's saying they don't.

That is substantially correct. The Ecclesiarchy has a good hand in the politics of the Imperium, and the Tau certainly piss the Ecclesiarchy off.

Kanluwen wrote:They devote 100% of a sub-species to war, period. There is also no "allowing to leave only through death or politics". Where do you think the Tau get the Fire Caste instructors from? They're not magical drone Fire Caste.

Page 9 of the codex makes it sound like they just magically appear as adults on the front line, "a warrior starts life as a young line trooper". Vat babies? And they never mention training so genetic learning? Viable considering that some people say Eldar tampered with the Tau. Who knows, they might go with the Russian WW2 doctrine for training, "Here's your gun and some ammo, run out there and shoot at someone." If they make it 4 years on the line, they can become a team leader or suit pilot.

It'd be nice if GW wrote a bit more about them. I think part of what makes conversations about Tau so contentious (other than people who just hate the entire concept of the faction for some odd reason; I mean, it's just a game after all...) is that there simply isn't that much written about them so it's all opinion, hints and guesses.

Could we forgo your usual IoM chest-thumping as well?

As to force size, there's no telling.
The codex says up to 6 teams makes a cadre and 3-6 cadres makes a contingent but we have no idea how many contingents makes a battle or how many battles makes a command.

Sure we do, most battles have had a few thousand fire warriors if I remember correctly.