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From a lore standpoint how do you guys think a revised Tau is going to look? More grimdark or more good guy clean shine?

Me and a friend were talking about this the other day and he brought up a good point, he believes Tau will get more squeaky clean while Farsight will get more evil. I didn't really think of it that way, but Farsight is kind of the Tau's ability to have an evil side while being nice guys. Anyways, I was wondering what the overall verdict would be. Do you guys think it will be more evil or good for Tau? Has the dark galaxy had enough of an effect to make the Tau evil baddies?

Clean, and efficient.
As suits their culture.
IMO Grimdark is about a scary amount of lavishness on weapons and tools of war, which the Tau aren't.
Though i could see Farsight doing it... sort of...

purplefood wrote:Clean, and efficient.
As suits their culture.
IMO Grimdark is about a scary amount of lavishness on weapons and tools of war, which the Tau aren't.
Though i could see Farsight doing it... sort of...

I see the Tau becoming more hostile toward the galaxy after the Necrons, Dark Eldar, and Human conflicts.

I think that they were moving toward that in fluff. What started as peaceful annexations in the DG, became pretty militant on Taros and Nimbosa later on. With one Commander commiting war crimes he was so brutal.

I can see them becomming more wary and possibly a bit more hostile but i'm not sure whether their aesthetic would change that much to reflect it...

I could see it going 2 ways.


the Etherials could become extinct and the Tau would descend into barbarisim again: More Grimdark.

or,

a larger group of Tau joins Farsight and basically splits the Tau Empire in 2. one half follows the Etherials and the Greater good. the other follows Farsight and the crusade to save their species from Extinction.


the Farsight group becomes extremely Xenophobic. only tolerating other Tau. they advance their suit technology to include close combat advances and more powerful weapons.

the Etherial group focuses more on synergy between the various alien races in combat. they also advance their vehicle and FW weaponry.



a Tau force begins by choosing HQs from either the Farsight or the Etherial led forces. this determines your FoC options.


Farsight would have Fire Warriors as troops, but they would be limited in numbers. Farsight himself would allow Suits to be Troops.

he would also unlock CCW upgrades and also different types of suits. possably a heavier version of an XV8 that is more geared for close combat. a Terminator if you will.


the Etherial would unlock more disciplined fire warriors,

possably Kroot and Vespid HQs.

The Tau become more in tune with the warp and begin to have to defend against demon incursions because they are naive to haw to defend themselves against such things. So while increasing their Empire in size conflict also comes from every direction; Imperium, Eldar, Orks, more Tyranid, necrons, dark eldar.

All of these from increasing the size of their territory. The demons from becoming new prey in the warp.

Hopefully they don't make any more Tau books and Squat the lot. Nah, I don't mean that. I do hope that they stick with the ranged attitude and don't make a dedicated CC unit.

I think the Tau will become more Grimdark because that is what the kiddies want.

It will be a mistake, because all the other factions are Grimdark factions and the background needs a bit of relief. Tau are popular with Tau players because they aren't Grimdark.

GW will screw it up and Grimdarkify Tau for the kiddies.

I think they'll stay more or less the same...the only problem I see them having is the Empire starting another Expansion and trying to stay connected without FTL travel...I can see the Empire failing w/o highspeed transport and it getting too large

I actually very much enjoy their look (other than all the Kroot). Their vehicles are perfect, the suits need to look more like the FW versions. Firewarriors could use with a slight update, but the basic idea is very sound.

After so many Imperial vehicles, I'm itching to paint up some aliens. It's going to be Dark Eldar, Necrons or Tau. Still waiting for all the books to drop.

Kilkrazy wrote:I think the Tau will become more Grimdark because that is what the kiddies want.

It will be a mistake, because all the other factions are Grimdark factions and the background needs a bit of relief. Tau are popular with Tau players because they aren't Grimdark.

GW will screw it up and Grimdarkify Tau for the kiddies.

As much as I don't want to agree with this, I completely do

*le sigh*

I'd love to see the Tau's naivety and openness to ally with other races blunted by the ever-hostile galaxy.

I want to see them realise that the only way to survive and expand is to be brutal. I want to see ever-more advanced weaponry, shields and stealth technology in abundance.

I want to see the Tau attacking without mercy, using other races' FTL technology and integrating astropaths into their expansion and pushing forward with such ferocity that they truly become a threat to the other races...


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In fact, expanding the idea, I want the Tau to be the adolescents of the 40K universe. Once full of bright ideals and a fair philosophy, they're realising that the galaxy is not a friendly place. They're a little scared of the future, very confused about how to survive but, above all, they are truly angry, furious, that the other, older races cannot understand them and they are responding with the only thing they know: fury. I want the Tau to be merciless, cold, calculating. Not Khornate rage, no frothy-mouthed blood lust and battle cries, not for the children of T'au, but a relentless drive to kill those who will not join them, no matter the casualties or cost in the lives of the Tau...

The tau are already subtely grimdark. Their entire population is brainwashed, they live like 40 years max, they are surrounded by all the big hitters in the galaxy IOM one of the bigger hive fleets and Ultramar. Also communism is bad. So at first glance they seem nice but it's the knife you don't see that kills you

Yeah, GW already started grimdarking them, its just noone bothered to read the fluff pieces in their current codex, or if they did, they missed the grimdark bits beacause they are either poorly written or not that obvious. But off the top of my head, there is the bit about the mind control helmets worn by the vespid leadership, and the bit about the acts of genocide committed against a xenos species that refused to join the Empire... and I haven't read the codex in years...

Miraclefish wrote:I'd love to see the Tau's naivety and openness to ally with other races blunted by the ever-hostile galaxy.

I want to see them realise that the only way to survive and expand is to be brutal. ...

...
...

That's what I meant.



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chaos0xomega wrote:Yeah, GW already started grimdarking them, its just noone bothered to read the fluff pieces in their current codex, or if they did, they missed the grimdark bits beacause they are either poorly written or not that obvious. But off the top of my head, there is the bit about the mind control helmets worn by the vespid leadership, and the bit about the acts of genocide committed against a xenos species that refused to join the Empire... and I haven't read the codex in years...

Well, they are bleenobvious and poorly written.

The "Emporer Ming of Mongo" new style of Ethereals made it obvious.

That said, how was GW to justify charging £12 for a 64pp book when it only had four new units in it, most of which were gak. They had to muck around with the fluff a bit. Pity they took out the interesting characters like Aun'Shi in favour of non-entitities such as Space Pope and Commander Shadowsun.

I could see the Tau perhaps being a lot more aggressive and non-compromising in their spread of the Greater Good. It may end up to where you have factions within the Tau forces that proclaim that the galaxy is collectively corrupt beyond redemption and must be subjagated for the Greater Good of all.

Something like the Qunari in Dragon Age would be interesting.

Now, as far as a change in aesthetics, I'm very much in favor of more 'rugged' and militant(as oppossed to the 'industrial') looks for battlesuits. That is to say, some Tau units, namely the original XV8 battlesuits and pretty much every Battlefleet Gothic ship I've seen are uncharacteristically blocky. I would instead like to see an aesthetic style like that of the XV9 battlesuits:

XV9s will probably be in a new codex.

Yeah, if the new Tau book adopts the XV9 suits and GW releases an appropriate kit (then again, their new resin models are no cheaper than FW in many instances), I'll be all over it.

I like the Tau as they are. They don't need any grimdark bs, the Tau are scary enough as they are. After all their entire philosophy is based on "The blue man's burden" to civilise a savage galaxy, no matter what the dirty natives want ( after all, it's for their own good ).

I like them being the little pinprick of light in a galaxy of war and hatred. Every other race is grimdark(tm) enough as it is. However, I also like the idea that something sinister may be going on behind the scenes in Tau culture.

Honestly, I think all it would take to turn the Tau grimdark would be a rather...creative intrepretaion of the Greater Good. Ethereals wield ridiculous amounts of influence and, working in concert, they could conceivably sway their forces to do any number of distasteful in the name of the Tau'va.

Come to think of it, it wouldn't even really take a 'mwahaha' interpretation of the Greater Good. Technically speaking, it WOULD be beneficial to the galaxy in the Tau say, in an attempt to weaken Chaos(assuming they could understand the threat) exterminated some particularly corrupt human worlds or something. But that's getting pretty 'out there'...

The Vespid 'communion helm' is a device for communication. It is hinted at by Imperial sources that it could be a 'brain washing' device. The imperium is not the bastion of truth and justice most people seem to think it is.

No grimdark Tau. The optimistic and reluctant enemy is the best fit for them. GW should not have started to stray from the first codex.

Why can't the Tau be the good guys with no hidden agenda.

Perhaps the Tau Empire and Ultramar should form a new alliance, bonded together by the hate the seem to recieve.

They can't be the good guys with no hidden agenda because their agenda is blatantly obvious.

iproxtaco wrote:They can't be the good guys with no hidden agenda because their agenda is blatantly obvious.

Exactly. They are good and their motives are clear.

iproxtaco wrote:They can't be the good guys with no hidden agenda because their agenda is blatantly obvious.

Yet every source that supports that claim is written from an Imperial perspective. All 40k fluff is open to interpretation-it could always be Imperial propoganda, especially when concerning xenos.

Almost everything is written from an Imperial perspective, except a few choice BL books and The Codices, which backs up this. Are you saying that everything written from an Imperial perspective should be ignored? Then the Word Bearers novels and the upcoming Eldar series should be ignored aswell?


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Medium of Death wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:They can't be the good guys with no hidden agenda because their agenda is blatantly obvious.

Exactly. They are good and their motives are clear.

Not 'good', just 'further towards good on the scale of morality than every other race'.

Anyway this is all speculation so I am transferring it to the 40K General Discussion forum.

Everyone does realize the Farsight will be long dead when the new codex comes out right? Unless they go all Wardy on him and he is now some immortal.

Saying "so everything written from the IoM perspective needs to be ignored?" is just being obtuse. A lot of the 'fluff' in the Tau codex is written by imerial agents. So it needs to be taken with a grain of salt is all. Do you really think an imperial agent would report back, "Upon further inspection these guys are actually pretty cool!"

Uh, no. He'd be killed.

Tau need to remain the brighter spot in the galaxy. But the suits definitely need an upgrade. And I think to keep up with the arms race, they would eventually make a heavier version of the hammerhead (TL-railgun) or a highly specialized tank hunting suit.

the speculation is that Farsight himself died along time ago and the reigning leader of the Farsight enclaves simply take on his name and wields his wargear.


or that the blade he has is tainted by chaos and has prolonged his life.

Or "Dread Pirate Roberts" scenario.

Or most likely that GW do not count.