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Greetings Dakkadites

I have recently been pondering over how to add some character to my Tau army through fluff and have been having a bit of trouble. I realise Tau isn't the best faction to use when wanting to be creative since their tiny empire doesn't allow for much freedom, but I've decided to stick with it. I have come up with one idea to set them apart but it is a bit 'out-there' and I need feedback if it is suitable.

The Tau army was boarding a hostile Chaos Cruiser ship and fighting the enemy successfully, however, accidentally a random warp jump was initiated and the Cruiser as well as the Tau aboard it were all transported to another part of the galaxy. The Cruiser crashed on a nearby planet but not too many Tau were harmed. Due to the Tau's limited understanding of the galaxy they do not know their location in relation to the Tau empire. They set up a colony on the new planet while gradually exploring the land around them.

Now this raises a few problems which I have tried to remedy.

In order for them to have the necessary Water and Earth caste to set up a colony I say that they were being held as prisoners by the Chaos forces, this helps explain why the Tau Fire caste were boarding the ship rather than just letting the Air caste shoot it up. I will also need to explain that it was awhile before the Tau were noticed by nearby forces and some of those nearby forces would need to be friendly so that the small budding colony aren't completely crushed by a much larger force.

So what do you think of the fluff? Is it plausible or do I need to work on it a bit more, or just go back to the drawing board completely.

Thanks in advance!

I think that when the Imperium, Orks, Dark Edlar, Chaos Raiders, Pirates and other discovered them - they will not pass so well...

But I like your story, you used fluff very well... But without the support of other Sept's that Tau are going to be slaughtered if they ever came across a little stronger enemy...

This could be a good basis for a stealthy, hit & run Tau force.
However, since they have no Ethereals with them, you'll have to explain how they govern themselves. They also wouldn't have access to mercenaries, so if you want Kroot they would have to have been involved in the boarding.
Lastly, they have no interstellar ships so it would take years before they had any way of attacking other races. However, this also means they'll be harder to notice, explaining why no-one attacks them. Overall, I like it, but you'll have a hard time explaining why they're in combat. Perhaps they land on an inhabited world?

There does seem to be a problem where if the region of space they're in was too populated they would be crushed but if it wasn't populated enough then it would take them a long time to find anyone.

a place somewhere else on the Eastern Fringe could work, perhaps in the Galactic North - near, but not in Imperium territory, where any alien and non Imperial Human civilizations would probably just as likely be inclined to leave them alone as harm them.

It could work, nothing in there is really against the fluff.

There are lots of planets which are far from anything else and have little value. They wouldn't get visited very often. So it's possible for the Tau to survive in a more deserted area.

The major problem is that it will take a very long time (thousands of years) for a boarding party to grow into a size capable of controlling a planet. They would also have a lack of any kind of equipment making life very hard. Without any kind of space craft they will be easy targets.

I think the best way would be too change the way they get there very slightly.

I would go with something like:

The Tau have been fighting chaos and have captured a chaos artifact and destroyed the chaos fleet. They are very interested in examining the artifact so are keen to return it to a more heavily protected planet. Most of their miltary ships have been destroyed in the battles so remaining FW and their ships join with the transport ships carrying civilians and vital equiment away from the warzone. While on their way towards a patroling Tau force they come under attack from a large Chaos ship. Unable to defeat it the Tau ships group together and wait for the approaching reinforcements. The crew of the chaos ship know they won't be able to fight off the apporaching Tau and desperate to retrieve the artifact, decide to pull the Tau ships into the warp using sorcery. The chaos marines board and return the artifact to their ship. The artifact interferes with the sorcery holding the ships in the warp and the both fall into realfspace where they crash into an uninhabited planet.

This would give them enough people and materials to advance as well as ships to move around.

I think thats some good fluff A Taufleet could colonise a planet indeed.

Carlovonsexron wrote:a place somewhere else on the Eastern Fringe could work, perhaps in the Galactic North - near, but not in Imperium territory, where any alien and non Imperial Human civilizations would probably just as likely be inclined to leave them alone as harm them.

This pops up alot, IoM territory is not an all encompassing blanket, it is more like a net. The IoM may control worlds from Terra to Ultramar, they do not contol the entire space between (hell there are even alien held worlds in the segmentum solar). It is perfectly reasonable to have a world near a IoM system that is not contolled be the IoM as most controlled systems exist on the more easy to navigate warp routes

I like this idea, it has the lost in space feel. Now a few points. You could have a full colony ship sucked into the warp and that would explain how they can set up on a new planet. Another thing you could do is have them land on a populated planet and make an alliance with the people living there. Oh! maybe have them work as mercenaries inside of a another alien empire. I would love to see what a tau looks like as a mercenary.

So you want a colony. Fine. There are many Tau colonies.
The only thing that your complicated fluff explains is why your army has no vehicles and Crisis Suits. Maybe that is not what you want.

Those are some good points. I like the idea put forward by 4M2A.

The Tau fleet were being escorted to a planet when Chaos appeared and headed for the main ship of the fleet. A Chaos Sorcerer held it in place so that it would not escape with his dark powers. The Fire Caste thought it must have been a function of the Chaos Cruiser so boarded it, they reached the control bridge and destroyed all the systems hoping to free the ship. The ship shook and disrupted the Sorcerers ritual, the warp drive was also dangerously active, the Sorcerers power was instead amplified the warp drive causing it to pull the entire fleet into the warp with the Chaos cruiser, they were ejected out on the unknown planet.

This is pretty much the same as the story put forward by 4M2A but with a few adjustments, I don't know how plausible the whole Sorcerer/warp drive combination is, and if it sounds a bit too silly then I can just amend that part.

The mercenaries idea sounds interesting, and would be good if I decided to have just Fire caste deserted so that they can't set up a colony, the only problem is who would repair vehicles/suits after each battle, and I'm not sure how willing they would be to fight for another alien race.

You also seem to want to have all the fighting take place before the warp jump, but maybe it would make more sense if it takes place after. Maybe the sorcerer can pull the fleet (maybe have it be a orbital city) into the warp then you can have the fight. It seems kind of random that the whole fleet could get pulled in by accident. It would make more sense if the sorcerer planed for them getting sucked into the warp.


The mercenaries would pay mercenary mechanics to repair their things, or maybe switching out some weapons for more common weapons. Strapping boltters to their backs. Would they fight for someone else? probably not. The tau don't even like that the kroot do it. At the same time, I can see the tau making a quicky alliance where they have to function as the auxiliaries, and maybe having questions as to the morality of their new friends.

There are know cases of sorcerers using there powers to affect events happening within the warp during travel so it's possible he could pull them into the warp. Not all space hulks have warp drives - a lot are just pulled in by the warp itself. I think it would make more sense if the CSMs intetionaly pulled them in but an accident is possible if explained.

Yeah, the whole 'accidental' part is a bit silly I guess, I like the idea of it being fire caste escorting colonising ships so I'd say no to it being an Orbital colony.

This thread seems to be changing into a work of collaborative fiction, so I am moving it to the Fiction forum.

You could ''kind of'' follow the Firewarrior game path with your story - Convoy gets attacked, a group of unique firewarrior's attempt to rescue *insert individual or group of people incapable of saving themselves under the circumstances* them. Then for instance, they rescue the *insert individual or group* and for their service are made a even more so unique group of blue aliens.

Tau and Chaos thing is just a ''little'' over used imo