Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Setting up a character in a 'sorta' Tabletop 40k RPG.
(We're using a fan-system called "Dungeons: the Dragoning", FWIW)

NPC I'm setting up has 10,000 Tau following his lead; kinda a 'mini-Farsight' situation.

Now, considering that every 'soldier' needs a certain amount of 'support', what would be a good ratio?

Ideally, I'd like to get as close to an 'actual' 40K Tau FoC, but with 'proper' amounts of Earth, Air, and Water Caste populations,
all of which fit within the "10,000" Tau population limit.

Kroothawk, I know you are one of the more vocal Tau supporters, any ideas how I should go about this?

The best tip I can tell you is don't define everything right away. You want to leave yourself with wiggle room. If you want like the official ratio, then it dosen't exist. You would actually have quite a few different ratios based on what was going on. Like a military force would be mostly fire, well a build group might be mostly earth.

Sorry for the late response.

Thanks for the suggestion; I'd thought that there was some rough listing of "number of soldiers in Unit Size X" I could use.

Did find that, according to wikipedia, ~100,000 is considered a full Army, rather than the Regiment I exepected.

Tau don't use human army structure. Tau group their armies into Cadre. (pronounced cattra or close to it) They are regiments of about 90 tau. A military Cadre is called a hunter Cadre, but they also have things like building Cadres or diplomatic Cadres.

An Army would be:
You'd have major Fire and Air (Army and Airforce) maybe 60-70%, then some 25-39% of Earth (maintenance staff and crew, ship repair, builders (temporary bunkers and defences) and manual labour) and anywhere from 1-5% Water (some diplomats but mainly accountants, historians(recorders) and translators for diplomats or for Kroot and such)
Settlement:
About the same, just switch Air and Fire with Earth.
What about the Ethereals and Alien Auxiliars?

You tend to get about 60% auxiliary. And if your lucky you get 1 aun.