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So, I've found that Tau and Orks make a pretty nasty combination on the tabletop, but I feel that they don't go together especially well thematically. I was wondering if there might be some way of modelling my Tau to make them more orky.

I'd rather run Kroot than Fire Warriors as troops, so that isn't a problem. Kroot can work fine with orks and I've also got a bunch of renegade humans with kroot rifles who could count as kroot too.

I guess that gunships could be looted and crewed with grots, while drones could simply be re-wired to obey ork commands. Just add a few metal plates and bullet holes and that should be fine.

I don't have a riptide model, but it's got great potential for looting. Alternatively, I could finish building that megadred I've been patching together out of spare plastic parts and fit a nice big gun to that and count it as a riptide, I guess.

My big issue is what to do about a HQ. I think that a battlesuit commander is really the only viable choice, but I'm not sure how to model him. I think I've got enough parts for at least one crisis suit in my bitz box, but how should I convert him? As a crazy tau who ran off to become a mercenary? A kroot or human who managed to steal a crisis suit and adapt it to them? A truly exceptional grot in the galaxy's greatest killa kan?

Well Orks do anything for loot etc. So the HQ could be a ex tau commander who felt he wasn't getting what he deserved for his actions(Damn communism) Thats just something off the top of my head. Rather than work your leader into it. I think its easier to work around your leader, but thats just my opinion.

"""""The Ethereals themselves eventually conceded these aliens were a lost cause and amended the protocols to forego any attempt to integrate the Orks, declaring that the Greater Good would be better off without them....Now when the troublesome aliens are discovered, the standard procedure is to approach the Orks in one of two ways either by destroying them as quickly as possible in all-out war or by marking the territory with warning beacons...."""""""

I guess you could field field the dataslate from the christmas special. It's pretty much a riptide and two units of broadsides with free tank hunter USR, no need for HQ or troops to ally them.

Broadsides can be represented by modified kanz, a riptide by a deff dread or mega dread.

Keep in mind that this is the one dataslate that ruined all dataslate's reputation, so use with care.

If you still want to use a commander, I'd just use a warboss/big mek with fancy armor. Alternatively, paint him in klan colors, orks sometimes take humans into their ranks, why not tau?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
"""""The Ethereals themselves eventually conceded these aliens were a lost cause and amended the protocols to forego any attempt to integrate the Orks, declaring that the Greater Good would be better off without them....Now when the troublesome aliens are discovered, the standard procedure is to approach the Orks in one of two ways either by destroying them as quickly as possible in all-out war or by marking the territory with warning beacons...."""""""

Somehow we still ended up as allies of convenience. Huh.

LIttle known fact. Orks love chasing laser pointers almost as much as fightin' and lootin'... especially when it leads to fightin' and lootin'

Could have an ork mek who built a "kustom stenk field" to make da blue gitz follow da mek boss. Run this mek as an ethereal and patch some ork bitz and glyphs to the any suits and vehicles. For da greta Waaaaaaggghhhh!

You could try to say that a tau strike force needed back up and so they gave some of their armoury ( cool weapons and tech.) to the orks as a pact. It would probably work for fluff if a big mek was included or if it was deff skulls.

Dude, a friend of mine made really kick-ass Torks (tau-orks). He added some bitz and a waaaghboss head to a crisis suit as commander, some killa canz got rocket pods all over them to jump in as broadsides and the shootas got some orange armour and pulse rifles. That sorta thing. It totally rocks to see these in action. I got some photos from him, uploading to gallery. Here's a preview: