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Me and my friend (who plays tau) were chatting about guard with tau allies (he's a newb) and were discussing what units the guard wouldn't have available due to loyalty to the Emperor or whatever, plus what the tau would be willing to risk/not risk around a huge force of humans.

IG units unavailable;
Commissars and LCs
Techpriest?
Storm Troopers
Marbo (he never listened to orders so I doubt the tau would be able to keep a handle on him somehow?)
Ogryns (I'd love to see a Water Caste Negotiator trying to explain the concept of the Greater Good to an Ogryn without having his lights punched out )
Conscripts perhaps-unless the whole regiment was new I doubt there would be any

Tau units deemed to high-risk;
Riptide? (If an LR Vanquisher squadron suddenly rounds on you )
Ethereal? Or would he be more likely...

That's all we could think of, I'll probably do a list in the right forum but I wanted to make it more fluffy first. Thanks in advance!

You could use some Tau enforcers to represent the Commissar.

Commissars, Priests, and Techpriests would definitely stay loyal. Ogryns too, probably for the exact reasons you're thinking.

Stormtroopers- They're the elite. More loyal, better treated, a lot less likely to betray the Imperium.

Penal legionaries- I don't think the Tau would trust em enough to give em weapons.

Primaris Psykers and Psyker Battle Squads- The Tau are kinda scared of human psykers cause they're so unstable and strange to them. I think they chemically sterilize any psykers who join or are born under the greater good.

I doubt human auxilaries would take Imperium plasma weapons. Not only are they rare, their tendency to overheat would make them unappealing to Tau.

Special Characters in general are out, because we know those individuals are loyal.

I think Conscripts actually work well as a sort of colonial militia the Tau have armed as a last ditch defense. Tau get civilians to join all the time, so I don't think Conscripts would be a do not take.

As far as what the Tau would withhold on their side, we know they don't give humans access to their higher end tech, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't fight alongside them with it. It also depends on how desperate the situation is.

If your opponent lets you do house rules, you could give all your IG infantry the weapons options that Gue'La Auxiliaries have in the Tau Codex. Instead of plasma guns they can take pulse rifles as special weapons, etc.

Remember that the troop types in the codex could be counts as for all sorts of things. Imperial Storm Troopers are likely to stay loyal until death, however that doesn't stop a Human world under the aegis of the Tau from developing and training troops to fulfil the same role at the same level of skill. The only slightly odd one is Commisars.

I wasn't sure about Psykers, though I'd be ok dropping them I guess (as much as a big squad murders MEQs...)

I may try to house rule all plasma guns to pulse rifles, it would be really cool to do and nice and fluffy. What else would the tau allow to the Gue'La?

@Flinty, I never thought of it that way, gives me an excuse for more vets at least! Though I still think I'll give the "Tempestus Scions" a miss, I can live without them probably

Well, tau captured human worlds still produce things they normally would, do they would probably have much the same stuff.

There is a big difference between

a) Which units may be recruited from an Imperial Guard regiment that surrendered to the Tau

and

b) Which units Tau could recruit from a human-populated world that have been under Tau domination for generations.

In the first case I doubt any soldiers would join the Greater Good. They are die hard believers of the Imperial Creed, have their loyalty to their home planet, the Guard (as an idea), their squadmates etc. Unless extreme circumstances (their General screwed up totally, they were de facto betrayed by the IG/Navy/Imperium et cetera) only a few misfits would join, such as conscripts.

In the second case I claim that all units, with possible exception of psykers (and maybe high tech units like flyers) could fight for the Tau, but of couse wih a twist.

Commissars that preach the Greater Good and how service to Tau is far better than die for a bloodthirsty Emperor. A human equivalent to the Etherals, assisting the regular Army officers with morale.

Techpriests that can explorer technology without the Imperial restrictions on AI, "not invented here" mindset and general backward looking mentality (searching for old STC instead of inventing new stuff). Since a lot of Techpriests deserted to the Dark Mechanicum Tau-aligned techpriests should be a small step.

Stormtroopers - just better trained and equipped infantery.

Marbo? Either a talented lunatic (as in the IG) or a specialist with a lot of tau goodies to enable infiltration.

Ogryns? Well, I think they would be simple to "recruit" (just grab them, give them weapons and aim them towards the enemy just like the IoM does), but the Tau may not find any use for them. Too slow for a quick army, not enough dakka for a firepower-centred army and not good enough i CC

superkuf wrote:

Commissars that preach the Greater Good and how service to Tau is far better than die for a bloodthirsty Emperor. A human equivalent to the Etherals, assisting the regular Army officers with morale.

Ethereals don't maintain discipline by shooting commanders and squad leaders in the head for retreating.

I agree that most of the IG stuff can be justified (Stormtroopers representing more trusted, better equipped and trained Gue'vesa), but Commissars are inherently the LEAST fluffy IG unit to include in a Tau human auxiliary, along with psykers. Humans abandoning the rest of humanity to join the Greater Good overwhelmingly happens because the Tau offer a kinder, gentler way of living. Fanatical followers executing people left and right for relatively minor things just seems wrong.

To the OP, the Tau have or used to have a Gue'vesa unit in their army list, complete with Tau options for special weapons and extra gear. I recommend you ask any Tau players you know if you can look at it for ideas. I thought it was in the current book, although it might've been the previous edition.

It is noted that, whenever a unit of IG decide to join the Tau, the first thing they do is assassinate the Commissar and the upper leadership.

@fallinq - I agree on the commissar front, but you could easily field psykers by converting up some Nicassar. They aren't in the normal Tau list, but are noted in BFG as serious psychic heavyweights. So maybe this Tau run human world has a Niccassar way station kicking about.

Ethereals don't maintain discipline by shooting commanders and squad leaders in the head for retreating.

Ethereals don't maintain discipline AMONG TAU by shooting commanders. But the Tau understand that different races respond to different stimulis. Tau responds to Ethereals, Kroot responds to (anybody knows?). Vespids resonds to (dito) and humans are unfortunally so primitive that they only resonds to a slug in the head. Commissars are by definiton "the greater good" sacrificing soldiers to protect civilians/industrial capacity/whatever, traits that humanity have shown an abundance of far before spaceflight.

Kroots in Tau armies still eat their enemies. Why shouldn't human troops in Tau armies have Commissars that execute their own troops?

 Mitranekh the Omniscient wrote:
I wasn't sure about Psykers, though I'd be ok dropping them I guess (as much as a big squad murders MEQs...)

I may try to house rule all plasma guns to pulse rifles, it would be really cool to do and nice and fluffy. What else would the tau allow to the Gue'La?

@Flinty, I never thought of it that way, gives me an excuse for more vets at least! Though I still think I'll give the "Tempestus Scions" a miss, I can live without them probably

The Tau use the Nicassar for their psychic ability, so using human psykers isn't out of the question. IG psykers wouldn't be verboten, for the simple fact that Kroot Master Shapers are not verboten (and they are psykers), Eldar are viewed semi favorably, the Nicassar are psykers, and the codexes make mention of other mental powers in the Tau dominion.

I'd say look at what your typical PDF has instead of a Guard Regiment. The Gue'vesa (Humans in service of the Tau) are typically recruited from the PDF of the worlds that have given themseves to the Tau (the Tau take very few worlds from the Imperium, instead they convince them to switch allegiances).

superkuf wrote:


Ethereals don't maintain discipline AMONG TAU by shooting commanders. But the Tau understand that different races respond to different stimulis. Tau responds to Ethereals, Kroot responds to (anybody knows?). Vespids resonds to (dito) and humans are unfortunally so primitive that they only resonds to a slug in the head. Commissars are by definiton "the greater good" sacrificing soldiers to protect civilians/industrial capacity/whatever, traits that humanity have shown an abundance of far before spaceflight.

Kroots in Tau armies still eat their enemies. Why shouldn't human troops in Tau armies have Commissars that execute their own troops?

1) Shooting troops to keep them in line isn't a human trait. It's an IMPERIUM trait.
2) Kroot are in no way less "primitive" than humans.
3) Humans respond to many things besides "a slug in the head". That's why humans defect to the Tau Empire to begin with. Or why they turn to Chaos.
4) What do you mean by "maintain discipline"? When Tau Firewarriors fail morale checks they break and run. Same with Kroot. They don't force rerolls to morale checks. They get by the exact same way every other army without Commissars does.
5) As far as why they shouldn't, you think the Tau should keep humans in the same crappy conditions the Imperium does? Kind of takes away from the appeal of abandoning the rest of humanity, the religion you grew up with, and facing execution as heretics should the Imperium come knocking if there's no benefit to you in any way. Fear is one way to ensure loyalty. Appealing to tribal loyalty is another. Treating people well is a third. Guess which two the Imperium is much better equipped to do than the Tau?

As far as the whole psyker business, yes you could have "counts as" Nicassar. I don't think we really know what they look like though. Anyway, I could swear one of the Tau Codices said they were sterilizing all the human psykers and otherwise keeping them on a tight leash. I'd assume it has more to do with instability than power. Species like the Eldar and Orks (presumably the Nicassar would be like the former and the Kroot with their ancestral memory like the latter) are much less likely to get possessed/open a portal to hell by accident than humans are.

I have all the tau codexs/codi and I don't remeber anything like that, I'll have to check.

On the nissicar side they are supposed to look a bit like polar bears. Also, they would be more powerful than the avreage human psyker as they have enough power to levitate themselves off the ground constantly without blowing their brains out and still use other psykic powers. Say psyker level 2 and 3 for the more powerful ones.

Adult Niccassar are sopposed to be very powerful, so in the context of Guard psyker squads, go for adolescents or recently matured Nixies that hang around in packs as they learn the ropes?

I can see the Tau trying to suppress human psykers due to the carnage an unprotected mind can do on a human world.

@maniac - have you got a source for the master shaper being psyker thing? Its not something i've come across before.

Jefffar wrote:
I'd say look at what your typical PDF has instead of a Guard Regiment. The Gue'vesa (Humans in service of the Tau) are typically recruited from the PDF of the worlds that have given themseves to the Tau (the Tau take very few worlds from the Imperium, instead they convince them to switch allegiances).

This is a good point. What comprises a PDF? Company command, platoons, vets and conscripts, a few tanks likely as well, but what else?

Re Nicassar, I can't say I've heard of them but it would make sense as Flinty suggested to put them in 'packs' to fit the PBS.

I'll get my hands on the tau dex, write a 2000pt list and put a link to the thread in Army Lists pretty soon

 Flinty wrote:
Adult Niccassar are sopposed to be very powerful, so in the context of Guard psyker squads, go for adolescents or recently matured Nixies that hang around in packs as they learn the ropes?

I can see the Tau trying to suppress human psykers due to the carnage an unprotected mind can do on a human world.

@maniac - have you got a source for the master shaper being psyker thing? Its not something i've come across before.

It's in the Kroot Mercenaries list, although it is called 'shamanistic powers' at the time. These are 'minor psychic powers' from the old editions. I

It's also in some of the FFG 40k RP books.

Posted a 2000pt list keeping to the fluff if you want to check it out http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/589226.page#6713381