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If you've read Warzone Damocles and the Damocles Anthology the ending of both books leaves the Tau in a very precarious position.

- The supreme Commander of the Tau forces is almost killed by a space marine.

- The best of her army is wiped out on Voltaris and barely escape alive.

- The Imperium achieves this victory with essentially three companies of marines, Knight House Terryn and two Imperial Guard regiments.

- Elsewhere, in the Zeist sector, the Ultramarines lead a coalition that inflicts a further serious defeat on the Tau.

- Then in the Astra Militarum codex, they make it clear that the big counter attack that Kor Sarro and all the others have been waiting for is finally coming like a righteous hammer. I think it says like a 1000 guard regiments plus titans and space marines is en route or something like that.


Now, yes, the book does make clear that everything is "in the balance". However I think this is very misleading. A recurring theme, especially with the Third Sphere expansion, is that the Imperium is too preoccupied with the 13th Black Crusade and the Tyranids to deal with the Tau. However both the space marine codex and particularly the Imperial Guard codex imply the exact opposite. That the Imperium, after the early success of the 3rd expansion is actually rooting serious forces, including the three first founding chapters (Raven Guard, White Scars and Ultramarines) and thousands of guard regiments. This certainly gives the impression that the easy victories described in the tau codex are over for the 3rd sphere.

Shadowsuns war on Agrellen and Voltaris were unmitigated disasters, to the point where Aun Va seriously considered getting rid of her as supreme commander. This is also a big change or shake up in the wider narrative. Instead of the ailing Imperium being rapidly swept away by the vigorous tau its suggesting that GW might be changing things to make the Imperium more ascendant. Unlike with the Ziost camapaign where they very quickly made clear that what the Imperium retook the tau simply conquered more stuff elsewhere. In Agrellen, they kind of have left it pretty clear cut; the tau lost, badly. So I think this might be it for the Third Sphere.

It's possiable. assuming those units aren't reassigned to Cadia in the near future. at the very least if the IoM is counter attacking that's bad news for the Tau. The Tau where in a good position so long as they could keep up with a semi rapid advance, but if they get into a long drawn out war of attrition with the IoM it's bad for them. It's also worth noting that in a large campaign where the IoM is trying the Tau could also be in trouble due to the greater strategic mobility of the IoM

Nah. I'd say that the Third Sphere of Expansion has slowed down significantly and that the Tau have finally met effective Imperial resistance. So, either the Tau will come up with something brilliant to overcome the Imperium or be bogged down in a costly war until one side gives up.

Consider that 1000 guard regiments, while small in relation to the entire Imperium, is still a huge force concentrated on one region of the Eastern Fringe. It's overkill to throw upwards of 4-10 million (assuming a regiment size of 4000-10000 soldiers) Guardsmen against a fledgling xenos empire when the Ultima Segmentum is barely able to maintain its borders with all the Tyranid Hive Fleets surging through it.

The big trouble with the Imperium is that they're in a lose lose situation. They focus too many forces on one area at the expense of others, or they spread themselves too thin and lose both areas.

in fairness on a realistic scale 10 million soldiers would be an accounting error for something the size of the IoM

As far as numbers and sources go, the force listed in the Imperial Guard codex as being sent to wipe out the Tau is the second largest concentration on force we've ever seen in Imperial fluff records. It dwarfs the Imperial armies fighting on Armageddon, and is surpassed only by the scale of Imperial defenders on Cadia. Even then, the size of the Imperial forces fighting in the Cadia system is only marginally larger- like, a handful of chapters and maybe a couple hundred regiments larger.

Considering that the Cadian system is second only to Terra and Mars in strategic value to the Imperium, that says... an awful lot about Tau capabilities. Despite what some claim, it's pretty clear that the Tau are a firm cut above your "average" Xenos empire in the Galaxy.

BrianDavion wrote:
in fairness on a realistic scale 10 million soldiers would be an accounting error for something the size of the IoM

That's less than the amount of Kriegsmen that died on Vraks, and there was only 34 regiments sent there.

Aren't Kreig regiments huge compared to other guard though?

I think what I was trying to get at is that because the Damocles campaign drew on the central figure of the Tau being so utterly defeated (even if the Imperium did lose Agrellen) that it feels different than just random group of tau get wiped out on some distant rock without context. That happens all the time in the fluff. What made this different is that GW was clearly pushing this warzone as representative of the whole Third Sphere Expansion. This is reinforced by the Agrellen campaign featuring so heavily in the 6th edition codex fluff. So having it end in ignominious tau defeat and there isn't really any silver lining to that as is usually the case. Take Shield of Baal for instance where Leviathan survives the super weapon and the Imperium has had most of its armies destroyed and lost the Shield of Baal leaving the Blood Angels homeworld open to attack; hence Dante and the Sanguinors conversation about hope at the books end. In Damocles, most of the Imperial army survives far as we can tell and its not a significant deployment as was the case in the Shield of Baal, hence what losses it sustained were trivial. And whereas Leviathan clearly survived to be a threat the Tau are presented as reeling and having only narrowly escaped catastrophe. So losing Agrellen, the gateway world, doesn't really matter because the real threat has been eliminated with the defeat of Shadowsun and the tau armies at Voltaris.

Failed? No. IIRC, there hasn't been any mention of specific targets for TSE, just, well, expansion (on larger scale).

Stalled/Pushed back? Yes. Now the Imperium actually sees the Tau, and take them as a real threat, and focuses more military force on them than before.

If not for the 13th Black Crusade, the Imperium would have crushed Tau already.

It also bears noting that it's a long, long way from the Segmentum Ultima to the Cadian Gate. Like, sidereal-years of time spent in the Warp to get from Point A to B. It's likely that the Imperium knows that its forces currently on the eastern side of the galaxy cannot reach the battle-lines of the 13th Black Crusade in anything near "in time", and so are devoting them to dealing with more-local issues.

Like the Tau.

Would Shrikemhave let Khan have Shadowsuns head if Shrike got the KB?

I think that's the real question here.

But for the main topic here, yes, the Tau Empire are on the back foot now. Shadowsun put the Tau into a tricky position now that they woke up the Imperium by attacking a hive world, and then a Knight World.

There are plenty of foot notes about ambitious Xenos Empires in the annals of the Imperium's history. If the Tau were smart, they would avoid poking the bear.

 Crazyterran wrote:
Would Shrikemhave let Khan have Shadowsuns head if Shrike got the KB?

I think that's the real question here.

But for the main topic here, yes, the Tau Empire are on the back foot now. Shadowsun put the Tau into a tricky position now that they woke up the Imperium by attacking a hive world, and then a Knight World.

There are plenty of foot notes about ambitious Xenos Empires in the annals of the Imperium's history. If the Tau were smart, they would avoid poking the bear.

No poking, just run around it in circles and hope it gets rid of itself.

This is exactly how I got rid of my last wife. With this strategy, the Tau will rise and impose their creepy mantra on us all.

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
Consider that 1000 guard regiments, while small in relation to the entire Imperium, is still a huge force concentrated on one region of the Eastern Fringe. It's overkill to throw upwards of 4-10 million (assuming a regiment size of 4000-10000 soldiers) Guardsmen against a fledgling xenos empire when the Ultima Segmentum is barely able to maintain its borders with all the Tyranid Hive Fleets surging through it.

The big trouble with the Imperium is that they're in a lose lose situation. They focus too many forces on one area at the expense of others, or they spread themselves too thin and lose both areas.

4000-10000 soldiers is a ridiculously small number to throw at the Tau. Consider that we are talking about warfare on an interplanetary scale and then consider that the combined strength of the German army groups at the outset of Barbarossa was just shy of 4 million.

 Crazyterran wrote:
Would Shrikemhave let Khan have Shadowsuns head if Shrike got the KB?

I think that's the real question here.

But for the main topic here, yes, the Tau Empire are on the back foot now. Shadowsun put the Tau into a tricky position now that they woke up the Imperium by attacking a hive world, and then a Knight World.

There are plenty of foot notes about ambitious Xenos Empires in the annals of the Imperium's history. If the Tau were smart, they would avoid poking the bear.

It's worth noting that Imperium ships have issues traversing the Damocles Gulf. As such, maintaining a flow of men and materials for a successful push into core Tau space might prove problematic.

Also, has the Imperium won any offensive war of annihilation against a Xeno empire since the end of the Great Crusade?

Sorry to go a bit off-topic but what books can I find all this in? and what order is best?

Thamor wrote:
Sorry to go a bit off-topic but what books can I find all this in? and what order is best?

Warzone Damocles for details on Agrellan and Valtoris. The little blurb about guard sending their forces in is in the Astra Militarum codex's timeline. There's also some of the more general information from the actual Tau codex. It's probably best if you just read Warzone Damocles though.

LordBlades wrote:
It's worth noting that Imperium ships have issues traversing the Damocles Gulf. As such, maintaining a flow of men and materials for a successful push into core Tau space might prove problematic.

Attacking a highly evolved Xenos civilization with a population that numbers anything from billions to potentially trillions using 4-10 million men (basically WWII invasion numbers) without supply lines across interstellar distances is just idiotic. Surely the the problem with traversing the Gulf alone would imply numbers several magnitudes higher?

 Las wrote:

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
Consider that 1000 guard regiments, while small in relation to the entire Imperium, is still a huge force concentrated on one region of the Eastern Fringe. It's overkill to throw upwards of 4-10 million (assuming a regiment size of 4000-10000 soldiers) Guardsmen against a fledgling xenos empire when the Ultima Segmentum is barely able to maintain its borders with all the Tyranid Hive Fleets surging through it.

The big trouble with the Imperium is that they're in a lose lose situation. They focus too many forces on one area at the expense of others, or they spread themselves too thin and lose both areas.

4000-10000 soldiers is a ridiculously small number to throw at the Tau. Consider that we are talking about warfare on an interplanetary scale and then consider that the combined strength of the German army groups at the outset of Barbarossa was just shy of 4 million.

Right. What he's saying is that the Imperium is throwing 1,000 Regiments at the Tau, each regiment being (theoretically) between 4000 and 10,000 men. Thus 4-10 million men.

It's not always a good idea to use WW2 as an example. It was fought at the dawn of air power. An Imperial Guard regiment shows up with an entire naval fleet much of the time, and vast amounts of air and space assets at their disposal.

LordBlades wrote:

 Crazyterran wrote:
Would Shrikemhave let Khan have Shadowsuns head if Shrike got the KB?

I think that's the real question here.

But for the main topic here, yes, the Tau Empire are on the back foot now. Shadowsun put the Tau into a tricky position now that they woke up the Imperium by attacking a hive world, and then a Knight World.

There are plenty of foot notes about ambitious Xenos Empires in the annals of the Imperium's history. If the Tau were smart, they would avoid poking the bear.

It's worth noting that Imperium ships have issues traversing the Damocles Gulf. As such, maintaining a flow of men and materials for a successful push into core Tau space might prove problematic.

Also, has the Imperium won any offensive war of annihilation against a Xeno empire since the end of the Great Crusade?

You'll find such mentions as foot-notes in the various Space Marine Chapter codices, generally on their historic timelines. If you want a Black Library reference, the White Consuls, several regiments of the Imperial Guard, and a conclave of Inquisitorial forces, led by Gregor Eisenhorn, exterminated the Yuuvath in M40.

I would add to Veteran Sergeant on that point. If you consider that the Imperial Guard has the capacity to deploy anywhere on a planet due to it's mastery of space travel, you could say that 4 million men is a massive number you don't need 10% of that number to seize a city let alone a select few building (Palace, Parliement, important millitary bases, etc.). Most of the soldiers send on any grand scale invasion like Hitler's plan for Russia or Napoleon's one required massive numbers of men and most of them were only useful to carry food, ammunition and control terrain taken from the ennemy by foward elements. Using stats from past wars to describe modern ones or even extrapolate on futuristic ones is the definition of anachronical reflexion.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Las wrote:

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
Consider that 1000 guard regiments, while small in relation to the entire Imperium, is still a huge force concentrated on one region of the Eastern Fringe. It's overkill to throw upwards of 4-10 million (assuming a regiment size of 4000-10000 soldiers) Guardsmen against a fledgling xenos empire when the Ultima Segmentum is barely able to maintain its borders with all the Tyranid Hive Fleets surging through it.

The big trouble with the Imperium is that they're in a lose lose situation. They focus too many forces on one area at the expense of others, or they spread themselves too thin and lose both areas.

4000-10000 soldiers is a ridiculously small number to throw at the Tau. Consider that we are talking about warfare on an interplanetary scale and then consider that the combined strength of the German army groups at the outset of Barbarossa was just shy of 4 million.

Right. What he's saying is that the Imperium is throwing 1,000 Regiments at the Tau, each regiment being (theoretically) between 4000 and 10,000 men. Thus 4-10 million men.

It's not always a good idea to use WW2 as an example. It was fought at the dawn of air power. An Imperial Guard regiment shows up with an entire naval fleet much of the time, and vast amounts of air and space assets at their disposal.

I think you're making a few mistakes in your analysis. 1) you're assuming the imperium has air and space supremacy from the get go and the fluff would have us believe that the Tau have access to formidable air and space craft capable of at least standing teo to toe with the IN, making this a variable. 2) you're characterizing the IG as a force capable of rapid redeployment when all their fluff points to them being a slow moving force hampered with logistical difficulties. 3) WW2 and early 20th century warfare is really the only comparison that can be brought in, not least because the world wars are the only conflicts in human history that give examples of comparable scales of operation, not to mention that the guard have clearly been designed to represent themes based on popular mythology of the western front in 1915-17. 4) the entire 40k fluff has made it abundantly clear that because of rule of cool, warfare is won and lost on the ground. Looking at it from a realistic perspective and marveling at how orbital supremacy doesn't win engagements instantly really isn't the way to go.

epronovost wrote:
I would add to Veteran Sergeant on that point. If you consider that the Imperial Guard has the capacity to deploy anywhere on a planet due to it's mastery of space travel, you could say that 4 million men is a massive number you don't need 10% of that number to seize a city let alone a select few building (Palace, Parliement, important millitary bases, etc.). Most of the soldiers send on any grand scale invasion like Hitler's plan for Russia or Napoleon's one required massive numbers of men and most of them were only useful to carry food, ammunition and control terrain taken from the ennemy by foward elements. Using stats from past wars to describe modern ones or even extrapolate on futuristic ones is the definition of anachronical reflexion.

Well, let's be real, 40k is not modern or "future" war. It's fantasy. It is however based on popular ideas of mostly WWI and WWII. The IG fights very much like how our popular culture has depicted combat in those conflicts. They are therefore, I think, comparable as the designers made a conscious choice to draw on those themes. As for your points about the number of actual combatants, true, but why would the same not be true about an IG regiment? To be honest, 10 million men is laughable as a force intended to take an entire planet from a competent defender engaged in symetrical warfare, let alone multiple star systems.

Also, it must be noted that wars are not won by seizing parliaments and military bases but by destroying or overwhelming the enemy's ability to propagate industrial scale war and maintain a wartime economy.

 EngulfedObject wrote:

LordBlades wrote:
It's worth noting that Imperium ships have issues traversing the Damocles Gulf. As such, maintaining a flow of men and materials for a successful push into core Tau space might prove problematic.

Attacking a highly evolved Xenos civilization with a population that numbers anything from billions to potentially trillions using 4-10 million men (basically WWII invasion numbers) without supply lines across interstellar distances is just idiotic. Surely the the problem with traversing the Gulf alone would imply numbers several magnitudes higher?

There aren't billions and trillions of xenos. There are exactly as many as GW deems worthy of the fluff blurb you get.
Plus, there may have been a lot, then the IG solved the Problem. In a very violent way.


40k worlds are sci-fantasy products written by a company which isn't known for its grasp of scale.
Take your assumption of the 4-10 Milllion IG for example. A Regiment could be 1000 or 250.000 heads strong.( IG 5th ed ). Use 1000 x 1000 or 1000 x 250.000 ?

Additionally, without the Kroot the Tau would have to stop their "expansion spheres" because they needed the Kroot to bolster their numbers. ( Tau dex ) Kroot aren't known to live in hive cities of billions.... Tau like a clean and well sorted environment....


1. sphere was to step from their homeworld into their system and nearby systems.
2. sphere was led by Farsight....
3. sphere was led by shadowsun....
4. sphere is bending the knee to a Necron Dynasty
5. sphere is back to the roots, Tau Empire = T'au.....

@Las

Actually, yes they are won like that today and they were won like that before. Industrial and total warfare , the two different types of conflict you are reffering to, are unique to the beginning of the 20th century in their structure, tactics and organisation. Now, the idea of such a conflict is ridiculous because we possess weapons capable of destroying entire civilsations making any warfare on that scale self destructive. That's why soft powers like economical blocus, and trading deals are used much much more and weaponised warfare is conducted against ennemy so weak there is basically no risk to loose it.

The Imperium maintain an empire based on the structure of tithing, much like Assyrian, Sassanid, Parthian, Sarmatean Federation empires (or almost all middle eastern empires before the first Caliphate). They fought tribute wars in which you defeat the ennemy leadership in battle and than impose a tax on the defeated if they don't want to face more bloodshed. It relies on intimidation and a good demonstration of strength. That's how the Imperium fight it's war. They have no desire to control the Tau Empire (or any other ennemy for that matter), simply interest in exterminating it or bullying it into submission.

For that, they just need to destroy a few key targets, bomb the rest and send people to clean up the rest of the resistence (if any). Capacity to maintain efficient warfare at a planetary level require strong leadership and specilised equipment to transport and coordonate troops. If you seize their seats of power, kill their most foremost leader and their two or three greatest millitary assets, you will realise that even if the ennemy still has billions of sodiers they are unable to fight in a organised and efficient manner on a large scale. Thus the extermination process can start and even though war will rage for decades on that planet, everybody knows how it will end, a bit like how Nazi leadership knew they were going to loose has early has late 1941. You can send your colonie ships even if they are still there and procede to their extermination over the next few century with possible help of the Imperium should they recover from that blow.

1) you're assuming the imperium has air and space supremacy from the get go and the fluff would have us believe that the Tau have access to formidable air and space craft capable of at least standing teo to toe with the IN, making this a variable

less then you might think though. the Imperial Navy has much much greater strategic mobility. this would allow them to likely manuver to ensure local superiority.

epronovost wrote:
@Las

Actually, yes they are won like that today and they were won like that before. Industrial and total warfare , the two different types of conflict you are reffering to, are unique to the beginning of the 20th century in their structure, tactics and organisation. Now, the idea of such a conflict is ridiculous because we possess weapons capable of destroying entire civilsations making any warfare on that scale self destructive. That's why soft powers like economical blocus, and trading deals are used much much more and weaponised warfare is conducted against ennemy so weak there is basically no risk to loose it.

The Imperium maintain an empire based on the structure of tithing, much like Assyrian, Sassanid, Parthian, Sarmatean Federation empires (or almost all middle eastern empires before the first Caliphate). They fought tribute wars in which you defeat the ennemy leadership in battle and than impose a tax on the defeated if they don't want to face more bloodshed. It relies on intimidation and a good demonstration of strength. That's how the Imperium fight it's war. They have no desire to control the Tau Empire (or any other ennemy for that matter), simply interest in exterminating it or bullying it into submission.

For that, they just need to destroy a few key targets, bomb the rest and send people to clean up the rest of the resistence (if any). Capacity to maintain efficient warfare at a planetary level require strong leadership and specilised equipment to transport and coordonate troops. If you seize their seats of power, kill their most foremost leader and their two or three greatest millitary assets, you will realise that even if the ennemy still has billions of sodiers they are unable to fight in a organised and efficient manner on a large scale. Thus the extermination process can start and even though war will rage for decades on that planet, everybody knows how it will end, a bit like how Nazi leadership knew they were going to loose has early has late 1941. You can send your colonie ships even if they are still there and procede to their extermination over the next few century with possible help of the Imperium should they recover from that blow.

@your first point

That's just it, those weapons exist in 40k yet they - for the reason of the game depicting large scale industrial warfare - are not used or are at least an ineffective deterrent. I should've specified I was referring to twentieth century total war, of which the fictional wars of 40k are clearly based on.

Your second point has some inconsistencies. First, forcing a central dynastic leadership to surrender causes a command and control difficulty only in a setting without the kinds of communications capabilities which exist in 40k. Assuming that a planetary warzone would be organized from a single individual or group of individuals and not predicated by a flexible chain of command is not only silly and unsupported by tau fluff, but impossible. Secondly the worlds of the Tau empire are - in theory - ideologically committed to the war effort. They are not going to yield by a show of imperial strength like some upstart world that just refused the tithe one day. In fact literally all the fluff has examples where, once a world makes that jump to bein ideologically opposed to the imperium (to chaos or whatever), the standard resulting conflict is one of grinding, attritional total war. It's literally either that or just blow it up.

BrianDavion wrote:

1) you're assuming the imperium has air and space supremacy from the get go and the fluff would have us believe that the Tau have access to formidable air and space craft capable of at least standing teo to toe with the IN, making this a variable

less then you might think though. the Imperial Navy has much much greater strategic mobility. this would allow them to likely manuver to ensure local superiority.

Imperial Navy's greater mobility is highly dependent on the whims of the Warp. Since the Tau Empire is rather small, the Tau's more reliable FTL technology might actually give them the upper hand.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
As far as numbers and sources go, the force listed in the Imperial Guard codex as being sent to wipe out the Tau is the second largest concentration on force we've ever seen in Imperial fluff records. It dwarfs the Imperial armies fighting on Armageddon, and is surpassed only by the scale of Imperial defenders on Cadia. Even then, the size of the Imperial forces fighting in the Cadia system is only marginally larger- like, a handful of chapters and maybe a couple hundred regiments larger.

Considering that the Cadian system is second only to Terra and Mars in strategic value to the Imperium, that says... an awful lot about Tau capabilities. Despite what some claim, it's pretty clear that the Tau are a firm cut above your "average" Xenos empire in the Galaxy.

Dwarving the Imperial armies on Armageddon is not hard at all. The Imperial force in the Third War for Armageddon was tiny. According to Codex: Armageddon, there were 305 IG regiments deployed to Armageddon (including PDF). Assuming an average size of ten thousand guardsmen per regiment (regiments can range between a few thousand to tens of thousand), that would give a total Imperial Guard force of a little more than 3 million. That is tiny considering the scale of the Imperium. For comparison, the German force that invaded the Soviet Union was 3.8 million strong.
40k writers just lack any sense of scale, they just throw around random numbers.

And as well, the Imperium's warp capabilities are completely irrelevant when discussing their ability to actually engage enemy fleets and gain orbital superior over a planet for the purposes of mass deployment, which is the context Veteran Sargent was discussing.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Dwarving the Imperial armies on Armageddon is not hard at all. The Imperial force in the Third War for Armageddon was tiny. According to Codex: Armageddon, there were 305 IG regiments deployed to Armageddon (including PDF). Assuming an average size of ten thousand guardsmen per regiment (regiments can range between a few thousand to tens of thousand), that would give a total Imperial Guard force of a little more than 3 million. That is tiny considering the scale of the Imperium. For comparison, the German force that invaded the Soviet Union was 3.8 million strong.
40k writers just lack any sense of scale, they just throw around random numbers.

I don't understand your point in relation to mine.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Dwarving the Imperial armies on Armageddon is not hard at all. The Imperial force in the Third War for Armageddon was tiny. According to Codex: Armageddon, there were 305 IG regiments deployed to Armageddon (including PDF). Assuming an average size of ten thousand guardsmen per regiment (regiments can range between a few thousand to tens of thousand), that would give a total Imperial Guard force of a little more than 3 million. That is tiny considering the scale of the Imperium. For comparison, the German force that invaded the Soviet Union was 3.8 million strong.
40k writers just lack any sense of scale, they just throw around random numbers.

While I agree GW lacks a sense of scale one could argue that the Armageddon sizes were so small because the PDF numbers weren't included. As such an important hive world it is plausible that, especially after the Orks invaded again, conscription led to vast armies that were not technically a prat of the Imperial Guard.

Despite that the passage noting than 1000 Imperial Guard regiments were destined for the Tau Empire implies that it is a significant force that is being sent (which is likely more important than the actual numbers in my opinion).

GW writers need to understand that in order to have the proper scale for the setting they should really add 3 zeroes to the end when discussing the size of the forces involved.