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I've reading the summaries for Gathering Storm and I know it doesn't include info on what all the armies are doing so far but the army that interests me the most is Tau...

What is the Tau Empire doing atm?
Will they somehow ally with the SM and the new Rowboat Girlyman?

the Tau are as far as we know still licking their wounds from the second Damocles war. I doubt they'll end up allying with the IoM, simply because the Tau quite simply don't understand the threat of chaos.

Tau is likely going to have to start dealing with some sort of Tyranid campaign soon. The smurfs stopped behemoth from getting to their space but kraken is sort of headed that way.

 n0t_u wrote:
Tau is likely going to have to start dealing with some sort of Tyranid campaign soon. The smurfs stopped behemoth from getting to their space but kraken is sort of headed that way.

sadly I doubt this'll ever be covered beyond a paragraph somewhere, it's rare for GW to detail a campaign between xenos, and if it's not eldar I think it's honestly unheard of

BrianDavion wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
Tau is likely going to have to start dealing with some sort of Tyranid campaign soon. The smurfs stopped behemoth from getting to their space but kraken is sort of headed that way.

sadly I doubt this'll ever be covered beyond a paragraph somewhere, it's rare for GW to detail a campaign between xenos, and if it's not eldar I think it's honestly unheard of

If anything we'd hear about it if they get the ultras to move forward, obviously with the intention of a forward defence on their own space.

The thing about Tau is that they're largely irrelevant to the great scale of conflict in the 40k universe. Despite their ability to cultivate some impressive weapons technology at a surprisingly fast rate, they're still just a backwater civilization of naive fish people who have far greater aspirations than the tiny corner of their galaxy that they have any right to carve out.

If they were to all suddenly die out, the galaxy would not notice.

The forces fighting each other in the Ork Octarius empire are probably larger than the entire Tau Empire's population by orders of magnitude.

The tau really just don't matter in the grand scheme of things. They're not only not very numerous but they lack the Eldar's webway access that lets them pop up anywhere in the galaxy.

Very little. The Tau are really quite insignificant on the grand scheme of things.

Immediately after the events in Warzone Damocles: Mont'ka, we do know that Commander Farsight is off killin' Tyranids. Given the context, that seemed to be a Farsight Enclaves fight at this point, though I see no reason why the 'Nids wouldn't go after the Tau Empire as well.

We do hear about a substantial Tau Fleet "disappearing" in the warp-infused, spreading flames of the Damocles Gulf in one of the recent Gathering Storm books. This seems like the easiest way to make the otherwise insignificant speck of an Empire meaningful somewhere other than where they're situated.

Generally speaking, while the Tau Empire were effectively victorious against the Imperium's forces in both the Warzone Damocles books, it was made fairly explicit that the Tau Empire's victory was extremely Pyrrhic in nature.

Finally, the biggest proponent of an expansionist-obsessed policy for the Tau Empire, Aun'va, is very, very dead.

Given all the above, I can only imagine that the Tau probably need to spend a little time consolidating their forces, rebuilding their fleets, fortifying their newest holdings, and generally preparing the Tau Empire for an onslaught of Orks, Tyranids, and (just maybe) a GODDAMN PRIMARCH.

honestly if the Tau got involved in the whole Events of Gathering storm it'd likely take the form of a Chaos Champion (perhaps a black legion general with a large army) deciding the Tau empire would make fitting sacrifice to the gods

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

Generally speaking, while the Tau Empire were effectively victorious against the Imperium's forces in both the Warzone Damocles books, it was made fairly explicit that the Tau Empire's victory was extremely Pyrrhic in nature.

It's very hard calling it a victory at all since:

-their leader is dead.
-their invasion force is pretty much gone, and with it good chunk of their military force.
-they lost everything passed the Damocles Gulf + Imperium cut them off. Preventing further expansion in that direction.
-their own techonlogy got stolen by Mechanicus forces right under their nose, and that is after receiving a ton of fire at them, surviving it and them killing the Tau who opposed them.
-Giving that Farsignt Enclaves are under heavy Tyranid attacks it would be of no surprised if Tyranids invade Tau Empire in great force, Tyranid War great force.

The way I see it, giving everything we got so far. Tau will either:

-be very, very, very damaged by Tyranid invasion. Or whoever else get thrown at them ( Necrons awakening, more Warpstorms than ever before, Orks uniting under Thraka... )
-embark into civil war with Farsight and Shadowsun on one side and Etherials on another.

Personally I am more for the second option. Aun'Va is dead and with it his grip over Shadowsun, without Etherial aroudn her she might start to qeustion their ultimate authority - especially since she spent some time with Farsight.

But yeah, in the grand scheme of thing they are pretty low interest. And becasue Roboute returned Imperium may continue it;s technological development and Tau might get much mroe trouble from Imperials then before.

you raise a good point about Gulliman, more so then any other faction (save MAYBE Chaos) the Tau stand to lose from a IoM united under a Primarch. especially if new technology is brought online, a better orginzied bvetter equipped IoM would mean serious trouble for the Tau, given that their Imperial history thus far has been akin to a vulture picking at a dying corpse. they've been wounded by the thrashing, but it's nothing compared to what could happen if Gulliman decides to make an example out of them.

What I would really like is for Leviathan to run full rampant. Overrun the orks in octarious and make a run at terra. End up intercepting Chaos on the way and ending the black crusade dead in it's tracks. Then have Eldar, IOM, Tau, and Crons loyal to the Silent King unite to stop Leviatha which would over run them all if they don't stand together. Orks come too because big fights are fun.

8th ed launches in the aftermath. The leviathan splinter fleets are much diminished and everyones resources are vastly depleted from the all out fight for survival. Back to nobody trusting anyone and mass fighting as per normal.

 Lance845 wrote:
What I would really like is for Leviathan to run full rampant. Overrun the orks in octarious and make a run at terra. End up intercepting Chaos on the way and ending the black crusade dead in it's tracks. Then have Eldar, IOM, Tau, and Crons loyal to the Silent King unite to stop Leviatha which would over run them all if they don't stand together. Orks come too because big fights are fun.

8th ed launches in the aftermath. The leviathan splinter fleets are much diminished and everyones resources are vastly depleted from the all out fight for survival. Back to nobody trusting anyone and mass fighting as per normal.

The isssue is that Ghazghkull is at Octarius and is flat out stated by Eldrad to be destined to become even greater than the six Primorks of the Beast who nearly shattered the Imperium on the knee of Orks who were as strong and tough as space marines, more advanced than the Eldar, were mass producing death stars, and had super weapons that could destroy whole star systems by translating an Ork's boasts into superluminal gravitational waves.

So I don't think Leviathan is going to defeat Ghazzy. Especially since Ghazghkull is almost certainly due for a big honking super expensive new model.

Rather I think that it'll fall to a new Hive Fleet, which going by the naming scheme of Hiv eFleets I'd wager would be named Echidna or Typhon; with the hive fleet after that probably being named Ziz after the third biblical superbeast.

I'm not sure though that we can count destiny 100% GS3 gave me the distint impression that the rise of Ynned, and the ressurection of Gulliman where things "unforseeable" that caught even Tzeetch by suprise.

BrianDavion wrote:
I'm not sure though that we can count destiny 100% GS3 gave me the distint impression that the rise of Ynned, and the ressurection of Gulliman where things "unforseeable" that caught even Tzeetch by suprise.

We can also count on "Ghazghkull's model is old as balls and they're going to need to pump him up when it's the orks turn to get a triumvirate".

 Captain Azrael wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

Generally speaking, while the Tau Empire were effectively victorious against the Imperium's forces in both the Warzone Damocles books, it was made fairly explicit that the Tau Empire's victory was extremely Pyrrhic in nature.

It's very hard calling it a victory at all since:

-their leader is dead.
-their invasion force is pretty much gone, and with it good chunk of their military force.
-they lost everything passed the Damocles Gulf + Imperium cut them off. Preventing further expansion in that direction.
-their own techonlogy got stolen by Mechanicus forces right under their nose, and that is after receiving a ton of fire at them, surviving it and them killing the Tau who opposed them.
-Giving that Farsignt Enclaves are under heavy Tyranid attacks it would be of no surprised if Tyranids invade Tau Empire in great force, Tyranid War great force.

While all of that is kinda true, they did push the Imperium forces into a retreat and denied the Imperium a victory, which is mostly what I was referring to.

Their leader is dead, but while Aun'va was a particularly charismatic leader, the Tau have pretty much always been ruled by a council of ruling elite - his loss hurts, but isn't decisive in determining a victory.

They suffered severe losses, but "pretty much gone" seems a bit hyperbolic, IMO. Their fleet losses to the warp-infused flames of the Damocles Gulf isn't really explored in any detail yet, but if it was an extensive part of their fleet, that would be a damn significant blow (though not really relevant to whether they achieved victory against the Imperium, which is again what I was referring to).

They were effectively cut off by the ignition of the Damocles Gulf, but that's a temporary issue at best - the Earth Caste is already hard at work creating shields capable of passing through the ignited nebula, and while they haven't perfected the new technology yet, success will mean they're no longer limited in expanding beyond it (and may, in fact, finally gain a mobility advantage against the Imperium for once, if they can travel safely through it when the Imperium cannot).

Weather Control technology was certainly stolen, but that seems less problematic than you're implying. First, the Admech suffered casualties themselves to obtain the technology. Second, this is the Admech we're talking about - stealing the technology is a far cry from understanding and replicating it, even if the Admech were willing to do so (this is heretical Xenos tech, after all), and even if they can understand some of it, they're not guaranteed to reach the level of understanding the Tau have of their own tech. Third, the Tau can replace their tech, and improve upon it, akin to the way they started producing XV-25s when the Imperium got a hold of XV-15 tech info.

Tyranids are, as always, bad news. Not sure I got the same "heavy" description of the Tyranid threat from my reading, but then again, any splinter of a splinter of a splinter fleet of Tyranids are going to be a threat to empires the size of the Tau Empire...

That said, I described the victory as "extremely Pyrrhic" for pretty much exactly the reasons you stated.

The way I see it, giving everything we got so far. Tau will either:

-be very, very, very damaged by Tyranid invasion. Or whoever else get thrown at them ( Necrons awakening, more Warpstorms than ever before, Orks uniting under Thraka... )
-embark into civil war with Farsight and Shadowsun on one side and Etherials on another.

Personally I am more for the second option. Aun'Va is dead and with it his grip over Shadowsun, without Etherial aroudn her she might start to qeustion their ultimate authority - especially since she spent some time with Farsight.

But yeah, in the grand scheme of thing they are pretty low interest. And becasue Roboute returned Imperium may continue it;s technological development and Tau might get much mroe trouble from Imperials then before.

A Tau Empire civil war seems unlikely, IMO, due to the comparative weakness of the Tau as a faction generally (that is, the weakest faction with playable rules, aside from maybe the GSC, SoS, and Custodes factions, not including their allies) - for them to avoid getting wiped entirely, they really can't stand to be split apart and fighting each other in any meaningful way.

As such, I'd rather see the Farsight Enclaves/Tau Empire alliance continue as-is (TE using the FE as propaganda scapegoats, but working together and avoiding wasting resources on each other otherwise), and see the Tyranid and/or Ork threats explored more fully, personally. It makes more sense within the context of providing meaningful Tau conflicts without necessarily crippling the weakest faction further than it already is.

 Kain wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
What I would really like is for Leviathan to run full rampant. Overrun the orks in octarious and make a run at terra. End up intercepting Chaos on the way and ending the black crusade dead in it's tracks. Then have Eldar, IOM, Tau, and Crons loyal to the Silent King unite to stop Leviatha which would over run them all if they don't stand together. Orks come too because big fights are fun.

8th ed launches in the aftermath. The leviathan splinter fleets are much diminished and everyones resources are vastly depleted from the all out fight for survival. Back to nobody trusting anyone and mass fighting as per normal.

The isssue is that Ghazghkull is at Octarius and is flat out stated by Eldrad to be destined to become even greater than the six Primorks of the Beast who nearly shattered the Imperium on the knee of Orks who were as strong and tough as space marines, more advanced than the Eldar, were mass producing death stars, and had super weapons that could destroy whole star systems by translating an Ork's boasts into superluminal gravitational waves.

So I don't think Leviathan is going to defeat Ghazzy. Especially since Ghazghkull is almost certainly due for a big honking super expensive new model.

Rather I think that it'll fall to a new Hive Fleet, which going by the naming scheme of Hiv eFleets I'd wager would be named Echidna or Typhon; with the hive fleet after that probably being named Ziz after the third biblical superbeast.

Ghazghkull is about to leave Octarius for Armageddon according to the Ghazghkull book. He doesn't need to be there when the Nids win the fight. That being said, a new Hive Fleet would work just as well.

 Lance845 wrote:
Ghazghkull is about to leave Octarius for Armageddon according to the Ghazghkull book. He doesn't need to be there when the Nids win the fight. That being said, a new Hive Fleet would work just as well.

He's teleportin' round the galaxy krumpin' things in GS3.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
What I would really like is for Leviathan to run full rampant. Overrun the orks in octarious and make a run at terra. End up intercepting Chaos on the way and ending the black crusade dead in it's tracks. Then have Eldar, IOM, Tau, and Crons loyal to the Silent King unite to stop Leviatha which would over run them all if they don't stand together. Orks come too because big fights are fun.

8th ed launches in the aftermath. The leviathan splinter fleets are much diminished and everyones resources are vastly depleted from the all out fight for survival. Back to nobody trusting anyone and mass fighting as per normal.

The isssue is that Ghazghkull is at Octarius and is flat out stated by Eldrad to be destined to become even greater than the six Primorks of the Beast who nearly shattered the Imperium on the knee of Orks who were as strong and tough as space marines, more advanced than the Eldar, were mass producing death stars, and had super weapons that could destroy whole star systems by translating an Ork's boasts into superluminal gravitational waves.

So I don't think Leviathan is going to defeat Ghazzy. Especially since Ghazghkull is almost certainly due for a big honking super expensive new model.

Rather I think that it'll fall to a new Hive Fleet, which going by the naming scheme of Hiv eFleets I'd wager would be named Echidna or Typhon; with the hive fleet after that probably being named Ziz after the third biblical superbeast.

Ghazghkull is about to leave Octarius for Armageddon according to the Ghazghkull book. He doesn't need to be there when the Nids win the fight. That being said, a new Hive Fleet would work just as well.

His big plan is to unite the four greatest WAAAGHs in the galaxy to trigger some kind of Football Hooligan Resonance Cascade and Gork and Mork are giving him the ability to command his forces all at once no matter how far away they are from him. Even on Octarius he can command the Orks in the Armageddon war as if he were there in person. I don't think he'd tolerate anyone trying to wreck his plan to unite every Ork in the galaxy into a single WAAAGH for the RagnaORK and surpass even the WAAAGH of the beast. Armageddon and Octarius are two of the WAAAGHs he's knitting together, not sure on what his other two pillars of his plan are.

It would give GW room to just continually release larger and larger Ghazghkull models; probably culminating in some hulking green mass of muscle and mega armor as big as an Imperator titan or something along those lines given that the six primorks were described as being Knight sized or thereabouts. Then GW can release some super huge Swarmlord Model and they can fight together in time for 2020's Godzilla vs Kong.

Probably wondering why that Ork is covered in luky blu feet.
Its cause hes the deff skuliest luckiest Ork boss. Insert dodgy Tau armour saves here

 Kain wrote:


It would give GW room to just continually release larger and larger Ghazghkull models; probably culminating in some hulking green mass of muscle and mega armor as big as an Imperator titan or something along those lines given that the six primorks were described as being Knight sized or thereabouts. Then GW can release some super huge Swarmlord Model and they can fight together in time for 2020's Godzilla vs Kong.

A million times yes!

Same as always, sitting in a tiny corner of the galaxy being a nuisance until the Imperium has a spare year or two to eradicate them. A feat that ideally should come quickly. With Guilliman at the helm, and the Ultramarines being the biggest threat to the Tau and proximity, he could easily have them wiped out within a few years.

Wait, can someone tell me who exactly died in Mont'ka? Did Aun'va AND Shadowsun die?

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
Wait, can someone tell me who exactly died in Mont'ka? Did Aun'va AND Shadowsun die?

Shadowsun survived. Aun'va died. His death was covered up by high ranking Tau so most Tau don't know it.

My prediction?

With Cadia fallen, and the Tau (in purely Imperial terms) being relative small fry, I imagine Guilliman will pull back troops from that front, knowing the Tau will be tied up with the Tyranids well enough.

With that front gone, I can imagine the Tau giving the Nids a good shoeing, and making gains across the Damocles gulf - which once (if?) the Black Crusade is sent packing, will likely be very short lived.

Same goes for Necrons really. The Xenos species have been given breathing room by the Black Crusade, and I suspect we'll be seeing that kick in at some point.

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

 Captain Azrael wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

Generally speaking, while the Tau Empire were effectively victorious against the Imperium's forces in both the Warzone Damocles books, it was made fairly explicit that the Tau Empire's victory was extremely Pyrrhic in nature.

It's very hard calling it a victory at all since:

-their leader is dead.
-their invasion force is pretty much gone, and with it good chunk of their military force.
-they lost everything passed the Damocles Gulf + Imperium cut them off. Preventing further expansion in that direction.
-their own techonlogy got stolen by Mechanicus forces right under their nose, and that is after receiving a ton of fire at them, surviving it and them killing the Tau who opposed them.
-Giving that Farsignt Enclaves are under heavy Tyranid attacks it would be of no surprised if Tyranids invade Tau Empire in great force, Tyranid War great force.

While all of that is kinda true, they did push the Imperium forces into a retreat and denied the Imperium a victory, which is mostly what I was referring to.

Their leader is dead, but while Aun'va was a particularly charismatic leader, the Tau have pretty much always been ruled by a council of ruling elite - his loss hurts, but isn't decisive in determining a victory.

They suffered severe losses, but "pretty much gone" seems a bit hyperbolic, IMO. Their fleet losses to the warp-infused flames of the Damocles Gulf isn't really explored in any detail yet, but if it was an extensive part of their fleet, that would be a damn significant blow (though not really relevant to whether they achieved victory against the Imperium, which is again what I was referring to).

They were effectively cut off by the ignition of the Damocles Gulf, but that's a temporary issue at best - the Earth Caste is already hard at work creating shields capable of passing through the ignited nebula, and while they haven't perfected the new technology yet, success will mean they're no longer limited in expanding beyond it (and may, in fact, finally gain a mobility advantage against the Imperium for once, if they can travel safely through it when the Imperium cannot).

Weather Control technology was certainly stolen, but that seems less problematic than you're implying. First, the Admech suffered casualties themselves to obtain the technology. Second, this is the Admech we're talking about - stealing the technology is a far cry from understanding and replicating it, even if the Admech were willing to do so (this is heretical Xenos tech, after all), and even if they can understand some of it, they're not guaranteed to reach the level of understanding the Tau have of their own tech. Third, the Tau can replace their tech, and improve upon it, akin to the way they started producing XV-25s when the Imperium got a hold of XV-15 tech info.

Tyranids are, as always, bad news. Not sure I got the same "heavy" description of the Tyranid threat from my reading, but then again, any splinter of a splinter of a splinter fleet of Tyranids are going to be a threat to empires the size of the Tau Empire...

That said, I described the victory as "extremely Pyrrhic" for pretty much exactly the reasons you stated.

The way I see it, giving everything we got so far. Tau will either:

-be very, very, very damaged by Tyranid invasion. Or whoever else get thrown at them ( Necrons awakening, more Warpstorms than ever before, Orks uniting under Thraka... )
-embark into civil war with Farsight and Shadowsun on one side and Etherials on another.

Personally I am more for the second option. Aun'Va is dead and with it his grip over Shadowsun, without Etherial aroudn her she might start to qeustion their ultimate authority - especially since she spent some time with Farsight.

But yeah, in the grand scheme of thing they are pretty low interest. And becasue Roboute returned Imperium may continue it;s technological development and Tau might get much mroe trouble from Imperials then before.

A Tau Empire civil war seems unlikely, IMO, due to the comparative weakness of the Tau as a faction generally (that is, the weakest faction with playable rules, aside from maybe the GSC, SoS, and Custodes factions, not including their allies) - for them to avoid getting wiped entirely, they really can't stand to be split apart and fighting each other in any meaningful way.

As such, I'd rather see the Farsight Enclaves/Tau Empire alliance continue as-is (TE using the FE as propaganda scapegoats, but working together and avoiding wasting resources on each other otherwise), and see the Tyranid and/or Ork threats explored more fully, personally. It makes more sense within the context of providing meaningful Tau conflicts without necessarily crippling the weakest faction further than it already is.

Calling the Daemocles Gulf a Imperial loss, while technically true, is not really true in the spirit of the word.

The Daemocles Gulf Crusade was pathetically small. It was really no investment for the Imperium in the grand scheme of things, and it almost totally overran the Tau Empire. If the Imperium ever organized a serious crusade vs the Tau, they wouldn't last more than a few years.

The Daemocles Gulf Crusade was really the Imperium idly brushing away an annoying fly. If the Imperium ever decides to pick up a fly swatter, the Tau will join the ranks of thousands of other xeno races which have been rendered unto dust by humanity over the last 30k years.

tau, tyranids, and orks lately have just been out on a vacation somewhere for all the latest changes are concerned.

I completely agree with Kain. Expect a huge ork update soon, then the bugs after that. Tau are well equipped, but left disorganized, and it will probably remain that way until the current story arch finishes. It's better off that they remain a minor threat during this time of strife instead of being squashed outright. Tau are cunning, and I can definitely see them hanging back and letting the monkeys fight amongst themselves.