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As you all know the Tau are known for thier slow bt safe FTL witch merely skims the warp instead of going all in. why is that? why havmt they figured out warp travel yet? you may be thinking "but chimera they have no warp engines" and your dead wrong. I present to you the Kroot warsphere http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Warsphere a warp capable vessel that the kroot posses severl of witch has been recorded bieng used to aide the tau in battles so its not like the kroot are hiding them from them. your probably thinking now "ok chimera maybe they do access to warp drives but they have no navigators" and once again dead fething wrong. they have an entire planet chock full of them. The Kroot are stated to have a sort of sixth sense for finding planets in the warp. how do you think they pilot those warspheres so why the actual feth hasnt the most inginuitive race in 40k put two and two together and started reproducing warp drives in mass and throwing kroot on all thier sips to act as navigaters? this makes no sense? all the pieces are right fething under there noses.

Generally speaking the Kroot like to keep things close to the chest and so there's a lot of stuff the kroot do/know that the Tau are unaware of. Keep in mind that the kroot have never actually explained to the tau how they build their ships...

Well, they don't really have noses either.

But fully entering a dimension they can't really perceive and is absurdly dangerous is a terrible plan. That they'd trust that the kroot can just 'sniff out' planets is... unlikely. They're rational creatures that would want significant testing and reliable data.

Plus, aside from dangerously overextending their fleets and putting them at risk, what does spreading out faster actually do for the Tau?

Dandelion wrote:
Generally speaking the Kroot like to keep things close to the chest and so there's a lot of stuff the kroot do/know that the Tau are unaware of. Keep in mind that the kroot have never actually explained to the tau how they build their ships...

but....WHYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!! think of how much both species would benefit. the tau mastering warp technology would massively increase there ability to project force and the Kroot essentially becoming the Taus equivalent to Navigators would massively increase there standing in the Tau empire


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Voss wrote:
Well, they don't really have noses either.

But fully entering a dimension they can't really perceive and is absurdly dangerous is a terrible plan. That they'd trust that the kroot can just 'sniff out' planets is... unlikely. They're rational creatures that would want significant testing and reliable data.

Plus, aside from dangerously overextending their fleets and putting them at risk, what does spreading out faster actually do for the Tau?

Significant testing and reliable data like the thousands of years that the kroot have been reliably using there war spheres? or does that not count for some reason? also how does faster travel ever not good for a civilization. even if they stopped expanding today bieng able to cut a year long journey across theempire to a month long journey is a massive boon or obvious reasons

The Kroot won't share the technology. And the Tau ultimately have no way of figuring it out. They're just not psychic enough. And they really, really don't understand The Warp. Like, at all.

Crucially, their current propulsion is ultimately reliable. And that's what you really want when considering galactic travel.

I'm saying this from memory so don't quote me on that, but I think the kroot used to do a lot more space exploration until something(?) happened and they decided to give up on a lot of their technology.

If they decided that it was better no to mess with warp stuff, it seems logical that they don't want to teach others how to do it.

They have though. It was the fourth sphere expansion and they went in with no Gellar Field.

Tiennos wrote:
I'm saying this from memory so don't quote me on that, but I think the kroot used to do a lot more space exploration until something(?) happened and they decided to give up on a lot of their technology.

If they decided that it was better no to mess with warp stuff, it seems logical that they don't want to teach others how to do it.

One version explains that they stopped using most of their tech in their daily lives after an Ork invasion of their homeworld, thinking that over reliance on it is making them soft.

Another version is that they never really gave up any of their tech, as much as they never used that much to begin with, that they just like to make do with the bare minimum in any give situation.

Whatever the case they never gave up on space travel though, and can be found as far as segmentum obscurus. Thats kinda the thing with Kroot, they seem to be primitive but are in fact in many ways more advanced and cosmopolitan than the Tau.

Tau have a lower tech ceiling but use all of it all the time, while Kroot have a much greater theoretical understanding of technology but put it to use sparingly.

 Grimtuff wrote:
They have though. It was the fourth sphere expansion and they went in with no Gellar Field.

Which ended up being a *complete* disaster, to the point that all involved were damn near euthanized.

Tau FTL may not be as flashy as Warp-space travel, but it's reliable, it's safe, and it gets the job done.

Morgasm the Powerfull wrote:

Tiennos wrote:
I'm saying this from memory so don't quote me on that, but I think the kroot used to do a lot more space exploration until something(?) happened and they decided to give up on a lot of their technology.

If they decided that it was better no to mess with warp stuff, it seems logical that they don't want to teach others how to do it.

One version explains that they stopped using most of their tech in their daily lives after an Ork invasion of their homeworld, thinking that over reliance on it is making them soft.

Another version is that they never really gave up any of their tech, as much as they never used that much to begin with, that they just like to make do with the bare minimum in any give situation.

Whatever the case they never gave up on space travel though, and can be found as far as segmentum obscurus. Thats kinda the thing with Kroot, they seem to be primitive but are in fact in many ways more advanced and cosmopolitan than the Tau.

Tau have a lower tech ceiling but use all of it all the time, while Kroot have a much greater theoretical understanding of technology but put it to use sparingly.

So I wasn't completely wrong, but a bit off. Thanks for the details.

Still, it seems the kroot view technology as something silly or weak or maybe unnatural, not as a tool for progress. Asking them to share what they know would probably weird them out, then. And since the Tau already have spaceships, the kroot wouldn't see any reason to give them more spaceship tech.

Does fast expansion even benefit the Tau? Right now they are on the edge of the galaxy and a small, but decent, thread to the Imperium. If Tau started to expand at a fast rate you can bet the Imperium would take FAR more interest in them.

Right now the Imperium has bigger fish to tackle, but if Tau started to try and be a big fish too fast the Imperium could likely overrun them. Tau woudl at least be a more manageable target. They don't get reinforcements from the deep black outside the Galaxy; they can't reproduce at an insane rate; they can't get more followed by corrupting your own people nor drawing upon denizens of an alternate dimension. They aren't even sleeping in tombs upon a billion worlds ready to rise up without warning.

Tau strenght is that they are ignored by the greater part of the Imperium at present. They'd need the Imperium to really shatter and suffer a huge loss and fragmentation in order for the tau to have room to expand quickly without losing all that ground and more just as fast.

 Overread wrote:
Does fast expansion even benefit the Tau? Right now they are on the edge of the galaxy and a small, but decent, thread to the Imperium. If Tau started to expand at a fast rate you can bet the Imperium would take FAR more interest in them.

Right now the Imperium has bigger fish to tackle, but if Tau started to try and be a big fish too fast the Imperium could likely overrun them. Tau woudl at least be a more manageable target. They don't get reinforcements from the deep black outside the Galaxy; they can't reproduce at an insane rate; they can't get more followed by corrupting your own people nor drawing upon denizens of an alternate dimension. They aren't even sleeping in tombs upon a billion worlds ready to rise up without warning.

Tau strenght is that they are ignored by the greater part of the Imperium at present. They'd need the Imperium to really shatter and suffer a huge loss and fragmentation in order for the tau to have room to expand quickly without losing all that ground and more just as fast.

With the whole divided IoM due to the warp rifts and the Tau having a relatively stable backdoor into the more northern parts of the galaxy with the Nem'yar Atoll. Now would be the time for the Tau to start gobbling up those IoM worlds that have been essentially cut off from the rest of the Imperium without drawing a huge amount of attention from Terra.

True but they've got to consolidate and armour those worlds so that when things settle down they can hold onto them again. Many an empire has died because they used technological advantages to advance fast only to find that they grabbed too much to secure and hold onto all at the same time.

Esp if they are Xeno's securing Imperium worlds where the average person considers the Xeno to be akin to the devil. It might even take Tau generations of re-education in order to turn an Imperial world into something that won't rebel against them and require an iron grip to hold onto.

The sole reason the T'au even survived the Damocles Crusade was because they were a small, compact region of space that could easily be supplied while the Imperium were isolated on the fringe, and the fact the Tyranids came a-knocking to divert the Imperiums resources elsewhere.

Let's not forget the T'au literally could not comprehend the concept of "Throw more bodies until your giblets clogs their guns" that the Imperium uses. It would have been a bloody, costly victory, but it would have been an Imperial Victory were it not for plot armour.

 Overread wrote:

Esp if they are Xeno's securing Imperium worlds where the average person considers the Xeno to be akin to the devil. It might even take Tau generations of re-education in order to turn an Imperial world into something that won't rebel against them and require an iron grip to hold onto.

Humans turning against the Imperium when presented with a system of governance that treats them with some modicum of humanity isn't uncommon, especially in light of the Rift and the "failure" of imperial political and military doctrines.

The Tau do have experience with converting IoM worlds (i assume its bribing the lords of the system in question) and the worlds trapped on the dark side of the rift are in more dire straits. The Tau being able to offer order and added protection might be able to sway worlds to join the Tau Empire.

Not saying it will be remotely easy but its a potential opportune time for the Tau to grow their Empire without it being too unbelievable to pull off. 4th sphere Tau being extremely xenophobic after the whole "warp travel without a gellar field" experience might make diplomacy difficult but it seems the later Tau who traveled through the Startide Nexus avoided the negative influences of warp travel (i guess vortex travel is less prone to warp corruption?).

GW made the mistake of keeping the Tau on the Terra side of the Rift. They are stuck between it, a giant Necron dynasty, and Ultramar (which is unlikely to fall to any force). I think the atoll thing was because they realized they painted the Tau into a corner.

In general I think that the Tau could have been handled a lot better. Rather than a microdot on the map, they could have been the size of one of the big Ork kingdoms or Necron Dynasties. Need to protect them? They're on the Eastern fring, beyond the light of the Astranomicon, they've just recently been pushing into the Imperium. Right now they aren't a big enough threat to send armies beyond the Light of the Emperor to deal with. Being on the eastern side of the Rift, they could have easily become a major player on that side.

I'm also not sure if the Kroot hiding things from the Tau is still a thing. They had that when the Kroot Merc list came out to justify why you couldn't take them as allies to an actual Tau army. I know I haven't seen anything that still suggest that is still a thing though. I also know that the original creator of the army for CA at least helped update the list for a later edition and certain things from that tend to get mistaken for canon. The whole Kroot got their advanced tech from eating Orks, becoming to reliant on it, getting stomped by Orks, and abandoning most of it was a major part of that, I believe.

Having the tau and Terra on the same side of the warp might may save both. Now that guilleman is in charge and was revived partially due to an eldar he may be willing to ally with some xenos races, and a tau eldar imperial alliance could be very powerful indeed.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The Kroot won't share the technology. And the Tau ultimately have no way of figuring it out. They're just not psychic enough. And they really, really don't understand The Warp. Like, at all.

Crucially, their current propulsion is ultimately reliable. And that's what you really want when considering galactic travel.

It's quite possile they can't.
The kroot gained space travel technology after the ork invasion of Pech - it's possible no small amount of their command of warp tech is based on acquiring some orkish DNA strains during the war and having an innate-but-we-can't-really-explain-it understanding of the tech inherited from old-one developed oddboyz technical know-how genes.

chimera0205 wrote:
As you all know the Tau are known for thier slow bt safe FTL witch merely skims the warp instead of going all in. why is that? why havmt they figured out warp travel yet? you may be thinking "but chimera they have no warp engines" and your dead wrong. I present to you the Kroot warsphere http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Warsphere a warp capable vessel that the kroot posses severl of witch has been recorded bieng used to aide the tau in battles so its not like the kroot are hiding them from them. your probably thinking now "ok chimera maybe they do access to warp drives but they have no navigators" and once again dead fething wrong. they have an entire planet chock full of them. The Kroot are stated to have a sort of sixth sense for finding planets in the warp. how do you think they pilot those warspheres so why the actual feth hasnt the most inginuitive race in 40k put two and two together and started reproducing warp drives in mass and throwing kroot on all thier sips to act as navigaters? this makes no sense? all the pieces are right fething under there noses.

What good are warp engines when they can't navigate the warp. They can't and will never do warp travel, they need to evolve to do that which means that unless we some some terrible ex-machina 'surprise they found out how to navigate the warp by praying to chickens' they will never gain warp travel. They aren't that technologically advanced either, they are nothing compared to the eldar or mankind at its zenith so I doubt they will find a way to navigate the warp without using the webway. Tau players just need to enjoy or live with the fact that the Tau will never be big movers on the galactic scale.

Just like you'll have to likely have to enjoy or live with the fact that GW won't be removing the Tau

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:
As you all know the Tau are known for thier slow bt safe FTL witch merely skims the warp instead of going all in. why is that? why havmt they figured out warp travel yet? you may be thinking "but chimera they have no warp engines" and your dead wrong. I present to you the Kroot warsphere http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Warsphere a warp capable vessel that the kroot posses severl of witch has been recorded bieng used to aide the tau in battles so its not like the kroot are hiding them from them. your probably thinking now "ok chimera maybe they do access to warp drives but they have no navigators" and once again dead fething wrong. they have an entire planet chock full of them. The Kroot are stated to have a sort of sixth sense for finding planets in the warp. how do you think they pilot those warspheres so why the actual feth hasnt the most inginuitive race in 40k put two and two together and started reproducing warp drives in mass and throwing kroot on all thier sips to act as navigaters? this makes no sense? all the pieces are right fething under there noses.

What good are warp engines when they can't navigate the warp. They can't and will never do warp travel, they need to evolve to do that which means that unless we some some terrible ex-machina 'surprise they found out how to navigate the warp by praying to chickens' they will never gain warp travel. They aren't that technologically advanced either, they are nothing compared to the eldar or mankind at its zenith so I doubt they will find a way to navigate the warp without using the webway. Tau players just need to enjoy or live with the fact that the Tau will never be big movers on the galactic scale.

As I mentioned in the OP the Kroot have a kinda 6th senss for navigating the warp. So your very very wrong on all fronts

Wait, the Tau have welcomed/assimilated some human worlds into their empire, right? The kroot may not be cooperative enough to become the Tau empire's navigator caste, but what about the actual human navigators? Are they just completely absent from the Tau-occupied human worlds? Are they all loyal to the Imperium and reject the greater good?

The Tau have not created warp tech because they can't and because they don't want to. Its that simple.

The Warp isn't just another dimension. Its a psychically charged, metaphysical realm that only some gifted individuals are strongly attuned to. The Tau, as a species, are not attuned to it, and they don't even think it exists.

The Tau building warp tech would be like asking a blind man to paint a depiction of a pink elephant. Its not going to happen, at least successfully, even if they have help. Keep in mind that one of their client races, the nicassar, are potent psykers, and they still haven't developed a successful warp drive.

They cant develop ware tech because they simply do not know how to, backwards engineering a warp engine may get you access but as soon as they enter the warp proper and the ship is lost, they will think its a technical problem, not a supernatural one, they may be aware of psykers but how could they know that psykers are required to use the warp and navigate, how could they know what a gellar field even does since they have never entered the warp proper and lived.

They cant do it because they cant, they cant even perceive of the solution because of their society and beliefs.

Now with that being said GW could just handwavium it into existence, but it will be done badly and likely annoy some of the fanbase, like the giant battlesuits stil annoy some.

Perhaps a Kroot ate a navigator?

 Formosa wrote:
They cant develop ware tech because they simply do not know how to, backwards engineering a warp engine may get you access but as soon as they enter the warp proper and the ship is lost, they will think its a technical problem, not a supernatural one, they may be aware of psykers but how could they know that psykers are required to use the warp and navigate, how could they know what a gellar field even does since they have never entered the warp proper and lived.

They cant do it because they cant, they cant even perceive of the solution because of their society and beliefs.

Now with that being said GW could just handwavium it into existence, but it will be done badly and likely annoy some of the fanbase, like the giant battlesuits stil annoy some.

Yes the Tau as a species but not the Tau as an empire. They have several species on the empire that have access to warp travel. Not only the kroot mentioned in the op but also the Demiurg and the imperium worlds theyve yoinked.


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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The Tau have not created warp tech because they can't and because they don't want to. Its that simple.

The Warp isn't just another dimension. Its a psychically charged, metaphysical realm that only some gifted individuals are strongly attuned to. The Tau, as a species, are not attuned to it, and they don't even think it exists.

The Tau building warp tech would be like asking a blind man to paint a depiction of a pink elephant. Its not going to happen, at least successfully, even if they have help. Keep in mind that one of their client races, the nicassar, are potent psykers, and they still haven't developed a successful warp drive.

First of all the tau definitely know it exists as they have serveral species in thier empire that do. Between the Guevesa, the Kroot, and the Demiurg it would be simply absurd to assume that the Tau havmt atleast figured out that the Warp exists. The Kroot are natural Navigators (not to mention the actual himan navigators that theyve likely acquired feom all the human worlds theyve been yoinking and whatever the feth the Demiurg use to travel the warp) tgey literally have ALL the pieces right in front of them. The humans, kroot, and Demiurg all are confirmed to have warp capable ships. The kroot are mentioned as having a 6th sense for navigating the warp and thus make good navigators. You keep pretending that they dont gave accesz to warp ships and that they dont thave any understanding of the warp whule ignoring the fact that several species in the tau empure have all those things. A blind man vould toltally draw a pink elephant if you literally gave him a pink crayon and patiently described a elephant to him.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Having the tau and Terra on the same side of the warp might may save both. Now that guilleman is in charge and was revived partially due to an eldar he may be willing to ally with some xenos races, and a tau eldar imperial alliance could be very powerful indeed.

Looking forward to Grand Alliance Soup

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:
As you all know the Tau are known for thier slow bt safe FTL witch merely skims the warp instead of going all in. why is that? why havmt they figured out warp travel yet? you may be thinking "but chimera they have no warp engines" and your dead wrong. I present to you the Kroot warsphere http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Warsphere a warp capable vessel that the kroot posses severl of witch has been recorded bieng used to aide the tau in battles so its not like the kroot are hiding them from them. your probably thinking now "ok chimera maybe they do access to warp drives but they have no navigators" and once again dead fething wrong. they have an entire planet chock full of them. The Kroot are stated to have a sort of sixth sense for finding planets in the warp. how do you think they pilot those warspheres so why the actual feth hasnt the most inginuitive race in 40k put two and two together and started reproducing warp drives in mass and throwing kroot on all thier sips to act as navigaters? this makes no sense? all the pieces are right fething under there noses.

What good are warp engines when they can't navigate the warp. They can't and will never do warp travel, they need to evolve to do that which means that unless we some some terrible ex-machina 'surprise they found out how to navigate the warp by praying to chickens' they will never gain warp travel. They aren't that technologically advanced either, they are nothing compared to the eldar or mankind at its zenith so I doubt they will find a way to navigate the warp without using the webway. Tau players just need to enjoy or live with the fact that the Tau will never be big movers on the galactic scale.

It eouldnt be a dues ex machina cause the tau already have the kroot who have been confirmed to have a 6th sense for navigating the warp. The tau have a very speciel and super rare ability that makes all your points stupud and redicolous. This ability is called "not bieng racist and having the ability to actually work with other races" why would they have to evolve navigators when they have an entire planet full of Kroot who have the natural ability to navigate the warp. Why would they need to devolpe warp drives when they can just reverse engineer the ones that the Kroot, demurg and guevesa have.

The Tau have not created true Warp Drives because they are incapable of doing so. They are an utterly non-psychic race, and because of this they cannot conceive of nor even manipulate the technology associated with a true Warp Drive. You have to be a psychic capable species to comprehend the Warp drive, because it isn't fully based in science. It is half scientific and half sorcery. Without being a psychic race you cannot fathom the sorcery part of the warp drive and thus would never be able to replicate it.

And even if the Tau got some real Warp Drives, without navigators or Geller fields they would never survive a true Warp jump. Either they would get hopelessly lost, torn apart by the maelstrom of the Immaterium, or be snacks for daemons.

The only way the Tau could ever get Warp Drive technology is if one of their psychic slave races shares the technology as well as their navigators for the Tau to use. Currently all of their psychic slave races do not share such things, though a combination of both deliberately hiding it and the Tau's complete naivety regarding anything associated with the Warp.


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chimera0205 wrote:
I present to you the Kroot warsphere http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Warsphere a warp capable vessel that the kroot posses severl of witch has been recorded bieng used to aide the tau in battles so its not like the kroot are hiding them from them. your probably thinking now "ok chimera maybe they do access to warp drives but they have no navigators" and once again dead fething wrong. they have an entire planet chock full of them. The Kroot are stated to have a sort of sixth sense for finding planets in the warp.

The Kroot have warp drives. The Tau do not.

The Tau think that they have total control over the Kroot, but this is incorrect. The Kroot still maintain a lot of independence from the Tau Empire, unbeknownst to the Tau.

And as a I mentioned above, the Tau are completely in the dark about how anything related to the Warp works. To them it is just superstition and unscientific religious rituals practiced by backwards species. They do not know that these rituals and "superstitions" are very real. They don't connect the dots and realize that the Kroot ships are faster and can travel massive distances.

The Tau really are that dumb/naive. They miss what is obvious because they are incapable of noticing it.

From the Kroot point of view, they are simply well paid mercenaries serving the Tau. They do not consider themselves to be a part of the Tau Empire, and in truth they aren't. They just play along because it is beneficial, and the secret shipyards and mercenary bands which sell their services to the rest of the galaxy are kept secret.