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Tau display a strong influence from Japanese/Chinese aesthetics both hisotric aesthetics and more modern ones.

Fire Warriors are wearing armour that is prety much a futuristic version of Ashigaru (honestly wiki ashigaru, the resemblance is uncanny)
Ethereals have costumes that are similar to Japanese nobility dress.
The caste system maps onto the 5 buddhist elements (fire, water, earth, air, heaven)
The very notion of castes is reflective of modern Chinese communist society.
The vehicles and crisis suits bear a strong anime influence. For anyone saying that the suits don't look like anime I advise you to watch appleseed which features man-sized bunny eared suits with weapon arms and jetpacks that bare an uncanny resemblance to the crisis suits.

Accusations that GW introduced them to try and widen a growing asian market are probably not unfounded but if GW did try that then they failed dismally. All the Japanese players at my nearest store play space marines, most of them exclusively.

Equally they could have produced them to appeal to a growing market of youth culture that is interested in east asian aesthetics, culture and ideas. In which case they probably suceeded as Tau have been a resounding success for GW.



As for Cathay/Nippon

They are NOT the same thing. Cathay is China and Nippon is Japan and whilst I wouldn't really mind GW fudging the two together a bit (Japan did copy pretty much all of its culture from China initially so there is a huge amount of overlap between the two militarily) it would be understandably insulting for Chinese people if Samurai were suddenly marching around their armies so I think they should be kept separate.


There is a huge amount of potential in both armies for units and ideas. Terracotta golems. Samurai with killing blow katana. Ninja assassins or skirmishers. Skirmishing martial artists with skills based on dfferent styles. Chinese dragons. Immortal weapons. Warrior monks with unusual and complicated weaponry. That korean thing that can fire over 100 arrows in one volley. firework rockets. landmines! animated temple guardians. horse archers. unbreakable wandering ronin. giant oni. flying bird tengu. A surprising absence of shields on anybody.

Monkey men in asian culture represented a specific satirical representation of a certain small aspect of their overall culture. That's why it isn't all monkey men but monkey men, pig men, tiger men, bird men, ox men, demons, etc, etc. Doing just monkey men would limit the concept in addition to being in bad taste. If they must do asian culture as beastmen then lets have a kind of beastmen alliance. Not just monkeys but monkeys, oxen, tigers, cranes and serpents all together. It wouldn't be in the best of aste but it would be better taste then monkey men, more culturally appropriate, provide a more varied range of models and open up the army conceptually.


Besides, all this is irrelevant as BOLS reported its Chaos Dwarves.

IIRC:

Samurai armor was a result of Chinese influence (Their foot soldiers originally had such armor). I believe Jes Godwin stated in an interview that Tau armor design was based on Chinese foot soldiers whereas the exo-suits were anime inspired;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau_(Warhammer_40,000)#History_and_development

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armour



I quite like the idea of Cathay. Hope this one turns out to be true...

ShumaGorath wrote:

cathay is clearly meant to be a mixture of japanese and chinese cultures into a single "dragon empire".

Cathay is Chinese, Nippon is Japanese.

bravelybravesirrobin wrote:

Besides, all this is irrelevant as BOLS reported its Chaos Dwarves.

Based off discussion with the FW booth at Baltimore, ForgeWorld is planning on doing Chaos Dwarves;

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=191869&page=6

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/search/label/news%2Frumors

/BOLS also states FW will be doing Chaos Dwarfs....mostly because they cite the above Seer thread as their source

Chaos Dwarves would fit into a non-human army a little better.

We might be going overboard with the assumptions that Cathay will be full of monkey people. The models would end up sucking hard.

The Tau are themed on Japan. They even had Japanese accents in Firewarrior.

GW will fail if they go with monkey people instead of Cathay. Why do they want another Beastman type army ? are they going to give up on Beast of Chaos?

The Tau are themed on Japan. They even had Japanese accents in Firewarrior.

you mean kais's knife?
not only that, but bonding knives in general.
style of the tau armour.
list goes on


but yea, who wants monkey people?
cant we have something new and not done before?
needs to be balanced though, unlikes daemons

Monkey people is a terribly stupid idea, even if they make them very savage ape-like creatures rather than cartoony monkeys in armour.

I want to see Cathay as a proper human-army. That could look great.

People, people, I think you are all forgetting something here.

If they do monkey men, we'll finally have readily available source of convertable plastics for that Jokkaero army we've all been dying to make, am I right!?

No? :(

Mad Rabbit wrote:No one wants to put school girls with cat ears into WHFB or 40k.

I beg to differ. I've seen Hello Kitty Marines, and I'm still scared.

For the people that thinks stylish armor Dynasty warrior wear = weabo anime / video game , let me add something to your perspective for chinese armor.

Your mental image of chinese terracotta warriors are made in 246 BC.

3 Kingdoms takes place at 220-280 A.D 526 years difference .

Curse of Golden Flower is set in Tang Dynasty 907 A.D 1153 years difference.

Times do change .

Vengis wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

cathay is clearly meant to be a mixture of japanese and chinese cultures into a single "dragon empire".

Cathay is Chinese, Nippon is Japanese.

And neither one has been fleshed out or shown militarily. Cathay could be a military mix of japan and china. IIRC the skaven trained under cathayan ninja masters. One is an island, the other is the planets largest human empire (which makes this monkey retcon everyone is talking about annoying). Either one could be either country. Cathay is likely to be an amalgamation of chinese, korean, japanese, and possibly even mongolian (though we already have the ogre kingdoms) military histories. With a strong emphasis on chinese folklore history.

The geography is a strong implication but really not particularly telling of what the army would actually compose of.

For the people that thinks stylish armor Dynasty warrior wear = weabo anime / video game , let me add something to your perspective for chinese armor.

I'm pretty sure the term doesn't just apply to japanese historical and cultural influences only, and it doesn't have anything to do with videogames (though those are a big area of exposure to anime fan-ness).

Please be more complicated than monkey men, please oh please oh please let there be much, much more to it than that. It will be so bland and boring and tastless and miss out on so many possible cool ideas that it would be a travesty if the army were simply "monkey men".

But they probably can't get a sculptor that can pull of an good asian human, so they may very well be doing an asian beastmen army. Because humans can't be anything other than German or French.

If they do go with monkey men.... i rather they do the whole army with concept of chinese zodiac ( different animals )


rat = swarms
ox = chinese fire ox ( like a charriot on fire )
tiger = well tiger , elite choice
rabit = core troops
dragon = dragon !
snake = tunneling scouts
horse = fast calv
sheep / ram = heavy calvary
monkey = mount riders / warmachine crews
rooster = flying creatures
dog = HQ body guards
pigs = fat ogres

LunaHound wrote:
If they do go with monkey men.... i rather they do the whole army with concept of chinese zodiac ( different animals )

They'd be way too much like beastmen then don't you think?

Also I love you avatar now Luna, never change it.

That would just be Beasts of Chaos with fluffy bunnies and boring animals instead of a rabid horde of maniacal half-men that want to RIP AND TEAR your HUGE GUTS.

Also: I doubt most people would want an army of furries. Before anybody pulls out the 'ZOMG beasts of chaos are furries!' card, remember that BoC are based off traditional images of minotaurs, satyrs, and demons.

You heard it here first:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/239406.page

BrookM wrote:Oh no, FETH OFF with Dynasty Warrior and Team Ninja, that is horrible GAK and should not be brought into this. Defile something else.

Dude, @#$%ing switch to decaf, it's a damn rumor about a damn game, not worth insulting people over.

Maybe some soothing green tea. And some zen meditation.

It'll do wonders for you.

Warhammer is ALWAYS worth insulting somone over, commie!

/nerdrage

Commie? Really?

Well at least we know why GW won't go bankrupt.

He lives in China. Therefore commie.
/prejudice

He is simply a traveling goverment worker from god knows where working all over the world.


Don't know which is worse really.

Mad Rabbit wrote:And enough with the hate on dynasty warriors/anime culture. I'm not at all a fan of anime but it's a legitimate source of inspiration, especially because GW tends to translate things into a more acceptable form for its specific setting. Relax. No one wants to put school girls with cat ears into WHFB or 40k.

Agreed, I'm pretty damn sick of all the hate myself, and I'm not an anime fan either (I like mecha but I couldn't tell you anything about Robotech or Appleseed other than the fact that there are robots in them, I just don't watch the stuff). Especially since the people throwing the hate around likely have no idea what the hell they're even talking about or why they even hate it, probably thinking of catgirls like you said.

BTW Luna, those statues are awesome, I love that stuff. And that fire warrior art is probably my favorite Tau art by far. The only thing I don't really like about Tau models are their stupid helmets, I just don't like them...and the crisis suits, I really hope they make a new kit for them with the next codex update. But yeah, it's not that hard to make Tau dark and gritty, people say they don't fit in just because they don't want them to.

@ Sidstyler

Me too, i dislike the Tau helmet. To be honest, ever since Tau came out, i have waited for a chance to be able to give them skink / saurus heads. But you know for some reason they made the neck piece flat ( every other plastic head usually is semi sphere for easy gluing) So unless i add GS to it , no easy head swap :'/

I actually love the firewarrior infantry models and especially the kroot. As for the crisis suits, there is a great model there but the proportions are wrong. There is a piece of art in the first Tau book (and probably the second, but I don't own it) of a single crisis suit with two fusion blasters posed like it is firing down in two different directions. The proportions on it make the whole robot suit thing work. Go with that rather than the suits we have now. And the silly non-weight supporting feet need to be changed.

Railguns wrote:I actually love the firewarrior infantry models and especially the kroot. As for the crisis suits, there is a great model there but the proportions are wrong. There is a piece of art in the first Tau book (and probably the second, but I don't own it) of a single crisis suit with two fusion blasters posed like it is firing down in two different directions. The proportions on it make the whole robot suit thing work. Go with that rather than the suits we have now. And the silly non-weight supporting feet need to be changed.

Have they ever explained where the crises suit pilot's legs go? Are they huddled up in the main chest area , or does it extend down to the thigh area like power armor?


They need to make it like FW ones.

Not that I recall, though I know there has been some talk about it. I was about to say just go with the forgeworld suits, those are all great.


Edit:Because I shouldn't be allowed near a keyboard.

I think it's been said that the pilot sits inside the main torso in a fetal position, he doesn't literally wear the thing like a suit. But since he's hooked up to the thing he'll still feel the shock of losing a limb or something if one of the arms gets blown off.