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I recently played a lot of Dark Crusade and Soulstorm and I've got to say Tau have the hardest hitting answer to every situation, and without ever using Kroot, they are really very enjoyable to play, so much firepower and later with two Drone Harbingers making waves of drones to scout and distract while Fire Warriors and Hammerheads melt everything.
And not to mention the Crisis Suit in The Last Stand.

I previously liked Imperial Guard due to their long range, tanks and artillery by they got nothing on Tau.

Are there any books I can read about the Tau Empire?


P.S.
Not to mention their rationalist and inclusive philosophy of Greater Good which I really like, they are like the Star Trek Federation, only better.

Some Black Library novels deal with Tau. Courage and Honour should be one, there's also Firecaste, Shadowsun and The Greater Good.

The Tau Empire Codex provides a lot of background on them too, ofc.

Their tech isn't always as impressive on the "real" 40K battlefield. They rely a lot on the interaction between units and units supporting each other - not so different from a real army, which does make it easier to relate to them. When units with Markerlights provide other units good shots they are very impressive. Once you've killed the MLs the rest of the army kind of falls apart, or at least is a lot less effective. Which is when the Tau (in the fiction) would fall back, regroup and make a new plan.

The big problem with the Tau is that they have a very small sphere of influence. They are very powerful in their own space, but they aren't galaxy threatening. Yet. The big deal here is that Tau don't always consolidate their gains. They will engage and destroy enemy defenses on certain planets, but not move to occupy them. This makes the Tau a very mobile force, but it presents difficulties for them when they are directly attacked outside of their territory. They lack the infrastructure and defenses that would be gained by fortifying battlefields they had won.

They won't be galaxy threatening ever, really.

The strength of the Tau is potential. Could the Imperium wipe them out if they pushed as hard as they could? Absolutely. But they won't. There are too many other enemies for the Imperium to focus on the Tau. And all the tau need is time. Their ability to take a loss and then learn from it and use that loss to innovate is what makes them strong. A few worlds lost to the tyranids? Oh look! A method for the tau to cloak a planet from the hivemind's senes! Do the Tau have this technology? No. Can you reasonably see them developing it given enough time? Without a doubt.

They take this approach with all of their problems. While they're certainly not a threat to the greater Imperium, who can say what technology they'll develop in 20 years? In 50 years? In 500 years? Innovation is their strength and they are sure to make use of it.

I don't think the Tau reproduce fast enough to be a threat in 50 years or even 500 years. They're cows, not rabbits, you know.

They're not like The Federation. They will often use military force to conqueror worlds to add to their empire. You have to choose to be part of The Federation voluntarily.

Well they are known to have a significantly shorter lifespan than humans and therefore they should mature faster as well. Their popularion is probably growing very quickly but they will still not be a threat to the galaxy in 50 years but in 100 or 200 years Their empire will probably be much larger. However Jareddm was only discussing their technological evolution not the actual growth of their population.

But humans would obviously be better off within the Tau Empire, it always bothered me with Imperial Guard that they treat humans as expendable garbage, You even have in Dawn of War a commissar ability to execute so the other guardsman would fight harder. That's so pathetic, uncivilized and low tech.

It's also just a video game thing. In the actual background a Commissar would only shoot a Guardsman for running away. Much more civilized!

I'd love for the Imperium to organize tons of assassins to just find and eliminate the Tau Ethereals. Without that caste, the rest of the race falls into infighting and renegade behavior. Combine that with all the pressures they now face with hive fleets and all the attention they've received from shooting their big mouths off around the eastern rim - they're done. Farsight lost his Aun, they started thinking for themselves, so they just do whatever they please now. Without their leader caste, they'd do the Imperium's job for it.

The logistics behind such a plan would be as complex as a full-scale war, though. They'd need a constant source of information on Ethereals' whereabouts and all. I'm sure it could be done.

TiamatRoar wrote:
I don't think the Tau reproduce fast enough to be a threat in 50 years or even 500 years. They're cows, not rabbits, you know.

Their life cycle is 1.5 times shorter than human one, so they should reproduce 1.5 times faster.

Cyten wrote:
But humans would obviously be better off within the Tau Empire, it always bothered me with Imperial Guard that they treat humans as expendable garbage, You even have in Dawn of War a commissar ability to execute so the other guardsman would fight harder. That's so pathetic, uncivilized and low tech.

You know, Tau do treat all of their auxilaries as expendable too. Hell, they even treat themselves as expendable. Even the Ethereal would willingly sacrifice his life if the Greater Good demands it. The only difference is that Tau do care for what they expend their lives, and know that while expendable their soldiers are also expensive and should be spent wisely. Still, Fire Warriors aren't some super-elite like Aspect Warriors or Space Marines, and usually suffer heavy casualities, so only the strongest survives first four years of active duty to pass the first trial of fire.

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
I'd love for the Imperium to organize tons of assassins to just find and eliminate the Tau Ethereals. Without that caste, the rest of the race falls into infighting and renegade behavior.

Farsight Eclaves are the example of the Tau Empire without Ethereals: add a bit of a warrior pride and freedom fighters, take away 1984-style totalitarianism and social engeneering. Assasinating all the Ethereal would probably make the Empire even better in long terms.

Tau were OP in Soulstorm

jareddm wrote:
The strength of the Tau is potential. Could the Imperium wipe them out if they pushed as hard as they could? Absolutely. But they won't. There are too many other enemies for the Imperium to focus on the Tau. And all the tau need is time. Their ability to take a loss and then learn from it and use that loss to innovate is what makes them strong. A few worlds lost to the tyranids? Oh look! A method for the tau to cloak a planet from the hivemind's senes! Do the Tau have this technology? No. Can you reasonably see them developing it given enough time? Without a doubt.

They take this approach with all of their problems. While they're certainly not a threat to the greater Imperium, who can say what technology they'll develop in 20 years? In 50 years? In 500 years? Innovation is their strength and they are sure to make use of it.

And then a Maynarkh level Dynasty wakes up and eradicates the entire empire, or the full onset of the Tyranid species wipes them away in a tidal wave of flesh, or a Chaos Black Crusade crushes them, or the Tau lose the War of Dakka. Or someone trips in the Celestial orrery and the Tau empire goes boom.

 Mezmerro wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:
I don't think the Tau reproduce fast enough to be a threat in 50 years or even 500 years. They're cows, not rabbits, you know.

Their life cycle is 1.5 times shorter than human one, so they should reproduce 1.5 times faster..

I honestly don't see 1.5 times as fast a reproduction cycle to be anything worth worrying about in the next couple of centuries, especially compared to the reproductive cycle of something like an ork (most orks don't even live to 40 due to their lifestyle. Thraka at 70 is considered an old geezer by ork standards). Maybe a millennia or so...

TiamatRoar wrote:
I honestly don't see 1.5 times as fast a reproduction cycle to be anything worth worrying about in the next couple of centuries

I assume that's because you don't know what is an exponential growth.

We also don't know Tau reproductive capacities. For all we know, they're only "in season" for two years out of the 40 they live, and only ever bear one child.

 Psienesis wrote:
For all we know, they're only "in season" for two years out of the 40 they live, and only ever bear one child.

Whoever wrote this piece of fluff, he was a total idiot.

 Psienesis wrote:
and only ever bear one child.

A species the only bore one child per couple would never survive. Even two would be cutting it fine.

Getting back to the novel - suggestions...

"The Greater Good" is actually a Ciaphas Cain Novel; it has perhaps a chapter or two of material with Tau in it, then switches to (another) Cain-vs-Tyranids story.

It's a good novel, but not a 'Tau Book, from a Tau Perspective'.

About the only ones that would match that description, would be "Shadowsun", "Santcuary of Wryms", and "Patient Hunter".

"Shadowsun" is a shorter-than-average novel, while the other two are micro-stories with roughly 1,000 word counts.

Cyten wrote:
P.S.
Not to mention their rationalist and inclusive philosophy of Greater Good which I really like, they are like the Star Trek Federation, only better.

Well, they're like the Star Trek's Federation, but with social engineering, non-mobile caste systems limiting personal freedoms, constant pervasive propaganda, all to condition a population to believe in the utter rightness of an aggressive expansionist empire building.

Basically The Greater Good is a sham. The Tau are heavily drawn of Huxley's Brave New World's rigid social castes, replete with socially engineered subspecies that are optimized for their specific task in the society, and a rigid ruleset that prevents any cross-class mobility, and prevents any cross-class breeding and dilution of the idealized subspecies. Plus, each caste is utterly convinced that they have the best job and that they are doing the best they can do for society. If you want to read about the Tau, read Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimm wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
and only ever bear one child.

A species the only bore one child per couple would never survive. Even two would be cutting it fine.

Is this seriously in the fluff?


Apparently whoever wrote that doesn't understand how replacement rates work, lol. Either that, or all Tau are girls.

Which, actually, makes sense.

 Mezmerro wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
For all we know, they're only "in season" for two years out of the 40 they live, and only ever bear one child.

Whoever wrote this piece of fluff, he was a total idiot.

No one has written that fluff. No one has, as far as I'm aware, written anything about Tau family life or their reproductive rates. Hence "for all we know". I don't, personally, believe that, but we don't really have any direction from the studio. Personally, given the relatively slow rate of expansion of the Tau Empire, coupled with its ability to support its armies in the field, I think it more likely that Tau are fertile from probably whatever passes from their teen years until near the end of their lives. So we're talking probably 25 to 30 years of viability. Given their evolutionary track from a plains-dwelling herbivore, they probably don't have multiple births (twins and the like), but may bear more than one child through their lives.

... and, to be honest, I've probably just put more thought into the subject than GW has.

Herbivores would never evolve into sentient species. This is a circle of the hunt that make apes into humans - protein diet allow to grow more advancd brain, while more advanced brain allow to hunt more effective. For the herbivore there is no need to be inteligent, as their survival rarely highly depend on making non-standard decisions. The side branches of the human evolution who switched back to vegetarian diet was less intelligent than their omnivorous progenitors and eventually gone extinct.

The fact that Tau have hooves doesn't change anything - there was hoofed predators on Earths in previous periods, and there is hooved omnivores on Earth right now. The only thing that hooves indicate, is that Tau parent species was used for a long races over the planes, savannas or deserts

 Dantioch wrote:
Well they are known to have a significantly shorter lifespan than humans and therefore they should mature faster as well. Their popularion is probably growing very quickly but they will still not be a threat to the galaxy in 50 years but in 100 or 200 years Their empire will probably be much larger. However Jareddm was only discussing their technological evolution not the actual growth of their population.

This would be true if the Tau had access to a means of practical FTL(compared to other races)

As it is, their method of interstellar travel is slower and has less maximum range than other races.

It takes them months to travel between adjacent star systems in their own quadrant, and their quadrant has a very dense packing of stars compared to the rest of the Galaxy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mezmerro wrote:
Herbivores would never evolve into sentient species. This is a circle of the hunt that make apes into humans - protein diet allow to grow more advancd brain, while more advanced brain allow to hunt more effective. For the herbivore there is no need to be inteligent, as their survival rarely highly depend on making non-standard decisions. The side branches of the human evolution who switched back to vegetarian diet was less intelligent than their omnivorous progenitors and eventually gone extinct.

The fact that Tau have hooves doesn't change anything - there was hoofed predators on Earths in previous periods, and there is hooved omnivores on Earth right now. The only thing that hooves indicate, is that Tau parent species was used for a long races over the planes, savannas or deserts

I believe that the official fluff is that, while Tau are descended from herbivores, they are an Omnivorous species. With a greater emphasis on the plant part of their diet.

 Grey Templar wrote:
With a greater emphasis on the plant part of their diet.

This highly contradicts with all the "hunter" motif in Fire Caste culture

Yeah, but vegetarianism and veganism is a social choice among humans who still descended from their omnivorous ancestors.

Given the Tau have no personality other than what has been issued to them by the Ethereals, it's easy to believe that the Tau diet is one of social impetus, rather than a product of evolution. Look at domesticated cats. They still hunt other animals, yet rarely eat what they kill because they've been conditioned to know there is food back at the house which is less effort to eat and always provided.

From what I remember, the Tau breed at pre-appointed times of the year with pre-determined partners in a ritual that has pretty much none of the love or passion that goes into human or Eldar copulation.

But of course the Tau, unlike the Humans or Eldar, do not have a concept of romantic love.

 Kain wrote:
But of course the Tau, unlike the Humans or Eldar, do not have a concept of romantic love.

Well at least in one thing their physiology is superior to human

Btw if Imperial Guard made just a single technological upgrade en mass - equipping all guardsman with hellguns and Kasrkin armor it would drastically boost their lethality, combined with their long range tanks. At least I got that impression from Dark Crusade and Soulstorm, it just melted battlesuits and infantry alike.
On the other hand In Dawn of War 2 Retribution the Stormtroopers were super squishy, bad looking and with negligible damage output...

 Mezmerro wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:
I honestly don't see 1.5 times as fast a reproduction cycle to be anything worth worrying about in the next couple of centuries

I assume that's because you don't know what is an exponential growth.

Exponential growth won't have time to take effect in just a century, in a situation where THERE IS ONLY WAR, so your assumption is both wrong and irrelevant.