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TiamatRoar wrote:
THERE IS ONLY WAR

And of all Tau, only Shas and Kor castes get involved in said war, even then not all of them.

 Mezmerro wrote:

 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

Not necessarily.

Even if meat was a rarity, it would still be socially important. Even more so perhaps.

Cyten wrote:
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...

You do realize, that hellgun is twice as expensive, half as reliable and eat triple more the energy per shot, while packing like 50% more firepower, and storm trooper carapace armour cost whooping dozen times more than a standard flak armour, while being only twice as effective? For the army that number trillions every penny matters, especially when equipping trrops with better armour and weapon make them much less cost-effective (considering guardsmen themselves are basically free)

In the fluff, the Tau are more or less annoying little buggers for the Imperium at large. The Damocles Gulf Crusade did a ton of damage, but they pulled off when more important things popped up.

The Imperium clearly lacks a total understanding of the Tau Empire, which makes sense, seeing as they don't understand a lot about many of the enemies they fight. Pretty much no one except a few people who have been deemed waaaayyyy too interested have seen anything threatening from Necrons (and BA are bros with them), and I doubt the Imperium knows the full extent of the Tyranid invasion.

I think if they ever managed to have full information concerning the Tau, they might just say "hey, Calgar buddy-ol-pal, please go exterminatus planets A through Z in sector whatever." And Calgar being Calgar he'd probably screw it up for some noble reason, but if he actually gave 2 craps he'd have that done in about 6 weeks. Poof, no more Tau.

Unless another obnoxious warp storm pops up. Stupid plot armor.

Alternatively, the Imperium is smarter than they look and know all about the Tau and Tyranid threats, and realize the former would be a useful speed bump to the latter. After all, that super hive fleet is supposedly crashing into the galactic east in, what, 100 years or so? Tau expand one sphere and a dozen or so worlds in about that time. This is an Imperium that loses entire sectors due to rounding errors, I'm sure they would be willing to sacrifice a couple subsectors to slow down a Tyranid fleet.

DogofWar1 wrote:
In the fluff, the Tau are more or less annoying little buggers for the Imperium at large. The Damocles Gulf Crusade did a ton of damage, but they pulled off when more important things popped up.

The Damocles gulf crusade hardly overtook the half of Dalyth sept world, and it toke them years and hundred thousands of lives. Then conflict went to stalemate, as Imperium forces found their supply lines too stretched and too damaged byt the constant stealth/pathfinder/kroot harras. Hardly any side was able to actually win on Dalyth, unless Imperium launch another Crusade there to double its forces.

And to launch exterminatus you need to enter planet's orbit first, which is not a easy task, as all Tau sept worlds have devencive space stations with HUGE firepower - one of the said stations was responsible for crippling almost entire Damecles Crusade fleet, so they was forced to stuck in close defensive formation above landing zone. If one tried to launch exterminatus on all Tau worlds he would run out of ships till the third sept.

 Mezmerro wrote:

DogofWar1 wrote:
In the fluff, the Tau are more or less annoying little buggers for the Imperium at large. The Damocles Gulf Crusade did a ton of damage, but they pulled off when more important things popped up.

The Damocles gulf crusade hardly overtook the half of Dalyth sept world, and it toke them years and hundred thousands of lives. Then conflict went to stalemate, as Imperium forces found their supply lines too stretched and too damaged byt the constant stealth/pathfinder/kroot harras. Hardly any side was able to actually win on Dalyth, unless Imperium launch another Crusade there to double its forces.

And to launch exterminatus you need to enter planet's orbit first, which is not a easy task,

To land troops on the surface requires entering orbit first too, and they seem to have managed to do that...

Cyten wrote:
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...

But when you equipped them with mass Meltaguns they incinerated anything, up to and including Kyras in his one winged angel mode.

DogofWar1 wrote:
In the fluff, the Tau are more or less annoying little buggers for the Imperium at large. The Damocles Gulf Crusade did a ton of damage, but they pulled off when more important things popped up.

The Imperium clearly lacks a total understanding of the Tau Empire, which makes sense, seeing as they don't understand a lot about many of the enemies they fight. Pretty much no one except a few people who have been deemed waaaayyyy too interested have seen anything threatening from Necrons (and BA are bros with them), and I doubt the Imperium knows the full extent of the Tyranid invasion.

I think if they ever managed to have full information concerning the Tau, they might just say "hey, Calgar buddy-ol-pal, please go exterminatus planets A through Z in sector whatever." And Calgar being Calgar he'd probably screw it up for some noble reason, but if he actually gave 2 craps he'd have that done in about 6 weeks. Poof, no more Tau.

Unless another obnoxious warp storm pops up. Stupid plot armor.

Alternatively, the Imperium is smarter than they look and know all about the Tau and Tyranid threats, and realize the former would be a useful speed bump to the latter. After all, that super hive fleet is supposedly crashing into the galactic east in, what, 100 years or so? Tau expand one sphere and a dozen or so worlds in about that time. This is an Imperium that loses entire sectors due to rounding errors, I'm sure they would be willing to sacrifice a couple subsectors to slow down a Tyranid fleet.

Or they know enough about the Tau to want to hit them hard, but realize at a time of 13th Black Crusades, Waaagh Gazghuls and Hive Fleets there are far greater priorities for their very limited supply of Astartes.

Tau expansion into Imperium territories is done at a very slow and deliberate pace. This is intentional by the Tau because it allows them to consolidate their gains (something the Imperium has difficulties with) and because they do not want to trigger a strong Imperium reaction. The Tau understand that the Imperium is far larger than they are, but also less unified and far slower to react. So they keep a low profile and keep the Imperium's gaze firmly on more immediate issues.

 Mezmerro wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:
THERE IS ONLY WAR

And of all Tau, only Shas and Kor castes get involved in said war, even then not all of them.

No. The Tau's approach to galactic expansion requires ALL castes to fully function and flow together nicely. They rely on Water for trade and negotiation (which is always the first and primary focus), they rely on Air to pilot all their fleets and aircraft, without them there's no expansion to begin with. They rely on Fire as their military, obviously. They rely on Earth to design and build/grow everything, and finally the Ethereal as government. Take any singly caste out of the system and the Tau aren't waging war on anything, rather they wither and die. Quickly.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
To land troops on the surface requires entering orbit first too, and they seem to have managed to do that...

Thats what I said - you can exterminate one world for the price of cripplin most of your ships, then if you get lucky, you even can exterminate one more world, sacrificing most of your fleet. And if you get all the lusk in the world on your side the remainder of your fleet could succeed at desperate suicidal attack on the third world. Congratulations, you just sacrificed entire crusade fleet for glassing three planets and killing dozen of billions of tau, while there is Waagh Ghazkul, 13-th Black Crusade and Tyranic wars where this fleet would help you saving dozen of your own planets and trillions of imperial citizens. Ant the worst part is the fact that Tau would terraform those planets back to inhabitable in few decades and repopulate them in few centuries like nothing happened.

 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

Go tell that to GW, who has a fething sentinent fungus as one of the most powerful races in the galaxy. Orks are neither omnivorous nor carnivorous. Their entire diet is squig-based, which is yet another fungus.

 Psienesis wrote:
Go tell that to GW, who has a fething sentinent fungus as one of the most powerful races in the galaxy. Orks are neither omnivorous nor carnivorous. Their entire diet is squig-based, which is yet another fungus.

Well Orks are genetically engineered species, rather the result of evolution. They have the best excuse for being unrelistic.

 Mezmerro wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
To land troops on the surface requires entering orbit first too, and they seem to have managed to do that...

Thats what I said - you can exterminate one world for the price of cripplin most of your ships, then if you get lucky, you even can exterminate one more world, sacrificing most of your fleet. And if you get all the lusk in the world on your side the remainder of your fleet could succeed at desperate suicidal attack on the third world. Congratulations, you just sacrificed entire crusade fleet for glassing three planets and killing dozen of billions of tau, while there is Waagh Ghazkul, 13-th Black Crusade and Tyranic wars where this fleet would help you saving dozen of your own planets and trillions of imperial citizens. Ant the worst part is the fact that Tau would terraform those planets back to inhabitable in few decades and repopulate them in few centuries like nothing happened.

The Tau space assets are abysmal compared to the fleets of the other races. It is heavily implied both in the novels (in Shadowsun, a single Imperial planetary defense laser was such a threat that Shadowsun herself had to commando her way into it least that thing would wipe out the whole Tau fleet - IIRC the human in her team even notes that the laser would barely scratch an Imperial warship) and in the codex/Farsight supplement. Maybe Battlefleet Gothic mentions something about how the newest and bestest Tau battleship could be a match for an Imperial heavy cruiser or something like that. So I wouldn't count on the Tau Air caste to stop a space-bound invasion ...

The thing is, it's tough to know how an Imperial Fleet with the sole goal of exterminatus would do again the Tau.

They clearly could/would eliminate the outer worlds and more minor, less defended worlds. Against larger Tau sept worlds it might be as you said, that they would lose many ships, to blow the planet.

The thing about it though, is that eliminating a dozen smaller worlds and several major sept worlds would be a major blow to the Tau Empire, one that would take many decades and tons of resources to replace. And that's likely a crusade of the Damocles Gulf size, not a larger one, or one equipped with the sole purpose of delivering exterminatus bombs.

Perhaps my statement was a bit overreaching, but an Imperial Fleet with the sole purpose of destroying as many Tau worlds as possible would likely, at a minimum, set the Tau back decades if not centuries, as they'd be losing significant resources at all levels.

The thing is, in the fluff, the Imperium either; doesn't have the resources at the moment to spare to do this, lacks the will to give up those worlds entirely, seeking to retake them, or doesn't understand the full extent of the Tau empire. Or it might be a combination of those factors.

 AtoMaki wrote:
The Tau space assets are abysmal compared to the fleets of the other races. It is heavily implied both in the novels (in Shadowsun, a single Imperial planetary defense laser was such a threat that Shadowsun herself had to commando her way into it least that thing would wipe out the whole Tau fleet - IIRC the human in her team even notes that the laser would barely scratch an Imperial warship) and in the codex/Farsight supplement. Maybe Battlefleet Gothic mentions something about how the newest and bestest Tau battleship could be a match for an Imperial heavy cruiser or something like that. So I wouldn't count on the Tau Air caste to stop a space-bound invasion ...

1) Humans must be joking about defence laser shrugging off imperial ship's armour: in quite similar way single defense laser on Vraks forced imperial forces to land on the opposite side of the planed and set a twenty-year long siege.
2) In BFG KorVatra ships have the same armour as the Imperium ones except Imperial hallmark reinforced front. New generation KorOrVesh ships are actually equally armoured.
3) The shtick of Tau navy is heavy focused long range firepower and one of the best torpedoes in the galaxy. They lack the short range firepower and maneuvreability but are faster than imperial ships (which is not a big achievement, considering imperial fleet is the slowes one in the Galaxy)
4) Actually most important, on Dalyth it was not the tau ships but the space station what deal the most damage. And much like imperial space stations tau ones are massively durable and pack insane firepower. Except with higher range. There is hardly any way to destroy one without sufferung heavy loses, if it is supported by other ships..

 Mezmerro wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Go tell that to GW, who has a fething sentinent fungus as one of the most powerful races in the galaxy. Orks are neither omnivorous nor carnivorous. Their entire diet is squig-based, which is yet another fungus.

Well Orks are genetically engineered species, rather the result of evolution. They have the best excuse for being unrelistic.

Eldar are also rumored to have had a hand in the development of the Tau. Fluff seems to be that they are omnivores, but at the same time it is quite possible they were engineered.

 Mezmerro wrote:

4) Actually most important, on Dalyth it was not the tau ships but the space station what deal the most damage. And much like imperial space stations tau ones are massively durable and pack insane firepower. Except with higher range. There is hardly any way to destroy one without sufferung heavy loses, if it is supported by other ships..

Considering the space stations are likely relatively static defences would it not be relatively simple to hit them cyclonic torpedoes? I wonder how much they cost. Also, if your only motive is exterminatus they can attack any weaker areas (one would imagine the more important cities and installations to be heavier defended). Aside from that, in one of the Fantasy Flight Games RPGs the Deathwatch (I think) have kill-ships which are cloaked ships which sneak into orbit, enact exterminatus and slingshot out of orbit again (I think it's in the Deathwatch rulebook).

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
Considering the space stations are likely relatively static defences would it not be relatively simple to hit them cyclonic torpedoes?

Cyclonic torpedoes have limited range (lower than Tau torpedoes and space grade ion cannons) and could be intercepted by the small craft or just heavy battery fire. You need dozens to pass through the proper space station defense (no matter, Tau, Imprial, or even Orky), and dozen cyclons cost like a two cruizers. It would be even worse, if enemy station is backed by the swarms of interceptors, and Tau and Orky stations usually are.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
Aside from that, in one of the Fantasy Flight Games RPGs the Deathwatch (I think) have kill-ships which are cloaked ships which sneak into orbit, enact exterminatus and slingshot out of orbit again (I think it's in the Deathwatch rulebook).

Cloaking might work against humans or orks, because their auspecses are too primitive to even detect not-cloaket ships on their tail. Even while Tau (or Eldar, or Necton) couldn't detect the hull, they would definatelly detect the heat tray of the plasma engines. Only way to slip through the proper space defense is the Dark Eldar way - instead of hiding they just mimic other ship class heat trey and redioreflection, so enemy could take them for their own ship.

Except that's not how their cloaking systems work. It's a Deathwatch item that was adapted from Eldar technology for use by humans (the AdMech gets to do this stuff if it's for the DW... it will eventually filter back to the rest of Humanity).

Using the advantage of, well. space, they pop out of the warp at high speed, cut the engines, and then drift in-system (thing about space is... you don't slow down). Once they get close enough, they launch the cyclonics, fire up the engines, then turn-tail and run while the planet shatters behind them.

Also, Imperial auspex can, most certainly, detect plasma output. This is how the Imperial Navy tracks ships in space, and detects them hiding amongst asteroids and nebulae and the like. The ships simply put out so much heat, radiation and radio waves that its almost impossible to miss (in normal operating conditions).

The reason the Imperium's vessels can't detect a ship directly behind them is the same reason our subs, historically, couldn't do it either: they're hiding in your own wake.

Though these ships are not automatic "I win" buttons for the Imperium (line your systems with mines, you'd be surprised what flies into them), it does indicate that the Imperium has more options than just Crusade fleets and hundreds of millions of Guardsmen's lives to throw at the enemy.

The various Assassin Temples have standing assignments to kill or capture Ethereals, the Inquisition is cracking down on planets that have detected Tau ships in the vicinity, to ensure that Planetary Governors are not treating with the Tau.

While the UM might work well alongside the Tau against a common enemy, this does not mean that they're simply going to let them take Imperial Worlds from the Segmentum Ultima.

 Psienesis wrote:
While the UM might work well alongside the Tau against a common enemy.

Where did you get that fluff about UM working with Tau?

 Mezmerro wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
While the UM might work well alongside the Tau against a common enemy.

Where did you get that fluff about UM working with Tau?

Umm, the Codexes?

Lexicanum:

At some point, the Tau sent an expeditionary force to the Imperial planet Malbrede where they came into conflict with the Ultramarines Space Marine Chapter in 936.M41. However, the planet proved to be a cursed Tomb World when the fighting of the Tau and the Ultramarines awakened the sleeping Necrons from their tomb beneath the surface. In an effort to combat this terrible threat to both races, the Tau and the Ultramarines combined their forces to defeat the Necrons. Once the conflict was over, the Tau were allowed to evacuate their forces by the Ultramarines Chapter Master Marneus Calgar who proceeded to destroy Malbrede through the use of an Exterminatus order.

In my opinion, this hardly qualifies as an instance that justifies them to be 'battle brothers', but hey, GW wants to sell models.

If I remember, the Hierarchy of best to worst at space combat on a per ship and per ton basis is

Necrons>>>>Eldar>Imperials>Chaos>Tau>Orks>Tyranids

Dark Eldar are hard to place because they don't have anything bigger than cruisers.

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
In my opinion, this hardly qualifies as an instance that justifies them to be 'battle brothers', but hey, GW wants to sell models.

It actually more qualifies for a desperate alliance like with BA-Necron alliance against Nids.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kain wrote:
If I remember, the Hierarchy of best to worst at space combat on a per ship and per ton basis is

Necrons>>>>Eldar>Imperials>Chaos>Tau>Orks>Tyranids

Well, at least eldar-imperial-chaos part is totally wrong. Eldar ships are bad. Really bad. Despite their holofields they still can go down to a single broadside, and their speed depends on the solar wind, limiting their maneuvreability. Eldar fleet is only good due to theur genius admirals and the webway jumps alloswing hem to bypass cordons. Chaos ships on the other hand are superrior to imperial ones in everything byt sheer durability, which matter little, as with their superior firepower, speed and range they could keep distance and dictate the flow of the battle.

 Mezmerro wrote:

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
In my opinion, this hardly qualifies as an instance that justifies them to be 'battle brothers', but hey, GW wants to sell models.

It actually more qualifies for a desperate alliance like with BA-Necron alliance against Nids.

Oh, I agree. That particular scenario is easily a desperate alliance.

 Kain wrote:
If I remember, the Hierarchy of best to worst at space combat on a per ship and per ton basis is

Necrons>>>>Eldar>Imperials>Chaos>Tau>Orks>Tyranids

Tau is hard to classify, as they are a lot like the 40k Daemons: a few bad rolls and the Tau fleet self-destructs. They are so overtly dependent on ordnance than a few failed reload rolls can totally wreck the damage output of the fleet and you don't want to use your normal weapons (as they are pretty bad).

EDIT: Er, nevermind about the below. My memory must be off (I could have sworn there was a description of a battle that used the wording "Side-by-side", instead of "combine" like the necron one did.




The scenario is a desperate alliance, but the battle tactics weren't. It's stated they fought "side by side". That description is only allowed by allies-of-convenience at the bare minimum, and can possibly be interpreted as "squadded together", which is battle-brothers levels of tactics.

The Eldar vessels in FFG's Rogue Trader game will fly circles around any Imperial vessel of the same class, and their plasma-torpedoes will seriously feth an Imperial ship up.

Yeah, they're fragile... but you gotta hit 'em, first.

In BFG, Tau ships really rely on their hanger bays of Mantas as well as Torpedoes to do the fighting. Their ships themselves have ork levels of armor and not as many weapons as comparable vessels from other factions.

If an Imperial ship gets a broadside off on a Tau ship its toast!

 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. 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.

Tau do just fine without Ethereals, see the Farsight Enclaves. They're very well run, with the castes working together just fine. It isn't dystopian or anything. In fact, you could say they are somewhat better run in some respects, as Farsight is far more open and sharing with his people (and has come to the defense of the Tau Empire on at least a few occasions).

So, your plan wouldn't work or amount to anything significant. The Tau are perfectly capable now of running the show by themselves.

 Grey Templar wrote:
In BFG, Tau ships really rely on their hanger bays of Mantas as well as Torpedoes to do the fighting. Their ships themselves have ork levels of armor and not as many weapons as comparable vessels from other factions.

If an Imperial ship gets a broadside off on a Tau ship its toast!

Because, not unlike Wing Commander, 40k is a bit stuck in the WW1/WW2 fleet mentality. Carriers wreck everything unless you can get a battleship in close to broadside something. Which, if you have to broadside anything, you are doing it wrong in space combat. It makes for a thrilling read, but idiotic that you would have to fight that way when you have tech capable of obliterating planets, achieving close to or post light speeds, etc.

In reality, given Tau methods of communication, you should read the Man-Kzin books. A single coms satalite obliterates a Kzinti battleship. The power required to send out a signal from such an outpost makes a naval grade laser look like a pop gun.

Yeah, assassinating the Ethereals will not bring about the end of the Tau empire. Especially not as long as you have iconic leaders like Farsight and Shadowsun to fill the void.