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 A Town Called Malus wrote:
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.

Well, while the Tau as a species might endure, the Empire wouldn't survive the death of all Ethereals.

Shadowsun might be able to keep things together for a little while, but eventually they would split into various warring factions. Each believing it is the only one who truly fights for the Greater Good.

The Tau, as a species, are deathly afraid of losing the Ethereals. That fear would become mistrust of other Tau, and would cause the fracturing of the Empire, in the event of losing the Ethereals.

Shadowsun (and any Tau besides Farsight) would die of old age soon enough if she had to manage the Tau Empire. Only reason why she hasn't died of old age yet is because she spends her time in-between battles in stasis.

 Maniac_nmt wrote:

 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.

Fighters aren't really good in space battles. You see, ships with more engines will be accelerating faster, which means huge battleships will actually be faster than fighters.

Also, there is a substantial gap between the firepower needed to damage 40k capital ships and the firepower strike craft in 40k can bring to bear. This means you'll need to launch multiple waves to deal substantial damage to said space ships.

Also, in 40k space battles are considered at knife fighting distances if you're within a planetary diameter of your enemy. Opening engagements often happen over literally millions of kilometers apart, to the point where one has to account for the visual delay of the speed of light.

Those who are fond of boarding and ramming tend to have the numbers to get that close (Orks, Tyranids) and also tend to have some way to mitigate long ranged fire to force enemies to play by their rules.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Their ships themselves have ork levels of armor and not as many weapons as comparable vessels from other factions.

I think you missed the part where where broadside batteries could switch to fire front ark, which means their frontal firepower is much better than imperial broadside, and unlike Orks they could switch back to having decent side firepower.

 Mezmerro wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Their ships themselves have ork levels of armor and not as many weapons as comparable vessels from other factions.

I think you missed the part where where broadside batteries could switch to fire front ark, which means their frontal firepower is much better than imperial broadside, and unlike Orks they could switch back to having decent side firepower.

And yet the Tau had trouble stopping a tiny hive fleet in space. And the Tyranids have the worst ships man for man.

 Kain wrote:
Fighters aren't really good in space battles. You see, ships with more engines will be accelerating faster, which means huge battleships will actually be faster than fighters.

Go read about insertion and relatiosips between force and acceleration. It's mid school physics, IIRC

 Kain wrote:
Also, there is a substantial gap between the firepower needed to damage 40k capital ships and the firepower strike craft in 40k can bring to bear. This means you'll need to launch multiple waves to deal substantial damage to said space ships.

The strengths of space bombers is that they can target vunerable parts of the ship and bypass void shields, so they don't need to have the firepower of escort ships. Even single fighta-bomma wing could damage bridge, gun, launch bay or plasma engine with well timed bombing run, not to mention Manta with it's godlike firepower, as it's railguns are quite capable to pierce escort ship armor and hit plasma core, thus one-shoting entire ship.


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 Kain wrote:

And yet the Tau had trouble stopping a tiny hive fleet in space.

Mostly because Hivemind developed ion-impenetrable armour, which renders Tau lance equivalents useless.

 Mezmerro wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Fighters aren't really good in space battles. You see, ships with more engines will be accelerating faster, which means huge battleships will actually be faster than fighters.

Go read about insertion and relatiosips between force and acceleration. It's mid school physics, IIRC

 Kain wrote:
Also, there is a substantial gap between the firepower needed to damage 40k capital ships and the firepower strike craft in 40k can bring to bear. This means you'll need to launch multiple waves to deal substantial damage to said space ships.

The strengths of space bombers is that they can target vunerable parts of the ship and bypass void shields, so they don't need to have the firepower of escort ships. Even single fighta-bomma wing could damage bridge, gun, launch bay or plasma engine with well timed bombing run, not to mention Manta with it's godlike firepower, as it's railguns are quite capable to pierce escort ship armor and hit plasma core, thus one-shoting entire ship.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kain wrote:

And yet the Tau had trouble stopping a tiny hive fleet in space.

Mostly because Hivemind developed ion-impenetrable armour, which renders Tau lance equivalents useless.

I'll see your middle school physics and raise you a youtube video.




Also, Mantas aren't particularly built for rapid acceleration or maneuverability. They are going to be left in the dust by larger ships or get one shotted by lance batteries with their extinction event causing firepower or just focused on by other turrets. Carriers aren't a particularly smart idea in space, which is why the Imperium regards Admirals who utilize them as somewhat eccentric as they don't really do anything homing torpedoes don't.

And Hive Fleet Gorgon, with the exception of Hive Fleet Naga, is the smallest major Hive Fleet on record; and it drove deep into the Tau Empire and took a massive empire wide effort to stop.

 Kain wrote:
I'll see your middle school physics and raise you a youtube video.

Nice video, pal, but author certainly don't know how physics scale. Reactive engine power depend on the jet stream speed (which is largely defined by fuel) and jet nozzle square, so they multiply at X² while ship's mass multipy at X³. So the bigger is ship the more engines it need (i'm speaking about % to ships mass) to maintain the same acceleration. 40k space bombers and interceptors have massive engines usually taking from 20 to 50% of the craft mass, while space ships having much smaller part of their mass in engines.
And speaking about space laser weapons, the difficult part is to lock the target as it move fast can can maneuver, while Imperial, chaos and Ork defensive batteries have no targeting AI and are aimed manually by poorly trained crew or gun servitors.
[offtop]where I live there is so called "science olympiad" competitions, and I held 1-st place in physics on town, and district stages and 3-rd on region stage for four years. I may lack the dictionary in English physics, but I assure you I know this discipline quite well[/offtop]

 Kain wrote:
Also, Mantas aren't particularly built for rapid acceleration or maneuverability.

The only reason Mantas aren't supersonic in the atmospheric fights is because the are forced to spend too much energy for antigravitic drive. And even then they are as fast as most impeial and orky attack craft.

 Kain wrote:
They are going to be left in the dust by larger ships or get one shotted by lance batteries with their extinction event causing firepower or just focused on by other turrets.

Lances batteries have a hard time hitting even escort class ships. Lances are too few and have too low rate of fire and accuracy to be used against enemy bombers.
Imperial shis usually use small slug-thrower turrets (like autocannons) and their own interceptors to protect against bombers, but Manta superior armour, deflector shields and insane amount of defensive LB burstcannons renders both of this methods almost useless.

 Kain wrote:
Carriers aren't a particularly smart idea in space, which is why the Imperium regards Admirals who utilize them as somewhat eccentric as they don't really do anything homing torpedoes don't.

Imperial fleet traditions are stuck in the Great Crusade times, where space battles was quick and brutal due to better engines, better guns and overly bigger fleets. In the grim darkness of 40k where imperial ships are slowest and the most short ranged, almost any fleet save Orks and Tyranids would run around imperials and harass them with ordnance UNLESS imperials have the carriers they so much regard.

 Mezmerro wrote:

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.

I don't think 'expendable' is the right word for the way Tau regard their soldiers. I think they see them as a resource to be spent wisely and prudently, (as you said.) Needlessly expending the lives of their troops is considered utterly disgraceful. Whereas the imperium just doesn't care. They'll happily throw thousands of their soldiers' lives away just to inconvenience a Chaos advance, to no real effect.

I disagree about Firewarriors not being elite. Guardsmen are recruited in early adulthood. Eldar Aspect warriors start training whenever they feel like it's time. Space Marines begin inception at an early age. But Tau Firewarriors begin their military career the moment they are born. Battlefield tactics, military organization, rigorous mental and physical military training are, quite literally, the only things a Firewarrior has EVER known. On the tabletop, this single-mindedness of military purpose and supreme coordination manifests in their 'Supporting Fire" special rule. Something no other army has the training or battlefield coordination to duplicate.
In the heat of battle, when there are enormous, blade wielding monstrosities trying to thunder their way into your line, setting up overlapping fields of fire requires nerves of steel and coordination between units that borders on prescience.
I know people think Firewarriors die fast, but trust me as a Dark Eldar player, receiving a saving throw versus small arms fire should never be taken for granted.

 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.

And I'd love for the Tau to train up a super elite strike force to eliminate the Emperor quietly and efficiently.
The logistics behind either scenario are astronomical to the point of hilarity.

You say the Imperium doesn't have targeting AI.

This is true, but not true at the same time. A servitor is just as good as a targeting AI, possibly better.

You have a human brain that has been reprogrammed specifically for targeting. That's going to be much superior than anything we have today. And we have some scary accurate targeting capabilities with our 21st century technology.

LOL, I just read a part of Tau codex and in it the Tau compare IG to Orks in terms of how they throw meat shields to absorb damage.

Definitely don't like IG anymore, it's just too primitive.

No, they aren't. Humanity has always had the answer to everything - Space Marines. Why else did the GC advance so far, so fast? Because supermen were leading the charge, smashing everything aside. Tau don't have anything like that, in scale or numbers, yet.

Cyten wrote:
LOL, I just read a part of Tau codex and in it the Tau compare IG to Orks in terms of how they throw meat shields to absorb damage.

Definitely don't like IG anymore, it's just too primitive.

That is really the charm of the IG though. They aren't intended to be the super smart, super tactical, super strong army, but their down to earth and simple nature lets them stand out in a universe filled with bigger then big "I am so awesome look at me punch demons in the face" characters. Don't disparage the guard because they are primitive, that is the best thing about them.

TheSGC wrote:
Tau don't have anything like that, in scale or numbers, yet.

Battle suits. Better armour, better firepower, almost equaly disciplined and fanatical, MUCH cheaper and available, and despite common belief even better in close combat (as while they lack the skill they can compensate with superior durability and strength. Don't look at the tabletop, where one Crisis cost as three or four marines - from the background position marines are ridiculously scarce (like less then one per planet), while even small mining colonies of Tau Empire usually have at least two battlesuit teams, and major sept wourlds usually have tens of thousands garrisoned on them.
And like crisis teams are better than tactical marines, other battlesuits are also better than marines of similar roles:
Stealths > Scouts
Hazards >> Assault Marines
Broadsides >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Devastators
Riptides >>>>> Centurions
The only analogue they don't have are Terminators, mostly because Tau don't need slow and insanely durable melee-oriented infantry.

And just like Crisises are more available than tac marines, all of above save Riptides are more available too

I always considered a Crisis Suit a middle ground between a Terminator and a Dreadnought, fluff wise.

 Anfauglir wrote:
I always considered a Crisis Suit a middle ground between a Terminator and a Dreadnought, fluff wise.

They are actually roughly equal to normal power armored marines according to the fluff. Big power armored space marines to be exact. They never had an edge over the Astartes PA in terms of efficiency - all they have is an advantage in size (so they can have more extra systems). Just look at the Centurions: they are essentially equal to a Crisis suit in terms of size and they have more guns, more armor and more durability. Just stick a jump pack on them and you have your uber-Crisis suit.

Tau stuff is most assuredly not cheaper than IG stuff in-universe. Don't confuse points cost for cheapness.

A boltgun costs one point and a flamer five, but in-universe, the flamer is cheaper.

Guard vehicles are almost as good as Tau vehicles-- better in some ways (like durability), worse in others (like mobility)-- but they're able to manufacture them far more cheaply and in far greater numbers than the Tau could even comprehend, and they don't require a lot of technical knowhow to build, use, and maintain, unlike Tau machinery.

In truth, I'd actually say that many Imperial pieces of equipment are more technologically advanced than Tau ones, or at the very least, far superior in their design overall.



Or, to give an IRL comparison-- Germany during WWII was doomed the moment that Russia was capable of mobilizing and America entered the war. Russian and American tanks may not have been "better" in pure combat statistics (it's debatable), but they were far better designs overall once cost, ease of use, and required training comes in to play. German superiority in weapons tech simply wasn't enough.

Nor is the Tau superiority enough. In the end, the only thing that saves the Tau is that they're such a small, irrelevant threat to begin with. The fact that the Tau are incapable of building the infrastructure needed for massive, galaxy-spanning empires certainly doesn't help.

Maniac_nmt wrote:

 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).

A Town Called Malus wrote: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.

I disagree. As someone pointed out, the Tau would survive as a race I'm sure, but their ideologies would fly all over the place. Farsight and Shadowsun are indeed the perfect examples as you provided (not to your advantage though, strangely). They both subscribe to different schools of thought and if they theoretically became the prime candidates for leadership, the Tau would immediately fall into civil war. Give it time and it wouldn't be an Empire anymore, just a fractured remnant of what once was. Those are only a couple of personalities, just imagine how many up and coming leaders would attempt to seize power?

PrehistoricUFO, keep in mind, that farsight Enclaves keep runing perfectly fine without Farsight (when he was in self-appointed exile), so they don't need his leadership to just survive and function. Even when he returned, Farsight and the Eight doesn't became supreme rulers of enclaves, and just lead it's military, while other castes sustain what is the 40k closest thing to democracy.

Farsight is still alive however. That is enough to keep them together, because they are united behind their leader.

the Farsight Enclaves are also small compared to the Empire itself. the Empire has lots of Septs, and plenty of military leaders who would assert their own version of the Greater Good.

Farsight is actually a perfect example of why the Empire would fracture without the Ethereals.

If your assertion were correct, when Farsight's Ethereals were killed, he simply would have returned to the Empire. But he didn't.

 Melissia wrote:
Tau stuff is most assuredly not cheaper than IG stuff in-universe. Don't confuse points cost for cheapness.

Tau stuff is expencive points-wise, but fluff wise... lets talk.

Forget about space marines - they are HUGELY expencive to even compare with crisis suits, lets talk about stormtroopers.

Like Fire Warriors, stormtroopers are usually trained to be soldiers from the childhood, which means they are similarily expencive. Unlike stormtroopers, however, crisis pilots are quite numerous - all you need to become one is to survive 4 years of active duty as Shas'La, pass the first trial by fire, than survive few years as Broadside pilot (which is much easier than to survive as a frontline trooper).

Stormtrooper armour is quite expensive and rare by the imperial standards. They aren't even mass-produced in the most cases and rather handcrafted, which results for them to sost like 12-20 times more than flakk armour, and beeing reserved solely for the storm troopers, so grenadier veterans and ovicers should contend with cheaper and slightly worse carapase armour.

Tau Crisis suits on the other hand are mass-produced. In fact, Ethereals even need to hold the suit production as there are more suits than available pilots (which say a lot, considering there should be billions of pilots available, considering relatively low mortality within Fire Warriors). Not like Crisis suits are cheap but Tau economics surely can hold that price and even more.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
Farsight is still alive however. That is enough to keep them together, because they are united behind their leader.

They was sure he was dead before his reapperance - after all he was missed for like a two Tau lifespans.

 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.

assuming that they do not produce aesexually and only one sex in the Tau is able to have children (their women folk, we know that they have women, but i'm not sure if they talk about who can have kids in the fluff, upon further research it looks like they reproduce similarly to humans).

this means that for every two Tau, they need to produce more than two more Tau in order to sustain themselves as a species over time. Two individuals need to replace themselves, and then create an extra one or two.

It's actually interesting because a lot of countries in the real world are losing population right now because people just aren't having kids like they used to...one must wonder what the birth rate is in the 40k universe to sustain the trillions and trillions that they consistently refer to. I guess in the grimdark future there is only baby making....oh and War!

Even if the average number of children was only a fraction over two per couple, the Imperium could still have an insane number of people getting born each year.

Lets assume that the average population of the Imperium is what the current pop of Earth is right now. With a 1% rate of increase.

7 billion people times 1 million worlds gives 7x10^15 people in the Imperium(that's 7 quadrillion people)

1% of 7 quadrillion is 7x10^13 people. That's 70 trillion people born each year in excess of what is needed to maintain a steady population

Written out longhand. That is this number.

70,000,000,000,000 potential recruits for the Imperial Guard with only a 1% population growth.

 Mezmerro wrote:
Tau stuff is expencive points-wise, but fluff wise...

Also expensive. They can't even afford to equip their human auxiliaries properly.

 Mezmerro wrote:
Like Fire Warriors, stormtroopers are usually trained to be soldiers from the childhood, which means they are similarily expencive. Unlike stormtroopers, however, crisis pilots are quite numerous

Stormtroopers and Stormtrooper equivalents (Kasyrkin et al) are more numerous than crisis pilots simply because of the pure scale of the imperium. And just because the training times are similar doesn't mean that the cost is likewise similar-- the Imperium has a long, long history of training elite soldiers like this, which could mean that they're more efficient at it... or, given the tradition-bound nature of the Imperium, it could mean that they're less efficient. We really don't know.

But I would definitely argue that they are more talented than fire warriors and suit pilots. Indeed, a Guardsman who's a veteran of a few wars is more talented than the average Fire Warrior. Humans live longer than Fire Warriors and their veterans have a longer time to gain experience, where fire warriors must rely upon training more than experience. Stormtroopers and Kasyrkin, by contrast, have both training AND experience under their belt.

 Mezmerro wrote:
Stormtrooper armour is quite expensive and rare by the imperial standards.

Based on what, exactly?

From the Fantasy Flight Games rpgs, Stormtrooper quality carapace armor is about... ten times as expensive as flak armor. That's ten times as expensive as a piece of armor that the Imperium can manufacture so much of as to be able to equip the entire Imperial Guard with-- it costs only a little bit more to make flak armor than it takes to make a lasgun. Indeed, it's not expensive at all really, to the point that (As shown by the tabletop) many regiments equip their elite squads with it. Indeed, entire regiments can be equipped with carapace armor, as shown by the carapace armor used by the assault regiments in the Gaunt's Ghosts novels.

That is definite indicative of mass manufacturing.

But really, mass manufacturing of expensive items is normal in 40k. A Leman Russ tank is more expensive than flak armor as well, but given the ubiquity of the design and the vastness of the Imperium, more likely than not there are more Leman Russ tanks than there are members of the Tau fire caste. Indeed, the average Imperium factory dedicated to the craft makes more Leman Russ tanks than the Tau make of their little suits, and it requires far less upkeep and training to use, and is easier to repair to boot, while being better armed and armored-- only really lacking in mobility. A sentinel might be a better comparison. But again, arguably better armored, and cheaper to produce-- sentinels are mass produced to the point that there are entire regiments of them. Sentinel pilots are extremely common as well.

Also, Tau have much shorter lives than the Humans they are fighting.

A human, who doesn't die in battle, could easily live twice what a Tau could. he could have a longer combat record than that Shas'o has been alive.

And Storm Troopers are those soldiers who have survived long enough to gain experience. His WS and BS are superior to the Crisis Suit pilot.

The Crisis suit's only advantage is equipment and protection. And hey, the Storm Trooper has a lasgun capable of blowing right through the Crisis suit's armor.

The Tau have cool stuff. They have incredible technology. That said, they're small and insignificant, the Damocles Crusade sent against them was ~30 or so IG regiments and some Space Marine support, and it nearly broke the Tau Empire. They exist because they haven't *truly* pissed anyone off yet, as the Imperium commands literally millions of IG regiments (making the 30 sent against them basically the briefest of afterthoughts) and could overwhelm the Tau Empire in hours if it really cared to and wouldn't even notice the exertion of effort needed to do so. However the Tau are not typically overtly violent usually and the Imperium's attention is elsewhere with far larger problems that the Tau can't even comprehend yet. That's part of what makes the Tau interesting, they're just learning how *big* the other powers of the galaxy are, and how brutal and ruthless they all are, and how insignificant and naieve they are next to them.

Not nearly broke, but it did accomplish a lot with very little.

If the Imperium ever used more than a half-assed crusade(which is what the Daemocles Gulf Crusade was) the Tau would be wiped from existence shortly.

Where is this Humans live longer than Tau from? I don't remember it being in any of the Tau Codices...

Its from the older Tau codex which gives the following information.

How many "days" it takes for T'au to orbit its star.

How many "hours" there are in a T'au day(by giving how many "hours" a Tau needs to sleep)

And finally, it says how many minutes there are in a Tau "hour".

It also gave how many "years" a tau can live.

From all this information, you could figure out a Tau would live for around 40 Earth years. Ethereals would live longer but they weren't given a hard date.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Its from the older Tau codex which gives the following information.

How many "days" it takes for T'au to orbit its star.

How many "hours" there are in a T'au day(by giving how many "hours" a Tau needs to sleep)

And finally, it says how many minutes there are in a Tau "hour".

It also gave how many "years" a tau can live.

From all this information, you could figure out a Tau would live for around 40 Earth years. Ethereals would live longer but they weren't given a hard date.

Found the timekeeping section but it doesn't say anything about the average Tau lifespan, just that they spend more of their day awake than we do and that their planet is in a faster orbit.

Also, in the newest codex, Puretide is described as being elderly in 731.M41. He was born in 651.M41. So a Tau is elderly at 80 years old, just like a human.