Let the Tau get eaten by Tyranids

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**HoskuneAstetic**

Shaso_Keo wrote:
Getting back to the tau never losing... I would like to point out that the hive fleet that invaded the farsight enclaves were split between an invasion of the eldar and tau worlds. If the complete nid fleet attacked the enclave, the tau probably would not have time to initiate their winning strategy. The tau victory came from evacuating the entire planet and letting the tyranids consume it. then a bio-virus was completed minutes before the last tau facility was over run with farsight's team barely escaping. The virus defeated the t yranids,not tau forces, and it was at the cost of losing theirr entire planet.

Except that when the Imperium tries this the Hive fleet adapts so quick as to render the virus ineffective. It has never been able to stop a Tyranid invasion. And the Magos Biologis are some of the best gene-smiths in the galaxy. The Tau can do it! Sure no problem! Eldar can't do it and they've been around for millions of years!

Shaso_Keo wrote:
The tau also achieve victories, but usually after losing for months or years. In fact most victories would have been defeats were it not for O'Shava. The tau defeat the nids in space without losses? Yea I can see it. The tau lack ftl but they do have some of the best, most rapidly advancing, weaponry in the game. When you take into account the fleet hit and run tactics of the tau opposed to the close engagement of SM and tyranids. Unlikely, sure, but they were lead by farsight I beleive.

Yet the Imperium has many more ship class types with advance lance batteries and Nova cannons. Fast attack frigates and other hit and run tactics. They just don't brick up and plod across the table you would lose to move to quickly even for the Imperium. They are capable of tactics in the Path of the Eldar series the massive fleet kept to its formations and roles well. Yet the Tau can engage forces much larger then themselves. And everyone gives them a pass "Oh they're small so its okay"

Shaso_Keo wrote:
Damocles golf say tau forces pushed to the breaking point, nearly losing a core Sept world. Would the crusade have succeeded had their been more ships? Sure, would the tau have won if their ships possessed warp travel? Probably. War is full of ifs and buts.

It took a plot device (armor) to get the Imperium to divert its attention to some place else instead of being logically concluded. So once more the Tau were given plot armor to save them.

Shaso_Keo wrote:
Are the tau protected by plot armor? Yes. Does it make sense? It does actually. The tau are the smallest faction and as such are not seen as a threat by other races. They are also very centralised with the few planets they control being very close in proximity. Which is why they repel attackers so effectively. The IMO and other big factions have battles on many fronts in many different worlds within their vast empires.

So im saying the small size of the tau empire is why they seem to win all the time. Should the tau overextended themselves it would spell the end for them.

As I said above "They're small so it's okay they get a pass"

**Co'tor Shas**

HoskuneAstetic wrote:
Shaso_Keo wrote:
Getting back to the tau never losing... I would like to point out that the hive fleet that invaded the farsight enclaves were split between an invasion of the eldar and tau worlds. If the complete nid fleet attacked the enclave, the tau probably would not have time to initiate their winning strategy. The tau victory came from evacuating the entire planet and letting the tyranids consume it. then a bio-virus was completed minutes before the last tau facility was over run with farsight's team barely escaping. The virus defeated the t yranids,not tau forces, and it was at the cost of losing theirr entire planet.

Except that when the Imperium tries this the Hive fleet adapts so quick as to render the virus ineffective. It has never been able to stop a Tyranid invasion. And the Magos Biologis are some of the best gene-smiths in the galaxy. The Tau can do it! Sure no problem! Eldar can't do it and they've been around for millions of years!

The entire fleet was destroyed in an hour when the super-virus was introduced. No time to adapt.

Farsight saw nothing at first, but soon, a black stain began to spread across the chitinous flanks of one of the Tyranid vessels. Within a matter of only a few moments, the affliction had spread to a second ship, followed swiftly by another and then another, until none were free of the malign tendrils. The bio-ships shuddered and writhed as the discolouration blossomed outwards to cover them entirely. One by one, the fleshy Tyranid vessels fell into themselves, rotting and falling away like a piece of fruit decomposing in a matter ofseconds. Before the hour was out, the bioships had disintegrated entirely.

**HoskuneAstetic**

An hour is plenty of time for the hive fleet to start adapting. If part of itself is corrupt it cuts it off to prevent damage to the whole thing. Every time the Imperium tried it they discovered their super-virus it was ineffective shortly after introduction to the Hive Mind.

**Co'tor Shas**

An hour? I think you are overestimating 'nids a tad.

**Psienesis**

Yeah, it's not only an hour, unless you mean the Fleet's *first* inkling of an idea that maybe there's something not quite usual about that weird green stuff in those bullets/needles/bombs/torpedoes that the deli-tray keeps shooting at it.

It often takes years for a Hive Fleet to adapat and create an immunity to a given toxin, as it cannot telepathically transmit the gene-code to its already-produced organisms to make them immune. It has to either just create new ones with the new defenses coded in, which requires expendable biomass, or it has to devour all of its as-yet-uninfected organisms, create whatever genetic code is needed to make them immune to the whats-it, and then start pumping out upgraded bugs.

During this time, though, the Hive Fleet is relatively vulnerable... and if the toxin is extremely useful, it can't even reclaim its dead for use as biomass. It has to get more fuel from somewhere.

**jhe90**

Hive fleets are pretty resoruceful, only race they cannot eat is necrons, though a diet of chaos may not be ideal.

Not even there adaption would take easily to a nugile world I'd think. Its decay and poison, desise, and sickness in pretty pure form.

**pm713**

jhe90 wrote:
Hive fleets are pretty resoruceful, only race they cannot eat is necrons, though a diet of chaos may not be ideal.

Not even there adaption would take easily to a nugile world I'd think. Its decay and poison, desise, and sickness in pretty pure form.

Probably would. There's a mention in the Tyranid codex of Tyranids adapting to Nurgle diseases pretty quickly.

**jhe90**

pm713 wrote:
jhe90 wrote:
Hive fleets are pretty resoruceful, only race they cannot eat is necrons, though a diet of chaos may not be ideal.

Not even there adaption would take easily to a nugile world I'd think. Its decay and poison, desise, and sickness in pretty pure form.

Probably would. There's a mention in the Tyranid codex of Tyranids adapting to Nurgle diseases pretty quickly.

OK that surprises me, I know they where the ultimate bio weapon, but nugile is the lord of decay, a full chaos god, his servents still pretty deadly and disqusting,. If anything could hurt em it had to be that.

Nugile desises have shown to effect even fully augmented marines, and not much can manage that, OK dark eldar yes but the s&m space elves have too much interest in that kind of thing,

**Anfauglir**

HoskuneAstetic wrote:
Let the Tau get eaten by Tyranids.

Um...

[reply]

**Psienesis**

jhe90 wrote:
pm713 wrote:
jhe90 wrote:
Hive fleets are pretty resoruceful, only race they cannot eat is necrons, though a diet of chaos may not be ideal.

Not even there adaption would take easily to a nugile world I'd think. Its decay and poison, desise, and sickness in pretty pure form.

Probably would. There's a mention in the Tyranid codex of Tyranids adapting to Nurgle diseases pretty quickly.

OK that surprises me, I know they where the ultimate bio weapon, but nugile is the lord of decay, a full chaos god, his servents still pretty deadly and disqusting,. If anything could hurt em it had to be that.

Nugile desises have shown to effect even fully augmented marines, and not much can manage that, OK dark eldar yes but the s&m space elves have too much interest in that kind of thing,

What happens is, it depends on which force has the greater weight in the balance, and this remains true of any Chaotic/Warp force vs the Tyranid.

If the Tyranids are the stronger, then the Shadow In the Warp disrupts all the daemon-energy of the Chaos side, and so it loses its big, mutating advantage. This is basically what happened in the Nurgle scenario.

Now, if the Chaos side is stronger, then the bugs start to warp and mutate, and the Hive Mind has to cut them off, lest it be tainted by the madness of the Warp.

**jhe90**

OK that makes sense, still there plot armour, nothing yet is a solid tyranoid killer.

**Dakkamite**

Wulfmar wrote:
The Tau appeal to those who like Japanese artwork, but more than that, they appeal to those neurotic players who must have everything *just so*. I don't know how to explain this succinctly so I will try with the following:

Players who like to be the good guy - the hero
Players who MUST have everything perfectly identical and operating in even numbers.
Players who want to be the technological best and newest, because they want to be the best in every aspect (with regard to power and intelligence - superiority from a distance, don't even let them get close, bit of a playground mentality there for our fledgeling gamer)

Now, I say this because I see many of the gamers are of that mentility, and it works for them. Heck, I WAS one of them - I used to have to have EVERYTHING perfectly lined up, painted identically and in even ranks and files. If one was to die and take the squad to an uneven number, I would feel uncomfortable and not be happy until another died to make the squad even again - but then I would be disappointed that any had died at all. I see many Tau players now and they are much the same. Compare that to an Ork player where individuality is the golden mean, where everything is random and ramshackle and random is the flavour and you realise that the Tau cannot be allowed to lose - as that is one of the aspects that make them popular for many gamers.

As for me now, it's all about Chaos. The moment I started mis-matching my socks was the day I learned to embrace other armies.

Anyone else here know exactly what this guy is talking about?

In Starcraft, if a unit took damage so one of its legs was red or something on that status picture, I'd kill it so they'd all be identical. Innumerable instances of that mark my passage through various gaming over the years. And of course, for christmas when I was 12-13 I wanted Tau for the exact reasons listed above.

Thank god I got Orks instead.

I also agree wholeheartedly with OP. Between these two posts I see the reasons that I really don't care for this faction in this game. If your gonna stick science fiction into my gothic space horror, at least make it *not* the best at everything - flawed factions are good factions. (Same largely goes for Necrons)

**dementedwombat**

I think it's kind of funny because in day to day life I am one of the least organized people I know. I guess I'm just better at "picking my fights". There's some stuff I keep nice and orderly (mainly schoolwork related at the moment), but I have no problem with things not being in order.

**Psienesis**

I commented to that post simply because it paints a very odd picture of why people choose the armies they do. In the old days, Chaos armies had all kinds of crazy numeric requirements. And even then one half of your army might turn against the other half and try to eat them if they were troops of the wrong gods.

**Wulfmar**

Starcraft is a good example!

I seem to remember Age of Empires being my bane. I would build a large city with all the buildings in neat rows. The walls around the city had to be the same number long on the X and Y axis (making a perfect square). All the technologies and upgrades are researched so there is nothing left out.

If a single piece of wall got damaged so that a slight amount of red showed on the health bar - I would have to repair it immediately otherwise I would feel... irked.

So, I would build castles along the inside of the walls and completely garrison them with archers. The hail of arrows would kill any enemy on approach to the walls before they could knock off a single HP.

Now, change the above (true story) to Warhammer Tau. You have neat little squads who are (in fluff terms) upgraded and superior. But you don't want them to be harmed, because they are yours and in your eyes are superior to the other race.

So you garrison the edge of the board and shoot away, the hail of pulse rifles would kill any enemy on approach to the Tau before they could knock off a single wound.

If a single piece model got killed so that a squad didn't number it's maximum (even numbered!) size - I would feel... irked.

It was only when I went off to university that I discovered that it really... really doesn't matter and frankly, who gives a monkeys. Seven years since leaving uni and I have extremely disordered and discordant army lists as it feels more organic.

I currently play games with two local clubs as well as running a club myself for younger players. I see my (previously described) behavior evident in so many of the Tau players.

**Psienesis**

Ah... ok.

**Kain**

Wulfmar wrote:
Starcraft is a good example!

I seem to remember Age of Empires being my bane. I would build a large city with all the buildings in neat rows. The walls around the city had to be the same number long on the X and Y axis (making a perfect square). All the technologies and upgrades are researched so there is nothing left out.

If a single piece of wall got damaged so that a slight amount of red showed on the health bar - I would have to repair it immediately otherwise I would feel... irked.

So, I would build castles along the inside of the walls and completely garrison them with archers. The hail of arrows would kill any enemy on approach to the walls before they could knock off a single HP.

Now, change the above (true story) to Warhammer Tau. You have neat little squads who are (in fluff terms) upgraded and superior. But you don't want them to be harmed, because they are yours and in your eyes are superior to the other race.

So you garrison the edge of the board and shoot away, the hail of pulse rifles would kill any enemy on approach to the Tau before they could knock off a single wound.

If a single piece model got killed so that a squad didn't number it's maximum (even numbered!) size - I would feel... irked.

It was only when I went off to university that I discovered that it really... really doesn't matter and frankly, who gives a monkeys. Seven years since leaving uni and I have extremely disordered and discordant army lists as it feels more organic.

I currently play games with two local clubs as well as running a club myself for younger players. I see my (previously described) behavior evident in so many of the Tau players.

...Am I the only one who's completely lost trying to understand what point you're attempting to get across?

**jhe90**

Kain wrote:
Wulfmar wrote:
Starcraft is a good example!

I seem to remember Age of Empires being my bane. I would build a large city with all the buildings in neat rows. The walls around the city had to be the same number long on the X and Y axis (making a perfect square). All the technologies and upgrades are researched so there is nothing left out.

If a single piece of wall got damaged so that a slight amount of red showed on the health bar - I would have to repair it immediately otherwise I would feel... irked.

So, I would build castles along the inside of the walls and completely garrison them with archers. The hail of arrows would kill any enemy on approach to the walls before they could knock off a single HP.

Now, change the above (true story) to Warhammer Tau. You have neat little squads who are (in fluff terms) upgraded and superior. But you don't want them to be harmed, because they are yours and in your eyes are superior to the other race.

So you garrison the edge of the board and shoot away, the hail of pulse rifles would kill any enemy on approach to the Tau before they could knock off a single wound.

If a single piece model got killed so that a squad didn't number it's maximum (even numbered!) size - I would feel... irked.

It was only when I went off to university that I discovered that it really... really doesn't matter and frankly, who gives a monkeys. Seven years since leaving uni and I have extremely disordered and discordant army lists as it feels more organic.

I currently play games with two local clubs as well as running a club myself for younger players. I see my (previously described) behavior evident in so many of the Tau players.

...Am I the only one who's completely lost trying to understand what point you're attempting to get across?

A story of how a person broke there desire for perfect order and formations?

**Psienesis**

It's basically "Dr. Strangemind or, How I Learned to Quit Worrying and Become a Chaos Cultist".

**NicholasMage**

I think what you've missed is that this is in fact the point of the tau as a faction in 40k. They are the only species who look at things positively and this is reflected (and maybe magnified) in the fluff. What you seem to be asking for is for the tau to become the imperium, but with tau in instead if humans.
But at the same time yes tyranids should have consumed the universe already.

**Metaljunx**

Yeah you are right . The imperium could just launch a bigger crusade than the Damocles crusade to wipe them out

**Co'tor Shas**

It would have to be pretty big. Not great crusade big, but big enough that it would detract from the hundreds of other massive wars that the imperium is fighting, and the few dozen really major threats. At this time the Tau Empire is not a big enough threat to the imperium as a whole to warrant the cost of eradicating them. That, and I think that some of the TE extends past the astronomicon, making it so that the imperium can';t get there.

**Psienesis**

So does most of the Segmentum Ultima, but that hasn't stopped Mankind from living there.

**StarTrotter**

skink007 wrote:
HoskuneAstetic wrote:
It's the fact those Tau will win when if that same amount of Tyranids invaded the Imperium they would suffer terrible losses. Lose ancient ships and irreplaceable technology. Probably burn a world or two. Yet the Tau do it with absolutely no loss of ships. I find their lack of defeats to be counter to the grim dark setting of 40k.

This is literally the point of the Tau fluff. They aren't grimdark. They contrast the current imperium and remind us of the imperium from the crusades.

Except the the Imperium during the crusade was revealed to also be grimdark. Along with that, Tau have gradually become more grimdark. Even without that, they were Orwellian from the get-go.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Psienesis wrote:
Players who MUST have everything perfectly identical and operating in even numbers.
Players who want to be the technological best and newest, because they want to be the best in every aspect (with regard to power and intelligence - superiority from a distance, don't even let them get close, bit of a playground mentality there for our fledgeling gamer)

Back in the day, Chaos Armies had to have their troops appearing in numbers determined by the Sacred Number of their God.

So, if you were playing a Slaaneshi army, Hir number being 6, all of your units were in multiples of 6. Nurgle was 5, Khorne 8 and Tzeentch 7.

Of course, in those days, if you allied Khorne and Slaanesh, or Tzeentch and Nurgle, your army would fall upon itself in an attempt to slaughter the other half.

Man I sometimes really miss fielding an army that tried to slaughter itself.

**StarTrotter**

Silverthorne wrote:
Wyzilla wrote:
Silverthorne wrote:
HoskuneAstetic wrote:
Sometimes I wish the setting wasn't so grim dark and actually give humanity a chance there would be no contest.

I feel this mindset is misguided. As bad as the situation may seem for humans, their situation can change faster than any other faction. Think about some possibilities.

The obvious--- Return of one or more Primarchs. The Lion is the most likely, then probably the Khan and the Wolf. Think about what a game changer that is. Huge. Could happen at any time.

Starchild cycle is legit, and Cypher accomplishes it- reincarnating the emperor while possibly destroying or badly wounding the Chaos gods.

Panacea recovered from the Dark Eldar. Huge.

Think about the impact just a single, negligble seeming intact STC discovery can have. Say for a type of high-protien grain that can grow in 10% worse conditions than the one they currently have. Or a water purifier that is 1% more efficient. Across the economies of scale of the entire Imperium the difference something small like that can make are huge.

SM boarding party on a space hulk recovers a fully functioning STC from a colony ship. There are probably actions like this taken by random marine chapters nearly every week. Eventually one of them is very likely to turn up a working STC or Iron Man or some type of schematic that changes everything.

Abaddon gets dropped by assassins. Yneed counters She Who Thirsts, permanently, a new Lord Solar is born etc etc etc

Sure Humanity is taking a beating, but in one day, everything could change. Humanity is also much more durable than some of the other factions, since there aren't obvious points of weakness, like zapping the space pope or eviscerating Abaddon or what have you.

Except it could just as easily go south any moment, even faster than it can go north. The Chaos Gods are not only stated to be omnipotent within the warp and are outside time, should anything somehow manage to threaten them, they have time travel and could just as easily smack down any move made against them before it was ever made (and even then, I've heard that Chaos Gods have access to other universes, so food/entertainment isn't an issue for them), there's no real move the IOM could ever make to improve their situation, even if the God Emperor awakes/reincarnates. The Necrons are capable of gibbing Terra whenever they so wish, should that one Dynasty ever decide to weaponize the Celestial Orrery and snuff out all life in the galaxy- hell Necron ships are powerful enough that they could easily obliterate Terra itself if they ever gathered their Tombships into a full fleet, a small fleet of their "frigates" managed to dodge nearly everything thrown at them by Sol's defenses until they hit Mars. The Orks are everywhere and aren't going anywhere anytime soon (literally everywhere considering they likely inhabit a greater portion of the entire universe). Should a Warboss similar to the one that "strangled" the Emperor during the GC ever arise, the resulting WHAAAGH! would quite likely obliterate the Imperium. Then of course there's the Nids, who while have been the whipping boy of everyone else for a while, should their true numbers live up to the hype, they would shatter the Imperium by drowning them in bodies and shutting down all forms of FTL communication the IOM currently possesses and plunge humanity into another age of darkness and solitude, now at the mercy of Tyranids.

Abaddon's death by the blade of an assassin would also do little. Unless his soul is destroyed, the Chaos Gods would simply resurrect him, or if it is destroyed, they would find a new Warmaster of Chaos, with Erebus being a likely choice. Who also would be a far, faaaar greater threat to the Imperium, as it was largely his mind behind the mortal portion of the Horus Heresy. While there would be a period of well, chaos, in Chaos, they would reorganize themselves, and the new leader they pick might be a greater threat than Abaddon ever was.

I feel like you are sucummbing to a bit of mary-sue wishlisting for your faction, Chaos. Chaos is essentially a parasite. Their abilities to time travel or affect other galaxies are very sketchy and poorly understood-- and warp entities can die, or be destroyed (eldar pantheon, for example) so a star-child event would be a mortal threat to chaos. You list necrons as a faction that could destroy humanity, when in reality they are far, far more likely to seek out and destroy Chaos. Cadian pylons, for example. As more dynasties wake up they will direct their war efforts against their two main threats-- Eldar, and Chaos. Humans are just pests to them, not a mortal threat. These new offensives will continue to attrite the number of Chaos Space Marines as warp/real space overlaps contract, then vanish, greatly restricting CSM access to the material plane. Eventually only a handful of true Chaos marines will be left in the galaxy, and many or most of the greater demons will be incarcerated in Tesseract Arcs, greatly reducing the power and influence of the Chaos Gods. Chaos, as far as I know, besides very poorly written and ambiguous day dreams about time travel and extra-galactic influence, have no aces up their sleeves. The return of the emperor, discovery of a full STC, return of the Primarchs, etc etc etc all are possibilities for the Imperium. The Imperium is battered but still a sword of damocles hanging over the heads of all other factions. Only one or two things have to happen for them to just roflstomp everyone.

I think he was focused upon how they could all screw over the Imperium. As per the forces, Eldar's top 2 foes are Eldar and Chaos. Necrons look like Chaos and Eldar but you forget the fluff that reveals Nids to be their prime foe. Nids are.... really the only thing with them is they consider Daemons fellow predators and that they can't nom them. I guess Humanity and Orks because food. Orks fight everything but mainly Imperium. DE are all but mainly Imperium. So it'd be more likely that Necrons would focus on fighting Nids if anything. I don't quite get how a star-child that is composed of a minority species could really make a god though. Never quite got that one though. Really though, Necrons are more likely to kill everything else to be able to rule by themself and steal bodies or something to have flesh.

As per roflestomping, it's not that simple. Emperor gets up, suddenly Chaos gets more serious or Nids come in greater numbers or Necrons start to get up in increasing numbers. Primarchs get up? Well daemon primarchs get up. The Imperium is the top but they are the battered ones that are slowly falling apart and have been over the years.

**TableTop Fan**

Doesn't anyone remember the mass betrayal by the Dark Eldar. They turned on the Tau troopers when they were in a battle and began to torture every last one of them. Before the Tau fleet could arrive at the battle, every Tau and Kroot was murdered. That sounds like a pretty bad day for the Tau.

**Veteran Sergeant**

ashcroft wrote:
The Imperium should not be in a position to wipe out any interstellar power. Not now. Not the crumbling remnants of humanity teetering on the edge of oblivion in the fading light of their dying God-Emperor.

That's a misinterpretation common among fans.

The Imperium is dying, but it's dying like an elephant being slowly worn down by jackals. Sure, eventually it might collapse, but at any given time it can still stomp one of them flat.

I think people really don't pick this up out of the fluff. But Chaos has to run and hide in the Eye of Terror and the Malestrom all the time (for ten thousand consecutive years). And why is this? Because while the foes of the Imperium (aside from perhaps the Tyranids) can be very dangerous when their power is focused, the Imperium is vast. The Macharian Crusade carved a giant new chunk of the galaxy and only took seven years. That's old school fluff too, not something recent. The Imperium can still bring a tremendous amount of power to bear when it has the chance to. There's a reason why there have been 12 failed black Crusades. Why Chaos could, at best, run the Siege of Vraks to a pyrrrhic victory for the Imperials, and it took the distraction of the outbreak of the 13th Black Crusade to turn the tide against the Imperial Forces who were winning early on.

This is an interstellar empire with huge logistical backing. Its enemies are numerous and tenacious, but it's still the biggest dog in the fight by a vast margin.

**jhe90**

Veteran Sergeant wrote:
ashcroft wrote:
The Imperium should not be in a position to wipe out any interstellar power. Not now. Not the crumbling remnants of humanity teetering on the edge of oblivion in the fading light of their dying God-Emperor.

That's a misinterpretation common among fans.

The Imperium is dying, but it's dying like an elephant being slowly worn down by jackals. Sure, eventually it might collapse, but at any given time it can still stomp one of them flat.

I think people really don't pick this up out of the fluff. But Chaos has to run and hide in the Eye of Terror and the Malestrom all the time (for ten thousand consecutive years). And why is this? Because while the foes of the Imperium (aside from perhaps the Tyranids) can be very dangerous when their power is focused, the Imperium is vast. The Macharian Crusade carved a giant new chunk of the galaxy and only took seven years. That's old school fluff too, not something recent. The Imperium can still bring a tremendous amount of power to bear when it has the chance to. There's a reason why there have been 12 failed black Crusades. Why Chaos could, at best, run the Siege of Vraks to a pyrrrhic victory for the Imperials, and it took the distraction of the outbreak of the 13th Black Crusade to turn the tide against the Imperial Forces who were winning early on.

This is an interstellar empire with huge logistical backing. Its enemies are numerous and tenacious, but it's still the biggest dog in the fight by a vast margin.

In a war of attrition and minus distractions they have ships and manpower to grind down pretty much anyone. However not fiten they are not fighting 1000 minor wars and rebellions at anyone time.

**EmpNortonII**

HoskuneAstetic wrote:
My main army is the Tau. I love the look of their units which is why I got them. But their fluff I just find so... offensive. Nothing bad ever happens to them. They are seemingly perfect in every way imaginable. Beat both a massed Tyranid hive fleet and then an Imperial Fleet are no problems at all. Yet in other sources an Imperial fleet like that is a credible threat to a Craftworld and other empires. For the Tau it is a light exercise. While I will continue to play them, I hope in later editions they are either greatly reduced in numbers and victories or out right gone by the Tyranids. That would please me immensely.

You spent hundreds or thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on an army you hate?

Re-reading the OP, I am calling BS on the OP. I don't think he plays Tau, I think he got whupped by Tau.

**Tyran**

Veteran Sergeant wrote:

I think people really don't pick this up out of the fluff. But Chaos has to run and hide in the Eye of Terror and the Malestrom all the time (for ten thousand consecutive years). And why is this? Because while the foes of the Imperium (aside from perhaps the Tyranids) can be very dangerous when their power is focused, the Imperium is vast.

I believe that the only forces that have managed to stomp through the Imperium while being practically unopposed are the Necrons and Hive Fleet Leviathan.