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 Co'tor Shas wrote:
The fire caste is the second biggest caste, behind earth. Considering the tau control multiple systems, and multiple worlds per system, It would not be a stretch to say that there are billions of fire caste.

That statistic is meaningless by itself. What's that percentage of the whole?

I mean, almost everybody on this forum would be Earth Caste in the Tau empire. The Earth Caste represents the entirety of its civil-sector operations, from agriculture to industry and is referred to as "by far the most numerous". The number of active duty or veteran military here like myself is a tiny percentage of the population, even if we'd be a higher percentage than the pilots and diplomats. Though I'm not aware of the source that even puts the Fire Caste as second largest. The idea of 50% of the Tau population being a member of a warrior caste, whether Fire or Air, is fairly ludicrous.

Ah, technically I'd be Water caste, since I'm training to be a linguist.

 1hadhq wrote:

LordBlades wrote:
The Tau do have a big advantage in regard to the % of warriors though. Assuming Fire and Air Caste fight, this could easily mean up to 50% of the Tau adults fight. I'm willing to think on Imperial worlds the percentage is much smaller.

Would it matter if Liechtenstein mobilized 150% for War if they choose to fight against Soviet Russia ?

Soviets'd likely not notice if they were being gang-banged by 'Merica, China, and Germany.

Like, ya know, the Imperium is being boned by Chaos, the Nids, and Necrons.

Plus orks. There're always Orks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
The fire caste is the second biggest caste, behind earth. Considering the tau control multiple systems, and multiple worlds per system, It would not be a stretch to say that there are billions of fire caste.

That statistic is meaningless by itself. What's that percentage of the whole?

I mean, almost everybody on this forum would be Earth Caste in the Tau empire. The Earth Caste represents the entirety of its civil-sector operations, from agriculture to industry and is referred to as "by far the most numerous". The number of active duty or veteran military here like myself is a tiny percentage of the population, even if we'd be a higher percentage than the pilots and diplomats. Though I'm not aware of the source that even puts the Fire Caste as second largest. The idea of 50% of the Tau population being a member of a warrior caste, whether Fire or Air, is fairly ludicrous.

It is, however, at least 25%. Based on US numbers, the IoM likely has less than .25% of its population in the Guard. After all, most troops are in PDF regiments... and the US has less than 1% in its military.

The variety of worlds and societies the Imperium has means that there are a lot of worlds without even modern technology.

The Tau Empire's superior mechanization means they can support a LOT more warriors with their population. As we all know, the average Fire Warrior carries a gun that outclasses the Imperium's elite of the elite of the elite. 99% of Guardsmen go into battle with weapons and armor that barely deserve to be called such.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
America'd likely not notice if they were being gang-banged by 'Merica

I think most would notice if they were 'gang-banged' by themselves.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 1hadhq wrote:

LordBlades wrote:
The Tau do have a big advantage in regard to the % of warriors though. Assuming Fire and Air Caste fight, this could easily mean up to 50% of the Tau adults fight. I'm willing to think on Imperial worlds the percentage is much smaller.

Would it matter if Liechtenstein mobilized 150% for War if they choose to fight against Soviet Russia ?

America'd likely not notice if they were being gang-banged by 'Merica, China, and Germany.

Like, ya know, the Imperium is being boned by Chaos, the Nids, and Necrons.

Plus orks. There're always Orks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
The fire caste is the second biggest caste, behind earth. Considering the tau control multiple systems, and multiple worlds per system, It would not be a stretch to say that there are billions of fire caste.

That statistic is meaningless by itself. What's that percentage of the whole?

I mean, almost everybody on this forum would be Earth Caste in the Tau empire. The Earth Caste represents the entirety of its civil-sector operations, from agriculture to industry and is referred to as "by far the most numerous". The number of active duty or veteran military here like myself is a tiny percentage of the population, even if we'd be a higher percentage than the pilots and diplomats. Though I'm not aware of the source that even puts the Fire Caste as second largest. The idea of 50% of the Tau population being a member of a warrior caste, whether Fire or Air, is fairly ludicrous.

It is, however, at least 25%. Based on US numbers, the IoM likely has less than .25% of its population in the Guard. After all, most troops are in PDF regiments... and the US has less than 1% in its military.

The variety of worlds and societies the Imperium has means that there are a lot of worlds without even modern technology.

The Tau Empire's superior mechanization means they can support a LOT more warriors with their population. As we all know, the average Fire Warrior carries a gun that outclasses the Imperium's elite of the elite of the elite. 99% of Guardsmen go into battle with weapons and armor that barely deserve to be called such.

Not neccessarily. The Earth Caste could easily make up 80% or more of Tau population (as they would do pretty much everything that does not involve fighting, flying or diplomacy)
Comparing the Imperium to the US does not make a lot of sense, as they are not at all similar. The Imperium has worlds like Cadia and Krieg where the whole population is in the military or worlds like Vostroya where every first-born son is in the military. Overall, the Imperium is vastly more militaristic than any modern nation. Of course, most Imperial soldiers would serve in the PDF, but this would also be true for the Tau, as they have to garrison their worlds as well. Besides that, we know that every Imperial world has to supply a regular tithe of soldiers for the Imperial Guard which would imply that at least 10% of any world's population serves in the Imperial Guard. The technology level of a world does not matter because the Munitorum supplies them with flak armour and lasguns anyway.

On the note of the computer virus, remember that the Mechanicus still has access to the Contagium Mechanica.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:
America'd likely not notice if they were being gang-banged by 'Merica

I think most would notice if they were 'gang-banged' by themselves.

Typo. I meant the soviets, in reference to the post I quoted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Not neccessarily. The Earth Caste could easily make up 80% or more of Tau population (as they would do pretty much everything that does not involve fighting, flying or diplomacy)
Comparing the Imperium to the US does not make a lot of sense, as they are not at all similar. The Imperium has worlds like Cadia and Krieg where the whole population is in the military or worlds like Vostroya where every first-born son is in the military. Overall, the Imperium is vastly more militaristic than any modern nation. Of course, most Imperial soldiers would serve in the PDF, but this would also be true for the Tau, as they have to garrison their worlds as well. Besides that, we know that every Imperial world has to supply a regular tithe of soldiers for the Imperial Guard which would imply that at least 10% of any world's population serves in the Imperial Guard. The technology level of a world does not matter because the Munitorum supplies them with flak armour and lasguns anyway.

The Earth Caste mostly direct and repair drones that do the "everything" for them. Tau society is far more automated than Imperial society.

While the Imperium has worlds liken Cadia and Krieg, for each of these, the Imperium needs dozens of worlds to provide arms, ammunition, food, raw materials, vehicle parts, ships, etc.Especially considering that the IoM has many areas of technology where it falls behind even modern America, it is unlikely that as much as 1% of the Imperium serves in the Guard, let alone 10%.

BrianDavion wrote:
in fairness on a realistic scale 10 million soldiers would be an accounting error for something the size of the IoM

"Oh, I seem to have misplaced a zero, and sent 10 million guardsmen to the eastern fringe."

"Eh."

This thread has sparked my curiosity to look for and read the sources. Having gone through Warzone Damocles, most of the Damocles Anthology and yet to drop by the FLGS to take a look at the AM codex, I don't really feel the Tau have failed nearly as badly as the OP of this thread seems to imply.

Agrellan was only a failure in keeping wuth Aun'Va's timetable. They did take the planet, with a few added bonuses on top:
- Implanting Skilltalker as a source of false intel
- Crippling the combat strength of an Astartes company. Even if it's not paid any heed in the book, the White Scars 3rd company has taken horrendous losses. At least 20-30 marines dead as described in the novellas, plus an added number of casualties not specified in the Thunderhawk crashes and fighting retreat to Agrellan Prime. I find it highly doubtful there are more than half of the White Scars still alive (assuming Codex Astartes 100 man standard). In addition they have lost all their air power (2 Thunderhawks and most/all Stormtalons) and a singificant number of vehicles (1 Whirlwind, 1 Razorback several Rhinos and quite a lot of Bikes).

Voltoris was poorly written IMO.

According to Warzone Damocles, the Third Sphere expansion has the biggest Fire Caste Army ever assembled, 'backed-up by millions of alien auxiliaries'. This leads me to believe Fire Warriors are also in the millions most likely(or at the very least hundreds of thousands).
Shadiwsun takes half of the Agrellan expedition to Voltoris.
After Voltoris Aun'Va (in the first novella of the Damocles Anthology) explains Shadowsun that the battle was a disaster and gives an exact number of Tau casualties. Around 8-900.

As I find it unlikely there were only 2-3000 Fire Warriors on Agrellan to feel the loss of 900 so keenly, it's difficult to reconcile the above. The best I can come up with:
The disaster Aun'Va talks about is more ideological than military. The Fire Caste loses heart when they learn their supreme commander was so throughly beaten.
Shadowsun took half of the fleet to Voltoris (fact given weigth by Warzone Damocles stating Shadowsun's fleet ournumbers the Imperium's, which is stated in a sidebar as having 1 Battle Barge and 5 Battleships) but either a small number of ground forces or se just decided to land a small number of her ground troops (enough to deal with what she saw).

LordBlades wrote:
This thread has sparked my curiosity to look for and read the sources. Having gone through Warzone Damocles, most of the Damocles Anthology and yet to drop by the FLGS to take a look at the AM codex, I don't really feel the Tau have failed nearly as badly as the OP of this thread seems to imply.

Agrellan was only a failure in keeping wuth Aun'Va's timetable. They did take the planet, with a few added bonuses on top:
- Implanting Skilltalker as a source of false intel
- Crippling the combat strength of an Astartes company. Even if it's not paid any heed in the book, the White Scars 3rd company has taken horrendous losses. At least 20-30 marines dead as described in the novellas, plus an added number of casualties not specified in the Thunderhawk crashes and fighting retreat to Agrellan Prime. I find it highly doubtful there are more than half of the White Scars still alive (assuming Codex Astartes 100 man standard). In addition they have lost all their air power (2 Thunderhawks and most/all Stormtalons) and a singificant number of vehicles (1 Whirlwind, 1 Razorback several Rhinos and quite a lot of Bikes).

Voltoris was poorly written IMO.

According to Warzone Damocles, the Third Sphere expansion has the biggest Fire Caste Army ever assembled, 'backed-up by millions of alien auxiliaries'. This leads me to believe Fire Warriors are also in the millions most likely(or at the very least hundreds of thousands).
Shadiwsun takes half of the Agrellan expedition to Voltoris.
After Voltoris Aun'Va (in the first novella of the Damocles Anthology) explains Shadowsun that the battle was a disaster and gives an exact number of Tau casualties. Around 8-900.

As I find it unlikely there were only 2-3000 Fire Warriors on Agrellan to feel the loss of 900 so keenly, it's difficult to reconcile the above. The best I can come up with:
The disaster Aun'Va talks about is more ideological than military. The Fire Caste loses heart when they learn their supreme commander was so throughly beaten.
Shadowsun took half of the fleet to Voltoris (fact given weigth by Warzone Damocles stating Shadowsun's fleet ournumbers the Imperium's, which is stated in a sidebar as having 1 Battle Barge and 5 Battleships) but either a small number of ground forces or se just decided to land a small number of her ground troops (enough to deal with what she saw).

One thing to remember is that a disaster by Tau standards is a resounding success by Imperial ones.

Every Tau life is important to the Greater Good. Every death is a tragedy, no matter how necessary.

In contrast, if 100 trillion human lives died defending a barren world whose only feature was an Imperial shrine that was 10 feet by 10 feet, the only tragedy would be accidental damage to the shrine.

Human life, to the Imperium, is literally worthless.

*Excepting the opinions of a vast minority of Space Marine chapters.

Ok, not sure if it's been posted already but!

I picked up the Farsight Enclave supplement and on the timeline page, 36-37, the final entry dated 998.M41 is headed as "The Revelation of the Kauyon" stating that Farsight has realised the greater scheme for the Damocles Gulf being one giant application of the Kauyon. Feigning retreat into the empire only to over extend and smash the Imperium.

Take that information as you will, and for those that don't know Kauyon means patient hunter and it revolves around baiting the enemy towards a trap.

I got to take a look at the AM codex this afternoon, and on a closer look the mighty imperial army heading toward the Damocles Gulf might not be as mighty, at least in the elite troops department.

It does indeed contain 1000 regiments of 'Cadian, Catachan, Elysian, Tallarn and Cthonol Guardsmen' and in that is a mighty force.

However it only contains 'several full Battle Companies of Dark Hunters and Exsanguinators Space Marines' which are most likely less marines than took part in the first Damocles Gulf Crusade (which included forces from 8 different chapters) and a single titan legion nobody has heard about until now (Legio Absolutium).

 ScootaRM wrote:
Ok, not sure if it's been posted already but!

I picked up the Farsight Enclave supplement and on the timeline page, 36-37, the final entry dated 998.M41 is headed as "The Revelation of the Kauyon" stating that Farsight has realised the greater scheme for the Damocles Gulf being one giant application of the Kauyon. Feigning retreat into the empire only to over extend and smash the Imperium.

Take that information as you will, and for those that don't know Kauyon means patient hunter and it revolves around baiting the enemy towards a trap.

that could work out eaither way for the Tau it's not a bad stragety, trading land for time and to over stretch your enemy (WW2 Russia comes to mind) it could however back fire, spectacularly, on the Tau. The Tau apparently don't fully understand the sheer size and scope of the IoM (you'd think their human allies would have explained it, but It's possiable it's so much bigger then their empire they simply can't conceive of something the size of the IoM actually existing) so it's possiable the Tau will pull back and attempt to feint out the IoM only to realize they've given the steamroller too much inertia to stop.

BrianDavion wrote:

 ScootaRM wrote:
Ok, not sure if it's been posted already but!

I picked up the Farsight Enclave supplement and on the timeline page, 36-37, the final entry dated 998.M41 is headed as "The Revelation of the Kauyon" stating that Farsight has realised the greater scheme for the Damocles Gulf being one giant application of the Kauyon. Feigning retreat into the empire only to over extend and smash the Imperium.

Take that information as you will, and for those that don't know Kauyon means patient hunter and it revolves around baiting the enemy towards a trap.

that could work out eaither way for the Tau it's not a bad stragety, trading land for time and to over stretch your enemy (WW2 Russia comes to mind) it could however back fire, spectacularly, on the Tau. The Tau apparently don't fully understand the sheer size and scope of the IoM (you'd think their human allies would have explained it, but It's possiable it's so much bigger then their empire they simply can't conceive of something the size of the IoM actually existing) so it's possiable the Tau will pull back and attempt to feint out the IoM only to realize they've given the steamroller too much inertia to stop.

It is also quite possible that even their human allies are not aware of the true size of the Imperium. How much does the average human citizen or soldier know about the galaxy beyond his own homeworld?
Trading land for time would be a very bad strategy for the Tau, as they would run out of land long before the Imperium runs out of soldiers and supplies. The Tau also have the added problem of being assaulted on two fronts, by the Tyranids also (and add to that the occasional Ork invasion and the Dark Eldar showing up wherever they want) I think the Tau would sooner overstretch themselves than the Imperium.

LordBlades wrote:
I got to take a look at the AM codex this afternoon, and on a closer look the mighty imperial army heading toward the Damocles Gulf might not be as mighty, at least in the elite troops department.

It does indeed contain 1000 regiments of 'Cadian, Catachan, Elysian, Tallarn and Cthonol Guardsmen' and in that is a mighty force.

However it only contains 'several full Battle Companies of Dark Hunters and Exsanguinators Space Marines' which are most likely less marines than took part in the first Damocles Gulf Crusade (which included forces from 8 different chapters) and a single titan legion nobody has heard about until now (Legio Absolutium).

Did it specify how much Plot armor did the Space Marines bring with them?
Plus the Exsanguinators are Space Vampires according to recent artwork.

 Khonsu wrote:

LordBlades wrote:
I got to take a look at the AM codex this afternoon, and on a closer look the mighty imperial army heading toward the Damocles Gulf might not be as mighty, at least in the elite troops department.

It does indeed contain 1000 regiments of 'Cadian, Catachan, Elysian, Tallarn and Cthonol Guardsmen' and in that is a mighty force.

However it only contains 'several full Battle Companies of Dark Hunters and Exsanguinators Space Marines' which are most likely less marines than took part in the first Damocles Gulf Crusade (which included forces from 8 different chapters) and a single titan legion nobody has heard about until now (Legio Absolutium).

Did it specify how much Plot armor did the Space Marines bring with them?
Plus the Exsanguinators are Space Vampires according to recent artwork.

It's the Tau that get plot armor on this one.

The 13th Black Crusade forces those regiments to be rerouted to the Eye of Terror.

Come on, guyz. It's stories about tau. No-name legions that noone has heard about and guardsmen who are there to die in droves. Tau will once again 'invent' something and the enemy will appear to be composed of morons with plant IQ.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Khonsu wrote:

LordBlades wrote:
I got to take a look at the AM codex this afternoon, and on a closer look the mighty imperial army heading toward the Damocles Gulf might not be as mighty, at least in the elite troops department.

It does indeed contain 1000 regiments of 'Cadian, Catachan, Elysian, Tallarn and Cthonol Guardsmen' and in that is a mighty force.

However it only contains 'several full Battle Companies of Dark Hunters and Exsanguinators Space Marines' which are most likely less marines than took part in the first Damocles Gulf Crusade (which included forces from 8 different chapters) and a single titan legion nobody has heard about until now (Legio Absolutium).

Did it specify how much Plot armor did the Space Marines bring with them?
Plus the Exsanguinators are Space Vampires according to recent artwork.

It's the Tau that get plot armor on this one.

The 13th Black Crusade forces those regiments to be rerouted to the Eye of Terror.

except they apper to have been dispatched at the same time. it's hard to tell what'll happen.

The trouble that Tau has is that the Tyranids think the are tasty.

The Tau Empire wasnt in the advance line of the nids before, but around the time of the Damocles campaign that was starting to change.

Assuming we are now talking about a second Damocles war, as the first was covered in old fluff, it will be about this time that Shadowsun has early successes against the nids.

The trouble is nids have numbers, even by ork and human standards, but they also concentrate those numbers heavily.

The Tau have limited resources and a battl;e of attrition with the nids is a battle against extinction. Tau will win that locally, but it will absorb a lot of their focus, wheras the Imperium, while horribly pressed by the nids is not pressed in the immediate sectors, as the Tau are in the way of the hive fleets.

Fighting the nids and the Imperium at the same time in major confrontations is likely to be too much for the Tau empire. Territory will be lost.

It doesn't help that some of the local Waarghs are getting hardened to fighting Tau, gaining better Dakka and in some cases copying Kauyon.

BrianDavion wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Khonsu wrote:

LordBlades wrote:
I got to take a look at the AM codex this afternoon, and on a closer look the mighty imperial army heading toward the Damocles Gulf might not be as mighty, at least in the elite troops department.

It does indeed contain 1000 regiments of 'Cadian, Catachan, Elysian, Tallarn and Cthonol Guardsmen' and in that is a mighty force.

However it only contains 'several full Battle Companies of Dark Hunters and Exsanguinators Space Marines' which are most likely less marines than took part in the first Damocles Gulf Crusade (which included forces from 8 different chapters) and a single titan legion nobody has heard about until now (Legio Absolutium).

Did it specify how much Plot armor did the Space Marines bring with them?
Plus the Exsanguinators are Space Vampires according to recent artwork.

It's the Tau that get plot armor on this one.

The 13th Black Crusade forces those regiments to be rerouted to the Eye of Terror.

except they apper to have been dispatched at the same time. it's hard to tell what'll happen.

IIRC, the timeline entry in the AM codex is just before the initial phase of 13th black crusade, when all was still sunshine and rainbows on Cadia, so they might get rerouted.

Even if they don't, assuming one guard regiment is about 10.000 men strong, my money is on the Tau.

If the guard only ournumbers Tau 3-4 to 1 they will get slaughtered.

LordBlades wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Khonsu wrote:

LordBlades wrote:
I got to take a look at the AM codex this afternoon, and on a closer look the mighty imperial army heading toward the Damocles Gulf might not be as mighty, at least in the elite troops department.

It does indeed contain 1000 regiments of 'Cadian, Catachan, Elysian, Tallarn and Cthonol Guardsmen' and in that is a mighty force.

However it only contains 'several full Battle Companies of Dark Hunters and Exsanguinators Space Marines' which are most likely less marines than took part in the first Damocles Gulf Crusade (which included forces from 8 different chapters) and a single titan legion nobody has heard about until now (Legio Absolutium).

Did it specify how much Plot armor did the Space Marines bring with them?
Plus the Exsanguinators are Space Vampires according to recent artwork.

It's the Tau that get plot armor on this one.

The 13th Black Crusade forces those regiments to be rerouted to the Eye of Terror.

except they apper to have been dispatched at the same time. it's hard to tell what'll happen.

IIRC, the timeline entry in the AM codex is just before the initial phase of 13th black crusade, when all was still sunshine and rainbows on Cadia, so they might get rerouted.

Even if they don't, assuming one guard regiment is about 10.000 men strong, my money is on the Tau.

If the guard only ournumbers Tau 3-4 to 1 they will get slaughtered.

They are in the same timeframe. The deployment to Agrellax (757.999.M41) occurs just a few year fractions before the first events of the 13th Black Crusade (795.999.M41)
I do not think they will be redeployed, as they are on the other side of the galaxy. The 13th Black Crusade would be pretty much over when they finally arrive.
My money is on the Tau as well. It does not matter how strong the Imperial forces are, the Tau have plot armour. Ridiculous amounts of plot armour. GW is not going to kill one of its main factions. At best for the Imperium, they will succeed in retaking Agrellax before fighting to a stalemate.

This is 40k, everything has plot armor when necessary, except for Chaos. Chaos almost always gets cast in the incompetent cartoon villain role.

LordBlades wrote:
This is 40k, everything has plot armor when necessary, except for Chaos. Chaos almost always gets cast in the incompetent cartoon villain role.

That is true for all fiction. The heroes get plot armour, the villains always lose in the end.
Except in WHFB. There Chaos won and consumed all. (And Chaos Gods being who they are, couldn't care less about it)

It's the Tau that get plot armor on this one.

Really? Go for plot armor , instead of well thought fluff??

The 13th Black Crusade forces those regiments to be rerouted to the Eye of Terror.

Forces in transit are never rerouted. The largest military force in this Galaxy ( codex IG ) and its billions of Regiments ( codex IG ) won't have to hop back and forth, they just send someone else to deal with the silly 1st captain of the sons of horus.
( The Rock on its intercept course is maybe already too much for him ).

LordBlades wrote:Even if they don't, assuming one guard regiment is about 10.000 men strong, my money is on the Tau.

If the guard only outnumbers Tau 3-4 to 1 they will get slaughtered.

You don't like your money?

Iron_Captain wrote:

My money is on the Tau as well. It does not matter how strong the Imperial forces are, the Tau have plot armour. Ridiculous amounts of plot armour.

Another one who likes to part with his monies....

Plot armor is switched on and off by the author.

LordBlades wrote:This is 40k, everything has plot armor when necessary, except for Chaos. Chaos almost always gets cast in the incompetent cartoon villain role.

The Imperial Guard doesn't use this plot armor. They are ok with their flak armor.

I wouldn't bet on plot armor.
We don't have a IG supplement. ( and the IG could have more than one without being silly ). We don't have a Tau release rumor. ( but maybe Space marines in summer ). So who is going to stand there with his pants down??


Agrellan is a world, where the curtain to the warp is pretty thin and demonic incursions would be easier without the Imperials who know how to keep em out.
Possible outcome: Agrellan is most likely lost to chaos and the IoM and the Tau are not having the prize they desired....
Additionally, the Tau are cut off if they lose Agrellan and the Humans lose a warp route.
To run away could also go wrong for the Tau Empire. Shadowsun isn't without trouble. May join Farsight...

 1hadhq wrote:

LordBlades wrote:Even if they don't, assuming one guard regiment is about 10.000 men strong, my money is on the Tau.

If the guard only outnumbers Tau 3-4 to 1 they will get slaughtered.

You don't like your money?

Taking a look at the fire warrior vs. imperial guardsman, according to both Tabletop Stats as well as FFGs Rogue Trader (the only system AFAIK that includes both humans as well as Tau and Kroot as playable races).

The average Guardsman has a Lasgun (S3 AP- in Tabletop, 1d10+3, Pen 0, S/2/- in Rogue Trader) and Flak armor (5+ in tabletop, 3 armor in Rogue Trader), while the Fire Warrior has a Pulse Rilfe (S5 AP5 in tabletop, 2d10+3 pen 4, S/3/5 in Rogue Trader) and Fire Warrior Armor (4+ on the Tabletop, 6 armor in Rogue Trader, roughly equivalent to Carapace in both systems).

A guardsman firing at a fire warrior will find it's armor quite effective at blocking lasgun shots (blocking it half of the time in tabletop, and reducing it from 8.5 average to 2.5 average damage in Rogue Trader) and that it takes 4-5 shots to take down a Fire Warrior.

Meanwhile, a Fire Warrior shooting a guardsman will fid the target's armor is little more than tissue paper (ignored in both systems) and that if a shot connects, the guardsman is usually dead (wounds on 2+ in Tabletop, and needs a singificantly below average 2d10 result not to kill in Rogue Trader as well). Additionally, a Pulse Rifle has more range (in both systems) and more accuracy in Rogue Trader (gyro-stabilized and Full auto fire option).

Add to that the fact that Tau heavy weapons (mounted on battlesuits) are way more resilient and mobile than Guard heavy weapons team, that Tau Hunter Cadres are combined arms units while Guard relies on dedicated regiments of Infantry, tanks, artillery etc. and that the Tau seem (to me at least) to have a lot more mechanized means compared to the number of troops than Guard I think it's fair to assess that the Tau fire caste can handle many time their numbers in Imperial Guardsmen.

Kroot are also better than their Guard counterparts in their intended role (ambushers and melee troops). Regarding melee, the kroot rifles tear through guardsmen in tabletop (AP 5) and according to Rogue Trader the kroot are almost as physically strong as marines (same Unnatural Strength x2 but lesser base Strength). Their Armor, even if it's objectively worse than guard Flak, protects them more against blades and bayonettes that Flak does against kroot rifles. As ambushers they're also better. In tabletop they actually get Stealth (forests), and according to Rogue Trader they actually have some kindreds (the Stalker kindred) that can even hide more or less in plain sight.

There's also very little to indicate that the other alien mercenaries (Tarellians, Gue'vesa etc.) are in any way significantly less capable than guardsmen.

Based on that, I feel that 4-5 million of Tau+allies vs. 10-12 million guardsmen isn't a situation Guard is likely to win.

 1hadhq wrote:
We don't have a IG supplement. ( and the IG could have more than one without being silly ). We don't have a Tau release rumor. ( but maybe Space marines in summer ). So who is going to stand there with his pants down??

Actually. AFAIK the full release rumors for autumn include:
SM codex
Tau vs. SM (likely Raven Guard) box set
Tau codex

So IMO it's very likely the SM codex will depict IoM winning, then the box set will elaborate on the story Shield of Baal style, then the Tau codex will have the Tau turning the tide in the end.

you're forgetting tau vs IG won't be a fair fight, yeah man for man the tau are better then the IG. unfortunatly for the Tau the IG has ten men for every 1 they have. also there are the other formations of the imperial military, space marines, titans skitarii.. sisters of battle etc.

BrianDavion wrote:
you're forgetting tau vs IG won't be a fair fight, yeah man for man the tau are better then the IG. unfortunatly for the Tau the IG has ten men for every 1 they have. also there are the other formations of the imperial military, space marines, titans skitarii.. sisters of battle etc.

I was referring just to the force that the AM Codex states to be on the way to the Damocles area: 1000 guard regiments, several SM companies (but likely less than took part in the first Damocles Gulf Crusade) and a single titan legion. If the 1000 guard regiments don't total significantly more than 10-12 million guardsmen, then I believe this force is insufficient to beat back the Tau.

Isn't the 1000 Imperial Guard regiment and Space Marines company reinforcement? There is already a lot of human forces fighting the Tau in the region. The battles were already fierce. The Imperium is just sending reinforcement to drown the tau in numbers and force them to retreat and crumble under the weigth of the ennemy. It's the end game for the Tau Empire. Can they defeat an imperial army of that size while being attacked by Tyranids or will it be their end?

epronovost wrote:
Isn't the 1000 Imperial Guard regiment and Space Marines company reinforcement? There is already a lot of human forces fighting the Tau in the region. The battles were already fierce. The Imperium is just sending reinforcement to drown the tau in numbers and force them to retreat and crumble under the weigth of the ennemy. It's the end game for the Tau Empire. Can they defeat an imperial army of that size while being attacked by Tyranids or will it be their end?

It's debatable that there's that many human forces in the Damocles area atm beyond PDF and planetary garrisons.

The army that pushed back the Tau in the Zeist campaign has been apparently reassigned according to http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Zeist_Campaign and there's nothing that I know of to indicate the IoM didn't throw all they had at Agrellan, place out of which not much came out (only a handful of Guard regiments, less than half of the knights and the two SM companies, the White Scars badly mauled in the process).

 EmpNortonII wrote:

LordBlades wrote:
This thread has sparked my curiosity to look for and read the sources. Having gone through Warzone Damocles, most of the Damocles Anthology and yet to drop by the FLGS to take a look at the AM codex, I don't really feel the Tau have failed nearly as badly as the OP of this thread seems to imply.

Agrellan was only a failure in keeping wuth Aun'Va's timetable. They did take the planet, with a few added bonuses on top:
- Implanting Skilltalker as a source of false intel
- Crippling the combat strength of an Astartes company. Even if it's not paid any heed in the book, the White Scars 3rd company has taken horrendous losses. At least 20-30 marines dead as described in the novellas, plus an added number of casualties not specified in the Thunderhawk crashes and fighting retreat to Agrellan Prime. I find it highly doubtful there are more than half of the White Scars still alive (assuming Codex Astartes 100 man standard). In addition they have lost all their air power (2 Thunderhawks and most/all Stormtalons) and a singificant number of vehicles (1 Whirlwind, 1 Razorback several Rhinos and quite a lot of Bikes).

Voltoris was poorly written IMO.

According to Warzone Damocles, the Third Sphere expansion has the biggest Fire Caste Army ever assembled, 'backed-up by millions of alien auxiliaries'. This leads me to believe Fire Warriors are also in the millions most likely(or at the very least hundreds of thousands).
Shadiwsun takes half of the Agrellan expedition to Voltoris.
After Voltoris Aun'Va (in the first novella of the Damocles Anthology) explains Shadowsun that the battle was a disaster and gives an exact number of Tau casualties. Around 8-900.

As I find it unlikely there were only 2-3000 Fire Warriors on Agrellan to feel the loss of 900 so keenly, it's difficult to reconcile the above. The best I can come up with:
The disaster Aun'Va talks about is more ideological than military. The Fire Caste loses heart when they learn their supreme commander was so throughly beaten.
Shadowsun took half of the fleet to Voltoris (fact given weigth by Warzone Damocles stating Shadowsun's fleet ournumbers the Imperium's, which is stated in a sidebar as having 1 Battle Barge and 5 Battleships) but either a small number of ground forces or se just decided to land a small number of her ground troops (enough to deal with what she saw).

One thing to remember is that a disaster by Tau standards is a resounding success by Imperial ones.

Every Tau life is important to the Greater Good. Every death is a tragedy, no matter how necessary.

In contrast, if 100 trillion human lives died defending a barren world whose only feature was an Imperial shrine that was 10 feet by 10 feet, the only tragedy would be accidental damage to the shrine.

Human life, to the Imperium, is literally worthless.

*Excepting the opinions of a vast minority of Space Marine chapters.

That is absolutely not true. The person in Segmentum Command who ordered such a defense would be shot for a gross waste of resources. Remember, to the Imperium life is the Emperor's currency and wasting it needlessly is something they will not typically do. Commander Chenkov is a notable exception.