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There's little info on this, what sort of ties are there between Abaddon and Aun' Va?

They're vaguely aware that the other may or may not exist.

 Melissia wrote:
They're vaguely aware that the other may or may not exist.

Probably not even that. The Eye is a long way from the eastern fringe.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
They're vaguely aware that the other may or may not exist.

Probably not even that. The Eye is a long way from the eastern fringe.

but in the latest Chaos dex there is a painting of some Possessed Marines tearing through some Fire Warriors

Chaos is everywhere. Renegade marines are widespread relatively. They would interact with the Tau, but in the way that they interact with everyone else. Corrupt, conquer or crush.

 curran12 wrote:
Chaos is everywhere. Renegade marines are widespread relatively. They would interact with the Tau, but in the way that they interact with everyone else. Corrupt, conquer or crush.

i think only the Orks are silly enough to use a one size fits all approach. other factions would consider the political ramifications of a conflict. except the Nids of course.

So you're saying that Chaos would try politics?

Really not likely. Their motivations are not make alliances. Khorne followers care only for violence. Nurgle care for spreading diesease. Slaanesh followers care for themselves and excess. Tzeentchian followers I might see corrupting or deceiving others, but not in any kind of means to build an alliance.

On top of that, the Tau's style of diplomacy is simply conquest without war. Chaos is not going to let itself be assimilated.

 curran12 wrote:
So you're saying that Chaos would try politics?

Really not likely. Their motivations are not make alliances. Khorne followers care only for violence. Nurgle care for spreading diesease. Slaanesh followers care for themselves and excess. Tzeentchian followers I might see corrupting or deceiving others, but not in any kind of means to build an alliance.

a chaos warband might tread carefully lest they bring the wrath of a superior tau force upon them. they definitely understand the tau less than their fellow human Imperial enemies

anyway, any chaos tau conflict in the fluff?

As the tau don't have a presence in the warp, they don't really comprehend the danger of chaos. They're more focused on expanding, and like it's been said, the Eye is a long ways away from them. Not too sure how much chaos knows of the tau, probably as much as the tau know of them

Maximus Bitch wrote:
There's little info on this, what sort of ties are there between Abaddon and Aun' Va?

It's unlikely Abaddon is aware of the Tau. They are an incredibly minor faction that is stuck in a very small area of the galaxy. Other relatively weak factions (such as the Eldar or even the Hrud) still have the capacity to move (and fight in locations) around the galaxy. The Tau do not.

Well, to echo SomeRandomEvilGuy's post, if Abaddon and Aun'va are meeting, something has gone horribly wrong.
Either Abaddon has abandoned his post assaulting Cadia/Cadian Gate, or Aun'Va has ended up on entirely the wrong side of the galaxy.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Well, to echo SomeRandomEvilGuy's post, if Abaddon and Aun'va are meeting, something has gone horribly wrong.
Either Abaddon has abandoned his post assaulting Cadia/Cadian Gate, or Aun'Va has ended up on entirely the wrong side of the galaxy.

So that means Chaos-Tau relations are practically zilch? Oh well... :(

I wanna learn more about Eldar-Tau and Chaos-Dark Eldar relations too.

Eldar-Tau are pretty much the same as anything else with the Eldar. Manipulate and direct the Tau into fights or even slaughters in order to serve Eldar ends or lives. Certainly no respect outside of a race that can manipulated.

Chaos-Dark Eldar are somewhat mixed. Anything Slaanesh is most likely out, but there are exceptions (Lucius the Eternal was apparently quite popular on Commoragh). Though as a general rule of thumb it would be on a car by case basis, with warbands or kabals doing one off missions or alliances. But as a whole, probably little in the way of common goals.

In regards to the dark eldar - tau, some dark eldar did something to help the tau, and in response asked for a set number of each caste and ethereal (can't remember the set number, 777?) for 'cultural studies'. The tau sent a certain number of volunteers, but no ethereals. The tau later saw fleshy monstrosities of a familiar blue hue of skin...

Maximus Bitch wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Well, to echo SomeRandomEvilGuy's post, if Abaddon and Aun'va are meeting, something has gone horribly wrong.
Either Abaddon has abandoned his post assaulting Cadia/Cadian Gate, or Aun'Va has ended up on entirely the wrong side of the galaxy.

So that means Chaos-Tau relations are practically zilch?

No, it means Abbadon/Tau relations are zilch.

Chaos is not just Failbaddon and his shat crusades.

 Melissia wrote:
Failbaddon

Nice meme.

Abaddon does perfectly fine. His campaigns have mostly been in the northwestern galaxy, though, so it's understandable that the Tau are not relevant to him. He's got way bigger fish to fry.

Without a presence in the warp, there isn't really a chance of getting the tau to convert to a chaos god, so they would only be used as a victim be it to have more bloodshed (khorne) or to feel pain (Slaneesh). I don't see a chaos god really caring for a sacrifice of something without a soul.

I happen to have a question of my own: would the kroot be used as mercenaries to chaos, and would the kroot be willing to serve something as foul as chaos?

I know there are a few examples in the fluff. I think farsight encountered chaos, and there was a little short story involving a some chaos kroot, but that is old by now.

nomotog wrote:
I know there are a few examples in the fluff. I think farsight encountered chaos, and there was a little short story involving a some chaos kroot, but that is old by now.

are you referring to this? http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/402095.page


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:

Maximus Bitch wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Well, to echo SomeRandomEvilGuy's post, if Abaddon and Aun'va are meeting, something has gone horribly wrong.
Either Abaddon has abandoned his post assaulting Cadia/Cadian Gate, or Aun'Va has ended up on entirely the wrong side of the galaxy.

So that means Chaos-Tau relations are practically zilch?

No, it means Abbadon/Tau relations are zilch.

Chaos is not just Failbaddon and his shat crusades.

so far has GW written anything on it, or is it close to zilch?

In 3rd or 4th edition there was a short story about a tau cadre encountering a slaaneshi warband which they killed and their kroot auxilleries then ate, the kroot soon mutated and turned on the cadre and had to be exterminated. I think it was in the fluff section on the old GW website, probably findable with google-fu


There was mention of renegades appearing out of the perdus rift and kel'shan having fought them at least in space combat (with boarding action)

Although there are encounters, it seems the tau are unaware of who or what the forces of chaos are and see them as just another deranged subsect of mankind. Also knowledge of daemons is kept hush hush as we know from the farsight book

As for the opinion of chaos, they probably just see them as another minor alien race to be killed as ans when required.

The eldar opinon on the tau seems to be murky, i think it comes down to the craftworld, biel tan i would imagine would exterminate them on sight for forging an empire on what is rightfully theirs, while there is a quote from i believe eldrad saying that although the tau are "mere fledglings" they could represent hope for the galaxy (3rd ed tau book) obviously fluff changes so this could be retconned.

Maximus Bitch wrote:

nomotog wrote:
I know there are a few examples in the fluff. I think farsight encountered chaos, and there was a little short story involving a some chaos kroot, but that is old by now.

are you referring to this? http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/402095.page

I was referring to the story bobug mentions.

Can Chaos corrupt Tau from what I understand Tau don't have souls

 chazz huggins wrote:
Can Chaos corrupt Tau from what I understand Tau don't have souls

Do fish that you eat have souls?

Tau are fish.

I remember reading in the background that chaos and orks are the two races with whom Tau will not try a diplomatic solution with first. They would have to have had enough contact with warbands and sects in order to recognise chaos and make exceptions to their plans.

Tau have souls. They're just really really REALLY puny. The fluff explicitly equated them to "cookie crumbs" for a daemon.

Now, you probably wouldn't waste time scooping up cookie crumbs from the floor even if you were hungry. Chaos is the same way.

The one time a Tau DID have a decent warp signature, Chaos did take notice (the book, Fire Warrior, where it's revealed Khorne was the one spurring the protagonist onwards). But in the end they probably just gave up on it.

As for knowledge of Chaos from the Tau's perspective, Ethereals are aware but keeping it a secret. Farsight is aware of that and not happy about it. Most Tau just see them as very strange aliens (one fluff story I heard of was that they thought Slaanesh was a warband leader cause a Slaaneshi warband kept chanting his name). They studied warpstorms in the Medusa V Campaign but in the end just concluded that there was no benefit and further study was pointless.

Chaos is everywhere so the Tau run into it from time to time, but they're so far from the eye of Terror that it's easy enough for the Ethereals to cover up the few encounters as wierd aliens, especially since a daemon probably isn't going to be bursting out of a Tau psyker's head any time soon.

chazz huggins wrote:Can Chaos corrupt Tau from what I understand Tau don't have souls

Tau have souls, and they can be corrupted, but due to their extremely small presence in the warp it's very unlikely.

In the end, Tau-Chaos encounters are extremely rare due to the location of Tau Empire in relation to major Chaos/Renegade hotspots. That's why encounters limit to random raiding parties, instead of all-out assaults on Sept worlds.

I'm sure the Tau and Chaos have encountered each other and Chaos probably reacts as it always does; violently destroying everything in it's path.

The Tau have begun the see the Orks in such a way that any contact or attempts of assimilation are futile as they are a ruthless, somewhat mindless foe. I'm fairly certain that the Tau would see Chaos in the same light.

Maximus Bitch wrote:

 curran12 wrote:
So you're saying that Chaos would try politics?

Really not likely. Their motivations are not make alliances. Khorne followers care only for violence. Nurgle care for spreading diesease. Slaanesh followers care for themselves and excess. Tzeentchian followers I might see corrupting or deceiving others, but not in any kind of means to build an alliance.

a chaos warband might tread carefully lest they bring the wrath of a superior tau force upon them. they definitely understand the tau less than their fellow human Imperial enemies

anyway, any chaos tau conflict in the fluff?

Intelligent Chaos Marines would undoubtedly mask their nature to Tau. Act like loyalist marines and raid away on Tau commerce and poorly defended planets. When the Tau wrath comes it will be directed against the IoM, not some small warband.

This doesnt work against Eldar very well, who know the nature of chaos well, know Humanities history(better than humans do) and have seers to get to the bottom of a raid or attack.

For Tau, who do not know the true nature of chaos, do not know humanities history, and probably have trouble figuring out one group of humans from another. It would work.

Red marines attacked us. We cannot find them but we do know where the blue marines live.

 koooaei wrote:

 chazz huggins wrote:
Can Chaos corrupt Tau from what I understand Tau don't have souls

Do fish that you eat have souls?

Tau are fish.

The Tau have souls, they just have very, very weak psychic signatures... they are not, however, Untouchables.

They're also evolved from a plains-dwelling mammal, so I'm not sure where the "they're fish!" comes from. They're basically jumped-up antelopes.

 Psienesis wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

 chazz huggins wrote:
Can Chaos corrupt Tau from what I understand Tau don't have souls

Do fish that you eat have souls?

Tau are fish.

The Tau have souls, they just have very, very weak psychic signatures... they are not, however, Untouchables.

They're also evolved from a plains-dwelling mammal, so I'm not sure where the "they're fish!" comes from. They're basically jumped-up antelopes.

So, tau have very, very weak souls? Weaker than that one of antelopes?