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Say you are an enterprising Guardsman and have the bright idea of capturing a Tau markerlight. Or say that you and a group of your fellow Guardsmen captured some markerlights. In the middle of a heated firefight, could you shine these on Tau positions and get other Tau units to fire on their own men? I would imagine Fire Warriors would be able to notice that their own men are getting painted but what more long ranged/fire and forget weapon systems?

Well its possible but I would figure that Tau would have their units linked to the battlefield command system (whatever the markerlight data is being sent to) so it would probably recognize that its own unit is being tagged and not allow their own weapons to target them without an override or at least a prompt "This target is Tau, does the Greater Good require this sacrifice? -Yes []- -No []- -I need an Ethereal []- "

The Guardsman might end up being shot for heresy for using Xenos technology

Would be pretty funny if they get that to happen. I have a sneaking suspicion that the drones wouldn't have that big of an issue, if there isn't a lock on their programming.

I doubt this is explicitly addressed by the codex itself, but I'd imagine that there are protocols in place that provide the proper method of Marking a target - protocols that even a clever guardsman might not be aware of, or lack the equipment to attempt.

Presumably the same actual mechanics by which the Tau make use of their Markerlight support (the "tokens" in our gaming system) would also limit friendly fire, in that they seem to be based on active (not passive) usage by either the Commander or the Team Leader.

Still, we can presume from the presence and functionality of Homing Beacons that the Tau do not have perfect knowledge of all friendly positions at all times (which makes particular sense, oddly enough, for the main purveyors of Markerlights, Pathfinders - fluff-wise they're often out in the field for days at a time, and i'd imagine communication/data blackouts are the norm until actual battle.

I'd place the likelihood at the corner of the intersection between Unusual Levels of Incompetence and Battlefield Chaos: It probably has occurred and will probably continue to occur, but it is almost certainly a rare occurrence given the Tau's emphasis on information networks (in fluff and in game).

This thread falsely assumes Guardsmen are smart enough to use a Markerlight.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
This thread falsely assumes Guardsmen are smart enough to use a Markerlight.

This thread falsely assumes guardsmen are capable of surviving long enough to capture a markerlight.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
This thread falsely assumes Guardsmen are smart enough to use a Markerlight.

To be fair, guardsmen are likely to have plenty of experience shining harmless red lights at their enemies. They're just not used to theirs calling in the full wrath of tau firepower.

On a more serious note, the Tau of all races are likely to have measures in place to prevent this from happening. Some kind of technology that each warrior carries that identifies them as friendlies to the marker light system.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Say you are an enterprising Guardsman and have the bright idea of capturing a Tau markerlight. Or say that you and a group of your fellow Guardsmen captured some markerlights. In the middle of a heated firefight, could you shine these on Tau positions and get other Tau units to fire on their own men? I would imagine Fire Warriors would be able to notice that their own men are getting painted but what more long ranged/fire and forget weapon systems?

Well, enterprising Guardsmen wouldn't be enough for this stunt. An equally enterprising Techpriest is also necessary to hack the markerlight with a data-specter/vox-virus/equivalent.

However, since data-specters/vox-viruses/equivalents have a notoriously bad temperament, friendly fire won't be the Tau's biggest problem when the Guardsmen activates the infected markerlight: the whole Tau command system would crumble into dust as their comms would turn into static (or worse) and their drones, vehicles and battlesuits would go haywire (or worse). If the Techpriest has some liking for the Dark Omnissiah, then he will probably use a machine-daemon and make the whole Tau cyberspace network suffer a collective daemonic possession when the Guardsmen turn on the captured markerlight.

Again, friendly fire would be the Tau's least concern in all cases.

The new Tidewall rampart has some kind of security built into it to keep it from being used against ti's owners.

A large portion of Tau weapon systems are either Drone AI guided or are assisted by a Drone AI. It's quite likely that there is a fairly sophisticated IFF system built in.

Some Space Marine scouts did this in the Ultramarine Omnibus series. They ate a Tau pilots brain so they could use a Piranha to infiltrate Tau positions, then they also used a Marker Light to turn some of their Seeker Missiles against them.

So at the very least it works with seeker missiles. That kind of makes sense given that they are Fire and Forget weapon systems.


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 EmpNortonII wrote:
This thread falsely assumes Guardsmen are smart enough to use a Markerlight.

Hey, if your average Pulse Rifle monkey can figure it out...

Hey now, Tau are Cow-goat-fish-people. Not monkeys.

The answer to this question depends on what you mean by "use a markerlight against them".

If you're talking about seeker missile guidance, then maybe. The fluff suggests that seeker missiles are integrated into a network where a markerlight operator can call one in without the vehicle carrying the missile having to be involved. So in that case, assuming that the markerlight hijacker could supply any necessary security codes and there's no override preventing missiles from being used too close to friendly targets, they could probably fire a seeker missile at a Tau target.

If you're talking about directing "normal" shooting, then no. Markerlights supply targeting data, but you still have to get the shooter to pull the trigger. A Tau squad is incredibly unlikely to just start shooting as soon as a target indicator pops up on the markerlight network. Instead they're going to be attacking in coordination with the markerlighting unit, and that means communicating back and forth about what the targets are. Without that communication the markerlight data will just be ignored, and an IG operator isn't going to be able to pretend to be a Tau unit.

And of course in either case there's almost certainly some kind of security system on a markerlight to prevent this exact situation. You might be able to hijack one if you killed the user and immediately grabbed their gun while they were still "logged in" on the markerlight network, but if you find one lying around abandoned or steal one off a gun rack you're probably just going to stare uselessly at the "enter password" message and discover that the best way to use a markerlight to kill Tau is to turn it into an improvised club.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Some Space Marine scouts did this in the Ultramarine Omnibus series. They ate a Tau pilots brain so they could use a Piranha to infiltrate Tau positions, then they also used a Marker Light to turn some of their Seeker Missiles against them.

And we're just going to pretend that such awful writing never happened...

 Tarvitz77 wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:
This thread falsely assumes Guardsmen are smart enough to use a Markerlight.

To be fair, guardsmen are likely to have plenty of experience shining harmless red lights at their enemies. They're just not used to theirs calling in the full wrath of tau firepower.

On a more serious note, the Tau of all races are likely to have measures in place to prevent this from happening. Some kind of technology that each warrior carries that identifies them as friendlies to the marker light system.

Well then the real jackpot would be getting a hold of that identification tech and making markerlights useless against you

 Silverthorne wrote:

 Tarvitz77 wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:
This thread falsely assumes Guardsmen are smart enough to use a Markerlight.

To be fair, guardsmen are likely to have plenty of experience shining harmless red lights at their enemies. They're just not used to theirs calling in the full wrath of tau firepower.

On a more serious note, the Tau of all races are likely to have measures in place to prevent this from happening. Some kind of technology that each warrior carries that identifies them as friendlies to the marker light system.

Well then the real jackpot would be getting a hold of that identification tech and making markerlights useless against you

Yeah, that would absolutely screw the tau up in the short term. I'd expect them to realise what was happening and adapt their technology pretty quickly though. Constant advancement and adaptability and all that.

I doubt it would matter much. Any "don't shoot me" system would undoubtedly work like real-world IFF transponders. Having the hardware does next to nothing because you still need the identification code for that particular day/mission/whatever, and the only way to get the code is to be part of the Tau chain of command.

Indeed. Assuming a markerlight is something like a modern day laser designator, the laser itself includes identifying frequencies - to makes sure that missile X goes after laser dot X and missile Y goes after laser dot Y.

Nicking a markerlight the day before and creating laser dot Z won't do anything because nothing's looking for laser dot Z.

That said, in the maelstrom of a close-quarter fight, it's not unreaslistic that if a bunch of guardsmen sneak up on some pathfinders busy calling in missile barrages, shiv them in the back of the head and grabbed their markerlights, they can probably tag 'friendlies' for a minute or so before someone realises they've done it.

Seeker missiles - especially in the background and in the old epic: armageddon list are long range, more or less indirect fire weapons - a beleaguered cadre might call in a big volley of fire from nearby friends to a general area, then tag targets for individual missiles once they actually arrive (which, in non-tabletop board game land might be a couple of minutes later).

Drones, by comparison, have enough 'sense' to fight without markerlight support, even if they're pretty bad at it - therefore you're not going to fool them into friendly fire without also having relevant command codes, which you don't get simply by snatching up a carbine off a pathfinder's corpse.

A gifted techmarine/magos, of course, may well have enough mad haxxor skillz to actually break into the tau's comms net; tau tech is substantially better than 'standard issue' tech that the guard get, but high end stuff (as used by the adeptus mechanicus, assassins, veteran astartes, etc) is often better still.

What if Lasguns are really Markerlights and the guard use them to help the tanks an dother ordinance hit where they want it?

 Grey Templar wrote:
Some Space Marine scouts did this in the Ultramarine Omnibus series. They ate a Tau pilots brain so they could use a Piranha to infiltrate Tau positions, then they also used a Marker Light to turn some of their Seeker Missiles against them.

SM are so gross

 EmpNortonII wrote:
This thread falsely assumes Guardsmen are smart enough to use a Markerlight.

To be fair it's like trading a laser pointer for a different coloured laser pointer right?

locarno24 wrote:

A gifted techmarine/magos, of course, may well have enough mad haxxor skillz to actually break into the tau's comms net; tau tech is substantially better than 'standard issue' tech that the guard get, but high end stuff (as used by the adeptus mechanicus, assassins, veteran astartes, etc) is often better still.

It doesn't take that much effort, only willingness to even touch xenotech. The Mechanicus has some absolutely crazy cybertech warfare stuff even at the lowest levels. On the other hand, the Tau might get caught completely flat-footed, as cyberspace attacks is not something they face regularly (if at all) so they are probably completely defenseless in this regard.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
This thread falsely assumes Guardsmen are smart enough to use a Markerlight.

This poster falsely assumes that Markerlights are complex.

They're not. It's a piece of kit attached to a Pulse Carbine or other platform.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:
This thread falsely assumes Guardsmen are smart enough to use a Markerlight.

This poster falsely assumes that Markerlights are complex.

They're not. It's a piece of kit attached to a Pulse Carbine or other platform.

This poster falsely assumes that a Guardsman is capable of operating that.

 AtoMaki wrote:

locarno24 wrote:

A gifted techmarine/magos, of course, may well have enough mad haxxor skillz to actually break into the tau's comms net; tau tech is substantially better than 'standard issue' tech that the guard get, but high end stuff (as used by the adeptus mechanicus, assassins, veteran astartes, etc) is often better still.

It doesn't take that much effort, only willingness to even touch xenotech. The Mechanicus has some absolutely crazy cybertech warfare stuff even at the lowest levels. On the other hand, the Tau might get caught completely flat-footed, as cyberspace attacks is not something they face regularly (if at all) so they are probably completely defenseless in this regard.

Well, considering they do it themselves, I think they probably have some sort of defense.

Is their OS compatible?

The AdMech is running Windows Vista without anti-virus software, the Tau are using iOS.

 Selym wrote:
Is their OS compatible?

The AdMech is running Windows Vista without anti-virus software, the Tau are using iOS.

Nah, Tau are running Linux.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:
This thread falsely assumes Guardsmen are smart enough to use a Markerlight.

This poster falsely assumes that Markerlights are complex.

They're not. It's a piece of kit attached to a Pulse Carbine or other platform.

That doesn't mean it's not complicated. It might be just point and click, but it may require more than that, such as communication with the pathfinder's communications array in their armor, sequencing or input of codes, ect. And you also have to consider, how will these guardsmen know what a markerlight is or what it does? The amount your average guardsman will know about tau technology and tactics is next to nothing. And once they "paint" a target" they won't have the interface within armour to initiate the attack.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

locarno24 wrote:

A gifted techmarine/magos, of course, may well have enough mad haxxor skillz to actually break into the tau's comms net; tau tech is substantially better than 'standard issue' tech that the guard get, but high end stuff (as used by the adeptus mechanicus, assassins, veteran astartes, etc) is often better still.

It doesn't take that much effort, only willingness to even touch xenotech. The Mechanicus has some absolutely crazy cybertech warfare stuff even at the lowest levels. On the other hand, the Tau might get caught completely flat-footed, as cyberspace attacks is not something they face regularly (if at all) so they are probably completely defenseless in this regard.

Well, considering they do it themselves, I think they probably have some sort of defense.

Why would they? What could possibly justify such defenses? The Tyranids ?

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

Well, considering they do it themselves, I think they probably have some sort of defense.

Why would they? What could possibly justify such defenses?

Rogue Tau for one, like the Farsight Enclaves and others who get ideas about freedom. These guys have the same tech and know how it works. If it was as simple as stealing a markerlight and pointing it at the target both sides would be trying it on each other. So yes, I'd expect them to have some sort of safeguards like code locks on the markerlight, recognition codes over radio or both.

Plus, they have fought technologically advanced aliens before. And they fight the imperium relatively often.

Yes, the Necrons are definitely one of the local menaces, so the Tau have had to at least theoretically deal with attempts to subvert their Drones.