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Tau would likely continue to exist behind some convenient plot armor. Probably would build Craftworld equivalents with Kroot ships as a basis.

Anything else would be to divisive with Tau fanatics being a bit touchy.

"Fanatic", that's funny. If I played any other army I'd just be a "fan".

That said, please don't let me stop you, if you want to say something then go ahead. Unless it wasn't worth saying in the first place, then probably for the best.

Na, I've called Ork players fanatics before as well. There was a guy who did nothing but talk like one for an entire game. He failed a charge and told him if he could somehow speak loud enough to waaaaagh!!! he could reroll even though he already used it. That guy didn't have a voice by the end.

Bought him a drink. He was a fun fanatic.

 Quickjager wrote:
Na, I've called Ork players fanatics before as well. There was a guy who did nothing but talk like one for an entire game. He failed a charge and told him if he could somehow speak loud enough to waaaaagh!!! he could reroll even though he already used it.

Suddenly Age of Sigmar.

 Quickjager wrote:
Na, I've called Ork players fanatics before as well. There was a guy who did nothing but talk like one for an entire game. He failed a charge and told him if he could somehow speak loud enough to waaaaagh!!! he could reroll even though he already used it. That guy didn't have a voice by the end.

Bought him a drink. He was a fun fanatic.

Yeah, because playing the entire game in-character is definitely comparable in fanatic level to "would not be happy if the army they spent tons of time and money on was removed from the game".

Well I guess you kinda have to be a little bit of a fanatic in order to play an army that actively punishes you for playing it, like Orks.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
Na, I've called Ork players fanatics before as well. There was a guy who did nothing but talk like one for an entire game. He failed a charge and told him if he could somehow speak loud enough to waaaaagh!!! he could reroll even though he already used it. That guy didn't have a voice by the end.

Bought him a drink. He was a fun fanatic.

Yeah, because playing the entire game in-character is definitely comparable in fanatic level to "would not be happy if the army they spent tons of time and money on was removed from the game".

I've never said (beyond the occasional IA-Interceptor rage) Tau should be removed, I think they should be reworked. a AoS like end-times would provide a perfect excuse if we followed my idea. Forced to live on ships their entire lives Tau grew to learn CC skills as Tyranids, Orks, and Chaos seek to penetrate to their inner cores and destroy their engines. I've said before (check the history a couple years back) a unit needs to be introduced to Tau that acts as a melee unit, A.K.A. a new model.

Such a model would probably be a subservient xenos.

I also say grav should be removed from the game, which would cause grav models to become uselss. Most people agree however.

You wouldn't have to remove it from the game, just change it or tone it down. It wouldn't make grav models "useless" unless the new grav rules sucked so much no one wanted to use them.

Worst case scenario it's just a weird-looking melta gun.

Will somebody care to explain this Tau-are-terrible crap to me? I see it all the time. "I'm new and I lost to CSM 4 times by 5 points and Tau by 2 points one time. Nerf Tau." "Remove Tau from the game." Calling Tau fans fanatics for doing things less intensively than other army's fans.
I see so much Tau hate, and it's all "They're Communists" or "They're yellow", without any justification whatsoever.

I think the big problem for most people is that they are a negative play experience to play against a lot of the time, especially for new people.

Orks and often Chaos armies rely on getting into close combat, and the JSJ experience is often quite frustrating for them. Armies like Dark Eldar that live or die off cover saves just get noped off the board.

For some people, it feels like you need a competitive list to play against a fluffier tau list (barring auxiliaries, lol).

 Verviedi wrote:
Will somebody care to explain this Tau-are-terrible crap to me? I see it all the time. "I'm new and I lost to CSM 4 times by 5 points and Tau by 2 points one time. Nerf Tau." "Remove Tau from the game." Calling Tau fans fanatics for doing things less intensively than other army's fans.
I see so much Tau hate, and it's all "They're Communists" or "They're yellow", without any justification whatsoever.

I think the Tau hate comes from one of three(?) lines of thought
1. Tau are incredibly single focused in their combat style so in gameplay they basically only shoot and given their long range and supporting fire rule they want to clump together into a gunline and just shoot you off the board. There is little incentive for most of their army to actually move up the field.

2. Tau in the fluff get associated with this idea of "lets all be friends and join the greater good" and that just isn't grim dark enough for people. Its also that the Tau are the new kids on the block with a relatively small empire so it seems improbable to some how the Tau can even survive for 50 years in the shadow of such forces as the IoM, Orks, Chaos, Nids, etc.

3. Tau favor using mech suits and have some more Asian inspired designs so that means they are automatically the Anime faction.

---------------

1. Honestly is a somewhat valid issue with the Tau. By being one of if not the best shooting army in the game it tends to encourage lazy gameplay and downplays the importance of movement and deciding on when to charge in (majority of the time the Tau never want to charge anything that isn't a vehicle that can't punch back). There are playstyles and tactics that get the Tau in close and even can be punchy but they truly are the worst faction at melee in the game.

2. Personally I think people are missing the whole "too perfect society dystopia" and Nineteen Eighty-Four like theme that makes them have a more grey or even darker morality. Their social structure is definitely more akin to Fascism than Communism given their caste system, focus on racial superiority, and manifest destiny belief. Their whole willingness to take allies is basically "join or die" and those that do join aren't treated at the same level as true Tau. But honestly there aren't enough Tau narrative books to really give a properly fleshed out insight into Tau society and how they interact with other races outside of the battlefield.

3. Some like their visual design and others don't. Personally I think that if Eldar are some of the worst offenders of design with their conehead helmets but to each their own (the smaller wraith units look cool imo).

Honestly, the "Tau living as a migrant fleet on tree-ships" concept is stirring my imagination.

Anyone read Dan Simmons INCREDIBLE Hyperion Cantos? That's exactly what I am picturing, and I love it. Tau as insanely tech-advanced, guerilla-tactics fighters would be cool.

Plus a migrant fleet of mech pilots calls to mind all sorts of fun Robotech, anime inspired concepts which likewise could be fun to satirize.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Honestly, the "Tau living as a migrant fleet on tree-ships" concept is stirring my imagination.

Anyone read Dan Simmons INCREDIBLE Hyperion Cantos? That's exactly what I am picturing, and I love it. Tau as insanely tech-advanced, guerilla-tactics fighters would be cool.

Plus a migrant fleet of mech pilots calls to mind all sorts of fun Robotech, anime inspired concepts which likewise could be fun to satirize.

Hum, we already have eldars for that, that would seem repetitive wouldn't it?

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Honestly, the "Tau living as a migrant fleet on tree-ships" concept is stirring my imagination.

Anyone read Dan Simmons INCREDIBLE Hyperion Cantos? That's exactly what I am picturing, and I love it. Tau as insanely tech-advanced, guerilla-tactics fighters would be cool.

Plus a migrant fleet of mech pilots calls to mind all sorts of fun Robotech, anime inspired concepts which likewise could be fun to satirize.

Hum, we already have eldars for that, that would seem repetitive wouldn't it?

Fair enough. :-p Reading it back I realize how right you are. :-p

Space is so vast and big we could have tens of thousands of alien races that are just migrant fleets. The Demiurge who sometimes get mentioned with the Tau are semi migratory miners who harvest asteroids and developed ion weapons for mining and traded it to the Tau.

I wouldn't mind seeing some auxiliary vehicles of theirs since it doesn't sound like they would be their style to do foot combat or suits. I hope the next new Tau update sees us get new auxiliary. That or update and expand upon the two existing ones to give them a new unit each and maybe update their models.

Yes, the Tau are a small, insignificant race - like the Imperium was a few 10-20K years ago. The dying Eldar didn't wipe humanity out then, and the Necron were all too asleep to deal with humanity's sweep into the stars.

The Tau are just starting out, they're advancing rapidly and if they manage to avoid the mistakes of the last 3-4 races (and their battling over the corpse of the human empire), they might make it to the prominence of the master race of the milky way in a few millennium. But, at best it will take that - a few millennium.

BUT 40K is about humanity and its final end. We won't ever see things get that far. If an end time ever comes at best we'd see either the Tau being one of the races fighting over the scraps of the former empire and *coming* into their own glory, or as an ally to those humans hoping to build a better universe and getting away from the rotten remains of the fallen Terran empire.

 Stormonu wrote:
Yes, the Tau are a small, insignificant race - like the Imperium was a few 10-20K years ago. The dying Eldar didn't wipe humanity out then, and the Necron were all too asleep to deal with humanity's sweep into the stars.

The Tau are just starting out, they're advancing rapidly and if they manage to avoid the mistakes of the last 3-4 races (and their battling over the corpse of the human empire), they might make it to the prominence of the master race of the milky way in a few millennium. But, at best it will take that - a few millennium.

BUT 40K is about humanity and its final end. We won't ever see things get that far. If an end time ever comes at best we'd see either the Tau being one of the races fighting over the scraps of the former empire and *coming* into their own glory, or as an ally to those humans hoping to build a better universe and getting away from the rotten remains of the fallen Terran empire.

Really like your post, that's very accurate. I agree we wouldn't see Tau empire great anyway as it would make something as Warhammer 50k, where Humanity fights a merciless galactic conflict for total domination against Tau Empire's forces... Damn, sounds good

They started to get a presence on inmaterium because increase in number, so appears the firsts psi on tau race

And those psi guys adore Chaos, making that eventually all tau follow the Gods.


That will be perfect and a nice surprise xD

I imagine the Tau would either survive behind poorly written, poorly thought out plot armor or fish tacos for all.

Incidedntly I'm one of those people who thinks, and has said the Tau in their CURRENT FORM don't fully fit the game. and my concern is for a fairly signficigent flaw.

every other race has the advantage that they can be anywhere. Tau are limited in area. this DOES make it harder for GW to do big events etc. as to ensure they Tau are involved they HAVE to put it in a small area.

that said I don't think Tau should be removed. but if there was an end times/time jump I'd give the Tau faster warp drives and sprinkle colonies throughout the galaxy

 NorseSig wrote:
I imagine the Tau would either survive behind poorly written, poorly thought out plot armor or fish tacos for all.

According to current GW Policy that's quite likely.

BrianDavion wrote:
this DOES make it harder for GW to do big events etc. as to ensure they Tau are involved they HAVE to put it in a small area.

This isn't a problem because those big events suck from a fluff point of view. It's always a really awkward mess of trying to explain how everyone in the galaxy is interested in some random planet chosen for the battlefield, because omitting factions doesn't sell enough model kits or something. Get rid of the idea of doing all-factions events, focus on story-based events that only include the factions that make sense, and the small territory size of the Tau is not a problem. If there's a story concept where it makes sense for the Tau to be involved it can be near Tau territory. If there's an event that makes sense elsewhere in the galaxy then omitting the Tau (along with several other factions) is not a problem.

Indeed. I understand why people want to have their army represented in a big organised campaign like Armageddon, but sometimes "this doesn't concern you, move along" is the only answer that makes any sense.

I think Medusa V wasn't a bad attempt at having "every faction involved" but it still felt like a bit of a train-wreck.

The 13th Black Crusade was explicitely a galaxy-wide thing which essentially had regions for the Tau and Tyranids to go "quick! whilst everyone else is busy, nick everything not nailed down!"

Anyone read Dan Simmons INCREDIBLE Hyperion Cantos?

....And the shrike kills you.

Edit
Calling it. Tau are going to develop a Warlord killer armor of their own. Next campaign book after this. Also a super heavy tank with titan scale weaponry to bolster their titan legions on the cheap.

In a 40k campaign book? Maybe not. But whilst the 'coming soon' Adeptus Titanicus is supposed to be Horus Heresy set, I can imagine if successful that they'd produce a Stygies sourcebook (Eldar) Armageddon II sourcebook (Orks), Damocles sourcebook (Tau), etc, etc.

I'm not a massive fan of anything bigger than the Ta'Unar. Personally I liked the idea of the Manta, and could definitely see a smaller Manta equivalent - if you're actually looking for military effect and not just trying to compensate for something, giant walkers are cool but stupid. In the original Epic: Armageddon Tau list, there was an intermediate combat superheavy - the Scorpionfish Missile Gunship.

From the description in the epic army list, essentially take an Orca dropship chassis (more or less), and replace the transport capacity with what can be broadly defined as All The Missiles - it had a seeker missile/markerlight array more or less the same as a skyray on a dorsal turret, multiple missile pods in a nose mount, smart missile broadsides, and a belly full of 'tracer missiles' - essentially the big-ass seeker missiles the stormsurge carries, but loads of them fired out of big rotary launchers.

I'll take super heavy fliers and titans and tanks of all kinds for Tau. I think they all have their place.

The problem with the Manta is it is really lacking in the firepower department these days with the insane power creep setting in. It was designed in a more conservative 40k era so it's not very cost effective. Great model though and if I was ever rich I would grab it.

I would like to see it recast with updated Tau army in the hold and to add a little crisp detail to it, but I doubt that will happen. Has FW ever recast any of its titans? I haven't been around long enough to know.